The Fire Pit

Afghan guards and Gurkhas ran to the fight. The bomb answered back. by Robert M. Kurtz It was April 2010, and I was on an assignment to evaluate the security measures and contracted security provider of a project compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Anyone who has ever been to Kandahar can …

by Cliff Wade Iraq, 2006 We found ourselves in the home of an Iraqi family during a massive clearing operation in an area characterized by terrain varying between urban landscape, farmland, palm groves, and small villages. We had been clearing routes of improvised explosive devices all morning. We had been …

“GRASS IT IF YOU HAVE TO GRASS IT! HIT THE GRASS!” by Mr. Wolf The desert night air hung heavy over Kuwait International Airport as I climbed into the jump seat of the ATR-72. The twin turboprops were already whining to life, their blades slicing through the cooler evening air …

by Greg Chabot I was attracted to organized crime; it holds a mystique. But there is a dark underside outsiders don’t see. I was working for the railroad, and was assigned to a job in Toronto. I had to stop and get a work visa at the border. Thankfully that …

by Babatim  I couldn’t take being out of the game anymore, so off I went to touch the elephant. I had just cracked open the first beer of the afternoon when I heard the rockets coming in. Wise now to the ways of war I stayed in my lawn chair …

by Brian Dykeman, The War Horse  The funny thing about memories is that your brain will let most of them drift off into a place where they only make an appearance if you see a picture, smell a smell, or if a certain song comes on the radio. Then there …

by Bruce Pannier “Well guys, are we going, or are we going to sit here taking a piss?” It has been many years since the culmination of the so-called Russian constitutional crisis, when the country’s president, Boris Yeltsin, sought to dissolve the parliament and then ordered the military to crush …

by Greg Chabot The beginning of February 2005 was a busy time in Baqubah. Insurgent activity had picked up considerably, keeping all of us at the Police HQ on our toes. With the end of the deployment coming, I had tried multiple times to extend my tour but was denied. …

Perfume, purloined jewelry and a millionaire’s son form the complex story of Herbert Repsold, a Navy deserter who also was known as the Perfumed Burglar. In the early 1900s, Repsold was a troublesome youth. Growing tired of his son’s antics, the elder Repsold cut off his son’s cash and forced …

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: …