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PODCAST

Heroes Behind Headlines

Heroes Behind Headlines

Heroes Behind the Headlines: a new podcast featuring an explosive new story every episode. First-hand accounts of adventures and events which have shaped our world . The real stories behind the headlines you know, told by the heroes you don’t. Hosted by NYT and international bestselling author Ralph Pezzullo.

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

81:01

Col. Paris Davis

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/08/18

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

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91:41

Oswald’s Girlfriend & Cancer Research Prodigy in the...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/08/11

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 workin...

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48:56

Journalist & Sex Trafficking Expert Explains The...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/08/04

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 abo...

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77:55

22-Year-Old U.S. Army Nurse At The Height Of The...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/07/28

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 fr...

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51:58

Preempting Terrorism At The CIA

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/07/21

The ultimate insider in the world of espionage: 24-year CIA veteran Ric Prado has spent his life at the heart of the intelligence world as an Operations Officer through the end of the Cold War and the advent of the Age of Terrorism. After serving around the world, he was assigned to the Bin Laden Task Force and then led the Counterterrorism Unit, creating the special task force to combat terrorism post 9-11. In this episode, Ric lays out the challenge of stopping terrorist groups before they ...

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53:08

Museum Art Heists, China, and Fentanyl

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/07/14

Host Ralph Pezzullo is the guest this week—talking about his new book, “The Great Chinese Art Heist,” (Pegasus Crime.) Interviewed by renowned art theft expert Anthony Amore, Ralph breaks down the series of ‘pink-panther-like’ museum robberies of Chinese art and antiquities across Europe, and links them to the systematic looting and destruction during the Opium Wars of China’s famed Old Summer Palace. Taking only what they perceive to be rightfully theirs—and often leaving valuable European a...

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60:02

CEO Invited To Iran And Imprisoned In Iran’s...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/07/07

When the Vice-President of Iran invited Nizar Zakka to speak at a September 2015 conference – as CEO of a global tech NGO working closely with the U.S. government – he never hesitated, and promptly booked a flight from D.C. to Tehran. He never dreamed he’d end up in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison as a political prisoner, experiencing solitary confinement and repeated torture. Following his speech at the conference, Nizar entered a taxi to take him to Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Int...

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61:59

Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis – Making The Ultimate Sacrifice

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/06/30

Author Tom Sileo tells the inspiring story of the late Michael Ollis, one of thousands of young men who followed their fathers into the military. On August 28, 2013, Ollis, Staten Island native and 10th mountain soldier, was serving at Forward Operating Base Ghazni, a joint force partner mission with the Polish military. During a sneak attack, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest and Sgt. Ollis threw himself in front of Polish comrade, Karol Cierpica, whom he’d only met and fought si...

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60:37

Founding Member of Delta Force & Operation Eagle Claw

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/06/23

Born in Hawaii shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Wade Ishimoto grew up to help found the storied Delta Force special operations group. Wade shares the story of his amazing career in U.S. Army intelligence starting in Vietnam, to the planning of the failed 1980 mission to rescue the U.S. hostages from Iran. He describes what it was like to be on the ground in the desert of Iran when Operation Eagle Claw was compromised and ended in tragedy. Author of “The Intoku Code,” Wade has lived h...

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64:38

Oswald, Monkey Viruses, and The Plot To Kill Castro

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/06/16

When New Orleans native Ed Haslam began his research into the curious life and shocking murder of brilliant Tulane medical professor Dr. Mary Sherman, he didn’t imagine that his inquiry would reveal a secret lab connected to some of the city’s most unusual and historically significant citizens—Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, Guy Bannister, mob boss Carlos Marcello, medical titan Dr. Alton Oschner—and forces high up in the government. Nor did he expect his discoveries to change our understand...

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57:26

MacArthur's Bloody Butchers

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/06/09

Historian and author Brian Bruce vividly describes an often neglected but important aspect of the Pacific Theater in WWII: The campaign to liberate New Guinea from the Japanese and thwart their planned invasion of Australia. In his book MacArthur’s Bloody Butchers: Company G, 163rd Regiment, Bruce follows the path of four men from the 41st Infantry Division – including Bruce’s great uncle Doyle – as they fought their way from New Guinea, to the Philippines and prepared to invade Japan.&...

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73:57

The Last Afghan Commander

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/06/02

When the United States retreated from the chaos of Kabul in August of 2021, General Sami Sadat was still fighting until the end. He recounts how his troops were starved for ammunition for two years before the final pullout, while the U.S. was negotiating with the Taliban. He also talks about how earlier in his career he fought alongside the CIA to track down al-Qaeda in the mountains on Hindu Kush. General Sadat provides a uniquely different view of the war in Afghanistan, how it was fo...

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73:49

Marine Lieutenant Fights Chaos In The Vietnamese Jungle

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/05/26

Commissioned a Marine second lieutenant on November 8, 1967, G.M. Davis arrived in Vietnam less than a year later to lead a rifle platoon against the North Vietnamese Army in the northernmost province of what was then the Republic of Vietnam. In his deeply personal book, My War in the Jungle: The Long-Delayed Memoire of A Marine Lieutenant in Vietnam, 1968-69, Davis brings to life the relentless heat, the worry, the responsibility he carried and the daily grind of firefights, battles, victory...

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102:12

WW2 Radioman And Veteran Of D-Day!

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/05/19

Robert F McLean was just 19 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy to do his part in WWII. Invited to join the Navy Seals, he declined and enrolled in the U.S.N. Patrol Torpedo Boat School in Melville, R.I. Upon graduation Bob was assigned to Squadron 30, destined for the European Theatre of Operations. Shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, his squadron became the outermost fighter convoy of the Normandy Invasion. The largest force ever assembled included his Patrol Torpedo Boat ...

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57:09

Berkeley to Berlin: How The Rad Lab Helped Avert...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/05/12

The success of the submarine-borne Polaris missile was a critical nuclear deterrent that helped President Kennedy stare down Khruschev during the 1961 Berlin Crisis. Ever since, this weapon has been a key strategic tool of the U.S. Tom Ramos's book "From Berkeley to Berlin," chronicles the scientific journey leading to the development of this and other nuclear weapons and the singular man whose "buoyant optimism spread to everyone around him and accounted for the attainment of many an 'imposs...

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63:06

USAF Combat Controller & Medal Of Honor Winner

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/05/05

Former U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Dan Schilling relates the heroic story of John Chapman captured in his book "Alone at Dawn" – a fellow combat controller who fought and perished on an Afghan mountainside, and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Chapman was the first airman to be so awarded in nearly fifty years. Dan gives a behind-the-scenes look at the Air Force Combat Controllers – the worlds deadliest and most versatile special operations force. Heroes Behind Headli...

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85:51

Financial Crimes Expert Discusses China

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/04/28

A financial investigator for Federal law enforcement, David Asher is an expert in the financial side of organized criminal activities. He has been working for decades 'finding the money' to help build cases against some of the most notorious criminal organizations, (including the Gambino crime family) terrorists, and China. In this episode, David lays out the link between China and Mexican drug cartels to promote drug trafficking into the U.S., especially of deadly fentanyl. ...

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72:08

UK Journalist Covers War In Ukraine

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/04/21

Shetland, Scotland native and independent journalist Jen Stout was in Russia in late February 2022 when the war with Ukraine broke out and quickly left for a border post in southern Romania to cover the great flood of refugees who were fleeing the fighting. Weeks later she entered Ukraine to report first-hand from the front lines and cities across the country. A writer with a great sense of empathy, Jen’s main interest was not military strategy or international politics, but the Ukrainian peo...

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76:39

UK Combat Medic's Report From Gaza 2024

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/04/14

Former SAS medical officer and current war surgeon, Richard Villar, volunteered to provide medical support in Gaza during the 2024 invasion following the October 7 Hamas attack. He found himself working in a 200-bed hospital overrun with 700 patients, many of whom were women and children The hospital was under constant threat from drones, missiles and naval shells. Despite the constant danger, he and his fellow medics performed complex surgeries on bombing victims. His moving account of his e...

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39:04

The Facts About Tren Del Aragua With Gary Berntsen

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/04/07

Past guest and highly decorated former CIA operations officer Gary Berntsen is back and he's breaking down the facts about Tren Del Aragua--the notorious gang of trained criminals at the heart of the illegal immigrant debate. Gary explains how he and his colleagues gathered intel about Tren Del Aragua as part of their investigations into the Cartel Del Sol, the largest criminal organization in the world, and how they provided the government with a list of names of TdA members intentiona...

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188 results

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