Vietnam War

Frequently, we get emails or tweets here at SpecialOperations.com in the realm of questions about the training and the qualification course. Many of course deal with Selection and I have to tell people that the Instructors don’t actually kill anyone during the events and one doesn’t have to be 10-feet tall to pass. But one […]

First of all, a belated Happy Veterans Day to all of those who serve, have served and especially for those who are about to serve. Last week was a very busy one for the veterans in our small town in Central Massachusetts. Members of our local Veterans Council, the VFW, and the American Legion were […]

Specialist Five James McCloughan’s Medal of Honor citation, like all Medal of Honor citations, will drop your jaw to the floor. A 23 year old combat medic in the middle of Vietnam, he braved heavy fire to move an injured casualty to safety and was wounded by shrapnel before saving two more. He went on […]

On this day: October 4th Islamic Jihad announces execution of CIA Officer William Buckley —1985 William Buckley had been serving as the CIA Beirut station chief since 1983 when he was kidnapped by operatives with the terrorist group Islamic Jihad. He had volunteered for the assignment following the 1983 Beirut Embassy Bombing, which had killed […]

The thick and lush jungles of Vietnam and the enemies it contained was the first time modern American forces engaged in asymmetric warfare. The enemy was cunning, intelligent, and experienced in guerilla warfare. If the United States wished to really fight this war they had to change their mindset and their tactics. One of the […]

An American aircraft carrier will visit Vietnam in 2018, the first such visit since the end of the Vietnam War, the Pentagon announced this week. The announcement coincided with a visit between Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and his Vietnamese counterpart Ngo Xuan Lich in Washington D.C. The historic visit of a U.S. warship is […]

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 […]

Ben Het, was a U.S. Special Forces camp located 288 miles northeast of Saigon and six miles from the junction of the Cambodian, Laotian, and South Vietnamese borders, and on June 23, 1969, it was besieged and cut off by 3,000 North Vietnamese troops using artillery and mortars. The base was defended by 250 U.S. […]

In a battle for the district capital of Phuc Long Province in the III Corps area about 60 miles northeast of Saigon in the country of Viet Nam, Special Forces 2LT Charles Q. Williams would distinguish himself in the battle of the Dong Xoai CIDG camp and later be awarded the Medal of Honor. In […]

 The Originals Sixty-four years ago PFC Richard Simonian and SFC Clyde J. Sincere Jr., were among the original 600 Special Forces from the newly formed 10th Special Forces Group that boarded the USNS General A.W. Greely in Wilmington, N.C., for a transatlantic voyage to Bremerhaven, Germany – the first Special Forces unit to deploy to […]

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 […]

The F-16 Fighting Falcon, in addition to being a premier air-to-air combat platform also performs a very important mission called SEAD or Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses. Also known as “Wild Weasel” the mission is to enter enemy airspace early and disrupt or destroy their air defenses. This allows the main strike package of aircraft […]