The Fire Pit

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 Jonas Vesterberg It was back in 2016. I was at home in Los Angeles when I got a call from my agent in Stockholm. “I have a project but nobody here in Sweden wants to touch it. Maybe you could take a look?” I suppose I was known as …

by Heath Hansen As a child, I enjoyed looking through the photo albums of my father’s old military pictures. There was one, in particular, that stood out because it was of a serviceman other than my father. The black and white picture displayed a Marine Brigadier General clad in woodland …

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 Fred A. Ganous, SGM, USA (Ret) My wife and I decided that we were due for a much-needed vacation. Our home was less than a three-hour drive to the beach; that was the destination we were headed for. As we were driving, I received an unexpected phone call from …

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 Al Hagan The night started off fairly typically, just four Marines in a car, going out on the town to slam down beers. And it was innocent for most of the night, drinking and shooting pool.  I’ll call my companions Mike, John, and Steve, to pick some random names …

The Moscow party included one man who was jailed for wearing only a strategically placed sock. But Putin attended a St. Petersburg club where performers wore nothing. A Russian investigative group has cried foul against the Kremlin for denouncing an “Almost Naked” 2023 Christmas party at a Moscow nightclub, saying …

The wildest aviator ever to step inside a fighter plane was actually a coyote named Jeep, who flew combat missions in World War II. While still a puppy, Jeep was rescued by a human pilot, John “Wild Bill” Crump. A Nebraska farmer had asked Bill to get rid of the …

by General (Ret) Scott Miller No matter what happened out there, everybody was going home. In the midst of a dangerous and at times dire fight, that provided a calming level of peace. Over the years I have not written much about the Battle of the Black Sea, nor the …