Reconnaissance Man | Vietnam Before the War

Before Vietnam became the war America remembers, James Lyle Steele was already in it.

He was part of the original generation of Marine reconnaissance men, operating at the leading edge of a conflict that was still taking shape and already turning brutal. Poisoned bamboo. Booby traps. Hidden tunnels. Ambushes. Helicopter assaults. Men blown apart. The kind of war that did not care how prepared you thought you were.

This episode is not a broad history of Vietnam. It is a firsthand account from a man who saw the war before most Americans even understood it had begun. Steele takes you into the uncertainty, the ingenuity of the enemy, and the constant reality that one wrong step could be your last.

Created by investigative journalist Ashly McGlone in collaboration with the Marine Reconnaissance Foundation (MRF), and visually brought to life by Combat Story, Reconnaissance Man is a nine-part limited series following Steele’s extraordinary 30-year military career through Vietnam, the Cold War, and beyond.