Book Review

The Guerrilla Trilogy
By Jim Morris
Warriors Publishing Group (November 7, 2023)
991 pages

By How Miller

Jim Morris, drawn to combat as a Green Beret, a war journalist for Soldier of Fortune and others, editor of a similar magazine called Eagle, author of several outstanding war-related books, and television network contributor, has combined three of his books in a new publication called Guerrilla Trilogy.

There is one thing that runs through them all: gripping, up-close action, told largely by the participants.

War Story is highly acclaimed and tells of his personal experiences as a Special Forces officer, centered around his three tours of duty in Vietnam, from which he was retired of wounds as a major. As in all his books, he tells us how it was, eloquently and without sugar coating it. He retells what he experienced working largely with the Montagnards in a variety of roles, including A team commander. Two of those closest to him were Kpa Doh (pronounced Pah Dough), his interpreter and right-hand man, and “Cowboy,” who eagerly and expertly knew how to assemble the resources to accomplish almost anything. Both of them were brave and dedicated. 

I had not previously read The Devil’s Secret Name. As with the other two books, I was immediately drawn in. He retells mostly what he experienced as a civilian after Vietnam as a war reporter in conflicts all over the world. Jim tells it first person, as he lived it, some of it with his then-wife, Kat. He easily shares both his successes and failures, bringing us into a portion of each of the conflicts while describing enough of the bigger picture for us to feel like actual participants. He analyzed each conflict by Mao’s summation of the three necessities of a successful guerrilla war: a broad base of support from the population, outside support, and secure areas from which to operate.

Interwoven, however, was his quest to share with the world the idea that the Soviet Union was in a Global War of Liberation, the symptoms being all the little wars of liberation from Asia through Africa to the Americas. Nowadays, the expression “playing whack a mole” would be included in the conversation.

When I asked Jim if we are playing the same game with Russia, he mentioned the shift of focus to how Xi Jinping, president of the largest remaining communist country, is taking a different tack. He is trying to enslave others through economic means such as toxic loans and monopolizing their natural resources.

He also pointed out that SF is needed now as much as ever.

In Fighting Men, he retells gritty stories that were told to him by the participants of some hairy exploits. 

There’s all kinds of action: Larry Dring, the Mike Force Lieutenant who, in the midst of a fierce firefight, met his future wife; Francis J. Kelley; Project Delta; the real “Operation Dumbo Drop”; and even a story by later Chief SOG, Jack Singlaub, from when he was transferred from his WWII European OSS assignment to Asia, training some Chinese, resupplying the OSS team advising Ho Chi Minh, and facilitating the release of over 400 American POWs from the Japanese in Hainan, China.

Along with a lifetime of advocating for the Montagnards, Jim also, in recent times, broke the mold by talking about his own use of psychedelic drugs after the service to self-treat his PTS. The VA is now making strides in experimenting with supervised use of those drugs. He wrote about that in The Dreaming Circus.

You should get and read this trilogy. There is something in it for everybody.