Music has long been a powerful mirror of cultural trends. During America’s controversial involvement in the Vietnam War, popular music became a key arena for expressing both support and opposition. Pro-war songs often highlighted patriotism, duty, and solidarity with soldiers, reinforcing traditional ideals. Meanwhile, anti-war artists used their music to question government decisions, mourn the human cost, and rally a growing peace movement. Together, these contrasting voices revealed a nation divided, showing how American popular music not only reflected history but actively shaped public conversation during a turbulent era.

To help us dive safely into this melodic menage of cultural history we have brought on Dr Justin A. Brummer . Justin is the founding editor of the Vietnam War Song Project (VWSP) since 2007, based in Austin, TX, a unique cultural-historical archive, cataloguing, analysing, and digitising 6000+ songs that reference the Vietnam War, as well as the acquisition of original vinyl records and other physical sources. He is co-author of the discography Vietnam on Record at the University of Maryland, and has featured in prominent news and history outlets, including the BBC, PBS, NPR, Shindig!, Military.com, the Journal of TX Music History, and History Today.

The archive for the Vietnam War Song Project is hosted on RYM. Songs are posted on the YouTube channel of the same name. Project updates are on Bluesky and Instagram.

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The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was undeniably a controversial global war, despite the formation of a ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ Leading this coalition was certainly the United States, but ardently supporting them was Great Britain. The war itself caused immense destabilization in Iraq and had profound ramifications for middle east stability. Yet, when the 20th anniversary of the war arrived, British media wrote about it in such a way as to eschew all responsibility for their coverage of the war and pin the unpopularity on the government and political/military decision making at the time. To explore how the British media wrote about the Iraq war at the time of the conflicts 20th anniversary is to explore a media legacy that was largely uncritical of its own role in covering the conflict. Catriona Pennell is our guest today and she is going to unpack this complex issue and dive into the media’s role when it comes to modern conflict and help us understand how the media chooses to remember, or not remember, aspects of their own culpability when a nation goes to war.

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The Apache are a collection of Southern-Athabaskan speaking Indigenous peoples who historically inhabited what is now the American southwest and Mexico. They are popularly known for their historical resistance to US expansion as well as their constant state of conflict with the state of Mexico. Some historians even claim that the Apache are the first insurgents ever encountered by the American army. Their tactics and approach to war speaks of a people that equate warfare with total societal war, meaning everyone in the community plays a role and their spirituality, their economy, politics and social interactions all contribute to the Apache way of war.

To help us dive into this subject our guest today is Robert Watt. Robert is a military historian with research interests in the North American Indian Wars 1750-1886 with a primary focus on the Apache Wars of 1860-1886 and, in particular, the study of the Victorio Campaign of 1877-1881. He has written a trilogy of books on the Victorio Campaign of 1877-1881 (2017-2019), several academic articles on the Apache and the US Army, and two Osprey books on Apache Tactics and ‘Apache Warrior’. His article on Victorio’s Tres Castillos campaign was awarded a Moncado Prize by the Society of Military History in 2017.

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On October 26th news broke of the passing of Canadian historian Tim Cook. Tim was a leading voice in the field of Canadian military history and the chief historian and director of research at the Canadian War museum. He is someone I personally have known for most of my academic career and he has been a mentor at times for me during a variety of ups and downs throughout my career. In August I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim about his most recent book The Good Allies, and with the news of his passing I thought it fitting to release this episode right away.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, it set in motion a deadly struggle between the Axis powers and the Allies, but also fraught negotiations between and among the Allies. On questions of diplomacy, economic policy, industrial might, military capabilities, and even national sovereignty, thousands of lives and the fate of the free world depended on back-room deals and desperate trade-offs between soldiers, diplomats, and leaders.

In North America, Canada and the US strained to forge a new military alliance to guard their coasts and fend off German U-boats and the menace of a Japanese invasion. Wartime economies were entwined to produce a staggering contribution of weapons to keep Britain and other allies in the war. The defence of North America against enemy threats was essential before the US and Canada could send armies, navies, and air forces overseas

Don't forget to check out Curious Canadian History! The other Canyon Entertainment podcast hosted by David Borys

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The Sacred Band of Thebes was an elite military unit of 300 highly trained heavy infantry soldiers (hoplites), famously composed of 150 pairs of male lovers. Formed in the 4th century BCE the Thebans, who came from a uniquely gay-tolerant society, believed that soldiers would fight more ferociously to protect their partners and to avoid showing cowardice in front of them. They were not wrong. The Sacred Band quickly became the shock troops of the Theban army and one of the most dominant phalanx formations of the Ancient Greek world. While most people think of the Spartans when they think of Greek military excellence in the classical world most would also be surprised to know that the Sacred Band went on to not only defeat the Spartans but establish Thebes as a dominant, albeit short-term, power in Greece.

James Romm is Professor of Classics at Bard College and author of numerous books on Greek history and culture, including, Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece (Norton). Most recently he has published his biography of Demosthenes as part of Yale's Ancient Lives series.

Don't forget to check out Curious Canadian History! The other Canyon Entertainment podcast hosted by David Borys

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Illustration has been an integral part of human history. Particularly before the advent of media such as photography, film, television, and now the Internet, illustrations in all their variety had been the primary visual way to convey history. The comic book, which emerged in its modern form in the 1930s, was another form of visual entertainment that gave readers, especially children, a form of escape. As World War II began, however, comic books became a part of propaganda as well, providing information and education for both children and adults. Comic books were widely disseminated amongst soldiers and became an integral form of media consumption for much of the conflict and for decades after.

To dive into this subject we have brought on historian Cord A. Scott. Cord has a Doctorate in American History from Loyola University Chicago and currently serves as a professor of history for the University of Maryland Global Campus for Asia. He is the author of Comics and Conflict, Four Colour Combat, and The Mud and the Mirth: Marine Corps comics of WWI. He has written for several encyclopedias, academic journals such as the International Journal of Comic Art, the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, and in several books on aspects of cultural history. He resides in Okinawa, Japan.

Don't forget to check out Curious Canadian History! The other Canyon Entertainment podcast hosted by David Borys

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The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht" was the false belief that the regular German armed forces were not involved in Nazi war crimes or the Holocaust, but were instead a professional, apolitical body separate from the Nazi regime. This myth, propagated by former Wehrmacht officers and generals after World War II, was used to protect the institution's reputation and facilitate West Germany's rearmament during the Cold War. For decades since the war it has also contributed to wide spread misunderstandings about the war and about the Wehrmacht and Nazi war crimes. To unpack this complicated topic we have brought on historian Waitman Beorn.

Waitman Wade Beorn, is a 2000 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an Associate Professor in History at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Dr. Beorn was previously the Director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, VA and the inaugural Blumkin Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. His first book, Marching Into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus (Harvard University Press) Dr. Beorn is also the author of The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: At the Epicenter of the Final Solution (Bloomsbury Press, 2018) and has most recently published a book on the Janowska concentration camp outside of Lviv, Ukraine, tentatively entitled Between the Wires: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv (University of Nebraska Press, 2024). He is currently working on an AHRC-funded project that seeks to create a digital reconstruction of the Janowska concentration camp.

Dr. Beorn teaches courses in Holocaust History, Comparative Genocide, German history, Eastern European history, Antisemitism, Modern European history, Jewish history, Historical Methodology, Public history, and Digital history. He is also the Scholar-in-Residence for the Auschwitz Jewish Center’s American Service Academy Program where he instructs service academy cadets in military ethical decision-making using the Holocaust. Dr. Beorn’s work also forms the basis for the Ordinary Soldiers lesson program used by ROTC and the US Army. Dr. Beorn is also the host of The Holocaust History Podcast

Don't forget to check out Curious Canadian History! The other Canyon Entertainment podcast hosted by David Borys

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