A war is brewing on the far side of the Earth and the Navy plans to arm SEAL swimmers and launch them at a moment's notice on land-based sorties. Before their training is complete, they will be tested as never before on a daring rescue in a desert land.

The Snake in the Desert The first generation of SEALs was forged in the steaming jungles of Vietnam, their deadly skills honed by combat. But jealousy brewing within the U.S. military bureaucracy threatened the future of the warrior elite, and shortsighted thinking forced them into pitched battles in Grenada and Panama that the SEALs shouldn't have fought and couldn't have won. Now the opportunity has finally come for redemption when the tanks of a ruthless Middle Eastern despot roll across the unprotected borders of a neighboring nation. Here, in a world of blood and oil, a new generation of SEALs is going in first to fight a new kind of war on its terms -- as Hunter–Killer teams of America's deadliest commandos plunge into a fast and murderous game of hide-seek-and-strike on Iraqi sands.

When Duty Calls The face of war is rapidly changing, calling America's soldiers into hellish regions where conventional warriors dare not go. From the Mekong to the U-Minh forest, this is the world of the SEALs -- an unparallelled fighting force trained in every aspect of survival, infiltration and silent death, rising like a Pheonix from the glorius flames of the Navy's crack Underwater Demolition Team. But Vietnam is a virulent new strain of jungle conflict -- where enemy and ally can be the same . . . where lives and lies are merely disposable pieces in unscrupulous political games. Yet the SEALs know that this is a war that can be won -- if they are allowed to fight it their way.

Before a nation declared war, one force was winning an unknown fight The war is a nightmare that haunts them to this day: disgrace, abandonment, retreat. But years before the protests turned the tide of public opinion--before the politicians hijacked the battleplan and ensured ultimate failure--the U.S. Navy SEALs were hitting a once arrogant enemy hard, relentlessly...and right where he lived. No longer could NVA guerillas move unchecked across invisible borders. And no longer were they safe in their own backyard. Before the war in Vietnam exploded in its full fury, a fearless chosen few were already bloodied veterans of a savage secret war. At China Beach, while the CIA plays shadow games with men all too willing to die for their country, two American warriors wait for the opportunity to prove their mettle. In two years the floodgates of war will burst open at Tonkin Gulf. But for a pair of SEALs--meticulously trained and ready to embark upon an impossible mission behind enemy lines--duty is calling...now!

The conflict in Vietnam has spread into Cambodia and Laos and the burden of fighting falls on the shoulders of the U.S. Navy SEALs. When a pilot with top secret information is shot down, the SEALs spring into action. But the Soviet military helps the Asian war effort and domestic willpower weakens. Even one glitch in their rescue plan could prove fatal.

For almost half a century, the SEALs have answered their nation's call to battle. And now the Navy's best are going to war five-hundred miles from the nearest sea—to stem the rising tide of violent terror in a volatile desert land. The intel is sketchy; the battle lines nearly impossible to untangle. But a veteran SEAL team knows what its mission is in the remote mountains of Iraq: to diffuse a terrorist threat that is taking a savage toll in blood, both soldier and civilian. But, though allies and enemies are often indistinguishable in this nightmarish conflict, and even the most carefully planned strategies can explode without warning, the SEALs will prevail . . . or die fighting. And they will never leave a brother behind.