The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. It was supposed to be a swift operation to install a loyal communist government. The Soviets were initially successful in gaining control of the cities and major infrastructure but became bogged down and flummoxed fighting against mujahideen guerillas in Afghanistan’s rugged mountains. The Soviet – Afghan War went on for ten years and cost the Soviet army an estimated 15,000 dead. After the Soviets withdrew, the go...

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar announced Egypt was taking control of the British and French owned Suez Canal Company in July 1956. He took this action to fund the Aswan Dam he wanted built. In response to Nassar seizing the canal, Britain, France, and Israel secretly planned a joint invasion. Israel would advance towards the canal through the Sinai Peninsula while Britain and France would intervene and regain control of the canal under the guise of being peacekeepers....

Bill Richardson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and enlisted in the Army in 1945. He deployed to Korea when war broke out in 1950 and fought northward up the length of the Korean peninsula as part of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division. On November 5th, 1950, Richardson was captured by the Chinese during the Battle of Unsan. He spent roughly the next three years enduring brutal captivity. So brutal 38% of American prisoners died. Somehow Richardson survived wi...

Among other things, Thomas Edward Lawrence was an author, archeologist, and British Army officer. During the First World War, he served as a liaison between the British and the Arab tribes fighting Ottoman rule in the western Arabian desert. Lawrence spent approximately two years and covered hundreds of miles by camel in this role. His campaign was successful in toppling Ottoman rule yet failed to fully meet the Arab tribes’ aspirations for self-rule. Lawrence tells th...

Within a few short years, drones went from being a niche capability reserved for technically advanced militaries to something ubiquitous on the modern battlefield. According to the Atlantic Council, Ukraine was producing 200,000 first person view drones per month by early 2025. The Ukrainians used those drones to inflict up to 80% of Russian battlefield casualties. That conflict continues and so does its use of drones. Meanwhile, Hamas used drones to as part of the Oct...

Tameichi Hara descended from Japan’s samurai class. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1921 and began a career at sea. When war started with the United States in 1941, Hara was serving as the captain of the destroyer Amatsukaze. He went on to command a destroyer division and participated in major engagements throughout the war. His last assignment at sea was captain of the light cruiser Yahagi tasked with a suicide mission to attack Allied forces ...

On 30 April 1980 six Iranian Arabs seized the Iranian Embassy in the center of London and took 26 people hostage. They demanded the release of prisoners in Iran and safe passage out of the United Kingdom. British authorities managed to get five hostages released in return for minor concessions, but time passed, and tensions rose. On the sixth day, the hostage takers killed one of their captives. This killing triggered the British to launch an assault to rescue the rema...

The A Shau Valley is in the mountainous northwest corner of what used to be South Vietnam. It is right across the border from Laos. Because of its location, the A Shau formed a natural hub for the North Vietnamese Army to move their units and supplies into South Vietnam and threaten the more heavily populated coastal plains. The United States tried multiple times and multiple ways to disrupt what the North Vietnamese were doing. Some of the Vietnam War's heaviest comba...

The island of Crete sits in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1941 the Germans decided to seize Crete, “As a base for air warfare against Great Britain in the Eastern Mediterranean”. The elite paratroopers of Germany’s 7th Air Division were assigned to lead the attack. They would be reinforced by more troops arriving by sea and air. It was Germany’s biggest airborne operation of the war by far. The German attack started on May 20th, 1941. Approximately German 8...

The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) landed in Beirut Lebanon on May 29th, 1983, as part of a peacekeeping force during Lebanon’s Civil War. Once ashore, the MAU’s battalion landing team, BLT 1/8, took up positions around Beirut International Airport. Things escalated and the Marines began regularly taking fire. They suffered their first deaths on August 29th when Staff Sergeant Alexander Ortega and Second Lieutenant George Losey were killed by mortar fire. Then on Oc...