Cold War Campers - the Escalation 1985 Podcast

 John is the author of 14 books and hundreds of magazine articles. He serves on the US Army Science Board as an advisor to the Secretary of the Army. He is a co-founder of How2LeadUS, an immersive, interactive, and memorable leadership learning company. John’s military experience spans 30 years in the US Army as an Armour and Cavalry officer. He is an Airborne Ranger, earned the Expert Infantryman Badge, and is a distinguished graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. He has commanded combat units from platoon through regiment. He has extensive experience in the Republic of Korea, served multiple tours on the DMZ, commanded the 2d Battalion, 72d Armour “Dragon Force” for two years in Korea, and has written extensively about combat operations in restricted terrain.  He served in the Pentagon as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Commanded the 16th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Knox, KY; and served as the G3, Operations Officer, for the III Armoured Corps, Fort Hood, TX.  After retiring from the US Army in 2003, he was hired by Microsoft Games Studio to help develop an interactive entertainment company in Texas. He then became the Executive Director for Gearbox, Software with studios in Texas and Canada.  He led teams to develop multiple AAA+ video games and is an innovator in the interactive gaming industry.  John speaks across the Nation about leadership and raises the leadership awareness of individual, teams, and companies. He was awarded the US Congressional Veterans Award in 2017.  

Join moderators from the Escalation 1985 Discord server and developers as they camp out around the campfire in a forest somewhere in the Fulda Gap.

We invited all our Patreons in for a cozy chat by the fireplace running on the Betamax video machine. Among the topics we touched were: Announcing Escalation: Aggressors,  Crowdfunding in-game items: The Gyrojet and the Dardick,  Dancing with the dead Sabrina,  Collecting 1980s Danish toilet paper,  Eating century old MREs is NICE,  Re-enacting and collecting Cold War uniforms and weapons,  Red Divide 3 Airsoft event,  Resurrecting Hitler (Morgendagens Orden roleplay),  Waffles or Pancakes (heart-shaped waffles ftw).  If you want to be on this show or get early access to the game, please go to www.patreon.com/escalation1985 Check out the Red Divide Airsoft event here: https://thereddivideseries.weebly.com/

Our guest served from 1986 in the Nationale Volksarmee as a platoon leader and later as a Fallschirmjäger. He transitioned to the Bundeswehr at reunification where he is still in active duty. He tells us all about the life as a soldier in the fearsome NVA and beyond.

Jordan aka Spitfire re-joins the podcast - this time as part of the dev team! Lukas and Jordan answer questions from Patreon, discuss indie games, collecting uniforms and Cold War reenactment.