Stars and Stripes reported last week on the three remaining women attempting Ranger school again after failing the first phase twice.  (Not unheard of for male students but it is uncommon.)  My biggest take away from the article was a fundamental misunderstanding about patrols, how we train our leaders and Ranger school. The article put …

Below is the first story I ever had published which was in the Fall 2003 issue of Infantry Magazine. I wanted to include it here and rescue it from its pretty ignominious existence buried in the bowls of internet. The title pretty much describes the subject.  Warning, this was written for a professional journal and …

The Army celebrates 14 June, 1775 as its birthday.  On that day, the Continental Congress called for ten companies of expert rifleman to be formed.  The day is also in effect, the birth of America’s first Infantry.   These men came from Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia comprising the 1st Continental Regiment.  Within two months they …

Today is the 71st anniversary of D-Day, one of the largest amphibious invasions in history.  Besides being a prime number, there’s nothing special about the number 71 so you won’t see the wider coverage we enjoyed last year except for some stuff maybe on the History Channel.  It’s admittedly a tough subject.  In the 71 …

For some reason this Memorial Day Weekend is hitting me exceptionally harder than normal.  I’m having a mental block but like on all Memorial Days I try to make it a point to remember and meditate on the 11 men I knew that lost their lives in the service of this nation.  I’m not the …

Iran’s Fars News Agency reported the Anti-ISIS Al-Hashad Al-Shabi militia forces shot down a US helicopter supplying ISIS.  It further reported US Apache helicopters airdropped food and arms to ISIS.  Fars published pictures of the shot down helicopter (see above). There are a couple of problems with the report.  First, the helicopter pictured isn’t a …

We are on top of the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.  A civilian (non-obligor reservist actually…) for almost five years when that went down, I still had a dim and very distant connection to that event.   At Marine Corps recruit training in 1968, my initial Series Officer (in charge of four platoons …

   The American had commandeered a Marine tank and a loudspeaker.  Pulling up to the gate leading to the Moslem section of Beirut he had the tank’s 90mm gun pointed into the quarter.  He announced through an interpreter that those who had taken the Marines hostage had three minutes to release them, their jeep… and …

Twelve men wearing US Army uniforms, armed with US weapons and riding in black GMC Suburbans passed through three Iraqi security checkpoints in Karbala Iraq.  Upon entering the compound of the joint Iraqi-American headquarters, the group moved with precision and purpose.  They attacked a US HMMWV guarding the entrance mortally wounding one soldier and taking …

It has been said by many that the United States has not launched an amphibious assault since Inchon in 1950.  The 51 Marines and Navy Corpsmen killed and 203 wounded in Operation Starlite in Vietnam in 1965 (and four times that number of VC) might disagree. Still, the operation was quite a bit smaller than …

CNN reports that 100 US Special Ops forces, the last present in Yemen, are being withdrawn because of a deteriorating security situation.  This announcement should raise a list of questions, concerns and demonstrate some important truths. Why are we withdrawing completely from the administration’s only vaunted counter insurgency success?  One’s first response might be, “Well, …

The Marines were defending their number one modernization priority in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcomittee on Seapower this week.  A “new” wheeled amphibious vehicle called the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) is slated to replace the majority of the Corps 40 year old AAV-7 Amphibious Assault Vehicle.  GruntsandCo’s covered the ACV in its …

Iran, Er I mean “Iraq”, surprised US officials with an offensive aimed at Tikrit that started a couple of days ago.  The composition of the offense, the manner it is being conducted, the lack of US involvement and the target all signal deeper truths about the current struggle going on in Iraq and Iran’s growing …

Two dueling and paradoxically supporting reports surfaced today. The Daily Beast published a story by Rep Duncan Hunter reference the falling lack of trust soldiers have in their Generals.  The belief that senior military leaders have the best interests of their soldiers at heart dropped from 53% in 2009 to 27% last year.  He cited …

Operation Inherent Resolve has been largely reported as a special operations effort to stop ISIS’ progress in Iraq and assist the Iraqis in taking the offense against them.  Not counting the significant Navy and Air Force conventional forces supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, the surprising and largely unreported truth is the majority of ground troops committed …