Making the big leap from high school to Special Operations

A good friend of mine is a career law enforcement professional here in New England and although we don’t hang out on a regular basis, whenever we run into one another we’ll stop and catch up. So weaving around a stoppage in the road a few weeks ago, I saw my friend trying to make […]

SOF truths with a twist: Good leaders can’t be mass produced

Opinion: Our Special Operations Command has been in the news these days for much of the wrong reasons. And with the number of questions we’ve gotten asking about the different Selection courses for SOF with an increasing number from potential officers, I felt it was time to address an issue. An increasing number of Special […]

Heading to selection? Identify your weaknesses and take them on

This is for the young troops heading to Spec Ops Selection. It doesn’t matter if it is for the Ranger Regiment, Air Force Special Operations, Navy SEAL or SFAS. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Nobody does everything perfectly, well some very rare guys do, but even they started from somewhere.  When preparing for […]

Rucking for the SOF Candidate, “Wear it until you love it”

Recently we have revisited some of the basics of Land Navigation, one of the trio of the biggest obstacles that Special Operations candidates will face in their individual Selection courses. And now we’ll move on to the next one, and one we always get a lot of questions about. Rucking. I look upon rucking just […]

French Commando seriously wounded battling ISIS in Mali

A French Special Operations soldier was seriously injured during an anti-ISIS operation in Mali in which the French stated that they “put five terrorists out of action.” The French Armed Forces Ministry released a statement saying that during a November 16 operation into the Menaka region of Mali, where the Islamic State is growing in […]

Spec Ops Infantry? It won’t work

This article should start with the statement that this isn’t an attack on Major General Robert Scales at all. Scales recently wrote an intriguing piece on how to try to “bottle SOF” and make our United States infantry units in the Army and Marine Corps as good as our SOF operators.  Scales earned a Silver […]

“Alive”: A fitting Veterans Day documentary for everyone

 “Alive” is a documentary by award-winning director Stephanie Soechtig that focuses on five American soldiers, who were seriously injured during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Scheduled for general release on November 11 at 9:00 p.m. by Epix, the film is a fitting tribute to watch on Veterans Day.  SOFREP was given an exclusive first […]

Learn to ruck like a pro before you get to selection

For our readers who are attempting to become part of our Special Operations Forces, of course after volunteering, the first obstacle in your path is passing Selection. And the biggest key to that is being properly prepared to do so. We went back and recently posted a series of articles on Land Navigation where we […]

SOF tips: Decrease lower back pain and workout more effectively

Like many of us, I had issues with occasional lower back pain while in the military. Eventually, suffering a major injury that required surgery, that was in no way related to the normal workout routine that the Army conducts with soldiers doing PT. However, it wasn’t until many years later, I was doing some physical […]

Feed the beast! Proper nutrition will help in SOF preparation

When we write about preparing for the rigors of Selection and the qualification courses here in Special Operations.com, one specific area we don’t write about often is proper nutrition. It is an oversight on our part and it is for two very good reasons. Number one, I am not a nutritionist and have no training […]

How can women improve on rucking for Special Operations selection?

Rucking is one of the biggest discriminators for Special Operations Selection. It, along with Land Navigation are two of the biggest problem areas that candidates face when attempting to enter into one of the units in the military. And now with Special Operations open to women, they face the same issues that men face. In […]