Category: Military History

The men dropped to one knee on the side of a dirty mountain road, their breath frosting into tiny, pulsing clouds as they focused a stare toward the objective. From here the twin peaks belied a peaceful scene of deep green slopes and gentle curving crests that melded with countless others in the region. Any […]

In May of 1969 Recon Team Illinois was infiltrated into Cambodia to conduct a Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) on the latest airstrike as a part of Henry Kissinger’s so-called “secret” bombing campaign. This was the third bombing of Operation Menu, this time targeting the North Vietnamese Army’s 27th Infantry Regiment’s base camp. On the ground […]

Part 4 of 5   “JSOC is Awesome”   In 2004, Delta Force took part in both the First and Second Battles of Fallujah. While its activities in the later November assault remain almost completely unreported, tales of heroism highlight the Unit’s role in the earlier April operation. Master Sgt. Don Hollenbaugh and Staff Sgt. […]

Part 3 of 5   The Industrial (Counter-Terrorism) Revolution   The early days following the invasion of Iraq saw joyous celebrations of Saddam Hussein’s ouster spill out into the streets. However, those streets soon took on a very different feel. The nation devolved into chaos and bloodshed, and as much as the Coalition attempted to […]

For almost 6 months after December 7th, 1941, the Japanese war machine swept all before it in a series of attacks and offensives that shocked the United States and its allies. In this period, dozens of islands, most with insignificant names bound for glory, were set up to form barriers to protect the Japanese mainland. […]

Meet one of my favorite snipers…. Lyudmila Pavlichenko Compiled from Wikipedia and other sites: 309 Confirmed Kills Born in the Ukranian town of Belaya Tserkov on July 12, 1916, Pavlichenko moved to Kiev with her family at the age of fourteen. There she joined a shooting club and developed into a seasoned sharpshooter. Pavlichenko was among the first […]

Part 2 of 5   New Threat, Old Mindset   One might expect that any pre-9/11 obstacles that stood in the way of setting Delta Force loose in pursuit of America’s enemies would have been torn down along with the twin towers of the World Trade Center. That was not the case — at least […]

By the Spring of 1970 the United States found itself entering a 5th year of combat operations in South Vietnam. Richard Nixon’s pledge of turning the war over through Vietnamization – that is, making the South take over the bulk of the fighting – was underway. Yet hundreds of miles north, in cramped, filthy cells, […]

My buddy Chris Martin just finished putting together an amazing article about Delta Force, aggregating all of the open source information that has been released, especially since the beginning of the War on Terror.  Chris did an amazing job and I’m really flattered that he chose SOFREP as the venue to distribute his work.  We […]

April 25, 1980, was a defining moment for Special Operations as the tragic news of the failed Desert One mission became known that day. President Jimmy Carter announced a secret rescue mission for the Iranian hostages had failed; eight American servicemen were dead and several others were seriously injured. Desert One The tragedy at Desert […]

One of the great stories to emerge from the Second World War was that of the British pursuit and eventual destruction of the German battleship Bismarck. By January 1942, the tale already began to pass into legend when a new threat, just as dangerous, sailed from Germany and dropped anchor in a Norwegian fjord. The […]

The 4 men appeared normal, their blue attire that of the Algerian Presidential police with Air Algirie logos inscribed. They stepped aboard the Airbus A300, belonging to Air France Flight 8969 as it readied to depart Algiers for Paris with 229 passengers on Christmas Eve, 1994. Moving from aisle to aisle they requested passengers passports. […]