Today we are joined with Michael Franks. Michael joined the Army in 2005 on an 18X contract inbound to Special Forces. Injury changed his course where he then found himself with the historic 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry (No Slack) of the 101st Airborne Division. Michael served in both Iraq and Afghanistan with No Slack and served during the events which were filmed for the documentary Hornet's Nest —specifically the Battle of Barawala Kalay Valley. We highly recommend giving Hornet's Nest a wat...
Dec 02, 2022•54 min
We are joined today with David Bellavia. Famed for his legendary valor and determination, Bellavia is the Iraq War's sole living Medal of Honor recipient for his actions on November 10, 2004 as a squad leader with 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division (known as the 'Ramrods') during the Second Battle of Fallujah. Bellavia's best-selling book House to House: An Epic Memoir of War captures the brutal action and raw intensity of leading Third Platoon, Alpha Company, into a let...
Nov 11, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Today we are joined with Chuck Holton to discuss Ukraine. Chuck is a former Army Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment having served in Panama for Operation Just Cause. After leaving the military, Chuck has spent the last twenty years as an American war correspondent. He is also a published author, motivational speaker and has also been a freelance cameraman for Fox News, following Oliver North on his travels. Holton is currently a War Correspondent for Newsmax. We discuss with Chuck his experien...
Oct 21, 2022•1 hr
Today we are joined with James Cosgrove. James is the curator of Project Past which explores American battlefields, museums, and little-known historic sites here in the United States. His page highlights many historic American landmarks such as Yorktown, the Battle of New Orleans, Gettysburg, the National WWII Museum, and many more. We discuss with James his love of American history, as well as the many takeaways he has from documenting these sites across America. While many of our War Stories c...
Oct 14, 2022•54 min
Today, we are again joined with Ian Richardson to discuss Ukraine. Ian is a Captain in the Army Reserve and formerly served as a Logistics Officer in Iraq in 2020. He is a published museum professional at the Patton Museum with nearly a decade of experience and a focus in 20th century warfare. Ian has spent the last several months continuing to research and study the ongoing war in Ukraine and recently has presented topics regarding the war and history of Ukraine/Russian to both basic training r...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 8 min
We are joined again today with John Spencer to talk Ukraine. Spencer is an award-winning scholar, professor, author, combat veteran, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare and other military related topics. Considered one of the world’s leading expert on urban warfare, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. We discuss th...
Sep 30, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Today we are joined with Artie Guerrero. Artie served in Vietnam so his younger brother didn't have to and was one of fourteen to be hand-selected into the newly formed Ranger LRRP unit assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division. As a LRRP Ranger, Artie was shot four times when three North Vietnamese companies ambushed Artie's 6-man recon team in April 1967. He is a recipient of the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal with "V" Device, and the Purple Heart. Shortly after returning home fr...
Sep 23, 2022•1 hr 7 min
JD Huitt of the YouTube channel The History Underground joins us today. JD is a historian who has spent much of his personal time travelling to and documenting historical locations to provide the viewer a firsthand view of what these past battle sites look like today. We discuss with JD his recent trip to WWII’s Pacific Theater and the Marine and Japanese fight on these remote islands. JD spent time on Saipan, where he documented key locations of the Battle of Saipan—which has been referred to a...
Sep 16, 2022•1 hr 1 min
We are joined today with Dave Berkenfield. Dave retired after spending 25 years in special operations having served as a Navy SEAL beginning in the 90’s and retiring only a couple years ago. Today, he serves in a leadership role on racing teams with Chip Ganassi Racing headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Having served on 20 combat deployments during his time as a SEAL, we discuss with Dave the impact on us veterans upon leaving the service, and the terrible infliction that is veteran suicide...
Sep 09, 2022•58 min
We are joined in this episode today with Corey Jones. Corey is a Drill Sergeant at Ft. Benning, Georgia where he turns Army recruits into infantrymen and women. We discussed the challenges, rewards, and the impact drill sergeants make on their recruits as well as the method of instruction used in basic training today as compared to years past. It was nice to catch up with Corey as the three of us all served in the same infantry company in Afghanistan. We are proud to know people like Corey who c...
Sep 02, 2022•45 min
Preston just completed his 2 weeks of Army Reserve Annual Training at Ft. McCoy, WI where he helped facilitate a reserve brigade's readiness training at the operational level. He and Sayre discuss some of their key takeaways and thoughts. Support the show and become a War Stories patron: https://www.patreon.com/warstoriespodcast Website: https://www.warstories.co...
Aug 26, 2022•30 min
We are joined by Nick Laidlaw. Nick is a former Marine Infantryman, who from that experience, now has a passion to share the extremes of the human experience in warfare. His website, Battles and Beers shares stories of the men, women, and civilians who have gone willingly or unwillingly into harm’s way. Nick is also the author of What War Did to Us, Combat Through Their Eyes a collection of short vignettes spanning from 1914 to present. He has interviewed men from both sides of almost every majo...
Aug 19, 2022•51 min
Mike Dowling is an Emmy nominated producer, author, and veteran advocate based in Los Angeles. Mike enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2001 and was in boot camp when 9/11 happened. Enlisting on an open contract, he was assigned to be a military policeman, became the distinguished honor graduate of his class, and would serve as a military working dog handler deploying with his Military Working Dog Rex to Iraq in 2004. They were attached to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines surviving the Triangle of Death a...
Aug 12, 2022•1 hr 13 min
Something that bothers me when I think about the last 20 years of war is that we, the United States, don’t have a solution to modern insurgency. If we couldn't figure it out over 20 years in two countries, I wonder if the military isn't the correct tool for that job. Book referenced is Black Hearts by Jim Frederick https://www.amazon.com/Black-Hearts-Platoons-Descent-Triangle/dp/0307450767 Support the show and become a War Stories patron: https://www.patreon.com/warstoriespodcast Website: https:...
Aug 08, 2022•41 min
We are joined in this episode by Austin Knight. Austin serves in the active-duty Army as a Religious Affairs NCO where he’s currently assigned to the U.S. Army Airborne School. We spoke to Austin about a variety of topics ranging from what Airborne School is like today, the experience of jumping out of airplanes for a living, to his ultimate role which is to care for not just the spiritual welfare of Soldiers (from Private to General), but their moral and emotional well-being as well. Support th...
Aug 05, 2022•57 min
In this episode, we are joined by Steve Coll. Coll is a New Yorker staff writer and reports on issues of politics, intelligence, and national security in the United States and abroad. He has written about the education of Osama bin Laden, secret negotiations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, and the hunt for the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. He was the managing editor of the Washington Post from 1998 to 2005, having earlier been a feature writer, a foreign correspondent, a...
Jul 29, 2022•53 min
In this episode, we are joined by Phil Klay. Phil Clay is a GWOT veteran of the Iraq war, having served as a Marine Corps officer from 2005-2009. Phil’s works, both as a veteran and writer, have been published throughout The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker , and the Brookings Institution's Brookings Essay series. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics' Circle Joh...
Jul 22, 2022•59 min
Little shorter bit here where Preston and Sayre get into an article discussing media coverage of the war in Ukraine. FAIR.org article: https://fair.org/home/invasion-news-fits-on-front-page-more-when-an-enemy-does-the-invading/ Preston's video on the subject: https://youtu.be/YIBYYdQY3-4 Support the show and become a War Stories patron: https://www.patreon.com/warstoriespodcast Website : https://www.warstories.co...
Jul 20, 2022•22 min
In this episode we are joined by Justin Roberts. Justin is a documentarian and former Army chaplain who served in Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division. Justin's documentary "No Greater Love" details the reality of war with firsthand footage and accounts of a harrowing 12-month deployment to Kunar Province, Afghanistan. While we discuss Justin's experiences in Afghanistan, he spoke to us while on the ground in Ukraine. We discuss what the current battle tempo is like, and how the war has ...
Jul 15, 2022•1 hr 2 min
In this episode we are joined by Bob Walker. Bob was an infantry officer during the Vietnam War with an incredible story and experience. Bob served as a platoon leader with the 9th Infantry Division, conducting air assaults and raids similar to how Ranger Regiment is used today. His military awards include: Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star Medal (3rd Award), Distinguished Flying Cross, Soldier's Medal, Bronze Star Medal with "V" Device, Bronze Star Medal (4th Award), Air Medal with "V'' ...
Jul 08, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Today we are joined with Jim Horacek. Jim is a former CIA counterterrorism manager and analyst. Initially joining the CIA as a Soviet-focused political analyst, after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, Jim volunteered to join the new Office of Terrorism Analysis in the Counterterrorism Center where he spent the bulk of his career. Jim is a personal friend of Mike Croissant (#203), and primarily spent his time in the CIA focused on the Iraq War, writing sections of Secretary of State Colin Powell'...
Jul 01, 2022•1 hr 35 min
We are joined today by retired Marine Colonel Anthony (Tony) Wood. In 1975, as a captain, Col. Wood was one of two military officers (the other a Green Beret captain) tasked with planning and executing the evacuation of Saigon as North Vietnamese forces shelled the city and closed in. They not only had to identify the thousands of allies (and Americans) in the region, but also identify potential landing/extraction zones, as well as develop a transportation plan to the sites, meanwhile keeping th...
Jun 24, 2022•1 hr 12 min
In this episode we are joined by Mike Croissant. Mike is a retired CIA officer with more than 20 years of experience in counter-terrorism and security risk assessment. Mike has extensive professional and academic experience across the Middle East and Central and South Asia and was intimately involved with the Global War on Terror in Afghanistan, having spent his career with the agency as an analyst and targeting officer. We discuss with Mike what it was like to be at Langley during 9/11, only be...
Jun 17, 2022•53 min
We are joined today with Hampton Sides. Sides is the author of our favorite book on the Korean War: On Desperate Ground which tells the story of one of the most harrowing clashes in American history, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, during which Mao’s numerically superior armies surrounded and tried to destroy the First Marine Division in the frozen mountain wilds of North Korea. Sides is best-known for his gripping non-fiction adventure stories set in war or depicting epic expeditions of discove...
Jun 10, 2022•1 hr
Today we are joined with Jeff Brodeur. Jeff retired from the U.S. Army as a Colonel and served as the Assistant Commandant for the Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear (CBRN) Schoolhouse and Regiment. Following retirement, he entered the private industry as a senior CBRN technical advisor providing direct support to the Departments of Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, and State. In 2018 Jeff led a CBRN team in Iraq providing toxic chemical surveys in facilities recently displaced by ISIS t...
Jun 07, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Today, we are joined with Doug Mater. From 1971-1973, Doug served on two Westpac cruises to South East Asia (Vietnam) as a naval ammo bearer on the USS Sample . Doug is Preston's father-in-law and we discuss many of his personal stories rarely shared. We talk about what it was like to be a young man in an era of the draft during a turbulent time in American history. We also discuss the experiences of being an ammo bearer on a Navy gunship, and the amount of firepower the Americans unleashed from...
Jun 03, 2022•1 hr 7 min
In this episode, I'm joined by Jacob Ivey, Bryson Shipman and Kyle Snook to talk about their friend, Todd Weaver. Jacob, Kyle, Bryson and Todd were all platoon leaders together in D/2-502IN before splitting off to different companies just ahead of a deployment to Afghanistan in 2010. They share some awesome parts of Todd's story from his writing letters to the families of his Soldiers to the deep conversations had right when they arrived in country. Early in the deployment, Todd and Jacob were s...
May 30, 2022•1 hr 45 min
In this episode, Sayre and I are joined by former USA Today journalist Maria Goodavage to talk about service dogs and a Marine dog named Lucca. Maria is considered one of the foremost author experts on working dogs after the publication of her critically-acclaimed New York Times bestselling books, Soldier Dogs, Top Dog, and Secret Service Dogs. Her latest book, Doctor Dogs: How Our Best Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine, has won hearts around the world. Maria has appeared on numerous nation...
May 29, 2022•55 min
In this episode Preston Stewart and Sayre Payne are joined by a group of Dimitri Del Castillo's classmates, Army rugby teammates and friends. John Wagner, Jericho Jones, Tommy Sandonato, Andy Brigman, and Mike Fleming. They talk about their time with Del at West Point, on the rugby pitch, during Ranger School and once everyone scattered their separate ways into the Army. 1LT Dimitri Del Castillo was killed on June 25th, 2011 in Kunar Province, Afghanistan while serving as a platoon leader with 2...
May 28, 2022•1 hr 46 min
Today, Preston and Sayre are joined with Dave Holland. Dave is a former U.S. Marine who has lived and worked for nearly 3 years on site at Guadalcanal and operates the YouTube page, Guadalcanal - Walking a Battlefield, documenting the many battle sites of one of the longest and hardest fought campaigns of WW2. We discuss how Guadalcanal kicked off the American ground offensive post Pearl Harbor, establishing a foothold in the Pacific. We also discuss the brutal fighting and tactics employed by b...
May 23, 2022•1 hr 8 min
