It has consistently outraged the left by publishing Rhodesian Army recruiting posters, to offering $25,000 in gold to a defector from Cuban intelligence, to a $1,000,000 reward for the defection of a Nicaraguan MI-24 helicopter. "Certainly the magazine has drawn its share of controversy," Newsmax gushed: Since the mid-to-late 1970s era of promoting mercenary work in African bush wars, Soldier of Fortune has distributed what CBS' "60 Minutes" called a "political warfare journal," published classified ads that resulted in no fewer than five murders-for-hire on American soil, and helped to equip paramilitary border vigilantes who terrorized Latino immigrants.Ĭonservative media sites lauded Brown last year on the 35th anniversary of Soldier of Fortune. He denied ever firing a shot there, let alone raping and pillaging.) The People's Revolutionary Tribunal judge who sentenced Gearhart and three other foreign mercenaries to death (nine others received long prison terms) called them "dogs of war with bloodstained muzzles who left a trail of rape, murder and pillage across the face of our nation." (Gearhart was arrested less than a week after setting foot in Angola.
Seven months later, Gearhart was executed by firing squad in Angola. Advertising his services in Soldier of Fortune had led to his being hired by the losing faction in a civil war. Preferably in South or Central America, but anywhere in the world if you pay transportation." It read, "Wanted: Employment as mercenary on full-time or job contract basis. The January 1976 issue of Soldier of Fortune included a classified ad placed by Daniel Gearhart, a 34-year-old Vietnam veteran with money trouble. But unlike a dungeon master, Brown invited his readers to live out their armchair warrior daydreams in places where people died for real.įor several years after Brown founded Soldier of Fortune in 1975, the magazine ran full-page recruiting ads for the Rhodesian Army, which employed foreign mercenaries to defend the apartheid-style regime of prime minister Ian Smith. Brown, the founder and publisher of Soldier of Fortune, has long rocked "Kill a Commie for Mommie" t-shirts with no sense of irony. We talked about killing commies the same way we talked about slaying orcs. For my Dungeons & Dragons buddies and I, reading Soldier of Fortune was like perusing a Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual.
Royko left out elementary school D&D geeks. "But since mercenaries represent only a tiny portion of the reading population, the magazine tries to broaden its appeal to include those who might be called war fans, weapon-lovers, fanatic anti-commies and Walter Mitty types who enjoy the vicarious thrill of reading about blood and guts."
#Soldier of fortune magazine aks professional
"It's directed at professional mercenaries - men who will fight for pay and those who want to hire them," wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko in March 1984. But what made Soldier of Fortune so enticing in my 11-year-old mind was less its editorial content than its infamous advertising.Īlong with ads for mail-order brides, bounty hunter training manuals, surveillance electronics, Secrets of the Ninja lessons (including "mind clouding" and "sentry removal"), Nazi memorabilia, machine guns, silencers, and sniper rifles, Soldier of Fortune advertised the services of guns for hire. I remember Soldier of Fortune articles in those days being a macho-to-the-max amalgam of firearms reviews, anti-gun control rants, Vietnam POW conspiracy theories and gory first-hand reporting on Cold War proxy wars, military coups and revolutions in Second and Third World nations.
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