Heroes Behind Headlines

Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones lays out the facts behind the meth and fentanyl drug crisis in the U.S.: He expertly describes how mass manufacturing has made these drug ubiquitous, cheap, and infinitely more potent, and thus unlike any other drugs--legal or illegal--ever consumed by human beings. Sam explains how today’s meth has triggered an abrupt rise in homelessness, and why these drugs...

Janina Melberg was a brilliant mathematician posing as a Polish Countess Janina Suchodolska to hide her Jewish identity during the Nazi occupation in WWII Poland. She simultaneously joined the both the Polish Welfare Council (RGO)--and secretly the Polish Underground--and bravely organized food and relief supplies for Poles incarcerated in the infamous Majdanek Concentration Camp. Co-authors Eliza...

Jim “Wild Carrot” Shorten-Jones served as a team leader (One-Zero) in MACV-SOG during the height of Vietnam War, and ultimately in the Army, Navy and Air Force. In another exciting chapter in America's "secret war" in Laos and Cambodia, Jim shares his adrenaline-fueled war stories  as team leader of RT-Delaware, and also recounts the non-stop life of adventure he has led since--incl...

Jim “Wild Carrot” Shorten-Jones served as a team leader (One-Zero) in MACV-SOG during the height of Vietnam War, and ultimately in the Army, Navy and Air Force. In another exciting chapter in America's "secret war" in Laos and Cambodia, Jim shares his adrenaline-fueled war stories  as team leader of RT-Delaware, and also recounts the non-stop life of adventure he has led since--incl...

When FBI Special Agent Nikki Badolato arranged a live meetup with a man looking to 'rent' her infant daughter as part of a sting, she was shocked to see how presentable and 'normal' this 30-something man was. Now, after a two-decade career, Nikki  and Rolling Stone journalist Alex Morris lay out the state of domestic human trafficking, how pedophile rings work, and what we shou...

U.S. Coast Guard Veteran Martha La Guardia-Kotite shares inspiring stories of bravery from her book, “So Others May Live—Coast Guard’s Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death.” These brave men and women put their lives at risk to rescue people in the greatest peril. Among the stories is that of a baby rescued from a boat in the middle of a hurricane.   Heroes Behind Headlines Executive Produc...

One dark night in Austin, Texas, onlookers watched in horror as musician Gary Wimmer was struck head-on by a speeding car, ramming his head into the front grill and hurtling him into the air until he landed on the pavement. When he stood up minutes later, seemingly unharmed, people were confused and unbelieving at his lack of injury. So were the emergency room doctors. While unconscious, Gary expe...

In part two of this 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 helicop...

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...