NIGHT FIGHTER

For readers of American Sniper, the stirring account of a life of service by the “father of the US Navy SEALs”.

Hamilton is the father of the US Navy SEALS: he is one of two men behind their creation. He was also directly responsible for the creation of SEAL Team 6 years later. This is the first time he is telling his story. Captain William H. Hamilton Jr., USN, graduated from Annapolis in 1949. Before retiring from military service in 1986, he was an advisor on security methods for Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. Charles W. Sasser, a veteran writer of military history and other books, was himself a member of the Special Forces and a Green Beret and is the bestselling author of One Shot One Kill and, with Roy Boehm, First SEAL. One month after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, when President John F. Kennedy pressed Congress about America’s “urgent national needs,” he named expanding US special operations forces in the same breath as putting a man on the moon. Captain William Hamilton was the officer tasked with creating the finest unconventional warriors ever seen. Merging his own experience commanding Navy Underwater Demolition Teams with expertise from Army Special Forces and the CIA, and working with his subordinate, Roy Boehm, he cast the mold for sea-, air-, and land-dispatched night fighters capable of successfully completing any mission anywhere in the world. The SEALs. Initially, they were used as a counter to the potential devastation of nuclear war, and later for counterterrorism and hostage rescue. His vision led to the formation of the celebrated SEAL Team 6. NIGHT FIGHTER is a trove of true adventure from the history of the late twentieth century, which Hamilton lived — from fighter pilot in the Korean War to operative for the CIA in Vietnam, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, and from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Reagan White House’s Star Wars. In the truest tradition of American Sniper, Hamilton tells his story for the first time and it is utterly remarkable, stirring, and action-filled record of devoted patriotic service. Captain William H. Hamilton Jr., USN, graduated from Annapolis in 1949. Before retiring from military service in 1986, he was an advisor on security methods for Reagan s Strategic Defense Initiative. He lives with his wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Charles W. Sasser, a veteran writer of military history and other books, was himself a member of the Special Forces and a Green Beret and is the bestselling author of One Shot One Kill and, with Roy Boehm, First SEAL. He resides in Chouteau, Oklahoma.