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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

81:52

American Journalist Kidnapped By The Taliban

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2026/01/19

Over his career as a journalist, reporting from mainly Afghanistan and Pakistan, Jere Van Dyk has worked for the New York Times and CBS News and has appeared widely as a commentator on international affairs. His also the author of several books. In 2008 Jere was captured and held by the Taliban, an experience that he wrote about in his fascinating book Captive, which received a Foreign Press Award in 2022. He is with us today to talk about his long experience in Afghanistan that b...

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56:16

America CEO Imprisoned in Venezuela

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2026/01/12

With the country of Venezuela and the criminal behavior of the Maduro regime currently headline news, today’s guest is particularly timely – petroleum executive, kidnapping victim and author Jose Angel Pereira. At first glance, Jose Angel Pereira’s career looks like that of someone who reached the pinnacle of corporate success – that of a seasoned executive with over three decades in the oil and gas industry. Jose Angel once led CITGO Petroleum as CEO, navigating billion-dollar deals an...

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41:22

Unexpected Heroism During LA Wildfire

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2026/01/05

On the evening of January 7, 2025 several destructive wildfires swept through the Los Angeles area, including the fast-moving Eaton Fire near the neighborhoods of Altadena and Pasadena. Firefighters and three night-flying helicopters with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were ordered to respond. They intended to drop water on the Eaton fire but, buffeted by ferocious updrafts and downdrafts, aborted the operation at 6:45 p.m. By midnight, the fire expanded to over 1,000 acres fuel...

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78:21

REPRISE: Breaking Down the Meth and Fentanyl Epidemic

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/12/29

HBH is so proud of this episode--we think this breakdown of an important and ongoing issue bears repeating: Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones lays out the facts behind the meth and fentanyl drug crisis in the U.S.: He expertly describes how mass manufacturing has made these drug ubiquitous, cheap, and infinitely more potent, and thus unlike any other drugs--legal or illegal--ever consumed by human beings. Sam explains how today’s meth has triggered an abrupt rise in homelessness, and why...

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71:35

REPRISE: U.S. Army Scout Donald D. Fida's Incredible...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/12/22

In 1944, Sgt. Donald D. Fida was tortured and gutted by Japanese solders and left to die in the Philippine jungle, when his childhood friend miraculously came upon him and saved his life. Because of this experience, Donald survived and continued to fight til the war's end, living to finally tell his tale at age 99. Twice a Purple Heart recipient, Donald shares his first-person account of his numerous adventures as an Army Scout in the wartime Pacific Theater, describing his combat in t...

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50:11

Growing Up Homeless To Navy SEAL To Cancer Survivor:...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/12/15

Part two of Dash's awesome interview: Former Navy SEAL Dash Dong Wong’s journey from growing up as a street urchin in Hawaii to becoming a Navy special operations operator is a powerful testament to resilience and inner strength. Says Dash, “I grew up in paradise, but was raised in hell.” Through all the trauma he faced as a kid, including battling in a child fight club at ten years old, he learned to find hope and beauty in even the worst situations. Though he never knew his real fathe...

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66:39

Growing Up Homeless To Navy SEAL To Cancer Survivor

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/12/08

Former Navy SEAL Dash Dong Wong’s journey from growing up as a street urchin in Hawaii to becoming a Navy special operations operator is a powerful testament to resilience and inner strength. Says Dash, “I grew up in paradise, but was raised in hell.” Through all the trauma he faced as a kid, including battling in a child fight club at ten years old, he learned to find hope and beauty in even the worst situations. Though he never knew his real father, he was adopted by a friend of his mother,...

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43:25

The Most Audacious Art Thief Ever!

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/12/01

Art theft expert, security expert and author of “The Rembrandt Heist: The Story of a Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship,” Anthony Amore introduces us to Boston native, Miles Connor Jr., a combination rock star, samurai sword collector, and brilliant art thief. Connor's fascinating motives for stealing art were tied up with his policeman father’s passion for collecting, and also for avenging what he felt was a grave insult to his father by a local museum, the Fo...

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61:27

The Women Who Secretly Built the Atomic Bomb

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/11/24

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee was home to 75,000 residents, who consumed more energy than New York City. Most of the world didn’t know that the town even existed. And most of the people who lived there, who were largely young women from small towns across the America, didn’t know the true nature of the work they were doing day after day in the hulking factories that had been hastily built in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is until the end of the war when O...

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62:38

Female Cuban Spy Nabbed By The FBI

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/11/17

Retired FBI agent Pete Lapp helped capture Ana Montez, a Puerto Rican-born American and UVA alumna who was a senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency overseeing the Cuban account. For 17 years, she was also a spy for Cuba and was an avowed communist. Ironically, as many of four of Anna’s close family members worked for the FBI and despite Anna’s more extreme political views, assumed she was a loyal American. From his book “Queen of Cuba,” Pete relates how Ana was identified as...

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56:32

Govt. JFK Assassination Expert Proves Conspiracy! –...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/11/10

Part Two of this fascinating interview: Douglas Horne is the preeminent JFK assassination expert and a former investigator with the official government JFK Assassination Records Review Board. He’s also the author of the five-volume book set titled: Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated. R...

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61:04

Govt. JFK Assassination Expert Proves Conspiracy! –...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/11/03

Douglas Horne is the preeminent JFK assassination expert and a former investigator with the official government JFK Assassination Records Review Board. He’s also the author of the five-volume book set titled: Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated. Recently he was one of the JFK Assassination e...

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80:59

Youngest WW2 Officer Fights Hitler, Saves Horses And...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/27

World War II hero Phil Larimore remains the youngest candidate to ever graduate from Army Officer Training School, which he did at the age of seventeen, on the eve of America’s involvement in World War II. Landing on the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, Phil – the youngest commissioned US officer in World War II – was put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon of the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: to deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular...

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48:00

Chasing The Zombie Hunter

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/20

Phoenix Police Department cold case homicide detective and and former CPA Troy Hillman tells the extraordinary, detailed inside story of how an elite team of detectives—hounded by the press, a frustrated and frightened public, and their own doubts and exhaustion—solved a double murder that had haunted the Phoenix area for more than twenty years. The initial details were already chilling—the brutal murder of two women, found headless, who were assaulted while riding their bikes along a w...

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68:47

The Anthrax Crisis And The Urgent Search For A...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/13

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death of Saddam Hussein, scientists who worked for the regime were killed or left the country. When one of them –microbiologist Thamer Abdul Rahman Imran – learned the new regime wanted to arrest him and the insurgents wanted to kill him, he went into hiding. Racing against time, ex–Secret Service agent Steve Monteiro and his team from the Department of Homeland Security set out to find the missing scientist and learn what he knew about the anthra...

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89:05

Welcome to The CIA and ‘The Farm’ its Legendary...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/08

We are re-airing Doug Laux's second appearance on HBH, as we fondly remember him upon his passing: Being accepted to work at the CIA is highly difficult. The interview process is long and secretive - and applicants and their references are often vetted without ever knowing it. Once accepted, very few go on to practice espionage. That distinction is reserved for those invited to the CIA’s top secret and legendary training program known as ‘The Farm’. Fewer still actually graduate the program a...

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45:06

MACV-SOG Legend "Dynamite" Is Back! (Part Two of Two)

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/06

Henry (Dick) L. Thompson is back to share more adventures from his latest book SOG Code Name Dynamite 2 about his time in Vietnam as part of MACV-SOG. From 1964-1972 America engaged in a Top Secret war in Southeast Asia to support our efforts in Vietnam, with an elite group of warriors who were sworn to secrecy for decades. If caught, the US government would deny any involvement. Missioned primarily to do recon on North Vietnamese forces massing across the border in Laos and Cambodia, the sma...

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73:48

The CIA Mission to Eliminate the Taliban’s Most...

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/10/01

In tribute to our friend and past HBH guest, we're re-airing the first of former CIA officer Doug Laux's two appearances during our first season: CIA Officer Doug Laux explains how he developed a network of spies to track down the man responsible for running the Taliban's lethal IED network, which at the height of the Afghan War was responsible for over 80% of US and Coalition deaths. RIP Doug, you'll be sorely missed. Heroes Behind Headlines Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo Produced &...

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56:36

MACV-SOG Legend "Dynamite" Is Back! (Part One of Two)

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/09/29

Henry (Dick) L. Thompson is back to share more adventures from his latest book SOG Code Name Dynamite 2 about his time in Vietnam as part of MACV-SOG. From 1964-1972 America engaged in a Top Secret war in Southeast Asia to support our efforts in Vietnam, with an elite group of warriors who were sworn to secrecy for decades. If caught, the US government would deny any involvement. Missioned primarily to do recon on North Vietnamese forces massing across the border in Laos and Cambodia, the sma...

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47:01

Agent Zo: Fearless Female WWII Resistance Fighter

Heroes Behind Headlines ·

2025/09/22

Courageous resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka, aka ‘Agent Zo’, was the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi-German occupied Poland during the Second World War. While being hunted by the Gestapo there, who arrested her entire family, she established a military intelligence network, couriered microfilm across wartime borders and, as the only female member of the Polish elite special forces, the ‘Silent Unseen,' played a key role in the largest organized act of defiance against Nazi Ger...

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193 results

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