Magazine
Soldier of Fortune (SOF), subtitled The Journal of Professional Adventurers, is a daily web magazine owned and published by Susan Katz Keating. It began as a monthly U.S. periodical published from 1975 to 2016 as a magazine devoted to worldwide reporting of wars, including conventional warfare, low-intensity warfare, counter-insurgency, and counter-terrorism. It was published by Omega Group Ltd., based in Boulder, Colorado. In May 2022, author, editor, and security journalist Susan Katz Keating bought the publication from the founder.[2][3]
History
Soldier of Fortune magazine was founded in 1975, by Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve, (Ret.) Robert K. Brown, who served with Special Forces in Vietnam.[4] After retiring from active duty, Brown began publishing a “circular”, magazine-type publication with few pages which contained information on mercenary employment in Oman, where the Sultan Qaboos had recently deposed his father and was battling a communist insurgency. Brown's small circular soon evolved into a glossy, large-format, full-color magazine.
By 1976, Soldier of Fortune was selling 120, 000 copies per month, making it into one of the most popular American magazines of the 1970s.
During the late 1970s and the 1980s, the success and popularity of a military magazine such as SOF led to the proliferation of like magazines such as Survive, Gung Ho!, New Breed, Eagle, Combat Illustrated, Special Weapons and Tactics, and Combat Ready. SOF was published by the Omega Group Ltd., in Boulder, Colorado. The April 2016 issue of Soldier of Fortune was the final print edition; further editions have been published online.[5][6]
The magazine currently is published by Soldier of Fortune LLC, owned by Susan Katz Keating, and is based in Tampa, Florida.[7]
In the online magazine, publisher Keating revived original reporting, and sent correspondents into the field in Ukraine, Serbia, Israel, and along the southern U.S. border with Mexico. She introduced a new section entitled The Fire Pit, wherein readers submit personal stories of war and adventure.[8] Among those whose stories appear in the section are Gen.(Ret) Scott Miller, formerly the four-star general in charge of U.S. forces in Afghanistan [9] and Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Memorial Wall,[10] along with numerous warfighters and veterans.[11]
The magazine gained publicity in July 2023 when Keating published her investigative series on the cocaine packet that was discovered inside the Biden White House.[12] The articles were picked up by Radar Online,[13] the New York Post,[14] and other outlets.
"Gun for Hire" lawsuits
During the late 1980s, Soldier of Fortune under Robert K. Brown was sued in civil court several times for damages connected to classified advertisements in the magazine by private "guns for hire." One lawsuit was settled out of court; and another had a jury verdict reversed, because a judge found that the standard of conduct imposed upon the magazine was too high because the advertisement was ambiguously worded.[15][16] A third lawsuit saw a jury award reduced by a judge to $4.37 million. The magazine subsequently suspended publication of classified advertisements.[citation needed]
In 2022, owner/publisher Keating affirmed that under her watch, the magazine would not publish such advertisements.[citation needed]
