Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 94 - Fighting Like Cats and Dogs

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

On this episode Joe and Rich talk about some more war animals like Sarbi, the Australian wonder dog and Unsinkable Sam, the unkillable navy cat. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/creator-home Buy some merch: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Sources: https://www.awm.gov.au/learn/memorial-boxes/2/case-studies/sarbi https://www.zmescience.com/other/feature-post/unsinkable-sam-cat-wwii/

You don't hear much good news out of Afghanistan these days, but here's some, and it's a classic tale of a man and his best friend. Sabi, an explosives detection dog, has been reunited with her Australian Army handler after spending more than a year lost in the war-torn country. Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me is returning champion, Rich. Hello. I don't know what I'm the champion of, but I'll take it.

Welcome back to the donkey show, as we're known. That's something else. I don't think it is. I think we're taking it back. It's not a good nickname. No. Maybe when we take our show south. maybe when we take our show south.

Now, we have spent the last five weeks almost talking about the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. While it is hilarious laughing at tens of thousands of people dying, it's a hoot. Winter War, like nothing about it sounds hilarious.

Winter in general is very droll and not funny. I would argue that dead people frozen solid and used as signposts Well, now that you said that. is a hoot. Which actually, the fact that I am laughing at that and you are not is why we're doing this episode today.

There's been, let's say, a lot of demand for me to bring you back on and talk about animals again. Aw, thanks, guys. And there's a reason for that is because I have put the worst fucking episodes on you. I consider that a service as you're a psych major and i am a a living test subject so you need to create my mental illness so i'll be a good psychologist yeah um sure i don't think that's how that you were just too nice and happy and i have to destroy you um i'll be seriously even though nick has been on for the series is uh you know this hours and hours and hours of of war stuff you have always been on for like the worst shit

uh which is why we're actually talking about the holocaust today um no i'm kidding we're talking we're talking about mostly cats yeah i was promised like puppies. So we're actually talking about the Rwandan genocide. I don't want to know about those puppies. Now, it really doesn't affect me. Like talking about all this shit for hours really doesn't affect me all that much. I think that's like a lifetime passion. And then, you know, actual scholarly-time job of researching history, combined with a couple brain injuries, kind of smooths a few things out

as far as it comes to processing other people's trauma. Now, I've had a fan claim that I'm Rick and you're Morty, and this entire show is one long experiment into breaking you mentally or driving you towards suicide. So who is Nick? I'm going to go with possibly Simple Rick because we're harvesting his joy for flavorful treats. Simple Rick. I mean, I would feel offended about being called Morty, except Morty gets to go on a lot of fucking cool ass adventures so I'm I'm down you know and I'm a little offended uh for being being called the alcoholic sociopath who fucks over everybody else oh stop pretending you know that's completely

accurate okay I rarely burp into the microphone which I did five minutes before we started this podcast kind of a tradition. Nick holds it in right as I say hello, and then he burps into the mic. Well, I didn't know about that. I would have done it. It's not a tradition I like. It just kind of happens.

Now, every once in a while, I don't consider myself a Rick San sanchez i consider myself more of a emotionally abusive history teacher um but every once in a while i birth out an episode that brings people joy rather than like screaming into the void uh so i i call this episode on animals chicken soup for the alcoholic soul um i feel like that's one chicken soup book that hasn't been written yet, and I can't be sued for calling it that. Everything else has been done. I think because they don't like to acknowledge that they're enabling alcoholics.

I don't think they're enabling alcoholics. I think that they're like a weird church pyramid scheme of some kind. I'm just having quite figured it out. Yeah, exactly. So they would never make chicken soup for the alcoholic soul because they just would want you to not be an alcoholic.

First of all, the first step to recovery is acceptance. So without that chicken soup, I just can't enjoy the others. It's not acceptance. It's admitting that you have a problem, not accepting that you have a problem. I'm accepting that I have a problem

and my program is only one step. We're just skipping right to the end here. We're just accepting and letting it go. This is actually just an intervention, which is why my dog is sad. Now, our first, it's actually the only dog we're going to talk about, which is rare. Our last animal episode was like all dogs and a bear. Acceptable. Yeah, for sure.

This one is all cats and one dog. How the fuck are cats helpful in war? No offense to you, cat people. I like cats as well, but they're not exactly like super trainable. They're not, but we'll get to that. The first one we're going to talk about, I know you're going to like because it's a military working dog, which you love. Also, he's from Australia.

And I know that you love- Is he a Kelpie? I don't think so. Now, I'm going to call this dog Sarby. It is also interchangeably called Sobby. I don't think so um now i'm gonna call this dog sarby it is also interchangeably called sabi i don't know why australians aren't great at keeping track of their own animals apparently um but yeah sarby was a dog that served in the australian army uh he was a black lab new funland mix uh which is a weird mix for a military working dog uh she was born on september 11 2002

and which is both ironic and unfortunate in new south wales australia now uh like most of us who end up list enlisting in the army sarbi was from a rough part of town and need to find a way to dig her way out of her circumstances, so she enlisted. I may have made that up. You actually had me believing you there. Yeah. I mean, not that she did it willingly. Sarby had it real rough.

You're welcome for that. I don't think Australians have to enlist in the military to afford college. Was she bred specifically to be a working dog? I don't think Australians have to enlist the military to afford college. Was she bred specifically to be a working dog? I don't think so. I mean, a Newfoundland black lab doesn't exactly sound like a military juggernaut. True. But they're so cute and fluffy.

I mean, shit, they can train pit bulls to be police dogs. Anything's possible. Yeah. I'm sure New South Wales is a perfectly decent place. I don't know. I've never fucking been to Australia before. I it's down under. I understand that.

Um, they have large knives. Um, also don't fuck with the stingrays. I mean, is there, is there koalas and like kangaroos and stuff there? It sounds,

it sounds legit as long as they are like, they're those things there. I don't know if it's the, it's the area currently under occupation by the emu empire or if it's on fire. There's obviously puppies there, so that's one plus. Yeah, I mean, you can't have a bad place and there be puppies. Actually, Hitler had a dog, so

that's entirely true. Hitler's dog was completely against everything that he did. He was just following orders. You know what? That means the dog's still gonna get hung. What? The dog's a going to get hung. What? The dog's a war criminal, all right? Blondie was a bitch.

We're going to have to disagree on this one. No such thing as an innocent Nazi. Blondie, she didn't want to do it. You know what? Blondie knew a lot of fucking tricks and spent a lot of time with Hitler. Yeah. Not all dogs are good dogs. It's not her fault. I think, you know what?

I'm coming. What's that? I'm hearing from the crowd. her fault. I think, you know what? I'm coming. What's that? I'm hearing from the crowd. Bad girl. Bad girl, Blondie. Hot fucking take. Hot take. Blondie was a shitty dog.

I mean, dogs worked in concentration camps too, Rich. They were just following orders. Milgram's experiments proved that you can get anybody to hurt anybody if you just like pose as an authority figure and take away their responsibility from the horrendous acts. You know, I'm going to disagree with you because I speak German. And every time when those dogs barked, I was saying an anti-Semitic slur. I swear to God, it was the wildest thing. Now, Sarmi was eventually trained as an explosive detection dog,

which I'm going to say, if Sarbi enlisted to go to college, this is more of a trade school than a traditional university, which I support trade schools, so cool. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, not a lot is known about her career or really her life in general like the records on sarby and this story which i think at the end you'll agree with me should be much more well known like this is like some fucking togo type shit like there should be movies made about this stolen valorolen Valor? No, Sarby steals no Valor.

No, I mean, did somebody steal Sarby's Valor? Not yet. But nobody really seems to care. Once the Australian Ministry of Defense had a special page on their website dedicated to Sarby, which is now gone. I'd use the internet way back machine to find it. to Sarby, which is now gone. I'd use the internet way back machine to find it. The only articles I could find were like a paragraph in length,

which is fucking strange. Cause like Sinbad, the Coast Guard dog from our last episode, dozens of websites dedicated to him. Sarby, like nothing. Australians don't give a fuck. Yeah. I'm starting to think like Australians don't really care about their military working dogs all that much. I don't know.

Maybe that's not true. I hope not. But I do know that she ended up joining various branches of the Australian Special Forces. And unlike a SEAL, she did not write a book about it, which is why this is such a problem. But also, I don't think she killed any civilians either. Are we still talking about sarby yeah yeah like like she would like she made all these decisions on her own i am assuming she made them on her own free will yeah she submitted the right paperwork you know waiting in line behind like a dozen people and just sarby just patiently sitting there i i choose to believe

that the animals who are in human bondage have much more free choice than they actually do. Now, her earliest stationing I could find was as a member of the Special Operations Engineer Regiment as a detection dog within the Special Response Regiment. That's a whole lot of words for effectively being that she worked VIP security. for effectively being that she worked VIP security. Now, once there, she was a good girl who sniffed many of things while protecting the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Now, her first combat tour was deployed to Afghanistan

in support of Operation Slipper, which is the Australian name for our forever war, what we would call Operation Enduring Freedom, or whatever the fuck it is called now. Operation Slipper? Yeah. They all have their own names for it. Well, that sounds like fun, though.

Well, I mean, before we started coming up with really weird freedom-related military operation names, most of our operation names were random bullshit, too. Around the 80s, when we started invading random latin american countries like not letting the cia do it anymore and just taking going full mask off and like arresting manuel noriega um we had some really strange names um like operation overlord market garden random shit like that where it wasn't like Iraqi freedom. Yeah, those all sound way more fun than Operation Enduring Freedom.

Yeah, it's all about optics. Like if Operation Enduring Freedom was called Operation Waterslide McDragon, it would have been great and I would not have PTSD. Right? I know you guys can't see me, but I rolled my eyes every time

you said Operation Enduring Freedom. But the freedom it endures. And again, eyes rolling. I feel like they should make a sound. The names don't lie, Rich. If we call it Operation Forever Liberty, Afghanistan is suddenly going to shit out of Congress. It's just how this shit works. But yeah, she ended up deploying in support of operation slipper in 2007

um because and this is true when she was supporting the commonwealth games all the other dogs called her a pogue because it wasn't a real combat deployment yeah yeah dogs are catty bitches it turns out uh but 2007 uh I could not actually find any record of anything that happened in 2007, and she deployed again in 2008. So I'm going to assume that 2007 went great. Now, I'm assuming that's because dog dwell time is a real motherfucker.

She just went back to back. Yeah, that's rough, man. Yeah, you did it now. During her second deployment, her handler was special air service trooper david simpson um and uh they were a part of a patrol that got caught in a massive ambush that would eventually be known as the battle of kaz orzgon uh it was a it was as far as battles in afghanistan uh for what people normally think of them as small ambushes, this one was pretty big. It was a group of allied soldiers of American, Aussie, and Afghans, numbering about 37 people, were ambushed by around 200 Taliban fighters. And it was the largest battle that Australian troops had been involved in since Vietnam.

So this is a pretty big deal for little Sarby. so this is a pretty big deal for for a little sarbi uh now there's a weird subplot during this battle about like dutch helicopters refusing to engage the taliban uh and kind of abandoning the people on the ground um but that's mostly unimportant to the sarbi mythos consider it part of the sarbi extended universe to be explored upon the gritty reboot um during the ambush um now for people who are unaware military working dogs are attached to their handler by some kind of tether it's normally attached to their vest or around their waist sometimes just around the wrist but they're attached in some way because dogs are dogs they're gonna even though they're highly trained loud noises tend to scare them um so so So Simpson was attempting to corral Sarby

behind the armored vehicle when a bullet hit the tether and snapped it. Sarby acted like a dog and ran the fuck away from all the loud noises of hundreds of machine guns going off. Simpson attempted to catch her, but because he was pinned down and trying not to be murdered, she was gone.

Stop being so fucking selfish, Simpson. Yeah. And now, after that, she was officially declared missing and presumed dead. Now, thankfully, Dog Seer School really kicked in. For people unaware, Seer School is this thing they make pilots and special forces people go through of how to survive, evade, and escape enemies, resist interrogation.

I'm assuming for a dog, that just means chasing him around the living room with a vacuum cleaner. But 14 months later, an American soldier who for some reason can only be named as John. Some spook shit going on there. Oh, yeah. That's some legit fucking secret squirrel shit. Yeah. Saw a dog he definitely knew to be Sarby. How did he know her? I don't

know. It's never explained. She's famous. And it's not like there was pictures up. It's because she was a special forces dog and they know their own kind. I don't think they do. Don't fucking disagree with me. i i think that like and you know this is 14 months later so there's probably not a good chance the same people are

back on rotation again but also maybe this is 2007 2008 2009 the all-time sucks i had to play twice in a year so it's like fuck it why not? Not to mention special forces people, especially people who only can be known as John, deploy much shorter rotations, much more frequent. I think six months on, six months off a lot of the time. Sometimes it's not even that. It's like three to four months and then back for a couple, then back over again. It's kind of shitty.

They have much different rotations, yeah. Yeah, so it's possible that John really did serve with Sarby before, but John saw a dog that he thought was an allied working dog. I'm sorry. I don't want to interrupt again, but I love that he just recognized her. I know that dog. That's fucking awesome.

I mean, there is something to be said about what our dogs look like and what Afghan dogs look like, and I don't mean that to be, I don't know, discriminatory towards Afghan dogs. They're all beautiful. But they're pretty fucking beat up. They lead a rough life. They are routinely abused. They have their ears and tails cut off

for dog fighting, especially the wild ones. They just look different because they're wild. And they're different breeds. Yeah, they're just a kaleidoscope of different dogs breeding in the wild. Yeah.

And Sarbi obviously was not that. Also, Sarby was happily trotting through a field with an Afghan man. Oh, she found a friend. He was an ally. He was not a bad guy. It was an alliance of convenience. I'll smell the bombs in your field if you feed me. Yeah, John called out some commands to Sarby in English,

which Sarby immediately responded to, which I'm assuming means Sarby eventually learned Pashto, which is pretty fucking solid. John took the dog. I'm assuming Sarbi just kind of like threw up the peace sign to the Afghan guy like

thank you for everything I love my people now I'm gonna head out I mean they had they soul linked I don't know they could just talk

to one another the Afghan man knew like you must go back to your family now and then they probably drone shaked his field or something she was flown to Terran Cot where she met with Australian dog handlers You must go back to your family now. And then they probably drone-striked his field or something.

She was flown to Terrancot, where she met with Australian dog handlers who confirmed that, yes, this really was Sarby. Now, I'm assuming they confirmed Sarby's identity by telling her to speak, and then she just said something racist about Aboriginal people. No, they just checked her chip. She said, I belong down under yeah their their secondary like code word is they just held up a small pocket knife and said this is a knife

and she just to me is like that's not a knife like ah sorry and also her deep deep hatred for stingrays and also people of. I was trying to take this in a different direction. It's Australian. You just won't fucking let me. It's racism island. Now, when everybody thought that she was dead,

that did not mean her handler, Simpson. And this is from an ABC article, which is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Quote, George Hulse, a retired lieutenant colonel and president of the Australian Defense Force defense force trackers and war dog association says that he and many others gave up hope when the dog went missing but he said this is not the case of this dog handler corporal david simpson congrats on the promotion simpson you know you couldn't keep a

fucking handle on your dog um he said that he would not let go of sarby and thought that she one day might arrive i on the other hand had abandoned all hope and i was trying to tell him to do so as well like why would you flex about telling like dude your dog's dead your dog's dead just accept it bro like fuck man i mean just like lieutenant colonel though like shut the fuck up corporal your dog's dead the ultimate fucking lieutenant colonel move well all of our chain of command would have said the same thing because they were the ones that killed our dogs on it yeah i'm really surprised that uh if a lieutenant i mean george halls is a retired lieutenant colonel so he's like corporal simpson your dog's dead and sarby shows up like he just

looks like look i saved your dog i mean halls like really le up like he just looks and he's like look I saved your dog I mean Hulse like really leans in on the fact that he's telling Simpson that his dog was dead it's weird that like he kept that line being interviewed after the fact after like finding out that he was wrong you changed your fucking story no I knew all along

that she was coming home I was always hopeful like nope I knew she was coming home. I was always hopeful. Yeah. Like, nope, I knew she was dead. And then I was wrong. Do you have anything to say to Corporal Simpson about all those months telling him that his dog was dead? Stand by it.

Nope, nope, he was wrong. That's a different dog. Thank you, Lieutenant Colonel. Now, the problem was is Sarbi was trapped in Afghanistan for 14 months, which required her to be in quarantine. And it was thought that she might never actually be allowed to come home. Now, for people unaware, like I was, Australia has an incredibly strict quarantine laws. I mean, they're an island out in the middle of nowhere. They have their own flora and fauna.

Introducing things into Australia can be incredibly destructive. Are they aware that the majority of the things that already live there can fucking kill you? Well, yeah. And those are all mostly native. They have to keep a strict, well, Sarby isn't venomous, so we can't bring her back home. She can't murder you with one fucking bite of her fangs. I mean, she might be able to now. I mean, she's learned some things.

And they've made entire Simpsons jokes about this, like with the frogs and then the fucking the cane toad and then the snakes and then, I forget, cats or something. You know I don't watch The Simpsons. You know that I disapprove heavily of that. Go ahead and disapprove, but I'm

not going to get your reference. I'm tutting you. But eventually, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd got involved and met the young pup while she was in dog jail in Afghanistan and forced through a waiver,

which is one of the few good things that Kevin Rudd ever did. I don't want to picture her in dog jail. Yeah, she's like in a dog POW camp just by herself. Poor thing. When she dog jail. Yeah, she's like in a dog POW camp just by herself. Poor thing. When she finally made it home,

she was rewarded the RSPCA Purple Cross Award for Outstanding Service to Humans, which is kind of discriminatory towards dogs. How about an award for dog kind? All right. She was then retired and lived with her handler and his wife until she died of old age in 2015 now I will close out Sarbi's

story with a quote from the Australian defense website about her which says quote we will never know what Sarbi saw during her time alone in the desert wasn't alone but what we do know is she could talk she would have one hell of a story I feel like she just lived a happy life with an Afghan farmer until somebody found her and brought her home.

And, you know, it's crazy that this happened. And for obvious reasons than the fact that she not only just was totally happy and healthy, but survived and was reunited. It was like this has happened since then where a British military working dog went missing and turned up in a Taliban video. And nobody's ever heard from her since. So it's like, Sarbi really fucking escaped. She joined the Taliban. That's honestly the best case scenario. That's what I'm going with.

She joined the Taliban. She's on the other side now. I mean, the dog saw the light. Western society is corrupt and decadent um now you said before how the fuck can cats be useful in a military scenario yes hold on i'm gonna open this the official sound of this podcast. Our liver's rotting. Now, what if I told you some of the most badass sailors of World War II and beyond were actually cats? Sailors.

Sailors. They were on boats. Cat semen. Are you sure that they weren't just there to catch mice? Yeah, that's exactly why they were there. Oh, okay. I mean, you're a food sanitation specialist. You can imagine

how awful a vector of disease that rats are aboard a ship. Can I tell a story? Please. I'm not going to name defects or names,

but we literally had a defect with a roach problem that was solved by a rodent problem. And then we literally- This is literally the Simpsons joke

I was just telling you. So it was solved by a rodent problem. And then- And you were just overrun with rats. No, we were literally in the talks of releasing cats into the building to get rid of the rodents until they finally just moved us

to a different building finally. Congratulations, your defect is Australia, except you aren't allowed to leave. It was so gross and unsanitary, and I'm sorry for all of you that have had to eat defects before because I'm not going to tell you which one it was, and it's probably not the only one. It was at Forehood. I was at Forehood long enough and got sick enough to know

that shit happened at ForeHUD for sure. You get sick all the time. I think you just have bad food sanitation. No, I got sick in Afghanistan all the time because I ate off the economy. With Afghan policemen, which is not a good idea. Also, soldiers are horrible at washing their hands in the fucking dirty ass desert for some reason. Yeah, it's really eye-opening when you realize only a couple generations ago, their hands in the fucking dirty ass desert for some reason. Yeah. It's really eye opening when you realize like only a couple generations ago,

like we all would have been dead from cholera or something. Sorry. I didn't mean to like take us that far off track. Now this stuff about cats being useful in that arena for the the exact reason that you talked about, is not an outlier. Cats have been used on ships and in militaries for destroying disease vectors for pretty much as long as humans managed to domesticate them. You know, deciding that they kind of wanted a dog, but they didn't want the dog to give a fuck about them. That's what cats are. They're the dogs that don't care about you.

But why would you not want something that gives a fuck about you? I don't know. People own cats. Cats don't give a fuck about you. I don't know. I liked my cat. She was cool. I mean, I lived in houses with cats.

I've never felt that my cat gave a fuck about me, except that I was the dispenser of food. I feel like it could be more of a reward when they do show you attention and affection and stuff like that because you know that they're legitimately making the choice to do it. I don't know. I don't like it. If I wanted that relationship, I'd talk to my family more often. Now, the reasons for having cats on a ship seems pretty obvious when you think about it. Like Rich had just explained,

cats are easily maintained and will kill rats and, you know, whatever other rodent population that manages to move aboard the ship. Such as such, you know, destroying a pretty common vector for diseases. It's the same reason that wild dogs are killed. Why rats are killed.

Why sometimes feral cats are killed. You know, it's this circle of military life. It's just fueled by violence in every which direction. Not to mention, as you can imagine from our last episode on animals, some of these animals made it aboard the ship because lower enlisted sailors and whoever smuggled them aboard. And it's a lot easier to sneak a cat aboard than a dog or something. I had a cat in my room for three months one time when I was in high school. I had a friend of mine when I was stationed at Fort Knox hide a cat in the barracks for months.

And the sergeant major came through to do an inspection. And we're all standing there while the sergeant major's coming through. And the cat was kind of trained to hide under the sink until it wasn't and then just kind of wandered out the biggest problem with cats and what gave me away eventually with my cat that i hid for three months is that they are for some reason drawn to people they know don't want them there so my cat finally i opened the door one day after she'd been there for three months, and she ran out of my room and straight into my parents' room and jumped on top of my dad, who was the whole reason I was hiding her in the first place, because he hates cats. But then that cat lived with my dad for like 17 years, so...

So he's sending it to college. No, she's dead. It's unfortunate. Way to bring down the mood. But she lived a very long and happy life. She's old enough to enlist. She would have, but every time somebody yells at her, she just has to fight them.

Now, the first cat we are going to talk about is kind of steeped in legend, which means some of the story might actually be bullshit. But as I respect the only veterans who matter, that being animals, I will tell this story as it's meant to be told. And there's something to be said that like sea tails are like the tall tales of the military.

That's why fucking people thought mermaids existed, shit like that. Sailors lie a lot. Wait, they don't? Yeah, they're just called sea cows. I don't know how long you have to be at sea to be like, I really want to fuck that manatee, but shit happened. Nobody knows when or where this cat was born,

or even how it ended up aboard the ship. And there's a good reason for this, as you'll notice, that once I finish the story, it's kind of gray. But for the sake... The cat is gray or the story is gray? Let's say both.

The cat was actually black, which you would lead me to believe is bad luck, but actually, hold on to that. But nobody's really sure what his name was uh but for the sake of the rest of the story we'll just call him oscar because that's what he was known later on in life as um oscar's first duty station was aboard a nazi kriegsmarine ship the bismarck so yeah this cat's a nazi uh yeah so for people who are unaware, the Bismarck was supposed to be the crowning jewel of the Nazi Navy.

It was fucking huge. The ship had around 2,000 men aboard and one cat, apparently. The cat was rumored to have been smuggled aboard by a crewman, which seems very likely. I assume Oscar was doing his best job he could while eating mice and hating Jews or something. He's a Nazi.

I think it's really unfair for you to label these poor, innocent animals as Nazis. You know what? This podcast has a very strong stance against the bullshit that has the clean Wehrmacht theory, and that includes animals. Agree to disagree. But the Bismarck was out long for this world.

On its very first training mission, it was being chased by various different groups from the allied side, knowing how important the ship was to Nazi war effort. The British and the free Polish allies had been tracking it for quite some time. They eventually cornered the monster at the battle of the Denmark Straits, and it was sunk around 800 people on board. The ship hit the water and we're still alive,

but the Royal Navy just kind of left them there to die uh and in the end most of the crew of the bismarck died in the water um now there's some argument as to say why this happened uh but yeah it did you're according to the laws of international warfare and laws of the sea if you sink a, you're supposed to pick up the survivors, which seems kind of counterintuitive. But, I mean, that's kind of the Geneva Conventions in a nutshell. They're counterintuitive. Nobody ever follows them. I mean, that's fair.

You take prisoners when you, you know, take prisoners of war. That's what you do, right? It happens less likely than you'd like to imagine. It's still a rule. Especially at sea where there's to imagine. It's still a rule. Especially at sea where there's no witnesses. That's rough. Now, the British say that there was

the possibility of enemy U-boats in the area, so they couldn't stick around, which, sure. Also, the weather sucked. It was hard to pick up people. Whatever. I'm not hating on them too much for this. But one cat was saved, which, if this is true, and it probably is not, it's kind of shitty.

Oscar was pulled from the waters of the Atlantic by the crew of the HMS Cossack, which is strange because it abandoned all those people. But hey, look, a cat. I can get on board with that. 800 people died. Some people are assholes. They were Nazis. But also so was the cat. The cat did nothing wrong.

We don't know that. I stand by it. I mean, there's a lot of Nazi work. What if he was killing all the Nazi mice? I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of layers here. I think the mice would be Nazis before the cat would. Conundrum.

There's a lot of people who people thought were fine that made it to, let's say, Ohio and ended up being Ukrainian Nazi war criminals. So shit happens. Maybe Oscar's one of those. Just a cat. So I do need to point out here there's a very good chance to know this happened. First of all, none of the hundred or so survivors of the Bismarck ever remember seeing a cat on board.

Secondly, the Cossack ship that the cat really did end up on, didn't even take part in the attempted rescue of the Bismarck's crew. So I guess that means the cat, which was named Sam after it was taken aboard the Cossack, the stealing valor of a nazi cat that may or may not have existed i don't know i don't know guys i would like to believe that this is the like the origin story of sam was oscar and but of course it wasn't like even like

cold-hearted british royal Navy sailors and the Free Polish sailors aren't going to doom 800 people to a watery grave and rescue a cat. It's just not going to fucking happen. That's fair, I guess. I assume the cat who really would become Sam aboard the Cossacks' owner really liked telling bullshit

and got in so far that he just suddenly rescued a cat from a ship that he was nowhere near, all while nobody asked a lot of questions while he let 100 people die in the sea. I'm not the Navy. I'm not sure how this is acceptable. But a cat named Sam that may or may not have been a cat from when he was Oscar began to serve as support to the Cossack around 1941. Sam did cat things aboard the Cossack, like kill rats and other stuff. Unfortunately, the Cossack was hit by a torpedo a few months later, and the ship had to be abandoned.

Sam, a cat that everybody had thought had now survived two ship sinkings, but probably had only survived one, which is still one more than most cats ever do, was transferred aboard his second or third ship, depending on where the story is. This one was aboard the HMS Ark Royal, and Sam began being called the Unsinkable Sam,

which is a cool name to be sure, but very untrue, because Sam has had the shit sunk out of him. He just didn't die. I feel like they should just acknowledge that he's bad luck at this point. That's what I'm saying. Get him the fuck off this ship. He's a black cat.

There's all sorts of like fucking superstitions around that. What if he's like the origin story of the whole bad luck black cat superstition? He really is a witch's familiar. Just like teleporting around sinking ships. Now the Ark Royal, like the Cossack, had helped destroy the Bismarck. Like the Cossack and the Bismarck, things would not end well for the Ark Royal, like the Cossack, had helped destroy the Bismarck.

Like the Cossack and the Bismarck, things would not end well for the Ark Royal. It was hit by a torpedo and sank 30 miles outside of Gibraltar. All but one of the crew were saved, including Sam. Holy shit. Floating around in a piece of wood. This actually did happen. Aw. I kind of love Sam.

Like, at this point, Sam has to fucking hate boats. It's like, for the love of God, just put me on land. Yeah, for no shit. Poor thing. According to the book Ark Royal, The Life of an Aircraft Carrier at War, Sam was found unharmed, but very angry. I'd be fucking pissed off too, Sam.

I don't blame you. He's like, all right all right guys i'm not sure if you got the memo but we really don't like water us cats and you just keep putting me in the water now this would be the end of sam's naval career however because it is clear this cat was fucking cursed and people didn't want it on ships anymore. He lived out the rest of his days in a retirement home in Belfast, Northern Ireland, dying in 1955. Unfortunately, he missed out on the troubles, but yeah,

this, uh, this cat's fucking zombie or something. That's a good long life for a cat. Yeah. I mean, born sometime around the 1940s. Yeah.

Yeah. Aw, I love Sam. What a good cat. I would around the 1940s. Yeah. Yeah. Aw, I love Sam. What a good cat. I would argue the next cat's cooler. Now, this one was not World War II, but slightly thereafter. And it's another British Navy cat, Simon. Simon we do know more about, though. Because unlike Sam, his backstory isn't full of bullshit.

Was he a Siamese? I don't think so. I always wanted a Siamese? I don't think so. I always wanted a Siamese named Simon. Why? I don't know. It was a kid thing. Are Siamese the naked ones? No, those are sphinx cats.

Siamese are the ones- Those things look like a sentient ball sack. They're so cute. No, Siamese are the ones that they're on Lady and the Tramp. They come out of the basket and they're- Oh, yeah, they're the racist cats. What? It's cat yellow face.

They speak in a really offensive Chinese accent. Oh, okay. I'm just talking about what they look like. It's a legitimate cat breed. Right. But I remember them as the racist cats. They're so racist that Disney Plus put a warning on the movie. They're very pretty cats.

I'm not disagreeing with you there. I'm just saying those particular cats, they're racist. They're the cat version of Andy Rooney. I haven't seen the cartoon one since I was probably a kid. Wait, they made a real one? Yeah. No. Yeah.

It's like the fucking Lion King that they made look like so it was on the fucking Discovery Channel. I watched it like a couple months ago. So what did you think? Not bad, actually.

I enjoyed it. The hardest part is getting the dogs to kiss. It wasn't that hard when they're CGI. Okay, so it wasn't like homeward bound it was no it was cgi i'm pretty sure it was real dogs but i'm pretty sure that some of the parts where

they had to like do things like that were probably cgi the kiss was a false flag most likely. God damn it. I knew it. Now, we're talking about Simon. Simon was born sometime around 1947 in Hong Kong. He was a stray and did stray cat stuff, like, I don't know, destroy the native bird population or something. Fucking meow outside your window late at night. I don't know.

I just assume that whatever street that he lived on in Hong Kong is like that episode of Always Sunny with all the cats screaming. Loud and violent sex with other cats outside your window late at night. Yeah, forcing the neighbors to huff glue and eat cat food until they fall asleep. It is shocking for a military history podcast such as ourselves that is routinely cited in university classes that seems to always go back to The Simpsons and Always Sunny. I'm fine with Always Sunny, but can, like, save The Simpsons for next episodes? You know what? I'm, at this point, The Simpsons is a scholarly resource for my research. And it will be everywhere. Now, Simon was around one years old

when he was found wandering the docks of the city by a 17-year-old seaman, George Hickenbottom. Yep, that's his name. I didn't even have to do a joke for that one. Hickenbottom is the joke. Which is funny, because I actually worked with a guy who had the same... His last name was Hickenbottom. the joke. Which is funny because I actually worked with a guy who had the same, his last name was Higginbottom. Never let him forget it.

His last name kind of sounded like butt. We absolutely never would. Because I'm a grown adult. We're soldiers, Joe. Yeah. He was a crewman aboard the HMS Amethyst and Higginottam, smuggled him aboard in 1948. The Amethyst was back in Hong Kong to resupply

as a head of militia in Malaya, now known as Malaysia, because dumb British reasons. George, like any other 17-year-old away from home, decided that he wanted a pet, and that's why he brought him aboard, which I guess if you were Simon,

it means that he was kind of Shanghai'd into the British Navy, which was a aboard. Which, I guess if you were Simon, it means that he was kind of Shanghai'd into the British Navy. Which, you know, was a thing. Also, we're close to Shanghai. It works. I'm just saying it works. I'm really stretching.

I'm not a comedian. I'm really stretching this cannon and boats thing. Not doing well. Yeah. Not doing well. No. At this point, I have struck out and I have shamed my family.

Do you want me to hand you this blade over here so you can commit seppuku? It would be harikiri because I do not have the ceremony, unfortunately. Okay. Well, let me go ahead and hand you this blade. It is very dull. It's not supposed to feel good, Joe. You're right. This is not supposed to feel good, Joe. You're right. This is always going to end this way.

No, if we're going to go off, all right, Yokio Mishima episode, I have to take over a government building first. With all my fellow CrossFitters I'm also having sex with. I feel like this is something that should

happen. That's how I'm meant to go. I mean, if you're going to go out, go out like a fucking cross-fitting Harry Caray committing boss. I mean, I'm going to, it's going to, for me to go the Mishima route, it's going to require some serious lifestyle changes on my part.

Namely that I'm a straight white man. But we all have to sacrifice to the cause. Just make those changes, Joe. It's a fucking choice. It's not. It is not a choice. I mean, the white part, but... The white part is also not a choice.

No, I'm saying, like, just be more fluid in your sexuality and you can change the straight part. I'm not saying that it's a choice i'm saying i just dug myself into a fire here texas hours here i'm saying just be more fluid and more open jesus i'm gonna i'm gonna move right along i'm gonna do you a favor and i'm just gonna move right past that i appreciate that let me just drink this right here. Now, George hid the cat under his shirt, which is pretty fucking brave. As if you remember,

Simon is little more than a feral cat that he just found on the port. He's like, I'm just going to put this motherfucker under my shirt, which is exactly what I like to do whenever I find wild cats running around. All right, pro tip. Don't do this. It won't work. George is very lucky

and I think all the accounts are leaving out the part where Simon clawed the dog shit out of him. But because Simon is a cat, he cannot be kept cooped up in a tiny cabin for very long. And before long, he went on a little stroll along the ship running right into the captain ian griffiths uh thankfully for simon griffiths

turned out to be like the only cool officer ever uh because he's a cat person and um when he was a junior officer he had smuggled the cat aboard himself like hey you two up it also turned out that the amethyst had one hell of a rat problem so griffiths allowed simon to stay with george being given orders to make sure he didn't shit anywhere how was he supposed to enforce that i feel like his job was to just run around and throw the shit overboard simon don't shit this is a lawful or he's pooping i mean he's definitely shitting wherever he wants yeah it's george's job to just run around and shovel it overboard i mean you can totally litter train a cat but smuggling a cat on a ship does not speak a lot towards being prepared for litter training no i feel like this is a whole lot more like the Sinbad arrangement where

someone just had to pick up his poop and huck it overboard. Salmon was very good at his job, by all accounts, and he brought all of his kills right to the captain, dropping him at his feet and sometimes on his bunk. What a good cat. Now, I've heard, and this

is a common joke now, that cats do that because they think you suck at hunting. And because he's an officer, I'm going to assume that's correct. My cat Bella used to bring birds in, but she didn't always kill them. Sometimes she would just release them into my room and let them fly around. She's trying to teach you how to hunt. She's like, here, I'm bringing it to you. Now catch it.

It's hurt. I've weakened it. So I'd wake up in the morning to a bird flying around the ceiling fan in my room. That is the cat version of an assist. Simon also learned something that is very important to anybody early on in their military career. Making powerful friends. Largely by abandoning the young man who brought him aboard and befriending the captain.

He followed him everywhere and curled up instead of his captain's hat to sleep. Which is adorable. It's adorable. I mean, I don't know if I let a random wild feral cat live in my hat, but also I probably would. Because I let a wild Afghan dog

sleep under my bed. I would absolutely let any adorable animal sleep inside my hat. Yeah, like I could fully know it's full of disease and fleas. I'm like, aw.

Aw. I'm going to pay for this later. I will wash this hat, but you're so cute. Unfortunately, Grithus eventually left the ship, but he thought it wouldn't be right to take the cat with him because he thought Simon belonged to the ship.

So he moved him on to the next captain, Captain Skinner. I assume this is like a change of command, but instead of a flag, he just hands him the cat. Here. Skinner continued to let Simon have free range of the ship and do whatever the fuck he pleased. So, cool. Eventually, the ship and do whatever the fuck he pleased. So cool. Eventually, the ship was sent up the Yangtze River in China to relieve the HMS Consort, which is guarding the British embassy.

In the case of the Chinese communists attempted to capture the town and the embassy staff would have to be evacuated. This is during the Chinese Civil War. If anybody can pick up on that quite yet. The ship would not get more than 100 miles into its journey before coming under shell fire from communist artillery batteries now at the time nobody was really sure why this happened but in 1988

the People's Liberation Army commander in charge of the batteries said that it fired and it did so because he thought the ship was American this is despite the fact that the ship had a giant British flag flying from the end of it. Whoops. I don't know how to say whoops in Chinese, but that.

Yeah. Many members of the crew were badly, badly wounded and killed, two include the captain, Skinner, and 21 others. Simon was also pretty badly wounded. As the sailors fought to free their ship and escape the river, Simon appeared on deck. His whiskers and eyebrows were singed off, and he was covered

in dry blood. Simon, it turned out, had been hit by four different pieces of shrapnel and lost a lot of blood. The ship's medical officer cared for him, but told George that he probably wouldn't survive the night. Not only did Simon survive, but he returned to duty the next day.

Hunting rats had found their way on board because the ship had been grounded, which had allowed a lot of rats to come aboard. And since it was trapped and under siege, it was under constant fire. This meant that Simon, still recovering from his war ruins, began hunting rats

while the ship was still actively being shelled. Simon's a bad motherfucker. I was going to be so fucking mad at you if you told me a story about a cat that died. No, no. There was going to be a story about an animal killed in the line of duty for this episode, but it was edited out for length.

Also, no thank you. That will be number three of our animal our animal trilogy i mean i'm not gonna ruin it for anybody but it's an important story no eventually the ship freed itself and returned home in november of 1949 event unfortunately for simon his wounds never really healed because this is 1949 and he's a cat uh not exactly a lot of great medical care going on for him. He died three weeks after making it home. The Royal Navy was bombarded with letters. One Simon story

went the 1940s version of viral. I don't know what that is. I'm assuming a child standing at a street corner and yelling about him. Yeah. A newsy. X-Tree, X-Tree, read all about it. That's what they say, right? Yeah. Why, read all about it. That's what they say, right? Yeah.

Why are you looking like that? That's what they say. I don't know. I fucking hate you. Extra, extra, read all about it. Pussy takes a beating with a whole bunch of semen. extra extra read all about it pussy takes a beating with a whole bunch of semen you're welcome

that's why my face is that way I was debating whether or not to say that thank you so much now Simon was awarded posthumously the Dickin Medal did weumously the Dickin Medal now did we go

into the Dickin Medal during the last episode it is the highest award an animal can receive in the British military it is the animal version of the Victoria Cross and hundreds of people including the entire surviving crew of the Amethyst attended his funeral in East London

where his gravestone still sits and reads in memory of Simon, which is for some reason in quotes, served in the HMS Amethyst, May 1948, November 1949, awarded Dickin Medal, August 1949, died 28th November 1949

throughout the Yangtze Incident. His behavior was of the highest order. And it still sits there to this day. And I look forward to visiting it when I go to London. Poor Simon. Simon's a bad motherfucker. Simon is the cat version of Audie Murphy, minus the alcoholism and spousal abuse that we know of.

So maybe he's the cat version of the fake. I can't remember. I'm sorry. I even spoke of it. The fake award that they give away in Germany that's based on the ultimate soldier, but it's not even a real soldier. It's just what we think the ultimate soldier

is supposed to be. The Schutzenstier? No, it's a different board. It's like the Audie Murphy board, but it's a completely made-up soldier. I have no idea what you're talking about. I'll do some research and get back to you. It's a thing though.

Thank you for bringing that mouth vomit to my attention. Probably because we found out that Audie Murphy was actually a piece of shit. So we had to make up a fucking soldier so that we couldn't find out any bad secrets about him after. You know, it's really unfortunate that Audie Murphy is the perfect case study of why people shouldn't be glamorized. And like, he should be a great case study of like, yeah, people do shit like this. But if they live through it, they're fucked up for life and like maybe let's

help them yeah like instead of like having him star in a movie where he reenacts his trauma not a good idea like yeah it's 2020 now i'm not sure anybody's listening to this but it's 2020 while we're recording and people are still, Clint Eastwood just made a movie making three or four people relive their trauma in a really bad movie on a train. So maybe don't do that. Yeah, maybe don't do that. So speaking of Simon and his trauma,

we told the story of Cujo before on this podcast, right? Oh, yeah. Not just of him, but of when he was lost for a little while and came back and had to be nursed back to health because his balls got cut off. His balls got ripped open. Yeah. I think so. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead and tell it again. I know we told Cujo's story. I don't think we told the ball's story. He was with us for pretty much

I think half of our deployment in Afghanistan. Quite a bit of it. He disappeared for a few weeks and we thought that he was captured and killed. He'd bit a lot of random Afghans as we went on patrol.

He was going on patrol every single day with American soldiers so we just figured that he'd gotten captured captured i mean he knew a lot yeah he had a lot of secrets um the taliban have like a golden retriever interpreter i know what he's talking about kujo kujo's a fucking war hero um no but he did more in service to the american military than i ever did so he showed back up after a few weeks of being missing, just showed back up outside of our gate and was bleeding to death pretty much. And so his nutsack was torn open. His nutsack was torn open.

So we dragged him in. And by the way, his ears and tail had already been cut off previously. Like this was before we ever came into contact. Cause he was a fighting dog. He was a fighting dog. But, um, so we dragged him in and our medics hooked him up to IVs and shit and

watched him around the clock for probably a good week and nursed him back to health. And he got healthy again and eventually went on to live a long and happy life in America. One of those medics has been on the show. Yep, yep. And, yeah, very good friend of ours, Mike. Mike's been on the show?

Yeah, yeah. He helped me out when we talked about a Taiwanese guy who joined the SS. How did I not know this? I don't know. Mike, if you're listening out there, I miss you. I hope he's not. this. I don't know. Mike, if you're listening out there, I miss you. I hope he's not. Now, Rich, we do a little

thing on the show called Questions from the Legion. And we have an interesting one today. And it is a question I did not think was ever going to be framed to us. What would your fursona be? Are you familiar with what a fursona is?

Yes. For people who are not, first of all, this is a family show. It's not. Furries are not anything bad. No, just fandom. They can be family oriented.

There's no difference between a furry and what Nick did as a green actor. Yeah. Any furries we have out there listening, we support you. But from my understanding, I'm not a furry. I don't know if we have any furry fans. My understanding of the furry fandom is you have a separate persona, which is a fursona, a different name, type of animal, whatever it may be.

And you kind of cosplay as them. It's probably not right. It's probably not what a furry wants their hobby to be described as. And I apologize. But what would your fursona be? Can I be a dinosaur? I don't know. It's a fur Sona.

Dinosaurs don't have fur. Well, is there like a separate sect for scale? Scalies? Scale Sona? Scalies. I want a scale Sona. You're going to go to like Midwest Fur Fest. There's going to be 50,000 people dressed up as fur Sona.

This is going to be one asshole in an inflatable T-Rex costume. No, fuck that shit. I'm not going to. Hi, my name's Pete. I'm not going to fucking FurFest. I'm going to fucking ScaleFest with all of my scaly friends. Where are my scaly friends at out there? You're by yourself.

What? Oh. Welcome to the Pacific Northwest ScaleFest. It is rich in the backyard by herself. I'm down with that. I'm a fucking cool person. I'll hang out with myself. My mom told me the same thing growing up.

So that's our show this week. Wait, what's yours? The question wasn't directed towards me. I feel like you need to answer it. My fursona would definitely be a fox or a dog. Is there a fox-dog hybrid fursona? I feel like there could be because the sky's the limit. Her name is Laika.

Yeah, I would just have a giant Laika suit. My name would be like Chip McMaster. What? Chip is like the dog's name and then like a dumb action movie last name. I feel like that fits. Well, shit. Chip Powers. I didn't come up with a name.

It's because you suck at this. Scales Awesomeson. I reiterate the fact that you're not good at this. Never claimed to be. Hissy McClawfeet. Hissy. Hissy's a good one. I feel like Dennis was probably hissed.

Chomps. God damn it. That is the sound of people actively canceling their patreon no no wait but wait we need the patreon to build our scale suits no i need you guys to know that chomps is a reference to the land before time movie not but when they got annoying but like the when it was still early on in land Before Time was cool. And it had the tiny little T-Rex baby and his name was Chomper. Are you trying to say you're like a Land Before Time hipster? Yes.

The original trilogy. It's the Star Wars version of a dinosaur movie. Not the reboots. That shit's garbage. They made so many of them. I think they're still making them. Ugh. I would say bleed them dry, but they're dinosaurs.

Aw. At this point, it's some kind of oil joke. So that's our show this week. The rails can no longer be seen. We've flown so far off of them. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for supporting the show. You make all of this possible for some reason.

We're so sorry. I'm really sorry. We have to ritualistically whip ourselves like that weird guy from the Tom Hanks movie. And I will come out with a full apology video of some of the comments that I've made today. Oh, God. This is why I can't have a ghost from Texas. Whoops.

I offended an entire fandom with my weird scale shit. I love everybody of every shape, size, color, ethnicity, sexuality. I support you all. Unless you're a fucking Nazi. Fuck you. That's a brickin'. Now, yeah, if you support the show,

you get stickers, you get discounts on our merchandise, you get bonus episodes, you get access to the Discord. You get books. If you don't support the show, that's fine. Our show will always be free and ad-free. We'll never do that again. But like, share, and subscribe to our show, I guess. You already are because you're listening to us.

I always feel weird saying that part. You didn't make it this far if you didn't already like us. This might be their first episode. And last. If this is your first episode, again, I'm sorry. I was with you guys until you started talking about Scalise. I think Scalise is a good idea, so fuck off. I'm going to create my own fandom with hookers and cocaine.

You know what? Fuck the fandom. I stand by the Sc my own fandom with hookers and cocaine. You know what? Fuck the fandom. I stand by the scalies, guys. Stand by it. Anyways, thank you everybody for tuning in, and we'll talk to you next week.