Phantom Warriors, Vols. 1 and 2
By Bernard DyArticle Type: Book Review
Article Date: March 05, 2002
On a Mission
Gary Linderer is one of several US Army Rangers that chronicled their Vietnam experiences. Already part of an elite force as a Ranger, Linderer and his compatriots served in yet another elite subgroup known as the Long Range Surveillance detachment. These Rangers performed long-range patrols or long-range reconnaissance patrols, and both these missions and the Rangers assigned to them gained a nickname from the acronyms LRPs or LRRPs (pronounced "lurps"). Linderer told his personal story about life as a LRRP with the 101st Airborne in his books Eyes of the Eagle and Eyes Behind the Lines. Additional volumes followed in which he continued to recount LRRP experiences. Phantom Warriors is a two volume set that Linderer considers the completion of his mission to identify the existence of all Vietnam LRRP teams.
Phantom Warriors, Volume 1
A LRRP Buffet
The books are not comprehensive unit histories, but collections of selected stories from each unit. They thus read like anthologies, each chapter a stand-alone story. Unlike Linderer's biographies, Phantom Warriors Book 1 and Phantom Warriors Book 2 don't stay with a confined set of characters, though some make multiple appearances. Since the Rangers followed a standard procedure in the field, many of the stories can seem repetitive or feel like they run together. Linderer, however, does accomplish his task, and between the breadth of units mentioned, the two introductions, and the two forewords by Kenn Miller and Kregg Jorgenson, the reader receives a clear picture of LRRP operations.
Each chapter typically starts with a brief unit introduction and overview of the LRRP team members. Linderer also explains each mission's objectives, an important disclosure because it illustrates how different the LRRPs are from standard troops. The chapters continue to describe how each mission unfolds, as researched by Linderer in interviews and Army records.
Despite the operational similarities, each mission has its share of excitement. Most involve some combat, something Kenn Miller identifies as a breakdown in a team's stealth integrity but often unavoidable given the dangerous operational conditions.
Linderer covers a variety of outcomes. There are the narrow escapes where a team is compromised immediately upon helicopter insertion to a landing zone, the desperate battles when a team is heavily outnumbered and suffering casualties, and the calculated engagements where LRRPs initiate contact by design. Supremely satisfying are the operations where the teams complete the mission and never reveal themselves to the enemy.
One such mission recorded a team finding a major enemy compound during a storm. The team worked its way into the middle of the site before realizing where they were and that the only thing preventing their easy deaths was the rain. It had driven the Vietnamese to cover. The LRRPs quietly vacated the compound without being detected. The US, using the information the LRRPs provided upon their return to base, launched B-52 air strikes and devastated the location without a single American casualty. Now that is an awesome recon mission!
A Few Missing Details
Editors fickle about the use of active voice versus passive voice might give him hassles, but Linderer writes competently enough to make his points. He occasionally tries to get creative with descriptions, and this can yield some hyperbolic passages, but largely adheres to a no-nonsense style. There is heavy use of military abbreviations and acronyms that aren't always explained in the otherwise helpful glossary. Linderer is usually good about spelling them fully at or near their first use but occasionally slips. I figured "PZ" meant "pick-up zone" after seeing it and using context clues, but it is missing in the glossary. Although I recognized "CW transmitter" must have been a communication device, I'm still not exact about its meaning.
Linderer usually finishes each story with a summary of how the participants fared and lists awards received. In one, however, he leaves the reader hanging. Volume I's story about Ranger Sergeant Chuck Donohoo's surviving injury and making it out of the combat zone is a good one. But teammates Specialist 4 Lee Comstock and Sergeant Erwin Thessin endangered themselves with exposure to enemy fire to get Donohoo to the extraction helicopter, and their fate is unknown.
The two volumes also appear to lack organization in their placement, and if there is one, Linderer doesn't disclose it. The first few chapters are in chronological order. The rest jump randomly across time and Army unit groupings. Ordering the entire collection chronologically or chronologically by Army unit might have aided readers in following them. Linderer missed the opportunity to use such a framework to identify changes in methods and leadership during the LRRPs tenure in Vietnam.
There are other minor omissions that are not missteps perhaps, but would add polish. The Phantom Warriors volumes lack graphical aids such as the maps and organizational charts common in many military books, useful in helping readers understand the author's points. Volume 1 also is void of photos, though Volume 2 contains many fine ones. The point of the book, which is to catalog some mention of all LRRP teams in Vietnam, is fortunately unaffected by this bypassed potential.
Incredible Bravery
Nor does the arbitrary story sequence take away from the sheer courage shared in most of them. Linderer put the story of Sergeant Richard Ehrler's patrol near the end of the first volume, but regardless of its position, readers are unlikely to forget it. Ehrler fought to command his injured team after an enemy's rocket propelled grenade round detonated near his face.
Ehrler might have been blind, but he realized that he had no time to worry about it.
Somehow in the total darkness, he managed to locate his M-16 and the missing radio. Ehrler quickly got in touch with the radio-relay team and demanded to know where the Cobras [attack helicopters] were.
Suddenly, Ehrler could tell by the sounds that the VC fire was beginning to slacken. This had to mean that the enemy, too, was running low on ammunition, or that they were withdrawing from the fight. Ehrler ordered Crabb and Durham to return fire on semiautomatic only to conserve their remaining ammo.
Ehrler had the presence of mind to distribute his spare ammunition to the remainder of his team. He kept a cool head until help arrived, directing his team to conserve ammunition and deploy a strobe light and authorizing a Cobra strike, all while blind and covered in his own blood. The story is but one display of remarkable courage; Phantom Warriors is full of them.
It's time to ask the question: Is Phantom Warriors the one set you should invest in for this topic, if you could only buy one? I have to honestly say "no." Linderer's own Eyes of the Eagle and Eyes Behind the Lines are a better pair to go with, if you want to get a picture of life as a LRRP, and his personal account's friendly tone and continuity give it a more universal appeal. There are also better selections if you're looking for a general overview or analysis of Special Forces and their influence in military history. Phantom Warriors certainly works as a research aid or additional reading for Army Ranger enthusiasts. Family and friends of Vietnam Rangers can also appreciate Linderer's work and find comfort in knowing some of their little-known stories are told in Phantom Warriors. There are, in fact, messages on the Military Universe bulletin board from some of them, thanking Linderer for recording these histories.
Phantom Warriors, Volume 2
Relevance to Combat Simulations
The Vietnam experience is gaining popularity in print, long after the wounds of the war started healing. If the volumes of American military history are finally growing with the Vietnam representatives, the same cannot be said of the computer gaming industry. Sid Meier produced an old wargame called Conflict in Vietnam, and HPS Simulations recently published John Tiller's Squad Battles: Vietnam, but the shelves are otherwise lightly populated. Although I have not played it, the Tiller game apparently features squad-level engagements, making it a good candidate for playing or recreating Special Forces battles. As with an earlier review of Robert Gormly's Combat Swimmer, I also believe that players of EA's classic Seal Team, or a well-constructed mod for one of the Unreal or Quake series of engines could benefit from some of the lessons in Phantom Warriors.
Both volumes of Phantom Warriors are available in paperback from Amazon, and in hardcover from the Military Book Club.
