Our guest today is Col. Nathan K. Finney of US Forces Command. An armor (armour, if you are in the UK) officer-turned-strategist, Nate commissioned through Officer Candidate School after earning his BA from the University of Arizona. Following tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he began doctoral studies at the University of Kansas while at Ft. Leavenworth, then completed his PhD at Duke University as a Goodpaster Fellow. His first book was just released by Cornell University Press - Orchestrating Power: The American Associational State in the First World War. While Arizona is home, he's lived all over, and is never idle. He founded and still manages the Strategy Bridge blog and podcast, and also started the Military Writers Guild and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. And don't get us started on the number of fellowships Nate has held (including an SMH Summer Seminar Fellowship in 2023) - as he'll share, he's been incredibly fortunate to have so many amazing opportunities.

Join us for a fascinating chat with a serving Army officer who earned his PhD in military history - we'll talk doing research during COVID, grad student reading groups, intending to enlist but commissioning instead, peaty Scotch, burnt ends, and earning a PhD while in uniform - we're glad to share Nate's story.

Shoutout to Q39 in Kansas City and Redwood Smoke Shack in Norfolk, Virginia!

Rec.: 03/16/2026

Today's guest is the raw and real, hockey-playing Québécois and Vietnam historian, Pierre Asselin! He's come a long way from not wanting to go to college to now the Dwight E. Stanford Chair in American Foreign Relations and interim Director of the Center for War and Society at San Diego State University. Born and raised in Quebec City, Pierre has an inspirational professor at Glendon College who encouraged him to learn Vietnamese through a program that took Pierre to Hawaii, where, and he never imagined it, he would later return to earn his PhD at the University of Hawaii and teach at Pacific University for over twenty years. Add to that annual visits to Vietnam for now over thirty years! Pierre is author of several works, including A Bitter Peace: Washington, Hanoi, and the Making of the Paris Agreement (UNC Press), Hanoi's Road to the Vietnam War (California), and the highly recommended Vietnam's American War: A History (Cambridge). Pierre wears it on his sleeve - and he doesn't hold back in this episode.

Join us for a roller-coaster chat as we talk hockey, Quebec, Hawaii, life-changing teachers, staying true to yourself and earning respect in a sometimes pretentious business, paying it forward, Rush, KFC, working in Vietnamese archives, Rambo, and much more!

Rec.: 03/18/2026

Today's guest is the well-travelled Reena Goldthree of Princeton University, where she is an Associate Professor of African American Studies and affiliated with Princeton's Gender and Sexuality Studies and Latin American Studies programs. A native of St. Louis, Reena grew up around history and languages. With a BA from Columbia and a PhD from Duke, Reena taught at Dartmouth before landing at Princeton. She specializes in colonial soldier experiences, especially that of the West Indies Regiment in the First World War. Her book Democracy's Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean was just published by Princeton University Press. Reena's parents - her father, a very successful high school volleyball coach, and her mother, a Spanish teacher - instilled in her an adventurous spirit. A kid from St. Louis now a Princeton professor studying Black soldiers and veterans in the Caribbean? Listen in - she'll share how this has come to pass.

Join us for a fun one - we'll talk Tuskegee airmen, pen pals, the good fortune of travel as a kid, learning to write research grants in grad school, Curry Mango, being a cheerleader at Columbia, and church-parking lot BBQ, and much more!

Reena's advice for roadside BBQ - "If you can't smell it before you see it, drive on!"

Rec.: 03/12/2026