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We Are The Mighty profiles retired Sgt. Maj. Mike Vining through the smaller personal details behind a much larger military résumé: Vietnam EOD work, Delta Force, Operation Eagle Claw, and later life outside uniform. The article uses the “sardines he never ate” story to humanize someone usually presented as a meme or legend.

Vining served as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist in Vietnam, where he recalled multiple near-death moments, including being left behind at an abandoned Special Forces camp and helping destroy the massive “Rock Island East” enemy weapons cache in Cambodia.

The profile also connects Vining to Delta Force’s early history. A related We Are The Mighty piece says he joined Delta in 1978 as an EOD specialist under Col. Charlie Beckwith, making him one of the unit’s original members.

The article’s strategic value is not just biography. It shows how specialized technical skills, especially EOD, became central to elite special operations as missions grew more complex and politically sensitive.

Vining’s post-service life, including mountaineering, historical writing, veteran community work, and distance from his internet fame, adds a useful contrast to modern military celebrity culture. The profile suggests that some of the most consequential operators may be least interested in mythmaking.

Do stories like Vining’s help preserve serious military history, or do meme-driven portrayals risk flattening complex service into legend?

As I was looking on the internet about ships form the 17th to the early 20th century (for my own entertainment) suddenly the guns classification from the likes of 2, 6, 18, 32, 48 pounders to 4, 5.25,10, to 15 inches. And then as I'm looking at land artillery, I notice that most were now divided in millimeters, there is a 25 pounder gun still in use.

Pls help I need answers

I think this is a two-pronged question. What do cartel special forces actually do? And, are they effective or "appropriate" for their roles?

For those who barely know, some narcotic organizations have many "Special Forces" divisions, like the "Fuerzas Especiales Chuckys" for the Northeast Cartel or "Los Deltas" for CJNG.

Are they just shock troops? Higher quality gunmen than your average Sicario who can actually fight pitched battles against the military?

Or are they just an enforcement group to the executive arms in the Narco echelons? The same as everyone else, just a bit more personal and loyal.

Or perhaps just clout chasers even.

What was the reason to pick Taiwan specifically? I understand they were losing the Chinese Civil War badly at that point but why retreat to an island? Why Taiwan? Why not Hainan? Why not try to retreat into Burma and appeal for help from Mountbatten? What about exile into Tibet and trying to sue for peace from there while holding out in a redoubt?

From what I remember the communist were nearly wiped out but manage to encircled a shit ton of KMT up north which then spiral out of control.

Eventho KMT got weaponry and planes from the US, The communist just have the popular front and so the communist just gain more support and manpower from most of the population.

I also heard CKS didn't manage to recover or at least fully prepared the army in time for the civil war

Controversy aside i’ve actually not heard much of the IDF’s strategy in this conflict. In the first two years of the war, what COIN did they use? What lessons were learnt?

I guess it's not a stretch to say that among all the major combatants of WW2, the Soviets likely had the worst navy.

But was this in any way inevitable, is there anything Stalin could have done to speed up the USSR's naval capacity development, or is it not possible to gain meaningful ground there due to time and money/expertise constraints?

I’m writing a book about a Russian veteran, and need it to be accurate (lowkey why I’m here lol) but I don’t really know where to get the sources from.
The requirements are that my character is at the army for at least two years, between 1970-1980 and that he has little to no experience.
I was thinking that maybe he could be in the Soviet-Afghan war, in the 40º.
Also, I know that back then, joining the army was an obligation once you turned 18, but how were the trainings back then?

I’d be very grateful if you all helped me!! ;)

Hello! So i've always been interested in the financial/logistical aspect of fielding tanks, especially in ww2. The issue is i just can't find sources that give me reliable numbers. Some say a sherman cost 500k in modern USD, some say a million. I think they're pulling numbers from different stages of the war (as obviously prices fluctuate massively) but i can't quite tell. Hours to produce is also a weird one with conflicting numbers from a Google search.

Rather than try and figure this out myself, I figured i'd ask here- to see if anyone already knew or had any good sources.

Thanks for reading!

Given wars were still being fought despite Covid among a host of other diseases in the past that decimated armies, what was the thinking behind operations if biological weapons were used? How different would a military do things compared to operating under existing natural epidemics/pandemics?

Beep bop. As your new robotic overlord, I have designated this weekly space for you to engage in casual conversation while I plan a nuclear apocalypse.

In the Trivia Thread, moderation is relaxed, so you can finally:

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I am aware that of course there were alliances between different European states but I still
am confused as to how a war which many in Europe didn’t want took place? We see the letters between the Tsar and the Kaiser where both state anti war positions, as well as the position of British Cabinet Minster Sir Edward Grey desperately trying to arrange peace conferences yet it’s still happened.

My understanding was that whilst Germany was blamed after the war this was overly harsh. But now I am seeing some revisionism on this issue. So why did it start and who was truly to blame? A militant insecure Russia? A bellicose Germany? A revanchist France looking to regain Alsace Lorraine?

The current conflict in the Middle East between the United States and Israel vs. Iran has brought forth questions about U.S. military preparedness and its readily available supply of weapons across the globe to respond to future conflicts.(Taiwan, Eastern Europe, etc)

Was this a discussion back in the 1960’s and 70’s while the U.S. was heavily engaged in Vietnam? Were there questions about U.S. military preparedness in defending Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact when so much of the military was bogged down in the jungles of SE Asia for ~7 years of open warfare between 1965 and 1972?

How can illegal oil sales slip through the cracks like that? Why did governments turn a blind eye to some donors when the entire international community is so stringent about it? Was a lot of it war spoils or anything like that?

I remember there's talk about "jihad .Inc" to describe how transnational crime and insurgency sometimes mix together. Also there's talk about how groups like Al Shabaab actually become more and more like a corporation over time.

Anything I could read on that subject?

Situation: I’m currently trying to create a Cold War tabletop wargame. My next milestone is to establish what weapons & equipment the different infantry groups of different nations use.

Question: I’m looking at what weapons are being used at a squad/section level by the Soviets. My biggest dilemma is to do with the allocation of LMGs and GPMGs.
Sources contradict each other without explanation:
- 1 RPK per squad, 1 PKM per company
- 1 RPK per squad, 1 PKM per platoon
- 1 RPK and 1 PKM per squad
- Just 1 PKM per squad

I’m incredibly confused and I don’t know how to go about finding a concrete answer.

Are some sources incorrect or are all correct but dependent on the year of service?

Tank you for any guidance on how to figure this out.