SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES (SOF) as we now know them came into existence only in the 1980s,

Sean Naylor’s Not a Good Day to Die (Naylor 2005) recounts the courage and organizational mishaps by SOF and coalition conventional forces in the one of the largest military operations in the post-9/11 era, Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, which took place in March 2002.

Alfred Paddock explains how and why the Army institutionalized these forces after World War II with his book, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins (Paddock 2002).

Prior to that, the marines maintained reconnaissance and raiding units with special training (typically referred to as Force Recon), and designated other units as “special operations capable.”

In addition, it gave the Command its own line in the defense budget and the authority to develop and acquire SOF-specific equipment; stated what missions constituted special operations (direct action, strategic reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, civil affairs, psychological operations, counterterrorism, humanitarian

pararescuemen,

Waller, Douglas C. The Commandos: The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the tree-covered, hilly, and mountainous terrain of eastern North America created the possibility of warfare different from the kind carried on by military forces on the plains of Europe.

of USSOCOM’s Special Operations Forces Reference Manual (2015).