By Jennifer Spradlin, U.S. Air Force During the initial insertion onto Afghanistan’s Takur Ghar mountaintop, the MH-47 “Chinook” helicopter carrying Chapman and the joint special operations reconnaissance team flew into an enemy ambush. Intense enemy small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire significantly damaged the helicopter, throwing Navy Petty Officer …
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Slam VII: “Shot All to Hell.” The action involves a company-sized reconnaissance team from FOB-2 Kontum which has already been on the ground for a week. Ordered in to search, locate, annihilate, and monitor enemy resistance, the members of SLAM VII have already suffered greatly. Eighteen American Green Berets and …
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The Biden four by J.M. Phelps Members of Blackwater are petitioning the Supreme Court in an effort to find the justice that has eluded them. It was September 16, 2007, when a Blackwater security team – following a very massive explosion in Nisour Square, Baghdad – responded to assist another …
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Joseph L. Galloway, author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young has died. I first met Joe Galloway during the Gulf War in Ryad Saudi Arabia. I had dinner with Joe several times and attended the daily 5 o’clock Follies News Briefing. He had as little opinion as I did …
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UPDATE: Is the Warlord Dostum back? The “famous” warlord and the former Vice President of Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum is finally back, celebrating his return with a vow to “suppress” the Taliban., the Sentinel reported as Doatrom was reportedly in or heading for Afghanistan recently . ‘I predicted this years …
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THE U.S. ARMY IN VIETNAM FROM TET TO THE FINAL WITHDRAWAL, 1968-1975 y the beginning of 1968 the United States had been involved in military operations in Vietnam for over seven years and in major ground combat for two-and-a-half years. In-country U.S. military strength had risen to 485,000, and …
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EL PARAISO AND THE WAR IN EL SALVADOR (1981–1983) by Charles H. Briscoe, PhD for SOC.mil From 1980–1993, the government of El Salvador, with U.S. assistance, waged a national counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign against guerrilla forces of the FMLN (Frente Farabundo Marti de Liberación Nacional). That COIN campaign was one of the …
Read More »By Dr. Martin Brass From the January 2008 issue of SOF In the last four of a five part series on the American merc who had the most impact of any American in the decade-long El Salvador war, SOF chronicled the adventures of Harry Claflin. SOF launched Harry’s wild …
Read More »By Lewis Sorley From the April 2012 issue of SOF THEY GOT PLATITUDES Brigadier General Edwin Simmons, later the long-serving Chief of Marine Corps History, recalled a commanders’ conference convened by Westmoreland at Nha Trang. The room was filled with senior officers who had served in World War II and …
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Mad Mike Hoare by Chris Hoare By Chris Hoare Author of Mad Mike Hoare Fifty years ago, Stanleyville in the Congo was the scene of one of the most savage crimes of the last century, the cold-blooded massacre of hostages by the Simba rebels. Mercenary soldiers from 5 Commando under …
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