Editor’s note: Retired Green Beret Greg Walker has joined the Soldier of Fortune team as Contributing Editor for Veterans Issues. Here is the next installment of Greg’s column, VetCare 2023. Greg begins with the thoughts of a Nez Perce elder, and interweaves this warrior’s observations throughout. VetCare 2023 by Greg …
Read More »‘I Should Have Worried About Dying’: That Time We Crashed the Nuclear Submarine
by Tim Patterson, The War HorseIn the moments immediately after the collision—after an alarm had sounded at 2 a.m.; after the boat had rocked violently to starboard, rolling 45 degrees and back again; after many of USS Philadelphia’s sailors were thrown from their beds; after a DVD player had flown …
Read More »At War in Iraq, I Faced One Last Incident Before I Went Home
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. …
Read More »MiG Pilot Viktor Belenko: ‘I Am the Luckiest Man Alive’
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 …
Read More »How I Got Over My Bad Attitude After Vietnam
by Ed Meagher, The War Horse When I returned from Vietnam in February of 1969 I had a bad attitude—a very bad attitude. I joined the Air Force to escape college and a broken heart (another story entirely). It turned out that the discipline, order, and focus the Air Force …
Read More »Review: ‘Left Right Left’ Podcast Highlights US Marines in the Battle of Nasiriyah
by Greg Chabot The Left Right Left podcast is a new program hosted by retired Marine SGM Marc Chabot – who happens to be my brother. He started this project with the goal of helping and inspiring others. In this intense three-part episode on the 20-year anniversary of the battle …
Read More »The Sands of Agadez: Where a Woman Knows More Than She Should About Gun Lords and Mercenaries 
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 …
Read More »VetCare 2023: Mentors Are a Force Multiplier for Empowering Veterans
Editor’s note: Retired Green Beret Greg Walker has joined the Soldier of Fortune team as Contributing Editor for Veterans Issues. Today is the second installment of Greg’s column, VetCare 2023. VetCare 2023 by Greg Walker, U.S. Army Special Forces (ret) I worked at the Portland VA hospital with the Operation …
Read More »An Angel On His Shoulder: Our Door Gunner Survived Being Shot in the Head in Iraq
by Fred A. Ganous, SGM, USA (Ret) “I just got shot in the head!” It was September 25th, 2006, and we weren’t in the country for over a month, and one of our own, Sergeant Don Morgan, got hit. It was just another day in Iraq, hot and hazy, and …
Read More »Creating The Vietnam Wall Was ‘a Minor Miracle’: Jan Scruggs Credits Veterans for Building Their Own Memorial
by Jan Scruggs As you readers may know, I started what is now known as The Wall. The wall gets 5 million visitors a year, according to the National Park Service. The idea was not complex. We would get a site and build a memorial engraved with the names of “..the men …
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