Category: Expert Analysis

Some people tend to get touchy about their birthdays as they get older, and I can certainly understand the reasoning behind it.  We all celebrate the important touchstones of our transition into adulthood at eighteen and twenty-one because each birthday that came prior served as “one more” toward achieving independence, becoming self-reliant, or maybe just […]

Over the years, much has been made about how selection for the SAS is the toughest military course in the world. But is it too difficult? In percentages, less than 10 percent of those who attend actually pass the entire course and become a member of a Sabre Squadron. The course is so difficult, it is not unheard of for […]

Read Part One HERE With Soviet forces racing south through Manchuria and into northern Korea, General MacArthur had to scrounge together American units quickly and get them to Korea. The agreement hashed out with the Russians was that the Soviets would accept the Japanese surrender north of the 38th parallel and America would accept their […]

The US military has, especially over the last couple of decades, become convinced that high-tech is the solution to all problems.  Any battlefield or tactical problem can be solved with the latest piece of kit.  The result has been the F-22 (only 195 built at a unit cost of $150 million, and a program cost […]

“It was silk everywhere and it was just marvelous to see,” Sergeant Paul Redgate said, describing 4th Ranger Company’s combat jump at Musan-Ni. In was March of 1951, the coldest winter that anyone could remember in Korea. Some American units were decimated by the freezing temperatures alone. Exiting the C-119 airplane, Redgate parachuted to the […]

We’re always looking for an edge. That’s what Special Forces guys do, anything that will make your job easier, or yourself a little more comfortable, that’s the ticket, right? And having a piece of equipment that works, is tough, comfortable and the troops like is like nirvana. Like I said in an earlier piece, in […]

At 7:28PM on October 4th, 1957 a rocket screeched into the sky above the Soviet Union, releasing its payload into low orbit and granting the world its very first artificial satellite. Sputnik was revolutionary for any number of reasons – many of which we in America begrudgingly ignore, like successful Soviet trips to Venus, because […]

Welcome back to the second part of the Top 10 unwritten rules of CQB series. In the previous part we talked about the first two rules about sight fixation and flashlights. Lets continue to our next two rules. But before, we would like to remind you that these ‘rules’ are more of a reminder of […]

As a young Marine, few potential duty stations come with more trepidation and anxiety than Twentynine Palms.  The Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, or MCAGCC as it is sometimes called, is a sprawling military installation in its purest sense: while many military bases in the United States offer a pleasant and even domestic appearing […]

In response to the recent allegations made by three Navy SEAL whistleblowers to CBS News and information provided to SOFREP by our own sources, many readers chimed in to opine that the US military had been issuing amphetamines to boost the performance of soldiers in combat.  We had never found any reputable sources who could […]

This series of articles isn’t meant to offer concrete, hard-and-fast rules about close-quarters combat. Like anything in life, there are dozens of paths to this destination—it’s efficiency and safety that make the difference. These ‘rules’ are more a reminder of things that many forget or are simply not aware of. In this series of articles, we will […]

It was a little more than six months after the 9/11 attacks when Dr. James E. Mitchell received a phone call from the chief of department that housed the CIA’s operational psychologists. The request to come to the CIA headquarters in Langley wasn’t seemingly out of place, Dr. Mitchell was already an established consultant with […]