SOG sounds very much like the kind of program initiated in the Phillipines by General Ed Lansdale (The guy walking in the opposite direction of the three tramps in the famous photo of the vagrants picked up from a railroad car near Dealy Plaza). Lansdale would truck in soldiers to remote village locations in the Phillipines. Initiate a mock skirmish, and then stage a win for the forces he wanted the villagers to support.

I am sure the the brilliance of these psychological ploys was polished and further employed in Viet Nam.

I had an army buddy at Fort Hood in the mid-seventies who served with the Green Berets in Viet Nam. He said the the most hush-hush program in Viet Nam was SOG. The only thing he ever mentioned about it was that it involved Green Berets running at full speed down trails deep in North Viet Nam. That never made much sense to me then; however, in light of the hyperlink in the post to which I am responding, it now makes perfect sense.