Book Reviews
Death Valley Magazine
Our Foreign Correspondent Rob Krott sent me a copy of the book he wrote about the time he spent as a mercenary and contractor in the 90’s; “SAVE THE LAST BULLET FOR YOURSELF: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia”.
As a big fan of books about modern Mercenaries, Private Military Companies (PMC) and Civilian Contracting I have been quite disappointed with the rash of so called mercenary and civilian contractor books that have been released lately.
Pretty much all of them are written by an observer or war tourist who would spend a week or two in a war zone and then proclaim themselves “experts” or an “authority” on the contracting and private soldiering business then write a book.
That’s why reading Rob Krott’s book was a breath of fresh air amongst the poser PMC books – this book was written by someone that actually did what he wrote about. For those of you that don’t know about Rob Krott he is the former Chief Foreign Correspondent for Soldier of Fortune Magazine and has been writing about the Mercenary, Private Military Company (PMC) and Civilian Contracting business for quite some time.
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Kepler’s Military History Book Reviews
Hollywood typically paints a picture of glamor, riches, and women awaiting mercenaries. “Save the Last Bullet for Yourself: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia” by Rob Krott corrects the myth. You will find how Rob Krott made the journey from private in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 1980 to becoming a US Army second lieutenant through the National Guard-ROTC early commissioning program in 1983.
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Neptunus Lex
If you grew up with a martial mindset in the late 70s and early 80s, it was impossible not to be aware of the magazine “Soldier of Fortune.” A quick perusal of the subject matter revealed a fixation on military weapons and tactics at the unit level, and opportunities to be had the world over – there was always trouble brewing somewhere. That was during the Cold War of course, when wars were fought by proxy. If anything, things got more chaotic after the Berlin Wall came down.
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CATO Institute
The book is “Save the Last Bullet for Yourself: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia.” The author is Rob Krott, a former U.S. Army officer who worked as a mercenary in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in 1992 and 1993, and as a contractor in Somalia. Since then he has served in the field with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army and has worked on contract in Latin America, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Yemen and parts of the former Soviet Union. Most recently, he served about three years as a “security specialist” in Iraq. Krott was on active duty in the U.S. Army for most of the 1980s and did some time in the National Guard and Reserves, but soon discovered he was not cut out for a career in civilian life.
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David Isenberg, United Press International
“One thing that Krott makes clear quickly is that the glamorous Hollywood portrayal of high-paid international mercenaries issheer fiction. . . . [He] ends with an epilogue that recounts the sad and often dismal fate of many of the mercenaries he served with.”
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Magweb.com
“…puts you in the combat boots of a former US Army officer turned mercenary in two of the world’s hotspots: Bosnia/ Croatia and Somalia…. Provides frank descriptions and analysis of the troops…a boots on the ground in your face memoir…”
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Raider
‘…well-written…Rob’s great writing skills show his true feelings about the conflicts he finds himself in. This book shows a scary insight into a world most of the population will never know.”
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Small Arms Review
“…you know the writer has been there, done that and knows the firearms from personal, hands on experience…details the exciting, real and all very true stories of … modern soldier of fortune.”
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