Legacy of Lies: Over the Fence in Laos

by Henry G. Gole

In a war that was already lost, there was a small group of dedicated soldiers who refused to quit. Operating from camps in places like Kontum and Dak To, Special Forces recon men risked their lives behind enemy lines on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia, conducting missions whose detection often meant death or something worse.

Officially, they did not exist. Their government denied that they were operating in “neutral” countries; Hanoi denied the very existence of the Trail. If killed or captured in Laos or Cambodia, the Green Berets would be reported MIA or KIA—in Vietnam. They fought for each other and for their honor as soldiers.

It is 1970. The United States Government is seeking a way out of the war “with honor” via a face-saving program called “Vietnamization.” This is the story of the fate of the recon men and the missions they conducted while highly skilled and motivated NVA hunter-killer teams pursued them on the enemy’s home turf.

A recon team discovers a choke point on the enemy’s line of communication. For every day the Trail is blocked, enemy support of forces in the south is set back a month, giving South Vietnam a leg up. The special operators in Kontum are given the mission to do just that.

There is a rub; the American president and his government must have “plausible deniability.” Therein lies the legacy of lies.

“Very few authors have captured the action, intrigue and backstory of the secret missions as well as Colonel Gole does in ‘Legacy of Lies.’ A must read for those seeking the precursor to today’s military support to sensitive activities.” —Michael S. Repass, Major General, US Army (Retired) Special Forces

“Gole’s novel is Fantastic! The best part, the top to bottom approach—from the White House, JCS, CINCPAC, MACV, down through SOG, right to the One-Zero firing tracers to mark his position for Covey.” —Colonel, USAF, (Ret) Tom Yarborough,
author and decorated Covey pilot for SOG

258 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 29, 2019

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Occasionally I get lucky and stumble across a book that I had never previously heard of. Legacy of Lies is a perfect example of this happenstance. I was on the SOG special forces website looking for a flag of all things and this book was prominently featured. Once I read the description I knew this was one I needed to read. Late in the Vietnam war there was a stupid idea that we could "turn" the war over to the corrupt and mostly rancid South Vietnamese army in what was referred to as Vietnamization. Thus we could achieve peace with honor as tricky Dick and his turd war mongering adviser Henry Kissinger called the withdrawal from Vietnam. This book takes place during that time involving the bad ass MAC-V SOG soldiers who covertly fought in Laos and Cambodia during this period of the war. With virtually no support these soldiers monitored North Vietnamese activity on the Ho Chi Mien trail. The book describes an operation in which a small group of soldiers (Green Berets) find the main artery the NVA are using to transport weapons and soldiers into South Vietnam. A plan is quickly formulated to engage the NVA with American and Montagnard soldiers to strike a significant blow to the NVA and help "Vietnamization." Note how none of the soldiers involved are South Vietnamese? Yeah that'd right because they were pussies and useless. Well like everything our piece of shit corrupt government does it starts out great and quickly goes tits up. A reporter catches on to what we are doing and publishes a story exposing the fact we are in countries (Laos and Cambodia) that we are not supposed to be in and the turds in charge make the catastrophic decision to abandon our men in Laos. Legacy of Lies is an outstanding book that exposes the duplicity of our government. Afghanistan anyone? I highly recommend this book.

[Kevin Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An outstanding book. I've read mostly all of the first person historical MACV-
SOG accounts from Meyer, Brokousen, Thompson, Plaster, Black, Dawson, Chapman, etc, etc... All great historical accounts of the secret war. This book while "fiction" in the specific overall mission in the book, its certainly non-fiction in everything else... Seems like the mission described in the book was a much larger version of one of the SLAM missions ran around the same time of the war...

A great, well written book.

[Elizabeth N. McArthur · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was tough to read

Maybe it’s me but the prose in this book was really tough to follow at times. The material would probably have been best in a short story format.

[james conlan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent reading. So well written that this reader clearly understood and felt present as the story evolved.


Some things do not change throughout history, namely the constant pool of bureaucrats that avoid responsibility and the chosen few that accept the challenge of simply doing a good job. This story illustrates both.