One Green Beret

Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and beyond: 15 Extraordinary years in the life - 1996-2011

By: Mark Giaconia

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

3rd Edition. Before the Iraq war in 2003, Green Beret teams infiltrated Northern Iraq, linked up with the CIA, and embedded deeply with the Kurdish Peshmerga to prepare for war. These special missions were called “Advanced Force Operations.” Subsequently, these special teams brought in the rest of the Green Berets during an operation called "the Ugly Baby." Then, one of the most significant battles in Special Forces history occurred: "Operation Viking Hammer," where six Green Beret teams along with a handful of CIA and Air Force Special Ops personnel, combined with approximately 8000 Peshmerga, took back hundreds of square kilometers from almost 1000 Ansar Al Islam extremists, and secured a poison production facility of national level significance. This book is the only firsthand account of these essential Unconventional Warfare operations, written by an operator who was there. In addition to describing these historically significant Special Operations missions, "One Green Beret" also details a 15-year career in the Green Berets that includes many unique experiences, such as joint operations alongside Russian Spetznaz on the northern border of Kosovo, and postwar operations in Bosnia embedded deeply with the locals. Mark Giaconia questions everything, and provides a VERY humble, sobering, and human perspective on war, military service, and strategic considerations. One Green Beret is very inspiring, and conveys the author’s personal evolution from gunslinger to educated computer scientist; a true tale of “post traumatic growth.”

Great Story, bad narration

A very compelling life story. Well worth reading about it. The computer generated narration is garbage and I wish I had just bought the book.

Great story, virtual voice needs help

Overall, this story is great! Can't say enough good about it from my perspective. Very interesting to hear about the work Green Berets did in the 90's before the GWOT.

Virtual voice left A LOT to be desired. The voice itself isn't bad, you can tell its virtual and not human, but its close. It was the lack if emotion that really hurt it in my opinion. It did however make me laugh, in what I assume was the abbreviated form of caliber (i.e 50 cal. rifle), it said calorie. Gave me a good laugh all the times we "gave the enemy some 50 calorie"

All in all, I am happy I downloaded this book

Touching

A family member returned from Afghanistan and seemed well. But through the years, it is evident there are still challenges. I was not in the military and very much appreciate the insights from this book. Thank you.

There were some 1-2 second points where the narration was distorted. Otherwise, it was acceptable.

Misinterpretation of abbreviations by AI

I think the AI only correctly interpreted the abbreviation cal for calibre once. Otherwise it was calories, California, etc

Good until the end

Boom was good and story was great
Got a little boring at the end
And the AI reading
Doesn’t know how to pronounce acronyms or other short words that operators use

Would listen again. Raw and authentic.

Loved Marks stories filled with the realities of war as well as the full range of human experience. Some parts were a hard listen as American civilians, such as myself, have largely been insulated from the realities of war. So appreciate this perspective and experience.

And yes, the narration has its faults, but I enjoyed this book regardless.

Fantastic story!

This story was engaging and captivating, but the artificial voice narrating the story detracts from it quite a bit. The number and type of mispronunciations of words or abbreviations was terrible and distracting. At many times, I also felt as though the "emotion" or intonation expressed was inappropriate to the moment and context in the story.

50 Calories Rifle Fire

Excellent story terrible AI reading. It's very hard to follow some military acronyms when the AI mis pronounce them. It's still worth a listen though.

Inspirational

Pleasant surprise about the evaluation of negative to positive. An inspiration to anyone dealing with depression or PTSD.

GREAT F’KIN READ!!

If you like military/specops books, GET this one! It’s pretty damned good. Really puts you in the writer’s pov.