by Austin Lee Project Acoustic Kitty was a real CIA initiative in the 1960s during the Cold War, aimed at using cats as covert listening devices to spy on Soviet officials. The plan involved surgically implanting a microphone in a cat’s ear canal, a small radio transmitter at the base …
Read More »Trapped Inside a Tank, This Soldier Cut Off His Own Leg to Save the Injured Crew
Specialist Ezra Maes and his two armor crew teammates were jolted awake by their M1A2 Abrams tank as it rolled downhill at nearly 90 mph with them inside. The sheer force of the vehicle hitting an embankment threw Maes from his position, and his right leg was immediately pinned down …
Read More »‘I Should Have Worried About Dying’: That Time We Crashed the Nuclear Submarine
by Tim Patterson, The War HorseIn the moments immediately after the collision—after an alarm had sounded at 2 a.m.; after the boat had rocked violently to starboard, rolling 45 degrees and back again; after many of USS Philadelphia’s sailors were thrown from their beds; after a DVD player had flown …
Read More »Hero Dog ‘Shimanski’ Honored for Courage Under Fire
An American multi-purpose canine (MPC) Belgian Malinois was honored for heroism under fire while serving four tours of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. Shimanski was deployed to Jordan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia during his seven-year career and received the Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery for his service, an …
Read More »Project Azorian: The CIA’s Audacious Grab for a Sunken Soviet Sub
by Austin Lee It was one of the ballsiest clandestine ops in history: Project Azorian, the CIA mission to snatch a Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean’s crushing depths. The haul from the Golf-II-class K-129 was a priceless score for the Americans. The mission also prompted a rare act of …
Read More »Alone Against the Taliban: Mad Dog Platoon and the Battle of OP Nevada
by Susan Katz Keating The Soviets called it Chernaya Gora: Black Mountain. That is where a unit of elite Spetsnaz forces met their deaths in Afghanistan, atop a remote observation post overlooking Kunar. I learned about the treacherous place in 2015, while researching an article for the Army National Guard. …
Read More »Starfish Scarf Down Sunken WWII Explosives in the Baltic Sea
by Jose Campos Turns out it’s okay to eat TNT – if you’re a starfish. The Baltic Sea is a war grave. Rusted shells, V-1 flying bombs, chemical caches, unexploded munitions – the relics of two world wars – litter the seafloor. They are toxic, deadly, abandoned, and now, astonishingly, …
Read More »The 6.02x41mm: Russia’s Answer to NATO’s Body Armor
by Austin Lee The prototype 6.02×41 isn’t just a cartridge – it’s Russia’s middle finger to NATO’s gear grind. The Russians are at it again. Their new 6.02x41mm prototype is designed to punch through NATO body armor like paper – a modern evolution of the infamous 5.45x39mm “poison bullet” that …
Read More »El Salvador’s Tattoo Dragnet Flipped the Script in War on Gangs
by Royce de Melo Some meters ahead of me on the left side of the street, two soldiers armed with M16 A1/A2 rifles approach a young man. He definitely caught their attention. As the soldiers in El Salvador calmly walk up to him, the man stops and puts down the …
Read More »Fight for Survival: The Medevac Huey Crashed Hard in Alabama
by Fred Ganous, SGM, USA (Ret) The pilot in command reached up and grasped the rescuer’s shirt. “Hey asshole,” he growled. “That’s not what you say to the ones you are trying to help!” The medevac mission had ended, and the burn patient was dropped off successfully at the hospital. …
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