Focus On: Command Posts Salutes, Vietnam War
Images of the Day: Specialist Leslie H. Sabo, Jr., U.S. Army, Posthumously Awarded the Medal of Honor
Giveaways
Service, The Admirals, Castro’s Secrets, Basic, The Civil War Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Battleground Pacific
Charles W. Sasser
- Focus On: Intel
- Technology vs. Boots on The Ground: Son Tay to Abbottabad, and Beyond
“Both raids were Special Operations classics,” says U.S. Air Force Colonel (Ret) John Gargus, a key air operations planner for the Son Tay raid. “There is no doubt but what the guys who pulled Son Tay could have done bin Laden—or the other way around. The biggest difference is not in the operation, nor in the caliber of men. The biggest difference forty years made is in new warfighting technology and its incorporation into military training.”
The men of Son Tay who trained for their mission at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, used a “mock-up” of the prison constructed of wooden stakes and canvas cloth. They depended on flyovers for intelligence on the target, which meant the information was days to even weeks old. They launched the mission tactically blind as to what might await them on-target.
In contrast, the Navy SEALs mission-trained on almost an exact replica of bin Laden’s compound, using live-fire and realistic scenarios. Their intel, supplied by satellite technology and unmanned drone aircraft, arrived almost in real-time. The SEALs knew bin Laden was home before they went calling. The President of the United States in Washington D.C. watched live video feed of the raid as it unfolded. [More...]
- Focus On: Fiction Fridays
- A Thousand Years of Darkness
Police Detective James Nail is wounded and his daughter murdered in an attack that also kills "right-wing" TV personality Jerry Baer.
As Nail and Baer's producer, Sharon Lowenthal, team up to track down the shooters, they discover a conspiracy that leads to an international cartel of "One Worlders" and may implicate the President of the United States.
Falsely accused of terrorism, they must keep one step ahead of Homeland Security to stay alive, bring down the traitors, and save the nation.
[More...]
- Focus On: Iraq, Special Operations Teams
- Chris Kyle: al-Shaitan of Iraq
Three things you must know about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle: he’s a family man; he’s a Christian; and, third, he’s capable of snuffing out your lights at 2,000 yards if you pose a threat to American warriors under his protection.
So feared was he by Islamic terrorists and insurgents that they christened him al-Shaitan, “the Devil,” and placed a bounty on his head.
He was known to other combat soldiers as The Legend.
[More...]
- Focus On: Special Operations Teams, Vietnam War
- Son Tay Raid: For the POWs, Beyond Mixed Reactions at Home
About a year after North Vietnam released what it claimed to be the last 566 American prisoners held in the North, the former POWs were asked to complete a survey of "returned prisoners of war." In one part of the survey, they were asked how certain events affected their morale while in prison.
Two events aided morale most: the Son Tay POW raid in 1970 and the bombing of Hanoi in 1972.
[More...]
- Focus On: Command Posts Salutes, Vietnam War
- Hill 488 Revisited
Hundreds of veterans driven by horrific memories of war return to Vietnam each year on spiritual quests to close old wounds.
Most are in their sixties and at a point in life when people search the past for meaning and understanding. When this generation is gone, their memories will be buried as well.
“I felt drawn,” former Marine Ray Hildreth explains. “I felt I had to come back to prove to myself that the war is really over.”
[More...]
- Focus On: By Air
- Target: Rocket Man
The “Rocket Man,” as we dubbed him, was the most notorious of these lone wolves. Like a rat, he slithered through the slums of Sadr City armed with 100mm supersonic rockets equipped with 5-pound high-explosive warheads, killing and maiming GIs, marines, and Iraqi bystanders. He wasn’t that accurate with his rockets, or apparently too particular who he targeted, which accounted for his high rate of collateral damage against civilians. He must have trained with The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
The Rocket Man quickly rose to the top of our Most Wanted list. We finally got lucky. Either that or he got careless. He popped a rocket at a U.S. Army squad patrolling an alley. He missed and took out the front of a nearby house. What he didn’t know was that I was watching through the camera of the Predator soaring ten thousand feet above his head.
“We finally got the perp!” I exclaimed.
[More...]
- Focus On: Special Operations Teams
- Genesis of Navy SEALs—Today
CP Note: This is the third article in the three-part "Genesis of Navy SEALs" series from Charles Sasser. The first post is Genesis of the Navy SEALs—The Concept. The second post is Genesis of the Navy SEALS—The Early Years.
Hardly had the Navy SEALs been formed than they were combat tested in Vietnam. Two instructors from Team One arrived in-country on 10 March 1962 to teach the South Vietnamese how to conduct clandestine operations. A month later, the first SEAL mobile training team (MTT) of 19 enlisted men and one officer, Lieutenant (j.g.) Philip P. Holtz, left for Vietnam on a mission to train the South Vietnamese Coastal Force in reconnaissance, sabotage and guerrilla warfare.
During this early period of the war, SpecOps SEALs and Green Berets were “advisors.” It was not until February 1966 that the SEALs entered the war for active combat duty when Team One sent Detachment Golf, consisting of three officers and 15 enlisted men, into the Rung Sat Special Zone near the capital city of Saigon.
[More...]
- Focus On: Special Operations Teams
- Genesis of Navy SEALs—The Early Years
CP Note: This is the second article in a three-part series from Charles Sasser, about the Genesis of the Navy SEALs. The first post is Genesis of the Navy SEALs—The Concept.
Ham-fisted Navy Lieutenant Roy Boehm, commander of SEAL Team Two, and SEAL Petty Officer “Lump-Lump” Williams linked up with a CIA “spook” known only as “John” to obtain that evidence. “John” briefed the two SEALs aboard the submarine Sea Lion as it dove in the Florida Straits on its way to Cuba.
“Gentlemen,” the CIA agent began. “You are about to embark on the most significant mission of your military careers. The forces of communism and the forces of the free world are being compelled into a standoff the outcome of which only God knows. The world may be only days away from nuclear confrontation. . . The United States has good reason to believe the Soviet Union has moved ICBMs into Cuba. President Kennedy will not back down, not even from nuclear war. The President will broadcast it to the world as soon as we can confirm intelligence reports that Castro and Khrushchev are installing ICBMs to target the United States.”
The three men locked out of the sub off Havana in the middle of the night and swam ashore. Photos of ICBM sites they obtained soon appeared in Time magazine and other news sources and became part of a mountain of undeniable documentation that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
[More...]
- Focus On: Special Operations Teams
- Genesis of Navy SEALS—The Concept
Who do you call if, say, the most ruthless terrorist leader in the world needs his ticket punched? You call for a real breed apart, for men who are warned during BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolitions/SEAL) training that “twenty five percent of you may not live until you’re thirty”—and they still take the job.
How does America produce such men?
Although World War II is looked upon as the start of the SEAL legend, the concept of waterborne commandos actually stretches back to at least Syracuse in ancient Sicily. Under siege by Athens in 414 B.C., Syracuse constructed palisades to impale enemy watercraft and dispatched swimmers to sabotage ships threatening the city.
[More...]
- Focus On: Command Posts Salutes
- 761st Tank Battalion: Patton’s Panthers Would Not Quit
During the 183 days Patton’s Panthers, the 761st Tank Battalion, were in continuous combat, they participated in four major Allied campaigns, including the Battle of The Bulge.
They inflicted more than 130,000 casualties upon the enemy.
Eight black enlisted men received battlefield commissions, while 391 received decorations for heroism: 7 Silver Stars for Valor (three posthumously); 56 Bronze Stars for Valor; and 246 Purple Hearts.
Three officers and 31 enlisted men were killed in action, and 22 officers and 180 enlisted men were wounded.
In 1997, 53 years after sacrificing his life on the battlefield, Sergeant Ruben Rivers was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
In 1998, the 761st Tank Battalion (deactivated) received a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest award that a unit can receive.
[More...]
- Focus On: Command Posts Salutes
- “Pappy” Kittleson: Willing To Risk Everything For Country And Other Americans
- At first glance, no one would have taken Galen Kittleson for a hero, the only soldier in U.S. history to make four raids to free prisoners of war. Those who knew him, however, always thought of him as a big man, even though he stood barely five-four in his stocking feet. It had to do with the way he carried himself, with dignity and quiet pride in America and its people. He maintained that bearing after he retired as Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Army’s 7th Special Forces Group and returned to his farm in Iowa. [More...]
- Focus On: Historic Battles
- Raid at Cabanatuan: Rescuing POWs and Survivors of the Bataan Death March
Backlighted by burning buildings, tattered skeletons and scarecrows began emerging from the inferno. Staggering and hobbling and crawling, like zombies emerging from catacombs and graves into unexpected light. Blinking, weeping, laughing, thanking God and their liberators in a repetitive heartfelt litany. All hollows and angles and stench and running sores and lost limbs . . . Like the gates of hell had been cast open. Dead men returned to life.
The sight broke PFC Kittleson's heart.
[More...]
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- Stephen Frater
- Journalist, author and Writer in Residence at the University of Rhode Island.
- Walter Boyne
- Retired Air Force Colonel; former director, National Air and Space Museum; National Aviation Hall of Fame.
- Dalton Fury
- Former Delta officer Dalton Fury was the ground force commander at the Battle of Tora Bora.
- Phil Keith
- Naval aviator, Vietnam Vet; author, consultant, columnist, and visiting professor, RISD, Providence.
- Charles W. Sasser
- A decorated Vietnam veteran and Green Beret, and author of more than fifty books.
- Jean Sasson
- An international best-selling author, Jean Sasson's literary loves are history and travel.
- Clint VanWinkle
- Marine Corps veteran and author.
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- Command Posts Salutes
- Honoring Our Heros
- Special Operations
- Videos, Pictures, Articles, and Original Documents
- Intel
- Videos, Pictures, Articles, and Original Documents
- Commander in Chief
- U.S. Presidents and the Military
- Growing Up Military
- Honoring Military Families
- Reels and Highlights
- Articles, Pictures, and Videos from the Past
- Fiction Fridays
- Excerpts from upcoming fiction books—from intel thrillers to historic fiction
- Armed Sources
- Reviews and Behind-the Scenes Intel about Military Publishing
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