SITREP: June 2001

By Dan Shea

Dear SAR readers,

SAR serves five basic groups of readers, and each month we try and balance the articles out so that all are well served. Those groups are the recreational and competition shooters, collectors and museums, law enforcement and military users, class three dealers, and the small arms industry. Together, we are the gun culture that Barbara Boxer’s mother warned her about. We have fought the wars, kept the peace, protected and fed our families, and generally had a good time with our various disciplines and hobbies. We have a common bond, we are men at arms. That bond is fragmented many times by people outside us, trying to divide us. Divide and conquer, as it were. SAR stands against that — our readers stand together in the common bond of our martial interests — our history and understanding of military firearms and technology.

In this issue we introduce a new writer, Peter G. Kokalis. The former Technical Editor of Soldier of Fortune magazine joins the “Usual Suspects” at SAR with sterling credentials in the small arms field. He has signed on as a Senior Editor, and will be using his honed editorial skills to help SAR’s Finnish and Russian writers in their submittals, as well as submitting his own storyboard. Peter is a technical gun writer of much accomplishment, and his tenure at SOF included many coups on never-seen- before modern small arms, many times from behind the shadowy mist that was the Iron Curtain. I have personally enjoyed many of these articles, from the AGS-17 to the Type 64 Chinese suppressed SMG.

The general gun press can be very restrictive on a writer — a few pretty pictures, don’t get too deep, etc. SAR has a history of digging deep, and bringing extensive technical information to the readers — hopefully in an interesting fashion. We like to make SAR a technical reference library for our readers to keep and use forever. This type of work is near and dear to the hearts of SAR’s “Usual Suspects”, and Peter Kokalis has always been with us in spirit.

I hope you will all join me in dumping a belt or magazine downrange (five- to seven- round bursts on the belt feds, two- to three-round bursts on the mags) in welcoming Peter to our fold. Those readers who live in countries that allow such things, should toss a celebratory hand grenade as well. Your neighbors might not understand, but the rest of the RKI’s and Emma Gees certainly will.

-Dan