Perfume, purloined jewelry and a millionaire’s son form the complex story of Herbert Repsold, a Navy deserter who also was known as the Perfumed Burglar. In the early 1900s, Repsold was a troublesome youth. Growing tired of his son’s antics, the elder Repsold cut off his son’s cash and forced …
Read More »The Enemy Lay Bleeding in Iraq – and the Spanish Photographer Watched Our Every Move
by Cliff Wade Iraq, 2007 Every now and again we’d get an outsider attached to our unit on missions. Sometimes they were enablers who proved to be assets, other times they were regarded as interlopers who got in the way. One such instance sticks out in my mind over others: …
Read More »The Trench Broom: 12-Gauge Shotguns in the U.S. Military
by Austin Lee From the muddy trenches of World War I to the urban battlegrounds of modern conflicts, the 12-gauge combat shotgun has earned a fearsome reputation as America’s close-quarters and door-breaching weapon. Winchester M97 and M12 trench guns, with accessories. Chambered for the 2.75-inch shell loaded with nine pellets …
Read More »This Coast Guard Crew Worked All Night to Rescue People From Floodwaters On Christmas Eve, 1955
Their helicopter was never shut down, and had to be “hot-fueled” while the engine was running. Shortly after midnight on Christmas Eve, 1955, a levee on California’s Feather River collapsed, sending a 21-foot wall of water into Yuba City. Terrified flood victims who huddled on rooftops or clinging to tree …
Read More »Havana Syndrome and the ‘Moscow Signal’: A Sobering Red Flag
by Susan Katz Keating Did a Russian assassination team inflict the mysterious Havana Syndrome on American targets, or has an innocent unit been framed, as Moscow would have us believe? Here is one Red flag to consider. It comes in the form of a decades-long Soviet offensive that the Kremlin …
Read More »The Christmas Bombings of 1972: A Deafening Roar Told Me Something Big Was Happening
by David Nelson, The War Horse I woke up early on the morning of Dec. 6, 1972, to pack and say tearful goodbyes to my wife, Martie, and our one-year-old daughter, Amy. We’d decided ahead of time that my father-in-law “Pop” Lowry would drive me from Temple, Texas, to Love …
Read More »‘Mayday! Clear All Airspace Below Us!’ When Our Plane Lost Pressure in Flight: A Pilot’s Story
We were leaning over the throttles, breaking the seals on our masks, and yelling at each other. by Mitchell “Taco” Bell To all my passenger friends out there who always text me with the crazy pilot questions, I can assure you as pilots we train for this stuff all the …
Read More »War Predators in Ukraine: They Come to Study the Killing Fields
by Susan Katz Keating China and other foreign actors are using Ukraine as a testbed, deploying cut-outs and deniable assets to gather real-time data on drones, intelligence sources told Soldier of Fortune. The grainy figures moved across the screen, creeping through murky terrain like shadows come to life. A blip …
Read More »Green Berets Train to Survive Mountain Warfare
The mountains above Bridgeport, California, have been home to mountain warfare survival training for Special Forces, Marines, and others. In this frosty vid, Green Berets with the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) partner with United Arab Emirates Special Operations to conduct long range reconnaissance training at the U.S. Marine Corps …
Read More »Brown University Police Chief Rodney Chatman Fostered a Cover-Up Culture, His Own Cops Said
by Susan Katz Keating Police union issued a unanimous vote of no confidence in Chatman, who leads the Brown University segment of investigating a Dec. 13 mass shooting on campus. Brown University’s campus police department operates inside a culture of secrecy, retaliation, and institutional cover-up, their own sergeants charged. The …
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