Category: Military History

As the senior military branch of the United States Armed Forces, the Army’s roots reach all the way back to the Continental Army, first established on 14 June, 1775.  The Army as we now know it, however, was born on 3 June, 1784, when the Congress of the Confederation (America’s Congress prior to the establishment […]

Winston Churchill: British Prime Minister, writer and military man. His name is one of the most well-known in the United Kingdom and remains immensely popular not only throughout England, but around the world. He was undoubtedly a controversial figure, but remains one of the most well-regarded Prime Ministers in British history according to several polls. […]

Christmas Day, 1968 was just another day for MACV-SOG Spike Team Idaho. Early that morning ST Idaho was loaded onto Kingbees and flown to the Quang Tri launch site. That day’s target was one of the MA targets west of the DMZ in Laos, along the river that ran through the DMZ. In the briefing […]

Christmas Day, 1914: German and British troops are out of their trenches, playing soccer, bartering goods and singing songs. For a brief moment, the fighting has ceased. The previous night, soldiers on both sides had begun singing Christmas songs in their respective languages — but under a unified melody. Music was often a commonality between […]

“U.S. and Allied #SOF conduct joint sniper training at the International Special Training Centre (ISTC) Basic Sniper Course held in Hohenfels, Germany: #WeAreNATO #ReadyForces”   Courtesy of US Spec Ops Europe on Twitter.   To learn more about some of the camouflage methods utilized by Special Operations snipers, watch the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8MFlBeSNM  

“U.S. and Allied #SOF conduct joint sniper training at the International Special Training Centre (ISTC) Basic Sniper Course held in Hohenfels, Germany.” This image of U.S. and allied Special Operations war fighters conducting sniper training was provided by the official U.S. Spec Ops Europe Twitter account.  Follow U.S. Spec Ops Europe to learn more about […]

On December 19, 1972, a command module came careening back into Earth’s atmosphere, deployed its parachutes and landed in the Pacific Ocean at 2:25 p.m. The USS Ticonderoga, an Essex class aircraft carrier that has since been decommissioned and scrapped, was located only four miles away and they picked up the three astronauts, safely bringing […]

World War II got off to a bad start for the British. About two weeks after Poland surrendered to Germany at the end of September — succumbing to a month of the Nazi blitzkrieg — the British battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a U-boat, claiming more than 800 British sailors. That was followed in short […]

CV-22 Osprey’s from the 352d Special Operations Wing and HH-60 Pave Hawks from the 48th Fighter Wing flew together in a joint formation around southern England Aug. 31, 2017. This flight gave pilots of both units the ability to practice working together in different formations and to hone how they would act and react as […]

CV-22 Osprey’s from the 352d Special Operations Wing and HH-60 Pave Hawks from the 48th Fighter Wing flew together in a joint formation around southern England Aug. 31, 2017. This flight gave pilots of both units the ability to practice working together in different formations and to hone how they would act and react as […]

December 17, 2011 — Kim Jong Il was reported to have had a heart attack on a train just outside of Pyongyang, North Korea. He was the leader of North Korea, succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Il had himself succeeded his own father, Kim Il-sung, who died at the age of […]

[Editor’s Note: This is the seventh in a series of exclusive SOFREP stories of what led to the MACV-SOG Bright Light mission that haunts SOG Green Beret SSG James H. Shorten (Jones) to this day. It has taken him back to Cambodia twice. He hopes to return to Cambodia in 2018 to help DPAA officials […]