by Sean “Sako” Sakinofsky It is probably one of the most debated topics in regard to camouflage patterns and fatigues. How did Tiger Stripe Pattern Camouflage come into being? Its origins are not American but rather French and Vietnamese. It sounds more like a cuisine than combat fatigues. However, all …
Read More »The Battle of Kolwezi: The French Foreign Legion at War
by Gatimu Juma With civilians trapped and time running out, French Foreign Legion and Belgian paratroopers jumped into Zaire in 1978. The French segment was known as operation Bonite. CAPE TOWN BUREAU – The doors opened in the skies over Zaire, and the Legionnaires stepped into empty air. Below them …
Read More »‘Mercenaries, Gunslingers, and Outlaws’: Staring Down Death From Above
by Robert M. Kurtz Excerpted from Mercenaries, Gunslingers, and Outlaws: Two Years as a Security Contractor in Iraq. Whoever set up the last IED that directly targeted my vehicle showed a little more ingenuity than usual. We were somewhere just outside of Bagdad; all the convoys seem to run together …
Read More »The Gruesome Fate of Surgeons Who Built New Face For Mexican Drug Lord
by “Sol Prendido” One of the most influential capos in Mexico’s history met a tragic end – and so did his doctors. One of the most powerful drug lords in Mexico was Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was born in Navolato, Sinaloa, in 1956. El Señor de los Cielos (Lord of …
Read More »WATCH: Air Assault Training in Finland
The forests of Finland served as the backdrop for fast-moving Saber Strike exercises as American and British troops trained through air assaults and battlefield action. The exercise was formed as part of a larger NATO effort stretching across Northern and Eastern Europe. Watch as units board, fly, disembark, and engage …
Read More »‘You Will Wind Up Dead’: Inside a Combat Drone School in Russia
How do you learn to fly a kamikaze drone? In Russia, one answer lies inside a secretive training program run by Octagon, a drone school linked to remnants of the Wagner Group. Though Wagner technically no longer exists, Octagon claimed to continue running combat drone courses in Russia, even after Wagner …
Read More »Lost B-24 Crew Fought to Survive the Remote Australian Outback
The crew of Little Eva bailed out of their B-24 Liberator over northern Australia in 1942. They spent the next four months trying to get out through flooded wilderness, tidal coastline, and river country. Not everyone made it. by Jose Campos The trees caught him hard enough to stop the …
Read More »A Contractor Goes Back to War: ‘I Had to Touch the Elephant’
by Babatim I couldn’t take being out of the game anymore, so off I went to touch the elephant. I had just cracked open the first beer of the afternoon when I heard the rockets coming in. Wise now to the ways of war I stayed in my lawn chair …
Read More »Leo Major, the One-Eyed Ghost of Zwolle
The Germans thought they were under attack by an entire force. In reality, the chaos came from a lone Canadian moving through the dark. by Jose Campos The Germans heard him before they saw him. Grenades detonating one after the other in the dark, machine gun fire, the crackle of …
Read More »In Iraq, We Rolled In to Feed the Village – and Everything Was Oddly Quiet
by Cliff Wade It was the kind of place where a man earned his name on a bracelet for all eternity. Iraq, September 2007 In an attempt to win over hearts and minds, we would sometimes be tasked with delivering humanitarian assistance (HA) to local villages or neighborhoods. We would …
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