MCA Scuttlebutt

Hey Scuttlebutt listeners. SgtMaj Justin LeHew returns to the show to talk about his epic journey. It’s very commonplace these days to use hyperbolic language as part of our everyday vernacular. I’m the worst with that (see what I did there?). And where we may use terms like “awesome” and “amazing” fairly regularly, I’m not sure you can find a more truly a...

Hello, Scuttlebutt listeners. This week we welcome Amy Forsythe, the author of the book, Heroes Live Here: A Tribute to Camp Pendleton Marines Since 9/11 , to the show. Amy is a veteran Marine and award-winning military journalist who served five combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been on assignment for several other overseas missions. Amy started her career as a Marine combat correspond...

Hello, Scuttlebutt listeners. This week on MCA Scuttlebutt we had the distinct pleasure of welcoming Terry Salman. Terry is the author of the book, What We Give, and the Chairman of New Pacific Metals Corp, and President & CEO of Salman Capital Inc. As President, CEO and Co-Director of Research he helped raise over $20 billion for more than 400 exploration and mining companies. He was the reci...

Hello, Scuttlebutt listeners. This week on MCA Scuttlebutt, the World of Wargaming Series continues with author, Marine, and prolific wargamer Major Ian T. Brown. Ian is the operations officer at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare , Marine Corps University. He is also the author of the book, “A New Conception of War: John Boyd, the U.S. Marines, and Maneuver Warfare”, which...

Hello, Scuttlebutt listeners. There’s a common  misconception that there are only two types of people that work at NASA: astronauts and scientists. If Hollywood has it right, the only buildings are the control center and the launching pad. And everyone in the control center is sweating profusely and chain smoking. But in reality, it takes a lot more than astronauts and scientists to con...

Hello Scuttlebutt listeners! This week we are truly honored to have the President and CEO of the MCA, LtGen Charles Chiarotti, USMC (Ret), back on the show. March was the logistics-themed edition of the Marine Corps Gazette , so we thought there couldn’t be any logistician better (or closer to our sound studio) than the former Deputy Commandant of Installations and Logistics to talk to us ab...

Hello Scuttlebutt listeners! This week Vic and Nancy have a conversation with New York Times bestselling author Adam Makos about his book, “Devotion,” about naval aviators LT Tom Hudner and ENS Jesse Brown. Now a major motion picture, starring Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell, Devotion is a powerful story of Hudner’s unsuccessful attempt to save his squadron mate Jesse Brown, the first Black naval...

Hello again Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining. On this World of Wargaming episode of MCA Scuttlebutt, William speaks with the CEO and Founder of Nemertes, Johna Till Johnson, on the application of wargaming in the cyber realm. Nemertes is a research-based advisory and consulting firm that analyzes the business value of emerging technologies—which involves developing new means of prevent...

Hello again Scuttlebutt listeners. Hope Daylight Savings Time is treating you all well and that the one-hour change isn’t messing with your sleep patterns too much. If it is, go take a nap because you definitely don’t want to fall asleep on this week’s episode as we welcome Col Greg Jones and CWO5 John Costa to the studio. Col Jones and Gunner Costa hail from Weapons Training Battalion, and made t...

Hello Scuttlebutt listeners! Today William and Nancy sit down with Marine veteran Andrew Biggio, author of the book “The Rifle: Combat Stories from America’s Last World War II Veterans, Told Through an M1 Garand.” We had a great conversation with Andrew about the real cost of war and the lessons he has learned from talking to World War II veterans, and telling their stories. Andrew’s book can be p...

Hey Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for tuning in. We at the MCA really appreciate all your continued support. This week, we welcome Col Chris Woodbridge, USMC (Ret) and Editor of the Marine Corps Gazette to the studio to talk the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. It’s funny to say “welcome” because his office is only about thirty feet from the studio, but he was kind enough to take som...

Hello again Scuttlebutt listeners. This week we welcome Chris Pavlak, Marine ground intelligence officer and author of the book, From Lawyer to Warrior , to the show. Chris’ journey to the yellow footprints is best captured by the term, persistence, which is a theme I think resonates for all of us. We joke that failure is just an opportunity to succeed and Chris epitomizes that. He is very forthco...

William sits down with one of his wargaming opponents, the author, historian, former Marine, and Army officer, Donald Vandergriff. The two discuss Donald’s wargaming experience and expertise and give an overview of their current wargame scenario: Wargame Design Studio’s Overland Campaign,  Crossing the James (an American Civil War scenario). Can Donald’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia...

In this episode of Scuttlebutt, Vic sits down with LtCol David Kelly USMC (ret), Marine Corps historian and the author of the book, Hell in the Streets of Husaybah. In April 2004, while fighting in Iraq raged throughout Al Anbar Province, most of the attention was focused on Fallujah. However, at the same time, out west in a little town on the border of Syria, fighting was just as intense and went...

This week on MCA Scuttlebutt, William meets with John Currie. John is a retired Marine who served as a helicopter pilot in the Balkans as well as several combat tours in the Middle East. John, who was working in Iraq at the time of the recording, also offers some insight on recent developments in the country. John is also the founder of Semper Savage, a company specializing in sauces and salad dre...

Happy Lunar New Year, Scuttlebutt listeners. I hope the Year of the Cat is off to a start for everyone. This week, we welcome Dr. Michael Hunzeker for first ever segment crossover – Strait Talk and World of Wargaming (Strait Wargaming? War Talk?) – discussing the recent CSIS wargame of a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait (spoiler alert: everyone dies!) Just a few weeks ago, the C...

Welcome to MCA Scuttlebutt’s new series: World of Wargaming. In this series, we will discuss the application of wargaming as a teaching tool. For our first episode in this series, William sits down with the Director of Wargaming at the Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare, Marine Corps University, Tim Barrick. They discuss how wargaming should be used for PME, the future of Marine Cor...

Hello again, Scuttlebutt listeners. This week we are joined by Kacy Tellessen, veteran Marine infantryman and author of the book, Freaks of a Feather. He comes to us from Spokane, WA where is attending Gonzaga Law School. Kacy joined the infantry directly out of high school and deployed twice to Iraq as a machine gunner with Second Battalion, Third Marines from 2005-2009. Freaks of Feather is a me...

Miles Vining returns to recount his experiences working as a historical consultant for the 2021 Chinese film, “The Battle at Lake Changjin.”  Grossing over $900 million, “The Battle at Lake Changjin” offers a historically dubious account of the Korean War from the Chinese perspective, including depictions of the Battle of Inchon, the Chinese counteroffensive, the destruction of Task Force Fai...

This week we welcome to the show, Navy Cross recipient and author of the book, Shadow of the Sword, Jeremiah Workman to talk to us about his amazing journey from Ohio native, to his time with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, to writing his book, to being on the GOP ticket for deputy governor of Ohio.   He shares with us his thoughts on everything from stepping on the yellow footprints to returning...

Writer Geoff Roecker joined us in studio recently to talk about how the search for information about a family member’s death on Saipan in 1944 led him to become a volunteer MIA researcher. We also talked about his book, “Leaving Mac Behind,” his website, MissingMarines.com and his articles for Leatherneck . As an added bonus, there was a brief discussion about Geoff’s days as a Civil War reenactor...

Ben Kesling—journalist, author, and Marine combat veteran—joined us to discuss his newly released book, “Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath.” “Bravo Company” recounts the experiences of a company from the 82 nd Airborne Division as they grappled with the enemy in the Arghandab Valley of Afghanistan before then returning and readjusting to civilian life. You can purchase “Br...

Join us for the 39 th anniversary of the devastating bombing of the Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut as we talk to Elisa Camera and Michael Ivey about their documentary project “We Came In Peace” which chronicles the stories of those who were there in 1983. Elisa, who lost her brother, Mecot, in the bombing and wrote the book “American Brother” to tell his story, has been working with Michael Ivey,...

Dr. Theresa Schulz (LtCol Air Force Ret.) and Dr. Amy Boudin-George are some of the most preeminent hearing experts in the country and they have devoted their pursuits to helping combat hearing damage in our warfighters. Naturally, we really needed a science lesson to get Nick and Vic up to speed on how hearing works and how it gets damaged, before we could learn about the steps that are being tak...

Andy Hesterman and his lifelong friend Rob Einaudi joined us on Scuttlebutt to chat it up about Andy’s broad-reaching experiences from 25 years in the Marine Corps and some of the effort it took turn those experiences into the excellent book “Radioman.” Andy served as a Radioman with ANGLICO in the Gulf War, became a helicopter pilot, then served in Kosovo in the 90s and Fallujah...