This soldier fought for Finland, Nazi Germany and U.S. Special Forces, by WaPo

That's so weird! How could one man fight for three so completely and entirely different causes!?

In 1939, an officer in the Finnish army helped defend his country against a Soviet invasion, earning two Medals of Liberty for his actions.

In 1941, a soldier fighting for the SS joined Germany’s war against the Red Army, commanding a tank platoon in the Karelia offensive.

In 1963, a member of the U.S. Special Forces earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart in Vietnam and undertook a reconnaissance mission to search for the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.

All three soldiers were the same man: Lauri Törni.

Across his various postings for three countries, Törni’s apparent motivation — to keep Russian aggression at bay — is one that seems to be shared by the majority of today’s Finns. Conflict with Russia was a reality for Törni, not just a fear. When he volunteered for military service in September 1938 and the Red Army moved to occupy Finland, he and his countrymen found themselves overwhelmed by Soviet manpower.

Nazi Germany offered the Finnish forces arms and assistance in return for passage into their country. When Finland sent a voluntary battalion to SS Division Wiking, Törni — restless from time away from the battlefield, and having fallen into brawling and heavy drinking — was among the volunteers onboard a ship of 289 recruits.

He was promoted to the rank of Untersturmführer, but his prospects for further advancement were limited. Men who did not get along with the Germans were sent back. Törni was one of them. When a second conflict between Finland and the U.S.S.R., the Continuation War, broke out on June 25, 1941, Törni was given command of a machine gun platoon. He was promoted to lieutenant and awarded a third-class Cross of Freedom medal for his leadership. He was also able to form his own company, Detachment Törni. The company’s work behind enemy lines involved hogtieing Soviet troops, disabling transport and sowing terror among the Russians. It earned Törni a German Iron Cross from his occupying commanders, and a 3-million-mark bounty on his head from the Soviets.

A further honor — the second-class Mannerheim Cross, which Törni received on June 9, 1944 — came with a 50,000-mark cash prize, most of which Törni drank away with his comrades. With his homeland in turmoil and the threat of Soviet occupation still hovering, Törni boarded a U-boat for Germany in 1945, seeking action after having been refused permission to join the Lapland War in the north of his country. But World War II was drawing to a close, and the 1944 Moscow Armistice — signed by Finland, Russia and the United Kingdom — had ordered the Finnish government to expel the occupying German troops.

Lauri Törni changed his name to Larry Allan Thorne. With his SS tattoo removed and a wealth of combat experience to draw on, he received postings at Forts Dix, Carson, Benning and Bragg. He was selected for training as a Special Forces officer, and in 1963 began his first tour of Vietnam, setting up a base camp near the Cambodian border. Thorne helped build schools and hospitals, and would return to Fort Bragg with Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals.

But when faced with an old enemy — civilian restlessness — he volunteered for a second tour with the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (Studies and Observations Group), a top-secret unit not officially recognized by the government, and tasked with recon missions across the border into Laos. Thorne’s long-range patrol skills developed during the Continuation War could once again be called upon. On Oct. 18, 1965, the former Finnish Civil Guard, ex-Untersturmführer and serving Special Forces major boarded an unmarked helicopter tasked with finding the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a communist supply route. It disappeared in bad weather. More than 50 search missions failed to find Thorne or his comrades, each made difficult by the fact he was never officially in Laos. Thorne was declared dead on Oct. 19, 1966.

At no point does the article do any "well, perhaps the causes were flawed, BUT fighting those goddamn Ruskies makes him a hero" hedging. I think this is just honest-to-god Nazi propaganda.