Badass

by Jerry Kraus South African parachute veterans, a black Super Huey, and one hell of a water jump over Florida. Last fall, I attended a small reunion of Soldier of Fortune friends at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. After a long day of shooting, I found myself …

by Jose Campos “I thought I was severed in half. There was no pain.” The jungle around Quan Loi erupted that night into an unholy symphony of gunfire. It was February 1970, and the darkness came alive with muzzle flashes from unseen enemy positions, each one a promise of death. …

by Gatimu Juma With civilians trapped and time running out, French Foreign Legion and Belgian paratroopers jumped into Zaire in 1978. The French segment was known as operation Bonite. CAPE TOWN BUREAU – The doors opened in the skies over Zaire, and the Legionnaires stepped into empty air. Below them …

The Germans thought they were under attack by an entire force. In reality, the chaos came from a lone Canadian moving through the dark. by Jose Campos The Germans heard him before they saw him. Grenades detonating one after the other in the dark, machine gun fire, the crackle of …

Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill in World War II wanted “specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down these coasts [of occupied Europe], first of all on the butcher and bolt policy… leaving a trail of German corpses behind them.” This translated into …

Six armed men on April 30, 1980 stormed the Iranian embassy in London. The men took hostages, and issued demands. After six days, the terrorists killed a hostage and threw his body outside. Enter the British Special Air Service (SAS) and Operation Nimrod. British crisis expert Robert McAlister analyzes what unfolded from there.  ANALYSIS …

by Heath Hansen Everything became eerily still, until… it blinked. “ENEMY!” Fils screamed. Then all hell broke loose.  The sun was just setting on the thick canopy of trees and bushes surrounding their position. It was a long day of humping through the dense growth; but it had been productive. …

by Susan Katz Keating “There’s a certain sound…” The song stuck with him for years afterwards. He was being marched to his execution in the jungles of Vietnam, and had been ordered to carry a radio to pick up “Radio Hanoi,” but he secretly dialed in to a station that …

The Royal Gurkha Rifles soldier defended a Helmand checkpoint alone. By dawn the attackers were gone, and the sentry who held the line was standing at his post. by Jose Campos At first light outside the British patrol base near Babaji, the ground told the story of the night before. …

Flying old cargo planes through darkness and anti-aircraft fire, pilots had to find the hidden runway before Nigerian fighters found them. by Gatimu Juma The pilot pushed the throttles forward, and the cargo aircraft climbed into the humid African night. Behind him the island of São Tomé disappeared into darkness. …