The Green Berets. The Navy SEALs. The secret Delta Force. The British SAS. The Israeli Mossad. Almost every country has a special force unit in their military. But what do they do, whom do they recruit, and how do they train?

Robin Neillands, renowned military historian and himself a former Royal Marine Commando, tells the story of special forces since the end of the World War II, where possible in the words of the soldiers themselves. He describes the operational successes and failures, advances in military technology crucial to special force effectiveness, and the achievements, challenges, and exploits of a wide range of special force units.

From the intense cold of the Korean winter, the mountains of Cyprus, and the Libyan night, to the jungle heat of Vietnam and the green hills of Northern Ireland, In the Combat Zone provides a compelling and revealing portrait of these highly trained troops, without the by-now banal glorification so characteristic of such discussions. As Neillands writes, "A great many special forces soldiers have helped me with this book, on the understanding that I told it straight and did not use their accounts to produce yet another `gung-ho heroes' epic."