[Editor’s Note: A video of this interview can be found on RECOIL.tv or our YouTube channel.]
Any warrior worth their salt will tell you combat is a team sport, and they’re absolutely right. But just like in any team sport, there are people who not only survive but thrive in it. Their ability and willingness to perform at the highest levels under the hardest conditions seem effortless and, through that lens, almost superhuman. The Bible has Samson. Classic Greek literature has Achilles. The HALO video game franchise has Master Chief. America has Billy Waugh.
Waugh started his career as a paratrooper in Korea, before he transferred to Special Forces and was sent to Vietnam. There, he eventually served with the MACV-SOG program — the first of many such programs in which military special operators teamed up with the CIA to accomplish strategic objectives — continuing without pause into the dawn of the Global War On Terror. Waugh conducted the first-ever combat HALO jump into enemy territory, as well as the combat parachute jump of the Vietnam War. Once retired from Special Forces as
