The French Foreign Legion these days is more exclusive than it used to be. If there is an Interpol notice against you, for example, you won’t get through the gate. A century ago, however, a man who wanted to escape his past and assume a new identity could disappear into …
Read More »Mercs on the Run: Escape, Evasion, and Hiding Out in a Bordello
Editor’s note: We get a lot of emails from men asking us to help them find work as mercenaries. I used to tell them we don’t run an employment agency. Now, I just offer them the inside scoop, and send this story about some soldiers of misfortune who learned a …
Read More »Soldier of Fortune Salutes NHL Fans at Capital One Arena
Hey Hockey Fans — Seen something new on the screens at Cap One Arena? That was us. Our video is here to tell you, Chase the Adventure, whether you’re in the arena or diving deep into our stories. Soldier of Fortune has been delivering hard-hitting reporting from the front lines for …
Read More »Crisis Inside the Pentagon: We Can’t Afford This Kind of Turmoil
COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating My own sources – people with direct knowledge of the situation – tell me this story is far from over. The disarray now rippling through the Department of Defense is not just alarming – it’s a dangerous crisis. Firings. Backstabbing. Sniping. Resignations. This isn’t the kind …
Read More »Col. Nick Rowe: Long-Ago Conversations With a Special Forces Legend
by Susan Katz Keating “There’s a certain sound…” The song stuck with him for years afterwards. He was being marched to his execution in the jungles of Vietnam, and had been ordered to carry a radio to pick up “Radio Hanoi,” but he secretly dialed in to a station that …
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 »Trapped Inside a Burning ‘Punishment Hut’ in WWI Germany: A Prisoner’s Story
Here at Soldier of Fortune, we uncovered a long-ago story of an atrocity during World War I, when eight prisoners met a horrific fate while captive in Germany. Here is the tale, as told by a fellow prisoner, “Pedro.” ~SKK Pedro’s Tale I was sailing on an English ship. She …
Read More »Ranch Dog Rescues Missing Toddler After Harrowing Night in Arizona Wilderness
by Bobby Dee “Buford was just sitting there with the little kid. Just brought him up from the horse pasture and brought him over to the gate and was just hanging out with him.” A two-year-old boy who vanished from his home Monday afternoon was found safe the following morning …
Read More »A Nuclear Blast Would Bring Hell on Earth: Blinding Light, Searing Heat, and Intense Winds
The degree of hazard depends on the type of weapon, height of the burst, distance from the detonation, hardness of the target, and explosive yield of the weapon. by Susan Katz Keating Russian President Vladimir Putin again raised the specter of nuclear war when he announced that a conventional attack …
Read More »Flagged by Russia, Missed by a Keystroke: A Typo Enabled Boston Bomber Tsarnaev to Slip Through the Net
COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a grim lesson in what happens when the security safety net has holes. Long before the smoke cleared on Boylston Street in April 2013, long before the manhunt in Watertown gripped the nation, warnings had come in. They arrived not …
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