ASOMF Distinguished Speaker Series: Recent Episodes
Airborne Special Operations Museum Foundation
Join U.S. Army Airborne and Special Operations Museum (ASOM) Curator, Jimmie Hallis, as he speaks with various guests regarding military history and events.
This podcast is brought to you by the ASOM and the Airborne and Special Operations Museum Foundation.
In the summer of 1944, a handpicked group of young GIs—including such future luminaries as Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer, Victor Dowd, Art Kane, and Jack Masey—landed in France to conduct a secret mission. Armed with truckloads of inflatable tanks, a massive collection of sound-effects records, and more than a few tricks up their sleeves, their job was to create a traveling road show of deception on the battlefields of Europe, with the German Army as their audience.
From Normandy to the Rhine, the 1,100 men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, known as the Ghost Army, conjured up phony convoys, phantom divisions, and make-believe headquarters to fool the enemy about the strength and location of American units. Between missions the artists filled their duffel bags with drawings and paintings and dragged them across Europe. Every move they made was top secret and their story was hushed up for decades after the war’s end. The Ghost Army of World War II is the first publication to tell the full story of how a traveling road show of artists wielding imagination, paint, and bravado saved thousands of American lives.
Join ASOM curator Jimmie Hallis as he virtually talks with James Patterson and 1SG (Ret.) Matt Eversmann about their book, "Walk in My Combat Boots: True Stories from America's Bravest Warriors". About the Book "Walk in my Combat Boots" is a powerful collection crafted from hundreds of original interviews by James Patterson, the world’s #1 bestselling writer, and First Sergeant US Army (Ret.) Matt Eversmann, part of the Ranger unit portrayed in the movie Black Hawk Down. These are the brutally honest stories usually only shared amongst comrades in arms. Here, in the voices of the men and women who’ve fought overseas from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, is a rare eye-opening look into what wearing the uniform, fighting in combat, losing friends and coming home is really like. About James Patterson James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author and most trusted storyteller. He’s given over three million books to schoolkids and the military, donated more than seventy million dollars to support education, and endowed over five thousand college scholarships for teachers. The National Book Foundation recently presented Patterson with the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community, and he is also the recipient of an Edgar Award and six Emmy Awards. He lives in Florida with his family. About Matt Eversmann Matt Eversmann retired from the Army after twenty years of service. His last assignment was as an Infantry Company First Sergeant in the 10th Mountain Division during the surge in Iraq. He spent almost half of his career in the 75th Ranger Regiment and was a member of Task Force Ranger, the unit immortalized in the film Black Hawk Down. Matt and his family live in West Palm Beach where he runs his own consulting company, Eversmann Advisory.
LTC Colonel Jos Groen MSc, author of the book “Three of the Last WWII Screaming Eagles”, began his military career in March 1985 as a conscript in the Dutch Marine Corps, spending nine months in Aruba after successfully completing his basic training and graduating at the top of his class. In 1989, he transferred to the Royal Netherlands Army. After a two-year training period, he was promoted to second lieutenant, and he held his first officer posting as an Armored Infantry Platoon Commander within 43rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion. After re-training for the Air Mobile Infantry he held several functions at platoon and company level within 13th Air Mobile Battalion “Regiment Stoottroepen.” After completing his Personnel Studies at the University of Applied Science in 1999, he fulfilled various positions within the Royal Netherlands Army’s personnel services, both at battalion and brigade level. Between 1998 and 2005, he also studied Labor and Organizational Psychology, which enabled him to work as a university lecturer at the Royal Netherlands Military Academy, where he taught courses in leadership and ethics. In 2008, he returned to the operational part of the Army, becoming Head of the Current Office of the G3 branch of 43rd Mechanized Brigade Staff in Havelte. During this posting he was deployed to Uruzgan (Afghanistan) in 2010, where he worked as the Staff Officer Information Operations within the TFU VII staff. This was his third mission abroad after earlier missions with Dutchbat III (1995) in Bosnia and Task Force Fox (2002) in Macedonia. After returning from Afghanistan in September 2010, Jos Groen was a senior researcher at the Dutch Veterans Institute. In 2013, he returned to Havelte and became the head of the G1 branch of the Brigade Staff, after which he held positions at the Land Training Center, the Land Warfare Center, and currently, the Dutch Veterans Institute. ABOUT THE BOOK Groen’s book, “Three of the Last WWII Screaming Eagles” describes the war experiences of Jim “Pee Wee” Martin, Dick Klein, and Dan McBride, three WWII paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division also known as the Screaming Eagles. Conveyed almost exclusively in their own words and with many details not previously published, this book covers how these men grew up during the Great Depression, describes their demanding paratrooper training in the U.S., and goes into great depth about their wartime experiences. Please enjoy this recording of the webinar that originally took place on January 16, 2021. The moderator for this event was ASOM Curator, Jimmie Hallis.
Mitch Yockelson manages the National Archives and Records Administration-Archival Recovery Program where he leads investigations of thefts of historical documents and museum artifacts. His has been featured on 60 Minutes, PBS and C-SPAN, as well as the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post. Additionally, Mitch is a professor of military history at Norwich University and the author of many books, articles and reviews. His latest book, The Paratrooper Generals: Matthew Ridgway, Maxwell Taylor, and the American Airborne from D-Day through the Normandy Campaign was published by Stackpole in 2020. Mitch regularly leads battlefield tours and frequently lectures on military history. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.
Enjoy and learn from a recording of a webinar that took place on September 22, 2020 with Col. (Ret.) Keith Nightingale, former Deputy Operations Officer and the junior member of Joint Task Force Eagle Claw, and author of “Phoenix Rising”.