Best of SOF

Rhodesian SAS hit the Fuel Depot in Beira, Mozambique By Henri LePettit, Feature, Photos copyright  After the mid-70’s Carnation Revolution when the socialists were voted in back home, the Portuguese ditched their foothold in Mozambique. They were sent packing in a panic, ending overnight almost five hundred years of presence. …

REVIEW: ‘WE DARED TO WIN’By Colonel Eeben Barlow  Africa Unauthorized Hannes Wessels’ latest book ‘We Dared to Win’ is a book no serious student of war in Africa should be without. It chronicles the final years of a very special clandestine military unit, and a haemorrhaging and dying country. It …

Attack on a Rhodesian Fireforce Base. by Henri Lepetit, photos and text copyright  Well into the Cold War after the US had fired its final angry shot in Vietnam Rhodesia became the last western democracy engaged in a hot one fighting for its survival against a communist dictatorship takeover. In …

Technical Sergeant John E. Boitnott, Korean War Sniper By Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.) From the December 2008 issue of SOF CHICOMS TARGET OUTPOST YOKE To instruct the 5th Marine Regiment’s newly organized sniper school, the regimental commander recruited his unit’s Distinguished Riflemen and high expert shooters, among them …

OPERATION PHANTOM FURY/AL-FAJR From the OCT 2010 files of SOF I Fought in the Fiercest Urban Combat the US had fought since the Battle of Hue, Vietnam in 1968 By Jonathan Cuney As I sit back and reflect on my time at war, no combat experience sticks out more clearly …

Cowboy was handsome, flamboyant, courageous, clever, and cruel. He got his nickname from the Green Berets who worked with him in the Highlands of South Vietnam in the 1960s. “You’ve got to take the bad with the good,” one Special Forces captain explained. “And Cowboy is a good interpreter.” But …

SOF Interview with Gordon Rottman—Grunt Slang in Vietnam: Words of the War. 1. Cover Grunt Slang in Vietnam: Words of the War 2. Introduction Have you ever found yourself throwing out some slang word recalled from Vietnam at an appropriate or not so appropriate moment? Most Vietnam vets have done …

NVA THROUGH THE WIRE…..By John “Tilt” Stryker Meyer, One Zero of Spike Team Idaho As the first flare ignited over the camp, Sergeant Patrick N “Pat” Watkins, Jr., made out an NVA soldier standing in the door of the BOQ. “He was wearing a breech-cloth and bandana,” recalls Watkins, and was …

HELL ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL: THE HUNT FOR AN EXTINCT COW By Robert K. Brown and Vann Spencer From I Am Soldier of Fortune Lurch, jolt, lurch, jolt. Riding elephants for 12 hours a day at three klicks an hour was proving to be a mind- and butt-numbing …

  SOF’s Robert Brown Interviews SOG Author John Stryker “Tilt” Meyer Lt. Col. Brown: “Tilt, when did you first start writing about SOG, you know the Military Assistance Command Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group, where you ran top secret missions for 19 months during the eight-year secret war waged …