260 articles
We wrote about former two-time deputy to James Mattis, retired Navy Vice Admiral (SEAL) Robert S. Harward, here on SOFREP back in early February. At the time, this author and others assumed that Harward might be tapped for a position within Secretary of Defense Mattis’ Pentagon, as an undersecretary of defense perhaps. It seems instead that […]
Okay, so this is not a special operations-, or SEAL-, or CIA-specific article, nor does it apply to current events, political intrigue, or international affairs. It has nothing to do with terrorism, or the rise of China, or the re-emergence of Russia. This is a much more important subject. This article is about how to […]
With the rhetorical indications coming first out of the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign, and now out of the Trump White House, one could be forgiven for thinking that the U.S. military might be pulling back its forces from the Russian “sphere of influence” in order to facilitate an improvement of ties between the two […]
Retired Rear Admiral (SEAL) Richard “Dick” Lyon, called an “icon and legend” within the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community by the current commander of Naval Special Warfare Command (NSWC), Rear Admiral (SEAL) Tim Szymanski, passed away on February 3, 2017. Lyon was 93 and passed after a short illness. He is survived by his widow […]
There I was, no shit, on the very last day of Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training, in a state of indescribable euphoria that my six-month voyage through hell was about to come to an end. My 26 classmates and I, out of over 110 who started in the class, including the only two enlisted men […]
On this day, February 2, 2013, former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle was murdered while on a Texas gun range south of Ft. Worth with his friend Chad Littlefield. The killer of the two men was a former Marine whom they were trying to help overcome post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Marine, Eddie Ray Routh, has […]
There is a lot of hate and vitriol flying around out there lately, admittedly on both sides of the political aisle, with regards to the refugee ban and stoppage of select immigrants recently enacted by the Trump administration. This article is not going to litigate that issue. What this article is going to do though is hopefully […]
According to USA Today and the San Diego Union-Tribune, in a ceremony in Virginia Beach, Virginia on January 13, 2017, outgoing Navy Secretary Ray Mabus presented upgraded valor medals to 16 Navy special operations personnel (or their families, in the case of two of the fallen sailors), including a posthumous Navy Cross to the family […]
As I discussed in my last article on a case of gonorrhea that disrupted an unspecified CIA covert project, the CIA announced in a press release on January 17, 2017, that it had made available online more than 12 million pages of previously declassified CREST documents. CREST stands for “CIA Records Search Tool,” which is a stand-alone database […]
The CIA announced in a press release on January 17, 2017, that it had made available online more than 12 million pages of previously declassified CREST documents. CREST stands for “CIA Records Search Tool,” which is a stand-alone database located at the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland. The 930,000 documents, per CNN, had […]
Per reporting in the Hampton Roads, Virginia-based newspaper The Virginian-Pilot—the local paper of record for covering the Navy’s East Coast-based SEAL teams—a new monument is in the works for Virginia Beach, Virginia, which will honor the Navy SEALs. Per the Pilot’s reporting, retired SEAL Captain Rick Woolard is spearheading the effort to erect a SEAL […]
By now, if you are at all keeping up with current events within national politics and/or the national security world, you are aware of the feud that has erupted between Donald J. Trump and the intelligence community. Here is a primer, if you still need one. I should say a few things before we get […]