I am the storm they never see coming, delivering freedom with every jump and every bundle I push out of that plane.

Even in the biting cold of the concrete slab, stripped of dignity but not spirit, I found a shred of defiance in the simple act of brushing leaves off my skin – a silent rebuke to my captors’ attempts at dehumanization.

Amidst the fierce camaraderie and ear-splitting sonic booms on Coronado’s sands, I, a Green Beret among Navy SEALs, embraced the raw intensity of military might and the unspoken bond of warriors at sea.

Our primary choice for a secondary (backup) firearm was the M-1911 .45 caliber blazer, legacy of the venerable John Moses Browning.

People often ask me, “What was the worst thing you ever saw as an EMT?” I’ve seen terrible things, but nothing like the piano man.

Find out why we can learn a lot about the failings of military leadership from three monkeys, a ladder, and a determined zookeeper.

It can sometimes be easy to lose perspective when talking about historical events. Once timelines stretch beyond the horizon of our own recollection, they tend to get fuzzy. Most people would be surprised to know, for instance, that actually Cleopatra lived closer to our time than to when the pyramids where constructed. Or that the […]

I lost everything I owned three years after leaving the Navy, including my marriage. Then I picked myself up, dusted off, and built a new life outside of my service. It was a tough, lonely, and sometimes scary, road. As we are experiencing one of the largest migrations of combat veterans to civilian life since […]

“Man you got the life,” my client said as he stared out at the river. He walked out to the bank and started to slap the water with his rod tip, while his fly line piled up three feet in front of him. “Stop your rod tip a bit higher on the forward cast,” I […]

Welcome back to the second part of Close Quarters Battle (CQB) series. In the previous part, we talked about sight fixation and flashlights. Let’s continue to our next two rules. But before, we would like to remind you that these “rules” are more of a reminder of things that many forget or not aware of. […]

This series of articles isn’t meant to offer concrete, hard-and-fast rules about close-quarters combat (CQB). Like anything in life, there are dozens of paths to a destination, and efficiency and safety make the difference. This article series will just present some things that many forget or are simply not aware of. The reality of today […]

The history of the site Big Phil’s visiting in this edition of Big Phil on Tour dates back even further than the imposing towers that dominate the landscape. Reculver has been the site of conflict dating back to the Roman era and consistently ever since. Serving as one of the earliest Roman forts built to […]

If you find yourself stuck in the wilderness, one of the first things you’ll want to do is prepare a shelter — but before you can do that, you need to choose where you want to built it. Choosing a good location for your campsite is extremely important, not just in terms of comfort, but […]

Fire is life. It’s cooks our food, it keeps us warm, it drives away the darkness in which we sometimes find ourselves. There’s something incredibly calming, almost meditative, about sitting in front of a crackling blaze. We stare at it intently, slowly getting lost in the flames. Fire connects us, with each other, with ourselves, […]

While it could be said that every unit which falls under the “special ops” umbrella is comprised of operators who can move, shoot, and communicate with lethal efficiency, different units developed to address specialized challenges. As the years wore on, and particularly since the onset of the Global War on Terrorism, lines may have blurred […]

The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 brought about the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans, who had their lives cut short by the cowardly acts of a small group of terrorists. It’s difficult to try to look back on such a series of events without being reminded of that sense of loss, of pain, […]

America’s special operations units have seen a dramatic uptick in the missions sets they’ve been tasked with throughout nearly two straight decades of the War on Terror, but despite some overlap in combat operations, each specialized unit has a specific area of expertise to draw from. The Navy SEALs, as most could assume from their […]

The MK18: A compact, reliable AR-15 by Daniel Defense, excels in close combat with manageable recoil, ideal for customization, tactical ops.

“Spooge” somehow became the nickname for the cans of spray adhesive we used to stick paper targets, bull’s eyes, and the like to a target silhouette downrange. It simply was the quickest and most convenient way to quickly attach paper to cardboard and get on to the business of sending maximum rounds down range on […]

It can be said that the need to band together in groups is intrinsic to what makes us human beings. Long before the dawn of civilization, humans gathered together in like-minded groups in order to offer one another protection, defend resources, and share the mental and physical challenges of survival. Forming a cooperative group, or […]