Category: Military History

Editor’s note: This is the fourth part of a series. Captured by the IRA or a blown cover. These were the ultimate sins. In case an operator was compromised, he would either be sent to a different Detachment and location or to the conventional army. So, the three-week Induction Phase, when fresh operators were paired […]

Book Review On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands was a quiet place as the sun came up. Many of the sailors along Battleship Row were feeling the effects of being on liberty ashore drinking which ended at midnight. At dawn, there was a sleepy, Sunday feel to the morning, not much […]

The internet has no shortage of mysteries for those inclined to chase them. Many fit neatly within genres with dedicated fan bases: true crime, Bigfoot, unexplained lights in the sky. But some are so inexplicable, so disturbing, that they worm their way into nearly every corner of the internet’s ever-rolling theory-machine. These mysteries seem to […]

Is this the best strategy in the War on Terror? Like everyone else, we watched riveted as the Pentagon released video of the Special Operations Forces from the 1st SFOD – Delta, commonly known as Delta Force, taking down the compound of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  And as much as everyone complained about President Trump’s comments, […]

Last Saturday, 70 operators hailing from Delta Force’s A Squadron and the 75th Ranger Regiment stormed a compound in the Idlib Province of Northeast Syria, successfully neutralizing one of history’s most despotic leaders, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The story made headlines around the world, but among those who aren’t as well versed in the makeup of […]

The CIA webpage is an oft under-appreciated gem in the U.S. government’s suite of dry, formal websites.  There’s no formal decree that mandates government sites have to be boring, but something about the need to exude inoffensive professionalism throughout every corner of these sprawling domains has sanitized everything .GOV into the digital version of the […]

If America was to survive the bloody deed of taking fortified beaches would have to be mastered. This would require the toughest of men to be trained to the most demanding of standards and that’s what we did. Eight months after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Amphibious Scouts and Raiders school was established to train […]

This is a series. Read part one and two here.   Camp Two was a different pudding. Not to say that the physical or mental pressure eased.  But now it was selection by training as opposed to Camp One’s selection by torture. Nestled in rural Wales, Camp Two resembled an operational Detachment base.  There was a bar, […]

Back in 1988, the Cold War was not quite as pressing a concern as it had been in years past. Mikhail Gorbachev had already begun his Glasnost initiative to open the nation up both internally and externally, and in the minds of many historians, the gears of progress were already turning toward the fall of […]

Just five weeks after the horrible events that unfolded on 9/11 back in 2001, the United States answered. Coalition air forces were already hitting targets in Afghanistan, taking out terrorist training centers and key government installations. But on that day, the first Special Forces troops infiltrated into Afghan territory from Uzbekistan over the Hindu Kush […]

You can read part one here. “From time to time, there is a requirement for men and women to volunteer to undertake special duties of a hazardous nature in Northern Ireland. Selection and training for the special duties is both rigorous and arduous. For further details, see defense council instructions…” Divine words for anyone stranded […]

Back in 2012, police arrived at a Kentucky homeless shelter to arrest a relatively unassuming-looking middle-aged man. Samuel Little was no stranger to run-ins with the law — having been previously arrested for crimes ranging from shoplifting to fraud — so he offered no resistance as local police turned him over to California law enforcement, […]