Our guest today is one of the nicest guys in the military history community (which is filled with wonderful people!) - Derek Mallett. Late of the US Army Command and General Staff College school at Ft. Belvoir, Derek taught in professional military education for several years after a stint with the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Hawaii and teaching everything from high school (albeit very briefly!) to community college, as well as a summer at Texas A&M's engineering school branch in Qatar! Derek earned his BA from Culver-Stockton College, spent a semester in law school at Mizzou, then took MAs in History and Education from Truman State University, before earning his PhD in history at Texas A&M University (yep, another one of those!). He is author of Hitler’s Generals in America: Nazi POWs and Allied Military Intelligence (Kentucky) and the forthcoming Benedict Arnolds in Skirts: Race, Gender, and American National Security during the Second World War, which he co-authored with Stephanie Hinnershitz for the University of Press of Kansas. Derek is also the editor of Monumental Conflicts: Twentieth Century Wars and the Evolution of Public Memory (Routledge). Like Johnny Cash, Derek has "been everywhere, man." He's come a long way from humble roots in LaGrange, Missouri (and he pronounces "Missouri" correctly).

Join us for a delightful chat with Derek Mallett - we'll talk small towns, canned cranberry sauce, Van Halen, cruising the French countryside for WW2 plane crash sites, German POWs playing softball in Hannibal, Missouri, 1966 Thunderbirds, and much more!

Shoutout to C&J Barbeque Market in College Station, Texas!

Rec.: 11/20/2025