1st Special Forces group

Former Special Forces Colonel Convicted in Domestic Violence Incident, Sentenced

A Falling Star

Owen Ray started his career in the Army as a Private. He worked his way up to becoming a full bird (O-6) Colonel, chief of staff of I Corps, and was a former commander of the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne). On top of that, he served as a military aid to President Obama for several years. A distinguished achievement by anyone’s accounting. On December 27th, 2020, Ray was arrested on felony domestic violence charges. According to the DuPont, Washington police department, the decorated officer was responsible for a two-hour standoff that resulted in his being charged with two counts of felony harassment, kidnapping in the first degree, and reckless endangerment. Their press release also noted that they were dispatched “for a domestic assault in progress involving a firearm.”

Stars and Stripes reports charging documents sourced in Pierce County Superior Court state that the Special Forces officer has apparently been drinking before the confrontation and threatened to kill any police officer who tried to arrest him. The records show that police arrived at the Ray home shortly after midnight on the 27th, and he allowed his wife and children to leave the scene by 12:30 AM. The assault charges were made as a result of allegations that Ray kicked his wife in the face and chest with his boots. The Colonel maintained that she was injured as a result of him opening a door with her on the other side.

After surrendering, Colonel Ray, 48, was booked into Pierce County Jail and has been free on $100,000 bail since January of 2021.

Media release from the DuPont, Washington police department regarding Col. Ray’s arrest for domestic violence. Image courtesy of Facebook.

A spokesman for I Corps, Lt. Col. Neil Penttila, was quick to inform the press that Ray had been suspended. He put out the following statement:

“We have been in contact with local law enforcement, who have informed us that the investigation is still on-going. While the investigation continues, we will work closely with the Family and the Officer to provide support services including counseling, behavior health support, and legal assistance. The safety of everyone involved is the command’s priority.”

War and Remembrance

Upon hearing of Colonel Ray’s case, I immediately recalled an incident from Fort Carson, Colorado, home of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and my last duty station. “Incident” is much too mild a word to describe what happened there. That word makes it sound like a minor car accident. It was March 2003. Chief Warrant Officer Bill Powell and his wife Laura lived in Monument, CO…a little less than half an hour’s drive from Post.

Bill had finished up a five-month deployment to Iraq, his third, I believe and had been home for about three weeks. The couple had three kids; the youngest was only seven months old at the time. Around 9:30 PM, a local 911 dispatcher received a call; it was Laura:

“My husband just hit me, and he’s going downstairs to get his gun.”

According to the police record, she hung up and tried to get away. I heard a bunch of talk at the time about what he supposedly said, but that’s hearsay; I won’t write about any of that. Suffice it to say; I don’t think he was very happy about the police being called on him.

Laura recalled that her husband pulled a .357 revolver from his waistband, pointed it in her face, and said, “You’re going to watch this.” In the next few moments, police officers made their way through the icy yard. They must have caught Bill’s attention, and when they did, Laura took the split-second opportunity to knock his arm up and away, the weapon no longer pointed at her. Bill’s next movement was to put the gun to his temple and pull the trigger. At the same time as Bill’s fatal shot, a police officer shot him in the arm.

Laura would later tell police that she could make no sense of what happened, “He was a good dad and a good officer,” she said. She further remarked, “The guy standing in that door that night was not my husband. He in no way resembled him. The look in his eyes was, ‘Who are you?’ It was death.”

This is but one of the numerous suicides of soldiers assigned to the Mountain Post. There have been so many that documentaries have been made about the subject.

No Loss of Life in the Ray Case

Despite the fact that Col. Ray supposedly made numerous threats and had a pistol during his hours-long standoff with police, he didn’t kill anyone. That was a major point that his defense team made to the jury during his trial. According to Cision PR Newswire (Source: Jared Ausserer, Puget Law Group), a jury found Colonel Ray not guilty of kidnapping and not guilty of two counts of harassment. However, he was found guilty of one count of assault in the second degree, one count of harassment, and reckless endangerment.

Colonel Ray on deployment with the flag of Afghanistan in the background. Screenshot from Facebook.

Ray’s defense team argued that he “suffered an emotional and mental breakdown from the cumulative impacts of untreated mental and physical health issues, operational and career stress across eight deployments, high-pressure jobs, and severe relationship distress resulted in a state of complete mental exhaustion.” During his 20 months on bail, Ray was evaluated by the Department of Veterans Affairs and was found to be 100% Permanently and Totally disabled due to the severity of his service-connected health conditions, which included traumatic brain injury and depression.

The Colonel has issued the following statement to the press:

“There are no words that adequately explain how sorry I am for any fear that my children and wife felt the evening I decided to end my life. I deeply regret any unintended physical harm that my wife encountered due to me kicking the door. I never meant to hurt anyone other than myself. For the last two years, I have worked, in complete compliance with the court and legal system, and sought medical treatment to heal mentally and physically. I have faith that the night I decided to live versus ending my life will lead to restoration and hope – not just for myself but for my family and others.”

According to Stars and Stripes, Ray was honorably discharged from the Army last year.

During his time awaiting sentencing, the Colonel must have hired a PR firm because there is an entire professionally done website at owenray.com that addresses how people (especially former service members) can best seek help for issues with their mental health. I’m trying not to be cynical here. It’s not my job to judge Colonel Ray. That has already been done by a jury of his peers. At the same time, I feel that military officers of any rank are not above the law. I’ve closely reviewed the Colonel’s website, and there are a lot of useful resources on there.

On October 28th, 2022, Colonel Ray was sentenced to 60 months behind bars. Shortly thereafter, his attorneys announced their intent to appeal the guilty verdicts. His lead counsel stated:

“We thank the jury and the Court for their hard work, attention, and for the multiple not-guilty verdicts for Colonel Owen Ray. However, Colonel Ray does not agree with the guilty verdicts and will be appealing all convictions. It was clear, based on our discussion with the jury afterwards, there was a misunderstanding and misapplication of the law. That, along with several issues, will be challenged on appeal.”

This is an ongoing story, and SOFREP will report back at a future time on the results of the appeals process.

Green Beret/Delta Force Operator on Submarine Op with SEALs

If any of our readers of SpecialOperations.com, don’t know who George Hand is or read him on the pages of NEWSREP, you are definitely missing out. George, or Geo as he’s known to the rest of us mere mortals is a badass of epic proportions. How badass is Geo? He’s so badass that he doesn’t feel the need to tell you how badass he is.

Geo will be the first to tell you he isn’t but the people that send HIM Christmas cards every year gives it away. Geo is a natural storyteller whose tales of Delta Selection are outstanding. He has a knack with making the reader feel like he’s right there along with him in all of the deployments that he’s shared with us.

His latest take is a great story of when Geo was in one of the Special Forces groups before going to Delta and getting the opportunity to do a submarine lockout with the Navy SEALs. Always done with a lot of humor, mostly the self-deprecating kind, this is a story not to be missed…Enjoy.

How does a man who is not a Navy SEAL manage to tag along with a SEAL team for a week of submarine operations? Mostly dumb luck is my sterling response. I was a combat diver assigned to a Green Beret A-Team when my boss caught me in his crosshairs with an invitation from West Coast SEAL Team Five to join them for a week of submarine underway operations.

At that point my Green Beret team had only ever done extensive dry dock-side trunk operations—that is, we practiced submarine escape trunk operations but only on boats moored in port. None of us had ever been truly underway at sea. This, as I look back on my career, was the opportunity of a lifetime, and when opportunity knocked I always opened the door. “Never turn anything down but your shirt collar” was a personal policy of mine.

I reported to the SEAL team at NAB Coronado, California. I was there a day early and elected to hang out with them for a full day of their typical shore duty, to include their morning physical training session. I would have to invent a new language to describe how brutal that workout was, for I can’t find words in English to suit it. (Although the German words unglaublich schrecklichkeit fit nicely.)

The ground calisthenics was a real punishment, but the run in the sand of Coronado’s beaches was a great thrill in spite of the constant, ear-splitting sonic booms rendered by the speed of the pace. Much to my personal pride, I managed to remain firmly in the center of the pack—by no means up front where the gazelles lock horns.

After breakfast, lockers filled with Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns and SIG Sauer P-226 semi-auto pistols were brought out for cleaning. They had all been exposed to seawater and sand the night before. I was horrified that the weapons had been left for so many hours exposed to salt water, but I was in Rome, so I shut my big fat Roman pie hole and began cleaning.

“Dude, you like, totally don’t have to do this, dude,” one of the SEALs offered in a dude sandwich.

“Dude, I’m like, totally fine with it, dude,” I returned as I broke down a gat. The salty brethren of ST-5 seemed to take a liking to me for helping with weapons cleaning, a detested task in special operations once you have done it 5,000 times.

They even chatted with me. Granted, most of it I didn’t understand, though I did nod often with enthusiasm, throwing in my own occasional “dude.” We cleaned and duded the rest of the afternoon, the scurvy bilge rats “cleaning” on average two to three weapons for everyone I cleaned. I was wearing my non-Roman on my sleeve.

We chugged for a day and a night to get to our rendezvous with our boat, the venerable Sturgeon-class Fast-Attack USS Hawkbill (SSN-666). The number 666 was ominous enough, coupled with the fact that the night before we left I had watched “Das Boot,” a movie about the perils of a Nazi U-Boat during WWII. Yep, I could kick myself in the balls with the best of them.

Onboard the Hawkbill we schlepped metric tons of gear to the torpedo room where we slept and operated for the next week. It was crowded…my God, it was so crowded. It was so crowded in there you had to step outside of the torpedo room just to say, “It’s crowded in there!” And nudity—I have never seen such nudity in my life. The two pasty-faced torpedo room hands from the boat didn’t help, either, sharing their torpedo room humor as I passed by:

“Wow, Chucky…these SEAL fellows got some nice asses,” one of them began with a wry grin.

“I’m not a SEAL; I’m an Army Green Beret!” I protested, “But…thanks…man….”

The climb up to the escape trunk was nuts. We had to stepladder our way up three levels of bunk beds with sailors sleeping in them to get to the escape hatch. There are only enough bunks for roughly half of the crew on a submarine, so half of the crew works while the other half sleeps, a practice called hot-bunking. We pipe-hitters slept on torpedoes under the pining gaze of the pasty-faced torpedo hands.

The trunk was crowded…my God, it was so crowded. At least I thought ahead enough to say, “It’s crowded” before I got in there. Thankfully, everyone was fully-clothed, which was of personal comfort to me. I mean, I appreciate a nice physique as much as the next person, just not from less than two millimeters away.

The trunk was flooded with seawater to just below the level of our noses. One by one we took deep breaths, submerged to pass through the escape hatch, and ascended to the sea surface. At the surface was a small inflatable boat tethered to the submarine. We floated in the water, clinging to the inflatable. I reveled in the glory of the view of the massive boat some 50 feet below us. It was majestic and imposing; I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of it.

Suddenly an object came into view. One of the divers’ weight belts had come loose and it sank toward the boat. It was a wide nylon strap with a quick-release buckle and lead weights attached. “Bummer,” I thought for the man; it would be difficult for him to sink back to the escape hatch.

I shook my head at the glaring fact that the diver’s dive knife and emergency smoke/flare was attached to the belt. That was a safety violation, as nothing is allowed to be attached to the weight belt: It is the first piece of gear that is to be jettisoned in the event of an emergency. Now the diver had lost his most important emergency equipment to boot—his dive knife and signaling device.

The ensemble struck the hull of the boat. Oh, the captain of the ship was not happy about that and might scrub our dive operations for the day. Ship captains already hated this sort of lock-in/lock-out maneuver because a procedural error could, no shit, sink a boat. The belt scraped along as it slowly slipped down the curved contour of the sub until it fell away to Davy Jone’s Locker.

I knew the poor brother would get a double helping of grief because he had committed a grand blunder and because he had done it in front of an Army puke. I took it with a grain of salt because, even though the team was driven by seasoned leadership, it was jammed with fresh recruits from the most recent graduation of the Navy SEAL’s BUD/S class—junior operators. That element would manifest itself again in mere moments.

All the men were taken back down to the escape trunk one at a time by a safety diver with a twin breathing hose (regulator) attached to SCUBA tanks. He could breathe from one and his passenger could breathe from the other. Our procedure called for each man entering the trunk to hold a regulator outside of the trunk for the next diver to transition to before he crowded into the trunk.

The safety diver passed me the regulator, which I clenched in my teeth. I saw that a hook had come undone on my life vest and struggled to redo it. Without giving a signal to submerge, the safety diver dove down toward the trunk. As both my hands were busy hooking my vest, I was dragged to the trunk by the regulator clasped in my teeth, my ears threatening to explode from the inability to equalize sinus pressure.

Again, without a signal, the diver pulled the regulator from my mouth and left. I was beginning to drift a little south of pleased by now, and furthermore, the last diver had failed to hold out a regulator of the ship’s air for me to breathe. I peered into the hatch to see a forest of thrashing legs. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and bulldozed my way into the trunk.

When I broke into the air bubble there was loud panicked screaming from the men. The water line had risen too high and the trunk operator’s attempt to blow the water level back down revealed that the air blow pipe was submerged and creating a hurricane of wind, noise, and water spray in the small air space that remained.

To read the complete article, click here:

Photo of SEAL Team 5: US Navy

Remembering Nathan Chapman, Green Beret/CIA KIA Afghanistan 2002

If it seems like the war in Afghanistan has gone on forever, perhaps it is because it has dragged on for an entire generation. The United States has been involved there for over 17 years and there seems to be no end game in sight. And the cost has been very high. More than 4000 Americans (military and civilian contractors) have been killed in Afghanistan. Today, we’ll remember the first fatality from enemy action, Nathan Ross Chapman from the 1st Special Forces Group, who was detailed to the CIA Team Hotel. Chapman was killed on January 4, 2002, in Khost, Afghanistan.

Born into a military family, Chapman was born at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where his father was stationed. He graduated high school from Centerville High School in Ohio and was active with the wrestling team. He immediately joined the Army and went to Ft. Benning for Basic, Advanced Infantry Training and Ranger training before being assigned to the 2nd Ranger Bn at Ft. Lewis, Washington.

In December of 1989, Chapman participated in the invasion of Panama during Operation Just Cause and parachuted into the airfield at Rio Hato, where the Rangers seized the airfield and took down Manuel Noriega’s beach house which had a headquarters in the upper floors.

In 1991, Chapman would once again go into combat during Desert Storm in January 1991. Later that year, he volunteered for Special Forces training and attended SFAS, and the Special Forces Qualification Course at Ft. Bragg, NC. He graduated in December 1992 as an 18E (Communications Sergeant) and then attended the Defense Language Institute’s Tagalog course, finishing in June of 1993.

Chapman was assigned to the 3rd Bn, 1st SFG(A) in July of 1993 and served on ODAs A-185 and A-195. During 1995, he went with his unit to Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy. In 1998, Chapman was assigned to 1st Bn, 1st SFG(A) on Okinawa and served there for three years. He returned to Ft. Lewis and the 3/1 SFG in 2001.

After 9/11 he volunteered for a special mission in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Before he left, he told his wife that his chances of returning were 50/50. They took a family photo and he gave her a heart pendant that they broke so that each could take half.

But after arriving in the country, his odds of surviving got better. The Americans with Northern Alliance allies and massive U.S. air support battered the Taliban and bottled them and al-Qaeda up in Tora Bora including Osama bin Laden.

On the fateful day of January 4, Chapman was with a group of 25 Special Operators, CIA men and their Afghan allies commanded by Zakim Khan Zadran. Team Hotel consisted of three Green Berets, two CIA Paramilitary Officers, and one CIA Contractor. When they arrived in Khost, they were met by Afghans loyal to Padsha Khan Zadran, who, although are unrelated belong to the same clan of Pashtuns who dominate the surrounding area.

In a story that goes back hundreds if not a thousand years, the two warlords were locked in a jealous struggle for power and prestige. With the Taliban on the run, the power vacuum opened the door for old rivalries to take center stage.

Padsha Khan Zadran ordered his men to fire on the Americans at their checkpoint in order to convince American commanders to ditch Zakim Khan Zadran and force their alliance to him. To Chapman and the other Americans, they were searching for information that both bin Laden and Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani were holed up in the mountains outside of town.

After the Americans had met with both warlords they set out to inspect two sites where American airstrikes had hit Taliban targets about 3 miles away. One target, a bombed-out mosque, Chapman conducted bomb assessment damage and then drove to a fort where Taliban tanks had taken a beating from U.S. airstrikes.

As they approached a checkpoint manned by Padsha Khan Zadran’s men, Chapman was standing in the rear of the truck with a camera around his neck. Shots rang out, Chapman slumped in the back of the truck, severely wounded. Before he collapsed, he emptied his M-4 in the direction of the enemy. By the time they got back to where they’d left from just a short time before, he was dead. A CIA Paramilitary Officer from the Special Activities Division was wounded.

The fighters loyal to Zakim Khan Zadran stated the fire came directly from the checkpoint but the other warlord disagreed. He claimed that the firing came from 50 yards away behind a half-finished mosque. He said his men had arrested a 14-year-old boy who claimed that he had fired the shots to avenge the removal of the Taliban and the bombing of the mosque. Conveniently, the boy escaped from confinement two days later and fled to Pakistan.

However, witnesses identified three men who fired the shots as fighters of Padsha Khan Zadran who then also, conveniently, fled to Pakistan.

Chapman’s body was returned to Washington state and he was buried about a week later in Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Washington. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. His awards and decorations include the Bronze Star with “V” device, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Army Achievement Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, the Humanitarian Service Medal, the United Nations Medal, the Kuwait Liberation Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal with Bronze Service Star, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal with arrowhead, the Army Good Conduct Medal (3rd Award), the Armed Forces Service Medal, the Joint Meritorious Service Unit Award, the Army Superior Unit Award, the Combat Infantryman Badge second award, the Master Parachutist Badge, the Parachutist Combat Badge with bronze service star, the Special Forces Combat Divers Badge, the Special Forces Tab, the Ranger Tab, and the Royal Thai Army Parachutist Badge.

He left behind his wife Renae and two children a daughter Amanda (2) and a son Brandon (1) who were too young to remember their father.

The CIA honored Chapman in 2015 by unveiling a star on their Memorial Wall in his honor.

Photos: DOD

1st SFG, Abn Special Ops Test Directorate Test Static Line Parachutes

The Army’s Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate was in North Carolina testing a military freefall parachute for static line operations recently which could mean that Special Operations Forces could soon be using these in a tactical situation.

Green Berets from the 1st Special Forces Group (1st SFG) were in Laurinburg, NC recently to help test and certify the new RA-1 Parachute that is encased in a Double Bag Static Line configuration.

The tests were conducted with both the C-27J and the Casa 212 aircraft systems. The Special Operators during the test phase jumped with and without combat equipment from altitudes of 6,000 to 18,000 feet above ground level. However, the operational limits of the RA-1 will be between 3500 feet and 25,000 feet AGL.

The SF ODA Commander who wasn’t identified due to security issues was impressed with the new rig. “This was an extraordinary opportunity to conduct Double Bag Static Line training and to utilize our non-military free-fall detachment personnel to support the test,” he said.

The new chute, according to the manufacturer consists of the Intruder 360 main parachute, the Intruder 360 reserve parachute, and the Raider 2 harness/container, and has been specifically designed for jumpers carrying heavy loads into rough, unfamiliar drop zones at night.  These conditions demand a canopy that provides superior glide performance for maximum offset and performance characteristics to minimize the potential for injury on landing.

The parachute has been certified for use up to 25,000 feet and can handle weights up to 450 pounds which is 90 pounds more than the MC-4. Both the reserve and main parachutes incorporate a reflexed airfoil section which provides a 4:1 glide ratio. That will allow Special Operators to travel farther and faster under canopy. The parachute utilizes a 360 square foot area but they also make a smaller version with a 300 square foot area.

The testing board used a Special Forces ODA that was not MFF (freefall qualified), to see how well they were able to handle the parachute that was designed for HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) and HAHO (High Altitude, High Opening) operations.

“This test provided me with good training,” said a Senior SF medic told the Army Times. “I definitely benefitted by improving my canopy skills. Although I am not military free-fall qualified, this test and training provided me the opportunity to jump a free-fall type parachute.”

The testing for this has been on-going since 2013, at Joint Base Lewis-McCord, Washington in 2015, around 50 Special Forces troops from the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 10th Special Forces Groups along with paratroopers from the 3rd Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment tested the HALO version of the parachute, which will eventually replace the aging MC-4.

Individual Special Forces groups have been using the RA-1 but it is thought in just the HALO mode. The use of the static line will give SF ODAs a bit more flexibility for a stand-off infiltration. It will allow a small Special Operations team to remain much closer to each other during infiltration. However, widespread use of this equipment in a static line mode isn’t really needed or feasible.

During initial testing in 2015, Special Forces detachments were able to land within a 25-30 meter circle, much tighter than when using traditional static line parachutes.

The Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate (ABNSOTD), U.S. Army Operational Test Command (USAOTC) that conducted the testing began as The Airborne Board which was a service board activated in December of 1944 at Camp Mackall, North Carolina. The unit’s history can be traced back through the Testing and Developing Section of the Airborne Command, organized in 1942, at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, to the original Parachute Test Platoon, activated at Fort Benning, Georgia, in June 1940.

Although the Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate (ABNSOTD) has operated under various designations over the last fifty years, the mission of the unit has remained the same; plan, execute, and report on operational tests and field experiments of Airborne and Special Operations Forces equipment, procedures, aerial delivery, and air transportation systems in order to provide key operational data for the continued development and fielding of doctrine, systems or equipment to the Warfighter.

Safety for the paratroopers and Special Operators is always of the utmost concern during the testing phase and those concerns will drive the train despite trying to create as much realism incorporated into the training and testing phase.

The MFF (Military Free Fall) Detachment of the ABNSOTD conducted over 100 jumps from a CASA-212 and then the C-27J to ensure that all the procedures and techniques used were safe.

Currently, the C-27J is only authorized by the Army to conduct conventional static line jumps and MFF parachute jumps but this successful testing will pave the way for Special Operations Forces to conduct long-range insertion from the C-27J when using the RA-1 parachute system in Double Bag Static Line configuration.

In the Army Times piece, the Team Sergeant for the ODA was also impressed with the additional flexibility and versatility that the new parachute will offer. “Double Bag Static Line becomes an additional infiltration mechanism for our detachment to be used in the future.”

“At the end of the day, jumping from a high-performance aircraft further validates our ability to jump the RA-1 Parachute in the double bag static line configuration,” he added. “It gives us and the commander comfort in knowing an entire Operational Detachment Alpha can use this aircraft platform with excellent results.”

The Airborne and Special Operations Test Directorate has always sought out participation from the various Special Operations units and personnel during their testing. This way the soldiers in the line units get to use, test and experience the new equipment and/or procedures in a tactical environment before they are incorporated. This gives the Army immediate feedback on how well or not they will work. Soldiers are encouraged to give suggestions to improve on equipment and procedures as well.

This new equipment will only enhance the versatility of the Special Operations units. In limited uses, at the ODA level or smaller, it will make the job of the Special Operator easier to accomplish any mission thrown their way.

Not only will it make the operator more versatile, but the parachute itself is more versatile as well. It can be used in the double-bag static line as during the test but also in the traditional HALO, HAHO operations.

Photos: US Army

Special Operations Snipers Going to a New Caliber Ammunition

U.S. Special Operations troops will soon be fielding sniper systems in a new caliber that will double their hit probability at 1000 meters, has less wind drift, increases their range by a half and cut down on the weight of their ammunition.

The 6.5mm Creedmoor which has been kicking around for about a decade is the new choice for the US Special Operations Command for their sniper systems. The venerable 7.62x51mm-sniper round will be replaced as the Creedmoor has superior long-range ballistic performance and has been a favorite of civilian long-range precision shooters for some time now.

The Creedmoor 6.5mm has much less recoil than the traditional 7.62mm and in an article by the NRA’s Shooting Illustrated, the cartridge is far more flatter with less wind drift.

The 140-grain 6.5 Creedmoor and the 168-grain .308 Win. both leave the muzzle at 2,700 fps, and the trajectories stay pretty even out to 500 yards. The Creedmoor needs 10.0 MOA of holdover, while the .308 needs 10.5 MOA, but the 10-mph crosswind will start to show the advantages of the higher B.C. of the Creedmoor. The .308 will need 3.25 MOA of wind adjustment, while the Creedmoor needs 2.5 MOA. Take it to 750 yards, the Creedmoor needs 19 MOA of vertical adjustment, and the .308 Winchester needs 21 MOA, so the 6.5 bullet offers a mildly flatter trajectory, if a 15-inch difference in point of impact fits your definition of mild. With regards to the wind, the 6.5 Creedmoor needs 4.25 MOA of wind hold, and the .308 Win. requires 5.5 MOA. The Creedmoor is moving 175 fps faster than the .308 at this point.
At the magic 1,000 yard mark, things change radically. Looking at the trajectory, our Creedmoor needs 30.75 MOA, the .308 needs 35.5 MOA, and that’s a big difference. The Creedmoor requires 6.25 MOA of wind adjustment in the 10mph wind, and the .308 needs 8.25 MOA – a difference of 20 inches. But the velocities at this point is where the Creedmoor shows the advantage over the .308; the 6.5 Creedmoor 140-grainer is moving along at over 1,400 fps but that .308 Win. bullet has slowed down to about 1,150 fps – just past the cusp of the transonic window. That’s where things can go haywire, and a bullet can often do quirky, silly things. If you’re shooting at higher elevations, that point may stretch out a bit, but at the coastal elevations, especially in cooler temperatures, it can pose an issue. The Creedmoor – again according to the Hornady calculator – will carry out to about 1,175 yards before it hits that window.

If the military wants to convert the current weapons to 6.5mm, it would require only a barrel change, the magazines would still hold the same amount of ammo. SOCOM is also trying to cut down on the weight of the ammo by going to a polymer ammunition which would bring the weight down to a load similar to 5.56mm.

We’ve also read that the Department of Homeland Security is following USSOCOM’s lead and switching to 6.5mm as well.

Recently a two-man sniper team from 1st Special Forces Group took home the award as the top sniper team during the recent USASOC Sniper Competition besting other teams from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, including teams from the Marine Corps Scout Sniper School, the Army Sniper School and Naval Special Warfare Command.

The USASOC Sniper Competition tested the team’s abilities to move and communicate in a very short amount of time (six minutes) and still accomplish their assigned missions. Drew Brooks the military editor for the Fayetteville (NC) Observer posted about the challenges the snipers faced.

At Range 62B, their communications skills were further tested. Twenty targets were mixed amid a range that includes numerous obstacles, buildings and mock vehicles. Each was marked by a symbol and a color denoting the type of weapon that should be used — pistol, carbine or sniper rifle.

Working together, the competitors had to look at a card shown to them by an instructor, find that symbol and shoot the target with the appropriate weapon.

“It’s essentially ‘Where’s Waldo,’” said a Special Forces Sniper Course instructor overseeing the event. “It’s designed to suck them in, get them distracted or moving faster than [they] needed to be.”

The point is, a sniper has an extremely difficult job to do, even in perfect circumstances. If they are carrying a weapon, such as the 6.5mm Creedmoor which effectively extends their range and cuts down on the number of adjustments they’ll be forced to make, it only makes them much effective at the job and they’ll no doubt be faster in doing it. That will save lives.

We’ve reached out to some long gunners on if they’ve shot the new round yet and what their perspective is on it. And we get those, we’ll update this.

Photo: US Army

Special Operations Soldiers Honored in Ceremony at Ft. Bragg

Gary Rose was a Green Beret medic in Vietnam and was recently awarded the Medal of Honor from President Trump for actions he performed in a particularly hazardous and dangerous mission there in 1970.

Rose and eight other Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations troops were honored by being named “distinguished members of the Regiment” or “honorary members of the Regiment” in a ceremony at Ft. Bragg, NC.

“They improved the lives of thousands,” he said. “What I did, it pales… It’s just incredible… it’s just an incredible privilege.”

Others inducted as distinguished members of the regiment were retired Maj. Clyde J. Sincere Jr., retired Maj. Steven E. Cook and retired Sgt. Maj. Gilbert R. Turcotte. A fifth Special Forces soldier, retired Sgt. 1st Class Eric C. Moriarty, was inducted as an honorary member of the regiment.
Retired Lt. Col. James P. Kelliher was inducted as a distinguished member of the Psychological Operations Regiment. Air Force Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Lengyel was inducted as an honorary member of the regiment.
Two Civil Affairs veterans, Brig. Gen. Crawford E. Sams and Col. Charles R. Munske, were posthumously honored as distinguished members of their regiment.
Maj. Gen. Kurt L. Sonntag, commanding general of the Special Warfare Center and School, said each of the honorees shared a commitment to service that goes well beyond their time in uniform.
To be selected, a veteran must have made overwhelmingly significant contributions to the welfare of their respective regiments. The honors, he said, pay tribute to past special operators and those currently in the fight.
“This is a day to recognize and applaud the contributions and the members of our special operations regiments,” Sonntag said. “What they do every day is real and important. It might not get all the news that we used to do in the past — we are working in the shadows again — but it is equally important.”
Rose said he was honored by the recognition.
As part of a joint force of Americans, Vietnamese and Montagnards, Rose’s team was inserted deep within Vietnam enemy territory in 1970. When the group came under attack, the Special Forces medic repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while treating the wounded, using his own body to protect the seriously injured.
Rose continued treating the wounded for four days before a helicopter evacuation. When Rose’s helicopter crashed, he again treated the injured until another rescue could be made.

These Special Operations veterans served in a variety of posts, missions and conflicts stretching from World War I up to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To read the entire article from the Fayetteville Observer, click here:

Photo courtesy US Army

The Special Forces Branch is Created April 9, 1987

Today’s USSOCOM (United States Special Operations Command) operates in nearly 100 countries a day as Special Operations troops from all of the combined services do their part in defending U.S. interests abroad.

Special Operations troops are taking on the lion’s share of the fighting in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan as they are an integral part of the United States strategy for defeating our enemies there. But it wasn’t always that way. In fact, the command (SOCOM) is a relative newcomer to the U.S. military. The creation of the Special Forces branch for Army officers on April 9, 1987, was a big moment for SF and changed everything.

Special Forces was created in 1952 as former members of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) were assigned with paratroopers and Rangers from the Army to fill out the ranks of the 10th Special Forces Group headed by Colonel Aaron Bank.

OSS and SF were tasked with training, equipping and leading indigenous forces in the art of guerrilla warfare. The mission of the 10th according to Bank was to “to infiltrate by land, sea or air, deep into enemy-occupied territory and organize the resistance/guerrilla potential to conduct Special Forces operations, with emphasis on guerrilla warfare.”

Special Forces grew steadily and the new unit was heavily involved in Vietnam with Special Forces A-Teams spread all over the country and found themselves a tremendously loyal ally in the Montagnard people of the mountains in Southeast Asia. By the time the war was over, SF soldiers had earned (from SF Assn) 20 Medals of Honor, one Distinguished Service Medal, 90 Distinguished Service Crosses, 814 Silver Star Medals, 13,234 Bronze Star Medals, 235 Legions of Merit, 46 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 232 Soldier’s Medals, 4,891 Air Medals, 6,908 Army Commendation Medals and 2,658 Purple Hearts.

After the Vietnam war wound down, the military cut back on special operations forces and tried to build a large conventional force for a large European land battle with the Soviet Union. As a result, the Army lost numerous Special Forces groups, the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th Special Forces groups were deactivated. The 7th SFG narrowly escaped the ax as the Pentagon, never a fan of “specialized” or “elite” units tried to wipe the slate clean of them.

The Special Forces side of the house in the military was left with just three active duty groups. The 5th, 7th and the 10th. Ronald Reagan’s election and the debacle at Desert One in Iran would change all of that. During the attempted rescue of American hostages in Iran, an ad-hoc force of Delta Force commandos, Army Rangers and Air Force and Marine pilots failed because the pilots weren’t specifically trained for that type of mission.

The planning, training, and execution were set back because the services weren’t accustomed to working together and no unified command existed. The government finally learned that the U.S. military needed a dedicated Special Operations force that was capable of handling any issues that arose, complete with air assets dedicated to Special Operations missions.

The Pentagon and Congress learned what Special Operations troops had long known and later became one of the Command’s “truths” that they live by.

Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

The Army created a Career Management Branch for their enlisted soldiers (CMF 18) in 1984. Now Green Berets in Special Forces groups would no longer have to serve “command time” as senior NCOs in conventional assignments. The Special Forces tab, recognizing being a graduate of SF training was adopted in 1983.

But the officers who served in Special Forces were still in No-Man’s Land. Serving more than one tour in Special Forces for officers was considered career suicide. Staying in SF would result in achieving no more than a Colonel’s rank. And those were few and far between. Something had to be done.

One of the weak parts of a Special Forces A-Team was the XO or 2LT position. Too many of the LTs didn’t have enough of a conventional background or experience to be effective enough. Many of the LTs were former NCOs who had gone thru OCS but there weren’t enough.

So the Army created the Warrant Officer Program for Special Forces troops not long after the CMF 18 was created. The LT’s slot was cut from the A-Teams and the slots would be filled by senior Special Forces NCOs who went thru the Warrant Officer course, held at Ft. Rucker and Ft. Bragg.

Finally, on April 9, 1987, the Army created the Special Forces Branch for Commissioned Officers (18A). Once a Captain or 1LT promotable applied he could attend the Special Forces Qualification Course and upon successful completion would become part of the SF Branch.

The results were a much better, more capable and more experienced core of officers and enlisted men. Troops dedicated solely to Special Forces operations. No longer would officers stick around only long enough to “get their ticket punched” and be forced to move on to other assignments and career fields. During this time frame, both the 1st and the 3rd Special Forces Groups were reactivated and have served with distinction. The Special Forces Command has a group area oriented to every specific part of the world complete with language capability and culturally experienced troops that know their area of operations, the people, and many of the personalities involved.

The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria have put such a burden on the operational tempo (optempo) of the units that the Army authorized the 4th battalion for each of the Special Forces groups.

Today is a far cry from the lean years of the early-to-mid-1970s where Special Forces were on the brink of being eliminated by backward thinking officers. The troops today are overtasked as they’ve become a panacea by Washington to fix every problem that the country faces as they try to limit the amount of “boots on the ground” in the world’s hotspots.

But all of the SF troops come from the humble and austere beginnings of Aaron Bank and the original Special Forces troops formed on Smoke Bomb Hill in 1952.

Photo: US Army