MANPADS is short for Man Portable Air Defense System, which are shoulder-fired anti-aircraft guided missile launchers. The FIM-92 Stinger has been the United States primary MANPADS since 1981, which fires the passive infrared homing Stinger surface-to-air missile and has an effective range of up to 3.11 miles, as such it is only effective against aircraft below an altitude of 16,000 feet. The Russian MANPADS is the 9K333 Verba, it was designed much more recently than the FIM Stinger, entering service in 2014. As such it has more advanced guidance technology giving it several advantages over the FIM, in addition to infrared the Verba can also home in on ultraviolet signatures, it also has a longer range of four miles making it able to reach aircraft at altitudes of up to 21,000 feet.
The Northern Triangle refers to a region in Central America where the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador meet and share borders. The area is one of poorest regions in the Western Hemisphere, an estimated 60% of the population in the Triangle live below the poverty line. In addition to widespread poverty the region is rife with corruption and violence due to the heavy presence of criminal organizations that run large amounts of drugs, weapons and human traffic through the area. The region has one of the highest homicide rates in the world, according to the United Nations, in 2016 there were 27.26 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in Guatemala, 82.84 in El Salvador, and 56.52 in Honduras; by comparison there were 5.39 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in the United States in 2016.
CENTCOM - United States Central Command, the Department of Defense's unified combat command whose Area of Responsibility (AOR) includes the Middle East including Egypt, Central Asia and parts of South Asia.
PACOM - United States Indo-Pacific Command, the United States military's unified combat command of the Indo-Pacific region. It is the oldest unified command having been created in 1947, it also has the largest AOR as it is responsible for military operations in an area that encompasses more than 100 million square miles (260,000,000 km2), or roughly 52 percent of the Earth's surface, stretching from the waters of the West Coast of the United States to the east coast maritime borderline waters of Pakistan.
PACOM - United States Indo-Pacific Command, the United States military's unified combat command of the Indo-Pacific region. It is the oldest unified command having been created in 1947, it also has the largest AOR as it is responsible for military operations in an area that encompasses more than 100 million square miles (260,000,000 km2), or roughly 52 percent of the Earth's surface, stretching from the waters of the West Coast of the United States to the east coast maritime borderline waters of Pakistan.
"SERE Training" which was mentioned several times during Ray Perry's post action interview/review means Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE), and is a training program, best known by its military acronym, that prepares U.S. military personnel, U.S. Department of Defense civilians, and private military contractors to survive and "return with honor" in survival scenarios. The curriculum includes survival skills, evading capture, application of the military code of conduct, and techniques for escape from captivity. Formally established by the U.S. Air Force at the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, it was extended to the Navy and United States Marine Corps and consolidated within the Air Force during the Korean War with greater focus on "resistance training".