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.
On Sept. 11, 2001, an Associated Press photograph dubbed “The Falling Man” captured a man jumping to his death from the World Trade Center to avoid being burned alive. The shocking photograph of a man rocketing headfirst toward earth gave the world ...
A well-respected Afghan warlord and former governor known as the “Lion of Herat” capitulated to the Taliban Friday, Aug. 13, following weeks of fighting in Afghanistan’s third-largest city, according to the insurgents and local ...
Only a “core diplomatic presence” will remain at the US Embassy in Afghanistan, according to the Biden administration. All other personnel are withdrawing amid steady Taliban gains across the country. The announcement came Thursday, Aug. 12, as Herat ...
Black Rifle Coffee Company founder Evan Hafer returned to The Joe Rogan Experience last week to shoot the shit. The Green Beret-turned-CEO discussed a variety of topics, from the recent New York Times Magazine article to riding fan boats into the ...
Lombard Street was wet with rain on Oct. 3, 1849. The dreary weather was normal for a fall evening in Baltimore, but what a passerby found slumped outside Gunner’s Hall public house was anything but. Lying in the cobblestone gutter — dressed in ...
Tom Cruise will be back in the spotlight when Top Gun: Maverick finally hits theaters later this year. The Jerry Maguire actor is perhaps best known for his incredible stunt work — like scaling the Burj Khalifa and HALO jumping for the Mission ...
From a bitter Korean War veteran in Gran Torino to a hard-nosed Recon Marine in Heartbreak Ridge, Clint Eastwood has made a career of portraying tough guys. His on-screen persona is often that of a gun-toting vigilante with no patience for the “pussy ...
Col. Dave Severance, commander of the Marines who famously planted the American flag on Iwo Jima and became an iconic representation of America’s military might, passed away Aug. 2 at his home in La Jolla, California. He was 102 years ...
Taliban forces assassinated Afghanistan’s top media and information officer Friday in the capital city of Kabul, an alarming milestone in the Taliban’s ongoing effort to silence journalists in the country. Dawa Khan Menapal, head of the Government ...
After years of repeatedly rewatching Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, J.R.R. Tolkien fans can celebrate now that fresh tales from Middle-earth are finally on the way. Amazon just released a first look at its upcoming ...
In 1986, director Oliver Stone famously took a bunch of pampered actors into the Philippine jungles and treated them like dog shi — er, like soldiers, to prepare them for his passion project, Platoon. Actor Tom Berenger reportedly lost nearly a pound ...
Quentin Tarantino’s best movie — Inglourious Basterds — almost didn’t get made. Tarantino has said that Nazi Col. Hans Landa was “the greatest character I’ve ever written,” and Tarantino refused to make Inglourious Basterds until he found the ...
“Our run of invincibility had ended, and the close calls that foreshadowed August 2 would haunt us long after.” Kevin Lacz, a former Navy SEAL sniper and corpsman, wrote those words in his memoir, The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team Three Sniper’s ...
For five months in 1916, German artillery shells rained down on British trenches, contributing to the more than 1 million casualties incurred at the Somme. Futile attempts to seize ground were traded back and forth until England finally claimed one ...
Navy veteran and acclaimed filmmaker David Ayer, best known for writing or directing popular films such as Fury, Training Day, and End of Watch, took to Twitter Thursday to declare the 2016 Suicide Squad film he wrote and directed for Warner Bros. ...
Sitting at a table full of empty chairs in a pub, Aaron Kirk and another Marine veteran set pints of beer on napkins bearing the names of fallen comrades. The empty seats and the beers are for men they fought alongside in Afghanistan. “Nobody in ...
Magua simultaneously draws his tomahawk and dagger with the ease of movements practiced a thousand times. Unlike most depictions of Native Americans, the Huron warrior isn’t adorned in a feather headdress or riding a painted stallion across the Great ...
The catchy refrain of bluesy rock guitar and The Boss’s ragged baritone voice make Bruce Springsteen’s "Born in the U.S.A." a go-to jam for many Americans during patriotic events and celebrations. Ironically, the hit song actually isn’t the ...
With classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr. Fox under his name, it might come as a surprise that before Roald Dahl was a beloved children’s author, he was an accomplished World War II fighter ...
The best war movies of all time usually have one thing in common: realism. Whether it’s Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, or Platoon, good war movies require actors to commit to authentically portraying service members. Technical advisers can ...
Seldom do literary giants lead lives as interesting as their stories. Hemingway may have personified the hyper-masculine lifestyle of bull-fighting and binge drinking he often wrote about, and Edgar Allan Poe’s untimely death might be equally as ...
Whether out of a desire to clap back at conspiracy theorists or to sound smart on their uncle’s Facebook post, herds of keyboard warriors regularly take to the internet in an attempt to become armchair historians in space exploration. It's been more ...
The senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a rank some service members don’t even know exists. It’s the top-ranking enlisted position in the entire Armed Forces, complete with its own insignia. The current SEAC, Ramón ...
Less than a week after Adolf Hitler committed suicide, American and German soldiers formed an unlikely alliance and fought together in World War II. As Allied forces marched toward victory and the Nazi war machine crumbled into pockets of resistance, ...
A 2015 survey from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that half of all Americans are unaware of when the Civil War took place. In an innovative effort to educate Americans and promote deeper understanding of that conflict, the American ...
From the “fighting tops” of continental ships to the streets of Iraq, the Marine Corps has a long and proud tradition of lethal marksmanship. Nowhere is that tradition more evident than among the Corps’ elite Scout Sniper community. Since World ...
The first-ever print edition of Coffee or Die Magazine became available for purchase Monday. Founded in 2018 as an online lifestyle magazine, Coffee or Die has seen enough success in the digital space to expand to a quarterly print publication ...
Steve McQueen had a rough childhood. Between two abusive stepfathers, an alcoholic mother who abandoned him, and growing up in a reform school, it’s no surprise the famous actor viewed the Marine Corps as a great escape from life’s ...
As the 11th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten is the one of the highest-ranking officers in the Department of Defense — second only to JCS Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley. Hyten pursued a military career ...
The Tomorrow War delivers exactly what it promises: satisfying alien combat mixed with lighthearted Chris Pratt one-liners. But if you’re hoping for a fresh take on the save-humanity-from-aliens storyline or a deeply moving cinematic experience, look ...
