SOFspot

SOFspot is the podcast of the Global SOF Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Tampa, Florida that calls itself the only professional association for the international special operations community. Chelsea Hamashin, the foundation's vice president of marketing and events, produces, edits and hosts it. You can hear where it comes from. Episodes stay close to the foundation's own calendar, and several begin with Hamashin running through what is coming up, once in strict chronological order because she likes things in order. Those rundowns mention a 500-person symposium in Warsaw, a huddle at DSEI in London and a Special Air Warfare Symposium in Fort Walton Beach with helicopter and drone demonstrations. The guests are the draw. Retired Admiral William H. McRaven, who commanded at every level of the special operations community, including Joint Special Operations Command and U.S. Special Operations Command, tells a conference audience that the relationships built at such forums matter, since the officers and enlisted in the room may be running their militaries five or ten years on. He adds that people who came up through the SOF ranks and now hold civilian national security posts have proved important to him. General Riho Terras was interviewed on March 16, 2022, when the show began adding interviews with experts on the Eastern European region as the war in Ukraine unfolded. He talks about Russian troops without enough fuel to heat their armored vehicles, the danger Javelins and drones pose to them at night, and Ukrainians coming home from abroad to fight. In 'Three Dangerous Men', Stu Bradin, the foundation's president, asks Dr. Seth Jones which of three figures is most dangerous to the United States. History runs alongside the present. 'The Birth of MARSOC' brings together officers recalling how the command was stood up; one was on his way to Quantico to take over Training and Education Command when a call told him to get to Camp Lejeune on Monday and start work. In 'I Served With Great Soldiers', a retired major general whose career ran from Vietnam to Kosovo sits down with Hamashin and Rick Lamb, the foundation's director of government relations, to talk about MACV-SOG's mission profiles, reconnaissance tactics, equipment and uniforms. That one was recorded at a Demo Days event inside a fifth-wheel trailer turned into a makeshift studio, with a generator running in the background. 'The Body As A System' goes around a group of speakers on the physical toll of the work, from overuse injuries in the shoulders and torso to people who rebound from serious injury and keep operating at a high level. Hamashin's introductions are warm and admiring, and she readily calls a guest an American hero. There are sponsor messages too, including one from a drone company in the middle of an episode. For a first listen, 'UKRAINE - Terras' is a conversation tied to a single date in March 2022, and 'The Birth of MARSOC' tells institutional history through the people who were there.