We talked about killing commies the same way we talked about slaying orcs. For my Dungeons & Dragons buddies and I, reading Soldier of Fortune was like perusing a Dungeon Master's Guide or Monster Manual. Royko left out elementary school D&D geeks. “But since mercenaries represent only a tiny portion of the reading population, the magazine tries to broaden its appeal to include those who might be called war fans, weapon-lovers, fanatic anti-commies and Walter Mitty types who enjoy the vicarious thrill of reading about blood and guts.”
Soldier of fortune magazine gearhart professional#
“It's directed at professional mercenaries - men who will fight for pay and those who want to hire them,” wrote Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko in March 1984. But what made Soldier of Fortune so enticing in my 11-year-old mind was less its editorial content than its infamous advertising.Īlong with ads for mail-order brides, bounty hunter training manuals, surveillance electronics, Secrets of the Ninja lessons (including “mind clouding” and “sentry removal”), Nazi memorabilia, machine guns, silencers, and sniper rifles, Soldier of Fortune advertised the services of guns for hire.
I remember Soldier of Fortune articles in those days being a macho-to-the-max amalgam of firearms reviews, anti-gun control rants, Vietnam POW conspiracy theories and gory first-hand reporting on Cold War proxy wars, military coups and revolutions in Second and Third World nations. This was in the mid-1980s, the Rambo-era heyday of the “journal of the professional adventurer.” The seizure was preceded by a parent-teacher conference at which exhibit A was a recent two-page essay I'd written about wanting to be a mercenary when I grew up.
When I was in sixth grade my parents took away my collection of Soldier of Fortune magazines.
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