SOFX The Crossroads of Special Operations

In a ceremony that highlighted the bravery and dedication that members of 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) showed in a recent deployment to Afghanistan, dozens of Green Berets received valor awards. These awards included three Silver Star medals, as well as seven Bronze Stars for valor and 17 Army Commendation medals. Col. Steven M. Marks, deputy commander of 1st Special ... Read More »

According to the French Armed Forces Ministry, between December 20 and January 5, more than 50 “terrorists” were killed in a series of operations in Mali. French President Emmanuel Macron previously announced that the first operation occurred between December 20 and 21. In a press release on January 9, it was stated that 33 terrorists were neutralized by several dozen ... Read More »

Staff Sgt. Jessica Smiley from South Carolina and Sgt. Danielle Faber from Pennsylvania have become the first women in the Army National Guard to graduate from Ranger School. The first two female officers passed the course in 2015, with the first enlisted woman graduating in 2018. Faber began working toward her mission of becoming a Ranger in 2016 when she ... Read More »

A press release has cited growing regional security concerns as the reason for Germany to partially withdraw from Iraq. Germany’s presence will be temporarily thinned out, with the troops ready to deploy back into the area if necessary. The troop transfer to move to neighboring countries largely came out of Baghdad and Taji, with most of Germany’s troops begin stationed ... Read More »

In one airstrike on January 3, the U.S. removed two of the most “critical actors” in Iranian regional strategy: Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani, and Iraqi politician and militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. This strike came at a time that tensions between the U.S. and Iran in Iraq were at their highest. Soleimani “cultivated” ... Read More »

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Nagata has been named by CACI International to be a corporate strategic adviser and senior vice president. As a corporate strategic adviser, Nagata’s responsibility is to enhance the company’s national security-related expertise and technology offerings. Nagato has more than three decades of experience with the Army Special Forces. CACI President and CEO, John Mengucci, ... Read More »

Exercise is better than no exercise at all; however, “brisk” exercise is particularly better for heart and brain health. Brisk walks increase blood flow to the brain, as well as lead to the release of hormone, BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor. This hormone is responsible for brain cell production. According to the British Journal of Sports Medicine, another benefit to ... Read More »

Virtuoso drummer and lyricist for Rush, Neil Peart, died on January 7th at age 67 due to brain cancer. Peart had been quietly battling an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma for three-and-a-half-years. Joining the band in 1974, his musicianship and philosophical lyrics contributed to the band’s great success in becoming one of the classic rock era’s essential bands. ... Read More »

Second Lt. Kofi Appiah-Mainoo has been accused and arrested for legally buying guns and then reselling them to people barred from owning them. The guns ended up in the hands of a drug trafficker in Washington D.C. After an FBI investigation, Appiah-Mainoo was arrested on October 28th, 2019. Convicted felon, James Hutchings Jr. was arrested the next day. Hutchings served ... Read More »

A Navy boat was flipped by a wave in Kaneohe Bay on Friday. Five sailors were rescued. A Naval Special Warfare Command spokesman said that two rigid inflatable boats were passing through the channel, when one of the boats was “broadsided by a wave” and capsized. The two boats were in the middle of routine training on their way to ... Read More »

Christopher Miller has stepped into a role that has been empty for months in the Pentagon. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism position was emptied in September when Andrew Knaggs left the role to run as the Republican challenger for House seat in Richmond, VA. Miller’s new position involves checking and advising military actions ... Read More »

An unmarked field located in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado contains a memorial to war veterans. Made out of granite, the few who find it often do so by accident and wonder how it got there. Former Green Beret and Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Allen Beckley is the soldier behind “Soldierstone,” having served in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. After ... Read More »

The U.S. Department of Defense has identified the two paratroopers that were killed by an IED in Afghanistan on Saturday: Staff Sgt. Ian P. McLaughlin, 29, of Newport News, Virginia, and Pfc. Miguel A. Villalon, 21, of Joliet, Illinois. The Taliban claimed responsibility, but the incident is still under investigation. Two service members were injured in the incident. As part ... Read More »

According to U.S. officials, on the same day the U.S. military killed Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, another mission was carried out against a senior Iranian military official in Yemen. The top secret mission was a strike targeting Abdul Reza Shahlai, a key commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force who have been active in Yemen. The operation was unsuccessful and did ... Read More »

The U.S. Special Operations Command has sent out the call for prototypes that analyze web data and recognize correlations between social media and trending content to discover if it is fake. Misinformation campaigns are becoming a rampant issue, leading the software requirements to include deep-learning and the ability to examine information across all platforms. Machine-manipulated stories and data create pubic ... Read More »