His Navy SEAL son committed suicide, now he fights for his name

On a Sunday morning of 2017, Ryan Larkin, a Navy SEAL with four combat deployments under his belt, committed suicide. He was just 29 years old. He was haunted by a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) that was caused by repeated exposure to concussive blows and explosions. But the Navy and the Department of Veteran Affairs […]

Thinking Before Shooting: Intelligence and Special Operations

The attacks of 9/11, which seem so long ago, caught the United States by surprise. There were some warning signs that were missed by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies but pointing the finger isn’t the purpose here. The last 16 years have seen our forces fighting a different kind of war, with a different […]

Gone too soon: Delta Force legend Robert Horrigan

I’m an idiot. How many times have I told myself not to chat up the owners of the corner kiosks for language training? Pick a kiosk that you don’t have to pass to get to and from your safe house; every time you pass, they will see you and wave you down to chat. If […]

That Time When Yemeni Rebels Beheaded Two SAS Operators

Amidst the rugged Radfan mountains and the political upheaval of 1964 Aden, the SAS faced treacherous tribal rebels, culminating in harrowing skirmishes and a stark reminder of war’s brutalities within Aden’s city limits.

Less Blackhawks, more Chinooks for Afghanistan’s premier SOF aviation unit

Afghanistan’s premier Special Operations Aviation unit is slotted to receive an unspecified number of CH-47 Chinooks from the U.S. Established in 2005, the Special Mission Wing (SMW) is the cream of the crop of the AAF. With less than 1,000 pilots and ground personnel in its ranks, the unit was initially designed to support counter-narcotics […]

The Pic of the Day: Spec Ops helicopters doing some cool moves

U.S. airmen assigned to the 352d Special Operations Wing fly a CV-22B Osprey aircraft over Hungary October 28, 2019. U.S. Special Operations Forces conducted a bilateral exercise with Hungarian SOF to focus on interoperability and integration developing a special operations air task group capacity.

Op-Ed: The legal conundrum behind the definition of Terrorism

Despite numerous efforts since the 1920s, the international community has failed to define or criminalize “terrorism” in international law. There is a sizeable international disagreement on what exactly defines terrorism. This inability to come to a general agreement is the stem of many shortcomings on the international laws of terrorism. These shortcomings of international law […]

The Pic of the Day: US and Norwegian operators rocking some Vietnam-era weapons

A soldier with the Norwegian Armed Forces prepares to fire an M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapon alongside special tactics operators from 352nd Special Operations Wing, during a live-fire training near Banak Air Base, Norway, Dec. 10, 2019. The training was part of a bigger exercise that encompassed live ammunition fire, infiltration and exfiltration and cold-weather training […]

1st Recon Battalion voted the fittest unit in the Marine Corps

The 1st Reconnaissance Battalion was voted the fittest unit in the entire Marine Corps. To achieve this honor, the 1st Recon Marines had to beat not only the other Recon battalions but also the Marine Raider units. This is the second year that the Marine Corps is holding this competition. To win, a unit must […]

Special Operations Tips: The Value of Bottom-up Planning

In the first three articles of this five-part series, you learned what it means to be Special Forces; how those warriors are found; and how they are groomed over time to allow them to accomplish the missions they are tasked with. In this article, I’ll explain why, even with great soldiers and great culture, there still needs to be […]