Beyond Neptune Spear: The (Open) Secret History of SEAL Team Six (Part 4)

Land Sharks   Delta’s lead role in Iraq gave the Army unit the inside track on the $100 million checklist of HVTs it took down there, including Saddam Hussein, his sons Uday and Qusay, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. But DEVGRU’s patience would pay big dividends when the nation’s attention […]

Operation Vengeance: Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

No one in Japan’s military was responsible for more devastation and humiliation to the United States in the opening months of the Pacific war than Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. His cunning and strategizing, beginning with the Pearl Harbor attack, permitted a sweep across the oceans to achieve a success unlike any the empire had ever known. […]

Beyond Neptune Spear: The (Open) Secret History of SEAL Team Six (Part 3)

 Into the Fire   Despite being forced to wait its turn to enter the fight in the Global War on Terror (Delta was the first special mission unit that JSOC sent to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11), DEVGRU would play a pivotal role in a number of major actions that took place during the […]

Black Cats Rule The Night

With their greatest ally, the darkness, stolen from them, the Japanese would watch in horror as a random ship, then another, exploded in a blinding mass of flame

Ranger History: The Persian Gulf War

The history of the modern Ranger Regiment is a very colorful one; we who join the 75th are expected to study and memorize our heritage from the days of Francis Marion in the American Revolution to the Battle of Takur Ghar in Afghanistan and to more recent times. We jumped into Grenada in ’83, we jumped into Panama in […]

Until They Are Home: WWII MIAs and JPAC

Gray clouds rimmed with bright edges hung low over the horizon near the south Pacific island of Espiritu Santo. Winds teased the palm fronds in gentle sways as a deep rumbling, alien, but in the last months, familiar to this tranquil place, echoed through the jungle then back to its source: Twin engines of a […]

Merrill’s Marauders: America’s Original Asymmetric Warfare Group

Modeled after British Brigadier General Orde Wingate’s Long Range Penetration Force, the ‘Chindits,’ volunteers of the U.S. 5307th Composite Unit arrived in Bombay, India on October 31st, 1943, to begin training alongside their counterpart. Appointed to command them was Brigadier General Frank Merrill, who once served as a military attaché’ to Burma, and answered directly […]

The Legend and Truth of Jerry “Mad Dog” Shriver

If you read much fiction about Vietnam, or even watch movies about it, chances are you’ll frequently bump into a character who has become a stereotype of the subgenre. This stereotype was rarely, if ever, seen in film or fiction before Vietnam. The character is eccentric on his good days; psychotic the rest of the […]

The Brandenburgers: Warrior Spies of Nazi Germany

The pre-war German Army rejected Captain Theodore von Hippel’s idea of using small units of highly trained men to penetrate enemy defenses before main actions began. They felt it was beneath the dignity of true soldiers to engage in such renegade conduct and so sent the young Captain packing. Down but not out, he ended […]

How to Invent a War

On August 5th, 1964 three fast moving patrol boats of the North Vietnamese Navy’s 135th Torpedo Squadron sped across the black waters of the Gulf of Tonkin towards the United States Navy’s USS Maddox which was conducting an intelligence gathering operation off the coast of communist controlled shores in South East Asia. Taking evasive maneuvers, […]

Ordeal At Lima Site 85

January 12, 1968: High above the Laotian jungle, the 2 Antonov An-2 Colt biplanes banked to begin another run over the target. 120mm mortar shells fell from their bellies as rockets fired from wings, hoping to hit the small collection of buildings perched on the rocky ledge of a large mountain. The structures looked as […]