We did kill when we had no particular reason to.

We tortured to achieve information that they probably didn't have.

And that atmosphere permeated its way through the whole unit.

We were just a loose band of bandits. In February 1976, Danny Gerhardt disappeared.

A 34-year-old father of four from Maryland, Gerhardt was a veteran of Vietnam, who had last

served in the military a full decade earlier. Now a maintenance mechanic in government

cafeterias, Gerhardt told his boss that he was taking a job in France. To his wife, he said that

he had something he needed to do. What Gerhardt needed to do, evidently, was to go to Angola and fight as a mercenary.

A hobbyist skydiver with a paunch, thousands of dollars of personal debt, and a head full of Walter Middish dreams,

Daniel F. Gerhardt was no real soldier.

Quote, it was in character for him to become a mail-order mercenary, the New York Times reported.

To get to Angola, Gerhard had responded to an ad in Soldier of Fortune, the magazine

favored by anti-communists, gun-nuts, and would-be adventurers. Despite having been 10 years out of the

army, despite never having been in real combat, Gerhardt was successfully recruited with other

mercenaries, and he arrived in Angola in February, 1976, ostensibly to support Angolan

anti-communist Holden Roberto and his organization, the FNLA.

But what Gerhardt found upon arrival was grift and defeat.

He reportedly gave his $1,000 hiring bonus to another Merck headed back to the U.S. to pass on to Gerhardt's wife.

But the man was never heard from again.

It took only a couple days after his arrival for the Cuban troops stationed in Angola to capture

Gerhardt and other mercenaries following a quick skirmish.

Gerhardt's African adventure was already over.

...