Kitbag Conversations - Episode 27: With the Old Breed

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

This week we are joined by Sergeant First Class Dennis Mullins, a veteran of the Marine Corps infantry (1990-1994), US Army infantry (2005-2009), US Army intelligence analyst (2009-2022), and current contractor. He and I (Matt) discuss his experiences throughout his career, a comparison between soldering in the 1990s and the current day, and some father-son banter. Hope you enjoy.

I wish I were met you Now it's only Once you coulda told me I could see you so face They think that your early ending was all wrong No, I'm strong That's why I see him in my shirt Good shot him in

That's why I see him in my shirt Good shot him in A good shadow me That you were conceived and shit like that. Alright, yeah, just hit record. Alright everyone, good evening folks. Good morning or good good what have you or whenever you're listening to this. This week we are joined by not Cody but my father, Dennis. So a veteran of the Marine Corps infantry and from 1994 he was army infantry from like what, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2006, yeah 2006 like what 2012? No, about 20s. 2008, I think, 2009. 2009. Yeah. Yeah. So you deployment from Marine Corps infantry in the 90s, then in the plot era, you

did deployment with Army infantry went to Afghan came back, reclass went over to Intel, did that for a little bit, jumped into the op seat, and now you're doing Merck work out in East Africa. But yeah, I think it'd be fun if you and I just like rift for the course of like, I don't know, like an hour or so. Riffing, yeah, yeah, that's that's a good modern term. Yeah, we used to call it rapid back in a day, but yeah, it's not doesn't mean to say anymore.

I don't know what urban means, but all right. So we're going to keep going. So yeah, I don't know. You and I do this all the time. We talk in the phone, talk geopolitics and whatnot. But I guess, like for, I guess the listeners, essay, do a compare, contrast from like, you know, Marine Corps soldier coming out of the Reaganot era

in the 1980s, like pushing that into the 1990s, fighting Saddam, Gulf War I, Somalia, everything that came to and from that, the Clinton administration moving that into like the Bush post 9-11 atmosphere from like, because you also were out for a little bit, just kind of like mingling from the post to the present to the future and just seem like the cross domain over the last like 30 years or so. Yeah, I mean definitely a lot has happened, you know, since my first enlistment in 1990 to my from retirement last year in 2022. I mean when I when I was in, you know, a young marine in the Marine Corps, I'm free and over in the fleet, you know, we still had some Marine Corps vets We still had some Marine Corvettes from Vietnam. They were first sergeants and sergeant majors. Quite a few of them were shell shock as hell.

There was one gunny over in the Philippines that I knew about. This guy was just constantly digging bunkers. He would dig foxholes everywhere over in Suic. And he apparently got blown up over in Vietnam and it was just one of his PTSD things. He'd get nervous. He would dig a hole. You know, and it wasn't just him. He would grab the ugmarine and say, hey, grab a retool. And they would just start digging holes and they would just look at each other, but what the hell, man? And the Italian commander say, hey, he's, you know, he got hit in the head.

He's just humor the old man, you know, and, you know, it was one of those 30-year-old gunnies in the Marine Corps that were just, you know, more legends than anything else. So, but yeah, I get, I definitely had some, that tutorage in the professional sense. I mean, definitely grew up with the Vietnam veteran as my father, your papa, and definitely different experiences. I mean, the veterans I served with in record didn't hit me. That was like, wow, thank you for not hitting me and being direct when you did. Yeah, so I mean, you went to Somalia. Everything that the I want to talk about the geopolitical fallout from that because we had a rack 91 that was 100 hours of hell as they call it, you know, it was pretty intense.

We flexed on the entire world. Yeah, the highway of hell and everything that went into that. And then we go to Somalia, limited operation and fucked it up. And so the Marines were sent in yourself, were sent in to clean up everything, right after Black Hawk Down, so. Yeah, yeah, the greatest tragedy is that we are weak out from Sydney and the ship's commander comes over

the, you know, the, the lot boys and it's like, hey, good news and bad news, good news, you're gonna save money. Bad news, we have an order to Mugged issue. So I think that was the greatest tragedy for our unit during that. I mean, of course we, you know, we get to Somalia, we're there for like three, four months, and we took fire. We, you know, we, I remember one particular Sunday was Sunday activity holiday routine on the ship off the coast Moogid issue and all of a sudden the sailors there was kind of pointing at something not coming from the shore

And we saw the tracers before we started hearing the machine guns We were that close they had like dishkas and they were just you know, spran us and you know Of course us Marines were just kind of standing there giggling because we know I didn't get to shit And then sailors running around throwing on their Maywests and their helmets and mounting stuff and Yeah, and then all of a sudden we heard the explosion and they were they'd grabbed mortars too and we're starting to ping pong into the ship so It's definitely definitely So it was definitely, definitely, it was interesting. But at that time, the administration really wanted to downplay what was going on.

I mean, they already had a massive, negative press with the Black Hawk Down incident because that was, you know, obviously that was, you know, as Delta Force, that was, that was an operation that should have gone well. It just didn't because things just don't go the way that. But there were definitely downplaying anymore US presence anymore. Connecticut engagement set, US forces were being engaged and over there.

I mean, obviously, when we were in there, our own scouts snipers were in a contest with the Navy sales who could get the most kills. And of course, I heard that we won, but we don't really have to count past three. So it take her for what it is. But yeah, things were actually kind of intense over there. But again, like I said, the administration had the press behind him and they just buried a lot of things that happened over there with the Marines and I believe 10th Mountain were there.

And yeah, I mean, we took sniper fire. We'd stand in the towers over an old port and just watch here the clans were still fighting at the time. I mean, you and I, son, we walked the streets of Mogadishu, you know, 30 years later. And, you know, and the biggest thing, everybody's asking, it's like, what's the biggest difference? I'm like, there's lights on. You know, back then, which was really interesting as we're going to we're confiscating weapons and whatnot from the various tribesmen. If a house had electricity on at night,

more than likely they had firearms because they could protect their property. Because they had the firearms, they were a part of a clan, and obviously they could get the resources that nobody else could. So it was very interesting. I mean, it's easy to pick out who you're going to who we're going to raid the next day, but yeah, Biggest difference was lights everywhere, you know, just mm-hmm Were you with the deed son because you know a deed was the warlord his son was a marine. He was an arty guy He was a daddy guy I'll also I believe a reservist. No was not with him actually we were with Commodont Mondes son at the time. He was a captain.

He got eight years in the infantry, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, no, no. He was captain Monday. He was an officer, but I remember we were in the barracks over in Camp Borno. And somebody said, hey, Commodont's coming through. Don't be laying in bed with your boots on. You know, don't be laying in Iraq with your boots on you know, don't be laying in your rack

And we were we're on that prey duck. We were back of an eight or nine eight five ton waiting to go out to a range and Sure shit. We saw the Commodont and his son Walking through the barracks walk on the outside There was a door open God help that stupid marine for leaving his door open because he went in and sure as shit caught some Marine Lane in the rack with his boots on. I mean, you can't, yeah, I think the only thing worse than that will probably would have been the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. That's a bad one. Yeah, you don't want that. Yeah, yeah, that's a bad one because Sergeant Major Marine Corps is like, okay, you know, let's get down to see who can do the most pushups and you better not beating. That's the all there is to it, you know. What is funny there that when I went to MCT we went back to your old

barracks room which used to be one nine it was like two five now or something. Two one. Two one yeah just went in there this dude walked out he's like hello you're like it's cool I used to live here. It's fine it's fine. It's fine. I was here 20 years ago it's cool man. The complete look and shock in his face because you know walks out and skivies. He's just like, why are you men standing outside of my roof? Why is there a short old white man in front of my room? You know, it was probably his look because he was a, you know, young, fit man of color. So it was, it was great. And then, ugh, and so you did that. Got out of the Marine Corps. My favorite story is how you stole a, what was it?

an AT4 kept it in your shed for 10 years and then gave it to the neighbor kid when you enlisted. I did. I did. Oh man, because I'm like his mom was so pissed. She was like, why don't you give this to him? Who the house was. Who else was going to give it to all your cousins were small children at the time. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I get him a

freaking AT4. It was a M empty tube. You can buy him at surplus stores, but still, I mean, and it was probably 12 years old just walks in with that and his mom is terrified. Well, as long as he kept it pointed down range, she'll be fine. Yeah, right. Yeah, right is step dance car. He's like right there. And then that 11 global war on terror kicks off, waited a little bit, went back, tried to get into the Marine Corps again, but because you're out for so long, they're like, hey, you can't get corporal. You have to get plus it down to Lance Corporal. What's that, say again? Oh, yeah. So you got out, try to get back in after like a raconvation starts, try to get back into the Marine Corps because you were out for so long, they're like, I, we can't give you Corp. We're going to give you Lance Corp. We'll float it over to the Army's office or like, what do you want? We'll give you

you what? Yeah. Well, actually, I mean, when the war kicked off in 2001. How many kids I have? And I also have what for was you Sean and Nathan and Nathan might have been on the way. I think Nathan was on the way. Yeah, because I remember your mom was pregnant. She's like, you and I, you are not going off to war leaving me with three babies and another one on the way. So yeah, I was kind of kicked that can down the road because I was having a midlife crisis every six months. Just so unhappy. I became the guy I really just used to make fun of, you know, I mean, used to be a young hip marine Southern California tattoo, you know, got a double-traveled, firving tribal tattoo, you know, got a double. Surprised. Yeah. Furving tribal tattoo, you know, and then, you know, I mean, I was in the trades and there's nothing wrong with the trades,

you know, I was saying, anybody who's happy and fulfilled at what they do, then God bless them, you know, and much respect for them. And there's a lot of people who are not happy in their jobs. And I was one of them. And I just remember, you know, it was in a house one day, we were doing the plumbing, new, new, finish plumbing. And, you know, these young kids, you know, age 19 to 23, 24,

talking shit about what they would be doing if they were in the military, you know, because I had the radio on and was listening to, you know, like the third infantry division roll them through this town and engaging, you know, Iraqi forces, and you know, and this was in 2003 at this point. And it's just the arrogance these dumb little shits tell me what they would do if they were there. Now at the time, I was like 30, 30, yeah, about 30, about 30. Yeah, I mean, at the time I thought I'd heard you're in my spurs, you know, I've done my time in uniform, I'm done,

but man, my gun collection started getting big, you know. I mean, Lord knows we didn't, we didn't have the room for the firearms, but they were accumulating and, mm-hmm. As about the end of 2005, your mom said, okay, she's like, you're already back in the infantry because you keep buying guns,

so you're also going to get paid for it. You know, of course, it's in the middle of the war. I think I had five kids at that point. And she was like, you know, I know going to war is risky, but she's like, if you're gonna die, I would actually, I would prefer you dying doing something that you love and that you felt called to do rather than getting killed on the way to a job that you hate it. Because obviously car accidents.

Oh, yeah. Living in a Detroit area, ice is over six months a year. Like it's... Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the year prior getting head on collision because some idiots slid on ice and totaled my car with my plumbers tools. Yeah. Yeah, right. Wow. I do. And the way to a job that I hate, thank you. You know, before we pivot on to like the

army situation, I do want to talk about how. You worked at was a Cornwall plumbing and it was an English company and they were told to hire minorities so they just hired a bunch of Irishmen and they're like, yeah, they're minorities. No, a better. Yeah, so they got two Irishmen. They were brothers and they also got two other dudes. Their dad was Scottish and their mom was Dominican. So they technically qualified as people of color because their mom was Dominican. Now these dudes just, they were handsome young men. You know, they had some darker skin. I mean, they looked Italian, but they're not, they're Dominican. So yeah, the trite required so many people of color, quote, unquote, on job sites. And like, okay, we got, you know, two mix in a Dominican half breed. So, all right.

So funny that that line of thinking, they're like, yeah, dude, we're English. They're like, what? If you're not English, you're not nothing. So it's it was born law with the mix and the Scott Scott Dominican, the Scott Dominic. I don't know how you can say that. But the columnist, yeah, the subjects. So yeah, so then you did the reserves first. So you came back in as an infantryman in the reserves before pivoting down to like the active duty side. Yeah, yeah, they, you know, because it was during the surge in 2000, end of summer, 2005, as when I started to, to start sniffing around the military again, kind of like, you know,

the, like that person who stopped smoking years ago and they feel stressed and they'd start, you know, hanging around the tobacco section of the store going, I just want to look at it. I just want to look at it. I just want to smell that burlac canvas that just takes me back to the day when I was in uniform. You know, that's all I want. Just get me my fix, you know.

And I remember I had another vehicle that was trashed on a plumbing site. It was a minivan and that was the guy. The guy hits you. The guy hit me and then said I'm not going to call the cops because the car's already a piece of shit anyways. He's like he wouldn't even notice. That's what pissed me off. I mean, it wasn't a great car and it functioned. And I had a couple of dinges and scratches. It was a Chevy minivan, something, whatever. And yeah, he hits with his company truck. He was like the superintendent of the project manager out there, hits it with his company truck. And I'm like

dude what the hell he's like hey you couldn't you can't even tell that I had like you clearly hit it goes well it's a piece of shit anyway okay so I called the cops I'm like and he got so pissed because he uh well number one he he didn't report it which is know, yeah, that's a big deal. No, no, you don't do that. Right. That's causing dangerously into Oh dear territory. This is how it went. And he got pissed at me. He corded me in a house one day.

He's like, they took my car. They took the vehicle away from me now. And they're, you know, they're doing this to me. And I'm like, don't be an asshole. I want to let a fly. I really would have. I'm not, I don't care about bling. You know, I care about being treated fairly and well.

And he treated me like, I was a piece of dirt. I'm like, okay, you little shit. All right, we got this. I mean, you know, I was about 10 years older than this kid. Like, I don't think so, dude. Uh-uh, you know, and that was, that was 2005. It was the summer 2005, you know, and that was, that was 2005. It was the summer 2005 because we, because of that, I got the, I got the, I got the van fixed

through insurance because it wasn't actual accident. And that's the van we drove to Fort Bragg. Then next spring, I do want to go on record though. That one around this time I was in the young Marines and there was nothing cooler than you rolling up in your army BDU reserve uniform. You're like yeah I'm here to pick up my kids. Oh yeah that was always pretty cool. Yeah and they were those never when it was stupid black burais with their uniforms back then. And it was, I didn't know how to wear one of us used to be dressing as a Marine, right? Which we had our stars.

We had the patrol cap you would sew it down. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, we wore the stupid black burets at the time because if you're not in the lusher in the field, you know, you don't wear the PC, you don't wear the patrol cap, you wear the beret. So I didn't know how to wear, I didn't know how to shave it. I threw it on, I looked like a Russian sailor, Dixie, I mean,

you know, imagine those British... It was a... It looked so fucking gay. I was... did not know how to dress as a soldier, you know, I mean, I, you know, I can rock the the the raspberry beret, the airborne, but... Where are the the Chikers yeah that works right yeah that no no I had no tutelage nothing in how to dress for the army but yeah I did so that summer after okay yeah so this goes back to the accident where the back of the van had been crushed and that got replaced. When they replaced the back hatch, I had no more Marine Corps stickers because everybody

who was a Marine had that one lower left side. Lower left side. Every time Marine Corps United States Marines, that's gold and it's kind of reflective. Yeah, and it's been the same since I was a kid in the early 70s. That thing has that sticker has not changed, right? And it's always in the lower. It's changed. Yeah.

And went into the recruiting station to get more Marine Corps stickers. That was a legit excuse. And I asked them about taking prior service. And they're like, yeah, we're already at our quota for prior service because maybe at that time, the kind of Michigan was already tanking. Yeah.

It was 2005, the auto industry was slowing down. It wouldn't catch up to the rest of the country to like 2008. But so a lot of guys were actually going back in. I was in the, I was in there. So when I let me back up, when I left the Marine recruiters, the armies was there and I just looked up and saw, you know, join the army reserves for $15,000. I'm like, wow, Rincor gave me a title that last forever, but I certainly can't

pay a bill with it. So I'll go check it out. And again, like it was during the surge, and they had this try the army for a year program. I'm like, what the hell? You can enlist for a year. This is insane. And it was a special program for prior service, prior listed. And yeah, you get assigned a reserve unit and just do one year. That was it. You're in like what the 100th infantry something like that.

At the time, it was the 100th or 84th. It was like a log cutter patch, right? I think that was the 84th and they were that for about the first month I was back in uniform. And then they went to the 100th division and I'm not sure who they are now. I think they... The hundredth division were the guys they were the polar bears, right? They went fart in an archangel where we're one. That was the whole thing because they had that stuffed polar bear in the front office. No. No, no, no, no. Oh shit, what I thought was... That was a particular regiment that got... that the division took over. But yes, I still have that crest.

It's got the little polar bear. Yes, they went to a Mermansk in Archangel after World War I and fought the, the reds in 1919, which, most Americans don't know that. The Russians remember. We don't. Oh, definitely, definitely. We were there to support the nationalists, the know the white russians we got our asses kicked But yeah, we invaded northern Russia a hundred years ago, and they don't They don't even teach that shit in school It is kind of cool to have like a like a sleazy recruiter like when everyone's getting back on the ship

There's a guy over here's like dude. You didn't even get to fight come here. We're going to the war Yeah, you know, you know, a lot of those guys, and today's world, today's society, America's forces actually went over and became mercenaries for the Kurds and now all of them fighting in Ukraine because some of them may joined up to them may join the G-Wat and they missed their window, whether they were too young or too scared or, you know,

like, what else? I mean, life happens and sometimes we're just not born into the right time. So they gotta get out there, they gotta earn their spurs, they gotta earn their manhood. And that's a way to do it. And yeah, I mean, especially back then, and you know, some of these guys, we're just off the farm, and you know, like some of these more poorer lads were like, well, they're going to downsize the

military, the war is over, right? And kind of like, you know, have to rule war two and what, not same thing. I mean, it's the first time they've had a stable paycheck first time. I've had three males a day food clothing Warm, you know roof over their head overnight. It's it's a thing. You know, it really doesn't change too much You just given the disparities in the way people live, you know Yeah, I mean I always find that word pretty interesting, the way everything, the way it kind of unfolded, because not so much like the actual Russian revolution, but the way America got introduced, we were there for like what, two, three years, then we bounced and pretended it never happened. I think it's been 100 years.

I think we were out by like 22. And I think it was. Cody talks about it sometimes. But yeah, it's like after that, the Soviet Union was like, those guys came after us in several relations with the West and weren't like, they didn't open their borders until the mid 1930s. Like they were isolated society.

Yeah, well, I think they would, I think they invaded Poland like 1922, 23, don't, don't quote me out, but there was a Russian Polish war in the early 20s. They're probably trying to take Poland back, but Poland had probably surprised more than more than, more than themselves that they could actually hold off the Russian bear for that time, you know. But going on from there, so we finally get down to Fort Bragg. You're in the 82nd, you're grunts. What do they call it? Replacement. And then you're getting kicked over to Afghanistan.

And you were also there during like the Restruppo situation, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was, yeah, by the time Restruppo happened, I was on my second tour at the 82nd as an analyst this time. The first time I went as it was as a trigger puller, which Honestly, sometimes it's easier just to shoot back at things that you don't like rather than sit there and read the report and just have to take it. It's different ways of fighting, you know, yeah, that first deployment was like what, 15 months? It was at least a year.

Well, yeah, it was hot minute. Yeah. But yeah, I was there for Restrepo. And I can't say too much about what the dialogue was with going out, but I remember I was just pissed. I was walking the halls, you know, because for years they had that that fob and that valley keeping it secure, you know, and they'd lost men and they'd lost good men, you know, fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and then just one day they left.

And I'm like, it's, it's nobody read about Vietnam. How about they fought with damn hills, which were such a strategic significance. Then just, yeah, we're done. I think it's really funny that when it comes to saying like the Afghanistan situation that everyone says, oh, read the bear went over the mountain. Don't learn from the Soviets mistakes and that America fell into every single trap of Russian said. We didn't learn a single thing from those guys. Well, we didn't carpet bomb, and that was,

hey, I'm not saying that was, would have been a bad thing, but yeah, I mean, the Russians drove a lot of the Afghans into Pakistan, but the Carpet Bombings, we were in one valley, we were on an OP, and we're there with our third, who was from the region, and he was, you know, I just thought it was a valley that he's pointing out. There was massive craters from the, you know, the Russian bombers that carpet-bond the entire valley, basically from east to west to drive them into Pakistan. It was weird.

But you drive around there and there's gold ghostly shells of Russian vehicles everywhere still, BMPs, tanks, all kinds of stuff. But you know, like, like, these saw those, uh, that, that desiccated old, uh, armored vehicle in Mogadish, you know, I mean, with kids playing on them. The same thing. Yeah, it was an old, it was like an old BTR beard, you know, sitting there and it was just burned out. It's like, yeah, damn. Yeah, same thing in, in Afghanistan, you know, probably a little older, much older I'm guessing, but

yeah, I mean there's trees growing through them, there's kids still playing on them and uh it's just uh you know the images of a foregotten war, you know that that you think it's forgotten so you meet that Afghan who's got red curly hair and freckles. You know, I know you're dead. I know and I think that was a Russian. Yeah. So for that, I think the war still lives. So going from there, you went to Afghan twice, you came back, then you got into the op section,

you got into the green berets, you were with like, what, fifth group? You did some time from there. And that's where I met Cody. It was through you. So we were doing some ITN stuff. No, you were you were bucking for an RCOM, an army not an RCOM. A.M. Army Achievement Medal.

Because you were going to be so excited. You were going to wear that army achievement medal on your on your marine dress blues. And they stomomp that right on you. I took it to force come show your surgepicate look. But what I think I think what stunned everybody the most is when we got you on the the soft net and you sent everybody an email on Marvel Moans, so calm, not smell that mail. That was fun. I definitely emailed all my friends, like, what up bitches?

Look where I'm at. I'm with, you know, because, you know, you always said that I got a guy. I got a guy in Cairo. And, you know, yeah, you're like, I used to say my contact in Cairo. That's what I would just make shit up. I was like, I got a contact in Cairo. I definitely think that was the coolest part of my military time was, you know, being with Group, you know, being in the Intel ops aspect of it and having you go out on your on your on your Mew, you know, and you are out there off the coast of Aiden and North

Africa. No, no, no, you're on the path. All right. Anyway, you ask for products. You ask for some products. You're like, what do you got for this, this, and this? And I would go and, you know, I'd find them and shoot them to you on the Classified Network, boom, boom, boom.

And you'd give these briefs and your officers were stunned, especially your pilots, because you got to take care of your pilots. Now, I know you impressed a lot of Marine and probably some navy brass, but how you didn't end up with a, you know, a tank full of sugar in your Jeep by your fellow enlistants who clearly hated you. Yeah, right. How many times was the cap missing off of your Jeep? Like once a week for a month, I mean,

they kept getting stolen, yeah. Yeah, I guess I was on three times. And I was like, who did I piss off little me What could I have ever said that could be offend anybody? I don't know croat on report. I don't know Is it I turned that page from a was supposed to be like an informative analytical page into a Alex Schoen's troll page? I was like, ah, that's gonna be fun. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

But that, honestly, that's probably one of the highlights of my career was bringing you into the skiff and having you give a brief of some, some, some key areas that, uh, fifth group was looking at that you had as a Marine. And that was, that was awesome, man. That was, that was good. You remember when I think I went to Okinawa and I sort of in an email distro, so I roped up all the Joes in your shop and I got a bunch of Marine friends of mine and I would send out like emails.

Yeah. That died immediately. Nobody ever followed up with that. It was just me and I was like, fuck it. Let's just lose the next one. What's up. Hey, you, you made some good contacts coming out of, you know, you're networking with your dad and fifth group. So, I mean, you still talked a few of them at daily, you know, and they

all stayed in the Intel world. So, yeah, most obvious Cody, that's why we're here today like well Cody and you know, I'm I'm a bit swollen. Yeah, just but there's others and you know, they're not here. So I'm not going to drop their names, but you definitely expanded your own personal, if not professional network, you know. So Cody was telling me earlier about this this time that it was like you and him and another guy and there's Captain Watson talking about he his like, Oh, we're going to get a capes and limbs brief on this new twals. And I win the war. The Middle East and that Cody, like you deployed, Cody deployed the other guy deployed. And this guy was like a slick sleep captain. And Cody was like, shut up. It's not going to win the war. We could fight for a hundred years

and kill a hundred people a day. It's not going to fix anything. And then apparently he leans into Cody and you were like, shut up, bitch. Oh, like, when I'm on the captain. No, no, no, it was Cody's final coup de grouse where he says the shit ain't worth dying over. That's so funny. That was the mic drop. And. And this captain looked like he was going to cry. But I was hoping we were going to put it on the refrigerator door. And he just took that little crayon drawing that that captain had brought up and just threw it in the garbage in front of him. Yeah. Do you remember when I got out of the record and I built that table and I built it for a memory I was like this is what a table should look like and you're like son if I could put it on the fridge. I would

you really Yeah, instead I put it on the fire pit where it belonged It was so bad. I would never sit on that thing. I was just eyeballing it. I was like, it's not even like you I bought it dude. You use like flimsy It was like, it's not even like. You eyeballed it dude, you used like flimsy. It was like plywood and like tiny little tweaks. Why wouldn't these like little like one by four inch by two things like this?

I mean it was just, yeah, but you were like, you were so happy. I'm building a table. Okay, Jesus, you, you do that, you know, hone your skills, boy. Channel that, channel that energy that post military angst, you know, let's get into the the dead of winter. Yeah, let's, yeah, I'll just get you, you know, some chalks and some clay next and we'll go there and go that route there. All right. So going from there, let's kind of pivot into some more general questions because So going from there, it was kind of pivoting to some more general questions because after going from Marine Corps to the tree in the 90s to Army infantry, to Army intel, to Army

ops, could you see like a plus or a minus of the quality of soldering over the last 30 years because it looks like, pound for pound, there's cool action movies in the 90s, Reagan was very much a big fan of like trading the youth to go fight the Soviets Once you go fight a rack in 91 Everything that fall from that the 90s for like a low period in like terms of quality of military. We can talk about that all day and And then Cody and I've talked about how the Oakland for a rack in 91 was perfect the O plan for a rack in O3 was Perfect. The O plan for Iraq in O3 was heinous. It was just throwing bodies like, oh, we're superman, we can do whatever we want.

Then the O plan for ISIS was atrocious. And so, if you think that has something to do with the quality of soldering or like the overall quality of the military. I'd say it's the overall quality of the leadership. It always has been that a country's nation's military is merely a reflection of its civilian population is reflection of the society in which it serves. If you got a young group of people who are rather listless and lost and don't show. I mean, it's, you know, anything could happen to people when they join the military. Some people find their vision, some people find their goal, but what really has to come, what it gets down to is what kind of people are there? Are they a virtuous society? Are they good society? What

Are they a virtuous society? Are they good society? What is the quality of the people in general? I can definitely say in the last 30 years, I've seen society slide. And I am officially an old person going, God damn those kids, look at them nowadays. But it's true. Now, the technology is amazing compared to what I initially cut my teeth on in 1990.

I mean, our LESs were carbon copies of something that came from S1. That's what we got every month. And I think I might dug through some of my old C-bags I probably find a couple and it was just heinous compared to what you guys can page today at E1 pay, you know. But no, I don't think it was a failure by our soldiers. Or, no, when it comes to Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, and especially when we, you know,

we pulled out of Iraq and imploded, we pulled out of Afghanistan and imploded within two weeks, you know, and there was a lot of soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, we're like, what, you know, basically, what the fuck did we do for 20 years? You know, we've lost friends over there. We've lost loved ones. What, for what? You know, and I remember when I was a young soldier, now when she's younger than me, fuck on mold.

But she was actually questioning this, you know, because she put her time in over. She was an MP in her, you know, her, her, her convoy is we had attacked, she lost friends and she was like, Why? And I said I said we did everything that we Said out to do we accomplished every single mission that was given to us. We didn't give up ground our government did

We didn't lose the battles around our government did. We didn't lose the battles. We didn't, we accomplished every single mission task and order that was given to us in both of those theaters. And that's a fact. And that's what we can be proud of, that we didn't yield. We did everything par excellence with minimal,

you know, I mean, we should have had a lot more casualties of what we get, you know, I don't know if we're going to call it divine providence or whatnot, but we we definitely should have had more casualties in Iraq. We should have had more, I mean, what are the, what were the Russian casualties in Afghanistan? At least 100,000. They were saying it was crazy. Yeah, and they're only there 10 years. We were there 20. You know? We lost like what?

2000? G-I-A. Like that's. I don't know, but it can significantly less. And again, I think that's a testament to the soldiers because it was an all-volunteer force. They were all volunteers. And of course, you know, the shipbirds we did themselves out

wouldn't hard, they were gone with them the first two years of their enlistment. What's sad was that they squandered and soaked up millions of dollars with a train and whatnot. But given talking about the technology, again, it was what we feel nowadays. And you and I have both, we work both overseas together

and the skiffs and jocks and classified environments. And just watching things go on, those big screens is amazing. And I don't think that's the failure. I think it's the application of the tools that we have that is the biggest issue. Do you think it's something of, I mean, Cody calls them wonder weapons where we rely so much

on the technological advances that we have that makes almost like, I don't need to work so hard because I'm never gonna get shot at. I have a UAV, I don't need to work so hard because I'm never going to get shot at. I have a UAV, I have a drone, I have a new battle tracking system. It, are we relying to heavy on these cool toys that's then from there immediately having a secondary effect on to the, not the quality of the soldier, but like their performance. Hold on, I'm going to... That's a lot to process.

Yeah, because I know from the work I have. And I have an answer, I'm just trying to calibrate my words here. Yeah, I know from a Marine Corps angle, our whole thing is, you know, do more with less. And so you give a Marine Corps infantryman a shovel and a grenade and he'll build a castle out of it. Like it just happens. Like it's a different quality of like training coming up from the lower ranks or lower officer raising up, but it's also like that culture that it builds upon itself. But if you have someone like the army or the Air Force who have all the cool toys, it yeah. Do you think there's like a correlation with that?

is it yeah do you think there's like a correlation with that? Yeah, I believe so. I mean, number one, we have to look at what the government is wanting to do overseas and how they want to use US assets to make that happen. Number one thing that's going to make everybody scream is US casualties. Yeah. Now, the more we can expand our footprint overseas in a pseudo-kinetic fashion without the loss of American lives, some's gonna say it's worth it because yeah, I mean, we just don't blindly carp a bomb

anymore like we did in World War II and to a degree in Vietnam actually, Korea obviously, but those were like $60 bombs in World War II. I think, again, don't quote me, but they were significant. They were bombs. Yeah. They're saving maybe 600, but a, compared to like to like the 1.2 million dollar rockets that we shoot today to kill, we'll say 13 insurgents that you've tracked for three days after they burned a village, right? And you just been waiting for them to cluster up together. And that's basically what

it comes down to. Now, if we can do that without losing American lives, yeah, the US government's going to keep doing it because, like I said, the only thing that makes the media scream and makes the government very unpopular, especially when their parents were screaming, why did my kid get killed over there? Well, they don't want casualties. So, in that, it removes the human factor from warfare. Okay, so like I said, we've seen those screens. We've watched them approve the call. We've watched what they do. And it's very impersonal.

Like, they're like, hey, you want to watch this? I'm like, no, I've seen enough, man, I'm good. Well, I think it was Carlos Hathcock, because he used the Starlight Scopes and Vietnam and most decorated Marine Corps sniper, but because he had the Starlight Scopes, he couldn't see any faces. Is it hard? He's like, nah, I can't see a face. So it's done in personal, no emotion attached to it. Yeah. I mean, so it's quality of the soul. I mean, it's like data processing.

It's like, what's the quality of your clerk? Pretty good, because they just, they punch the keys, they do their thing, and they're thinking about being someplace else the entire time. It's like we all. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, it war for the American government has become it. Well, obviously we were in a war too far too long and it's the same thing that happened after after Vietnam, you know, they they had that 15 year war, which seems like a baby.

Compared to what we do nowadays. But the American public was burned to a crisp of US military being deployed in places that didn't give a shit, let's be honest. Well, we could just call Afghanistan and Iraq, Vietnam two and three. I mean, seriously, it was almost the exact same people we propped up shitty governments that didn't give a fuck.

And once we left, they gave up, they turned over, they switched sides. I mean, you saw the pictures of the Taliban, although the ones nowadays, the presidential guard are all carrying their firearms at the high ready. It's like, gee, one of your friends. Yeah, it's a finger off the trigger. Yeah, a finger off the trigger.

That's US military doctrine. So remember, it was 2000. It's like 2009 or so when we were leaving Iraq. And I remember you like in the kitchen, you put your hands on your like, I give it the kitchen you put your hands on you like I give it six months Like they won't survive. I give it six months and then the first VB ID went off and bagged that within six months You're like I fucking knew it. He's like it's crumbling I they say you know those who are Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it with those who don't do know history Those who do know history are destined to repeat it, but those who do know history,

those who do know history are destined to watch it. I'm feeling it. Yeah, just watch it happen again. So. Yeah, it's a, because Cody and I talk about this a lot that's post-Fianton, you us didn't want to get into conflicts at all. We refused, but then like the 1980s, we got a bunch of limited tiny little ones,

like Grenada, Panama, renowned success. So then we're like, all right, so then we did that in 91 with Iraq, crushed the third largest military in the world in the 100 hours. We did black Hawk Down, fucked it up, co-subbed, fucked it up. And then from there, they're like,

ah, we need to take a step back. Well, here's a thing, is that yes, US military was in Vietnam for 15 years, and you can even go farther if you talk about the advisors we have there in the 50s. And there was a massive downsizing in the US military. And that's logistically, psychologically, that's good. However, with that downsizing, that rapid, massive downsizing, there's a power vacuum. So yes, we are saving money,

we're bringing our boys home, but the enemy players It's game on for them And what happened down to Vietnam? What happened after Vietnam? We started downsizing and we had president Carter and You know, he was basically Obama Well, he was the precursor anyway. He was a shitty president one of the worst presidents in history and with that You had the Rain a ran went to the Iranian Revolution 1979, you know it and we were so burned to a crisp from getting involved and foreign conflicts

And that's what happened. We didn't want it, you know We didn't prop want to prop up the shop or ran it more look We've been propping up shitty government since World War II just to maintain the peace. And how do people say, well, why are we given billions of dollars and millions of dollars to Assad, because we used to? You know why? Because he was a fucking dictator who could keep his people in line.

So when you lose those dictators, especially in a Muslim country, you're going to have massive sectarian violence for years. Sometimes, yeah, we're paying these dickhead dictators, got it, but they are also strong men keep in the peace, because you know why? I know it's a shitty thing, but some people, and you know those for a fact son, they need a dictator. They are too stupid to live on their own, but the tools of

destruction that they have inherited from their government. So yes, when they took out Saddam Hussein, they should have grabbed his one son, not Uday, I think it was being prepped for the throne, because Uday was a douche and even his dad knew it. They should have said, look, work for us. You're back in charge. We'll make sure you stay in charge. Keep the peace. I think he would have done it. One thing, Cody and I usually talk about as American short-sightedness, we're like, all right, Saddam was in terms of like a rac. You're like, Saddam was a Sunni Muslim. Let's just put the she is in charge. And the she is are all from Iran.

And you're like, cool, now we have an assurgency inside Iraq. How do we do in Iraq? She owns the SMGs, yes. And once you gave them free reign in Iraq, well, geez. What, you know, the she owns the groups in Syria and Lebanon almost had a free pipeline of, and then all the Sunnis from the Iraqi army, they're like, what do we do now? So they all

banded together and created ISIS. I formed a, what, for an ISIS, right? So it is the second, third and fourth order effects that our government tumbling does not foresee. You know, rather, no, let me back that up. We do see it. The analysts see it. The analysts who have spent years and some of them have been doing this for decades, right? Those Washington think tanks. They know they're shit. Yeah. They're like, okay, this is what you can expect the next 10 years. Straight up. This is what you're going to do. And well, if it's not good for current policy, you know, like we, we made it Afghanistan, got it. We, we created a shit government.

That was very unpopular by the Afghans. Why was it unpopular by the Afghans? Well, because it was a Western government. Yeah, right. That's not how their government works. And the women who were less than dogs were suddenly given the right to vote, the right to an education, and the right to work.

That shit was unheard of. So why would, yeah, of course they weren't happy with their government, because they felt betrayed by their own people. Well, you're working with the Americans, you know? One thing I've been looking at recently is the Russian, it's almost like a coup from 1993. It's not the one in 91 where the Soviets try to storm the Kremlin and get rid of Gorbachev.

It's when the Soviets, the ex-Soviet's, teamed up to try to get rid of Yeltsin. But it was not a black and white situation. It was the Nazis, the Communists, the Socialists, the anarchists, the punk-rock kids, the atheists, the Christians, everybody teamed up to get rid of the liberals. So in Russia today, Democrat is like a swear word. Like if you could call the Democrat, you're like, ew, gross. And so it's one of those where it's like certain societies are not conducive to Western thinking.

They're just, they are not. And then because of that, we got pooped out of it. And he was like, ah, the the people are like yeltsin. All right, they want a dictator. Here it is. So. Yeah. And it is very short-sighted Western thinking.

I think it's getting even worse, especially nowadays, where it's an instant gratification society. I mean, no shit. I wake up one morning, decide I need something. I'm not even going to bother going to get it, because it's probably not there. I'll go on Amazon Prime and have it delivered within 24 hours. That's what we've expected to do. We expect that in all aspects of our lives. And I think in one instance, it's really spilled over

into our personal relationships as well. You don't want want to labor anything, but that's a side issue. But the Russians, they're chest players. And to be good chest players, how many moves ahead do you have to be in the real game? I mean, like it's an insane amount. You play a chest. It is. You're like, maybe two, two, two moves ahead, maybe. Yeah.

Yeah, I like to say that, uh, that Americans play poker because you hold a bluff, you can call someone's bluff, but the Russians play chess two completely different games. Yeah, it's, you can't even, it's not even the same category. The Russians are like, it's gonna take me 15 moves. I'm gonna lose all my pawns, a rug and two nights. However, I'm gonna win.

But the way I was like, yeah. And at the same time, they're touching every piece going, hmm, should I move this one? They picks it up. Now, I'm not there. So you still don't, they have you second guests and everything. So yeah, absolutely. So from there, so back going back to like American society where it's like, I guess getting softer. One solution that myself and Cody have come up with is conscription, not for in terms of like deploying people to like a combat zone,

because conscripts are horrible, but just ripping like the Midwest kid out of high school, throwing him into like Haiti, they're like, this is a real world situation. This is how the world works. It's not nice, it's not comfortable. Deal with it. Then go right back to your hometown. You're like, cool. Now you have the information.

Yeah, that would be a great limited series on sci-fi or who will work Netflix. No, our society has passed that at this point. It's too liberal in his thinking. And that's actually what dictators do, son son. I mean now I'm not disagreeing with you I'm just saying it's not it's not gonna happen I would love these especially those people and I've seen the memes online It's like let's let's do a reality show whether they take those liberal communists and colleges and make them live in Cuba for 60 days Mm-hmm and see how they do without running water toilet paper and tampons. Come on, let's go ladies. You know, let's go because apparently boys need tampons too for some reason. I don't know, but yeah.

I don't know, that's a bit below me, but yeah, just I don't know, something like because retention issues are such a big problem. I mean, I got a call from the neighbor procreer last night off from me 25,000 to do neighbor reserves for two years. It's insane. So when do you go get your Dixie Cup uniform, sir? Never. I refuse. There's a pride thing there. But yeah, I don't know.

It's looking at the current military structure. Because you and I, we both know. I mean, Nathan, John, I mean, they're in Syria. And just looking at the way the military is structured, it's either a something drastic like that or be what we do recently is just use special operations to do everything. They're not supposed to be a conventional force in a combat zone. They're supposed to be real short, real quick, but also with that comes continuity issues in theater.

I mean, you and I have seen it where it's like they do anywhere from like three month to six month pumps No continuity goes from like argument in the reins the Air Force no continuity But then from there comes back right back to the military where they're like I don't want to read in list because there's nothing for me to do Because all the soft guys do and they're burning everything up now. Yeah, but Again, if we can maintain a semi kinetic force overseas limiting the loss of human life, that's what they do. And when conventional forces retreat a theater, we actually increase SF presence because it's going to end up in destined. And what is the job of SF to prep the field for positive US influence, right? Yes, of course.

So what we should do, honestly, is Germany did this in World War, before World War II. Remember Germany's military was limited with a certain number, correct? It's 125,000. Yeah. 125,000. So in those 125,000. Yeah. 125,000. So in those 125,000, they made 20 divisions at about 5,000 troops each, if that. They were basically headquarters elements with a cadre of veterans in each one.

So when they did go to war, they had the skeletons of these divisions already set to be beefed up in go. I think we should have various degrees of military divisions. They are divisions now are so tech heavy. They are financial juggernauts. And it's correct to look at the first ID compared to the first marine division. It's insane. First idea is so many more cool toys and bells and whistles. First, first marine division is limited, but it's insane to look at those two, but they're supposed to be light infantry. Well, the marine court is supposed to be heavy to be heavy infantry, but it's insane. Yeah, but look at the average cost of the US division in World War II compared to one

now. Well, it's super simple. I mean, that's what the Russians do. They just grab a bunch of guys from a uniform and kick them into a field. Here we go. We have a new division. Right. Right.

And I think we should have different divisions with different financial caps. You know, this is your division. This is what this is designed to do. I mean, again, this is, it's just me spit-balling, but how do we have a decent fighting force that isn't, you know, completely draining the US treasury? I mean, what's our, how much do we spend on the military? Like, is it 65% of our national GDP? I mean, it's a lot. It, it, it's a lot. I mean, to maintain a carrier is worth more than I think the entire British Ministry of Defense budget.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Now a carrier, you got to keep that cutting edge. It's a year or four. Of course, yes. Yeah, but I'm talking about. You know, we've been to the fobs. We've seen those national guard units where they just like, here you go.

I mean, they should actually have better maybe assignment and send a pay for these things rather than say, yeah, you're at, you've been hiding for five years. Now, you're going to East Africa for nine months and there's some sweltering heat, whatever. I don't know. I hadn't really thought about it too much but what about for continuity sake back in the Spanish Civil War we have the Lincoln brigades the Liberty Brigades and we kicked them over there they're like you're not coming home until it's over

would that help solidify some issues. You mean an officially sanctioned US volunteer unit? Kind of like a black water, but sponsored officially. I think that would, well, they'd be paid well. Yeah, but I don't know, that you're getting into fish territory because remember the Lincoln brigades were, it's a turned out supporting communists. And a lot of them were blacklisted. Yeah.

The Spanish Civil War. That is one thing after looking at the Spanish Civil War for so long is looking at the, the Republicans who were the anarchists, the communists, the socialists, the, everything. And the other side was like the Catholics and the fascists. And you're like, how bad do these guys have to be? If the fascists look like the good guys, America went over to support the Republicans. Yeah, well, it's crazy though, is a Tolkien

supported the nationalist and in the literary world, there was a division where it's like, Tolkien was like, they're for Catholicism, we're going to support that. I don't care if Franco's bad guy, but then I think it was HG Wells whenever to fight with the nationalist. And then came back, he's like, those guys are terrible. It's like they are bad. Maybe it was with the reserve, reserve unit and nationalist side of no, but you have to remember the proper context of it. Remember back in the 1930s and 30s, it was actually quite fashionable to be a communist.

It was, it was. It was, they didn't end up. Because the genocide that it comes with socialism and communism hadn't well been really revealed and discovered yet to the West. So yeah, it was a very, what's the word I'm looking for? It's a very chic new political movement. You know, the way you're your Marxists, your socialists. And, you know, here in the United States, in the 20s,

well, before the Great Depression, it's a land of decadence after World War I, and yada, ydy-addy-addy-addy. But yeah, I kind of like today's, yeah, I support Palestine because they're the new bus word of, press people, you know, like the workers are being oppressed in the United States in the 1930s, blah, blah, blah. I think it goes beyond lip service because like anyone could just say like, I support Palestine and they're like, tell me two things about them. Who isas? How many people live in Palestine? How many people live in Gaza? And so like Cody knows, say, okay, and then what? Or you just ask a random person why? You're like, why do you

support this? And they never give you an answer. So lonely. Yeah, but it's, I mean, when it comes to the 1920s and 30ss like communism and socialism was very attractive But so it was like Nazism and fascism it was it was an attractive topic because it pulled Germany and Italy Out of the Depression because they were gearing up for war And then one thing I one thing over like the last few months that I've looked into is why someone like Germany had By 1930 like 25% of his membership in the Nazi party were teachers, they educated elite, and it's either A, that they thought it was an intellectual challenge.

So they wanted to enlist in that to kind of like understand that, or B, they were just jumping on the bandwagon, which is neither of those are like a good way to participate in like a membership event. Well, like Albert Spirr, I mean, he wanted to, he wanted to work. You couldn't get a job as an architect unless you were a party member. And socialists in the 19, 20s and 30, they labeled themselves as intellectuals, much like, you know, the lib tards do today. They're, you know, I go to college, I have a degree.

I will not talk to anybody without any academic references. I've heard these arguments. We're talking about the color of the sky, but because I don't have a degree in astronomy, you don't think my opinion is valid, it didn't make any sense. It was the new thing. I believe a lot of them were sold that. They went over to Spain. Maybe they were just jerks. I don't know. I wasn't there.

I can't vouch for it. There's none left alive. They're all dead. Yes, true. It was definitely after World War II that we understood the true destructive power of communism after what they were doing in Eastern Europe. Yeah, those volunteers, they were blacklisted in Western derives. One thing I do want to talk about, and I've been trying to form you like this into a post,

like, how to structure it is motivation for the average soldier can come from anything. It's like ideology, religion, nationalism, patriotism, love, your person to your right and left. But one that is suddenly talked about is hate, where it's like it's you, the other guy on the other side, where it's like the Nazis and the Communists hated each other. And the Israelis and the Palestinians hate each other. And that's a topic that really is under-discussed. And I think I'm interested to see what you have to say about that. Because I truly believe it's under-discussed for a reason because it's so dense.

Hatred has to be fueled continually. That is the issue. You can hate today, but if you have a human soul, you will eventually grow and soften to things. Okay. Stalin, dictators need hate. They have to fuel hate into their people continually. What did Hitler fuel his people with hatred of the Jews and Communists? What did Stalin fuel his people with hatred of the Jews and Communists. What did Stalin fuel his people with hatred of capitalism in the Germans and the fascists? Even Stalin towards the end after, right when he was, right before he died, he was running out of enemies. No shit, right? Because he had a lot of people. He got rid of all of them.

Yeah. Right. He had a red bull. He was actually he was getting a list of going after his Jewish intellectual comis friends Labeling them as the new enemy. So hatred has to be fueled. So that's not exactly a good fuel And it takes a lot of energy to create creating enemies now You want to I mean just look at our our entertainment and our press. They are constantly finding new enemies within ourselves, within our own nation, to keep fueling these things. I mean, if, honestly, I think people settle down,

they don't care anymore. They just want to work, they want to live. But when they're told, well, it's white on black violence, black on white in, you know, poor Hispanics always left down, less as a cartel. But anyway, moving on. What is that line from the movie American History Acts where Edward Norton's like, life's too short to be pissed off all the time? He's like, skid over it. Like I said, if you, if you have a soul, you'll naturally grow up, but you have to focus on keep hating people. Now, I wouldn't want so many in the military that hates.

Uh-uh. No, I would not want that guy with me. You know, I guess the fucking loose can. No, no, absolutely not. And I really don't know what we would, I mean, World War Two, hell, even World War One, and, you know the the characters of the Civil War You know, I mean you have to when it's a when it's a massive war when we're talking life or death of our nation no shit Mm-hmm in order to get people to enlist willingly. Yeah, I cuz you always want volunteers before conscripts The propaganda dehumanized the enemy. The German was identified as the Hun, the Japanese. Is the Spanish American word? They made the Spanish spanish barbarians, and guerrillas, and animals. Remember the main. And then even today our targets at the range went from that Marine

Corps circle target to like a human shaped target. It's easier to shoot at that because like you've been trained to do it. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think hate is a good recruiting method. I think people need to be given a purpose. I can understand people are putting the military because what good comes with it anymore. And you know for a fact, the military industrial complex is alive

and well, it is thriving and wars never ended. That's the issue. You join in, you're not going to do your bit for a couple of years. You'll be in a conflict. You'll be in a combat zone, almost your entire deployment. Right now you're your entire enlistment. That was a thing. We're tired last year and I'm still going back over as a contractor now. Yeah, why would you spend all this time complaining about a system designed to be exploited,

is kind of what it comes down to with a lot of veterans. We're like, it makes money, man. Just it is what it is. It is what it is. I'm not complaining against it. It is. It's there. It military has given me a unique skill set, which is waiting a very long time to do nothing. Yeah, you watch John Wick and get all fired up. You're like, yeah, that's good. Yeah, I was on a breath just watching a couple of those. I couldn't do that. And my body snap crackles on pops every time I get up. And that dude's older than I am.

Yeah, he's like, what, 55, 56 categories spwritten around like that. Like that's a long way to build it. I wish I was here. Yeah, hell yeah. No, I, I, the, here's the thing is that our country is jacked at this point. It is jacked so far beyond repair.

It's almost got to play itself out. It is as it, and what's frightening is it happens so quickly. I mean, Reagan was only 30 years years ago 40 years ago. Yeah, 40 Do you know he was only 60 65 like it's night and day from like a Kennedy era of America to today Well, Kennedy would be a would be a warm-ongering Racist Republican nowadays. I mean that's his his policies were or what were what Republicans would preach today. What's insane to me is like the perception of, I guess, American politics is we can look at some like RFK junior who's like, all right, close the borders, he's like, we're letting

too many in, I'm not taking your guns. It's like traditional, like, liberal beliefs and policies. For some reason today is now thrown to like the extreme right. And for some reason, I don't know when that happened, but it's not libertarian. It's for some reason like that era of like liberal thinking is now like considered like borderline like Nazism. And you're like, I don't understand how that even, I don't understand how our escape junior is remotely considered a

Nazi, but our head. Oh, that's just, you know, what's the old comments play as you accuse the enemy of what you're doing. You know, and that's, This started a very long time ago when, you know, socialism got into the universities and schools and, you know, I want to say it was the 1920s. It was after the Soviets took over in Russia. And yeah, you know, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I, because they went right after the schools, yeah, because that's where the,

because communism and socialism is an intellectual stand. And that's why they got into the schools. Yes And stamp it's damn interesting. They weren't they weren't fought against because everybody's like this is America That's never gonna happen. Well, yeah people just they forget You know and all of a sudden it's the new norm like your own brother who's grew up on a military on military basis and DoD schools is kind of like a shocked, you know, it goes these yeah, it goes to ease in school now and he sees

a different life, you know, we went to a street fair the other week and it was amazing seeing all the old overweight people, the young overweight people, right? You don't see that on a fort brag. You don't see that on Fort Campbell. You see young You don't see that camp penalty at night. Yeah, so the California is in shape. Yeah, right Everybody's the kids are well-mannered The adults are all well-mannered the neighbors are well generally well-mannered bolts are all will met the neighbors are well generally well mannered. There are then decent shape except for the occasional dependent pod amus but that goes that's I can I'm sure I care at tops I think that's a better one.

Oh, I try care at tops. So it's a red hair one. Okay. And we have a ginger with small arms running around. But honestly, I it's going to have to play itself out the only way the United States would. I guess get back is being bit slapped a few times by a foreign entity. And if we have the new members, desire to stand up against it. I do remember when the afghan withdrawal was going on and it was all the afghans who worked with Americans for 20 years. Yeah, we're hanging Americans there. They're like, I got this from 10th group. I got this from

First Raider Battalion. Like, I work with you guys, help us and the Americans are like, no, I can't take you. And then it was on Telegram, where Afghan nationals were like 9-11-2 is going to hurt. They're like, it's common. They're like, buckle up America. Like, it is what it is. and like buckle up America like it is what it is. Well, even the Roman Empire fell, you know, and we got hundreds of thought, how many millions have come across the border in the last three years, you know? And I know they're separating them,

they're flooding them throughout the country, ostensibly to make them future Democrats to flip, you know, red states. But I was just wondering, and I remember I mentioned when the mass migrations in the Middle East happened about 10 years ago. Air of spring 2011 kicks out of that. Yeah, and how many military age males fled the countries and just showed up. And I said, dude, all they have to do is go to a part and like Sicily or something like this was once

an Arab caliphate 1200 years ago, we're resclaiming it. It's ours now. It's ours now. And there's enough people coming in through the Southern border, they could just go, you know what? We're going to claim independence. And you know, how many countries in the world at the UN would support that? Because they've already supported, they've shown this support for Scotland to legally, you know,

succeed from Great Britain. I'm not a fan of. I am not a fan of, but obviously not enough scots are either. But all right, so where are we? I don't know. Just going through the rig of a rew. I'm essentially talking about like the quality of military and what's not. One thing I do respect though is the way the British military run their, they run a tight shift. They do a male solo alcohol on their ships and in their barracks, which is Pretty spot on and they still have their daily rum ration, which is pretty cool

There's something to say with that with The British treat their military soldiers as adults We're in the Marine Corps if I had a hot plate in the barracks is like article 15 territory Where the British are like no, we have a pub on the ship. Right, yeah, well trash if you want. It's good morale, you know. I don't know. I mean, you and I and Djibouti,

who was limited to two beers per person. Yeah, yeah, that was gay. That's a day. Well, you missed out. One of the contractors was took us to a restaurant right outside the embassy. The night that I flew out. So yeah, it was pretty well snookered by the time I got to the distribution airport. Oh, I had a good time.

I had them laughing so hard. Yeah, walked in, you know, said the just we full say, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, no, no, the jibbutians hate French and they were just having a good time. I just know when I got there the first time, there was a, like a sea of jibbutians and Africans and there was a French woman smoking a cigarette with like an M4 in her hip. And I was like, that's just cool. This is like, what is this? Yeah, I got that definitely out that European flavor. But hey, brother, I am a vast well of knowledge, and I can't speak the knowledge unless you dip that bucket in and ask a question. Oh, me. All right. So comparative difference from,

did you look at this, I don't want to say state of the military, but look at the job as like an infantry that different from 1991 to 2005, excluding the fact that you were married at this point, but like the job itself, did you see there like a comparative difference, or was it like,

I'm going to go kill people? No, not really. It's a mindset. Honestly, I had the same mindset in 1990 as I had in, you know, 2006, 7, 8, whenever I was, you know, trigger pulling for the army at that point. If that's what you expect, that's what you're gonna expect. I mean, I went from, you know, early 90s Marine Corps infantry into the, you know, mid 2000 Army infantry to the 82nd, you know, and that was the military for me. There was the anal compulsiveness of the Marine Corps loving itself, the anal compulsiveness of the 82nd loving itself.

Yeah, what do they call it? All American week where you say they always take turns stroking it for a week. You're just like everyone. I always offered to a glisten them with baby oil out there on our dens every morning. It's like, you know, you got to shine like those bayonets when you're out there. You got to take those shirts off boys. Got to let them breathe. But but honestly, I mean, I was in replacement, 82nd replacement company, and there was, of course,

all the Levin Brabo's, the who-a-who's were all who-a-who, they're all going to fourth brigade, going on their deployment to Afghanistan. It was the support personnel that were crying into their pillows going, oh my god, hey, second. And I'm like, what's your problem? Yeah, you get this. It was the support personnel that were crying into their pillows going oh my god, I wait a second And I'm like what's your problem? Yeah, this is just the militants. This is the military What are you talking about? But you know, I mean always heard the army was Easier than the Marine Corps Of course I heard that from my dad who was a Marine always growing up say army, you know, but

Watching them, you know, they were still getting up at zero dark, running in the rain with little shorts on because, well, you know, you're not allowed to wear cold uniforms, even though you paid for them, but anyway, that was the military for me. I was infantry mindset. It's what I re-enlisted for. Infinetry mindset, it's what I re-enlisted for. Honestly, it was a sport personnel who are like, I can't do this 82nd crop. And yeah, there is the 82nd loves itself. Yes, it really does.

I mean, they're more badass than 101st. I mean, the 82nd started jumping on what, 1942. 101st didn't do shit till 40th. They were in Africa, Sicily, andily and then Italy Italy then in Normandy and then market garden and then operation varsity. Yeah, they were in varsity They did like five six-hop ad jumps. Yep. Yep Yeah, why don't they didn't get a TV shows beyond me, but right? But anyway, yeah No, it was it was the mindset that I was expecting and I was thankful that I got it, you know, now on the flip side When I got overseas and I worked with a national guard unit

With when I was with the 80 second the Russian right Yeah, I'm not inventing this. Yeah The Joe's were good, but man, the leadership was horrible, just bad. You know, because I carried over that pissing contest mentality from the states, you know, who is bad. And that's the only way you really are going to progress in the National Guard is with some health dies or gets kicked out for being too fat or something which never happens. So they're pretty much designed to be a 30-year sergeant in the National Guard. But, uh...

It's not a big gig. I don't know. But what's your next question, bro? All right, questions. I thought we were just going to riff and just keep pulling threads. No, no, no, no, that's fine. I just don't want to trail off into something No, no, no, that's fine. I just don't want to trail off into something non-essential. And it's like, why is he talking about his dog when he was six? Is he crying? Is he crying?

Oh my god. Cody and I do that all the time. We start off with like, we have four bullet points when you talk about by minute 37. We're like, we're done. Anyways, why can't Aaron shoot properly? Just shoot and get to the ground. And then, Hey, can you explain?

They're famous. Hey, let me finish. There's that famous short clip of Vietnam during the Ted offensive when that thing was, I don't know if he's a soldier Marine just holds his AR up over his head over a wall and just raise some like. Don't be given the air of bullshit, you know, time. If you don't know, you do too. Come on, come on. But, um, oh, fuck, it just fell out. Um,

anyway, no shit there it was. Is that it? Is that it? Yeah, I think that's it. Is that it? Is that it? Yeah, I think that's it. There it was. A DIY checkpoint that got out of it. Again. Again, I got popped with three and I escaped. You saw my good boy points.

But I know you talked about, and you want to hear the biggest contrast. I honestly, the biggest contrast I see within the military is the military leadership. They are looking to be politicians now. They're, you know, the only thing worse than wartime military is peacetime military. And that's where we're at right now.

That's where we're really kind of settling back into. I mean, the generals and senior officers are more politicians than they are, uh, commanders and leaders. Um, it's, it's very bizarre to watch that righteous pivot to the Pacific over the last 10 years and strip sent comm of all the capabilities. And then watch sent gun go tits up and the entire military is like, eh, how do I fix this? No, I think for us though, I think Europe needs a step, step the fuck up.

Okay, and you and I have just no discussion. Yeah, we have, yeah. Yeah, the Germans have an eight hour work day. Their military is not a lot of work more than eight hours a day. So when they go to field ops, they go to field ops, they're working with the Americans at the Brits or, you know, the Poles or whoever. They're like, oh, say it hours were done. And the Americans are like, we're in the, what do you mean you're done? Do you think the Russians care about that?

Yeah, well, there's also a reason the economy sucks because they work what four days a week. Well, I wouldn't say there are economy sucks because of that. No, I mean, honestly, it is a different work mindset. Now, the American mindset is working, you know, we work five, six days a week. I mean, we can't hold a candle to the Japanese working. They give birth at the office and, you know, gone, you know, Crazy is part when I used to work for the Japanese.

They go leave right there, but anyway, they would get off work and all the guys would go to the bar. It's like a very pro-drinking culture. They're like, we're all going to get rashed. He's like, we all work together. We're going to get drunk together, go back to work tomorrow. And if you didn't want to drink, the Japanese were like, you are drinking. You know what that does?

That builds a cohesive workforce. I think they supplemented a warrior culture for a working culture, but took over that. That is exactly what they did. So they couldn't worship and lay down their lives to the emperor anymore. So they lay down their lives for work and rebuilding their culture.

Tyota. Yeah, their culture again. Mitchy Bishi. Yeah. It's a different mindset. And we see Europe has very, I mean, they have, they enjoy their holidays. their country again. Mitch Abishi. Yeah. It's a different mindset. And we see Europe has very, I mean, they have, they enjoy their holidays and there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, at the same time, they just don't, they don't have the industry. And, you know, I, I'm probably wrong on this because I've never studied it. But obviously, like you said, they're even their military only works eight hours a day, you know, I mean what that's just Germany I think it's just Germany, but like the French they but the rest of them don't do shit about their military either You know I because you us steps up and plugs that hole for them in In NATO and that was what I don't want to fill any man's hole man. I don't want to fill any man's hole come on You've been really tired again Oh, come on.

You've been re-side-i-er again? What? I don't know. I don't know. And you want to feel this whole man? No, and that's the soul you crank thing. I mean, why is it the success of that whole thing dependent on US support? I mean, how many countries are in Europe?

Honestly, come on. The same thing with what's going on in Israel, let Israel loose, you know, let them clear what they need to clear. They, we don't even need to have N5 groups there. No, Israel's got this, you know. No, I think it's more for not so much kinetic, but it's more humanitarian. It's because the US always has to step up and pledge humanitarian support. So you know, two caring groups and Anfib group and... I know. Of course, but I'm telling you it's a lot. It probably has this, you know, capacity to treat, but if they, I don't know.

Again, that's not something I've really stuck my finger in. That's not my comfort porridge. But moving on, moving on, we're wrapping. Here we go. Here we go. We're wrapping. or two more. I guess pulling threads. What's been like an hour and a half or something? I don't know. I'm just sitting here looking at us in the camera going, hmm, do I really look like that? We're an attractive ginger man.

Look at the salty hair jacket. It's a World War II paratrooper jacket. Oh, let me bite my tongue. Yeah, there it is. 80 seconds. I haven't worn my dungarees Marine Corps top from World War II yet. It's getting cold out. So I have to dig that one out.

You know, because you bought it for me and it was like, it seems weren't aligned up properly. And so it's like, yeah, so like the right arm goes straight down, the left one goes like down to like to the front hit. That's how it does. I might, I don't know. I try to get myself up. If you don't wear it, don't worry about it,

but I did go ahead. I'm going to the winter in the spring. It's not bad. I secured myself some Rhodesian shorts. So next time I go overseas, I will be wearing those. When I was in Kiss Maya this last time, or two times ago, I was wearing the Rhodesian sheep. You're one of the Marines were like,

hey, do the locals know what those are? He's like, is that you should probably sit wearing those? I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, the only thing we're gonna find is those bloody shorts and you're gonna be good. Yeah, right. All right, I guess the last question I have is

when it comes to working with partner forces, something like, like Palantir or something was pitches, the dumbest afghan knows how to use this. What's the best way to navigate working with partner forces? You know, I mean, you've done 30 years in and out of wars. You've worked with partner forces. Going forward is it and I say what capacity from an

kinetic rules or connect? Ops intel. Ops intel because Ops intel directly leads right into kinetic and as long as Americans like you said are not actually getting killed in the battlefield. So do you guide their hand all the way and if you let it off they Get slaughtered or you just let them figure it out I don't know what we say partner forces. We're talking about not working with an educated and civilized partner force like a For exactly what I mean like a former colonial power. we're talking about the former colonists who have been given fire. Yeah, like the Afghan or the Iraq, you're the Somali, you're the living in or the, you know,

yeah, like when we were in Mogadish and they had to bring in the Ugandan defense forces because I didn't trust the Somali defense forces, they're on freaking national capital, that was brilliant. I mean, one of the, one of the those you've gone, it's for so funny. Just walk around. Hello, my friend. Yeah. Would you come home to the ultimate NPCs because you walk in the bathroom when standing in a corner with a rifle? Yes. It was, it was, it was like two or three A.M. and I had a piss.

And I walked in there. He's like, good morning, sir. I was like, good morning. And I went to piss. And I went to meet, you look to me. He's like, good job, sir. And I was like, good morning. And I went to piss. And I know what to me, you look to me. He's like, good job, sir. That's like, good job. Good shake. At least he's at least to do many good shakes. So many good shakes. Right? Oh, man, if they watch coming to America, they'd love it and be their favorite movie. I love that movie so much. But partner forces brother, I don't, I, here's what I can say. Obviously, you can't judge them as a whole.

No, you can't. There are, and we're not talking about their decency or their goodness. We're talking about their ability to govern themselves, which again, some people are, they're not capable of it. And I think it's just their environment because they've been raised in an environment, in an area that they can't think more than one month ahead of exist for existence. You know, they don't know what next month brings.

Right. They might be a flood, they might be a fire, They may get rocketed. They, they, they just don't know, you know, so that's why entire villages put all their money together and send one or two kids to university to become doctors saying, you got to come back and help us. And that's the way it should be, right? We don't bring them here. We educate them there, but at the same time, we see that they fall through the cracks. What's they fought for, you know,ial powers don't educate us. They keep us slaves and we give them freedom, or they've been given freedom.

Sometimes as much as it's 60, 70, 80, 90 years now, and we've seen what they've fallen back into ancient tribal squabbles. Now they can blame the colonial powers for purposely jacking up the the tribal lines, but I mean really you're still in a fight over that really. The best the best one who was the most successful across the board, maybe a controversial statement. Saddam Hussein, he's like your Iraqis. He's like he's like I don't care like you're trying. You're under right now. Yep, and I don't know if you

knew this, but Saddam Hussein was given the keys of Detroit after the Iran Iraq war. I've always heard because we, well, we propped him up against Iran. Yeah, we did. And you know, they were like, how did we know he had weapons of mass destruction? We fucking gave them to him. That's how we know. Yeah. Have you ever heard of slant drilling in Kuwait? Yeah. Slant drilling, you go on an angle and you actually invade the other person's drilling zone. Yeah. Yeah. So it was Saddam Hussein, like 1989 was like, hey, he invented that.

No, Kuwait, he was like, Kuwait stealing my alloo. He's like, I'm going to go in there and stop this. And America was like, you could pump the brakes on that. That'd be sick. And he's like, I a pump to break something that'd be sick. And he's like, I'm gonna do it with or without your permission. And they were like, if you could just wait. And so like he was just infighted to America, giving the keys to Detroit,

Baghdad and Detroit are sister cities. He was hailed as a hero in America. He's like, I'm doing it. I'm going in to Kuwait and then we fucked his ass up. And then it comes back, he's like, we're bro, so I think that was the first instance of I don't say like American short-sightedness, but it was just a like turn your back on who you just supported. But we've been doing that. We've been doing that since World War Two. Yeah. I guess it's not like a mind post-so there.

You know, we haven't had a solid victory since World War II either. So we prop up these shitty regimes to get whatever our natural resources in that reach. I mean, seriously, if you look nowadays, if there's, if you find, you know, wherever you're going to find US, quote unquote, interests, you know, you're going to find our military there, which means, okay, what's actually there that we are. You start to think you're like, maybe the hippies were right. I think that they were right to like protest all this nonsense. And I got it, but the world goes around. It's always going to be that way. The land grabs, what was the, I mean, that was the big land grabs of the 19th century,

the 1800s, land grabs in Asia and Africa. The Africa was the last great big one because you know, Spaniards to grab South America and Central America and French and the Anglos fought over North America, but it was those old ancient civilizations. I mean, you know, and the three of the things Africa is still a dark continent, you know, I mean, it is still savage and so many ways of I think to say like it's devoid of civilization. There's just I I know there's civilization there I just haven't been I haven't found it yet

You know I hear soft Africa's beautiful and you know some other parts of it I'm seeing some pretty gorgeous pictures of Johannesburg. It looks pretty cute. I mean, yeah, and then there's just these shit hole countries former colonies, right? Well, they need their independence. And it clear like, no, they shouldn't have had their independence, not.

Yeah, there's one of those things that Cody and I have talked about where you have a situation like like Rhodesia, apartheid South Africa, who through and through were not good governments, but they were taking it for at face value, they're like they can't read. They can't govern themselves. You're like forget everything that happened before we're looking talking about what they may do if they have their independence, right? We've already seen what they've done with their independence, right? It's been decades. They've had constant civil wars.

They've had constant genocides in these nations, you know, at which point I think they said, okay, you're, you know, what you're doing is clearly not working. Yeah. You know, and I mean, that's that should be said to anybody any time in life if their life is fucking shambles. It's like, wow, dude, like you're, you have a drug problem, you're unemployed and your kids are hungry. Your wife left you. What you're doing is clearly not working, you know, and this we come to you when this in love, all right? You know, let us help you. But, you know, you're, you're going to take away their sovereignty

and their independence. I think it's we could go back to Afghanistan and Iraq saying, you know, we're trying to, yeah, let me gonna redo this except it's gonna be a lot of something to do with the stigma of the term colonization because essentially in modern terms, colonization is when Europeans do bad things. It's not about how the Chinese are actively colonizing Africa or the the Wagner group from Russia, Merck's child soldiers, like that's the exact same thing, but it's like in a different flavor. But yeah. No more colonization, but honestly, I don't think it's a bad idea anymore for some of these nations that clearly have shown that they lack the capacity

to self-rule. And again, it's not because they're stupid, but a lot of times they're tied to ancient tribal rivalries, you know, their clans and, you know, and all the fighting. It's like I said earlier in this podcast, some people need a dictator. They need a strong hand to keep them from killing each other. They need a strong hand to keep them from killing each other and Iraq is a prime example of that. And we just see that on a smaller scale throughout the African continent. Yeah, much isolated pockets. It's continuing and it's so much the fact that I've been covered by the news. It's like, oh, I should say Africa killing Africa.

Yeah, I think the craziest one is when you came back from Africa in the first time and told me I was a kid. And you told me that Afghghan still does blood feuds where if I killed you Your sister could kill me and it's completely legal and then it just keeps going. Yeah, we we did a Village assessment and they're like well We were like well, where's where's the you know, one of the village elders We want to talk you know follow up because he said he had some information for us. So we followed up and they're like, oh, he's dead. Well, what happened? It's like, well, the other week some kid wrote in on a motorcycle and said, are you so-and-so? He goes, yeah, he goes, boom,

kills him. Now, before, of course, you know, the village, like, dude, what'd you do? He's like, it's okay. he killed my uncle okay okay all right there it is anyways that was it you know but also you know the Afghan mindset was just like it's like two Afghans walking down the road and one Afghan you know see some dog shit picks it up and eats it and the other Afghan says hey what the hell you know, see some dog shit, picks it up and eats it. And the other Afghan says, Hey, what the hell you doing? You're eating dog shit.

And then the other Afghan shoots the dude saying, don't you fucking tell me what to do and kills him. That's their mindset, you know, you don't tell me what to do. You know, it's, but it's almost retarded in the same way. And trust me, some of those, Hey, dude, hey, those villages are so isolated, holy shit, man.

You thought the Amish and, you know, her she comes to me. Pennsylvania, yeah, I was full of some in-bred people. No, I go to Afghan villages, man. Oh, man, it's so funny. The initial reports coming out of Afghanistan in like 2001, 2002, where they felt the Americans were the Soviets.

They're like, I thought you guys left. Oh, did you ever, I think I printed it up, but I think you were 12, maybe. I brought it up. I don't know. It was called Afghan sexuality. Oh, man. No, no, no, no, post-tune sexuality.

Where they thought they were all getting, the men thought they were getting the clap, not from the anal sex, but from mixing the black and green tea. That's good. They're saying, uh, yeah, in Africa, like, no, no, no, you're getting, you're pissing fire and razor blades because you're doing this like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we mixed the wrong tea together.

Like, oh, okay, one of the, one of the favorite things I heard about Africa was, I think it's like central or south of Africa, that AIDS is such a problem in South Africa that they're like the local witch doctors. You can cure AIDS by having sex with an albino child and they're like, okay, they're like, that's how you do it. That hurts. Well, dude, Oude, Oude, his saying, uh, he was crippled in an assassination attempt and he was living almost entirely on breast milk.

Women, women's breast milk, he would have his gun squad and bring him some fresh young mothers and he would feed on them, thinking that was going to restore his vitality. Man. That's just wholesome. I don't know If it works it works vitamin D, baby, you got to have it, you know, but all right So I guess the last question I lied I have one more so there's one book you could recommend like I'm off the top of your head You're just like one ever man should read what is it? Fate of nations

Fated nations so describe it. What is this? Hold on. I actually have it on my desktop here. It was written like the late 1970s. Fade of nations. You know, I don't have it. You know, it's actually on my external hard drive, dang it. But look it up called Fade of Nations. Let me Google it here real quick. Not the album by Robert Clint. No, maybe it's Fade of Empires. Let me try Fade of Empires. Yeah, I'm recommending this great book that I even know the damn name of. Okay, Fade of Empires

by Jay Glob 1976. You can actually just download the PDF online. But let me give a good, let me give a good summer. Yeah, read the, read the appendix in the very end that gives the summer. No, I'm just, okay, so this from Goodread says lieutenant general Sir John Baggett Glob was a British Army officer who was for many years seconded to the Arab Legion of the Transjordan which he ultimately commanded until dismissed by King Hussein in 1956. He wrote many books after his retirement primarily on the history of the Middle East and military history. Now if I could find a... maybe it's on Amazon, they're always good. Yeah. Yep, hold on.

Yeah, no dinner. Yeah. You're doing a good job. Says, spade of empires is for those seeking guidance from antiquity on what causes the fall of great civilizations and what enables them to rise. Questions that are every bit as new and contentious today, plagued, Hubbard, and spurred him to ask incendiary questions about what societies need, what individuals want, how we think of ourselves, and what role, if any, religious belief, and reason should play in the stable and lasting society. Question, does devork disintegrate the society?

Does abortion erode families? Is it more beneficial to emphasis social or filial piety? The author describes with emotion and insight in wishes and hopes, as well as the suffering of the Chinese, Roman, and Greek people, and immersing oneself in his work is a pleasure. In an age we often forget the insights of the past. Now, with this, now you said one book, but I introduced you to a scholar and a historian by the name of what? You guessed it will direct, right? The story of civilization, yeah, it's a good one. Twelve volumes. Yeah, yeah, do that. Ancient Napoleon is good. I think that's my favorite one.

Ancient Napoleon because it talks about the socio-economic situations within the French Empire right before the Revolution kicks off. Right. I mean, once you understand that, once you understand those and these, well, I can't speak so much for you know John Hubbard or Glover to whether his name was for the fate of empires, but Will Durant was actually he was going to be a priest so he was spent many years in seminary than left seminary and surprise found a wife but spent many spent many decades writing the history of Western civilization for no viewpoint other than what history has recorded, which is very amazing. He would go to the catacombs of Egypt. He's like, what do they say about, you know, what

they say about Ramsey's the second. He's like, well, the ancient writings and he basically quotes the people who were there at the time. Rather than giving a political twist, a social twist, a leaning left, leaning rights, like these are the facts. You know, when it came to the fall of Rome, the fall of Greece, the fall of the Eastern, the Byzantines, he basically says these civilizations were ripe for destruction because their people had lost their virtue, they'd lost their piety. They were more engrossed in self rather than the, you know, the betterment of their own society. At the time, talking shit about the barbarians, breeding like rabbits on the other side of the mountains, and then within, you then within two generations, well, guess what?

Rabbits on the other side of the mountains came over and took them over because they were so weak. Their military was non-existent, was a threat of what's former glory. What is it? Who was it? Was it Plato? It was one of the Greeks who said,

who coined the term barbarian, which meant uncivilized? I think it was Barber. played or eras, yeah, barber, like bar bar barbarian. Yeah, but that comes from beard, because all civilized men were clean-shade barbarians through their beards out. But, I mean, there's a couple of different. What's that old saying,

whereas I guess it's not saying, it's like an analogy that if you go back to See the Greeks they're like the Greeks were in charge of the world Until they stopped having kids and they started focusing on themselves And then the Macedonians were breeding like rabbits. That was it. That was well-directed Yeah, and then it came south and they took over the Greeks and then they took over the world and then the Greeks became passive And then the Latin and the Romans started breeding like rabbits. It's the right. They took over the Greeks and then they took over the world and then the Greeks became passive and then the Latin and the Romans started breeding like rabbits. It's the right over.

They took over. It's the right over all of every trickles down. It's like Americans were breeding like rabbits. They just kept going and then we've reached a point where we're aborting our children and focusing on the Kardashians. I mean, what the fuck, right? What gets insane though is the Chinese birth rates are going down but Americans are going up So you're like a crossroads in civilization like it. It's almost like an anomaly real like most civilizations shouldn't do this

Yeah, well same thing with the Japanese their birth rates are going down They're almost and the Europeans there's you know who's consistently going up Mohamedans No, um when it comes to the Japanese, their population is, I want to say, 35 to 40% top heavy, when it comes to population like retirement zones. And you can fit the entire population of Russia inside Japan. Get out. The Japanese and the Russians have the same population. So the Japanese population is not declipty-clining. No, I'm just saying, like, I mean, the Russians are very top heavy too.

They have like 148 million. The Japanese have like 130. Okay. And Russia is the biggest country on the planet. But they all live around like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volga grad. Oh, yeah. I mean, those idiots who say,

oh, there's so many people in the world, like get the fuck out of New York City and you'll see that's not the issue. You'll see that's not the case. You'll see that's not the case But well, I think this has been a real fun real fun. Check. I hope everyone enjoys this one. Now let me endorse this again. Will Doret The story civilization The well worth it. You can find them on Amazon eBay. You can there's like 11 volumes I know, on Amazon eBay, you can, there's like 11 volumes. You can grab any of those. There's 11 or 12, yeah, but grab any of them.

These are incrises. It's a good one. It talks about the transition from like the polytheistic Roman Empire beliefs into the monotheism. Oh, that was one thing I wanted to point out as, remember his total agnostic view of history, which is like, boom, here it is, where he goes into the birth of Christianity.

And he goes through and says, well, these are the records we have of Jesus from Roman, Greek, and Jewish historians, you know, Tacitus and Deceifus. You know, just don't let, and this what I've always taught you guys, don't let the founder of a belief system, or no, rather don't let, I said, study the founder of the belief, don't let their, his followers decide whether the man was virtuous or not, you know, or whether the faith is virtuous. We see Christ was a man of peace, right? And then when he studied Muhammad and clearly wasn't so I mean. He was 13. I don't know. Yeah, well, I mean, you can't a lot of people they hate Christianity because well it's full of Christians and I got and I respect that. But you can't, you can't deny Christ and what he did.

By what a few bad people have done in his name, you certainly can't do that. But what are the violent Muslims? How different are they from their holy prophet? Not different at all. In fact, in their minds, that they're fulfilling it. But anyway, sorry, that was a rabbit hole for somebody. I don't know who needed to hear that. That's all there.

No, certainly. It was a little might of, but. Yeah. Well, we're gonna, we're gonna fade out here, but I really appreciate talking to like, yeah, yeah, fade to black. You need to have some metallic of fade to black music at the end of this. If that were to, we're doing, we're doing filters.

Hey man, nice shot. So, wish I would have met you. Yeah, our pictures would be blood to wire blown his brains out the very. Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. Which one you dumbass is keeps posting Uncle Grandpa. She's blowing you a suck start in a pistol. I mean, that is a jack shit on the family group chat.

It's Sean. You want to hear the story behind that? So the show was can the show was canceled. So the creator came out and just posted this. I'm a ramp on. It sucks starting a pistol. That was good. That was good.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, everyone. Thank you. Take it easy. I'm a star in the sky I'm a star in the sky I'm a star in the sky I'm a star in the sky Halt your eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my eyes, my you