Thomas Trask, Mark Clark and Stuart Bradin
Last week, many of our nation’s retired and active special operations forces (SOF) leaders and operators paused to remember the ill-fated Operation Eagle Claw and the men who died in the Iranian desert 40 years ago. That failed hostage rescue mission was executed with outdated equipment, personnel that had not trained together, and disjointed chains of command. It was a major turning point in the history of US SOF.
Subsequently, Congress intervened to create U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and mandated the services support their unique parts of that command. It was a long and difficult climb from the deserts of Iran in 1980 to the mountains of Afghanistan in 2001, but it resulted in the evolution of the world’s most effective elite fighting force. Indeed, there have been a multitude of successful special operations missions since 2001, some with substantial international implications, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, the rout of ISIS from Iraq and its subsequent destruction in Syria. With the Nunn-Cohen bipartisan amendment to the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, Congress created the foundation for the world’s premier special operations force. SOF have since served our national interests with fidelity, courage, and great sacrifice…
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