page_title: Canadian Special Operations Regiment
section_title: Unit history
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Special Operations Regiment / Unit history
caption_attribution_description: English: 5/6/2013 - Canadian special operation regiment members conduct a freefall jump out of a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during Emerald Warrior 2013, Hurlburt Field, Fla., April 28. The primary purpose of Emerald Warrior is to exercise special operations components in urban and irregular warfare settings to support combatant commanders. Emerald Warrior leverages lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom,Operation Enduring Freedom and other historical lessons to provide better trained and ready forces to combatant commanders. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch)(Released)
context_page_description: The Canadian Special Operations Regiment is an elite unit of the Canadian Armed Forces. It forms part of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. As a special forces unit, the regiment's roles include conducting complex or difficult raids, capturing strategic facilities and undertaking reconnaissance. It is also capable of working with the armed forces of other countries.
context_section_description: The unit traces its roots to the First Special Service Force (FSSF), the Canadian-American special forces unit that was stood up in 1942 and earned the "Devil's Brigade" moniker for daring night raids on German forces at the Anzio beachhead.
  CSOR perpetuates the battle honours of the FSSF.
  Recruiting for the new unit took place in early 2006, and the first CSOR selection course took place with approximately 175 candidates.
  On 13 August 2006, an official stand-up ceremony for the Canadian Special Operations Regiment took place at the unit's home station, Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Petawawa, with approximately 250 soldiers participating. The ceremony included a skills demonstration including rappelling from helicopters, and both static and freefall parachuting. It was also announced that the second training serial of CSOR recruits would take place in early 2007. The first Commanding Officer and Regimental Sergeant-Major of CSOR were Lieutenant Colonel (LCol) Jamie Hammond and Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Gerald Scheidl.  Subsequent command teams were LCol Greg Smith and CWO Daniel Brissette, LCol John Vass and CWO Daniel Brissette, LCol Hank Szelecz and CWO Tom Verner and LCol Steven Hunter and CWO L. Mike Gauley.
  The regiment suffered its first casualty on 24 June 2011: Master-Corporal Francis Roy died in a non-combat incident while deployed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
  In 2013, the unit competed in an international Special Forces Competition held in Jordan, coming in 3rd place after Chinese Special Police teams took 1st and 2nd place.
  In March 2015, Sgt Andrew Joseph Doiron was killed by friendly fire while serving on Operation Impact in Iraq.
caption: Members of the regiment during a freefall jump out of a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III during Emerald Warrior 2013, Hurlburt Field, Florida.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4256", "Image ImageLength": "2832", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3S", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2013:04:28 19:36:25", "Image Artist": "Senior Airman Matthew Bruch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "824", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1520", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1634", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8300", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/8000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:04:28 15:17:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:04:28 15:17:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1620723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "24", "EXIF SubSecTime": "36", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "36", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "36", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3242", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2256", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1488", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "24", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}