by Mike Eckel Yevgeny Prigozhin, a convict who parlayed a St. Petersburg restaurant business into lucrative Kremlin contracts, founded the private military company Wagner, and became a relentless critic of the Russian military command, made and then stopped a run on Moscow as part of a truncated rebellion. Who is …
Read More »Kremlin Charges Wagner Chief With Mutiny, as Prigozhin Asks Russians to Join Uprising Against Defense Minister
The Kremlin charged Yevgeny Prigozhin with mutiny on Friday night after the bellicose Wagner Group chief called on all Russians to join his forces in an uprising against the country’s defense minister. Prigozhin accused his wartime nemesis, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of ordering Russian troops to shell Prigozhin’s forces in …
Read More »We Knew They Weren’t Coming Back: Vietnam’s Brutal ‘Nine Days in May’
by Susan Katz Keating“We weren’t Special Forces or Airborne. We were mostly just a bunch of draftee grunts who turned out to be damn good soldiers.” The soldiers proceeded cautiously through the jungle highlands west of Pleiku, near the Cambodian border, on the morning of May 18, 1967. The men …
Read More »On Desperate Ground: Mad Dog Platoon and the Battle of OP Nevada
by Susan Katz Keating The Ninth Situation of War, when you must fight without delay, is Desperate Ground – Sun Tzu “Watson. Wake up. Woods. Everyone. Wake the hell up.” The sentinels raced through the lean-to, alerting the team with urgent news: the Taliban were at the wire. Hours earlier, …
Read More »On D-Day, They Fought to Hit the Beach – and Then They Faced Combat
by Susan Katz Keating It was the largest amphibious assault in the history of warfare, and one of the most decisive military missions of modern times. The outcome of WWII rested upon the success of D-Day – a mission that was long in the making, and shrouded in secrecy until …
Read More »Prigozhin Vows to Send Home Bodies of American, Turkish Fighters Killed in Ukraine
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said he will repatriate the bodies of an American citizen who was killed in fighting in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, and that of a Turkish citizen who was found dead. The Russian private military chief Prigozhin announced his plans on May 25, as part …
Read More »‘Enemy in the wire!’ The Grueling Battle for Combat Outpost Keating
by Elizabeth M. Collins “Enemy in the wire! Enemy in the wire!” The news, the stuff of nightmares, spread through Red and Blue platoons in seconds. “Enemy in the wire.” Many soldiers didn’t believe it at first. It was a phrase they never expected to hear, one they dreaded. It …
Read More »Ed Freeman and Bruce Crandall Flew Unarmed Helicopters Under Fire in Vietnam
Ed Freeman was close to retirement when war broke out in Vietnam. He was an experienced pilot by then and assigned to the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, which was sent to deliver troops to what became known as the Battle of Ia Drang, the first major battle between the United …
Read More »Brutal Battle in Syria: When US Special Forces Fought Against Russian Wagner Group Mercs
by Kevin Maurer, The War Horse Explosions flashed in the fog hanging over the Euphrates River like a coming summer storm. The continuous thunder of Russian guns pounded the American positions in a burned-out natural gas refinery in eastern Syria. Tracers crisscrossed the Syrian sky. The Special Forces soldiers felt …
Read More »Russia’s ‘Butcher of Mariupol’ Joins Wagner PMC as Prigozhin Escalates Feud With Putin’s Military Commanders
A high ranking Russian military officer known as the “Butcher of Mariupol” has joined the Wagner Group as a deputy commander, according to Russian social media channels. The commander, Colonel General Mikhail Mizintsev, previously was fired from his post as Deputy Defense Minister. He had garnered a reputation for his …
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