Best of SOF

by Susan Katz Keating“We weren’t Special Forces or Airborne. We were mostly just a bunch of draftee grunts who turned out to be damn good soldiers.” The soldiers proceeded cautiously through the jungle highlands west of Pleiku, near the Cambodian border, on the morning of May 18, 1967. The men …

The recipe was simple: make a fire; boil water in any metal container at hand; put the ammo in the boiling water; and cook for four to five hours. by Nikolay Shevchenko During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Russian soldiers were often seen boiling their ammo for hours in a …

by Susan Katz Keating In retrospect, it seems fitting that I met Viktor Belenko in Reno. He was a gambler hanging out in a gambling town, surrounded by pilots in their fast moving aircraft, barreling wildly around pylons. I went there many years back, looking for stories to be found …

If there’s a lesson to be learned from merc work, it’s this: you are on your own. When you put your trust in others, or rely on outside forces for salvation, you’re buying yourself a one·way ticket to the oblivion of a mercs’ limbo: jail if you’re lucky, a bullet …

by Susan Katz Keating Why did Soviet forces abandon Afghanistan in 1989 after nearly 10 years of war? Western analysts have burned through terabytes trying to explain it. What else besides the fierce Mujahideen drove the Red Army to retreat with nothing to show but shattered pride? Some credit the …

by Susan Katz Keating The Ninth Situation of War, when you must fight without delay, is Desperate Ground – Sun Tzu “Watson. Wake up. Woods. Everyone. Wake the hell up.” The sentinels raced through the lean-to, alerting the team with urgent news: the Taliban were at the wire. Hours earlier, Sgt. …

The world of anti-poaching is difficult and dangerous. Especially when you come face to face with an enraged rhinoceros. by S. Anderson I’ve always been fascinated by the African Bush. Lions, Leopards, Cape Buffalo, Elephant, and Rhino. The Big 5. Endless rolling hills, dense bush, and undisturbed ecology. Growing up, …

by Jim Lechner Army Ranger (Ret) Jim Lechner wrote the following hymn to comradeship and patriotism – an essay that reverberates among those who long for the lost clarity of war. A veteran of multiple Special Operations missions, Lechner was wounded in the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia. He …

by Susan Katz Keating The Soviets called it Chernaya Gora: Black Mountain. That is where a unit of elite Spetsnaz forces met their deaths in Afghanistan, atop a remote observation post overlooking Kunar. I learned about the treacherous place in 2015, while researching an article for the Army National Guard.  …

by Susan Katz Keating “The Taliban are behind my door.” The whispered words came through the phone in the pitch of night, hours after Kabul fell on August 15, 2021. My friend “Hakim,” a man I had been trying from afar to help leave Afghanistan, called me from inside his …