Real-life story makes Rambo look like 'teenage cadet'

From time to time, in the real world, there comes an adventurous character that makes Rambo seem like a teenage cadet at military school.

Robert K. Brown is such an individual. The roguish colonel, wounded in Vietnam and trained as an elite Special Forces operative, had already lived several lifetimes 40 years ago when he started publishing "Soldier of Fortune" magazine upon returning from Southeast Asia.

Indeed, Brown's motto, "Slay dragons, do noble deeds, and never, never give up," became not only his combat creed, but also an apt description of his journalistic style, in which he inserted himself and a brave band of innovative journalists into military hotspots around the world.

Now, in his long-awaited autobiography, "I Am Soldier of Fortune," Brown presents his larger-than-life story. The reader will truly wonder if all this is a Hollywood script, but Brown's tale is reality, and no one who is awake while reading thebook will be able to put it down.

Purchase Robert Brown's "I Am Soldier of Fortune" from the WND Superstore!

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Exactly 60 years ago, Brown began his military career in the muggy South, stationed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.

Listen to his vibrant description of a young man who immediately had found his calling: "I got my first formal marksmanship training and I loved it. I spent a lot of time outside … marching, running … gladly inhaling meals in two minutes, a habit that has long endured, and being thrown in with a bunch of disparate types who had been uprooted from everywhere from ghettos to the Kentucky hills. It was a eye-opening experience for a young punk college boy … an experience sorely missed by many of the pill-popping, therapy-seeking, ear-piercing Y generation and other bizarre generations of punks since the discontinuation of the draft."

It's not difficult to see where Brown leans in worldview. This is a classic patriot, born and bred to defend freedom no matter the cost. And to do it with complete enthusiasm!

Never mind that Brown was kicked out of the Special Forces … twice. What you need to know is that this maverick is also unusual for his discipline, which he's displayed since becoming a publisher in 1975. His gonzo band of "soldier of fortune" journalists have dropped into every combat zone this side of Heartbreak Ridge: Afghanistan, Central America, Croatia, you name it.

That's where the story really gets interesting.

Take for example the "visit" to the Serbian crisis.

We'll let Brown, with his gift for rich detail, tell it: "Most of the artillery explosions and white-hot arcs of large-caliber tracer bullets were a few kilometers behind us on the Sarajevo skyline. We had been cramped in the truck bed for many hours, stuck in the suburbs of the city. We were miserably bound in flak jackets, in a sandbagged truck bed and were numb to the much-closer AK-47 fire."

And to think, some of us were jazzed about the John Wayne flick "The Green Berets." Brown has lived the real thing, over seemingly many lifetimes.

If his own combat experience in Vietnam and the pioneering journalism style were not enough, Brown has also found time not to forget those left behind, the POWs. In Chapter 14 of "I Am Soldier of Fortune," Brown describes the search for our missing men.

Brown's description of surveying informants at a Bangkok bar is nothing short of astonishing. He describes American expats living in such environs, making contact with credible locals who described seeing American prisoners years after the Vietnam War ended. These entries alone make the price of the book well worth it, the stories at once poignant and pulsating.

All in all, "I Am Soldier of Fortune" is a rollicking, true account of a real American hero.

The conclusion of Brown's incredible saga, titled "As Long as Tyrants and Liberals Exist and I Am Still Kicking," puts a rousing finish on one of the most remarkable stories from American military history.

He has no intention of slowing down: "SOF has become a strong opponent of terrorism, has joined DEA operators and native SWAT teams in Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Albania, Kosovo and other festering hell holes that keep the global drug war and war on terror fed and escalating."

And that's just for starters.

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Purchase Robert Brown's "I Am Soldier of Fortune" from the WND Superstore!

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