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.
Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk opens with an uncomfortable lack of noise. Six soldiers meander on screen through an abandoned town, rummaging for food and water. There’s no dialogue, no music — just the eerily quiet sounds of paper rustling across ...
Crickets fade into the low drone of a bagpipe as the men of the 1st Air Cavalry Division nervously peer through the tall grass of Vietnam’s central highlands. The order comes to fix bayonets, and as the soldiers on screen prepare for deadly ...
The same year The Lord of the Rings trilogy reached its epic conclusion, one of the greatest sea stories ever put to film sailed into theaters. Eighteen years after its release, Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is finally ...
In 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the 29,029-foot summit of Mount Everest. The renowned mountain climber also helped launch the outdoor equipment company REI into the multibillion-dollar business it is today. But before ...
Another bullet slammed into the rocky slope beside journalist Mike Boettcher. The Taliban sniper fired again, sending another large-caliber bullet whizzing between the Americans who were scattered among the boulders. Boettcher kept his camera rolling ...
On June 6, 1944, Allied forces launched Operation Overlord, parachuting into France and landing along five beaches of the Normandy coast to start the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe. The D-Day landings are still the largest amphibious assault in ...
In 1968, Mark Treanor graduated from the Naval Academy and soon found the cobblestoned streets of Annapolis replaced by the jungles of Vietnam. As an infantry rifle platoon commander, Treanor lead Marines through booby traps and firefights in ...
Clint Eastwood is the Energizer Bunny of Hollywood. The legendary actor, director, and producer celebrated his 91st birthday on Monday. When it comes to filmmaking, Eastwood just keeps going and going and going, putting out a film about every two to ...
Standing on top of a 450-foot cliff in Utah, Dan Schilling — the former Air Force Combat Controller who holds the world record for most base jumps in 24 hours — got a bad feeling about the jump he was about to conduct. While having pre-jump ...
In a grand ceremony to honor his heroic service, 1st Lt. Justin Green Mills, who earned a Silver Star while leading Marines in the Pacific theater of World War II, was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery Wednesday, 78 years after being killed ...
Tropic Thunder is one of the funniest war movies ever made. It's a movie about a movie that’s about a book, starring a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude. The 2008 action-comedy was immensely popular when it was released and has only ...
While most battle-hardened vet bros aren’t advertising their admiration for Disney princesses, chances are those who are girl-dads probably have watched Moana more times than they can count — and loved it. Why? Because Moana — the most badass Disney ...
Harold Russell lost his hands on D-Day. An explosion blew off his hands above the wrist, permanently changing the course of the young soldier’s life. A demolition expert, Russell had been handling TNT, which, unbeknownst to him, was prepared with a ...
Adam Driver — best known for his role as Kylo Ren in the recent Star Wars sequel trilogy — has become a standout name in movies, television, and theater. He's been nominated for two Academy Awards, one Tony Award, and multiple Screen Actors Guild and ...
The camera focuses on a friendly looking old man who could be a stand-in for someone’s grandfather or perhaps a neighbor who smiles and waves each morning as he waters his garden. In fact, that's exactly who he is to most who know him — a harmless, ...
“Can you get him with a grenade?” “Yes!” The frantic answer comes from somewhere offscreen, then a sudden explosion. “Now we neutralize them!” Several camouflaged soldiers emerge from the tree line and send a volley of rifle fire into the ...
The 2021 GI Film Festival San Diego kicked off Tuesday with its largest lineup of films since the local festival was established in 2015. Originally a sister festival to the GI Film Festival held in Washington, DC, since 2006, the San Diego-based ...
In 1997, Sebastian Junger achieved commercial and literary success with The Perfect Storm, the bestselling book that helped launch his storied career in adventure journalism. He followed his breakout success with an impressive list of nonfiction ...
The Joe Rogan Experience was ranked Spotify’s most popular podcast in 2020, with each episode raking in millions of listeners worldwide. Among the A-list comedians, athletes, politicians, and artists, Joe Rogan’s guest list also includes an ...
There’s something great about mixing violence and comedy. Stirring gore and laughs into the same pot is why horror and comedy often go hand in hand; think Army of Darkness, What We Do in the Shadows, and Zombieland. In the same way that some of the ...
A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls are Ernest Hemingway’s best-known war stories. The latter is often considered one of the best war novels ever written. But it’s Hemingway’s short story, "Soldier’s Home," that perfectly captures the ...
With 180 acting credits under his gun belt — most for starring roles in Westerns and war movies — it may surprise some that John Wayne was actually a draft dodger. "The Duke," who tamed the Wild West, jumped into Normandy in The Longest Day, and ...
“You know you’re in cadence when walking feels easier than not walking," Sebastian Junger writes in Freedom. "You know you’re in cadence when you stop talking or even thinking and just walk. We walked around 400 miles and most nights we were the ...
The United States has been fighting for two decades, the longest the nation has ever been at war. Twenty years of sustained conflict has left America vulnerable to observation. America’s great power adversaries — China, Russia, and Iran — have been ...
A newly released photograph revealed the start of filming for Netflix’s upcoming production of All Quiet on the Western Front. This marks the first time since 1979 that the “greatest war novel of all time” will be adapted to the screen. It will also ...
In November 2004, a coalition of American, Iraqi, and British forces stepped off to begin the deadliest battle of the Iraq War. Code-named Operation Phantom Fury, the Second Battle of Fallujah claimed the lives of approximately 100 coalition troops ...
Royal Marines are taking a page out of Tony Stark’s playbook. A newly released video shows a Royal Marine commando using a Gravity Industries jet suit to board a moving ship in a training exercise. What would have sounded like science fiction not so ...
It’s been 44 years since A New Hope hit theaters, yet Star Wars seems to have an almost miraculous ability to generate new fans. George Lucas — and now Disney — created a franchise that keeps reinventing itself while remaining true to the original ...
Star Wars boasts some of the most hardcore fans of any franchise, but some might not know the impressive military background of the Empire’s most fearsome warlord. Darth Vader, the main villain of the original Star Wars trilogy and the tragic ...
Nestled in Cambodia's ancient capital of Phnom Penh is an unassuming set of five buildings resembling a high school. That’s exactly what Tuol Sleng was before it was transformed into something much darker. Upon closer inspection, the buildings reveal ...
