Jack Murphy

As a professional shooter, it is important never to overestimate your skills, and even more unforgivable to misrepresent your skill level to commanding officers who will probably take those perceptions into account during mission planning. This is especially true of snipers preparing to conduct specialized tasks, like providing target interdiction from a helicopter based platform. […]

On the night of February 2nd, 2012, a bomb was dropped on a terrorist cell’s meeting in progress taking place in The Philippines southern Sulu Province. The resulting explosion killed three terrorist leaders as well as twelve other members of the infamous Al-Qeada associated Jemaah Islamiyah, or JI for short.

I know what you are thinking. When I was first told that I’d be taking a ride with the Iraqi Air Force I thought I’d need to go change my pants. I saw how our Iraqi military partners drove their humvees and could only imagine how they’d fly helicopters! When two Iraqi Air Force Huey […]

The Special Forces Qualification Course has changed quite a bit from when I graduated in 2007.  In my opinion, these changes have been for the better.  When I attended the course, the language training was split up into modules.  This is how it would work: You would have a two week block of instruction in […]

Command Sgt. Maj. Bielich has served in the 75th Ranger Regiment for over 20 years, most recently as the Command Sergeant Major for 1st Battalion.

I was a normal kid raised in a very conservative family in north Texas. I wrestled growing up for different schools and leagues. I will never forget what brought me to the military…watching those planes fly into those towers.

Special Forces soldiers are grouped into 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha teams or ODA’s. In this manner they are organized for unconventional warfare, the only unit in the military specifically designed to fight the type of counter-insurgency operations that America finds itself in today. Because of their task organization and inherent decentralization, each ODA has it’s […]

This is a little bit about my experiences in Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS). This is also a story about what not to do! Coming back from a deployment in Northern Iraq in 2005 with 3rd Ranger Battalion, I dropped my Special Forces packet and began to prepare for SFAS. We had several Rangers […]

The M4 rifle is a shortened M16 carbine and is by far the most common weapon found in the hands of US forces today. Rangers carry the M4 and utilize the new SOPMOD 2 package, which includes the EO Tech 553 holographic reflex site, LA-5 infrared laser, foregrip, the M3X visible bright light (tactical light) […]

Combat Deployments The 75th Ranger Regiment deploys more often, but for shorter durations than conventional military units. The Operations Tempo, or OpTempo, is so high that it is necessary to frequently rotate Rangers in and out of combat theaters to give them time to recuperate. One thing people should keep in mind is that no […]

Embarking on the journey of becoming a member of the 75th Ranger Regiment is an experience like no other.  The best advice I got before I joined the military was, “You get out of it what you put into it.”  It was true, and the Ranger Regiment will demand that you put everything you’ve got […]

The United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) is the unified command structure in which individual Army Special Operations units such as Rangers, Special Forces, 160th Special Operations Aviation, Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, and various support elements are housed under.  The JFK Special Warfare Center and School is also part of USASOC, and contains various […]