The Fire Pit

by David Chetlain, The War Horse In spring 1987, the Soviet Union launched Operation Atrina, scrambling five Victor III-class submarines from their Kola base that raced toward U.S. Naval installations along the Atlantic coast. The USSR claimed its submarines were undetected. It was a lie then and it remains a …

by Heath Hansen It was 0530 hours the morning our first sergeant kicked open the door to our tent, and told us to “get the fuck outside and form it up!” Late the previous night, we returned to base from a 10-day mission in Afghanistan. I could see through a …

by Susan Katz Keating The portrait of a military working cat is part of a display honoring police dogs at the Pentagon. The portrait, a dignified portrayal of “Minou,” shows the gray tabby wearing a collar with a badge labelled “Feline Unit.” The badge contains the image of a paw. The …

BOOK REVIEW by Ric Prado As an avid reader and now a New York Times Bestselling author of Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior, I have learned to truly enjoy historical fiction. These are most often stories based on real life experiences, composed to both instruct and …

by Martin Kufus An excerpt from Plow the Dirt but Watch the Sky, by Martin Kufus Anyone who serves as a volunteer firefighter eventually will confront bad things, perhaps receiving a heartfelt “Thank you” later in compensation. This is what you sign up for and train for on a volunteer …

by Greg Chabot I was taking MRE coffee and putting it between my cheek and gums to stay alert: an exhausting mission when elections were held in Iraq for the first time in two years. Election day started off very early for us. A nation-wide curfew was declared, and buses …

by SGT May, Israel Defense Forces The terrorists just keep coming, and you are alone… in the most dangerous place in Israel. – An IDF soldier remembers being present for the attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. 6:30 in the morning – a massive boom. I thought it was …

BOOK REVIEW by Susan Katz Keating It all comes down to the fact that you have to trust the men to your left and right, knowing they are standing fast and will not break on you, just as you are doing for them. – Jim Lechner in ‘With My Shield‘ …

by Susan Katz Keating Jack Carr and James M. Scott have produced a master class in how to write contemporary history. Morning reveille had not yet sounded on Oct 23, 1983, when a terrorist drove a bomb-laden truck into the headquarters and barracks building of the U.S. Marine Corps peacekeeping …

by Mike Holmes In late October 2005, my team and I had been dropped off in a terrible little place on the Baghdad-to- Amman highway called Ar Rutbah, to coordinate supply convoys coming out of Jordan with the Marines who controlled this sector. The convoys mostly carried fuel and supplies …