A Virtual Book Discussion with LTC Jos Groen
About the Author
LTC Colonel Jos Groen MSc, author of the book “Three of the Last WWII Screaming Eagles”, began his military career in March 1985 as a conscript in the Dutch Marine Corps, spending nine months in Aruba after successfully completing his basic training and graduating at the top of his class. In 1989, he transferred to the Royal Netherlands Army. After a two-year training period, he was promoted to second lieutenant, and he held his first officer posting as an Armored Infantry Platoon Commander within 43rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion. After re-training for the Air Mobile Infantry he held several functions at platoon and company level within 13th Air Mobile Battalion “Regiment Stoottroepen.”
After completing his Personnel Studies at the University of Applied Science in 1999, he fulfilled various positions within the Royal Netherlands Army’s personnel services, both at battalion and brigade level. Between 1998 and 2005, he also studied Labor and Organizational Psychology, which enabled him to work as a university lecturer at the Royal Netherlands Military Academy, where he taught courses in leadership and ethics. In 2008, he returned to the operational part of the Army, becoming Head of the Current Office of the G3 branch of 43rd Mechanized Brigade Staff in Havelte. During this posting he was deployed to Uruzgan (Afghanistan) in 2010, where he worked as the Staff Officer Information Operations within the TFU VII staff. This was his third mission abroad after earlier missions with Dutchbat III (1995) in Bosnia and Task Force Fox (2002) in Macedonia.
After returning from Afghanistan in September 2010, Jos Groen was a senior researcher at the Dutch Veterans Institute. In 2013, he returned to Havelte and became the head of the G1 branch of the Brigade Staff, after which he held positions at the Land Training Center, the Land Warfare Center, and currently, the Dutch Veterans Institute.
About the Book
Groen’s book, “Three of the Last WWII Screaming Eagles” describes the war experiences of Jim “Pee Wee” Martin, Dick Klein, and Dan McBride, three WWII paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division also known as the Screaming Eagles. Conveyed almost exclusively in their own words and with many details not previously published, this book covers how these men grew up during the Great Depression, describes their demanding paratrooper training in the U.S., and goes into great depth about their wartime experiences.
Please enjoy this recording of the webinar that originally took place on January 16, 2021. The moderator for this event was ASOM Curator, Jimmie Hallis.
