Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 91 - Paul Mahar

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Imaging doing a favor for a friend that ended up with you spending over a year in a combat zone without a single day of training. Paul Mahar didn't have to imagine. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://taskandpurpose.com/incredible-story-man-fought-vietnam-best-friends-place http://wolfhoundpack.org/Wolfhound-Tales/Paul-Mahar https://lmtribune.com/man-who-served-in-vietnam-in-friend-s-place-is/article_a7f5626b-4fb5-53de-a824-0ea77f5a774b.html https://people.com/archive/unknown-soldier-vol-41-no-10/

i'm just a typical american boy from a typical american town i believe in god and senator dotton he can keep an old castro down hello and welcome to yet another episode of the lions led by donkeys podcast and as always someone perps into the mic to ruin my intro this time it's Rich because I have Nick and Rich sorry that was such a weak one guys yeah I expect better professional burping into the mic Nick and Rich sounds like a shitty country band by the way

that's just because it rhymes with big and rich and it is a shitty country band you guys singing farm emo together country is awful. That's how we really are going to, our podcast is going to break into the mainstream, is you guys starting a shitty country band.

Or possibly we fold this into a kind of evangelical church. Cult or nothing. I'm not doing that fucking evangelical shit. Cult and evangelical church is. I mean, same thing, but I want to be known as a cult. Yeah. When all of our adherents dress up in matching uniforms and drink themselves. I don't know.

Would we go with the tracksuit? Tracksuit's been taken by Heaven's Gate. Yeah, you're right. But they're so comfortable. I know, and it fits our brand. It totally does. It does fit our brand. We're going to take the-

Soviet general uniforms for everybody. No, thank you. Everybody's a general. I officially resigned my position in this cold. We can take the tracksuits back because I think those were Nike. Ours can be Adidas because that's on brand. And everybody dies in a squat. I like it.

Yes. Everybody squats in a circle. Drinking poison kvass. Yep. Or sunflower seeds. We're not doing that bullshit fucking flavor rate either. No. If the Patreon is high enough, we can afford actual Kool-Aid. But it's not

looking good. So how have you guys been? It's been a while since we've all been on the show. Same time. I know since you're both, on JBLM here in Washington state, you've had to struggle with the visit of the Sergeant Major of the Army. I won't ask either one of you to speak on that cause it'll get you in trouble. All I'm going to say, Joe, is it's been a long week. It's been a long week.

Had a great week. Spoken like a man who purposely got out of work. He's shaking his head yes. Now, I brought both of you here today because I feel like as a group, we're all pretty, we have a pretty realistic take on all of our services. Like, I don't feel shamed

when I say I would dodge the Vietnam draft. I think I've said it before. I think we both have. Yeah. Rich, since you can actually be drafted now, would you retroactively dodge the Vietnam draft? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I don't look, the only people that I look down on dodging the draft is people that did it by just using money because it's not creative. Anybody could bribe a doctor to be like, you have anal cysts. I think that's what Rush Limbaugh did.

Or maybe it was Bill O'Reilly. They both look like sentient mashed potatoes. It's hard to tell apart. But a lot of rich people just kind of bought their way out. Or rode their way through college. But we'll talk about that in a little bit. So as a group, we have come to an agreement. I think a lot of our listeners would also agree like,

yes, we would dodge that draft. If a certain somebody had fled to Canada and risked his life to dodge the draft, I would respect it more. I'm just saying. I mean, running to Canada isn't risking your life. It's not like he's a Mexican fleeing across the Texas border and always going to fucking shoot him. Fleeing to Canada is as easy as driving across the bridge and they're like, welcome to Canada.

Like you said, though, it's just so uncreative to just pay somebody to say you have, I don't know, maybe phone spurs. That's pretty common. We'll talk about that as well. I actually went into depth all the ways uh the people decided to get out of this when they had money or if they're just really dedicated um so like what if you were my friend uh like as a favor um uh because like would you go to afghanistan for me no, neither. Do I get your paycheck in Afghanistan? Temporarily.

Because, I mean, this is the day that there was no direct deposit. You're going to a pay officer. So there's no way that I could take your money. But you're going to deploy under the name Joseph Kasabian. You will get no benefits. I don't want to be known as Armenian. That's the real problem here. I feel like I would stand out immediately as not

Joseph Kasabian, but I might do it. I mean, the army's dumb, as we'll find out, as we all already know. We've been doing this show for almost... You could totally pass as me. All you have to do is ride E4 until

they threaten to kick you out because you haven't made E5 yet. I was there. And then get demoted because that's pretty much my career in a nutshell. On the bright side, you can pivot into writing really dumb books and they'll do okay. Now, it's hard to tell,

would you do this for a childhood friend? Someone that you've known for decades. Not at all. It's hard for me to equate that because I don't have any childhood friends. I've moved away from home as soon as I could, and I kind of hated everybody in my hometown. I don't have anybody that I keep in contact with that I knew since elementary school. I think the only one that does is Rich. Yes, I think I would.

You look like you had a pen pal. Well, actually. She did. I did have a pen pal. He lives in. She did. I did have a pen pal. He lives in New Zealand, and I still talk to him to this day. Do you ever just like, hey, what's it like to have health care? Yeah, we talked about it. Yeah, he seems very happy.

Goes on vacations a lot. Like, a lot, a lot. Like, I don't even know what the dude fucking does to be able to afford all the fucking international travel he does. He breeds kiwi birds. It's the only job option in New Zealand. It's crippling the economy. But yeah, I've known him since I was 13. Also, extra in Lord of the Rings.

But no, I do have a very old childhood friend that I've known since I was three years old. And also, I would do it for my sister, too. I mean, I think I would definitely do it to my brother. I'd wave goodbye to him as a motherfucker sent to Vietnam. Yeah, I think like the closest thing that I have to a childhood friend in Washington State is Nick. Obviously, we bonded over the art of podcasting. We watch each other's dogs.

I mean, that's that's a level of friendship. You can't count him as a childhood friend. You met him when you were like 26. I've aged a lot in several years. I mean, he was a child. I think most people's answer to that question would be no. Most people are not, even their childhood friends, they're not going to be like, yes, I'll go risk my life for my childhood friend.

Which brings us to what has to be one of the weirdest stories of the Vietnam war. And it has a guy named Paul Mahar Mahar Mahar. It could be Mayhar. I'm going with Mahar. I like Mahar. Uh, so Paul Mahar is close friend,

Frank close or Klaus. I think it's close. Um, good thing they're close. We're born and raised on the same street, Peck Avenue, a road in a decent part of town in north Newark, New Jersey. As decent as New Jersey

can get. Newark? Yeah. I mean, this is the fucking 50s, whatever. It's still Jersey, though. The two men were inseparable by all accounts, and did absolutely everything together. Though apparently they were both little shitheads

as most teenage boys are. Because one day they were both 13, Close picked a fight with a larger boy, but couldn't back up his shit talking. That was when Mahar stepped up and beat the fucker's ass for him. Now, Close paid him back by buying him a sandwich, which is the price of a good violence.

What kind of sandwich? It doesn't say. It's New Jersey, so I'm assuming it's sewage. Just between two flaps of human skin. Gross. I don't understand New Jersey. I don't know.

I know you go south until you smell it from New York. For any New Jersey listeners out there. Now, that's not. With our noses. I'm sorry for Joe's racism. New Jersey's not a race. And if it is, yeah. Okay, fine.

What do you call it when you're, it's against the whole state? When it's against New Jersey, it is, yeah. Okay, fine. What do you call it when it's against the whole state? When it's against New Jersey, it's called rational. I have nothing against the land mass of New Jersey. It's the people that are the... I think I saw blueprints for a camp that you were talking about for New Jersey people. It's an internment camp, first of all. Thankfully, living up in the Pacific Northwest,

we have tons of vacant ones. It's true. Now, I don't mean anything that I say about New Jersey. I have a friend from New Jersey. I have a New Jerseyan friend. I know a guy from New Jersey. I've met somebody from there.

I hope people know that we joke on this show. We have fun. This is a family show. I normally shit on Ohio. I gotta spread it out a bit. It's genetically bred into you as a Michigander to shit on Ohio. It's true. That's where the joke is. You go south

until you smell it. You smell it. I never heard that, to be honest with you. It's because you're not from Michigan. It's because you're from California if you go south, you're just in the ocean. You're in Mexico. I'm in Mexico. It's like southeast're not from Michigan. It's because you're from California if you go south, you're just in the ocean. You're in Mexico. I'm in Mexico. It's like southeast. You have ranch in your veins.

Fair enough. It's fair. Say what you want about Michiganders, but at least we invaded Ohio. True. So there. Now, the problem was after Mahar beat up that guy for close um he just like kind of wouldn't let it go close was uh strutting around acting like a badass even though his friend had handled his lightweight for him we all know a frank all right yeah like it's the guy who's like

if there's a bar fight and everybody jumps in, he's the one on the top of the pile, not doing anything. But then afterwards, like, yeah, we beat that guy's ass. Oh,

did we, did we Frank? Uh, eventually, uh, Mahar got sick of him and the two got in a fight. Um, we're not entirely sure what happened.

And it's also kind of weird that Mahar was the stronger, the two, cause he's the one that ended up breaking his arm and requiring plates to put his arm back together. Thankfully, that's never happened to anybody that we know. I don't have plates. You have screws. Screws and wires.

He had plates and screws. I feel like wires might be an evolution of this technology. I don't know. Maybe they just don't use plates as much anymore. I know this is like the 50s, I think, so they may have just used dinner plates. I'm not entirely sure. Now, the next couple years,

the two friends parted ways, mostly because their families took jobs in other places and they had to bring their families with them. They managed to keep in contact, but since this is the late 50s and early 60s, I assume this means that they use messenger pigeons or some shit. I've heard of this thing called writing letters.

I'm skeptical of what that means. I believe it is some kind of email with extra steps. Did you not write letters when you were in basic training and stuff? Yes, Rich, that is called a joke. I didn't write any letters. Really? Are you allowed to have your cell phone? No. You shouldn't write any letters to anybody? No you allowed to have your cell phone? No.

You didn't write any letters to anybody? No. Who was I going to write? My family? I mean, maybe. Exactly. Those people. What were they going to say?

You had to have written letters to someone that you went to high school with. So when you went back to California, someone to have sex with you. That's how being in the military works. I wrote no letters because I wanted to sleep. I wrote letters to my mother, you heathen. Look, I'm not here to judge how you Texans get it on down there. All right. Now, Mahar in school never really got along too well.

He was failing pretty fast, and he was probably going to get kicked out soon. According to an article in People called The Unknown Soldier, this is because mahar kept getting into fistfights and drinking uh rather than studying which like i can respect that i mean that that's gonna become a trend but like i can respect that um now seeing how he had no future in school he dropped out and decided to look for work unfortunately for mahar he kind of sucked at that too and didn't have any skills. He grew up in the suburbs. His dad wasn't like a craftsman of any kind to teach him a skill. I know all about that.

And because he didn't graduate, he doesn't even have a degree. So he did what we all sitting in this room did. And he said, I guess I gotta enlist. Now at the time, the enlistment standards were quite a bit lower, as we all know vividly from our Project 100,000 episode. Now, it wasn't quite Project 100,000 yet, but you didn't need a high school diploma by any means. At this point, you needed to pass a rudimentary exam, kind of, and you had to be literate. Like, there were not high standards at the time.

Back then, a lot of people just didn't get diplomas, right? Like, a lot of people, like, just pulled out of school to, like, work their farms and stuff, didn't they? Not in suburban New Jersey. I mean, but, like, just in general, the Army standards are across the country. Well, I mean, I don in general, the Army standards are across the country. Well, I mean, I don't know so much about that. I know that's super common in rural areas, but I mean,

Americans have graduated from high school at a higher rate than anywhere else for the most part. It started dropping recently, but graduation rates have always been pretty high. 90 percentile type shit. Now, the Army stands were a little bit lower then,

but he figured, you know, fuck it, they'll take me. It turns out not. Even though it turns out it was 1966 and hundreds of thousands of Americans have already deployed to Vietnam and the draft was kicking in. 6,000 Americans already died in Vietnam with another 30,000 wounded. And this is pretty early on the war. And it should be noted like, while it is early, um, that is still higher than like any casualty numbers that we would be familiar with,

um, through decades of war. So like this should have, like, holy shit numbers. I don't know. I wasn't alive in the 60s. But it turns out that Mahar, even in this circumstance, was not fit to be a soldier in the U.S. Army. The problem, as some of you may have picked up on, was that pin and plate in his arm. Now, if you break that shit while you're in the military, they're fine and dandy with that. They'll slap you back together. But they're not going to enlist you when you already have problems it's like buying a used car like it's gotta pass a certain level of things you know um and it also uh i mean to his luck it also made it exempt from the draft so like oh yeah yeah i would be like you know what i'll take this as a

victory um now unfortunately mahar's pretty pissed because that was his fallback plan he be like you know what i'll take this as a victory um now unfortunately mahar's pretty pissed because that was his fallback plan he's like you know what i fuck up i can't get a job and i'm drifting around doing whatever i can always enlist that was taken away from them actually i know a few people that happened to um and it was because one of them actually failed the asfab failed it like fail it fail it fail it like come back and try again oh not like there's always i don't know laundry technician or whatever like that didn't even nope well you said in the project 100 episode that there's like tears and then there's like the one where you can be wavered in and the one where it's like actually no sorry yeah, you know, for a comparison, in case anybody didn't listen to that episode, I'm not going to go into the tears.

But we did not nearly dive down to the level during, like, the peak of the surges for waivers. And it still made the news because the waivers that we were granting, some of them were medical. Most of them were cosmetic. Like, you could have tattoos on your neck and hands. And they started wa waving high school graduates. You could have a GED. We did not wave the developmentally disabled. We were two whole tiers away from that.

And people are still like, my God, the army is being diluted. It was just in a different way. Now, Mahar had to bounce around and find jobs, which required him to travel quite a bit. I'm assuming he tried to get Tempkig's writing and maybe create a podcast like some of us.

That podcast would be really weird. I don't even know how that would work. He's just going to talk about getting drunk and fighting. In the alleyway to nobody. This is actually how you could get elected governor here. Now, while Mahar was trying to get busy and nail down work, his friend Close had been drafted. He had been drafted in 1966, immediately after his wedding,

which is either really good luck or really shitty luck, depending on how you feel about the commitment of marriage. Can they give him like a honeymoon year? Jesus. Now, this is because this actually used to be disqualifying. He ended up getting married when they waived that. Now, a way around that is if they had a kid. If you were married with a kid, they would move on.

You'd get deferment. And there was a married deferment, like a marriage deferment. And a lot of people were getting married in groups just to dodge the draft. And then they were just like, I think it was like 1964 or five. Like, yeah, that's gone now.

Like, shit, I have to go to college. Like, you're saying I have to fuck this person so we can have a kid? I'm, fuck it, I'm going to Vietnam. Klaus attended

and graduated basic training at Fort Dix and went to the infantry school at Fort Polk so he's cursed twice or three times now since he got fucking drafted hat trick and at the end of September of that same year he showed

right back up to his old friend Paul Mahar's front door in his dress uniform Klaus was according to Mahar paralyzed with fear breaking down with tears and just saying over and over again, I can't possibly go to Vietnam. I can't go to Vietnam. I feel like I know where you're going with this. He had just received orders.

Now, Close told him, I just got orders to Vietnam. But he had actually gotten orders to Vietnam several weeks before. And he said that there was just no way he could leave his wife and go. Now, Mahar was between jobs and living in a rundown boarding house at the time. And now remember, his friend had a job that he wanted and could not get. And now he's like, I need help getting out of it. I would probably not be very happy at the time um now it's one of those moments in your life where you're like you look around at things around you and you're like what did i do to end up here like i i would totally take this

job but instead i'm unemployed and living in what was uh optimistically called a flop house so it's like not good um maybe they could turn that o into an i and flip it it called a flop house. So it's like, not good. Maybe they could turn that O into an I and flip it. It's a flip house. Yeah. I think drunks call that a moment of clarity. Now, the thing that you remember how I said he had gotten over this several weeks before, it's because he was AWOL already.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And he decided to tell Mahar that after they had been talking for several hours. Yeah, his leave had run out a couple days before, and he just went to his buddy's house. And I remember he's married. So he's like, and he told his wife at the time. Now, his wife is in on this for the most part, telling him that he should probably go AWOL. And it was her idea to just go to

canada he didn't want to do that um now the problem was this is pretty much the worst way to get out of going to vietnam he'd already been drafted and they tended to care about getting him back it's a crime to desert i mean it is a crime to dodge a draft too if you're dumb and just burn your draft card like there's ways around it. And I'm not saying people who resisted the draft by burning their draft card is dumb. They just went about the worst way possible and faced prison sentences for it. There's so many different ways to get around it without going to prison. Going to prison to dodge the draft is purely a political stance, which I have respect for,

but also just go to Canada. Now, dodging the draft from the beginning was the smart way to go. There was an obvious route to Canada, the upwards, and this is actually like the lower limit that 30,000 American men took. Some people say this high is 100,000.

Jesus. Yeah, which- Like the Oregon Trail. Yeah. This the Oregon Trail. Yeah. This ended up being something of a wash because around the same number of Canadians moved south so they could fight in Vietnam. Really? Yep.

Like 150 of them died. One of them got the Medal of Honor. Why? War tourism. It's the same reason why when World War I started and the U.S. kept its ass out of it, tens of thousands americans went north and fought for canada just kind of what bored white people do because war is fun no that's not right war is hell that's the thing uh war is considered a badge of fucking manly honor and masculism and you know adventurism and all that other bullshit and remember this remember this is the war that destroys all those ideas. Like, this is this

generation's World War I. They're marching off to fight communists and while everybody's kind of not sure where Vietnam is on a map, they know they're going to go do their duty just like their dad did and it's the right thing to do. Just like in World War I, everybody thought war was romantic

and gentlemanly. And then they choked on their own lung fluid and that died pretty quickly. Just like in World War I everybody thought war was romantic and gentlemanly. And then they choked on their own lung fluid and that died pretty quickly. Just like in this part of the war, draft dodging isn't that high. Or draft resisting or desertion. Whatever you want to call it. Isn't that high. But by the end of the war so fucking many people

were deserting and evading and resisting in various different ways. It hasn't, even though upwards of 6,000 people are dead already, that doesn't really register with people quite yet. They haven't been – their brain hasn't been broken yet. Not to mention after we've been at war with Vietnam or in Vietnam for a couple years, at that point, that's when tens of thousands of people are coming home wounded. They're like, dude, this shit sucks do not go so i guess i guess maybe like if you think you're going for

the right reasons or valiant reasons and you think you're going to win maybe then it's glamorous why wouldn't we win we're fighting a whole bunch of rice farmers they're wearing flip flops and then but then once they realize that the war is completely fucking off kilter and everything you thought about was wrong it's like no thank you yeah yeah i mean by the way people in black pajamas and flip-flops now have a winning record against the united states military so true i mean they're like two and oh right now well three you know if you can iraq seriously uncomfortable uniforms you know um for a country like the united states the world in general, who likes to go to war about things like political ideology in Vietnam or South Korea or virtually any other war that we fought, you'd think that we'd be good at it, but we have a worse record than the Detroit Lions. We should stop.

It's like the guy at the bar who just burns out every single time and women are giving him fake numbers. The next one's the one. We're going to turn this motherfucker around. This dry spells you end. Oh, I got it. It hasn't happened yet. I got it. No, America is the drunk guy at the bar that gets in fights so that they can feel something.

No, the drunk guy at the bar who's getting in fights because they could feel something was already an American at war. Now, there's a lot of problems that came with going to Canada. Distance, for one. If you live in Texas, it's going to be a bitch to get up to Canada.

Also, maybe you disliked hockey. I don't know. Now, the people fell into largely two groups. That was the evaders, people who had not yet been brought to a draft board yet, and the deserters. People who had been drafted and get the fuck out as soon as they had the chance. Most evaders were middle-class college students who had run out of money or time on college deferments, and they could not continue to dodge the draft by staying in school. Most of the deserters were lower class, uneducated, and were drafted straight out of high school.

Weird how that works. Now, originally, the Canadians hadn't been too cool with this. Now, it didn't look good to be an ally, but also, like, actively hurt the American war effort by accepting tens and tens of thousands of draft Dodgers. Uh, so at first they forced you to bring a copy of your discharge paperwork showing that you had,

you know, maybe you were drafted and eligible or you'd already served and you were dodging anything like, no, look, I'm good. I'm just going to Canada. I don't know.

So those are obviously those start getting forged cause it's, I mean, it's the sixties. They're not just going to pull up a computer and double check this shit. They came around in 1968. Also, it kind of helped that desertion was not a crime in Canada.

It did not cover that particular crime under the UCMJ. It was not a federal statute or anything. Canada wouldn't extradite you for it it was a law that effectively did not exist in Canada so they're like yeah you're good come on through also it really helped that the first people going over there were people running away from college and they're well educated and vastly white and middle class only helped Canada so they're like sure we'll take this brain drain. Whatever, man.

Unfortunately, that was two years too late for everybody close. So let's take some of the ways he could have used to get out of the draft. There was the caffeine trick. This is my personal favorite. Of course, some dedication, though. Not as much dedication, but it's one that I could pull off

because it only cost a couple bucks. Now, this one is pretty cut and dry. You ate. Not as much dedication but it's one that I could pull off because it only cost a couple bucks. Now this one is pretty cut and dry. You'd eat or drink as much caffeine as you possibly could and stayed awake for as long as you could before you went to the draft board to get your physical. So I was almost assured at that point if you had

stayed awake for 48 hours or so that your medical would be completely fucked. You'd have high blood pressure. You'd probably not pass your psych evaluation. Solid choice. Can you imagine how much better that would be now when we have like bangs and pre-workout and shit? Yeah, I would just like boof a bang and then just walk up in there like two days later.

Or the 32 ounce monster. I drank two of those one day on a day or I puked. Yeah, I bet you wouldn't have fucking gotten into the Vietnam draft. I don't know. I don't like lads. I wonder what they did

to stay up. There's no games to play. You can't play games on your phone or Call of Duty or something. Get ripped on caffeine pills and read a book. I don't know.

Oh yeah, that'll put me to sleep. There was also some stories where people did it a lot easier and they just took acid before they went in there which like man I don't know

but I'm at this table with a whole bunch of dragons and shit like you just sound like so much fun and there was another one that I might be able

to pull off contact lenses now I'm wearing contact lenses right now they're soft and I mean you are supposed to

take them out every day and replace them every couple months but they're relatively comfortable unless you fuck up and are wearing an old pair like I am right now. Back then they were made out of hard plastic and they were pretty fucking solid. You only could leave them in for a couple hours and then they started becoming pretty painful

so someone devised a plan that what if I just left them in for like two days. Maybe like fused to his eyes or something no no that really doesn't happen even today unless you leave them in for an obscene amount of time like weeks and weeks or months and months so when he took

them out and went in he would he was pretty much blind and failed the eye exam draft ineligible as somebody who couldn't wear contact lenses because I am terrified of touching my eyes, that sounds fucking horrifying. Now, I've left my contacts in for a day or two at a time.

It's not comfortable, but I could see. This must have sucked. This must have really sucked. And then... What's the feeling? Like sand in your eyes. That's not... Oh, no. It's not good. I'm okay with that. Or maybe like when you got Like sand in your eyes. That's not good.

It's not good. Or maybe like when you got a hair in your eye, but just all over. Oh, that sucks. Now there's another one where someone just decided to chug straight corn syrup, which would cause his blood sugar to spike. So when they took his blood sugar, he'd be diabetic. Oh, nice. Yeah.

That one's pretty easy. No, that's cut dry because I feel like I could chug corn syrup and my blood sugar would not. So when they took his blood sugar, he'd be diabetic. Oh, nice. Yeah. That one's pretty easy. No, that's cut dry because I feel like I could chug corn syrup and my blood sugar would not be that high. Now this is like pure undiluted corn syrup. I feel like you could like make that taste better or like more enjoyable. You're drinking like industrial fucking food supplies. Just make it into brownies

and eat the whole thing of brownies. I mean, you could also eat your shit. That'd probably get you out of Vietnam too. Ew. Brownies sound so much better than that joke. Put some acid in those brownies and we'll talk. Oh, yeah.

A lot of people just showed up high and that didn't really work that great because if you were obviously stoned, they'd be like, whatever, come back in a week. Like, this isn't gonna work. We'll get stoned for the whole war. Yeah. Eventually you'll run out of money and have to become this motherfucker sober.

Now I need a list to buy more. Now we need a government paycheck so we can buy more weed. Another way the rich people have the advantage. Going further down that route, the fake insanity route, we're gonna talk about what I call the Ted Nugent method. According to shitty musician, racist, and most likely a pedophile, Ted Nugent,

he smoked a bunch of meth and shit his pants days beforehand and then did not wash himself. He described it as being really caked on there. What a patriot. Yeah, then he now, of course, makes his living being a fucking Ugh. Yeah. He described it as being really caked on there. What a patriot. Ugh. Yeah, then he now, of course, makes his living being a fucking warmongering piece of shit and racist. Now, Sen Sen, he told this story multiple times over the years. I think it started in a High Times article, which is pretty on brand for him at the time.

And he's revised it. He also had a backup plan to make his physical go terribly if for some reason they could see through the fact that he just shit on himself. He lived on nothing but Vienna sausages and Pepsi for like two weeks which would fuck up your blood pressure because Vienna sausages are like 99%

salt. And they're disgusting. Yeah, they are disgusting. My brother used to drink the Vienna sausage juice when he was younger. I think it's just salt water. He liked it. I fed Vienna sausages to the puppies in Afghanistan. I also dislike Afghanistan puppies.

I'm kidding. I love them, and that was animal abuse. Now, there's a good bet that this is Ted Nugent we're talking about in the 60s, so that may have just been how he lived. For sure. But he has attempted to say, no, I was just kidding. But his draft deferment, which are public, like you can FOIA this shit, is a mental deferment. So, like, he did something to fuck them up.

And then there's Chevy Chase, you know, the well-known comedian. And he's a pretty well-known dickhead these days. He got a bit by just telling me he was gay, which was what you could do at the time. Now, so many people started doing this, they just stopped believing people. I need to see you fucking. Yeah, like there was numerous tales of like people going to the draft. We're like, yep, I'm gay. And someone's like, well, suck my draft. We're like, yep, I'm gay. And someone's like,

well, suck my dick. He's like, nope. I mean, they found the one guy that would, I would, I'd suck a dick to go to Vietnam.

I'm sorry, but this is a million dollar question. Like, would you suck a dick for a million dollars? Every soldier is like, yeah, absolutely. It's a million bucks. It wouldn't even have to be a million.

Yeah. Like 50 grand. Yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure you've't even have to be a million. Yeah. Like 50 grand. Yeah. Oh, fuck yeah. I'm sure you've all had worse things in your mouth. Yeah, definitely. Would you have to let them finish? I've had humid shit in my mouth, so yeah.

I've got dysentery. That's how you get dysentery. Would you let them finish? Do you have to finish the dude off? That's all contract negotiations we'll have to talk about later. To completion. To completion? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Otherwise, you're just not gay. Two minutes or less. They start a timer yeah if you're not good at it then you're faking yeah god damn it the pressure's on now before we laugh too hard at this and we already have uh this is the military in the 1960s only a couple years ago was being gay in the military okay. So way to go U.S. military. Now you could apply for a conscientious objector status. At the time your CO status had to be directly linked to a religious institution or a traditional belief. That is pretty restricting because you had to like bring character witnesses to prove like no I'm really religious.

And like priests generally won't lie for you, which is a huge downer because they will rape you, but they won't lie to the government for you. They'll tell me God's inside me. That is unless if you're a Mormon. The Mormon church got into deep shit because it was declared just about everybody in it

a missionary getting them out of the draft, which solid fucking choice mormons aren't they all uh you don't have to from my understanding like you it's encouraged that you volunteer for a time as a missionary like just people like come to your house and talk to you about they want to talk to you about all your lawn and then yeah like ask you if you want them to like take out your trash and stuff no thank you dude just yeah it's weird don't don't do that um and it ended up getting in shit because the the department of defense like you guys do not have this many missionaries uh and they're

like fine fine they capped it uh it was a yearly cap on how many mission nobody wants to be mormon yeah like weird since we capped it nobody wants to be mormon anymore uh one famous person who used this to get out of the draft was Mitt Romney, failed presidential candidate. It also probably didn't help that his dad was the governor of Michigan at the time. So he had two things going for him. Another person who used the CEO route to get out of the draft was Senator Bernie Sanders. Now, he did not get his CEO status because he openly admit when questioned, nope, I'm not religious which like respect for outlying

like he did you forget what you came here to do bro like he filed his conscientious objector task like hoping he'd slip through the cracks and like he got brought in and asked like so what sure he's like oh yeah I'm not religious I can't tell a lie

cracked under the pressure so his status got rejected, but he was smart enough to immediately appeal it and continue to appeal it and then launch an investigation on the appeal long enough where he was over the age of 26 and could no longer be drafted. Now, that's not because he was rich.

He was dirt fucking poor and literally living in a wooden shack at the time. He just managed to finagle the system. Just fucking resourceful. I like it. He lived in a wooden shack without a floor. Still smart enough to finagle the system. Just fucking resourceful. I like it. He lived in a wooden shack without a floor. Still smart enough to outsmart the draft board.

So like solid choice if you're not Mormon. And there's no need to vacuum or broom. Yeah, you could just be vacuuming for all eternity. No need to vacuum or broom. No need to sweep. Spoken like a man who's broomed a few floors in his day not a lot uh now having connections or money as you can imagine was your best bet uh enlisting in the

national guard was a good way to get out of vietnam service because the guards and the guards ranks were always swelled to bursting for this exact reason now the national guard did deploy to vietnam but a much much fewer numbers like, like 15,000 or 20,000 total. So, like, you had a good fucking chance. That was unless you had daddy's money to help you out and secure a spot. Whose money? Daddy's money. Daddy.

That is – that's how George W. Bush got a Vietnam draft. He got into the Texas Air National Guard that never bothered to show up. Now, he did, like – I think he learned how to like fly badly but like records show he kind of like only showed up half the time which i could respect that for like being a rich piece of shit war criminal you gotta give it to him i don't know like the one cool thing that george bush did other than do a whole bunch of coke uh or you could use a money to bribe your local doctor in giving you a bullshit medical diagnosis, which preclude you from the draft, like our current president, Donald J. Trump, almost certainly did with his now famous bone spurs,

because he ran out of educational deferments for five deferments total. There's a pretty small club of people that went five-fold deferments. The other one is Dick Cheney. That dude's old as shit. Dick Cheney has existed before the United States, and he'll exist after the United States. Oh, yeah. He is Cthulhu, but what?

On his eighth heart. Yeah. At this point, he's like Henry Kissinger. As more people in the Middle East die, his life just gets extended uh so another person who almost certainly lied about their medical condition is former vice president joe biden who was struck down with a mysterious case of asthma despite being a high school uh star athlete at the same time nor has he ever spoken about his cursed asthma ever since weird damn that asthma yeah

so unfortunately klaus didn't have any of those things and his ass got draft like a total fucking idiot what a moron fucking loser uh now mahar and close had a bit of a falling out over the years so i i bring that up um because a lot of what we know about close comes from mahar close has not said shit about this entire thing on record so you can kind of assume that mahar is a bit of an unreliable narrator in his own life story uh and he has a short biography known calledots, which I cannot find a copy of, only excerpts. So in that book, he makes Klaus seem like a really big, needy baby, like always needing somebody else to bail him out of a situation that he found himself in, which seems on brand so far. So much so that, like he said, quote, it was Frank's way. It was the nature of our friendship, which doesn't sound like a good dynamic.

Frank was the guy who went to a party without bringing anything and then drank everybody else's beer. The guy that shows up to the smoke pit and always bumps. Yeah. Did you guys get a cigarette? Man, goddammit.

The two sat down to try to figure out a way out of this and to get close out of the war. That's when they eventually worked out a plan. A kind of really, really dumb plan that you expect a couple 18-year-olds to figure out. He didn't want to take any hunks, Bunk, so. Like, have you tried doing meth and shitting yourself? Have you tried being rich? Fuck, that didn't work either.

Mahara would replace Close in uniform. Nobody in the unit Close was going to had any idea what he looked like, so that would didn't work either. Mahara would replace Close in uniform. Nobody in the unit, Close was going to, had any idea what he looked like, so that would hardly be a problem. And they could Twitter stalk him or whatever. They could forge Close's records because somehow back then his 201 file, which was the personnel file back then,

I don't know what it's called now, the information like his height, his weight, his eye color, all that stuff, was filled in with pencil. That's awesome. They could just change it. Holy shit, that's awesome. And since his uniforms

wouldn't have fit, Mahar would just say he lost them or got them stolen and get issued new ones. Here's the important part. The plan was not for Mahar to go anywhere in the army.

He wasn't just gonna replace him. He was like, well, I want your job. I'll take your job. He was just going to go to impersonate his friend for a few days and then go to sit call

once at sit call he's like look they missed the fucking plate in my arm I can't go to Vietnam that is exactly the dumb plan that you expect an 18 year old to come up with now this would end up with Klos getting a medical discharge and avoiding Vietnam and having a honeymoon.

Yeah. Maybe going on a honeymoon. I'm assuming he went on one. So he's been a wall now, but maybe not. He's a bit stressed out. And then my heart would go home. He assumed the whole plan take like a week or two in my heart's words.

Quote, Vietnam was not a possibility. Instead of what happened was my heart showed up to Fort Dix, was immediately arrested by the MPs because he was fucking AWOL. Right. He was thrown into it. Instead of being thrown into jail, he was thrown into a disciplinary barracks with other soldiers who had been shitheads.

They'd been stealing things, doing drugs, going AWOL, whatever. Here's one of the biggest problems with Mahar and Close's plan. They assumed the military would act rationally. Beginner's mistake got him yeah and that they would show up prove that he could no longer be a soldier that being mahar with his plated up arm and the army just like oh okay then you're not a soldier anymore instead the army exacted acted exactly as we all know it would after years of service and almost two years of doing this show. Now, as we talked before about during our

Project 100,000 episode, the army was kind of having a hard time finding enough bodies to go get killed in Vietnam. So once somebody passed through the draft and went through training and graduated, like Mahar hypothetically would have, if he was anybody else in those barracks the chances of you actually getting discharged without going to vietnam without

like blowing your fucking toe off or something was pretty goddamn slim right and actually know a guy who did something like that my old stunt dad who proudly talked about it uh he actually got drafted and he got picked to be a helicopter door gunner, which is a really fucking bad job to have. And all of his instructors, now at first he said when he started getting drafted,

he said he kind of wanted to go to Vietnam. And then he went to the gunner school and all of his instructors had been wounded. And they talked about all their friends who had died.

So he's like, well fuck, I don't want to go to Vietnam. So he crushed his foot with a slab of concrete, which permanently crippled him. But you know what? He got his discharge and didn't go to Vietnam. Yeah.

This pin in the arm shit was not going to work. And the other problem was he never got an x-ray. He never even got a chance to speak to a medic. Instead of coming up with this plan before he went AWOL and maybe having some wiggle room, like going on leave and then switching,

then going back on schedule and then just being another soldier that someone might listen to and like, yeah, sure, go to the doctor. He had broke the law. They weren't listening to him. He'd already proven that he'd fucking run off if they let him go anywhere.

So they had him locked in the barracks. Oh, man. Also, since the army thought he already was a fuck-up, which hypothetically he was, because Mahar is now close, he went AWOL. He's a criminal. He would have been demoted if he had any rank.

Not only did they not give him a chance to talk to a doctor, they accelerated his deployment to Vietnam. Only five days after showing up at Fort Decks, Mahara was standing on the tarmac of McGuire Air Force Base. That fucking sucks. Given a pack of cigarettes by a sergeant and shoved up the ramp to a cargo plane.

He got a pack of cigarettes? Yep. Nice. He probably could smoke on the plane at the time, too. Paul Mahara was sent to Vietnam without a single fucking day of training. My arm. But there's plates in it.

Have fun, Vietnam. Yeah, dude. Good luck, idiot. Now, somehow, to make all of this work, nobody had any idea where he was other than close. Mahar, thinking this plan would take only a couple days, never told his family where he was other than close mahar thinking this plan would take only a couple days never told his family where he was going worse still he never bothered to call close because he thought this little arm excuse would be foolproof when he learned only like two days

before he was gonna go like oh fuck this isn't. He decided to write a last-ditch letter to Close, begging him to come forward and be like, yo, you cannot send him. He has never fired a rifle before. Close received the letter and then did nothing. Close is a fucking dick. I wonder if Close looked at it and went like, huh. I guarantee you that shit went to the trash can.

Bad friends. Didn't get the letter. Yeah. He just doomed his friend to like a year plus in Vietnam and possibly dying. Most likely dying without any fucking training. Yeah. I mean, it turns out Mahar was

apparently a natural born soldier, but we'll get to that one. He wrote a book, so. Now you're probably wondering like, yeah, and only the best soldiers write books. I'm here to tell you that. You're probably wondering, what the fuck did Close do? His whole family knew he had been drafted

and he was going to Vietnam. He couldn't fucking stop talking about it. And now he's on his honeymoon. And there's no way he could be like, oh yeah, I guess the army isn't sending me to Vietnam. That doesn't fucking happen. So he just kind of, then you have to have an excuse. Like, oh yeah, the army isn't sending me to vietnam that doesn't fucking happen so he just kind of like and then you have to have an excuse like oh yeah you remember paul from down the street when

we were kids got him to go my place like that's not gonna fucking work uh like and now he's have to go look for a job because he doesn't have the fucking army to pay him anymore he packed his bags told his family he was going to vietnam and then moved down the street to Asbury Park, New Jersey. It's like two hours away. That's awesome. And then he worked the night shift at a donut shop using Mahar's social security number. Did his wife go with him? Yeah, his wife was in on the whole thing.

Oh, okay. His wife actually sent Mahar care packages the whole time. Well, that's nice. Under his own name. Because remember, close is in Vietnam. Like close, why are you sending yourself a care package?

He was assigned, so Mahar, who is now close legally, but also illegally, his whole thing is gray, was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division and put on a five-day orientation course, which is like something I'll consider

the left-seat, right-seat that we do now. This is how you'll patrol without getting killed immediately. Also, a lot of these guys, they had trained with the M14 rifle. They get sent to Vietnam. They get given an M16 because it's a Vietnam-only weapon. If you were stationed in Germany

at the time, you'd get an M14. They had to go through training how I had to use that too. Now, this would be the only training he ever got before he saw combat for the first time. Five days. Still never having fired his rifle. He had never, he didn't know how to take it apart. He didn't know how.

No need to. Never need to clean it, remember? Yeah. He didn't know even the most basic soldier skills which is like everybody's like oh that's weird but but thankfully instead of like casting him out like an outcast they uh people took pity on him and trained him it's probably because like this fucking idiot's gonna get me killed yeah um now it should come as no surprise anybody that the nco put in charge of them were

very fucking unimpressed with him as a soldier and there's probably a good reason for that because he wasn't one uh and to his credit like a professional fucking wrestler in the 1990s he never broke his cover he never fucking told it he never ran to the first sergeant like, I don't need to be here! He just like, well, I guess I need to learn this shit. Because he hit the gun. He's pretty practical about the whole thing. He's like, well, that didn't work. Now I need to learn as much as I can

or I'm going to fucking die. The name part for me would be the hardest. I'm close. Yeah. Close. Now, this is important for him because even though soldiers were helping each other, it was probably the hardest point of any of their lives.

They had to like, he had to look really fucking dumb asking him how to do the most basic shit on earth. And then actually teaching him was pretty impressive. Like imagine you had a private go up to you at like a range, like, so this gun, how do I make it gun?

And you're like, what? I've never done this before. Like he didn't have, he's never fired a gun before in his entire life. He didn't even understand the, the, the basic concepts of marksmanship.

Nothing. He didn't know how to use a hand grenade. He didn't know how to like use half the gear he'd been issued. This is awesome. Yeah. Uh, no, his skills may have been non-existent.

That did not mean Mahara was not equipped with a massive set of balls. Uh, Only two weeks after arriving in Vietnam, his platoon was traveling by boat. Like, really shitty ramshackle boat. I think it was like

one of the little sandpans that the Vietnamese used. Not used to having fully loaded soldiers in it. It overturned and dumped them all into the river. They were all carrying

40 to 70 pounds of gear. They sank like rocks. Mahar jumped right in and rescued several people and even saved a man's life with CPR. Nice. But because he was a private, they gave him an ARCOM, an Army Combination Medal.

I wonder if he knew CPR or he was just guessing. I'm assuming he had learned. I'm pretty sure he didn't get training on it. I was just trying to make out with him. He's alive. He's good. He's awake. I'm really into breaking people's ribs.

It should be pointed out that an ARCOM is the same medal that I was awarded he's alive. He's good. He's awake. I'm really, I'm really into breaking people's ribs. Uh, it should be pointed out that an art comp is the same metal that I was awarded for helping set up an orange County chopper show. So yep. Uh, Mahar became fast friends with his new platoon mates. Uh,

the, he found something that he had been lacking for most of his life. Um, but he's a great kisser. Uh, he had structure. Um, he had something lacking for most of his life. But he's a great kisser. He had structure. He had something to do every day. He also probably helped that he couldn't just get shit-faced

all the time and skip out of class. Also, hilariously, Mahara said he was able to get along with all these soldiers from various different walks of life, despite not being one, because of his time as an alcoholic in a flop house in Pittsburgh. That tracks. Because most of his time as an alcoholic in a flop house in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Like that tracks because like most of the time soldiers are really only one shade, shade removed from being drunk and homeless people.

It's like that show 60 days in where like a bunch of people get thrown into jail. Oh yeah. And they're like from the street. They have never, they're not criminals. They just get thrown into like the worst fucking jails in America. And the only person that ever just like doesn't find a problem with any of it is like a veteran.

Because I'm not trying to say like veterans are just better at things than some people. Sure, maybe they're better at being incarcerated. Because like even the best of times, your platoon is probably full of a drug addict, people with unmedicated mental illness, and gangbangers. So it's like, I'm home! And you are used to being incarcerated pretty much. Nobody can lay around on their bed and do nothing for hours like a soldier. Now, unfortunately for Mahar, the combat skills he had been taught secondhand by his platoon mates were going to become incredibly important.

He was about to see some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war up to that point. He's going to be going to what is known as the Iron Triangle, the 120-square-mile area that had never once been able to be taken control by any of Vietnam's invaders over the years. And there has been plenty. It's jungle Afghanistan, effectively. It was a place of so many tunnels, fortifications, and booby traps, it would have been impossible to count.

Mahar was thrown into this death trap as a part of Operation Edelborough, a massive operation that planned to swarm the area and force the VC to fight. You know that thing that always worked so well? They were literally just like, let's just keep throwing soldiers at them until they have to fight us. It seems like real World War I energy there. Mahar fought without any fucking training against thousands of North Vietnamese regulars who had significantly more training than him. Over

100 Americans were killed in the operation and over 400 were wounded. He was not one of them. Mahar, to his credit, not only did not get hurt, he did pretty goddamn well. He became known around his unit for being the best tunnel rat around. That sucks. Mostly, it had a lot to do with his short stature.

He's like 5'4 and 140 pounds. When you're the best at it, obviously, yeah, you're alive, but they keep going to you for it. Yeah, well, he kept volunteering. What? Yeah. Why? I don't know. Mahar having access to me. It's his time.

It's quiet. I mean, yeah, he's like, well, I'm not so good at being a soldier, but crawling through these tunnels. Now, he had accidentally volunteered for an entire war, so I guess he found no problem volunteering to crawl through miles of VC tunnels armed with only a flashlight and a pistol.

He does admit, though, he literally shit himself in fear the first time he actually ran into something in the tunnel. Something was He does admit, though, he literally shit himself in fear the first time he actually ran into something in the tunnel. Something was not a person, though. It was a shadow. It was a rooster. The VCs actually hid them

in parts of the tunnel, like strapping razors to their legs like they were actually cockfighting. And so it would make loud noises to alert that somebody was coming and then attack them. That'd be fucking terrifying. Oh, did they put little uniforms on the rooster?

Yeah, they actually had to go to a Ho Chi Minh political school first, too. Now, Mahar leaves out if he shot the rooster or not, so I'm assuming they actually became friends, because not a single part of this makes any fucking sense anyway. Like, rooster, rooster, we're cool, we're cool, I'm not actually a soldier. Like, word?

And they just... Me neither. I got drafted. I was supposed to fuck chickens at a farm. Now after this, Mahar was promoted to sergeant. And he then extended his time in Vietnam. Now the reason for this was because Mahar obviously accepted that the army was not going to let him go. So he might as well just get the discharge as fast as possible.

The army had a deal that if you were a draftee and you extended a couple months and stayed in Vietnam, you'd get a discharge as soon as you went home. Nice. So that's what Mahar did. He did 406 days in Vietnam. You'd get a discharge as soon as you went home. Nice. So that's what Mahar did. He did 406 days in Vietnam. Jesus. Yeah. Without a single day of training. And got promoted above his peers,

who were actually soldiers. Once Mahar got home, he and Klaus hung out and got drunk. Not because they wanted to catch up. I mean, they kind of thought they were still friends, but because Klaus needed his help again now remember uh all the shit that maharad collected his awards his rank his stories were all close like he was supposed to be frank close right and close need to learn all these things so he could go home and tell his family, I'm back from Vietnam. So he did.

He told Close all of his stories, gave him all of his awards. This is a friendship? What a piece of shit. Oh, it gets better. Close, while telling the story of how Mahar's close friend died in Vietnam, cried. Gross. Yeah. Gross.

Yeah. I don Yeah. Gross. I don't like him. Yikes. Now, Mahar stayed with Close and his wife for a week. Though it was pretty clear that their friendship was over. Now, Close's wife actually seems to be the most reasonable person here. Like, effectively trying to nudge her husband into

apologizing for all of this. I thought she got confused on who was close. She just decided to have a three-way. Yeah, like, there was, she was like, no, you almost got him killed. Legally, he was her husband. Right. It's like, I get one.

I'm still Frank. Now, his wife's like, you could have saved him at literally any point and did nothing. It's true. Furthermore, Close actually began to dislike Mahar. Now, we're not entirely sure of the truth of this. Close has never told his side of the story,

but Mahar said, quote, I had taken his right of passage and his manhood and he resented me for it. You didn't take it. It was given to you. Oh, yeah. He was like, here, have it. After that week, they parted ways,

and they would never see each other again. I think Mahar was rightfully pissed. Close had been at home living the kind of normal life that anybody would have wanted. Yeah, I'd love to work at a donut shop. And enjoying his family while Mahar had been nearly getting killed for a year without any training. There's another problem. Mahara was not close.

He had served under his name. And as far as the government was concerned, nobody named Paul Mahara had ever joined the military. And he was certainly not a combat veteran. Not only did Mahara want to use the benefits he had rightly earned and Close was fucking using, he wanted recognition for his service. He wanted to be recognized as a Vietnam veteran. He wanted his college money. He wanted VA care,

which Close was using, by the way, the whole time. Holy fuck. Yeah. Whoops. And he really regretted getting a discharge when he did. Like a lot of people after serving overseas or being in the military, uh,

when they get out, they don't really know what to do with themselves. He was bored and listless. Um, and Mahar missed the army. Once back in the U S he attempted to reenlist under his real name and was rejected for the pin in his arm. Holy shit.

This is fucking nuts. So after that, he just kind of drifted across the country, picking up odd jobs, getting drunk and being depressed because while Mahar may have not gotten any veteran benefits, he was going for the whole veteran experience. He also got married twice with as many divorces and had a child. He was one racist coffee company away from being a vet bro.

To prove his status as a veteran, all he had to do was like, just look at my life. I feel like he deserves to be a vet bro. Like, if anybody should be a fucking vet bro, it should be him. Yeah. He's earned it. Yeah. So in 1981, finally, he decided to attempt to contact the media to tell a story so maybe the army would listen to him and as so far they had ignored him completely like he had sent letters

like hey i mean to be fair the dod is probably gonna get a ton of crazy letters uh and they all went unanswered so he decided to get some media attention to the story he also sent countless letters to close begging for him to go public with his side of the story, each one unanswered. As far as I could find, Close never said a fucking word to help his friend out or to tell his side of the story at all. When Mehar told Close in 1988

that he was finally going public with their story, Close cut off all remaining contact with him and they hadn't spoken since. And I'm not sure if close is still alive. I couldn't find any record of him dying at any point. He very well could still be alive, but he's not talking after being interviewed by anybody who would listen and countless media appearances,

the army promised they would look into it at exactly this speed that you would expect them to 10 years later in 1991. Oh my god. Yep. While all this was going on, Mahar made his rounds to hang out with his old buddies, who, after finally hearing his story, he finally broke his cover.

In 1991, they were like, holy shit, that's making a whole lot more sense now. But also, it probably made a whole lot of them feel like shit, because, like, you gotta promote the sergeant which like hope you feel real good about that one nco's in the room uh guy got promoted just by not dying solid uh finally in 1993 the military recognized paul mahar as a veteran of the vietnam war and awarded him the best prize in the world, his discharge papers. Nice.

The army actually had to base their investigation on dental records and handwriting, also noting the fact that several of Mahar's army buddies, who knew him as Frank Close, definitely had pictures of them in Vietnam together. That probably helped. They didn't have Photoshop. In true army fashion, however, they couldn't just let this shit slide,

saying that they were going to investigate to see if either one of them had broken the law, which Close certainly had and never been prosecuted for. Nothing ever happened, though. The army just couldn't be like, well, you got us. We're going to fuck these old people over. This is embarrassing to me yeah i must

fuck you now uh now as i said before the two men grew to dislike one another and stop speaking close refuses to talk to anybody uh about the time any of this happened um he could have just run to canada like anybody, but hey, whatever. He's also never once answered a journalist's request for comment. And even the army said he was completely unhelpful in their investigation, which literally the entire investigation could have been wrapped up in five seconds if he's like, yeah, I'm Frank Close.

I did not go to Vietnam. It should be pointed out that Mahar never wanted to be seen as a victim and he didn't want close to get any trouble he just wanted what was rightfully his at the end of the day like he never ended up using his education benefits um but he i mean to be fair he wouldn't have gotten them until 1990 uh but yeah he just wanted wanted recognition. I almost fucking died. I earned it.

And he lived out the rest of his life in Idaho. He died on September 21st, 2004 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He was buried with full military honors. Close did not attend the funeral. I kind of saw that coming. Yeah. It would actually be kind of shittier if he did. Oh, yeah. With the that coming. Yeah. Yeah. It would actually be kind of shittier if he did. Oh, yeah.

With the uniform on? Yeah. I earned this by fucking him over. Yeah. And, you know, there's a... We don't normally have all three of us in the room for various reasons, but I thought it'd be interesting because one of us in the room does have a story about one of our family members lying to go to Vietnam.

And that's Rich. Why are you looking at me like that? I'm just fucking interested. No, yeah. So my granddad, he's kind of a mystery to our family and has passed away, so we can't really ask him about a lot of it. And I don't think that he would tell us if we did

because I think that people used to ask him about his time in the military and things like that, but he never would talk about it. It's pretty common. Yeah. But apparently, he ran away from home. He was adopted. We do know that. My grandmother, who was married to him for over 50 years, never, I think, met one of his sisters one time, but never met any of his family.

I think met one of his sisters one time, but never met any of his family. But he apparently ran away from home when he was 15 and joined the army. And the only reason we know that he joined the army at 15 is because when he was of the age that he was supposed to have filed for Social Security. He didn't qualify. He was not old enough to file for Social Security. So my grandma never even knew until... That's a real hard one to explain. Yeah. Also, props to keeping the story straight for fucking 80 years or however long it lasted.

I mean, he was a very, very smart man, but he was quiet and only talked when he wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about. I feel like I would have liked him. I mean, yeah. I mean, he was like special forces and shit. So, you know,

he did some shit, but he never talked about it. Yeah. Uh, my, I mean, I never had anybody in my family dodge the draft. I am aware of,

I don't think my dad was old enough. Um, but my grandpa, I have no idea who he was in, in reality is he joined the French Foreign Legion and picked a name. And I've had it explained to me that you could possibly keep your last name, change your first name, or change both of them. But his first name definitely is not Jacques.

I have no idea why anybody picked the last name Kasabian if it wasn't Thurs, unless it's like a differentiation in the spelling. But he's not from France, because when I was stationed in Germany and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go visit some of our family that you say is in France, he's like, no, don't go there. Oh. So, like, there's

definitely no Kasabians there. Also, he definitely had some prison tattoos. No, that could have been, like, really shitty French foreign legionnaire work. Or he ran away from Armenia for a very good reason because it was the Soviet Union at the time. He didn't want to die. And my grandma Sarah, in her later life when she was starting to lose her faculties, didn't keep up the lie.

She was a Serbian immigrant to France. And that's where they met. And said, like, I don't know why you picked Jacques. I hate that fucking name. And he's like, shut up, Sarah. I was like, huh. Keep talking. Go on.

But, yeah. So, like, I don't know where he's from. Like, fuck, I could. Maybe I'm not even Armenian. I'd certainly look it. But maybe he's from- You have that Armenian glow. I mean, maybe he's from somewhere else in the Soviet Union. I don't know. That's our episode.

So if Frank Close is still alive, fuck you. You're kind of a douche. Yeah, fuck you. Your worst fucking friend ever if that's an award. It's like, I don't know if we've ever given out the like,

dude, award. I don't know if it's an award we have. We can make it one. We can give it to him. Yeah. It's like a picture

of a guy squinting and looking sideways at you like, dude. That's it. That's our new award. Attention orders. Frank close. Dude. That's it.'s our new award attention to orders Frank close dude that's it

it's all good it's like a slight head shake but thank you for joining me the whole crew in the house today thank you for supporting the show you make everything we do possible you help us buy books you help us pay for our recording equipment that we now actually have to pay for.

Watch movies. You help us pay for really, really bad movies that we then inflict upon you in the form of bonus episodes. There has been some interest in doing a mystery science theater type shit like you have been talking about for a long time, Nick, where we just watch it and record it in real time uh and we have to try to figure out the legalities behind

that because i'm pretty sure having a movie in the background of something that we're not paying them for some form of piracy right it's not the first time i pirate literally every intro to every episode and soundcloud hasn't caught on so i think think we might be good. We're going to try it. Way to announce it. Yeah, way to tell them. I've done it before. I've stolen so many Sabaton songs.

It's the intro. I'm only stealing like five seconds of it. And I'm not stealing. I'm redistributing it to the masses. You motherfuckers. But

if you don't want to give money to us, that's fine. Our show will always be free and ad free. ad-free. We're free. So, y'all, we do something on the show called Question from the Legion. And we got some questions today.

Now, if you want to ask us a question from the Legion, you can donate a dollar to us on Patreon, and you can send it to us via Patreon message or through the Discord, which we actually normally use the Discord because it's way faster. Who communicates to Patreon? That shit sucks. Now, what was the dumbest thing that you've ever been ordered to do in the military?

Goddamn, that one has layers. Huh, onions. I think so I speak Nick. He means because onions have layers like Shrek Shrek has layers

why are you skinning Shrek he literally says it in the movie he has layers Joe we should watch the movie now I think the dumbest thing I was probably ordered to do off the top of my head I'll probably think of something dumber as soon as we stop recording, was when we were in Afghanistan, and Rich is familiar with this story. When we were in Afghanistan, people kept shit-talking a talk officer or a talk NCO in the porta-potties, saying the normal horrible things.

I won't even repeat on air because I'll get canceled for it. Saying terrible things about this one particular asshole who works in the dock. He was a staff sergeant. He had some pole and it was a very low-ranking outpost for the most part. I think the highest-ranking person there was an E7. I think some shit was said about him as well. He posted an armed guard outside of the port-a-potties. Now this is the same time that we're running night missions.

We're manning the towers. We're training Afghan police officers. We hardly have time to sleep. So now we have to guard these port-a-potties and we have to search people before they go in and take their pens away. And then when they leave the port-a-potties, you have to inspect them to make sure there's no new dicks or whatever drawn up there. I want to just add to this story and say that at this point, we had been in Afghanistan for probably about three months. And during those three months, there were plenty of drawings of all of the females just getting railed.

So many comments about the females doing this and doing that and sucking this stick and sucking that and all of that shit. It wasn't until this particular staff sergeant got featured in the port-a-potty that we had to post armed guards. There was even stuff about the CO and the First Sergeant. Like, yeah, whatever, soldiers are going to do that. They're like, ah, that's funny. I don't look like that.

It made me really happy that I kidnapped and murdered that guy's goats. And then I ate them. Same guy. Nick, you've got some doozies. One of them was in basically the same unit. One of the First Sergeants found a can in the One of them was in basically the same unit. One of the first sergeants found a can in the trash can and not in the recycled trash can. So he had an armed guard as well.

A little battle rattle outside of the CQ desk. This is like the Dwight Schrute Earth Day. What was his name? Recyclops. Recyclops. Yeah, pretty much. But it was a fat fur sergeant. A freaking asshole.

You had to guard a recycler. Yeah, it was basically your sister company. Do you like it in, like, present arms? Yep, that's recyclable. Go ahead. Hold up. Yep, you're good. This doesn't have return on it. That's trash.

I think, honestly, I don't know how many of our listeners are civilians. I don't know where our civil-military divide split is in our audience numbers. But the people who are not familiar with the military would be shocked about just how much time soldiers waste doing things like that. That's not the first bathroom I've had to guard. I had to go through a trash can in the motor pool in that same unit. I say trash can. I mean dumpster. Because someone threw away a non-recyclable thing in there.

Or either or. I forget which one. And we had to climb through it and find things. It was awful. Yeah. We were ordered to get into the dumpster at the defect in cook whites. You probably weren't so white anymore. The dumpster was full of food and liquids.

Trash water. Yeah. It's the worst possible. Yeah. I refuse that order. How much money would it take for you to take a, I don't know, a saltine cracker and dip it in there? 500?

I'm going to need at least 1,000. I'll double dip for 1,000. I don't even know. I would double dip for 1,000. I don't think I would. Nick, your price just keeps getting lower. I'm not good at negotiating. Fish take rocks, I'll do it for. We use this as currency

at JRTC. So, thank, person. I'll never say their name on air. I don't want to shame them like that for asking this question. If you want to ask us, donate a buck and then immediately cancel it so you can ask your question for a dollar.

I'm just helping out. Like I said, our show will always be free. But if you think what we do is worth a dollar, you can throw it to us on Patreon. Thank you, everybody, for listening to poor Paul Mahar's story. Thank you, too, for joining me. It's not often we get the whole gang together in the recording studio anymore.

And until next time, dude.