Soldier of Fortune Magazine

Adding to the VF-17's Kill board, March 1944. (Image: National Archives) The Fire Pit 4 Views by Friedrich Seiltgen The young aviator never returned from Okinawa, but his bones found a home among the Navy’s Jolly Rogers. Ensign Jack Ernie was a pilot assigned to the original VF-17, the Jolly Rogers. The unit was legendary and ruled the skies above the Solomon Islands, with a Pacific theater reputation that struck fear into the enemy when they saw the skull & crossbones.

Security 7 Views A scientist is dead, workers were confined inside a Siberian anti-plague institute, and Washington is pressing Moscow for answers. by Stephen Caldwell Officials swept through the building, locking doors and placing workers in isolation. Inside the Siberian facility, lives froze in place. “They’re sleeping there, on the floor and on chairs,” said Roman, whose relative works at the Anti-Plague Research Institute. “They knew something bad must have happened,” said another.

An air crash, an ambush, and a sinking left three men alone in some of the emptiest places on earth. How long can one person last when no one knows where he is? Three men faced that question in starkly different environments: Alaska’s frozen interior, the Libyan desert, and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Each had a few scraps of gear, his own judgment, and a decision to make about what came next. In the accounts below, Soldier of Fortune shows what each man did next.

The Marines were hunting us, our water was running low, and then the bees attacked. Before extraction, we had one last move to make. The metal monster boomed over us and arced up and away to the south. It had disgorged its 13 passengers – a U.S. Navy SEAL team, ready to hop and pop out for a five-day, live-fire desert training operation, pitting them against a company of bad-ass U.S. Marines.

He arrived in Ukraine presenting himself as a humanitarian volunteer. But was he? And why could the answer matter far beyond the region? by Susan Katz Keating He arrived in Ukraine in 2024, presenting himself as a humanitarian volunteer. He joined a stream of foreigners moving through a country where the Red Cross, Caritas, and others were operating. But something about this man drew scrutiny. Questions emerged about who he was, and why he was there.

Guns & Gear 3 Views Soldier of Fortune was never meant to stay on a shelf. For decades, it has gone into the field, across borders, down bad roads and into places most people read about only afterward. The Soldier of Fortune shop brings together shirts, hoodies, caps, mugs and more, carrying the legacy that has traveled with SOF for generations. Wear it on the trail. Throw it in the Jeep. Take it to the range, the campfire, or wherever the road runs out. Wear the legacy. Then take it farther.

Courtesy photo. War 2 Views The Battle of Mogadishu is a story about men in extreme combat, fighting for one another. It began when Task Force Ranger went into the city in October 1993 to capture key members of warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid’s organization. The mission became an intense 15-hour battle to reach American forces trapped inside the city. The men fought through the night and refused to leave anyone behind.

Soldier of Fortune illustration. Badass 1 Views by Jose Campos A fake TV crew, two secretaries and a white helicopter fooled Colombia’s most feared guerrillas into handing over 15 hostages without a shot fired. The white helicopter was running out of time, and Maj. José Luís Russi knew it. As the Soviet-built Mi-17 swept low over the Colombian jungle, he stood behind the pilots and searched the clearing below for the signals he had been promised.

British SAS commander David Stirling speaks with Lt. McDonald in North Africa, January 1943. British Army photograph by Capt. Keating/IWM. Expanded for layout. Guns & Gear 14 Views The U.S. Army wanted a small reconnaissance vehicle. The troops overloaded it, armed it, and drove it into battle. by Robert Fallon Eighteen Jeeps rolled across the Egyptian desert without headlights on the night of July 26, 1942.

Dispatches 20 Views I spent years talking with legendary spy hunters about the clues that expose secret agents. Then I went looking for answers from a spy himself. by Susan Katz Keating Journalists love anniversaries, and this was a good one, the perfect day to highlight history and talk to a spy. Fourteen years earlier, on February 21, 1972, Richard Nixon made his historic visit to Beijing.