American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WWII Marine Raiders, and America's First SpecialForces Mission »

John Wukovits is the author of One Square Mile of Hell and Pacific Alamo, as well as several military biographies and articles.

Before the Green Berets...Before the Navy SEALs...Before the Army Rangers...There was the Long Patrol.

November 1942: in the hellish combat zone of Guadalcanal, one man would make history.

Lieutenant Colonel Evans Carlson was considered a maverick by many of his comrades-and seen as a traitor by some. He spent years observing guerrilla tactics all over the world, and knew that those tactics could be adapted effectively by the Marines.

Carlson and an elite fighting force-the 2nd Raider Battalion-embarked upon a thirty-day mission behind enemy lines where they disrupted Japanese supplies, inflicted a string of defeats on the enemy in open combat, and gathered invaluable intelligence on Japanese operations on Guadalcanal. And in the process they helped lay the foundation for Special Forces in the modern military.

Here for the first time is a riveting account of one man, one battalion, and one mission that would resonate through the annals of military history.