Soldier of Fortune: The Deadliest Magazine Ever (with David X. Cohen)

Robert is joined live for SF Sketchfest by David X. Cohen to discuss Soldier of Fortune Magazine.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M microphone. It works. UM, hey everybody. Uh, I'm Robert Evans.
I I don't know if you knew that. Um, I

(00:20):
didn't butcher this introduction quite as bad as I like
habitually am supposed to. So I apologize for that. I
know that's why you all came. UM. I'm very excited
today because we have both a subject that's really fun
and a guest who I love. UH and M have
been a fan of since forever. UM. David X. Cohen

(00:40):
was a writer on The Simpsons, where he penned such
episodes as Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci, which one of
the best episodes of the show ever, made twenty two
short films about Springfield UM, and coined the word cromulin
which and then went on to be an executive producer.
And they had water for Futurama, which is like huge

(01:02):
chunk of my childhood. I'm sure a lot of people's
childhoods here. So uh, that's that's yeah, let's be David.
You want to come on out now to give you

(01:23):
an all y'allen idea about what a good sport David is. Uh.
When he agreed to be in the show, I said,
we have this weird thing we do with machetes and
bread products. Are you okay playing what is essentially tennis?
And he said, yeah, so we'll be We'll be gett
into that later. Not just yeah, I was. I was

(01:44):
on the high school tennis team, on a very bad team,
but on the tennis team. So I'm planning to take
it extremely seriously and beat you badly. It's gonna be
a great night. David. How are you doing today? Very
good and a little We did a two different Futurama
related shows in the past twenty four hours. Well, today

(02:06):
I have something that is not related to futur When
you were a kid, did you ever read Soldier of
Fortune magazine? I did not read Soldier of Fortune magazine.
I read Mad Magazine. Is it similar? A lot of
anger went into both, but probably more into Soldier of

(02:29):
Fortune and a very specific kind of anger. Um. So,
we're obviously in this place as a nation right now
where like recklessly bad journalism has done a huge amount
of damage to the body politic and we're all kind
of grappling with what that means. But even within like
the context of things like the Epoch Times and Bright
bart News, Soldier of Fortune stands out is maybe the

(02:53):
most reckless magazine anyone ever printed. And this is this
may be a foolish question, but on behalf of the
audience as well. Is it still going strong? Are they
printing the magazine still? I remember it from when I
was a kid. Is it still going printing? No, it
still exists, and we'll we'll cover that at the end,
but it's not it it's heyday. But and it's heyday.

(03:13):
I think this magazine may have directly killed more people
than any other magazine. Yeah, a lot, a lot of people,
like so many more than you're going to expect. Are
you ready to learn about Soldier of Fortune magazine? I
am embracing myself. Sounds pretty grim. Now before we can

(03:34):
talk about Soldier of Fortune, we have to talk a
little bit about the man who created it, A near
legendary figure named Robert K. Brown. So that's the origin man,
and then you're named after him? Is that yes? Okay? Yeah? Yeah,
they just there were a couple of other Roberts in
between me and him, so I got an e last name.

(03:55):
I mean, you two are the two main ones, I think, yea, yeah, yeah.
Now Robert Brown was born on November two, nineteen thirty two,
and Monroe, Michigan. And I've been able to find vanishingly
little about his his early life until he entered college
in nineteen fifty. At the time, there was a draft
going on, and Brown saw some sort of military service
as inevitable. UM, and so he decided he'd rather be

(04:18):
a fighter pilot than anything and he joined Air Force
r OTC to try to make that happen. So pretty
normal beginning for kid in the fifties so far, Yeah,
fine start. Uh. He wound up having some behavioral difficulties
in college and was forced to transfer in nineteen fifty
three to the University of Colorado because, in his words,
the dean and I agreed it was best I leave

(04:38):
Michigan State. Uh. Was was this a violence related thing?
Or did he have but like it wasn't like a
he didn't also have like me two issues or I'm
definite going I haven't heard any direct allegations. I would

(04:59):
be uttered he was d in one specific way. So far, Yeah,
I mean that that we know of, UM. But but
it's also almost impossible that this guy didn't have something
like that happened, given the rest of his background. Um so,
due to a mix of his new colleges policies and
his bad eyesight, Brown eventually had to accept that he
was not going to become a fighter pilot, so a

(05:21):
little bit of tragedy early on. So he joins the
Marine Corps Reserve instead, but his recruiter is a guy
who he goes on to call a snake whale salesman
um and instead convinces him to join the Army when
it's time to join full time rather than the Marine Corps,
promising that he can become a special agent in the
counter Intelligence Corps, which is not a job that he

(05:41):
can actually have. Um So this was a bald faced lie,
as are most things that military recruiters still young children,
um but fantasizing about platinum blonds and Cadillac convertibles, Brown agreed,
uh and signed on the dotted line. And by the way,
as an and seen the current round of ads for

(06:02):
joining the military, because they mean they they they're all
portrayed as video games literally like three D graphics, and
they're using like classic rock songs to you, like, I
don't know if they're also trying to get my generation
to also sign up, but they're really, they really make
it look really fun. I have to say, I'm excited.
It's pretty tempting. I'm excited for the next round of

(06:22):
adds that they set to fortunate Son, like, let's let's
just go ahead and coren into the death of Irony
and so um. Robert Brown uh winds up in the
Army in October of nineteen and he loves it, particularly
the shooting guns part. Um spoilers. This guy's kind of
a big gun dude, um, which I know is a

(06:45):
real surprise. Um yeah. So uh. The whole experience of
basic training convinced him for the rest of his life
that the draft was a really good idea that never
should have been discontinued. So some people may disagree with that,
so it's a strong take. Um yeah. Once Robert graduated
from training, he was informed that the special agent job

(07:07):
that he was promised was actually clerk analyst, which he
considered to basically be secretary. Where so he signs up
to be James Bond and he gets a job shuffling papers.
That would be a good character to add to James Bunn,
the guy who like slips the you know, razor razors
into the letters in the mail room or something like that.

(07:28):
What letter of the alphabets not claimed for a character
in James bond am mail No M No, we've got
an M I envelope e. Uh so yeah. Um. Robert
was profoundly bad at this job and he failed the
training course for it four times, um, which I I'm

(07:51):
not sure how you do that. It was the alphabet
um when he was. When he did eventually finally graduate,
he found the idea of doing the work itself hateful
because it didn't involve shooting anybody. Um. So instead he
decided to go to Officer Candidate school in order to
escape the tedium of desk work. He graduated and with

(08:14):
later brag of two major accomplishments. In this period, he
received more demerits than any other member of his class.
And he was the best shot with a heavy machine gun.
That's good. Yeah, the guy with behavior problems is real
good at shooting. So we're on a good path so far.

(08:37):
Feeling optimistic about this guy. So is he was? He
sort of was going postal basically accept he didn't it
was it was before the chairm existed. He kind of
he was a transitter And yeah, I guess right, and
he found the one workers a bad name. Yeah, yeah,

(08:58):
it's very good for all of he didn't become a
postal worker, although bad for all of us that he
got into journalism. So um. Brown's dreams of daring do
in the army were initially cut short when his father died. Uh.
He opted for a state side job in Wisconsin and
worked at cushy desk gigs so we could help his family.
He left active service in nineteen fifty seven, having failed

(09:20):
to see any action, and he spent the next few
years in the army reserves. Robert had fallen in love
with the idea of being a soldier, but was frustrated
by the lack of violence he'd actually experienced. But then,
luckily for Robert, Fidel Castro launched a rebellion against the
dictatorial rule of Fugencio Batista, providing Robert Brown with an opportunity.

(09:40):
And as weird as it is for a guy who's
like the founder of like this weird chunk of the
conservative media today, uh, Robert Brown became a pro Castro
activist and like spend time illegally smuggling machine guns to
Cuban revolutionaries and stuff. So that's cool and um carry on. Um.

(10:07):
So yeah. He eventually tricked his colleges student newspaper into
issuing him press credentials, which is one of the most
important things about being a journalist is tricking someone into
issuing you credentials. So he nails the first part of
the job, and he spent some time in Havana, but
he doesn't see any action. Um. And he gets repeatedly
invited by people he meets in Havana to go attend
to these other civil wars that are brewing all throughout

(10:28):
Latin America, but he keeps missing out on them. Um,
so he just is the frustration is just unbearable. Yeah.
Yeah always uh, I don't know. I'm trying to do
the always a bridesmaid, never a bride thing, but for brutal,
grinding civil insurgencies, and it didn't come to me. You

(10:49):
can work it out, so um. He did manage to
participate as a war correspondent, though he was hired by
the AP to interview a refugee Spanish general promising to
overthrow the dictator, Francisco franco U. The resulting article did well,
and Brown struck up a friendly acquaintanceship with the general
who would helped train Castro's guerrillas too. The general gave

(11:11):
Brown a copy of a book called A hundred and
Fifty Questions for a Guerrilla, a manual for how to
fight an insurgent campaign. Robert Brown instantly saw dollar signs
and opened a publishing company to translate the book into
English and sell it in the USA. It was he
a good writer? Like? Was he actually competent in that? Yeah?
I would say he was competent. He was good at
what he was trying to do. He accomplished his goals. Yeah,

(11:33):
so I should maybe I should try that career. I mean,
I have an idea for a magazine. UM. Robert worked
as a as a journalist for a little while, writing
mainly for Guns magazine very August publication, What was the
magazine about? Um? In similar publication. But as the Vietnam

(12:01):
War kicked off for the United States and the sixties,
Brown found himself drawn back to his dreams of getting
shot at. That's that's good, that's his goal. Well, if
you're getting shot at, that gives you an excuse to
shoot at, to shoot back, right exactly. I can see
why you would win to get shot It's every man
who wants to shoot someone's dream. So Brown rejoined active duty.

(12:26):
He became a Green Beret, and he served from nineteen
sixty eight to nineteen sixty nine. UH. He was wounded
badly in a mortar attack and was kicked out of
the Green Berets for reasons that are never really adequately explained.
But he did have a good reputation as a leader.
One of his comrades and medics of this about him
decades later, he was the kind of guy you wanted

(12:46):
as your CEO in Vietnam. He really stuck his neck
out for the people he was in charge of. So
and you got shot in it, and you got shot
in it. So yeah, Brown was a pretty good soldier.
He eventually retired as a lieutenant colonel. But at least
for him, at least, the Vietnam War did not end
well for the United States. Brown returned home to a
nation UH that widely considered the war he nearly died

(13:09):
and to be a colossal waste of money and lives
and everything it can be a waste of wasn't It
wasn't a great call um. Many protesters called soldiers like
him baby killers, and Brown quickly recognized that he was
part of a new generation of retired warrior who was
increasingly isolated from mainstream American society. He'd been a kid
during World War Two and that had been very celebrated

(13:30):
as a collective endeavor. Uh, and he was frustrated that
like his generation of soldiers weren't getting the respect that
they deserved. He said, I'm going to go on the
Internet and link up with other people. Like, oh, it
hasn't been invented yet. You kind of spoil it because
this guy does create the dark Web accidentally, just in
magazine form. Yeah, I mean it's what It's what I

(13:52):
would have done. I guess I'm just channeling. Yeah. Um. So, yeah,
he finds himself like frustrated that he's not getting enough respect,
that veterans aren't getting what he sees is enough respect,
frustrated that America is on this new peace nick trend
and not willing to go to war as often as
he wants it to. Um. And so, like a rational,

(14:14):
sane person, he goes on vacation around several civil wars
in Africa. What do you what do you do? Right?
You know? So, after a couple of years of living
as a war tourist in places? Is that? That? Is
that a real thing? I mean I've done a little
bit of that. I know some I have. I won't
name names, but I have a friend who's a disaster

(14:37):
tourist who like, they'll go like, oh, you know, Fukushima
hotel rooms in Japan are gonna be really cheap next week.
And I thought at first you were going to say
that he liked liked to visit the sites of terrible disasters,
but he's just thrifty exactly. Yeah. No, Um, I mean, yeah,
I've done some I've done. I mean I've I've worked

(14:58):
in war zones and stuff. And there's a the spit
that verge on uncomfortable tourism, like the hotels in Iraq
are incredibly cheap and very nice. Um, but yeah, they
just tiny aside along those lines for a second. But
back when we were making Future Ima, we got invited
to Matt Greeney and I get invited to some kind
of a Kurdish film festival animation, I don't know what

(15:23):
it was, and they're like, don't worry, you'll be totally safe.
We'll have twenty four hour guards post game. And that's
nothing makes me feel less safe than knowing. Any twenty
four hour guard posted, Oh man, yeah, I mean they
probably would have sent you guys to Irbil. It's a

(15:43):
nice city. Um. But yeah, I mean there's a K
forty seven's all over the well less than here. I'm
gonna be honest, You're not going to a place with
more guns. I did have the second time I flew
in to Iraq, I had left a single round of
nine millimeter in my bag. Um. And as we arrive

(16:06):
at the airport in Iraq, they find it. And like,
none of the airports that I scanned it through had
found it. None of them had an issue. But they
search all your stuff when you land in Iraq, and
they were so angry, and I kept like looking over
to my photographer being like, are they really worried we're
gonna bring one extra bullet in? This is gonna tip it? Uh?

(16:29):
But um okay, so um. Robert Brown finds himself in
Africa hanging out at a couple of civil wars, you know,
shooting the ship with mercenaries. Um. And he meets a
couple of mercenaries who are about to go over to
oman Uh and fight putting down an insurrection for the Sultan,
and this gives him an idea. He writes to the

(16:51):
Oman Ministry of Defense and inquires about taking a job
as a mercenary. There, they send him a contract. Brown
had no desire to actually do this job, but he
knew that there were an awful lot of glory seeking
Americans who would jump at the opportunity, so he took
out ads in a series of gun magazines, reading quote,
want to be a mercenary in the Middle East, Send

(17:12):
five dollars. Wow, that guy's a genius. He's like, so
far you've come. You're like, this is going completely the
wrong way. I'm just more and more impressed. But just guy,
he's not a dumb man. It's a great grift. So, um, yeah,

(17:33):
hundreds of Americans sending five dollars per chance to be
a mercenary in the Middle East. Um yeah. He basically
just xerox the contract, need mail it out to people
who sent him the money. Um, and yeah, he makes
like ten dollars and it's it's unlikely that any of
his clients actually wound up fighting a Oman. One has
to assume that most men who volunteered to join a

(17:55):
war effort based on an ad in a magazine are
not particularly qualified soldiers. But um, the financial success of
the endeavor convinced Brown that there was a huge amount
of money to be made and playing to the dream
of in every man's heart that he might, in the
right circumstances, be a total badass. Now this might be

(18:16):
another dumb question, but is it legal to be a
mercenary for another country if you're a US citizen? Like, yeah,
we go back and forth on that. As a nation,
it kind of depends on the war. You have to
report the your income and you're like, I'm I'm fighting
first different countries army Like that seems seems like you

(18:36):
might invite scrutiny of your tax return at a minimum. Yeah,
you know, I mean, I think it's one of those
things like being a drug dealer. There's that thing the
i R S lets you mark. It's like, I'm not
going to tell you how I got this money, but
here's how much money I have. But but here's how
many iraqi lira I made this year, and I'm going

(18:58):
to write off a lot of ammunition. Um. But yeah,
So Robert Brown uses the tin grant he makes scamming
gun nuts to fund the creation of a new magazine,
Soldier of Fortune. His stated goal was to rehabilitate the
image of the warrior in American society. So exciting. Yeah uh,

(19:23):
he said this later quote, a lot of Vietnam veterans
felt they weren't given their due, so I wanted to
promote the concept of giving them recognition. We said, our
blood was just as red as anyone who fought in
World War One or World War Two or Korea. But
that wasn't the case in society at the time. So
Soldier of Fortune likely would have been a blip on
the radar if it weren't for a particular stroke of
marketing genius by Robert Brown. Because he didn't just angle

(19:46):
it as a magazine for veterans. He fashioned Soldier of
Fortune as quote, the journal of Professional Adventurers, So it
was a magazine from mercenaries. Was it filled with his
own more of those ads? Still the five the centi
fire villari like because because again just again like just admiring,
Like it's like I'm getting five dollars in the end,
but they're not paying me for the magazine. So it's

(20:08):
like if he could just invent the magazine just to
run his own end. That's also brilliant. Yeah, he we'll
get to that. This is a man who never gives
up on his dream of getting other people to fight
and someone else's worse. Um, and he's yeah so um. Now,

(20:29):
the problem with magazine aimed at mercenaries is that there's
not a lot of mercenaries, and and a lot of
them can't read, and a lot of them cannot read,
which is why you become a mercenary. Um. Yeah, So
there were like maybe a thousand or two people in
the world who both spoke English and fit the definition
of a mercenary. But Brown's real target was not hard

(20:51):
bitten warriors. It was aging baby boomers who thought they
probably could have been hard bitten mercenaries if they hadn't
gotten that girl pregnant back in sixty two. Um. Here's
how Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune described the magazine's
clientele in quote, It's directed at professional mercenaries, men who
will fight for pay and those that want to hire them.

(21:13):
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. Weapons lovers,
fanatic anti commies, and Walter Middi types to enjoy the
vicarious thrill of reading about blood and guts. So, yeah,
that's the that's the audience. We don't know anything about
that group. That's um So he's but he's really he's

(21:36):
the first person in American history to really like decide
to market directly to that group of people. Um which
turns out to be a really good idea from a
money standpoint, or if you want to run for president
or if you want to run for presidents. This is
a very pro Trump podcast. Aggressively really offended people here. Uh,

(22:01):
I mean, yeah, we are we are in the middle
of red San Francisco. I meant that in the opposite
of the way most people mean. So. The first ever
issue of Soldier of Fortune, it featured a glossy color
picture of a soldier with a rifle behind a barbed

(22:22):
wire fence with a red sun setting in the background.
The whole image was cast in a green tent as
it being viewed through night vision goggles. Articles included underwater
knife fighting techniques, which I am desperately curious about because

(22:42):
I can imagine a handful of people in history have
had to stab someone while underwater. I'm sure it's happened,
but to need to do it enough to have a technique.
But you're sometimes you need to also defend yourself against
a giant squid or something like that. It isn't not
necessarily a human. There's a lot of stuff to stab underwater.

(23:07):
That's a very good point. I am sorry for suggesting
that people might not need to stab aquatic life just said,
nive you you really you really grasp the fundamental precept
of this podcast, which is abs. Always be stabbing, Yeah,
always be stabbing. It might be it might be like

(23:28):
an underwater high school biology class where they're doing a
dissection in the in the way. So uh. Other articles
included Urban Street Survival Part one, which I feel like
the underwater knife fighting might help with uh, and of

(23:48):
course American mercenaries in Africa. Now. That last article was
a feature about the conflict in a little place that
doesn't exist anymore called Rhodeja. What do you what do
you know about Rhodesia diamonds? Right? Yeah, I think so? Yeah,
probably named Cecil rhodes is Yeah, very good turned into

(24:10):
is it is it? Zimbabwe? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
nailed it great um now. Uh. But before it turned
into Zimbabwe, it was a little bit of problematic um
because Rhodesia was a white supremacist state um that broke
away from the British Empire in nineteen sixty five over

(24:30):
the issue of whether or not black people should be
able to vote. They did not take the positive attitude
on that. So the three percent of the nation that
was white controlled virtually all of Rhodes's resources. Uh, and
they knew that letting black people vote would change that
state of affairs. Here's how Soldier of Fortune described the conflict.

(24:51):
What the Brits wanted was for the blacks to get
a vote, one man, one vote. Of course that would
mean the blacks would get into power. So the white
Rhodesian's unilaterally implemented the Universal Declaration of Independence in nine
And I have to emphasize here they're not framing that
as a bad thing. They're being like, of course, this
is what happened. They were going to take all of
their stuff that they stole from them. So this is Rhodesia.

(25:16):
We're not maybe maybe not talking about a super woke town. Uh. Now,
for some reason, this piste off a lot of people.
Uh So, the vast majority of the population in Rhodesia
did not support the white supremacist state that governed it,
and many of these people decided to become insurgents and
attempt to overthrow the government. Uh And, because they lived
their lives dominated by an incredibly oppressive colonial capitalist system,

(25:39):
a lot of them wound up being like, maybe communism
is a good idea. Uh And. There were two different
large groups of insurgents, one backed by the U. S
s R. And one backed by China. Uh And, in
the tradition of leftist revolutionaries throughout history, they fought each
other as much as they fought the people that they
were fighting against. Um And. But yeah, they still managed

(25:59):
to put enough pressure on the embattled white minority that
things began to get very dire for the government of Rhodesia. Now,
this racist nation's problems were compounded by the fact that
basically the whole world, save South Africa and Israel, slammed
Rhodesia with sanctions. As life in the tiny, landlocked country
grew more difficult, a large chunk of the white populace fled,
mostly for South Africa. Stuck between a rock and a

(26:21):
hard place, The Rhodesian government decided to turn their national
struggle into a cost celeb for the racist people in
the world. Good for them, Yeah, that's smart. Let's crowdfund
our vicious war of colonial oppression. No one's tried it yet,
so that's what they did. Um. Now, they didn't frame
it as a racist crusade. I earned fifty blood diamonds

(26:42):
this year. That's your that's my tax return for that.
Just a sack of gore in quest they withheld. They
withheld five blood diamonds. So, um, Rhodesia was eligient enough
to do that. Like, we can't just say we want
help fighting our super racist war of racism. Um. So,

(27:07):
being somewhat canny, they decided to frame what they were
doing as a battle against communism. Prime Minister Ian Smith
called his nation the ultimate bastion against communism on the
African continent. Mainstream American conservatives tended to embrace this idea.
William F. Buckley organized the Friends of Rhodesian Independence campaign,
which worked to spread propaganda to Americans about what a

(27:27):
neat place Rhodesia really was. But no single publication did
as much to popularize the Rhodesian cause as soldier of
Fortune magazine. Starting in nineteen seventy five, they ran a
series of lurid articles about the American volunteers fighting in Rhodesia.
Interviews with these men focused on the failures of the
United States to stop Communism from getting a foothold in Africa,
which was heightened after Congressional democrats had stopped the CIA

(27:49):
from aiding fascists and Angola against the socialist regime. There.
One mercenary in that first issue complained, the West isn't
doing its job. The US especially isn't doing its duty.
If they're too scared to fight the communists, then people
like me have to act independently. I consider it my
duty to fight in Rhodesia after Vietnam, in Angola, we
can't afford to lose any other countries. Now. Did Robert sorry,

(28:13):
what's his last name again? Brown? Brown? I knew, I
knew it was something complicated like that. Did he did?
He go? He did? Okay? I mean it was good,
some good war tourism there. Yeah, because they've got armored
vehicles so you're pretty safe to see. Yeah. Yeah, No,
he loved him some h He wasn't just writing from
a distance. No, he's a he sees a lot of

(28:35):
war over the course of his life. Just you know,
all is somebody who gets to leave when they get
border scared. Yeah, which is the best way to see war, Like,
I'm gonna be honest. Uh so um. While Soldier of
Fortune magazine did not throw out racial slurs, the racism
in its Rhodesian coverage was really obvious. At one point,
a mercenary was quoted as saying, what we have here

(28:57):
is an ideal core of white people who were able
to raise the standard of living among the Africans without
us conditions, will decline rapidly now. After Vietnam, the United
States had probably the highest population of unemployed combat veterans
in the world, and a few of those men joined
the Rhodesian fighting effort and rose to high levels in
its military establishment. But most volunteers were far from hardened operators. Instead,

(29:20):
they were folks who'd missed out on their chance to
fight in Vietnam and wanted desperately to experience combat. For
these men, Soldier of Fortune published a series of articles
written by Major Nick Lamprect, the chief recruiting officer for
the Rhodesian Army. He provided step by step advice for
how they could apply to join and be flown out
to the country to be inducted into the army as conscripts.
Lampreck to promise that the work would be difficult but rewarding,

(29:43):
saying Rhodesia has many things to offer. Good Rhodesian beer,
a friendly populace, and what I would describe as a
free and easy, unhurried way of life, lots of wide
open spaces. It's fun to describe a friendly populace when
you're trying to get people to fight a brutal anti
in surgeon. Uh So, for years, Soldier of Fortune ran

(30:06):
glossy recruiting articles with full page spreads featuring the elite
Rhodesian Light Infantry and Seleu scouts locked in glorious combat.
Some four hundred American men were eventually induced to join
the fight, mostly from Soldier of Fortune magazine articles. That's
two thousand dollars. That's two thousand dollars, and as you

(30:29):
might expect from men who joined a war based on
a magazine article, they were not very good at it.
Most Rhodesian volunteers were people whose lives in the United States.
We're not going super well um, so yeah. In nineteen
seventy nine, one reporter noted the majority found the routine
too tough to last more than a few months. The

(30:51):
desertion rate among American citizens who have joined the Rhodesian
Army over the past two years is estimated to run
about The best case scenario is eight of these guys
are like, oh this is horrible. I don't like war
at all. What a mistake I've made. But a good
number of them died, John, I mean they joined, they

(31:13):
joined the racist army like they could have joined the army,
and they joined the racist army like. So of that
didn't deserve a lot of them day oh yeah, So
that a small percent that didn't desert and didn't die. Yeah, okay, yeah,
not a lot of not a lot of long term
veterans Rhodesian Army out there one day to retirement. John

(31:43):
Allan Coey, a medic from Cleveland, Ohio, joined based on
a Soldier of Fortune article and was gunned down by
insurgents almost immediately after arriving in the country. Soldier of
Fortune published a hagiographic article quoting him as saying this,
since coming to Rhodesia, I've heard I don't even want

(32:15):
to finish the st interviewed, very short, interviewed, finish the clock. No, no,
you know what, We're gonna let that one sit. Soldier
of Fortune articles on Rhodes rarely made blatant lies. It

(32:35):
was a lot easier to just ignore facts that didn't
reinforce the narrative. And one piece they noted the unrivaled
CELU Scouts, the covert elite special force regiment of a
thousand that consisted of black and white, with a majority
of blacks, were credited with gathering spot on intelligence for
the regular army. Lines like that are technically true, but
neglect to mention the fact that only white people were

(32:56):
allowed to be officers as an army of conscripted black
led by white volunteer soldiers. Maybe an important fact to include.
I don't write for Soldier of Fortune. I'm just giving
some notes now. I think I think you sound to me,
you sound a little bitter. They never I mean just
because that you couldn't get hired doesn't mean it was

(33:19):
my dream ever since I came by my first copy
of Soldier of Fortune. In that gun show, right next
to the were mocked helmets, and the other were mocked helmets. Yeah. Basically,
the picture that Soldier of Fortune like to paint of
the Rhodesian War was kind of similar to like the
Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War here in the

(33:40):
United States, that there was this like glorious lost land
and this wonderful culture and like it's it's you know,
it was was tragically snatched by the jaws of these
people who wanted to, you know, vote. So, actual articles
from real journalists who visited Rhodesia painted a very different
picture of what was going on there. I'm gonna quote

(34:01):
now for a nineteen seventy nine Washington Post article I
found by an actual journalist as opposed to a guy
who just likes to get shot at for fun. Quote.
The first impressions are of the rural South I knew
as a boy in the nineteen thirties. Black maids and
house boys earning twenty to sixty dollars a month, fetching
bow saying master and boss. Black laborers working for twelve

(34:22):
to twenty dollars a month plus rations cluster and grass
huts on the white farmers land, like the Mississippi sharecroppers
of the remembered past. They're like children. A housewife says,
you have to do everything for them. You have to
stand over them to get anything done. It's more trouble
than it's worth sometimes, but they are very happy people.
It's not like South Africa. A young woman asks if
we have a dishwasher, a clothes washer and a dryer.

(34:44):
She laughs, you know what we call them here, and
then she says the N word. Uh yeah, not nice people. Um.
Also kind of wild to say you have to do
everything for the people whose explicit job is to do
everything for you. I'm giving notes on Rhodesia now. Um.
The Rhodesian Bush War ended in nineteen seventy nine, and

(35:06):
when rebels succeeded in blowing up the nation's entire strategic
fuel reserved, maybe you don't keep it all in one
place again with a note, but like uh, at final toll,
more than eleven hundred Rhodesian soldiers died, along with roughly
ten thousand rebels and more than twenty thousand civilians. And
it is unlikely that the few hundred mercenary soldier of

(35:26):
fortune induced to joy and had a sizeable impact on
the conflict, but they did an awful lot to influence
how Rhodesia has gone on to be remembered by thousands
of racists around the world. You remember that Soldier of
Fortune article I quoted from a little earlier, the one
that glossed over the fact that the nation was founded
out of a desire to stop black people from voting.
It sounds familiar. Yeah, well, that article was not written

(35:46):
during the time of the Rhodesian Bush War. It was
published in two thousand twelve. Three years later, in two
thousand fifteen, Dylan Ruth walked into a black church in
Charleston and shot nine people to death. A stated goal
was to provoke a race war. He left behind a
manifesto titled The Last Rhodesian. So yeah, there's a real horrible, negative,

(36:09):
long term consequence to the myths that Soldier of Fortune
was integral to setting up. So this is the actual
death count is beginning. Yeah. Well and all those mercenaries
yeah this yeah, yeah, um, and yeah. I want to
note too that like, uh, basically, like the argument that

(36:33):
Soldier of Fortune would make is that, like, well, Robert
Mugabi took over Zimbabwe after Rhodesia fell, and he was
terrible and he was he was a monster. Um, but
that kind of neglects to mention that Mugabi wasn't a
factor in like politics in the region until all of
his predecessors were assassinated by the Rhodesian Army. I don't
know notes again, so, uh, yeah, While the Rhodesian Bush

(36:57):
War was a disaster for humanity, it was a great
time for Robert Brown and his writers. They got to
take a lot of trips to Rhodesia, drink that good beer,
drive around in armored vehicles, shoot at people who were
trying to vote. Um. It was a cool time for
him and his friends. Can you shoot an a K
forty seven? Well, you haven't absolutely, absolutely, and in fact,

(37:17):
if you have the opportunity, it's almost required that you
do so now obviously, Uh, as you noted a little
bit earlier. UM, there's some legal questions about recruiting mercenaries
to fight for a pariah state that the US has
under embargo. UM, and the FBI did investigate into whether

(37:37):
or not Soldier of Fortune was breaking the law by
soliciting mercenaries. UM, but they kind of got off on
a technicality because the soldiers who joined to fight Rhodesia
joined the Rhodesian Army as regular troops, so they weren't
legally mercenaries, so it was all fine. So that's cool.
I'm just saying, if you decided to start your own

(37:57):
soliciting mercenaries business to fight for a ry estate, keep
that in mind. And what do you call things matters.
So by the end of the war, Soldier of Fortune
subscription numbers were more than a hundred thousand people, and
they changed into Soldier of Signed Contract magazine, signed legal contract.

(38:18):
As long as there is a third party, we are
not breaking any loss. Um. Yeah, so, uh, that's pretty cool.
That's the nineties rule. To an end, Brown continue. Brown
continued to send his writers off to little wars all
around the world. Six of them would ultimately die covering
stories he sent them off on um, but he got

(38:38):
to go to a lot of cool places. He focused
primarily on struggles between communist and anti communist forces, like
the Civil War in Angola, and Brown was canny enough
not to solicit mercenaries directly in the future, but he
didn't need to because many of his readers were the
same kind of person that he was. And this is
where we entered the story of a guy named David Buffkin. Uh. David.
I mean this is I know there's something something weird here.

(39:04):
The worst David and Robert had a less fruitful collaboration
than us. This David was a former crop duster who
decided to become a mercenary recruiter when crop dustin got boring.
So pretty normal career path after forty years of cropdesting,
you're saying, when god boring. Um, he decided to start

(39:26):
putting up ads in local newspapers and soldier of fortune,
trying to raise a hundred mercenaries to fight against communists
and Angola. Now this was maybe a bad idea on
its face, since the Cuban army alone had spent sent
tens of thousands of soldiers sent to fighting Angola. But
a hundred mercenaries, you know it's a start. Um. So
to make his case seem more legit, he lied and

(39:47):
said that he'd gotten an eighty thousand dollar ci a contract.
A few dozen would be warriors reached out to Buffin, but,
as one of them later recalled, Buffin obviously had no
funds available. He operated out of motels, he had no office.
Potential recruits had to pay their own travel expenses. It
was definitely a shoestring operation, which is not what you want.
If you're being recruited to go fighting for more, you

(40:09):
want it if they're not paying for business class. I
mean this, I mean this is where the word fortune
comes in. It is not in the name. I mean
it's gonna at least be like an upper tier airline. Yea. Anyway,
a few very dumb men did agree to go. One

(40:30):
of them was former CIA officer George Bacon, who had
read this, read one of this guy's ads, and soldier
of fortune decided to join the war effort. He was
killed almost immediately. Um. Yeah. Daniel Gearhardt, a thirty four
year old Vietnam veteran and financial distress, also replied. His
wife told him this was a terrible idea, but Buffin

(40:52):
managed to convince him, and soon he found himself over
in Angola. He was captured immediately without ever getting into combat.
His wife and family begged gerald Ford to do something,
but asked hoping resting your hopes on. Gerald Ford was
not any's other than Richard Nixon. One time. That was
a big either that it equaled fifteen prisoners of war. Yeah,

(41:17):
he does not. He did not come through for gear
Heart Um and the government of Angola decided that what
he'd done was a crime against their nation, Um, and
they executed him and a bunch of other mercenaries. Uh.
He and George were not the first soldier of Fortune
Readers to die as a result of the magazine's classified
ads section, and they would not be the last. And

(41:39):
of course, the fact that human beings were dying as
a result of his magazine's classified ads section had no
impact on Robert Brown whatsoever. I found a copy of
the magazine from nineteen eighty and I'd like to read
you a handful of the different ads. Male twenty five
years old, five ft nine hundred and thirty five pounds.
Desire security position any location. Excellent marksman and speaks fair German.

(42:04):
I'm anti social, but prefer and prefer working alone. I
served in the American Army. Possessed no combat experience. There's
nothing unsettling about that guy. That guy basically had the
same build as me and was billing himself as a
massive security I mean, he's a good marksman and he

(42:26):
speaks German. He is more qualified than me. Um also
from Toledo, Ohio. The next Dad x C I a
attache seeks area in US to fulfill purpose of pro
Western ideals and their success trade crafts many cutout, sanitization, sanctification, playback, disinformation,

(42:51):
bag jobs, false flag legends, peeps and sounds. Sneaky's sisters available.
I don't know what sisters have, no idea what that
in CIA parlance, what that means. But all of that
sounds incredibly shady. Yeah, dead serious inquiries only contract contact

(43:14):
micro data systems in Huntington Beach, California, So that's probably cool. Yeah.
Madman's Book of Formulas how to make step by step
goodies like knockout drops, explosives, silencer's poisons, letter bomb, and
many others must in completing your library. I mean, how

(43:44):
many times if you needed a letter bomb, you get
a space on your shelf. You gotta play something there.
You might have a lot more space in your shelf.
And the last one I'm going to read right now
wanted patriots, especially veterans who see the coming national crises

(44:07):
and desire to be prepared. Right for free information to
Christian Patriots Defense League or Citizens Emergency Defense System Flora
Illinois or call gives a phone number, day or night,
attend weekend Freedom festivals and conferences in June and September
on Acre Estate. So that's that's good. Act. Now time

(44:28):
is short. The first the earlier ones. Now these are
just individuals postings. Yeah, do we have do we know
what the outcomes of any of these? Not of these?
We'll get into some of some of them. I mean,
are they looking to be hit man or like? What
is that? Yes? Okay, Yeah, So the slogan for Soldier

(44:54):
of Fortune, displayed in vibrant color on a poster and
their Boulder, Colorado office was killing is our business, and
business is good. This is good branding, but it is
not strictly accurate. As the years went by, Soldier of
Fortune made less and less of its money directly soliciting killers,
which is legally dicey enterprise, and more money just allowing

(45:14):
random murders to advertise through their classified ads section. Wow. Yeah,
so it is just like Facebook. It's a little more
ethical than Facebook. But yes, essentially, you know you can
say this for Soldier of Fortune. It didn't start any genocides. Yeah,

(45:39):
so a lot of uh, very sketchy individuals started putting
in adsu in in uh Soldier of Fortunes classified section.
One of them was a Knoxville, Tennessee, nightclub operator and
former prison guard named Richard Michael Savage, which is the
name you'd expect for the story I'm about to tell. Um.
So he places an ad saying gun for higher. Thirty

(46:02):
seven year old professional mercenary desires jobs Vietnam veteran, discreet
and very private bodyguard, courier and other special skills. All
jobs considered now. He would claim in court later that
he received thirty to forty calls a week after placing
this ad in the June eighteen nine five issue of
the magazine. One person wanted him to recruit a small

(46:25):
army to rate a gold mine in Alaska. So that's cool, yeah.
Another floated a plot to steal an army payroll in
South America. Um and people were at magazine, reported in quote.
Another wanted to rate Nicaragua and promised to supply guns, camouflage, clothing,
rubber boats, and fifty thous dollars for each mercenary when
the raid was completed. Savage was enthusiastic about every hairbrain

(46:48):
scheme he heard, but ultimately was persuaded to concentrate on murder.
So if the caller sounded discreet, Savage would ask for
a round trip airline ticket and a thousand dollars. The
two would meet face to face, then feel each other
out in a minute of death until each was certain
of the other's credentials and in a way, Robert Brown
had succeeded in creating a primitive version of the Dark Web.

(47:09):
But while every hitman on the Dark Web is just
an FBI agent, the men who advertised in Soldier of
Fortune were actually willing to commit murder on strangers. Uh
Savage took a job to kill a guy named Richard Braun,
a man in Atlanta. He and to Triggerman, who he
also recruited through Soldier of Fortune magazine, ambushed Braun and
his teenage son with a Mac eleven. They killed Braun

(47:30):
and wounded his boy. Four months after this, Savage was
hired to kill Anita Spearman of Palm Beach, Florida. He
subcontracted this hit out to yet another Soldier of Fortune reader,
a guy named Do tre Uh. Do Tree and Savage
were paid twenty thou dollars to the hit by Spearman's husband,
who was also a big fan of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Yeah.

(47:51):
Another hitman was Texas trucker John Hearn. He ran an
ad in four issues of the magazine looking for high
risk assessments US or overseas ease. So many people called
Herne that he had to hire an answering service to
handle all the demands of his callers. Wanted him to
commit some kind of crime, arranging from bombings and jail
breaks to simple assault. He received three to five contract

(48:15):
murder requests every single day, which says a lot about
the readers of Soldier of Fortune, a random doing the
magazines willing to kill people. I got people I won't killed.
In February five, Herne took on the job of murdering
Sandra Black. Her husband paid him ten thousand dollars to

(48:35):
shoot his wife to death. Are you noticing a pattern here? Yeah? Um,
a few months later when he was hired by another
Soldier of Fortune reader to kill two other people. Um.
And you know then he was caught shortly after that. Uh.
He was tried, and he insisted that he never would
have gotten started as a hit man if it weren't
for Soldier of Fortune magazine. And normally I'm hesitant when

(48:55):
people blame a magazine for but might be a point here.
Richard Savage was also caught by the law, and he
too squealed on soldier of Fortune magazine and a delusion
news news coverage hit the magazine. Robert Brown denied any
responsibility for the deaths. He ordered his executive editor to
make this statement, We're as culpable as any newspaper which

(49:18):
accepts an ad from a used car salesman and doesn't
go check on the condition of the brakes. M what
are you gonna do? Those are analogous situations. Yeah. Still,
Brown was wise enough. Sometimes you do see the card,
it says it comes fully loaded. That's similar. That was

(49:43):
pretty bad. Sorry. Now, Brown was wise enough to stop
running ads for murderers in six mainly because of the
legal complications, But if he felt any guilt over all
of the deaths, he did not show it, Describing his
career this way in a six editor for the last decade,
I've hunted terrorists with the Rhodesian African rifles and fired

(50:04):
up a Russian fort in Afghanistan with a mujah Haddeen.
Between firefights, takeovers and insurgencies, I managed to put out
a magazine. He's pretty cool. Guy uh. He also managed
to get sued by Richard Brown's sons for his role
in their father's murder. They were awarded four point three
million dollars in civil judgments, which were upheld by a

(50:26):
US Court of Appeals. In nineteen ninety two, The New
York Times wrote this about the case. The Eleventh Circuit
panel said, however, that while the advertisement in the Texas
case was fascially innocuous and ambiguous in its message, Mr
Savage's advertisement clearly conveyed that he was ready, willing and
able to use his gun to commit crimes. When the
list of legitimate jobs i e. Bodyguarden, courier is followed

(50:48):
by other special skills and all jobs considered, the implication
is clear that the advertiser would consider illegal jobs. The
panel said. The publisher could recognize the offer of criminal
activity as readily and as its readers obviously dead. So
court makes a good call and Brown wounds up settling
with the Brown family for two dred thousand dollars, Which
is not enough? Was he When he was interviewed about

(51:11):
this later in two thousands sixteen, he said this, they
really tried the magazine, not the cases. Two guys meet
through the magazine. They have a friendly relationship for six months,
they don't talk about anything illegal, but then six months
later they agree to commit this horrendous crime. Well, if
they meet at a bar and six months later they say,
let's rob a bank, should the bartender be held liable?

(51:31):
It was total crap, which gives me an idea for
a bar. I want to start with all jobs considered,
now for another and again you you'll be able to
enjoy the dual pleasures of life. That's there aren't any

(51:52):
drive drink and shoot bars. The pleasures we could We
could combine the the l against of a Texas drive
through liquor store um with the elegance of drunkenly shooting
at the landscape in Texas. This is really I'm so drunk,
I missed the landscape. I hit that guy whose name

(52:16):
you gave me. I feel like we'd make more than
two grand before they finally got us. Yeah. So from
that point on, Soldier of Fortunes Classified ads section turned
to slightly more liscid fair. They sold mail order brides,

(52:37):
bounty hunter training manuals, Secrets of the Ninja lessons, Nazi
surplus gear, machine guns, silencers, and sniper rifles. Soldier of
Fortune also did a brisk business and selling the kinds
of T shirts that are all too common and randomly
generated Facebook ads today, shirts with slogans like happiness is

(52:59):
a confirm to kill. There are a few social problems
that cannot be solved by the proper application of high
explosives and the ever popular kill them all and let
God sort them out. Yes, this is this is the
kind of stuff I actually do think of when you
say a Soldier Ford and all those products they used
to crank out like that. That's much more seething I
remember than the actual magazine. Yeah, that's like one of

(53:22):
the real law Like this is where that all gets
A lot of that gets started. Like I think some
of these phrases had existed before, but no one had thought,
what if we just sell T shirts with this written
on it? Too dangerous people? Uh? Going back to Iraq,
one of the there's a lot of random mercenaries you

(53:44):
encounter in her bill, And there was this way we
were I was buying carpets with my photographer and one
of the guys we see like standing in the middle
of the bizarre is just like this tall white guy
in his early twenties with a beard and a T
shirt that has written in red letters, I'm just here
for the violets. It's like, don't wear the shirt here, man,

(54:06):
Come on, dude. Uh so Uh. Soldier of Fortune also
contributed to the birth of the needlessly aggressive sticker industry,
selling door stickers labeled is their life after death, trespass
here and find out. Never mind the dog, be aware
of owner and bumper stickers like, the only way you'll

(54:27):
get my gun is to pry it from my cold
dead fingers, well putting stickers ever that now I'm really mad.
That's that is not right. One of the things that's
funny about that last one, if you're one of the
best scenes in the original Red Dawn movie is like
when the Russians invade. You see the back of this
guy's truck that says, the only will get my gun
if you pipe from my cold dead hands, And then
he's lying dead behind the truck because the Russian army

(54:49):
shot him to death and ironically enough, uh was I forget?
His first name is Milch. The guy who wrote Red
Dawn was like the focus of a massive feature article
and Soldier of Four where he like showed that he
had no understanding of the irony effets um. So Soldier
of Fortune continue to play host to a series of

(55:09):
classic articles for the modern man, who's pretty sure he
could have been Conan the barbarian with a few cards
that landed differently. And I think the single best example
of this magazine's content is the classic article Secrets of
Modern battle axe Fighting on dry land with any artist

(55:33):
knows you have to branch out. You know, you start
teaching people how to knife fight an alligator, but eventually
you don't use that type of battle ax in a
in a high humidity and a battle axe underwater? Are
you mad? The article opens with the author announcing that,

(55:55):
for reasons that are never made clear, he has won
an award that just happens to be a hand forged
orse battle axe. Being the kind of man who writes
for Soldier of Fortune, Jeff Cooper decided that he desperately
needed to know how to kill people with this axe. Unfortunately,
the only manuals he could find on the matter were
written an old Norse and did not contain much in
the way of details as to how to have an

(56:16):
axe fight. I had no there was a famous one
I had written by Gary Guy GaX. I think a
lot of death could have been averted if some of
these guys could have just been given dungeons and dragons.
Books like this is the healthy way to deal with
these impulses. So Jeff gets his ax, realizes there's no

(56:39):
good books on how to fight with axes, and he
and a friend decided to spend the afternoon inventing a
modern science of battle axe fighting by jabbing vaguely at
hay bales in an empty field. David, I want you
to take a look at one of the insert pages
from this How would you describe those pictures? It looks

(56:59):
like a man and viciously attacking a bail of hay
and to the point that he's drooling with pleasure. Yeah,
it's he's wearing the kind of hat that like everyone's
grandfather wears when they move permanently to Florida. You know

(57:24):
it's a you know, you know it's not a fair
battle when your hat doesn't fall off. Uh So, And
I'll pass this out in a little bit when I
get past this paragraph. This is worth seeing. One shot
didn't wasn't enough? Shows six almost identical. Mean if you
want to know how to funk up a bail of

(57:46):
hay with the norse axe. There's no better place to go, like,
there's really are no other sources. So uh this new
business was safer than soliciting hitman and mercenaries. But Robert
were standing inside of a bale of hay. Yes, yes, yes,

(58:09):
a lot of kids playing hide and go seek were
tragically tragically. It didn't wind up all right for everybody
I found the needle. Uh So Robert Brown was not
satisfied though with running a safe, profitable, profitable magazine filled

(58:33):
with ridiculous sax fighting artimles. No, he still was desperately
addicted to war tourism, and the primary purpose of Soldier
of Fortune magazine throughout its entire run was to enable
his habit. Throughout the mid nineteen eighties, Robert Brown and
his magazine got increasingly involved in the El Salvadorian Civil War.
He visited for the first time in nineteen eighty three

(58:54):
and spent several happy days fighting alongside a quadra of
mercenaries and paramilitary fighters. Back Roberto de Albuson Debison was,
in the words of the U. S Ambassador to L Salvador,
a pathological killer who bragged about the need to exterminate
two hundred to three hundred thousand people in his own country.
So Robert Brown's like, this is my dude to hand

(59:16):
this out pass it around. So uh, Dobbison ran death
squads which often massacred women, children, and a huge number
of priests, and Robert Brown was only too happy to
help with us. By night four, he claimed to have
sent more than a hundred mercenaries into the tiny country.
He also claimed that his readers had donated more than

(59:38):
four million in supplies to fight the contract for for
the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. When he was criticized over
the fact that his magazine was actively enabling death squads
in several nations, Brown wrote this, We're not content just
to tell the story to the best of our ability.
We also help equip, aid and train the world's anti
communist freedom fighters. We make no apologies about this or

(01:00:00):
for our virulent, anti tyrant, anti communist editorial stance. Now
does this tie into the Iran Contra stuff in anyway?
Like that that was the the people who were actually
accomplishing cricket stuff but successfully for a little while. Yeah,
he was like the tourist version of like and not

(01:00:22):
legally committing treason, I guess. And he didn't get a
Fox new although he did wind up as one of
the board members of the n r A, So they're
not totally different people. Um so tragically, and this is
really gonna hurt a lot of people's feelings. Brown's second
plan trip to go fight Nel Salvador, was canceled when
one of his own mercenaries shot him on accident in

(01:00:45):
the lake. It happens to the best of us. Yeah,
we've all been there. Now. I'm gonna read a quote
from the Chicago Tribune and describing what happened. Colonel Brown
and his kitchen table buddies were talking about a flight
tell Salvador that Brown was to make the next day. Brown,

(01:01:05):
who was a captain in Vietnam, claims to be helping
train the Salvadoran army on an unofficial basis. He says
he's making them tougher and more disciplined. As the evening
wore on towards midnight, one of Brown's buddies, who writes
for Soldier of Fortune, took out an automatic pistol he
was carrying and showed it to Brown. Brown's buddy talked
about his pistols, heft, the trigger action, and the other
qualities that pleased gun lovers. He pulled the trigger. Being

(01:01:26):
a gun expert, he knew it was empty. That was
sarcasm on the author's part. When Brown's buddy pulled the trigger,
there was a loud explosion. He stood there for a
moment with his mouth wide open, and he looked at
his hand and saw a hole. He had shot a
hole through his hand. Brown looked down at his leg,

(01:01:48):
his leg hurt. He saw blood running out of his calf.
The bullet, after blowing a hole in the buddy's hand,
had blown a hole in Robert's and or in Brown's leg.
The owner of the gun was right, it did pack
a wallop. Brown looked down at his bleeding leg. Then
he looked at his buddy and said, you stupid son
of a bitch, You shot me, and now I can't

(01:02:10):
go to El Salvador. Can I ask a question about
his rank because it referred to him as colonel in
the first sentence, but he immediately said he served as
captain when it was actually, so, what's the colonel? Friend?
I mean? That was after his time. Actually doing anything
in Vietnam, but he was really Yeah, he retired as

(01:02:31):
a lieutenant colonel. Okay, but it's not uncommon for people
to get like a bump when they leave, especially if
you've done shady things that they want to get you
out of the service for. There's a lot of questions
about what he actually he may have had some dirt
on somebody else, yeah, something like that, or he uh,
they just really wanted him gone because he was an embarrassment.

(01:02:52):
It's hard to say, hard to say so um. As
the nineteen eighties wore on and the Cold War near
it's near its end, so too did the business of
soliciting mercenary fighters to crust socialist up movements. Being a
right wing or a far right crypto fascist, Robert Brown
transitioned seamlessly from demonizing left wing movements around the world
and towards attacking the US government. As the Cold War ended,

(01:03:15):
Soldier of Fortune became one of the prime sources fueling
the American militia movement. In April nineteen ninety five, it
did a cover story on the Michigan Militia, the largest
such patriot group in the country. That same month, Soldier
of Fortune subscriber and former Michigan Militia member Timothy McVeigh
set off a truck bomb outside the Murray Building in
Oklahoma City, killing a hundred and sixty eight people and

(01:03:36):
injuring seven hundred. When McVeigh was caught his car was searched,
the police found a photo copy of an underground far
right far right zene titled The Resistor. Sixty Minutes correspondents
Steve Croft described it as a political warfare journal, describing
the U. S Government as a deadly enemy that needed
to be crushed with lethal force. Its publisher, Stephen Barry,

(01:03:57):
was a former Special Forces man who went on to
for the National Alliance, at the time the largest neo
Nazi group in the United States. Now. The FBI obviously
wanted to track down how this copy of The Resistor
had wound up in Timothy mcveigh's hands. By reading the
fact signature, they were able to trace it back to
Soldier of Fortunes offices. It turns out Robert Brown had

(01:04:18):
sent nine hundred free copies of the zine to Soldier
of Fortune subscribers as part of a promotional author offer.
It's like a tote bag. Here's it's like, you know,
the mp R gives you a little bag, Soldier of
Fortune gives you this Nazi guide to murdering people. Yeah,
pretty cool? Right? Yeah? I mean it's a value for

(01:04:39):
the other eight people. Like, that's a collector's item. I
have had it? How many times can I walk out
from one? Um? So? Uh now? The bureau obviously wanted
to know if Steven Barry Nazi had any ties to

(01:04:59):
Robert Brown, so they leaked Verry false intel and watched
as Surely enough it appeared in the next issue of
Soldier of Fortune magazine. So that's cool, he's friends with
some Nazis. Good stuff. Uh Now. Obviously, of course, you
know there were legal consequences for this, right, No, nothing happened.

(01:05:23):
Brown did regularly find himself under investigation and was often sued,
but he always managed to stay in business and just
shy of committing any felonies. After the Oklahoma City bombing
and Patriot Movement, the Patriot movement got to toxic, but
once the nineties ended, Soldier of Fortune pivoted yet again
by focusing on the dangers of immigrants and Muslim extremists. Uh.

(01:05:43):
In two thousand three, Soldier of Fortune published a two
part series on a group called Ranch Rescue a Border,
a border vigilante militia that later pistol whipped and sent
Rottweiler's on immigrants in Arizona in Texas. Yeah he's a
I mean, he's the guy I've been reading about for
the last twelve pages. He's he's piece of shit. Uh.
In October of two thousand nine, Soldier of Fortune did

(01:06:05):
a feature on Sheriff Joe R. Pio of Maricopa County, writing, Yeah,
his tough stance on a legal immigration is what he
is getting beat up for by liberals promoting a legal immigration.
They neglected to mention that dozens of prisoners had died
in our pios shells jails, often being from being illegally
restrained and boiled to death in a hundred and forty
five degree cells. Under al Pio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's

(01:06:29):
office paid out more than a hundred and forty million
dollars in wrongful death suits, which again didn't make into
the Soldier of Fortune article. Shockingly, Robert Brown was not
an instant fan of the candidacy if Donald J. Trump
when interviewed about it in two thousand sixteen, he expressed
his belief that the man was a buffoon and would
hand the election to Hillary Clinton. He has kept his
mouth mostly shut about Trump since then, often involving himself

(01:06:51):
though in internal n r A politics. He was once
the organization's vice chairman, and he regularly speaks out about Uh.
I mean, if you're interested in who to vote for
for the n r A board, Uh, you know, maybe
check out this guy's opinions. He seems to have good judgment. Uh.
Soldier of fortune stopped publishing a physical magazine in two
thousand sixteen. The digital media crash, you know it hit

(01:07:15):
us all well, physical media crash. Uh. Brown had to
lay off almost all of his staff and go digital.
The periodical is still online and still just as racist
as ever, although it's increasing irrelevance has made it less dangerous.
In late two thousand nineteen, the online edition of the
magazine republished that two thousand twelve article about Rhodesia. Whatever
else you can say about Robert K. Brown, he's not

(01:07:37):
a quitter, although he really should be. Yeah, and that's
the story. That's this. He's still alive. So David, you
convinced me, You convinced me for the first interview. I

(01:07:57):
was impressed, but that by the end, I admit, the
scale tilted a little bit. The center of gravity just
got enough in favor of Bastard. Yeah, so that's cool.
It's way worse than I expected to say. It's kind
of amazing. I didn't when you said it killed a

(01:08:19):
bunch of people, I didn't. I didn't see the yeah
people truck bomb coming stills. Yeah, it's I mean, you
know a lot of things played into that, but Soldier
of Fortune didn't help. So uh. I mean, they look
like they could use investors and a new writing team,

(01:08:40):
you know, well, the fut dramas up the air. That's
why I brought you here. One of my favorite quotes
from Like Brown in the Modern Day, from like a
year ago, as him being like, I still think I
have one more left in me blurt um. So uh, David,

(01:09:03):
that's been the episode. But of course we can't conclude
a live show without doing something reckless with machetes. You know,
I have not explained to you why we do this,
because I don't know how to. If you've you've write
jokes for a living, have you ever had a running
joke that went on way longer than than you could

(01:09:24):
have possibly anticipated, to the point where you can no
longer explain how it started. No, we haven't, and bite
my shiny middle ass um. Now, I want to make
a couple of safety notes. Safety is always very important.
So these are I have only brought to this show
the dullest and last knives that I own. Well that

(01:09:45):
now you're glad it's rusty. Yeah, no, key that that's
remember that Dolan. Rusty, safe and trusty. That's the knife rule. Now.
I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna play
us a quick little round of tennis, and then we're
gonna hand some bagels out into the crowd and you guys,

(01:10:06):
you guys are gonna basically act as like a living
skeet machine to Oh god, you brought a bag of them. Jesus,
I told you it got out of hand. Now, as
I said, I played tennis. I don't know what we're doing.
What are the rules of this sport? I don't know
how the rules of tennis. I'm going to toss a

(01:10:29):
bag of bagels underhanded towards you, the whole bag, hold bag,
and you try to hit it as hard as you
can and then I'll say love serving love. I don't
know what that means, don't explain it. Am I trying
to slice it? Or yeah? You just want to hit
the thing I throw with sharp sharp? Yeah, I'm not trying.
I'm not I'm not trying to hit it this way
back to you, top spin love, You do whatever you want.

(01:10:55):
But it's most fun to just like really tear into that. Okay,
That's what I'm gonna do, all right, always again, always mistabbing,
and again, because safety is incredibly important here, we're not
starting with the bagels. We're starting with ultimate burger buns.
Um Because you don't want you don't want to like you,

(01:11:17):
you got to calibrate, all right. I feel like basic
human decency compels me to put a stop to this
before we crossed too much of a mess. Oh yeah,
that was the That was the stupidest and most fun

(01:11:38):
thing I've done in a long time. I'm talking about
the interview part of this. All right, that's that's that's
the fucking episode. Have a good night, drums. Thank you
so much, David really appreciate it. H. My deepest apologies

(01:12:05):
to the stage crew. H