Category: War Stories

SOFREP is proud to present its guest author, Zachary Mayne, veteran of 3rd Ranger Battalion.  Welcome, Zachary! Five weeks after being wounded by a burst of high-explosive rounds in combat, I was hooking up my static line for a daylight, Hollywood jump over Fryar DZ. My wounds had healed quickly, it seemed. The sight had […]

Major Hugh Seagrim is a western name known by many in the jungles of Burma. He was a British officer in the army during WWII and became a hero among the Karen people back then and remains one today. They called him “Grandfather Longlegs” when he fought alongside them, due to his tall, lanky stature […]

“The greatest teacher, failure is,” said Yoda. Or if Winston Churchill is more your speed: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” When I was a gun team leader in the 3rd Ranger Battalion, I felt like I knew what I was doing. I struggled from switching from a position […]

What do you think of when you think of war music? Maybe you think of the civil war style snare drum with an accompanying trumpet, maybe you think of an orchestra of brass and strings that could be put to a war movie about brave soldiers in harrowing circumstances — there’s a good chance you […]

Kurt: Who are you and what’s your background besides YPG? Mitchell: Mitchell Clark — I have a pretty typical small town AmericanAmericanAmerican story. I grew up playing football and got really serious about it in high school. I was planning on going to college to play, but I had a severe shoulder injury that pretty […]

This isn’t a story about combat heroics. It’s just about doing what needs to be done, in the very essence of the phrase. It was the middle of the Afghan night; the air was hot and my sweat was cold, matting my clothes to my body under my kit. I breathed heavily as the NODs […]

War is hell. You’ve heard the phrase, and I suppose it’s true. The worst things I’ve ever seen have been in a war, though some of the most courageous and admirable things I’ve ever seen have also been in a war. With extreme darkness you notice the contrast of a little light a whole lot […]

(You can read part IV here) Featured photo: author’s incision as of this writing. Dedication for this essay goes to SOFREP sister Ms. Rita Malone Paul. I surmised, with not too much effort, that the number of times I attempted to unhook from my life support systems to venture off on a more meaningful existence […]

My last deployment was a little rougher than the rest, and I came home with an injury from which I would make a full recovery. The nature of the injury is not really worth mentioning, and many on the ground that night were hit much harder — some lost their lives, some lost limbs or […]

I had been in Kurdistan, northern Iraq, for about a whole two weeks and was probably as “green” as I could possibly be. The region was still engaged in a heated conflict with IS and attacks of all kinds were occurring daily. I had just arrived at the Peshmerga‘s 9th Brigade, one of the only […]

(you can read part I here) At once I was startled as I nearly plowed into the back of the halted mortar ring. Halted?? Excitement was crawling into my gut. I was then alarmed by the realization that I was standing on the port side (left) of the ring… the flat side that it would […]

They say that out of all the senses, smell is the most linked to memory. The smell of Grandma’s cooking when you step barefoot on her hard wooden floor, the smell of freshly washed sheets as you lay your head on your pillow, or even the smell of the lubricant that makes a rifle operate […]