Charlie and John began blogging under The Officers' Club --a blog dedicated towards expanding milblogging topics to include foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy, and hippy bashing-- in October of 2005.

Launched in April of 2006, OPFOR --military jargon for opposing force-- is a continuation of the old Officers' Club blog.

John grew up in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. He attended Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia, where he was selected to the All-Conference Team for swimming and lettered in baseball. In 1999, John matriculated to the Virginia Military Institute as a member of the Class of 2003. While at VMI, John majored in History and International Studies and served as the managing editor of VMI's student newspaper, THE CADET. He studied counter-terrorism at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel and commissioned out of VMI's Air Force ROTC program. John has been published in The Washington Post and Richmond Times-Dispatch, and was a contributor to the Encylopedia of World War I and World War II.

Charlie grew up in the great states of Kentucky and Georgia. In high school, he ran cross-country, track, and rowed crew. In 2000, he matriculated into the class of 2004 at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. While at VMI, Charlie majored in International Studies and minored in Arabic language. He wrote for VMI's student newspaper, THE CADET, for 4 years, serving two years at the helm of the paper as Editor-in-Chief. During his cadetship, he studied abroad at the Arabic Language Institute of Fez, Morocco and lived with an Arab family in the ?Old City? medina of Fez for several months. Charlie was a distinguished graduate of VMI, and commissioned out of VMI?s Army ROTC program..