Truth About War

On our final episode of the season, we talk with Navy veteran Ken Falke. Ken Falke is a retired Navy EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) technician. They’re the ones who diffuse bombs, mines, shells, and missiles. They spend a lot of time in highly technical tedious training. Ken Falke spent 18 years disarming explosives throughout Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other hotspots around the world, before returning home and starting a company that trains soldiers for the same specialty. Tune into our conversation with Ken about his experience as an EOD and how veterans can turn their experiences of trauma into opportunities for growth.

This week’s episode of Truth About War is a continuation of the conversation we had last week with retired 2-star General Dennis Laich. If you missed last week’s episode, we encourage you to go back and give it a listen before diving into this episode. On this week’s episode, we move from the problems with the All Volunteer Force (AVF) to the solution—bringing back universal military service: the draft.

On today’s episode of Truth About War, we talk with 2-star General Dennis Laich. Since retiring in 2006, General Laich has been at the forefront of a national movement to bring back the draft. He argues that the All Volunteer Force (AVF) has failed us in many ways. He writes about it in his book, Skin in the Game: Poor Kids and Patriots. Tune in to our conversation with General Laich.

On this week’s episode of Truth About War, we sit down and talk to Mitchell Rose, a Marine Corps veteran who fought in Vietnam. Mitchell grew up in the Western Pennsylvania hard scrabble steel town of Braddock. Growing up there wasn’t easy, nor was entering boot camp at Parris Island in the deep south. He encountered racism during his service, but he remembers a few whose views shifted over time, as drill instructors reminded the soldiers that in the Marines, they’re all green. In 2018, Mitchell decided to turn the pain he experienced due to the killing of his teenage cousin, Antwon Rose, into inspiration to fight for social justice in his community. Tune in to hear Mitchell’s stories of his service and listen to why he is a true freedom fighter in Pittsburgh today.

This episode may contain explicit language. On this week’s episode of Truth About War, we sit down with Vietnam veteran and famed writer Tim O’Brien. O’Brien is the author of The Things They Carried, and has been called one of the greatest writers to come out of the Vietnam War and one of our greatest living American novelists. The Things They Carried has been called a postmodern book, in that it blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction in order to get at some truths. Tune in to listen to our conversation with Tim O’Brien about these truths.

On this week's episode of Truth About War, we spoke to Fredrik Logevall, perhaps the foremost historian of the American war in Vietnam. Logevall is the author of and editor of nine books, including four on the Vietnam War. His latest book is Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2013. Logevall is a professor of History at Harvard University. Listen to our conversation with Fredrik Logevall about the history of the Vietnam War.

On this week's episode of Truth About War, we joined by Rachel Washburn, a former Army Intelligence Officer who is truly a pioneer for women in the military. It may be strange to call a young woman in her early thirties a pioneer, but that is how fast women's roles in the Armed Forces have been changing. Tune in to hear Rachel's story.

On this episode of Truth About War, we sat down and talked to Col. Kenneth Mintz. Col. Mintz is the director of the Center for Strategic Leadership at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, PA. Before that, he was a battalion commander in Afghanistan. He’s been in the Army for over 28 years, ever since graduating from West Point. His job now is to train the next generation of leaders to grapple with the difficult operational and strategic problems, like the ones we’re facing in the Middle East.

Steve Miska is a retired Army Colonel who worked hard to bring at-risk interpreters and their families to safety in the United States. Steve first got involved in this work while serving as an infantry officer in Iraq in 2007. We sit down and talk with Steve about his feelings about the Iraq War and his work.

Al Bumbry is a name familiar enough to any major league baseball fan old enough to remember or appreciate the sport in the 1970s. Al played outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles. He's also an army veteran, one of the very few major league baseball players to have served in Vietnam. We sat down and talked with Al about his service in Vietnam, returning home, and returning to baseball.

In this episode of Truth About War, Vietnam Army veteran John Cleveland gives voice to the paradoxes of war. John served as a platoon leader with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam. He began his tour in 1970 at one of the darkest, most chaotic times in our nation’s history and described Vietnam as "the Wild West." Wild, it was. This episode of Truth About War contains explicit language. 

In this episode of Truth About War, we sit down with documentary filmmaker and producer Lynn Novick. She may not be a household name, but you know her work. Novick has been directing and producing with Ken Burns for years, one of their most recent documentaries being The Vietnam War—an epic 10-part, 18-hour PBS series. Novick and host Nick Grimes discuss the film, the lasting impact the Vietnam War has had on American society, and whether the war in Iraq and Afghanistan will ever get the “Vietnam treatment.”

Alejandro Villanueva is not your typical NFL star. And neither is he a typical Army Ranger, or West Point graduate. An offensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Alejandro is one of the very few military veterans playing in the NFL. Listen to Alejandro share his story of how his service impacts him today.

The Veterans Breakfast Club is all about veterans’ stories. Truth About War takes a deep dive into these stories to explore big questions facing our nation and our future: Should we bring back the draft? Were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan worth the cost? Does the military handle racial divisions better than the civilian world? We’ll talk with some high-profile veterans as well as some lesser known people who’ve served on the frontlines of history. We’ll also call upon experts in various fields in order find what Truth About War we can uncover.