BBC Radio

I have done half-hour documentaries for BBC Radio. I was also asked to do four "Letters from America" in the time slot once filled by the late Alistair Cooke.The essays were broacast on BBC Radio 4 and most were rebroadcast on U.S. public radio stations.

 

My Lai Tapes

 

March 15, 2008

 

On March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers killed 504 Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in Vietnam. In this two-part series broadcast on the BBC World Service, the horror and barbarism that swept through My Lai is reconstructed from exclusive archive recordings from the U.S. army's own investigation into the massacre and interviews with surviving victims and some the perpetrators of that historic day. The documentary was produced by Rosie Goldsmith with research by Celina Dunlop. It took first place in the BBC's annual Audio and Music Awards and it took the top radio award from the London Foreign Press Association.

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Crossing Continents:

Native Americans

 

Dec. 20, 2007

 

Native Americans enlist in the military in the highest proportion of any ethnic group. They also appear to suffer disproportionately the effects of post traumatic stress disorder. Now some returning veterans are turning to an unusual treatment: traditional Indian healers, or medicine men.

 

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Crossing Continents:

Military Recruiting

 

Aug. 24, 2006

 

Five years into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with nearly 3,000 service members dead, the U.S. military is having trouble filling the ranks. In this half-hour documentary for BBC Radio 4, we followed a recruiter in Kokomo, Ind., to illustrate the problems faced by the military.

 

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America's Pension Crisis

 

Feb. 8, 2005

 

Now, to my disappointment, I find I've become an archetype. A cliché. I'm a 60-year-old guy who, like millions of other Americans, has changed jobs often. There were newspapers, TV stations. Even a stint at a dot com. You know how that worked out.

I, like millions of my other baby boom pals, will rely in our dotage on a patchwork of small company pensions and largely inadequate personal savings. We will depend in good measure on our monthly Social Security cheques.

But hang on - President Bush says Social Security is in crisis.

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Military Lawyers Defend Civil Liberties

Dec. 6, 2004

 

One of the things you count on when you're a law-abiding citizen of a place like America or Britain is that the police won't show up at your office one fine morning, haul you away and throw you into solitary confinement. And when they do, the military might be the last place you'd expect to find help.

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Women in Combat

 

Sept. 6, 2004




 

 

If you met Teresa Broadwell at a dance club, you would probably think the 20-year-old, 5'4" (1.62m), 112-pound (51kg) woman was - well, it is not politically correct to use this term - but you would think she was cute.

Perky even.

But if you had met her one dark night last October on a nasty little side street in Karbala, Iraq and, if you had been an Iraqi toting an AK-47, well then, quite simply, you would most likely be dead.

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The Power of the Armed Forces

 

July 20, 2004

 

We're having a pretty lousy summer over here.

I don't mean to whine. No-one likes a whiner. But gasoline prices are the highest they've been in 30 years. All of our Olympic athletes seem to be on drugs. We're constantly being warned that terrorists are about to strike. Or not. We're not really sure.

And from Iraq we hear the sickening, sucking sound of combat boots stuck in an oozing quagmire.

In some ways, here's the worst of it: We're caught in the middle of a presidential race.

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