Tag: green berets

And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand -Coldplay-                              The American major was ready to murder the two top government officials                           […]

On Friday, Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon announced that the security and aerospace company has successfully secured an $8 billion U.S. Defense contract to serve as global logistics support for America’s Special Operations Forces. It is not uncommon for the U.S. military to rely on contracts with private sector organizations for support services like warehouse […]

Flying with the United States Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Nightstalkers,” were some of the most rewarding and intense years of my professional Army career. These are the men and women who, when the President asks in hushed tones if we have the capability to fly specially adapted helicopters into the darkest corners of the […]

As the US involvement was winding down in Vietnam in 1971, there was still dangerous work being down by the Special Operations Forces working under the cover of MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group). This in the shadows unit was once active all South and North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos but as […]

During the war in Vietnam, the US Army Special Forces were headquartered in Nha Trang. During this time, the Special Forces troops had a close liaison with the CIA and the two organizations worked closely on many intelligence and special operations missions. Their most successful covert intelligence unit “Project GAMMA”, had its mission effectively shut […]

US Special Forces counter-terrorism missions in Syria and Iraq get a lot of media coverage, but Green Berets are deployed to over 100 countries on any given year conducting a range of operations as laid out in the unit’s Mission Essential Task List (METL) including everything from counter-proliferation to special warfare.  This past May, Special […]

In 1964, the United States wasn’t yet fully immersed in Vietnam and our commitment at that time were just advisors. Roger Donlon was the Commander of A-726, a Special Forces A-Team from the 7th Special Forces Group. His team was placed in Nam Dong, a strategically placed village 30 miles west of Da Nang and […]

In previous articles, we’ve touched on the different aspects of land navigation. We’ve gotten a few questions and comments about night navigation which is the hardest part of land navigation because all your skills will be tested to the max in the hours of darkness. Rather than re-hashing the entire Land Navigation series of articles, […]

The usual breathless media reports have emerged from the Philippines latest security crisis in regards to American Special Operations units present in the area.  To be sure, the siege of Marawi has spun into a serious attack which bares some resemblance to the 2013 siege of Zamboanga.  Philippine SOF units such as the Light Reaction […]

Three US Special Forces soldiers were murdered by a Jordanian gate guard in 2016 while working what is known as a IA or inter-agency job which sees Green Berets seconded to CIA projects, in this case the training of Syrian militia who will then infiltrate back across the border and engage in the Syrian civil […]

During the lead up to Memorial Day here at  SpecialOperations.com we’re looking at some of the more interesting tidbits of our history. Some you may not have heard of before and others may be familiar to you. While the US had sent Special Forces advisors to South East Asia during the 1950s to Vietnam and to […]

Before the days of Salomon, Merrell, Oakley (all of which I own and love) and the endless list of boot options available to soldiers (at least in the SOF community), and the “after market” desert boots available to all, there was one venerable, unchallenged boot for the grunt. Few items conjure a nostalgia like seeing […]