Luke Ryan

About the author

Luke Ryan is a SOFREP journalist in Tampa, FL. He is a former Team Leader from 3rd Ranger Battalion, having served four deployments to Afghanistan. He grew up overseas, the son of foreign aid workers, and lived in Pakistan for nine years and Thailand for five. He has a degree in English Literature and loves to write on his own as well, working on several personal projects.

The trenches back home: You’re not alone

After being immersed in military culture for a while, you start to feel quite separate from civilian life. You often find yourself calling the other place, “the real world.” If you’re back home on leave, you groan as you have to eventually go back to the real world. If you’re on a deployment or looking […]

Stop the Bleed: Prepare yourself before you start arguing politics

The latest shooting in Texas has tragically taken more lives in an act of senseless violence. Arguments for and against tighter gun control have been flooding the internet, and people’s emotions are understandably volatile. Everyone wants to work toward some kind of solution to the increasing violence in the United States–we all want it to […]

Child sex offenders in the US to be identified as such in passports

The State Department recently confiscated the passports of child sex offenders throughout the United States. The offenders were told that they could apply for a new passport, but that their travel documents would come with an indicator to tell other countries that they are on the sex offender registry. The new law is called the […]

The American Dream in a foster kid turned Ranger

It’s not easy to become a U.S. Army Ranger. To be a successful Ranger, you need to have a strong sense of self, be physically fit and mentally strong. You have to be able to push yourself further than you imagined possible, and then you have grit your teeth and low crawl a little further. […]

Pages of War: T. S. Eliot and ‘The Waste Land’

Read part one of this series here.  Part two. T. S. Eliot has often been criticized for his poetry’s inaccessibility to the average person, and “The Waste Land” is no exception.  It’s easy to read and think, “this guy is really just showing off how smart he is”–his Latin inserts, obscure Shakespeare and ancient Greek […]

On this day in history: Israeli Prime Minister assassinated

On November 4, 1995, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Prime Minister of Israel was killed on the steps of a city hall in Tel Aviv, taking three rounds to the chest and dying later in the hospital. Yitzhak Rabin had an extensive military career before his entry into politics. As a new recruit, he participated […]

BREAKING: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl sentenced, no prison time

SGT Bowe Bergdahl was sentenced on Friday after lengthy military court proceedings have come to a close. He will serve no time in prison, but has been dishonorably discharged. The prosecution was trying to swing a 14 year sentence, a downgrade from the life sentence that was also a possibility. Bergdahl’s attorneys got what they […]

Crowds flood Yangon in support of Burma’s actions against the Rohingya

Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) is the largest city in Myanmar (Burma). Over 2,000 locals have flooded the streets in support of the Army’s recent actions against the Rohingya people in the western areas of the country. Many are Buddhist nationalists and some are even Buddhist monks. They have expressed a desire to strengthen the […]

US forces capture key militant from the 2012 Benghazi attacks

On Monday, the White House announced that U.S forces captured have Mustafa al-Imam in Libya. Al-Imam had been linked to the attacks on U.S. personnel in Benghazi on September 11, 2012–the infamous battle at the embassy and CIA annex that claimed the lives of four Americans: Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith and former […]

Myanmar to repatriate Rohingya refugees after ‘textbook ethnic cleansing’

The UN has called the atrocities committed in Rakhine State, Burma (Myanmar) “textbook ethnic cleansing.” It has since been responsible for the deaths of over 2,000 people and sent approximately 600,000 people fleeing for their lives to the neighboring country of Bangladesh. The country’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has recently spoken toward […]

SOFREP Exclusive: Medal of Honor Recipient James McCloughan

Specialist Five James McCloughan’s Medal of Honor citation, like all Medal of Honor citations, will drop your jaw to the floor. A 23 year old combat medic in the middle of Vietnam, he braved heavy fire to move an injured casualty to safety and was wounded by shrapnel before saving two more. He went on […]