Andrew R. Finlayson

Colonel Finlayson is a 1966 graduate of the U. S Naval Academy who served 25 years in the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer.

He spent 32 months in South Vietnam as a Force Reconnaissance Platoon Commander, Infantry Company Commander and Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) Commander and Advisor.

From his retirement from the US Marine Corps in 1991 until 2007 he worked for the Vinnell and Northrop Grumman Corporations in management positions specializing in military training, strategic planning and security biometrics.

As a civilian defense contractor he worked for five years in Saudi Arabia training Saudi military units and he took the first New Iraqi Army training team into Iraq in July 2003.

He also spent a year in Romania advising the Romanian Ministry of National Defense on US military base development and training procedures.

His most recent publication is a book entitled Killer Kane: A Marine Long-Range Recon Leader in Vietnam, 1967-1968

He is the author of several articles and studies related to the Vietnam War.

He currently resides in Morrisville, North Carolina.

Killer Kane

A Marine Long-Range Recon Team Leader in Vietnam, 1967–1968

By Andrew R. Finlayson

Vietnam War Memoirs

The leader of one of the most successful U. S. Marine long range reconnaissance teams during the Vietnam War, Andrew Finlayson recounts his team’s experiences in the year leading up to the Tet Offensive of 1968. Using primary sources, such as Marine Corps unit histories and his own weekly letters home, he presents a highly personal account of the dangerous missions conducted by this team of young Marines as they searched for North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong units in such dangerous locales as Elephant Valley, the Enchanted Forest, Charlie Ridge, Happy Valley and the Que Son Mountains.

In numerous close contacts with the enemy, the team (code-name Killer Kane) fights for its survival against desperate odds, narrowly escaping death time and again. The book gives vivid descriptions of the life of recon Marines when they are not on patrol, the beauty of the landscape they traverse, and several of the author’s Vietnamese friends. It also explains in detail the preparations for, and the conduct of, a successful long range reconnaissance patrol.