Episodios
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Becky Ellis was one of her father’s eight children by four wives, and the chaos of her childhood, dominated by a haunted and difficult father, marked her and all her siblings. As a child, she suffered through her father’s paranoia about Nazis attacking them; trips to the dentist without anesthesia; and other irrational behaviors.
Only at age 89, when Becky was a grown wife and mother, did her father Staff Sgt. Louis K. Boswell finally share his wartime recollections as part of the legendary ‘Timberwolves’ – the nickname for the 104th infantry division. The ‘Timberwolves’ were deployed in northwestern Europe and saw almost 200 straight days of brutal fighting through France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and western Germany, including participating in the Battle of the Bulge. The group saw an extreme level of casualties, and Becky’s father described how he survived and how it felt when he returned stateside, with what was then an undiagnosed case of severe PTSD.
This compelling account is a glimpse inside military families who must welcome home a traumatized parent. Personally liberated by finally solving the mystery of her father, Becky shared her story in her book, “Little Avalanches,” and continues to work with military families coping with PTSD.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Admiral Robert Stiles Harward, Jr. grew up in a Navy family, living overseas, and eventually joined up himself as a means to pay for college. Adm. Harward ultimately went on to an amazing career and leading the U.S. Navy Seals, and the Naval Special Warfare Group Task Force KBAR. He explains his amazingly positive view of the world and philosophy of team collaboration and information sharing, which he calls "The Gouge," with our host and in his book of the same name.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
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Did you miss it? One of the most popular episodes we ever released from Season One is back for an encore listen:
Russian and Chinese-backed rebels were making deadly headway in Oman during its Civil War of the early 1970s. In support of the Western-allied Sultan, the British Army secretly deployed nine operators from its most elite unit, the SAS. HBH is honored to have our guest, Pete Winner, with a special appearance by Sekonaia ‘Tak’ Takevisi, two of the nine SAS heroes who took on over 400 Omani rebels at the Battle of Mirbat.
At stake on July 19th 1972 was more than just a single battle for a small town on the Gulf of Oman. Due to Mirbat’s geographic significance, had the SAS fallen the communist rebels would have taken hold of the region – and controlled the global shipping routs for Middle Eastern oil.
Statues of individual soldiers are rare, but due to his heroism at the Battle of MIrbat, there are not one but two statues of Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba. One unveiled in 2009 at the SAS headquarters in Herefordshire, and another in 2018 by Harry and Megan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, in Fiji - which at the time of Labalaba’s enlistment was still a British colony.
Pete Winner is the author of his bestselling memoir "SOLDIER, I," which he wrote with Michael Kennedy. -
Mark Paul’s outrageous adventure,“The Greatest Gambling Story Ever Told," is the hilarious story of two buddies who won't give up on their stroke of luck. While the horse is the real hero of the story—a filly who broke the odds when she won the Kentucky Derby out of sheer heart. Mark and his friend Dino determine to try, along with a third gambling buddy, to go collect their winnings of over a million dollars from a racetrack in Tijuana owned by a cartel...
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
David Crow had a childhood like no other—with a mentally troubled mother and a criminally sociopathic father who raised his kids on a Navajo reservation, despite not actually being Native-American. David describes how his father tried to train him to be his criminal accomplice, until as an adult David broke away and ultimately built a successful life as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
David's book, “The Pale-Faced Lie,” describes the scrapes and adventures he experienced.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Bobbie Myers served for years as a Florida policeman, de-stressing from his first responder experiences by living at the beach and surfing. Suddenly, after dramatically saving a drowning boy, his PTSD was triggered. He sought help and found a unique way to heal himself—repairing the headstones and tending the gravesites of fallen heroes, soldiers, and others whose resting places had fallen into disrepair and whose remarkable lives had been forgotten to the mists of time.
Now he devotes a portion of his life every year to travel across the country, visiting different graveyards and cemeteries to help maintain these resting places. Bobby shares stories of discovered heroes via social media at “Our Heroes' Headstones.”
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
When he started playing video game “Red Dead Redemption 2”, (which has sold over 64 million copies) Professor Tore Olsson from the University of Tennessee was inspired to use the game's setting in the American West to inspire his students and provoke a conversation about the real history of this romanticized era. And his curriculum has been a wild success.
Tore explains how even though the game isn’t perfectly historically accurate, it does raise themes and ideas that are critical to a real understanding of a critical period in American history.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Previous HBH guests, private security contractors Dean and Alana Stott are back—this time reporting on their work last October, after the terrorist attacks in Israel. Charged with helping Americans and others get their loved ones home, Dean describes arriving in Israel for the first time ever, and how they navigated operating on the ground in a country in crisis—solving for airline cancellations and price-gouging, and making local friends quickly to identify possible land routes out of Israel for fleeing foreigners.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Three lives collide and transform in wartime: The Japanese fighter pilot, Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor; the U.S. pilot Jake DeShazer, who bombed Tokyo in retaliation and became a Japanese POW; and Peggy Covell, an American woman who felt compelled to help the Japanese-Americans interned in the U.S., despite her missionary family having been murdered by the Japanese military.
Though the two men never met Peggy, her generosity of spirit inspired both of them, and they ultimately became lifelong friends both publicly decrying the morality of war. DeShazer went on to write a book about his experience as a POW who befriended his jailer, and his unexpected love for the Japanese people—which became a bestseller in that country. Fuchida also wrote two memoirs, “For That One Day” and “From Pearl Harbor to Calvary.” Martin Bennett shares this unbelievable true story, as detailed in his book, “Wounded Tiger.”
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Lynne Black Jr., as member of RT Alabama – a recon team of the legendary MACV-SOG (“Study and Observations Group”) – fought in one of the most amazing missions of the eight-year "secret war" during the Vietnam War.
As their Kingbee helicopter spiraled downward toward the target west of the dangerous A Shau valley in Laos, Lynne and his team observed an NVA flag planted atop a nearby knoll surrounded by thick jungle. From his days in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, he knew that the presence of an NVA flag meant that there was at least a regiment of NVA soldiers in the area. That meant that the nine men of RT Alabama would be up against the approximately 3,000 NVA they were sent to find.It was Lynne’s first mission into Laos and one he will never forget, including stepping up to lead his group, dodging napalm and grenades, and experiencing temporary deafness from non-stop AK-47 gunfire.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
In 1911, experts believed that the psychology of different races was distinct, and so, like other states, the state of Maryland founded Crownsville, a mental asylum administered by an all-white doctor and nursing staff expressly and exclusively for African-Americans.
From her book "Madness," author/Peabody Award-winning journalist/on-air NBC correspondent Antonia Hylton describes how the physical building was built through the labor of actual patients; how many African-Americans over the years were wrongfully sent to Crownsville, and how its medical practices didn’t expect patients would ever leave, let alone be healed. Hylton walks us through the dubious history of this institution, and the dramatic hiring of its first African-American staff.
Crownsville ultimately closed its doors only in 2004.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
In 1968, SSgt. Richard Fitts Sr. was a member of the legendary MACV-SOG team based in Vietnam, fighting in the ‘secret war’ in Laos, when the helicopter he was flying in crashed in the jungle in a ball of flames. Richard was declared Missing in Action while his wife and 3-year-old son back home in Massachusetts were given no other information.
For the next 21 years, Richard Fiits Jr. grew up without a father; not knowing if he would ever return. It wasn’t until 1990, when his father’s remains were finally found and buried with military honors, that Richard Fitts Jr. finally began to learn the truth of his father’s heroic career.
Now a musician, Richard Fitts Jr. talks about growing up with only one memory of his dad, and the journey he took to solve the mystery of who his father was and discover himself along the way. As the 20+-year secrecy oath binding living SOG veterans expired, Richard was able to make some surprising discoveries which resulted in his making a documentary, “21 Years—A Folded Flag,” to honor his father’s legacy, and to also help the children of other Gold Star families.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
In late April 1968, John K. Cordsen was a U.S. Marine on his second tour of duty when he became engaged in one of the most fiercely fought yet little-known battles of the Vietnam War. Over three days, a single battalion of 860 U.S. Marines fought against nearly 10,000 North Vietnamese soldiers over control of a river that was a critical supply line. Casualties were high and both sides claimed victory, but U.S. forces ultimately prevailed.
Part of the storied 2nd infantry, 4th Marines known as the “Magnificent Bastards” led by Brigadier General “Wild Bill” Weise, John shares his experiences and his dramatic journey to survive after sustaining grievous injury. This interview is part of our partnership with the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Howard Snyder Jr. was a B-17 pilot bombing Nazi targets during WWII—when in February 1944 he and his ten-man crew were shot down over Nazi-held Belgium, close to the French border. His son Steve Snyder details how eight of the men, including his dad, survived the crash before scattering into the countryside.
Howard survived through the bravery and largess of local Belgians, who tried to help the stranded American soldiers. Howard ultimately worked for the Resistance in Belgium until he was able to make his way to the Allied forces and return to London, and eventually, home to the U.S. He made lifelong friends with the people who had helped him, and their families. All of this is chronicled in Steve's book "Shot Down," including his own meeting years later, with the German pilot who shot down his dad’s plane.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
During the Iraq War, U.S.M.C. Infantry Major Scott A. Huesing led Echo Company, 2nd battalion, 4th Marines through some of the worst combat in Ramadi, in Al Anbar Province in Iraq. He shares his account of the harsh realities of dense urban combat, and what helped his men persevere—especially their sense of camaraderie and 'family,’ that persists decades later as his soldiers and their families continue to build their lives stateside.
Scott served in the Marines for 24 years. His book "Echo in Ramadi" follows his company through a classic account of modern warfare, and he notes the leadership lessons he absorbed as he worked to help the young people in his team—some still teenagers!—survive under the most terrible conditions imaginable.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
David Ambroz was one of three kids raised by a single mother with mental health issues. In his book, "A Place Called Home," he describes his Dickensian childhood surviving a flawed parent, life on the streets, and a social services system seemingly designed to deprive his family of the help they needed.
When his mother grew too violent, David was initially relieved to be put in the foster system, despite being separated from his siblings. But things went from bad to worse, until finally he found a family that helped him find acceptance and balance into his young adulthood.
David overcame the odds and went on to become very successful--completing college, and earning a law degree.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
In his book, “Poisoner-in-Chief,” (Henry Holt & Co.) former New York Times reporter and prolific author, Stephen Kinzer describes the shadowy man responsible for setting up one of the most infamous U.S. government programs. In 1953 during the “Cold War,” MK Ultra was initiated to develop techniques to brainwash people to act as our ‘programmed’ agents, in response to the paranoid misconception that Communist regimes had already succeeded in this objective, as in the film “Manchurian Candidate.”
Kinzer describes how Sidney Gottlieb coldly led this CIA-sponsored program based on heinous human research salvaged from the Nazis and Japanese, unleashing brutal experiments involving drugs, torture, sensory deprivation, and sexual abuse on human subjects. Gottlieb next went on to establish his moniker “Poisoner-in-Chief” as he led efforts to develop assorted poisons and delivery techniques, arming the CIA as it sought to assassinate various figures and world leaders including Fidel Castro.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
"Damn the Valley" is the mantra of every soldier from 2 Fury who fought in this infamous Taliban stronghold and is also the title of guest Will Yeske's memoir. Operating as the gateway to Kandahar, this area saw months of the fiercest combat—yielding a 52% casualty rate as coalition forces attempted to pacify this hotspot in 2009 and 2010. At one point, the entire prosthetics unit of Walter Reade Hospital was filled with men who had patrolled that deadly area, and yet it garnered little attention from government officials or the media.
Serving in the 1st platoon, Bravo Company, 2-508 Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne, Will shares his dramatic and moving account with the aim of making us all aware of the price paid in blood and tears when we deploy military forces overseas.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Elmer Miller was born in upstate New York into a large farming family that was part of a strict Amish community. Standing under four feet tall as a grown man, Elmer talks about the reality of life inside this group; how he confronted his own limitations and rebellious spirit; and ultimately his decision to leave and pursue life in the wider world with the "English."
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Ryburn Dobbs breaks down his work as a forensic anthropologist and scientist and separates fact from fiction, as in TV programs like "Bones," explaining how real forensic investigations work. He shares details from his cases, and how his examination of bones help revealed critical clues as the police worked to solve murder cases.
Now retired, Ryburn continues to consult episodically on cases, and is also now the author of a series of mystery books based on his cases, including his latest book, "Where the Blood is Made."
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com - Mostrar más