Colt Terry

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Colt Terry (born February 8, 1929 in Kissimmee, Florida and died September 15, 2005) was one of the original Green Berets - one of the original instructors of Army Special Forces and one of those who helped to make this elite fighting force what it is today. He died on September 15, 2005 from pancreatic cancer.

He served two tours in combat in Korea, one behind enemy lines, and three tours in combat in Vietnam. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 26, 1945 as a private. He retired in August, 1970 as a colonel.

As recorded in his official biography, Colt Terry, Green Beret, by Charles D. Patton, published by Texas A&M University Press, 2005, Colt's extensive military career set many of the standards for what Green Beret's would become known for.

To quote James Jay Carafano of the National Defense University, this record of Colt's military career is "...a valuable contribution to military history. While U.S. special operations forces have long been a niche subject in military history, recent U.S. operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have demonstrated their increasing importance in modern warfare and raised interest in general over the origins and development of unconventional units."