Eyes of the Hammer (The Green Berets) by Bob Mayer Read Free Book Online Page A

Passing the four-month "shake and bake" OCS course at Fort Benning, he'd been commissioned in the infantry and found himself back in Vietnam for a third tour, this time as a platoon leader with the 173rd Airborne.
    As soon as possible, Pike had worked a transfer back to Special Forces. As commander of a recon team doing cross border operations into Laos, Pike had picked up his limp. During a difficult extraction he had been pulled out on the end of a rope hung below a Huey helicopter, a common practice when the terrain lacked suitable landing zones. During that particular mission, the inexperienced pilot had misjudged how far the Special Forces man was hanging underneath the aircraft and had run Pike into a stand of trees. Slamming into limbs and trunks, Pike had suffered several cracked bones, and his back had never been the same. Over the years the injury had become progressively worse. It hadn't, however, stopped him from becoming more involved in the cutting edge of Special Operations.
    After Vietnam, Pike had continued on in his beloved Special Forces, eventually rising to command a battalion in the 10th Special Forces Group at Bad Tolz, Germany.
    After that tour, he'd been with Charlie Beckwith during the birth pains of Delta Force. Riley had heard rumors that Pike had entered Tehran prior to the aborted raid to free the hostages, to relay intelligence out before the strike, and to be on the ground to help guide the force when it came. Pike's connections with some of the original members of Delta ran deep, and despite the years that had gone by since he'd last served with Delta, Pike still enjoyed a good working relationship with the men at Fort Bragg.
    Pike's degenerating health, combined with an unwillingness to keep his mouth shut when he felt something needed to be said, had led to his failure to be selected for a Special Forces group command. Lacking that career ticket punch, he'd been passed over for promotion to brigadier general. Being the army gofer for the DCSOP-SO was Pike's last hurrah before being shuffled off to mandatory retirement. Riley felt it was a crappy way to treat a man who had given so much to the army and who was one of the most experienced and caring leaders he had ever worked under.
    Pike gave a covert wink to Riley as the wrinkled old colonel lowered himself stiffly into a chair. Riley answered with a brief nod and a smile.
    Riley turned his attention to the air force base commander, who was looking over the nine dirty Special Forces soldiers standing at attention in front of their chairs. "Haven't you gentlemen had a chance to get cleaned up and changed?" asked Colonel Albright.
    Riley answered for his team. "No, sir. We needed the last couple of hours to get our notes together for this briefing. We'll take care of all that when we're done here."
    The colonel nodded. "All right. Who's this Mister Riley Colonel Pike has been telling me about?"
    Riley stepped forward. "I am, sir." Albright managed to hide his surprise at Riley's appearance.
    The colonel moved to his seat and opened the proceedings. "Let's get on with it then. Major Baley, you first. Everyone else please take your seats."
    Riley sat down as the cleanly dressed air force police major walked up to the podium.
    The major cleared his throat. "Good morning, sir. I'll be briefing you on the results of the security test of our nuclear safeguards that was conducted last night. I'll start off with a brief description of the scenario that was set up. I'll then describe what happened and finish by giving you our recommendations for improving security. I'll be followed by Warrant Officer Riley from the 7th Special Forces Group, who will brief you on events from their perspective.
    "The exercise was set up to be as realistic as possible. To help accomplish this we borrowed eighty sets of MILES equipment from the army at Fort Drum. MILES stands for multiple integrated laser engagement system. Basically what it is, sir, is a laser emitter that