So Mark Owen (the nom de plume of Mark Bissonnette) was on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" tonight...

and of course he was talking about the famous mission to get Osama Bin Laden and his book.  They disguised his appearance and he'll take more flack for "exposing" government secrets.

It got me to thinking.  The history behind the formation of what we know publicly as "Delta Force" and "SEAL Team Six", although those aren't the names they are known by within the circles of those "in the know" anymore is interesting and dates back all the way to a little place near Hanoi known as Son Tay.

Back in early 1970, aerial recon took photos of U.S. prisoners of war at a camp located near Son Tay, Vietnam.  The camp was about 23 miles to the West of Hanoi and the photos showed that at least six of the U.S. POWs in the camp were in dire need of rescue.  But there were no special forces units trained, designed for, or equipped to perform POW rescue missions.  After much debate, a highly decorated and brilliant officer was tasked to create the unit needed to undertake this mission.  Colonel Bull Simons, recipient of the Bronze Star, Silver Star and Distinguished Service Cross (2nd only to the Medal of Honor) was chosen to lead and form this unit.  He chose 56 highly trained special forces "operators" and working with other specially chosen people like helicopter pilots and crews, support specialists and the like, a mission was planned to rescue these POWs.

The mission was launched on 11/21/1970 and while no prisoners were rescued (there was no intelligence asset that was aware the prisoners had been moved to another camp), otherwise the mission was a complete success.  The camp's guards were all killed with only one minor casualty among the 56 Son Tay Raiders.

This, and some terrorist operations conducted in the 1970s led to the creation of what is now known as Delta Force first, and later on, Seal Team Six.  Charlie Beckwith, the officer who founded Delta Force wrote a book about it, and it's a great read.  Richard Marcinko, the officer who founded SEAL Team Six also wrote a book about it, and it's also a great read.  The formation of these units and the aerial units that support them led to the formation of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which is a unified command.  That's a fancy military term that means it commands units and personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.  The JSOC commander reports directly to a 4 star officer who is commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command.  It was the JSOC commander who sent the SEALs on that mission to kill Bin Laden.

The failure at Son Tay, and again in the Iranian desert when they tried to rescue the hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran led to the formation of JSOC and it's unique straight line chain of command.  So out of failure, came change and success.

The book written by "Mark Owen" is titled "No Easy Day" because of a saying that is part of the SEAL training program.  "The only easy day was yesterday" is the saying.  It's particularly true of what they refer to as "Hell Week", which we've seen portrayed in movies, but what we see doesn't come close to being representative of the real thing  For 5.5 days, the SEAL trainees are pushed to the very limits of physical and mental endurance, being allowed to sleep less than five hours the entire time.  One reporter, thus far, was allowed to observe the entire process and forego his own sleep and his written account of the experience was nothing short of riveting.

You may or may not respect that guy who went on Sixty Minutes to pimp his book.  He's trying to cash in on his service and I think it inappropriate, but hey, if that's what he wants to do, who am I to say he shouldn't?  As long as he doesn't violate the law in disseminating classified information and doesn't get called back into the Navy and court-martialed, more power to him.