Along with giving excellent accounts of the fighting that took place from
the perspectives of the men on the ground and in the air wing, Bloodsong
also shows the side of a foreign internal defense/unconventional-warfare
mission that special operations personnel will truly appreciate.
Whatever EO employees may have been fighting for—be it money, adventure,
excitement, love of the job or resentment of UNITA—the stories of bravery,
audacity, innovation and fighting for the man next to you are truly universal.
Bloodsong is highly recommended as a well-detailed account of the realities
of a modern private army operating in a brutal guerrilla war.
—Special Warfare Magazine
Bloodsong is the first-hand account of the private military company Executive
Outcomes in Sierra Leone and Angola, where twenty-one of its employees were
killed in the vicious fighting to capture the diamond mines at Cafunfo. Using
Russian BMP-2 armoured vehicles supported by EO-flown Mi-17 helicopters,
PC-7 light attack aircraft and MiG-23 fighter-bombers, a handful of former
special forces operators succeeded where thousands of government soldiers
and Easy-bloc advisors had failed against Unita’s seasoned troops. Told
by senior ground and air officers, Bloodsong reveals how and why the company
became a legend in the annals of professional soldiering.
[Bloodsong is] a compelling narrative of the successes, trials, and tribulations
of the most famous – or infamous – private military company of
the 1990s.
—Christopher Spearin, Centre for International and Security Studies,
York University, Toronto
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