Includes the making of Special Forces personnel--recruitment and training; a look at actual Special Forces Group deployment exercises; tools of the trade--weapons, communications and sensor equipment, and survival gear; roles and missions--a mini-novel illustrates probable scenarios of Special Forces intervention; an interview with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Forces Operations Command (USSOCOM) General Hugh Shelton.

Includes maps of: Home Bases of the Various Special Forces Command Units in the Continental United States; Current Areas Covered by Each of the Active-duty Special Forces Groups, and Their Assigned Unified Command; How the Iris Gold Special Forces Teams Would be Deployed in [Kuwait] in Time of War; Disposition of the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Teams in Early 1999 during Their Missions in Venezuela; Layout of Forces and Locations of Missions during Relampago Rojo-3 in 1999.

Special Forces 101 -- The road to the top : an interview with General Henry H. Shelton -- Creating Special Forces Soldiers -- Inside the rucksack : Special Forces stuff -- U.S. Army Special Forces Command -- Getting ready : training for the "big" one -- Downrange : Special Forces in the field -- Into the twenty-first century -- Operation Merdeka.