WEBVTT - Soldier of Fortune: The Deadliest Magazine Ever (with Billy Wayne Davis) 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:19.000 H Hello, my friends, Hi guys, everybody ready for the show. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.279 All right, Well, this is behind the Bastards and you 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.040 might know me as the executive producer Anderson's mom or 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:31.639 that who's that really annoying voice laughing obnoxiously in the background. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:38.080 Oh thanks, guys. Well, first to the stage, let's welcome 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:54.320 Reverend Dr Billionaire Wayne David h and live in person 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:59.920 and not trapped in an iPad, my favorite bastard, Reverend 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:17.240 doctor Robert Evans. So I let it go to my 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:25.600 head a little bit, Jesus, do you like me to 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.760 hold You got so much going on and plan for 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.520 after coming in with the cape, just for coming in 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.440 with you. Just you look like one of those people 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.880 that like you're going to battle, but then you get 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:41.399 the battle and you're wearing things and battles just through. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:45.880 How are you doing to that, Billy man, I'm fucking good. 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.400 I wanted to thank you, Billy for this, the wonderful 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.640 gift of this machete. I got a new one. Billy 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.040 just gave it some And you know, I'm I'm a 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:55.880 little bit of a connoisseur. And what I love about 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.160 this machete is that in order to draw it. You 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:01.360 have to bring it day juriously close to your throat, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.200 and that's the real mark of a quality weapon, Like 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:06.880 look at that. You do that drunk, you could really 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.400 damage yourself. That's probably why they had it for sale 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.800 on Craigslist. About that, the guy walked out of an alley, 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:21.520 handed me that through my car, just handed it to 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.480 my car, and I gave him twenty five. This is 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.440 like a real story, you guys, we're laughing. It's not 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:33.280 a bit. No. That's when you see a machete for 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.480 sale on Craigslist, you're like, I'm gonna go try to 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.720 buy this. You know, you know one thing immediately, and 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:42.280 it's the person you're buying that machete from did not 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.280 themselves come by it least no, God, that is a 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:51.720 stolen machete, but it was in a package. That's He 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.960 walked off before I could ask him any follow up questions, 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.960 where I was like, how many do you have? It's 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:00.400 a fascinating for me to get to the head of 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.240 somebody that goes to an ARII and of all of 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.280 the different high dollar items you could steal from an 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.000 r I picks like the worst price price to size ratio, 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.720 but I think that's just opportunity presented itself. And now 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:18.040 you have fourteen machetes that happened to me, but all 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:24.960 they did start a podcast, So Billy, you don't know 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.959 the subject today that we're going with. That's good, that's good. 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:29.560 I have a question i'd like to to ask you 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.760 before I kind of lead into things, um, and I 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.880 hope it's okay to ask this in front of an 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.840 intimate group of our friends. Have you ever killed a 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:45.320 man on purpose? No? No, I have not, but you've 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:47.360 you've thought about it? Like we all like like that's 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.920 the thing, right, Yeah, I'm not fuck off with that question. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:58.320 That is you can't answer that and we're recording this. 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.120 I think it was like witness with all their names, 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.119 have you ever thought about kill in someone? If we're 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.200 honest with ourselves, if we're if we're really if we're 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:16.360 really being truthful tonight, I think most most men, particularly 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:17.640 you know, you're in the line at the bank and 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:22.240 you're like, would have ninja came out? Right? You're at 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.599 the McDonald's and you just like if something happened, if 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.320 the ship went down, Like could I could I be 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:31.600 a badass? And like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, never, like, 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.920 if they weren't on this planet, this would help me out. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.680 Never never think that way. You said McDonald's. I thought 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.159 you were going Trump there because how much you love 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:47.440 him some McDonald's, but he ain't step McDonald's. Yeah. So 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:49.720 I think it's a pretty normal thing to like wonder 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.839 how you would react if, like a situation required you 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:56.920 to be a giant badass. Um. But that fantasy isn't 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.440 enough for everybody. Some people need to really commit to 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.440 the fantasy that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they're 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.440 huge badasses. And over the last twenty years or so, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.000 there's a whole industry that's grown up of tactical gear 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:14.599 and tactical content and tactical magazine. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:16.640 we like there's a bit of that. And I mean 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.640 I walked on the stage. Yeah it's fine, um, and 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:28.120 I'm gonna go yeah, I don't dive. So we're all 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:31.240 familiar with kind of where the story has ended up 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.520 in and today we're going to talk about the birth 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:40.000 of this industry as embodied by a single periodical soldier 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:45.120 of fortunes. Yeah, yes, man, I was so hoping you're 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:52.239 gonna say that. Yeah, you might want to hold onto 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:59.960 that I know I don't mean good. I think is 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.799 to entertaining as fuck, entertaining as fun. I think Reddit 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.440 is a magazine. You might be surprised by how many 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.760 people this magazine got killed, because it is a lot 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.799 even better. So our story starts with a single man, 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:21.400 Robert Brown. He was born on November two, nineteen thirty two, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:23.960 in Monroe, Michigan, and I've been able to find vanishingly 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:26.200 little about his early life, and everything you just said 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.719 is boring his head. But he entered college in nineteen 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:32.520 fifty and at the time there was a draft on 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.279 and Brown saw some sort of military service as inevitable. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.880 He decided he'd rather be a fighter pilot than anything else, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:39.800 and he joined the Air Force r OTC to make 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.679 that happen. So far, it all scans um. He wound 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.080 up not being doing well in college and was forced 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.920 to transfer in nineteen fifty three to another university because, 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.080 in his words, the dean and I agreed it was 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:54.760 best I leave Michigan State. I've been on some of 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.880 those discussions. So, due to a mix of his new 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.520 colleges policies and his bad eyesight, Brown gradually accepted that 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.479 his career as a that a career as a fighter 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:07.920 pilot was not in the cards, and instead he joined 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.640 the Marine Corps Reserve. But then, uh, a military recruiter 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.640 he calls a snake oil salesman convinced him to join 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.200 the Army instead, saying that he would become a special 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:24.600 agent in the counter Intelligence Corps. You got what you deserve? Yeah, um, 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.280 so this was obviously a bald faced lie, as our 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:32.680 most things that military recruiters tell young men. Uh, but 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:37.200 fantasizing of platinum blondes and Catillac convertibles. Brown agreed and 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.480 he signed on the dotted line. Yeah he did he 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:46.680 ever watch like even the movies don't make it look great. No, No, 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:48.680 he really thought that he was going to join the 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.760 Army and become James Bond. But he was young and dumb. 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.679 He gets smarter, so he enters the Army on October 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.440 and he loves it. He's particularly taken with arms training 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.640 and getting to shoot guns a lot, and the whole 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.200 experience of basic training convinces him that the draft is 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:08.000 an awesome idea and should never have been discontinued. He's 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:13.680 he's very, very prone to brainwashing. It was very clear, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.520 Like by the end of basic training, he's like, this 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.160 is the best. Everyone should have to do this, like 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.880 even the even the drill sergeant, like, we gotta watch him. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:30.040 We did too good. So once he graduates training, he 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.160 has informed that this job as special agent uh is 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.640 not going to work out because it doesn't exist. Who 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.600 told you it was? Oh, I know who told you 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:43.040 that he's funny. Instead, he's told that his job is 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.560 actually going to be clerk analyst, which is essentially secretarial work. 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:56.719 So it's yeah, it's lateral, not a change in money. 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.440 So Robert was profoundly bad at this job and he 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.080 failed the training course for it four times. You're really 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.240 terrible at hitting at that desk. Yeah, keep stand up, 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:13.079 And he just failed down. So he uh. He's admitted 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.040 since that he uh found the idea of doing secretarial 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.079 work hateful, and this is what convinced him to drop 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.120 out of that career track and go to officer candidate 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.079 school as a way to escape the tedium of office work. 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.560 He graduates, I just want to tell people what to do. 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.360 I can't handle this desk. I think I should be 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.800 in charge of a lot of people's lives instead. Yeah, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:41.160 So he graduates, and he would later brag of two accomplishments. 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.760 At Officer Candidate School number one, he received more demerits 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.040 than any other member of his class. At number two, 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.120 he was the best shot with a heavy machine gun. 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.480 I was the angriest and the best at machine guns. 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.480 And that checks out. You can be a dick when 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.720 you're good at the machine gun. Really, all that matters 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:12.240 is good at machine guns. It's wild that we haven't 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.120 had a presidential candidate run on that platform. We got 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:23.680 some months. Yeah, that's how Bloomberg could have come in. 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:30.040 And he's still so. Brown's dreams of daring do in 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.880 the army were initially cut short by his father's untimely 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.079 deaf death. He opted for a state side job in Wisconsin, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.200 working what he calls a cushy desk job. He left 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.600 active service in nineteen fifty seven and spent the next 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.520 few years in the Army reserves, mostly participating in marksmanship competitions. 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:47.800 He managed to say some to say some of his 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:51.280 desire for action whene Fidel Castro launched his rebellion against 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:55.720 the dictatorial rule of Fugencio Batista. So this happens right 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:57.040 as he gets out of the army and for a 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.920 few months Brown improbably became a pro cast stro activist, 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.600 even purchasing and hiding at a legal machine gun with 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.640 the goal of running weapons to Cuban rebels in Wisconsin. 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.720 From Wisconsin, you know, the classic Wisconsin to Cuba flight path. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:23.600 Everybody French connection. They call Wisconsin Big Cuba. So eventually 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.280 he tricked his college's student newspaper into issuing him press credentials, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.079 and he spent a brief period of time and Havana, 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.079 but failed to see any action. He was repeatedly invited 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.440 by contexts he'd met in Havana to participate as a 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.760 war correspondent a number of revolutions throughout South America, but 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.000 never quite managed to make it work out, mostly because 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:44.280 he was afraid he'd get killed. Man, now he really 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.320 gets in the way of the secret agent work. It does. 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.120 That would that would be a bummer if you had 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.200 to like go alone into a situation. I'm not gonna 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:57.959 do this. I keep missing matings. It's a lot of anxiety. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.040 So he manages to get hired by the AP to 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.160 interview a refugee Spanish general promising to overthrow Francisco Franco, 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:08.360 Spain's dictator. What do you mean? He may like, I 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.360 mean some there's some places like there's just refugee General's 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.760 left and right. Man, you just gotta He sounds like mean, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.120 he's just stumbling into all this stuff that is kind 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:19.920 of his life. He's like I was in Westconsin and 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:21.480 I was like, I'm gonna go Cuba for a minute, 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:27.000 and people are like, okay, Robert. So he writes an 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.080 article based on his his conversation with this general and 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.520 it did well, and Brown struck up a friendly acquaintance 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.120 ship with the general who had helped to train Castro's guerrillas. 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.640 So this guy gives Brown a copy of a book 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.360 called A hundred Fifty Questions for a Guerrilla and it's 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:45.720 the militant kind, not the Yeah, it's a manual for 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:50.520 like so funny. I just picked up Males book on 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.760 guerrilla warfare, and the first thing I thought was like, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:54.320 woll I was reading. I was like, so he talked, 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.920 guerrilla is to fun This is the dumbest joker. But 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.640 it made me laugh for a good fifteen minutes. And 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:03.400 I haven't been able to start that book because there's 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.360 time I do right. Uh. So it's a manual for 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.960 like how to wage an insurgent war? Right? Um. So 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:11.720 he gets a copy of this book from this general 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.280 and he instantly sees dollar signs, and he opens a 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.960 publishing company to translate the book into English and sell 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.280 it in the United States. So that's his his first business. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:27.520 That's where the most guerillas are. Ye. So Robert worked 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:29.840 as a reporter for a little while, writing articles for 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.400 Guns Magazine and similar publications. But as the Vietnam War 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:35.719 kicked off for the US in the nineteen sixties, are 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:40.719 simpler then what you gonna make a magazine? What's about goods? 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:49.840 I got a dirty one is called jugs? They really 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:58.040 should emerged. I feel like the gas station. So the 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.840 Vietnam War kicks off and Robert Brown finds himself drawn 0:14:00.880 --> 0:14:03.880 back to his dream of experience in combat. He rejoined 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.640 active duty and became a Green Beret, serving from nineteen 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.120 sixty eight to nineteen sixty nine. It was easier. They're 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.880 just saying stuff. It's like a weird mad lib of 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.839 like this dude's life because he was like, he's bad 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.000 at desk work, couldn't be a fire pilot. Then he's like, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:21.400 then he west went to Wisconsin, got really good at 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.880 desk work. And then he's like, funk this, I'm going 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:27.760 to Cuba and doing some weird lights spying. That's our 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:32.720 show again. With all of these guys, it's an ability 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.360 to pivot that makes them great. It's impressive, and he's 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.840 a pivot. So he pivots all the way to Vietnam 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.200 and gets horribly wounded at nineteen sixty nine in a 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:48.280 mortar attack. He pivot. So he was pretty good at 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.200 a soldier up until getting wounded. Um, but he would 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:52.920 and it would eventually retire from the service as a 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.000 lieutenant colonel. But sadly for him at least, the Vietnam 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:58.200 War did not end well for the United States. I'm 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:01.440 sorry if that's a spoiler to anybody. Um. He returned 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.960 home to a nation that widely considered the war he'd 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.600 nearly died in to have been a colossal waste of money. 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.040 Many protesters called soldiers like him baby killers, and Brown 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.480 quickly recognized that he was part of a new generation 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:17.400 of retired warrior who felt increasingly isolated from mainstream American society. 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:20.239 See World War two had been this like widely celebrated 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.360 collective endeavor, but Korea and Vietnam weren't, and that left 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:25.600 hundreds of thousands of veterans feeling like their service was 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.720 neither appreciated nor understood, and a big chunk of those 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.080 men in including Robert Brown, still found themselves drawn to 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.400 stories of combat and daring do. In nineteen seventy five, 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.040 the same year that Vietnam War ended, Robert Brown found 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.440 himself traveling around Africa and basically living as a war tourist, 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:48.240 visiting combat zones just to hang out somewhere exciting. You 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:54.000 never done that, Billy, I never thought that that's the thing. Like, Hey, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.280 I'm gonna go watch a little bit war for a while. 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:04.760 Have I Have I ever told you about Iraqi? Margharita's 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.840 by the way, Look I get it, Like I used 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.120 to not understand like people watching the Civil War like 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.360 from a field, but now like I understand, like some 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.280 people just like to fight. So you just go like, hey, 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.920 we'll watch him do it. But the way he's doing 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.920 is not no cool. So while he's touring around and 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.280 just hanging out in war zones, Robert Brown befriends some 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.720 mercenaries on their way to Oman to put down an 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:35.240 insurrection for the Sultan. Spirit Air spirit Air. Yeah. So 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.840 meeting these guys gives Robert Brown the idea to write 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.480 the Oman Ministry of Defense inquiring about taking the job himself. 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.520 And they send him a contract, just like a blank 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:45.680 contract to be a mercenary for the government of Oman. 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.400 And well, no, he he recognizes immediately anyone who's just 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.680 gonna send me become a mercenary letter site unseen in 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:56.680 the mail, probably don't want to fight for that army. 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.800 Not a great idea, but he has a smarter idea 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:04.960 for what to do with it, So go on. He 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.280 takes out ads in a series of gun magazines reading 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.119 want to be a mercenary in the Middle East, Send 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:23.359 five dollars. All y'all think this through. This was not 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:28.440 Internet where you're like click, that's hilarious. That was This 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:30.880 is gonna take some time. This is some errands involved. 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.960 It's like four to six weeks to get the letter there. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.640 and then you gotta wait for the money to come back. 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:43.400 He's all this through. He's a smart man, So when 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.160 people would send him five dollars, he would just xerox 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:52.200 the contract he'd received and mail it to them. Brown 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.679 later recalled, I'm not mad at him at all. No, no, no, 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.439 this is kind of brilliant. Yeah. I don't get to 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:03.119 where he's a bastard yet. So Brown later recalled, I 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:05.919 got scores of replies. Newsweek spotted this and did an 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:07.800 article on my ad, and it went through the roof. 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.560 I was getting replies from people in Bangladesh, Greece. I 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.520 was in the army in Turkey for five years. I 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.959 want to be a mercenary. I realized I was onto something. 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.639 You are. Yeah, it's not a good thing. You're out too. No, 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.480 and it's unlikely that any of Brown's clients wound up 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.320 actually fighting froman One assumes most men who volunteered to 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:28.920 join a war effort based on an ad in a 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:33.399 magazine are not particularly enticing specimens of soldiery um. But 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:40.840 the financial the financial success of the endeavor convinces Brown 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:42.240 that there's a lot of money to be made and 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:45.000 playing to the dream in every man's heart, that he might, 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.880 and the right circumstances, be a fucking badass. So this 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.120 is the thing, he realizes, and so Robert Brown uses 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.840 the ten thousand dollars he made scamming gun nuts to 0:18:54.920 --> 0:19:00.160 fund the creation of a new magazine, Soldier of Fortune. 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.000 That was the appropriate That was the right amount of 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:13.240 applause for that. Yeah, he's like one gun fell out, 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:27.720 just fell apart, So Brown stated, go with this magazine 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:33.080 was to rehabilitate the image of the warrior in American society. 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.760 I like him a lot. Yeah, And Soldier Fortune magazine 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:40.679 probably would have just been a blip on the radar 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.280 if it weren't for a real stroke of marketing genius 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.439 by Robert Brown. Rather than portraying or angling it as 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.080 a magazine for military veterans, of which there are only 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.520 a few, and even a smaller number who glorify what 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.680 actually happens. In more, he fashioned Soldier of Fortune as 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:59.320 the journal of professional adventurers, a magazine for mercenaries and 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:01.359 people who think would be cool to be a mercenary? 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:16.320 Do you like hiking? And pretended so well, they won't 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:25.560 let you get boys life anymore. So Uh then, as now, 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:27.760 there were at most a couple of thousand English speaking 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.560 works in the world who were actually mercenaries. But Brown's 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.320 real target was not hard bitten mercenaries. It was aging 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:35.640 baby boomers who thought they probably could have been hard 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.160 bitten mercenaries if they hadn't gotten that girl pregnant back 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:42.120 in sixty two. All that mud, it would stoker, I'd 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:52.720 have been Vietnam towards some ligaments doing fucking. Here's how 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:56.199 Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune described the magazine in nine. 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.600 It's directed to professional mercenaries, men who will fight for 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:01.440 pay in those who want to hire them. But since 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:04.359 mercenaries represent only a tiny portion of the reading population, 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.000 the magazine tries to broaden its appeal to include those 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.320 who might be called war fans and the weapon their 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:14.800 work through a magazine. Yeah. So. The first ever issue 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.359 of Soldier of Fortune features a glossy color picture of 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:19.720 a soldier with a rifle behind a barbed wire fence 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:22.320 with a red sun setting in the background. The whole 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.520 image was cast in a green tent. Is it being 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:30.320 viewed through night vision goggles? Articles included You're gonna like this, 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:45.199 billy underwater knife fighting techniques, lunge, lunge again, free and 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:46.879 it it tells you kind of where I am on 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.720 this spectrum that I get understanding, Like, yeah, I want 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:51.399 to know what it's like to fight with a knife 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.360 in the water, but I recognize that having techniques applied 0:21:54.400 --> 0:22:01.880 to it as ridiculous, right, like, do it better? So 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.400 in addition to urban knife fighting techniques or underwater knife 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.359 fighting technique, sorry, urban street Survival part one. I'm gonna 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.040 guess we all assume how racist that article was, right, like, 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:17.040 I don't need to like. Yeah, and then an article 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:23.240 titled American mercenaries in Africa. Now that last article, I'm 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:25.560 gonna guess the person who said, huh knows where we're 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:27.600 going with us. I don't like it. It was a 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:34.360 feature about the conflict in Rhodesia. Yeah, we're gonna talk 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:41.040 a lot about Rhodesia right now. I was having what 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:43.639 do you know about Rhodesia? I don't know much, and 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:51.960 judging by their reaction, I wish I could leave. I 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:55.520 was like, this is a fun one. Nothing bad has happened. 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.440 It can't all be underwater knife it can't all be 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.760 underwater knife fighting. But you really can only do that once. 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:10.400 It's a general rule. So Rhodesia was a white supremacist 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.040 state in modern days Zimbabwe that broke away from the 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:16.560 British Empire in nineteen sixty five over the issue of 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:18.960 whether or not black people should be able to vote. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.120 The three percent of the nation that was white did 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:28.760 not think they should be. Okay, from a logic standpoint, 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:30.760 if you want power, I can see where they're like, 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:35.680 we've been so shitty to you guys for so long. Shit, 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:41.760 what if you all can't vote? Nope? Fuck, I feel 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:43.440 like three per cents enough for us to keep a 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:48.320 lid on this thing, this wanting to vote thing. So 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.560 just jesus, I'm gonna read a quote to you, Billy 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:55.199 from Soldier of Fortune magazine describing the Rhodesian conflict, and 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:57.280 they have a different take on it than I do. 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.520 In nineteen sixty five, Therhodesian government got together with the 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:03.359 British government to try to sort out a way to 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:05.720 end the war that was smoldering and about to explode. 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:08.320 Ian Smith was the governor of Rhodesia and leader of 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.080 the Rhodesia Front. The insurgents were on the move. The 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:14.160 nineteen sixty five talks accomplished nothing with the Brits wanted 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.240 was for the Blacks to get the vote. One man, 0:24:17.320 --> 0:24:19.840 one vote. Of course, that would mean the Blacks would 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:23.040 get into power, So the white Rhodesian's unilaterally implemented the 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:28.000 Universal Declaration of Independence in nineteen sixty five. So that's 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:32.560 our soldier of Fortune magazine, the country they wanted to 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:39.040 You can't have your country, so you're not read history. 0:24:40.840 --> 0:24:44.040 So a lot of Rhodesia's black residents decide that we 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:46.720 should probably overthrow the government, which is a reasonable conclusion 0:24:46.760 --> 0:24:51.280 to reach given the circumstances. Um, yeah, I bet they 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:58.560 all came together at once. I mean, like, hey, the 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:01.600 British Empire is all on the reasonable side of things. 0:25:01.640 --> 0:25:09.040 I think these guys might be really bad. Yeah. Before 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:16.600 Oh so, having lived under an oppressive capitalist system their 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:20.280 whole lives, most of these rebels decided communism sounded pretty good. Uh. 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:22.280 The U. S s R. In China wound up backing 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:25.200 separate guerrilla armies, and the two fought each other sometimes, 0:25:25.200 --> 0:25:27.480 but they put enough pressure on the embattled white minority 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:30.760 that things began to get very dire for the Rhodesian government. 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:33.879 This racist nation's problems were compounded by the fact that 0:25:33.960 --> 0:25:37.360 virtually the whole world, except for South Africa, slammed Rhodesia 0:25:37.400 --> 0:25:41.400 with sanctions as life in this time, why not South Africa? 0:25:42.119 --> 0:25:44.800 You know, Billy, I've never heard anyone theorize on that. 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:52.679 Look it up later. Yeah. As life in the tiny, 0:25:52.760 --> 0:25:56.400 landlocked country grew more difficult for a large grew more difficult, 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:58.880 a large chunk of the white population fled the country, 0:25:59.040 --> 0:26:05.200 mostly for South Africa. Stuck, you guys, I know a place. 0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:12.960 Studying there is going to be interesting. Stuck between a 0:26:13.040 --> 0:26:15.399 rock and a hard place. The Rhodesian government decided to 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:18.119 turn their national struggle and struggle into a cost celeb 0:26:18.200 --> 0:26:21.320 for the racist right wing worldwide. Of course, they didn't 0:26:21.359 --> 0:26:25.280