MCA Scuttlebutt

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and your continued support. This week, we welcome Josh Chartier to the scuttlebutt. Josh is a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who is now the Director of Business Development for Echodyne, focusing on U.S. defense strategic partnerships. Josh and I served together in the UAE, so this is a bit of a reunion for me. One of the nice things about having a podcast is I get to hang out with my friends, but I understand that “hey, do you remember that one time” is not an awesome business model for a show that focuses on talking to people. That said, beyond our shared history, Josh had a fascinating Marine Corps career and is doing some really cool things with Echodyne. He talks to us about his origin story of becoming a Marine, his transition from an artillery officer to a foreign area officer, his experiences in the Middle East, and what he’s doing now with Echodyne. But really, the main theme of our conversation was transitioning. A common axiom in the Marine Corps is: grow where you’re planted, but there’s not a lot of wisdom in that beyond, don’t suck. Josh shares his experiences in an environment of constant transition, and we can take away some keys to successfully navigating it.   Enjoy!  <p>The post #258: Transitioning with LtCol Josh Chartier (Ret.) first appeared on Marine Corps Association.</p>

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and your continued support. This week, we bring you another installment of Semper Cinema with our review of the Marine Corps classic, The Wind and the Lion. I reference it as a Marine Corps classic because, as every Gen X Marine can attest, clips from the movie have been used as an attention-grabber in just about every class, period of instruction, and formal school. The Wind and the Lion stars Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, and Brian Keith. It was released in 1975 and is loosely based on the Perdicaris Affair of 1904. To help us break down the film is returning guest, author, podcaster, history nerd, and movie aficionado, LtCol Josh Bates (Ret.). We talk about the conflict between the film’s narrative arc and the historical accuracy of the event it attempts to portray, the cast performances, the film’s relevance to modern-day audiences, and what Marines can take away from it. Josh has great insights, and it was a lot of fun to dive into this movie with him.   Enjoy!  <p>The post #256: Semper Cinema – The Wind and the Lion with Josh Bates first appeared on Marine Corps Association.</p>

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we welcome Stephen Camelio to the scuttlebutt. Stephen is a screenwriter, storyteller, and content creator whose most recent project, Mending the Line – a story about a Marine embracing fly fishing to help him through post-traumatic growth – was the #1 movie on Netflix back in 2024. We interviewed the director of that film, Joshua Caldwell, back in Episode 82. Please go back and check it out. Stephen comes to us on the cusp of another project, a story about Col John Ripley and his actions at the Dong Ha Bridge, based on the book, The Easter Offensive. With Col Ripley being posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in back in June and The Easter Offensive having been on the Commandant’s Professional Reading List, it was great to get a perspective on this legendary Marine from a storyteller who hasn’t been drinking the Marine Corps Kool-Aid his whole life. It was also interesting to hear about his background and how he became attracted to featuring Marine characters in his stories.   Enjoy!  <p>The post #254: Characters, Storytelling, and Col John Ripley with Stephen Camelio first appeared on Marine Corps Association.</p>

Hey, Scuttlebutt listeners. Thank you for joining us and for your continued support. This week, we bring you another installment of World of Wargaming with Alex Buck. Alex is a major in the Canadian Armed Forces and an advocate for the benefits of wargaming. Alex talks to us about how he came to be in the armed forces, what it was like to be a Canadian in America during September 11th, his deployment experiences and some of the similarities and differences between Canadian and US militaries, and how he was introduced to wargaming, and what it is about wargaming that is so important for militaries to be doing. He’s also a self-professed professional fun seeker, so it was…fun…to hear what that entails. It was really cool to talk to a member of a key allied nation’s military and to get perspectives from outside the American lens. As advertised, talking with Alex was a lot of fun, and it was great to learn more about one of our most trusted and committed allies.   Enjoy!  linkedin.com/in/alexjbuck  instagram.com/rcrbuck  linktr.ee/rcrbuck  <p>The post #252: World of Wargaming with Maj Alex Buck, Canadian Armed Forces first appeared on Marine Corps Association.</p>