by Gatimu Juma Publisher’s note: Gatimu Juma, who reports from the Horn of Africa, told me he was working on a story about the Al-Shabaab terror group. Nearly a year went by, and I couldn’t reach him. Finally he surfaced to tell me where he was all that time: convalescing. …
Read More »An Infantryman Comes Home From War
by Heath Hansen March 2006. My tour was over. I had survived. No more fire-fights. No more IED’s. No more raids. No more rocket-attacks. I was going home. Many servicemen spend time in-country without ever leaving “the wire.” As an infantryman, I basically lived outside the wire. Being shot at, …
Read More »These Sky Soldiers Had to Fight Their Way Out of a Bog Before the Mud Ate Them Alive in Iraq
by John Spencer Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of the book “Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connection in Modern War” published by Potomac Books and available for purchase at Amazon here. The excerpt describes 2LT John Spencer’s experience jumping into Iraq as a platoon leader with the 173rd …
Read More »The Badass UFC Fighters From the Caucasus
“We are a tough people, we used to have war all the time. Fighting is in our DNA.” At a major international fighting event this year, all four athletes competing for world championship titles hailed from the Caucasus. The event, UFC 311, which was held in California on Jan. 18, …
Read More »An Angry Rhino, Three Rookie Trackers, and Trouble in Africa: ‘She Wants to Gore Us’
The world of anti-poaching is difficult and dangerous. Especially when you come face to face with an enraged rhinoceros. by S. Anderson I’ve always been fascinated by the African Bush. Lions, Leopards, Cape Buffalo, Elephant, and Rhino. The Big 5. Endless rolling hills, dense bush, and undisturbed ecology. Growing up, …
Read More »When the KGB Took on the Soviet Police
by Boris Egorov At the end of 1980, on the outskirts of Moscow, a number of Soviet policemen picked an argument with a KGB major. They had no idea what dire consequences the encounter would have for them and the entire Soviet police force. On the morning of December 27, …
Read More »Wilderness Tracking in Arizona: A Mission Along the Border
by Heath Hansen “I sent the grids; we’ll be heading out by noon on Thursday,” Tim Foley informs me over the phone, before I hit the road. Foley is a grizzled former paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne Division, and leader of the volunteer group Arizona Border Recon (AZBR). For more than a …
Read More »Grizzly! A Life or Death Encounter In the Yukon
One of the rules in the Yukon Territory is that hunting guides must always be within hearing distance of their hunters. This is a good rule, as we soon shall see. It was the first day of an early September expedition when hunting guide David O’Farrell brought an archery hunter …
Read More »‘Troops of the Hunter Class’: Creating Britain’s Legendary Commando Force
Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill in World War II wanted “specially trained troops of the hunter class, who can develop a reign of terror down these coasts [of occupied Europe], first of all on the butcher and bolt policy… leaving a trail of German corpses behind them.” This translated into …
Read More »Man Applied for Fake Hitman Job on Parody Website
by Susan Katz Keating A member of the Air National Guard was hit with criminal charges – but not for leaking classified documents. It has to do with murder-for-hire. A Tennessee man who serves in the Air National Guard agreed to kill someone for a client who actually was an …
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