Delta’s latest bout in Iraq is a return to its roots, and a vindication of its original purpose.

Although the unit’s forte for the past two decades has been manhunting, it was formed in 1979 as a hostage rescue team, and blooded in the disastrous Eagle Claw rescue mission that failed to retrieve American hostages from Iran. Hostage rescue missions in the interim have been few and far between, vastly outnumbered by “kill/capture raids.”