TAC Fella

In 2003, a soldier was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full honors. He had been a Finnish war hero. A Waffen-SS officer. A convicted traitor. A stowaway. And a US Army Green Beret. All the same man. His name was Lauri Törni. He was born in Finland in 1919, and his entire life was shaped by one thing. He hated the Soviet Union. In 1939 the Soviets invaded Finland in what became known as the Winter War. Törni fought in it as a young soldier. Finland was massively outnumbered and still made the Red Army pay a staggering price before agreeing to peace. When war with the Soviets broke out again in 1941, Törni became a legend. He led a small unit of ski troops on raids deep behind Soviet lines. Hit fast. Vanish into the forests. Do it again. He was so effective the Soviets reportedly put a bounty on his head. Finland awarded him the Mannerheim Cross, its highest military honor. In 1944, Finland made peace with the Soviet Union. For Törni, the war wasn't over. He went to Germany to keep fighting the Soviets. He trained with the Waffen-SS and was commissioned as an officer. When Germany collapsed in 1945, he surrendered to the British, escaped from a prison camp, and made his way back to Finland. Finland arrested him for treason for serving in a foreign army. He was sentenced to six years in prison. He escaped. He was caught. In 1948, he was pardoned. Then he vanished from Finland for good. He made his way to Sweden, then sailed to Venezuela. From there he got a job on a cargo ship bound for the United States. When the ship reached the Gulf of Mexico, he jumped overboard and swam to shore. In 1950 the US passed a law letting foreign veterans who joined the US Army earn American citizenship. Törni signed up immediately and changed his name to Larry Thorne. The man who had fought in an SS uniform now wore an American one. He joined the Special Forces. The Green Berets. Rose through the ranks. Became a captain. In 1962 he led a dangerous mission into the mountains of Iran to recover classified material from a crashed American plane. Then came Vietnam. He joined MACV-SOG, the top secret unit that ran missions behind enemy lines. On October 18, 1965, his helicopter went down in the jungle of Laos during a mission. He disappeared. For more than 30 years, nobody knew exactly what happened to him. In 1999, the crash site was finally found. His remains were identified in 2003. He was buried at Arlington among the men he served with. A soldier under three flags who spent his entire life fighting the same enemy, in three different uniforms, across three decades.