Tag Archives: Featured

After the Soviets discovered huge reserves of natural gas in Uzbekistan, this part of the USSR became the main gas producing region in the country. But things went wrong, and one of its key gas fields turned into a man-made disaster of unimaginable magnitude. Hellish fire The unprecedented emergency at …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.  …

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, …

by Hooligan I wasn’t sure the man was real. Was he a hunter? The hunted? Out there in the woods, I was starving and on the brink of hallucination, so it could have been Bigfoot himself, for all I knew. When a man gets desperate, the thought of a good …

COMMENTARY by Susan Katz Keating The work has been called the most dangerous form of journalism. Amid my daily influx of emails, text messages, and phone calls, I frequently am hit up by people who want to go downrange under my name. They approach me with variants on the following requests. …

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 …