Vale, SOF
The last time you’ll see this on the newsstand is this month…
I’ve met and spoken at length with “The Colonel” so this came as a blow of sorts.
Long the beacon in the newsstand for those who yearned to meet interesting people in far off lands– and maybe get into a firefight with them, will fade away to digital only starting in April.
Founded by renowned international man of mystery, Vietnam-era Green Beret Lt. Col. Robert K. Brown, “The Journal of Professional Adventurers” based in Boulder, Colorado will no longer appear in print form moving forward
“Yes we are now an online magazine with much more content including current events and updates and industry news. And now we have a much larger and broader audience,” reads a post on their Facebook page.
Since 1975, SOF provided an outlet for legitimate and would-be mercenaries professional military contractors and assisted with filling hard-to-find positions in Africa, the Middle East and South America as well as fueling untold Walter Mitty fantasies in the more chairborne commando.
Noted contributors over the past four decades have included Col. David Hackworth, Lt. Col. Oliver North and sniper guru Maj. John Plaster.
SOF pulled a number of coups for the good guys over the years including effectively grounding Sandinista Mi-24 Hind helicopters during the Contra years after Brown published an offer of a $1,000,000 reward for the defection of a Nicaraguan pilot with his gunship. Brown also spirited out the first bulk caches of the then-new Soviet 5.45x45mm round seen in the West as well as other equipment from Afghanistan in the 1980s.
At least six correspondents from the magazine have been killed while on assignment in such third world hotspots as Burma, Angola, and Sierra Leone, going that extra mile for the story.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, SOF has declined from its peak readership of over 150,000 a month in the 1980s, but its Facebook page remains active with nearly a million followers.
Brown remains a power in the gun rights community and has long sat on the board of the National Rifle Association.
