History

In a moment that feels ripped from dystopian fiction, American schoolkids in 1940 stood with outstretched arms—Nazi-style—saluting the flag under a Pledge written by a Christian Socialist, in a bizarre collision of patriotism, forgotten history, and unintended symbolism.

David Bellavia didn’t come back from Fallujah with swagger or speeches—he came back with ghosts, blood on his boots, and a vow that he’d never freeze again when the devil kicked in the door.

You don’t have to wear a swastika to be dangerous—and you don’t have to quote Dugin to be part of a war built on empire.

In the shadowy waltz of Cold War espionage, the CIA’s heart attack gun wasn’t just a weapon—it was the grim poetry of paranoia rendered in steel and poison.

William Carney didn’t just carry the flag at Fort Wagner—he hauled the soul of a nation on his back through a storm of lead, and never let it fall.

Back in the early days of the OSS, when the stakes were sky-high and the playbook still being written, candidates faced a gauntlet of tests designed to weed out all but the toughest, sharpest minds—because only a ‘PhD who could win a bar fight’ would survive behind enemy lines.

The Führer’s last firearm, long speculated to be an ornate showpiece, was most likely an unremarkable Walther PP—just a standard-issue sidearm for a man whose final days were anything but.

Clint Romesha didn’t fight for glory—he fought for the guy next to him, in a godforsaken valley that the brass called indefensible and he turned into a proving ground for grit.

In a move that smells more like a bureaucratic slap on the wrist than true accountability, the Secret Service sidelined six agents after a would-be assassin nearly turned Butler, Pennsylvania into Dealey Plaza 2.0.

The DOJ wants you to believe Epstein ran a global sex ring without clients, kept no records, and killed himself off-camera—because pretending none of it ever happened is easier than naming names.

The CIA’s decades-long Oswald cover-up is finally unraveling, Trump’s Medicaid cuts are gutting rural America like a trout on a dock, and even his “ceasefire magic” with Putin fizzled faster than a wet match—three reminders that truth, health care, and peace are all in short supply. Here is your SOFREP Brief for Saturday evening, July 5th, 2025.

Robin Olds roared into combat with a handlebar mustache, a middle finger to bureaucracy, and a brain wired for turning aerial warfare into an art form.