Soldier of Fortune Magazine ceased publication in 2016. Its book publishing wing, Paladin Press, closed in November of 2017. Paladin joins Desert Publications and Loompanics and several other defunct purveyors of paramilitary literature.
For folks like myself, Soldier of Fortune magazine was fun. Each issue had a couple of good stories and some outrageous and unbelievable articles. Interspersed between them were plugs for various products and services ranging from custom knives to “mercenary schools.” You had to take it all with a grain of salt the size of football. Though I had not seen a copy of the magazine since the 1980s, I can imagine that it kept pumping up its hype to the very end.
Soldier of Fortune arrived in 1975, the same year Vietnam fell. The general sentiment in the country was anti-war and anti-military. Billing itself as “The Journal of the Professional Adventurer.” Soldier of Fortune was a unique counterpoint to the feeling of the times. The magazine supported the military profession and opposed Communism. It also reported on obscure brush wars in Africa, Asia and Central America. There was an undercurrent supported adventurers who might serve as mercenaries against insurgencies. The writing was usually chest thumping, military macho.
And for folks like myself who are veterans, well, it provided more than a few laughs. The folks who took it most seriously were wannabe soldiers and wannabe cops. Soldier of Fortune was mind candy for security guards, folks who could not get into the Army and those who fancied themselves some kind of clandestine operative.
Among the magazine’s hypes was the field of custom knives and knife combat. One of the editors’ cronies, David Steel, wrote a book titles “Secrets of Modern Knife Fighting.” There was not much of fighting technique, but a lot of pictures and talk of various custom knives and the folks who made them. And the magazine touted knives sold by its advertisers. Some shavetail lieutenants and weekend warriors bought these overpriced wonders. They wore them as if they were Excalibur. (The rest of us were content with the old Army Air Corps survival knife, which was available for well under 20 simoleons in those days. The most any of us used a knife for was to slice pie or shave a branch to replace a missing tent peg.)
Paladin (and Desert Pubs and, Loompanics) had a few really good books. Most of these were reprints of government manuals. The rest were a very mixed bag of crap. I’d say 90% of these books need never have been written. Another 8% varied from Fair to Satisfactory. Only 1% to 2% were Good or better. (The same goes for the Occult, New Age and Martial Arts genres.)
Soldier of Fortune thrived in the era of brush conflicts and proxy wars in Third World countries. It’s heyday was long past. Obviously, nobody wanted to take over the mantle of the Paladin Press or the Magazine after its editors “aged out.” Then again, the world has changed a lot since 1975. Magazines are losing out to the Internet.
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There was a lot of concern over some topics covered in books by the alternate military publishers. Among subjects were poisons, making bombs and making firearms. Fortunately for society, most of the injuries sustained with this knowledge was suffered by those trying to use it. Most of the books were written by people of questionable authority. in their chosen subjects.
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Soldier of Fortune was not entirely inert. There are some who believe it was in cahoots with several clandestine agencies. Indeed, some staffers and writers got involved in African and Central American conflicts. One person somehow affiliated with it was executed in Angola, having been captured as a mercenary. Two of its people were killed during the fighting in Nicaragua. Many suspect that in its early years, the magazine was being backed with South African and Rhodesian money. A quirky rag of this type could have been a nice cover for agencies to continue their programs away from government oversight. Conspiracy theory or truth?
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