fieldethos.com Open in urlscan Pro
35.208.111.225  Public Scan

Form analysis
2 forms found in the DOM

GET https://fieldethos.com

<form class="elementor-search-form" action="https://fieldethos.com" method="get" role="search">
  <div class="elementor-search-form__toggle" tabindex="0" role="button">
    <i aria-hidden="true" class="fas fa-search"></i> <span class="elementor-screen-only">Search</span>
  </div>
  <div class="elementor-search-form__container">
    <label class="elementor-screen-only" for="elementor-search-form-d91d72c">Search</label>
    <input id="elementor-search-form-d91d72c" placeholder="Search..." class="elementor-search-form__input" type="search" name="s" value="">
    <div class="dialog-lightbox-close-button dialog-close-button" role="button" tabindex="0">
      <i aria-hidden="true" class="eicon-close"></i> <span class="elementor-screen-only">Close this search box.</span>
    </div>
  </div>
</form>

GET https://fieldethos.com/

<form method="get" class="cb-search" action="https://fieldethos.com/">
  <input type="text" class="cb-search-field cb-font-header" placeholder="Search..." value="" name="s" autocomplete="off">
  <button class="cb-search-submit" type="submit" value=""><i class="fotomag-i-search"></i></button>
</form>

Text Content

 * Store
 * Field Stories
   * On Land
   * On the Water
   * Culinary
 * Gear Review
 * Outrider

 * Store
 * Field Stories
   * On Land
   * On the Water
   * Culinary
 * Gear Review
 * Outrider

Menu
 * Store
 * Field Stories
   * On Land
   * On the Water
   * Culinary
 * Gear Review
 * Outrider
 * Podcast
 * Who We Are
 * Connect
 * Subscribe

 * Podcast
 * Who We Are
 * Connect
 * Subscribe

 * Podcast
 * Who We Are
 * Connect
 * Subscribe

Search
Search
Close this search box.


SURROUNDED BY MAD DOG



By Scott Longman

The Vietnam war was a tremendous departure from prior U.S. wars. There were no
true front lines. Much of the enemy lived in and among the friendly population.
The war was heavily covered by television, which inevitably meant that politics
played a role greater than ever before. In many respects, the whole thing was
more an insurgency than it was a war. And that set of characteristics meant that
Higgins Boats, Sherman tanks, and B-17s were not going to carry the day. A new
and tailored form of fighting was required.

Enter MACV-SOG. That acronym translates to “Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
– Studies and Observations Group.” The name was purposely picked to be
innocuous, both to the enemy and to the command structure at home. Indeed, the
reporting chain was unconventional and very limited, because this outfit was a
combination of many of the best, elite, crazy warriors the U.S. had to offer.
Ultimately, it would incorporate Army Special Forces, Marine Recon, Navy SEAL,
Air Force and, of course, the CIA.

So that kaleidoscope of SOG talent was tasked with a mélange of things like:
deep behind the lines reconnaissance, prisoner capture, downed pilot rescue, POW
rescue, psychological operations, enemy material destruction, boobytrapping,
other magnificent dirty tricks, and killing the enemy in his own front yard. The
legal definition of “front yard” should have meant North Vietnam. But in point
of forbidden fact, it included massive operations in both Laos and Cambodia.
And, given the political issues, that meant that cross-border support for the
men on the ground was very limited.

All of those realities meant horrific risks and, often, horrific outcomes. For
two years in the late sixties, SOG suffered damn near one-hundred-percent
casualties. A SOG member could count on getting hit, maybe dead, or maybe
wounded, or worse yet, might well get disappeared:  whole teams just vanished.
Sometimes with a final radio transmission, often not. They simply disappeared
into the deep green. 

Which brings us to MSG Jerry “Mad Dog” Shriver.  

MSG Shriver started his army career with the 101st Airborne,  then earned his
green beret. Someplace along the way, he joined SOG. In an outfit packed with
insanity, he was one of the chief inmates. His teammates held him in enormous
respect, many calling him not just a soldier, but a warrior. He earned the
Silver Star for single-handedly holding off waves of enemy while his team was
hoisted up out of triple-canopy jungle, Shriver using small arms fire, grenades,
and directing air support. He was the last man out, not leaving until all of his
teammates were clear. He also landed the Bronze Star (with two Oak Leaf
clusters) among a huge raft of other medals including, as you might expect, the
Purple Heart.  

He was a close-range weapons fanatic. There’s a story that Shriver was once
offered a CAR-15 (great-grandaddy of our current M4), which he rejected, instead
holding up his suppressed M3 submachine gun, and a chopped off 12 gauge, against
a set of Load Bearing Equipment loaded with fragmentation grenades and multiple
handguns. He didn’t need or want longer range:  he was fighting with enemy in
his lap. And that gear apparently served him well. He legendarily escaped from
many bad circumstances, and, on the offensive side, wreaked so much hate and
discontent on the enemy that they ended up offering a $10,000 reward for him
(which at that time and at that place to the people who might turn him in was an
unfathomably vast amount of money). Indeed, there is a disputed claim that his
nickname of Mad Dog didn’t come from his own ranks, but rather was bestowed by
the NVA—whether it came from his brothers or from the enemy, it was certainly
fitting. When completing just one tour would have put him on the Freedom Bird
home, he instead chose to serve almost three full tours, about 1,000 days
in-country. 

Given the nature of his work, he was necessarily unsung for a very long time.
But his story did, at least in part, ultimately come out.  

His most epic quote came over the radio, while on a reconnaissance mission deep
inside Cambodia. His tiny team was facing radically greater numbers of enemy,
and, as the tactical situation developed, his force was completely encircled.  

MSG Shriver knew he was beyond timely support. It was up to him and his team.
So, in a show of simply mind-boggling cool, he made his primary purpose in
calling in simply to reassure his command not to worry:  

“I’ve got ‘em right where I want ‘em. Surrounded from the inside.”

MSG Shriver and his warriors survived that engagement. Not terribly long after,
he and his team flew into a very hot, heavily defended LZ. He had a chance to
get out, but instead, he was last seen running back into the fight to help his
men.

MIA to this day.

Photo credit: Gordon Denniston


RELATED POSTS:

 * Intertwined: The Inseparable Legacies of Jack O'Connor and…
 * First Night in Africa
 * Trolling for Nazis with Hemingway
 * I'll Be Dam


By Sarah Bittner





We focus on the things that truly matter to us: the places we go, the people we
meet, the cultures we experience, the adventures that lie in wait for anyone
willing to take a step into the unknown and the global successes of conservation
that preserve all of these things for generations to come.

MORE FROM FIELD ETHOS

Print Journal
Podcast
Email Dispatch
Writing For Us
Privacy

Instagram Facebook Youtube Twitter


COPYRIGHT © 2023 FIELD ETHOS JOURNAL, INC. • ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.