A new team for a new threat

Phoenix Rising recounts the birth of Special Operations Forces through the prism of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed attempt to rescue fifty-two Americans held hostage in Tehran. When terrorists captured the Embassy on November 4, 1979, the Joint Chiefs of Staff realized that the U.S. lacked the military capability to launch a rescue. With no existing command structure, the force would have to be built from scratch.

Keith Nightingale was Deputy Operations Officer and a junior member of Joint Task Force Eagle Claw. Based on his detailed diary, Phoenix Rising vividly describes the personalities involved, the issues they faced, and the actions they took, from the conception of the operation to its hair-raising launch and execution.

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