Episode Details

🔥 FireSide Chat w/ the Crew — Episode #719

Fresh off the Marine Corps League National Convention in Indianapolis, the crew is back around the virtual fire for another night of stories, laughs, veteran camaraderie, and a look at where The Lost Art Project: Veterans’ Voices is headed next.

AJ and Jess recap the convention and the journey home, including Jess’s back-road adventure through the Midwest. Vick talks about getting back into the school year, his work in music education, and—of course—brings another cigar to the conversation for a full review.

A major part of this episode takes viewers behind the scenes of the growing Veterans’ Voices Digital Archive. AJ demonstrates how researchers can search veterans, people, episodes, topics, and transcripts and then dig deeper into individual Veteran Research Records. The crew explores how service history, archived appearances, transcript evidence, citations, and source material can be connected to create a research resource for educators, historians, students, military leaders, veterans, and families.

The live demonstration also does exactly what a developing research archive should do—it exposes areas that can be improved. The crew discovers that recurring FireSide Chat appearances are not always reflected correctly in individual episode counts, leading to a discussion about making those records more complete and accurate.

The conversation moves from the archive to road trips, the Marine Corps League, school, cigars, puppies, upcoming projects, veteran humor, and plenty of the usual crew banter. The episode wraps up with a discussion of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, including the 10,000-hour concept and the many factors that can contribute to success.

Andrew “AJ” Cox — Host Founder & Executive Director, The Lost Art Project: Veterans’ Voices | Retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Gunnery Sergeant

Jess Kindelspire — FireSide Chat Crew Veteran and recurring member of the FireSide Chat crew

Vick Ney — FireSide Chat Crew President, The Lost Art Project: Veterans’ Voices | Retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sergeant | Music Educator

📅 August 16, 2026 🎙️ Episode #719

The Lost Art Project: Veterans’ Voices is more than a podcast. We are building a searchable digital oral-history archive designed to preserve veterans’ experiences while making those stories discoverable, researchable, and citable for generations to come.

Preserving Voices. Protecting Legacies.