Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 141

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1.  Did I join the military to fight for others' freedoms, or did I have a different motivation? Do service members actually fight for our freedoms?  2. I found screen grabs of Instagram models and videos of porn on my husband's phone, is this cheating, or something meaningless? 3. Why don't we have all female units in the US military? 4. If I had only 30 minutes to train, could you teach me to jump out of an airplane without dying, and land an airplane with you only telling me what to do and not touching the controls yourself? Enjoy

Well, here we are. It's Friday. It's been a minute. It has been a minute since I've done a full out of Friday Q&A. I almost forgot to turn my damn phone off, but I got some ice coffee, delicious, of course. It's actually ice cold brew. It's the only way to have it. I got some questions in front of me and some time to answer them. So let's figure out if I still remember how to do this. Full out of Friday, number 141. Here we go. All right. As I mentioned, here we are on Friday, returning to the full Auto Friday format, which I never actually intended to go away from. It just happened to have the opportunity to sit down with people that I was on the road with to record short episodes. And I thought people might like a break from the Q&A. People might like a break from listening to me run my mouth about topics maybe that they don't care about. I don't know. But the opportunities presented themselves, so I took said opportunities, but here we are. We're back. I have four questions for today. Let's see if I make my way through it. As usual, I'm going to try to limit it to about 30 minutes,

and hopefully I won't wax too poetically. Question number one, I'm trying to frame this question so that it makes sense. I hear a lot of vets talk about when vets are KIA, or killed in action, that they sacrificed for our, in the United States, freedoms. Is that the reason for your service and sacrifices? Is that a motivation or is it just a cliche thing to say? Please understand I have the utmost respect, but I've always wondered if that was even a thought or motivating factor. Thank you. Interesting question. And I think for a lot of people, this is something that they are curious about, but it's hard to ask because of the way that you, not the way that you presented it, but the way that it could be presented or potentially be taken in a negative fact. Personally, I love questions like this, and I think that these are things that we should explore and openly talk about. Because if you don't, it actually gives people a really big bullshit curtain to hide behind.

So before I answer, obviously I can only speak for myself. So my answer is in only my motivations, my experience in the military. And I guess I could talk a little bit about how I've heard people speak or conversations that I have had. but I am framing my answer on this question and, of course, all questions through the lens of my own experience, and I only speak for myself. So when I was looking to join in the military, if I am being completely honest, it had nothing to do with fighting for anybody's freedoms. And I've done a lot of podcasts over the last few weeks in between Clear Top Podcast and Change Agent Podcast. I think I have actually I can look at it on my laptop right now. I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight cleared hot podcasts in the bank right now.

And I think I've done an equal amount of the change agent ones, if not more. I'm getting ready to do a few day stretches where I do three a day. And it came up in conversation. Quite frankly, I don't remember which conversation I had this in, but we were talking about military service and freedoms and whether or not the two are actually connected. And where I land on this issue is that no. In my personal opinion, the service, my service in uniform had nothing to do with people's freedoms. I think it had to do more with people's safety. The freedoms of this country are preserved in the founding documents of this country.

I was not alive during that time period. Nobody in military uniform in the modern era was alive during that time period. I had nothing to do with the creation of the First Amendment, the second, you know, the First Ten, which is our Bill of Rights, any of the amendments to the Constitution. This all happened long before my time on Earth, and I am very lucky to have been born into the country that I was. The reason I say that I, in my own service, was not defending anybody's freedoms, is that I have a hard time drawing a line or connecting the dots between what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq and actual freedoms in our country. I think you can do so in a more obscure manner when you talk about safety, you know,

and maybe the freedom to be able to travel and live a fulfilling life or do the things that you want to do absent a threat. But like I said, I think that's a little bit more obscure. I do believe that the actions that we took overseas, not necessarily at a total policy level, but at the level that I was operating at, I do believe they had an impact on people's safety. And by that I mean, whatever you believe in your life. in whatever country you may be born into or grow up in, whatever your belief is, it's belief X. There is somebody out there who is your axis, who has belief Y. And not everybody from group X or everybody from group Y is willing to take action against the opposing group. But there

are people in both of those groups that are willing to do so. And if you encounter one of those people and you're an ex person and they are a Y person and you encounter one of those people that is incredibly ideological in nature and devout in their beliefs and probably radicalized in their motivation you're proper fucked if you're not prepared to do something about it and this isn't really a conversation about value of belief of one over the other we can that's that's a conversation for a different day but the people that we were targeting and the people that I would end up at the threshold of their door by removing them from the chessboard, whether that be a capture, kill operation and whichever direction it may go,

I do believe that it had an impact. But I'm not so sure it had an impact on the freedoms that the foundational documents of this country provide and should protect. What I will say is this. I think the biggest threat to our freedoms is the political system that we currently have right now. And maybe it's not the political system. I think it's the people who are operating and who are in power. And I'm talking about both sides of the aisle where the system has become a way to advance their personal aspirations or very ideological side of the aisle.

aspirations. And I guess more shorter way to put it would be the system is now serving themselves, as opposed to serving the people that elected them to the office that they hold. If you want to look about, you know, First Amendment right, freedom of speech, which again, should not be confused with freedom of consequences from your speech, but just the ability to live without a microscope. over you with a government entity looking into your day-to-day behavior, actions, thoughts, communication. You need to take a really hard look at the Patriot Act and the amount of individual and collective freedoms that we sacrificed with the creation of the Patriot Act.

Now, do I disagree with everything that's in the Act? Absolutely not. Do I think that the government should be limited in their ability to see into the lives of the state? citizens, the United States of America? Absolutely. At the end of the day, I think the system was designed for the government to know almost nothing about our citizens and the citizens to know almost everything, if not everything, about the government that we elect and consent to govern over the top of us. Right now, I think that is actually flipped. And again, I'm kind of getting off topic. But this is the way that I think about things when it comes to the difference between what I did overseas in freedoms. I think people, when it comes to,

of freedoms need to put their hand on the wheel a little bit more and get more involved and get more engaged. Because as a soldier, I can't do anything about the Constitution. There's no way for me to amend. I mean, I guess I could, as part of being a larger voting populace when it comes to an amendment or getting behind some, you know, a political idea or an action, take action because of one of the beliefs that I have that could spurn a policy. Sure, there's ways that you could do that. But as far as my actions overseas, it was very externally focused on threats, not on freedoms. And I'm not saying, you know, again, could you draw a fine line or a broad line between military service and the freedoms we have in this country? Yes, I just, it falls a little bit flat for me.

Now, to really be free and to exercise the freedoms that we are so incredibly lucky to have in this. country, one thing I think you absolutely have to have is security and safety. So that is one way that you could connect the two because obviously we need to be looking externally from a Department of Defense perspective, executing force policy, you know, making sure that we are protected as a nation. If we have that, it provides that safety and security for people to flourish and exercise their freedoms. But I think you have to have both. I think the average civilian has more control over their freedoms than they may actually understand or believe. And they need to put their hand back on the wheel as opposed to trusting the people who are in

office right now to steer the ship or drive the car, whatever analogy or metaphor works best for you. Because I don't think they are being good stewards of our freedom. And I will leave it at that. Hopefully that answer your question. I feel like I got completely off topic, but it is the way it is. All right. Question number two.

Completely changing gears. Here we go. Hello, Andy. I'm a huge fan of the podcast. I'll live your message and the way you can always make me laugh even when I'm on the way to work at 0400. Consider getting a new job. That's fucking early. This question is more of a personal one from me as I am looking to get a male point of view or insight on this issue. I know how much you love giving relationship advice, so here it is. My husband and I have been together for about a year now. Both of us are military. He's NSW, which stands for Naval Special Warfare, and I'm regular Army. We see eye to eye on most issues, and neither one of us are very emotional people. We don't ever get into huge fights, typically, but we try to rationalize and discuss matters before they become a problem, and it works really well for us. Recently, however, we have come across an issue that I'm not sure how to rationalize or deal with. The other night over dinner, I asked him to send me a photo we had taken, or I'm sorry, he had taken of our cat. And when he didn't know which one I was referring to, I slid over next to him to try to help him find it and noticed him try to turn his phone.

phone away from me, but I still saw several screenshots of Instagram models and screen recordings of porn. When we were first together, he told me that he had a porn addiction, but after we sat down and had a conversation about how it made me feel like I wasn't good enough for him. So he stopped, or so I thought. I pride myself in being a secure, emotionally mature woman, and it has taken me many years of working on myself to get over past trust issues and self-esteem issues from unfaithful partners. And now it feels like all that hard work that I have done is falling apart. We are intimate very regularly. And when we do, and when we do have to spend time apart for deployments or workups, I supply him with plenty of materials. But now I just can't kick the feeling

of inadequacy no matter what I do. And I'm hesitant to be intimate with him because I feel like he's always thinking of other women. I know it's naive to think that your man will never find another woman attractive or vice versa. It's just the extra steps of keeping the photos and videos because he enjoyed what he saw so much, despite the fact that we live together and he has access to a real loving woman pretty much 24-7. So I guess here's my question. From a man's perspective, is this really not a big deal? Is it just a fix that means nothing? Why does he continue to do it if he knows that it makes me feel like crap. Should I consider cheating? Should I consider this cheating? Or am I being completely overbearing and crazy?

Thanks for taking the time to read and answer. Hopefully, you have a wonderful day. There is a lot to unpack on this. And I guess maybe the best thing to do is just take it piece by piece. When we first got together, let me see if I can find that. Yes. When we first got together. He told me that he had a porn addiction, but after we sat down and we had a conversation, but how it made me feel he stopped, or so I thought. Let's look at this objectively. If the man had a porn addiction and you had a conversation with him, and he claims that based on that just that conversation alone, that he stopped, and I have so many questions about this, did he go and talk to somebody about this addiction? Did he have a

support network of people that he could lean on in moments that he would need to to discuss this addiction. And I ask those questions because I feel like if no additional steps were actually taken, I don't think that's how you actually kick an addiction. Is it possible to go cold turkey? Of course it's possible to go cold turkey. Is it the path that most people take or is it the path that most people are capable of? I don't think so. And I don't think your husband ever stopped. And I say that because if you're finding information that is on his phone right now, that leads you to believe that he is still looking at porn because you saw, you know, recordings of that and he's looking at other women, I think common sense would dictate that he

probably never stopped. And how could you stop if you are truly addicted and you don't put the work in to address that addiction? I mean, I think he probably could have put it on pause for a little bit, but I don't think that's how addicts or addiction actually works. You can hit the pause button for a little bit, but without addressing the root cause and issue, it's going to be coming right back again. The biggest thing that I think your email highlights is trust. You know, phones are an interesting thing. With this stupid little anxiety rectangle right here that people can completely ruin their life with

by making poor to choices and looking at things or saying things or buying things or gamble or fuck fill in the blank with what you can do with these devices if you are nervous about your significant other looking at your device because of what they may find take a moment to think about whether or not your actions and behaviors are trending in the right direction now i'm all for privacy i don't think people need to constantly be checking each other's phone like if that I actually think that that would be not a great sign of health in a relationship either. But if you're not comfortable with your significant other, looking at how you communicate with other people, the things that are interesting to you, and your online behavior, I think that

there is a problem there. And it reduces itself down to, at the end of the day, trust. You're telling your partner or presenting this picture that you are one thing. And then you have this persona through this, like I said, anxiety rectangle that is completely different. And again, I totally support privacy. I'm not saying that there has to be like this 100% transparency and you have to share every fucking thought that you have. But it's a really bad side. Like I could care less if my kids or my wife picks up my phone. They all know the password to my phone and they can look through it as much as they want to.

I'm responsible for the things that I say. I'm responsible for the things that I look at and the way that I interact with people. I will stand in judgment for my behavior in those interactions that I have. And the fact that they know my password to my phone or that my wife could look at it at any time, it doesn't even enter into my thought process of like, oh, I shouldn't say this because somebody might see it. It's actually just refreshing to me that I know that I am being true to myself and I am being true to my partner. So the fact that, and I think this happens a lot, but it's just a bad sign that is trending in the wrong direction from a health perspective if you're really concerned that somebody sees either what you're looking at or the way you're communicating with people. It is not a good sign.

So a bunch of questions here at the end you had. Let's see what we got. Question you're asking, from a man's perspective, is this really not a big deal? you have expressed to you that it is a big deal. I'm going to assume that he heard you and listened to what you were saying, and now he is choosing to pursue these particular behaviors. Is that a big deal? In my mind, yes, it absolutely is, because you have expressed to your partner what is important to you. I'm going to assume that in that conversation, he expressed back to you that he understand and would modify his behavior because of that, and now is doing something that. It is the exact opposite. And the fastest way to erode trust in any relationship, the personal or professional, is to say one thing and do another. It is a big deal. You know, is it just a fix that means nothing?

Maybe, depending on the person. But I feel like that's a really easy excuse. That's a really easy way to brush. Oh, it doesn't mean anything. I just like looking at this, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. And the reality is that I think that it does. And you made a statement that you're not naive enough to think that your partner will never find somebody of the opposite sex attractive. I think that's true.

But there's a huge difference between appreciating somebody that is attractive and being enamored with somebody that you might find to be attractive. or taking action with somebody that you might find to be attractive. I mean, beauty exists, both in men and in women. Like, I know some dudes are fucking handsome dudes. I would consider making out with them, depending on the right setting. And of course, there are women who are out there who are beautiful. And I can appreciate that beauty. And that's it.

Like, yep, they're an attractive person. And there is just a difference in taking it a step farther than that. Actually, anybody who tells you that, oh, no, I'll never find somebody other than my significant other to be attractive. That's kind of a warning sign as well because it's just being completely dishonest and it's ignoring the realities of real life. The step your husband is taken, I think, is a little bit further. Not only is he acknowledging an attraction to other members, you know, other women. you know, he's saving the images on his phone. And, you know, well, I think we all know what he's doing with him.

You know, he's a term people should look up. It's called knuckle babies. And that's exactly what your husband is doing with that. And I hope that that's it. I hope that he has not taken it any farther than that. I hope he hasn't reached out to these people. I hope he hasn't solicited for more from these women. I would hope that's the case.

Sometimes it isn't always. why does he continue to do it if he knows that it makes you feel like crap? One, addictions are 100% real, and I don't feel like he ever addressed the addiction. Two, tough pillow to swallow here. He might be a piece of shit. And what you might be looking at is the tip of the iceberg. And I don't mean to scare you by any stretch of the imagination. I'm saying that.

But let's look at this through a realistic lens. the behavior on the phone is certainly a gateway towards other behavior in what I'll call real life, things that happen off the anxiety rectangle. So it could be the addiction, or it could just be who your husband actually is. Should you consider this cheating? Well, that goes back to the conversation that you guys originally had. I would have conversations like this with your significant others. What is considered cheating?

What is behavior that you consider to be unacceptable? We live in a fucking digital world where, like I said, you could ruin your life with this device or you could look into the library of Congress or look on YouTube and teach yourself things that you never would have thought possible in previous decades and centuries. Have open and honest conversations about your boundaries. I think it's the best way to do it. What are your boundaries? Not only from like a sexual perspective, but I mean, shit, what do you want to do with your life? do you see yourself in 5, 10, 15 years? I can go so much more beyond that. The conversations that you have like that can lay the foundation for the framework of where you want to go in your

life. And so depending on how that conversation went when you talked about this previously, I mean, that's where I would base that answer off of. I don't think you're being completely overbearing and crazy because of how it makes you feel. Your husband needs to understand that and address the issues and change his behavior or he needs to let you be. If he can't stop those things or has no desire or interest in doing so, he needs to let you go before he drags you down with him. Or you'll have to make the decision to separate yourself from that before it continues. But all of this is going to be based in a really difficult conversation where the two of you need to get down to brass tax and you need to not allow for excuses and areas of the conversation that are off limits. You need to have a very exploratory conversation and get to the bottom of this.

And what I'll say is this. It's not going to get better if you wait. It's not going to get better if you give it more time and don't address this. So address it now before it gets worse. Question three. Have you or anyone you know in the history of ever on target said the words, go, go, go, go, all short and choppy like the movies. and when the answer is no, can we please put a stop to this madness?

If it's actually a thing, I will eat a bag of dicks. It could be a thing. I don't know. But I have never heard somebody, at least in the community that I come from, yell, go, go, go, all short and choppy. Most of the time, we are very disaggregate. So you're not really near somebody. We're saying something like that would be beneficial. We do talk on the radio all the time.

But it's really hard to understand what people are saying when they're yelling. So most of the time, like the beginning of a target is going to be like three, two, one. execute. And you can structure, you know, maybe a sniper shot or a breach or charge on the three, the two, the one, or the eh of the execute. But it's not rapid. It's just, I hate most of the things I see about the military, specifically the SEAL community on any screen. iPhone, laptop, IMAX. It's mostly for entertainment. So just remember that. Two, the topic of women in special forces comes up on your show from time to time. And the general theme is that there, are welcome, but we're not going to change the standards, with which I completely agree.

What about an all-female unit? Do you think an all-female unit in the U.S. Armed Forces is viable? New standards would, of course, have to be created for such a unit. Might they be lower standards than their male counterparts? Perhaps. But I'd imagine they could set their own high standards for what they need to accomplish. The Norwegian, Jagerotropin, hegerthropin, God, I am sorry for what I am sure is fucked up, pronunciation of that.

All-Female soft unit is the driving inspiration behind this question. This is a great question. And I'm going to answer this one super broadly because units like this already exist. And I believe they do set their own standards, which, are driven from the realities of the battlefield and the execution of their job. And from what I know, the limited amount that I know of what they do, they are fucking amazing. So this already exists. And women have been at the front lines of warfare since the inception of warfare. I hope people know that a lot of the times their roles are highly sensitive in nature.

And I feel like that's probably why they're not being talked about. but I hope in enough time that these women are allowed to tell their story. And what I'm talking about when I say that is, of course, everything from the past, but I'm talking about the all-female units that I know exist right now. And that's all I'm going to say about that because of the sensitivity of what they do. But they are out there and they are fucking badass. And we will leave it at that. Final question for today.

Let's just bring it back to a little bit of a lighter topic, right? Some hypotheticals. Andy, I have two questions for you, both high- hypothetical that I'd be interested to hear your input on. I will provide a little background on me in case they factored into your answers. I'm a 53-year-old, decent shape, not real fond of heights, never been skydiving, and have no idea how to fly a plane type of dude. Question one, if I had to jump solo out of a plane at 13,000 feet over the open desert with no safety device that automatically deployed my shoot, and the only thing I could do prior to jumping is meet you for 30 minutes to discuss

techniques and strategy. What percent chance would you give me of surviving the jump? 99 is the answer I'm going to give you. 99% chance. And here's why. It's not that hard. And modern parachute systems have two parachutes. So I would spend almost all of my time. We would have a brief talk about stable body position in free fall, which is not hard to do. relaxing would probably be the hardest thing for you to do due to the anxiety you would likely be feeling in this hypothetical situation. But if I could get you to understand what a stable free fall body position looks like or feels like while we simulate it just on the ground, the rest of the time I would talk to you about your equipment and I would explain to you how to deploy your primary

parachute and then if there were a malfunction how to deploy your secondary parachute. Because worst case scenario, let's say you're coming. completely out of control. You'd probably be able to successfully attempt to deploy your parachute. Unless you got entangled with the pilot shoot in bridle, it's going to come off your back out of the container. And even if it opens with a malfunction, if you knew how to deploy or cut away your main parachute first and deploy your reserve, you're going to be okay.

I can't even remember the last time there was a skydiving fatality because equipment failed, meaning primary parachute malfunction. proper cutaway and deployment of reserve parachute and a malfunction. I cannot remember the last time that that happened. I'm not saying it's impossible. I just can't remember it. And the gear is incredibly high quality. So if I could get you to deploy your main parachute and if it opens perfectly, like, yeah, right on.

And obviously, we could talk a little bit about flying the parachute, which, again, none of this stuff is hard. But if we look at this from the worst case, the first one's just a bag of shit that comes off your back. You get rid of it. Your reserve comes out, which is probably going to be an even more dot. I think he'd be okay. Yeah, we'd spend most of our time talking about emergency procedures, the equipment, how it works, and making sure you had an understanding of the sequence that you needed to work through it. 99% chance you'd survive.

Question number two. I have zero experience flying an airplane. If you and I got into a single engine plane of your choosing and the only thing that you can do is give me verbal commands and point your finger at instruments while I fly the plane, what percentage chance would you give me of being able to take off, fly around for a few minutes, and safely land the plane? Same rules as the previous question. I get 30 minutes of pre-flight instruction prior to takeoff. I'm going to give you, I want to say 99 again. Yeah, I want to say 99 again. Because I'm going to assume that we're not going to deal with any aircraft malfunctions.

You're talking very, very narrow in the scope here. You want to get into the plane. plane, you want to take off, you want to fly around for a few minutes and safely lay in the plane. I'm going to assume that we're not going to be at like a crazy tight runway where you're going to have to do either high performance takeoff or a short field landing. I'm going to assume it's a modern era aircraft. It doesn't really matter if it's steam gauges or digital. The concept, the basic concept of flying. I think back to my very first lesson I did like a Cessna 152. It's not incredibly difficult. You're were overwhelmed, I would say, more than anything, at a new set of information that you're looking

at, a new visual experience, a new tactile experience, how you control the aircraft, at like the basic level. If you pull back on the yoke, things get smaller. If you push forward, they get bigger. If you rotate the wheel to the left, you go left. If you rotate the wheel to the right, you go right. I actually think, I mean, if you look back at your first flight introduction, it's not a lot different than what you actually described. You meet a flight instructor. They walk you around an aircraft. They walk you through a checklist and show you where things are and they allow you to push the switches and turn the aircraft on.

They let you taxi the aircraft. They might have a light grip on the wheel for takeoff. Most of the flying is actually done by the student, though, and they hop in when necessary. So what we're changing is, I'm not allowed to touch the controls at all. I still think we'd be okay. It's not, I mean, we're talking basic taxi, takeoff, and land with a traffic pattern, especially since we're going to fly around for a little bit, I'd probably would like talk you through the traffic pattern and we would do some, you know, some approaches to landing, talking about airspeed and, you know, control of the aircraft. I'm giving you 99%. I'm giving you 99%. Because my instruction's going to be amazing and you're going to be an amazing student and we're going to survive. Why do we need to survive? Because that's the last question for today.

And I need to be around for next Friday for next full auto Friday. And that's it. Hopefully everybody has a great weekend. And see back on Monday when another episode comes out.