Worst Combat in the Arghandab Valley, Afghanistan

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

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 HeadlinesExecutive Producer Ralph PezzulloProduced & Engineered by Mike DawsonMusic provided by ExtremeMusic.comSilent Currents: Inside the Scandal That Rocked Paralympic SwimmingMore than two years ago, Paralympic swimming champion Robert Griswold was accused of...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify