President Reagan Presented the Medal of Honor to Roy Benavidez Roy P. Benavidez On February 24, 1981, President Ronald Reagan presented Roy P. Benavidez with the Medal of Honor. Reagan turned to the press and said, "If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it". He then read the [...]
Stories of Special Forces Dangerous Missions Master Sergeant Raul Perez "Roy" Benavidez Special Forces Part 6 Roy P. Benavidez Master Sergeant Vietnam Special Forces Part 6 - Master Sergeant Raul Perez "Roy" Benavidez (August 5, 1935 – November 29, 1998) was a member of the United States Army Special Forces (Studies and Observations [...]
Vietnam by way of Bad Tolz, Germany It was an overcast day and the temperature was in the low forties. I was thinking it would be another great day in Bad Tolz because duty here was almost storybook in nature, it was Sunday and I was to have the afternoon off. Bad Tolz, Germany [...]
In the Jungles of Vietnam Special Forces Part 5 - During the Vietnam Era - Nam Dong, Lang Vei, Dak To, A Shau, Plei Mei – these were just some of the places SF troops fought and died during their 15-year stay in South Vietnam. A mission began in June 1957, when the original 16 [...]
Special Forces - The Green Beret Special Forces (SF) was designed in 1953 by Major Herbert Brucker, a veteran of the OSS. First Lieutenant Roger Pezelle adopted it as the unofficial headgear for his A-team, Operational Detachment FA32. They wore it whenever they went to the field for prolonged exercises. Soon it spread throughout [...]
Special Forces Twelve Man Teams Explained Special Forces Part 3: Twelve Man Teams - By 1958, the basic operational unit of SF had evolved into a 12-man team known as the Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha (SF ODA). Each member of the team – two officers, two operations and intelligence sergeants, two weapons sergeants, two communications [...]
The Early Years of Special Forces Special Forces Part 2 - The Early Years - Special Forces (SF) grew out of the establishment of the Special Operations Division of the Psychological Warfare Center, activated at Fort Bragg, N.C., in May 1952. The Army allocated 2,300 personnel slots to make up the first Special Forces (SF) [...]
Special Operations Group Combat Patch Vietnam Special Forces military trained to perform unconventional, high-risk missions Special Forces Part 1 - From Birth to Present Day - The first Special Forces groups originated from an elite combined Canadian-American unit that fought in the Aleutians, Italy, and southern France. It was nicknamed the Devils [...]