World War II

Today marks the 77th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that catapulted the United States into the greatest war this planet has ever seen. Some 2,335 military personnel lost their lives as the Japanese attacked, with an additional 68 civilians, making the final tally 2,403 Americans dead once the fighting finally stopped. The […]

George Herbert Walker Bush died at age 94 on Friday. The man perhaps best known as the first of two presidents to carry his family name into the Oval Office in recent years, George H.W. Bush’s rise to the presidency involved holding incredibly influential positions like the director of the CIA, but long before Bush […]

The world may never again see bombing campaigns like those carried out in World War II, but for the right price you can experience a pretty good re-creation. Bomber Camp is more than just an aptly named summer camp for history buffs and airplane aficionados — it’s a chance to get some real hands-on experience […]

The world may never again see bombing campaigns like those carried out in World War II, but for the right price you can experience a pretty good re-creation. Bomber Camp is more than just an aptly named summer camp for history buffs and airplane aficionados — it’s a chance to get some real hands-on experience […]

When the name “Wild Bill” Donovan is mentioned, most think of the World War II OSS (Office of Strategic Services) which later became CIA and another part of it branched off to later become the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) of today. But what many people don’t realize is that long before he became […]

Like most Special Forces guys, especially of my generation, I can’t get enough of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) from World War II. OSS was the “Greatest Generation” version of both CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) as both sprang forth from the extraordinary organization that General William “Wild Bill” Donovan built […]

Here in the United States, we have a short memory and even shorter foresight when it comes to international politics. We can’t seem to find it in ourselves to view the world through anything other than our own partisan lenses, qualifying our nation’s behavior, as well as the responses it garners, from the rest of […]

The United States involvement in Vietnam began long before the 1960s as most U.S. citizens tend to believe. Most don’t know that at the end of World War II, the United States sent several Office Of Strategic Services (OSS) operatives into then French Indochina, to facilitate the release of American pilots. LTC Peter Dewey was […]

By September of 1943, World War II was not going well for Nazi Germany. The Russians had routed the German attack at Kursk and had the strategic initiative. The German Afrika Korps had been pushed across and out of North Africa. German cities were routinely being bombed by American bombers during the day and British […]

For the current crop of aspiring Special Operations Forces candidates that want to be part of the legacy of the different units under the SOCOM umbrella, being part of the command comes with not only great sacrifice but a great responsibility as well. The special operators have to sacrifice much of themselves in training to […]

While economically struggling, Russia has a long history of deriving national pride from military parades celebrating past victories. Last Thursday, Russian forces participated in just such an event: a parade commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kursk. In 1943, some 1.9 million Soviet soldiers alongside more than 5,000 tanks participated in what would […]

In December of 1941, the United States was thrust into the fighting of World War II by way of the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and by the summer of 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force (the Air Force wouldn’t be established for another five years) set about hopping a variety of aircraft from […]