Tex O'Reilly

1880 — December 8, 1946

Tex O'Reilly was an American soldier of fortune whose restless pursuit of combat carried him across four continents and reportedly into ten different wars. Beyond the battlefield, he built a second career as a journalist, film actor, and author, leaving behind colorful memoirs that blurred the line between fact and legend. His life became the stuff of American folklore, inspiring biographies by others and his own creation of the tall-tale hero Pecos Bill.

Early Military Service

Born Edward Sinnott O'Reilly in 1880, the man who would become known as "Tex" began his soldiering career in the ranks of the United States Army during one of America's most expansionist periods. He served in the Spanish–American War of 1898, which propelled the U.S. onto the world stage as a colonial power, and then fought in the brutal Philippine–American War that followed. His appetite for conflict was not sated there, and he went on to take part in the international intervention against the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. These early campaigns established a pattern that would define the rest of his life: wherever fighting broke out, O'Reilly seemed determined to find his way into it, regardless of which flag he served under or which cause he championed.

A Mercenary's World Tour

After his formal U.S. Army service ended, O'Reilly transformed himself into a true soldier of fortune, selling his martial skills to whichever side would have him. He claimed to have fought in multiple conflicts across Central America, a region then rife with revolutions and civil wars that attracted adventurers of his stripe. He also asserted that he rode alongside the famed revolutionary Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, placing himself at the heart of one of the 20th century's most storied guerrilla campaigns. His wanderings reportedly took him even further afield, to North Africa, where he claimed to have joined the Spanish Foreign Legion in the Rif War against Moroccan rebels. Whether every claim was strictly verifiable or embellished for effect, the sheer scope of his self-described military résumé, spanning wars in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, cemented his reputation as one of the era's most traveled and audacious mercenaries.

Writer, Journalist, and Legend

In his later years, O'Reilly channeled his adventures into words, working as a reporter for the Associated Press and putting his firsthand experience of war to use in vivid dispatches. He wrote his own autobiography, Roving and Fighting, recounting his exploits in his characteristically boastful style, and his life so impressed the celebrated journalist and broadcaster Lowell Thomas that Thomas penned an entire biography about him, Born to Raise Hell, later reprinted by The Long Riders' Guild Press. O'Reilly also tried his hand at film acting and, notably, is credited as the author behind Pecos Bill, contributing to a piece of enduring American frontier folklore. He died in 1946, leaving behind a legacy less concerned with verified fact than with the larger-than-life mythology he cultivated, that of the ultimate American soldier of fortune who lived, fought, and wrote his way through the first half of the 20th century.