When a Soldier’s Bravery is So Great His Comrades Fear Him: The Story of Band of Brothers’ Ronald “Killer “ Spiers

When a Soldier’s Bravery is So Great His Comrades Fear Him: The Story of Band of Brothers’ Ronald “Killer “ Spiers

No paratrooper in the legendary “Band of Brothers” – a WW2 parachute rifle company part of the 101st Airborne Division in the U.S. Army -- was more enigmatic than Ronald Speirs. Rumored to have gunned down enemy prisoners and even one of his own disobedient sergeants, he was one of World War II’s most storied soldiers, a controversial man whose ferocity and courage earned him the nickname “Killer.” But who was the real Ronald Speirs?

Most accounts about him end in 1945, but today’s guest Jared Frederick, author of Fierce Valor: The True Story of Ronald Speirs and His Band of Brothers, unveil the full story of Easy Company’s longest-serving commander and, for the first time, tell of his lesser-known exploits in Korea, the Cold War and Laos.

We explore how
• Speirs was a complex, driven man, and not a dark caricature as some have imagined him
• Speirs was deeply shaped by his whirlwind wartime romance with Edwyna. Theirs was a marriage that tragically ended in divorce after she discovered her first love was not dead, but a POW. Decades later, Speirs wrote about her, “I loved her and still do”
• Speirs survived gut-wrenching Cold War assignments in Korea and grinding battles with the Chinese. These lesser-known exploits come to light fully for the first time in Fierce Valor

As Easy Company’s most colorful and controversial figures, Spiers was a soldier whose ferocious courage in three foreign conflicts was matched by his devotion to duty and the bittersweet passions of wartime romance.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(1107)

The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s

The Wunderkind George Forster: Voyaging with Captain Cook at 10 and Dining with Benjamin Franklin in Paris in his 20s

A ten-year-old boy gallops across the Russian steppe on a Kalmyk horse, collecting plants for his father while German settlers starve in earth dugouts along the Volga. Seven years later, that same boy...

30 Heinä 43min

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

Every 2 Weeks a Language Dies: Whether By Assimilation or Targeted Extinction

When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake tore through southeastern Turkey in 2023, the government posted that it would provide translation support in seven languages: Turkish, Arabic, Persian, English, Russi...

28 Heinä 59min

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party Was a Protest Against the East India Company Being Too Big to Fail

The Boston Tea Party is the most misunderstood event in American history. Every schoolchild learns it was an antitax protest, proof that Americans have always hated paying taxes. But the Tea Act of 17...

23 Heinä 48min

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

The 1873 Global Financial Meltdown that Cause 20 Years of Deflation and Destroyed 2 Empires

On May 9, 1873, as the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed and thousands of speculators were wiped out in a single afternoon, young Salbert von Rothschild and two colleagues from the Schey and Goldschmidt...

21 Heinä 44min

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

Johnny Appleseed's Trees Were for Booze, Not Pies, and He Dressed Like a Hobo for Marketing Purposes

The Disney version of Johnny Appleseed has a cheerful barefoot man in a tin pot hat scattering apple seeds for grateful pioneers to bake into pies. The real John Chapman collected his seeds for free f...

16 Heinä 53min

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

All the World’s Empires Became Nations in Less Than 100 Years, and What That Means for the Next 100

For the last 5,000 years, empires ruled the world — Rome administered hundreds of languages across three continents, and the Ottomans governed Christians, Jews, and Muslims under a single legal canopy...

14 Heinä 49min

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

Five Cambridge Graduates Became Soviet Spies and Built Stalin’s Empire

The Cambridge Five did more damage to the Western Bloc than any other intelligence outfit of the Cold War. They were five Cambridge graduates who drank gin at the right clubs, moved through the right ...

9 Heinä 58min

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington’s Power Went Beyond President or General – He Was a Full-Fledged Patriarch

Washington was the perfect man for an impossible moment — aristocratic enough to command the respect of erudite founders like Hamilton and Jefferson, yet only a mid-level Virginia planter who understo...

7 Heinä 54min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
seitseman
i-dont-like-mondays
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
sita
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
kaksi-aitia
hupiklubi
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
kolme-kaannekohtaa
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
aikalisa
mamma-mia
ihme-ja-kumma
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
lahko
rss-haudattu
loukussa
meidan-pitais-puhua