An insider history of Army special forces and a rare insight into the role of combat historian. Richard Stewart was the chief historian of the US Army from 1998 to 2015. From 1990 to 1998, he was the command historian of US Army Special Operations Command. In this capacity, he deployed to cover special forces during Operation Desert Storm (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), Task Force Ranger (Somalia, "Black Hawk Down"), Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti), Operation Joint Endeavor/Guard (Bosnia), and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan). This work is both a history of Army special operations and their missions during that era and a first-person account of experiencing conflict through the very specific lens of the combat historian.