Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast

This is a preview. For the entire episode, support the show on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys/posts/bonus-episode-165826527?pr=true

TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW IN CORK, IRELAND ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-tickets-1993823733459

CAN'T MAKE IT? NO PROBLEM! WE'RE STREAMING IT (WITH VOD)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-2026-tickets-1993900928351

GET JOE'S BOOK!

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

Peter Ortiz, a rich kid from New York City, serves in the French Foreign Legion before joining the Marine Corps, becoming a spy during WWII, and fighting the Nazis alongside the French Resistance, all while dual-wielding pistols, in full dress uniform, and wearing a cape.

SOURCES:

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/peter-ortiz-oss-operative-undercover-hero/

https://www.military.com/daily-news/investigations-and-features/2025/11/05/us-marine-who-forced-nazi-officers-toast-fdr-gunpoint-and-became-most-decorated-oss-operative.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-american-spy-who-surrendered-to-the-nazis-to-save-civilians-180982003/

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-incredible-saga-of-col-peter-j-ortiz/

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/columns/sins-of-omission/the-marine-corps-answer-to-james-bond/

https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/32798/Ortiz-Pierre-Peter-Julien.htm

SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON:

patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW IN CORK, IRELAND ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-tickets-1993823733459

CAN'T MAKE IT? NO PROBLEM! WE'RE STREAMING IT (WITH VOD)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-2026-tickets-1993900928351

GET JOE'S BOOK!

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

Get Nate's band's debut album here!

https://secondhomesband.com/

After zeppelins begin bombing the UK, the British order the first seaborne air raid in British military history. It involves hundreds of men, dozens of ships...all to launch a few biplanes that are barely armed with bombs, with no navigational devices, and no idea where they are going.

SOURCES:

Layman RD. The Cuxhaven Raid, The World's First Carrier Air Strike. Conway Maritime Press. 1985

https://www.avalanchepress.com/JutlandCuxhaven1.php

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1998/february/strike-warfare-1914

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/raid-on-cuxhaven-first-carrier-raid-in-history-bw-122525

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/cuxhaven-raid/

GET THE ENTIRE EPISODE HERE:

https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys/posts/history-of-life-164568292

TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW IN CORK, IRELAND ARE NOW AVAILABLE!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-tickets-1993823733459

CAN'T MAKE IT? NO PROBLEM! WE'RE STREAMING IT (WITH VOD)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-2026-tickets-1993900928351

GET JOE'S BOOK!

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON:

patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

SEE US LIVE IN CORK, IRELAND SEPTEMBER 26TH:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-tickets-1993823733459

WE'RE LIVESTREAMING IT (WITH VOD)

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-cork-26th-september-2026-tickets-1993900928351

BUY JOE'S BOOK!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSG5CNXX

AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BUY IT ON AMAZON, BUY IT STRAIGHT FROM US!

https://lagunairepress.com/

CHECK OUT NATE'S BAND'S ALBUM!

https://secondhomesband.com/

During the Korean War, the People's Volunteer Army of China and the UN fought a meaningless battle over a hill shaped like a pork chop in order to leverage ongoing negotiations. Thousands died, and everyone claimed they won.

SOURCES:

Marshall, S.L.A. (1956). Pork Chop Hill: The American Fighting Man in Action, Korea, Spring 1953.

Hermes, Walter G (1966). "Truce Tent and Fighting Front". The United States Army in the Korean War. Vol. 2. Center of Military History.

The Korean War. The Battle on Pork Chop Hill. https://historynet.com/korean-war-battle-on-pork-chop-hill/

https://warhistory.org/article/july-6-11-1953-the-battle-of-pork-chop-hill-hill-255

https://web.archive.org/web/20061109043603/http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3034286.html

SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON:

patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

GET JOE'S BOOK:

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

Get Nate's band's debut album here!

https://secondhomesband.com/

The Union takes over the island of Galveston, Texas, and the Confederates aim to take it back with quite possibly some of the dumbest armored ships the world has ever seen.

SOURCES:

R. Thomas Campbell. Fire Over Texas: Galveston in the Civil War. April 2006. Military Heritage. Volume 7, no. 5

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1983/january/battle-galveston

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/magruder-john-bankhead

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/great-hanging-at-gainesville

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/galveston-battle-of

https://web.archive.org/web/20011115111011/http://history.navy.mil/photos/sh-us-cs/csa-sh/csash-ag/bayou-ct.htm

Joe and Tom sit down to talk about the next 4 episodes of FMAB. It includes a heartbreaking funeral scene, a hypothetical Slovenian basketball player, getting abandoned on an island for a month, and the intricacies of dog medicine.

If you want to hear the whole episode, it's available on Patreon here! https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys/posts/lions-led-by-29-163262842

BUY JOE'S BOOK!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GSG5CNXX

AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BUY IT ON AMAZON, BUY IT STRAIGHT FROM US!

https://lagunairepress.com/

CHECK OUT NATE'S BAND'S ALBUM!

https://secondhomesband.com/

SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON:

https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Check out Failure to Launch:

https://open.spotify.com/show/67k2E47btdeWWdljZAmf9A

GET JOE'S BOOK:

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

Get Nate's band's debut album here!

https://secondhomesband.com/

Joe is joined by Chris and Quinn of Failure to Launch to talk about the first major battle of the First Crusades and how the Crusaders stumbled over their own feet to victory

sources:

Runciman, Steven (2005). The First Crusade. New York: Cambridge University Press

Historia Hierosolymitana

John France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade, Cambridge University Press, 1996

Richardson, Scott. Dorylaeum: The First Christian-Muslim Clash of the Crusades. military Heritage. December 2007. Vol 9. No 3.

GET THE ENTIRE EPISODE HERE:

https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys/posts/bonus-episode-to-162593771?pr=true

USE CODE DONK50 TO GET 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH ON PATREON UNTIL THE END OF JUNE

http://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

GET JOE'S BOOK

Ebook, Audiobook, and Paperbacks now available!

https://www.amazon.com/Highlands-Burn-Foundling-Brigade-Saga-ebook/dp/B0GSG5CNXX/

Or you can buy the ebook and audiobook directly from us:

https://www.llbdpodcast.com/products/

Get Nate's band's debut album here!

https://secondhomesband.com/

Hoping to get one over on their Spartan enemies, Athens is tricked by some fancy furniture and sweet chains and invades Sicily. Before the operation can even start, one commander who is trying to stop the invasion frames another for the crime of sacrilege, leading him to defect to the Spartans and convince them to join the war to stop Athens. Somehow, that isn't even the strangest thing that happens over the next two years.

SOURCES:

Ellis, Walter M. Alcibiades. New York: Routledge, 1989

Kagan, Donald. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley.

Strauss, Barry S., and Josiah Ober. The Anatomy of Error: Ancient Military Disasters and Their Lessons for Modern Strategists. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990

Porter, Barry. Misplaced Aggression: The Athenian Defeat at Syracuse. Military Heritage. Vol. 9 No. 2.