History

The Mattis way of war

Former Secretary of Defence General James Mattis’s no-nonsense approach to life is well-known. Before and during his tenure as SecDef, he pushed for more focus on warfighting and less emphasis on senseless exercises and training.  Gauging by his time of military, and now public service, the Secretary of Defense appears to prefer logic, and not […]

UK Special Forces breakdown: The Special Boat Service (SBS)

Note: This is part three of a multi-part series exploring the various units within the U.K. Special Forces (UKSF). The Special Boat Service (SBS), one of the oldest Special Forces regiments, is the U.K.’s premier naval counter-terrorism unit (CT). The unit is tasked with addressing assaults on U.K.’s maritime interests. Over the years the SBS […]

Benjamin Church and the beginnings of the Rangers in Colonial New England

While the majority of people associated with our Special Operations Forces consider Robert Rogers as the father of the Ranger Regiment, his troops weren’t the true first American Rangers, that distinction, which outside of historians in New England many people don’t know, falls to Benjamin Church. Benjamin Church created the first true Ranger force, circa […]

The birth of the famous Gatling gun

There are some things that stand the test of time and Richard Gatling’s invention of the earliest days of the American Civil War has certainly fit that description. Gatling was an inventor who fashioned the first machine gun, although a different design by most standards. His basic design with many modern variants is still in […]

On this day in 1863: Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address

In late November 1863, President Lincoln gave perhaps one of the most important speeches in American history. On the 19th of November that year, the government was dedicating the National Cemetery at Gettysburg Pennsylvania where the bloodiest battle of the Civil War had been fought just a few months before. Between North and South, there […]

The true story behind NASA’s 1973 Skylab ‘mutiny’

The International Space Station has been in orbit around our planet since 1998, providing the human race with a (semi) permanent habitable space at the front door of the great beyond. That timeline offers an interesting bit of perspective — as you come to realize that America’s latest generation of enlisted warfighters, joining the service […]

Check out this exclusive interview with the director of ‘Midway’

Our friends at We Are The Mighty recently sat down with director Roland Emmerich to discuss his latest film, Midway. The film has since been released in theaters nation-wide, but whether you have seen the film already or not, this is a must-read interview.   ‘Midway’ Director profiles unknown heroes behind Navy’s greatest comeback Article […]

Station IX: A place of invention for the dark arts during WWII

Situated in southern England, near the town of Welwyn, lies a stately mansion known as the “Frythe.” During the Second World War, this once-private residence became home to Station IX, a research and development center created by Great Britain’s Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.), an organization responsible for running agents and supplying resistance movements behind enemy […]

The Rhodesian SAS Files: What was the Rhodesian SAS?

In this SOFREP exclusive interview, we sat down with Keith Nell, the Rhodesian Special Air Service operator who was assigned to hunt down and eliminate the terrorists responsible for what has been called “Rhodesia’s 9/11.” By 1978, the Rhodesian Bush War between ZIPRA and ZANLA communist terrorists had terrorized the local villages in the area. […]