Category: War Stories

Episode 82 Cover Art

ep 82: Talk To Me Goose!

By now, just about everyone has seen Tom Cruise’s blockbuster movie, “Top Gun: Maverick”...so why are we talking about it? Well, for one thing, it’s “us,” and another is it’s a damn good movie! So if you’re one of the few who have not seen this movie and you’re worried about spoilers in this podcast,…
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Episode 80 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 78 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 76 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 74 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 73 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 72 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 71 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 70 cover art

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…
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Episode 68 Cover Art

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.…
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Episode 67 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 66 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 65 Cover Art

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;…
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Episode 63 Cover Art

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…
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episode 62 cover art

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…
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Episode 61: Cover Art

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…
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Episode 60 Cover Art

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,…
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Episode 58 Cover Art

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…
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Episode 54 Cover Art - The Digression Podcast

ep 54: Third Time’s The Charm

This is the story of a young Korean man, Yang Kyongjong, who was pressed into military service for the Japanese army to fight the Russians in Manchuria. Captured by the Russians, he had spent a year in a labor camp when the German invasion of Russia saw him pressed into a Russian army uniform facing…
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ep 53: Whistleblower

IN THE NEWS: Social distancing on Mount Everest; Netanyahu says 'no' to Biden; Space Force whistleblower with a book; Vandy is newest Space Force Base; Justice Thomas rags on Feres Doctrine; Pentagon trolling social media; CENTCOM begins Afghanistan drawdown and worries about the vacuum; UFOs are everywhere; U2 talks to F22 and F35; Contractors sell…
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ep 49: Finding Faces with Ryan Kern

Ryan Kern is a former news anchor and reporter for a Nevada NBC affiliate. Now, as an independent journalist, he is the host/reporter/producer of the Finding Faces podcast. You may remember Chris and Jody talking about Ryan and Finding Faces in Episode 37. “Finding Faces: The Search for the Missing Pictures of Fallen Vietnam Heroes”…
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ep 46: Florida Fiasco

In 1812, the United States government tried to annex Spanish East Florida by a combination of covert action and direct invasion. Then the plan went horribly wrong. The “Patriots' War'” in Spanish East Florida during 1812-13 was an early example of a military disaster caused by a secret, flawed political policy. The characteristics of this…
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ep 45: TRUMP!

IN THE NEWS: Mike saves Tiger; Space takes a back seat; Trump; Paski mocks Space Force; Floaty Bois; IG probes Space Force relo; Trump; Capitol fence ain't going away any time soon; The National Guard may not either; Biden's Three Stooges Syria Solution; 'American is Back' like it was before; Trump; We ain't leaving Afghanistan;…
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ep 44: Too L8, They’re Gone

To the mysteries of the sky add the case of the U.S. Navy blimp, L-8. Since the dawn of aviation, aircraft have flown into the clouds never to be seen again. The L-8 disappeared into the clouds all right, but when she reappeared and eventually came back down to earth, she was missing her crew!…
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ep 38: Broken Arrow

Seven and a half hours into their training mission, Major Howard Richardson and his Boeing B-47B Stratojet flight crew finally began to relax after an evening of deploying electronic counter-measures and chaff to evade prowling North American F-86 fighters. The sky was clear and the moon was full. Heading south at 35,000 feet and 495…
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