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Blue Light (Part 1): From the Special Forces, America’s first counterterrorism unit

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On a dark night in 1977, a dozen Green Berets exited a C-130 aircraft, parachuting into a very different type of war. Aircraft hijackings had become almost commonplace, to the point that Johnny Carson would tell jokes about the phenomena on television. But it was no laughing matter for the Department of Defense, who realized after the Israeli raid on Entebbe that America was woefully unprepared to counter terrorist attacks.

This mission would be different. The Special Forces soldiers guided their MC-3 parachutes toward the ground, but their element became separated in the air, some of the Green Berets landing in the trees. The others set down alongside an airfield, landing inside a thick cloud of fog. Their target lay somewhere through the haze: a commercial aircraft that had been captured by terrorists. On board, there were no hostages, but a black box, a classified encryption device that could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.

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  • Murf

    “Airfield seizures were really a Ranger mission,” Not yet in ’77 they weren’t.

  • Jack Murphy

    Shelly, could you drop me a line? I’d love to add your recollections to the article.

  • shelly s

    hand guns 45, 22 silenced, 12 gage shot guns, snipers had their wpn, but I am not sure what make. they went off on their own to train. the only time we saw them was at lunch, or group intel meetings.as for that each team did their own training. we would have group training together once a week. personal wpn, cpt boyatt had a S&W mod 59. I had mod 39.

  • Yankee Papa

    The Swedish K was designed after the Russo-Finnish wars. Originally it was designed to handle a Soviet style drum magazine… some models either drum or straight mag… then all straight.

    View post on imgur.com

    View post on imgur.com


    The CIA and some special military outfits loved the “K” (After “K”arl Gustav) but about a year after the Marines landed at DaNang the Swedes decided that they could no longer sell to a warring party. Some histories of SOG mention suppressed Swedish Ks re cross border work…
    Some could be obtained from the Egyptians under the table… The Egyptians built their own under license from the Swedes.
    -Yankee Papa-

  • Jack Murphy

    I would love to hear more about it. There was some disagreements regarding which weapons Blue Light had in the arms room.