Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 03-26-26_THURSDAY_8AM

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

It is all about healing veterans. I talk with Kevin C. Plunkett, retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant and founder of Willowdale Ranch Highland Lakes Center in Southern Oregon. Equinet Therapy is what they do there. Open phones follow.

This hour of the Bill Myers Show podcast is proudly sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for more than 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausurrilling.com. Kevin Plunkett is in studio with me. He's a retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant, and he's the founder of Willowdale Ranch, Highland Lake Center, in Southern Oregon. Kevin, a pleasure. I've never had the chance of meeting until now, but I'm glad we have. How you been?

Good, good. Good morning. All right. Good to be here. All right. Tell us a little bit. Now, I know that you certainly, of course, at one point were you a disabled veteran that got you thinking on? Yes. And we're not going to get into all the specifics of that.

We'll just kind of set that aside. But tell us about Willowdale Ranch. First off, where this is that people don't know. So Willowdale is up Dead Indian Memorial from Ashland. We are 300 acres right on the corner of Dead Indian Memorial and Hyatt Prairie Road. Okay. We've got 16 horses on property. I've got six more over in Jacksonville, but these horses I have on the ranch are the one specialized in equine therapy.

And we also do trail riding and we do outdoor adventures for disabled veterans. Also at-risk organizations around Southern Oregon, Ashland, and Medford. Okay, very good. How long have you been doing it? We're in our third year. Third year. Yes. So when we first started out, I was kind of supporting the organization.

myself. And then recently we have, well, two years ago, we got our 501c3. We got a company that's helping us as far as promotions and things like that. Because as a promoter, I'm a great chef. I was a chef for a long time. I'm not a great promoter. I don't know who to call on things. And it just got to be where, you know, at one point during an organization, you have to decide whether you're going to be serious or you're not going to be serious about it. And we were just kind of using local grant processes and local the kindness of friends that we made. It would be kind of one-offs, though, right? Right, right.

Just very small things. We had a lot of friends that I met when we first opened up the ranch, and we call them the friends of Willardale, people from all over the area, all the way from Grants Pass over to Crescent City. They would come just to use the property for trail riding, and then they found out about our mission, and they would help us out. But then it got to be where we were growing so much. and other nonprofit organizations started using us like the White Heart Foundation,

Wounded Warriors. And so we realized that we needed to expand. And, you know, I wish the world ran on hugs and kisses, but it doesn't. So we had to expand, and we had to find a way to support the ranch other than just, you know, my disability. Okay. All right. Well, I'm glad to hear this. And it was Kirk Mickelson.

Right. And Kirk Mickleson is the one that called me up to today. Hey, you want to talk with Kevin? I said, sure. Right. And by the way, is Crook still running task fabrication? He's ECKM Ventures. It's a, so his organization is, they worked with David's chair before.

I don't know if you're familiar with David's chair. I remember David's chair, yes. So they have started a nonprofit support company, I guess you would call it. So what they do is they help new nonprofits get off the ground like me and other organizations like me. They really, they streamline everything. You know Kirk pretty well. Kirk pretty much knows everybody from the California border. I would think up to Canada, maybe.

The only thing that I have to slow Kirk down sometimes, he says, well, look, I know this guy, this guy's saying, and I said, man, you talk with you fast. But, you know, in your case, though, you need someone. Oh, absolutely. Everybody needs to have someone like that who knows somebody, who knows somebody, who knows somebody who knows somebody, right? That's great here.

By the way, we still have the, in God we trust flag up there behind you. That was something Kirk made. Oh, really? Yeah, he brought that in a number of years ago. Yeah. He was doing that. So I'm glad. No, him and he, Beth and Carrie, their daughter,

they really have kind of a three-pronged approach of how they help people out. He has really gotten the ball rolling for us. For example, we have an event on April 18th at the Ronkey Tonk. Here in Medford, we have a fundraiser for some projects that we need to do at the ranch. I need to put in an ADA-compliant. facility for people that come and have retreats at the place. Gosh, the regulatory state even comes to you with the nonprofit. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Well, you have to, and that's one of the things that I didn't realize when I first started out, some of the things that Kirk and Beth are helping us with. And so we're going to have, it starts at 6 o'clock, we're going to have four music groups. Actually, one of your friends is going to be there. Robbie. Oh, okay. Robby DeCosta. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah. So that's just one of the things that we, we have to do it. And the people that we invite to the ranch to use our property, we never charge anything. We raise our own money. And this is why you need to do the fundraising. That's right. Absolutely. And once again, this is going to be at Rocky Talk. What? Rocky Tonk on East Main. It's going to be April 18th at 6 o'clock. It's all a fundraiser for this, Willowdale. Yeah. So you started the ranch, though, I guess, based on your own challenges. Right. After having served. All right. Yeah. And what was it? Like a PTSD?

kind of thing without getting it was so when i when i had to deal with uh the issues that i i have from my disability um unfortunately the v a for a long time was very reticent to give you handfuls of pills they did not have they had not explored the the effectiveness of therapy and different kinds of therapies and i used equine therapy that really brought me back from where i was after everything that had happened to me what is it about equine therapy i bonding with a horse and going and riding out on a horse that actually helps so many veterans here. Yeah, so in a nutshell, what I've learned so far as we have a facilitator, her name is Emily Richardson, and she comes.

And what she does, basically veterans come, they'll come in a group, and I give them a historical spiel about the ranch. I give them animal husbandry lessons in the morning. And as they're interacting with the animals, first of all, they're removing themselves from the society that they just left in the morning, there are problems they left it wherever they're at and they come to a place that is the ranch we have the most beautiful view of mount mclaughlin we're on the lake it's a thousand degrees down here you get up there it's never above 70 you hear the animals you see the animals you smell the fresh air so that's

the first the first sign of getting them away from the lovely medford car alarms and everything else yeah so during the morning we just kind of transition them from that kind of environment into where the our environment is. And then I bring them in with the horses. And the strange thing about horses is that you don't have to pick them, they'll pick you. Really? That horse will walk right up to you. And many people have never seen a horse, no, not a live horse or never touched a horse. So a lot of them are very anxious about that in the beginning. However, the horses themselves, I don't really don't have to do anything other than protect them and make sure the horses don't get too excited because some of them do get excited to see new people.

I make sure the horses stay calm, and then the person themselves, they naturally start unwinding, and that's the beginning of the process. Okay. And how many days do you stay? Is there like a program in which you, okay, I'm a veteran, I have PTSD. I need to get a little bit, get out of myself, and get some healing here, as an example. So I come to the Willowdale Ranch up at, of course, that's beautiful country up there by Hyatt, Prairie. It's great, or Howard's Prairie. And so you're with this. Is it a few days, a few weeks? I mean, how does that work out?

So when we start, so we actually work through some of the local nonprofits that actually gather the people that want to take part in this. And most of these organizations, they already have people in their therapy programs. And so they're starting to use us to go further into equine therapy. So mostly all of them will start with a one-day program. Okay. So they'll come up for, we'll have a one-day, kind of an introductory thing to it, but, and that's one of the reason why we have to put more infrastructure into the ranch, because we also have some other groups, like the White Hart Foundation and the Wounded Warriors, that they want to come up and have longer retreats. They have had retreats before, three and four-day retreats. Well, we'll start very slow. Each person will get their own horse. We'll show them how to groom them. We'll show them how to put a saddle on. We'll give some horse lessons, some horse riding lessons, and then, like, the next, probably the third day, after

everybody's really relaxed and into the country lifestyle, and we've had a campfire, and we've sat around and talked four stories and things like that, we'll bring them on a trail ride. And that's where you really see the emotional and the physical release of most of the problems that they brought to the ranch. I mean, we've had guys, guys that I wouldn't walk up and talk to because they've had tats all the way down the arm they have left. Look, like they just killed their parents. Yeah, look like they just got on a release program.

Exactly. These guys are looking at the lake and crying their eyes out. Really? And they don't know why they do it. It's just the land. It's the release of being who you think people, being who you think people think you should be where you are, and being able to get away into the country and being who you really are. You don't have to be an actor on Willowdale.

You can just be up there and be who you are. All right. Talking with Kevin Plunkett, retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant. He's the founder of Willowdale Ranch. the Highland Lake Center in Southern Oregon, up by Howard Prairie. It's a nonprofit. You're doing this fundraiser, and I will certainly post that information up on my blog on KMED.com. April, was it 18th?

There it is. I'm knocking over my thermos here. Fortunately, I had the cap on. So, yeah, I got that in here. All right. Yeah, we'll get the information up here in the next few minutes. But Scott, you're an Eagle Point, and you had a question about his particular retreat. What's you thinking? Go ahead.

Yeah, hey, first of all, Kevin, thank you for your service. To all veterans out there, I tip my hat and shake your hands. You guys are what makes this country great. Thank you, Scott. Hey, how's it compared to Hope Equestrian and what Melinda's doing there at Rainbow Ridge Ranch and Central Point? So I do know, I don't know her directly, but we have been at different events, I think, together. So I think my understanding, and I'm not very intimate with what they do, I think Hope Equestrian is more geared towards special needs people. I'm not 100% sure on that.

But the only thing I can say is about us, our specialty is dealing with PTSD and disabled veterans. So our facilitators, well, our facilitator, Emily, and myself, because of my own personal experience, we specialize. in disabled and PTSD veterans specifically? A friend of mine, Kevin, he's from Salem right now. He is a former MP, and he had a service dog. I'm not going to say his last name. And they're big in the horses, he and his wife, Carrie, I'll say her name. And, yeah, they go all over the place they go down to Lily Glen.

They have these perches. What a great time people have. have. Mostly women, by the way. Mostly women love horses. Those guys drive SUVs, man. Well, you know, you would think that until you get, and I actually, I don't know them, but I have seen them over at Lily Glen. My place actually backs up to Lily Glen. They're right across the lake from me. So you know, Kevin. Well, I don't know him, exactly, but I have seen them out there with their dogs and their horses. Yeah. And, you know, here's another thing. You know, us as guys, us as military men, us as

You know, we have to be a certain way and act a certain way. You know, you think that we're four-wheel drive drivers, and I have a couple of four-wheel drives, and, you know, we've got to be real big and tough. And when you get out amongst a lot of guys that think they have to be real big and tough, and you get around horses and you have things that you need to deal with, and you really don't have anybody else to talk to it about, you can talk to that horse, and that horse will listen, and it won't judge you. We'll sit around smoke cigars, and we just, you know, paraphrase.

That's all we can do. Yeah, that's right. Scott, I appreciate you to share the thought there, 7705-633. You were talking, though, it almost sounds as if you look at the horse as a, well, the horse as a facilitator to let it out, I guess, right? Right, because a horse is one of the few animals that I've ever dealt with and things I've been taught through my own very limited training. A horse has no ideas about tomorrow, no, it's.

It doesn't fret about anything. It has no remembrance of yesterday. Strictly in the moment. Strictly in the moment. And a horse transfers that, and I don't know how it works. People that are professionals in this kind of therapy, they don't know how it works. All they know is that a horse is a sponge. A horse takes away all the precepts that you have about who you think you should be, and it makes you look at yourself as you really are. And some people aren't ready for that. And when they finally are struck by that, it's a mind-blowing experience. People may think that sounds a little woo-woo, right?

Yeah. Oh, they think it's new age. You live in Ashland. You're one of those metaphysical, and I'm not knocking metaphysical. But, you know, I'm not. I'm a Southern Baptist boy from New Orleans. My father's a Southern Baptist preacher. And I even try to tell my dad about these horses, and he doesn't believe it.

I said, but you have to come out here and experience. Right. Have you got him to come out yet? Well, people from Louisiana don't think that the world exists outside of Louisiana. I understand. If you don't serve crawfish or fry catfish on Fridays, You don't exist. Yeah, if you're not, what was it, a ball?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't boil anything. We ball it. We ball it, ball shrimp. Or else you fry it in, is it all? All, yeah, right. Yeah, you don't change the oil in your car. Wake on up, change it all in the truck. Got to love that.

I love those dialect differences for sure here. So, Kevin, what I'm kind of curious here is, have you ever talked with Captain Bill Simpson out there at Wild Horse Fire Brigade? I have not, no. Yeah. No, I don't know them. I could see you two having a really interesting conversation sometime, but he's, of course, he's into wild horses in Northern California. And he has, and he's always promoting wild horses for fire control.

Oh, yeah, fire bait, man. It's great for him. And his, and you touched on something I kind of wanted to thank you for. One of our biggest problems, not say biggest problem, one of our issues, I hate to say problems, is that we're trying to get our name out there and let people know that we're there, which is how you're helping us. Also, we were at, I want to thank Joey from the Southern Oregon, Southern Oregon Builders Association. We were at the show, the Expo Show. I probably interacted with three or 400 people. They're a great supporter of ours and many other nonprofits.

So one of the things that we are trying to do is just let people know that we're there, and we want people to come and use our property. Most of the things we don't charge for, we'll take a donation for. But there's organizations, other nonprofits, that are trying to, they're trying to create or fulfill a mission in their own area. And we try to support them as much as we can as well, because we have Victory Garden, Freedom Farm. This is, this is two nonprofits out of Ashland. We received the Ashland Co-op grant, community grant last year for, I forgot exactly what it was for,

but so we got on the list of all the nonprofits from Ashland. Now we're kind of interacting with each other to support other nonprofits. Very good. By the way, can the public actually visit Willowdale or do I have to pretend that I'm suffering from PTSD? You don't. You don't. I mean, even though we do specialize in that. So our website, Willowdale Ranch.org, there's a contact page. And if you send an email there, Beth, Kirk's wife, will get that email. And if it's something she can deal with, she will. Oh, she'll forward it on to me. And we want, especially the local public, to come up and visit Willowdale come up and visit our horses. They love being interacted with. Come up and enjoy some of the weather that we have up there. Come up and walk the trails and that we got 300 acres up there and we

we align with the Pacific Pacific. Pacific, Coast Trail. We are right on the way of Pacific Coast Trail. We also let people, if they want to come use the ranch as a base to leave their trailers to go ride their horses, we allow that too. Just go over to our website and there's a contact number or there's an email. Email is usually best because we're, this. This is our busy time of year, and I'm restarting the horses again, which I have to do every spring, because right now, after the winter, they think their only job is to eat. Oh, yeah. And you're trying to say, hey, you've got to do a little work too. Yeah, you've got to do a little work to earn their keep.

Yeah, right. Okay. I am kind of curious that. Tell us about how, could you give us a story or two about veterans that came in, really? And, you know, and I don't want to say, I don't like the term broken, because it seems like so much of our culture right now is, is like everybody's supposed to be. broken at some level or another. I don't agree with that. But I know that veterans come back from some really intense stuff that humans really aren't building. Right. So we like, I don't like to say broken either. I like to say that many veterans that I know, that in the situation I am and some of them

much, much worse. I was very lucky. We call, they've lost their identity of who they are, we think, most of the time. When you say that, was their identity strictly through the military service? No, most people's identity was by, well, still anybody, even the general public. Your identity is what you do. So you're the broadcaster. I'm Kevin the chef, Steve the mechanic. Well, when they come back from, and I'm going to say this is people that come back from a conflict, but there are many people, empty nesters, people that have been in a long-term relationships.

They have PTSD as well. It's not just service members. But service members is who we mainly concentrate on. So let's say I'm Kevin the chef, and I come back from conflict. And as you can see, I don't have any legs. Well, now I'm no longer Kevin the chef. You know, I didn't really notice that until you pointed it out. Right. Most people don't because, look.

You know, I thought when you were getting up out of the couch there a little while ago, that it was just the standard like I'm a little stiff getting on it. Right, right, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Well, thankfully, like we, and this is a very hard word, prosthesis, like Chris Studevittiv. Yeah. Prostasis, yeah. Yeah, at White City.

They gave us the best technology that money can buy. And these things are, I could buy two vehicles for what these legs cost. No kidding. So instead of being Kevin the chef, now I'm Kevin the guy that doesn't have any legs. You know, that's who I become. And it's not just me that feels that way. Society now looks at me that way. Unfortunately, it's no fault of anyone.

But when I first came back, I had to wear, I was in a chair. So I was no longer six foot four Kevin the chef looking like Anthony Bourdain and everything else. I was unfortunately sitting in a chair. I had lost a lot of my own self-confidence. I had the loss of my legs had taken away everything, all the value that I felt as a person, which that shouldn't happen. Is that more of a male kind of response to it or is a female? think so because my mother runs a kind of a non-profit shop in South Louisiana. And there's a lot of ladies there that have come back from the service and they've had trauma in their own lives. And I can

see their identities who I knew them before. And I don't go back home very often. But when I see them, they weren't the same person that I do from when I was younger. Now they identified by whatever injury they had. So that's one of the things that equine therapy does. It does. It brings you back to who you used to be. We're trying to get past the injury. We're trying to get past the fact that, no, I'm not identified by the missing legs or the or the eye gone or whatever. Or even the psychological trauma. You know, you have to realize that that's not who you're going to be in the future. That's who you were. And I'll tell you something to my dad. And this has gotten me through most of it, even with the Eclient therapy. My father, when I was a young man, when anything would happen, my dad would say, okay, so what are you going to do now? Now what? Now what?

You're going to stand there and cry? Are you bleeding? You know, my dad's a hard southern man. Oh, yeah. I don't see no blood. So he'd say, what are you going to do now? And so that brings you, and so equine therapy in Willardale Ranch, it brings you from your injury to a kind way of letting you know, okay, so that's happened. We're going to, we're going to, we're going to, I'll forget the word I want to say, we're going to validate what happened to that.

We understand what happened to you. We're not going to ignore it. We're not going to act like it didn't happen. But we're going to say, okay, so what do you do now? So Willowdale is the point where you make that, you give yourself that question, okay, so what am I going to do now? And there's lots of organizations that help with that. But we really want to concentrate on disabled service members and things like that.

All right. I appreciate your mission. I really do. I think a lot of other people listening will feel the same way. And if you want to find out more, probably the easiest way, you can sign up with the email alerts and also dig into more of what they're about. It's Willowdale Ranch.org. Right.

Willowdale Ranch.org. And if you're thinking about having some fun down at Rocky Talk, I always have trouble pronouncing. Is it Rocky Tongue? It's Ronky Tongue. Rocky Talk. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, Nisha, she's a great supporter of lots of the local nonprofit organizations.

She gives a lot. She helps out with so many things. And she's really helping us out with this. It's a great club. I, unfortunately, don't go to Medford very much. But when I walked to that place, it felt like I was back home. Really? I mean, it is a real deal Western country bar.

Saloon. I'd say it's more as a saloon. Just maybe nobody getting thrown through the play glass window, right? Well, I hope not because it's on the second floor. I know. It's a long way down. That's right. But it's got so many great things in it.

It's got a great stage. And we've got, you know, we got the John Doe Boys lined up and a couple other good bands. And it's going to be a good night. We've got to have a raffle. And Kirk's going to be the MC. So, you know, it's going to be. fun. All right. So this is going to be going on the 18th of April. We'll get this information up. And I appreciate you coming in so much talking about it and sharing a bit about it. And I never knew.

I never knew about this, but this is the purpose, right? Right. That's the purpose. Never knew. And now when someone says Willowdale and Ranch, go, oh, yeah. Yeah, that place up from Ashland on a beautiful lake. Yeah, we got the billion dollar view of Mount McCluff. Yeah, we know Kevin. We know Kevin. We know Kevin. Sure. 837. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Kevin. Thank you. At Drake's Paint and Supply, we know your color because we know our community. Four decades, we've partnered with Benjamin Moore to bring you the highest quality paint and experts. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Hey, tonight, 8 o'clock on Fox 26, our sister station, KMVU is right within our building now.

So I'm going to mention that, but they have the 2026 I Heart Radio Music Awards. So Lainey Wilson's going to be there. I think she's a country artist, isn't she? Scoobo Steve? Lainie, yeah. I know KRWQ plays there, I think. Ludicrous? Eh, all right.

Yeah, I'm not a big rapper. I'm just not a big rap fan. I'm just not that way. But a bunch of other artists, too. But, oh, they have the old school. They got some old school folks there. TLC. Never, never going to get it.

I think that's them, right? And Salt and Pepper, ooh, baby, baby, push it. I remember playing that one as a young DJ in Seattle. So that'll be great. They'll have the, I never thought I would be hearing about Salt and Pepper being, you know, kind of like the oldies act. but time goes on, you know, that sort of thing. Anyway, it's tonight, 8 o'clock in the eye heart, the eye heart situation, okay?

There's actually some great news for free speech, and it hasn't received a lot of press, and I'm hoping to get some people on to talk about that a little bit more, a bit later. But Matt Taibi, and by the way, Matt Taibi is one of the last liberal, honest reporters, or honest liberal reporters or honest reporter who happens to be a liberal. and I always appreciate people like that. Because I first started reading Taibi when he was doing all of that amazing reporting during COVID, when he would write these counterculture views of it all on Rolling Stone and elsewhere. But he writes this morning, finally, good news, free speech wins big in court.

Four years after the Twitter files, the Missouri-V Biden case ends in a consent decree, and it's banning government from threatening protected speech. He calls it a belated but important victory. In the first week of December 2020, I'm just going to share a few thoughts from it. In the first week of December 2020, a group of reporters now scattered and divided over the Iran war and other issues, searched through Iraq war, rather, searched through a pile of raw correspondents at the San Francisco Office of Twitter, rather.

One file we found was 67 pages of computer, complaints about content, mostly from state officials. Yeah. It all had to do about anybody that was out there putting out news that the government didn't want. This included, what's his name, Joe Hofft? No, Jim Hofft, Jim Hoff from the Gateway Pundit. He was like the lead plaintiff on this one. Gosh, we have other people that are involved in this.

Jay Potacharia, Jill Hines, Jim Hoff. Dr. Aaron Carriotti. Yeah. All these people that were going against the narrative, who were bravely going out against the narrative, getting canceled. And it took a number of years here, but finally the federal government said,

yeah, we were doing this. Yeah, we were squashing people's free speech rights. Yes, we did it. And no, we're not going to do it again. That's what they claim. I don't know if I can necessarily believe that because government does what government does. But it is quite the victory. Quite the victory.

It was late. And I'll get some people into and analyze that, maybe understand it a little bit more. But, yeah, they found the receipts. They found the receipts. They fought and they won. And it's a bit of great news to share with you on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. I would also add that General Michael Flynn, Patriot, he ended up, getting, I think it's a little more than a million dollars in a consent settlement also against him.

This is the Bill Myers Show. The Montana Rupi Marketing Department is always looking for new ideas, but they're not always good. It is Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Got a few minutes left if you wanted to weigh in with a hot take on something. 7705663-3-770 KMED, the email bill at Billmyershow.com. You know, I'm going to address this because a lot of people don't realize this. As I do another email a day, more emails of the day, and those are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson, Central Point Family Dentistry.com.

And if you're not, you don't even have to be a patient, but you can go in there and get dental equipment at his cost, like water pick, things like that, specialized mouthwashes, great people. Right next to the Mazin-Lan Mexican restaurants on Freeman Road, all right? So Butch is talking to me over the weekend. So driving home, Bill, my radio went from the normal programming on KMED to very mellow music format, 105 something. What is it? And I wrote him back. And I said, that is your newer truck.

He has a newer vehicle, apparently, and he has an HD radio. And a lot of folks don't understand the HD radio kind of thing. That's why I say we're KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Medford. That's our legal ID. And that means it's a digital signal, HD1. And if you have an HD radio, it's able to hear the HD1. But there's also an HD2. And the HD2 is the Valley.

It's like adult alternative, right? It's kind of like the way it is on if you have an over-the-air antenna and you're watching television. And you can do that. There might be like five stations on K-OBI. There's like four or five stations on KMVU Fox 26. You have 26.1, the main channel. You have 26.2. Maybe it's like Me TV or something.

I forget which one it should be. I think we got Telemundo in there too, right? And Telemundo, of course, has all the hot chicks. So you go to Fox 26. Hey, it's the Mexican culture, the Hispanic culture. What can I tell you? That's the way that goes. But it's the same sort of thing, just like digital.

But if you have a regular FM receiver, you hear 1063 KMED. If you have an HD, you can hear 1063 HD1, KMED, which is the talk. And then HD2, which is the Valley. And the Valley is also put on 105 on a translator, a smaller transmitter down in the Ashland area that serves Medford and Southern Oregon. So regular people without an HD radio can hear it. Okay. I hope I got that explained. I know it might be just a little bit confusing, okay?

All right. It is 854. Hi, KMED. Good morning. Who's this? Hi, Bill. Glenn or Shambo. Glenn, how are you this morning?

What's on your mind? Well, I'm thinking about your finance. report from the federal government. Very interesting. Oh, yeah. And this is the report that Scott Bessent signed off on, and Bessent is a smart money guy, and at least he's the first Treasury Secretary that said, well, you know, this really sucks. He didn't say that specifically. He was more polite about it, but he wasn't soft peddling it, really. Well, Bill, in 1970, I was a kid working in the mine on Oahu, Pearl Harbor, places.

And we were watching the Vietnam War up close and way too personal. And listening to the folks that were arriving on the island telling us we're going to crash the economy. The war is killing us. And so it sounds a lot like it is today. As much as we may be right at war, the cost is stunning. Yeah, I don't think people realize just how much money. And the other challenge right now that has not been addressed yet is how do those munitions get replaced quickly? Because if I understand correctly, I read some stats that we're talking about the number of Patriot and Tomahawks missiles that we've been throwing at these $30,000 drones,

that we have taken maybe two, three, four years of production of these devices in just this conflict. So that's real stuff we're talking about, isn't it? It is. And you're right. Most Americans have not a clue as to what the price tag is every time the TV set comes on. They talk about the war. It's huge. And, you know, having been one of the kids blowing up rocks and what have you for mining,

and the cost of that was stunning. So all across our military face right now, there's installation, people that you don't even see the price tag. for that private contractors doing all kinds of things um and so what happened in those days bill suddenly the economists started waving the flag and i stood there in honolulu and watched them go bad on payroll on the biggest companies in america really the yeah the place was crashing completely um and so my question is bill is that happening right now i mean can we even come close to affording this? I can't answer that. I wish I could. I mean, when I'm looking at a nation which is already

greatly in debt and spending $3 for every $2 that it gets in, I mean, that's really the rate we're at. And we're probably spending a little more than that right now because we're at, what, a billion or so a day extra? That could be another 365, 400 billion by the end. I guess it all depends on how long this takes. I know. I'm watching that very carefully. And then you've got to add bills like our friend we just listened to about rehabilitating veterans. How much you think that's going to cost? Now, fortunately, the injuries that appear to have been coming out of the Iran War conflict so far,

I'd have to say most of them, according to the official sources, most of them are saying that they tend to be minor injuries. and there are a few people that are going to be dealing with some. I think a lot of it is that we're not in a big boots on the ground, you know, up close and personal conflict right now, although we do have a couple of thousand Marines that are headed over, probably to Carg Island, I would imagine, try to secure that. And, you know, Bill, you've got to remember thinking of the 18 to 22-year-olds in the Marine Corps or U.S. Army,

and even being in a place that you might get shot at us, terrifying. And so we're going to deal with all that. We're already way in debt now, and we're going to add all of that extra cost. Because we're going to end up on boots on the ground. Good way to wrap it. Thank you, Glenn. Hi, it's Megan McPherson with the McPherson Insurance Agency.