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 »‘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 »Inside ‘The Warning’: Bombs, Money, and the Boston Connection
by Susan Katz Keating What began as questions about activity in Boston evolved into a wider Soldier of Fortune investigation involving operational warnings, networks, and patterns hiding in plain sight. Some stories don’t arrive fully formed. They come in pieces: a source leaning forward across a table, a sealed envelope …
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 …
Read More »Our ‘Death Angels’ Helicopter Crew Flew Against All Odds in Iraq
by Fred A. Ganous, SGM, USA (Ret) The departure point was LZ Washington in downtown Baghdad, which stayed busier than the Atlanta airport. The pilot in command was a Chief Warrant 4 who was well-trained in his aviation duties. He saw a convoy of five U.S. army vehicles come under …
Read More »Juba the Baghdad Sniper: Was He Real, Or a Clever Psyop?
By Greg Chabot In mid-2005 the name Juba struck fear into coalition troops in Baghdad. He had become a folk hero to the insurgency with his attacks on check points that were filmed and uploaded to the internet along with a graphic novel written about him. He would leave an …
Read More »Lost Night in Kuwait: When My Driver Took a Detour Into the Desert
We keep on driving, and I ask, “Where the fuck are we going?” With a smile and laugh Ali replies, “It’s just up here, buddy.” Being paranoid, I lock and load my M16. I figure worse comes to worse, I’ll smoke him and find my way back. by Greg Chabot …
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