Category: Military History

In episode 284 of the Big Picture, “The Lodge Act Soldier” screened in 1954 to inform the American public that they are now locked in a political, economic, and psychological struggle with the communist menace, a war the likes of which the US military had never been confronted with before.  To that end, and to […]

One hundred years ago, on April 6, 1917, Congress voted to declare war on imperial Germany. The First World War was the pivot of the 20th century: It took the lives of 17 million people and resulted in the collapse of three major empires (the German, the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian). In the aftermath, totalitarian […]

The legend of Grigori Rasputin, commonly referred to as simply, “Rasputin,” has a significant reach.  Even before I was aware of the tsarist government in Russia that allowed his rise to power, before I know who Tsar Nicholas II was, pop-culture had left me acutely aware of the Russian mystic that proved so difficult to […]

  Less than 24 hours after two US Navy destroyers pulled up to Syria’s Mediterranean coast and let fly a blistering salvo of 59 cruise missiles, Syrian warplanes took off from the damaged air base targeted by the strike, according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory. The US strike, retaliation for a chemical attack in […]

While doing some research on North Korea, I came across an interesting article about how North Korean military advisors to Uganda partly inspired a bizarre cult-like guerrilla group called the Holy Spirit Movement.  This movement later played into the formation of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.  Also during the 1980’s, it is interesting to note […]

It was 47 years ago, that US Army Special Forces SGT Brian Buker would lose his life in a battle for a Viet Cong mountain stronghold at Nui Khet. For his actions in the three-day battle, Buker would posthumously be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Buker was killed by a combination of rocket and […]

As typical of Russian propaganda and so-called “fake news” we are told by state-sponsored active measures efforts like Russia Today that everything America does is imperialist, neo-colonialist, and needlessly provocative.  Watching RT is like listening to Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn get up to the podium at some lefty university event wearing a sweater with […]

Navy F-14s were retired from service in 2006, and prior to their 1979 revolution, were even sold to nations like Iran.  However, since Tehran fell under the control of a hostile regime all those years ago, their F-14 Tomcats have been without a source of replacement parts, as the United States Military not only cut […]

Air Force General John E. Hyten, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, spoke at the Military Reporters and Editors annual meeting on Friday, taking the opportunity to address the importance of modernizing America’s nuclear arsenal. According to the General, the United States already possesses “about the right numbers” of nuclear warheads, but the outdated technology we’re […]

One of the more amazing stories to emerge from the eight-year secret war during the Vietnam War took place on October 5, 1968, west of the A Shau Valley—one of the deadliest targets run by recon teams based at the top-secret compound in Phu Bai, FOB 1, run under the aegis of the Military Assistance […]

On a snowy night in January 1979, Werner Stiller stepped into his office in Berlin, pried open a safe and grabbed the transit papers that would allow him to travel safely from the city’s communist eastern half to freedom in the west. He had already sent his wife a goodbye letter stuffed with 10,000 German […]

I sat down with a former Ranger medic from 3rd Ranger Battalion for a few hours to talk about the massive rescue and recovery operation following Operation Red Wings. Doc’s platoon was alerted and deployed to Afghanistan within 18 hours. SOFREP: What was going through your head when you first got the page to deploy […]