Editor’s note: Longtime CIA covert operations officer James Parker Jr. often talked to me about his days in Southeast Asia, including the secret war in Laos. He told stories of another case officer and former Green Beret, George Washington Bacon III, who became a mercenary in Angola. Here is an …

One SEAL immediately jumped in to save the first who had fallen. Both disappeared amid the waves, an official said. “It was an incredible act of loyalty and courage,” the official said with a breaking voice.  by Susan Katz Keating The hunt for two SEALs who are missing in waters …

American citizens deserve to know the full details when our armed forces are sent into action. It would be nice to get those details from our own Department of Defense. COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Outdated, misleading photos and a low p.r. footprint: such is the Pentagon’s messaging about Thursday …

“Austin created a crisis where none existed,” one official said. “This threw the White House and the Pentagon into chaos, and it was completely unnecessary. He needs to turn in his resignation.” COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Official Washington, D.C. is making bets on who will take the fall over Defense …

When the Secretary of Defense was off work and in an intensive care unit over the course of four days, no one at the Pentagon nor in Washington even knew he was gone. COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The U.S. security world is rightly astounded and outraged that Defense Secretary …

by Timofei Rozhanskiy As fighting raged in an around Bakhmut amid Russia’s unrelenting assault earlier this year turning the eastern Ukrainian city to rubble, a Russian conscript began plotting how he would desert shortly after being deployed there. Anton (not his real name) said he was given a two-week leave in …

“Places we thought were safe, are not safe,” one resident told Soldier of Fortune. Russia launched extensive missiles attacks that killed at least five people and wounded dozens more in Kyiv and Kharkiv, officials in Ukraine said on Tuesday. The barrage was unlike previous attacks, and hit areas of Kyiv …

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 …

Iran has sent a warship into the Red Sea, Iranian state media reported on January 1. The 51-year-old destroyer Alborz entered the Red Sea through the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, according to the Tasnim news agency. The news group is tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The ship …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating Is Vladimir Putin dead? Should we believe the “insider” who announced on Telegram that the Russian president died again, and that a fresh coup is underway in Moscow? Or should we trust the extraordinary denial from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov that the report is an …