This is War artwork

This is War

56 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 2.8K ratings

A raw look at the combat and homecoming experience from American veterans who have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. “This Is War” chronicles the trials of combat vets both abroad and at home.

Personal Journals Society & Culture Science Social Sciences heroes navy air force war active duty veterans military
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Episodes

Introducing - Sword and Scale Nightmares

February 27, 2023 18:00 - 13 minutes - 12.5 MB

Introducing Sword and Scale Nightmares! True Crime for Bedtime. Your nightmare begins now...The first three episodes will drop on 3.2.23 at 3:23pm EDT. In the meantime, please take a moment to subscribe on your preferred podcast listening platform... SUBSCRIBE NOW: https://link.chtbl.com/sasnightmaresApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sword-and-scale-nightmares/id1657802345Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/08GhRV98AIgR0st3oUQRpaiHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podca...

45 | Dunning

December 11, 2019 05:00 - 37 minutes - 35.2 MB

Justin Dunning wanted to tell the story of guys he cared about who were lost, as many of the people I’ve interviewed for this show have, because he wants it known.Google “Killed in Iraq” or “Afghanistan” and you’ll find thousands of links to thousands of obituaries and each one of them affected the people who served with them. Sometimes in this series we have named the fallen, other times we haven’t our of respect for the wishes of the people closest to them, but what is critical to remember ...

45 | Sabins

November 27, 2019 05:00 - 45 minutes - 42.4 MB

Control often feels like safety. You have a weapon, some buddies and a mission and feel like the only difference between living and dying is execution, but there’s always also luck, or chance. For Jeffrey Sabins, learning to deal with the lack of control, over both his life and the lives of others was a lesson in humility and patience because even when you’re no longer worried for your own life, you want to live up to your promise to be a protector.Jeffrey Sabins' blog: From Tumor 2 AutismJef...

Sword and Scale Daily - Meet the Host

November 15, 2019 00:23 - 2 minutes - 2.45 MB

Daily true-crime news and coverage of high-profile criminal cases from around the country and around the globe, five days a week. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Introducing Sword and Scale Daily

November 14, 2019 17:27 - 49 seconds - 771 KB

Daily true-crime news and coverage of high-profile criminal cases from around the country and around the globe, five days a week. Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sword-and-scale-daily/id1487148155 Google Podcasts - https://play.google.com/music/m/Ijqsr5kldi4hnoson5rwogdzijq?t=Sword_and_Scale_Daily Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZoM1t4vw6rZNJus1n2O5G Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/sword-and-scale-daily iHeartRadio - h...

44 | Ardito

November 13, 2019 05:00 - 34 minutes - 32.5 MB

For someone who joined the Army specifically to get into combat dealing with an unseen enemy is more than merely frustrating, it can introduce the insidious notion of pointlessness into your life. When there’s no enemy to fight back against, the best you can do is hold on, be prepared to take care of your buddies and pray you get a chance for some payback.Episode SponsorsBespoke PostNorton360 with LifeLock

43 | Didier

October 30, 2019 04:00 - 47 minutes - 44.3 MB

There isn’t one factor that makes combat so transformative. Instead it is a combination of reactions. To external peril and internal aggression, to personal empathy in the face of the horrible, to your expectations in light of your experiences. For Nate Didier, a lot of the transformation came from seeing the world as it was and losing something of a sense of what it could be.Episode Sponsors:ZipRecruiterKeepsNorton 360 with LifeLock

42 | McConnell

October 16, 2019 04:00 - 37 minutes - 34.9 MB

We often think of endurance in terms of the physical, how much we can do before we’re out of our depth, but things like psychological and emotional endurance contribute so much to our experiences. David McConnell’s 20-year military career was a test of his physical endurance, but it wasn’t until he retired that he learned about the other kinds.

41 | Vande Hei

October 02, 2019 06:00 - 43 minutes - 40.6 MB

Joining the Marines seemed as unlikely as it seemed natural for Casper Vande Hei. He was a small guy who always had something to prove. The thing is, no matter how much fight you have in you, or how much you think you have to prove, if you don’t find a way to keep your anger in check, eventually you’re going to burn out. Episode sponsors:Zip RecruiterHello FreshMyBookie

MONSTRUO SEASON II

September 19, 2019 07:30 - 27 minutes - 26.1 MB

MonstruoPodcast.comFrom the collective minds of Jack Luna (Dark Topic), Tyler Bell (The Westside Fairytales) and Mike Boudet (Sword and Scale) comes Monstruo, the most disturbing podcast ever made.  Nine stories, carefully crafted, one year in the making.  Each two part episode of episode of Monstruo delves into the the most heinous and depraved killers ever to walk this earth.  Told from the perspective of the individuals who were unfortunate enough to be there, and using highly-immersive au...

40 | Christiana

September 18, 2019 06:59 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MB

Sometimes, we want something so desperately that it colors everything we do. Sometimes we even get it. When you get down to it, getting what we want and keeping it probably drives most of us, makes us endure circumstances we otherwise might not and accept consequences we never could have imagined. In the end, though, we have to reconcile everything we do with its cost and come to terms with that price, whatever it happens to be.

40 | Christiana

September 18, 2019 06:59 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MB

Sometimes, we want something so desperately that it colors everything we do. Sometimes we even get it. When you get down to it, getting what we want and keeping it probably drives most of us, makes us endure circumstances we otherwise might not and accept consequences we never could have imagined. In the end, though, we have to reconcile everything we do with its cost and come to terms with that price, whatever it happens to be. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and ...

39 | Luetjen

September 04, 2019 07:57 - 43 minutes - 40.7 MB

Traversing the distance between what we think we want and what it will take to make us happy is a journey we often don’t know we’re on until it’s near its end. Even then, we often find it impossible to accept what truly makes us happy, because we didn’t understand what we truly wanted in the first place. Episode sponsors:Zip RecruiterBespoke Post enter the promo code WAR for 20% off your first boxMybookie enter the promo code WAR to double your deposit up to $1,000.

38 | Horn

August 21, 2019 15:00 - 39 minutes - 36.8 MB

As a student, Dwight Horn felt called to enter the ministry but as a Navy Chaplain, he volunteered to follow the Marines to whom he was ministering into battle because he felt it was his duty. Just as Marines don’t want to let one another down during the most dangerous physical times, the chaplain couldn’t let his Marines down during the crisis of conscience that comes after fighting house to house in a war zone.

37 | Ohrstrom

August 07, 2019 06:59 - 42 minutes - 39.5 MB

We all have a little quit in us, it’s the practical voice of doubt, the one that comes up with perfectly acceptable reasons about why it just makes more sense to give up. Sometimes that voice can’t be argued with or ignored, but there’s a quieter voice, one that whispers things like “try one more time” and “there’s got to be another way.” Hearing that voice isn’t as easy and following its advice can be just as trying but if we’re lucky it can be just as persistent, and when it is, it can be v...

36 | Hunt

July 24, 2019 06:59 - 37 minutes - 34.8 MB

Choices open and close doors to our futures, they both can help define who we are and hold us accountable to the person we want to be. Most important, though, they can’t be unmade. Once Andrew Hunt chose to join the National Guard all of his decisions were based on honoring his oath, but what he would come to discover is that living up to your choices means accepting the person who made them.

35 | Pettijohn

July 10, 2019 06:59 - 38 minutes - 36 MB

When you’re responsible to make sure the mission gets accomplished, there’s no greater tool than cool-headedness. For Brandon Pettijohn leading Marines in Afghanistan provided the opportunity to coordinate big picture responses to very specific crises. Once he discovered that dispassionate coordination was the key to being effective on the battlefield, applying it when he got back home allowed him to keep serving well past his last day as an active duty Marine.

34 | Riess

June 26, 2019 06:59 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MB

There’s no question that combat changes a person, but the kind of change can be both subtle and far-reaching. You learn to internalize fear, angst and doubt but not necessarily to redirect them, and that’s exactly what can make a person a good soldier.

34 | Riess

June 26, 2019 06:59 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MB

There’s no question that combat changes a person, but the kind of change can be both subtle and far-reaching. You learn to internalize fear, angst and doubt but not necessarily to redirect them, and that’s exactly what can make a person a good soldier. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

33 | Ames

June 12, 2019 06:59 - 45 minutes - 42.3 MB

The transition into combat is a difficult one by any standard. No matter how sufficiently trained you are there is no substitute for reality to give you a sense of how you’re going to respond under fire, and how well you can coordinate with the rest of your team. For Daniel Ames, that kind of responsibility put him right where he wanted to be, even when it led to dangerous places.

33 | Ames

June 12, 2019 06:59 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MB

The transition into combat is a difficult one by any standard. No matter how sufficiently trained you are there is no substitute for reality to give you a sense of how you’re going to respond under fire, and how well you can coordinate with the rest of your team. For Daniel Ames, that kind of responsibility put him right where he wanted to be, even when it led to dangerous places. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/pri...

32 | Campbell

May 29, 2019 06:39 - 36 minutes - 33.5 MB

The endurance that the military teaches can be carried over into civilian life, but it’s tricky. In the military you have to endure because it’s life and death. Outside the stakes don’t seem as high on the face of it, but they are. After all, the life and death struggle combat veterans endure is tied pretty directly to a quality of life they’ve come to expect at home. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-s...

32 | Campbell

May 29, 2019 06:39 - 36 minutes - 34 MB

The endurance that the military teaches can be carried over into civilian life, but it’s tricky. In the military you have to endure because it’s life and death. Outside the stakes don’t seem as high on the face of it, but they are. After all, the life and death struggle combat veterans endure is tied pretty directly to a quality of life they’ve come to expect at home.

31 | B. Davies

May 15, 2019 06:59 - 36 minutes - 34.1 MB

Combat isn’t about glory, it’s about serving the mission and doing what needs to be done to achieve an objective, but there’s still something particular about the bond combat veterans form forged in circumstances that most people can’t really comprehend.

30 | Jimenez

May 01, 2019 06:59 - 32 minutes - 30.5 MB

Ernie Jimenez joined the military because he saw it as the career opportunity of a lifetime. He joined the Marines because he wanted to fight. As an infantry assaultman during the Second Battle of Fallujah, he got a good hard look at what it is like to have no choice but to face down your fear.

29 | Higens

April 17, 2019 06:59 - 33 minutes - 31.3 MB

Counterintelligence officer Davin Higens talks about his pre- and post-9/11 experience running assets, the difficulties of chasing down bombmakers in the early days of the war, and the complications for interrogators in the wake of Abu Ghraib.

28 | Cheek

April 03, 2019 06:59 - 38 minutes - 36.2 MB

Steven Cheek joined that Marines specifically to train and have that training tested. During the eight years and five combat tours he served as an infantryman, he used every inch of that training and more. Because for him, there had to be a life after the war that he could be proud of as well.

27 | Hice

March 20, 2019 06:59 - 39 minutes - 37 MB

Curtis Hice was one of the thousands of regular enlistees in 2001, people who were joining the military for the pursuit of personal excellence, social improvement and maybe adventure. Although combat deployments always are on the table, he joined at a time when answering that call didn’t seem as if it were going to happen. When it did, he learned quickly enough that loss is a part of war but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accept.This show was sponsored in part by Care/Of.

26 | Moore

March 06, 2019 07:59 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MB

From the rescue of Jessica Lynch through the recovery of Extortion 17, Nicholas Moore’s Ranger career was punctuated by historic episodes of valor and endurance. The author of Run to the Sound of the Guns shares his story on this episode.

25 | Graves

February 20, 2019 07:59 - 42 minutes - 39.4 MB

Long before he enlisted in the army, Samuel Graves developed a work ethic that separated him from his peers. He approached whatever job he was doing with exceeding his own expectations as the only goal. But when I arrived in Iraq, he saw how big a part chance played in war. Show sponsored in part by Care/Of: http://bit.ly/2S9p1bb

24 | Dang

February 13, 2019 07:59 - 35 minutes - 33.3 MB

After his brother was killed in the first battle of Ramadi, Anthony Dang joined the Marines in hope of getting revenge. But, as he found out for himself in the second battle of Ramadi, there is no satisfaction in killing, only in living.

23 | Waage

January 30, 2019 07:59 - 32 minutes - 30.3 MB

From leading soldiers in Afghanistan to kicking down doors as part of the Ranger regiment, Erick Waage’s career was marked by violence and close calls. He had the kinds of tours that can wear on your humanity if you take a moment to stop and think about it. But if you just keep running and fighting you can avoid dealing with it for awhile.

22 | Davies

January 16, 2019 07:59 - 38 minutes - 35.9 MB

It’s possible to kill both without remorse and without malice, but it is impossible to kill without consequence. Even when the consequence is satisfaction or a sense of a wrong righted, killing is something that stays with a person for the rest of their lives.

MONSTRUO

January 09, 2019 06:00 - 9 minutes - 9.17 MB

The heart of a man is...

21 | McPadden

November 28, 2018 07:59 - 37 minutes - 34.8 MB

Ray McPadden, a newly minted officer, takes command of an infantry platoon for deployment to Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, where he discovers just how deeply your first deployment can influence the rest of your career, what he can endure and, most of all, what it takes to be a leader.

20 | Buzard

November 14, 2018 07:59 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MB

Daniel “Doc” Buzard had been a working paramedic long before he deployed in his late 20s, but his first taste of combat medicine opened his eyes to the possibilities and meaning that providing aid has in a war zone.

19 | Avalos

October 31, 2018 06:59 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MB

When you enlist and take the oath of service, you take the oath by yourself, but not on your own. The oath implicates not only your family and friends, but also your future spouse and children, it implicates people you haven’t yet met and, in the case of a distant enemy, people you may never meet.

18 | Satterly Part 2

October 17, 2018 06:59 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MB

Tom Satterly fought in the Battle of Mogadishu and ran the “Mogadishu Mile” as part of his first deployment as a Delta soldier. It was the first in a special operations career that spanned into the War on Terror, including the capture of Saddam Hussein and combating the new enemies who tried to fill the power vacuum the toppled leader left. In the end, though, is the question of how a special forces operator copes with reintegrating into a society that doesn’t need specially trained soldiers.

17| Satterly Part 1

October 03, 2018 06:55 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MB

During one of the most storied firefights in recent U.S. history, nine special forces soldiers held a house in Somalia, guarding one of the Black Hawk helicopters that had crashed during a routine operation.In the first of a two part series, retired Delta operator and author of “All Secure” Tom Satterly talks about his induction into the unit and the first combat experience in what would be a 20 year career spanning from the Battle of Mogadishu through the height of the war in Iraq.

16 | Jensen

September 19, 2018 06:49 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MB

Even when you spend the better part of your adolescence dreaming about warfare, and your teens preparing for it, there still is an unnavigable distance between theory and practice, especially when there isn’t even a war on. You attack enemies that aren’t just phantasms, but phantasms without nationality or goal, just representatives of the vague threat you’re trying to thwart. But when the war and the enemy are real, it is nothing like you possibly could have imagined.

15 | Knapp

September 05, 2018 06:59 - 37 minutes - 34.8 MB

Cowardice and recklessness are opposite reactions to the same inclination: putting your wants before the needs of the people you have promised to be faithful to. With Daniel Knapp it is more than that. There is an element of wanting to both emulate and get the respect of those above him. But for Knapp the people above him aren’t the people in charge, they are the people who are better Marines than he is. Those are the people whose approval he craves, because he knows what it means to get it.

14 | Mitalas

August 22, 2018 06:55 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MB

The flag-draped coffin is one of the most enduring symbols of war. It is a reminder of the cost and also of the responsibility that young men and women take on as part of their service to their country. Brandon Mitalas enlisted in the Marine corps reserves for selfish reasons, but by the time he had sent 226 marines and sailors home under the stars and stripes, he truly understood the weight of remaining always faithful. He also understood something else: Sometimes it isn’t about you.

13 | Lyon

August 09, 2018 18:06 - 39 minutes - 37.1 MB

Most of the time when we do something, we’re either doing it for us or for someone else, but in the case of our duty, things can get a little less clear. You see, when duty is the thing we’re doing we kind of are doing it for everybody, to live up to a promise we made that we would fill a specific role in our society. Kenny Lyon was all about finding roles and filling them. Whenever he could see the world as a set of instructions, he could follow along nicely, and that got him pretty far as a...

12 | Baskett

July 25, 2018 22:38 - 45 minutes - 41.9 MB

Kristofer Baskett was 19 years old when he arrived in Iraq. He had enlisted in the Navy with his sights on underwater demolition but a little more than a year later he was a corpsman doing his best to fit in with the more seasoned Marines to whom he had been attached. The thing is, when you enlist and accept your trajectory there isn’t much more you can do than go with it. As a Navy corpsman Kristofer hadn’t expected to be doing much fighting, but he learned quickly that combat was a school a...

11 | Siren

July 11, 2018 06:55 - 42 minutes - 39.4 MB

From early on in her training, Vanessa Mahan learned that being an aviator is more than just a test of strength and stamina, it also requires an unrelenting will and focus. What it requires most of all is the ability to shoulder the heavy burden of life and death for dozens of people every time you’re on a mission. On each approach timely action against the enemy ends in casualties or at least a routing on their side. Untimely action can cost American lives. But when you strap in and take off...

10 | Shelton

June 27, 2018 07:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MB

When Shane Shelton had to delay his entry into the special forces to go and fight in Afghanistan the only thing that buffered his disappointment was that he would get the chance to fight. He had joined the army with an eye on putting his physical prowess to good use, but as he would come to find out, being in top physical condition is secondary once the shooting starts. Keeping a cool head and believing in your mission and in your battle buddies, especially when things get bleak requires the ...

9 | Jones

June 13, 2018 06:55 - 48 minutes - 45.3 MB

Training is a way of honing skills, of teaching your body to think without you, so you can concentrate on the crisis at hand, but you can’t train character, you only can amplify it. For Cody Jones the commitment he made to himself was part of a larger perspective, a way of lining up the world so that it made sense easily and immediately. When you give yourself a couple basic rules but then live up to them without fail, that’s what makes you reliable. At the top of Cody’s list was an injuncti...

8 | Lydy

May 30, 2018 07:00 - 45 minutes - 42.2 MB

Fighting has to be somewhere in your nature if you want to be part of a warrior class. Notions about having the killer instinct probably are overstated because killing isn’t always what circumstances requires of a warrior. The will to fight, however, is more than a mere prerequisite. For Kara Lydy, fighting was a way of life from early on. Overcoming adversity was a part of her day to day routine nearly from her moment of birth. But when you come up fighting, you can get the impression that t...

7 | Garcia

May 16, 2018 16:09 - 46 minutes - 43.1 MB

Violence is a necessary part of combat, and that is something every Marine understands when they step on the yellow footprints that first day of bootcamp. Few people crave it outright, but they all accept the very real dangers endemic to service, even when they join during peacetime. Once the war is on, though, it becomes necessary to embrace the danger and the violence and lose your sense of self for the greater good. But really accepting your mortality is on some level  the easiest part. Ac...

6 | Alotto

May 02, 2018 06:55 - 58 minutes - 53.8 MB

Duty is above the letter of the law. It’s a way of calibrating what you want to do with what you’re responsible for and matching that up against how you see yourself as a person. Joe Alotto had wanted to be in the military since he was a little boy. Having become a soldier he knew his duty primarily was to hold himself accountable to the expectations his fellow soldiers had of him, and the expectations he had of himself. When you’re a soldier, though, sometimes you have to bet your life that ...