by Carl Hancocks For the past four years, the city of Agadez has been what could barely pass as home for a woman without a name. Nigerian, she fends for herself as a sex-worker, but that was not how she arrived in this place. Her story is that of a …
Read More »‘Those Who Face Death’ Book Excerpt: Nightfall in Kirkuk
by Mark Grdovic In the spring of 2003, the US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group tied down 60 percent of the Iraqi Army north of Baghdad while US and coalition forces attacked from the south. Mark Grdovic was on the ground as part of the mission he helped design. The following is …
Read More »First Chill: Baptism by Fire in Mozambique
After that night our extended holiday in Mozambique ended. The war had come to us. Story from Jaime De Melo. Written by Royce de Melo Things had been very quiet since my battalion’s arrival by ship in Mozambique in August 1970. We had been posted to various sectors in the …
Read More »Operation Ystervark: Jumping With South African Paratrooper Vets
by Jerry Kraus South African parachute veterans, a black Super Huey, and one hell of a water jump over Florida. Last fall, I attended a small reunion of Soldier of Fortune friends at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. After a long day of shooting, I found myself …
Read More »To Those Who Jump Out of Perfectly Good Airplanes: Raise a Glass
by Heath Hansen Happy National Airborne Day to all you servicemen and servicewomen who volunteered to serve your country at a “higher” level! Created in 2002, by then President George W. Bush, National Airborne Day honors all the Nation’s airborne armed forces. READ MORE from Heath Hansen in Soldier of …
Read More »The Weapons, Legends, and Gear of WWI
Some never made it off the drawing board. Others are carried, worn, and remembered more than a century later. Walk across a modern military installation and WWI keeps turning up. It’s in the arms room, the protective-equipment locker, procurement contracts, and even over the radio. The war produced an extraordinary …
Read More »Inside Putin’s ‘Viper’ Detachment at War: Russian Special Forces on the Donetsk-Luhansk Ridge
by Igor R. Salikov Excerpted from Putin’s ‘Viper’ Detachment: One Man’s Role in a Russian Special Forces Unit and the Invasion of Ukraine, by Igor R. Salikov, published by Frontline Books. War is a tiresome thing, even in conversation. Especially if you tell the truth. These are not dashing stories …
Read More »The Barely Told Story of America’s Greatest Half-Ass Heroes
by Susan Katz Keating Why did Soviet forces abandon Afghanistan in 1989 after nearly 10 years of war? Western analysts have burned through terabytes trying to explain it. What else besides the fierce Mujahideen drove the Red Army to retreat with nothing to show but shattered pride? Some credit the …
Read More »Gerber Mark II: The Story of an American Fighting Knife
by Sean “Sako” Sakinofsky Few movie knives are as famous as the custom Jimmy Lile survival Bowie carried by John Rambo in First Blood. It became one of the defining images of 1980’s action films. The likelihood of a Green Beret medic like Rambo walking out of military service with such …
Read More »From Magenta to Roswell and Beyond: Soldier of Fortune’s UFO Files, Declassified
by Susan Katz Keating The movie just dropped. The files keep coming out. We’ve been covering this for years. Here’s your field briefing. With a major UFO film hitting theaters, the timing feels almost scripted. But at Soldier of Fortune, we didn’t wait for Hollywood to greenlight a script before …
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