Long Description : General Sam, as he was known to many who served under him, had one of the most extraordinary American military (and diplomatic, and espionage) careers of the last century. At age 16, he “lied like a rug” about his age and enlisted in the Virginia National Guard. By age 18, he had been commissioned out of OCS, joined the OSS, and volunteered to serve with Merrill’s Marauders behind enemy lines in Burma in World War II, which is where he learned that “the assistance and support of the indigenous population was the sine qua non to our survival, let alone successful operations. That particular factor emerged as one of the most salient factors in the war in Vietnam.” By 1964, as a lieutenant colonel he was seconded to USAID through the Participating Agencies Service Agreement (PASA) “at the pay grade level of a class one foreign service officer.” In his position there as associate director for field operations, his portfolio “encompassed educational programs, medical programs, agricultural programs, transportation programs, public safety programs and so on.” Ambassador Lodge later appointed Wilson to be United States mission coordinator, with the rank of minister and the job of providing unity of command across the agencies represented in Vietnam including “USIA, USAID, CIA, and various parts of the military and the services.” His tenure there resulted in the establishment of the Civil Operations Revolutionary Development Support program (CORDS). General Wilson provides a lively narrative of his personal involvement with counter-insurgency (COIN), the Foreign Area Officer program, CORDS, the US Operations Mission, Special Forces, the Hamlet Evaluation System report, and much more.