In 2009 Savannah Cannon joined up at nineteen, to escape her hardscrabble circumstances. She was quickly tapped as having an aptitude for math and computers. Once trained, she was promptly deployed to a dangerous desert outpost in Afghanistan, where female Marines were not supposed to be assigned. There Corporal Cannon worked as a "data dork" - a data networking specialist - setting up and maintaining critical communications and computer systems. She also went on patrol. The stakes were life and death, and her mostly male fellow Marines were ordered to avoid her.

Isolated, depressed, and stressed by the brutal, surrounding reality, Savannah then found herself pursued, assaulted, and then pregnant by a fellow Marine who insisted they had a real relationship. Afraid of being drummed out of the military for being pregnant, she kept silent at great cost to her mental and physical health, and ultimately miscarried.

Savannah recounts the challenges she faced as a part of a generation of female soldiers thrown together with their male counterparts, and her experiences coping with a military ill-prepared and riddled with arbitrary rules for the problems which naturally arose. Savannah ultimately rebuilt her life when she returned stateside, and wrote her raw and honest memory, "Corporal Cannon."

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Oxford Professor in International History Steve Casey lays out the fascinating media history of the Korean War. He explains how the Truman administration promoted their case for participating in the Korean conflict to a nation fatigued from WWII, and how Truman faced public resistance led by his own commanding general, Douglas Macarthur, who used his powerful cult of personality and enormous public popularity to try and sway national policy, even as he was mulling his own presidential run for the other party.

In this episode, Casey gives us a behind-the-curtain view of policy-making and political power in action that sheds light on a “forgotten’ conflict and provides an early example of US policy makers deliberately using the media to build consensus and support for the the most powerful and deadly tool in their toolbox: War. His book “Selling Korea” shows how every stage of the war brought different messaging problems and media strategies.

Initially expecting the conflict to be only a quick joint effort with UN forces against a fledgling North Korean army, Truman, MacArthur, and their allies failed to anticipate the brutal fighting conditions, nor did they expect China to deploy massive military forces in active support of North Korea’s Kim Il Sung. The divide between North and South Korea still plays out in today’s headlines with Kim Il Sung's grandson, Kim Jong Un.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Part two of this terrific interview:

One of HBH’s favorite guests is back, sharing more stories from his time on a Huey gunship helicopter as a Crew Chief and Door Gunner. As part of the 101st Airborne and a Black Angel, Roger Lockshier and his crew were routinely tasked with extracting MACV-SOG Green Berets during hairy combat in the jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

In this episode and his latest book, “Saving Infantry and SOG Souls,” Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, (and many other awards) Roger shares his adventures stateside in training; supporting Airborne infantry, LRRPs, MACV-SOG; and his combat experiences – including when the six-week Tet offensive caught US forces unawares. He describes how they sat on an armor backplate to protect them from gunfire coming from below, and how they carried their guns freehand, riding on the skids to get the best view possible of the battlefield below. Roger also details his equipment, (including the wider-blade C model helo, his ‘chicken vest,’ etc.) his teammates, and taking on wounded even though their Huey wasn’t designed or intended for that.

(This is part one of two episodes airing back-to-back.)

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

One of HBH’s favorite guests is back, sharing more stories from his time on a Huey gunship helicopter as a Crew Chief and Door Gunner. As part of the 101st Airborne and a Black Angel, Roger Lockshier and his crew were routinely tasked with extracting MACV-SOG Green Berets during hairy combat in the jungles of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

In this episode and his latest book, “Saving Infantry and SOG Souls,” Distinguished Flying Cross recipient, (and many other awards) Roger shares his adventures stateside in training; supporting Airborne infantry, LRRPs, MACV-SOG; and his combat experiences – including when the six-week Tet offensive caught US forces unawares. He describes how they sat on an armor backplate to protect them from gunfire coming from below, and how they carried their guns freehand, riding on the skids to get the best view possible of the battlefield below. Roger also details his equipment, (including the wider-blade C model helo, his ‘chicken vest,’ etc.) his teammates, and taking on wounded even though their Huey wasn’t designed or intended for that.

(This is part one of two episodes airing back-to-back.)

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

A living national treasure, Col. Paris Davis was one of the first sixteen U.S. Marine officers–and the only African-American–recruited to help form the Special Forces division–the inspired brainchild of JFK, who himself had seen the limits of military bureaucracy during WWII and wanted to add smaller, nimbler highly trained fighting squads to the US military’s toolkit.

A native of Cleveland, Paris describes what it took to create the SF cadre; meeting JFK; his combat experiences in VIetnam–and his role in the specific operation in 1968 that ultimately earned him a Medal of Honor, which he did not receive until over fifty years later during the Biden administration.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Judyth Vary Baker was a teenage science prodigy who caught the attention of the top cancer researchers in the country, including Dr. Alton Ochsner – past president of the American Cancer Society and head of the prestigious Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans.

In the summer of 1963 Judy accepted a summer job at the Oschner Clinic in return for a promise to enter Tulane Medical School in the Fall. Arriving in New Orleans – a city she had never been to before – she learned that instead of working on a cure for cancer, she was actually there to help create a bioweapon – a fast-acting cancer virus for the purpose of killing Cuban leader Fidel Castro. This top-secret project put her in the company of prominent medical researcher Dr. Mary Sherman, the brilliant but bizarre David Ferrie, mobster Carlos Marcello, nightclub owner Jack Ruby, and a charming young man named Lee Harvey Oswald with whom she fell in love.

Two days before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Lee confided to Judyth that he suspected he was being set-up to take the blame for the death of the president – a crime that she claims he was trying to prevent. He also named some of the powerful figures involved in the conspiracy.

Emotionally shattered by Lee’s death at the hands of his old friend Jack Ruby four days later, Judyth was warned to keep silent and abandon her dreams if she wanted to live.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Investigative journalist and author Nick Bryant broke the story of high-level sex trafficking networks operating in the U.S. with his groundbreaking book "The Franklin Scandal" about a pederast ring based in Nebraska. Nick was one of the first journalists to break the Epstein story, and he lays out the common attributes of the notorious Franklin network and Epstein's more recent operations, and how both sought to minimize public awareness of underage victims.

He highlights key facts about Jeffrey Epstein: Why Epstein is likely only one purveyor among others; what's involved in bringing justice to his victims; and why the truth is coming out in what seems like an achingly slow fashion.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Laura Kern volunteered to join the U.S. Army's nurse corps in May 1968 at the height of the conflict in Vietnam. 22 years old, she remembers her first day in Vietnam as her most pivotal: "I just jumped off the helicopter with my bags looking for my supervisor...They wheeled a soldier by me missing both legs and one arm. They were blown off."

Laura talks about what it was like being one of 11,000 women who served in the war. Upon return, many of these women received a hostile reaction from their male counterparts, and suffered after effects from Agent Orange and PTSD. You can read more about Laura and her comrade's experiences in David Yuzuk's book, "Women in War."

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com