42 Years…and Counting
by Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, USAR (Ret.)
Colorado USA – -(Ammoland.com)- A lot of rodeos in 42 years for this would-be cowboy. But the time has come to move onward with the times.
462 issues, millions of copies, pissed off mega-millions of liberals, progressives, communists, wimpy soft-bellied, sniveling journalists, who didn’t like the fact that in promoting our agenda of supporting freedom, we carried cameras and guns at the same time.
We started off as a quarterly back in July l975, supporting the recognition of the Vietnam veteran, defending the Second Amendment, covering little known, brutal wars in dreadful little known places. We trained good guys and whacked a fair number of bad guys. We provided medical treatment to unknown thousands who were victims of communist aggression on four continents.
One of the major thrusts of our initially underfunded, problematical publishing venture was giving my fellow Vietnam veterans, whose spilled blood was just as red as those who sacrificed in Korea, WWII, WWI, and previous wars, recognition for the battles they fought, the sacrifices they made while tangling with the forces of communist tyrants. Certainly we succeeded, much to the consternation of the liberal hacks and dishonest cowards who continue to babble about a “…guerrilla war conducted by oppressed peasants.” And who refuse, even now, to admit the fact that the North Vietnamese invasion of South Viet Nam, with divisions of armor, was no different than the Nazi invasion of Poland or France.
Lt. Col. David Grossman, USA (Ret.), touched on an aspect of another influence of SOF on Vietnam vets, in his classic work, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, when he wrote;
“It is very much to the credit of Soldier of Fortune…that for twenty years this was the only national forum in which Vietnam veterans could write such deeply emotional, open, and often unpopular reminiscences of their war…And I must deeply respect the courage and fortitude it took to…publish such accounts…”
Which leads into another area of SOF accomplishment. That is the tremendous number of young men who became intrigued with the off-the-wall editorial content and ended up joining the U.S. military. Quintessential examples, of course, are Chris Kyle, author of American Sniper, and Major Rusty Bradley, author of The Lions of Kandahar, who both told me reading SOF was the prime reason they enlisted.
The fact that SOF was responsible for 75 percent of the 450 Americans who fought in a nasty, brutal bush war again communist-sponsored terrorists, according to the Rhodesian Army Recruiting Officer, Major Lamprecht, gave me mucho pleasure. Boy, did that piss off the liberal boobs and dorks! A good example was Command Sergeant Major Michael Kelso, who joined the Rhodesian Light Infantry for a tour and retired from the U.S. Army as the CSM of the Army Infantry Center, Fort Benning, Georgia. Kelso said he became aware of the Rhodesian bush war by reading about it in SOF.
The tremendous success of SOF online ( https://www.sofmag.com ) and in social media opened up a new chapter for us. The writing was on the wall. If we were to kick ass in a timely fashion in this new world of instant gratification and more instant news, SOF had to focus on the new world of cyberspace reporting. So SOF continues to fight the good fight in the course of opposing those despicable loons of the left that are doing their best, led by Obama, who are bent on imposing top-down tyranny on our fair land as they do their damnedest to destroy our traditional culture, our religion, our history.
The gutless sheep follow their siren call to the trough of government welfare…
Part and parcel of that good fight will be, number one, reporting on our troops and their weapon craft. SOF will keep up with the industry as products are introduced. We will continue support of the right to keep and bear arms, which is essential to our freedom. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Those who beat their arms into plows will plow for those that don’t.” We will continue to support the National Rifle Association, without which we no longer would be allowed any firearms other than muzzle loaders.
So, gentle readers (yeah, that’s a joke!), keep pushing on by staying current with us at sofmag.com. My personal email is: editorsof@aol.com.
Remember, you will always be relevant as long as you can pull a trigger.
In closing, “Slay dragons, do noble deeds, and never, never, never, never give up.”
Thanks for your support. Let’s kick some serious ass in the next decade! To order your last copy of SOF (Soldier of Fortune) Magazine click here.