Category: War Stories

October 5th, 2013 holds a special place in my heart. We lost four of our own, and the ensuing months held some of the most difficult and trying days I think I will ever experience. I escorted the body of Sgt. Patrick Hawkins, my dear friend and brother-in-arms, from the battlefield, to the plane across […]

Read part one here. Following our initial introduction and preliminary course of fire on the first day, the overall course structure was roughly laid out and presented to us, as students attending the sniper training. It was a course that consisted of a focus on marksmanship principles with long distance application paired with camouflaging and […]

All drawings feature in this essay are by Small Daughter, Ms. Regan Christine Hand (You can read part III here) (Dedication for this essay goes to SOFREP brother Tim E. ) I got a shot of heparin every day in the gut, next to my heinous incision. Day after day, right in the gut. “What […]

All drawings courtesy of Small Daughter, Ms. Regan Christine Hand (you can read part II here) (Dedication of this essay goes to SOFREP brother Mr. Thomas Gomez) Preface: my recent 36-day stay in the hospital began with an emergency surgery that left my entire abdomen open for a period of three days before surgeons were […]

Merry Christmas to All, we sincerely hope each and every one of you has a safe and happy day surrounded by family and loved ones. Originally, I was going to write about a Christmas being away from home, but even a good story and a funny one is a bit depressing when you’re far from […]

Imagine yourself in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan. Maybe the sun is high in the sky, blasting relentlessly at the heavily armed soldiers below, or maybe the moon is high, gently illuminating the shivering bodies across the Afghan, semi-arid desert. It’s been a long mission, and the dirt below your tired feet is tilled […]

Christmas Day, 1968 was just another day for MACV-SOG Spike Team Idaho. Early that morning ST Idaho was loaded onto Kingbees and flown to the Quang Tri launch site. That day’s target was one of the MA targets west of the DMZ in Laos, along the river that ran through the DMZ. In the briefing […]

You wouldn’t expect to find the celebration of Christmas in the Middle East. The Pagan/Christian holiday doesn’t really fit into the whole Islamic cultural narrative except as maybe a subject of protest. But there I stood, on a Kurdish sidewalk in Sulaymaniyah staring into a local shop window. In the window, a snowy landscape adorned […]

I’m not the type of person that puts value in obscure objects just because “I’ve had them since I was X years old.” I am constantly rifling through my drawers, under my bed and through my storage unit, throwing things away that have no utilitarian or decorative value. Sentiment hasn’t gotten me much over the […]

It’s an early morning in Eastern Ukraine, we stand outside, My friend and I, smoking cigarettes in a gazebo next to the parade grounds of an unknown Regiment; our field packs, battle rattle, and rifles in tow. I felt a little awkward showing up for a sniper course carrying an AK74 but also figured we’d […]

(you can read part I here) (dedication for this essay goes to Mr. Alex Hollings) Preface: my recent 36-day stay in the hospital began with an emergency surgery that left my entire abdomen open for a period of three days before surgeons were satisfied with the disposition of my sepsis to close my abdomen. My dreamscape […]

[Editor’s Note: This is the seventh in a series of exclusive SOFREP stories of what led to the MACV-SOG Bright Light mission that haunts SOG Green Beret SSG James H. Shorten (Jones) to this day. It has taken him back to Cambodia twice. He hopes to return to Cambodia in 2018 to help DPAA officials […]