Name Colt Terry | Died September 2005 | |
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Colt Terry (born February 8, 1929 in Kissimmee, Florida and died September 15, 2005) was one of the original Green Berets - one of the original instructors of Army Special Forces. He died on September 15, 2005 from pancreatic cancer.
He served two tours in combat in Korea, one behind enemy lines, and three tours in combat in Vietnam. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 26, 1945 as a private. He retired in August 1970 as a colonel.
As recorded in his official biography, Colt Terry, Green Beret, by Charles D. Patton, published by Texas A&M University Press, 2005, Colt's extensive military career set many of the standards that Green Berets would become known for.
Jay Carafano of the National Defense University described the book as "...a valuable contribution to military history. While U.S. special operations forces have long been a niche subject in military history, recent U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated their increasing importance in modern warfare and raised interest in general over the origins and development of unconventional units."