Airborne Apparel Company

11/01/2026

New drops for Paratroops that live where winter is warm and sunny.

10/31/2026

Anyone else still have this one?

10/31/2026

Before They Were Merrill's Marauders

83 years ago today, the three battalions that would become Merrill's Marauders had finished disembarking at Bombay, India.

They had answered a call for volunteers for a "dangerous and hazardous mission." Roughly 3,000 Soldiers came from units across the United States, the Caribbean and the Pacific, many without knowing where they were going or exactly what they would be asked to do.

At Bombay they still weren't "Merrill's Marauders." The force carried the code name GALAHAD. After training in India for long-range pe*******on operations, it was officially designated the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), and in January 1944 BG Frank Merrill was placed in command. The press supplied the name that stuck.

In February, the Marauders entered Burma on foot. Over the next several months they marched roughly 1,000 miles through jungle and mountains, fought five major and 30 minor engagements, disrupted Japanese supply and communication lines and helped seize the airfield at Myitkyina.

Disease, hunger and exhaustion were as dangerous as the enemy. By August 1944, only 130 Marauders remained fit for duty.

Their unit existed for only a matter of months, but its lineage did not disappear. The 75th Ranger Regiment carries it today.

But on October 31, 1943, all of that was still ahead of them. They were simply volunteers stepping off a ship in Bombay, about to begin one of the hardest campaigns fought by an American infantry unit in WWII.

Photos: U.S. Army

10/31/2026

Statue Saturday: The Paratroopers at the WWII Memorial

Most visitors to the National World War II Memorial probably notice the massive victory arches, the 4,048 gold stars and the Rainbow Pool fountains first.

One of its best Airborne details is much closer to eye level.

Twenty-four bronze bas-relief panels line the memorial's ceremonial entrance. Twelve follow America's war in the Atlantic and Europe, while twelve tell the story of the Pacific. Together they move through the war almost like a bronze storyboard, from mobilization at home to victory overseas.

Among the Atlantic panels is simply titled Paratroopers.

Sculptor Ray Kaskey could have chosen the familiar image of parachutes filling the sky. Instead, he captured the moment before the jump.

Fully equipped Paratroopers move into a C47, loaded with weapons, equipment and parachutes. One man disappears through the door while the Jumpmaster tells the rest to get off his damn aircraft.

The panel represents the Airborne operations that carried American Paratroopers into Sicily, Normandy, Holland and Germany during WWII.

Kaskey created all 24 reliefs for the memorial, working from historical photographs and wartime imagery while also using live models. He borrowed from an old classical technique called isocephaly, arranging the principal figures so their heads generally fall along the same horizontal line. It gives panels depicting everything from factory workers to Paratroopers a common visual rhythm.

The Paratrooper panel sits on the Atlantic side between the air war and the Normandy landing.

10/30/2026

RLTW!

76 years ago today, one of the most recognizable symbols in the U.S. Army was officially approved.

On November 6, 1950, Headquarters, Department of the Army approved the cloth Ranger Tab.

Since then, generations of soldiers have earned the right to wear those black and gold letters through leadership, endurance, discipline, and a refusal to quit when the standard demanded more.

For those who have earned it, trained alongside someone who has, or watched a loved one fight for it, the Ranger Tab carries a story.

Help us preserve and share that history.

Share this post so more people know the story behind the tab, and tag a Ranger who earned the right to wear it.

Rangers Lead The Way.

10/30/2026

SSG Travis Nixon: A Big Brother to Everyone

On the morning of October 29, SSG Travis Nixon was serving as a weapons squad leader with Bco 2/504 near Camp Tillman, Afghanistan, close to the Pakistani border.

Seventeen Paratroopers under CPT Brandon Teague were defending positions on Hill 2911 when approximately 60 enemy fighters launched a coordinated attack with machine guns, small arms, and rocket-propelled grenades.

The enemy attacked three times.

Nixon's Silver Star citation describes how he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while rallying his men and directing their defense. His actions helped the Paratroopers hold their position against a force that greatly outnumbered them.

Nearby, SSG Patrick Trattles was fighting to keep the enemy from breaking through. He threw grenades into the attacking force, then carried an M240B to a threatened section of the perimeter and opened fire on enemy fighters approximately 25 meters away.

CPT Teague directed mortar fire against an enemy machine-gun position on an adjacent hill.

After roughly 40 minutes of fighting, the attackers began withdrawing under covering fire from sharpshooters. During that withdrawal, Nixon was hit.

Trattles and the unit medic worked to stabilize him while enemy fire continued. When the shooting eased enough to permit movement, Trattles carried his wounded fellow NCO approximately 150 meters to waiting Humvees.

Nixon was evacuated by helicopter but died after reaching the aid station.

He was 24 years old.

There was much more to Travis Nixon than his final morning in Afghanistan.

He'd grown up in a military family, living in Louisiana, Germany, and Washington. At St. John-Endicott High School, he played saxophone in the concert and jazz bands, participated in several sports, and spent four years in the FFA.

He enlisted before his senior year and entered the Army after graduating in 1999. By October 2005, he'd already served in Iraq and Afghanistan and had become an experienced NCO in the 82nd.

His younger brother, James, remembered something about Travis that went beyond his military service. He said Travis only knew how to be a big brother, and it didn't matter who you were.

That description says a great deal about the kind of NCO he became.

CPT Teague, his company commander, later explained that Nixon had been killed while checking on the welfare of his Soldiers.

For his actions on Hill 2911, Nixon was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Teague and Trattles also received Silver Stars for their actions that morning.

Back home, Travis's family established a scholarship in his name at his former high school. He was buried with full military honors in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Twenty-one years have passed since that morning on Hill 2911. The awards and official citations preserve what happened there, but the people who knew Travis remembered more than a Soldier killed in combat.

They remembered a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, and an NCO who was still looking after his men when he was mortally wounded.

10/30/2026

Ranger class 11-26 is scheduled to graduate today, so it's the perfect time to take a look at Ranger Training 73 years ago.

10/29/2026

Thirteen men were aboard Merit 84 when it left Hill Air Force Base on the night of October 29, 1992. Only one would survive.

The MH-60G Pave Hawk, assigned to the 55th Special Operations Squadron, was part of a four-helicopter formation participating in Operation Embryo Stage. The joint exercise brought Army Rangers, Night Stalkers and Air Force special operations personnel to Utah to rehearse the missions they could be called upon to conduct overseas.

Their destination was Michael Army Airfield at Dugway Proving Ground. The force was to insert Rangers and combat controllers ahead of a follow-on parachute assault. Flying through darkness and rain, Merit 84 crashed into the Great Salt Lake near Antelope Island.

Five Rangers and seven Airmen were killed.

The Rangers were:
• COL John Keneally, 3/75
• LTC Kenneth Stauss, 1/75
• 1SG Harvey Moore Jr., 1/75
• SGT Blaine Mishak, 1/75
• SPC Jeremy Bird, 1/75

Keneally and Stauss commanded 3/75 and 1/75. Keneally had volunteered to serve as chief evaluator for the exercise. Moore, a veteran of Grenada and Panama, had won the 1985 Best Ranger Competition alongside Paul Scurka.

The Airmen were:
• LTC Roland Peixotto Jr., 55th Special Operations Squadron
• SSG Steven Kelley, 55th Special Operations Squadron
• SGT Philip Kesler, 55th Special Operations Squadron
• CPT Michael Nazionale, 24th Special Tactics Squadron
• TSGT Mark Scholl, 24th Special Tactics Squadron
• SGT Mark Lee, 24th Special Tactics Squadron
• SRA Derek Hughes, 23rd Special Tactics Squadron

Three were members of the helicopter crew. Four were combat controllers.

MAJ Stephan Laushine, the sole survivor, was rescued by three Rangers from another helicopter in the formation.

A memorial on Antelope Island honors the twelve men who never came home. Dedicated in 1994, it was restored and rededicated on the crash’s 30th anniversary in 2022.

Today, 34 years later, we remember them and the families and teammates they left behind.

10/29/2026

In 1981, Nick Rowe returned to active duty at Fort Bragg with an assignment shaped by something few instructors had experienced: more than five years as a prisoner of the Viet Cong.

He had escaped in December 1968, left active duty in 1974, and now returned as an LTC to help prepare other Americans for the possibility of isolation and capture. His experiences became the foundation of the Army’s modern Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program.

SERE already existed in other services. Rowe’s contribution was developing a comprehensive Army course for personnel whose assignments put them at high risk of capture, particularly Special Forces. Knowing how to find water or build a shelter was only part of it. Soldiers also needed preparation for the psychological pressures of captivity, attempts at exploitation, and the decisions that could determine whether an escape attempt succeeded.

At Camp Mackall, North Carolina, Rowe helped develop both the instruction and the facilities needed to make those lessons practical. An instructor qualification course was operating by 1982. In 1986, the school conducted its first Level C course, the intensive training intended for personnel facing the greatest risk of capture and exploitation.

Classroom instruction led into survival fieldcraft, evasion exercises, and a controlled captivity scenario built around the Code of Conduct. Students practiced making decisions while hungry, exhausted, isolated, and under pressure. Rowe’s experience helped turn survival instruction into preparation for the whole ordeal, including the determination to keep going when rescue wasn’t immediately coming.

That program remains active at Camp Mackall under the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. The Rowe Training Facility bears his name. Course length and content have changed over the years, but the central purpose remains: prepare Soldiers to survive isolation and captivity and return with honor.

The Army’s wider SERE program also expanded. Fort Rucker, Alabama, began its own Level C program in 2007, supporting Army aviation and other personnel at high risk of isolation. Today’s training also addresses what happens after recovery. In March 2026, Fort Rucker hosted a joint exercise rehearsing the reintegration of nearly 50 simulated returning POWs.

One of those SERE-trained Soldiers was CW3 Mike Durant, a 160th SOAR pilot whose Black Hawk was shot down over Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. Severely injured and captured after the crash site was overrun, he spent 11 days in captivity.

Durant later explained that his SERE training began coming back to him almost immediately. Recognizing that the fight had become a survival situation, he concentrated on avoiding provocation and getting through each moment. When his captors couldn’t release his flight equipment, he helped undo the buckles rather than risk being dragged by it. Asked how well the school had prepared him, he answered, “As well as it possibly could.” The circumstances differed from the prison-camp scenarios used in training, but the fundamentals still applied.

More than 200,000 service members from across the branches have received SERE training, preparing them for the day when getting home becomes the mission.

10/29/2026

The paper was meant for confessions. Nick Rowe used it to write down the Code of Conduct from memory, sketch house plans, and imagine a life beyond his prison cage. Hidden from his captors, his diary became one of the ways he kept his mind working through more than five years as a POW.

His captivity began 63 years ago today, alongside two other Americans whose stories deserve to be told with his.

On October 29, 1963, 1LT James “Nick” Rowe, SFC Daniel Pitzer, and CPT Humbert “Rocky” Versace accompanied a CIDG force on an operation near the U Minh Forest in South Vietnam. Rowe and Pitzer were serving with Detachment A-23, 5th SFG. Versace was an intelligence advisor working with South Vietnamese forces.

The patrol was ambushed. All three Americans were captured.

Versace was just two weeks from completing his tour. He planned to leave the Army, enter the seminary, and eventually return to Vietnam as a missionary. He’d already spent time helping local families and arranging donations for their children.

In captivity, he challenged his guards over their treatment of the prisoners and refused their demands for cooperation. Despite an untreated leg wound, he repeatedly tried to escape. When his captors isolated him, he found ways to encourage the others through messages and songs. The last time his fellow prisoners heard his voice, he was singing “God Bless America.”

On September 26, 1965, the Viet Cong announced that they had executed him. His Medal of Honor would not come until 2002.

Pitzer, the team’s senior medic, survived more than four years of captivity before his release in November 1967. He had lost more than 85 pounds and suffered from malaria, hepatitis, and severe malnutrition. Back at Fort Bragg, he spent eight months at Womack Army Hospital before returning to Special Forces.

His work with POWs continued long afterward. He helped with Operation Homecoming in 1973 and, following his medical retirement, remained involved in POW and missing-personnel affairs. From 1987 until his death in 1995, he taught at the Army’s SERE course. Soldiers preparing for the possibility of capture were learning from a man who had endured it.

Rowe remained a prisoner until December 31, 1968. During American helicopter operations near his captors, he overpowered his guard, broke into the open, and signaled for help. An American helicopter brought him out after more than five years.

In 1981, he returned to active duty to help develop the Army’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape course for personnel at high risk of capture. The experience behind that training included starvation, isolation, failed escape attempts, and the small daily efforts that had kept him going.

Rowe and Pitzer brought those lessons home. Their accounts also helped preserve the story of the man who didn’t return.