Operation Wappen

This is a short story spanning two years from 1956 to 1958. It includes the author’s Marine Corps service as a Second Lieutenant artillery forward observer attached to Third Battalion Sixth Marine Regiment led by Colonel Austin C. “Shifty” Shofner (one of only nine men ever to escape a Japanese prisoner of war camp). It describes the maturation of Phase III warfare—the landing by helicopter of an intact infantry battalion ready to fight behind enemy lines (Operation Deep Water) and the beginnings of Phase IV warfare with the return of knights to the battlefield (Yasser Arafat/eventually Osama bin Landen) and an MI6/CIA joint clandestine, frustrated effort to overthrow the Syrian government (Operation Wappen).