In Vietnam With MACV-SOG Legend George Washington Bacon III: A Story From Teammate ‘Tilt’

During a break in helicopter training at FOB 1 Phu Bai, George W. Bacon III clowns around with the 30 caliber machine gun on the CH-34 S. Vietnamese Air Force helicopter, code named Kingbee. All photos courtesy of Shannon Childers, son of Richard Childers.

By John Stryker Meyer
Originally published by Soldier of Fortune Magazine (https://sofmag.com/macv-sog-legend-george-washington-bacon-iii/) on August 27, 2025

When I read Soldier of Fortune Magazine recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see an article on a MACV-SOG legend. He was Green Beret medic and later CIA operative George Washington Bacon III, who met an untimely death in Angola at the hands of Cuban commies in February 1976 while working independently with a guerrilla force, no longer employed at the agency.

I met Bacon at one of the six top secret MACV-SOG compounds in S. Vietnam at FOB 1 in Phu Bai, during the summer of 1968. He soon impressed fellow Green Berets with how quickly he first picked up the dialect of the Bru Montagnard tribesmen who served in SOG.

READ MORE about George Washington Bacon III

Within a week, he was able to speak with the Bru. And, after a few weeks, he was speaking Vietnamese with our Vietnamese counterparts at FOB 1. At that time, none of us realized that Bacon had taken Vietnamese lessons from Madame Nhu, the sister-in-law of the late president of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, while going through Special Forces training at Ft. Bragg, N.C. His thirst for knowledge was unending.

George W. Bacon III is all smiles, sitting inside the Green Beret Lounge at FOB 1 Phu Bai, with Steve Bayliss, a member of SOG recon team Virginia.

He was amazing, as people like me depended heavily on my S. Vietnamese interpreter to carry my conversation to fellow Vietnamese team members. Bacon could converse with them, giving him an extra level of trust.

During the monsoon season at FOB 1, there were intense Scrabble games, where he would pull esoteric words to fit the board without using the dictionary that we mere mortals depended on. None of us knew that Bacon had graduated as the Distinguished Honor Graduate of his Special Forces Training class 68-5 and that he had a photographic memory, according to SF Medic and Bacon friend Joe Parnar, co-author of the book SOG Medic.

NVA Sapper Attack

On Aug. 23,1968, Bacon was wounded during an NVA sapper attack at FOB 4 in Da Nang, where he and many SOG Green Berets had appeared before a promotion board on Aug. 22.

During the early morning hours of Aug. 23, as the attack raged, Bacon was patching up SOG men as a medic, before he was seriously wounded in the right shoulder/chest area. Bacon survived an attack that took the lives of 16 Green Berets – the highest single loss of Special Forces soldiers in its history.

When he returned to FOB 1, Bacon spent time helping medics in the dispensary while he healed from his wounds. Then he returned to his recon team until he was transferred to FOB 2 in Kontum in late 1968, as the brass began to close FOB 1.

Bacon stands in front of the Green Beret Lounge at FOB 1 Phu Bai in the summer of 1968, with fellow SOG recon Green Beret Chuck Willoughby. Bacon points to bandages from wounds he received in the morning of sapper attack at SOG FOB 4 base in Da Nang on Aug. 23, 1968.

A Well-Kept Secret

Another relatively well-kept fact about Bacon was that his manhood was “well endowed,” according to a fellow SOG recon friend. One day after a hot morning on base, Bacon went into the shower where one of the house maids was cleaning, and when he stepped under a shower the maid was “shocked” when she viewed his manhood, and said he was too well endowed for sexual intercourse or oral sex, just hand action.

After his tour of duty with SOG, Bacon returned to college for a year before applying for a job with the CIA, where he became employed in 1970 as a case officer. After finishing his CIA training, Bacon “served in Laos as a personal adviser to General Vang Pao, the leader of the Hmong tribesmen fighting the NVA on the Plain of Jars, in northern Laos.

“George was awarded the Intelligence Star, the second highest award for valor presented by the CIA,” according to SOG Medic, co-authored by Joe Parnar and Robert Dumont. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR — John Stryker Meyer entered the Army Dec. 1, 1966. He completed basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, advanced infantry training at Ft. Gordon, Georgia, jump school at Ft. Benning, Georgia, and graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course in Dec. 1967.

He arrived at FOB 1 Phu Bai in May 1968, where he joined Spike Team Idaho, which transferred to Command & Control North, CCN in Da Nang, January 1969. He remained on ST Idaho to the end of his tour of duty in late April, returned to the U.S. and was assigned to E Company in the 10th Special Forces Group at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts, until October 1969, when he rejoined RT Idaho at CCN. That tour of duty ended suddenly in April 1970.

He returned to the states, completed his college education at Trenton State College, where he was editor of The Signal school newspaper for two years. In 2021 Meyer and his wife of 26 years, Anna, moved to Tennessee, where he is working on his fourth book on the secret war, continuing to do SOG podcasts working with battle-hardened combat veteran Navy SEAL and master podcaster Jocko Willink.

Visit John’s excellent website sogchronicles.com. His website contains information about all of his books. You can also find all of his SOGCast podcasts and other podcast interviews. In addition, the website includes in stories of MACV-SOG Medal of Honor recipients, MIAs and a collection of videos.