Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast

On this episode Joe and Nick dive into the troubled and misunderstood history of the Kamikaze. Were they really so devoted to the Emperor they willingly blew themselves up or were they scared and abused kids who were peer pressured into becoming suicide bombers? Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Sources: Wings of Defeat (2007) Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney. Kamikaze Dairies: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers. Kaiten Memorial Museum: http://www.kamikazeimages.net/museums/kaiten/index.htm

On this episode we examine the birth of the M-16 Rifle and its deployment to the Vietnam War. How did the Pentagon take a rifle that passed every test with flying colors and turn it into a piece of shit that undoubtably killed hundreds of American soldiers? Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources for this episode: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/ https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/m16-rifle-went-war-against-north-korea%E2%80%94and-succeeded-vietnam-not-so-much-32252 https://www.pewpewtactical.com/m16-vietnam-failure https://fenixammo.com/pages/history-of-the-223-remington-cartridge

On this iteration of the Donkey Reading Series Joe is joined by our friendly neighborhood Nuclear Anthropologist Martin Pfeiffer (@NuclearAnthro) to discuss the War on the Rocks article "America Needs A dead Hand". The article: https://warontherocks.com/2019/08/america-needs-a-dead-hand/ Support the show and get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/notifications Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store

Joseph Dresnok was a Private in the US Army stationed along the Korean DMZ. He quickly became depressed and developed one hell of an addiction to booze and sex workers. After getting in trouble one too many times and fearing he would get a courts martial, he took off running across the DMZ towards North Korea. Support the show and get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Sources: "Crossing the Line" BBC 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd2dCk3N8cE https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/21/a-u-s-soldier-who-defected-to-north-korea-in-1962-has-died-his-pyongyang-born-sons-say/ Jenkins Robert. The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea. 2007. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/29/meet-the-four-americans-who-defected-to-north-korea-in-the-1960s/

Tarrare and Charles Domery were soldiers who fought in the War of the First Coalition. They were also afflicted with a never ending, voracious hunger that cannot be explained. What if Eli Roth created a gritty reboot of Kirby? Support the show and get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Get a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store sources: https://allthatsinteresting.com/tarrare https://io9.gizmodo.com/what-caused-these-men-to-eat-cats-and-candles-1685293458

Project 100,000 was a Vietnam War Era experiment conducted by the United States to see how low they could lower the standards for enlistment or conscription. Thousands of developmentally disabled Americans would be killed. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a book: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Fire-Book-ebook/dp/B07NSMFSHN/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1 Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store sources: https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/story-behind-mcnamaras-morons https://www.historynet.com/mcnamaras-boys.htm

This is the story of how Pepsi, yes that Pepsi, ended up controlling the world's sixth largest submarine navy. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Buy Joe's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Joseph-Kassabian/dp/1949645347 sources: https://www.redkalinka.com/Russian-Blog/78/_The-day-Pepsi-became-a-great-military-power/ https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/09/business/international-report-pepsi-will-be-bartered-for-ships-vodka-deal-with-soviets.html https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-union-pepsi-ships

On the 7th (and final) installment in our Soviet Afghan series we take a look at what life was like as a Soviet conscript and just how miserable life had to be before you started drinking boot polish to get drunk. Support the show! https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy Joe's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Fire-Book-ebook/dp/B07SG7KH5Z/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1564425872&sr=8-1 Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store

On part 6 the Soviet Union has to figure out how to pull their army out of Afghanistan while the entire country collapses around them while new journalistic freedoms show everyday Soviet citizens the horrors of war for the first time. Support the show and get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Buy Joe's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Fire-Book-ebook/dp/B07NSMFSHN/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1563803263&sr=8-1

Babrak Karmal is a failure and the Soviets know he has to be replaced if they are ever going to get a functioning Afghan government. Enter Muhammed Najibullah, a mass murdering psychopath. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Buy a shirt: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Buy Joe's new book Citizen of Earth: https://www.amazon.com/Citizen-Earth-Galaxy-Joseph-Kassabian/dp/1949645347/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UP4API8XF65N&keywords=citizen+of+earth+joseph+kassabian&qid=1563190222&s=gateway&sprefix=citizen+of+earth%2Caps%2C198&sr=8-1