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Speaker 1: M microphone. It works. UM, hey everybody. Uh, I'm Robert Evans.

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Speaker 1: I I don't know if you knew that. Um, I

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Speaker 1: didn't butcher this introduction quite as bad as I like

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Speaker 1: habitually am supposed to. So I apologize for that. I

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Speaker 1: know that's why you all came. UM. I'm very excited

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Speaker 1: today because we have both a subject that's really fun

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Speaker 1: and a guest who I love. UH and M have

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Speaker 1: been a fan of since forever. UM. David X. Cohen

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Speaker 1: was a writer on The Simpsons, where he penned such

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Speaker 1: episodes as Itchy and Scratchy and Pucci, which one of

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Speaker 1: the best episodes of the show ever, made twenty two

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Speaker 1: short films about Springfield UM, and coined the word cromulin

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Speaker 1: which and then went on to be an executive producer.

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Speaker 1: And they had water for Futurama, which is like huge

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Speaker 1: chunk of my childhood. I'm sure a lot of people's

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Speaker 1: childhoods here. So uh, that's that's yeah, let's be David.

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Speaker 1: You want to come on out now to give you

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Speaker 1: an all y'allen idea about what a good sport David is. Uh.

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Speaker 1: When he agreed to be in the show, I said,

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Speaker 1: we have this weird thing we do with machetes and

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Speaker 1: bread products. Are you okay playing what is essentially tennis?

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Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, so we'll be We'll be gett

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Speaker 1: into that later. Not just yeah, I was. I was

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Speaker 1: on the high school tennis team, on a very bad team,

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Speaker 1: but on the tennis team. So I'm planning to take

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Speaker 1: it extremely seriously and beat you badly. It's gonna be

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Speaker 1: a great night. David. How are you doing today? Very

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Speaker 1: good and a little We did a two different Futurama

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Speaker 1: related shows in the past twenty four hours. Well, today

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Speaker 1: I have something that is not related to futur When

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Speaker 1: you were a kid, did you ever read Soldier of

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Speaker 1: Fortune magazine? I did not read Soldier of Fortune magazine.

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Speaker 1: I read Mad Magazine. Is it similar? A lot of

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Speaker 1: anger went into both, but probably more into Soldier of

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Speaker 1: Fortune and a very specific kind of anger. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: we're obviously in this place as a nation right now

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Speaker 1: where like recklessly bad journalism has done a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of damage to the body politic and we're all kind

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Speaker 1: of grappling with what that means. But even within like

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Speaker 1: the context of things like the Epoch Times and Bright

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Speaker 1: bart News, Soldier of Fortune stands out is maybe the

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Speaker 1: most reckless magazine anyone ever printed. And this is this

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Speaker 1: may be a foolish question, but on behalf of the

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Speaker 1: audience as well. Is it still going strong? Are they

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Speaker 1: printing the magazine still? I remember it from when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid. Is it still going printing? No, it

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Speaker 1: still exists, and we'll we'll cover that at the end,

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Speaker 1: but it's not it it's heyday. But and it's heyday.

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Speaker 1: I think this magazine may have directly killed more people

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Speaker 1: than any other magazine. Yeah, a lot, a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: like so many more than you're going to expect. Are

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Speaker 1: you ready to learn about Soldier of Fortune magazine? I

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Speaker 1: am embracing myself. Sounds pretty grim. Now before we can

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Speaker 1: talk about Soldier of Fortune, we have to talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about the man who created it, A near

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Speaker 1: legendary figure named Robert K. Brown. So that's the origin man,

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Speaker 1: and then you're named after him? Is that yes? Okay? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they just there were a couple of other Roberts in

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Speaker 1: between me and him, so I got an e last name.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you two are the two main ones, I think, yea, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Now Robert Brown was born on November two, nineteen thirty two,

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Speaker 1: and Monroe, Michigan. And I've been able to find vanishingly

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Speaker 1: little about his his early life until he entered college

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Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty. At the time, there was a draft

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Speaker 1: going on, and Brown saw some sort of military service

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Speaker 1: as inevitable. UM, and so he decided he'd rather be

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Speaker 1: a fighter pilot than anything and he joined Air Force

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Speaker 1: r OTC to try to make that happen. So pretty

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Speaker 1: normal beginning for kid in the fifties so far, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fine start. Uh. He wound up having some behavioral difficulties

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Speaker 1: in college and was forced to transfer in nineteen fifty

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Speaker 1: three to the University of Colorado because, in his words,

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Speaker 1: the dean and I agreed it was best I leave

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Speaker 1: Michigan State. Uh. Was was this a violence related thing?

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Speaker 1: Or did he have but like it wasn't like a

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Speaker 1: he didn't also have like me two issues or I'm

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Speaker 1: definite going I haven't heard any direct allegations. I would

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Speaker 1: be uttered he was d in one specific way. So far, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean that that we know of, UM. But but

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Speaker 1: it's also almost impossible that this guy didn't have something

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Speaker 1: like that happened, given the rest of his background. Um so,

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Speaker 1: due to a mix of his new colleges policies and

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Speaker 1: his bad eyesight, Brown eventually had to accept that he

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Speaker 1: was not going to become a fighter pilot, so a

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Speaker 1: little bit of tragedy early on. So he joins the

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Speaker 1: Marine Corps Reserve instead, but his recruiter is a guy

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Speaker 1: who he goes on to call a snake whale salesman

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Speaker 1: um and instead convinces him to join the Army when

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Speaker 1: it's time to join full time rather than the Marine Corps,

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Speaker 1: promising that he can become a special agent in the

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Speaker 1: counter Intelligence Corps, which is not a job that he

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Speaker 1: can actually have. Um So this was a bald faced lie,

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Speaker 1: as are most things that military recruiters still young children,

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Speaker 1: um but fantasizing about platinum blonds and Cadillac convertibles, Brown agreed,

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Speaker 1: uh and signed on the dotted line. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: as an and seen the current round of ads for

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Speaker 1: joining the military, because they mean they they they're all

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Speaker 1: portrayed as video games literally like three D graphics, and

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Speaker 1: they're using like classic rock songs to you, like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know if they're also trying to get my generation

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Speaker 1: to also sign up, but they're really, they really make

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Speaker 1: it look really fun. I have to say, I'm excited.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty tempting. I'm excited for the next round of

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Speaker 1: adds that they set to fortunate Son, like, let's let's

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Speaker 1: just go ahead and coren into the death of Irony

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Speaker 1: and so um. Robert Brown uh winds up in the

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Speaker 1: Army in October of nineteen and he loves it, particularly

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Speaker 1: the shooting guns part. Um spoilers. This guy's kind of

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Speaker 1: a big gun dude, um, which I know is a

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Speaker 1: real surprise. Um yeah. So uh. The whole experience of

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Speaker 1: basic training convinced him for the rest of his life

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Speaker 1: that the draft was a really good idea that never

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Speaker 1: should have been discontinued. So some people may disagree with that,

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Speaker 1: so it's a strong take. Um yeah. Once Robert graduated

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Speaker 1: from training, he was informed that the special agent job

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Speaker 1: that he was promised was actually clerk analyst, which he

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Speaker 1: considered to basically be secretary. Where so he signs up

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Speaker 1: to be James Bond and he gets a job shuffling papers.

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Speaker 1: That would be a good character to add to James Bunn,

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Speaker 1: the guy who like slips the you know, razor razors

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Speaker 1: into the letters in the mail room or something like that.

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Speaker 1: What letter of the alphabets not claimed for a character

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Speaker 1: in James bond am mail No M No, we've got

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Speaker 1: an M I envelope e. Uh so yeah. Um. Robert

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Speaker 1: was profoundly bad at this job and he failed the

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Speaker 1: training course for it four times, um, which I I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure how you do that. It was the alphabet

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Speaker 1: um when he was. When he did eventually finally graduate,

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Speaker 1: he found the idea of doing the work itself hateful

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Speaker 1: because it didn't involve shooting anybody. Um. So instead he

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Speaker 1: decided to go to Officer Candidate school in order to

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Speaker 1: escape the tedium of desk work. He graduated and with

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Speaker 1: later brag of two major accomplishments. In this period, he

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Speaker 1: received more demerits than any other member of his class.

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Speaker 1: And he was the best shot with a heavy machine gun.

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Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, the guy with behavior problems is real

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Speaker 1: good at shooting. So we're on a good path so far.

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Speaker 1: Feeling optimistic about this guy. So is he was? He

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Speaker 1: sort of was going postal basically accept he didn't it

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Speaker 1: was it was before the chairm existed. He kind of

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Speaker 1: he was a transitter And yeah, I guess right, and

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Speaker 1: he found the one workers a bad name. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's very good for all of he didn't become a

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Speaker 1: postal worker, although bad for all of us that he

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Speaker 1: got into journalism. So um. Brown's dreams of daring do

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Speaker 1: in the army were initially cut short when his father died. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He opted for a state side job in Wisconsin and

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Speaker 1: worked at cushy desk gigs so we could help his family.

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Speaker 1: He left active service in nineteen fifty seven, having failed

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Speaker 1: to see any action, and he spent the next few

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Speaker 1: years in the army reserves. Robert had fallen in love

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Speaker 1: with the idea of being a soldier, but was frustrated

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Speaker 1: by the lack of violence he'd actually experienced. But then,

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Speaker 1: luckily for Robert, Fidel Castro launched a rebellion against the

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Speaker 1: dictatorial rule of Fugencio Batista, providing Robert Brown with an opportunity.

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Speaker 1: And as weird as it is for a guy who's

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Speaker 1: like the founder of like this weird chunk of the

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Speaker 1: conservative media today, uh, Robert Brown became a pro Castro

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Speaker 1: activist and like spend time illegally smuggling machine guns to

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Speaker 1: Cuban revolutionaries and stuff. So that's cool and um carry on. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah. He eventually tricked his colleges student newspaper into

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Speaker 1: issuing him press credentials, which is one of the most

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Speaker 1: important things about being a journalist is tricking someone into

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Speaker 1: issuing you credentials. So he nails the first part of

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Speaker 1: the job, and he spent some time in Havana, but

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Speaker 1: he doesn't see any action. Um. And he gets repeatedly

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Speaker 1: invited by people he meets in Havana to go attend

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Speaker 1: to these other civil wars that are brewing all throughout

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Speaker 1: Latin America, but he keeps missing out on them. Um,

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Speaker 1: so he just is the frustration is just unbearable. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah always uh, I don't know. I'm trying to do

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Speaker 1: the always a bridesmaid, never a bride thing, but for brutal,

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Speaker 1: grinding civil insurgencies, and it didn't come to me. You

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Speaker 1: can work it out, so um. He did manage to

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Speaker 1: participate as a war correspondent, though he was hired by

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Speaker 1: the AP to interview a refugee Spanish general promising to

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Speaker 1: overthrow the dictator, Francisco franco U. The resulting article did well,

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Speaker 1: and Brown struck up a friendly acquaintanceship with the general

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Speaker 1: who would helped train Castro's guerrillas too. The general gave

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Speaker 1: Brown a copy of a book called A hundred and

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Speaker 1: Fifty Questions for a Guerrilla, a manual for how to

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Speaker 1: fight an insurgent campaign. Robert Brown instantly saw dollar signs

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Speaker 1: and opened a publishing company to translate the book into

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Speaker 1: English and sell it in the USA. It was he

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Speaker 1: a good writer? Like? Was he actually competent in that? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I would say he was competent. He was good at

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Speaker 1: what he was trying to do. He accomplished his goals. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I should maybe I should try that career. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I have an idea for a magazine. UM. Robert worked

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Speaker 1: as a as a journalist for a little while, writing

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Speaker 1: mainly for Guns magazine very August publication, What was the

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Speaker 1: magazine about? Um? In similar publication. But as the Vietnam

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Speaker 1: War kicked off for the United States and the sixties,

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Speaker 1: Brown found himself drawn back to his dreams of getting

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Speaker 1: shot at. That's that's good, that's his goal. Well, if

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Speaker 1: you're getting shot at, that gives you an excuse to

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Speaker 1: shoot at, to shoot back, right exactly. I can see

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Speaker 1: why you would win to get shot It's every man

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Speaker 1: who wants to shoot someone's dream. So Brown rejoined active duty.

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Speaker 1: He became a Green Beret, and he served from nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight to nineteen sixty nine. UH. He was wounded

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Speaker 1: badly in a mortar attack and was kicked out of

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Speaker 1: the Green Berets for reasons that are never really adequately explained.

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Speaker 1: But he did have a good reputation as a leader.

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Speaker 1: One of his comrades and medics of this about him

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Speaker 1: decades later, he was the kind of guy you wanted

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Speaker 1: as your CEO in Vietnam. He really stuck his neck

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Speaker 1: out for the people he was in charge of. So

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Speaker 1: and you got shot in it, and you got shot

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Speaker 1: in it. So yeah, Brown was a pretty good soldier.

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Speaker 1: He eventually retired as a lieutenant colonel. But at least

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Speaker 1: for him, at least, the Vietnam War did not end

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Speaker 1: well for the United States. Brown returned home to a

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Speaker 1: nation UH that widely considered the war he nearly died

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Speaker 1: and to be a colossal waste of money and lives

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Speaker 1: and everything it can be a waste of wasn't It

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Speaker 1: wasn't a great call um. Many protesters called soldiers like

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Speaker 1: him baby killers, and Brown quickly recognized that he was

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Speaker 1: part of a new generation of retired warrior who was

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Speaker 1: increasingly isolated from mainstream American society. He'd been a kid

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Speaker 1: during World War Two and that had been very celebrated

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Speaker 1: as a collective endeavor. Uh, and he was frustrated that

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Speaker 1: like his generation of soldiers weren't getting the respect that

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Speaker 1: they deserved. He said, I'm going to go on the

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Speaker 1: Internet and link up with other people. Like, oh, it

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Speaker 1: hasn't been invented yet. You kind of spoil it because

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Speaker 1: this guy does create the dark Web accidentally, just in

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Speaker 1: magazine form. Yeah, I mean it's what It's what I

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Speaker 1: would have done. I guess I'm just channeling. Yeah. Um. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he finds himself like frustrated that he's not getting enough respect,

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Speaker 1: that veterans aren't getting what he sees is enough respect,

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Speaker 1: frustrated that America is on this new peace nick trend

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Speaker 1: and not willing to go to war as often as

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Speaker 1: he wants it to. Um. And so, like a rational,

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Speaker 1: sane person, he goes on vacation around several civil wars

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Speaker 1: in Africa. What do you what do you do? Right?

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Speaker 1: You know? So, after a couple of years of living

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Speaker 1: as a war tourist in places? Is that? That? Is

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Speaker 1: that a real thing? I mean I've done a little

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Speaker 1: bit of that. I know some I have. I won't

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Speaker 1: name names, but I have a friend who's a disaster

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Speaker 1: tourist who like, they'll go like, oh, you know, Fukushima

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Speaker 1: hotel rooms in Japan are gonna be really cheap next week.

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Speaker 1: And I thought at first you were going to say

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Speaker 1: that he liked liked to visit the sites of terrible disasters,

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Speaker 1: but he's just thrifty exactly. Yeah. No, Um, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've done some I've done. I mean I've I've worked

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Speaker 1: in war zones and stuff. And there's a the spit

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Speaker 1: that verge on uncomfortable tourism, like the hotels in Iraq

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Speaker 1: are incredibly cheap and very nice. Um, but yeah, they

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Speaker 1: just tiny aside along those lines for a second. But

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Speaker 1: back when we were making Future Ima, we got invited

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Speaker 1: to Matt Greeney and I get invited to some kind

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Speaker 1: of a Kurdish film festival animation, I don't know what

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Speaker 1: it was, and they're like, don't worry, you'll be totally safe.

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Speaker 1: We'll have twenty four hour guards post game. And that's

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Speaker 1: nothing makes me feel less safe than knowing. Any twenty

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Speaker 1: four hour guard posted, Oh man, yeah, I mean they

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Speaker 1: probably would have sent you guys to Irbil. It's a

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Speaker 1: nice city. Um. But yeah, I mean there's a K

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Speaker 1: forty seven's all over the well less than here. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna be honest, You're not going to a place with

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Speaker 1: more guns. I did have the second time I flew

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Speaker 1: in to Iraq, I had left a single round of

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Speaker 1: nine millimeter in my bag. Um. And as we arrive

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Speaker 1: at the airport in Iraq, they find it. And like,

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Speaker 1: none of the airports that I scanned it through had

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Speaker 1: found it. None of them had an issue. But they

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Speaker 1: search all your stuff when you land in Iraq, and

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Speaker 1: they were so angry, and I kept like looking over

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Speaker 1: to my photographer being like, are they really worried we're

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Speaker 1: gonna bring one extra bullet in? This is gonna tip it? Uh?

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Speaker 1: But um okay, so um. Robert Brown finds himself in

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Speaker 1: Africa hanging out at a couple of civil wars, you know,

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Speaker 1: shooting the ship with mercenaries. Um. And he meets a

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Speaker 1: couple of mercenaries who are about to go over to

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Speaker 1: oman Uh and fight putting down an insurrection for the Sultan,

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Speaker 1: and this gives him an idea. He writes to the

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Speaker 1: Oman Ministry of Defense and inquires about taking a job

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Speaker 1: as a mercenary. There, they send him a contract. Brown

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Speaker 1: had no desire to actually do this job, but he

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Speaker 1: knew that there were an awful lot of glory seeking

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Speaker 1: Americans who would jump at the opportunity, so he took

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Speaker 1: out ads in a series of gun magazines, reading quote,

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Speaker 1: want to be a mercenary in the Middle East, Send

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Speaker 1: five dollars. Wow, that guy's a genius. He's like, so

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Speaker 1: far you've come. You're like, this is going completely the

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Speaker 1: wrong way. I'm just more and more impressed. But just guy,

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Speaker 1: he's not a dumb man. It's a great grift. So, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of Americans sending five dollars per chance to be

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Speaker 1: a mercenary in the Middle East. Um yeah. He basically

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Speaker 1: just xerox the contract, need mail it out to people

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Speaker 1: who sent him the money. Um, and yeah, he makes

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Speaker 1: like ten dollars and it's it's unlikely that any of

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Speaker 1: his clients actually wound up fighting a Oman. One has

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Speaker 1: to assume that most men who volunteered to join a

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Speaker 1: war effort based on an ad in a magazine are

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Speaker 1: not particularly qualified soldiers. But um, the financial success of

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Speaker 1: the endeavor convinced Brown that there was a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of money to be made and playing to the dream

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Speaker 1: of in every man's heart that he might, in the

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Speaker 1: right circumstances, be a total badass. Now this might be

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Speaker 1: another dumb question, but is it legal to be a

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Speaker 1: mercenary for another country if you're a US citizen? Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we go back and forth on that. As a nation,

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Speaker 1: it kind of depends on the war. You have to

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Speaker 1: report the your income and you're like, I'm I'm fighting

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Speaker 1: first different countries army Like that seems seems like you

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Speaker 1: might invite scrutiny of your tax return at a minimum. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think it's one of those

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Speaker 1: things like being a drug dealer. There's that thing the

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Speaker 1: i R S lets you mark. It's like, I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to tell you how I got this money, but

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Speaker 1: here's how much money I have. But but here's how

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Speaker 1: many iraqi lira I made this year, and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to write off a lot of ammunition. Um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Robert Brown uses the tin grant he makes scamming

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Speaker 1: gun nuts to fund the creation of a new magazine,

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Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune. His stated goal was to rehabilitate the

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Speaker 1: image of the warrior in American society. So exciting. Yeah uh,

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Speaker 1: he said this later quote, a lot of Vietnam veterans

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Speaker 1: felt they weren't given their due, so I wanted to

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Speaker 1: promote the concept of giving them recognition. We said, our

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Speaker 1: blood was just as red as anyone who fought in

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Speaker 1: World War One or World War Two or Korea. But

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Speaker 1: that wasn't the case in society at the time. So

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Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune likely would have been a blip on

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Speaker 1: the radar if it weren't for a particular stroke of

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Speaker 1: marketing genius by Robert Brown. Because he didn't just angle

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Speaker 1: it as a magazine for veterans. He fashioned Soldier of

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Speaker 1: Fortune as quote, the journal of Professional Adventurers, So it

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Speaker 1: was a magazine from mercenaries. Was it filled with his

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Speaker 1: own more of those ads? Still the five the centi

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Speaker 1: fire villari like because because again just again like just admiring,

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Speaker 1: Like it's like I'm getting five dollars in the end,

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Speaker 1: but they're not paying me for the magazine. So it's

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Speaker 1: like if he could just invent the magazine just to

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Speaker 1: run his own end. That's also brilliant. Yeah, he we'll

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Speaker 1: get to that. This is a man who never gives

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Speaker 1: up on his dream of getting other people to fight

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Speaker 1: and someone else's worse. Um, and he's yeah so um. Now,

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Speaker 1: the problem with magazine aimed at mercenaries is that there's

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Speaker 1: not a lot of mercenaries, and and a lot of

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Speaker 1: them can't read, and a lot of them cannot read,

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Speaker 1: which is why you become a mercenary. Um. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: there were like maybe a thousand or two people in

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Speaker 1: the world who both spoke English and fit the definition

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Speaker 1: of a mercenary. But Brown's real target was not hard

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Speaker 1: bitten warriors. It was aging baby boomers who thought they

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Speaker 1: probably could have been hard bitten mercenaries if they hadn't

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Speaker 1: gotten that girl pregnant back in sixty two. Um. Here's

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Speaker 1: how Mike Royko of the Chicago Tribune described the magazine's

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Speaker 1: clientele in quote, It's directed at professional mercenaries, men who

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Speaker 1: will fight for pay and those that want to hire them.

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Speaker 1: But since mercenaries represent only a tiny portion of the

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Speaker 1: reading population, the magazine tries to broaden its appeal to

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Speaker 1: include those who might be called war fans. Weapons lovers,

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Speaker 1: fanatic anti commies, and Walter Middi types to enjoy the

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Speaker 1: vicarious thrill of reading about blood and guts. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the that's the audience. We don't know anything about

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Speaker 1: that group. That's um So he's but he's really he's

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Speaker 1: the first person in American history to really like decide

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Speaker 1: to market directly to that group of people. Um which

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Speaker 1: turns out to be a really good idea from a

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Speaker 1: money standpoint, or if you want to run for president

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Speaker 1: or if you want to run for presidents. This is

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Speaker 1: a very pro Trump podcast. Aggressively really offended people here. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we are we are in the middle

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Speaker 1: of red San Francisco. I meant that in the opposite

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Speaker 1: of the way most people mean. So. The first ever

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Speaker 1: issue of Soldier of Fortune, it featured a glossy color

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Speaker 1: picture of a soldier with a rifle behind a barbed

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Speaker 1: wire fence with a red sun setting in the background.

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Speaker 1: The whole image was cast in a green tent as

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Speaker 1: it being viewed through night vision goggles. Articles included underwater

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Speaker 1: knife fighting techniques, which I am desperately curious about because

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Speaker 1: I can imagine a handful of people in history have

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Speaker 1: had to stab someone while underwater. I'm sure it's happened,

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Speaker 1: but to need to do it enough to have a technique.

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Speaker 1: But you're sometimes you need to also defend yourself against

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Speaker 1: a giant squid or something like that. It isn't not

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Speaker 1: necessarily a human. There's a lot of stuff to stab underwater.

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Speaker 1: That's a very good point. I am sorry for suggesting

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Speaker 1: that people might not need to stab aquatic life just said,

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Speaker 1: nive you you really you really grasp the fundamental precept

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Speaker 1: of this podcast, which is abs. Always be stabbing, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: always be stabbing. It might be it might be like

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Speaker 1: an underwater high school biology class where they're doing a

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Speaker 1: dissection in the in the way. So uh. Other articles

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Speaker 1: included Urban Street Survival Part one, which I feel like

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Speaker 1: the underwater knife fighting might help with uh, and of

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Speaker 1: course American mercenaries in Africa. Now. That last article was

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Speaker 1: a feature about the conflict in a little place that

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Speaker 1: doesn't exist anymore called Rhodeja. What do you what do

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Speaker 1: you know about Rhodesia diamonds? Right? Yeah, I think so? Yeah,

396
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Speaker 1: probably named Cecil rhodes is Yeah, very good turned into

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Speaker 1: is it is it? Zimbabwe? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: nailed it great um now. Uh. But before it turned

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Speaker 1: into Zimbabwe, it was a little bit of problematic um

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Speaker 1: because Rhodesia was a white supremacist state um that broke

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Speaker 1: away from the British Empire in nineteen sixty five over

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Speaker 1: the issue of whether or not black people should be

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Speaker 1: able to vote. They did not take the positive attitude

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Speaker 1: on that. So the three percent of the nation that

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Speaker 1: was white controlled virtually all of Rhodes's resources. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: they knew that letting black people vote would change that

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Speaker 1: state of affairs. Here's how Soldier of Fortune described the conflict.

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Speaker 1: What the Brits wanted was for the blacks to get

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Speaker 1: a vote, one man, one vote. Of course that would

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Speaker 1: mean the blacks would get into power. So the white

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Speaker 1: Rhodesian's unilaterally implemented the Universal Declaration of Independence in nine

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Speaker 1: And I have to emphasize here they're not framing that

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Speaker 1: as a bad thing. They're being like, of course, this

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Speaker 1: is what happened. They were going to take all of

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Speaker 1: their stuff that they stole from them. So this is Rhodesia.

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Speaker 1: We're not maybe maybe not talking about a super woke town. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: for some reason, this piste off a lot of people.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, the vast majority of the population in Rhodesia

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Speaker 1: did not support the white supremacist state that governed it,

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Speaker 1: and many of these people decided to become insurgents and

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Speaker 1: attempt to overthrow the government. Uh And, because they lived

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Speaker 1: their lives dominated by an incredibly oppressive colonial capitalist system,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them wound up being like, maybe communism

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Speaker 1: is a good idea. Uh And. There were two different

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Speaker 1: large groups of insurgents, one backed by the U. S

426
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: s R. And one backed by China. Uh And, in

427
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: the tradition of leftist revolutionaries throughout history, they fought each

428
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: other as much as they fought the people that they

429
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: were fighting against. Um And. But yeah, they still managed

430
00:25:59,920 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: to put enough pressure on the embattled white minority that

431
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: things began to get very dire for the government of Rhodesia. Now,

432
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: this racist nation's problems were compounded by the fact that

433
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: basically the whole world, save South Africa and Israel, slammed

434
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: Rhodesia with sanctions. As life in the tiny, landlocked country

435
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 1: grew more difficult, a large chunk of the white populace fled,

436
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 1: mostly for South Africa. Stuck between a rock and a

437
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: hard place, The Rhodesian government decided to turn their national

438
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: struggle into a cost celeb for the racist people in

439
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: the world. Good for them, Yeah, that's smart. Let's crowdfund

440
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: our vicious war of colonial oppression. No one's tried it yet,

441
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 1: so that's what they did. Um. Now, they didn't frame

442
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: it as a racist crusade. I earned fifty blood diamonds

443
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 1: this year. That's your that's my tax return for that.

444
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 1: Just a sack of gore in quest they withheld. They

445
00:26:52,160 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: withheld five blood diamonds. So, um, Rhodesia was eligient enough

446
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: to do that. Like, we can't just say we want

447
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 1: help fighting our super racist war of racism. Um. So,

448
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: being somewhat canny, they decided to frame what they were

449
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: doing as a battle against communism. Prime Minister Ian Smith

450
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,159
Speaker 1: called his nation the ultimate bastion against communism on the

451
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: African continent. Mainstream American conservatives tended to embrace this idea.

452
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: William F. Buckley organized the Friends of Rhodesian Independence campaign,

453
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: which worked to spread propaganda to Americans about what a

454
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,639
Speaker 1: neat place Rhodesia really was. But no single publication did

455
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 1: as much to popularize the Rhodesian cause as soldier of

456
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: Fortune magazine. Starting in nineteen seventy five, they ran a

457
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:41,440
Speaker 1: series of lurid articles about the American volunteers fighting in Rhodesia.

458
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: Interviews with these men focused on the failures of the

459
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,640
Speaker 1: United States to stop Communism from getting a foothold in Africa,

460
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:49,639
Speaker 1: which was heightened after Congressional democrats had stopped the CIA

461
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: from aiding fascists and Angola against the socialist regime. There.

462
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: One mercenary in that first issue complained, the West isn't

463
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: doing its job. The US especially isn't doing its duty.

464
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: If they're too scared to fight the communists, then people

465
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,199
Speaker 1: like me have to act independently. I consider it my

466
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: duty to fight in Rhodesia after Vietnam, in Angola, we

467
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:13,720
Speaker 1: can't afford to lose any other countries. Now. Did Robert sorry,

468
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: what's his last name again? Brown? Brown? I knew, I

469
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: knew it was something complicated like that. Did he did?

470
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: He go? He did? Okay? I mean it was good,

471
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: some good war tourism there. Yeah, because they've got armored

472
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: vehicles so you're pretty safe to see. Yeah. Yeah, No,

473
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: he loved him some h He wasn't just writing from

474
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: a distance. No, he's a he sees a lot of

475
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: war over the course of his life. Just you know,

476
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: all is somebody who gets to leave when they get

477
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: border scared. Yeah, which is the best way to see war, Like,

478
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. Uh so um. While Soldier of

479
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: Fortune magazine did not throw out racial slurs, the racism

480
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: in its Rhodesian coverage was really obvious. At one point,

481
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: a mercenary was quoted as saying, what we have here

482
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: is an ideal core of white people who were able

483
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: to raise the standard of living among the Africans without

484
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: us conditions, will decline rapidly now. After Vietnam, the United

485
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: States had probably the highest population of unemployed combat veterans

486
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: in the world, and a few of those men joined

487
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: the Rhodesian fighting effort and rose to high levels in

488
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 1: its military establishment. But most volunteers were far from hardened operators. Instead,

489
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: they were folks who'd missed out on their chance to

490
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: fight in Vietnam and wanted desperately to experience combat. For

491
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,719
Speaker 1: these men, Soldier of Fortune published a series of articles

492
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: written by Major Nick Lamprect, the chief recruiting officer for

493
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: the Rhodesian Army. He provided step by step advice for

494
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: how they could apply to join and be flown out

495
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: to the country to be inducted into the army as conscripts.

496
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: Lampreck to promise that the work would be difficult but rewarding,

497
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: saying Rhodesia has many things to offer. Good Rhodesian beer,

498
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: a friendly populace, and what I would describe as a

499
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: free and easy, unhurried way of life, lots of wide

500
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:57,959
Speaker 1: open spaces. It's fun to describe a friendly populace when

501
00:29:57,960 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: you're trying to get people to fight a brutal anti

502
00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: in surgeon. Uh So, for years, Soldier of Fortune ran

503
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: glossy recruiting articles with full page spreads featuring the elite

504
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 1: Rhodesian Light Infantry and Seleu scouts locked in glorious combat.

505
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: Some four hundred American men were eventually induced to join

506
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: the fight, mostly from Soldier of Fortune magazine articles. That's

507
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars. That's two thousand dollars, and as you

508
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: might expect from men who joined a war based on

509
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: a magazine article, they were not very good at it.

510
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: Most Rhodesian volunteers were people whose lives in the United States.

511
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: We're not going super well um, so yeah. In nineteen

512
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: seventy nine, one reporter noted the majority found the routine

513
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: too tough to last more than a few months. The

514
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: desertion rate among American citizens who have joined the Rhodesian

515
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,239
Speaker 1: Army over the past two years is estimated to run

516
00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: about The best case scenario is eight of these guys

517
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: are like, oh this is horrible. I don't like war

518
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 1: at all. What a mistake I've made. But a good

519
00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: number of them died, John, I mean they joined, they

520
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: joined the racist army like they could have joined the army,

521
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: and they joined the racist army like. So of that

522
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: didn't deserve a lot of them day oh yeah, So

523
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: that a small percent that didn't desert and didn't die. Yeah, okay, yeah,

524
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 1: not a lot of not a lot of long term

525
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: veterans Rhodesian Army out there one day to retirement. John

526
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: Allan Coey, a medic from Cleveland, Ohio, joined based on

527
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: a Soldier of Fortune article and was gunned down by

528
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: insurgents almost immediately after arriving in the country. Soldier of

529
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: Fortune published a hagiographic article quoting him as saying this,

530
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:15,239
Speaker 1: since coming to Rhodesia, I've heard I don't even want

531
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: to finish the st interviewed, very short, interviewed, finish the clock. No, no,

532
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 1: you know what, We're gonna let that one sit. Soldier

533
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: of Fortune articles on Rhodes rarely made blatant lies. It

534
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: was a lot easier to just ignore facts that didn't

535
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: reinforce the narrative. And one piece they noted the unrivaled

536
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: CELU Scouts, the covert elite special force regiment of a

537
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 1: thousand that consisted of black and white, with a majority

538
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 1: of blacks, were credited with gathering spot on intelligence for

539
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: the regular army. Lines like that are technically true, but

540
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: neglect to mention the fact that only white people were

541
00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 1: allowed to be officers as an army of conscripted black

542
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 1: led by white volunteer soldiers. Maybe an important fact to include.

543
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: I don't write for Soldier of Fortune. I'm just giving

544
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: some notes now. I think I think you sound to me,

545
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: you sound a little bitter. They never I mean just

546
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: because that you couldn't get hired doesn't mean it was

547
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: my dream ever since I came by my first copy

548
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: of Soldier of Fortune. In that gun show, right next

549
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: to the were mocked helmets, and the other were mocked helmets. Yeah. Basically,

550
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: the picture that Soldier of Fortune like to paint of

551
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: the Rhodesian War was kind of similar to like the

552
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: Lost Cause narrative of the Civil War here in the

553
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: United States, that there was this like glorious lost land

554
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: and this wonderful culture and like it's it's you know,

555
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: it was was tragically snatched by the jaws of these

556
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: people who wanted to, you know, vote. So, actual articles

557
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: from real journalists who visited Rhodesia painted a very different

558
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: picture of what was going on there. I'm gonna quote

559
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: now for a nineteen seventy nine Washington Post article I

560
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: found by an actual journalist as opposed to a guy

561
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: who just likes to get shot at for fun. Quote.

562
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: The first impressions are of the rural South I knew

563
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: as a boy in the nineteen thirties. Black maids and

564
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: house boys earning twenty to sixty dollars a month, fetching

565
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: bow saying master and boss. Black laborers working for twelve

566
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: to twenty dollars a month plus rations cluster and grass

567
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: huts on the white farmers land, like the Mississippi sharecroppers

568
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,919
Speaker 1: of the remembered past. They're like children. A housewife says,

569
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: you have to do everything for them. You have to

570
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: stand over them to get anything done. It's more trouble

571
00:34:35,440 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: than it's worth sometimes, but they are very happy people.

572
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: It's not like South Africa. A young woman asks if

573
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: we have a dishwasher, a clothes washer and a dryer.

574
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: She laughs, you know what we call them here, and

575
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: then she says the N word. Uh yeah, not nice people. Um.

576
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 1: Also kind of wild to say you have to do

577
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: everything for the people whose explicit job is to do

578
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: everything for you. I'm giving notes on Rhodesia now. Um.

579
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: The Rhodesian Bush War ended in nineteen seventy nine, and

580
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: when rebels succeeded in blowing up the nation's entire strategic

581
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 1: fuel reserved, maybe you don't keep it all in one

582
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: place again with a note, but like uh, at final toll,

583
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,120
Speaker 1: more than eleven hundred Rhodesian soldiers died, along with roughly

584
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: ten thousand rebels and more than twenty thousand civilians. And

585
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: it is unlikely that the few hundred mercenary soldier of

586
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: fortune induced to joy and had a sizeable impact on

587
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: the conflict, but they did an awful lot to influence

588
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: how Rhodesia has gone on to be remembered by thousands

589
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,800
Speaker 1: of racists around the world. You remember that Soldier of

590
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 1: Fortune article I quoted from a little earlier, the one

591
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: that glossed over the fact that the nation was founded

592
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: out of a desire to stop black people from voting.

593
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: It sounds familiar. Yeah, well, that article was not written

594
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: during the time of the Rhodesian Bush War. It was

595
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: published in two thousand twelve. Three years later, in two

596
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen, Dylan Ruth walked into a black church in

597
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: Charleston and shot nine people to death. A stated goal

598
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 1: was to provoke a race war. He left behind a

599
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 1: manifesto titled The Last Rhodesian. So yeah, there's a real horrible, negative,

600
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 1: long term consequence to the myths that Soldier of Fortune

601
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 1: was integral to setting up. So this is the actual

602
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: death count is beginning. Yeah. Well and all those mercenaries

603
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: yeah this yeah, yeah, um, and yeah. I want to

604
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: note too that like, uh, basically, like the argument that

605
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune would make is that, like, well, Robert

606
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: Mugabi took over Zimbabwe after Rhodesia fell, and he was

607
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 1: terrible and he was he was a monster. Um, but

608
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: that kind of neglects to mention that Mugabi wasn't a

609
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: factor in like politics in the region until all of

610
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 1: his predecessors were assassinated by the Rhodesian Army. I don't

611
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:57,359
Speaker 1: know notes again, so, uh, yeah, While the Rhodesian Bush

612
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: War was a disaster for humanity, it was a great

613
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 1: time for Robert Brown and his writers. They got to

614
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: take a lot of trips to Rhodesia, drink that good beer,

615
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:07,479
Speaker 1: drive around in armored vehicles, shoot at people who were

616
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: trying to vote. Um. It was a cool time for

617
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 1: him and his friends. Can you shoot an a K

618
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: forty seven? Well, you haven't absolutely, absolutely, and in fact,

619
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: if you have the opportunity, it's almost required that you

620
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: do so now obviously, Uh, as you noted a little

621
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,839
Speaker 1: bit earlier. UM, there's some legal questions about recruiting mercenaries

622
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: to fight for a pariah state that the US has

623
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: under embargo. UM, and the FBI did investigate into whether

624
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 1: or not Soldier of Fortune was breaking the law by

625
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: soliciting mercenaries. UM, but they kind of got off on

626
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:46,280
Speaker 1: a technicality because the soldiers who joined to fight Rhodesia

627
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,720
Speaker 1: joined the Rhodesian Army as regular troops, so they weren't

628
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,720
Speaker 1: legally mercenaries, so it was all fine. So that's cool.

629
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, if you decided to start your own

630
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: soliciting mercenaries business to fight for a ry estate, keep

631
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: that in mind. And what do you call things matters.

632
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: So by the end of the war, Soldier of Fortune

633
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: subscription numbers were more than a hundred thousand people, and

634
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: they changed into Soldier of Signed Contract magazine, signed legal contract.

635
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,799
Speaker 1: As long as there is a third party, we are

636
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: not breaking any loss. Um. Yeah, so, uh, that's pretty cool.

637
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: That's the nineties rule. To an end, Brown continue. Brown

638
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: continued to send his writers off to little wars all

639
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: around the world. Six of them would ultimately die covering

640
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:38,839
Speaker 1: stories he sent them off on um, but he got

641
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: to go to a lot of cool places. He focused

642
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: primarily on struggles between communist and anti communist forces, like

643
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: the Civil War in Angola, and Brown was canny enough

644
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: not to solicit mercenaries directly in the future, but he

645
00:38:50,360 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: didn't need to because many of his readers were the

646
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: same kind of person that he was. And this is

647
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,760
Speaker 1: where we entered the story of a guy named David Buffkin. Uh. David.

648
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: I mean this is I know there's something something weird here.

649
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:09,439
Speaker 1: The worst David and Robert had a less fruitful collaboration

650
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: than us. This David was a former crop duster who

651
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: decided to become a mercenary recruiter when crop dustin got boring.

652
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: So pretty normal career path after forty years of cropdesting,

653
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: you're saying, when god boring. Um, he decided to start

654
00:39:26,760 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: putting up ads in local newspapers and soldier of fortune,

655
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: trying to raise a hundred mercenaries to fight against communists

656
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: and Angola. Now this was maybe a bad idea on

657
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: its face, since the Cuban army alone had spent sent

658
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of soldiers sent to fighting Angola. But

659
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: a hundred mercenaries, you know it's a start. Um. So

660
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 1: to make his case seem more legit, he lied and

661
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,400
Speaker 1: said that he'd gotten an eighty thousand dollar ci a contract.

662
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: A few dozen would be warriors reached out to Buffin, but,

663
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: as one of them later recalled, Buffin obviously had no

664
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: funds available. He operated out of motels, he had no office.

665
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: Potential recruits had to pay their own travel expenses. It

666
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 1: was definitely a shoestring operation, which is not what you want.

667
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: If you're being recruited to go fighting for more, you

668
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: want it if they're not paying for business class. I

669
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,760
Speaker 1: mean this, I mean this is where the word fortune

670
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: comes in. It is not in the name. I mean

671
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 1: it's gonna at least be like an upper tier airline. Yea. Anyway,

672
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: a few very dumb men did agree to go. One

673
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 1: of them was former CIA officer George Bacon, who had

674
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,040
Speaker 1: read this, read one of this guy's ads, and soldier

675
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 1: of fortune decided to join the war effort. He was

676
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 1: killed almost immediately. Um. Yeah. Daniel Gearhardt, a thirty four

677
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: year old Vietnam veteran and financial distress, also replied. His

678
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: wife told him this was a terrible idea, but Buffin

679
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 1: managed to convince him, and soon he found himself over

680
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: in Angola. He was captured immediately without ever getting into combat.

681
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: His wife and family begged gerald Ford to do something,

682
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: but asked hoping resting your hopes on. Gerald Ford was

683
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: not any's other than Richard Nixon. One time. That was

684
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: a big either that it equaled fifteen prisoners of war. Yeah,

685
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: he does not. He did not come through for gear

686
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: Heart Um and the government of Angola decided that what

687
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: he'd done was a crime against their nation, Um, and

688
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: they executed him and a bunch of other mercenaries. Uh.

689
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 1: He and George were not the first soldier of Fortune

690
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: Readers to die as a result of the magazine's classified

691
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 1: ads section, and they would not be the last. And

692
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: of course, the fact that human beings were dying as

693
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:44,680
Speaker 1: a result of his magazine's classified ads section had no

694
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: impact on Robert Brown whatsoever. I found a copy of

695
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:50,439
Speaker 1: the magazine from nineteen eighty and I'd like to read

696
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: you a handful of the different ads. Male twenty five

697
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 1: years old, five ft nine hundred and thirty five pounds.

698
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: Desire security position any location. Excellent marksman and speaks fair German.

699
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 1: I'm anti social, but prefer and prefer working alone. I

700
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: served in the American Army. Possessed no combat experience. There's

701
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: nothing unsettling about that guy. That guy basically had the

702
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,879
Speaker 1: same build as me and was billing himself as a

703
00:42:21,920 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: massive security I mean, he's a good marksman and he

704
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 1: speaks German. He is more qualified than me. Um also

705
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: from Toledo, Ohio. The next Dad x C I a

706
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: attache seeks area in US to fulfill purpose of pro

707
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 1: Western ideals and their success trade crafts many cutout, sanitization, sanctification, playback, disinformation,

708
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: bag jobs, false flag legends, peeps and sounds. Sneaky's sisters available.

709
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,879
Speaker 1: I don't know what sisters have, no idea what that

710
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 1: in CIA parlance, what that means. But all of that

711
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: sounds incredibly shady. Yeah, dead serious inquiries only contract contact

712
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: micro data systems in Huntington Beach, California, So that's probably cool. Yeah.

713
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 1: Madman's Book of Formulas how to make step by step

714
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: goodies like knockout drops, explosives, silencer's poisons, letter bomb, and

715
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: many others must in completing your library. I mean, how

716
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: many times if you needed a letter bomb, you get

717
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 1: a space on your shelf. You gotta play something there.

718
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: You might have a lot more space in your shelf.

719
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: And the last one I'm going to read right now

720
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: wanted patriots, especially veterans who see the coming national crises

721
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: and desire to be prepared. Right for free information to

722
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 1: Christian Patriots Defense League or Citizens Emergency Defense System Flora

723
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: Illinois or call gives a phone number, day or night,

724
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: attend weekend Freedom festivals and conferences in June and September

725
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,439
Speaker 1: on Acre Estate. So that's that's good. Act. Now time

726
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: is short. The first the earlier ones. Now these are

727
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:37,399
Speaker 1: just individuals postings. Yeah, do we have do we know

728
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 1: what the outcomes of any of these? Not of these?

729
00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: We'll get into some of some of them. I mean,

730
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,160
Speaker 1: are they looking to be hit man or like? What

731
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: is that? Yes? Okay, Yeah, So the slogan for Soldier

732
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: of Fortune, displayed in vibrant color on a poster and

733
00:44:56,640 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: their Boulder, Colorado office was killing is our business, and

734
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: business is good. This is good branding, but it is

735
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:06,920
Speaker 1: not strictly accurate. As the years went by, Soldier of

736
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: Fortune made less and less of its money directly soliciting killers,

737
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: which is legally dicey enterprise, and more money just allowing

738
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: random murders to advertise through their classified ads section. Wow. Yeah,

739
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 1: so it is just like Facebook. It's a little more

740
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: ethical than Facebook. But yes, essentially, you know you can

741
00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:39,439
Speaker 1: say this for Soldier of Fortune. It didn't start any genocides. Yeah,

742
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: so a lot of uh, very sketchy individuals started putting

743
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: in adsu in in uh Soldier of Fortunes classified section.

744
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 1: One of them was a Knoxville, Tennessee, nightclub operator and

745
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:55,000
Speaker 1: former prison guard named Richard Michael Savage, which is the

746
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:58,879
Speaker 1: name you'd expect for the story I'm about to tell. Um.

747
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:02,400
Speaker 1: So he places an ad saying gun for higher. Thirty

748
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 1: seven year old professional mercenary desires jobs Vietnam veteran, discreet

749
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: and very private bodyguard, courier and other special skills. All

750
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: jobs considered now. He would claim in court later that

751
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,360
Speaker 1: he received thirty to forty calls a week after placing

752
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:22,360
Speaker 1: this ad in the June eighteen nine five issue of

753
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: the magazine. One person wanted him to recruit a small

754
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: army to rate a gold mine in Alaska. So that's cool, yeah.

755
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: Another floated a plot to steal an army payroll in

756
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: South America. Um and people were at magazine, reported in quote.

757
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: Another wanted to rate Nicaragua and promised to supply guns, camouflage, clothing,

758
00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: rubber boats, and fifty thous dollars for each mercenary when

759
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,400
Speaker 1: the raid was completed. Savage was enthusiastic about every hairbrain

760
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: scheme he heard, but ultimately was persuaded to concentrate on murder.

761
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: So if the caller sounded discreet, Savage would ask for

762
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: a round trip airline ticket and a thousand dollars. The

763
00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: two would meet face to face, then feel each other

764
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: out in a minute of death until each was certain

765
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: of the other's credentials and in a way, Robert Brown

766
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: had succeeded in creating a primitive version of the Dark Web.

767
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: But while every hitman on the Dark Web is just

768
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: an FBI agent, the men who advertised in Soldier of

769
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: Fortune were actually willing to commit murder on strangers. Uh

770
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: Savage took a job to kill a guy named Richard Braun,

771
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: a man in Atlanta. He and to Triggerman, who he

772
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: also recruited through Soldier of Fortune magazine, ambushed Braun and

773
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: his teenage son with a Mac eleven. They killed Braun

774
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: and wounded his boy. Four months after this, Savage was

775
00:47:33,600 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: hired to kill Anita Spearman of Palm Beach, Florida. He

776
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: subcontracted this hit out to yet another Soldier of Fortune reader,

777
00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: a guy named Do tre Uh. Do Tree and Savage

778
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: were paid twenty thou dollars to the hit by Spearman's husband,

779
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:51,760
Speaker 1: who was also a big fan of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Yeah.

780
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: Another hitman was Texas trucker John Hearn. He ran an

781
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 1: ad in four issues of the magazine looking for high

782
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,799
Speaker 1: risk assessments US or overseas ease. So many people called

783
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: Herne that he had to hire an answering service to

784
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: handle all the demands of his callers. Wanted him to

785
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: commit some kind of crime, arranging from bombings and jail

786
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: breaks to simple assault. He received three to five contract

787
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: murder requests every single day, which says a lot about

788
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:22,239
Speaker 1: the readers of Soldier of Fortune, a random doing the

789
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:25,279
Speaker 1: magazines willing to kill people. I got people I won't killed.

790
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 1: In February five, Herne took on the job of murdering

791
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: Sandra Black. Her husband paid him ten thousand dollars to

792
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 1: shoot his wife to death. Are you noticing a pattern here? Yeah? Um,

793
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: a few months later when he was hired by another

794
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune reader to kill two other people. Um.

795
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: And you know then he was caught shortly after that. Uh.

796
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: He was tried, and he insisted that he never would

797
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 1: have gotten started as a hit man if it weren't

798
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: for Soldier of Fortune magazine. And normally I'm hesitant when

799
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:59,879
Speaker 1: people blame a magazine for but might be a point here.

800
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 1: Richard Savage was also caught by the law, and he

801
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,280
Speaker 1: too squealed on soldier of Fortune magazine and a delusion

802
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: news news coverage hit the magazine. Robert Brown denied any

803
00:49:11,200 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: responsibility for the deaths. He ordered his executive editor to

804
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:18,399
Speaker 1: make this statement, We're as culpable as any newspaper which

805
00:49:18,440 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 1: accepts an ad from a used car salesman and doesn't

806
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: go check on the condition of the brakes. M what

807
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:34,920
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Those are analogous situations. Yeah. Still,

808
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,959
Speaker 1: Brown was wise enough. Sometimes you do see the card,

809
00:49:38,000 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: it says it comes fully loaded. That's similar. That was

810
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Sorry. Now, Brown was wise enough to stop

811
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 1: running ads for murderers in six mainly because of the

812
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: legal complications, But if he felt any guilt over all

813
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: of the deaths, he did not show it, Describing his

814
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: career this way in a six editor for the last decade,

815
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: I've hunted terrorists with the Rhodesian African rifles and fired

816
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: up a Russian fort in Afghanistan with a mujah Haddeen.

817
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: Between firefights, takeovers and insurgencies, I managed to put out

818
00:50:11,040 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 1: a magazine. He's pretty cool. Guy uh. He also managed

819
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 1: to get sued by Richard Brown's sons for his role

820
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 1: in their father's murder. They were awarded four point three

821
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:26,320
Speaker 1: million dollars in civil judgments, which were upheld by a

822
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 1: US Court of Appeals. In nineteen ninety two, The New

823
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: York Times wrote this about the case. The Eleventh Circuit

824
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: panel said, however, that while the advertisement in the Texas

825
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: case was fascially innocuous and ambiguous in its message, Mr

826
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: Savage's advertisement clearly conveyed that he was ready, willing and

827
00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 1: able to use his gun to commit crimes. When the

828
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:48,240
Speaker 1: list of legitimate jobs i e. Bodyguarden, courier is followed

829
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 1: by other special skills and all jobs considered, the implication

830
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: is clear that the advertiser would consider illegal jobs. The

831
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,680
Speaker 1: panel said. The publisher could recognize the offer of criminal

832
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: activity as readily and as its readers obviously dead. So

833
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,480
Speaker 1: court makes a good call and Brown wounds up settling

834
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:07,919
Speaker 1: with the Brown family for two dred thousand dollars, Which

835
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 1: is not enough? Was he When he was interviewed about

836
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: this later in two thousands sixteen, he said this, they

837
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: really tried the magazine, not the cases. Two guys meet

838
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: through the magazine. They have a friendly relationship for six months,

839
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,600
Speaker 1: they don't talk about anything illegal, but then six months

840
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: later they agree to commit this horrendous crime. Well, if

841
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,160
Speaker 1: they meet at a bar and six months later they say,

842
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: let's rob a bank, should the bartender be held liable?

843
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 1: It was total crap, which gives me an idea for

844
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:40,600
Speaker 1: a bar. I want to start with all jobs considered,

845
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: now for another and again you you'll be able to

846
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:52,319
Speaker 1: enjoy the dual pleasures of life. That's there aren't any

847
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: drive drink and shoot bars. The pleasures we could We

848
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:01,399
Speaker 1: could combine the the l against of a Texas drive

849
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 1: through liquor store um with the elegance of drunkenly shooting

850
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: at the landscape in Texas. This is really I'm so drunk,

851
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: I missed the landscape. I hit that guy whose name

852
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:24,759
Speaker 1: you gave me. I feel like we'd make more than

853
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: two grand before they finally got us. Yeah. So from

854
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,959
Speaker 1: that point on, Soldier of Fortunes Classified ads section turned

855
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: to slightly more liscid fair. They sold mail order brides,

856
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: bounty hunter training manuals, Secrets of the Ninja lessons, Nazi

857
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: surplus gear, machine guns, silencers, and sniper rifles. Soldier of

858
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: Fortune also did a brisk business and selling the kinds

859
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: of T shirts that are all too common and randomly

860
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: generated Facebook ads today, shirts with slogans like happiness is

861
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:02,440
Speaker 1: a confirm to kill. There are a few social problems

862
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: that cannot be solved by the proper application of high

863
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: explosives and the ever popular kill them all and let

864
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 1: God sort them out. Yes, this is this is the

865
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 1: kind of stuff I actually do think of when you

866
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: say a Soldier Ford and all those products they used

867
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: to crank out like that. That's much more seething I

868
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: remember than the actual magazine. Yeah, that's like one of

869
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 1: the real law Like this is where that all gets

870
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:25,719
Speaker 1: A lot of that gets started. Like I think some

871
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:28,240
Speaker 1: of these phrases had existed before, but no one had thought,

872
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,680
Speaker 1: what if we just sell T shirts with this written

873
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:41,880
Speaker 1: on it? Too dangerous people? Uh? Going back to Iraq,

874
00:53:42,080 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: one of the there's a lot of random mercenaries you

875
00:53:44,600 --> 00:53:47,279
Speaker 1: encounter in her bill, And there was this way we

876
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: were I was buying carpets with my photographer and one

877
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: of the guys we see like standing in the middle

878
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:55,200
Speaker 1: of the bizarre is just like this tall white guy

879
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 1: in his early twenties with a beard and a T

880
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 1: shirt that has written in red letters, I'm just here

881
00:53:59,480 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: for the violets. It's like, don't wear the shirt here, man,

882
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: Come on, dude. Uh so Uh. Soldier of Fortune also

883
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 1: contributed to the birth of the needlessly aggressive sticker industry,

884
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:21,040
Speaker 1: selling door stickers labeled is their life after death, trespass

885
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: here and find out. Never mind the dog, be aware

886
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:27,319
Speaker 1: of owner and bumper stickers like, the only way you'll

887
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: get my gun is to pry it from my cold

888
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:32,479
Speaker 1: dead fingers, well putting stickers ever that now I'm really mad.

889
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:36,359
Speaker 1: That's that is not right. One of the things that's

890
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: funny about that last one, if you're one of the

891
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,399
Speaker 1: best scenes in the original Red Dawn movie is like

892
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: when the Russians invade. You see the back of this

893
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: guy's truck that says, the only will get my gun

894
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: if you pipe from my cold dead hands, And then

895
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:49,359
Speaker 1: he's lying dead behind the truck because the Russian army

896
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 1: shot him to death and ironically enough, uh was I forget?

897
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 1: His first name is Milch. The guy who wrote Red

898
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 1: Dawn was like the focus of a massive feature article

899
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,840
Speaker 1: and Soldier of Four where he like showed that he

900
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:07,720
Speaker 1: had no understanding of the irony effets um. So Soldier

901
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 1: of Fortune continue to play host to a series of

902
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,319
Speaker 1: classic articles for the modern man, who's pretty sure he

903
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 1: could have been Conan the barbarian with a few cards

904
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:18,120
Speaker 1: that landed differently. And I think the single best example

905
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:22,239
Speaker 1: of this magazine's content is the classic article Secrets of

906
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: Modern battle axe Fighting on dry land with any artist

907
00:55:33,160 --> 00:55:36,200
Speaker 1: knows you have to branch out. You know, you start

908
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:39,520
Speaker 1: teaching people how to knife fight an alligator, but eventually

909
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: you don't use that type of battle ax in a

910
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 1: in a high humidity and a battle axe underwater? Are

911
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: you mad? The article opens with the author announcing that,

912
00:55:55,040 --> 00:55:57,359
Speaker 1: for reasons that are never made clear, he has won

913
00:55:57,400 --> 00:55:59,840
Speaker 1: an award that just happens to be a hand forged

914
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 1: orse battle axe. Being the kind of man who writes

915
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 1: for Soldier of Fortune, Jeff Cooper decided that he desperately

916
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 1: needed to know how to kill people with this axe. Unfortunately,

917
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: the only manuals he could find on the matter were

918
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 1: written an old Norse and did not contain much in

919
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 1: the way of details as to how to have an

920
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,359
Speaker 1: axe fight. I had no there was a famous one

921
00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 1: I had written by Gary Guy GaX. I think a

922
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: lot of death could have been averted if some of

923
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 1: these guys could have just been given dungeons and dragons.

924
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: Books like this is the healthy way to deal with

925
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:39,160
Speaker 1: these impulses. So Jeff gets his ax, realizes there's no

926
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: good books on how to fight with axes, and he

927
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: and a friend decided to spend the afternoon inventing a

928
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 1: modern science of battle axe fighting by jabbing vaguely at

929
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:51,360
Speaker 1: hay bales in an empty field. David, I want you

930
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:53,720
Speaker 1: to take a look at one of the insert pages

931
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:59,400
Speaker 1: from this How would you describe those pictures? It looks

932
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:04,280
Speaker 1: like a man and viciously attacking a bail of hay

933
00:57:05,560 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: and to the point that he's drooling with pleasure. Yeah,

934
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 1: it's he's wearing the kind of hat that like everyone's

935
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:24,560
Speaker 1: grandfather wears when they move permanently to Florida. You know

936
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: it's a you know, you know it's not a fair

937
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:32,240
Speaker 1: battle when your hat doesn't fall off. Uh So, And

938
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:34,160
Speaker 1: I'll pass this out in a little bit when I

939
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:39,400
Speaker 1: get past this paragraph. This is worth seeing. One shot

940
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:44,280
Speaker 1: didn't wasn't enough? Shows six almost identical. Mean if you

941
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: want to know how to funk up a bail of

942
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 1: hay with the norse axe. There's no better place to go, like,

943
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 1: there's really are no other sources. So uh this new

944
00:57:58,200 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 1: business was safer than soliciting hitman and mercenaries. But Robert

945
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:09,160
Speaker 1: were standing inside of a bale of hay. Yes, yes, yes,

946
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 1: a lot of kids playing hide and go seek were

947
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 1: tragically tragically. It didn't wind up all right for everybody

948
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: I found the needle. Uh So Robert Brown was not

949
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:33,440
Speaker 1: satisfied though with running a safe, profitable, profitable magazine filled

950
00:58:33,440 --> 00:58:38,320
Speaker 1: with ridiculous sax fighting artimles. No, he still was desperately

951
00:58:38,360 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: addicted to war tourism, and the primary purpose of Soldier

952
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 1: of Fortune magazine throughout its entire run was to enable

953
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 1: his habit. Throughout the mid nineteen eighties, Robert Brown and

954
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 1: his magazine got increasingly involved in the El Salvadorian Civil War.

955
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: He visited for the first time in nineteen eighty three

956
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 1: and spent several happy days fighting alongside a quadra of

957
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 1: mercenaries and paramilitary fighters. Back Roberto de Albuson Debison was,

958
00:59:02,800 --> 00:59:05,040
Speaker 1: in the words of the U. S Ambassador to L Salvador,

959
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 1: a pathological killer who bragged about the need to exterminate

960
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 1: two hundred to three hundred thousand people in his own country.

961
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:16,520
Speaker 1: So Robert Brown's like, this is my dude to hand

962
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: this out pass it around. So uh, Dobbison ran death

963
00:59:24,720 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: squads which often massacred women, children, and a huge number

964
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 1: of priests, and Robert Brown was only too happy to

965
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: help with us. By night four, he claimed to have

966
00:59:33,200 --> 00:59:35,880
Speaker 1: sent more than a hundred mercenaries into the tiny country.

967
00:59:36,080 --> 00:59:38,280
Speaker 1: He also claimed that his readers had donated more than

968
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:41,240
Speaker 1: four million in supplies to fight the contract for for

969
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. When he was criticized over

970
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:47,880
Speaker 1: the fact that his magazine was actively enabling death squads

971
00:59:47,880 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 1: in several nations, Brown wrote this, We're not content just

972
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: to tell the story to the best of our ability.

973
00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:56,919
Speaker 1: We also help equip, aid and train the world's anti

974
00:59:56,920 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: communist freedom fighters. We make no apologies about this or

975
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:04,240
Speaker 1: for our virulent, anti tyrant, anti communist editorial stance. Now

976
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 1: does this tie into the Iran Contra stuff in anyway?

977
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 1: Like that that was the the people who were actually

978
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: accomplishing cricket stuff but successfully for a little while. Yeah,

979
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 1: he was like the tourist version of like and not

980
01:00:22,880 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: legally committing treason, I guess. And he didn't get a

981
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: Fox new although he did wind up as one of

982
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:31,400
Speaker 1: the board members of the n r A, So they're

983
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 1: not totally different people. Um so tragically, and this is

984
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: really gonna hurt a lot of people's feelings. Brown's second

985
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: plan trip to go fight Nel Salvador, was canceled when

986
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:45,240
Speaker 1: one of his own mercenaries shot him on accident in

987
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:53,680
Speaker 1: the lake. It happens to the best of us. Yeah,

988
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: we've all been there. Now. I'm gonna read a quote

989
01:00:56,720 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: from the Chicago Tribune and describing what happened. Colonel Brown

990
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:02,919
Speaker 1: and his kitchen table buddies were talking about a flight

991
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,680
Speaker 1: tell Salvador that Brown was to make the next day. Brown,

992
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 1: who was a captain in Vietnam, claims to be helping

993
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 1: train the Salvadoran army on an unofficial basis. He says

994
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 1: he's making them tougher and more disciplined. As the evening

995
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: wore on towards midnight, one of Brown's buddies, who writes

996
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,680
Speaker 1: for Soldier of Fortune, took out an automatic pistol he

997
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:21,320
Speaker 1: was carrying and showed it to Brown. Brown's buddy talked

998
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:23,640
Speaker 1: about his pistols, heft, the trigger action, and the other

999
01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:26,640
Speaker 1: qualities that pleased gun lovers. He pulled the trigger. Being

1000
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: a gun expert, he knew it was empty. That was

1001
01:01:33,600 --> 01:01:39,200
Speaker 1: sarcasm on the author's part. When Brown's buddy pulled the trigger,

1002
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: there was a loud explosion. He stood there for a

1003
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 1: moment with his mouth wide open, and he looked at

1004
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 1: his hand and saw a hole. He had shot a

1005
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:48,400
Speaker 1: hole through his hand. Brown looked down at his leg,

1006
01:01:48,560 --> 01:01:51,120
Speaker 1: his leg hurt. He saw blood running out of his calf.

1007
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:53,480
Speaker 1: The bullet, after blowing a hole in the buddy's hand,

1008
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 1: had blown a hole in Robert's and or in Brown's leg.

1009
01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:58,520
Speaker 1: The owner of the gun was right, it did pack

1010
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 1: a wallop. Brown looked down at his bleeding leg. Then

1011
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:07,960
Speaker 1: he looked at his buddy and said, you stupid son

1012
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 1: of a bitch, You shot me, and now I can't

1013
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: go to El Salvador. Can I ask a question about

1014
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 1: his rank because it referred to him as colonel in

1015
01:02:20,600 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 1: the first sentence, but he immediately said he served as

1016
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:25,880
Speaker 1: captain when it was actually, so, what's the colonel? Friend?

1017
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: I mean? That was after his time. Actually doing anything

1018
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:31,800
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, but he was really Yeah, he retired as

1019
01:02:31,800 --> 01:02:34,200
Speaker 1: a lieutenant colonel. Okay, but it's not uncommon for people

1020
01:02:34,240 --> 01:02:36,440
Speaker 1: to get like a bump when they leave, especially if

1021
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:38,800
Speaker 1: you've done shady things that they want to get you

1022
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:41,280
Speaker 1: out of the service for. There's a lot of questions

1023
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:44,680
Speaker 1: about what he actually he may have had some dirt

1024
01:02:44,760 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 1: on somebody else, yeah, something like that, or he uh,

1025
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,280
Speaker 1: they just really wanted him gone because he was an embarrassment.

1026
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 1: It's hard to say, hard to say so um. As

1027
01:02:57,080 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties wore on and the Cold War near

1028
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:01,680
Speaker 1: it's near its end, so too did the business of

1029
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:05,640
Speaker 1: soliciting mercenary fighters to crust socialist up movements. Being a

1030
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:08,400
Speaker 1: right wing or a far right crypto fascist, Robert Brown

1031
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:12,080
Speaker 1: transitioned seamlessly from demonizing left wing movements around the world

1032
01:03:12,240 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 1: and towards attacking the US government. As the Cold War ended,

1033
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:18,400
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune became one of the prime sources fueling

1034
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:21,640
Speaker 1: the American militia movement. In April nineteen ninety five, it

1035
01:03:21,720 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 1: did a cover story on the Michigan Militia, the largest

1036
01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: such patriot group in the country. That same month, Soldier

1037
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,720
Speaker 1: of Fortune subscriber and former Michigan Militia member Timothy McVeigh

1038
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:33,880
Speaker 1: set off a truck bomb outside the Murray Building in

1039
01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:36,480
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City, killing a hundred and sixty eight people and

1040
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 1: injuring seven hundred. When McVeigh was caught his car was searched,

1041
01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 1: the police found a photo copy of an underground far

1042
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:48,000
Speaker 1: right far right zene titled The Resistor. Sixty Minutes correspondents

1043
01:03:48,040 --> 01:03:52,000
Speaker 1: Steve Croft described it as a political warfare journal, describing

1044
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 1: the U. S Government as a deadly enemy that needed

1045
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:57,520
Speaker 1: to be crushed with lethal force. Its publisher, Stephen Barry,

1046
01:03:57,760 --> 01:03:59,720
Speaker 1: was a former Special Forces man who went on to

1047
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 1: for the National Alliance, at the time the largest neo

1048
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: Nazi group in the United States. Now. The FBI obviously

1049
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:09,640
Speaker 1: wanted to track down how this copy of The Resistor

1050
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: had wound up in Timothy mcveigh's hands. By reading the

1051
01:04:12,600 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 1: fact signature, they were able to trace it back to

1052
01:04:14,800 --> 01:04:18,400
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortunes offices. It turns out Robert Brown had

1053
01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: sent nine hundred free copies of the zine to Soldier

1054
01:04:21,040 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 1: of Fortune subscribers as part of a promotional author offer.

1055
01:04:24,320 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: It's like a tote bag. Here's it's like, you know,

1056
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 1: the mp R gives you a little bag, Soldier of

1057
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 1: Fortune gives you this Nazi guide to murdering people. Yeah,

1058
01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 1: pretty cool? Right? Yeah? I mean it's a value for

1059
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:46,400
Speaker 1: the other eight people. Like, that's a collector's item. I

1060
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:51,280
Speaker 1: have had it? How many times can I walk out

1061
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: from one? Um? So? Uh now? The bureau obviously wanted

1062
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: to know if Steven Barry Nazi had any ties to

1063
01:04:59,720 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: Robert Brown, so they leaked Verry false intel and watched

1064
01:05:03,720 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 1: as Surely enough it appeared in the next issue of

1065
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:10,000
Speaker 1: Soldier of Fortune magazine. So that's cool, he's friends with

1066
01:05:10,040 --> 01:05:15,400
Speaker 1: some Nazis. Good stuff. Uh Now. Obviously, of course, you

1067
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:21,600
Speaker 1: know there were legal consequences for this, right, No, nothing happened.

1068
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:27,120
Speaker 1: Brown did regularly find himself under investigation and was often sued,

1069
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 1: but he always managed to stay in business and just

1070
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:33,600
Speaker 1: shy of committing any felonies. After the Oklahoma City bombing

1071
01:05:33,600 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: and Patriot Movement, the Patriot movement got to toxic, but

1072
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:39,640
Speaker 1: once the nineties ended, Soldier of Fortune pivoted yet again

1073
01:05:39,640 --> 01:05:43,520
Speaker 1: by focusing on the dangers of immigrants and Muslim extremists. Uh.

1074
01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:45,919
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, Soldier of Fortune published a two

1075
01:05:45,960 --> 01:05:48,960
Speaker 1: part series on a group called Ranch Rescue a Border,

1076
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:52,040
Speaker 1: a border vigilante militia that later pistol whipped and sent

1077
01:05:52,120 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: Rottweiler's on immigrants in Arizona in Texas. Yeah he's a

1078
01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:58,680
Speaker 1: I mean, he's the guy I've been reading about for

1079
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:03,520
Speaker 1: the last twelve pages. He's he's piece of shit. Uh.

1080
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:05,920
Speaker 1: In October of two thousand nine, Soldier of Fortune did

1081
01:06:05,920 --> 01:06:11,400
Speaker 1: a feature on Sheriff Joe R. Pio of Maricopa County, writing, Yeah,

1082
01:06:11,680 --> 01:06:14,040
Speaker 1: his tough stance on a legal immigration is what he

1083
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:17,360
Speaker 1: is getting beat up for by liberals promoting a legal immigration.

1084
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:20,040
Speaker 1: They neglected to mention that dozens of prisoners had died

1085
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: in our pios shells jails, often being from being illegally

1086
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:25,840
Speaker 1: restrained and boiled to death in a hundred and forty

1087
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:29,120
Speaker 1: five degree cells. Under al Pio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's

1088
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: office paid out more than a hundred and forty million

1089
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:34,080
Speaker 1: dollars in wrongful death suits, which again didn't make into

1090
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: the Soldier of Fortune article. Shockingly, Robert Brown was not

1091
01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 1: an instant fan of the candidacy if Donald J. Trump

1092
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:42,720
Speaker 1: when interviewed about it in two thousand sixteen, he expressed

1093
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:44,600
Speaker 1: his belief that the man was a buffoon and would

1094
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:47,320
Speaker 1: hand the election to Hillary Clinton. He has kept his

1095
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: mouth mostly shut about Trump since then, often involving himself

1096
01:06:51,320 --> 01:06:53,919
Speaker 1: though in internal n r A politics. He was once

1097
01:06:53,960 --> 01:06:57,920
Speaker 1: the organization's vice chairman, and he regularly speaks out about Uh.

1098
01:06:57,920 --> 01:06:59,760
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're interested in who to vote for

1099
01:06:59,760 --> 01:07:02,840
Speaker 1: for the n r A board, Uh, you know, maybe

1100
01:07:02,880 --> 01:07:07,360
Speaker 1: check out this guy's opinions. He seems to have good judgment. Uh.

1101
01:07:07,520 --> 01:07:10,760
Speaker 1: Soldier of fortune stopped publishing a physical magazine in two

1102
01:07:10,840 --> 01:07:15,040
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. The digital media crash, you know it hit

1103
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:18,600
Speaker 1: us all well, physical media crash. Uh. Brown had to

1104
01:07:18,640 --> 01:07:20,880
Speaker 1: lay off almost all of his staff and go digital.

1105
01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:24,280
Speaker 1: The periodical is still online and still just as racist

1106
01:07:24,320 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 1: as ever, although it's increasing irrelevance has made it less dangerous.

1107
01:07:27,960 --> 01:07:30,560
Speaker 1: In late two thousand nineteen, the online edition of the

1108
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 1: magazine republished that two thousand twelve article about Rhodesia. Whatever

1109
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:37,200
Speaker 1: else you can say about Robert K. Brown, he's not

1110
01:07:37,280 --> 01:07:41,439
Speaker 1: a quitter, although he really should be. Yeah, and that's

1111
01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:51,600
Speaker 1: the story. That's this. He's still alive. So David, you

1112
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:57,680
Speaker 1: convinced me, You convinced me for the first interview. I

1113
01:07:57,720 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 1: was impressed, but that by the end, I admit, the

1114
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 1: scale tilted a little bit. The center of gravity just

1115
01:08:08,680 --> 01:08:12,440
Speaker 1: got enough in favor of Bastard. Yeah, so that's cool.

1116
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:16,800
Speaker 1: It's way worse than I expected to say. It's kind

1117
01:08:16,800 --> 01:08:19,160
Speaker 1: of amazing. I didn't when you said it killed a

1118
01:08:19,200 --> 01:08:22,960
Speaker 1: bunch of people, I didn't. I didn't see the yeah

1119
01:08:22,960 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 1: people truck bomb coming stills. Yeah, it's I mean, you

1120
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: know a lot of things played into that, but Soldier

1121
01:08:30,400 --> 01:08:35,680
Speaker 1: of Fortune didn't help. So uh. I mean, they look

1122
01:08:35,720 --> 01:08:40,320
Speaker 1: like they could use investors and a new writing team,

1123
01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:45,559
Speaker 1: you know, well, the fut dramas up the air. That's

1124
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:50,320
Speaker 1: why I brought you here. One of my favorite quotes

1125
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 1: from Like Brown in the Modern Day, from like a

1126
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:54,200
Speaker 1: year ago, as him being like, I still think I

1127
01:08:54,240 --> 01:09:02,960
Speaker 1: have one more left in me blurt um. So uh, David,

1128
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:06,320
Speaker 1: that's been the episode. But of course we can't conclude

1129
01:09:06,320 --> 01:09:11,800
Speaker 1: a live show without doing something reckless with machetes. You know,

1130
01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:17,519
Speaker 1: I have not explained to you why we do this,

1131
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:20,280
Speaker 1: because I don't know how to. If you've you've write

1132
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 1: jokes for a living, have you ever had a running

1133
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:24,760
Speaker 1: joke that went on way longer than than you could

1134
01:09:24,760 --> 01:09:27,080
Speaker 1: have possibly anticipated, to the point where you can no

1135
01:09:27,160 --> 01:09:30,240
Speaker 1: longer explain how it started. No, we haven't, and bite

1136
01:09:30,240 --> 01:09:36,360
Speaker 1: my shiny middle ass um. Now, I want to make

1137
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:39,639
Speaker 1: a couple of safety notes. Safety is always very important.

1138
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:41,840
Speaker 1: So these are I have only brought to this show

1139
01:09:42,240 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: the dullest and last knives that I own. Well that

1140
01:09:45,479 --> 01:09:49,000
Speaker 1: now you're glad it's rusty. Yeah, no, key that that's

1141
01:09:49,479 --> 01:09:57,360
Speaker 1: remember that Dolan. Rusty, safe and trusty. That's the knife rule. Now.

1142
01:09:59,439 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 1: I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna play

1143
01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:02,800
Speaker 1: us a quick little round of tennis, and then we're

1144
01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:05,840
Speaker 1: gonna hand some bagels out into the crowd and you guys,

1145
01:10:06,200 --> 01:10:08,599
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna basically act as like a living

1146
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:11,759
Speaker 1: skeet machine to Oh god, you brought a bag of them. Jesus,

1147
01:10:15,400 --> 01:10:18,720
Speaker 1: I told you it got out of hand. Now, as

1148
01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:21,200
Speaker 1: I said, I played tennis. I don't know what we're doing.

1149
01:10:21,240 --> 01:10:25,479
Speaker 1: What are the rules of this sport? I don't know

1150
01:10:25,520 --> 01:10:29,000
Speaker 1: how the rules of tennis. I'm going to toss a

1151
01:10:29,000 --> 01:10:33,440
Speaker 1: bag of bagels underhanded towards you, the whole bag, hold bag,

1152
01:10:33,840 --> 01:10:35,320
Speaker 1: and you try to hit it as hard as you

1153
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: can and then I'll say love serving love. I don't

1154
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:40,400
Speaker 1: know what that means, don't explain it. Am I trying

1155
01:10:40,400 --> 01:10:43,160
Speaker 1: to slice it? Or yeah? You just want to hit

1156
01:10:43,200 --> 01:10:47,080
Speaker 1: the thing I throw with sharp sharp? Yeah, I'm not trying.

1157
01:10:47,080 --> 01:10:48,920
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not trying to hit it this way

1158
01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:55,200
Speaker 1: back to you, top spin love, You do whatever you want.

1159
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:59,000
Speaker 1: But it's most fun to just like really tear into that. Okay,

1160
01:10:59,080 --> 01:11:04,600
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna do, all right, always again, always mistabbing,

1161
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 1: and again, because safety is incredibly important here, we're not

1162
01:11:10,600 --> 01:11:13,960
Speaker 1: starting with the bagels. We're starting with ultimate burger buns.

1163
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:17,200
Speaker 1: Um Because you don't want you don't want to like you,

1164
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:28,599
Speaker 1: you got to calibrate, all right. I feel like basic

1165
01:11:28,680 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 1: human decency compels me to put a stop to this

1166
01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:35,680
Speaker 1: before we crossed too much of a mess. Oh yeah,

1167
01:11:35,720 --> 01:11:38,120
Speaker 1: that was the That was the stupidest and most fun

1168
01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:44,840
Speaker 1: thing I've done in a long time. I'm talking about

1169
01:11:44,840 --> 01:11:49,720
Speaker 1: the interview part of this. All right, that's that's that's

1170
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:53,840
Speaker 1: the fucking episode. Have a good night, drums. Thank you

1171
01:11:53,920 --> 01:12:05,280
Speaker 1: so much, David really appreciate it. H. My deepest apologies

1172
01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 1: to the stage crew. H