Late Night History

The Late Night History podcast was created by writer and oral historian Matt Fratus in 2021. Each year (or season), Matt releases a new batch of episodes starring world-class guests who share their life story. In each episode we cover fascinating historical topics as we leverage each guest's experience and expertise.

This short video is an announcement featuring an update on new guests and new content for 2024.

Listen to the Late Night History podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/late-night-history/id1553678075

Tonight’s guest is Rob Newson, a former Navy SEAL officer with nearly 30 years of military service. 

On this episode, Rob and I discuss the highlights of his remarkable military career, as well as the important work he is doing with cancer and leading the fight alongside incredible organizations such as Task Force Dagger and Hunter Seven Foundation. 

If you are searching for insight about military start-ups, this is the episode for you. Rob has personally led or participated within six separate new military organizations, including two national strategic planning elements, and a first-of-its-kind organization to collect and integrate battlefield intelligence to identify and disable terrorist networks. In a three year period, this new team elevated the success rate of SEAL missions from 35% to 91%.

We dive into the gamut of Naval Special Warfare history across the Global War on Terror, including the establishment of SEAL Team 7 and why all veterans of that team owe Rob a green beer for putting the commissioning date on St. Paddy’s Day. We also cover the reasoning for the creation of the Cultural Engagement Units, which relied heavily on the MAVNI program; and various other topics such as women in combat, SEALs in media, and working at the White House.

Tonight’s guest is Doug Patteson, a 10-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, or simply put, the CIA.

Tonight’s guest is my friend Jim Webb. Jim is a former war photographer, Marine, and journalist. Jim and I met during his stint working for @blackriflecoffee at @coffeeordiemag. And from there, we hit it off with our shared love for baseball and military history.

Episode 33 features a discussion about Jim’s life story from childhood to present day, including his fondest memories alongside his dad James Webb Sr. — who famously authored Fields of Fire about his time serving as a Marine in the Vietnam War. Jim’s dad later became Secretary of the US Navy and has had an instrumental influence on his life. Jim discusses fishing trips alongside his dad’s Vietnam War buddies and how he continues the family tradition with his Marine teammates. Next, Jim shares what it was like as a war photographer — leaving Penn State early to journey to Afghanistan alongside his dad, ultimately to take a detour on the trip back home to Vietnam to walk the same patrol routes his dad once walked decades before. Ironically, Jim would later join the same exact unit he covered as a war photographer in Afghanistan, except serving as a Marine for a tour in Iraq.

Towards the end of the show, we nerd out on some baseball history, including the iconic Pizza Affair at Fenway Park that’s enshrined in @redsox lore; how @bluemoonbrewco became a ballpark beer; and, how some of baseball’s greatest stars left their prime years behind to fight in war and conflict i.e. Teddy Ballgame, Jerry Coleman, and Ty Cobb.

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Tonight’s guest is Bill Walter — a former Air Force AC-130 gunship Aerial Gunner who has been inducted into both the Air Commando Hall of Fame, as well as the SOCOM Hall of Fame.In this episode we discuss the broad history of the AC-130 gunship, including its involvement in the Vietnam War and then later the many missions in which Bill himself personally has flown between 1978 and 2005. We discuss his experiences from Grenada and Panama to Bosnia and even Mogadishu BEFORE AND AFTER the famous Black Hawk Down saga. 

If you’re curious about the history of gunships — this is the episode for you.

If you’re looking for lesser known trivial stuff, we also geek out on some food and drink history — like how Bill’s squadron had a beer machine. All the labels were changed to match an ammunition nickname, like 40 millimeter was Budweiser and so forth. He also has a very comical Halloween candy story that has a wild historical significance that I don’t think can be topped.

Later in the episode, Bill shares how he helped develop the MOAB (Mo-Ab) — The Mother of All Bombs — which was famously used in Afghanistan with devastating effects. So without further ado, here is episode 32 with Bill Walter.

Buy Bill's Ghostrider books documenting the history of the AC-130 gunship from 1968-1995.

Tonight we have a returning guest: former Navy SEAL Kirby Horrell. Kirby first appeared on the podcast back in 2021 (Episode 9) and we covered his early life as well as his combat experiences in the Vietnam War.

This time, Kirby shares his life after Vietnam, including founding several successful business ventures, returning to active-duty to serve a career in the SEAL Teams, and various anecdotes from his time in the teams. These include evacuating US embassies in Africa; developing the MK46 and MK48 machine guns; and living on a boat in Hawaii — which every waterman, including me, envies — using his paddleboard to get to work every morning. Since he was working with the SDVs, he regularly surfed for PT 🏄🏼‍♂️.

Later in the episode, Kirby shares his involvement with the non-profit Saved In America, which is doing noble work to recover missing or runaway children across the country. Saved In America is a team of former Navy SEALs, former police officers, and private investigators who have safely located more than 250 children (with more than half rescued before being trafficked).

Tonight’s guest of the Late Night History podcast is Merryl Tengesdal.

Merryl is a trailblazer in the world of aviation as she is, at this time, the only Black woman to ever fly the U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane. The U-2 spy plane has conducted high-altitude reconnaissance missions for the US since the 1950s and in the last 10-plus years has achieved a 97% mission success rate. The U-2 is unique in that it requires all pilots to wear specialized pressure suits to fly at altitude — which essentially makes them look more like astronauts than aviators in their single-seat cockpit.

We discuss Merryl’s life story from childhood to present day. Throughout the episode Merryl shares interesting anecdotes throughout her 13 years flying the U-2, including missions, often 8 hours or more, across five combat deployments. 

She also tells us about the complicated nature of eating and drinking while in the cockpit. These meals come in toothpaste-like tubes and have some wild flavors like Zapplesauce, which is caffeinated, and even New England Clam Chowda — which as a Massachusetts guy, doesn’t sound too appetizing even for me. 

Merryl is the author of her memoir Shatter The Sky and has many additional anecdotes within those pages, including more detail about the humorous story she shares on here about chauffeuring Steven Spielberg to observe a landing of the Dragon Lady for the movie Bridge of Spies. 

You can reach out to Merryl by visiting her website: https://merryltengesdal.com/

Tonight’s guests are Harold Dunnigan and Duncan Smith.

Tonight’s guest is Ed Loder.

Ed spent 43 years (1970-2013) in the Boston Fire Department, with more than 20 of those years with Rescue Company 1. 

Ed is considered the most decorated firefighter in BFD’s history. In this episode, Ed speaks about the realities of the fire service. The stuff that usually doesn’t make the TV shows. Train accidents, plane crashes, deadly scenarios that often don’t have a happy ending. 

It’s dark. 

It’s raw. 

But it’s the truth.

We also discuss some of Ed’s greatest rescues. The saves and attempts that were photographed and made the newspapers. These include rappelling off the roof to save a woman 17 stories up, catching a jumper with only one hand like it was a movie, and sometimes humorously, forgetting to throw on all his gear and racing to a call while wearing Sperrys. 

If you want a real look at what it’s like to work as a firefighter during the infamous War Years, this is the episode to listen to.

Ed was on the road when this was made, so bear with us when the audio is wonky at times. All that being said, here is episode 28 with Ed Loder. 

P.S.

For those interested, read about some of his rescues and view the famous actions captured by Boston photographers in my article published in 2020: ⁠https://coffeeordie.com/boston-firefighter-ed-loder
Follow Late Night History on Instagram: @latenighthistory

Tonight’s guest is with Dick Holm, a former paramilitary officer, operations officer, and station chief with the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Dick served 35 years with the CIA under 13 directors and is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal — an award given to CIA personnel for extraordinary achievements in service. Dick is also the author of the memoir: The Craft We Chose: My Life in the CIA. 

For the most part, we discuss Dick’s extraordinary life while working for the CIA between the 1960s and 1990s. We cover his fascinating work in Laos as a paramilitary officer, then later Dick’s remarkable story of survival after being severely wounded in a plane crash in the Congo. As a result of the crash, Dick was burned over 35% of his body, including his face and hands. He even lost one eye in surgery.

Despite this, Dick would continue to serve at CIA, including critical assignments like running operations into China from Hong Kong, founding the Counter Terrorism Group (known today as the Counter Terrorism Mission Center), and serving multiple station chief positions throughout his career.