The next installment in the Vickers Guide series, Kalashnikov (Volume 1) m, is almost ready for pre-order. One thing they still need to do is lock in the cover and they want your help to do it.
Which classic AK variant should they use?
Click here to vote.
I’ll tip back a pint this evening in memory of all the ANZAC troops, from World War One’s Battle of Gallipoli to the battle fought today. I’ll think of friends in both Australian and New Zealand militaries and good times deployed to bad places.
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 at our Embassy compound in Tehran. Unfortunately, Operation Eagle Claw was unsuccessful and we lost eight American servicemen in a horrible aircraft ground collision. Join me in remembering their sacrifice.
However, their deaths were not in vain. The hostages were eventually repatriated 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. We wouldn’t be where are today without the determination of that fledgling task force. Join me in remembering those that had the guts to try.
Fogotten Weapons hosts Larry Vickers as he discusses the XM-8.
While some may argue that the Boston Massacre marks the beginning of the Revolutionary War due to the deaths of Colonists, the events of April 19th, 1775 mark the first shots from an American Army, on British troops, starting a war that would last for over eight years and see the ascendency of the American Eagle over this land we now call the United States.
This battle is also where we draw our concept of the iconic Minute Man from.
Each Patriot’s Day, I remember those men at Concord and consider what it must have been for them to stand there together, in the face of the world’s greatest army and take up arms in the defense of their colony from oppression.
This militia came together on that morning to protect their arms from seizure by an oppressive government. That is a fact.
“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
-John Parker
Captain of Militia
As the initial volleys of fire were exchanged near daybreak on Lexington Green, colonial volunteers fell back in the face of over 500 occupying British troops. But as the battle moved on to Concord, the tide turned, and the redcoats were routed as more and more colonists joined the fray.
The British troops retreated through Concord where they were reinforced. Despite boasting a strength of 1700 men, they remained no match for the determined colonists who forced them to retreat to the safety of Charlestown in Boston. The militiamen continued their pursuit which transformed into the Siege of Boston.
Today, join me in remembering those American warriors who pledged their lives to give us our hard fought freedoms and this great land.
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. —
Air University Press new publication announcement:
Brothers in Berets: The Evolution of Air Force Special Tactics, 1953–2003 by Forrest L. Marion.
Relying largely on oral history interviews, this work explores the evolution and contributions of the Battlefield Airmen assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) special tactics units over 50 years.
“Their story deserves telling within the US Air Force and to the general public,” notes Gen John Jumper, USAF, retired.
Battlefield Airmen core competencies include performing duties primarily on the ground, often “outside the wire,” and under austere conditions—all skills needed for carrying the fight to the enemy on the ground. The AFSOC special tactics community is a small brotherhood of highly trained and equally dedicated warriors consisting of special tactics officers and combat controllers, combat rescue officers and pararescuemen, and officer and enlisted special operations weathermen.
Its members have proven themselves as force multipliers time and time again throughout their history in places like Somalia, Serbia, and the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Download our publications at www.airuniversity.af.mil/AUPress. Order publications by e-mailing aupress@us.af.mil or calling 334-953-2773 (DSN 493). Publications are also available at the Air University Press Bookstore, 600 Chennault Circle, Building 1405 (Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center), Maxwell AFB.
CMSgt Gene Alcock (USAF, Ret) has long served his country in both the Air Force and industry. These past years, he’s continued as a historian, documenting the history of the Combat Control Teams he served on. He recently shared this photo from 1965 which depicts one of the earliest uses of the AR-15 rifle in a combat setting.
USAF NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HQ, 2D AIR DIVISION (PACAF), APO SAN FRANCISCO, CA 93307
14 OCTOBER 1965 – BONG SON SPECIAL FORCES CAMP, RVN – CCT TSgt Stan Williams, 32, of Erwin, NC “talks in” a C-123 Provider of the 315th Air Commando Group during an airlift of Army of the Republic of Vietnam troops at Bong Son Special Forces camp. The army unit was heading for Tuy Hoa North, after spending more than two months in the field. Watching the aircraft land is TSgt Gene Adcock, 28, of Christopher, IL, another member of the team.
The radio vehicle pictured is the MRC-94. The weapon, an Armalite AR-15 and a B- 2 air traffic control light are shown on the ground at the right wheel.
(Air Force Photo by SSgt B. W. Cook)
