Free Republic

The U.S. Army is set to make major reductions to its special operations forces, and going after the Army’s elite warriors is no accident. In an ever increasing effort by the Biden Administration to inject the U.S. military with as much woke propaganda as possible, special forces units remain among the few areas the woke warriors have failed to gain traction. Diversity is a strategic imperative critical to mission readiness and accomplishment. We were on site for the 2023 inaugural @DoD_ODEI Summit as DEIA experts led forums to advance the DEIA and DoD mission — because our people matter. pic.twitter.com/VX42BC1Imo...

24 hr rule always applies… SOF “funder” donated $500 on GoFundMe; he was charged as an accessory to child kidnapping because he rented an apartment to a woman who took her own child who she was in a custody battle over. They’re desperate to smear a movie that brings attention to child trafficking Why is the media so desperate to smear a movie that brings attention to child trafficking?

In theaters the week of July 4th Claim a free ticket to a theater near you or buy a ticket and pay for a ticket for someone who needs to see this but can’t afford it.

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez appears to be collaborating in the US-led, WEF coup against his own nation. Mario Abdo Benítez, the President of Paraguay, visited the United States Air Force Special Operations Forces (SOF) Command Hub in Hurlburt Field, Florida in late March, in the middle of a US-led World Economic Forum election coup that threatens to turn his nation into the next Brazil. According to the US Air Force, Benítez’s visit to the SOF Hub included high-level meetings with the military officers behind “unconventional warfare” and “psychological operations.” President Mario Abdo Benítez, or “Marito” as he is known...

Southwest of the city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian soldiers Andriy and Borisych live in a candle-lit bunker cut into the frozen earth. For several weeks they have been confronting hundreds of fighters belonging to the Russian private military contractor Wagner throwing themselves against Ukrainian defenses. Disguised in a balaclava, Andriy recounts one seemingly endless firefight when they came under attack by a flood of Wagner fighters. “We were fighting for about 10 hours in a row. And it wasn’t like just waves, it was uninterrupted. So it was just like they didn’t stop coming.” Their AK-47 rifles became so hot from...

Introducing the Rattler chambered in .300 Blackout gives SOF troops a good combination of rifle and round for covert missions in tight spots. U.S. special operators are finally getting ultra-compact personal defense weapons, or PDWs, chambered in .300 Blackout and standard 5.56x45mm ammunition to blast out of tight spots with a wallop similar to a full-size assault rifle. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) on May 19 issued a notice of intent to buy Sig’s MCX Rattler short-barreled rifles as personal defense weapons, or PDWs, under a five-year sole-source contract. No contract has been awarded yet and how many of these compact...

With a small military training program, the United States military has joined efforts to fight a brutal insurgency that has devastated northern Mozambique. American Special Forces soldiers began training Mozambican troops this week as part of an effort to repel a spreading insurgency in northeastern Mozambique that American officials say is linked to the Islamic State. The insurgency, near some of the world’s biggest gas reserves, has killed at least 2,000 civilians and displaced another 670,000. The American program is modest in size and scope: a dozen Army Green Berets are to train Mozambican marines for the next two months....

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was livid last month when he summoned top military officials to a video conference at the Pentagon to press them about an investigation into a 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four Americans on a Green Beret team. His anger, Pentagon officials said, came from seeing news reports that junior officers were being reprimanded for the botched Niger mission while the officers directly above them were not. Days later, a senior officer who had largely escaped punishment was told he would be reprimanded. Another senior officer’s actions before and around the time of the mission were...

According to the Pentagon, the Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha, otherwise known as an “A-Team,” went on a routine patrol Wednesday afternoon with about 20 troops from the Niger Armed Forces when they came under heavy fire. Officials said a barrage of machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades from about 50 militants forced the U.S. and Nigerien troops into defensive positions near the border with Mali. The fire peppered the troops’ trucks and shattered windows before they could regroup and fire back. The soldiers called in support from French attack helicopters and fighter jets. It’s not clear whether the aircraft...

A really interesting aircraft was spotted conducting flight testing over the Black Sea on Sept. 26, 2017: the Il-76MD-90A “78650”, the first “Candid” modified to carry out special operations. According to the Russian media outlet “Izvestia” the example “78650” is a flying testbed for a heavily modified Il-76MD-90A variant equipped with “unique on-board radio-electronic systems that would allow the aircraft to stealthily deliver paratroopers and special forces behind the enemy lines, remaining invisible and invulnerable to the enemy.” How the aircraft can evade radars and remain invisible is unclear, anyway, the experimental Candid can be distinguished from the baseline IL-76MD-90A...

The C-130's legacy as the do everything air hauler is well cemented into the annals of aviation and military history. But over 60 years after it first flew, the iconic design just keeps getting better. Today it's all about multirole platforms, where one aircraft can execute many different missions. For much of its life, the USAF has fielded tricked-out special operations variants of the mighty Hercules, and in recent years, bolt-on systems have given the most mild-mannered Hercules incredible new capabilities—from surveillance to close air support. Now Lockheed is rolling all the modular versatility it can into a single exportable...

Two Syrian Su-24 jets struck Kurdish positions in and near Hasakah, in northeastern Syria, on Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters. The US-led coalition scrambled planes near the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakah, after Syrian SU-24 airplanes dropped bombs “dangerously near” the US Special Forces operators embedded with the Kurdish YPG militia in the area. The strike came close to US Special Forces operators, who were embedded with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprised of the Kurdish YPG and local Arab militias. When the strikes began, the “coalition forces on the ground” tried reaching the Syrian jets...

The April, 2016, edition will be the final print edition of Soldier of Fortune magazine.  The magazine was started in 1975 by Robert K. Brown, and has been a resounding success.  The end of the print edition does not mean the end of SOF.  It means that SOF has made the successful transition from dead tree status to that of totally recycled electrons.  Not many publications have been able to make such a successful transition.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the SOF website had 430,000 unique visitors in January, and has almost a million followers on facebook.  From...

Soldier of Fortune magazine to stop publishing after 40 years Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far off lands- and maybe get into a firefight with them, will fade away to digital only starting in April. Founded by renowned international man of mystery, Vietnam-era Green Beret Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, "The Journal of Professional Adventurers" based in Boulder, Colorado will no longer appear in print form moving forward

For years, the Obama Administration has stood behind two excuses (given under oath) for not sending a quick reaction force to assist in rescuing American citizens during the Sept. 11, 2012 al Qaeda-linked attacks on the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans. The first excuse being: There were no forces available that could have responded quickly. The second reason was: Even if they had scrambled more people, they couldn't have gotten there in time to make a difference. Now, an email, hidden for three years, has come to light and...

Today, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that 200 special operations troops are heading to Iraq. Approximately 200 special operations forces, including intelligence personnel, pilots to position them, mechanics to maintain their aircraft, a quick reaction force and other support personnel in addition to the main assault force are headed to Iraq in the next few weeks as part of the new “specialized expeditionary targeting force” according to a U.S. official. A separate senior U.S. official said that capturing senior ISIS leaders would be an important component of the new assault force’s mission to learn more about ISIS networks as...

President Obama’s nominee to head U.S. Central Command recently penned a memo to Defense Secretary Ash Carter demanding that the Pentagon stop discussing the operations of elite American troops. Foreign Policy, which obtained an excerpt of the memo, reported that Gen. Joseph Votel, currently the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, wrote the December 8 memo to express concern about the Obama administration’s exposure of special operations forces’ activities. “I am concerned with increased public exposure of SOF activities and operations, and I assess that it is time to get our forces back into the shadows,” Votel wrote to Carter....

An email hidden from public view for three years reveals a rescue attempt was interrupted. The military offered to deploy Special Forces to Benghazi during the assault, long before the attackers killed CIA contractors and former Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Ty Woods. Three and a half hours into the eight-hour long siege, the military's Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash emails top State Department officials: "we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak. They include a SOF [Special Operations Forces] element that was in Croatia."

US forces flown to Libya to support government troops had to leave after landing because of demands from a local militia group, US officials say. It follows reports that 20 US special forces troops, equipped with advanced weaponry, landed on Monday at an airbase in western Libya. The troops chose to leave "in an effort to avoid conflict", a US Africa Command (Africom) spokesman told the BBC.

Apparently getting out of the jet-ski business opened up far greener pastures in the high-tech, 21st-century military vehicle market for Minnesota-based snowmobile/ATV/electric vehicle manufacturer Polaris(who also produce Victory and Indian big bikes through their motorcycle subsidiary). First they concocted a clever 2-man mini-jeep -the Polaris MV850- with computer-designed tires that require no air, able to operate even after sustaining damage from gunfire or shrapnel. They've also spun-out a line of small, lightweight military support/patrol vehicles loosely-based on their existing consumer products, including the MRZR in both 2-man and 4-man configurations. But NOW they're getting serious: aiming for a Pentagon light-vehicle...