How Special Forces Guys Became Menswear Moodboard Staples
When journalist Wesley Morgan first went to Iraq in 2007, he says the SOF guys were just then beginning to stand out. “There already was an operator look that you could tell,” says Morgan, who is the author of The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley and has reported extensively from America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “But there was sort of a studied anonymity that in fact made them stand out.” Morgan, who is currently working on a book about JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) during the War on Terror, saw a lot of the changes we associate with modern operators happen in real time. He sees the shift as a direct result of SOFs’ missions changing from reconnaissance, manhunting, and hostage rescue to high-tempo night raids. Training in a custom uniform, 2010.Mark Ralston/Getty Images “I think pre-9/11, what we associated special operations forces with was kind of doing things way out there on a shoestring, deep in enemy territory—kind of the lone commando thing,” says Morgan. “The flagship role …
