The Real Generation Kill | Brad Colbert | Ep. 434

Okay, got the red smoke. Roger, gun run, north or south, west of the smoke, west of the smoke. Okay, copy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait, baby, give it to me, I need it. Just land hot. Copy, clear hot. Shall we? You ready for this? I'm ready when you are. Yeah. Let's start with your podcast. Okay. Since we're doing a podcast. How has your journey into it been? Where did the inspiration come from? Has it been what you thought it would be? Last questions first. No, it has not been what I thought it would be. It has actually manifested into something better and much different than I was initially starting out to do. What were you starting out to do? Fair point. I was really wanting to go back into my roots as a veteran, learning what I had amassed along the way and manifesting that into somewhat of an educational piece. I, and I know you know what I'm talking about when I mention this, had seen a lot of the failures of the system in treating our vets. I don't even know what you're talking about. It is. Right. Right. So let me mansplain it for you. You would need to try hard to not see. Fortunately, I think it's not the norm. It can appear to be the norm depending on how loud or social or public it can be. From what I have heard, it's one time maybe it was, but I am hearing about positive movement in the other direction. 100%. Yeah. 100%. And sort of piggybacking on a comment that you made earlier, it is not as fast as it could be. Yeah. So in addition to wanting to pay back to somewhat explain what I have learned about veterans health and some of the new modalities, hopefully encourage people to destigmify mental health and asking for help. You know, when I came in, and no doubt it was the same for you, it was really never spoken about. invisible wounds um you know ptsd was a real new buzzword even back then and you joined in 95 right i did so i was a year behind you 96 so we came in at the same time yeah why do you think that was because i know you went the marine corps path men's department of the navy it's not a big deal we might sign the checks we might not it's hard to say but definitely by and large a lot more tougher than your average Navy dude. Also, Class A's, stop it right now. The best single-looking uniform. It's why we maintain our recruitment goals year after year. You just need to have somebody walk down the street in that. And if any young man has any desire ever to try to be able to wear a uniform and pull women, it's going to be the Class A's for the uniform alone. so both of the career paths had experienced for me when i came in it was it was vietnam those were the people yeah i mean actually it was really the origins of the seal teams when it jumped from udt over to seals only seal team one and two were commissioned during that time even though i've met several people who told me they served at team three while in vietnam it's like live your life however you want to sir actually inaccurate but i actually just and now i just have them tell me stories. I'm like, that's amazing. Tell me more about Da Nang. The damn lie in the valley therein. Yeah. But that wasn't awesome for the community. There was a little bit in Panama, a little bit in Grenada, very, very limited exposure. And by that, I mean, I've got less than six people probably during those time periods. Somalia would be a good example. There were some snipers that were involved there supporting the Delta guys. But I mean, And we go back and it's like Korea, World War II, World War I. Why? I mean, you're going to tell me they didn't realize the nature of the job and the potential consequences that could come from that? Why is it in 2026 there is such an emphasis, whereas before it was ignored? Because it's not a new concept. If I was to hazard a guess, I think that societally we've progressed. I think back in the 1940s, the greatest generation, there was machismo, there was bravado, there was moxie. I mean, it was unheard of to say something like, you know, I'm scared or I don't have the courage to climb out of the trench and go charging into that machine gun nest. And I think it really just was pushed to the back. I think a lot of the guys that I work with, a lot of the guys I'm sure you worked with, type A personalities, you don't want to admit that you have a limitation. If you have a broken leg, you have a broken arm. That's easy. It's visible. We'll fix that. But if it's something that's squishy and amorphous like PTSD, like trauma, we don't know how to look at it. We don't know how to treat it. And I think that it was just a convenient abstract that kind of got pushed away. But then we changed. I think society changed. We didn't have open-armed conflict between Vietnam and 2001. Small pockets, like you said, little brush fire, banana wards. We're talking like maybe 100 people at a time, or in the community I came from, literally less than a dozen people during those 30-year time period. So you didn't have the body of knowledge that we had and have now. And I think we're also appreciating and understanding and valuing the impacts that conflict has, the toll that it takes on our body, the toll that it takes on our mind, the toll that it takes on the second and third order effects of our family and the community at large. And I think we understand that more than we ever have. And I think medicine has marched along with it. Not as the speed that I would still like to see it, but yeah. So kind of to come full circle, the podcast started as an opportunity for me to continue some of my speaking engagements that I've done over the past couple of decades and kind of destigmifying mental health. And it sort of snowballed from there. How much suffering do you think there was in the greatest generation? Wow. I mean, there's a type of warfare that, you want to talk about the trench warfare of World War I? Today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. You're never going to be able to guess where these things are made. That's right, in Montana, just south of me here in Missoula, and they're getting ready for their grand opening, by the way, in early April. So if you want to come check out everything that Josh has built, and also Black Rifle Coffee Missoula, you can do so in early April. 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So you know the... New Zealand, yeah? Yep. Yep. So Australians and New Zealand once a year, they celebrate that Battle of Gallipoli by watching that Mel Gibson film, Gallipoli. And I had never seen it before. So there I am at Fort Benning, big arena, packed with foreign military officers of those two countries. I'm like, dude, this is fucking horrifying. I couldn't imagine what it would be like in World War I. And then you fast forward to World War II, a little better, a little better. but not by much. Yeah, I was going to say emphasis on little. 50 million casualties in that war if you calculate injured. Dude, unfathomable. And we balked at not diminishing their sacrifices but 5,000, 6,000 people during OIF, OEF over a 20-year span. I'd say we did pretty well. Yeah, you want to talk about a ridiculous amount of people laying dead to go back to the Civil War and the number of people just laying dead on a battlefield there. Like, I mean, the greatest generation, you know, my grandparents would have fallen into that, and they were a stoic, hard, stiff, upper lip people. But, man, I wonder what was going on behind the curtains. Because you can be hard and stiff upper lip and not be vocal. That does not mean you're not fighting those demons. I think a lot of people did. I think a lot of, not our grandparents, but think about how many of our parents had shitty childhoods where dad came home drinking, beating the shit out of mom, wasn't really there for you much in the evenings. That's what our parents had to go through because they were post-Boomer children. And I think a lot of that stuff was probably brought home and it just became the fabric of American culture. And it somewhat matriculated into sitcoms, a little bit. Think about Archie. You're already, this is like me asking Michael about movies. He finally admitted to watching Terminator. I've recently, because I'm trying to get him to understand that Terminator is going to be a documentary real, real soon. Yeah, it's prescient. Yeah, so I'm trying to get him up to speed, but some of the classics of our generation. Right. It's just like, no. So, yeah, you actually just are doing the exact same to me because I've never watched Archie. I never got into sitcoms. It's okay. You didn't have to. Archie Bunker, but he was one of this, I was in your big war. I was in your WW2. And he took it out on his family in that very way that we're talking about. So I think it was there. I think it was there. How could it not be? Yeah, yeah. I mean, if the human species had evolved back then to have that not be the consequence of the things that the country may ask you to do, we wouldn't be struggling with it today, right? If that evolution had occurred, we would have benefited from that and continued to evolve. And I think the exact opposite is what has happened. I agree. Yes, I do. I think we're better now than we've ever been, but because we are allowing ourselves as a society to look at something that has always been there with a much more critical lens. And so I think that can only yield benefits to the next generation and those that are going to fight in China and Taiwan. I think it might just be robot dogs. I hope so. I personally would be very scared of a robot dog. I saw that video of the Ukrainians surrendering to an autonomous ground vehicle with a .50 cal mounted on it, and I thought, this is it. I mean, have you seen them? They're surrendering to, I know that this is a gross oversimplification, but an over-the-counter DGI drone. Yep. First-person drone. They're surrendering it. I loved seeing all those North Koreans that were exported over to the conflict. Yeah, getting hooked on porn because they had Starling for the first time. They were absolutely scrambling to try and fight all these first-person drones that were just schwacking them left and right. And I'm just eating popcorn watching this. Like, this is the greatest thing in the world. I never thought a single time about that type of drone warfare while I was in. So I've been out since 2013, so well-dated anyway. Drones always meant, you know, Predator Reaper, ISR platform overhead. Bespoke. Huge. Yeah, like lawnmowers. Like, wow, how high is that thing? Because I can definitely hear you and also so can everybody else if they know what that is. But that was it. I never even thought that it would turn into largely DGI drone warfare. And I'm really glad that I am not a part of that because that is... It's a TTP that we never had to conceptualize. No. And I don't know if warfare is ever going to be the same, ever. I don't think it can be. Land warfare, aviation, undersea space. Look at Ukraine reducing to rubble billions of dollars of Russia's critical military infrastructure. And from what I understand, the people driving those trucks that the drones launched out of, they didn't even know the drones were in the back. They didn't. So it's super well coordinated. 18 months in planning. I mean, what a – I would love to see the cost ROI on that one because I think it hugely favored Ukraine. Oh, 100%. And just a couple of weeks ago, they did Deep Strike and schwacked. I think the estimates were somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion plus in aviation. And these are the big Antonovs that they're not manufacturing anymore. Probably can't. They don't have the assembly lines. They're gone. And they have been. It's like us asking to do the F-22 again. It can't happen. I really like the code name as well, Deep Strike. Yeah. They stopped us from being able to create our own brevity codes because... I can't imagine why. A SEAL, yeah, sure. They started auto-generating not only mission names, but also brevity codes. Because, you know, it's like we'll start off with, you know, Operation Metallica. Not that we were stealing IP. We were, of course, using their name. They probably wouldn't have appreciated that we were using their name. I don't know. Maybe Metallica would have. There's some others that probably wouldn't. But it got a little fringy towards the end. Because, I mean, you know, you go through Metallica, you know, Def Leppard, your metal bands. Like, well, what else? cars, alright, so we'll go through all the cars what else? Porn star names it's always going to go to the lowest common denominator yeah, in the jock when the CG is, they're like, what did they just say? what was the brevity code they just passed? Yeah, we're not going to let them be creative anymore yeah, the young Ukrainians are definitely punching well above their weight and through tech well, they were already positioned for it before Russia invaded A lot of that IP was coming out of Ukraine, a lot of the code generating, a lot of the scripting, and to a lesser extent, the hardware. It was already being manufactured there. So it was a pretty easy pivot for their industrial complex. But the way that they're employing it tactically, they're writing the future of warfare right now in front of us. Yeah. And Russia's the lab rats. I have not connected at all anymore, which equal, not equal parts. A small part of me is like, oh, man, I wish I knew what was going on. But such a large part of me is so happy to have that part of my life in the past. But I'll catch clips of stuff from time to time, just open source stuff. And, you know, guys are rolling around now. They got, you know, the nod mount, but it's an FPV, goggle mount, self-deploying things in the field. And whether or not they are defensive in nature or ISR in nature or offensive, it's a different world, man, than when you and I were there. A hundred percent different. and hopefully our training pipeline domestically with our service members, men and women can catch up fast because we don't have a lot of time. I think that next conflict is just over the horizon. How do you think it will kick off? I don't think it's going to be global. If I was to theorize, I think it's going to be small. I think it's going to be local. I am really fixated on China and Taiwan. That is sort of my daily fix of doomsday is end of 27, China makes a play for Taiwan. We are, under the current administration, probably going to be dragged in. And I'm not making a value judgment on whether we should or we shouldn't. I think there's going to be local loss of life. I think it's going to be pretty robust, more than we have in Afghanistan. But I don't think it's going to cascade beyond it. Can you go stay contained in China? I think it will. I think it will. But what it's definitely going to do is redraw all the socioeconomic geopolitical boundaries that we currently have in the world right now. Think about all the manufacturing that's in China. How much did the American hate Muslims after 9-11? Pretty robustly. It was pretty robust. You know, where to seek taxi cab drivers, we're getting the shit beat out of them for their headdress. like dude that's not the people that bomb that tower so fast forward to 27 we have a conflict that results in a loss of life between let's say 7 and 10,000 US service members how much do you think we're going to hate the Chinese after that? you're going to buy their goods? you're going to buy anything that says made in China after that? yeah but can you shut it off like a spigot like that? oh I think China will as well because we're going to intercede they're going to become absolutely inflamed they're going to ask Russia for help if there is an Iran at that point, Iran's going to have to help out North Korea. Anyone they can pull into their proxy, they're going to ask. It won't be Venezuela, so we don't have to worry about that. But it is going to redraw the geopolitical maps between this Axis and the Allied all over again. And I think it's going to last for another 20 years. Why do you say 2027? That's their timeline. The military has always been planning for a 2027 time because that's where it coincides with China's 100-year anniversary. If they don't refold Taiwan into their sphere by then, according to their scripts, not mine, it delegitimizes their government. Xi Jinping has to take Taiwan by then. Maybe not. He seems reasonable. Oh, yeah. He just fired his two most senior military people. Yeah, they probably told him something that he didn't like. That's the thing about communism is you cannot tell the emperor they have no clothes. Yeah. You can't. You couldn't do it with Hitler. You can't do it with Mao. You couldn't do it with Stalin. I mean, pick the name of your person. Yeah. Cuba. It doesn't matter. I hate to draw a parallel to that, but I've heard from people in peripheral orbits to the current administration. it's loyalty is what the current sitting president values the most and one of the quickest ways out of the orbit is to say something that is not in line with that and that is not a philosophy that aligns well with what i consider to be anything remotely looking like leadership i agree and i i think it is unfortunate and i think what we're seeing topically domestically reflects that yeah it is a hot mess yeah i just read this morning What's the guy's name? Human? What's his first name? The guy who took over for the Border Patrol head dude. Is it Tom Human? Oh, the... Holman. Holman. The guy in the ground. It's very close. I got the Tom in the H. Yeah. I just read an article saying they're going to have a complete and full drawdown of the, I think, 700? They already, yep. They announced 700 people were going to go out. So that's not complete, because I think they surged like 3,000. But, yeah, it seems like with him moving in there, somewhere somebody recognized that whether or not the immigration policy and laws are legit, which I do agree with that we need to enforce our immigration policy, but tactics also matter. Somebody recognized that what they were doing, like, no, this is not, you are going to lose everybody who has a set of eyeballs and a brain behind them. There was so many things that took place that were wrong. It was a perfect storm. It was a combination of new recruits, reduced training, lack of leadership, ambiguous mission, and then you were doing something you shouldn't have done. Not the enforcement piece. I'm not talking about that. Even by their own policy, they are not supposed to do the crowd mitigation stuff. They're not trained or tooled or equipped for it. That is not your purview. We're having that conversation. Yes, you ain't, dude. Well, yeah, and you throw somebody into the arena and tell them to do a job they have not been trained to do. Like the man who just got killed, I look at that. That's a one-person control problem if you actually know what you're doing and you train and you are capable of putting your hands on another human being. That likely would have evolved into a non-loss-of-life scenario. Very easily. It's not the seven-man dog pile. I'm sorry. This isn't high school football. There's another piece of it, too, that's been interesting, because I've had some people reach out at the federal level, and they have reminded me, you know, Trump isn't the first person that has had an immigration policy that has deported millions of people. In fact, every president before him has. One of the things that some people who work in this world have said to me is that one of the main differences is, especially during the Democrat administrations, is that the sanctuary cities chose to work with them because they were on the same team. as opposed to actively working against them. And I'm not saying they are the cause of this, but that could very likely set the ground for a drastically different end state. It's ideological differences. It's philosophical differences. It's beyond simple, well, I feel this way, you feel that way. I mean, it's pure vitriol. They don't want to work with the administration, and he's certainly not interested in the carrot. It's all stick, and it's a technique. But it comes at a price. You are going to alienate a large swath, and you are not going to get the cooperation that you need. And then the Twin Cities are recently filing a violation under the 10th Amendment. There's a lawsuit pending. I mean, this is just going to define the next three years. It's just going to be lawsuit after lawsuit. But leaving all that aside, yeah, they were – I kind of have a modicum of sympathy for the agents because they weren't trained. They were doing a mission that they shouldn't have been doing, and they had no top cover. And, of course, this is what's going to happen. I have spoken to some individuals that are not within ICE but are other government agencies that are on the ground with them. And what I am being told is they are appalled at the ICE behavior. I mean, absolutely shocked. Like, having to pull officers off protesters. Like, dude, he's on the ground. He's zip-tied. You can get off him now. It's also an American. This is also, depending on where you live, this may be your neighbor. And somehow that is lost in this conversation, too. Yeah. It is. They're not getting the full length of training that they would normally get. We've reduced it. Four or five weeks is what I read. Okay. That's better than what I read. It's not what it should be. This is a six-month pipeline that they are being truncated. So they get a third of that. A third of that. And look, man, even with the longest and hardest vetting military that you could think of, you're still a raw recruit. You need experience. You need on-the-job training. You need to be mentored and led. and when you surge the bulk of the people on the ground with new recruits, well, what did you think was going to happen? I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier. In fact, one of the problems that I think we're going to see is it's going to happen again. How many times is it going to happen, but there isn't going to be a crowd there with iPhones to record it? They don't wear body cams. And I'm not denigrating all of ICE. I don't want to paint everybody in DHS, whether it's CBP, ICE, or any of the other subsets with the same brush, But they don't wear body cams because they don't need to. So what's going to happen six months from now, nine months, 12? It's going to happen, and it's going to happen again. And you're not going to be able to justify it or articulate it away in court. What is the justification for them not wearing body cams? They're not investigating officers is what I am being told. They don't have the same burden of proof that a municipal police officer has to have the transparency to prove because you're not typically as an ICE agent going against a United States citizen. I think we need to have them wear body cameras. Well, there's – It seems like there is – There's a transition. Yeah. There's nothing but upside for just about everybody there. I'm all about transparency. Same here. And it holds people accountable. And accountability is not a tagline. It's a receipt. you can say as a body of citizens that i know what my people are doing i know what my government officials are doing because there's full transparency i think that only helps republic i remember when body cams first became a thing the prevailing sentiment was these corrupt cops they're about to be exposed you know what ended up happening protected them 99 times out of 100 because it displayed the behavior of the other person or justified very reasonably in probably not 4K. We'll call it 1080, depending on when the first one came out. But with audio and video, more than anything, the people who got aired out were the ones that they were dealing with. It actually ended up defending law enforcement's actions the vast majority of the time. I see no downside to putting body cameras on ice. I don't. Yeah. I don't. I think anyone that has a use of force mandate probably could benefit from a body cam. I don't see a problem with that. If I'm going to burn someone to the ground in a use of force incident, I want it documented because I want to be able to go on the stand. I'm like, these are the six minutes leading up to the incident. These are the four where I had drawn my weapon, and this is what took place. And it's your POV, as opposed to trying to explain POVs that are 50 degrees off from an iPhone, which don't match the information. Or a bell or what have you. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. You bring up a bell point. I 100% agree. And what I have heard is it is changing. They're going to start putting body cams on ice. But, you know, the barn door's already been left open. The horse is already out. This is too little too late. You know what really pissed me off is the head of the FBI saying you're not allowed to bring a weapon. It's like, man, we did a podcast yesterday. He's like, Michael, do me a favor and pull me up some videos of COVID protests where people are armed to the teeth. No problem finding any of those. But now the head of the FBI, the main law enforcement office in the land. Wildly inappropriate. Not understanding the Second Amendment. And, of course, there are caveats to local areas and local laws. But by every metric, that individual was within his Second Amendment rights. Well, you know, and there's an argument about why he was there. Was he an agitated pig? whatever it is, you know, exercising his First Amendment right. Maybe he fringed outside of that. Should you lose your life because of that? No, no. But even, let's just say for the sake of argument that he wasn't allowed. As the chief law enforcement officer, it is not your job to weigh in on a pending investigation. Any news that we watch, local, state, it doesn't matter. The law enforcement official that's getting interviewed is very quick to go, I'm sorry, I can't comment on that. not while there's an ongoing investigation. Next question. How many times do we hear that? All the time. All the time. It's probably the expected answer from the person asking the question, too. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of a throwaway question knowing that's going to be the response. But no, no, this guy stands up and immediately doubles down, and then all of the other cabinet officials do, and then the administration does, the president does. I'm like, guys, what the fuck are you doing? You're coloring public opinion on what is inevitably going to land in a court of law. How do they not recognize that? Why don't they recognize it? Yes. How can you not understand that? They're going by the, you know, Jocko wrote a book, Extreme Ownership. I'm trying to write a book called Extremely Limited Ownership. Chapter one is there's no bad leaders, only bad teams. Chapter two would be for Kash Patel. It would be, well, nobody told me that. I don't know if Dan Bongino left because he was forced out or if he saw the sinking ship and was just like, I'm going to go back to my show. Better question. Do you think he would ever honestly answer that given the current environment? I don't think he could. No. Okay. So another wrinkle. At risk of guaranteeing I will never have a job in the administration, allow me to offer you this little piece. I have heard that within the FBI, and I'm not going to reveal my source, that they are terrified to investigate the shooting that's taken place in Minneapolis. The most recent one? Yes. Okay. The FBI's job in many cases is, okay, so anytime there's a law enforcement shooting anywhere in the United States, almost 99.9% of the time, a shooting that takes place between a law enforcement official and, insert name of whoever, it's investigated by an outside agency, whether it's state. It makes total sense. Right? Even if it's the department next door. You just don't investigate yourself. You sure don't. Okay. So in a lot of cases, a shooting will be investigated by the FBI. That makes sense. They are scared shitless to do it after the January 6th fallout where there was a just Black Friday of firings between agents that investigated individuals involved in January 6th. And this is not a commentary on the 6th. I don't want to go down that road. My point is this, is that they're hesitant to investigate this because they're scared they're going to lose their jobs under this current administration. How does a country function when that is the case? I mean, literally what you were describing, that is in doctrine. what they are supposed to do, and they are hesitant to do so out of fear of losing their job. I don't think a country can function under the system you've described. I don't know how it's going to continue. The United States is resilient. We're going to make it through. We'll make it. I bristle at these jackasses and say, oh, that's a constitutional crisis. It's the end of democracy. No, stop, dude. Well, usually Ty says a word to that, too. Oh, yeah. Just stop. But what it's going to do is erode the center of gravity. Like the center of gravity for the FBI is the public's trust in it as an institution. Whatever may be left, yes. Whatever may be left. You lose that, you get nothing. I mean, in many circles, the FBI worldwide is considered the gold standard of law enforcement. Just, balanced, fair, impartial, and just pure investigation. And if you erode that, then what do you have left? You've got nothing. To answer your question, I don't know. It's become my favorite answer recently because I don't know. I didn't deeply study politics when I was younger. When I was in the military, I wasn't on social media. I missed the beginning of it. I was a late adopter to just about everything I've done in my life. I don't know where it goes. I'm fascinated to see, like, if there's so many little things. And, you know, to people who can see no farther than the jersey of their team, they probably love them. A great example would be the plaques that have been replaced inside of the White House. Where the, Michael, let's see if you can find this. Have you seen these underneath the president's names? No. So Biden's picture was replaced with an auto pen in the hallway leading up to the Oval Office. Okay. I did not know that. Oh, it gets worse. Michael, see if you can find the plaque associated with Biden. It departs from factual information. And it's emotionally, it's anything but logic driven. Oh, yeah, here we go. Okay. This is in the White House. This is the new official plaque that is underneath Joe Biden. That is the crawl? That's not AI? That is genius? Speedway Joe Biden was by far the worst president in American history. First off, can we get an asterisk on that where that information came from? Now, I agree that one side, likely, and the devout believers of one side would probably agree with that because of the person saying it. But is this, even that first sentence, is this the precedent that we are going to set? Because what happens when your team doesn't win anymore? Correct. taking office as a result of the most corrupt election ever seen in the United States. Biden oversaw a series of unprecedented disasters that brought our nation to the brink of destruction. His policies caused the highest inflation rate ever recorded, leading the U.S. dollar to lose more than 20% of its value in four years. His Green New scam, that's a deal for a second, surrendered American energy dominance. And by abolishing the southern border, Biden let 21 million people from all over the world pour into the United States, including from prisons, jails, mental institutions, and insane insults. A portion of that is probably true. His Afghanistan disaster was among the most humiliating events in American history and resulted in the murder of 13 brave American service members, with many other gravely wounded. Seeing Biden's devastating weakness, Russia invaded Ukraine. So Biden is single-handedly responsible for the Ukraine invasion. And Hamas terrorist launched the heinous October 7th attack on Israel. Nicknamed both Sleepy and Crooked, Joe Biden was dominated by his radical left handlers. They and their allies in the fake news media attempted to cover up his severe mental decline and his unprecedented use of the auto pen. Following his humiliating debate loss to President Trump in the big June 2024 debate, he was forced to withdraw from his campaign for re-election in disgrace. Biden weaponized law enforcement against his political opponents while also persecuting many other innocent people. He left the office issuing blanket pardons to radical Democrat criminals and thugs, as well as members of the Biden crime family. But despite it all, President Trump would get reelected in a landslide. And in all caps, save America, save America. That's in the White House. So, again, I know I know the type of person that sees that and they're like, that is the most important piece of written word that has ever been written. It should be there, and it should be there forever. I think that the people who truly think that that is a good idea, especially long-term or have any idea of time, is a minority at best. But that's insane. Yeah. What does that look like when the pendulum swings? That's the question. What precedent? Yeah. You don't have to like the presidents. Guess what? In every election, except for a couple that were pretty close to a landslide, it's damn near 50-50. Half the people don't like the other person. And maybe they don't like the person, the politics, or whatever it is. That is a departure from any level of sanity that I have ever seen when it comes to politics. It 100% is. And what's unfortunate is that, you know, I go back to Reagan. Reagan was in awe of the White House. He was, speaking of a landslide, he was one of those guys who won by a victory. He did. It was well past 50-50. He did. And he could have very easily taken the same position that the current administration does. Like, I have a mandate, an overwhelming mandate from the people to do whatever the hell I want. He was one of the most respectful and in awe of the office of the presidency. That's what I want from my elected officials. Because the office is greater than the person that's holding the seat. Should be. Should be. You are that shining city on the hill, the beacon. You're the reason why we have an immigration problem, because we water our grass. That's why it's greener on our side of the fence. And when you dilute that, when you take away the institution of the presidency and you distill it down to a personality, again, what do we have left? What is left without that belief? I go back to my favorite answer. I don't know. So I thought about that plaque for a while, and I realized somebody had to order that from somewhere. Can you imagine being the whatever, whoever creates that. Yeah, so they get that, and they open up the email, probably not a PDF. Maybe it was an Adobe Illustrator, whatever it may be. And you're just cruising through the text. Maybe at first you're just making sure the alignment is correct. But then before you hit engrave or whatever, that's true. It's just printed out. But you read it. I think I might send, like, did you guys send me the right file? Just checking here. I equate it to those birthday cakes you sometimes see where the person on the phone literally word for word wrote what the person said on the cake. Yeah. And they were trying to describe I like it in green and that I like it in green text ends up on the cake Yeah I think that the same thing Where you just like I yeah I didn know that though so that new I get to chew on that for the next couple days. A picture above that is of an auto pen. Yeah. It's not of Biden. Yeah. That's great. Is there a plaque for Trump? Let me look. I'm sure there is. So if I take a tour of the White House, I'm going to, Depends on the type of tour and the access you might have. My understanding is that it's closer to the West Wing. Okay, so most likely not. I think you can do it, but it's in the hallways of the White House. That's ridiculous. I didn't believe it when I first heard that. Yeah. I would have thought it was AI and somebody was doing that as a troll. Yeah, and you can laugh at it at first, and then my head immediately went to, what happens after this? What are you lining up? and you're loading the gun. Oh, 100%. Of your, I'll say, adversary, because I don't consider other Americans to be my enemy, regardless of their political left or right leanings. So you're loading the gun for your adversary. It's in electrolyte water. It's delightful. Oh, I know LMT. Yeah. And I don't know where it leaves. Well, I don't think it's going to swing quite as egregiously as... Look, Trump is unique. I think we can agree about that. in all of the elected officials in this position I think we've ever had and probably ever will. He is the outlier. He is the anomaly. He will throw the bell curve off. I don't think whomever occupies the chair next is going to enjoy, I don't know if that's the right word, the presidency the way that Trump has. I just don't. I can't. My nationalism won't allow my brain to accept that. This cannot be it. Did you find anything, Michael? I really have a time finding a picture. Because I feel like his is spectacular. Oh, yeah. It's probably not the same one. If that's what you wrote for Biden, if you had a hand in what was crafted for him, it is going to be verbose. It is going to have long words that I'm going to have to look up later. I think, I mean, if it's anything like his true social posts, it's probably bombastic. It's over the top. It's a lot of hyperbole. It's a lot of huge caps. So, yeah, and look, three years, all this is going to get replaced. We'll go back to, I don't know, something else. We'll do something else. This is going to be okay. I don't think it's the end time. I don't think it is either. What I'm fascinated by, you would normally think that Vance would probably get the initial nod, right? This is a normal progression like Biden got from Obama. Yeah. I mean, after Trump's third term. Well, you heard how people think Trump will get a third term, right? Yeah, so Vance will run. Trump will be his VP. Vance will then retire. Is this the most I can find for some reason? Just skip it. Let's just assume that it is amazing. Yeah. Greatest economy, win a landslide. Okay, got it. Yeah. We'll just assume it's amazing. So, yeah, the way he could do it is he would run as Vance's VP. Vance could surrender the office and he would get his third term. I don't think that's going to happen because he is aging, as we all do. He's got a critique against the man. It's just time is time and gravity is gravity. I've heard that it may not be an immediate nod to Vance, though. People's names like Rubio are pointed out there. But I do think that if it continues, this is my hypothesis, if it were to continue, the tactics of ICE continues, I think a lot of people sit more in the middle than deeply aligned with either side. I agree with that. And if those tactics continue, I do believe it will shepherd them more towards probably voting left than right. Whether even they agree with the left, the party or the ideology, they just don't want any more of the fill in the blank. Yeah. So how if those continue, how does a Republican candidate separate himself from Trump via policy and try to pull those people back towards center without being burned alive by the man himself? That is a really interesting nutcracker to be stuck in the middle of. Yeah. You see that on a micro scale in certain areas throughout the country, like Georgia, for example. Raffensperger is moving away from allowing the investigation of the ballots to take place. He has told the Georgia body politic, we're not doing this. We're not re-adjudicating the 2020 rule. It's been adjudicated. We're leaving it alone. And he has split with his own party. Now, I have no doubt that Trump will continue to lampoon and lambast Raffensperger. But to answer your question, I think it is doable, but not easily. I mean, Trump is a kingmaker. You'll be threading a needle at high speed for sure. You will be primaried out, and that is the biggest threat that he has. But all of that is contingent upon the goodwill and support of his base. And when you do shit like this Second Amendment debacle. That's what I'm saying. It starts pushing. Dude, you're driving a wedge between two groups that you had on your side, law enforcement and Second Amendment fans, and you just pitted them against one another. Why would you do that? Because you're a lame duck president? Maybe. And it's like, fuck it, what do you have to lose? Quite possibly. Instances like this are going to continue to happen. I don't know in what form, but you said it. I mean, I think this is the thing about the administration. About 80% of the policy decisions I agree with. I don't agree with how they're being implemented in each and every case, but I would say the bulk of my team's playbook, I'm like, yeah. Fiscal responsibility, immigration, strong defense. For sure. Love it. Love it. But, man, your fucking messaging sucks. And if you'd stop spiking the football every time, you'd probably get some of those people in the middle over on our side. And, hey, bro, isn't that part of your responsibility? Only if you care about beyond your term. Well, he should because there is more. There's what comes after, for sure. When did you decide to join the military in 95? Not a lot going on. I wanted to be an astronaut. And you thought the Marine Corps was going to be the route to that? Hold on. Yep. Okay. I have never heard the origin story. This is great. Okay. So never before released origin story about why I joined the Marine Corps. I wanted to be an astronaut since I was a little kid. You know how kids are. We're young. We're idealistic. We're stupid. We don't understand how to get from A to B. No, but it's like firefighter, cop, astronaut. That was me. I'm like space. I loved it. I loved the shows. I loved, like, yes. I discovered most astronauts were pilots. were the aviators from the military. Right. Military pilots. I'm like, okay, I fucking love the F-18. That is like an amazing, my dad was a pilot at the time, PPL, multi-engine. I'd been up with him. At altitude, he'd give me the controls. Like I had a rudimentary understanding of aviation. Like I can do this. How hard can it be? Truly. Michael's actually said that to me about hovering a helicopter, which we're going to do on video. Yeah, I'm actually working towards my PPL on a Robinson R-22, but that's a different story. How are you liking it so far? Not to die. Love it. I got my... Love it. I've been flying helicopters for about a year and a half now. Yes, I know. I saw the number of hours you had. I'm very jealous. Most of those are fixed wing. Okay. I did legit professional flying fixed wing. I only have a couple hundred hours of rotary. Okay. What a different experience. If fixed wing turns fuel into noise, rotary gives you freedom, and I love it. I love it. I describe it as fixed wing is you're holding a bowl, and there's a marble in the bottom, and you just keep it in the center. Yeah. Rotary wing, though, you've got to flip the bowl upside down and take the marble on top. It's 100%. It's like bouncing on a beach ball. I haven't done hover out of ground effect yet. It's all, or sorry, in. It's all out, so it's all at altitude, and I haven't rode the beach ball yet, but it's coming. Yeah. So I wanted to be a pilot. I love the F-18s. There's only two services that fly the F-18s, Navy or Marine Corps. I'm not wearing that uniform. Which one? What are you talking about? Yeah. You need 13 buttons to do when you're hammered trying to take a piss. And all white. No. All white. On ship. On ship. Do you have any? I mean, God, I don't know why we did this. We would go out in Coronado and drink Guinness in our dress whites. And sometimes you wake up in them. Yeah. And it's like this doesn't get cleaned. this gets burned. I will go to an exchange now and buy a new uniform. Who? And then when I became an officer, it's like white shoes. You assholes. I know. I scuffed this putting it on with a sock. We would ride the rails on deployment and you're like one Marine, one sailor, one Marine, one sailor. And I'm like, dude, you guys got the fucking shaft. For people listening, don't know what that means. When ships come back into San Diego, sometimes when they leave too, right? All the sailors and soldiers are out on the island. It's actually really cool to see. It's great. You know, you're standing at a tension or parade rest while the ship departs port and reenters port. There's huge crowds. There's boats out in the harbor. Everyone's taking a picture. It is the ultimate mom apple pie and baseball Americana because we are the only country that can field a maritime force the way that we do. We're the only ones. And this is, you know, somewhat nationalism. It doesn't matter. It fucking gets me. So you can be proud of the country. Love it. Love it. I actually advocate that people should be. Yes. As opposed to the other side. Like, we suck. No. We are the anchor to the world. And if you're not happy, fix it. Don't leave. That's quitting. Like, James Cameron moving to New Zealand. Like, what are you doing, dude? If you really want things to be fixed, stay and fix it. Yeah, but he also lives in the bubble of all bubbles. He does. I would imagine his net worth starts with a B. but I think your ability to warp reality begins a lot before you have a B associated with him. Like the guy doesn't live in the real world, you know. And those that have the money to live out of the United States are probably a lot of the people in that bubble, to be fair. Yeah. Like I can't afford a second home in Tuscany where I can flee when domestic issues cause me to leave my safe space. You can't now. Let's go together in a one-bedroom apartment. I'm getting chopped up. That's the only way I'm going to be able to afford something like that, too. Michael, are you in? Do you want to get one bedroom in Tuscany? Let's do it. What country is Tuscany in? Italy. Okay. Kid's only 23 years old. He's not. Does he own a passport? I've actually, yes, I have advocated. Since I think I have known you, that you get out and travel, he has done an international trip for the last two years. Okay, good. Which I'm incredibly supportive of. Outstanding. Yeah, I'll give him as much time off as he wants to go and travel the world. so once I decided I wanted to fly and I knew the service component that I wanted to fly the next step was okay you have to be an aviator you need a college graduate degree oh yeah that didn't work out very well same here yeah I tried it I didn't I didn't I didn't even take that step yeah um it was not good um yeah so I I enlisted instead and I knew once I made the decision to enlist I wanted to be a recon Marine. I mean, there was no alternative. Did you know what the astronaut thought at that point because of the pilot pipeline and you just kind of shifted laterally? I naively said I'd come back to it. I think there was a certain part of me that knew it's possible but hard. It would probably never happen. I mean, I had ideations of, okay, let's do enlisted for a while. You'll get college along the way. You can pick up a commission. Maybe this dream isn't entirely dead. And, I mean, after the first four years, I'm like, no, it's dead. This is it. This is what I'm doing. How did you – so if you were focused on aviation and the astronaut pipeline, how did you know about recon? I was, you know, enamored with the Marine Corps, tried to get my hands on all of the information that I could. And I came across this really badass photo, and it's still out there. It's a group of Marines, spy rigging. You know, hanging from the bottom of the helicopter. Special insertion and instruction. I've done it many times. Oh, yes. It's great fun for a little bit. Yeah. And then your legs start going numb. You lose feeling in your extremities. And you're like, I'm cold. This sucks. We're at 45 minutes now. I'd like to come down, please. Also, an added tip for anybody who's never spy rigged. Once the helicopter tensions the rope, if your nutsack is not clear of the harness, it will not be clear of the harness until you are set down. Yeah, the one on the left would be great, Michael. This is just a version from underneath. Yep, spy rig. Special insertion and instruction. And it's a way to get people in and out of areas that don't have a drop zone. You can even do it from the ocean. I've done many wet spies. I know you have as well. So I came across this photo of, it must have been from the early 80s. They had the old-style woodland camis, the schmear of cream on the face. Designed to only go into your office. That's right. That's right. And good luck getting it off. It doesn't come off. It wears off. I still have some in the back of the ears. And so I'm like, man, that's cool. What is that? Oh, that's recon Marines. I don't know anything about them. So I walked into the recruiter's office and said, I want that. He's like, well, you can't. That's a separate thing. You can be infantry and then you can try out for it. And my dumb ass with a very robust ASVAB was like, I want guaranteed infantry. Dude's like, you sure? I've got loads of other jobs. I couldn't even keep it together. Couldn't even keep it together. He's like, you want me to guarantee you infantry? I'll see what I can do. I'll make some calls. It's going to be touch and go. I'll get back to you. And then he has to wait for like 72 hours to pretend he didn't get instantaneous approval for that. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's how that went. I was actually enlisted as an O311, which is just your regular Marine rifle man. Yeah. And finished the school of infantry as a O311. I had taken the INDOC, which was like the pre-qualification test to see if you could even get your foot in the door. It makes sense. Passed. I'm like, okay. And that was it. Went through formal schooling. How long were you there before 9-11? I went through my recon pipeline in 96. So you had about five years of training. Yeah. I was at a conventional team for about five years as well prior to 9-11. And I look back, I'm really grateful that I got to see the pre-9-11 military. It was a different world, man. Totally different. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we would spend more time fighting each other than our enemy, because budget was the most important thing we could lose. I mean, we wouldn't screw over our own SEAL brethren. I'm not even going to share information with them, because they might get the big mish if it comes up. And just speak of the golden connex box that would open, and all the gear would be in there. It's like breaking case of war. Yeah. Like, hold on. If this has been closed for 30 years, I don't know if I want to use any of the stuff that's been in here, because I don't need a musket for going over to Afghanistan. Yeah, and then to be able to be in and then to see a little bit of the kinetic nature of it winding down, I knew what we were going back to. I think easier to tolerate the swings in the military if you had the before transition and then after because I saw a lot of people who came in with the most patriotic. I mean, they just like, they walk and it sounds like a bald eagle is, you know, behind them. Did you know, by the way, that in movies, the sound of the bald eagle is not actually what a bald eagle sounds like? It's a red-tailed hawk. Bald eagles have the most bitch-ass noise that they've ever made, so they switch it out with a red-tailed hawk. My wife dropped that bomb on me like two weeks ago. I've heard the eagles. There's some eagles at Quantico. There we nest right outside. Yeah, little bitch-ass. But I first, of course, told my wife she was a liar and didn't know what she was talking about. Instantly proven wrong by the Internet. It's not a big deal. You're one of many casualties of that, by the way. so don't feel bad. But they wanted to right the wrong. Some got the chance to, some didn't. And then as it started to slow down, man, if that's all you knew when you came in and you didn't have the experience of what the military was before, you were charging forward into this abyss of administrative and training and like, no. And then just retention. It did. And we also have, in many ways, commercialized patriotism in the United States. And once that wore off, once the nationalism, borderline jingoism of post 9-11 wore off, it was like, eh, I'm good. I'll go to college. I'm going to go work for my dad. I know a guy. There's a lot of people that I was with who hit it, I mean, right at the sweet spot. it was post 9-11, did four years, and gone before all of the bureaucracy and top layers about, you can't call an inner strike. We've got to ask 13 people in the chain of command. And by the time approval comes back in a week, I don't know if that target's still going to be there. I'm like, dude, I'm staring at it right now. I need cleared hot right now. Yeah, also getting shot at right now. Yeah. If you could wake up whoever's going to make this call. Yeah. There's a lot of people who hit that sweet spot, got out, and were like, I did it clean. And good on you. I, you, had a robust amount of time before, so when things changed, I'm like, I've been here before. Yeah, I've seen the movie. I know what this feels like. Yeah. Yeah. GWAT money, gone. And we have a budget again. Okay, cool. I'm keeping the Oakleys, though. Those are mine. That's my part of the Oakleys with an S on the end. Plural. that 3D issued me in the 70s. I didn't know that you issued me. Yeah, yeah. No doubt. It was ridiculous. Like, we got, there was so much crap flowing in because the acquisitions model was thrown out the window. It was just, oh, I've got a $17 million budget. Let me point and click with my mouse and order shit as fast as industry can. Like, the entire Blackhawk catalog just shows up, and you're like, I could keep this? whereas before I had to sign for it and turn it back in after I was done using it. I was a supply rep on the East Coast for a bit, and September was an interesting month because the main supply guy would be like, listen, you have $300,000 and a few hours to spend this. Like, I do need to order 2,000 pair of size 10 boots. Perfect. Hey, everybody, if you wear a size 10, come get it. And if not, you know, find something that does. It was insane. Because what's the biggest fear in the military? If you don't spend your budget to the penny, you're not going to get it again. And we wonder how the Department of Defense has never passed an audit. There is, there are, so I spent the twilight of my career in the Marine Corps in an acquisitions command. And I saw and was trained to be that person. And it's fascinating in so many ways how we end up with what we end up. I think there's a lot of things that we do right. And, oh, my God, there's so many that we do wrong. But I'm not the first person. I didn't come in and invent fire. I mean, I'm not the only one that sees this. I just think that if we could fix it before things get – if we can fix our issues before that delta between us and some of our near-peer adversaries closes, i.e., China, we'll be all right. If not, as I circle back to 27, it's going to be real interesting. Yeah. How was, I know you were involved in the initial invasion of Iraq. For people who may not know, you are one of the characters kind of memorialized in the Generation Kill series, which I thought was a documentary, by the way. I was going to go watch it, and I found it was fictional. I'm like, I'm not watching this trash. It was a book first. It was a magazine series first. Really? Yeah. The way it worked is Evan Wright was a print publicator, a journalist. So little known fact, in the entire invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were only two print journalists in that entire theater. I did not know that. I would have thought there were more, but maybe there were video. All news, all video, all television, et cetera, et cetera. There was only two print. Evan was one of them, and I can't remember the other one. I knew it somewhere, but it's gone in my brain. He wrote three. It was only supposed to be one article for Rolling Stones. He was freelance, so he wasn't full-time. The editor said, I love this. Let's do three. So three. Evan later took all of his additional notes and wrote a book. And then the book was optioned by HBO. Michael Simon was the producer. He did The Wire, a couple of other shows people have heard of. And they made it into a seven-part, seven-eight. I think it's seven parts of that miniseries on HBO. Yeah, you can find it a little bit on YouTube as well, but yeah, HBO is where it was pushing me towards. Was he just in the mix of it with you guys? Yeah. Where did you guys start the war from? Kuwait. Okay, we were in Saudi Arabia. Okay. Camp Matilda, Kuwait. We were in RR, I think, Camp No Name, because it just didn't have one. Okay. A-R-A-R. Did you guys, I'm assuming, push in, pedal to the metal, and just head north? Right over the berm. Yep. They'd already done all of the engineers had already done the breaching, preparatory fires, and away we went. Tip of the spear, as it were. It was great fun. It really was. It was the single most surreal moment in my life in so many ways, and also the most boring. Yeah, our experience, we were there for about 90 days before the tag guys came and surged us out of there. We were busy, but it wasn't what people probably think. It wasn't running and gunning and gunfights in the streets of Baghdad. I mean, our military moved at such a velocity, and any enemy with any level of intelligence is going to take a beat and try to figure out what the hell is going on. Right. Because if you stood and tried to trade gunfire, like, you're done. Yeah. I have watched somebody shoot an AK-47 at a Predator once. That particular species of human being doesn't really last long. No. in those engagements. And people learn. And I mean, I would say Iraq really picked up six, seven, and eight were probably the most connective years, depending on where you are. But it definitely, it ramped, which makes sense. On their heels, trying to figure out what was going on, probe a little bit, teach a little bit, learn a little bit, and then come back, especially with the support allegedly flowing through Syria. You know what I mean? Some other countries that may or may not neighbor Iraq. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And then seeing kind of wild with seeing the tactics shift back and forth. A lot of the catch and release. Yeah, there was, it was an interesting time. I mean, the 2003, 2004 was, well, three at the very least. Fallujah 04, slightly different story, but it was locked on. There was no man, woman, or child who would stand against a U.S. anybody, regardless of service, during that 03 invasion. I mean, we moved, to your point, lightning fast, outstripped our supply lines. We moved so fast that General Mattis had to tell the division, you've got to stop. You've got to stop and let the logistics train catch up. I mean, has he never met Marines? Do you guys recognize that word? Like, maybe at best. Whoa, slow down there, horsey. Telling a Marine to stop? Somebody report back on how that goes. It was, yeah, we had to do this operational pause to let everything catch up. We moved that fast. I mean, we overthrew a country in a matter of weeks. I mean, what the? I mean, it was a galactic technological overmatch as well, too, and just superior in numbers, you know what I mean, like hardware, all of that stuff. I mean, it put the shock and shock and awe. It worked, and it worked magnificently. And then we fumbled it, 0-4, 0-5, 0-6. I went again in 0-7, and it was a very different conflict. and I just don't think we knew enough about being an occupying force, nation building. We made so many mistakes. We won the war. We lost the peace. I get it. It's a catchphrase, but there's a granular truth in there. Yeah. I don't think institutionally as a country and as a military, we understood how to nation build. We've never done it very well. I mean, it took a generation of us in Korea, in Okinawa, in Germany. Which, by the way, all three of those you mentioned still have a military presence. They do. Is that how long we are going to be committed to doing this? Because I don't know you can unless you commit to. You have to. What are we talking about in Korea at this point? 50 plus years? I mean, that's what it takes. Yeah. That's what it would have taken in Afghanistan, but we didn't. which is wild because we achieved almost every tactical goal that we wanted to within 90 days and then stayed for 20 years and got our ass handed to us on the way out. We did. All it would have taken is a couple of thousand troops at that airbase, and we would have been, you think, Bagram, maybe a small one up at the presidential one in Kabul as well, and you could just strike force out of there. That's it. That's it. And you rotate it. It's part of your deployment cycle. A lot of Army, maybe a little bit of Marines, but mostly Army and Air Force, and that's it. You just rotate them through. It's part of their deployment, and they go home, and they have their dwell time, and then your replacement's going. It worked, and that's all it would have taken. There's a lot of tacticians and theorists and people a lot smarter than me that says on a psychological level, that would have been enough. 3,000 troops, but no, we capitulated because we wanted to tie it up in a neat little bow. Oh, 20 years, and then we're gone. We don't, to your point, we don't know. The military is not tools for nation building. We're not. We don't know how to put a bow on that. Yep. And again, you want to go back to the modern day ICE being expected to do things that they're not trained and equipped to do. Yeah. That was our seven-person dog pile. Yes, 100%. There are other government agencies who are better suited to do the peacekeeping. Our job should have been to provide them security to allow them to do it. Even better, let the Afghans do it themselves with a touch of mentorship and then just keep the bad guys at bay. Even if they fuck it up, it doesn't matter. It's their country. Go ahead and fuck it up. I don't care. Just don't shoot at me. I can get behind that. Yeah, that's a good starting point at the very least. We have, Americans have, at least on a government level and an institutional level, such hubris when it comes to things like this. the Iraqis were perfectly capable of governing themselves you fucked up because you disarmed the entire Iraqi military forcing them to find a job which just so happened to be I'll become a jihadist and I will take this uniform off I'll put on another one you pay me 50 bucks and I'll shoot at those guys in that fob over there sure, just no problem you made adversaries out of tens of thousands of Iraqis it didn't need to be adversaries How was it happening in a journalist embedded with you guys? They kept journalists. At that time, I was at the JSAW command, so they kept journalists pretty far away from us. I understand. Yeah. Very. Once I got over my initial aversion to it, it was okay. I didn't want Evan there. I didn't want a journalist in there. And not because he was a journalist. In and of itself, I didn't have a huge heartache with that. I didn't want another individual that I had to be responsible for. Yeah, another head count. Yeah. So what do I have to do? Do I have to make sure that he is safe? Is he going to have a weapon? Does he know how to use the weapon? Who's in charge of his NBC gear? Because, you know, we all went in and mop level four. We all know how exciting that is. Sometimes I still put it on just for shits and gigs. What you do in your bedroom is up to you, okay? I don't need to know. I don't have to get the mail in it. Oh, okay. The neighbors love that. That's another thing I want to do with Michael is get some mop level four and just, we'll do some burpees. Or just walk. Actually, just put it all on. Honestly, you don't have to do anything. Just stand there, okay? Get it all on appropriately. Just stand there. And like, there you are, Camp Matilda. Quick digression. It's 100 plus. You're in the desert, and you're wearing a charcoal thick carpet. Infused multiple layers. Oh, yeah. And of course, the only thing you have under that is a pair of UDT shorts or silkies and a t-shirt. And so you sweat, and it soaks in, and all that charcoal just starts coating every inch of your skin. And the sweat pools. It pools into the bottom of those rubber boots. Yeah. Hit that third one. That's it? Yeah. It's about the most horrifying way that you can live. It looks like a regular uniform, Michael, but it is not. No. Those boots are rubber. They're like Wellingtons or Wellies or Galoshes. The gloves are the thickest dish pan hand gloves you can wear. And that top and bottom, it's just a charcoal. It's thick. It's thick. It's not light. It doesn't breathe. It's not supposed to. Not only is it an evolution to get that on, but if you were ever exposed, the evolution of safely deconning or deconditioning from that, oh my goodness. We only trained it. I might have just saved a round for myself if we ever had to do that for real. I was so, so, so glad when the all clear, you know, theater wide came. Okay, we're out of the mock here. It's like, oh, fucking thank you. I'm not going to lie. I took mine off a long time before. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. One time and realized this is, no, absolutely not. I, you know, they were expecting so many more casualties. I mean, they had body bags. They had tens of thousands of body bags that stacked up because they expected Saddam to immediately chemically attack us. Immediately. And we rolled in ready to go. Mop level four. All that was waiting was just to pull the gas mask out of the pouch and put it on. So, you know, Evan came with all this equipment. He didn't have a weapon. And I was really like, you know, I don't want him in my vehicle. I don't want him. I don't want to be responsible for this guy. But, you know, he kind of warmed up. He was funny, but he was also very quiet, very stoic. He was not gregarious. He just kind of watched. Big dude. He was like 6'5", 6'6", tall. Damn. Was he in a Humvee? Yeah. Oh, yeah. With a helmet on. Get some. True story. But most of the time he was quiet. He wrote, he looked, observed everything. And very early on I had to make a decision as a leader. Do I spend the next four months editing everything that comes out of my mouth and everything that comes out of my Marines' mouths? Or do I ignore him, march forward, and just let the chips fall where they may? You've got to go with the latter. And that's what I did. Yeah. Took a lot of heat for that. That was, that came full circle. I was hard enough, though, without trying to filter for a journalist's ears. I wasn't going to do it. Yeah. I, if it was just me, Brad, okay, fine. That would be easy enough. Easy enough. You're in a leadership role and you have to think about, you intuitively know what you need to do from the training, but then you have to figure out a way to phrase it. So it'd be like, that is, no. Nope. You're adding time in an environment where time might not be available. It might cost lives. Yeah. The decisions that the Marines made, I wanted them to be unfettered. So I pulled the team together outside of the earshot of Evan and told them, this guy is with us. I don't know how long, but he will be coming with us. I don't want you to act differently. I don't want you to treat differently. If he takes a round, all of the training that you've been taught goes into effect. You, you know, tactical, you treat the threat. If he hasn't put a tourniquet on, we'll get to him. All the normal shit, nothing changes. And I made that very, very clear. And I said, I will be the one to take the blame for anything that you guys do. So, yeah, that was the rule, and that's what we did. And that's how it went for months with him in the vehicle. How did he randomly get a sign of you guys? Just dumb luck. I happened to have, there was a man, this is so stupid. this is why I think that my life is just a series of coincidences we had to have that conclusion about my whole life there's there's no grand design it's just like one happy circumstance after the next for some reason we needed a minimum number of vehicles per platoon and it just so happened that my six-man reconnaissance team ended up with two Humvees, whereas ordinarily you would only get one. So we had an empty seat. We were the only group that had an empty seat. And when the battalion commander was told by whomever up in the division headquarters, like you're getting a reporter, he looked at all of the platoons and said, Colbert, me, mature, I trust him, he's going to go with this guy. And I just so happened to have an empty seat in the vehicle. That's how it happened. How accurate would you say the book was and then follow on obviously the series beyond that? I think the book is the way I always describe it is it's about a 90, 95% solution. He changed some things, but not maliciously. It's more like omission. Like, no, that's happy, not glad. But yeah, for the most part, get the point across. Good job. Bravo. The series is probably an 80% solution. For those that liked this show, great. Congratulations. Read the book. There were supposed to be eight episodes, but for whatever reason, it was dropped to seven. And in doing so, certain things were cut and pasted. Yeah, they happened, but they didn't happen in that way. Or that's, He wasn't the one that said that. This other guy said it. Only six of you would know that. It's true. Yeah. I get it, though. But to those six people, it matters deeply. Yeah. Have you stayed in contact with him at all? I would love to, but he is not with us anymore. How did he die? Suicide. Oh, boy. Yeah. What year? Last year. Did he cover war for the remainder of his career? He covered American pop culture. wrote another book, was not nearly as popular as Generation Kill, but it did get an audience. And he continued to write prolifically for magazines and other, did a lot of freelance work. He was recently married and recently had a child. And it was a very difficult delivery. There were a lot of complications. And he was very happy with the marriage, very happy with the birth, very happy with his life. So I thought. The thing about suicide, and I know you know this, those that actually take their lives, they don't advertise it. There's no foreshadowing. If you're genuinely suicidal, there's no suicidal ideations I'm thinking about. It's more just, that's it. I saw him on a Monday and Tuesday he's dead. It happens that fast, and that's how it happened with Evan. We had been communicating. We made plans for him to come out to Georgia to catch up because it had been a number of years that we'd seen one another. And, you know, shame on me because I wasn't even the one that was directly called. It's not like his missus or anybody in his circle called me. I heard about it from one of the other Marines that was with me at that time. He said, hey, did you hear about Evan? He killed himself, shot himself on his couch in the house while his wife and children were in the other room. and uh i was like i yeah do you leave a note not that i'm aware of if he did i never saw it i never heard about it i always ask that just because i have now unfortunately a large number of friends who made that decision and not that if they for the ones who have left i'll call it their semblance of final thoughts, it's not that it answers the questions, but at least, because if I'm assuming like me when you hear this one of the first things you ask yourself is why It doesn answer the why but I guess it paints a little bit of I like the same picture of a road that maybe you could see they were heading down, a little bit of where their brain was or their thought process was in that moment. It doesn't answer the why. Yeah. I mean, I guess it doesn't necessarily give closure, but it helps me to the ability that I can understand an irrational choice becoming the rational conclusion. It helps me a little bit, I guess, understand it. And then for those who leave nothing behind, you don't even know what road they were on. I've lost three people recently all through suicide, not even counting Evan. People that I've either worked with post-Marine Corps or, in one case, somebody who I've deployed with on several occasions and has known since 99. There has been individuals that I have spoken with when we talk about veterans and their disproportionate rate of suicide who have argued with me that it is not disproportionate. I disagree. I disagree. You know, statistics are a bitch. You can interpret them any way you want. I'm telling you, I have a large circle of friends, and the only ones that have taken their life, with the exception of Evan, have all been military. I don't know if that's a coincidence or not. You know, it's interesting. I've never thought about it through that lens. Do you know any civilians, non-military, non-veterans, that have committed suicide? I don't think I do. I only know Evan. Evan went to war with me, so I consider him a vet. When I was growing up in Santa Cruz, I remember talking like middle school, a kid hung himself, but I didn't know him know him. Outside of that in my adult life, I don't think I do. I don't. I've never thought about it through that lens. So I've argued this point, and I don't mean argue contentiously. Argue, it's a debate. I take this stance, you take that, let's talk. What a horrible thing to debate. I know, right? But, yeah, I think that there is a disproportionately high number of veterans that take their lives when compared to non-vets. And when you look at the number, it's only like 0.1% of American society that ever wear the uniform anyways. It was higher in the 40s. It's like... 6% was the peak. But also there was a draft associated with that and the oon and the deuce, as I like to call it. True story. Yeah. So of that, if there is a higher rate of suicide in that 0.1% of people who are veterans, how can you not say that we have a problem with veteran suicides? I think we do. I think we do. God, I wonder how much of that. You know, I've talked with some psychologists and psychiatrists about how trauma can impact people differently. And a lot of times I'll talk about it through the lens of the locus of control, which is something I've talked about on the show before. And maybe you've heard this, but depending on where that locus of control sits and in the world where I came from, the vast majority of time that I was exposed to violence was at a time and place of my choosing. You look at somebody who is riding along in a vehicle, and they are a reporter, and they have no ability to decide about the violence nor participate in it. So the locust rides anywhere but with them. In my understanding of what they were saying to me, that can have substantially greater impact. Not as a rule, but often it can have greater impact because it's that level of uncertainty and lack of control. Not that you don't have to deal with the consequences in emotional baggage that can come with just being exposed to violence in general, which I advocate all the time for people to work their way through and maybe check under the hood before the engine light comes on as a shocking principle. You don't have to wait for the tires to come off to reinflate them. Yeah. But it's, that action leaves nothing but questions. So many. And sorrow, too, and disruption and damage. Like outside of just the detritus of life that is left behind for everybody who's still alive. But it's a void that is filled with only questions and no answers. And I hate to dogpile on the trauma after somebody has taken their life and the impacts it has to your immediate circle. But Jesus, what a selfish act. It's so selfish. You're right. You found peace. Congratulations. You have fucked everybody else, your friends, your family, dependents, right? I think those are the last people that they're thinking about. Totally noted. Granted. Granted. But there are so many steps along the way to arrive at that conclusion where you could off-ramp. And I think that's part and parcel of why I am such an advocate for veterans' health. Fuck. I'm an advocate for health, period. Mental health should not have a stigma associated to it. I love your metaphor, by the way. Check under the hood before the engine light comes on. I will steal that. That is now mine. I am relatively sure that I stole it from somebody else. Okay. So feel free. Yeah, that's great. But quite frankly, I have kinship and brethren with veterans, so I tend to focus on that. There are plenty of spillover. So I think that finding off-ramps before that happens, it's crucial. And going back to my earlier point, a lot of veterans, they don't foreshadow. They're not going to have ideations. Hey, I'm fucking having a miserable life. It requires us. Okay, so you were a diver. I know this. Unwittingly and not the most fun I've ever had. As was I. Let me clarify. Because people think that I was diving on coral reefs. No. So my wife and middle son wanted to learn how to scuba dive. So we have a close personal friend who's a scuba instructor. There's the pool here where they can do their initial work. We went and did a trip to Hawaii where they did their certification dives. Been there, dove it. And my son is just like, Dad, this is awesome. Is this what you were doing in the Navy? I'm like, dude, I can count the number of times that I dove when the sun was up on one hand. No, this is not what it was like in the Navy. No. No. So, yes, I was a forced participant diver and saw the attack board that was eight inches in front of my face or the elbow of my buddy that I was holding on next to as we were doing a combat swimmer dive. Yeah, that's it. Tied together with a piece of 550 with green chem lights leaving a trail of bioluminescent along the way. if I could drop acid, I imagine that's what it would have been like. Did you ever unhook the buddy line and just see how far away you could get from him without losing eyesight? Oh, yeah. I'm not saying I did, but I mean, it's something you can do today. Where he's giving the underwater signals and he's not getting one back. Don't worry, dude. I'm still with you in spirit. Dive soup. Dive soup. Yep. One of the dive brief, you know, when you're giving your dive brief to the dive teams, It was take a mental note of how you feel. If you feel different post-dive, let someone know. Brother, that is a metaphor for all of the veterans. You need to understand what your teammate is feeling. So if you see a difference, if you see something that's different, behavioral changes, anything, hey, man, what's going on? Understand that I'm here. Insert yourself any way you want. Do something. don't let him put a bullet in his brain and let your ghost say if only i had tried harder i don't know about your experiences but the vast majority of my friends who killed himself also it was combined with alcohol it was in two of the instances that i know for certain it's very i'm not going to say it's causal but it seems to have a very it's exacerbating no doubt yeah and that has to be addressed as well too. Self-medication, it's one of the reasons why so many veterans have issues. They're either abusing prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, or alcohol. They're easy vectors. And they make you feel good. And it's very... They make some people feel good. Well, I mean, it is a central nervous system depressant. And I feel like... I casually have drank the vast majority of my life. Now at this point, getting closer to 50 than 40. I'll have a glass of wine with my wife every once in a while. I just like waking up feeling fresh. I like training jujitsu and feeling like I can accomplish stuff. So, yeah, I get the social lubricant aspect of it and the social nature. The people that I'm thinking of, it was well beyond that. Yeah. One of them specifically, and this was an example of somebody who had left some things behind, And I had no idea the struggles. Stealing alcohol from hotel bars, stealing alcohol from, you know, sometimes people at military installations will have booze. Like, whoa, dude. Yeah. Like that's not social lubrication. That is legitimately psychological and physiological addiction. That's self-destruction. And that's, yeah. And it results usually in a poor ending of some type. incarceration, a car accident, disability, or suicide. And, yeah, so I kind of tend to adopt that diving metaphor towards your circle. So if you are, you know, if you have comrades, veterans, friends that you served with, you know, just do check in. And I wish, even today, I wish I had checked in with Evan Moore. Would it have made a difference? I don't know. You'd feel better, you know. Maybe selfishly I would feel better. Would it have impacted anything one way or another? I don't know. I never will. But I wish I had done more. And that's a shitty feeling. I agree. Yeah. So I do think it's a problem. And it's something that I'm passionate about. Why did you decide to get out? I never wanted to do a day over 20. 20 in the wake up. Yep. That was always my mantra. there are so many benefits to staying in past your minimum. So I was at 14 years and that's really, for those of you that don't know, that's the fork in the road. Once you hit 14, you are either going to get out because you're young enough, economically viable enough to find another career path or dude, you're in it for the long haul. And I was right at that precipice and I had a re-enlistment that just so happens to coincide with 14 years. and I agonized because I had had I had always said to myself I'm going to do this as long as I'm having fun and man did I have fun and then I didn't I had an officer who was a complete bag of shit and one of the worst people I had ever worked for or with like a Mustang prior enlisted you think that he would be better he was not he was worse today's episode is brought to you by david the industry leader in protein bars there's two different type of bars i'm going to talk about today first there is the gold which is actually in this gold wrapping i have these in the studio these are my go-to right after jiu-jitsu in between episodes or just when i want to get a high protein snack 28 grams of protein 150 calories zero grams of sugar so that equates to a 75 percent calorie from protein the highest protein the calorie ratio of any leading bar on the market. 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Isn't it fascinating how one person's influence could get you to consider hocking 14 years worth of experience? At that point, you are closer to retirement than you are, you know what I mean, the amount of time you put in. Yeah. One person. That is the impact that leadership can have, both good and bad. I mean, a great leader, you would have been like, I am doing this until you kick me out in a wheelchair. Yes. A bad leader, I am going to go ahead and bin 14 years of experience and being closer to a pension and medical retirement or medical benefits for the remainder of my life because you are such a horrible person. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And you've seen it. Oh, I have lived it. I have seen it. Hopefully I haven't bin that guy to other people. Yeah. I hope for the same. I'd like to think that I wasn't. I definitely was not prepared for how impactful poor leadership can truly be. Thank God that that individual was not in charge in 2003 when we were going over the line of departure. Yeah. So you did 21. What were you going to do when you got out? Kind of grandiose plans. I honestly didn't have any plans whatsoever. Strong. Strong work. Yeah. Yeah. Way to really forecast on the horizon. I like to really plan things out. It's all in the details, man. It's in the details. I had a friend, a very good friend of mine, who was in the platoon in 2003, and I'd actually been in Afghanistan in 2001 as well. He was working in a government job, and he's like, Hey, what are you doing? I'm working. I'm a Marine still. I know that you ask. What are you doing after this? I said, I really haven't thought about it. He's like, well, I'm doing a thing. You want to do this thing? And it was strictly word of mouth. There was no resume. There was no website I could go to. He's like, I'll put in a word for you. I said, okay. And he did. And I did. And that was it. And my departure from the Marine Corps was somewhat, I don't want to say contentious, not on my part. I've told this story privately. I've never told this story publicly. I ended my career at headquarters and Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, which if you don't know, it's Marine Corps headquarters, not the Pentagon. There's offices there, but it's Quantico. And I was working in an acquisitions command, and I was doing fun things. I truly was. Like we were testing new parachute techniques. I was testing underwater propulsion systems. Yes. I was going out to industry. I was trying to procure things for the warfighter. Like, it was pretty cool, but there was also a lot of fucking bullshit. There was a lot. The way that the command structure, there was an 06, a colonel, who was overall in charge. Did I say that right? 05? Holy cow. How many years have I been out? I can only tell you what an 05 or 06 is in the Navy. Captain? 05? Let me see here. 03 was lieutenant. 04 would be lieutenant commander. 05 would be commander. 06 would be captain. Okay, so I was right. 06, Colonel. I am embarrassed that I did not immediately recall that, but let's leave that one alone. Why would you be embarrassed about that? We forget the most painful parts of our life. That's true. That's how we can survive and continue on to see another day. So I had secured this job. I had to get out. Getting out required asking permission from the Marine Corps to leave early. only in the sense I was eligible to retire, but they want you to give a six-month notification. I was giving three. Is it required or do they want you to? No, it's required. Okay. Marine Corps is sickler for a lot of rules. I've heard. Yeah. I had to get permission to leave three months early, and permission was granted. Great, no problem. One of the individuals who had to sign that permission slip was this 06, and he was a nice enough fellow. I didn't have anything contentious with him. And we'd argued a bit just because I thought one way as an E8. And he thought, it's no big deal, right? We're men. We discussed it. He said, so let's talk about your retirement ceremony. I said, there's nothing to talk about. I'm not having one. I don't know how it was for you, but for me, I could not remember the number of times I had to put on some kind of uniform, stand in a box and watch somebody I barely knew wax philosophical about his time in the military. Like, I don't fucking care, dude. My retirement ceremony was going to Naval Air Station North Island and picking up my DD-214 and leaving. Bro, that's the way to do it? That's how I want to do it. I thought it was an inspirational ceremony. I said a few words on my behalf. You just failed. Oh, man. Okay. I think I high-fived the civilian there when I bottom-lined my DD-214. He's like, have a good one. I was like, you know what? You too. That's how I closed out my retirement ceremony. You are my kindred spirit. because I did the same thing. I said to myself, you know, I came in anonymously. I'm going to leave anonymously. And I had this conversation with this colonel. He was like, it's not about you. It's about the Marines. We need to show them that, you know, service is rewarded and it shows. And he went on and he talked for about 20 minutes. And I didn't really care what he had to say. Well, he also is forgetting what it feels like to be the person forced to watch that. There is nothing inspirational or learned when you are forced to, like you said, go to a ceremony of somebody that you don't know. Especially earlier in your career, you're three years in. The idea of being the person in that ceremony is not even something you can comprehend. No. You are there checked out probably in this modern era on your phone depending on whether or not you can have devices with you just scrolling. It's like Michael. He goes to weddings that his brother is emceeing, and I have pictures of him playing like a gem game, which he denies to this day. I have photos. I fully accept that that happens. He denied it. I like the honesty. That's exactly what happens to the people who are forced to go there, and they're going to force enough people to fill the seats whether they know you or not. And it's always at the behest of the retiree to design their formations. Like, I want the troops wearing battle gear. or I want them in class A's, or I want them in this, and I want my wife, and a bouquet of flowers. And so we argued. And I knew that I was having a one-sided argument, so I acquiesced. I said, okay. He said, let's bring the people in the office into my office. I said, do you have a wife? I said, no, I don't have a wife. I got nobody. And I'm like, can we just, where's the point, and how do I get to it? So he wanted to bring everybody into his office. He would read my citation, and then that would be the end of it. So this was about him. Possibly. He was still convinced, like, we need to recognize your service. Other people need to be witness to said recognition. It needs to be in this way. And in his mind, that's probably how it was done. It wasn't that way in mind. So I said just to get out of the office, got it. You got it. Yes, sir. We'll do that. A couple of days went by. It was getting close. I put on my dress uniform, what we call our alphas, class A, green jacket, green pants. Every redesigned one? I didn't think the Marine Corps did a redesigned one. They actually might have gone back to the historical one. I remember the working uniform you guys are talking about. Very sharp. Okay. Not the camis. It was all straight, like, O.D. green. Yep. O.D. green. That's what I wore. Potentially it had a jacket, too. Yep. Jacket, tie, very slick uniform. It's what we graduated boot camp in. It is what you are supposed to check in and out of a unit with. Makes sense. I'm a stickler for protocol. I like protocol. I think that when it comes to things like that, it is part and parcel of being in a regimented unit. So for me, my ethos, I put on my office. I went into work. I went down to the S1, which is the administrative office for those of us that don't know. And I asked the E3 behind the counter, I need all my retirement documents. I've got to go give them to the colonel. You know, there's a letter from the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps thanking you for your 20 years of service. The commandant, you get a letter from the president as well. Auto Pen, by the way, I don't know if you know that. I like to imagine he's up there just John Hancocking stuff in his off time. Yeah. So I grabbed this stack of red binders, got into my car, drove over to the larger S1, got my DD-214, and I drove out the gate. That's what I'm talking about. And that was the end. Postscript, in civilian clothes, I went back to the unit to talk to a friend who should come walking across the parking lot but the colonel. And he was pretty good-natured about it. He's like, ah, you got me, you son of a bitch. You got me. You knew you were going to do that. I'm like, I told you I didn't want a ceremony. I didn't want it. Yeah. I wanted to go out of the Marine Corps the same way that I came in. Anonymously, quietly, the machine's going to grind on. It doesn't need me. I just didn't want to waste anybody else's time. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And that was it. That's how I bookended that. I left the Marine Corps on a Friday. Saturday, I started my new job. What were you doing in your new job? Just where you were working for an alphabet soup organization? Yeah, I deployed. I was deploying for a government organization overseas. and it was fun. I liked it. And then I later did training and education for the same organization domestically and I liked it and it was fun. How'd you decide to leave there? I had a very robust personality conflict with someone. We talk about poor leaders. This was the coup de grace. This was the absolute pinnacle. This was the worst human being that I had ever seen have implicit authority over others' careers and futures. Like you are the devil incarnate. Isn't it funny how they find their way into these positions? Shit floats. As if in the first, I mean, people can hide things for sure, right? Like we all have a different degree of being able to wear a mask if you want to. I decided years ago that my life is easier just by being myself. And shockingly enough, by telling the truth and keeping your life simple, you don't have to remember who you lied to. It may make your life less sexy and flashy, and you may be less of a conversation piece, which is what I am absolutely aspiring to be in social situations. I'll be in the closet hiding. But you have character ethics, and that's a rare trait. Well, my favorite move is as soon as we get somewhere, I ask my wife, hey, is it time to go? She really enjoys it. Small victories. I love it. Yeah. I'll win the war at some point. I'm losing most of the battles, but I think I'll win the war. But, you know, I had a horrible, horrible leader I ended up working for as well, too. And I had a very large hand in having him removed from the battlefield. Because the people that I worked for, I had vastly more experience than this individual when we deployed. And I was able to talk to the people who basically go around him. And in going around him, all I did was reconfirm the information that had been given to them before the deployment. And they had to then make a decision, which was way harder to deal with the longer that that tick is allowed to fester. Bad news is not age. This individual was identified as what I will call a ferocious douchebag years before. But yet the can get kick-off down the road. Yeah. Yeah, and that's, I mean, I have seen it, you know, you go back to the influence that a horrible leader can have. If amazing people get out because of that in this rock-paper-rank organization where if you still have a heartbeat and an XY graph on an Excel spreadsheet you've been in a certain amount of time, like, all this, you know, you end up actually relatively senior. True. while the good dudes that you pushed out, dudes and gals that you pushed out, have gone on. And they are the ones in a perfect world who would fill that seat. But your influence was so negative and permeating that it forced them away. And the point of all that is the turd was floating in the bowl for a long time in plain sight. How do they get to these positions? It's an abdication of responsibility, I think, in so many ways. In conflict avoidance, I figured as well. Some people, they're like, I'm not afraid of anything. I'm like, okay, I need you to go have a hard conversation with this guy. I didn't say I was going to do that. Isn't it funny, though, how, you know, I've spent the bulk of the last 10 years working with all type A personality, former SF. I mean, name the unit. They have now found their way into this collective. And it's amazing how a bunch of absolute pipe hitters can be the most fragile prima donnas in the fucking world. Like, dude, candor over charisma. I want you to be honest. If I have a fault, a character flaw, something that I really stepped in, for God's sakes, just say it. I'll be better. The unit will be better. The mission will be better. I don't know when we turned away from having honest conversations. And you don't have to annihilate the other person. But why is it so hard to take, hey, man, I need you to come in my office. Look, I asked you to do this. I'm really unhappy with the way that it was done. unpack it any way you want. No, I don't want to do that. I might hurt his feelings. He won't drink with me later. Like, dude, what are you doing? This is the world's smallest violin playing for that person who says they don't want to have. And honestly, if you told me that I fucked up and I stepped in it or I need a rudder correction, I'm going to respect you a whole lot more. Maybe not in the moment, but we're going to get there. We're going to get there. Our relationship might actually end up being stronger in the long run. I have to go be my prima donna self for a little bit and probably gel my hair back a touch and talk in the mirror about how awesome I am and how much you suck. But if you have any level of intelligence and objectivity and self-awareness, which I would like to think that these pipelines select for, you're going to get there. I think so, too. But this individual was not a member of that aforementioned group or pipeline. Yeah. Just say bureaucrat, it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe because he was never picked for kickball, but hated those of us that were. And yeah, he came to a colossal head. And I am one of these individuals, and I always have been. It has gotten me into some heated discussions, but it's a virtue. I will tell you, if you have no clothes, I am not going to lie. It's, again, why I will never be in this administration's cabinet. Well, delivery also matters in that. You can be professional. Like you said, you don't have to. There is a time and place to annihilate somebody. If the bullets are flying, you don't have time for the night series. Yeah. Most of the time, if you can have some tact, you can deliver horrendous news to somebody in a way where it doesn't kill them by a death of a thousand paper cuts. Every time that I have, and I have had a few times in my life where I just let it fly, the consequences were all negative on my side of the table, and especially in a rock-paper-rank organization. 100%. Yeah, you have to play chess, not checkers when it comes to that stuff. Yeah. So I feel, forensically looking back, that I probably spoke the truth more than he wanted to hear. Dang it, I was going to play the pronoun game and say they, so I could obfuscate the individual in question, but there's no guarantee that it was a he given the pronoun game. Thank you. That's incredibly rude for you to assume. Did you ever ask? You're right. You are a piece of shit. I am. See, that's not a good way to give feedback. I was just trying to give an example of how that's too much. Good role play. And we didn't even script it. Well done. Yeah. So this individual... There are better ways to do that. You can just say, man, you know, you've got to think about things. Yeah, you do. The world is changing. But it's okay because we all make mistakes, and I've made that mistake myself. Let's just not repeat it again. That would be a better way to softly land that. Is that as much fun? No. No. Yeah, so I left. And not 100%. I'm not 100% divested, but not there and not that. Yeah. And, you know, in so many ways, it's been positive because one of the things that has been keeping me from doing Carry On has been that. Because there's such a layer of scrutiny about, well, you know, you can't go on media and talk because of what you're doing and who you're doing it for. So now that I have none of those restrictions, I can sit down with you, have a conversation, and be honest. And also, you're intelligent enough to respect the boundaries. Yes. Like, I have been able to have very deep level of conversations with people from my old career, and we have not ever a single time discussed or revealed a TTP. I mean, I'll talk about Battle Drill 1 Alpha and what that means, right? Yeah. Basic fire and maneuver. Am I going to create a template and teach people how to do that in a complicated way? We're going to lose to China because of that, by the way. Congratulations. Congratulations. They have no NCO Corps. Did you know that they need one? Because I'm sure they have all of our manuals. They do. They 100% have every manual that is. They do. Well, and I know that because it's on the Internet. It is. They are actively trying to recruit an NCO Corps, having identified that as one of the major shortfalls in their NCO Corps, or are they trying to recruit people in ours? No, they have no NCO Corps. Interesting. They have conscripts and leaders, essentially. There's no middle class. There's no middle class when it comes to Chinese military, and it's one of the reasons why we, as a United States military and some of our Western allies, are so wildly successful because we decentralized command and control to our NCO corps. The E-5 mafia is largely responsible for the wheels turning. Totally. It's this message to Garcia. Just give me commander's intent. I'll get us there. Russia military doesn't have it. PLA doesn't have it. And they know that. looking towards a 27 conflict with the United States. They're trying to recruit an NCO Corps. I'm like, dude, you can't recruit an NCO Corps. You grow it. And it takes years to grow. So good luck with that. How much of the Russian military do you think is left? I'm hearing stories of, hey, let's clear out prisons. They are clearing out prisons. They're clearing out mental institutions, people with mental deficiencies. We'll just give you a Kalashnikov and head up to the front line. I don't know whether or not those particular people have firing pins, but whatever. You know, I don't think they give a shit. In fact, I know they don't give a shit. It would seem to be the way. They're winning. They're winning a war of attrition. I think Ukraine has done tremendously with limited supplies, limited Western military hardware. Getting better, right? But at least in 2022, they got next to nothing. But there's a clock on this. there's only so many ukrainians left and they are really tired how could you not be yeah yeah can you imagine you know i think about that and the type of warfare they're fighting they're fighting where they live our job was not where we live it gives you that chance to at least mentally i guess and physically clock in and clock out on a time card not that we had those but as a metaphor that people can understand i'll fuck up your country because i'm out of here in six months I'm going to fight several thousand miles away from where I live, and then I don't have to live here. I don't have to see the cascading consequences of correct decisions. Oh, boy, what do we got? They're estimated about nearly 1.2 million. And that's conservative estimates. They're not releasing any battlefield statistics, but there's a U.S. think tank that looks at social media and a whole bunch of other sources and it's sort of cobbled together that 1.2, but they think it's actually higher. That's more than the state population of Montana. It'd be like wiping this entire state. And probably Wyoming is probably a million plus as well too. But yeah, can you imagine the difference in geometry of the stress and anxiety? You go to the front lines, but then you walk home. It's one of the reasons also why they have succeeded. Home field advantage and the behind every blade of grass as a rifleman That's their play to grass. They're fighting for their home. So that coupled with their amazing technology advantage, that's the only reason why they've managed to be four years, but there's the clock. The Russians have an unlimited number of people. Unlimited. The key, I think, for Ukraine will be the U.S. seizing Greenland. can i get some bourbon added to this please as far as current talking points i cannot wrap my head around it i can't either the most reasonable thing i've heard is that it's an end-around way to destroy nato but why would you want to i don't have an answer to that question if you had said it's an end-around way to destroy the United Nations, I would pause, probably cringe, and be like, eh, okay, maybe. We could redo it. But why NATO? What possible benefit is there from this? I don't know. I can't. And I have looked at this topic ad nauseum, trying to look for a layer that isn't immediately relevant. And I can't find one. We have largely unrestricted and unfettered access as it is. As we have since the 50s. I know. We can do whatever we want. We have a tremendous ally that has fought side by side with American forces any time they were called upon and has taken casualties in a per capita ratio higher than most other countries. What? I don't know. I know melting ice caps has risen the seas. The gap that is there sea lane-wise is widening, and so it has become more useful. It has more strategic relevance. But again, so what? So what? Greenland's given you carte blanche. Is it? Unfettered access? Do whatever you want. We had 20 bases there at one point. We're down to one. You want to go back up to 20? Go back up to 20. You can station 400,000 service members there. Run your bombers, the B-21 Raider, whatever you want. Why do you need to? Yeah. Yeah. Yes, Denmark is a stalwart, which I'll look that word up later, U.S. ally, that has consistently provided significant military and strategic support in recent years A key NATO partner I just I don understand I don get it Yeah 18 troops to Afghanistan have participated in the coalition against ISIS often engaging in direct combat alongside U forces Imagine, I just, it's so hard for me, and it's just a thought exercise, but to get people to look at this in reverse. How would you feel if the, I mean, not that this is possible, but the U.K. said, well, we're going to take Rhode Island. Now, of course, there's a great conversation about how they could probably have it, right? Like, just take Rhode Island. That's fine. Just joking people from Rhode Island, but, like, it's small. You know, small. Small price to pay. We would be up in absolute arms if that idea was even floated. Because obviously what they should take is Florida. Because Florida man is a feature, not a bug. And 90% of the wild things that happen on the Internet occur in Florida. That's true, yeah. So somebody else can try to manage that. And I'm also joking about Florida because I love Florida. I was just there. But also Florida, man, is a real thing. And it is insane. Yeah. The Alcatraz is down there too. Don't forget. Yeah. Because they can have that. Is that still going on? That fell off the news. Yeah, it's still there. Yeah. It's still there. I don't understand it. And I probably won't. I think there's only probably two people that understand it. And they're not telling me what's going on. What are your plans now? So you're free and clear of your alphabet soup agency. Yep, to a degree. You've got your podcast going. Yeah. What are you looking at? Like what's your next year term and then long-term goal? So far this is taking a lot of my enthusiasm and a lot of my energy. I do own a whiskey distillery, modest though it may be. I do some firearms manufacturing stuff. I have a Type 701 FFL. What kind of stuff do you manufacture? true um air 15 series products galishnikovs i like those i just like full uh full package together you like the component work both okay so i have cn specializing just like the add-on stuff or you know upgrades no i have cnc capability so i can make from whole cloth uh a lot of uh you know glock modifications things like that um just bespoke stuff you know um on order on request i don't do a lot of bulk it's fun but i also don't have a lot of free time for it because i'm a one-man show. So I do enjoy the distillery, the bourbon, the whiskey. That's always enjoyable for me. But considering going back, getting postgraduate, what would you do with it? I don't know. I just like to learn. I think that it keeps us curious. And I think that is one of the best ways to, one, stave off old age. You and I are more kindred spirits than you can imagine. I tell people that learning is the fountain of youth. Constantly finding something. And that's kind of what got me into the helicopter stuff or got me into starting jujitsu. Both of those you can never master. But you can try as hard as you can to learn more and just continue along. And, I mean, the end is coming for us all. But I look at the people who I would like to end up like, and they are the ones who were lifelong learners. They were active until literally they couldn't be active anymore. and I would describe that the end of their track around the lap, that the tires are bald and empty. If they're even on the car anymore, it's dinged up, no windshield. The car is just destroyed. But everything, imagine that journey as opposed to the person who rubber rooms themselves out of fear of everything and has no experiences. I like to fail. I think we learn so much more from our failures than our successes. I don't think I like to fail, but I like what's on the other side of failure. Love it. I mean, Edison said it best, right? You know, you just found a way that didn't work. I want to put myself in situations where there's risk to fail, and I want to dare greatly and learn from those failures on the other side, as you said. And so I find hobbies, activities, interests, formal education, informal education that all satisfy that. I'm curious, and I'm a student of critical thinking, or at least I like to think I am. So I always want to look at things from both sides. You know, Greenland, again, I'm stuck. I can't maneuver myself intellectually to see what I am not picking up. What the fuck is the point? The only other way I can wrap my head around it is to think of it as it's a complete distraction where something else is getting done somewhere else, but that is just to focus our attention elsewhere. Could be. Is there another raid taking place? Who are we going to snatch and grab this time? I don't know. I'm sure the Delta Force Commandos will be carrying the directed energy weapons that everybody seems to have. That was the funniest and most ridiculous article. I loved every moment of it. I want it to be true. I want those guys to be like Guardians of the Galaxy blasting people with laser beams. And another thing people say, it's not possible that a small group from Delta could kill 33 people. And I just... I go, you've never done any CQB in your life. I just don't say that. I don't have the vocabulary to describe the locality of those organizations. You do not even engage in a discussion with somebody that starts it like that. You're like, OK, I'm not going to convince you. And the intelligent position is I'm just not going to talk to you. So bye. Thanks. Good. Good talk. Yeah. I know a couple of individuals who were afflicted by the Cuba syndrome. Yeah. Havana syndrome. Yeah. They are looking into that. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I don't think it's probably hand-carried at this point. Maybe you could direct it from a platform. I don't know. It was probably platformed, and I don't want to parrot what they've told me, but these individuals were not inventing this. This was not a fabricated illness. There is genuinely like, okay, yeah, wow. In the game of espionage and manipulating stuff, that completely falls into the realm of feasible in my mind. I, again, I have almost no access or touch points with your previous Alphabet Soup people, but I know enough people that they're, yeah, we have teams of people who sit around and think about stuff like this and they try to make it a reality. Absolutely. And, you know, a lot of it is open source. You don't think that the technology that we have five, eight years ago was not being developed by DARPA 10, 15 years ago. It's what we do. It's how we maintain our technological edge. And I have only, you know, the assumption that our adversaries are doing the same thing. But handheld lasers? I'm here for it. Woo! I want it to be true. I want the robotic suit. That's what I want. I want the mech suit that I can... Yeah. Anyways. And the robot dogs. The robot dogs are coming. They are. Because they're out there now. Yeah. We just have to make them at scale. With 50 cals. With 50 cals. And then... Or a minigun. And that would be even better. I don't even know if you'd have to fire around, because I think people would die from just fear and anxiety. I would shit kittens if I saw over the horizon a platoon of robot dogs with mounted weapons on top of it. Like, I'm done. You win. Horn's dilemma. I'm out. Yeah, for sure. When you do public speaking, what do you generally talk about? I've spoken about managing adrenaline at length, sympathetic parasympathetic nervous systems. There's a great book that's been written recently called Operator Syndrome. I'm sure you're familiar with it. I've had Chris on the show. Okay. Yep. Okay. That body of work, although not necessarily new, is really being scrutinized, looked at, analyzed, and unpackaged. And I think that is going to yield a lot of very fruitful treatments, protocols, and procedures that we were not looking at before. What do you think it'll open up? Well, if you are able to look at somebody's injury, regardless, okay, somebody comes in and like, I'm having trouble sleeping. It's like, okay, no problem. I'll prescribe you a sleeping pill. Or, you know, they're looking at injuries that they would typically, you know, the DX, RX, TX triangle. Okay, it's this. I'm going to treat you this way. Now, okay, well, let's look at it holistically. Let's look at what's your deployment cycle looking like. What's your op tempo been? What are things doing at home? What's your exercise regimes? What are you eating? Tell me about your diet. I think there's so many other vectors that were before we might have just said, you're stressed, you're fatigued. Maybe it's not PTSD. Maybe it's other things. Sleep apnea. Maybe you're choking to death and holding your breath for several minutes at a time while you sleep. Yeah. So there's a lot of things I think that we don't understand, and there's a lot of treatments for them that we're still kind of on the fringe, you know? So things like that when it comes to public speaking I like to bring to the attention of audiences. And then leadership. It's a very popular topic, but I would also argue that it is often underrepresented correctly, in my opinion. It is my favorite topic when I speak publicly. Yeah. And regardless of what they ask me to speak about, you always say, oh, sorry, guys, we wound our way back. I describe it as, you know, I've had the pleasure of being around probably our arsenal's most powerful weapons. Like, I've never got to see one of those mother of all bombs crack off in real life. I love the MOABs. Love it. I love it, too. But leadership is more powerful than that bomb. Yeah. For reasons we already talked about. That poor leader that can make somebody almost surrender a decade and a half of their life could alter the trajectory of their life because you suck. Yeah. And rank is such a weak excuse for leadership. Yeah. That's what I tell people. If you're relying on rank or your parking spot or what it says on the door, like that's a short term maybe in moments, like you said, where there's not enough time, you're going to do what I say because of the position I have, but that is not something you can leverage for the long run. It's the difference between personality ethics and character ethics is what I typically like. Stephen Covey's Seven Habits for Highly Effective People, he's the one that codified that, but I latch onto it because I think it's so true. You can be the world's greatest snake oil salesman, but you're still a snake oil salesman. You're a great personality, but you're still a douchebag underneath all the veneer, and it's only an inch deep. I have come across leaders who are like that. You have no character ethics. You have no virtues. There's no foundation. There's nothing behind us. There's no substance to you. So regardless of how many handshakes you give, smiles, how many attaboys you throw out, you're still a douchebag. And I will say I think that the military does it better than the private sector, hands down, when it comes to training leaders. Yeah. But they don't have a monopoly on it. They don't, and I've actually come to the conclusion now that the military environment, specifically special operations, may be the best environment to mask poor leadership, and it is not a model that can apply directly to the civilian world. I mean, think of the worst boss ever you had at an operational level, because I'm thinking of exactly the same guy who, we are not fans of each other. Less of a fan of me probably after I had a heavy hand in him being removed from the country. But anytime we were out in the field on paper, the OIC successful operation, the people working for him, I can only speak for myself, but I think I can say the consensus generally aligned with my thoughts. We never failed, but it wasn't because of the leader. We never failed in spite of how horrific of a leader he was because we cared so much about what we were doing and the people that we were with. That environment is real, real tough to replicate in the civilian world. The coffee shop is a great example, right? Average age of 19 to mid-20s, people who are there seasonally, people who are there just because they need a second job, whatever their morning person, whatever it may be. You have to pick and choose the way that you manage or lead people in that environment. I can't just treat them like this particular individual, I mean, like flattening the chain of command, just disregarding all of the senior leadership experience, which, by the way, was orders of magnitude more experience than he had in the military in general, wanted to be the guy who could raise his hand, incredibly directive, not Socratic in any way, right? Like he just is my way or the highway. Yeah, sure, I could do that there, and I would have shifts that weren't filled. I would have no call, no shows. But people think if you were a leader in the military, you can just go into a civilian organization and lead. And I tell you what, you had better change your approach. You better not at least take the special operations leadership model, which by and large is not what people think. Marines, you guys get screwed. Full metal jacket, you know, the gunny sergeant. That is what a lot of people think military leadership is like. And that is the role of a person when you're breaking the sense of me and creating a sense of me. In a time and a place, it has its purpose. But that is not what it looks like in an operational element. No, it is not. I've never spent a second in Marine Corps recon, but I guarantee you, first off, if somebody tried that, you're going to go on the other side of the berm and get your teeth knocked out. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. But people think that's what the military leadership model is, and it's the exact opposite of that. Yeah, I think the civilian population, Hollywood specifically, has a characterization that they think it is. And I get disgusted by it because it's right out of central casting, you know, the military general or colonel. That's not what it is. That's not what reality is. And I like to demystify that if I can. But there's a lot of valuable lessons there. It's how you apply them. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I tell people in organizations, like, listen, if you're going to hire a veteran, that's amazing. But do me a favor. Don't hire them just because they're a veteran. Hire them because they are qualified to do the job, and the veteran is an added bonus. Also, if being in the military was all it took to be a leader, you would never see somebody fail in the civilian world in a leadership role. But we do all the time. Some of that can be because of what they were hired for and why. So just know what you're getting into. Of course, it's amazing that you're hiring vets, but that should be one or two line items down. Don't hire them for a role that they're not qualified for because you just set them up for failure and your organization for failure. It's not fair for either one. No, it's not. But I also understand the reasoning that they're doing it. They're like, we're going to support this person, which I totally, totally understand. It can just have – the tail on that can be a little bit longer. It can have results that may not be beneficial for your organization. We're the person that's probably going to have to get let go. You have to mentor them. You own that if that's what you're doing. There is a second and third order effect to it beyond the fact that they're a vet. And I'm a huge fan of holding people accountable. And it should be a meritocracy in so many ways. It gets your foot in the door, but it doesn't keep it there. You need to perform and you need to be held accountable. And, you know, I will say this about vets. They appreciate honesty in most cases. Not all. But for the most part, somebody who spent four years or more in the armed forces every day wants honesty. And they respect it when it's given, and they will respond in kind. But you have to mentor them. You have to indoctrinate them into the corporate job that they are now finding themselves in if they have not already had some sort of transition along the way. So, yeah. Yeah. So, okay, you got your firearm stuff? You do some speaking. You've got your whiskey. What else are you spending your time doing? I try to build a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. I want a room. I understand the words that you just said, but I don't know what it means. No, I'm kidding. I honestly at this point have my hands pretty full between the Carry On podcast, Being a Father, Home Improvement, and all of the other projects and hobbies that occupy my time. Several of those are full-time J-O-Bs. They should be, blessed. Yeah, like this is – I don't know what gets into me sometimes. I'm like, oh, I am the prince of projects. I love starting projects. I very, very rarely will see them all the way to their logical conclusion before I off-ramp and I get into something else. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So I normally have like 20 things going on at one time. All of them need shepherding. And all of the people whose involvement is needed in there are like, okay, I'm waiting. What do you want to grow the podcast to? What do you think it's going to become? And how long have you been at it, by the way? Oh, a very short amount of time. I would say if I was being very optimistic since maybe August or September of 25, so this is a fledgling project for me, but what I would like to do as best as I can is to help educate the general public about veterans' health, to be a gateway for veterans to be able to seek help. I also want to hold myself up as a poster child for vulnerability. If I can say, knowing my caricature that was personified in popular culture, if I can say, having done what I've done, been where I've been, it's okay to seek help. It is okay to admit that you have a problem. It is okay to check under the hood before the engine light comes on. Then it is mission successful. If there's one less veteran who is drinking themselves to death, or, God forbid, on the verge of suicide, then I would consider it a success. And I want to grow the podcast in such a way that continues to showcase men and women who are coming up with new ways to treat, whether it's pharmacological. I know there's a lot of, I don't want to say groundbreaking, but there's a lot of things that heretofore were forbidden or taboo that are now starting to gain some traction. There are a lot of physical mechanisms for trauma and PTSD like gyro-stem, bilateral stimulation to the cortex. There's a whole host of other things that are newer that need to be shepherded, that need to be showcased. And I would love to see institutionalized medicine, at least for the Marine Corps, it was Navy medicine. Navy medicine moves slow. That is not a five-degree to port rudder correction. That's like a meep. Yeah. It takes a long time. Again, I still think we are the best we've ever been when it comes to mental health for our service men and women. But there's improvements to be made. And if I can be a voice into that movement, yeah, I'd consider that a success. What do you view as your current limiting factors for the podcast? What's holding you back, if anything? I don't think there's anything holding us back. We have a pretty consistent schedule. I like to talk, as I know you do, about current events. So in addition to interviewing authors, clinicians, providers, and other vets on serious topics, we do a weekly topical news broadcast that pretty much helps to unpack current events in as plain language as possible. Again, I am all about honesty. I'm about candor over charisma. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. And I have no allegiance. I mean, I've made it very public what my political ideology is, but no man owns me. I am my own man. A pox on both your houses as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. I will call you on your bullshit like what's taking place with Greenland if I think this is like, dude. It's interesting. We've arrived at a place where people think they cannot critique individual aspects of a party line. Oh, yeah. and still support the overall greater party. When in every other aspect, I mean, has anybody ever done anything that they were wholly and completely 100% satisfied with, whether it's personal relationships, the achievement of a goal? Like there's always something you could point at and say, ah, I could have done that better. And still be really happy about where you were at and supportive while saying, when we get to the place where we can't call balls and strikes anymore, we're done. I think we're already there. You think so? I do. And because of the pervasive nature of social media. Yeah, but it's optional. It's not. It is. I just did a January where I was trying to reduce my screen time to under an hour a day. One of the better mental health months quite some time. I don't have – I personally have no social media accounts whatsoever. The podcast does, as they should, because that's the ecosystem. It's the ecosystem. But I don't. I've never had a Facebook page or a MySpace or a Reddit, the insert name of this. That's because you were a super secret spy. It's gallivanting around the world conducting espionage trying to take over Greenland. I'm not supposed to talk about that stuff. You are doing preparation of the operational battle space in Greenland, obviously. It's called IPB, okay? Can we just? I think that the algorithms of social media have become so refined for targeting. the consumer. That is all the stovepipe that they ever are in. And we've lost the ability to critically think. So we never check outside of our echo chamber. And our adversaries know that. If you don't think that China knows exactly and Russia how to apply disinformation, you're naive. You think we're doing it in the other direction as well? Playing in the same game? Not the same way. And I'm not saying that we are above it. I'm not saying that we're altruistic. I'm saying that we don't do it the same way because of our system of government, our system of checks and balances. I love the fact that the general public has this misguided assumption that the government is all seeing and all knowing. Like, brother, I've been a part of it for a long time. You're fucking kidding yourself. We can't navigate our way out of a paper sack. And you think there's this some deep state, like there's a room of seven people, one dude stroking a cat going, this is what we're going to do next. Well, it's not in a room. They meet in Monaco. Yeah. Their yachts gingerly touch tips, and they meet with their swords. It's just Thursday of the 18th month of the year. Oh, man. If only people really knew the truth, they would be so depressed. We're so not organized, guys. When people like the CIA was behind 9-11. Stop. I'm like, listen, I understand why that's a sticky idea. But having worked with at least some people there and having an understanding of the government, the government is not capable of doing that in secret. I am sorry. They're capable of doing it mechanically. Are you saying that can the United States burn a building or fly a plane? Oh, yeah, we can. But can you ask 300 people to keep their mouth shut? No. No, dude, that's impossible. Two people can't keep their mouth shut about something. I mean, wow. But that's okay. Keep believing that because it is what keeps us safe because the rest of the world thinks that too. The rest of the world thinks that the CIA is all seeing and all knowing. Go for it. Yeah. Unfortunately, there are more seeing and knowing than – You know who's all seeing and all knowing? Meta. Yeah. Our government agencies, I think, are more seeing and knowing than our Constitution would like to allow for. I don't know what you're talking about, by the way. I mean, maybe not the agencies. Of course, there could be a tax cutout and black money funded to an organization likely founded by an ex-employee. And not that I've ever known of this happening. This is a fictional novel that I'm writing, of course. I like it. Yeah. I like it. I want to be able to do the jacket. Yeah. There's so many ways around that stuff, too. But I honestly think that we have reached a point in society, and not just American society, in global society, where we really only want to be told confirmation bias. I think that it does feel better. It does. When you're told something that you believe or you're told what you believe is true. The problem is it can be a real detachment from reality. I like being told and challenged. And I think that goes back to why I like to study and learn and learn new things and go back to school and be taught because I think that we should have our beliefs challenged. I think that it's healthy for us to look in the mirror and know yourself and seek self-improvement and be told the beliefs that you are following are not what you thought they were. Isn't that the point of the First Amendment? Oh, dude. I mean, again, it's your ability to believe what you want, express what you want, and be challenged by others that don't agree with what you say. But you have to allow yourself. Yeah. That's the world I want to live in. Yeah. And there's a difference between values and principles, right? I agree. You can maintain your principles, but adopt and evolve your values. What we thought was acceptable in the 90s when we enlisted in the military changed. And our view of the world changed and our values continue to change. You can't do that if you don't open yourself up to new ideas and criticism. and that, unfortunately, I think, I think we lost it. And I'm not saying the sky is falling and this is the end of democracy. Things are coverable. And if so, where do you think the first steps would lie? I think that the generation that is coming on deck now need to take it and they need to own it. I think that we need to go back to being critical thinkers. We need to challenge ideals. I think that a lot of young men and women currently do that. They don't want to be told that this is the truth and the only truth. But I think it's going to take some time. I think that bubble needs to work through. I think that it'll just take another generation. Yeah, I think we're going to get there. We're going to be okay. Oh, yeah, I have no doubt. I feel like every generation has this place where they think this is it. And then the next generation steps into the batter's box until they get to a place where they think, well, this is it. Yeah. Yeah. It's that damn rock and roll music. It's just ruining the music today. Can you imagine being alive at a time where there was no flight and then there was? Yes. Or electricity? Yeah. People thought when the printing press came out, it was going to destroy the world. I'm pretty glad it came out. there was a huge movement towards automobiles and the horse-drawn buggy. And now, draw a modern analogy, artificial intelligence. It's like, oh, it's going to destroy us all. I don't think so. That one might be true. Curious out on that one. I am enjoying the videos that it is producing. I will tell you that. I spent 30 minutes just laughing my ass off yesterday about that's what they can do now in five years. I think the answer is probably AI versus AI on that one, right? Like you just have to apply supercomputing to supercomputing because we can't. With our slightly beyond a monkey's brain, we're not going to be able to evolve at the speed that that stuff is. It's the distinguishing between truth and fiction that troubles me, though. Yeah. Or the fact that we can't agree upon what truth is anymore, it seems like in some circles. Yeah. That is an interesting place to be. It is. When facts cannot be agreed upon. Yeah. when truth cannot be agreed upon. That is an interesting waiting pool, though I do believe we'll figure our way through it. It might be pretty ugly on the way through, but it's going to take some time and there's going to be some growing pains. But at the end of the day, I believe in the country. I believe in this great experiment we have called democracy. I don't think that it's capable of being destroyed internally. I don't. I think we're going to be okay. I just want us to lesson learn and do the after action and do the debrief and get it right. Me too. I've got to get you guys to the airport shortly, but first, let's do gifts. Oh, gift exchange. Okay. First of all, I feel like every guest needs to bring gifts because this is the first person that kind of has in a while. Really? I mean, yeah. I hope in some small measure I can make up for their shortcomings. We'll see what the gift is. It's good whiskey. Montana Knife Company, shockingly enough, they're made in Montana just down in Missoula. Okay. This is one of the daggers that's sitting over my shoulders. These things are badass. This is in their tactical line. I think that is the VF24. Pop that sucker open. The V24. The other one is the TF24. Right off the bat, I love the packaging. They do it well. Brandon, their head of marketing, is world class. I just got one of their jackets. It's all sorts of cool stuff on the inside and the outside. I noticed you guys were carry-on only, so I will ship this to you wherever you would like. That would be great. Unless you would like to hand it over and surrender to a TSA agent. We can talk about that. Oh, wow. Okay. Already, I love the clip. I love the Kydex sheet. Don't cut yourself as you pull that out. You should be okay. Yep. There it is. Yeah, on the Sykes Fairbaine design, it's got a great handle. Yep. They make good stuff. Yeah. This is a fantastic gift. I truly appreciate this. Thank you. My pleasure. Yeah. And I noticed them sitting above you. I asked them to send me dull ones to go behind me because my fear is I'll be sitting here. I'll hear a thump as one of them comes off the magnet and is spiraling through the air after it hits the wood on the bottom heading towards the back of my neck. It's something that is a legitimate fear, so I can appreciate that. Is it a rational fear? I don't know. Should I devote a small fraction of bandwidth to it? I think it's fair. Well, I looked at the hardware when I came in, and it wasn't the knives that caught my attention as well as it was the M4s. And I like those. Yeah. I like them, too. And the H&K over there in the corner. It's not a big deal. I mean, if you haven't run around with a pistol carbine pretending that you're going to stop a human being with a 9mm car sheet. I am so glad that we got away from those, by the way. Yeah, but they were so fun, though, too. Oh, I have. What's better than a Neomex flight suit and an MP5? Obviously paired with the mustache, which I can't really grow anyway, but that's a handlebar stash and an MP5, probably SD. Just go to town. It's very SAS. I mean, you have to love the origins of that thing. I like it even more when they take the buttstock off completely and they just snap it out with webbing. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I mean, why stop there? Go for the, you know, twin under the shoulder. Yeah. It's a vibe. It is a vibe. Yeah. not as nice, but... What are you talking about? You're directly associated with that. Well, that... First off, this thing is badass. Yeah. Explain what this is. I'll hold it up, Michael, so you can see it on this angle. Jason, you're going to have to chime in on this one a little bit about the origin story of this. Okay, so Fred Perrin, he's a French knife maker. He's a commando. Yep. So if you can't hear in the audio, French knife maker was a commando. Fred Perrin. Fred Perrin, yep. Yeah, so he was famous for designing a knife called the LaGref. Yep. it was a neckline. And it works with spider-toe and whatnot. And this itself, what is this itself supposed to be? It's a fat. Yeah, which is amazing. And if you put the keys on the end of that, you've got a handle and you can, you know, and it's innocuous. It goes on the airplane quite nicely. And it's just for knocking on doors. That's exactly what it is. Politely. This is just a random little antler that might fit into your hand. It happens to be Shaped perfectly for a grip and a hole for a keychain. Yeah. Both were carried on. Yeah, of course, as they should be. Yeah. And, of course, ooh, I like the – so is this yours? No, no, that is not mine. You're going to have to wait. Mine is still sleeping peacefully in its new oak barrels. But once it is bottled, I'll make sure that you get some. I would appreciate it. Freeland Spirits bourbon. Cask strength. What does that actually even mean? Okay, so when it comes to bourbon, and this is my advice, and I have said this on my show, I'll say it to you. Always go for cask strength. Okay. When bourbon comes out of the barrel, there's two things that happen to it or two ways it could go. It can get combined with water to bring the proof down. And then bottled. Or they just bottle it, whatever proof it comes out. When it comes to bourbon, you will never get better flavor than when it comes directly out of the barrel. No water added. So essentially non-diluted. Correct. Cask strength. Yeah. And it will fluctuate in proof. It never is the same proof twice. That barrel of 53 gallons may be at 120 proof. The next one, 127. That whole barrel will have the same proof, though, right? It comes out of the same. Correct. And it's much more flavorful. Would you recommend regular Coke or Diet Coke as the mixer? We're done. We're done here. Oh, Diet Coke. Dr. Pepper? Oh, half a cup of water. You can drink it straight. You can drink it with ice. Add water. I will cringe if you add anything else. I'm going to add Diet Coke to it and send you a picture just so I can have some free rent space in your head. I don't like you right now. Carry on podcast. The bourbon, by the way, is a woman owned and operated and made in Portland in Pinot Noir casks. That's awesome. Some stay frosty stickers over at bregcolbert.us. Danger close, very close ties to cleared hot. I'm loving it. That's often a call that is talked about, very rarely used because it's dangerous. I only called it once. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it should be avoided unless it's time to not avoid it, and then you're really hoping you had an A-game pilot overhead. We did. We had rotary in this case. That probably makes it a little bit better. The Cobra pilots are some of the best in the world. Now that you're playing in the rotary game, Oh, yes. Have you ever looked back at those pictures of spy rigging and wondered what the hell they were going to do if they had to auto-rotate him? Oh, I know what they were going to do. I think they were going to smash us. They were going to cut us away and pray that some of us lived. But most likely, they would probably ride in. That is an unacceptable answer. Well, I know you know the story really quick. The very first demonstration of spy rigging that took place in Vietnam, they dragged the stack through concertina wire that was bordering the runway. Oh. They shredded them. They get some radical relief before we have forward movement. You know what's even more messed up is they were demonstrating this to senior leadership. I'm talking like 06 or 07. If that's going to happen, that's the audience you do that in front of. Oh, wow. It was brutal. Happened to a force recon team way back. So Constantino wire? Yeah. Yeah. Triple strand razor wire. Oh, you went to the hospital after that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Also, I would, after getting out of the hospital and a little bit of rest and recovery, try to figure out who was flying that day. Oh, I'd have some revenge. Yeah, I'd be pretty much. And also a new robust checklist that involves vertical altitude that is commensurate with forward movement. Yeah, yeah. You know, with every new TT, like the Stabo rig. Yeah. Like, what genius thought that that, let's do 160 knots and then pull somebody up from the ground from zero to 160 knots. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I would volunteer for that. Mostly because Batman did it. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. Good luck. Hope your back manages that. I would use a dynamic rope. Yeah. You want a little bit of a stretchy. Yeah, we're not going to be using a metal cable that has absolutely no stretch rating. No. It was like that. Yeah. I think, though, if you needed to use that, it might have been the choice of that or having your head sawed off with a camera in front of you. You know? Yeah. Given those two choices, I might sacrifice a vertical. I might. I mean, I've seen, you know, message pickups, low level where they come by. Yeah, they snag. For inanimate objects, that's good. I just don't want to be the person at the other end of it. I agree. Yeah. Well, Brad, thank you for coming out, man. That was awesome. Yeah, sit and talk to me. We'll get you guys to the airport. Like I said, no worries. Too easy. Oh, hold on. Let's leave people with where they can find you. The easiest way to find you. Okay. BradColbert.us is sort of the landing page for all things. It has the hyperlinks to the podcast, the YouTube, and all of the contact forms. BradColbert.us. Very easy. Too easy. Right on. Thanks, gentlemen.