Spec Ops Magazine

SOF, military training, veteran stories, and security careers. Built for operators and those who want to become one.

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Operators from Poland's GROM training alongside the Army's SMU and the British SAS in the early 1990s. At the time, GROM was brand new. It was formed in July 1990 under Gen. Sławomir Petelicki, at a moment when Poland was only just emerging from the Warsaw Pact.

To build a counterterrorism unit capable of operating at the highest level, GROM looked West. American and British special operations units helped shape its selection, training, and tactics, sharing hard-earned lessons with men who just a few years earlier had served on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It was a remarkable shift, and photos like this capture it in real time.

That early investment paid off. GROM grew into one of the most respected Special Mission Units in Europe and went on to fight alongside its American and British partners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Operators from the Army's SMU in Syria in 2019, in a photo said to have been taken after the raid that ended Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On the night of October 26, 2019, the assault force flew into Barisha, in Syria's Idlib Province, and hit the compound where the leader of ISIS had been hiding.

Expecting the doors to be rigged, the operators blew their own way in through the compound wall. Baghdadi fled into a dead-end tunnel with a military working dog on his heels, then detonated his suicide vest, killing himself and two of his children. The dog, Conan, was wounded in the blast but recovered and later became one of the most famous K9s in the world. No American service members were killed.

The mission was named Operation Kayla Mueller, after the American aid worker who was held captive by ISIS and died in 2015. Years after her death, the men who went in that night made sure the man responsible for her suffering finally answered for it.

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Sgt. Maj. (Ret.) Chuck Yerry grew up in San Jose, California, where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout before enlisting in the Army in 1989. He went on to build a career in Army special operations, rising through the ranks to retire as a Sergeant Major. His service came at a heavy price. During a raid in Iraq, he was accidentally shot by an attached operator from DEVGRU, the Navy's Special Mission Unit, and lost his leg.

Even that didn't end his service. Today, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, he leads the effort behind the SOF K9 Memorial, raising money for an exhibit at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum that honors the dogs who served and fought alongside special operations forces. These K9s cleared buildings, tracked the enemy, found explosives, and too often gave their lives protecting their handlers and teams.

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Mike Morton's path is about as unusual as they come. He enlisted in the Navy in 1990 and spent about 12 years as a Navy diver, and in his spare time he became one of the best ultrarunners in the country. In 1997, he won the Western States 100 in record time, a mark that stood for seven years until Scott Jurek finally broke it.

Then it all stopped. A hip injury in 1998 ended his running and put him under the knife. After 9/11, he made an even bigger change. In 2001, he left the Navy for the Army, completed Special Forces training, and went on to serve as an operator in the Army's SMU, spending most of the following decade either deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan or getting ready for the next rotation.

Around 2010, he started running again, and the comeback was unreal. In 2012, standing 5'4" and weighing 145 pounds, the Master Sergeant set a course record at the Umstead 100, won the Badwater 135 in Death Valley, and then traveled to Katowice, Poland, where he won the IAU 24 Hour World Championship. He covered 172.457 miles in a single day, setting a new American record. He was named Ultrarunner of the Year, and in 2024 he was inducted into the American Ultrarunning Hall of Fame.

Hard hat diver, operator, world champion, Hall of Famer. Some men just don't know how to quit.

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DJ Shipley made it through BUD/S and started his career at SEAL Team 10, where he served alongside his future business partner, Cole Fackler. From there, he screened for DEVGRU, the Navy's Special Mission Unit, and went on to spend the rest of a 17 year career as an operator at the highest level.

That career came at a cost. He was wounded in combat, received the Purple Heart, and was eventually medically retired because of the injuries he'd accumulated over years of service.

After the Navy, he and Fackler founded GBRS Group, turning what they learned in the Teams into training and gear for shooters, military, and law enforcement. He also owns Tribe Skates, a nod to the skateboarding he loved long before he ever put on a uniform.

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Pre-HK416 era. Delta Force operators in civilian attire conducting close protection missions in Iraq, circa 2003. Low profile, high alert, mission always first.

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A U.S. Marine with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, fires through a loophole in Fallujah, Iraq, on November 9, 2004. It was the second day of the main assault, and the battalion was pushing south through the heart of the city, fighting block by block and house by house.

A loophole is about as simple as fieldcraft gets: a hole knocked through a wall that lets a Marine see and shoot while most of his body stays behind cover. In a city where insurgents fought from rooftops, windows, and fortified houses, standing in a doorway or leaning around a corner could get a man killed. Punching through walls gave Marines a way to engage the enemy without offering him a clean shot in return.

Small details like this decided fights in Fallujah. The Marines who adapted fastest were the ones who made it home.

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Ben "Mookie" Thomas spent part of the Iraq War as a Blackwater security contractor, part of the wave of private operators who worked protective details and convoy security across the country in some of the war's most dangerous years. Media reports from his time in the firearms industry also describe him as a former Navy SEAL.

After Iraq, he brought that experience to Hollywood. He worked as a technical consultant on "The Hurt Locker" in 2008, the Oscar-winning film about an Army EOD team in Baghdad, and also appeared on screen as an Army medic.

He later became a well-known face in the firearms world as a spokesman and brand ambassador for Spike's Tactical. He even stepped into the cage, fighting professionally in MMA as a lightweight.

Contractor, consultant, and cage fighter. Not your typical post-war path.

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Eight and a half months on the front lines. These photos show infantrymen from the motorized infantry battalion of Ukraine's 72nd Mechanized Brigade in the first moments after pulling out of their positions, a withdrawal that took several days to complete.

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On the night of January 11, 2024, Navy SEALs launched from an expeditionary sea base to board a small dhow in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia. The vessel was smuggling Iranian-made missile components bound for the Houthis in Yemen. As the boarding team climbed aboard in heavy seas, Special Warfare Operator Chief Christopher Chambers lost his grip and fell into the gap between the boarding craft and the dhow.

Special Warfare Operator 2nd Class Nathan Gage Ingram didn't hesitate. He went into the water after him.

Neither man came back up. After a 10-day search across more than 21,000 square miles of ocean, the Navy declared both SEALs dead. The boarding team still finished the job, seizing the weapons and stopping the shipment.

Chris was 37, and Gage was 27. One fell in the line of duty, and the other went in after him without a second thought. That's what being a teammate looks like.

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Fourteen years ago today, on November 9, 2012, Capt. James D. Nehl was killed in action in Gelan, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. When his dismounted patrol came under enemy fire and his radio operator was shot in the chest, Nehl left his covered position to get to him. He was hit while moving. Wounded, he still managed to call for help over the radio and drag his soldier to safety before he succumbed to his wounds. He was 37 years old.

Nehl's roots ran deep in the Regiment. He spent much of his 18 years as an infantryman with 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, starting as an enlisted Ranger in Alpha Company before earning his commission. At the time of his death, he was serving with 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley.

He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal. For years, the men who knew him have argued that saving his radio operator under fire was a valorous act that deserved recognition for valor. Today, at 2nd Ranger Battalion, his wife, mother, and son received his upgraded award.

It took 14 years, but the record now reflects what his Ranger brothers knew all along. RLTW.

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Sgt. Diego Gonçalves of the Goiás Military Police (PMGO) has one of the more unusual career paths you'll find. He joined the force in 2010, but spent six years off it because of the regulations on tattoos. When the rules were updated, he came back and picked up where he left off. Today he's a 3rd Sergeant based in Formosa, Goiás.

He recently went viral after a Turkish news page shared photos of him on duty and with his family, racking up more than 5 million views on X. With his look, it's easy to see why people stopped scrolling. But according to his wife, the man behind the tough exterior is affectionate, playful, and completely devoted to his family.

Ink doesn't make the cop. Showing up, doing the job, and coming back after six years on the outside says more about him than any tattoo ever could.

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Sometimes luck shows up at exactly the right moment. When the gunfire erupted at the corner of Stradomska and Dietla streets in Kraków, two of the city's most respected surgeons, Prof. Michał Pędziwiatr and Dr. Mateusz Wierdak from Kraków University Hospital, were just saying goodbye outside a nearby restaurant where they had been having lunch with their families.

They didn't run. As soon as the shooting stopped, they went straight to the wounded officers. With no gloves and no kit, Wierdak used his own hands to control the bleeding on one officer and took off his coat to cover him, because the officer was going hypothermic. Other police officers handed them dressings from their own kits, and the two surgeons ran casualty care on the street until ambulances arrived. This photo shows them in the middle of it, working on one of the officers while talking through their next move.

They didn't stop with first aid. With no incident commander on scene yet, they took charge of the medical response and made sure each casualty went to the hospital best equipped for his wounds, including the one with cardiothoracic surgeons. They also treated the attacker, because, as Pędziwiatr put it, they don't decide who to help based on who's the shooter and who's in uniform.

Hemorrhage control, the right triage, and the right hospital. That's how lives get saved in the golden hour.

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Oct 22, 2015. An ISIS prison in Iraq. 70 hostages, graves already dug.

Thomas Payne went back into the burning building until every hostage was out.

Josh Wheeler ran toward the gunfire and never came home.

Would you have gone back in?

#MedalOfHonor #History

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A BUD/S candidate sits in the surf, beat up and bruised, with the Pacific washing over him. You don't need to know which phase or which evolution this was to understand what you're looking at.

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On November 3, Spokane County Sheriff's Office SWAT rolled out to a home near Spangle, a small farming town south of Spokane, after a wounded woman showed up at a neighbor's door with a gunshot wound. Investigators believed a man inside had already killed members of his own family, and there could be hostages. When a drone overflight found a body in the yard, the team moved in to make entry. Deputy Mason Acheson and Deputy Parker Perry were hit as they tried to get inside. Their teammates returned fire, dragged them to cover, and started working on them right there.

Mason Acheson, 35, spent eight years as a Washington State Patrol trooper and firearms instructor before joining the Sheriff's Office in July 2022. On the SWAT team, he was a sniper. In uniform, he was a sergeant in the Washington Army National Guard's 3rd Battalion, 161st Infantry Regiment, and had served in Poland. He died the next morning, leaving behind his wife and two children.

Parker Perry, 29, joined the Sheriff's Office in May 2020 and served alongside Mason on SWAT before becoming a K9 handler. His partner, Brego, was with him in Spangle. He was also a captain in the same Guard battalion. Perry was kept on life support so he could give one last gift as an organ donor. He died on November 7, leaving behind his wife, two children, and a third child on the way.

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Sgt. Cameron A. Meddock grew up in Spearman, a small town in the Texas Panhandle. He enlisted in November 2014, pushed through infantry OSUT, Airborne School, and RASP 1, and earned his tan beret with Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He worked his way up the way Rangers do: machine gunner, automatic rifleman, gun team leader, and finally fire team leader. He earned his Ranger Tab in 2017.

In January 2019, on his second deployment to Afghanistan, 2/75 hit a Taliban detention facility in Jawand District, Badghis Province. Meddock was on the QRF. When the shooting started, he took small arms fire. His Rangers returned fire and called a danger close fire mission, and the medic worked on him right there on the objective. The raid freed 34 prisoners, including 12 children and 6 women.
He was evacuated to Landstuhl, Germany, where he died on January 17, 2019. He was 26 years old, and his death was the first American combat loss in Afghanistan that year. His wife, Stevie, was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child.

His regimental commander said the whole nation should strive to emulate the warrior, patriot, and husband he was. Thirty-four people walked out of that prison because men like Cam went in after them.

RLTW.

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They called themselves something close to an "A-Team": a small group of former American special operations soldiers led by Hungarian-Israeli security contractor Abraham Golan. Their company, Spear Operations Group, was incorporated in Delaware in August 2015, and within months its men were in southern Yemen working for the United Arab Emirates during the Saudi-led coalition's war.

According to a federal lawsuit, the UAE paid Spear $1.5 million a month, plus bonuses for successful targeted killings. Its first known operation came on December 29, 2015, a failed attempt to kill Anssaf Ali Mayo, the local leader of the Islamist Al-Islah party in Aden. Former employees have since admitted to the BBC that the UAE provided them with target packets and intelligence. "There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it," Golan told BuzzFeed News in 2018. The UAE has denied being behind the killings.

Now the man they failed to kill is fighting back. In 2026, Mayo filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court against Golan and two former Americans who worked for Spear, Isaac Gilmore and Dale Comstock, alleging they took part in an assassination program that may amount to murder and war crimes.

It's a case that raises hard questions about what happens when special operations skills are put up for sale, and where the line falls between counterterrorism and contract killing.