Author Archives

The Ask – Year 3 in Review

Dear Listeners. Here we are at the tail end of April 2023.  How’d we get here?  I apologize for the long, extended silence since the 20th episode of the podcast with author and columnist David French in December of last year.  Prior to this episode, I had been pretty good about putting out one episode…

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Episode 20 – Divided We Fall: America’s Session Threat And How To Restore Our Nation

In this episode of The Ask, award-winning author David French discusses his work on Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation About the book: Our Episode Guest: A graduate of Harvard Law School and a constitutional lawyer long devoted to taking on religious liberty cases, David French has long been a leading conservative…

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Episode 20 Preview – Divided We Fall: America’s Session Threat And How To Restore Our Nation

This September, together with my Co-Host Cliff W. Gilmore, we have the honor and pleasure of hosting senior editor at The Dispatch, columnist for Time magazine, and New York Times bestselling author David French. Our discussion will explore his latest book: Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. From the…

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Episode 19 Preview – The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan

This August together with my Co-Host Cliff W. Gilmore, I have the honor and pleasure to host award winning author and former Marine Corps Special Operations Team Leader, Elliot Ackerman, to discuss his next book, The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan available everywhere via Penguin Random House this coming August 9th, 2022. Using the dramatic rescue…

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Episode 18 – Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War

In this episode of The Ask award-winning author and US Marine Corps veteran Phil Klay discusses his work on Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War About the book: From the National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment and Missionaries, an astonishing fever graph of the effects of twenty years of war in…

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BEHROUZ – Documentary Premiere

At the end of last year, my Co-Host Cliff and I had the privilege of speaking with journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani about his almost decade imprisonment in the Australian-run Manus Island detention center in Papua New Guinea and the book he wrote about that experience: No Friend But the Mountains. Days ago, filmmaker Simon…

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Episode 18 Preview – Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War

This month together with my Co-Host Cliff W. Gilmore, I have the honor and pleasure to host U.S. Marine Corps veteran and award-winning author Phil Klay to discuss his important work Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. A book that looks at our the endless, invisible conflicts of the post-9/11 world…

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Episode 17 – The Line

In this episode of The Ask Peabody and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Doug Shultz discusses his work on THE LINE. About the film: U.S. Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher stood accused by his own platoon in the biggest war crimes trial in a generation. Now a new, four-part docuseries will examine the case and the blurred line…

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I did not vote for Ukraine’s president. His courage has changed my mind and inspired millions – Anna Myroniuk

Since Cliff W. Gilmore and I interviewed Anna Myroniuk on The Ask, she has emerged to become a fierce voice for the Ukrainian people as they desperately fight off a Russian invasion. And here she is again in The Washington Post. Reflecting on how the Ukrainian people and the rest of the world have seen…

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Waking up to explosions in Kyiv -Anna Myroniuk

Friends & Colleagues. As some of you may know, a few days ago, Cliff and I interviewed The Kyiv Independent journalist Anna Myroniuk about the threat of a Russian invasion on The Ask podcast. This morning, she writes in The Washington Post about what is like waking up to explosions in Kyiv: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/24/kyiv-explosions-putin-invasion-divided-family/ For those…

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Episode 15 Preview – Freedom

This month together with my guest co-host Cliff W. Gilmore, I have the honor and pleasure to host journalist, New York Times bestselling author and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sebastian Junger to discuss his work on his latest book: FREEDOM. Inspired by a year on the road with three close friends— a conflict photographer and two Afghan…

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The Ask – Year in Review

At the top of 2022 I want to take a moment and look back on the second year The Ask Podcast. For the inaugural episode of 2021, I sat down THE EDITOR, my friend Mirwais Amiri – to talk with him about the hard choices that forced him to leave Afghanistan and seek safety and…

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Episode 14 – No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison

In this episode of The Ask award-winning author, activist and journalist Behrouz Boochani discusses his work on his debut novel NO FRIENDS BUT THE MOUNTAINS: WRITINGS FROM MANUS PRISON. About the book: In 2013, Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island, a refugee detention centre off the coast of Australia. This book…

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The 20th Anniversary of 9/11 on The Ask

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11 On The Ask: Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann Former Deputy Chief of Staff to President Karzai, Homayra Ludin Etemadi New York Times Istanbul Bureau Chief Carlotta Gall Soldier & Author Elliot Ackerman Director of MOBY GROUP Channels in Afghanistan Massood Sanjer The Reluctant Propagandisthttps://longreads.com/2019/08/27/the-reluctant-propagandist/ In Afghanistan, a radio call-in show…

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Episode 11 – The Interpreters

In this episode of The Ask, we meet Hamid, Sajid, Tamim, and Abouzar, former Afghan interpreters for foreign forces. Since the start, Afghan interpreters have been at the forefront of this war. The first interpreter, Hamid Karzai, would go on to become the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Thousands would follow him down the dangerous path…

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