Author: The Digression Podcast Guys
Chris and Jody are Air Force vets who enjoy military history and folklore. They have a podcast. They tell stories. They digress. A lot.
ep 81: Mission First?
IN THE NEWS: Fast-mover-slow-mover collision story; If the Ukraine war is destined to be a stalemate, why are we fighting?; 500 GI Jab lawsuit; The real home-grown terrorists; Space Force is just misunderstood; also, Space Force is LIT; Air Force changes to dress and appearance standards would make General Olds smile; Navy approves beards for…
ep 80: The Red Knight of Germany
We all know The Red Baron as Snoopy's unseen arch-enemy who shot his Sopwith Camel doghouse out of the sky untold times in the Peanuts cartoons. But the actual man was much more than the caricature painted by Charles Schultz! Although Baron Manfred von Richthofen was only involved in World War I's air war for…
ep 79: So Long, Space Force!
IN THE NEWS: Welcome to the Bud Abbott edition of The Digression Podcast; Space Force HQ finally has a home; USS George Washington moving sailors off the ship; More money for Ukraine and cracks in EU resolve; Milley worries about medics; Space Force National Guard fixes bureaucracy with more bureaucracy; So long to the REAL…
ep 78: My Road to Mandalay with David Townsend
Major Donald Townsend experienced some of the most extraordinary events in British history. In My Road to Mandalay, author David Townsend recounts his father's adventures fighting with the "Forgotten Army" in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. David expertly choreographs this story through a collection of more than 500 letters his father wrote to…
ep 77: Safe Spaces
IN THE NEWS: The Digression Podcast Guys are back from vacation; Spotify drops Obamas’; Russia wants a land bridge to Crimea; Biden pours more money into Ukraine–where’s it going?; Unethical PsyOps with Ukraine and Clearview AI; Space Force goes solo at basic training; Air Force Safe Spaces; Land navigation coming back to the Army; What’s…
ep 76: The Kee Bird, Revisited
The Digression Podcast Guys are taking some much-needed time off, so climb aboard the Wayback Machine as we revisit one of our favorite episodes from the early days: Recovering the Kee Bird (episode #8 from 8/25/2019). In addition to a cleaned-up replay of the original episode, we share some additional news and insight about the…
ep 75: Space Force Fit
IN THE NEWS: Swift water awareness; 1-10-1 and 2-10-2 Rules; The Russians carve out Donbas; Did we bring the Taliban here?; The biggest troop surge in Europe since 2005; DoD covid policies are affecting readiness; Russia wages war while the U.S. trains on gender identify; A new digital fitness program for Space Force; Our thoughts…
ep 74: Bloody Peleliu
In the autumn of 1944, the U.S. landed on Peleliu, one of the Palau Islands of the western Pacific. Some 28,000 Marines and soldiers hit the tiny island and immediately faced stiff resistance from the Japanese. The brutal, difficult battle lasted more than two months. The island garrison put up a particularly tough defense along…
ep 73: “No One Told Me”
IN THE NEWS: Early thoughts on Ukraine; Feel-good story of the day; Seems we did leave a helicopter behind; DoD claims data glitch in vax reporting; 6-million man-hours gone woke; Kabul commander whines; The REAL Space Force is live; The other Space Force wants to pick-up garbage; Lucifer's Chariot laid to rest; Army points finger…
ep 72: Voice of the Dogface
Bill Mauldin once said that the infantryman “gives more and gets less than anybody else.” He knew this from his experience on the front lines during the invasion of Sicily and the Allied campaign up the boot of Italy. The talented cartoonist succeeded in ruffling the feathers of the “brass” all the way up to…
ep 71: Covid Misinformation
IN THE NEWS: Covid misinformation; Pentagon spox refutes woke military claims by explaining how woke they are; Leaked docs prove Biden's Afghanistan failure; Special Forces take out new ISIS leader; Vax injuries skyrocket after military vax mandate; The REAL Space Force is back!; Congress turns down Space National Guard...again!; If that's not bad enough, there…
ep 70: Rommel’s Last Day
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, Germany’s widely praised “Desert Fox”, met his end not on the battlefield, but at the hands of henchmen sent by his own commander in chief. After more than 75 years, Rommel’s death remains a testament to the depravity of a regime and a leader who, by the summer of 1944, he…
69. Not Our Fault
IN THE NEWS: RIP Betty White (and it’s not our fault); When World War II broke out, Betty put her career on hold and volunteered for the American Women's Voluntary Services. Her assignment included the transportation of military supplies through California. From her acting career, her service to our country, and all of the work…
ep 68: The Christmas Truce
By December 1914 the reality of trench warfare quickly settled in. Heavy rain soaked both the trenches and the “No Man’s Land” that separated them. For those on the Western Front, daily life was miserable, but it was a misery that was shared by enemies who were, in some places, separated by only 50 yards.…
ep 67: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
When it comes to the military lexicon, there is a certain language that has many civilians thinking they're listening to a foreign tongue. Well, they are. Not "foreign" as in another nation's language, but foreign as in another culture. Although many military words and expressions do indeed have foreign language roots (the history and etymology…
ep 66. Operation Pastorius
After declaring war on the United States in 1941, Adolf Hitler was determined to bring the violence of World War II to the United States. His goal was to show that Americans weren't safe within their homeland. His goal was simple: To strike fear in the eyes of American citizens in order to reduce their…
ep 65: Porky’s Marine
IN THE NEWS: Winsome Sears is the American dream; Accountability Marine held accountable, but still comes out a winner; 1000s of Americans still in Afghanistan; Service members' sue DoD over vaccine mandate; Vaccine in use missing one thing: FDA approval; Let’s have some compassion; Brits kick USMC ass; China’s hypersonic missile and General Milley’s concern;…
ep 64: The Maco Light, Revisited
Our schedules got in the way of recording this week, so we're revisiting one of our early episodes. We cleaned up the audio a bit (as best we could given the original Skype recordings) and added the cover art, which we didn't start doing until later episodes. We had a good time with this episode,…
ep 63: Balance the B.S.
Shocker! The military doesn’t nation-build and we've been saying it all along; News sources we like; Artificial Intelligence Assassin; Mossad does the coolest sh*t; Woulda, coulda, shoulda in Afghanistan; Great deals on U.S. guns in Afghan stores; Continuous background checks are coming; New Space Force uniforms and well-deserved mockery; USAF owes for Texas shooting and…
ep 62: Operation Rype
One could say this episode is a "part 2", of sorts, as it focuses on one of the Jedburgh commandos and an Office of Strategic Services operations supported by The Carpetbaggers, the clandestine flyers we talked about in episode 60. This is the story of Major William Colby and Operation Rype. “Rype” was the codename…
ep 61: Afghanistan. Let’s Talk About It.
Where were you 20-years ago when the U.S. war in Afghanistan began? It was September 11, 2001 and al Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed two American Airlines passenger jets into the Twin Towers, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth, a United Airlines jet bound for the Capitol Building or the White House, was crashed…
ep 60: The Carpetbaggers
One of the best-kept secrets of World War II was the CARPETBAGGERS, the code name for a joint OSS-8th Air Force covert ops unit. Assisting French underground groups in the European theater of operations, American Airmen flew agents and supplies to those resistance forces. They flew specially modified, black-painted Consolidated B-24 Liberators, Douglas C-47 Skytrains,…
ep 59: Be More Objective!
IN THE NEWS: Setting the record straight on Afghanistan; Capitol Killer; Crenshaw taking whistleblowers to the DoD; Drafting women; SECDEF mulls vaccine mandate; But it’s illegal; GAO has a plan to reduce training deaths; Space Force stepping up in CENTCOM; Space Force LT changes the paradigm; REAL Space Force Update; The Thunderbird maintainer pilot; Air…
ep 58: Sprayed and Betrayed
This is the story of a dangerous toxin released on our enemy and our own, all the while being lied to by the government. No, we’re not talking about Covid, we’re talking about Agent Orange. Much of South Vietnam is covered with very thick, dense jungle vegetation. This dense vegetation was used as cover by…
ep 57: White Rage Is The New Bigfoot
IN THE NEWS: RIP "RUMMY"; Field refutes SECDEF's denial of CRT in the military; The Joint Chief Chair and the search for 'white rage'; The other racial extremist; US troops don't seek extremist content; Rep Crenshaw's woke whistleblowers; Capitol Police using DoD tech to spy on Americans; US sneaks out of Bagram Air Base; And…
