Billy Waugh, 93, ‘Godfather of the Green Berets,’ Is Dead
He was a Special Forces soldier during the Vietnam War then worked for the C.I.A., tracking Osama bin Laden in Sudan and fighting in Afghanistan after 9/11.
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A black-and-white closeup of Billy Waugh in an Army uniform.
Billy Waugh in Vietnam in 1970. “He was just one of those guys who wanted to be on the edge of the empire,” a former supervisor said.Credit...via Jason Hardy
By Richard Sandomir
April 14, 2023
Billy Waugh, a near-legendary covert operative who honed his skills in unconventional warfare during the Vietnam War, helped the C.I.A. hunt down the terrorists Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden, and, in his 70s, fought in Afghanistan, died on April 4. He was 93.
His death was confirmed in a statement on Twitter by the Army’s First Special Forces Command, which lauded him as having “inspired a generation of special operations.” It did not say where he died.
The service website Military.com, using the colloquial name for Special Forces made famous during the Vietnam War, called Mr. Waugh “the unparalleled godfather of the Green Berets” for his long years of service and numerous missions with them. The New York Times once described him as a “former C.I.A. paramilitary officer who seems to have cut quite a swashbuckling path through the ‘back alleys,’ as they say, of half the world.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/world/asia/billy-waugh-dead.html
