RKB at anticommunist Laotian United Liberation Front base camp inside communist Laos. At one time the camp held 125 armed Hmong who were to assist in search for American POW’s. SOF archives
Former Marine Recon Nam vet, Harry Claflin, at left, served as an advisor to the Salvadoran Army for seven years. RKB is at the helm of a 76-foot Patrol Craft in the Gulf of Fonseca off the coast of Nicaragua. RKB and company took pleasure in firing a few bursts at the Nic coast. SOF archives
Brown had a custom sniper rifle built to take out guerrillas. At 11-1/2 lbs., it was too heavy to carry long distances. SOF archives
RKB, left, Salvadoran Lt. Col. Jorge Cruz and Special Forces Vietnam veteran medic John Pagett play “winning the hearts and minds of the people in the Salvadoran country side.” SOF archives
Phil Gonzalez, Vietnam vet and Special Forces medic, in Salvador. Gonzalez ran with SOF to hotspots worldwide, treating both military personnel and civilians. RKB noted, “It was comforting to have a couple of medical pro fessionals with extensive combat trama experience in case one of us ate some lead.” SOF archives
Doctor John Peters conducts a basic medic class for Salvadoran Army medics. Doc Peters participated in humanitarian relief efforts in Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic as well as in hot spots like Burma, aiding the Karens and inside Communist Laos aiding the Hmong. Insert photo is of Salvo trooper Doc treated. One of the really, really good guys. SOF archives
Colonel Jose Bustillo, Salvadoran Air Force CO, accepts Hardcorps vests for chopper doorgunners and pilots from SOF Editor/Publisher Robert K. Brown. Vests were donated to Salvadoran cause by Richard Davis, President of Second Chance. Photo: Alex McColl
John “I.W.” Harper, legendary CIA demo expert trains Contra’s somewhere in Central America on basic demolition tech iques. SOF archives
RKB and Alaskan Brown Bear he took with one shot. Granted he was only about 10 feet away and the bear was just getting out of the Copper River. To the right is his guide, Jim West of Wild West Guns. SOF archives
RKB hoists SOF flag at "Liberty City" base camp inside Communist Laos, August 1982. SOF archives
Brown in Vietnam with his A-Team. Brown is in the center kneeling with his M-16. SOF archives
SOF magazine’s Robert K. Brown takes a moment to chat with Special Operations per sonnel during a break from the Persian Gulf War. SOF archives
Under the aegis of Major General Jack Singlaub, RKB recruited a team of Vietnam vets to train Contra’s Spec Ops unit.Former Recon Marine Harry Claflin on horse; in front of him “Jack Thompson,” one of the best small arms instructors in the world; “Pecos Bill,” our minder and translator; “I.W” Harper, CIA demo expert; nameless retired Army Lt. Col., and RKB on horse with UZI submachine gun. Photo: Phil Gonzalez
APPENDIX A: MY WAR IN EL SALVADOR
BY PETER G. KOKALIS
The below article, which appeared in the November 2000 issue of SOF, provides an intensive insight into the type of training that SOF volunteers provided to various units of the Salvadoran Army.
I went to El Salvador to fight the Evil Empire twenty one times, more than any other member of the SOF staff. It became personal, very personal. My first trip was in 1983. My last occurred in 1992; just before the peace accord was signed. My decade in El Salvador was the seminal experience of my life. I wrote about my experiences fifteen times in Soldier Of Fortune. Although nothing I wrote could ever convey the emotions and memories I hold so close to my heart, what follows is a brief more or less chronological summary of my training missions, including the issue of SOF in which my account appeared.
SEPTEMBER 1983
The first and last words of the first article I ever wrote about El Salvador bear re peating as they eerily set the tone for my entire decade in that tormented land.
“Four companies of men pile out of new, tan-colored Ford, three-ton trucks and fall into formation in front of the headquarters building at Ilopango Airport, El Salvador. The usual grunting and straining is accompanied by the clatter and banging of field equipment and infantry weapons.
“My attention is drawn first to their cammies, a pattern I do not recognize.
My eyes sweep upward and lock on their faces—regal Mayan features, covered by death masks applied with black face paint.
“Who are they?” I ask, turning to the Mil Group adviser standing next to me. “The Atlacatl Battalion,” he replies. “Bad asses, the toughest unit in El Salva dor—an immediate-reaction battalion. They really kick ass. When they move in, the Gees [guerrillas] move out or die.”
“. . .While forever attracted to its implements, God, how I loathe war. And yet . . . no wine gives fiercer intoxication, no drug more vivid exaltation.”
My first full day in country I trained the antiaircraft/perimeter-defense battery at Ilopango Airport on the disassembly-assembly/cleaning and maintenance of the M16A1 rifle. The following day I worked with the doorgunners of the heli copter squadron and their M60-D guns. Afterwards, I walked over to where the company from the Atlacatl Battalion was assembled and began to examine and work on their badly abused M60s. That evening 1st Lt. David Koch of the Atlacatl Battalion stopped by the hotel and asked if I could help them with Las Cincuentas, as they called the .50-caliber Browning M2 HB. The next day I did and the day following I worked with the Atlacatl M60 gunners. It was the beginning of my long association with the Atlacatl Battalion. Under the command of Lt. Col. Domingo Monterrosa Barrios and their executive officer Major Jose Armando Azmitia Melara they were without doubt the finest combat unit in El Salvador.
JANUARY 1984
I conduct an intensive three-week retraining cycle for the elite Atlacatl Battalion. Since its inception on 1 March 1982, the battalion has seen more combat than any unit in El Salvador. I trained the battalion armorers, conducted a section weapons seminar for all the officers and NCOs, trained the M60 GPMG and .50 caliber Browning M2 HB crews in depth, and conducted intensive ambush/ counter-ambush drills.
MARCH 1984
Assignment to Salvadoran Cavalry Regiment—work with French AAT 7.62 NFi GPMG, coaxial gun on the Panhard AML (Automittrailleuse Legere) Armored Car, and the earliest version of Heckler and Koch’s HK21 GPMG, as well as the Ar gentine FMK 9mm submachine gun.
DECEMBER 1984
I had spent two weeks prior conducting weapons research and repair with the Atlacatl battalion. I also conducted trials comparing the M79 and M203 40mm grenade launcher. While the M203 when mounted on an M16A1 returns a rifle-man to the platoon, its principal sighting system is a plastic quadrant sight that mounts to the left side of the M16A1 carrying handle. It’s entirely too fragile and would return from 90 days in the bush in a paper bag. It was my recommendation to Major Azmitia that they decline the replacement of their M79s with the M203. He concurred.
MARCH 1986
Flying combat missions aboard the ancient AC-47 with three AN-M3 .50 caliber Browning machine guns mounted in the two windows adjacent to the left cargo door. Circling in “pylon turns” and blasting communist guerrillas to pieces was a rewarding experience, but after firing no more than 2,300 rounds all three of our original guns had failed and we were forced to call upon the spares. The mean rounds between failure was less than 700. There were also more than one dozen feed stoppages—cleared almost immediately by manual cocking. Why all these problems with the usually incredibly reliable Browning?
After the mission I spent a day in the air force armory inspecting mainte nance, repair and calibration techniques used on these weapons. Not instructed otherwise, the Salvadoran armorers submerged the back plate assembly, without disassembly, into the cleaning solvent. Solvent seeped into the buffer housing and got trapped between the Belleville washers that then acted as a solid wall during the gun’s recoil cycle, robbing the system of all buffering action. The consequent stress overload on the reciprocating components caused parts to break with alarm ing frequency. The immediate fix was to disassemble the back plate with the cor rect spanner, remove
the solvent, dry and lubricate the washers and all recipro cating parts in the bolt and feed assemblies with the proper lubricant. As a con sequence, the number of failures were reduced to acceptable levels.
AUGUST 1986
Training the Salvadoran Airborne Battalion I am afforded a rare opportunity to examine and study captured small arms.
MAY 1988
Working with the “PRAL” a highly secret clandestine infiltration group funded by the CIA and based at Ilopango, I study a wide range of land mines, anti-person nel and vehicular, but mostly improvised. They range from the Mina Atlacatl (named after the Atlacatl Battalion which first encountered it), Mina Anti-Trans-porte Arce-I (named after the Arce Immediate Reaction Battalion), Rayo de la Muerte (Ray of Death), Papa (Pope or potato), to the Mina Caza-Yanqui (Yan kee-Chasing Mine).
While the U.S. left-wing press never ceased its cacophonous chant about the so-called human rights abuses of the Nicaraguan contras, they remained totally silent about the thousands of innocent campesinos maimed and murdered by Marxist mines in El Salvador.
NOVEMBER 1990
I designed an intensive five-day course for the Equipo de Reaccion Especial (Special Reaction Team or ERE) of El Salvador’s Policia Nacional (PN), which would provide training in the handgun, MP5 submachine gun, combat shotgun, and M16A1.
SEPTEMBER 1991
Consisting of 50 enlisted personnel and one officer, ERE’s mission included sniper incidents, barricaded terrorists with hostages, VIP protection and counterterrorist operations in general. In addition, the ERE continued to raid Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) safe houses on an almost daily basis, capturing terrorists and large caches of weapons, munitions and explosives. All of these scenarios pro vided potential applications for highly skilled marksmen with scoped rifles. A three-day course was developed for the ERE that would offer Level 1 training in basic marksmanship, maintenance and the urban tactics required of police coun-tersnipers.
MARCH 1992
Back in country to provide Level II countersniper training to the ERE, we partic ipate in a house search that included 26 ERE members. No war that I participated in before or since, including Afghanistan, Angola/Southwest Africa or Bosnia-Herzegovina came even close to the total commitment I gave to El Salvador and its people. It was my war. Siempre Atlacatl. God, how I loved them!
———————-
POSTSCRIPT—Several years subsequent to the above events, the Director General of the newly formed Policia Nacional Civil (PNC), Rodrigo Avila, who I had met during the war, asked me if I would be willing to come to El Salvador again and help him with the several different SWAT teams of the PNC. They were in the midst of fighting the deadly street gangs, collectively known as Mara Salvatrucha Trece (aka Las Maras) and desperately needed training. Assembling a team of vol unteer professionals, I accepted his invitation and went down numerous times until The FMLN candidate, Mauricio Funes became president of El Salvador on 1 5 March 2009. At that time I left another country whose war we had won only to lose the peace.
APPENDIX B: CORRESPONDENCE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Where to start? There are so many who have made this happen. First and foremost are the legions of readers and faithful advertisers who have supported SOF from the beginning and continue to do so, without which we would have never been able to continue our journal over the last four decades. And those amongst our readers and advertisers who supported our Afghan Freedom Fighters Fund, El Salvador/Nicaraguan Defense Fund and our First Amendment Defense Fund.
Vann and I would like to thank those who gave us input, guidance, sugges tions and clarification and all of those who gave us interviews, some lasting hours or days in the last few years. Our thanks to Mark Berent, Robert “Bac si” Bernard, Alan Brown, Marty Casey (deceased), Harry Claflin, Jim Coyne, John “Boom-Boom” Donavan, Derry Gallagher, James Gebhardt, Galen Geer, Phil Gonzales, Bill Guthrie, Gerry Merceria, Hugo Hartenstein, Harry Humphries, Harold Hutchison, Lynn Kartchner, Sheldon Kelly, Jim Lyons (deceased), Peder Lund, Peter Kokalis, Jay Mallin, Pat Mackley, Malcolm McConnell, Jim Monaghan (de ceased), Jim Morris, Jerry O’Brien, John Padgett, Michael Pierce, Colonel Mike Peck, USA (Ret.), Dr. John Peters, Mark Pixler, Columbus Smith, Dick Swan, David Truby, Steve Schriener, Steve Sherman, Major General John Singlaub, USA (Ret.), and Richard Venola, Darrell Winkler and others who I may have inadver tently missed who helped in this project.
I especially thank Lt. Col. Michael Lanter, who assigned me to my A-Team, and my sainted mother who kicked my ass to work harder, harder and harder.
Special mention goes to Vann Spencer who twisted my arms, not one but both, to focus on completing this too-many year project. Spencer’s objective re straint, insight and vast knowledge of world events, familiarity with the world of soldiers of fortune and mercs were invaluable. Without Spencer’s persistence and years of doggedly listening to my stories over and over again, interviewing, record ing and writing and rewriting and rewriting again, the project would not have happened.
Casemate publisher David Farnsworth and editors Steve Smith and Libby Braden deserve high praise.
A last minute note: Quoted conversation by no means are to be construed to be precise. They simply reflect the flavor of words spoken decades ago. As anyone that knows me knows, I do not have precise recall.
Index
Abaco, 100-104
Abaco Independence Movement (AIM), 101
AC-47s, 277, 280, 281
Ackley, James, 182
Acoca, Mike, 107-109, 110
Aderholt, C. “Heinie”, 159, 183, 184, 299
Advanced Marksmanship Unit, 65, 99
Afghan National Liberation Front, 219
Afghanistan invasion (Russian), 12, 203, 205
African National Council (ANC), 123
Agent Orange, 87-88
AIM (Abaco Independence Movement), 101
Air America, 116, 172, 181, 300
Airborne School, 57-58
AK-74, 205, 206, 207-208, 211
Alarcon de Quesdada, Ricardo, 115
Allende, Salvador, 45
ANC (African National Council), 123
Applegate, Rob “Mingo”/”Crazy Horse”, 154-155, 157, 161, 162-163, 164, 171, 176, 180
Arbenz, Jacabo, 270
Archard, Mr., 216-217
arms factories, 43-44
arms sales, 12, 33-34, 71, 208, 221
Army Infantry Center, 115
Army Intelligence Center, 24
Army Reserve Marksmanship unit, 31
Arron, Colonel, 70
Askins, Bill, 209, 211
Austin, Hudson, 261-262
Bacon, George, 386
Bahamas, 100
balloon jumps, 191-195
Ban Vanai Refugee Center, 151
Barrett, Bob, 359, 361-362, 363-367, 374, 375, 376
Basic Infantry Officers Course (BIOC), 58
Basic Training Company, 92-93
Batista, Fulgencio, 32, 34-35, 37-38
Bay of Pigs, 46, 58
Bayless, Todd, 365, 366-367
Bayo, Alberto, 35, 39-40, 41, 42-43, 44, 62, 107
Belasco (Peru), 97-98
Bell, Bill, 174-175
Berent, Mark, 140, 141-142, 145
Berkowitz, Pfc., 26-27
Bermudas, Enrique (Commander 380), 287-288
Bernard, Robert, 88, 90
Berrellez, Bob, 45
Bicknell, Ralph, 294-295, 296
BIOC (Basic Infantry Officers Course), 58
Bishop, Maurice, 262, 263, 264
Black, Jed, 27-28
Black, Karen, 305-306
Bleacher, Earl, 139, 146, 152
Blocksum, Fletcher, 77, 84, 85-86
Bloomberg, Michael, 385
Bohning, Don, 47, 261
Boroki, 225-226, 227
Bosnia, 356-376
“Boss Boy”, 123
Bounleuth, Col., 175, 184, 185-186
Bouterse, Dési, 316, 317-318, 319
Boykin, John, 282, 286, 288, 289-290
Bradley, Rusty, 387
British South Africa Police (BSAP)
Support Unit, 111, 112-113
Brooks, George, 138, 144
Brown, Alan, 299, 302
Brown, Robert K.
cases against, 15–17, 19–20
on hit list, 44
law school course and, 18
shooting of, 13–14
wounding of, 89–91
Brown Hotel, 9–11, 12, 13
Bruckheimer, Jerry, 309
Brunswijk, Ronny, 310, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317–318
BSAP (British South Africa Police)
Support Unit, 111, 112–113
Buni, 155, 157, 158, 176, 180
Burton, Bob, 269
Bush, George H. W., 336
Bush War, 106–107, 115, 131
Bustillo, General, 269–270, 279, 281
butterfly mines, 219–220
Calero, Adolpho, 286
Calero, Mario, 286
Camacho, Regino, 41, 42, 43–45
Camp Chaffee, 24
Camp Las Vegas, 284, 286, 289
Camp Liberty, 168
Camp Romeo, 131–132
Campbell, Bruce, 113,
Campbell, LTC, 82
Campbell, Robert, 79
Cárdenas, Rene, 276
Carter, Jimmy, 267–268, 284, 285
CAS (Continental Air Services), 116
Casey, Marty, 47–49, 52, 291
Casey, William, 284, 285
Cassidy, 80–81
Castro, Capt., 279, 280
Castro, Fidel, 33, 34, 35–37, 38, 39–40, 45–46, 101–102, 107, 270
Castro, Raul, 35, 39, 46, 264
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