The Great Escaper

The article “Special Forces” in the November/December 2002 issue was excellent, but allow me to mention that the sidebar, “A Hard School,” was mistaken when it referred to Col. Jerry Sage as commanding the Special Forces School at Fort Bragg. He had a distinguished career in the OSS and became famous in the Army for his repeated efforts to escape from Nazi prison camps. He went on to command the 10th Special Forces Group in the 1960s, and although as commander of the school’s training element he oversaw the training that went on there, he was never its overall commander. His book Sage recounts his remarkable adventures. The character played by Steve McQueen in the film The Great Escape is reputed to be based on Colonel Sage.