After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death of Saddam Hussein, scientists who worked for the regime were killed or left the country. When one of them –microbiologist Thamer Abdul Rahman Imran – learned the new regime wanted to arrest him and the insurgents wanted to kill him, he went into hiding. Racing against time, ex–Secret Service agent Steve Monteiro and his team from the Department of Homeland Security set out to find the missing scientist and learn what he knew about the anthrax crisis that was baffling investigators in the United States. The journey took them from the White House to the Middle East as they fight bureaucrats in Washington who seemed to want them to fail. The Gray Bird of Baghdad tells the true story of one’s man’s quest to protect his country and another man’s fight to save his family from the ravages of a country at war.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

We are re-airing Doug Laux's second appearance on HBH, as we fondly remember him upon his passing:

Being accepted to work at the CIA is highly difficult. The interview process is long and secretive - and applicants and their references are often vetted without ever knowing it. Once accepted, very few go on to practice espionage. That distinction is reserved for those invited to the CIA’s top secret and legendary training program known as ‘The Farm’. Fewer still actually graduate the program and become Case Officers or as they are most commonly referred: Spies. HBH is excited to welcome back former CIA Case Officer Doug Laux.

Before deploying abroad, or even traveling to Camp Peary - which houses ‘The Farm’ somewhere deep in the forests of Virginia - Doug was required to make enormous personal sacrifices. He had to to lie to family and friends, leaving them all completely in the dark, as to what he was really doing with his life.

This is all the very beginning of a CIA Case Officer’s career. Doug’s career at the agency was a significant one which took him to Afghanistan, Syria and other other hot zones around the world.

Make sure to check out the outstanding book ‘Left of Boom’ by Doug Laux and Ralph Pezzullo - and thanks for listening to Heroes Behind Headlines.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Henry (Dick) L. Thompson is back to share more adventures from his latest book SOG Code Name Dynamite 2 about his time in Vietnam as part of MACV-SOG.

From 1964-1972 America engaged in a Top Secret war in Southeast Asia to support our efforts in Vietnam, with an elite group of warriors who were sworn to secrecy for decades. If caught, the US government would deny any involvement.

Missioned primarily to do recon on North Vietnamese forces massing across the border in Laos and Cambodia, the small teams were comprised of US soldiers and local fighters, and were dropped near the enemy. They almost always encountered much larger forces, posted a casualty rate of over 100%, and relied on helicopter pilots like recent guest Roger Lockshire to ferry them to safety once the bullets started flying.

We're delighted to have Dick back in this two part episode.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

In tribute to our friend and past HBH guest, we're re-airing the first of former CIA officer Doug Laux's two appearances during our first season:

CIA Officer Doug Laux explains how he developed a network of spies to track down the man responsible for running the Taliban's lethal IED network, which at the height of the Afghan War was responsible for over 80% of US and Coalition deaths.

RIP Doug, you'll be sorely missed.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Henry (Dick) L. Thompson is back to share more adventures from his latest book SOG Code Name Dynamite 2 about his time in Vietnam as part of MACV-SOG.

From 1964-1972 America engaged in a Top Secret war in Southeast Asia to support our efforts in Vietnam, with an elite group of warriors who were sworn to secrecy for decades. If caught, the US government would deny any involvement.

Missioned primarily to do recon on North Vietnamese forces massing across the border in Laos and Cambodia, the small teams were comprised of US soldiers and local fighters, and were dropped near the enemy. They almost always encountered much larger forces, posted a casualty rate of over 100%, and relied on helicopter pilots like recent guest Roger Lockshire to ferry them to safety once the bullets started flying.

We're delighted to have Dick back in this two part episode.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

Courageous resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka, aka ‘Agent Zo’, was the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi-German occupied Poland during the Second World War. While being hunted by the Gestapo there, who arrested her entire family, she established a military intelligence network, couriered microfilm across wartime borders and, as the only female member of the Polish elite special forces, the ‘Silent Unseen,' played a key role in the largest organized act of defiance against Nazi German occupation – the Warsaw Uprising. Author Clare Mulley shares her amazing story described in her book Agent Zo: The Untold Story of a Fearless World War II Resistance Fighter.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

On April 2nd, 2015, after getting a degree and paying off his loans, Tom Turcich stepped out his front door to start a quest that would last for seven years, take him to six continents, and cover twenty-eight thousand miles. At the end of it he became the tenth person to walk around the world, and his dog, Savannah, became the first dog to do so. Through encounters with strangers, weeks of solitude, and a sheer resilience of spirit, Tom emerged as a beacon of inspiration for countless individuals yearning to find purpose in their lives. His tale serves as a reminder that fulfillment lies not solely in reaching a destination but in the transformative power of the journey itself.

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com

In 2009 Savannah Cannon joined up at nineteen, to escape her hardscrabble circumstances. She was quickly tapped as having an aptitude for math and computers. Once trained, she was promptly deployed to a dangerous desert outpost in Afghanistan, where female Marines were not supposed to be assigned. There Corporal Cannon worked as a "data dork" - a data networking specialist - setting up and maintaining critical communications and computer systems. She also went on patrol. The stakes were life and death, and her mostly male fellow Marines were ordered to avoid her.

Isolated, depressed, and stressed by the brutal, surrounding reality, Savannah then found herself pursued, assaulted, and then pregnant by a fellow Marine who insisted they had a real relationship. Afraid of being drummed out of the military for being pregnant, she kept silent at great cost to her mental and physical health, and ultimately miscarried.

Savannah recounts the challenges she faced as a part of a generation of female soldiers thrown together with their male counterparts, and her experiences coping with a military ill-prepared and riddled with arbitrary rules for the problems which naturally arose. Savannah ultimately rebuilt her life when she returned stateside, and wrote her raw and honest memory, "Corporal Cannon."

Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com