Part one of the three-part, 45 minute documentary using footage from DPx Gear founder Robert Young Pelton's trip to South Sudan is now posted on the VICE website.
“Saving South Sudan” is a very special and timely project that uses the entire contents of VICE’s 50,000-word print magazine, an online event at VICE.com, and a three-part documentary series. Taking a multi-platform approach, VICE tells the story of how the world’s newest sovereign country descended into its third civil war in a century.
While the magazine has published innumerable issues devoted to single topics and themes—from art to humor to war crimes in Syria—this is the first time all of its 130 pages have been filled by just two contributors: author and filmmaker Robert Young Pelton and photographer and filmmaker Tim Freccia.
You can view the documentary here and read the entire issue here.
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Robert Young Pelton sits down with Enrique “Ric” Prado, a decorated CIA officer whose covert work shaped decades of U.S. paramilitary operations. Known for his leadership in the Contra War, counterterrorism missions, and the development of modern “find, fix, finish” kill teams, Prado’s life reads like a spy thriller. Pelton and Prado share a mutual friend, CIA legend Billy Waugh, who goes beyond what was allowed in his best-selling book and takes the audience into uncharted, dangerous, and never-before-discussed territory.
When Reza Allahbakshi, a survival instructor and journalist, first picked up a battered used copy of The World’s Most Dangerous Places, he didn’t expect the man behind it to be so complex. Pelton, the author in question, isn’t just a writer — he’s a lumberjack, marketer, blaster’s assistant, television host, and, most notably, a relentless and fearless explorer of the globe’s most volatile zones.
In this rich and often philosophical conversation, Pelton pulls back the curtain on his origins.
It is a rare moment when a product, a designer, and a legacy blend into one perfect moment. Robert Young Pelton has been working and living in the bush, war zones, and dangerous places since he was ten. He designed his first knife in 2008, and 17 years and over two dozen patents later, he is still perfecting the Hostile Environment Survival Tool—a proven design that is beautiful, ergonomic, dependable, and functional. In that obsession lies an ancient concept of elegance, form, and function, designed to be used roughly and to age with grace. This is a perfection of that vision.