Editor's Note: This article by Gina Harkins originally appeared onMilitary.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
If the Marine Corps is serious about getting ready to take on a near-peer enemy like China in the future, then it's time to fold its 13-year-old special operations command and apply those resources elsewhere.
At least that's the argument one retired Marine officer made this week while presenting ways the service can better prepare for large-scale naval operations – and it's causing quite a stir in the Marine Corps special operations community.
Then-Maj. Michael B. Black walks toward an aircraft on the Duke Field, Fla., flightline in August 2016. (U.S. Air Force/Samuel King)
EGLIN AFB — An officer with the 919th Special Operations Group, an Air Force Reserve unit headquartered at Duke Field near Crestview, Florida, has been charged with multiple counts of sexually assaulting a female senior airman while deployed to Uganda two years ago, according to a charge sheet provided by Eglin Air Force Base's public affairs unit and online reporting in the Air Force Times newspaper.
MAPLE, N.C. -- A maritime center with a pool big enough to hold a small ship and simulate hurricane conditions is set to open in Currituck County, North Carolina, in two years. It will serve to train groups such as special forces, law enforcement and offshore wind crews.
Navy SEALs training with MP5 submachine guns in the late 1990s. (U.S. Navy photo)
Editor's Note: This article by Patricia Kime originally appeared onMilitary.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
Having spent 17 years conducting counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations in the deserts and mountains of the Middle East, the Naval Special Warfare community is shifting its focus to threats from China, Russia and aspiring adversaries.
“People see me at events, or hear that I was combat wounded, and they look at me, and I don’t look hurt,” says John Stanz, a 36-year-old with voluminous mutton chops and a goatee that partially covers his easy smile. “That’s why I have this.”
After a young American doctor is kidnapped by Islamic extremists near the Syrian capital of Damascus, a crack team of special operators and clandestine agents, backed up by an army of intelligence experts in the States, is tasked with a rescue. So begins a daring mission involving the liberal application of close-quarters combat, gunplay, ad hoc disguises, and well-timed semtex explosives.
