Looks like we’re fixin’ to have us a brand-new Cowboy Soap Opera. And you know I love my cowboy soap operas…
From Cowboys & Indians Magazine:
And just when we were thinking we’d sure like to see Longmire star and C&I reader favorite Robert Taylor in a new series, along comes Netflix with an announcement that the Australian-born actor is returning to his Down Under roots in Territory, a neo-Western drama set to premiere Oct. 24 on the streamer.
What’s it all about? According to Netflix, Territory “follows the fight for power in the remote and unforgiving Australian outback when the world’s largest cattle station is left without an apparent heir. Imagine the family drama of your favorite prime-time soap, but set in a region so rough and remote that nearly everything can kill you.”
Wow. Tell us more.
“When Marianne Station is left without a clear successor, generational clashes threaten to tear the Lawson family apart. Sensing this once-great dynasty is in decline, the outback’s most powerful factions — rival cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders and billionaire miners — move in for the kill. With billions of dollars at stake, everyone wants a piece of the pie.”
Of course I’m in for this.
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Helion & Co. is one of the premier publishers of military history. This title publishes in December 2024. Holy smokes…
The Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) – was a highly classified, joint-service special operations unit of the United States armed forces, which ran covert and unconventional warfare operations during the Second Indochina War, in the period 1964-1972. SOG, as it came to be known, was the Vietnam War’s version of the OSS, the Second World War American spy service, using special equipment, weapons, and highly trained clandestine operatives. Made up of Army Special Forces, Navy SEALS, USAF forward observers and aircrew, South Vietnamese airmen and soldiers, SOG also included a motley assortment of CIA operatives and well-paid mercenaries from the Vietnamese highlands, Saigon’s slums, the jungles of Cambodia, and even Norway. Answering only to the Joint Chiefs and the White House, the men of SOG wreaked havoc on the North Vietnamese from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos to the North Vietnamese coastline beyond the 17th parallel. SOG scouted enemy supply lines, tapped communication lines, raided POW camps, spread propaganda and fear with psychological operations, and relentlessly attacked enemy units deep inside its sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia.
SOG troopers snatched enemy prisoners from their jungle lair and leapt from the sky in the world’s first combat use of high altitude, low-opening parachuting rigs. They carried space-age weapons, such as gyro-jet pistols, and honed their jungle survival and tracking skills to a razor’s edge, taught by mountain tribesmen to stalk and kill their Viet Cong and North Vietnamese enemies. By the time the unit disbanded in 1972 its elite commandos had been awarded nine Medals of Honor. Over 300 men of MACV-SOG were lost in combat, and approximately 60 remain Missing in Action.
Based on decades-long research in official archives and with help of veterans, Run Through the Jungle is not only richly illustrated, but also the first authoritative operational history of the MACV-SOG during the Vietnam war.
The title is self-consciously a play on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s menacing song (1970):
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Also coming from Helion & Co.
The story of Canada in the South African War is a complex one. How it even came about that the Canadian Government agreed to the dispatch of troops has its many talking points.
Serving as units integrated within a larger British force, several contingents were sent during the course of the conflict, the first being the 2nd (Special Service) Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry. Subsequent contingents were made up mostly of mounted troops but also artillery and later a field hospital. The first mounted units were the 1st and 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, the first of these becoming the Royal Canadian Dragoons. Then there was the privately raised Strathcona’s Horse. Of considerable interest are the more than 1000 Canadians who enlisted in the South African Constabulary.
There was no single manner in which the Canadian Contingents were raised and paid for, though the men mostly served under fixed terms of enlistment. Those joining the South African Constabulary, however, frequently found themselves in action for longer periods as, though they were raised as a para-military police force, the unanticipated extended period of hostilities meant they were engaged in much more of a military role than had been expected.
Canada’s role in the changing and evolving conditions of the South African War was complex and varied, and Canadian troops rose to the task and performed well. The impact of the war on the development of the Canadian military is also of considerable interest.
I’ll be getting this one, too. The Canadian mounted troops, particularly Strathcona’s Horse, were the epitome of an early 20th Century Frontier Partisan outfit. Not for nothing did they call Strathcona’s Horse “The Queen’s Cowboys.’ And a stylish lot they were, even when the veld wore everything out.
And let the record show that I consider the Strathcona Boot the pinnacle of manly footwear…
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And this one:
This book recounts a major error by Cecil Rhodes and the British Government in the scramble for Africa and uses many contemporary accounts as well of official documents.
The settlement of Mashonaland and Matabeleland was accomplished by settlement and conquest and were the result of the schemes of Cecil John Rhodes and his right-hand man , Leander Starr Jameson to expand the British Empire and fill the coffers of the British South Africa Company. Within four years both these lands were occupied and their people’s pacified. During these events there was a murky history of theft, deception and accusations of ‘Moral Murder’.
Managing the newly acquired lands and controlling their peoples for the benefit of the Company’s investors proved more difficult than expected and the British Government was keen to protect the indigenous people against the worst ravages of the settlers who were keen to exploit not only the resources of the land and the peoples themselves. Number of the men charged with administrating the land and people were of questionable ability and the methods they used caused great anger amongst those whom they governed.
The result was a serious of revolts during which settlers were brutally massacred and farms and mines destroyed. Such was the danger posed by these uprisings than the Imperial Government was forced to offer military assistance as the settlers’ volunteer units proved unable to quell them. There were a number of events such as the Mazoe Patrol and famous men famous men involved in the campaigns which included Baden Powell, who refined his scouting techniques, Alfred Milner, the High Commissioner, Herbert Plumer who became a World War 1 Commander and a Field Marshal, Herbert Stephen Henderson V.C.. It also saw Rhodes at his best when negotiating the peace. It also discusses the work of Africans such as John Grootboom, in supporting the British in their attempts to pacify the Mashona and AmaNdebele.
A chap named A. Viraaj Singh has done us all a lovely favor: He has recorded dozens of tales from the Golden Age of hunting — yarns from the likes of Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson. Most of the stories are from India, but he just dropped one from Frederick Courteney Selous.
Wayne says
The Strathcona boot is a beauty! And the campaign hats! The U.S. Army never should have stopped issuing them. They’d have few recruiting problems if a young man could join and be issued one of those hats today. My alma mater, Texas A&M, still allows Corps of Cadets members to wear the old hat in lieu of the garrison cap. Nothing is cooler than seeing the cadets in Parson’s Mounted Cavalry riding in their campaign hats.
JimC says
Yes!
David Wrolson says
So did you tweak your algorithm to come up with the best possible post directed at me?
Sure, we just get back from a quick trip to Colorado and western Nebraska. Got quite a pile of books at historic sites and local bookstores and then this post appears.
Oddly enough, (or not) I often tend to just go to the bookstores at historic sites and don’t even look much at the site itself.
JimC says
Hah! I KNEW these would get your attention.
David Wrolson says
I read “The Borrowed Hills” which you previously mentioned.
I can’t recommend it and I can’t not recommend it. The best I can do is if it looks good to you read it.
It does have a touch of fantasy that I thought added to it.
In addition to the normal history and environment type books that I bought on the trip, I found a fiction trilogy that is going to jump to the top of the stack.
Oil field geology and such is probably my road not traveled-so these 3 books jumped out at me.
1) “Sinai Prospect”
2) “Sinai Gold”
3) “Sinai Surrender”
Written by a widely traveled geologist-the trilogy might be worth a look.
Looks kind of 1970’s pulpy-or even maybe Wilbur Smith.
I will let you know what I think.
Quixotic Mainer says
I think I’ll stick to my Ariats when I’m ahorse, but there’s no denying how cool the RCMP dress uniform is, Strathconas and all.
Greg Marshall says
Lord Strathcona’s Horse still exists.
https://www.strathconas.ca/the-regiment