Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East

by L. Scott Lingamfelter

Overview

In 1948 the United Nations launched the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization following the conflict that erupted between Israel and its Arab neighbors, who profoundly opposed the creation of a Jewish state. UNTSO quickly found itself overseeing the ceasefire lines between combatant parties.

In the ensuing decades, as countries along the eastern Mediterranean engaged in a series of escalating military conflicts, UNTSO was continually challenged in its peacekeeping mission, often having to alter its configuration. Matters came to a head in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon for a second time, calling into question the efficacy of UN peacekeeping operations and US support for them.

In Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East, retired US Army colonel and former UN military observer L. Scott Lingamfelter chronicles the role of the US military in UN Middle East peacekeeping operations. Framed by his personal experiences, the book examines the difficulties faced by UN forces wedged between warring sides with limited trust in their authority as well as the challenging dichotomy of a soldier trained for combat yet immersed in unarmed peacekeeping. Yanks in Blue Berets is a "boots on the ground" perspective of the building Arab-Israeli tensions and geopolitics preceding the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813197630
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	07/04/2023
Series:	American Warriors Series
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Col. L. Scott Lingamfelter, USA (Ret.), began his twenty-eight-year military career as a field artilleryman, served as a front-line military observer in the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization in Syria, Israel, and southern Lebanon, and retired at the rank of colonel. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2002 to 2018 and is a regular contributor to the Washington Times. His book Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War was incorporated into the Association of the United States Army Book Program.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Up to Jerusalem
3. A Legacy of Conflict
4. The UNTSO-US Culture
5. The Road to Damascus
6. The Bright and Dark Side of Syria
7. UNTSO in the Central Levant
8. The Woes of UNIFIL
9. UNMO Duty in "The Wild West"
10. UNMO Teams in "The Wild West"
11. The Gathering Storm Erupts
12. Peace for No One
13. Sentinels of Peace
14. Epilogue: The Yanks Reflect
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

As a career special forces officer, Yanks in Blue Berets is a book I wish I had been able to read early in my training. In 30 years in the Army, I was never exposed to the operations chronicled in this very important book in any appreciable detail. Not only is this an important perspective of history in the Middle East, but it also provides lessons in leadership, decision making, intelligence, cultural awareness and so much more. The Army strives to operate with a "mission command" philosophy. The peacekeepers in this book were living it, and today we can still learn so much from their experiences. Had a book and studies like this been available sooner for military leaders, how would the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have turned out? Yet it is not too late to learn from these experiences.

Colonel David Maxwell

Yanks in Blue Berets is a well-written account, and readers who are interested in modern peacekeeping operations, especially those that have been conducted in the Middle East, will find much to enjoy in this book.

The Journal of America's Military Past

The U. S. Armed forces are reluctant players in United Nations operations but nonetheless have a long history of supporting these missions both directly and indirectly. They have ranged from strictly supporting roles in the Congo to robust operations in Haiti, Somalia, and Bosnia. We do too little to prepare for these missions and then take little notice of our performance. Colonel Scott Lingamfelter's Yanks in Blue Berets: American UN Peacekeepers in the Middle East, illuminates the dangerous and vital role Americans played in working to keep the peace in Lebanon during the 1980s. Lingamfelter examines peace missions in Lebanon through the lens of his own service and considers them in both in the context of what he learned and what U. S. Armed forces can and should learn from these complex operations. Yanks in Blue Berets is a story well told of soldiers, sailors, marines, and airman succeeding in difficult operations and a worthy addition to the historiography of peace operations generally.

Colonel Gregory Fontenot

Scott Lingamfelter has written a brilliant book that is a critique of a UN mission largely doomed to failure because of its very nature and inherent constraints. It is also a memoir of his journey of professional development in trying circumstances. Few Americans even know that these peacekeeping missions are taking place as this book appears. These young American warfighters put aside their weapons in the honorable pursuit of peace in a region where it is virtually unknown. As Scott recalls, it was dangerous: 'armed elements may have made our mandate difficult to fulfill, but they never dampened our desire to fulfill it.' This is the soul of this book. Committed military officers living the essence of an old African saying: 'If you think you are too small to make a difference then you haven't spent the night with a mosquito.' A must for the reading lists of every civilian and military policymakers.

David E. Johnson

Relying on his journal notes, published and unpublished UN documents, interviews with fellow peacekeepers, and other memoirs, Lingamfelter's new account provides an insightful and revealing reminiscence into the workings of a largely unknown aspect of U.S. military history—peacekeeping duty during the Cold War....Lingamfelter's memoir reveals a deeper legacy of American involvement in peacekeeping, and it does so in a remarkably personal way. Scholars have only recently begun to write histories of UN peacekeeping, and Lingamfelter's memoir uncovers a rich vein of material in this field that is ripe for further scholarly exploration.

Journal of Military History

An interesting and unique first-person account of the intricacies of UN peacekeeping operations in the Middle East.  A must read for military officers conducting peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. While the author specifically highlights cultural interaction in the Levant, the lessons that he and his teammates learned could easily be adapted to the Balkans and other conflict areas around the globe.

Clinton T. Anderson

A thoroughly-researched and compellingly-told history of another, yet little-known, contribution of the American military to global stability.

General George W. Casey