Badlands Media - SITREP Ep. 154: Lt. Col. Davis Younts on the COVID Military Purge, Hegseth & Duty to Disobey

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

CannCon and Alpha Warrior welcome retired Air Force Lt. Col. R. Davis Younts, a former JAG officer who almost got separated at nineteen and a half years for refusing the COVID shot, saved only by the Doster injunction. Younts now represents the service members fighting to get their careers, records, and back pay restored. The conversation opens with the trailer for the new documentary "Duty to Disobey," then moves into Pete Hegseth's announcement establishing the COVID-19 Reinstatement and Reconciliation Task Force. Younts breaks down what is actually good about the directive, where the Pentagon bureaucracy is still slow walking it, and why he estimates only about 5% of forced-out troops will return after what they and their families went through. The guys dig into the Army War College integrity study, the risk-averse mindset that makes officers manage their careers instead of leading, and why Stuart Scheller is the modern Billy Mitchell. Younts ends with a simple prescription: fire the general officers, hold real war games, and rebuild from there. Plus: US has 750 overseas bases. China has one. Russia has under 30. So what is $1.5 trillion buying?

The badlands, one of the badlands, explain those badlands. That's a hell of their name. In that dusty compound, a man you have never met gave everything he had so that you have the freedom to think, speak, and act however you choose. You have that choice because the best among us, the best we ever had to offer, and bled and died for it. Don't ever forget that. All right. Good evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to sit rep. Happy Thursday evening to everybody out there on my third show of the day. Grinding away, man. How you doing? Beard brushing over there? Yeah.

I'm trying to, you know, do what I can with this little thing on my face. Show number two. Show number two of the day. I'm doing good, man. You have a third one after this, too, don't you? I do. I do. Then I'll be caught up with you. Then you'll get on my level. Then you'll get on my level.

You'll have a great day, man. I'm having a great. I'm having a great day. Why? Why are you having such a great day? I mean, I'm having a much better day than Thomas Massey. Oh my God. I had this just for you, bro. That is so fetch. Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen. Speaking of fetch. How about Thomas Massey, go fetch. some more of that jewish billionaire money god i'm done fully checked in on an illegitimate system

i i played with it today i said hey grok grock grock find me any evidence that this woman's claims are legitimate nothing not a single thing as perplexity same thing nothing not a single thing you are full blown in the grift my man i'm glad and perplexity are not replacing your human engagement for research.

Oh, bro, I don't need to engage in this kind of shit. Dude, this is. Oh, do you know that Massey already acknowledged that he was in a relationship with her? Yes, I understand. I'm just saying, because, you know, all right,

let me talk to your line about it. And let's, we've got a more epic beard than yours waiting for us in the back room. So let's get to the show. Let's do it. We got to talk about our sponsors first, guys. Maha yourself with supplements that don't suck from conscious strength founded by Badlands very own Jordan Saither in 2019 Conscious strength products are made in America and won't break your bank unlike other online brands

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We love Jordan. So yeah. And then you know what? Let's get it out of the way, man. Let's get it out of the way. our guest doesn't know anything that's about to happen right now. Today we remember those who gave everything. And memory is never still.

We can't stop for sense. Do we have to deliver all of the Soft Disclosure gift card? The go by Zach Cade. The lotion detector. Fighting over the beer breath. Softdisclosure.com promo code Memorial 15. I love that fucking commercial so much. Most epic one made so far, bro.

epic one ever real talk like when i'm sitting here on my computer every once in a while i'll just randomly play it like i'll have streamyard studio open no shows going on or anything and i'll just randomly play that that that that that ad like that song is fire like we i want that song i want it on an album like the 80s was the best man it was unbelievable it was all right guys so we've got uh we had an announcement this week from secretary of war pete heggseth and And, you know, I kind of, I had an idea that we need to talk a little bit about COVID and all the things that are happening with our fellow brothers and sisters in arms. And the tragedy that's been thrust upon them over the last, you know, six years going back to 2020 and the poison shots and everything. So joining us this evening, we have a retired lieutenant colonel, a JAG officer, which is, you know, judge advocate general, which is the equivalent, you know, the lawyers in the military.

at one point I believe he was the number one defense senior defense counsel in in the in the air force so guys welcome to the show lieutenant colonel davis younce colonel do i have that right lieutenant colonel right that's right you got it i gotta make sure i'm correct there so uh how you doing brother welcome to the show hey i'm doing great thanks for having me on i apologize i'm losing my voice a little bit but i'll get through it man well we will try not to uh to, you know, expedite that. By the way, you have an absolutely epic beard. I'm totally jealous. You have consistent color.

I'm graying out hardcore over here and I don't like it. And Alpha's got a five-acred. I'm feeling like the dude that's going to get kicked out of the 300 cast right now. Yeah, I don't know what Alpha is doing. He's got to help his game, man. His wife won't let him grow a long beard. So he's got to keep it short. I feel like I should, I should just say, like, you know, it was, it was out to here and then, then I cut it.

It was like Samson. I was like Samson. I was like Samson and then I cut it, but nobody, nobody's going to believe it, bro. No one's going to believe it. So, Davis, why don't you tell us, you know, a little bit about your military services. This is an all-veteran podcast. So give us the rundown on your career in the Air Force. Yeah, absolutely. I was in law school when 9-11 happened. And so that kind of derailed the plans that I had in place. And I signed up as soon as I got out, I joined the Air Force JAG Corps. I did almost 13 years of active duty.

It was a prosecutor defense counsel, senior defense counsel, deployed, and then was chief of the military justice division at the Air Force JAG school, got out, went into the guard. I worked full time in the guard for a couple of years for the Pennsylvania Guard at the Joint Force headquarters, and then finished out my time in the reserves. My career didn't end how I wanted it to because of COVID. So I was a lieutenant colonel in the reserves working at the JAG school, instructing new JAGs, teaching trial advocacy to the force,

and the mandate came down. I had religious objections to the shot. All of my accommodations were denied, so I was facing separation from the Air Force. I was about 24 to 48 hours from getting kicked out at 19 and a half years. And then the injunction came down in the Doster case in Ohio. And that's that's what saved me, got me to 20 years. So I walked away right at 20 years with the reserve retirement, if you will.

And that's kind of, that's kind of my story. I got more heavily involved in the COVID work because of my own background as well as trying to help as many folks as I could survive the purge that was happening because of the the clot shot. Wow. So, you know, going back historically, and you said that you were forced to take it in 2021? Yeah, I was, I applied for the religious accommodations and all those things. And then they, it was actually 2022 that all that, believe it or not, that all that was denied.

And so that's where I was. I was sitting at December 20th of 2022 was my 20 year point. And so I actually got my denial, my notice of denial on the third of July. believe it or not right before the holiday weekend I got my denial so they gave me five days to get the shot I said no I went into non-compliance and I was waiting for the hammered or drop when the injunction came down in the Doster case wow I want to um play this to start off here so there's this a movie coming out here called duty to disobey and I want to play this trailer and I think that'll probably help that'll get this conversation rolling here and there's going to be a lot of

familiar faces for people that have watched it rep uh throughout the years we've had a lot of these individuals on the the show uh over time so uh here it is this is the trailer here for duty to disobey i had a battalion commander come to me and she said dear god we're killing our own soldiers we gather today to honor the incredible service members you owe you our pets We owe you our respect and we owe you our freedom. Just as we have gathered before to remember those who served, those who fought, and those who gave their last full measure of devotion for our country. According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon is going to require vaccines for all service members.

I'm asking the Defense Department to look into how and when they will add COVID-19 to the list of vaccinations of armed forces must get. The military was ordering service members to take a shot that they could not lawfully order them to take. Are you choosing to be on the plane? Get on with the floor! Get on with the floor! Leaders did everything illegal or illegal within their power to coerce and influence their service members to get the shot. I'll never forget, I received a phone call from a mother whose son was a Marine at 29 Palms,

and she told me her son and nine other Marines, being held in confinement in the brig until they got vaccinated. If you don't do what they tell you to do, they will ostracize you. They will destroy your life. Stop presenting or you will get taxed. They threaten me with Leavenworth imprisonment. They banned me from all Army Public Health Center facilities for 413 days. I counted over 140 days where I was put into isolation.

Once it becomes normalized in the military, it often very quickly finds its way into the civilian population, as we saw with the COVID mandate. The effects extend well beyond just those in uniform, and the impact is really on the entire nation. 8,000 well-trained men and women were fired. I lost my income. I lost my ability to feed my family. I mean, I'm being told you're getting dishonorably discharged. If you get dishonorable, you lose everything.

You can't get certain jobs as a civilian. It follows you for life. You cannot mandate an experimental medical product. It cannot mandate that on military members. In my entire medical career prior to this, I'd never see a young person with a stroke. I had never seen someone have a massive clot without provocation. We were in great shape. We were doing very well.

But then as soon after the vaccine is when everything my health went to town. When people celebrate all the freedoms of the military gets to grant this country, when the military's freedoms and really the country's freedoms are actually being taken away. Why was the vaccine mandate unlawful? How come the Secretary of War is telling us that the vaccine mandate was unlawful? We all know that the previous administration issued unlawful orders on mandatory vaccines on an experimental vaccine. COVID-19. You know it, we know it. You are taught that you have a duty to disobey unlawful orders. You know, they postulated that we're going to have back pay for members that were kicked out.

They're inviting these warriors back into service. And that was huge. And I was so happy to hear that. but that does nothing for the institution itself. What I have understood from people in the military is that it has not been made easy and that it really still needs to be done on an individual basis. We haven't stopped in four years when everybody was ignoring us and we're not going to stop for another four, fourteen or forty years.

We are at a critical juncture and the soul of this nation is at stake. When we talk about orders that are unlawful, now there is a duty to disobeyed. a lot to take in man and i'll tell you right now that video where they're standing outside of the the either the barrack firm it looked like it was probably in the brig and and they're getting ready to go in there are you refusing to comply when i see that i'm just i'm fucking blown away man i'm i'm blown away that that anybody would even do that yeah i mean that's why i think this this documentary is so important and all of it that it you know there's a comment in there about

accountability and and not stopping that's so important there's so many lessons that we need to learn as a nation and that the military needs to learn from this i mean and that that that movie that trailer's just tip of the iceberg i mean i got publicly involved in this fight and started doing media on this fight when i was still in because there's a group of navy seals i mean just conceptually right Navy SEALs on the East Coast there were 30 of them they were told on a Tuesday if you don't get the shot tomorrow we're throwing you all in the break that was a lie it was a bluff but that kind of coercion that kind of language what military members went through I mean part of the point of this movie is to tell those stories but there are story after story that people don't even

want to acknowledge as true people don't believe happened and and so that's part of this and part of the desire of so many of us, so many of my clients, people I represented is just for accountability to continue when it comes to looking at what happened so we can understand it because it doesn't have to happen again. But unfortunately, until we deal with it, that's the real risk for our military members is that, you know, the very people, all of us that swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution will have our most basic rights denied. And really, we, a nation, an administration, The presidential administration just decided they were going to ignore the Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and federal law that prohibited experimenting on military members.

And they decided to do it anyway. It doesn't really matter why. We just have to start with that premise of understanding. That's what they did. Good, Alpha. I was to say, I'm glad it's coming out. I'm glad it's coming out now, you know, around the corner because, you know, so much has happened in our world, but specifically in our country. Like we've been flooded with news and events that this, it seems like this was a long time ago, but it wasn't.

Like this wasn't a long time ago. And the reality is it's still not technically over for a lot of people who are still battling these things as far as their discharge codes, their help. Like we've, we've had bets on here that their life's change. Even if they want to come back, you know, they're, they're, they're, not physically in a condition to where they safely can. And, you know, something I haven't heard a whole lot of people talking about and it's always been a concern for me is, you know, how many, how many people in the military that did take this and suffered an injury and are concealing that injury because they don't want to be

pushed out because it's their livelihood. And what does that look like for military readiness? Like, this is, this is something I haven't heard any big names really address. what it comes to our government. Yeah, it feels like it's a slow leak. Like it's a slow drip of information about the harm that was caused by these shots. And even just the low level, you know, low level cardiac issues, there's really no such thing. It's a low level cardiac issue when we talk about healthy population and healthy adults.

But yeah, I mean, there's so many aspects of this and the way it was handled that are devastating. But here's the problem, too. I represent many clients who were in. injured by this vaccine, so-called vaccine, and guess what? You're ready for a shock? The military and the VA don't want to acknowledge the shot as any even possible source of harm to military members. So one of the things that people are challenged was talking to a client today who was injured by this, clear in the records he was injured by this. And the VA doesn't even want to acknowledge it. So you have those that are still in that are suffering from this quietly that are dealing with heart issues, auto immunists, and other things.

It's impacting readiness. They don't want to talk about it because they don't want to get kicked out. But then you have people that are out that have had heart attacks, that have had other things happen. And now they can't get a medical retirement. They can't get full access. They can't get full recognition from the VA for what's happened to them. So that's just, I mean, again, this is going to take a long time to undo. but it's not all that different than what happened with anthrax, right?

There was a real problem with the anthrax vaccine. That was unlawfully imposed on military members and a lot of guys, thousands and thousands of guys were severely injured. And whether it was the vaccine itself or a bad batch, they're still trying to unpack that. But we haven't even, I mean, that's the 90s. We're going back to the 90s and we still haven't fixed everything for those guys. Just real quick, Davis, refresh my memory.

and again, this was, you know, five or six years ago now. And I'm just trying to remember the mandate on the military came out before any of the mandates to the general public, correct? Really at the same time. So what the Biden administration tried to do was implement all of this when there was when there was FDA approval. The problem is the formula, the product that was approved by the FDA was never produced in the United States because they had a stockpile of the you know, the experimental emergency youth use products. So the, the military tried to wait until the FDA approval came out of that formula. And that's when the Biden administration tried to implement all of this. So the military was one of the first, you know, sort of shoes to fall as

the, as it was rolled out. Yeah. The reason I asked that is because, you know, historically, the Marine, the military is generally kind of like a test bed, so to speak, for a lot of this stuff. You know, and I can remember when I was in the Marine Corps before we deployed to Afghanistan on both deployments, we had to take, you know, these medicines, these medications, I don't want to call them medicines, these medication, these pills before we deployed. And it was all under the ground of the basis that you don't want to get malaria while you're over there and mosquitoes and all this. And, you know, I remember, let me go to the end of the story first.

And I never saw a single mosquito the entire time I was in Afghanistan. Not one mosquito, not one, not one. But now going back to when I was taking these pills, the first deployment that I went on, and I can't remember which pill I was taken. But I mean, I was waking up in the middle of night having like terrible dreams, horrific dreams. I got on the phone at one point, you know, with somebody and they asked for my home of address back in Florida. And I couldn't remember the address that I'd lived at for eight years.

And I had to give the phone off to my wife and be like, here, tell them the address. I started freaking out. I started freaking out. Wow. And like, so all of this stuff and all of this was to prevent malaria in a country that we had no mosquitoes. We didn't have a single problem with it. And so that's why I was kind of getting at this with the, with the, you know, the military.

Did they predate the, uh, the general population before? because we are guinea pigs essentially. We've signed our life way. We signed on the dotted line to give our lives for the Constitution, defense of our nation, but nobody signed up for this. Nobody signed up for an experimental, you know, to be a pin cushion for an experimental jab that only impacts, the population that impacts is so small. You had to get tested just to know that you had it because you could be asymptomatic.

And, you know, they were always saying, well, you know, the old, the elderly are most at risk. Well, guess what the military is not. It's not old. It's also not fat. It's also not nasty. We're all the top, you know, in tippy top shape, you know, all of us. It was, it was mind blowing, man. Unbelievable what they do to the military. You don't even have to go as far to as back as our, our deployments. Just go look to look at the reception process. You know, you guys remember, you know what I mean? You show up to boot camp. It's a sleep deprivation phase, right? So, yeah, are you informed? consent when you're purposely being put through sleep deprivation you're signing papers that you're just like yeah you're like you're just you're on the nod right and then you just go through and it's you know it's two in this arm two in this arm two in these cheeks two in these cheeks and they i who remembers what they got you know you and and like you said they experimented us you know we did have mosquitoes out in iraq we did but the same thing you know that malaria sequence they gave

for us it was two in the morning it was two at night and then all of a sudden out of the loos is like oh you don't have to take on the more like well the mosquitoes are still around you know and and and here's a thing and you know this made headlines back then too is it's still not in our SRBs what it was yeah we still don't know and so and so now you look at something like that that didn't have you know the the the world watching like you did with these these you know i call them bio weapons that's my opinion you know that that that was put those forced upon people it just how i don't even know where to start because the problem so big and out of control and it's like it's like you said you know yeah people out that are

dealing with injuries you have people in that you know some are acknowledging it some aren't you have the VA it's like the entire thing like to use trump's words it's all discombobulated right so so let me ask this davis um it In your opinion, what do you think was the motivation behind mandating this for the military? Like, why do you think they did this? The military was not, we were not, you know, the people that were susceptible to any type of complications from COVID. Yeah. So you have to, you have to just try to analyze this logically, right?

We have to use ration. We use reason. And you're exactly right. And that's finally what I came to as I was like, because. Listen, I mean, again, the stories I could tell you, but like I had a client, absolutely true story. My client filed for a medical exemption to the vaccine because one of the warnings for the vaccine is if you have had an anaphylactic or an adverse reaction to two different categories of antibiotics, right? So take vaccination out of the side of it. If you're someone who has a poor reaction to antibiotics, there's a black box label warning on this bioweapon, right?

don't take it. So my client had a twin brother and had a sister. His sister goes first and gets the vaccine. She collapses in the parking lot outside of the pharmacy has to be rushed to the hospital. His brother, his twin brother goes and gets the shot also has to be hospitalized. So my client, very smart guy, highly educated, a scientist is like, okay, I can't get this. So he goes to a very experienced doctor, nationally known for understanding allergies, writes up a clear, clear exemption through this doctor. It's put in his records. He puts it in his military records. He talks to a captain, an Air Force captain, doctor who says, if I were you, I wouldn't take this shot, but I have to deny your medical exemption because I'm being told I have to deny your medical

exemption. So we appealed it. We had an email in writing from an Air Force colonel. supposedly a doctor who said, we're denying your medical exemption, but I would recommend that you get yourself admitted inpatient in a hospital before you take this shot so that if you do have an adverse reaction, they can treat you immediately. So I say that to say this wasn't just about, you know, religious freedom. This wasn't just about mandating an experimental product. There was something where the military said we want 100% compliance no matter what. And if we don't have 100% compliance, we want those people out. So there's a lot of different things we could look at. Is it, the pharmaceutical industry? Was it a money grab? Is there something we still don't fully know

about what was in this vaccine or the cause, the lab leak that caused this virus? There's something we don't know yet that hasn't come out because the requirement was no matter what, it has to be we're 100% complies. Or did they want to create a military that's willing to just go along to get along and doesn't have a single shred of independent thought? And this isn't to knock the people that got it because there are a lot of people that objected to it. But, but, you know, we're probably, and to be totally honest, if I was in the Marine

Corps when this came out, I probably would have been kicking and screaming, but I probably would have got it. I'm not going to lie. I probably would have got it. So it's not every single. person that got it that is, you know, a mindless zombie that's just like whatever you tell me to do, a yes, man. But when you see the slotkin and Mark Kelly and, you know, disobey disorder, disobey unlawful orders thing come along, you know, a lot of the staff NCOs now are people that were

taking that shot in 2021, 2022 and are, you know, now people that are, you know, kind of in line with that whole thought process. So I, there, now again, I'm totally speculating on, on, on, why this was, you know, forced on people and why if you didn't get it, you were automatically kicked out. But to me, that's kind of something that you need to pay attention to is that we now have a military that is full of people that were mindless drones that went along with what the Biden administration told them to do in 2022. Right. And this really was a constitutional crisis. And what I mean when I say that is the Biden administration chose to ignore the law. They chose to ignore the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and they chose to ignore federal law that says you

cannot experiment on military members. They knew what the law was. It's clear if you look at the memorandums that went around and all that, they knew what they were doing. They said, we're going to do this anyway. So the executive, right, the commander in chief was intentionally violating the law and really challenging the constitutional system, and it took courts to step in to stop it, right? And so that really is a critical question because now we have a military. And again, I don't blame most people that made a decision to get this. I blame a lot of senior leaders that when they were showed the truth, shows not to stand up to this.

I blame a lot of Jags who knew the truth, who knew the law, who understood what the right thing to do was and shows their pension, their careers, their reputation over doing what was right. I do have a problem with a lot of them. But ultimately, now you have a military that is, filled with people who said, okay, I get that this is an unlawful order. I get what they're doing is wrong, but I don't want to put my career at risk. My pension or whatever it is is more important to me than the Constitution or the truth. And in that respect, you could argue it was a test

and many people failed it. Well, and the part that is concerning is that crossed over into the first responder world. This happened in police agencies, sheriff's departments. You know, it's these are the people that are supposed to take that position. It's unlawful. I'm not doing it. And people's retirements got weaponized against them. They absolutely did. And yeah, I mean, there's so many lessons to learn from that.

But you're right. And then it begs the question, if people are willing to go along with this, if military members are willing to look at this, to know, to know that it was unlawful and to still not just, you know, order people to comply, but. sit on a discharge board and go along with recommending that someone be separated over this, that's a real problem because then you have to ask the question, and that's where examples are talking about things like Mark Kelly has said, it starts to raise that question of what else would they go along with? What else would they be willing to do if they're told,

just do it anyway, just go along, this is what we're doing. That really is problematic when we start to think about the broader implications for our nation and what that means for our military. Davis, I want to play real quick. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth came out and had a new message this week, and I want to play this message in full and then talk about this here. Joe Biden's mandate to force military service members to take the COVID-19 vaccine was wrongfully and unlawfully applied because the Biden Pentagon refused to grant exemptions for certain medical and faith reasons, not to mention it was an experimental vaccine. As a result, many service members and their families suffered severe hardship and the department lost trust with the American people. President Trump's executive order on this topic stated that the military unjustly discharged

those who refused the vaccine, regardless of their conscience or the years of service given to our nation. He called this what it is, an unfair, overly broad, and completely unnecessary burden on our Warriors. Under the leadership of President Trump, the War Department is committed to doing everything we can to make it right. As you know, we want warriors of conscience, warriors who made a principled stand for truth. We want them back in our ranks as soon as possible. We are welcoming back to serve as patriots who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine and were discharged for that reason. If that is you and you still have the desire to once again wear the cloth of our nation,

we are ready to reinstate you with back pay and with benefits. I'm directing the Undersecretary of War for personnel and readiness to establish a Department of War, COVID-19, reinstatement, and reconciliation task force. The services have them right now. We're establishing one at our level to oversee the entire thing. The task force's goal is to bring back into service all those who desire to continue to serve our country in uniform. Even if you do not intend to return to service, the War Department will provide a path for resolution of unearned bonuses, upgrades to discharge characterizations that will unlock your well-deserved benefits and removal of adverse documents from service files. Further, I have directed a review of policies and decision-making to ensure that we do not go down this path again. You raised your right hand and swore an oath to serve and protect the Constitution and our nation.

You were mistreated by the Biden Pentagon, and we are fixing that injustice. So, Davis, your thoughts on that and how that differs from what we've been told about the individual branches going through and doing much of the same. Yeah, there's a couple pieces that are absolutely critical. First, the messaging in my mind is really, really important because Secretary Hegsteth is talking about the medical piece, the religious freedom piece and the experimental piece. So he is going against the guidance he's getting and the advice he is getting from the attorneys at the Pentagon, the bureaucrats at the Pentagon. And he's willing to talk about this being an unlawful order. That's really, really important when it comes to trying to make things right for so many veterans. But the other pieces, the services, and again, I mean, 32,000 people work at the Pentagon on any given day.

and most of them are part of the permanent or semi-permanent bureaucracy, and many of them are opposed to what he's trying to do to make this right. They were the people that were implementing it in the first place. So all of that matters. And again, the Army has done the best job in many respects of bringing people back in. The Air Force has been terrible. The other services have been far behind the Army. So Tata, the Undersecretary for Manpower or for Personnel and Readiness is Undersecretary Tata.

He has done a good job. His messaging has been on point. He's been working this hard, but they've been having to wait for the service secretaries to get on board and get this done at the service level, and it's way too slow. So I think you can see some frustration and some dissatisfaction. So I think this is really, really good news. It still has to be implemented. The services have been pushing back. I hear it all the time. There's other guidance that he's pushed out, and I hear the surfaces say, well, we haven't seen a policy memo on that. I'm like, here's the policy memo from the Secretary of Defense. Okay, well, we haven't seen the implementing guidance yet. And I'm like, this is the implementing guidance. It's simple. It's clear. Let's move forward. But just like we saw

there in COVID, there's this bureaucratic pushback. And I hope the American people can see that. I think we really need to have conversations about the power of the bureaucracy. People put the military on a pedestal sometimes, and they should, individual service members that are willing to sacrifice should be given credit for that. But the bureaucracy, the Department of War has become this bloated federal agency like so many other agencies. And we got to fix that. So not only I think is this so important for so many people that were hurt by the COVID mandate, but I think there's a larger lesson we need to learn here. When you start to see the conversations and the indictments coming out, you know, surrounding one of Felci's senior guys and at least the hint towards

the direction that this can potentially go. Is this something that you see accelerates the conclusions to a lot of the fights that you have for your clients? Or is that something that's going to probably maybe slow it down as you guys try to figure out what direction this is going? Well, I think it's going to help. And again, it's one of those things where there's there's the law, but then there's also willpower, right? And public sentiment. So, what I've seen throughout this fight is there were some like Senator Ron Johnson and others that have been on the forefront of trying to bring this to people's attention and talking about it. Others have been way behind and have only wanted to get involved when public pressure was there. So every time there's an indictment, every time we see in the news a discussion of, you know, individuals that are supposed to work for the American people as part of an administration that were lying, that we're being.

being deceptive, that we're acting in self-interest, that we're burying data. Every time that comes out, I think that helps. I think that gives us momentum. And it also gives so many of these bureaucrats that are making these decisions that sit on discharge review boards or board of corrections. They're insulated, right? They live inside the Beltway in D.C. They've been part of the government for way too long.

And they don't really think about the impact on real people, on real individuals anymore. And so every time we see these things, I hope it's starting. to wake people up and gives people within the system either the courage to do the right thing or fear that they themselves may be held accountable for being complicit in these lies. Well, that's the key word right there is accountable. And I want people held accountable. And I love what Secretary Hegseth is doing here. You know, I'm a huge proponent of it.

I think it took too long, to be honest with you. And to what you had said earlier about the individual service is not quite being up to speed with what the Secretary of War wants. Like, it's the military, man. Like, when people aren't up to speed, you light a fire under their ass and you get them up to speed. Like, it's not civilian business infrastructure. This is the military.

You know, we have ways of making guys do what we need them to get done. And heck says you know this better than anybody being, you know, a grunt himself. When you look at and you have a better pulse on this, thumb on the pulse of this than we would but when you look broadly at all the people you know that are involved in this fight and everything else what what would you say the percentages or you know a spitball percentage of people that you think would actually want to come back in if they were afforded that opportunity um five percent maybe wow is that because of time or is that just a a total distrust of the service now.

Unfortunately, a lot of it is a distrust. I mean, listen, and I can be even more specific, I can't say names, but three, three of my clients that survived COVID, they were able to stay in and continue serving. Three of them that I can think of in particular were Navy SEALs, tip of the spear guys, they stayed in, they survived barely, but they survived everything that happened with COVID. but they got back spun up. They went, they deployed again, they went operational. But the moment, the moment they could leave,

meaning they'd done their service time, that they'd done a deployment, they did what they needed to do, even though they were getting closer to retirement, they walked out. They walked out three within the last couple of months. And the reason is they don't trust the system, right? These are the guys that were threatened with court martial.

These were the guys that were treated, Navy sales that were treated like, trash for two years why this was going on. And yes, they wanted to stay. Yes, they wanted to employ with their teens. Yes, they wanted to do the job. But as soon as they could walk away honorably, and even though they were getting close to retirement, that's what they did. They walked away from it because they don't want to be part of a system they can't trust anymore because they saw what happened. And again, a lot of these people like what President Trump is trying to do. They like what Secretary Heggseth is trying to do, but they don't trust

the system and they see the bureaucracy as having failed them. And that's why they're walking away. So it's a very low percentage of people that I speak to that even if they had the opportunity with back pay and other things that would be willing to subject themselves and their families to what happened during COVID. Because it's not just about getting kicked out. It's the way people were treated. Sometimes for two years, isolation. You know, if you were on a ship, not being able to get off a ship in port, being locked in rooms, not being able to go to church, being confined to base. I mean, all of these things are things that happen that our military did to these men and women. And it was terrible. I mean, clients that were homeless, they were kicked out with less than 24

hours notice on the street, had to live in their cars and then beg, you know, to find people to take them in until they could get back on their feet because of this. So that's kind of the moral injury that's still happening. And that's why I say it's such a low percentage. So I appreciate the effort. But I'm not convinced that many people that didn't go through it or didn't want to acknowledge what was happening to so many service members as this was going on. I'm not sure they fully grasped how difficult and challenging this was for so many. Do you think Hegseth went far enough with that announcement with the things that he's giving in return? I think we're getting much closer. He's starting to acknowledge the fact that there is a huge population of people

that were forced out, not necessarily involuntarily discharged because of not getting the shot, but were forced out during that time period because of other things that happened to them. Getting their records right, getting their back pay, getting their bonuses, making them whole, I think we'll do a lot. And then they will become ambassadors for others, for their own children or family members to want to serve again. I'm really eager to see what this task force is going to do and what the guidance is going to be from this task force because I will tell you, I've sat in the Pentagon meeting with some of these senior leaders, having conversations with them, and they're always like, yeah, but I don't know if we can do that legally, or I don't know this or I don't know that.

So I can tell you there are still, even though HECSF came in and fired all the senior JAGS from each branch of the service, which needed to be done, there are still civilian, attorneys, general counsel's office and things like that within the Pentagon, as well as many Jags that are pushing back against the implementation of this at every turn. And that is a huge challenge. And that's something that you just, unless you've been to the Pentagon, you understand how it works. It is extremely difficult to fight through all of that bureaucracy, even with the best intentions. And it takes time. And my fear is, if we don't stay very aggressive on this, they're just going to run out the clock and if there's a different administration in with a different secretary of war then this

is probably just going to get swept under the rug yeah that's that's that's that's one of my fears as well is is is a lot of what we're seeing is is you know kicking the can down the road until the administration checks out and uh you know there's no accountability ever and you know we're we're talking now and i'm glad we're getting squared away with the the civil side of this and getting our service members you know made right and everything but i i still want accountability. We don't have any accountability for any of the stuff. You know, I, did you, did you watch the hearing yesterday with, um, with James Erdman? I just saw some highlights. I didn't have a chance to watch at all.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm watching that thing. And, and again, nothing that if you've been down the, you know, the, the, the rabbit hole that is COVID, nothing that was like crazy new. But as, you know, Erdman's talking about this, uh, director's initiative group, the dig and, you know, the investigation that they were doing into COVID and, you know, how it was handled under the previous administration, he's sitting there saying as a CIA agent, you know, an officer with the CIA, he's sitting there saying the CIA is spying on these individuals and they're, they're monitoring what the president has ordered them to do. The CIA is monitoring DNI officials, a superior branch of the bureaucracy to the CIA. And, and, you know, and so again,

And I know this is kind of a broad way to go back to the military. We don't have any accountability. We don't have accountability for, you know, what Lloyd Austin did. We don't have accountability for, what's the, what's the general that Colonel Long has talked about, the one that says, you guys got to make sure you go out there and get vaccinated. And then he gets vaccinated and his trigger finger locks up on him. Do you know what story I'm talking about? Yes.

I can't remember the guy's name, but she told that story when I was in Alabama for an event that she was at. And I was blown away by it. I'm like, dude, you were injured by the vaccine and you're telling people to get this vaccine. That's crazy. That's nonsense. Yeah, absolutely. And that accountability piece, right? That accountability piece is so difficult because you'll talk to people and they'll say,

okay, well, how do we, how do we hold people accountable? Again, firing the Jags, firing the senior jags for each branch of the service, having them resigned. That was a great start. There's been some others. But the Biden administration filed a lot more senior officers in generals than this administration has. And I think part of that, you know, part of that is, and this sounds like a dumb way to say it, but sometimes I think that there are good people that are motivated by doing the right things and actually care about other people.

And they're hesitant to fire some of the people they should because they're trying to be good people. And sometimes we just need to come in and clean house. And that's really what needs to happen because there's this bureaucratic mindset. And I have this conversation with military, especially young, you know, junior officers that I speak to. I said, you're going to learn as you start to learn this job, as you start to learn how to be a leader in the military. You're going to learn that the military today, at least in the last few years, has done a really bad job of teaching anything about leadership, accept risk management, that being risk averse is the primary leadership tool we're teaching people. And unfortunately, the lessons that's been learned by far too many military officers is the risk

you're supposed to mitigate is your own career. And we should have seen this coming. I don't know if you guys remember, but in 2015 or 16, the Army War College did a study. You can go look it up. I actually had dinner with one of the PhDs that did the study. but they did this study on army officers. It was limited to army officers because there was a concern that there was an integrity problem because here's the deal. You guys know all of the mandatory, especially the computer-based mandatory training we have to do in the military, right?

Well, these guys did a study and they proved that there was a time at which there was not really enough man hours in a year to accomplish all the training that the army was requiring, right? You just couldn't do it all. It's not possible. Yet 100% of army officers were signing off that they completed the training and that they had done the training. So there was this mentality that more important telling the truth was checking all the right boxes off on an inspection and making sure you were green, even if you had to fudge the numbers to do it. And that may seem like a small thing, but it showed kind of an integrity issue. So then fast forward to COVID and you have those same officers that are like, well, I have questions. about the legality of this. I see the things that are being said. I have concerns,

but I don't want to put my command position at risk. I don't want to put my next assignment at risk. I don't want to be seen as someone who's going to cause problems. So I'm just going to check the box and order everybody to get the shot no matter what. The, yeah, the the the accountability thing and being afraid, you know, to speak up, you know, I go back and I know this is unrelated to COVID, but you know, with the Abbey Gate thing, one of the people that's always stuck out to me as lieutenant colonel stewart sheller uh absolutely and and we he was he was actually alpha i think he was either our first or second show on sit rep was our interview with him so three years ago uh or four years ago whatever it was our first interview i was going back trying to

find the interview we did with my corpsman and i went all the way back to the beginning and worked my way up but you know what what he did you know in as a lieutenant colonel in uniform and calling out you know the dereliction the the the inadequacies of our top brass at what point in the military do you think people become essentially yesmen politicians you know politicians in camo essentially um and and and so at what point do you think that and do you think at what rank should i i should say do you think that begins and do you think there were people that were you know general officers and and and you know colonels and above that that conscientiously objected to this but would not voice that opinion?

You know, I think it becomes it becomes such an interesting question because I don't know that there's a specific set rank, right? Courage doesn't necessarily know rank. And so it's a moving target. But I think that there's a tendency, the closer people get to 20 years, right? Just put that as a number. the closer people get to securing that pension, I think the more concerned they become about, you know, causing, stirring things up. The other piece that happens is people think the mindset is they justify it.

They say, well, if I can just get this promotion, think of all the good I can do as a colonel. Think of all the good I can do as a general officer. Think of all the things I'll be able to accomplish if I just get that power. And then they get that power and they start thinking about the next piece. So that's that's the real challenge. That's the real question of moral courage. But what Stu Scheller did was in the vein of what Billy Mitchell did back in the in the World War I, World War II era.

And when we were talking about air power and he was trying to demonstrate how important it was, he was court-martialed because he was willing to be outspoken because he realized the danger that our nation faced if we didn't try to understand. air power and those are the same kinds of things that happen so what's fascinating is we look back at people like that historically and we see why they did what they did they see the good they were trying to do and we we acknowledge them as heroes not always but we often acknowledge them as heroes but in the moment there's terrible persecution i mean that's what that's what stew faced he faced court marshal he faced brig time um for what he did and now he's in a position to make a difference so

Praise God for that. But it's a difficult, difficult question. What we need to do, what we need to emphasize is we need to find a way to start rewarding individuals in the military that are willing to stand up, that are willing to make a difference. Because here's one of my other fears. And I know that warfare has changed a lot. But go back to World War II, right? This is basic common sense.

One of the significant differences between the American military and the German army and European armies and where we were successful and they weren't was the rigid bureaucracy and the hierarchy of the structure. We put an emphasis on NCOs, platoon leaders, junior officers that had the authority for taking the initiative and making decisions on their own. They didn't have to wait to wake up Hitler to get approval to do these things. And it was reflected in how things worked. You could even read, you know, German officers famously were quoted as saying, it's very difficult to go to war against the Americans because we can study their doctrine, but it's apparent to us that they don't study their own doctrine.

In other words, in other words, we rewarded officers, we rewarded NCOs that showed initiative and were willing to think on their feet and be flexible and were more concerned about winning a specific battle doing the right thing in the moment than following a strict order or waiting for orders, we've gotten away from them, right? We've gotten so risk averse. We've somehow lost a lot of that spirit. Now, it's still there in some portions of the military, but that's what we need to emphasize. We need to find ways to reward initiative, outspokenness, creativity, rather than just

promoting bureaucrats. And it's a critical time in the military as well, because we're on the heels of this atrocity that happened to our service members with the bioweapon, but at the same time, you can see that the American people still had hope in what is Donald Trump, because our recruiting numbers were out the freaking roof. So it's telling you that the American people see you as a solution. If you don't fulfill that solution, which is accountability, do we ever get these kind of recruiting numbers again?

Because they're going to be like, you told us, we trusted you. We came in in the numbers you needed, but you didn't fulfill your obligation. That obligation is hands down accountability. Yeah, and that's one of my fears because we have a window and it's closing rapidly to seek out this accountability. And if we don't do it and we don't do it well, I do think we burn a lot of bridges and we lose a lot of that trust. Because people have a lot of faith in Trump. They have a lot of faith in Hegset, a lot of faith in some of these other leaders to do the right. thing but accountability has to be part of that yeah i read um i read heggseth's book what is it the war

against war fighters uh war on warriors i think something like war on warriors yeah i read that book and before when when president trump had first nominated him i was kind of like okay i kind of like the idea of a non-general officer being appointed to the secretary of war or defense department defense at that time um i i kind of like that idea somebody that's been on the ground you know i Again, I've subscribed to Colonel Schellers, you know, junior officers and enlisted Marines were winning battle after battle after battle in Afghanistan. And we never made any progress. We never won the war. And that is a failure from the top.

That is not a failure from the junior enlisted, the junior officers. We were kicking ass and taking names. You guys were the ones that weren't doing the job, whether or not that was deliberate, we can have that conversation. But that was kind of my mindset in Hegset is this is fresh air. This is a fresh breath into the Department of Defense, somebody that has more of the ground level perspective rather than the bureaucratic perspective. And I was really excited about that. Then I read the book, The War on the Warfighter, and I was like full, I was all in on him. I was like, this is great.

And so far, it's been impressive. And I do want to get into, you know, Heg Seth's performance. And we can kind of move on a little bit from the COVID. here as we get towards the a little past the halfway point i do have to hit a sponsor though uh real quick uh davis before we do that so let me go ahead and bring up our next sponsor for the show bad landers you guys are all familiar with loaded gun coffee they've been longtime supporters here at badlands and you may have met them in person at some of our guard events but did you know they are also a veteran ran veteran ran family owned shop in lake havisu arizona every bag of their whole bean coffee delivers

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have someone who really understands the boots on the ground, really understands the operational side, and really is more loyal to those people, to the people that he served with than to politicians in D.C. or any of those things, I think that's huge. The emphasis on physical fitness, on readiness, on the warfighter, as opposed to the bureaucracy of the military, I think he's been really, really important. I think he's done a lot to restore pride and service, to talk about standards. Listen, you know, you want the best people in the military, raise the standards. whatever the standards are, raise them, right? And you'll get better people trying to achieve those standards. So he's understood that.

He's done that really, really well, and he's moved, I think, in the right direction on many things. I think the bad, if there is a failure point, I think that it is the naivete in dealing with the bureaucracy. And again, I can say this. I've seen it over and over again. I see it constantly in dealing with my clients. There's this entrenched bureaucracy and different levels. He came out with this no more walking on eggshells policy, right? Trying to reform the way we do these investigations because a good military leader, even at

the NCO level, can get accused of one thing by a subordinate that just doesn't like being held accountable for something. And all of a sudden, their careers potentially at an end because they're just being, you know, sliced by administrative cuts, a thousand of them through EO investigations, IG complaints, whatever it is, right? They get these complaints against them. And the Biden administration's mentality was we don't want to blame the victim. We don't want to blame the oppressed. So whenever anybody makes any kind of a complaint like this, we're just going to believe it. Forget innocent until proven guilty. We're just going to believe the quote unquote victim until this is resolved.

and so careers are destroyed. That entrenched mentality is still there at the mid-level management throughout the military. So I see it all the time. I still represent clients who get accused of ridiculous things. They're obviously absurd. And yet their career is on hold for six months for a year trying to deal with this. And when I present to, you know, the Army JAG, the Air Force Jag, the Navy and Marine Corps Jag, when I present to them, hey, haven't you read Secretary of Wars,

policy memo that says this is supposed to take 30 days, that we're supposed to do a check on this, a common sense, rational check, and we're supposed to stop to these frivolous investigations. They're like, yeah, but we haven't seen the implementing guidance on that yet. We're sitting in a board and saying, hey, you know the official position of the Department of War is that the mandate was unlawful, so we need to get rid of this adverse action that's related to the mandate. Yeah, we haven't seen any implementing guidance on that, and we thought it was lawful at the time we did this, so it's okay.

So again, I think the bad is just the, and I think, you know, President Trump faced this in his first administration. He did a better job recognizing it in this second term, but this idea of how much work has to be done and how long it takes to root out the bad actors and just the inertia of the bureaucracy. And that's where I fear, Hegg Seth is going to do a lot of good and run out of time before we get the football all the way to the end zone. the the the point you're making there about she one cut just completely ruined your career this story popped into my mind alpha last two weeks ago or three weeks ago when we had my buddy danny on i had this marine on he wrote a book and he was on on our show a couple a few weeks ago and he was one of the most squared away marines i've ever served with this guy was he was locked on He was an excellent PFTier.

He was very smart. He was motivated. He was a genuine good person. And he just had the most traumatically tragic career in the military that you could ever imagine. And the last thing that ever happened to him, he got busted down to a private while we were in Afghanistan. And we were at a fob where it was a very nice fob compared to our first deployment, which was a shithole, right? We were out in the middle of nowhere. Second deployment of the Afghan war was 2012.

It was kind of starting to wind down a little bit. And we had a nice chow hall. We actually had Marine Corps chefs or cooks that were there working in the chow hall. And they would ask us, the grunts, we were 03s, they would ask us to send guys to the chow hall, to work at the chow hall. And so we would send, you know, guys that were on their off day, meaning they're not on a patrol day to the chow hall. And one day he goes in there and there's like two sergeants and a corporal that are in the back, playing video games or watching TV or whatever. While our Lance corporals and PFCs that have been patrolling for eight hours a day for the last,

you know, five days, they finally get a day off and they're going and working four hours at the Chow Hall and they're out there busting their ass serving food, bringing everything out. And this guy goes to the sergeant and goes, hey, Sergeant, why are my guys the ones that are, and he's a senior Marine, he's still Lance Corporal, but he's a senior guy. Why are my Marines out here doing this and not your guys in the, in the Chow? Hall. Who the fuck do you think you are? You know, that kind of thing. And this guy was looking out for his guy. That is something that is so admirable and desirable that a senior Marine, even though he doesn't have the rank of the other guy, he's willing to go to bat for his junior

guys. He gets NJP busted back down to private and completely ruined his career, completely ruined his career. And this guy, you know, is a guy that could have went places. And so, you know, when you think about this kind of stuff like the point you were making right there about you know not walking on eggshells anymore right you're a grunt on a a forward operating base everybody on that base is in support of you as an infantry marine they're there to support you and and and he had the the balls to stand up and say why are my guys busting their ass doing your job when you're not going out there and patrolling for eight hours a day for five straight days i i i love what heggseth is doing in that regard specifically

right there. Yeah, it's so important. And if you saw this week, he came out and said, hey, I want another review of the military justice process, the military legal system. So again, that's the right instinct. That's the right things that need to happen. Those are the things we need to be doing. But I'm just concerned about the timing. I really am concerned he's going to run out of time. That time window, man, it's, it's, it's the time window. I mean, it's, it's, it's, and in one aspect, it's an advantage because you know the president and Pete realize they're in a limited scope of time. So you know it's going to light a fire under them. But in the same aspect, because they don't want to cut the corners of things that exist, you know,

they try to go about it the right way until ultimately get to where Pete's like, I'm just going to disregard all the shit you guys are telling me. It's like we're going to talk about it. But how much time is wasted in the interim? And that's that's something that's that's not on our side. let me ask you this Davis if and I like to ask ask this question to to my guess you know that that have thought these things out and you're vested in this fight if you were if if if Trump was to get on the horn with you right now and said Davis is I what's one thing you name one thing

that I can change right now and I'm changing it one thing give me one thing what's your priority what are you telling them it's hard to say one thing right I know but but what I would say is um Don't, don't be afraid to fire essentially all the general officers. Yes. And start over again. Because there are, yeah, there may be a couple of good ones, but there are too many general officers in the United States military. We have more admirals than we do ships.

And so we need to fire the flag officers. And, you know, I love the idea. I know my buddy infantry door. and others have talked about this, but you know, Eisenhower would like to hold war games to see who could actually command. And I would love that would be the other thing is, is fire the general officers and hold war games and actually see who can command in at least in a simulated battle environment.

If you can command successfully, that's who you promote. Look, Trump already showed he has the balls to make that decision. Because Hegsef was not a general. Right. Look at how many people said, dude isn't qualified. What is he doing? And Trump said, no, I recognize talent and the man for the job. This is the man for the job.

He needs to just do that on the scale you're talking about. Right. Get rid of them. Give rid of them because there's a whole lot of people that have the ability to do what you did with with the Secretary of War, Pete Egg said. There are guys that will step up to the plate. I think that's a solid. Do it. Get rid of them.

And this goes back to the point you guys are making earlier about, you know, look at Vietnam, look at the war on terror. It's not the junior officers and the operators in the field that have not been successful. In every turn, when they have been allowed to do the job, they've been successful every time. We beat the enemy every time. But it's the general officers. It's the leadership that fails us. It doesn't have the right strategy. It doesn't have the right support.

doesn't have the willpower to do what needs to be done to win. And so if we recognize that and say, look, maybe you're a good person, maybe you're a nice guy, maybe you've been a decent general, but you're part of a failed system. You're part of a losing team. It's time to rebuild. Do you think, and this might get a little controversial here, but do you think it's really they're part of a failed system or do you think the system is designed that way? And by that, by that, well, hold on, by that, what I mean is you go back to,

to when President Trump first announced his candidacy for his second term here, he said, I'm going to close the revolving door between the government and the bureaucracy. And so when you look at the military where it is today, I mean, our last Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, had to get a waiver in order to become Secretary of Defense because he was coming off a contract with Northrop Grumman. He was coming off the board of, I think it was Northrop Grumman. It was one of the defense contractors. But do you think, do you think that that was all by, chance that they just weren't successful or do you think it was an effort to prolong this war to continue that military industrial complex i mean we just saw and and this is the one thing you know

to the to the to the goods and pros and cons of heggseth he just asked for 1.5 trillion dollars in a public you know AI generated uh video on x and it's to me that is just that's too much man like i so i'll let you answer that i disagree with i'm on that i know you i know you do You. I know you do. That's the authoritarian to me, man. Right. Right. No, listen. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Let's just go back. Let's look at history and we have to learn from it. Think about Eisenhower, right? Eisenhower was a general, a successful general, a good leader, became president. And what did he warn us about in his farewell address? You got to go back and read it. It's not just the military industrial complex. It was a reliance on.

expertise and scientists and so-called experts. What he was really warning was the rise of the bureaucracy that he was seeing. So you're absolutely right. What we have lost as a nation is this idea to really understand incentives. So one of the things we have to ask a question, it's why we have to ask the question about the COVID purge. Why do we even have to ask that question? Because we know instinctively, we know instinctively someone's making a lot of money off of these vaccine mandates. We know instinctively there are people that make a lot of money selling munitions to the United States government. And we also know that there is a revolving door between those companies and senior leadership at the Pentagon and other administrative agencies. And we look at the

amount of money involved. And it is a fair question to ask who stands to gain from what we're doing. And why was Eisenhower? His health was failing. He was an older guy who's just planning on going back to his farm in Pennsylvania. Why was he warning us about those things? He had zero incentive not to be truthful with the American people. And I just think we've blown past that warning. It is, I mean, anybody that hasn't read that lately,

I used to keep a copy of that farewell address on my desk when I was in the military and even after I got out because of what's in there as a warning to all of us to try to understand that. And listen, if you deployed, you deployed in the military in the global war on terror, like all of us did, you have seen the amount of waste and the amount of money being made on contracts and it blows your mind when you see it. I mean, where I was deployed, there was one specific job being done that is typically done even on large installations in the United of States by two NCOs, usually a tech sergeant and a staff sergeant, E5 and E6 do the job. I deployed to a tiny little installation.

There were 12 contractors doing that job, 12 of them, making over $200,000 a year and two NCOs. David, I had a guy when I got out of the Marine Corps. I was a mortarman, infantry mortarmen, and I was an FDC chief. So I was the guy that plotted targets and told you like time of flight, figured out the direction and all that stuff. And my squad leader when I got out calls me up one day. He's like, hey, I got a contract with Raytheon teaching mortars to Afghan special forces. Would you be interested when I'm done?

Would you be interested in picking up my contract and coming over here? And I was like, well, what are the details? It's $175,000 a year. You work six months out of the year. you go over there for I think it was like a month and then you three months and then you come back for like a month and then you go back and you know back and forth and it's 175 000 and I think 60 or 70 thousand of it's tax free and I was like oh well that's interesting is a lot of hard work he's like no dude I sit in my my connecks and and watch Netflix and and and TV all day literally that's all I do I he says

I might train maybe a couple hours a day and he's making 175,000 the only reason I didn't do it is because I promised my wife I went to play again after I got out of the Marine Corps. I was like I'm not going to do it again. Look at when the deployment was getting ready to come over and we had all this ammo. It was like, look, boys. Oh, yeah. We can we can pack and mark and count or we can go have some massive training. Right.

Let's go have massive training because they, nobody want to do that working party. But you think about it hindsight, we saw it as a bunch of Lance Coolies and corporals that we're just going to go out there and you know, blow shit up, blow shit out, you know, that fire a lot of brass. But think about that. Platoon at the platoon company after company battalion at the battalion and think about how much money that does bring in to the military industrial complex or all these

contracting groups and all that. And it's like you see why it's allowed to happen because reality is like every other day. Like out of all the stupid ass working parties we did, making sure that ammo we didn't spend gets back to the rear. so we're not wasting money that's actually a working party that would have made sense but but again you know they gave us an option we capitalized on that moment so yeah but to the point on on the spending because i don't want people think like i just wants trillions of dollars you know going into the middle i just in the

right places you know we we i mean come on we we were marines in iraq with green fucking vehicles I mean, make that make sense. You know, we still had the green mop suits. You know, this was 03, you know, that's the very beginning of it. But we're just like, like, you're telling me, we, we didn't have the money to make sure that these things got painted before they got ships, you know, onto the ship. And it's that. But the other aspect, too, is we pay our service members in pennies. pennies for what we demand of them.

Absolutely. And when you look at and, you know, because my, my afterlife was in. law enforcement Davis and you know when I look at law enforcement you know agencies and the regions that were plagued with corruption also match the salaries and areas where the salaries were high it's like what you said you raise that bar while everybody wants in so you start to get that top to your talent you you you make our military to where the pay is actually attractive and you raise that bar you're going to get the best of the best you're going to get people making decisions of well I'm going to the military because I don't have another choice because I I jacked up my

adolescence to hey I'm not making these stupid decisions because I want to be able to get into the military and that changes the face of our military and that's what I'm saying that financial part yeah you don't have to put it on the on the top side bring it down bottom side put in our equipment put into you know our actual you know training we should have more training I'll let you're absolutely right yeah no you're you're absolutely right And that's one of, I mean, that's one of the issues I have with military spending is what are we actually spending it on and what are we doing when it comes to training? And we saw that, you know, there were times during GWAT that the money and resources were there. But how many stories can we all share of situations where critical, life-saving type resources were not available?

And yet there was billions and billions and billions of dollars being spent. And there's all this waste. and yet the warfighters still not getting the resources they need. So that's my frustration. That's where we need the reform. And I just, listen, maybe I'm simplistic, maybe because I never served at the Pentagon. I don't understand it. But like, do we really need 32,000 people working at the Pentagon?

Is that really, is that really necessary to do what needs to be done? You know, I, listen, maybe I'm wrong, but I happen to think there's a huge percentage of what we call active duty military that's just the bureaucracy and support that we could cut and actually get resources to the war fighters actually raise that standard and we would be much better off but we have just grown it and grown it and grown it to where we have people and look I'm I'm the Air Force guy right that's barely military sometimes in the Air Force depending on what your job is to be honest and I was a JAG but you know there's so much waste and there really is a question of where are those resources going and and

again the problem is most guys that go into the Pentagon I know good guys that have gone in there in key positions trying to do the right things a guy like you know the assistant secretary of the Air Force Matt Lomeyer good guy right trying to do the right things the problem is they only have a few months who really implement a lot of change when they first get there and then they're isolated and insulated and just going to meetings all day, trying to keep the trains running on time and do a good job, and trying to reform and radically change things becomes very, very difficult. So that's one of the realities we have

to have as well. So that's why, you know, I want to see radical change. That's why I say fire the generals, hold war, real war games, really prioritize operators and warfighters, cut the fat and then rebuild. And we can do that. We could do that well, but it takes a lot of willpower and you can't have a revolving door with industry if that's ever going to happen. I want to just real quick, I want to address what both you guys said, but we do have to hit one final sponsor here before the show ends. And then I'll address that and then we'll go around the horn and get some closing thoughts here. So on that note, guys, quick question, how much control do you guys actually have over your money right now?

Technology has changed everything and now it's changing how money works. Crypto has started a niche, but now it's going mainstream. stream. Faster payments, more control, fewer middlemen. It's not hype. It's just kind of where things are going. And getting started today is easier than you think. That's where Rumble wallet comes in. Rumble wallet, you can buy Bitcoin, you can hold dollar-backed stable coins. You can even own digital gold backed by real gold all in one place. Set up is simple. It connects with moon pay. So you can use your debit card, credit card, or your bank account and be up and running in just minutes. It's not about the amount. It's about getting in early and understanding what's coming next.

And once you're set up, you can even tip your favorite Rumble creators like us directly. So do this now. You can scan the QR code or click the link in the description and download the Rumble wallet. And from there, you can set up your wallet. You can tap buy and then boom, you're in the game. Take control of your money and get started with Rumble wallet today. The thing I would like to add to this is so Alpha, let me just ask you. I'm not going to try and go too hard on our on our guest tonight.

How much do you think China spends a year on national defense? I have no idea. Take a guess. Take a guess. A year? A year. I mean, they're huge. I would say what.

They're way bigger than we are. They have their population is in the billions. That's what I'm saying. So I would say their military budget a year has to be what, at least half a trillion dollars? what do you think Russia spends a year on their military? I think it's less than China. They're probably what, maybe a quarter of that. Quarter of that, so 200 billion, 150 billion?

About 200, 250 billion. So China's last 2025 is estimated at 336 billion. So about a little over half of what you projected. And Russia's is about 190 billion. Now, before the Ukraine war, Russia's was $75 billion. Before the Ukraine war, obviously they kicked it up. So, like, my point is, is how do we justify, when we're $40 trillion in debt, how do we justify spending five times our two biggest adversaries, we're told, China and Russia,

how do we justify spending three times more than both of them combined? Well, I think a lot goes into play in that because it's not just that simple. You got to look at the Biden administration, but even before the Biden administration, you've got to go to the eight years of Obama. And we have a lot of military equipment that was created subpar on purpose. And so you're talking about you got to go and we got to bring that shit up to speed. We also got to make sure we don't fall behind in the technology race with these guys. And we got to make sure that, you know, our guys are volunteers. you know, we, we got to make sure that they are taking care of, which we massively failed,

just given the conversation we had tonight. But those things all need to get rectified. And we also have that part of the military is that those dark budgets, right? You know, we, we know that there are good guys out there doing shit that's never going to meet the headlines. And that doesn't come at a cheap price. And a lot of that money that's in there that's going to say it's paid for this. We know it's not paid for that. It's going to go into that stuff.

Well, according to General Flynn, that dark money is a completely separate budget from from this 1.5. Well, not necessarily this 1.5, but from the line item defense budget. It's, we might be saying we're sending money because we're doing some operations out and freaking you, Guinea, right? So it's listed under that budget, but it's going to make its way through the apparatus to get into that budget that he's talking about. But the other thing, too, is, is I will. like to know is if they have this kind of budget and we look at military readiness over the next

decade, what do those future budgets look like if you're given what you need today? And if it's something like, well, no, we always need this to sustain it. Well, then a conversation needs to be had. But if we realize that, hey, let's remove all the waste. And if we remove all the waste, well, then does that budget come down? Because we know that that budget is including waste because that's the way it's always operated too. So it's complicated. David, I will let you respond if you wanted to call me a libertarian retard. No, listen, I think you're right. I think we have to ask the question about that budget.

But here's the biggest question I would ask, and maybe it's controversial as well, but can we even defend our own border? We're spending all of that money on national defense. Can we even defend our own border? I'm not convinced that we can. So I have huge questions about what our priorities are when it comes to the military spending from that piece alone. But again, we have to be putting it into war fighters, into bullets, into guns, into technology. There's so much waste there. But why are we spending that kind of money if we can't even secure our own porters?

Do you think we're destined to get out of NATO? Yes. And I hope we do. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. We can be friends. We can be friends. To the point Davis made in a comment you've made before, Brian, is, you know, I do believe we need troops abroad. Not as much as we do, but we do need some. But why are we deploying units to our southern border? We should have a fixed military that operates at our border 24-7, a group that knows that region.

That's where they train. Their equipment's for that. It's, you know, 100%. And don't stop up a southern border. Here's the other question. I'll ask, I'll ask Davis this because I've already asked you this on air. Davis, how many bases do you think China has around the world? Do you know first I should say do you know how many the U.S. has?

A lot. Upward. I don't know what that numbers is. Upwards is 750. So given the U.S. has 750, how many do you think China has? And it'll be the same question for Russia. Oh, man. I would, it would not surprise me at all if it was less than 100.

Hold on. I'm going to make sure I'm fact checked. Well, we also got to remember. not every base that's counted is a full-blown base so so china has one confirmed military base outside of china and that's in Cambodia Russia has uh less than 20 and they say maybe 29 to 35 depending on how you define base and we have 750 and we're spending 1.5 trillion dollars on our defense against who against who? I mean, when Independence Day happens and the aliens come down here, everybody better be paying America back for the $40 trillion in debt that we are for this crazy defense spending.

But again, I mean, this is what Eisenhower warned us of. And to your point you made about that, you know, Eisenhower warned us about this, but he perpetuated it. He enabled it during his presidency. Same as Truman. When Truman, you know, when Truman signed off on the CIA, he was naive in signing off on that. And what did he say on his deathbed when he was done? My biggest regret was turning the OSS into the CIA. I never should have done that.

And Eisenhower did the same thing. And so, you know, hindsight's always 20-20, but, you know, damn. All right, let's go around the horn. We're over time. Give final thoughts. Davis, we'll start with you. plug whatever you'd like also tell people where they can go to watch um uh oh my goodness why can't i think of it disobey uh yeah yeah yeah duty to disobey it's going to be in over a hundred

theaters nationwide kind of all regions are going to have a place to go watch it it's really important to go out tomorrow is the last day in a lot of locations to buy tickets to actually see it in the theater it's it's put out by children's health defense but it really is important to get the story out there. We're trying to get it shown in the Congressional Visitor Center in D.C. So we're working hard on that. There's a lot of pushback on that, as you can imagine. But duty to disobey.com. Children's Health Defense is putting that out. That's the place to go and look for a theater in your area. Go and watch it. There's going to be a lot of theaters where there's going to be people that were in the movie or people of conscience that are actually

going to be hosting events, roundtable discussions and things like that. So it's a great opportunity to get out and support the veterans in your area. All right. Alpha, final thoughts? Yeah, as far as our budget, it's better to have and not need it, need it not have it. And I just want to remind everybody, we are four minutes past the marker and CanCon ain't crying like he was this morning when I was talking about. I don't know the next, the next show is one. I want to remind everybody. Just want to remind everybody that he was trying to protect masks. The next show is not on Rumble Studio. so I don't have that issue here. And also the next show is Chris Paul and Burning Bright and not John, the boss.

And you got to make sure the boss is happy at all times. Also, you were just, you were giving us a nasty hat. I'm going to buy you a nasty hat. I'm going to buy you a set. Literally being a teenage girl in high school. I'm going to buy you one of the shirts that. Massey's nasties. I'm going to get you one.

So, you know, when I was doing my research, search today Alpha. I asked Grock, I said, how many times has X Alpha Warrior X posted about Massey in the last five days? 10 posts, bro. Relax. I'm dropping the ball. I need to get with it. Yeah, you are dropping the ball. I've had zero. Yeah, you're really dropping the ball. Actually, I got one that's sitting in the chamber right now. I got to go and the air fight. The audience doesn't know that Davis was subject to this debate that me and him had before the show began. As I'm sitting here trying to get our guests prepared for the show, Alpha's like, Massey, this and Pandora's box. And I'm like, bro, you're like, you are like, you're a president, man, came for my president.

You are a school girl. Flood Delisle said, thank you, can. Back in the day, we spent so much money to figure out how much, how to spell in space, but someone figured out an H2 list only five cent. That's a rumble rant there. So thank you for that. Davis, thank you so much for joining us. Real quick.

Plug your ex one more time at Davis Yonts. That's it. Yep. At Davis Yons. All right. Alpha. I don't know what to do with you, man. I'm going to,

I'm going to go watch your show. And I'm going to, I'm going to tune into your show tonight. And I'm going to listen to you do a two-hour show about fucking gossip, bro. I love you. Not even going to mention Massey on that. That's not a political show. It's conspiracies.

And, It's a gossip show. No, it's my, not the show we're doing tonight. It's not a gossip show? No. Oh. Well, this is all gossip. David, thank you.

Thanks again for joining us, sir. We appreciate you in here. God bless, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us. And don't forget to hit the thumbs up on this video. And a special thank you to all of our advertising partners. Please remember to shift your dollars to support those businesses that support Badlands Media.