In January 1968, a Navy corman named Ronald Mosbour was treating a wounded Marine near the DMZ. The Marine had unbuttoned his flack jacket because of the oppressive heat. Within minutes, he was dead from a head wound that the vest couldn’t have stopped anyway. But what Mosbour and thousands of other American servicemen didn’t…
On the 27th of February 1902, as the first gray light crept across the prison yard in Pritoria, two Australian men were marched out in front of a firing squad made up of Scottish Highlanders. They had no blindfolds. They had no lastminute pardon tucked inside a messengers pouch. What they had was a single…
12 British operators consumed nothing but raw river fish, uncooked frogs, and water squeezed from moss for 19 consecutive days. They lost an average of 11 lb each. They completed their mission. The 43 American Marines who attempted the same jungle insertion with full ration packs, water purification tablets, and satellite coordinated resupply were divided…
In 1967, the United States Army sent its newest infantry division into the Mikong Delta. The 9inth Infantry Division would spend the next 2 years fighting in some of the most brutal terrain American soldiers had ever encountered. But the enemy that would disable the most men wasn’t the Vietkong. It wasn’t booby traps. It…
nine men. That’s all there were. Before Spike Team Alabama’s helicopter even touched the ground, their radio operator spotted something through the tree line that made his stomach drop. An NVA regimenal flag. A K47 fire erupted before they were off the skids. One helicopter was shot down seconds after insertion. And then things got…
Somewhere in the desert south of Dubai, inside a military compound that most Australians have never heard of, a small group of soldiers arrived without announcement. No press conference, no parliamentary debate, no public record of the flight that carried them or the orders that sent them. They were members of the Special Air Service…
March 7th, 1985, 6:23 p.m. Henipin Avenue, downtown Minneapolis. The temperature was hovering at -12° when 26-year-old Prince Rogers Nelson, driving home from a late studio session at Warehouse Studios, stopped at a red light and heard something that made him turn off his car stereo immediately. Through the bitter Minnesota wind, he could hear…
August 23rd, 1987, 4:42 p.m. Knots Berry Farm, Buena Park, California. 29-year-old Prince Rogers Nelson had come to the Old West theme park for a rare afternoon off during his Sign O the Times tour, seeking a quiet escape from the intensity of performing for stadium crowds night after night. What he didn’t expect was…
October 15th, 1993, 2:34 p.m. Mayo Clinic Neurological Research Center, Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Patricia Chen, the world’s leading expert in musical cognition and brain mapping, stared at the MRI results displayed across three monitors with a mixture of fascination and disbelief. The brain scans belong to 35-year-old Prince Rogers Nelson, who had volunteered for her…
June 12th, 1991, 9:47 p.m. The Palace of Auburn Hills, Detroit. Game five of the NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers was supposed to be entertainment, but 33-year-old Prince Rogers Nelson had discovered it was something far more sinister. Through his friendship with Lakers point guard Magic Johnson, Prince had learned…
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