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Billy Waugh, 93, ‘Godfather of the Green Berets,’ Is Dead Billy Waugh, 93, ‘Godfather of the Green Berets,’ Is Dead
(2 days later)
Billy Waugh, a near-legendary covert operative who honed his skills in unconventional warfare during the Vietnam War, helped the C.I.A. hunt down the terrorists Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden, and, in his 70s, fought in Afghanistan, died on April 4. He was 93.Billy Waugh, a near-legendary covert operative who honed his skills in unconventional warfare during the Vietnam War, helped the C.I.A. hunt down the terrorists Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden, and, in his 70s, fought in Afghanistan, died on April 4. He was 93.
His death was confirmed in a statement on Twitter by the Army’s First Special Forces Command, which lauded him as having “inspired a generation of special operations.” It did not say where he died.His death was confirmed in a statement on Twitter by the Army’s First Special Forces Command, which lauded him as having “inspired a generation of special operations.” It did not say where he died.
The service website Military.com, using the colloquial name for Special Forces made famous during the Vietnam War, called Mr. Waugh “the unparalleled godfather of the Green Berets” for his long years of service and numerous missions with them. The New York Times once described him as a “former C.I.A. paramilitary officer who seems to have cut quite a swashbuckling path through the ‘back alleys,’ as they say, of half the world.”The service website Military.com, using the colloquial name for Special Forces made famous during the Vietnam War, called Mr. Waugh “the unparalleled godfather of the Green Berets” for his long years of service and numerous missions with them. The New York Times once described him as a “former C.I.A. paramilitary officer who seems to have cut quite a swashbuckling path through the ‘back alleys,’ as they say, of half the world.”
“He was just one of those guys who wanted to be on the edge of the empire, as far as he could get, living large and defending his country,” Cofer Black, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, who supervised Mr. Waugh, said in a phone interview.“He was just one of those guys who wanted to be on the edge of the empire, as far as he could get, living large and defending his country,” Cofer Black, a former C.I.A. counterterrorism chief, who supervised Mr. Waugh, said in a phone interview.
Mr. Waugh, a well-known, colorful and blunt-spoken figure in the intelligence community, was a Special Forces veteran by the time he first arrived in Laos in 1961, in the early days of the Vietnam War, as part of a United States military advisory mission called White Star.
Over parts of a decade in Southeast Asia, he helped train counterinsurgency forces in South Vietnam and Laos. He participated in parachute drops to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which required jumping from aircraft at altitudes of 20,000 feet or more, he said, free-falling in the nighttime to the lowest possible height before popping the chute, to avoid enemy detection.