Mercenary 'Mad Mike' Hoare passes

[Badger52]

Age 100, in South Africa.

He's certainly one of those people you'd find in the dictionary under "May you live in interesting times"

Article here.

[Joker]

A friend and former teammate was on that last bungled mission with him.

[glebo]

I think I remember reading articles on him in the Soldier of Fortune mag when that was hot, around the mid 80's or so..

[PRB]

Originally Posted by glebo

I think I remember reading articles on him in the Soldier of Fortune mag when that was hot, around the mid 80's or so..

Yup...and back in the mid 70's from my recollection....

[JJ_BPK]

RIP Warrior, Vaya con Dios

I think Mad Mike might have influenced Warren Zevon's writing of "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"

NSFW: If you haven't heard it in a while..

Dylan C

The following are a series of war correspondence films from the Simba Rebellion in the Congo in 1964/65 set to the tune of "Roland the Thompson Gunner" by Warren Zevon. The film features a platoon of mercenaries from Europe conducting a platoon attack on the town of Boende in the Cong. The mercenaries primarily come from the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Of note there is an ex-ss officer in the film according to the source, I can't confirm this though.

It features some brutal combat and the summary execution of a rebel so it is NSFW.


Song: Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner
Artist: Warren Zevon
Album: The Best Of Warren Zevon (US Release)

https://www.*******.com/watch?v=op0HCQK-PDU

[kpatton539]

I grew up with an SF father and in SF circles. One of the family friends was SGM David Disharoon, 7th, 46th co and 5th that I know of. His mother was French so he had dual citizenship and passports. I know he was involved in the Congo operations, ended up doing an E&E eventually being smuggled out by another "A" Team about a year later. What I don't know, and since he passed away never will, is what he actually did. I tried like hell to get him to talk but never managed, even though I used a copy of the Levenworth papers to lay out the overall operations. His comment was, "I was just s como guy with a French passport". He did say that with his TDY settlement, he bought the house his wife still owns in Ponderosa and the car he drove until he couldn't drive. It's a shame that I wasn't smart enough to realize the legends I was around in my youth.