Dispatches, Episode 31: Geoffrey Wawro
Here is Episode 31 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with University of North Texas History Professor Geoffrey Wawro about "The Vietnam War: A Military History," his highly praised new book. It’s a deeply researched, compellingly written, analytical dive into the war that concentrates on military tactics and strategy, along with the political calculations behind them that had an impact on developments on the battlefield. Tom Ricks, in his New York Times review, called the book “the best overview of America’s misadventure in Southeast Asia,” and one that is “sure to become the standard one-volume book on the war.”
Dispatches, Episode 31: Geoffrey Wawro
Here is Episode 31 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with University of North Texas History Professor Geoffrey Wawro about "The Vietnam War: A Military History," his highly praised new book. It’s a deeply researched, compellingly written, analytical dive into the war that concentrates on military tactics and strategy, along with the political calculations behind them that had an impact on developments on the battlefield. Tom Ricks, in his New York Times review, called the book “the best overview of America’s misadventure in Southeast Asia,” and one that is “sure to become the standard one-volume book on the war.”
Dispatches, Episode 31: Geoffrey Wawro
Here is Episode 31 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with University of North Texas History Professor Geoffrey Wawro about "The Vietnam War: A Military History," his highly praised new book. It’s a deeply researched, compellingly written, analytical dive into the war that concentrates on military tactics and strategy, along with the political calculations behind them that had an impact on developments on the battlefield. Tom Ricks, in his New York Times review, called the book “the best overview of America’s misadventure in Southeast Asia,” and one that is “sure to become the standard one-volume book on the war.”
Dispatches, Episode 31: Geoffrey Wawro
Here is Episode 31 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with University of North Texas History Professor Geoffrey Wawro about "The Vietnam War: A Military History," his highly praised new book. It’s a deeply researched, compellingly written, analytical dive into the war that concentrates on military tactics and strategy, along with the political calculations behind them that had an impact on developments on the battlefield. Tom Ricks, in his New York Times review, called the book “the best overview of America’s misadventure in Southeast Asia,” and one that is “sure to become the standard one-volume book on the war.”
Dispatches, Episode 30: Julia Cooke
Here is Episode 30 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with Julia Cooke, the widely published journalist and the author of “Come Fly the World.” That illuminating book, which came out in 2021, is an important story about the hundreds of Pan American World Airways stewardesses who volunteered to serve aboard Pan Am charters that took troops into and out of the war zone throughout the entire Vietnam War. The book offers fascinating details about an underappreciated and little-known story—and one that hundreds of thousands of Vietnam War veterans experienced.
Dispatches, Episode 29: Marc Yablonka
Here is Episode 29 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with Marc Yablonka, a long-time military journalist and author who’s written for many publications, served as a public affairs officer with the California State Military Army Reserve’s 40th Infantry Division, and has written a great deal about the Vietnam War, including in his books, Tears Across the Mekong, tales of the so-called “secret war” in Laos; Vietnam: Bao Chi: Warriors of Word and Film; and his latest, Hot Mics and TV Lights: The American Forces Vietnam Network, a history of AFVN.
Here is Episode 28 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with Bob Parsons, the self-made entrepreneur, marketing wizard, and philanthropist best known as the founder of GoDaddy and PXG Golf. They’ll be discussing Parsons’ time in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam in 1968 where he was severely wounded, the impact his wartime service and serving in the Marine Corps has had on his life since then, his new book, “Fire in the Hole! The Untold Story of My Traumatic Life and Explosive Success,” and much more!
"Dispatches" Episode 27: Carl Sciacchitano
Here is Episode 27 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with Carl Sciacchitano, the writer and illustrator, about his brilliant new graphic novel, “The Heart That Fed: A Father, a Son and the Long Shadow of War.” This creatively crafted and compulsively readable book focuses on Carl’s father David’s radically life-changing 18-month Vietnam War tour of duty as an Air Force aircraft mechanic who—among many other things—manned an M-60 machinegun during an NVA attack near Quang Tri during the 1968 Tet Offensive, and also flashes back and forward to David’s and Carl’s lives before and after the war.
"Dispatches," Episode 26: Molly Stillman
Here is Episode 26 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with in Molly Stillman, who hosts the “Can I Laugh on Your Shoulder?” podcast, and is the author of a great new memoir, "If I Don’t Laugh. I’ll Cry." They’ll be talking mainly about Molly’s mother, Lynda Van Devanter, a Vietnam War surgical nurse who became a powerful women veterans advocate. After joining Vietnam Veterans of America in 1979, the year after it was founded, Lynda became the head of VVA’s Women’s Project, the first-ever U.S. veterans service organization’s women veterans advocacy group. In 1983, she wrote what would become a classic Vietnam War memoir: "Home Before Morning."
Dispatches: Episode 25 - Alice McDermott
Here is Episode 25 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with in Alice McDermott, one of the nation’s most distinguished novelists, whose 1997 novel, “Charming Billy,” received the National Book Award for Fiction. They will be discussing her highly acclaimed new novel, “Absolution,” which is set primarily in Saigon during the fateful Vietnam War year of 1963 and includes two significant GI characters, a selfless Army Doctor, and a good-hearted EM named Dominic who works in an Army hospital. The episode goes live right here at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time.
"Dispatches," Episode 24: Charlie Trueheart
Here is Episode 24 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively, informative interview, Arts Editor Marc Leepson talks with former Washington Post foreign correspondent Charlie Trueheart about his brilliant new book, Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict. This one-of-a-kind, revealing look at the crucial years (1961-63) of the war is a deft blend of solid historical research, compelling writing, and insightful analysis, along with an intriguing and consequential family story.
Dispatches, Episode 23: Kristin Hannah
Here is Episode 23 of our “Dispatches” video series. In this lively interview Arts Editor Marc Leepson interviews Kristin Hannah, the prolific, best-selling author of 19 novels, whose books have been translated into 43 languages. He’ll be talking to her about “The Women,” her new novel, which shot to the top of all the bestseller lists when it came out February 6 and has remained there ever since. It’s the compelling story of a young woman who joins the Army Nurse Corps at twenty and within months finds herself in just about the worst that war can offer in an evac hospital in South Vietnam—as well as what she faced after coming home from the war.
