2001.36.93
(26.03 cm HIGH x 17.14 cm WIDE)
On the front page of the series, the statement of purpose is printed as follows:"During the Vietnam War, the blandly-named U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam- Studies and Observation Group (MACV-SOG) was officailly set up to analyze the ongoing U.S. military experience in Vietnam.But that was a cover. MACV-SOG's real mission was to serve as the CIA's combined Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine task force to conduct clandestine missions and 'unconventional' warfare- kidnapping, assassination, sabotage, psychological warfare, supporting resistance fighters inside North Vietnam, and the like.MACV-SOG conducted a multitude of operations from 1964 to 1972. One such operation, begun in the fall of 1965, was code-named "Shining Brass." Shining Brass teams, made up of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, were sent across the border into Laos for raids and reconnaissance missions. The operation was renamed twice- to "Prairie Fire" in 1968 and "Phu Dung" in the spring on 1971.HIGH SHINING BRASS is a journey into that shadow world of CIA pawns. This is the story of the part Bob Durand played in the most confused, misguided stupidity that our country has ever been embroiled in: the Vietnam War. Except for Durand's, the names of all the people depicted in this series have been changed.No one who lived through the Vietnam era emerged unaffected. Over 58,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam, or 'wasted' to use the slang of that time. Some say that the latter term rings with more truth than may have been intended..."