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

Today's guest is the energetic Military History Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Dr. Frank Blazich! An Air Force veteran and long-time historian for the Civil Air Patrol, Frank has been in the public history world since earning his PhD at The Ohio State University. A native of North Carolina, Frank earned degrees at both UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State (which must make for interesting conversation during THAT game!). He has published too many articles to count, and is the author of Bataan Survivor: A POW's Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II (University of Missouri Press) and of "An Honorable Place in American Air Power": Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1942-1943 (Air University Press). He serves as secretary for the Air Force Historical Foundation and founded the Smithsonian Institution Veterans Council, and a is fellow Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Join us for a fun and fascinating chat with Frank Blazich - we'll talk collecting and metal detecting with his late father, growing into public history, fun finds in Smithsonian storage, Cher Ami, Eddie Edwards, Gordon Lightfoot, and more!

Shoutout to Stracci Pizza in Alexandria, Virginia!

Rec.: 02/24/2026

Today's guest is a fellow podcaster - Ian Sanders, who is the creator and host of the popular Cold War Conversations Podcast. A London native now living in Manchester, Ian divides time between the Manchester Museum, podcast projects for the Royal Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum, and his Cold War Conversations Podcast. With a lifelong interest in military history and the Cold War, Ian has turned what began as a small hobby into a New York Times-recommended podcast with over 6 million downloads! And the stories he can tell, and does tell - he's interviewed everyone from former spies to leading Cold War historians, so check out Cold War Conversations! Ian is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a founding member of the Cold War Network and the Imperial War Museum War Conflict Subject Specialist Network. He's a busy guy, and we're glad he took time to chat with us. We'll talk growing up during the Cold War, 4-minute warning sirens, The Smiths, Cold War movies, the Isdal Woman, how to start a podcast, and much more! Enjoy!

Shoutout to Foster's Chip Shop in Manchester!

Rec.: 02/05/2026

Our guest today is Oklahoma State University Professor of History John M. Kinder. John is the Director of the American Studies Program at OK State and has published widely on veterans and disabilities, and, more recently, on zoos in wartime. His books include Paying With Their Bodies: American War and the Problem of the Disabled Veteran (University of Chicago Press), Service Denied: Marginalized Veterans in Modern American History (University of Massachusetts Press - co-edited with Friend-of-the-Pod Jason Higgins), and most recently World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age (University of Chicago Press) - a fascinating account of what happened to zoos in wartime cities during the Second World War. He also has another co-edited volume (with Friend-of-the-Pod Jennifer Murray) coming out soon from the University of Nebraska Press titled They Are Dead, And Yet They Live: Civil War Memories in a Polarized America. Like all of our guests, John's got an interesting story - another "I was going to go to law school" turned historian experience; he was literally at Georgetown Law about to start classes when he saw the light!

Join us for a delightful chat - we'll talk Ellis "Old Folks" Kinder, The Smiths, Life Cereal, heart attacks, researching in zoo archives, vegan Soul food, and the animal escaped from the zoo you'd least like to encounter! Enjoy!

Rec.: 02/03/2026

We've got another good one for you - Today's guest is National Museums Scotland's military curator, Calum Robertson. Calum has one of the best jobs in the military history world there in Edinburgh. Born and raised near storied St. Andrews, Calum couldn't help but get interested in history at a young age. Calum studied history and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, earned his PhD in Archaeological Heritage and Museums at Cambridge, and then fell into a full-time position at National Museums Scotland, filling in for a staff member on leave. His remit includes the National War Museum of Scotland at Edinburgh Castle, and you can imagine the artifacts he's seen that few others will ever see.

We really enjoyed our chat with Calum - we'll talk bagpipes, the Melrose Pig, Robert Burns, Irn Bru, Dundee Pistols, Brighde Chaimbeul, and, oh yeah, working at the National Museum of Scotland. Enjoy!

Thanks to CruFro on SampleFocus.com for the pipes MP3!

Rec.: 01/29/2026

Our guest today is a historian of Civil War memory and Southern foodways, notably for our purposes BBQ and, wait for it, BACON! Mark A. Johnson is an assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. A native of Milwaukee but from everywhere (his father's business moved the family all over the country), Mark earned his BA from Purdue University, an MA from the University of Maryland, and his PhD from the University of Alabama, where, you guessed it, he partook of Friend-of-the-Pod John Beeler's Pork-o-Rama! Mark is the author of An Irresistible History of Alabama Barbecue (History Press)and Rough Tactics: Black Performance in Political Spectacles, 1877-1932 (University of Mississippi Press), and the forthcoming American Bacon: The Cultural History of a Food Phenomenon (University of Georgia Press). Mark teaches courses on Southern history and Foodways, as well as a popular course on Civil War Memory, in which students do projects using a Confederate cemetery next to campus.

Join us for a fun chat with Mark Johnson - we'll talk moving around the country as a kid, Civil War soldiers and the "high water mark" of bacon, selling treadmills at Sears, taking courses with Ira Berlin, and being "high on the hog." Enjoy!

Shout out to Little Coyote in Chattanooga!

Rec.: 12/15/2025