Code name, Copperhead

For twenty-seven years of war and peace, Joe R. Garner served his country - twenty-one of those years on continuous active duty as a Special Forces soldier, the heart and soul of the Armed Forces. From Panama to Vietnam, from behind-the-lines missions in Laos to a secret strike force mounted against Cuba during the missile crisis, Garner answered the call of duty around the globe for the U.S.A., and Code Name: Copperhead details his involvement in over two decades of overt and covert operations. Growing up in rural Tennessee, Joe Garner hunted in the woods for food. Two decades later he would be right at home in the jungles of Vietnam. Garner served in Southeast Asia as part of the MACVSOG (Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group), the most highly classified military operation of the war. He secretly armed and trained the Royal Laotian Army against the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao in 1961 under the command of the legendary Colonel "Bull" Simons. In Vietnam, he took North Vietnamese Army prisoners and reinserted them behind the front, where they would operate as double agents. He then led top-secret missions behind enemy lines as part of the STRATA (Short Term Reconnaissance and Target Acquisition) operations, which included the daring rescue of a Marine company stranded on a hill near the Laos Vietnam border during an eleven-day mission. . Code Name: Copperhead details Garner's experiences - from free-falling with a nuclear device strapped to his back to training Special Forces soldiers to survive interrogation. However, Code Name: Copperhead is more than an account of undercover operations around the globe. It is the story of a soldier who served his country with honor and distinction.