Wars are won-and
lost-not only by the regular troops and their commanders, but also
by the soldiers who don't always work in uniform. Dropped behind enemy
lines, they conduct war on a smaller, more intimate level, practicing
acts of sabotage and inflicting small but significant wounds on the
enemy. Often chosen for their ability to speak the local language and
blend in with the citizenry, these soldiers took incredible risks,
for capture almost certainly meant execution.
"I loved flying the surveillance and reconnaissance
missions, because we were out with a really good mission of trying to find
the bad guys." (Video Interview, Part 1, 17:14)
George
Paris Davis was one of only five soldiers
in his Officer Candidate School class commissioned for duty
other than infantry. His assignment was intelligence, which
led him to flight school and sorties over North Vietnam and
Laos on dangerous reconnaissance missions. Davis also became
proficient in maneuvering helicopters, and he carried along
his expertise when he was in charge of a unit flying recon
over the DMZ in Korea and later at the Pentagon in coordinating
photographic intelligence to support the U.S. invasion of
Grenada.
"Our missions had an
inherent added element of risk because, unlike regular warfare,
our exercises were behind enemy lines and considered acts of
sabotage." --Boris
Spiroff
"'Would
you be willing to join ... if you knew that
there was a 50-50 chance that you were going to die?'"