Special Operations

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 […]

Fuerzas Comando is a military exercise consisting of a skills competition between military and police Special Operations teams from the Western Hemisphere. The event will be hosted by Colombia in 2020. Teams from about 20 countries, including the United States, will be taking part in the challenging contest, which promotes military-to-military relationships, increases training knowledge, […]

So, there we were. It was late winter and we were doing helicopter insert/extract training, known as helocasting, in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. The water was somewhere around 45 degrees. It was cold enough that we were wearing our dry suits instead of wet suits. The dry suits we wore were essentially onesies, with […]

First off, let me preface this article with the fact that I definitely don’t think I’m some gift from God that has come down from the heavens to judge others and act like I know everything. I do feel very fortunate and lucky to have accomplished and experienced the things that I have so far […]

Machine guns are tricky beasts. They are entirely necessary for modern combat, but they tend to be heavy, and not exactly easy for Special Operations troopers to wield in their fast-paced environment — especially when it comes to medium machine guns. The current Big Military General-Purpose machine gun is the M240B and M240L. These 7.62 […]

A team of Marines a carry zodiac boat to finish the boat build and breakdown event during the U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command Raider Games aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. The Raider Games was a 10-mile ruck course with 14 events, including rappelling, pistol slow fire, completion of the obstacle course, […]

There is a certain culture found in the special operations community. These guys are considered to be some of the toughest, strongest, smartest, and most capable individuals in the U.S. military. It is common knowledge that if you need to make a bad guy disappear or to rescue someone from a hostile environment, that one […]

Facing a concerning shortage in special operations personnel, the U.S. military grapples with the reality that, despite the high costs and rigorous standards of training, fewer young Americans are stepping up to join the elite ranks, possibly due to growing societal comfort and diminishing physical and mental aptitude.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley was in Brussels to speak at a gathering of NATO commanders. There he said that the U.S. wants to reduce its footprint in Africa. Meanwhile, France’s President Emmanuel Macron was hosting a conference of the G5 nations (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger) […]

Becoming a Navy Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman (SWCC) is no easy task. The SWCC selection pipeline is designed to weed out the weak and to create a training environment that simulates the stressful conditions that are experienced in real-world situations. If an individual is not physically and mentally prepared, they have very little chance to […]

On August 2, 1964, four North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox (DD731). This did not turn out well for the North Vietnamese. Between American guns and air support, one NV patrol boat was left dead in the water with the remaining badly shot-up. The Maddox took a few machine-gun hits. In spite […]

Suspected Islamic militants attacked a Nigerien military base in a two-pronged assault on Thursday that left at least 25 soldiers dead. Government forces killed 63 jihadists and destroyed several motorcycles.  The attack took place in the town of Chinagodrar, which sits seven miles from Niger’s border with Mali. Although no one has taken responsibility for […]