Free Republic

By Ben Kamisar - The former Navy SEAL who says he killed Osama bin Laden is slamming a new report that challenges the White House’s account of the mission, calling it “garbage.” “The story that I read, the part from [Seymour] Hersh, was full of lies,” Rob O’Neill said on Fox News's "Shepard Smith Reporting." “It took me a long time to read it because I had to put it down — I couldn’t read the nonsense.” Hersh on Sunday published in story in the London Review of Books that says Pakistani intelligence officers played a significant role in the...

Speaking of Texas, we're really getting a sad picture of right-wing paranoid extremism. A planned military exercise called Jade Helm 15 is seen as a cover for an Obama administration operation to take over the state. And if you're a Republican Texas politician like Gov. Greg Abbott or Sen. Ted Cruz, you have to act as if these are legitimate concerns. Not that he distrusts the military exactly, Cruz said, but "we have seen, for six years, a federal government disrespecting the liberty of the citizens. That produces fear, when you see a government that is attacking our free speech...

When hundreds of U.S. Special Operations Forces descend on Texas (and six other states) for an eight-week training mission in July, they will not be "incognito," nor will they threaten the constitutional rights or civil liberties of Americans, the White House said on Wednesday. "My understanding is that the -- that the individuals who are participating in the exercise won't be traveling incognito, that they'll be wearing arm bands," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

To assuage fears that different standards will apply to men and women in Ranger School, women have been required to sport short haircuts, as well.“The standard for the Ranger course is for students to have the shortest haircut authorized by AR 670-1,” Col. William Butler, deputy commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School, told Army Times.The idea is to maintain strict standards of hygiene. Short hair makes it much easier to spot ticks. Women are not allowed to have hair extending more than one inch from the scalp. If there are any bangs, they may not fall below the eyebrows.Nineteen...

He had three drill sergeants, two of whom were sadists. Thank God it was the easygoing one who saw it. He was reading a magazine, when he slowly looked up and stared at Everman. Then the sergeant walked over, pointing to a page in the magazine. “Is this you?” It was a photo of the biggest band in the world, Nirvana. Kurt Cobain had just killed himself, and this was a story about his suicide. Next to Cobain was the band’s onetime second guitarist. A guy with long, strawberry blond curls. “Is this you?” Everman exhaled. “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

Happy Hump Day, here are somethings that you can do to make it look like you're a Special Op Operator. First one is you can customize your favorite AR15 with these accessories, see picture below. If you want to see more of the girl in the bikini, you can see the rest of this on "how to be a Special Ops Operator" here.

These pistol shooting drills from the Russian Special Forces are off the hook. It's something that you're not going to see in the U.S. These drills are for the advanced gun toting folks that sleep and breathe carrying guns 24/7 not for the norm. Again Warning do not try these drills at home. Here's an accidental discharge while doing this crazy drill and he's a pro. See the rest of this crazy Russian SF drills here.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald apologized today for mistakenly saying in a videotaped exchange with a homeless man that he had served in the special forces, though his service was entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division. "Secretary McDonald has apologized for the misstatement and noted that he never intended to misrepresent his military service," a White House officials told ABC News. "We take him at his word and expect that this will not impact the important work he's doing to promote the health and well-being of our nation's veterans." The exchange with the homeless man was part of a report...

The Veterans Affairs secretary lied about serving in the special forces, a report in the Huffington Post alleges. "Robert McDonald, the secretary of veterans affairs, wrongly claimed in a videotaped comment earlier this year that he served in special operations forces, the most elite units in the armed forces, when his military service of five years was spent almost entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division during the late 1970s," the report reads. U.S. special operations forces (SOF) are composed of exhaustively trained and highly capable troops from each military service, including the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Delta Force and Navy SEALs --...

When Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL sniper instructor who helped train Chris Kyle, first watched "American Sniper," he was disappointed in the movie about his former student and friend. "I had high expectations and I have to say, when I first watched the movie, I felt really let down, for a number of reasons," Webb told ABC News Thursday. "It's hard to capture someone's life in two hours, and I get that, but I felt the film could have been, should have been, a military epic on the scale of a 'Saving Private Ryan.'" But Webb said when he...

Several French former soldiers have joined the ranks of jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq, the country’s government confirmed on Wednesday, as it outlined a series of new anti-terrorism measures following the Islamist attacks in Paris. Most of the ex-soldiers, reportedly numbering around 10 and including former paratroopers and French foreign legionnaires, are said to be fighting on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Most worrying is the reported presence of an ex-member of France’s elite First Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, considered one of Europe’s most experienced special forces units and which shares the “Who...

JANUARY 16, 2015 Smearing Snipers: What Many Americans Don’t Get about Our Warrior Elite We should be proud of men like Chris Kyle, not skittish or ashamed. By Chris Mark About ten years ago, an employer of mine had an odd request: I needed to delete an aspect of my military career from my professional biography because it might “offend” a potential client or partner. Recon Marine, infantry Marine, service-disabled veteran . . . those were a boon. But “Scout Sniper,” one of the greatest accomplishments I had as a Marine — that had to go. Sadly, that kind of...

Just days after the terrorists struck, Green Berets from the Fort Campbell-based 5th Group were in Afghanistan. In more than 13 years since, the Special Forces presence in the country has been a constant. Thousands of soldiers have given years out of their lives to the Afghanistan mission. Many have been wounded. Many have died. In the process, they say, they have built the foundation for a future in a country that has known decades of war. “Back then, there was no (Afghan) army,” Schwartz said. “Really, all their equipment was predominately Soviet, and it was left over from the...

A U.S.-funded power plant and fueling station at an Afghan military complex in Kabul were barely functioning nearly two years after contractors finished building them, a watchdog report said. Another U.S.-backed project, a dining hall for soldiers at the Afghan National Army’s Camp Commando, was serving more than five times the number of people it was built to handle. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction encountered difficulty in inspecting the three facilities due to lost records that would have shown when they were tested and commissioned in its report on the camp. Together, the power plant, fueling station and...

Dr. John “Rob” Marsh was already more than 12 hours into his workday last Tuesday when he rolled up to a tiny darkened house in Vesuvius, an out-of-the-way town in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. “His willingness to come out here when we need him — well, it’s the kind of attitude you don’t find that much anymore,” she said. “We’re just fortunate. Tirelessness and the confidence to operate alone in a crisis — key requirements for rural physicians — were drilled into him in his previous job as the doctor for the Army’s elite Delta Force antiterrorism unit. Read the...

Couldn’t pass this up because one of our staff member have encountered such people while in the Far East Theater Staging Area, (maybe you Veterans have come across this as well) so this is quite hilarious. Read the 6 things that will make you look like a SOF member here.

American Sniper- The MovieI've read the book and passed it on to others

CAMP VANCE, Afghanistan Michael Sullivan was training to join the Special Forces when he and his fellow soldiers had a real-world lesson to talk about in a food court on Fort Bragg. On Sept. 9, 2001, suicide attackers posing as journalists assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The Green Beret trainees were familiar with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, Sullivan said. They knew Massoud was seen as a threat to the Taliban regime. Two days later, on Sept. 11, Sullivan - then a captain - was signing for textbooks for his language courses when...

The U.S. Army’s plan to conduct an integrated Ranger School assessment in 2015 is looking good — interest is so high that the number of female volunteers must be cut to 160 candidates. All women selected by their commands and units will take part in the two-week Army National Guard Ranger Training and Assessment Course. Those who successfully complete the pre-Ranger course at Fort Benning, Georgia, will then move on to Ranger School, which is held 11 times a year.

On Sept. 30, the U.S. Army unceremoniously stood up a new headquarters—the 1st Special Forces Command—at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The division-level unit brings together more than 15,000 Green Berets and other special troops in a single new organization. Previously, the Army’s Special Operations Command had directly controlled all of these troops plus others on a wide range of missions. The idea behind the new HQ is to assemble a force specifically tailored for dealing with what the Pentagon calls “hybrid warfare.” Simply put, hybrid warfare is a blend of straight-up traditional combat—with infantry, tanks and artillery—and secretive insurgency. Probably...