Gil Barndollar
Capt, USMC
Sam Long
Capt, USMC
Gil Barndollar & Sam Long were advisors in Afghanistan. They wrote a Marine Corps Gazette article entitled “Putting the First Team on the Field: Irregular warfare and Marine Combat Advisors” — we’ll talk about the article with both authors.
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Capt Tom Draude, USMC
Republic of Vietnam, 1970
Advisor to Vietnamese Marines
With 1stLt Tri (who had graduated from the The Basic School, Quantico VA)
Tom Draude, BGen USMC (ret) has watched each episode of the Ken Burns series “The Vietnam War” that is airing on PBS he joined us to share his thoughts on the series. Like many, he has watched with interest the interviews with North Vietnamese Army soldiers and Viet Cong fighters; he’s also been keenly interested in how the experience of those who lost family members has been conveyed to the audience.
Draude also talks candidly about post-Vietnam Marine Corps life and how many officers put the experience away and didn’t speak of it, even with subordinates, which in retrospect was a mistakes.
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Will Costantini
Col USMC (ret)
As I was waxing eloquent about how humbling it was to watch what Marines did at Con Thien in the PBS series entitled “The Vietnam War” a friend of mine, a smart one at that, called the program to talk about how we define “combat” and whether our “modern definition” contradicts 400 years of combat history but allows our civilian leaders to gender integrate military occupational specialties that involve “intense combat” and should NOT be integrated.
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Jerry Durrant
Col, USMC (ret)
Jerry Durrant, Col USMC (ret) joined us to talk about his time as a LCpl in Vietnam in 1970 as well as his thoughts on Iraq today.
He is currently part of a private company that does military education for the Iraqi military. He has interesting things to say about where Iraq is and what is next for the war-torn nation.
He raises concerns about Sunni’s being eliminated from the Iraqi military, the upcoming Kurdish referendum and genuine surprise at the visit Muqtada al Sadr made to Saudi Arabia recently.
Durrant is a great representative of the Marine Corps and a thoughtful guest.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Podcast: Play in new window | Download