Written by an expert on modern special forces units and the operations they undertake, this book explains the evolution of the Rangers' missions in Panama, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the post-9/11 invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It reveals the training and organizational changes that the unit has undergone and investigates, in particular, how their doctrine and mantra have changed during the fourteen-year war in Afghanistan. At the beginning of the war, the Rangers were an elite light infantry unit of men tasked with short-duration recon raids and securing ground behind enemy lines in support of Special Forces—eventually becoming a special-mission unit themselves—on the cusp of being assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command.