The unit's first real test was Operation Eagle Claw (1980)—the attempt to rescue 52 American hostages in Tehran. It failed catastrophically. Eight soldiers died in the desert when a helicopter collided with a transport plane. Beckwith, on the ground, had to call for the abort. He carried the guilt of that day for the rest of his life.
And when a Delta sniper takes a 1,500-yard shot to save a hostage, or an operator slips across a border in the dark, Charlie Beckwith is still there. A ghost in the machine. The man who taught America how to build a scalpel. While Beckwith is the undisputed "Father of Delta," Colonel Bob Mountel (commander of the Blue Light detachment) ran a parallel counter-terror unit in the late 1970s. But Beckwith won the political war. Mountel's unit was disbanded. Beckwith's became legend. who founded delta force
In the quiet corridors of the Pentagon in 1977, a one-star general sat down at his typewriter. He was about to write a memo that would infuriate almost every four-star general in the building. The unit's first real test was Operation Eagle