Who You Are When Nobody's Watching | Full Auto Friday | 10.30.26
Last Friday's VA disability answer generated a lot of "but what about" responses. One came from a Marine who was medically retired after Hel...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsSociety & Culture
Cleared Hot
It is safe to say that I have wandered a bit. I served in the military, flew some jets, jumped out of most, climbed mountains (I jumped off of them too), taught fitness, owned a gym, and hav...
Episodes
20 of 815 episodesMogadishu, the Silver Star, and the Man in the Mirror | Kyle Lamb | Ep. 479
Kyle Lamb spent more than 21 years in the Army. He started as a commo guy in the 82nd Airborne, went to 5th Special Forces Group for Desert...
27 Years Undercover, Zero Dent in the Drug Trade | Britt Elmore | Ep. 478
Britt Elmore spent 27 years with the San Francisco Police Department, 25 of them in narcotics, almost all of it undercover. He dropped out o...
"Free Money" Is Costing Someone | Full Auto Friday | 10.23.2026
A Marine veteran with no combat time or service injuries asks what I think about his stepsons' VA disability ratings and whether he should f...
Inside the Thunderbirds and the Cost of Getting It Wrong | Ryan Bodenheimer | Ep. 477
Ryan Bodenheimer spent eleven years on active duty flying the F-15E, including 70 combat missions over Afghanistan and a stint building stri...
He Should Die. Should We Watch It? | Negligent Discharge Friday | 10.16.26
I asked a question this week about whether the Fort Hood shooter's execution should be made public, and the emotional response to it surpris...
The AGI Promise Is a Cover Story | Bill Thompson | Ep. 476
Bill Thompson joined the Army at 17 and spent 22 years there, most of it on the technical and communications side of a special missions unit...
Is Convenience Making Us Weak? | Full Auto Friday | 10.9.26
Traditional Q and A to round out this week: A high school senior sent five questions about American culture for a class assignment, so I ans...
Robots Will Fight the Next War | Mike LeBlanc | Ep. 475
Mike LeBlanc spent 13 years in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and went on to 1st Reconnaissance...
Lying Never Holds Up | Negligent Discharge Friday | 10.2.2026
A last-minute Friday episode, because I forgot we didn't have one. Michael worked under pressure. We open with the Roberts Ridge series. The...
Immaculate Constellation and the Cost of Blowing the Whistle | Matthew Brown | Ep. 474
Matt Brown spent his career inside the national security world without ever wearing a uniform. He came up through grad school and think tank...
From Ranger to Rancher: Picking a Fight With Big Food | Patrick Montgomery | Ep. 473
Patrick Montgomery served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2010 to 2014, deploying to Afghanistan the day after the Bin Laden raid. Six week...
The Medal, the Memos, and the Mountain | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 472
Brian Bloom has spent his career in front of and behind the camera as an actor, voice actor, and screenwriter. Mitch Hall served as a Navy S...
The Ranger Account of Takur Ghar | Josh Walker & Chris Cunningham | Ep. 471
Josh Walker spent 24 years in uniform. He started as a young team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion, left for Florida State and ROTC, then came...
Roberts Ridge and the Fog of War vs. the Facts | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 470
Mitch Hall served in Naval Special Warfare, Brian Bloom came from film and games. Neither of them set out to spend six years on a single mor...
They Don't Need A Warrant Anymore | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.18.2026
I asked for positive news this week. What I got was surveillance, a global humiliation, and a man duct taped to his seat at thirty thousand...
Air Traffic Control Is Running on Windows 95 | Dan Rickert | Ep. 469
Dan Rickert graduated from West Point and commissioned into the cavalry, running Bradleys and gun trucks through Iraq in 2008 before going t...
25 Years Later - Be Worthy of the Sacrifice | Full Auto Friday | 9.11.2026
This one airs on the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I'm not dedicating the whole episode to it. I don't tell people how to think or how...
460 Days in the Darkness of Somalia | Amanda Lindhout | Ep. 468
Amanda Lindhout grew up in small-town Alberta and waited tables to pay for backpacking trips through Latin America, Asia, and Africa. She ta...
Seven Minutes and Nowhere To Run | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.4.2026
Michael was tasked with finding something uplifting. He failed. This is what a slow week for good news looks like. We open on the flooding i...