The story is legend among fighter pilots. During the Vietnam War, Major John “Bob” Pardo was flying lead on the way back from a 1,000 mile mission over enemy territory, when they ran into serious trouble. The two F-4C Phantom jets took heavy flak, and considerable damage. Pardo saw that …

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 …

by Susan Katz Keating “I lie awake at night, filled with regret. I deeply regret that my bombs didn’t kill more people.”  That’s what the so-called “Terror Priest,” Father Patrick Ryan, told me when I asked what he wanted people to know about him. A fierce Irish nationalist, he was …

by Susan Katz Keating Morning reveille had not yet sounded at the Marine Corps barracks on Oct 23, 1983, when a Hezbollah terrorist drove a bomb-laden truck into the building in Beirut, Lebanon. The massive blast lifted the barracks off its foundation, and reduced it to rubble – instantly killing …

by Susan Katz Keating The Soviets called it Chernaya Gora: Black Mountain. That is where a unit of elite Spetsnaz forces met their deaths in Afghanistan, atop a remote observation post overlooking Kunar. I learned about the treacherous place in 2015, while researching an article for the Army National Guard.  …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …

by Susan Katz Keating My K-Zero is missing. For those of you who are not up to speed on the plate carrier drama, there was an issue previously when I asked my friend Skip to help test the K-19 carrier from Agilite. The plan was to see whether the one-size …

by Susan Katz Keating “The Taliban are behind my door.” The whispered words came through the phone in the pitch of night, hours after Kabul fell on August 15, 2021. My friend “Hakim,” a man I had been trying from afar to help leave Afghanistan, called me from inside his …

Why I’m more focused on the bombs that didn’t explode COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating At least 19 people are dead in Colombia, and more than 70 are wounded, after dissident guerrillas staged twin attacks on Thursday. A Black Hawk helicopter was brought down with a drone. A truck bomb ripped …

Through the window of Putin’s presidential jet, two F-35’s slid into formation as they left U.S. airspace. It’s a view almost no one on Earth will ever see. America’s stealth fleet rarely shows itself—let alone escorting a Russian head of state out of U.S. airspace. History at 35,000 feet. The …