Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we welcome Steven Weintraub to the scuttlebutt. Steven is a retired Marine colonel and the current Chief Strategy Officer at the Veteran Tickets Foundation, more commonly known as VetTix. If you’re like me, regardless of music, sports, movies, the arts, festivals, whatever, it’s always better live and in person. So when I heard about VetTix, I had to find out more. VetTix is a non-profit organization that helps service members and veterans get tickets to all kinds of events, oftentimes for free. And even when there is a cost, it is a minimal processing fee that costs a fraction of what the ticket price would be. As someone who has used VetTix a few times, I can say they are legit. So I had to dive in a find out what VetTix is all about and how they are able to provide this amazing service. Steven is a critical piece to making VetTix happen so it was great having him on the show. Steven talks to us about his path to the yellow footprints, how he came to be a part of VetTix, how it is that VetTix does what it does, and how the effect of what they do goes beyond just the tickets. We love supporting veteran support organizations and VetTix is one of our favs.

Enjoy!

vettix.org

The post #261: VetTix with Col Steven Weintraub (Ret.) first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we welcome Maj Kyle King to the scuttlebutt. Kyle is an artillery officer, former collegiate athlete, and winner of not one, not two, but three Marine Corps Marathons in 2022, 2024, and 2025. His first run through the tape made him the first active-duty Marine to win the men’s division in 39 years. Along with these accomplishments, Kyle was named the Marine Corps 2025 Male Athlete of the Year. Kyle is currently stationed here at Quantico, so we talked him into crossing the tracks to have a little sit-down with us. Kyle tells us about growing up in the Pacific Northwest with aspirations of becoming a coastie, his early life as a collegiate runner, and shares with us his experiences running – and winning- the Marine Corps Marathon. A big heartfelt congratulations to Kyle for his wins and for being named Male Athlete of the Year.

Enjoy!

The post #262: Marine Corps 2025 Male Athlete of the Year – Maj Kyle King first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we bring another installment of our Literary Lethality series to the scuttlebutt. In this series, we dive deep into the Commandant’s Professional Reading List, exploring various titles and talking with authors about some of the books on the list. Today, we welcome Mac Caltrider back to the show. Mac talks to us about Orson Scott Card’s groundbreaking sci-fi novel, Ender’s Game. Ender’s Game is one of the longest-running titles on the CPRL, and it is a text used at Marine Corps officer entry-level training to introduce the complexities young officers will face in their careers. Mac helps us dive into the lessons of Ender’s Game, why he thinks it’s been such a staple of the CPRL, and how fiction can make many of life’s complexities accessible through narrative. It was great to hear Mac’s thoughts on the book and to get a deep dive into the literary arts from a literary artist.

Enjoy!

The post #263: Literary Lethality Reviews Ender’s Game with Mac Caltrider first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we’re re-releasing our conversation with the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, SgtMaj Carlos Ruiz, and the Manpower and Reserve Affairs senior enlisted advisor, SgtMaj Jacob Reiff during the Modern Day Marine Expo this year. This interview was originally released on our YouTube channel, but the conversation continues to be so relevant and the topics of leadership are so insightful, we decided to get the audio version out to those who may have missed it. It’s always awesome to have SgtMaj Ruiz on the show, but to have him and SgtMaj Reiff talking about leadership and mentorship was a real treat. These are two Marines whose entire adult lives have been immersed in what it means to lead and be led, so it was great just to be a fly on the wall for this discussion.

Enjoy!

The post #264: Leadership Discussion with Sergeants Major Carlos Ruiz and Jacob Reiff first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we welcome Rob Jones to the scuttlebutt. Rob is a retired Marine combat engineer who was wounded in an IED attack and lost both his legs. Rather than succumb to despair and depression, he asked, what’s next? What was next was him winning a bronze medal in the 2012 Paralympics, riding his bike across America in 2013, and running 31 marathons in 31 consecutive days in 31 different cities in 2017, all of which raised nearly half a million dollars for veteran charities. He wrote his memoir, Put Your Legs On, released in 2025. Rob talks to us about his path to the yellow footprints, his experiences and motivations recovering from combat, and his current projects as a Leadership Instructor at Echelon Front focusing on extreme ownership.

Enjoy!

The post #260: Extreme Ownership with Rob Jones first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we bring you a very special episode in remembrance of the attacks on 9/11. This is an episode that, frankly, I never thought we would get. To be even more frank, it seemed so unimaginable to me that I didn’t even think to try and track this guest down. Only through Nancy’s hard work and diligence (she’s a journalist, folks) were we able to track Jason Thomas down. For those who don’t know the name, Jason is one of the Marines who actually went into Manhattan after the attacks on 9/11. Having just recently left active duty, Jason still had uniforms and deuce gear in his car. Living in New York, after hearing we were under attack, he dropped his baby at his mom’s house, put on his uniform, and drove into the city. It was truly inspiring to hear Jason’s story and I am so proud to be bringing you this episode and so thankful to Jason for his willingness to come on.

This is us remembering 9/11.

The post #259: Remembering 9/11 with Jason Thomas first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and your continued support. This week, we welcome Josh Chartier to the scuttlebutt. Josh is a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who is now the Director of Business Development for Echodyne, focusing on U.S. defense strategic partnerships. Josh and I served together in the UAE, so this is a bit of a reunion for me. One of the nice things about having a podcast is I get to hang out with my friends, but I understand that “hey, do you remember that one time” is not an awesome business model for a show that focuses on talking to people. That said, beyond our shared history, Josh had a fascinating Marine Corps career and is doing some really cool things with Echodyne. He talks to us about his origin story of becoming a Marine, his transition from an artillery officer to a foreign area officer, his experiences in the Middle East, and what he’s doing now with Echodyne. But really, the main theme of our conversation was transitioning. A common axiom in the Marine Corps is: grow where you’re planted, but there’s not a lot of wisdom in that beyond, don’t suck. Josh shares his experiences in an environment of constant transition, and we can take away some keys to successfully navigating it.

Enjoy!

The post #258: Transitioning with LtCol Josh Chartier (Ret.) first appeared on Marine Corps Association.

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we welcome Col Nicholas Reynolds (USMC Ret.) and Katie Sanders to the scuttlebutt. Col Reynolds came on our show back in Episode 51 to talk about his book, Need to Know, and this is Katie’s first time at the scuttlebutt, and hopefully not the last. Nick and Katie co-authored the book, Ortiz’s War: The Allies’ Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France, and we couldn’t be more excited for this book. Col Peter Ortiz is one of the most fascinating, yet one of the least known Marines in history. However, his exploits are legendary, like something out of a movie. Katie mentioned in a conversation with a Hollywood A-lister that the stories were so fantastic, the actor thought they were made up. One of the biggest challenges of writing a biography of such a warrior is separating the mythology from the legend and keeping his story rooted in fact, not hyperbole. Nick and Katie talk to us about that process, Katie’s personal link with Peter Ortiz, the process of co-authoring a book, and who would be the best fit to play Peter Ortiz in a movie (hint, hint: There needs to be a movie about this Marine!)

Also, if you’re in the National Capital Region, on Wednesday, September 2nd, Nick and Katie will be at the International Spy Museum to discuss Peter Ortiz and their book.

Enjoy!

katiessanders.com

nicholasreynoldsauthor.com

spymuseum.org/calendar/ortiz-s-war/2026-09-02

The post #257: Ortiz’s War with Col Nicholas Reynolds (Ret.) and Katie Sanders first appeared on Marine Corps Association.