Battlefields

This week, I sat down with Liz DeGraeve, Elana Duffy and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint to talk about purpose. Liz has shifted from a colorful and accomplished 23-year career in Army intelligence into being a 6th grade teacher. Elana held an Ivy League master's degree before becoming an accomplished combat veteran who earned the Purple Heart and a medical discharge and has leveraged it all to b...

Show Notes : Americans worry a lot that we are headed towards ruin – unsustainable spending, foreign adventurism, even civil war. How warranted is that concern? I sat down this week with  Havok Journal  owner Charlie Faint to discuss the three best ways to become a failed state. We take the scenic route to get there, which is very “on-brand” for us. Somehow  The Sound of Music &nbsp...

Show Notes: This week, I talk with the witty and erudite Kevin Wilson and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint about the importance of pop culture to the military. We talk deployment shows, movies and TV that influenced us to join, why  The Hurt Locker  is so disappointing to Charlie and Kevin. This was a fun one. If you don’t understand pop culture’s role in the military, you don’t underst...

Show Notes : This week  I talk with Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint and Andrew, a 18-year old firefighter on the East Coast. I know what you’re thinking – how much wisdom, insight and life experience are you really going to get from an 18-year old? I agree – but Andrew is not your typical 18-year old. The story he wrote for  Havok Journal  was jarring enough that I made the editor...

Show Notes : The civ-mil divide is something we kind of always bring up in one way or another on the show. You might even say it’s a large part of why we even do the show. So it was probably overdue for us to do an actual episode about it. I spoke with retired Air Force/Air Guard Chief Master Sergeant Dave Chamberlin, Uriel Epshtein of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and Havok Journal owner Charli...

Show Notes : Is the US Losing Faith in the Military? That was supposed to be the subject this week – and after about 30 minutes, it was. My guests were Coffee or Die Executive Editor Havok Journal founder Marty Skovlund Jr. and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint. We had a lot of ground to cover with Marty - from the founding of Havok Journal to the latest on his new book - which explains why we too...

Show Notes: This week, I discussed how vets should maintain their mind, body, and spirit with MSG Geoff Dardia and Meg Kelvington. In my experience, not many of my peers wanted to have conversations focused on the mind, the body, or the spirit. I mean we weren’t in church – or in yoga class. But when you boil down a lot of our conversations, they actually were about mind/body/spirit issues – from...

Show Notes : Some weeks, "The Weekly Havok" isn’t just the name of the show, it’s also the way the show comes together. This was one of those weeks. We threw every hiccup and technical glitch we could at Ben Varlese and Dax Mallory and they kept on ticking. Best of all – thanks to our producer Michael Neal – none of the glitches will even make it into the episode. So you will never know the landmi...

Episode guest: Kerry Patton and Charlie Faint Host: Christopher Paul Meyer Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay) Sponsored by: The Epoch Times , in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charlie Faint served 27 years in the US Army. A military intelligence officer, Charlie served in Iraq and Afghanistan 7 times while assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Joint Special Operations Command. He also completed operational assignments in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea. His final a...

Dr. Paul Chabot is an American businessman, author, public speaker, former law enforcement officer, adjunct professor, and Commander of  Naval Intelligence  with the  United States Navy Reserve . He formerly served as a White House senior policy advisor on law enforcement for President  George W. Bush and was a Presidential Management Fellow. Paul also served in the  U.S....

Christopher Paul Meyer writes regularly at The Havok Journal and Savage Wonder. He is a former bouncer, firefighter, soldier, comic and prison chaplain. He started his writing career as a screenwriter, writing five screenplays, three of which were either optioned or commissioned. His first book was Icarus Falling , a memoir of his years as a nightclub bouncer. He has since edited his late father's...

Andy Denbow is a retired Infantry Marine Gunnery Sergeant. He spent 17 1/2 years in the United States Marine Corps and completed five deployments, one of which was to Fallujah, Iraq in November 2004. He is now a graduate student at Wayne State University studying social work. His goal is to research and advocate for veteran mental health policies and procedures t...

As an Infantry Marine only 2 months into his first deployment with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Donny Daughenbaugh was shot in the face during a firefight in Mahmoudiya Iraq, and received wounds that brought about the end of his active military service. The outcome of that night has led him down a lengthy road to recovery. With lifelong challenges that come from being wounded in action, Don...

Tim Hendricks is a former United States Army Captain who served as a tank platoon leader and then as a military intelligence officer, in which capacity  he was an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior's National Information and Intelligence Agency. When not working or writing in his home in upstate New York, Hendricks is most likely reading, woodworking, or watching his beloved San Franci...

Joe Fair was born in Greenwood, Indiana and served with the First Infantry Division in Vietnam. After completing his active military service, Joe worked at Ingersoll Rand and was also in the National Guard. Joe served as a First Sergeant during Desert Shield and Desert Storm before retiring from the military and dedicating time to writing his book, Call Sign Dracula. From the rice paddies of Vietn...

All veterans of any conflict are going to face some similar issues." --Larry Freeland Larry Freeland was drafted into the US Army and served as an Infantry officer in Vietnam. He went on to be a banker, financial consultant, and college instructor before retiring completely. He is also a published author, with his book The Patriarch, the first in his Legacy of Honor series, now available on Amazon...

" I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't been an Army wife for 33 years. "--Vicki Cody Vicki Cody is an accomplished author, an Army wife, and an advocate for Army families.  She spent 33 years as an Army wife, supporting her husband and her two sons in their military careers, while managing the triumphs and tribulations of life as a military spouse.  Vicki’s two most-recent books are...

" Every generation owes a debt to this nation, and you don't know what that debt is going to be ." --Aaron Love Aaron Love is an active duty Pararescueman in the US Air Force, currently serving in a Special Tactics Squadron as a Troop Chief. He joined the military shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and as part of the US Special Operations community Aaron served overseas in Afghanistan, Iraq, and...

Frank (Francis) Pauc is a graduate of West Point, Class of 1980. He completed the Military Intelligence Basic Course at Fort Huachuca and then went to Flight School at Fort Rucker. Frank was stationed with the 3rd Armor Division in West Germany at Fliegerhorst Airfield from December 1981 to January 1985. He flew Hueys and Black Hawks and was next assigned to the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord,...

Greg Drobny is a former Airborne Infantryman, PSYOP Team Chief, political consultant, and professional military blogger who currently serves as Student Outreach and Recruitment Manager for Code Platoon. He holds a BA in history, a Masters of Science in organizational psychology, and is currently pursuing an MA in history. An Iraq War veteran, Greg is married with four children who keep him more th...

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Matthew Sacra served in the US Army in both the enlisted ranks and as an officer in the Armor branch. Wounded twice in Iraq, he later authored the book Armor of God: An Armor Officer's Faith, Growth, and Protection in Combat , in part as self-therapy for his TBI and PTSD. After a lengthy and distinguished military career, Matt's final assignment in the Army was as an i...

Mason Rodrigue (pronounced "road rig") was born in southern Louisiana and grew up playing football and seeking self-validation as a man. This desire, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, led him to enlist in the US Marine Corps and eventually his service in Syria as a machine gunner. Mason left the Marine Corps as a lance corporal and began to put his thoughts into the printed word. He is the author of...

In the inaugural episode of the Battlefields podcast, our host, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charles Faint interviews Ayman Kafel . Ayman embodies the "front lines and the home front" theme of Battlefields: born in Liberia, Ayman and his family fled the civil war there and then lived in Lebanon before immigrating to the US . Ayman later went on to serve in the US Army in Iraq before being medicall...