Will Dabbs

Haitian President Jovenal Moïse was no stranger to controversy. However, no one really expected a mercenary hit team to drag him out of bed in the middle of the night and shoot him to pieces.

Some men are born to greatness. George Smith Patton actively cultivated it. A man of truly breathtaking ambition, Patton’s stated lifelong quest for the Medal of Honor was destined for frustration.

Wild Bill Donovan’s statue graces the lobby of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, today. In 2011 Vanity Fair writer Evan Douglas described Donovan’s exploits as “a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skullduggery.” Wild Bill Donovan was the real freaking deal.

Bert Waldron was a “Break Glass in Case of War” type of soldier. America desperately needs such men. It is simply figuring out what to do with them when the bullets aren’t flying that seems to be the perennial challenge.

On May 31, 2002, Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin walked into a local recruiting office and enlisted in the US Army. Pat walked away from a $3.6 million professional football contract and Lord knows what else so he could serve his country in the immediate aftermath of 911.

The combination of a wretched upbringing, some sub-optimal raw material, and a childhood injury transformed Brenda Spencer into a certifiable monster.

A year before Commando hit the big screen, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a very public example of just how far one man might go to avenge a crime committed against his child. That man’s name was Gary Plauche.

Dashing, handsome, and successful, Michael Caine is the archetypal movie star. When younger, however, he was also apparently quite the competent soldier as well.

Burke had a penchant for violence and a mean temper. These things always seem obvious in retrospect, but David Burke was also a dangerously self-centered opportunist. Though he never married, he fathered seven children by four women. Apparently, nobody could stand living with the guy for very long.