Late Night History

The Late Night History podcast returns in 2023 with Cmdr. Robert “RJ” Thomas. RJ served 32 years in the US Navy (30 of those years within Naval Special Warfare). 

Tonight’s guest is with Bill Flavin, a retired Army Special Forces colonel with 55 years of experience working for the Department of Defense.

Bill has lived an extraordinary life and has a wealth of experience when it comes to war and peace.

As we do on this show we start chronologically. Bill briefly shares how his famous parents steered him away from life in Hollywood. Bill's mom, Lucile Browne, starred in movies alongside John Wayne, while Bill’s dad, James Flavin, was a character actor. James went to West Point and Bill decided he’d follow that military path too.

We discuss Bill’s extended tour to Vietnam and combat experiences in Cambodia. We also talk about his unique career within Army Special Forces, including leading a team for a program called Project Greenlight. This team operated during the Cold War and, according to Bill, was more of a psychological unit over anything. These Green Berets trained with nuclear weapons and their job was to insert behind enemy lines with mini nukes to take high value targets in the event of World War III.

Thankfully, the nukes were never used.

Towards the end of the show, we discuss Bill’s work with NATO peacekeeping operations. This includes his role in the Balkans hunting PIFWCs in the 90s to flying into Afghanistan with FedEx for on the ground stability assessments in 2002. We close with Bill’s powerful War Peace & Justice Symposium focusing on moral injury.

Learn more about the War Justice Peace Symposium here: https://www.warpeacejustice.org

Follow Late Night History on Instagram: @latenighthistory

Tonight’s guest on the Late Night History podcast is John Wolfram.

Some other highlights include SERE school, wearing blue jeans in ‘Nam, and animals John kept as pets on his combat tours. Of course, to keep with tradition, we discuss the fascinating beer and food John had during the war. Towards the end of the episode, John shares his impactful missionary work returning to Vietnam years after the war ended.

Also checkout John’s YouTube for some cool pictures from his life.

Tonight's episode of the Late Night History podcast welcomes Remi Adeleke. Remi has lived quite the inspirational life.

We cover his childhood born into Nigerian royalty and how he lost everything and had to move to the Bronx with his mother and start a new life. We discuss how Remi went from hustling in the streets in the Bronx to achieving his dream in becoming a US Navy SEAL. He went from not knowing how to swim to enduring three Navy SEAL Hell Weeks and spending about 8 years at West Coast-based SEAL Teams.

After three combat deployments, Remi transitioned out of the Navy in 2016 and has found success in Hollywood working alongside Transformers director Michael Bay to even producing his own short film called The Unexpected.

The Unexpected will release on Sept. 30, 2022, on Remi's YouTube Channel and is expected to be made into its own featured film. Remi is also the author of the book Transformed: A Navy SEAL's Unlikely Journey From the Throne of Africa, to the Streets of the Bronx, to Defying the Odds.

Follow Remi on IG: @remiadeleke

Follow LNH on IG: @latenighthistory

On September 11, 2001, Tim Clemente and other FBI agents from the Washington Field Office SWAT team were at Naval Special Warfare Development Group — more widely known as SEAL Team SIX — training in their kill house (also called shoot house). One of Tim's agents alerted him to the developments happening in New York City with early reports indicating a small plane had struck the World Trade Center. Tim's FBI team and several Navy SEALs switched the TV to a live CNN broadcast showing the North Tower on fire. Moments later, the operators watched in horror as the second plane slammed into the WTC's South Tower. Tim tells the remarkable story of responding to the terrorist attacks that day. Along the way, Tim witnessed several small acts of heroism. Following the attacks on 9/11, Tim's team participated in what later became the largest criminal investigation in history.

Read the story here: An FBI Agent's Unforgettable Journey to the Pentagon on 9/11

Today’s episode is with Chris Ryan whose name may ring a bell if you’re interested in the history of the British Special Air Service otherwise known as the SAS. These days, Chris stays busy writing novels with storylines and characters based on the SAS. His portfolio contains more than 74 novels, which have been made into popular TV series. But perhaps what he’s most known for is his role with Bravo Two Zero, the fateful British SAS team that was compromised in Iraq in 1991 during the Gulf War. Chris wrote a book from his perspective of how the events transpired called “The One That Got Away,” which describes the longest escape and evasion in British SAS history.

Follow Chris Ryan on Twitter: @exsaschrisryan and Instagram: @exsaschrisryan.

Find his books on Amazon.

My next guest is someone I profiled for a print story published in the summer 2022 limited edition issue of Coffee or Die Magazine. The story inside the magazine is called “The Great Adventure”: Neal McCallum’s 46 Years of Dedicated Service to Uncle Sam.

Some inside baseball for ya, in December 2021, I went to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to cover the 80th anniversary of the attacks. I wrote a couple dispatches and met some interesting people, including former NFL linebacker Donnie Edwards, who played for the Kansas City Chiefs and, at the time, the San Diego Chargers. He now runs Best Defense Foundation where he brings World War II veterans back to their battlefields. Donnie introduced me to Neal.

At the time, I was only privy to Neal’s background as a US Marine having served during the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. But after speaking with him on numerous occasions, I later learned Neal had accomplished far more than I initially perceived.