A Task Force Called Faith

(Praise for Steve Vogel’s Betrayal in Berlin) “Excellent…Mr. Vogel’s handling of his tale is original and rewarding…meticulously researched and full of vivid detail.”– “The Wall Street Journal”(Praise for Steve Vogel’s Through the Perilous Fight) “Very fine storytelling, impeccably researched … Through the Perilous Fight brings to life the fraught events of 1814 with compelling and convincing vigor.”– “Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army at Dawn”

(Praise for Steve Vogel’s Through the Perilous Fight) “Complementing Donald R. Hickey’s War of 1812 and Alan Taylor’s The Civil War of 1812, this title will contribute to making this war no longer one of our ‘forgotten’ conflicts.”

– “Library Journal”

“Author Steve Vogel has written a masterful Korean War history of the 31st Infantry Regimental Combat Team and Task Force Faith during their terrible five-day battle east of the Chosin Reservoir in 1950. Seven Chinese Regiments swarmed the three understrength US Army battalions in 20 degrees below zero weather. The cut-off courageous soldiers essentially destroyed two divisions of the Chinese 27th Army while suffering terrible losses with 85% of the RCT killed, wounded, or MIA. The terrible sacrifice of the 31st RCT enabled the survival of the brave Marines of 1st Mar Div who were able to break out to the south and the Navy evacuation at Hungnam. In a twist of fate, my dad, Colonel Bill McCaffrey, took command of the 385 survivors and reorganized and retrained the Regiment for a year of continued brutal combat. Vogel has rescued the 31st RCT from a distorted history and shines a light on the valor of these superb infantry soldiers.”

– “Barry R. McCaffrey, General US Army (Ret.), Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (1996-2001), recipient of two Distinguished Service Crosses, two Silver Stars, and three Purple Heart medals, 2007 inductee into the United States Ranger Hall of Fame”

“Steve Vogel’s account of the annihilation of a U.S. Army task force in Korea is the most moving, most agonizing, most instructive story of war I have ever read. Prodigiously researched over two decades and masterfully written, A Task Force Called Faith reveals the suffering and heroism of field officers and grunts who were falsely accused of cowardice. It also documents the vanity and incompetence of America’s most senior generals in the Korean War. This is a revelatory read for anyone interested in how the United States fights its many wars.”

– “Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14 and other books about North Korea”

Steve Vogel is a historian and former foreign and military correspondent for The Washington Post. His coverage of the US war in Afghanistan was part of a package of Washington Post stories selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. He reported on the US war with Iraq in 2003 as an embedded journalist with an Army airborne brigade. Based in Germany from 1989 through 1994 and reporting for the Washington Post and Army and Air Force Times, he covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War, as well as military operations in Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans.

Vogel covered the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon and was the first journalist to get inside the building’s most damaged sections. He reported in depth on the victims of the attack and the building’s reconstruction which led to his writing the history of the Pentagon. He lives in Barnesville, Maryland.