The real SOG and the Baker team
The Baker team is a fictional SOG team. While his tactics and purposes are the same of the real SOG, Trautman's teams are in many ways different from the real SOG, so you shouldn't confuse the real deal with the one in this book.
The two most important differences are about secrecy and recruitment.
The real SOG was MUCH more secret than the one described in the novel, and it never had it's own selection process and training program.
Also, Trauman recruits from both the army and the navy, which is something no special forces corps ever did.
The real SOG used to take his personnel only between Special Forces veterans that had already ran a certain number of highest-risk missions in Vietnam. This latter was the most important factor in choosing SOG personnel.
In Vietnam it was common practice to take note about how many times any soldiers had volunteered for high-risk missions. At the seventh time, the special forces soldier was secretly contacted by macVsog personnel. No one volunteered for the SOG because only who was 'inside' already knew about its existence.
The multiple high-risk missions veteran was then acknowledged about SOG purposes and the covert nature of its operations, and then asked if he wished to join.
If he accepted he was taken away from his former unit and sent to a SOG team, while 'officially' he was assigned to the secret services.
In YEAR ONE, Trautman tries to make the SOG become a brand new special forces branch and even if this never happened, it's not so far from historical truth, because after the end of the war and the SOG's disbandment, the SOG born again under a different name (DELTA FORCE).
Also worth a mention is the fact that during their history, the US armed forces have always been open to any kind of innovation.
The SOG itself have been one of the most innovative units of all the times, experimenting weapons and tactics that nowadays could make you smile a little (rocket pistols, sound tricks to fool the enemy, etc.). They were also famous for the almost complete freedom of action the MacV gave to their teams with regards to planning and executing their missions.
The keyword to deepen the subject is “MacVsog”.
Being a secret unit, the SOG hadn't any official symbol, but soldiers gave it one anyway. They paid Saigon stall tailors to sew it up for them, paying with their own money. These handmade patches were worn during conventional warfare missions, not the covert ones.
Here below, a genuine one:
