The untold story behind the name of the US Army Special Operations Command
The following is an excerpt from the personal journal of Lt. Gen. William Yarbrough (1912-2013), reprinted by Duffel Blog with permission from the Green Beret Association.
So here it was, June of 1998, and the Pentagon made the decision that they wanted all the Army Special Operations components under one unit umbrella. They had pretty much everything figured out except what to call the new parent command. So Eric [Shinseki], who was about to take over as chief of staff, called me up and asked me for ideas on a name.
Now, during Vietnam, Green Berets would be out doing things in the middle of nowhere, and they'd have absolutely no supplies to speak of.
Guys would be complaining that they had to do their business out there in the jungle but didn't have anything to wipe with. The team commanders would be constantly telling people "use a sock." Or when guys would need to take care of themselves, if you know what I mean, but there was no tissue paper handy? "Use a sock."
Seriously, socks were…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Duffel Blog to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.