Nick Brokhausen – författare

“[An] exceptionally raw look at the Vietnam War . . . an excellent tribute to the generation that fought, laughed, and died in Southeast Asia.” —New York Journal of Books

This is the second volume of a Green Beret’s riveting memoir of his time serving in Recon Teams Habu and Crusader, CNN, part of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam—Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG).

Picking up where We Few left off, Whispers in the Tall Grass opens as the war moves into a new phase. The enemy are using special formations to hunt recon teams and missions are now rarely accomplished without heavy contact. Despite the teams’ careful prep, losses are mounting. More and more missions are extracted by Bright Lights until eventually classic recon missions are almost impossible, and the teams briefly trial HALO insertion. Finally, as the US prepares to withdraw, the teams undertake back-to-back missions directing air strikes and disrupting supply lines to ease the pressure on the ARVN. Broken by the pace, but desperate not to leave the Yards, Brokhausen is ordered to out-process, his request for extension denied, and is forced to leave his friends—his brothers—behind.

Written in the same vivid, immediate style that made We Few a cult classic, Whispers in the Tall Grass follows Habu, Crusader and other teams as they undertake missions in this new, deadlier phase of the war. The narrative veers from hair-raising to tragic and back as the teams insert into hot targets, act as Bright Light for stricken teams, and play hard in between missions to diffuse the ever-rising tension.

Two ex-Green Berets recount their missions after two decades in Special Forces, from running counter-terrorism training to rescuing kidnap victims & more. A lot of confusion, a lot of humor, a lot of broken dreams and broken promises, an occasional triumph . . . 1978—A chance meeting on a remote military airbase between two Green Berets involved in the same operation leads to a partnership that will last over forty years. Four years after that meeting, Nick Brokhausen and Jeff Miller leave the service within a few weeks of each other and begin an odyssey that takes them to dozens of countries on five continents. Along with a small coterie of fellow former Special Operations and intelligence community veterans like Penguini, Max, Reek, The Spider Woman, and a score of others—some heroes and some villains—they undertake a variety of missions for the government, other governments, large multinational corporations mostly in the aerospace or resource development industries, and occasionally just for suffering individuals who cannot find help anywhere else. In the process they lay the groundwork for an entire new industry of private military contractors. Two men sadly just a bit ahead of their time. Every episode in this book actually happened. Not always precisely as described herein, but close. Changes have been made sometimes to make the narrative flow more smoothly, some to obfuscate events that might be flirting with classification issues . . . Names have been changed, not always to protect the innocent. But the underlying story is, for the most part, the reality as they lived it.“A fascinating account of an extraordinary series of adventures.” —Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International