Category: Army

Land Navigation in Selection is a very big obstacle to overcome. To help prepare the candidates for our Special Operations Forces we’ve gotten back to the basics and gone over the various skills that start at square one and gone from there. Now that we’re all on the same sheet of music, so to speak, […]

Opinion: Our Special Operations Command has been in the news these days for much of the wrong reasons. And with the number of questions we’ve gotten asking about the different Selection courses for SOF with an increasing number from potential officers, I felt it was time to address an issue. An increasing number of Special […]

There are some things that stand the test of time and Richard Gatling’s invention of the earliest days of the American Civil War has certainly fit that description. Gatling was an inventor who fashioned the first machine gun, although a different design by most standards. His basic design with many modern variants is still in […]

During the battle on February 6-7, 1968 at the Special Forces A-Camp at Lang Vei, NVA troops used armor for the first time against American and South Vietnamese positions. Lang Vei had to be taken before the NVA unleashed 40,000 troops against the Marine base at Khe Sanh. During the battle, as the SF camp […]

The U.S. Army is looking into stealing a page from law enforcement’s book: using wall penetrating radar to see through obstacles and identify potential threats. This technology has already found use among police, firefighters, and search and rescue teams — and now the Army wants to see if it can also increase the survivability of […]

When one mentions Julia Child, the first thing that comes to mind is the marvel and ease of French cooking that she brought to the United States. But long before she was a culinary artist, she served as an intelligence officer during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to […]

Operation Valkyrie was the plan by German Count Claus von Stauffenberg and other senior German generals in the Wehrmacht to assassinate Adolf Hitler and several other high ranking Nazis in an attempt to end the war in Europe. It failed. Stauffenberg planted a bomb concealed in a briefcase under the conference table in Hitler’s Wolf’s […]

For our readers who are attempting to become part of our Special Operations Forces, of course after volunteering, the first obstacle in your path is passing Selection. And the biggest key to that is being properly prepared to do so. We went back and recently posted a series of articles on Land Navigation where we […]

The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall. Vince Lombardi When we write here at SpecialOperations.com and have discussions with aspiring candidates for the various units, we tend to deal only with the positive. It is par for the course, by and large, the vast majority of us […]

Rucking is one of the biggest discriminators for Special Operations Selection. It, along with Land Navigation are two of the biggest problem areas that candidates face when attempting to enter into one of the units in the military. And now with Special Operations open to women, they face the same issues that men face. In […]

Sleep. We all crave it, especially on weekends. But do we ever get enough of it? If you are like the majority of most Americans, the answer is no. And when you are going thru Selection, it is a fair bet that you will not be enjoying the eight hours of slumber that doctors say […]

One of the most common mantras you will hear in Special Operations is the absolute must of being known as a team player. The very essence of a successful special operation is with a team working together to accomplish their mission. With it, the missions don’t get accomplished and the units fail. And yet the […]