Green Beret

Sometimes you get lucky and your plan works just as you thought it would. Enjoy those days, because there will not be many of them. No matter how smart you are or how hard you work, on the battlefield, the enemy always gets a vote. The famous philosopher Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan […]

During a firefight near the Cambodian border on June 6, 1968, a 1st Infantry Division soldier got a pleasant surprise as he watched a North Vietnamese Army infantryman aim his rifle, pull the trigger and explode in a cloud of black smoke. American troops later examined the remains of the NVA soldier and his exploded […]

By November of 1970, there were 450 known American POWs in Vietnam and more than double that amount who were missing. Reports were surfacing of brutal conditions, torture and starvation of American POWs. Operation Ivory Coast was the mission by U.S. Army Green Berets flown in by Air Force Commandos to rescue the POWs at […]

The history of things, whatever they are, has always been fascinating to me for one reason or another. The same goes for etymology or the history of words. But, for today I’m going to attempt to write a few articles on something that’s popped up. Berets–their respective colors, whose heritage those colors are tied to […]

It was 2009 in Iraq when one of my teammates decided to initiate an impromptu combatives match with half of a SEAL platoon, never a great idea under any circumstances.  He was the senior Special Forces medic on our team and we had been doing some joint operations with a SEAL platoon in Mosul.  Now […]

What happened here???: WASHINGTON — Navy criminal authorities are investigating whether two members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 strangled to death an Army Green Beret on assignment in Mali in June, military officials say. Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar, a 34-year-old veteran of two deployments to Afghanistan, was found dead on June 4 […]

Photo courtesy of GORUCK Instagram With the fall season upon us, that forces some of us indoors for workouts. For those of us without gym memberships or just flat out don’t want to go to a gym, there are options. I like the idea of working out at home with minimal equipment. I’ve done other […]

Phil Melcher may never know about the total impact he has made throughout the world, but he got a glimpse of it through a chance meeting in Columbia several years ago. Melcher, an Army Green Beret, was serving in the South American country when he was woken up at 2 a.m. to deliver a baby. […]

On this day: October 12th 1961 — Long before President John F. Kennedy’s vision of the “soldier statesmen” concept that came to be embodied by the American Special Forces soldier was solidified with his authorization of the distinctive Green Beret, Special Forces soldiers had sought headgear that would instantly set them apart from other soldiers. […]

Yesterday we wrote about the tragedy of 9-11 and the horror that we all felt that day 16 years ago as we watched planes fly into the World Trade Center and the thousands of lives that were lost in New York City, in Washington D.C., and in rural Pennsylvania. Almost everyone in the country either […]

Yesterday we wrote about the tragedy of 9-11 and the horror that we all felt that day 16 years ago as we watched planes fly into the World Trade Center and the thousands of lives that were lost in New York City, in Washington D.C., and in rural Pennsylvania. Almost everyone in the country either […]

First, I would like everyone to know that this is published as a free article. While SOFREP normally keeps full articles internal to subscribers, I asked that this one be available to be seen by all. I contacted parents and friends of both Matt and Forrest to make sure it was okay to write and publish […]