SOFREP Radio Podcast

Doug Norton drew on both experience and research to pen the Code Word novels. As a warship captain during the cold war, Doug held launch codes for nuclear weapons and was prepared to use them, but he also participated in high-stakes international negotiations to reduce their numbers and the chance of nuclear war. In Geneva, Brussels, London, and Washington he experienced diplomacy and politics in tense meetings, glittering receptions, and deadline-driven all-nighters. A graduate of the Naval Academy and of the University of Washington, Doug was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow and Director of International Studies at the Naval Academy. After serving more than twenty-five years, Captain Norton retired from the navy and was an executive recruiter for fifteen years.

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Originally from Hawaii, Patrick Naughton is a United States Army officer and a Military Historian. He is currently teaching at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 2012, he received the Army’s General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. He has had unique opportunities to serve as an Interagency Fellow with the Department of Labor, a Legislative Liaison to the U.S. Senate, and a Congressional Partnership Program Fellow with the Partnership for a Secure America—all in Washington, D.C. He also served as a Senior Leadership Fellow with the Center for Junior Officers at West Point. Patrick holds a Master of Military Arts and Science degree in History from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, where he was recognized as an Art of War Scholar. He also holds a Master of Science in Crisis and Emergency Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, both from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he was named an Army ROTC Distinguished Military Graduate. Patrick Naughton’s first book, “Born from War: A Soldier’s Quest to Understand Vietnam, Iraq, and the Generational Impact of Conflict,” is now available in hardcover or eBook format through Amazon, directly from Casemate Publishers, and from a variety of other booksellers. The book compares his father’s time in Vietnam with the 82nd Airborne and advising the South Vietnamese Army, to Patrick’s own experience during the Global War on Terror and in Iraq. Though decades of history and politics separate their service, the similarities between their experiences are undeniably striking. The result is an engaging and eye-opening narrative that weaves together the combat experiences of two generations of soldiers. From the failure of grand strategies to personal combat stories, the memories of those lost, and the evolving social challenges facing today’s military—America’s wars against communism and terror are laid bare through the lens of one family’s service.

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After graduating from the University of New Hampshire, Brennan Morton joined the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a sniper, breacher, and team leader in 2d Recon. He deployed for two combat tours before opening a gym in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where he currently lives with Christine, his muse, and their daughter Pepper.

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Major General William M. Matz, Jr, U.S. Army (Ret), was appointed as the eighth Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission in January 2018 by President Donald Trump, a position he held until March 2021. 

General Matz is a highly decorated combat veteran of the United States
Army with a distinguished military career spanning four decades. As an
infantryman, he served in Korea and Panama, and as a company commander with the 9th Infantry Division in Vietnam, where he was wounded in action in the 1968 Tet offensive. He served multiple tours in the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions and was executive secretary to two secretaries of defense, Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci. During the Vietnam War, he served two years with the Navy/Marine amphibious forces in the Pacific and deployed with the 7th Infantry Division to Panama during Operation JUST CAUSE in 1989. 

Upon retirement from the Army in 1995, General Matz worked nine years in the defense industry. He was first employed by Raytheon Company as vice president, Army Programs; and later as general manager for Vinnell/Northrop Grumman’s Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization Program in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, returning to the United States in June 2004. 

In 2005, President Bush appointed him to the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, where he served until the commission rendered its report to the Congress in 2008. He is also past President of the National Association for Uniformed Services (NAUS), a national veteran’s organization that advocates in Congress for service members, veterans and their families. 

He is on the Eisenhower Institute National Advisory Council and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association. 

He is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Airborne and Ranger Schools, the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Gettysburg College and a Master of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of San Diego. He is also a graduate of Harvard University’s Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security. 

Among his military service awards and decorations are the Distinguished Service Cross (second highest award our nation bestows for valor on the battlefield), Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart and the Combat Infantryman Badge. 

General Matz was born in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. He and his wife, Linda, reside in Naples, FL, and have three children and seven grandsons. 

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Melissa Ziobro began her career as a civilian historian, archivist, and curator for the US Army in 2004 prior to returning to her alma mater, Monmouth University, to teach full-time. She has taught over a dozen different courses, including Intro to Public History; Oral History; Museums and Archives Management Basics; NJ History; and the Vietnam War. In August of 2023, she became curator of the University's Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music, after having worked with the Center for many years in her faculty role (to include curating the Center’s first traveling exhibit, Springsteen: His Hometown, with the Monmouth County Historical Association in 2019). Her most recent publications include Fort Monmouth: The US Army’s House of Magic (2024) and The Battlin' Bastards of Bravo: Bravo Company, 1/506th, 101st Airborne, in Vietnam and Beyond (2025).

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