Odin & Aesop
Interested in military history? Please join Join Bill Redman and Tony Faust two retired Marines as they review military history books and provide a unique look at how the book’s contents relate to current trends in military operations. Each episode provides a detailed book discussion along with some recommendations for related reading on the topic.”
Episodes
53 episodes
Victory At High Tide
The Korean peninsula was split into two countries after the Second World War. The Soviet backed North and the U.S. backed South. North Korea tried to unify the two by invading South Korea in June 1950. Initially North Korea ha...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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1:41:19
The Burma Road
Japan captured and occupied China’s sea ports at the onset of World War Two. That lead to hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers building a road through Burma to get supplies to China. That road got blocked when Burma fell to the...
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Season 5
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Episode 3
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1:52:52
The Boer War
In 1899, the British went to war with the Boer Republics. This was when the British Empire was close to its blazing zenith and unquestionably the ranking world power. Any war against the somewhat backward Boers on a remote border of...
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Season 5
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Episode 2
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1:36:47
Blind Man’s Bluff
The United States and Soviet Union stood on opposite sides of the Cold War. Both tried to project strength and both possessed immense arsenals of nuclear weapons. A fundamental problem for both superpowers was figuring out what the ...
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Season 5
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Episode 1
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1:46:04
Conduct Under Fire
The Japanese attacked the Philippines almost simultaneous with their December 7th, 1941 attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. Following Japanese air attacks, the Japanese 14th Army landed in the Philippines on December 8th. By J...
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Season 4
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Episode 12
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1:50:02
The Winter Fortress
NAZI scientists relied on heavy water to produce the right uranium isotope for an atomic weapon. They produced most of their heavy water at a hydroelectric in occupied Norway called Vemork. In February 1943, a small group of Norwegi...
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Season 4
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Episode 11
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1:43:42
Not A Good Day To Die
In October 2001, the United States began aerial bombing of Afghanistan in response to the terrorist group Al Queda’s attacks of September 11th. Special Forces followed up by teaming with the Taliban’s opponents – the Northern Alliance – a...
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Season 4
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Episode 10
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1:51:25
Goodbye Darkness
William Manchester served in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. He was wounded during the Battle of Okinawa. After the war, Manchester established himself as a journalist in Baltimore, an adjunct professor at Wesleyan Uni...
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Season 4
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Episode 9
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1:31:47
First Force Recon Company
Bill Peters was commissioned in the Marine Corps via Officer Candidate School. After completing the Basic School at Quantico, Virginia, he was assigned to Vietnam as a platoon commander in First Force Reconnaissance Company in 1969. ...
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Season 4
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Episode 8
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1:27:37
A Savage War of Peace
The Algerian War of Independence lasted from 1954 to 1962. It carried heavy costs for both sides. Estimates vary but upwards of a million Muslim Algerians died; roughly a million Pied Noir (settlers of European descent) were driven ...
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Season 4
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Episode 7
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1:34:24
Soldat
Siegfried Knappe served in the German Army from 1936 until 1949. He was a member of the German General Staff. Knappe was wounded multiple times and saw action in France as well as the Eastern and Italian fronts. He ended the w...
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Season 4
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Episode 6
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1:42:53
With Their Bare Hands
The United States entered World War One on April 6th, 1917. Going to war in Europe meant the United States had to greatly expand its Army. It had enlist, train, organize, equip, and deploy hundreds of thousands of young men. One of ...
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Season 4
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Episode 5
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1:44:26
Band of Brothers
Company E, 506th Regiment was part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. It was formed in 1942 and comprised of young volunteers that were generally new to the army. Company E received its baptism by fire in June 1944 when it ...
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Season 4
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Episode 4
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1:40:48
Operation Barras
Sierra Leone’s civil war lasted from 1991 until 2002. It was marked by exceptional levels of cruelty and suffering. During this civil war the United Nations, neighboring West African states, and the United Kingdom launched military ...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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1:36:22
Hell In A Very Small Place
On November 20th, 1953 thousands of French paratroopers dropped into a place called Dien Bien Phu. Dien Bien Phu is a small valley in the northern part of Vietnam close to Laos. The French plan was to establish a base at Dien Bien P...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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1:37:54
A Bridge Too Far
The First Allied Airborne Army launched an attack into the German occupied Netherlands on September 17, 1944. Eventually over the 41,000 troops went in by parachute and glider. The idea was for this huge airborne force to seize nine...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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1:46:06
Stalingrad
On June 1942, Germany’s Army Group South started an offensive called Case Blue or Plan Blue. The idea was to sprint out off eastern Ukraine, across the Russian steppe, and into the Caucasus to capture the oil fields there. As part o...
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Season 3
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Episode 12
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1:44:43
Operation Thunderbolt Raid on Entebbe
On June 27, 1976, an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris was hijacked by a group of Arab and German terrorists. They demanded the release of 53 terrorists and diverted the plane to Entebbe, Uganda. On July 4th, Israeli commando...
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Season 3
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Episode 11
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1:45:09
Gallipoli
By the end of 1914, World War One has stagnated into an industrial age nightmare. The British and French sat opposite the Germans in trenches running through France from the coast to the Alps. Things weren’t much different in the Ea...
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Season 3
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Episode 10
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1:58:27
SOG
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was established in January 1964 to conduct unconventional warfare operations. These included reconnoitering and disrupting North Vietnamese activities in Lao...
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Season 3
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Episode 9
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1:45:42
Bloodlands
Adolf Hitler ruled Germany from 1933 until he committed suicide in 1945. Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Between 1933 and 1945 these two brutal dictators oversaw the killing of 14 million nonc...
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Season 3
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Episode 8
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1:38:47
Brothers in Arms
The Sherwood Rangers were a British tank regiment during the Second World War. They served in North Africa where they fought in the battles of Alam El Hafa and Second El Alamein and helped drive Germany’s Afrika Corps out of Tunisia. ...
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Season 3
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Episode 7
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1:32:11
Operation Corporate
Argentina seized the Falkland Islands on April 2nd, 1982. The British government deployed a naval task force on April 5th to take them back. As the force steadily converged from 8,000 miles away, the rest of the world wondered if th...
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Season 3
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Episode 6
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1:46:16
Ambush Valley
The Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, was created between North Vietnam and SouthVietnam in 1954. The DMZ was supposed to be a temporary buffer zone thatwould keep previously hostile forces away from each other. When the plannedunificatio...
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Season 3
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Episode 5
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1:38:04
My Reminiscences of East Africa
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck commanded Imperial German military forces throughout the East Africa campaign during World War One. His mostly African army of about 14,000 attacked, checked, and evaded much larger Allied forces for over four year...
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Season 3
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Episode 4
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1:27:36