In the decades of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, there was a cat-and-mouse game being played off the U.S. coasts in the air and on the sea between drug smugglers and the U.S. Coast Guard. The need to have a strong in-country effort to destroy the drugs at the source was obvious. This book is a history not of the war at sea, but the war on the rivers and jungles of South America between enforcement personnel and the powerful drug cartels. The personnel included U.S. Coast Guardsmen, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and personnel from in-country navies and national police forces. The Coast Guard had been asked to help the host countries by providing trainers for their enforcement teams. These trainers, along with the DEA agents, soon became the glue and often provided the drive and persistence that made these teams effective. Hundreds of tons of cocaine were destroyed, hundreds of cocaine labs burned, and tens of bad guys were captured or killed by these teams.

As Coast Guardsmen became more involved in this war, the new leadership at Coast Guard Headquarters became less aware of the realities of the evolving mission, and the Coast Guardsmen on the scene became more integrated into the teams they were advising. The role of the men on scene was supported strongly by the former commandant but considerably less enthusiastically by his relief. What resulted in Coast Guard Headquarters among the new commandant’s senior staff was the “sum of all fears” that putting Coast Guardsmen in harm’s way would have negative repercussions in the Washington arena of budget battles and congressional oversight hearings. Shortly, Coast Guardsmen on scene, often the backbone of the teams, were no longer empowered, but instead reined in and restricted in what they could do, seriously reducing the effectiveness of the teams and eventually leading to their demise. The officers and men who fought these wars in the jungles of South America were heroes who fought an unknown war in an unknown place for the benefit of the nation.

Paul A. Yost Jr., Admiral, USCG (Ret.)