Today marks the anniversary of Operation Eagle Claw. In the early morning hours of 25 April, 1980 President Carter announced to a stunned world that the United States had undertaken an ambitious raid into Iran to liberate 52 American hostages held illegally by tye Iranian Republican Guard, at our Embassy in Tehran. Unfortunately, Operation Eagle Claw was unsuccessful, and we lost eight American servicemen in a horrible aircraft ground collision.

However, their sacrifice was not in vain. The hostages were eventually returned and the accident was the watershed event that created, over the next several decades, the world’s preeminent Special Operations capability; USSOCOM and its components. Some hard Americans were on that raid; legends to those who would follow.  We wouldn’t be where are today with the determination of that fledgling task force. Join me in remembering those that paved the way.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 24th, 2016 at 14:30 and is filed under History, SOF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.