Is “Mad” Mike Hoare – of “Wild Geese” fame still living?
If he is he would be about 85. In 1981, Hoare, who was living in South Africa, led a madcap attempt to overthrow the government of Seychelles. Hoare and 43 mercenaries arrived pretending to be rugby players and members of a beer-drinking group called the Ancient Order of Frothblowers. But the coup attempt was foiled when a customs official spotted an AK-47 assault rifle in the luggage of one of the mercenaries. After a brief gunbattle most of the mercenaries escaped by hijacking an Air India jet. On his return to South Africa Hoare was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. There isn’t much news on him since then, but it is likely that he would have been involved in some form of business such as ‘contract soldiers’ or ‘private military companies’ (PMC’s) which evolved from many his exploits as hired mercenaries. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number rose to one in 10 during the Bosnian war. But the present-day land o
