Heroes Behind Headlines

In this two-part interview, Roger Lockshier lays out his dramatic experiences as a helicopter pilot serving in Vietnam. In 1968, at the height of the war, he was routinely sent in on his Huey gunship to support or rescue MACV-SOG Green Beret soldiers secretly operating in Laos and Cambodia. Roger shares his 'birdseye' perspective on several missions—including the most dramatic helicopter...

We've re-released this episode, as an homage to Chuck Mawhinney, who we learned passed away last week. Chuck was our guest in Season Two (September 2023.) We were honored to have had a chance to speak with him and hear his story...Here it is again in case you missed it.... *** Chuck Mawhinney grew up hunting in the Oregon woods on his grandfather's farm, and was selected for sniper train...

Military veteran and author Stephen M. Rusiecki describes the process of how and why Americans developed a standing narrative of the WWII operation known as D-Day, based upon a common, press-enabled, thematically framed narrative. Steve describes how the radio and newspaper networks of the day cooperated in this effort, and how this version of events has dominated the consciousness of Americans ev...

Building a career in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was no easy feat: Danny Smith overcame different hurdles and became a detective, going on to solve some grisly cases, including the murders of an immigrant mother by her daughter, and a Native American man burned alive by skinheads.  Danny describes how the mental toll of his relentless and challenging work forced him to finally end...

In 1963, Dorothy Kilgallen was on top of the world, famous as a groundbreaking female journalist, with a nationally syndicated column and a panelist on the popular TV show, "What's My Line?" She was also an acquaintance of JFK and when he was killed, she never bought the official story. One of the only reporters to further investigate the assassination, her biographer Mark Shaw walk...

When 18-year-old Steve Smith was sent to Oak Ridge Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario, Canada in the 1960s, (misdiagnosed due to an ill-timed LSD trip) he didn't expect the inmates to be running the asylum, or to be part of a control group in a government-sponsored experiment to try to control psychopaths and turn normal people, like Steve, into controlled psychopaths, with the aim of unleashing...

On 11 September 1970, 16 U.S. soldiers and 110 Montagnards from Hatchet Company B were sent deep into the Laotian jungle in support of a CIA team, during the Vietnam War. Over the next four days, they were continually attacked by overwhelming numbers of NVA. If it wasn’t for the air support of helicopter pilots like Barry Pencek, they wouldn’t have escaped alive. Twenty years in a special report C...

The amazing life of undercover agent Frederick L. Gleffe is a nonstop series of adventures inside three of our nation's law enforcement agencies.  His sometimes surreal, always perilous cases include breaking up a black market arms ring at a Special Forces armory and running an ongoing ‘sting’ during the Miami “Cocaine Wars” in the 80s, selling everything from high-tech weapons to rare animal...

WW2 humble hero, Laurence "Sparky" Rector, was just a GI in the infantry when he was drafted as an 18-year-old. He ended up crossing Europe as "cannon fodder," including as part of Patton's army, participating in the battle of Anzio, and encountering the Siegfried Line. His unit was also the first to enter and liberate Dachau Concentration Camp. Decades later, his story fe...

The Battle of Gettysburg is a pivotal event in the history of our country, but not broadly understood. Attorney-turned-historian Allen R. Thompson digs into a Civil War controversy: How the decision-making of Generals Lee and Longstreet on July 2nd, 1863, resulted in the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg – and ultimately the loss of the war. In his book, In the Shadow of the Round Tops, Thompson co...

In 1970, only ten percent of doctors were women. Living in Oklahoma, Cynthia Mackey was a young woman and mother who dreamt of becoming a doctor. Her first husband wouldn't let her go to school and then was killed flying cocaine for Pablo Escobar. Her second husband didn't approve either. Finally, as a single mom, she decided to finish medical school in Grenada. She was close to achievin...

Investigative journalist Bill Conroy shares his experiences covering the Mexican drug trade and the infamous Juarez Cartel. From his gripping book "Dispatches from the House of Death," Bill describes the site of numerous drug-related executions, and the flawed response of U.S. law enforcement agencies charged with combatting organized crime from over the border. Heroes Behind Headlines E...

Today, Vincent Vargas is an actor, producer and writer, best known for his role in the hit TV series Mayans M.C. But several years ago Vincent Vargas was patrolling our southern border as a proud member of U.S. Border Patrol – one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States. The grandson of an undocumented immigrant himself, Vince discusses the myriad challenges agents face as the...

FBI agent Giovanni Rocco talks about life undercover as he went inside the real "Sopranos" crime family of New Jersey. In a case of life imitating art, Giovanni describes the real-life characters he dealt with; the deadly politics inside the 'family;' how they felt about the TV show; and how he managed to penetrate this closed society and use their greed against them--all while...

R.J. Cipriani grew up on the hardscrabble streets of Philadelphia and at 10 years of age, he sold pretzels to factory workers everyday before he went to school. He became a gambler at the age of 16.  Many years later, he cared for his beloved mother Regina for six years, who was stricken with Alzheimers. When Regina passed he was grief stricken and took his last $5,000 and turned it into millions...

UK-native Dean Stott, a former  SBS-member, leverages his international experience as the British equivalent of a US Seal Team Six operative as he works with his wife Alana to aid governments, private groups, and individuals in dangerous situations around the globe.  Now based in Southern California, they lay out how they started their very successful company, and share some of their client advent...

Thom Whitehead and Sydney Wilkinson are post-production experts in the film industry who used their skills to closely examine a forensic copy of the most famous amateur movie in history - one that captures the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. What they found is shocking - clear evidence that the film had been  tampered with before it was shown to the public. It begs the question: Who ta...

Patti Naughton is one of the first female operatives recruited as the drug wars heated up in the late 70's and early 80's. Patti was instrumental in helping to make dozens of cases against organized drug traffickers, including the Detroit mafia and the Outlaw motorcycle gang. As a woman, her role was especially dangerous. In this episode, Patti speaks about how she chose a career in crim...

Former member of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, journalist and author Christopher Whitcomb shares his perspective on the crisis in the Middle East. This timely conversation shares one man's perspective, as the world's focus is trained on Israel and the Middle East. Chris describes his visit to Gaza to meet Yasser Arafat, as well as his observations about violent crises and the path to reso...

Author Damien Lewis shares the details from his book Agent Josephine  of the career of Josephine Baker as a secret agent during World War II. Utilizing her celebrity as a performer, she furthered the cause of freedom as an Allied spy in the French Underground. Her adventures spanned France, Portugal, and North Africa. Her  experiences with issues of race, equality, and freedom motivated her to tak...

Henry L. "Dick" Thompson had to swear to stay silent for 20 years when he joined the ultra-secret, badass MACV-SOG. Now uncensored, he speaks about his insane adventures serving in the Vietnamese jungle, and how he applied his skills as a natural-born tracker raised on his grandparent's farm to the job of team leader: "I could actually smell the NVA."   Though their missio...

Henry L. "Dick" Thompson had to swear to stay silent for 20 years when he joined the ultra-secret, badass MACV-SOG. Now uncensored, he speaks about his insane adventures serving in the Vietnamese jungle, and how he applied his skills as a natural-born tracker raised on his grandparent's farm to the job of team leader: "I could actually smell the NVA."   Though their missio...

When he was sixteen, Brent Poppen was horsing around with another kid, and ended up with a broken neck and permanently wheelchair-bound. But Brent, who was already a budding athlete, didn't let that stop him. Now the winner of numerous Gold Medals and titles, including and a Bronze Paralympic Medal. (Athens '04) Brent describes his journey from basic mastery of his 'new' body t...

Thrown into a chaotic and deadly maelstrom of combat during the $785B Iraqi War, you can almost feel the bullets whizzing past as Benjamin Sledge speaks about how he came through his literal 'trial by fire.'  Though raised in a family with generations of soldiers, Benjamin's experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq were still shocking, and the psychic armor he developed to survive transf...

When policeman David Yuzuk first befriended the diminutive Richard J. Flattery living on the streets of Aventura, Florida, he assumed he was just another man down on his luck. Then in Spring 2015  Richard started to share his life story -- one filled with heroic combat as a platoon leader in Vietnam and later, secret missions for the CIA. He warned that by doing so, he was taking a risk. Officer Y...