Category: Military History

During World War II, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), Special Operations Branch had recruited foreign language speakers who would volunteer for hazardous duty behind enemy lines and parachute into denied territory. The Jedburgh teams were born. Wanted: Volunteers for immediate overseas assignment. Knowledge of French or another European language preferred; Willingness and ability to […]

During the early years of World War II, the United States Marine Corps Raider battalions became the first American elite units committed to battle the Axis. Though originally conceived as a counterpart to the British commandos, the Raiders proved to be much more, and like their English brethren, laid the groundwork for the future while […]

When I was in the sixth grade, the middle school I attended had a special program that allowed students with good grades to miss class time occasionally to take part in a form of “independent study.” The program required that each student choose a topic, research it thoroughly over the course of a year, and […]

Ralph W. McGehee is a veteran of two and a half decades with the Central Intelligence Agency. McGehee was recruited in 1952 and stationed in Southeast Asia in the mid-1960s. “Dad, what do you do?” my 13-year-old daughter Peggy asked about six months after we had settled into our home in North Thailand. She had been […]

Say what you will about CNN, one thing you can’t question is their tenacity for staying on the air and providing the world with a source of information in even the most dire of circumstances.  Be it war, hurricanes, or the actual apocalypse, you can always turn on your TV, flip it to CNN, and […]

Note: This is part of a series. Read part one here. At the onset World War I, there was very little in the way of hand-to-hand training, or special operations forces for that matter. The only notable guerrilla forces during the war were led by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and the German, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, and […]

“We are the worst nightmare of the enemy,” Lieutenant Colonel Rapi told me while speaking of the Philippine Scout-Rangers when I met him at Special Operations Command at Fort Magsaysay. To find out why the Scout-Rangers are so formidable, I had to travel to the Philippines southernmost major island called Tawi-Tawi. It was early in […]

Read Part 19 HERE “I’ve worked with a lot of different nations and Korea is one of the best in Asia. Singaporeans are pretty good, Japanese are good, but Koreans are well structured, disciplined, and well equipped,” Tae said. With American help the damage caused by the war would be minimized however. The North Korean […]

Since the dawn of warfare, so since the very beginning, man has sought the ability to subdue or kill his opponents with his bare hands. Weapons have changed, but not alleviated, that search. Bones and shafts break. Arrows and bullets run out. Swords and rifles get dropped and lost. Then, the warrior has only his wits and whatever […]

Read Part 18 HERE Back in Korea, there was a pretty good dust-up as the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry decided that Detachment K would now be known as Special Forces Detachment 39. Special Forces veterans and careful researchers may note that Det 39 is actually the designation of the now-deactivated Detachment A in Berlin, while […]

Read Part 17 HERE When 9/11 came, South Korea had already been taking terrorism far more seriously than the United States ever did. The Detachment wanted to go to war but found themselves stuck in South Korea. “Me and the commander came up with the international play of sending the Koreans. SOCKOR took it to […]

Read Part 16 HERE Despite other successes, Delta Force concluded that the 707th still had some work to do. Many allied foreign counter-terrorism units come to visit and train on the Delta Force compound at Fort Bragg. “We would embrace them if we knew and liked them and if we didn’t we would feel them […]