Men's Journal

May cover Photo credit: Men's Journal

In the May issue of Men’s Journal, on newsstands now, Matthew McConaughey opens up about living a celebrity life on the road in his Airstream, Todd Palin introduces readers to Alaska’s brutal Iron Dog race, we reveal the untold story of 12 U.S. soldiers who fought the Taliban on horseback, and a hunter, a top chef, and a journalist walk into a swamp for a blood-soaked lesson in how to capture, prepare, and savor wild boar.

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From Air-Conditioned Gypsy, Neal Pollack’s profile of McConaughey:

The Airstream [has become] an extension of him. “With technology today,” McConaughey says, “I can communicate just as well from the Airstream, run everything right there. I can do it better. My thoughts are better when I’m on the road. I’m more creative. And I can get to anyone at any time. If I need to meet someone — I’ve done this before — ‘Well, here’s where I am. I’m going east coming up here out of Idaho. I’ll be in Missoula in about five hours. Why don’t you fly up to Missoula, I’ll pick you up, we’ll drive east from there, we’ll do our thing on the road, and I’ll drop you off at the next airport.’ It works like a charm.

From Iron Todd, Daniel Duane’s profile of Todd Palin:

“All I have to say about the campaign,” Palin says, eyes flickering to and from the TV, “is it was awesome, okay?”

Rat-a-tat-tat.

A once-in-a-lifetime deal, see — being catapulted onto the national stage and traveling the country and seeing cities he never dreamed of seeing, watching his wife speak at the Republican National Convention and in front of adoring crowds at rallies, befriending John McCain, a bona fide war hero. These are the takeaway experiences Todd Palin would prefer to focus on, even as McCain insiders portrayed his wife as uncontrollable and blamed her for the campaign’s collapse.

“I’m not going to get wrapped around the axles on a few people’s comments — ‘She’s a diva,’ or whatever,” Palin says. “There was no name attached to that, so who knows if it’s really true. I mean, all the little negative stuff out there that’s been exploited? To me? I have nothing but respect for the McCains, because they’re a class act. And some people, the detractors, they get bent out of shape.” He shakes his head, as if disbelieving that even some of his own Alaskans would turn on his wife. “They’re so full of anger, you know? I mean, why wouldn’t anybody be proud of one of their citizens being nominated to the VP? Unless you’re just a real hater?”

(read more from Duane’s piece here)

From Doug Stanton’s The Charge of the 9/11 Brigade:

General Abdul Rashid Dostum sat atop his white stallion, a red pom-pom braided in the coarse ivory hair at its forehead. Dostum, one of the Northern Alliance’s three factional leaders, or “warlords,” had returned from exile in Turkey in late 2000 to raise a guerrilla force of several thousand men in Afghanistan and to drive the Taliban from power. He’d been in a series of fierce firefights throughout the summer and fall, but in the last few weeks, he and his men had been holed up in his mountain headquarters above the Darya Suf River Valley. Now, on October 20, 2001, a little less than six weeks after the September 11 attacks, he had been joined by a team of elite American soldiers, a 12-member U.S. Special Forces team that had flown in secretly from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, hours earlier. With his new American allies — who were offering to call in air strikes against their common enemy — he was preparing to lead his men out of an ancient mud fort where they’d met and spent the night. Their mission: Capture the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a crossroads and resupply route essential to the Taliban’s continued control of Afghanistan.

From Manny Howard’s Kill it, Cook it, Eat it:

There is a proper way to stab a boar to death. The pig will die instantly if the blade pierces its heart. The efficacy of a proper strike is why knife hunters consider their method the most humane. And there is, it is said, no mistaking a proper heart strike. “You don’t have to go all Norman Bates,” says Boyd. “Just thrust and press down. Pull the blade. Watch for the plume.”

My first strike is high, piercing lung, not heart. There is plenty of blood, but it’s not arterial. The boar, seemingly oblivious to the hole I have opened in its chest, is still lunging at the dogs, who shake their heads violently whenever their jaws lock. The pig squeals, pulls loose, and bites back. If I were nervous, and I was, I am not anymore. I am confused, absorbed, and desperate to stop the battle in front of me.

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