Category: Featured

I love history, I love literature, and I love phrases like “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; / For he to-day that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother.” I desperately want to read and understand the context behind these lines; I would love to know something of the king who, […]

When most people thing of Walt Whitman, they think of “O Captain! my Captain!” Perhaps this is from a high school English class like mine, perhaps it’s from the “Dead Poets Society” movie with Robin Williams. However, he wrote hundreds of other poems and was quite popular in his day — though just as controversial, […]

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is described by the Concussion Legacy Foundation as “a degenerative brain disease found in athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma.” A degenerative disease is one that essentially deteriorates organs or tissues — in this case the brain. CTE can affect people in a variety of […]

Most people prefer the ease of GPS over a map and compass — in a combat scenario, stopping and conducting map-checks by definition leave the element exposed, it takes unnecessary time, and requires the element to set up security and then break it again down upon movement. GPS takes all of those out of play, […]

BBC (available on Netflix) has released the fourth season of “Peaky Blinders” recently, a show centered around British gangsters of the same name in 1919. We follow Tommy Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy, as he takes his small, hometown, family-run gang beyond the small pickings of local crime and into some high-risk high-reward criminal ventures. […]

Happy New Year from the U.K. It’s that time of year again when everyone gets a fresh start, makes a thousand promises and declares a new way of life. I am no different and want to welcome you 2018 the way I see it. I’m going to give you two takes: one of my own […]

Sgt. Zachary Mayne, former team leader of 3rd Ranger Battalion, has suffered two separate combat traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) during his deployments to Afghanistan. In an interview with SOFREP, he said that, …my second blast TBI definitely shifted my views on the whole issue. I only had headaches for a few days from the first, […]

They say that out of all the senses, smell is the most linked to memory. The smell of Grandma’s cooking when you step barefoot on her hard wooden floor, the smell of freshly washed sheets as you lay your head on your pillow, or even the smell of the lubricant that makes a rifle operate […]

In recent months, the behavior of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and the allegations made against him by dozens of women has taken America by storm and set off a chain reaction of women coming forward to speak about workplace sexual assault, sexual harassment, and the boys club that perpetuates this type of bad behavior. While […]

During the writing of “The Final Mission of Extortion 17,” I learned of a very interesting type of operation Extortion Company Chinooks supported: MAF, or Mobile Assault Force. During an MAF raid, Chinooks of Extortion Company (the Army aviation unit to which Extortion 17 belonged) would insert members of DEVGRU SEALs using dirt bikes and […]

One of the hallmarks of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) – 160th SOAR(A) – AKA “The Night Stalkers,” is that they rarely fly during the day. One of the most secretive of all American special operations units, the 160th flies during daylight hours only in extreme circumstances. One of these times was during […]

Basic Training, Infantry AIT, Airborne School, Ranger School — these are some of the many schools listed when people try to express to others their proficiency in tactical skills. If a potential employer reads “Ranger School,” then it is inferred that the job candidate has a high level of tactical knowledge. It’s true, to a […]