Tag Archives: Featured

by Susan Katz Keating The war did not end when Saigon fell. It moved home, where those who fought in the jungles, skies, and waters of Southeast Asia reshaped American law, medicine, and culture. Fifty-one years ago today, the last American helicopters lifted off a rooftop in Saigon. The war …

by Susan Katz Keating America’s fight in Southeast Asia began before our country knew that a war was unfolding, on a single night when two men were the first to die by enemy fire in Vietnam. It happened on July 8, 1959, in Bien Hoa, some 20 miles outside Saigon. …

Depressed over the April 30, 1975 fall of Saigon, this Army veteran went to see a new movie. by Jack Hawkins Released in Los Angeles in 1978, The Deer Hunter was already becoming a legendary film by the time it hit “flyover country” a few months later. I was between …

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 …

by Heath Hansen Everything became eerily still, until… it blinked. “ENEMY!” Fils screamed. Then all hell broke loose.  The sun was just setting on the thick canopy of trees and bushes surrounding their position. It was a long day of humping through the dense growth; but it had been productive. …

A close read of the suspect’s document – and what it is designed to do. ANALYSIS by Susan Katz Keating “Hello everybody!” is not how shooters begin their manifestos. But that’s how Cole Allen began his. Allen was subdued on Saturday after he exchanged gunfire with the Secret Service at …

by Robert Ramsour The FP-45 was an unknown and surreptitious pistol developed in WWII to help our captured allies regain control of their country, or province. In order to conceal its real function as a firearm, our government represented this pistol as a flare projector. It was officially called the …

A fixer who says he connects buyers and sellers moving goods out of Chernobyl describes a trade that has slowed but grown more profitable, building on decades of documented smuggling from the contaminated Exclusion Zone. by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU – The truck rolled to a stop at the border, crossing …

When a B-24 went down in subzero weather, one airman was stranded alone. by Jose Campos Lieutenant Leon Crane stood hip-deep in snow on a frozen Alaskan mountainside, watching what remained of his B-24 Liberator burn itself out on the slope above him. He shouted for the other men. The …

Prosecutors say a former DEA financial operations chief used his expertise in a rogue effort for personal gain, agreeing in a federal sting to assist what he believed was a cartel. This installment of Crossings in Wartime examines what happens when the people who know how the machine works decide to run …