Heroes' Path Podcast

This week’s Heroes’ Path Dispatch, made especially for our paid subscribers. Pour a coffee. It runs about 30 minutes, and with Jeff' Steinberg’s insights, I think it’s worth every one of them. When I was 13, my mother took us to see the Freedom Train. Maybe you remember it. It rolled through the country for the bicentennial carrying Lincoln’s top hat and Wilt Chamberlain’s shoes, which were r...

What are we actually celebrating this week? I sat down with Michael Shriver to talk about the founding and the American habit of giving, and how closely the two run together. Mike spent forty-five years around other people's money, raising it early in his career, then giving it away as a foundation executive at MBNA and Bank of America. These days he rebuilds old bicycles in his garage and ha...

In a small room in Oxford, Florida, a man holds up a brass shell. It stands three feet tall and weighs forty-five pounds. He had it remade after the war. He pays to haul it from school to school and hall to hall, because when he tells people what he fired at German planes from a ten-thousand-pound gun, they don't believe him. A few veterans, he says, are all liars. So he brings the proof and...

Heroes’ Path is about clarity: about ourselves, our road ahead, and the world around us. Today we’re launching The Heroes’ Path Dispatch, the first in an ongoing series designed to make sense of the events shaping our lives, our families, and our future. In this first episode, Professor Jeff Steinberg joins me to unpack Iran, gas prices, China’s rare earth leverage, and the war in Ukraine. The war...

He jumped into Normandy at one thirty in the morning, into anti-aircraft fire so thick his son says you could have walked on it. You know George Luz from Band of Brothers, the paratrooper whose humor held Easy Company together. What you don't know are the stories his son has carried for nearly sixty years. In "Through My Father's Eyes," George Luz Jr opens the family album. The...

Our latest Heroes' Path webinar with Colonel Gerry Tertychny is 90 minutes that will stay with you. Here's a taste. On the morning of June 4, 1942, the course of the Pacific war turned in about six minutes. Japan was at high tide on June 3rd. By the end of the next day, the United States was on the offensive and never gave that initiative back. How it happened is one of the great stories...

The war isn't over because a document got signed. This week, Jeff Steinberg and I discuss what comes next after 112 days of conflict, a disputed Strait of Hormuz, and a fragile ceasefire. 23 minutes. Worth your time. Support the show Learn • Serve • Lead • Remember  🎧 Never miss an episode—subscribe on   YouTube   or grab the RSS . Follow & join the conversation ➔ @HeroesPath on X , Inst...

Two things happened in the same 24 hours. An American Apache helicopter was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz. And the President of the United States announced that a deal with Iran could be signed within days. That's not so much a contradiction, as it is modern warfare. One side is negotiating. The other side is shooting. Sometimes they're the same side. This week, Jeff Steinberg and...

The thing about ceasefires is that everybody talks about them like they’re the finish line. Most of the time, they’re not. They’re a pause. A chance to count what’s been spent, what’s been broken, and what’s still sitting there waiting to be dealt with. This week marks roughly ninety days since this war began. In that time, thousands of people have been killed. Billions of dollars have been spent....

We are now roughly 80 days into a war that many people believed would last four to six weeks. The Strait of Hormuz remains under pressure. Oil markets are reacting. China publicly invoked the “Thucydides Trap” in front of the President of the United States. And the diplomatic and military tracks are moving in opposite directions at the same time. This week’s Iran Update with Professor Jeff Steinbe...

Two weeks ago we left it with a deadline. That deadline passed. The ceasefire stretched. Then two ships were taken within hours. Now there’s a blockade in both directions and a line of tankers sitting still where the world’s energy is supposed to move. Gas is up. Diesel’s worse. You’re already paying for it whether you’ve looked at the headlines or not. So we got Jeff back on. He lays out what cha...

Five weeks in. A U.S. fighter goes down over Iran. One pilot recovered. One still out there. Rescue teams are working inside the country. At the same time, the Strait is tightening, the price of oil is climbing, and whatever talks were underway are starting to fall apart. So we got Jeff on the line. He walks through what changed this week, what’s breaking, and what could come next. Fifteen minutes...

Four Weeks In. Nobody Planned for This. Day 28 of the war with Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is now a toll road — $2 million per transit, collected by the Iranians, for ships they're gracious enough to let pass. Patriot missiles are running low. The IDF Chief of Staff told his own cabinet this week that his force is on the road to collapse if they don't get 15,000 more troops. The diplomati...

We recorded this one on the move. No studio or deep editing. A quick call with Jeff Steinberg while the situation keeps changing. In twenty minutes, he walks through what’s actually happening. The resignation in Washington. The split with Israel. The nuclear question that hasn’t gone away. It’s not polished, but it will provide some clarity nonetheless. If this is the kind of signal you want inste...

The American Revolution was not a foregone conclusion. It was eight years of freezing encampments, shattered supply lines, battlefield defeats, and a Continental Army that nearly dissolved more than once. From the catastrophic retreat across New York to the starvation winter at Valley Forge, the fight for independence was long, desperate, and closer to failure than most Americans will ever know. W...

After surviving a catastrophic blast in Iraq, John Gallina came home to discover that the hardest part of service often begins after the war. In this powerful episode of the Heroes’ Path Podcast , Colonel John Fenzel sits down with the combat-wounded veteran, builder, and co-founder of Purple Heart Homes to talk about service, sacrifice, and what it really means to come home. John shares the story...

Every conflict looks simple from a distance. A few maps on television, a headline about airstrikes, a sentence or two about retaliation, and the impression forms that the shape of the story is already clear. The reality is usually far more complicated, and the early days of a military operation are often the moment when the least is actually known. The United States and its allies are now engaged...

Day 3 in the Ardennes. Today is December 16th. On this exact date 81 years ago, December 16, 1944, the Battle of the Bulge began. For this episode, I stopped in La Gleize, outside the December 44 Museum, to stand beside Tiger II “213”. Up close, it is not an abstract chapter heading. It is scale, weight, and consequence made visible. A reminder that battles are fought not only with firepower, but...

On February 8, 1944, the B-17 Susan Ruth was shot out of the sky over Nazi-occupied Belgium. What followed was a story of courage, survival, and resistance against all odds. In this episode of the Heroes' Path Podcast , host COL Tom Rendall (USA, Ret.) speaks with Steve Snyder—author, son of pilot Howard Snyder, and historian of the 306th Bomb Group—about what it was like to fly bombing missi...

There’s no better—or more urgent—time to listen to the voices of our veterans. This week, Heroes’ Path hosted filmmaker and historian Zach Dunn, founder of Global Veteran Stories, who has traveled across 14 countries—and is currently in Calgary interviewing WWII veterans—to record their memories before they’re lost to time. In this powerful conversation, we discussed why these stories matter now m...

What can today’s generation learn from those who’ve led in the crucible of war? In this powerful episode of the Heroes’ Path Podcast , Colonel (Ret.) John Fenzel sits down with Georges Strachan-Heyes , a retired British Army officer and Director of Operations for the UK and NATO at Onebrief. With over two decades of combat experience across Northern Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Es...

In this episode of the Heroes’ Path Podcast , host John Fenzel sits down with history teacher and storyteller Alex Rowe—the son of Colonel James “Nick” Rowe, legendary Green Beret, Vietnam POW, and architect of the U.S. military’s SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) program, and Susan Whitford Rowe, a devoted lifelong educator. Alex shares how his parents’ extraordinary lives shaped h...

In this episode of the Heroes’ Path Podcast, host John Fenzel speaks with Chloe Gavin Beatty, daughter of legendary World War II commander Lieutenant General James M. Gavin. Lieutenant General James Gavin is one of the best-known military leaders during WWII. Often referred to as “Jumpin’ Jim,” he began the war as the commander of the 505th Parachute Combat Team 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airbo...

🎙️ New Episode: Heroes’ Path Podcast Guest: Jeff Steinberg | "A Republic, If You Can Keep It" What does it mean to lead in a republic that demands both vigilance and virtue? In this episode, I sit down with Jeff Steinberg to explore the enduring lessons of our nation’s founding. With clarity and conviction, Jeff takes us back to Philadelphia in 1787 , where the Constitutional Convention...

Resilience Under Fire: What the Greatest Generation Knew – Heroes’ Path Webinar with Dr. Mitch Yockelson & Dr. Ron Clark | July 29, 2025 What can we learn from the resilience and leadership of the Greatest Generation—and how do those lessons apply to our lives today? In this special inaugural Heroes’ Path webinar, historian Dr. Mitch Yockelson and national security leader Dr. Ron Clark join ho...