The Fire Pit

by Susan Katz Keating 2006 The traffic along Georgia Avenue going south was sparse throughout the stretch of Maryland road. The bus proceeded unhindered, ferrying wounded warriors strapped into gurneys or propped up with i.v. lines attached, and belted into seats. Many were profoundly changed men and women with missing …

Book Review by Heath Hansen Ever wonder what it’s like to be a street cop? The politics? The bureaucracy? The intensity? Or what it feels like to face a crazed maniac? The adrenaline high? The danger? The uncertainty? Fractured Streets has it all. I was recently perusing noir crime books on Amazon …

by Sgt. 1st Class Ashleigh Martinez Editor’s note: I first met Chuck Ziegenfuss when I wrote an article about him for PEOPLE magazine, when he was donating voice-activated laptops to wounded warriors at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Before long, I was part of another group that cooked for …

by Heath Hansen When William Yeske asked if I’d be interested in reviewing his book, Damn The Valley, I was eager to see what he had put on paper. As I found out later, he’d served as an 82nd Airborne Paratrooper, in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR). Considering I …

Two of our great friends sat down for a chat in their respective studios – and here’s the result. Our esteemed board member Ric Prado appeared on Tall Tales With Taco Bell, hosted by the one and only – you guessed it! – Taco Bell. They chat about Ric’s adventures …

by Joshua Garay Publisher’s note: Here at Soldier of Fortune, we’ve been paying attention to the emerging field of ‘FICINT’ (Fictional Intelligence) as a serious analytic tool. Most FICINT scenarios are set in the future. But what if FICINT also could show alternate history, and underscore what has been at …

by Heath Hansen This dude was shot 10 times, and lived to sing about it… Recently I was asked if I’d like to sit down and talk with a rising star in the country music industry; a singer who also happens to be a former infantryman in the US Army. …

Publisher’s note: We are deeply honored to present this excerpt from August 2024, a new novel by John M. Del Vecchio, a must-read author in the genre of modern war literature. One Vietnam War combat veteran said this about Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley: it was like “hearing from my …

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 …

BOOK REVIEW by Susan Katz Keating When Marty Skovlund Jr. told me a while back that he was working on a book about Navy cryptology tech Shannon Kent, I made a note to myself to look for the book when it was published. Within the special operations community, Shannon’s name …