The 18th Airborne Corps Podcast

Bing West has always loved American Grunts.

Ever since he led a platoon of Marines in Vietnam, he's had an affinity for the man (and now woman) on the ground at the leading edge of America's wars. That's why he wrote the 1972 book "The Village," about 17 months in the lives of a squad of Marines fighting in Binh Nghia, Vietnam. He wrote for the Marine Corps as well, publishing the service's official counterinsurgency manual.

Throughout our post-9/11 wars, he continued to champion the Grunt.

From 2003 through 2008, he made 16 extended trips to Iraq, going on patrols and writing three books and numerous articles about the war. His 2005 book "No True Glory," is the definitive frontline account of the Battle for Fallujah. His 2008 book "The Strongest Tribe," will hold up for generations as a comprehensive history of the American war in Iraq.

From 2007 through 2011, he made numerous trips to Afghanistan, each time living and traveling with ground units. His 2011 book "The Wrong War," is a definitive account of American missteps and successes in Afghanistan.

Bing was in Afghanistan on September 8, 2009 when Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer singlehandedly evacuated or provided cover for dozens of US service members in Kunar during the Battle of Ganjgal. Hearing the story, Bing investigated and wrote about Dakota's account. He pushed the Marine Corps, the Department of Defense, Congress, and the White House for Dakota to receive the Medal of Honor and he did, in a White House ceremony on September 15, 2011.

Aside from his writing, he's had an influential career as a counterinsurgency analyst, first for the Rand Corporation and later as an assistant to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Bing's good friend.

Meanwhile, he's continued to write, both fiction and non-fiction, telling the stories of the American Marine and Soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq.

On Episode 58 of the podcast, Bing joins his old friend Joe Buccino, host of the podcast, to talk about caring leadership, the end of the war of Afghanistan, the Army's focus on Large Scale Combat Operations, and why Army leaders should stop tweeting.

It's a great talk, a rich discussion with lessons and wisdom for all military leaders.

Please subscribe to the 18th Airborne Corps podcast on Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-18th-airborne-corps-podcast/id1547996961), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/15BMwodlZc84yiPK0AYSHq), or Stitcher (https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-doomsday-clock). You won't miss any of the interesting guests or cool stories if you subscribe. We also ask you to leave a 5-star rating and a review, as these will help others find the program.

Episode 98 of the podcast continues the story of the Battle of the Bulge.

This miniseries, which began with Episode 94, recounts the biggest figures and biggest moments from one of the most momentous events in American military history. One such moment occurred the day after Christmas, 1944. Patton's 3rd Army - led by the 37th Tank Battalion - blasted into Bastogne, relieving the 101st Airborne Division and turning the tide of the fight.

That day and that moment gave birth to an American Legend: King Cobra, the first tank into Bastogne. King Cobra gave the Allies momentum that they never gave up.

This is the story of King Cobra and its moment of glory. It's also the story of leaders and the decisions that put that tank in Bastogne. 

The drama in the Ardennes forest continues...

On January 20, 1973, Richard Nixon was riding high. Sworn into office for his second term of the U.S. presidency, he’d just won a massive landslide victory, capturing 49 states and more than 60 percent of the popular vote. His stunning diplomatic move to reopen relations with China, combined with his efforts to negotiate an end to the war he inherited in Vietnam, made him an enormously consequential president. He was popular, brilliant, and seemingly headed for an FDR-like legacy.

20 months later, Nixon resigned in disgrace, his presidency shattered by his conspiracy to cover up the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex during the 1972 election. Nixon, a complicated man overcome by the urges of insecurity and ego was brought low by his own design: a secret and ubiquitous taping system that recorded an enormous volume of White House conversations served as the smoking gun that forced his resignation.

Journalist Michael Dobbs just published a stunning new book into the drama inside the White House as the Nixon presidency collapsed under the weight of scandal. In “King Richard, Nixon and Watergate: An American Tragedy,” Dobbs plumbs the psyche of our 37th president for fresh insight into his undoing. The book is a triumph: cinematic and scintillating, it pulls the curtain on the fight for survival within Nixon’s staff. By using the tapes as a primary source material, Dobbs locks the reader in a shrinking room with Nixon and his aides, the walls closing in as reporters tie the president to the break-in.

Michael joins host Joe Buccino for one of the most vivid episodes of the 18th Airborne Corps podcast to date. Anyone interested in conspiracy, the American presidency, or the workings of the White House will find insight in this episode. Also discussed are the ties between the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover-up and the catastrophically unpopular Vietnam War.

Watergate was a critical moment in American history, one that has shaped the way Americans think about the federal government ever since. The build-up to the Iraq War, the January 6, 2020 insurrection, and the public response to COVID-19, all have their origin in Watergate.

The 18th Airborne Corps Podcast is the official podcast of the U.S. Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps. Recorded on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the program releases new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Military planners referred to the 3,000-foot tall highland in the rugged, jungle-shrouded A Sầu Valley as “Hill 937.” North Vietnamese Army fighters called it “The Mountain of the Crouching Beast.” American Soldiers would come to call it Hamburger Hill. For 10 days, from 10 to 20 May, 1969, the cursed piece of rock would torture, confound, and aggrieve a group of American Soldiers from the 187th Infantry Regiment, “Rakassans.”

It was a meat-grinder of a fight, waged by a group of lightly armed GIs against fresh, trained North Vietnamese regulars, against almost impossible terrain, against brutal weather. At the end of the ten-day battle, which saw some of the hardest fighting of the war in the decades since, that fight has come to serve as a metaphor for the Vietnam War itself: a maddening fool’s errand in which Soldiers were sacrificed for a political ploy with no strategic value.

We’re releasing this episode 52 years to the day that the Battle for Hamburger Hill ended. This is a longer episode, more than an hour and a half, and in it we describe the point of Hamburger Hill, the American strategy behind the fight for it, and the way that fight played it. In this episode, you’ll hear from some of the men who fought there, some of whom never truly left Hill 937. You’ll also hear from Dr. Erik Villard, a historian who’s studied the battle, the terrain, and the North Vietnamese defenders. This is truly an enlightening, gutting, and inspiring program, one that honors the Rakassans who fought and died there.

In October of 1962, the world came as close to nuclear Armageddon as it ever had. JFK and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev faced off over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba.

In the first of a three-part series on the Cuban Missile Crisis, hosts Joe and Christal describe how we reached the brink of the abyss. They also explain OPLAN 316, the planned invasion of Cuba by American forces.

This is not the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis that you learned in school. This is the story of Soldiers on military bases throughout the United States who were alerted and assembled for war. Some units moved to Key West Florida to stage for an invasion that may have led to World War III.