T3 gear is proud to be entering our 3rd year of business.

In that time, we have launched our own line of Made In America T3 nylon and have become a trusted retailer of other gear we like and trust. T3 also provides training services to Naval Special Warfare and offers outside security services.

In each of these efforts, we have carefully considered the competition and positioned ourselves to become one of the top players in each respective space. With that attitude, we are taking on a more active blog approach

Unlike many players in the blogging arena, we do have USG security clearances to honor. On some topics we may take a more neutral outlook as many issues are confidential. That being said, we look forward to more direct interaction with the many folks we are happy to serve. We could not be more excited about the T3 Community.

SHOT Show 2013 was our first major move in raising our gear space profile. We were excited that our key distribution partner — Darley Defense — saw fit to feature us in their booth. Darley has been around for over 100 years. For them to want to work with a new company like us is an extreme honor. We are very eager to see the results from our new partnership with Darley. In trying to bring as much as we could to the show, we invited a couple of key friends to shine some of their fame our way: Bob Baer and Rorke Denver.

Bob’s Bio:

Bob Baer is a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East. Baer has written four books documenting his experiences while working for the Agency. In a blurb for his first book, See No Evil, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and multiple best-selling author Seymour Hersh said Baer “was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.”

See no Evil was the basis for the 2005 Academy Award-winning Warner Brothers motion picture Syriana. The film’s character Bob Barnes (played by George Clooney) is based on Baer. For this role, Clooney won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

During the mid-1990s, Baer was sent to Iraq with the mission of organizing opposition to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. While in Salah al-Din, Baer unsuccessfully urged the Clinton administration to back an internal Iraqi attempt to overthrow Hussein in March 1995 with covert CIA assistance. Instead, he was recalled and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly conspiring to assassinate the Iraqi leader. He was exonerated of all charges. Baer quit the Agency in 1997 and received the CIA’s Career Intelligence Medal on March 11, 1998.

He is currently TIME.com’s intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, ABC News and CNN. Baer is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage and U.S. foreign policy. He is fluent in Arabic and speaks French, German, and Persian. He is also conversant in Russian, Tajik, and Baluch. Baer has worked field assignments in Madras and New Delhi, India, Beirut, Lebanon, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Morocco, and Salah al-Din in Iraqi Kurdistan during his twenty-one years with the CIA.

Over the years, Baer has become a strong advocate of the Agency’s need to increase Human Intelligence (HUMINT) through the recruitment of agents.

We are strong believers that Bob’s perspective and advice on the Middle East would be well followed by our country’s leadership. Rather than go into specifics here and turn this into a blog on politics, we strongly advocate that folks buy and read Bob’s books and pay attention when you see him in print or on TV.

Rorke’s Bio:

Lieutenant Commander Denver led hundreds of assault missions in Iraq and has run every phase of SEAL training, basic and advanced, including advanced sniping, hand-to-hand fighting, and communications, over the past four years. He became the public face of the SEALs when he was chosen to star in the 2012 film Act of Valor, a #1 box office hit based in part on his own SEAL adventures and made with unprecedented cooperation from the U.S. Navy.

In his book, Damn Few, Denver takes you inside his personal story and the fascinating, demanding SEAL training program he oversaw. He recounts his experience evolving from a young SEAL hopeful -pushing his way through Hell Week — into a warrior, engaging in dangerous stealth missions across the globe. And finally, into a lieutenant commander directing the indoctrination, requalification programs and the missions his SEALs undertook.

From his own SEAL training and missions overseas, Denver details how the SEALs’s creative operations became front and center in America’s War on Terror—and how they are altering warfare everywhere. In 14 years as a SEAL officer, Denver tangled with drug lords in Latin America, stood up to violent mobs in Liberia and battled terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Leading 200 commando missions, he earned the Bronze Star with V for valor. He also has served as flag aide to the admiral in charge and spent the past four years as executive officer of the Navy Special Warfare Center’s Advanced Training Command in Coronado, California, directing all phases of the basic and advanced training that prepare men for war in SEAL teams.

Prior to his Naval Service, Denver was a highly accomplished lacrosse player with Syracuse University where he was part of Two National Championship teams, a Team Captain and an All American.

Denver’s effort on Act of Valor was phenomenal. His and “Chief Dave’s” leadership crafted what will be the seminal Navy SEAL recruitment device for at least the next decade. While none of the operators in the movie would claim to be actors, the tone could not have been a more accurate portrayal of a SEAL platoon’s core culture. Plus, the action scenes are on par with great films like Saving Private Ryan. Aside from having nailed the mission in terms of crafting a great movie, we can think of no one better than Denver to be the lead face and voice of NSW.

While we have said enough about Act of Valor, we are even more excited for Denver’s upcoming book Damn Few. While we have yet to see an advance copy, as they are very closely held, we are certain that Denver will offer a perspective yet to be seen in the SEAL book genre. He has assiduously worked within a NSW vetting process that keeps our brothers downrange from being harmed by gratuitous exposure of Tactics Techniques and Procedures. Stay tuned for our review of the book when it drops in a couple of weeks.