The Fire Pit

Aboard a hot, bucking C-130, a young 101st Airborne paratrooper fought to hold himself together until the stick began to move. by David F. Crosby The C-130 rocked back and forth and lurched up and down. The late summer air made flying low in the afternoon turbulent, and the aircraft’s …

Two American radio operators listened as distant voices from the Baltics alerted one another of approaching danger. by Grant Barrett Late one night, my longtime friend Kevin and I listened as anxious voices from across the globe came through an amateur radio network. Some speakers spoke in broken English, while …

From the helmets of the 101st Airborne in Normandy to a psychological weapon and morale booster in Vietnam, one playing card became a military legend. by Jose Campos The body lay in the jungle on the losing side of a firefight between American and Viet Cong fighters. On the dead …

by Heath Hansen The Army veteran talks Afghanistan, fallen warriors, and the experiences behind his music. Writer Heath Hansen was intrigued by a song “For the Fallen (Damn Few)” by the Black Metal band Epikoros, founded and fronted by lead singer Nemesis. The song honors fighters who have left the …

by Cliff Wade Iraq, 2007 Every now and again we’d get an outsider attached to our unit on missions. Sometimes they were enablers who proved to be assets, other times they were regarded as interlopers who got in the way. One such instance sticks out in my mind over others: …

by Carl Hancocks For the past four years, the city of Agadez has been what could barely pass as home for a woman without a name. Nigerian, she fends for herself as a sex-worker, but that was not how she arrived in this place. Her story is that of a …

by Jonathan Stumpf A dispatch from Ukraine. News of Prigozhin’s mutiny rips through the International Legion like wildfire. Stretched out on our cots, “Austria,” “Niente,” and I feverishly track the latest developments on our smartphones. I gave Niente his nickname because he wanted to be called “Nothing.” He had joined …

by Igor R. Salikov Excerpted from Putin’s ‘Viper’ Detachment: One Man’s Role in a Russian Special Forces Unit and the Invasion of Ukraine, by Igor R. Salikov, published by Frontline Books. War is a tiresome thing, even in conversation. Especially if you tell the truth. These are not dashing stories …

After that night our extended holiday in Mozambique ended. The war had come to us. Story from Jaime De Melo. Written by Royce de Melo Things had been very quiet since my battalion’s arrival by ship in Mozambique in August 1970. We had been posted to various sectors in the …

by Al Hagan In the early 1980s, I was in the Marine Corps, and a friend of mine who had gone into the Army was getting married. We’d grown up together, and so I and others – lots of military – journeyed back home for the occasion. Naturally, this required …