The paper aims to highlight some aspects of special text translation in English-Latvian language pair, to discuss some misconceptions associated with translation of military and military-related texts, to analyze specific competences a translator of these texts should possess as well as to illustrate potential translation challenges faced by student translators. Translating military and military-related texts, translators should develop not only advanced linguistic, but also comprehensive thematic competence to be able to deal with translation problems. Competence in translation of military-related texts may become a competitive advantage for student translators specializing in various fields of language for special purposes.