Mac Caltrider is a staff writer for Coffee or Die Magazine. He served in the US Marine Corps and is a former police officer. Caltrider earned his bachelor’s degree in history and now reads anything he can get his hands on. He is also the creator of Pipes & Pages, a site intended to increase readership among enlisted troops. Caltrider spends most of his time reading, writing, and waging a one-man war against premature hair loss.
It’s no secret George Lucas drew heavily on Japanese film when he began creating Star Wars. Between taking entire scenes from legendary director Akira Kurosawa to modeling Darth Vader’s appearance after samurai armor, Star Wars is essentially a ...
As a young 10th Mountain Division officer in 2006, Ray McPadden was among the first Americans to push into Afghanistan’s formidable Korengal Valley. After four years of Army ROTC, McPadden was finally going to do what he had signed up for: kill bad ...
By the pricking of my thumbs, Shakespeare's wicked Scottish king comes back to theaters on Christmas Day 2021. Macbeth and his sinister wife are getting the A24 treatment. The studio responsible for atmospheric gems like The Witch, The Green Knight, ...
The claustrophobic trenches of Sam Mendes’ World War I epic, 1917, offer one of the most anxiety-inducing settings of any war film since Das Boot. High mud walls obscure a hidden enemy, unpredictable shelling snuffs out any sense of safety, and the ...
Before leading the Cleveland Browns to a 31-21 home victory over the Houston Texans, Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield donned a special set of cleats bearing the image of Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Maxton “Max” Soviak, one of the 13 US service ...
In the summer of 2018, 12 children from a youth soccer team were stranded deep inside a remote, flooded cave in northern Thailand. As the world watched the horrifying situation unfold, an international group of volunteers scrambled to develop and ...
Looking up from the tablet in his hands, Army Special Forces veteran Joe Mooney shook his head, struggling to find the appropriate words. Despite the concealment his tattoos, beard, and sunglasses offered, the hulking former operator failed to hide ...
Christopher Nolan is returning to historical dramas, and this time the renowned director with a time fetish is telling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer: father of the atomic bomb. Universal Pictures is set to make Nolan’s upcoming film with a ...
On Sept. 9, 2021, HBO released a 12-part podcast event marking the 20th anniversary of the network’s groundbreaking miniseries Band of Brothers. The show followed the men of Easy Company from D-Day to the end of World War II in Europe and set a new ...
“The United States Army took the top 1% of all the grunts they had and then consolidated them into one unit, taught them how to jump out of fucking airplanes, then pointed them at some shit they didn’t like and said, ‘Get rid of it. I don’t care ...
It’s been 18 years since the culminating film of the Matrix trilogy hit theaters, but a new trailer from Warner Bros. reveals a venture back down the rabbit hole. Lana Wachowski is at the helm for the upcoming The Matrix Resurrections. The ...
Sept. 11, 2001, was a beautiful Tuesday morning. Blue skies, no humidity. The kind of morning pilots call “severe clear.” Tim Brown was a 17-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department on that fateful day when he and hundreds ...
When American Airlines Flight 11 struck the north tower of the World Trade Center, Rick Rescorla immediately recognized what was happening. Rescorla, the director of security for Morgan Stanley, had survived the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and ...
On April 24, 2021, President Joe Biden addressed the nation about America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, delivering what would prove to be a stream of empty promises. “We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit,” Biden said. "We’ll do it — ...
Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller died in 1971 after a career in the Marine Corps that spanned 37 years and three wars. To this day, “Chesty” is the Corps’ most decorated Marine and a giant every jarhead knows by name. At boot camp, recruits ...
Sept. 11, 2001, was the deadliest day for first responders in American history. The terrorist attacks killed 343 New York City firefighters, 37 Port Authority police officers, and 23 New York City police officers. The destruction of the World Trade ...
Marines love to brag. Whether they're bragging about out-drinking the Navy or out-fighting the Army, Marines have a seemingly endless list of boasts they can’t always back up. But the Marine Corps has at least one distinction no other branch can ...
It’s been seven years since their last collaboration, and Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, and Dolph Lundgren are finally getting the band back together. The Expendables 4 is officially underway, and newcomers Megan Fox and Curtis Jackson, aka 50 ...
A new video has surfaced online depicting the chaotic reality of the Kabul evacuation. What appears to be footage shot on a Marine’s helmet-mounted camera reveals the poor conditions troops worked under to help evacuate 124,334 people from ...
“That’s not cinema,” legendary director Martin Scorsese said about superhero movies during a 2019 interview for Empire magazine. “It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being,” he ...
Hollywood actor and US Army veteran Ed Asner died Sunday, Aug. 29. He was 91. The actor, best known for his roles in The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Up, died from natural causes in his home in Los Angeles, according to his publicist. The son of ...
The newest installment in the Call of Duty video game franchise was announced Aug. 19, and the trailer is wild. In the game titled Call of Duty: Vanguard, the series returns to its roots and jumps (literally) back into World War II. The popular ...
As the United States carries out its withdrawal from Afghanistan, many veterans who served there are struggling to process their feelings. Among those trying to understand how the withdrawal devolved into the current situation is Marine veteran and ...
As a member of a female engagement team with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Sgt. Nicole Gee was providing a vital skill set during the United States' chaotic final withdrawal from Afghanistan. She was there to communicate with and facilitate ...
A new episode of Disney Gallery was released Wednesday, Aug. 25, dedicated entirely to the season two finale of The Mandalorian. The episode detailed the great lengths filmmakers went to in order to ensure the surprise return of Mark Hamill as a ...
A Marine from Missouri who was less than a year old when al Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, was identified as one of the 13 American service members killed in Afghanistan Thursday, Aug. 26. Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz ...
A Marine commander has been fired after posting a widely shared video to Facebook in which he called out the Secretary of Defense, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and other senior military leadership and demanded accountability for the chaotic and ...
In a new video, former Navy SEAL Lt. Cmdr. Jocko Willink delivers a speech as if he were the president of the United States briefing the public on the current situation in Afghanistan. In the mock presidential address, Willink accepts responsibility ...
Marines from 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment — a unit slated to be fully deactivated soon — were among the first Americans to respond to the crisis in Kabul. Alongside them, Marines of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and soldiers of the 82nd ...
With Afghanistan in chaos, a virtual movement that’s been dubbed the “Digital Dunkirk” and “the Lance Corporal Underground Railroad” is now in full swing. Government operations are failing to provide the administrative and logistical support ...
