I Am Soldier of Fortune: Dancing with Devils

Robert K. Brown, former Green Beret, after a bizarre military career that succeeded in getting him kicked out of Special Forces not once but twice, and completing the Command and General Staff College without a security clearance, while meantime being wounded in Nam, finally found his true calling as a publisher.

Thirty-eight years ago he launched an upstart magazine from his basement called Soldier of Fortune, which pushed the bounds of journalism to its limits with his untamed brand of reporting—a camera in one hand, a gun in the other, and soon thereafter he discovered that he’d established a worldwide community. His wildly popular, notorious magazine became an icon for action-seekers in the U.S. and around the world.

In this long-awaited book, Brown tells his own story, taking the readers into combat zones where he and his daring combat journalists, or fearless “dogs of war,” trotted across the globe. His rogue warrior journalists embedded themselves with anti-Communist guerillas or freedom fighters, often training and fighting with rebels against oppressive regimes. In their revolutionary journalistic style, they created the action and then wrote about it. Generals and leaders of exotic armies welcomed the SOF visitors and led them or allowed them to tread into unchartered territory.

Brown himself accompanied teams to work and fight with the Rhodesians; the Afghans during the Afghan-Russo war, Christian Phalange in Lebanon; ethnic minority Karens in Burma; the ethnic tribes fighting the Communist government of Laos; the army of El Salvador; and the armed forces of struggling Croatia. Brown sent medical teams, often into the jaws of danger, to Burma, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Bosnia, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and also into Peru after a devastating earthquake.

In short, the “Soldiers of Fortune” went where even the U.S. government feared to tread, and they did it with gallant style, not fearing risk but welcoming the challenge, as long as they felt the cause was right and needed to be reported. In this book the exploits of Brown and his veteran teams are revealed for the first time in all their gonzo glory, even as the U.S. military, public, and polite diplomatic society sometimes shunned their endeavors.

This is the story of Robert Brown’s dogged quest, in journalism as well as warfare, to “Slay Dragons, do noble deeds and never, never give up.”

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE
INTRODUCTION BY VANN SPENCER

1: I SCHEME TO BECOME A TOP GUN PILOT, A HARD-CHARGING MARINE, A SPECIAL AGENT OR . . . ?
2: CUBA . . . THE BEGINNING OF THE ROAD (TO PERDITION?)
3: THE NON-INVASION OF HAITI
4: WANDERING THROUGH THE ARMY; ANGLING FOR NAM
5: A-TEAM ADVENTURES: WHACKING MR. CHARLES . . .AND ALMOST GETTING WHACKED MYSELF
6: JUMPING INTO HELL
7: HOW I WAS TO BECOME DEFENSE MINISTER OF A NEW NATION
8: HELPING OUT IN THE BUSH WAR
9: THE BETRAYAL OF “GENTLEMAN JIM”
10: RHODESIA: THE LAND OF MERCS AND HIRED GUNS
11: CONS, PSYCHICS AND AN ABORTED SEARCH FOR POWS
12: SOF IS SUCKED INTO THE HUNT
13: YELLOW DEATH IN LAOS
14: POWS ON OUR MIND
15: DETOURING INTO A LAOTIAN REVOLUTION
16: SOF BLASTS THE BALLOON WITH THE ROYAL THAI AIR FORCE
17: SAY GOODBYE, COMRADE JAWS: SOF BREAKS BREAD WITH THE KGB
18: AFGHANISTAN, ROUND ONE: TRUMPING THE CIA
19: SOF GOES TO PAKISTAN
20: SOLDIER OF FORTUNE JIHAD: WE ATTACK A RUSSIAN FORT
21: SOF NEVER MISSES A WAR: MISSION TO LEBANON
22: GRENADA—ONE WE WON!
23: A GAME OF “DOMINOS” IN EL SALVADOR
24: THE SOFWILD BUNCH AND THE CONTRAS
25: SOF TRIES BRIBERY; OR HOW I NEVER GOT RICH
26: HOSTAGE TO HOLLYWOOD
27: SURINAM: SLOW BOAT TO A SLOW WAR
28: GUNS BEHIND THE GREAT WALL
29: DESERT STORM DIARY
30: ON THE SHARP EDGE WITH BOSNIA’S COUNTER-SNIPERS
31: HARD ROAD TO SARAJEVO
32: HELL ON THE HO CHI MINH TRAIL: THE HUNT FOR AN EXTINCT COW

CONCLUSION: AS LONG AS TYRANTS AND LIBERALS EXIST AND I AM STILL KICKING . . .
APPENDIX A: MY WAR IN EL SALVADOR BY PETER G. KOKALIS
APPENDIX B: CORRESPONDENCE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX

Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown is a former Green Beret, an author, and founder of Soldier of Fortune magazine.