Conflict over land was a somewhat common occurrence in the development of the American West but was particularly prevalent during the late 1800s and early 1900s when large portions of the west were being settled by Americans for the first time. It is a period which historian Richard Maxwell Brown has called the “Western Civil War of […]

   I found this at the Home of Heroes website, which lists all the states who have graves of Medal of Honor recipients. Low and behold, the famous civilian scout William Cody rests in Golden, Colorado. Pretty cool, and something to check out for you contractors and history buffs that live in Colorado or just […]

     Another great hidden gem of a paper about one of my favorite topics.  I also really perked up on the conclusions of the paper.  That privateering did not go away because the concept sucked. Nope.  It went away, because of competition with government owned Navies who wanted to do it all. It kind […]

    I wanted to bring up some recent history about our group.  David Isenberg just posted a great story about contractors and disaster relief, with a mention of Feral Jundi, and I figured I would give that audience coming over a little something extra to chew on.
   Although I would like to briefly expand on David’s […]

   Now you don’t hear this little tidbit of history very much, now do we?  So not only did the Virginia Company have a lottery to fund the venture to the ‘new world’, that money was also used to contract the services of privateers to transport those colonists, or pay the salaries of contract soldiers […]

   This is some old school Soldier of Fortune material, but still really good.  The Tracker Combat Units in Rhodesia were impressive, and as you can see below, this unit produce some interesting folks for their war.  In particular, Andre Rabie and Allan Franklen, both founding members of the Selous Scouts.
   And just so we don’t forget, […]

John Alderman was a Praying Indian who shot and killed Metacomet (also known as King Philip) in 1676 as part of an expedition led by Captain Benjamin Church.
As a reward, Alderman received King Philip’s head and one hand. The rest of King Philip’s body was quartered and hung on trees. Alderman later sold the severed head to the Fort Plymouth authorities for […]

     Now in honor of Thanksgiving (U.S. holiday), I figured I would put up an interactive children’s video game about Captain John Smith that National Geographic put together awhile back. lol I did a story about him in regards to being a Useful Contractor and his significance to the survival of the colonies back then, and […]

     Check it out. It is a little old, but still a pretty cool little show about Robert Patton’s book. Probably the most interesting parts are the comparisons between today’s Somali pirates or security contractors in the war, and yesteryear’s privateers.  
   The one thing they did touch on that I thought was particularly […]