Born 19 January 1946, John Stryker Myer entered the Army on 1 December 1966, completed basic training, advanced infantry training, jump school and graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course in December 1967. After a 12-week training session in Ft. Gordon, on radio teletype, Meyer landed in South Vietnam in April 1968, and arrived at FOB 1 in Pho Bai in May 1968, where he joined Spike Team Idaho to fight in the Secret War. John remained on ST Idaho through the end of his tour of duty in late April. In October 1969 he rejoined ST Idaho at CCN. That tour of duty ended suddenly in April 1970. His job was running reconnaissance missions ‘across the fence’ of South Vietnam into the North Vietnamese Army’s sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. The members of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) wore sterile fatigues, with no dog tags, no form of identification, no photos of loved ones or any detailed information that would indicate they were American. The reason being because it was a Secret War, the American government needed “plausible deniability” in the event that any soldiers were killed or captured by enemy communist forces.
He is the author of several books, On The Ground: The Secret War in Vietnam, Across The Fence: The Secret War in Vietnam, SOG Chronicles: Volume I. He has appeared on Jocko Podcast, episodes 180, 181, 182, 186, 247, 248, 258, 259.
