Modern Wisdom - Forgotten War Heroes Who Changed The World - The Fat Electrician - #1165

Starting point is 00:00:00 How do you describe what you do? Someone asks you at a dinner party. I tell stories. I make videos on the internet is usually my go-toe. It's a weird job. 32-year-old man. Don't really enjoy calling myself an influencer or, I guess, a YouTuber is the one I'll say. I used to say content creator. Then all the OnlyFans girls took that title, so I don't want people assuming I do OnlyFans. It would be a very interesting kind of OnlyFans. Everybody getting blown up, limbs being lost, stories from history.

Starting point is 00:00:30 Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is historian contact create. I mean, I came across your stuff when I was first researching Sir Adrian Paul Gisselaigne Carton-Dawatt. Yeah. Obviously, you know, flag for British, although I think it was Belgian parents, maybe Belgian French parents. And I was like, this is, this stuff absolutely rules, just finding hardcore people from

Starting point is 00:00:57 history. Main characters. Yeah, main character. energy, historical main character energy, and then retelling their stories in a way. There's two things. It's the telling of the story in a compelling way with interesting elements and detail that feels immersive, but it's also the selection of who is the person. Because if it was just retelling stories that everybody's heard before, it wouldn't be

Starting point is 00:01:19 quite so interesting. It's like the deep cuts from history that's interesting. It's the B-side songs that you should have listened to that you don't know about that are awesome. Yeah, I mean, it's, you see it. The more time that goes on, the more selective the U.S. government, at least I don't know about British, but the more selective the U.S. government has gotten about who they promote as a war hero. Like we've gotten to the point after Vietnam where we almost never promote war heroes. Like I would speculate the average American can't name a single Medal of Honor recipient post Vietnam.

Starting point is 00:01:50 Almost impossible. Gave out plenty of them during the global war on terror. I bet the average American can't name a single one. It's because we quit celebrating it. We quit making them famous. now we're going to get into conspiracy theories. I would say the main reason is fractional reserve banking, if I had to guess. For war heroes, war heroes and fractional reserve banking?

Starting point is 00:02:09 Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's why we could donate. Okay, go on. World War II, how did America pay for the war? Costs a lot of money. How do we do it? I don't know. We collected taxes.

Starting point is 00:02:22 What happens when we didn't have enough taxes? In America, we sold these things called war bonds. it's basically a government bond that you would go to a war bond rally and they would have like a war hero speak or they'd have a presentation, get everybody amped up that America's number one. We're going to go beat the Nazis and get revenge for Pearl Harbor, rah, rah, rah. People get amped up and they go and they invest in war bonds, which is basically a promise from the U.S. government of like, hey, give us 50 bucks. And in five years, we're going to give you 60 bucks back. That's how we did it because that's how we had to do it. So in World War II, every time somebody got a Medal of Honor and you see this recurring.

Starting point is 00:02:59 in all my World War II videos, whenever somebody gets a Medal of Honor and accomplishes something incredible, almost nine times out of ten, they're immediately shipped back home to America and put on a war bonds tour. Right. They put them on a war bonds tour to go around the country to raise more money for the war, because that is the most effective thing that they could be doing for the overall war effort at that point in time. From war hero to fundraiser.

Starting point is 00:03:19 War hero to fundraiser. They parade them around. They show them off. They make them famous. They become celebrities so that they can raise more money to keep fighting this war. We got to buy more bullets. We've got to buy more tanks. We've got to buy everything.

Starting point is 00:03:30 And this guy is going to get us a million dollars to do it. That's what they do. Well, after World War II, we went away from the gold standard. We went away from all the other stuff. We have fractional reserve banking now. So the U.S. government doesn't need to raise money from people. They can just print more money whenever they feel like it. Is patriotism not a goal in itself?

Starting point is 00:03:48 Not utilizing war heroes. They're more effective, cheaper, easier ways to do it. No, I think the U.S. government specifically, this is kind of, one, they don't have to do it that way anymore. So it's just easier to not do it. It's just easier to print more money, right? But B, there's flight risk with making somebody famous. If the U.S. government takes a war hero, a 22-year-old, and says, this is the model American. This is Captain America.

Starting point is 00:04:14 This is who you should be looking up to. This guy's been through it. His opinion is something that you should listen to. That's a loose cannon that could turn on him at some point. Dakota Myers starts tweeting the N-word. Exactly. And that's also why it's so much harder to get the mess. Medal of Honor today. It's such a stricter criteria because they're no longer just looking at

Starting point is 00:04:33 what did you perform on the battlefield to earn this. Now it becomes a political flight risk of, well, is this guy going to make us look bad in the future? How optics safe are you? How narrative aligned are you? There's a humongous portion of that now, much bigger than there ever was. Can you bring up the U.S. list of Medal of Honors in chronological order? Can we see who's been issued it most recently? I bet this once happened this year and we don't even know about it. Probably. Yeah. But that is, I guess I just assume that having people like your own country is an end in itself.

Starting point is 00:05:12 It's this aggregate, like good weather of just, well, people like the country. But I understand that if you put a lot of keyman risk, as it's known, into a few particular points of failure. and those fail, especially very publicly on the internet, you're kind of screw. Well, I think it's also, you know, obviously America has, we're more pro-veteran community than I would say a lot of other countries, but it's still, it's gone down a lot in my lifetime and in recent years. And I think, I don't think it's an accident. I think they do that on purpose to kind of take away the opinion of or the political

Starting point is 00:05:47 power of the veteran community, right? Because when you think about the veteran community now, half the conversation is they're all victims. They all have PTSD. They're all this. They're all that. And I think that's on purpose because they don't want, you know, an organized group of veterans that get together at the VFW coming forward and calling out this politician or that politician and saying, hey. Highly skilled, highly dangerous, very well, reputed. Well, it's not even that. It's not even like the physical threat of violence. It's just the, if we ingrain in American culture that veterans have, that veterans are a good bellwether on what our opinions should be and what our values should be. then they have to stick to that. You know, and you kind of see this back in between World War I and World War II. Like the World War I veterans weren't getting their benefits. They marched on D.C.

Starting point is 00:06:33 They had a humongous veterans rally on D.C. They had to call in the active duty military to drive off the veterans that were demanding their benefits that they weren't getting given. The old guard versus a new god kind of. Exactly. But like they don't want veterans to be able to organize like that and influence politics in that way anymore either. Let's have a look at this list. You got it, Mark? No, so that was the pilot.

Starting point is 00:06:54 that... Chinook helicopter pilot his legs were torn by machine gun fire, but safely landed the helicopter allowing the mission to continue. This was the guy that did... Maduro. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:08 He's getting pinned that Medal of Honor while holding a walker, I believe. Yeah, you can see he's holding the walker. Because he's like, he's fresh out of the hospital, yeah. Torn to pieces. I mean, that's a quick turnaround. I don't know. What does it say when he got it?

Starting point is 00:07:22 It was like, it was real quick. It was like a month or two. It was... Is that, do you think that that's a little bit retrospectively trying to gloss over the, hey, we stole a world leader from another country. Like, it was still in the blast radius of... Man, I'm not going to comment on the political ramifications, but it's definitely one of the coolest things any military's ever done, ever. It's actually my favorite post on Reddit that I've ever seen.

Starting point is 00:07:45 Explaining the Maduro raid? There was a... There was this post that some guy made, like, a year prior that was like, I'm so sick of how Hollywood portrays special forces and Green Berets and Navy SEALs, like, they're... these Rambo characters that you could send in five of these guys to completely topple an entire nation. That's not how this works. If you send in five Navy SEALs to kidnap a president, they would all wind up murdered or have black bags over their heads and get executed on TV. And then this happened. And he comes back a year later in comments, guys, that was wrong.

Starting point is 00:08:15 I don't know what else to say. Dude, I had a DJ Shipley sat there and he was talking about the Maduro raid. And he was like, that is like the Olympic. final for any guy that got that call and he used this analogy. He was like, if you rang me or any of the guys that was serving with me and said, you can do this, but you need to cut off a finger. And he was like, we're going. Like anyone would have picked up the phone to have done that. And it's, I don't know, it's, it's strange now being friends with people like Andy Stumpf or with DJ or whatever. And realizing it is a little bit like a sport to them. They want to play. They want to

Starting point is 00:08:57 against the best team. Yeah. They want to have a unique opportunity or the World Cup final, whatever the equivalent is, that it's not just about the act of what's going on. It's also your capacity, how much challenge you're going to face. That's a very fascinating sort of third window that you don't really think about. I mean, I don't know, you spend your entire life building a really fast race car. You want to drive it, right?

Starting point is 00:09:22 Straight into Venezuela. You want to take it out of the garage and see what it can do. Straight into Venezuela. Yeah. What's a common thread between most of the people, most of the heroes that you cover? Common thread. I mean, obviously, they're all like incredible war heroes. I really like covering the guys that you've just, you've never heard of, you know, all these guys that have accomplished incredible things.

Starting point is 00:09:44 And I think that overall history, history sucks now in school. It's boring. So historians, generally speaking, in academia, they teach history. zoomed out, like they start completely zoomed out and then they slowly zoom in. But by the time you get zoomed in where all the interesting relatable stuff is, you've already lost everybody's attention. Right. So like a teacher in academia is going to talk about like, all right, well, we're going to talk about World War II. But before we could talk about World War II, we actually need to talk about World War I and how that led into the Treaty of Versailles and how the Treaty of Versailles is actually

Starting point is 00:10:20 the reason that was the catalyst that started World War II and then this and then that, that, Nobody cares. Like, pick a war hero and be like, hey, here's Richard Bong. He's a P-38 pilot in the Pacific. Why is he in the Pacific? Pearl Harbor happened. What was Pearl Harbor? It was this.

Starting point is 00:10:38 Richard Bong accomplished this at this time, at this battle. Here's how this battle influenced the overall course of the war. I think when you start zoomed in and then slowly zoom out, you cover less history, but people actually learn and actually retain it. Have you seen those, studies done on if you tell a story for a charitable contribution, tell a story of one person, one poor kid in a forgotten village somewhere that needs water and look at how influential that is at donations. Then you say, okay, well, two kids should be twice as effective because there's twice as

Starting point is 00:11:18 and then a whole village of people, that's, you know, like 50 times or 100 times as effective, but it's not that human brain sort of discounts the importance as you start to spread out. We're not good at doing quantitative maths, I guess. But also we resonate with the story and the emotional impact. And I think that piercing in and going, hey, care about this guy or this girl or this fucking horse. And from there, we're now going to spread out and you can actually begin, you're invested in this guy. Oh, why is he interesting? Well, he's actually embroiled this sort of this web of shit that's going on.

Starting point is 00:11:51 and this is now. So I think you're totally right. Yeah, you got to give them something to actually relate to. Like, give them a situation they could see themselves in. And then they're asking themselves a question, like, how would I react at that happened? Wow, he actually did that. I hope I'm the type of person that can do that. And then that's how you actually get people to, like, learn other things that aren't dates and locations of battles.

Starting point is 00:12:11 You can actually start teaching, like, this guy's a great dude. Here's the things that made him great. Here was the circumstances he was in. And here's the decisions that he made anyways. despite the fact it might not have been in his best interest. So you're not only learning history like we think of normally, but you're learning the history of like decision-making and how to be a good person, a good man, a good leader, a war hero.

Starting point is 00:12:32 And I think that's just as important, if not more important. I mean, what's the point of learning history? To not repeat mistakes, what a better way to learn it. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You train regularly, you eat reasonably well. You feel fine, but you're just kind of going off vibes. Most people have absolutely no idea what's going on inside their body, and that is why I partnered with function.

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Starting point is 00:13:43 Who is someone that you have brought attention to, that you still think your audience glosses over more. Have you got a personal favorite that you don't think enough people paid attention to? I'll be honest. My audience, like, once I do a video on somebody, I think they do become very, very popular. The ones that I take the most pride in probably are the guys that I manage to track down that don't even have Wikipedia pages yet. And then after I do a video, they get a Wikipedia page. So, like, there's been a couple of those. Those were really cool. What, like? Logan Weston is probably the coolest one that I think I've covered.

Starting point is 00:14:20 didn't have a Wikipedia page, which is incredible, because a dude fought in World War II and Korea and Vietnam and had every medal under the sun. I mean, you could pull up a picture. He's got his shadow box of medals. It's as tall as he is. Over 300 medals. Crazy military career. What's his name? Logan Weston, the fighting preacher.

Starting point is 00:14:40 Okay. What did he do? This is his nickname. That's his medals. He got shafted for the Medal of Honor, but he has everything else. Okay. Yeah, that's insane. So.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Yeah, you're right. From the floor to above his nipples is just different medals. Yep. Absolutely crazy. So Logan Weston was, grew up and, you know, poor kid, worked in coal mines, worked as a lumberjack, doing all these jobs. And then he goes through a series of events where he, it's during the Great Depression. And one of his friends that has like a wife and kids is, unable to find a job.

Starting point is 00:15:23 So he goes to the coal mine that he works and is like, hey, can we get my buddy a job? And he's like, no, we don't have any work. We barely have enough work for you. And he's like, okay, well, he's a good dude. Give him my job and I'll go not work because he's got a wife and kids to support. I don't. So he gets his buddy this job. A week later, the coal mine collapses, a bunch of people die.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Right. So he's, and then he goes, gets work as a lumber jack. His buddy survives as a coal mining collapse, gives his buddy's lumberjack job. Major logging accident, a bunch of people die. and he just feels like all this death is going on around him and he gets in this super low point and he ends up trying to take his own life and he sticks a gun to his head and pulls the trigger it doesn't go off and right as he like he's pulling the trigger on the gun and right before the hammer drops he said he heard somebody say wait and he goes to stop but the hammer drops anyways gun doesn't go off and he's like what just happened and then he walks outside and shoots that same gun that didn't go off right into a tree and it goes off. So he kind of interprets this as God giving him a second chance. And he decides he's going to give his life to God. And he decides he's going to go become a preacher, goes to college, whatever the college, the Christian college school to become a minister or whatever. And while he's there,

Starting point is 00:16:36 like his sophomore year, the draft kicks off. And he finds out he's got to go fight in World War II because you can't get a college exemption for a religious college because they don't count it at the time. So he gets drafted and, you know, this is 1940 or 39. So America's not even in the war yet. Pearl Harbor hasn't happened. But they're already starting the draft. And he shows up. He just gets on the bus.

Starting point is 00:17:01 He gets off the bus. And they're like, all right, if you want to be infantry, go over there. You want to be a medic go over there. You want to be artillery. Go over there. You want to be this. Go over there. There's no internet.

Starting point is 00:17:11 There's no TV. At this point, he has no idea what any of these words even mean. You just get to choose? He gets to choose. Take your own adventure. He doesn't even know what the words are. You know what I mean? Because like today we kind of have a general idea of like, oh, this is that, that's a, I've watched TV.

Starting point is 00:17:24 I've seen movies. None of that. So he's like, I don't know. So he just wanders over to infantry and goes off and becomes an infantryman. And he's at, I think he just finished up AIT to become an infantryman, gets stationed at his unit when Pearl Harbor gets attacked. And mass chaos everywhere. Nobody knows what's going on. He gets stationed and sent out with a group of guys to basically guard the Mississippi

Starting point is 00:17:47 River in case the Japanese launched some type of other attack through this major waterway. That was a fear that was. Oh, yeah. They were deploying troops all over the country because they had no idea what was going on or where they were going to attack next. Nobody knew anything. And you have hundreds of thousands of guys with guns ready to like, spread them out, I guess. Stop them somewhere if they show up.

Starting point is 00:18:07 Put some over that. Put some over here. Yeah. I mean, he was like literally camping out on the Mississippi River for like six weeks, I think he said. And then they called him back in. and he winds up getting deployed. He gets sent over to the Pacific,

Starting point is 00:18:20 and he's getting told, you know, you're going to be the tip of the spear. When we get off this boat, you're going to hop in the Higgins boat, like saving Private Ryan, like the movies. You're going to make an amphibious landing into enemy territory. You're going to take a machine gun fire.

Starting point is 00:18:32 By this point, he's leading a platoon. He's a platoon sergeant because he was in before Pearl Harbor even happened. So he's one of the most experienced guys, even though he's never been in war yet. And, yeah, the door drops. And he goes running off this Higgins. boat almost drowns. He storms the beach and it is like, enemy's not shooting at us. What's going on? And then they start walking up this beach and it's like, there's dead bodies everywhere.

Starting point is 00:18:56 There's our dead bodies. It looks like everything's just been destroyed and ransacked. And he's like, what is going on? Then they then they bump into the Marines. Well, it turns out he got sent to Guadalcanal, which is a major battle in the Pacific for the Marine Corps. And he was told they were going to be the first ones there. He showed up like five months after the Marine Corps had already been there. Like that battle already took place. was over by the time he got there. But he ran off this Higgins boat, like heart racing like he was about to get into the shit.

Starting point is 00:19:21 And it was like, it was done by the time he got there. So he, he's on Guadalcanal for a little bit longer. And then they send him to a different island called New Georgia. Very similar island warfare. This time, he actually is one of the first guys there. So at New Georgia, I mean, this is Pacific combat, jungle warfare, brutal. You're out there for days of the time in the jungle. You got trench foot, skin infections, tot.

Starting point is 00:19:44 Everything's working. against you. His company gets sent out on a mission and they get surrounded. And they get surrounded for, I want to say, 29 days straight, cut off with no supplies, literally starving, just holding the line against the Japanese when they try to rush them and the Japanese are just starving them out. And, you know, in his memoir that he wrote later in life, he talks about they ran out of food three days in. They only had the food they could bring with them. Nobody knew where they were at. They were called the Los Battalion that's been a name that gets. given to every group of guys that gets lost or whatever.

Starting point is 00:20:18 But so yeah, 29 days, they wind up surviving. He's like one of the last guys that's still ambulatory by the end of it. So that happens. And then he gets shipped back. They regain some weight. Get sent back out on another mission. Get surrounded again. And this time it's for like two weeks.

Starting point is 00:20:37 But it's a bunch of dudes that have already been through this. So they know the game. So this time, they're like, they've got some native guides with them. them this time. And they're like, he writes about how, yeah, they were surrounded, but they would just get in the firefight, repel the Japanese. And then they were actually having the native guides go around showing them what plants were edible. And they were having like cooking competitions to see who could make the best food out of the surrounding vegetation and whatever MREs they had. So like they had a much better time the second time they were surrounded.

Starting point is 00:21:06 Everyone, when you go back to a holiday destination for the second time, you've got a little bit more expertise. I think that's the, I've had that experience. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just like the, you know, I've been in this very shitty situation before. I got through it then. I'm going to get through it this time and now I've got the expertise. So he handles it way better. And it's actually funny.

Starting point is 00:21:23 So when they go to get out of this situation, they're running low on ammo. So the commander of his company basically is like, Weston, you're our most experienced guy. I trust you the most. Grab a guide, go out at night, poke around, see if you can find a gap in the enemy line and we're going to, you know,

Starting point is 00:21:39 try to get out of here. And he takes his guide with him. And, you know, it's daylight by the time they're out there. They wind up running into the Japanese. They take a bunch of machine gunfire. They dive into a ditch. They hide in a swamp.

Starting point is 00:21:51 They get away. After they get out of the swamp, they get all the mud off. And they check the guide first. The guide's fine. He didn't get shot. Logan Weston, it's in my video, but I can't remember the exact spots. But he took one round to his helmet that skirted around the helmet and fell out, didn't actually hit him.

Starting point is 00:22:10 He took another round, like in this part of his coat, went straight through. I think he took one through his pocket and then he took one in the heel of his boot but he was completely unscathed. The local is a guy that grew up on a Pacific island, right? He's never seen anything like this. So what he does is he interprets this as, wow, your God that you're always talking about

Starting point is 00:22:35 because remember he's the fighting preacher, very religious guy, he's always doing little church services and people for people. So the guide knows that he talks about this a lot. So he interprets it as, wow, your God must be really powerful to be able to protect you like that. And he's like, can I, can I be a Christian too? And Logan's like, yeah, man, you can be a Christian.

Starting point is 00:22:52 And he's like, so they like, out in the jungle, they say a little prayer together. And from this guy's perspective, he's now a Christian and he's protected by God. To the same level at Logan Weston. So he starts like singing and dancing loudly behind enemy lines because what's the worst it could happen? The enemy's going to miss me with bullets. So Logan spins rest of it. I'm like, dude, shut the fuck.

Starting point is 00:23:12 It doesn't work that way. quiet, like, wasn't buying it. So like, and it's just, that's the funny shit that happens in these stories where it's like, yeah, that's awesome. So they get back from that mission. His unit does wind up punching through and they get saved. After that, Logan gets back and he gets two letters from home. They're post dated like six months prior. He's been in the jungle the whole time, old letters from home.

Starting point is 00:23:38 He's got one from his fiance saying that she's leaving him. And he's got another letter from mom and dad saying they're getting divorced. sick and then they call the troops in and they're like hey uh can't tell you what it is but we got a super dangerous mission that's volunteer only who wants it and he's like don't have anything else to live for i guess so he volunteers they're like all right get on the boat they take him on a boat they take him to australia they take him here they take him there he winds up in india and he's like what the fuck is going on he hops on trains he sees the taj Mahal and they get out to india and they start training well this is actually a group that we would come to be known as Merrill's Marauders, which is the predecessor for the 75th Ranger Regiment. Merrill's Marauders was basically, I believe, 3,000 guys that were experienced in jungle warfare. And their mission was to, from India, march into China because China's having the war during World War II at the same time, right? So you've got the people that are friendly with the U.S. and the people that are trying to take over. and basically go in there and fight the Japanese

Starting point is 00:24:44 and because the Japanese are fighting through China trying to connect Germany and Japan together. Go in there and conduct guerrilla warfare operations and stop them from taking over China and linking up with the Germans. Prevent that from happening. And raises a question, it's all jungle terrain. They have to walk, it's like 800 miles.

Starting point is 00:25:04 They have to walk just to get to the area of operation. They have to bring in mules and pack everything. in. It's miserable. And the only way they get supplies for like the nine months they're there is by calling in air drops. Literally living in the jungle for nine months straight, conducting guerrilla warfare operations, the only food, water, ammunition you get is when you call in an air drop. And every time you call in an air drop, guess who sees that? Fucking everybody. So advertising your position each time you need to eat. Exactly. So Merrill's Marauders has, I forget the exact statistic, but it's like an outrageous, outrageously high casualty rate.

Starting point is 00:25:38 They started out with 3,000 dudes. I think there was only 300 that, 300 original members that finished all the way through. He made it to like the very, very end. And he ends up getting medevac'd back home because he gets wounded. But he participates in almost every major battle that Merrill's Marauders was in. So he gets sent back home to America. That's pretty much the end of World War II for him. He decides he's going to stay in the military.

Starting point is 00:26:01 He goes, finds a wife, gets married. And he goes back to college, finishes, becomes a minister. And he's still serving, I believe, in the reserves. And then the Korean War kicks off. And he's like, all right, well, I guess I'm going to go back into the military. And this time he's like, I have my college degree now. I can go in as a chaplain in the military. So he goes and they're like, you're too old.

Starting point is 00:26:25 He missed a cutoff by like, I think it's like 32 is the oldest you could be. And he's 33 at this point. So they're like, can't be a chaplain. All you can be is infantry. So he's like, fuck it. I guess I'll be infantry again. Fine. Sorry, the Korean War does not kick off yet.

Starting point is 00:26:39 It's like things are looking like it might. So he volunteers to go back in. He gets sent to, they give him the option, he can go to Germany or he can go to Japan for occupation duty. He volunteers to go to Japan because that's who he fought. He wants to, you know, just, that's the culture he's most familiar with. He goes to Japan. He's stationed in Japan.

Starting point is 00:26:54 While he's in Japan as an infantryman on occupation duty, the Korean War kicks off. And they're like, hey, pack your shit. We've got to go to Korea real quick, in and out, no big deal. They literally tell him it's going to be like a one week thing. Don't even bring all your stuff. He shows up to South Korea when, I don't know how much you know about the Korean War. Basically, the North Koreans push the South Koreans all the way down to the very, very, very bottom of the peninsula. And they're holding off this little tiny perimeter at the very

Starting point is 00:27:22 bottom called the Pusan perimeter. That's when Logan Weston shows up at the Pusan perimeter. Like, they're about to wipe South Korea off the map. And he shows up and he gets put on duty watching the Pusan perimeter. And they're like, this is a friendly area. It's no big deal. You shouldn't see anybody coming. And they're hanging out there. They're basically camping for a couple days.

Starting point is 00:27:43 Him, he's got like a platoon that he just met, just got put in charge of. And he's like watching the, you know, watching the horizon looking for guys. And here comes 90 dudes walking up. And he radios it in. Radio's dead. It's like a friendly area. Nobody's into it. So like it's nighttime.

Starting point is 00:28:01 Everybody already went to bed. Nobody's responding to the radio. So he sends a radio. runner. Go back to HQ. Tell him I got like 90 guys walking up on us. Runner takes off, comes back. They said they must be friendlies. They're probably South Koreans. He's like, they're not South Koreans. I can tell by their uniform and they're carrying World War II era Japanese rifles. I know because I fought those guys. And that's what the North Koreans carry. Go tell them I've got a bunch of enemies coming. Sends the runner running.

Starting point is 00:28:24 Comes back. They said it's friendlies. You're overreacting. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this happens like two more times and then they just start taking fire. So then he ends up leading his guys and stopping this major attack at the Pousan perimeter, I think, I want to say he's credited, not him specifically, but the men under his command were credited with killing like two to 300 guys, and there's like 30 of them holding this hill by themselves. Logan gets shot, he gets all jacked up. Yeah, I mean, it's an event. And he basically, you can make an argument that, like, if he would have not been able to hold when he held, they would have overran the HQ and, like, penetrated the Poussine perimeter. And South

Starting point is 00:29:02 Korea might not exist. So like he literally changed history with this action and this is where he was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but the commanding officer in charge that was telling him, oh no, it's probably friendly South Koreans, don't worry about it. He intentionally made sure it got knocked down to a Distinguished Service Cross because a Medal of Honor investigation is much bigger and it would have made him look like a dumbass. So he basically got shafted for the Medal of Honor. So Logan Weston gets all jacked up. He's in the hospital for like weeks and weeks and weeks and I forget the exact day count, but it's like if you're hospitalized for, I want to say, 90 days, you just get sent back home to America. So in the hospital, day 89, they're like, you're good, go back to the front lines.

Starting point is 00:29:46 And by this point, America's shown up at Enchan. The Marines made their amphibious landing there. We've driven the North Koreans all the way back up into North Korea. And they're like at the Yalu River, which is basically the border with China. So we're all the way up into North Korea at this point. So he's at the Yalu River when the Chinese enter the war and launch their massive attack that drives allied forces back down the peninsula. He's there. And he fights all the way back down with him.

Starting point is 00:30:15 And at one point, they run into enemy tanks. And he calls, like, I need an anti-tank crew out here. Anti-tank crew comes rolling up with bazookas. He's a good leader. He's leading from the front. He's like, three bazooka guys, follow me. and he comes running out and they sneak up on these tanks

Starting point is 00:30:34 and the tanks see them first and they fire on their position kills the entire anti-tank crew three guys Logan Weston's the only one that survives and there's three tanks in a line he fires at the first tank with the bazook or fires at the middle tank with the bazooka knocks it out

Starting point is 00:30:51 and then that two other tanks realizing that this guy is somewhere out there for whatever reason they open the hatch so he does the only thing he can do to like try to hide from these tanks, he's already on top of this first tank over here. Like, can't shoot me if I'm on top of you.

Starting point is 00:31:07 Well, they open the hatch, throws a grenade in that one, takes that tank out. And then the other tank, his tank he's on, burning tank, other tank,

Starting point is 00:31:16 when they go to get out of the hatchy fires. So he takes out three tanks by himself and you can still pull up the newspaper articles. It's like fighting preacher dispatches, three communist tanks, blah, blah, blah, blah, I pull them all up in my YouTube videos.

Starting point is 00:31:28 So he does that. I believe he gets a distinguished service cross or the Silver Star for that action. And then when they're basically doing a tactical retreat back down south, they get pushed down past Seoul and then they fight their way back up to the 30 second parallel where the border is today. But when they're back down by Seoul, he's been promoted to like a battalion leadership. So he's overseeing entire companies of guys.

Starting point is 00:31:54 And one of the officers under his command is Captain Lewis Millett of, you Easy Company. And Easy Company is famous for during this period of time leading the last bayonet charge in U.S. military history. So Louis Millett, and you could pull a picture of him up. He's got a big mustache with bayonets. He looks like he's a total character. I've done a video on him too.

Starting point is 00:32:15 He's a badass. So he had heard that the communists who were famously running low on ammunition because they can't manufacture anything were kind of sciopping their guys into being like, well, you know, the Americans are just scared to bayonet fight. you boys. It's like, no, you're just not giving us bullets, but whatever. I've got a man with a mustache that says otherwise. He found out that that's what they were saying. So he leads the last bayonet charge in U.S. military history takes a hill. And that was under the command of Logan Weston at the time, who was there when it happened also. So it's like, look at that guy. I do not, holding two bayonets.

Starting point is 00:32:51 I do not want to be stabbed in the neck by a man with a mustache like that. Look at that womb, broom. Dude. And what is that a medal of honor around his neck as well? Yeah. That's the medal of honor. He got the Medal of Honor for that action. For the bayonet charge? For leading the last bayonet charge in U.S. military history, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, last company-sized bayonet charge.

Starting point is 00:33:10 Okay. Yeah, probably some bloke had a crack. Yeah, there's probably a couple of guy, like three dudes ran in with bayonets. But like, this was the last time that a company commander with 30 to 50 dudes was like, fixed bayonets were going in. And they did it. Sick. So, yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:23 So, yeah, Logan Weston is actually, I think he's book number nine in my new book series I got coming out. So should be pretty good. Unreal. Okay. So then he gets through the Korean incursion. Yeah. So he gets through the Korean War. And by this time, he is, you know, he's, he's, he's been there, done that. He's done all of it. He's, uh, in his mid-40s by the end of the Korean War. And after the Korean War, they come to him and they're like, hey, uh, we got this new thing. We're trying to start up. It's called the Green Berets, special forces. You're 46. Um, you want to try out and become a Green Beret. He's like, sure. So he goes and becomes a Green Beret at the age of 46 years old. gets jump qualified, he's jumping out of planes at 46. Becomes a Green Beret. From here, he gets sent to the Pentagon where he helps write,

Starting point is 00:34:09 literally write the book on jungle warfare and counterinsurgency tactics from his experience with Merrill's Marauders. He then goes on to be an advisor on behalf of the U.S. government in Laos during the Vietnam War. If you don't know, Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War is where MacVe-Sogg was operating. Basically, Vietnam is a long country up and down, and you have Laosan Cambodia right here. So what was happening was Vietnam is split. So what was happening is like bad guys up top, communists, rather than trying to fight through the American lines to deliver supplies to their guerrilla fighters, they would just cut over into Laosan Cambodia, run down, run over, drop the supply. off run back. So we were sending in Mac V. Sog special operators to go in and basically conduct a

Starting point is 00:35:03 shadow war that didn't happen for another 40 years the entire time. And he was a advisor in Laos while that was going on. So this guy is just incredibly, I can't work out if I think that he's the luckiest or the unluckiest man. He's really the barbell of luck. He's the main character for sure. He's got, yeah, on both sides. Holy shit. His last day in Korea, day before his last day in Korea gets hit by an enemy sniper right in the chest bullet gets stopped by the Bible in his breast pocket

Starting point is 00:35:38 no fucking way goes does the Vietnam thing comes back home retires becomes the I forget the official job title but basically the chaplain for Texas A&M for 10 years a quick aside if you'd wanted an 8th sleep but could never quite justify the price things just got very interesting

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Starting point is 00:36:28 And if you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back. Plus, they ship internationally, so don't be scared by the currency amount. Right now, you can get up to $350 off the pod six by going to the link in the description below. Are heading to 8Sleep.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout. That's E-I-G-H-T sleep.com slash modern wisdom, a checkout. So I've had this sort of idea ever since watching a lot of your stuff and getting more interested in these kinds of stories. Cartondiwat was the first one that got me into it. Alistair Urquhart, the forgotten Highlander.

Starting point is 00:37:03 Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that was one of the first stories that got me into this. And then I guess a similar one like John Boyd, fighter pilot guy. Like, okay, I'm kind of excited. I'm kind of interested in this. But there is this sense in the back of our mind that, well, war's not stopped. Wars kept ongoing. Why is it that all of the heroic stories that I'm hearing about seem to they's like an expiration date on the new models of these coming out. Why is it that we've not got new war heroes in the same way? And you've got your my theory, your theory behind that. Yeah, I don't know way more about it than me. But there is this sense, I think, that like, first off, wars now, when I think about war, I'm not thinking about guys with tactics.

Starting point is 00:37:46 I'm thinking about drones and missiles hitting schools and shit. I don't even know if we have room for war heroes in the same way anymore. We do. Okay. Every, again, me being a conspiracy theorist. I think they portray it that way on purpose. I really think that very powerful organizations, governments, entities, people, whatever, they don't want you to realize how powerful one man or a small group of men that are determined to accomplish something,

Starting point is 00:38:17 how powerful that is and what they can actually accomplish, right? And the analogy that I'll give you is you always hear one of the big criticisms of like the Second Amendment is like, I understand the Second Amendment was created to stop a tyrannical government. But the tyrannical government has Abrams tanks. What are you going to do with your AR-15? It's like all that tells me is you have no concept of how war actually works. Right. Like, yeah, the government does have a lot of rare, very big, very powerful, very fancy toys. They're very, very fragile, especially in a.

Starting point is 00:38:50 America, for example, like the amount of logistics that has to go into keeping an Abrams tank on the battlefield is insane. The amount of mechanics, equipment, specialized stuff, all of that. And it's like America has somewhere in the vicinity of 8,000 Abrams tanks. Let's go to magical fairy tale land. Okay, let's say they run on fucking magic. They don't run on diesel. They're autonomous. They're ran by robots. They're solar powered. They self-charged. They don't need any logistical capability whatsoever. 8,000 of them to cover all of the United States, if there was some war scenario where the people tried to rise up against the government.

Starting point is 00:39:30 That's one Abrams tanks for like every 1,200 square miles, ish. What's one tank going to do it covering 1,200 square miles? So it's just kind of the concept of like, war is always going to come down to one guy with a gun. And you're going to have all the big fancy toys. You're going to have drones. You're going to, and all of that is going to be on the very front end of the war. And then the supply chains are going to get broken.

Starting point is 00:39:56 And shit's going to quit working. Somebody at the factory, the factory that makes the drones is going to get blown up. Somebody's going to figure out how to interrupt the Bluetooth signal. That's why all the drones over in Ukraine now are guide by wire. Somebody, it's all going to, it's always going to come down to dudes on the ground getting shit done. Do you think there's, does society suffer if there's no outlet for heroism? I don't know that it needs an outlet for heroism, but I think society suffers when you quit glorifying heroism.

Starting point is 00:40:32 Like, I think that needs to continue. And I think that's a big reason, like, why... I think that's one of the big downsides of not promoting war heroes anymore. For example. You don't give people someone to strive for, someone to... You're not giving people good role models. You're not saying, like, hey, this is the guy you should be looking up to.

Starting point is 00:40:54 This guy knew that he was going to die, ran into the Bernie building anyways to save these people. Like you quit glorifying that guy. People quit doing those things. You quit. And on top of that, some of these stories like Logan Weston, like, it seems impossible. But it's possible. And like, if you know that that's possible, maybe you'll be inclined to do it too. And then you can accomplish something great.

Starting point is 00:41:17 But people don't want to, people don't want to share the stories. How many of the stories that you cover end with Alistair Urquhart living and his family's country estate until 80? An outrageous amount. Like lots and lots of the heroes actually make it home and just become a chaplain, UT, or whatever the fuck. A significant portion. And like that's the coolest part to me is you take somebody like Logan Weston that was able to do what he did. And like, that dude objectively killed a lot of people. Across three wars.

Starting point is 00:41:49 across three wars, a 38 year long career. And he went back home and became a preacher. Outstanding member in his community. Probably would have had no idea that he was anywhere near that badass ever. And he just went back to being normal. Like, that's the most incredible part to me is, you know, what's the, what's the, quote, the best deterrent for bad guys is good men skilled in violence? Like, that's those guys.

Starting point is 00:42:14 And they're just wandering around. And like, you've talked about having DJ Shipley on and like all these other special operators like I've never met him or Andy Stump but I've met plenty of people like them and they're usually the most like chill unsuit I mean they don't look like they're a pansy ass or anything but you're not sitting there being like yeah that's that level of badass they're unassuming they're just normal dudes for the most part yeah there is a Andy Andy in particular is an unnerving human because I feel like if he was killing me he would kill me with a smile on his face and enjoy a coffee afterward. That that is a, I don't know, do you think that these, are these people built

Starting point is 00:42:54 different? What is it that sort of distinguishes the kinds of people that you cover from what normal people assume, would a normal person, if put into that situation, just behave the same? What have you come to think about the difference between heroes and people that don't, that aren't? I don't know. It's interesting. Obviously, like, PTSD is a relatively new discovery. or like understanding. Shell shock in World War I. Yeah, but like the thing that catches me up that I find really interesting about that is I think it changes a lot based on, you know, just media has changed everything. So what I'm trying to say is, for example, when you look at the archetype of like Vietnam, Korea, World War II, specifically World War II, all those guys came back home and the story is the same.

Starting point is 00:43:44 I hear it from, I get emails and everything. My grandpa was in World War II. He never talked about it. He never talked about it. He never told me anything. The amount of times I get an email where it's like this, I found this in my grandpa's attic after he passed away and it's like a shadow box with all those metals. I have no idea what I'm looking at.

Starting point is 00:44:00 Can you tell me what I'm looking at? And like, grandpa's got like five bronze stars with V device. And it's like, oh, grandpa's a fucking badass. V device. V device. So you have a bronze star. And then if you have a bronze star with V device, V device means you did something with valor. So, like, you can have a bronze star for, like, being really good at organizing

Starting point is 00:44:19 shit and doing paperwork for the company. But if you've got a bronze star with V-device, you did some badass shit on the battlefield, right? So it's like grandpa's got five of those and, uh, you know, expert infantry and like all this other stuff. Like, grandpa was a badass. I don't know what he did, but he did some shit. And I think the part with technology where it's like, these guys never talked about it because they couldn't talk about it. So think about the average World War II veteran. Grew up in the 1920s, 1930s, no TV. Everybody thinks like 1920s and they picture New York in their head. Like Model T's running around the stock market, mobsters, Tommy guns, all this cool shit. That was New York. That was one small

Starting point is 00:45:01 sliver. The rest of the country was 30 years in the past living in log cabins still. People didn't have power. They didn't have indoor plumbing for the most part. They were poor. And that's all the dudes that fought World War II. So imagine you're some kid from Nebraska that grew up in a log cabin with no power, no running water in your house, and there's one rich guy in town that's got a Model T. You've never seen an airplane. And you get drafted and you get sent and you wind up at fucking D-day, flying in a fucking plane bigger than the house you grew up in, jumping into combat with a magical gun that can shoot a hundred rounds a minute or whatever. And all this technological, you know, advancement and radios and radars and all this shit.

Starting point is 00:45:44 And then you have to go back home five years later and your dad asked you, what was it like? How do you explain to a guy who doesn't have TV who can't fathom? It's sci-fi to them. I'd have kept quiet too. Imagine trying to explain that to some dude who's seen a Model T one time being like, there's a tank. Imagine a Model T but a thousand times heavier with a gun, with a gut, like.

Starting point is 00:46:08 It's like Space War. Yeah. It's like some Star Wars shit. It's like trying to explain a color to a blind person. Like, what does it look like? Dude, I don't know how to explain this. You just had to be there. So, you know, no wonder they never talked about it.

Starting point is 00:46:21 And that's why they hit out at the VFW with the people that could understand. Do you think that that is a form of PTSD? What do you think is going on there? I don't think that that in that of itself is a form of PTSD. But I think that that's like the reason they didn't want to talk about it with people. and then obviously not talking about it, just leads to you bottling it up, feeling isolated,

Starting point is 00:46:44 which obviously makes any mental illness from my understanding infinitely worse. Yeah, I think a lot of the guys, like Zamperini, he had a ton of odd ways of reaclimatizing when he came back, alcohol problems, stuff like that. Alistair Urquhart, for the rest of his life, was unable to eat much more than a cup of white rice. Every so often his entire digestion was ruined.

Starting point is 00:47:07 He had like cars would back. fire and he'd jump and have these sort of strange responses. But I don't know. Well, that's the other thing. And what I mean with technology affecting it so differently is World War II, these guys got done with the war. And it was like, okay, war's over. Pack everything up. What's that take a couple months? All right. You're still with your boys that have been through the shit with you for a couple months and you get to like decompress of like, okay, I'm with these guys that I was in the shit with, but we're all going to make it home. Nobody's going to die.

Starting point is 00:47:39 We're not going to get blown up. We're not going to get shot. And then we load it all up on the boats. And then it takes another couple weeks to get across the ocean on the boat still with my boys. Then we got to get back to camp. We got to unload everything. Then we got to go through all this paperwork bullshit. I'm spending three to six months with my homies still acclimating to the fact that me and you aren't going to die together.

Starting point is 00:48:00 And I get that acclimation phase. De-pressureizing almost, you know. Yeah, decompressing. And then I got released back into the public. Whereas now, if you fought in the global war, war on terror, it's like, hey, you're going to Afghanistan, pack your shit, you're on a plane, you're in Afghanistan 48 hours later. And then to make things even more complicated, back in World War II, what were you

Starting point is 00:48:19 getting from back home? You were getting letters and care packages. Now you're getting, I don't know, how much harder would it be to fight a war and go out on patrol knowing I could get blown up tomorrow and I'm having a video face time call with my wife and kids the night before? Oh, you're saying that the high definition or the high, uh, a resolution contrast between my civilian life, my love, my connection, and where I am. It's less immersive and faster.

Starting point is 00:48:49 So the contrast is greater both across time and during the experience. Exactly. And like how much harder is it to do anything if you're trying to multitask at the same time? Like, I don't know. It's emotional multitasking. Could you imagine trying to get a good hard workout in while also FaceTiming your child and wife in between sets. I mean, that'd be pretty hard.

Starting point is 00:49:13 Now we imagine fighting a fucking war doing it. Like, and I mean, also, not to discount it, but like, just the ability for your wife to call you and ask you stupid questions about like, do you know where you left the this thing after? I'm like, sweetheart, I'm trying to fight a war right now. I'm busy. You know what I mean? It's just technology has changed how war is fought so much. It's insane. You don't ever think about this.

Starting point is 00:49:37 I've been thinking about this to do with bands. that you hear about this drummer has left a particular band or that one member of, maybe even a founding member of a group has gone. Oh my God, but they were such a savant. You know, they clinically, they were unbelievable at what they needed to do on stage. But what you don't see is what happens behind the scenes. You don't see what it's like to try and live on a bus with this person for four or six months of the year.

Starting point is 00:50:02 And I'm friends with enough people in bands who've been through this to go, yeah, man, unbelievable. skill and a fucking nightmare to live with. Like just a straight up nightmare. And we just a vibe kill, bad aura. It was unworkable. And you can put up with it for long enough, but then he gets to this stage. And it's kind of the same with this, that you think about, well, what's this person's precision with shooting like? What's their ability to follow orders like? What's their planning? What's their contingency? How brave are they? Can they listen to do to do? Yeah, okay. But also, how capable are they when they put their gun down, when they're out of their

Starting point is 00:50:37 ready position and they're back for 12 hours and they've got the opportunity to pick up some text messages or to find out some stuff that's going on at home or to do the basically like Batman Bruce Wayne swing from I'm kind of normal for a bit so I'm not I'm not fully immersed in where I am and then I need to be able to turn that off I mean maybe there's a case I have to assume that like the seals when they're on super duper secret deployment it's like hey don't you're not give me your phone you're not face it. timing home or whatever, but that might be a good strategy for more guys to make them more immersed. Well, you know, I mean, you look at like, you know, special forces and stuff like Navy SEALs.

Starting point is 00:51:17 There's there's also the additional level of understanding both with them and I would assume at their family level with their spouses or whatever is like, hey, this is what dad does. Whereas like World War II and stuff like that, these guys were drafted. These are 18 year old kids. You know what I mean? This isn't some 30 year old. That's a farm boy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:51:35 This isn't some 30 year old man that's like. been actively working towards this his whole life that wants to be doing this necessarily. And I think that also plays a big factor too of like, yeah, could the Navy SEAL handle it? Probably a lot better than Joe Schmo, that's your average infantry guy that got drafted into being here or just showed up. You know what I mean? If you're going to spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. And honestly, who wants to be in the background of a TikTok is highlight real dressed like a chump? Jim Shark makes some of the best men's and women's training gear on the planet.

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Starting point is 00:53:09 and then I think he got demoted for punching his sergeant in the throat. Is that rebellious, mutinous solo guy thing? Is that more common, less common? I think in everything in life, anybody that's highly successful that you look up to has a delusional self-confidence that they are right in their belief. And I think you see that everywhere. It's not just the military.

Starting point is 00:53:33 everybody that accomplishes anything is going up against whatever's in their way, whether that be the government, the market, whatever, whatever, whatever, they have to have this self-confidence. Like, they're telling me this is wrong. I know it's right. Fuck you. I'm going to do it anyways. I mean, one of my favorite quotes was Henry Ford. And he said, if I had gave the people what they wanted, I would have been breeding faster horses. Like, no, fuck you.

Starting point is 00:53:57 I'm making a car. You don't know it yet, but this is what we need. And you see that over and over and over again with these war here. is like, no, this isn't the way we need to be doing this. This is what needs to happen. And I think that's what it is. High conviction. Who comes to mind when you think about a sort of rebellious singular.

Starting point is 00:54:17 Pappy Gunn. Who's that? Papy Gunn, Paul Irvin Gunn. He was a fighter pilot between World War I and World War II. He was part of the top hatters, some of the guys that pioneered, like, carrier landings and stuff with planes. And by the time World War II rolled around, he had already been long since retired. But the dude was a flight fanatic. Incredible pilot.

Starting point is 00:54:42 When he was still in the Navy, being basically a stunt pilot and a fighter pilot, pioneering, modern fighter piloting, he kept having cavities. And he kept having cavities and he kept going to the dentist to get root canals and shit. And he finally got fed up because it was taken up too much of his time. So he goes to the dentist. It's just like, just fucking pull all my teeth out. And the name. All of them. All of them.

Starting point is 00:55:02 give me dentures. I'm sick of this shit. And he goes to the Navy dentist. They're like, no, we're not doing that. So he goes to the civilian dentist and pays them and gets it done, gets dentures. After he retires, he's in his 40s. He moves to the Philippines because he was stationed there, fell in love with it, knows that his money goes a lot further there. He moves out to the Philippines and he buys a plane and just starts being a pilot in the Philippines.

Starting point is 00:55:25 And like, that's life. He's got a wife, two kids. And he's living out in the Philippines, having a great time. And World War II is going on. Pearl Harbor gets attacked. He's been in the Navy for 20 years. He's like, the only reason they would attack Pearl Harbor first is because they want to attack everywhere else with impunity. So he knows that they're coming to the Philippines.

Starting point is 00:55:43 So he's trying to get his wife and kids off the island. He can't. The American forces in the Philippines are trying to scramble around. They're basically commandeering all the planes, military or not. Like, U.S. government's confiscating this. You're working for us now. We need you to fly these high-ranking generals here. We need you to fly these people there, do this, do that.

Starting point is 00:56:00 and he winds up basically getting assured that, you know, the Japanese aren't coming. Malta's defended where his family is. And he gets ordered to take his personal plane and fly, I think it's MacArthur's like right-hand man, to Australia. While he's on this flight to Australia, MacArthur declares Malta an open city, which basically just means to the Japanese, hey, Malta's a historic city. There's a lot of civilians. We're not going to fight you for it. don't carpet bomb this fucking place. You can just have it.

Starting point is 00:56:32 So they basically turned it over to the Japanese. His wife and kids get captured. He flies off the fucking handle and basically gets recommissioned in the military because he was an officer beforehand. Gets recommissioned and just starts commandeering planes trying to fly back to the Philippines to rescue his family.

Starting point is 00:56:53 Has multiple rescue attempts, fails on all of them, keeps getting it back to Australia. And then eventually he links up, with some fighter squad unit that's like trying to actually win the war. And he's at the airstrip one day and there's a like, I think it's nine or 12 B25 Mitchells. Is that what it is? Hold on.

Starting point is 00:57:13 Sorry. B25 Mitchels. Yeah. So. Oh, look at that. So they belong to the Dutch. And he's like, why the fuck does the Dutch have brand new bombers when America is struggling to get our own planes here? why do they have American planes? It's just bureaucratic government bullshit.

Starting point is 00:57:35 He asks the Dutch, like, what are you guys doing with him? Oh, we don't really know what we're doing with him yet. So he's like, fuck this. He goes back to his unit, grabs a bunch of pilots. They roll up, forge documents and fucking steal them. Steels a fleet of medium bombers and flies them back to his, from the Dutch, and flies them back to our airfield. They get back to the airfield and they're like, bad news.

Starting point is 00:57:55 There's no bomb sites. The Dutch must have taken the bomb sites out and put them in the supply sergeant's Armory. And Pappy's like, got it. Pappy flies back and then robs the supply sergeant with a fucking gun and takes the bomb sites and leaves. Yeah. So he gets all these bomb sites. He continues flying missions. And then eventually he comes to the realization that at the time when they were trying to launch this air battle against the Japanese Navy, medium bomber, you're flying, you know, tens of thousands of feet up in the air. And they're basically just flying really high, dropping bombs from really high hoping they hit this small moving target.

Starting point is 00:58:33 He's like, that shit's not effective. We got to fly right over the top of them and just drop it right on their fucking forehead. That's the only way we're going to sink these fuckers. He's like, but we need cover. So he gets a bunch of light bombers. I believe they're A20 havics. He gets a bunch of A20 havocs and he's like, he's also like a genius mechanic and

Starting point is 00:58:52 engineer. So he rips up these A20 havics and he mounts six 50 caliber machine guns in the nose, which, it's not like you can just, oh, I'm just going to throw some guns in the nose of a plane. There's aerodynamics. There's weight distributions. There's all kinds of shit going on with this. Vibration from the guns.

Starting point is 00:59:08 Everything. The amount of weight you actually lose just from the ammunition getting expended is a huge factor. The plane is losing. The balance is all over the place. The plane is losing hundreds of pounds of weight just by you opening up with the guns. Like it's a nightmare. Figures it out. Gets a fleet of these things.

Starting point is 00:59:27 Gets a fleet of the bombers and develops a new tactic where basically, all right, we're going to send the A20s in. They're going to strafe the deck of the gun to drive everybody off the anti-aircraft guns. And that's going to clear it so the Mitchells can fly low and drop the bombs right on top of them. Okay, he does that. Well, then he comes to the realization, why don't I just fucking put guns in the Mitchells, too? Then they can strafe for themselves while they fly in. Fuck yeah.

Starting point is 00:59:53 Just some dude, MacGyvering this shit. And bear in mind, this is like, if I could pick one, like, there's a lot of movies that I want made. but this is just like the ultimate Hollywood movie because this is a dad that's just MacGyvering new planes and going out on experimental missions to sell a tape and cable ties. To save his wife and kids

Starting point is 01:00:11 because they're in an internment camp for the Japanese. Like, name a better... Does he know that they're alive? He finds out that they're alive. Right. There's a period of time that he doesn't, but he does find out that they are alive and he is the most motivated man on the planet to get back.

Starting point is 01:00:23 He's working like 70 hours a week, like insane. They said he was just sleeping in planes on the flight line working on these things and he's still going out on all the missions with him and everything else. So he ends up putting 850 caliber machine guns in the nose of the B-25. That must have been what that was. Four of the front and then two and two?

Starting point is 01:00:39 No, no. I think that, yeah, so that was a different one. I'm going to get there. Okay. That one's different. Save that picture. Okay. So he mounts 850 calibers in the Mitchell's nose cone.

Starting point is 01:00:51 And, you know, they go out on missions. They work exactly how he wanted. And this, you know, he goes out on all these missions, but it ultimately, oh, I forgot about his. Pinky. During this period of time where he's going out on these missions, developing these planes, building these planes for the U.S. Navy, he breaks his pinky. Okay. And he keeps re-breaking it. And it's just getting in his fucking way. He's turning wrenches all day. I can see where this is going. The man that got his teeth ripped out.

Starting point is 01:01:15 He goes to the medic and is like, cut my pinky off. And the medic is like, I'm not cutting your pinky off. And he's like, let's go to the doctor and see if the surgeon will cut it off. The medic is homeboys with him. Like, they're buddies. He gets it. And he's like, this pinky's coming off one way or the other. So the medic and Pappy go to the surgeon. And the surgeon's like, I'm not taking your pinky off. I can't ethically remove a good finger. Just splint it and heal. At which point, Pappy pulls out his 1911 and says, you're going to cut it off or you're going to clean it off your wall.

Starting point is 01:01:42 What do you want to do? He cut the pinky off. So he gets his pinky removed so he can keep working. And then this whole thing boils to a head at a place called the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. So basically, war in the Pacific, everybody's fighting over New Guinea at this point in time. The Japanese are about to reinforce New Guinea to fight the American. with an entire division of Japanese infantry. They're coming in on, I believe, eight, eight troop carriers,

Starting point is 01:02:08 and those are being escorted by destroyers and everything else. We got to stop him. So he takes his fleet out. He's got A-20s. He's got B-25s. They take him out. And what ends up happening at this battle is the Japanese Navy sees the A-20s coming in really low.

Starting point is 01:02:25 Well, the A-20s coming in low, they don't know that these things exist. They were just mad maxed by this fucking crazy guy trying to get his kids back. They don't know about this technology. So what they assume it is is they assume it's torpedo bombers, right? So the boat's coming this way. The planes are coming this way. This is a broad side of the boat. The planes are coming this way.

Starting point is 01:02:46 Naval doctrine for a torpedo bomber is to turn into the bombers because a torpedo would land in the water and you want the big broad side of the ship. You want the bigger target. So they turn into the formation. because that would minimize the surface area to get hit by torpedoes, not realizing that their goal is to actually strafe the decks. So they go in and, well, that lined it up perfect to be able to clear the whole thing. They strife all the decks of these ships

Starting point is 01:03:12 that are covered in enemy infantry. They strafe the decks, the B-25s come in, they skip bombs right into the side of them. They sink all eight troop carriers at once. How many people is that? A division. Is this between the Battle of the Bismarck C? Eight to 12,000.

Starting point is 01:03:28 Oh, fuck, this is it. He's got trouble enough, temporarily anyway. Let's find a keen skin. Fun fact about this footage is taken from Pappy's planes. Sorry, who just at one point in that while you're going? Who the fuck is the guy with the video camera? Generally, in these, you know when you see? Combat camera, man.

Starting point is 01:03:49 And you're just like, hey, we're going to go do this thing. We might get shot down, but it would be real cool if people can watch this. Combat camera. A hundred years' time. Combat camera. You're going to go into combat with a camera and document this for mankind. And this is why I said it pissed me off earlier when these companies go in and try to copyright this footage. Like some dude with balls so big that he had to lug him around in a wheelbarrel, got this footage for us.

Starting point is 01:04:14 We paid for it. And now you're going to tell me that we can't use it. Fuck off. So the Battle of the Bismarck C happens. They sink all eight troop carriers. Basically wins New Guinea. Changes helps change the course of the Pacific War. Big deal.

Starting point is 01:04:25 the guy that he's taking orders from at this point is General Kenny, the guy running the air war for the entire Pacific theater. And he's like, dude, that was outrageously effective. We need to start mass producing these B-25s that you've figured out how to make. They send all the drawings that Pappy made back to whoever the fuck made the Mitchell, you know, the engineers back in America and they're like, it won't work. And they're like, yes, it will. I've seen it fucking worked.

Starting point is 01:04:50 It has worked. And they're like, it can't be done. So they end up sending Pappy back to America. To show the engineers how he did it, he does it, and it becomes like an official model of the plane is the B-25 strafer that was mass-produced that this guy just MacGivered on a whim to accomplish the mission. So Pappy gets back, and he finds out that, well, the engineers with their funding and their degrees, they outdid him. Pappy figured out how to get 850 cows in this B-25. Engineers figured out how to get 12. They want opt him.

Starting point is 01:05:24 what's Pappy Gun got to do? He's got a one-up him back. So go back to that original picture I told you to save. So what Pappy Gun does is he figures out how to mount 450 cows in the nose of the B-25. And you see that hole? That's a 75-millimeter cannon from a Sherman tank. What's that mean? You know, it's like, it's a fucking tank gun.

Starting point is 01:05:51 It's the fucking gun from a tank. He took the head of a tank and stuck it in the front of his fucking nose on his plane. And that also went on to become an official variant. I mean, flying something that's in the air when that much force goes that way, it must slow the plane down. Yeah. Like briefly, the plane will go, I would assume. I wouldn't look forward to it. Okay.

Starting point is 01:06:26 Go on. So, yeah. And then he winds up. They send him out on some crazy-ass mission on the beach. He gets wounded. He gets hospitalized. And while he's in the hospital recovering, Malta gets liberated. And his wife and son and daughter all get recovered.

Starting point is 01:06:46 And it's by this point, Pappy Gunn is like a legend within the military, like a living legends within the military. Everybody knows about this dad that's in his 40s that's working like a madman to save his wife and kids. And, you know, I like to imagine. when they were getting sorted through. They're like, hold on. Sorry, what?

Starting point is 01:07:03 Your last name's gun? Holy shit. So they get like beeline to the hospital. And he basically gets reunited with his wife and kids who all survived while he's recovering in the hospital. And it's like, name a better Hollywood movie ending than like knowing your dad went to war for three years straight and helped change the entire path of the war. Designed new planes. Just engineered some new war machines. Took him into combat himself on multiple missions.

Starting point is 01:07:31 like just to save you. The number of people, the number of heroes in World War II that were gangster as fuck. Oh, it's insane. I don't know whether there is another period. Again, maybe it's the right distance from time, fractional reserve, that, dot, that. But it really does feel like there was something in the water. It's volume.

Starting point is 01:07:50 It's volume. There's just so many people that are in the war that you have surface area. World War, America specifically, not that, you know, Great Britain and other nations didn't have their badasses also. They certainly did like Paddy Main and Craig. But it's just the American military, when World War II kicked off, had like 300,000 people. And those ranks swelled to 16 million. So it's like you've got 300,000 people that are a culture.

Starting point is 01:08:17 And you're trying to multiply that culture out to 16 million people. It's just the rules and regulations and guidelines and, I don't know, the respect for that culture doesn't. doesn't really permeate that much. But why is why does that make fertile ground? Because you got so, oh, we can't, we can't, we can't not follow orders. We're supposed to, uh, the commander's down. We're supposed to bed down and be defensive and wait for, wait for orders to come down. No, fuck that.

Starting point is 01:08:47 Shoot that guy. You know what I mean? Like, they're just going to get default aggressive. What else do you do? Yeah, some farm boy from fucking Iowa or whatever. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. They're fucking going in, man.

Starting point is 01:08:59 Yeah. No, I, it's interesting the British versus American sort of insight for this, because at least my experience, British people are very orderly. We have, we, I mean, there was even a video recently. Did you see our, uh, uh, foreign secretary said British people love a cue? You see, have you got the, um, I'd like a fruity vegan flapjack please video? Like a line? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we love queuing. And just search fruity vegan flapjack video. So this is the guy currently for the UK.

Starting point is 01:09:31 I mean, this is why the rest of the world, including this nation, is terrified, right, of Britain. We're a hard nation. We're filled with hard people, specifically the man that is basically in charge of ensuring that globally to other countries, we are feared. And he's talking about how the way that, like, tax is put together. And it's fair when you stand in a queue for a bakery. and then at the very, very, it's a semi-scripted video. It's almost like an advert. And then at the very end, he says,

Starting point is 01:10:04 I'd like a fruity vegan flapjack, please. And it is, here it is. Pretty vegan flatjack, please. That, just, that, sorry, just go back to the beginning. Go back to the beginning of the man that's supposed to be. I'd like a fruity vegan flatjack, please. Are you not terrified? Are you not terrified of the man that wants a fruity vegan flapjack, please?

Starting point is 01:10:24 Brow. That, that meme around. the UK was like one of the fucking biggest thing. Oh, I've got, I've got questions for you about the UK. Go ahead. What's going on all at the air conditioning situation? More people died from... 174,000 Europeans died last year from heat-related illnesses.

Starting point is 01:10:44 More people than died from gun deaths in America. By a lot. Yeah, by like factor three. Significantly more. Isn't it 50,000 per year, I think in America, including suicides? No. How many people die from gun-related deaths in America last year? Mr. Chad.

Starting point is 01:11:02 If you don't include suicides, I believe it's like a couple thousand. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think with including suicides, there's a lot of... I'm going to give it significantly less. Okay. So, I mean, look, what would I say about this? In defense of a country I no longer live in, it's not that hot most of the time. It's quite cold.

Starting point is 01:11:23 Hear me out. Go ahead. I've had a spare tire in every car. ever owned. I've never had to use it. I still fucking got it. It's true. The difference between trying to add a spare tire to a car that has a room for a spare tire or retrofit a Victorian era building. They got floor units. You should put it in the wall. But again, that would be unused for, I'm from Newcastle, which is as north as north goes. That would be unused for 11 months and two weeks of the year. It would be one. For the, for the fortnight that I require it,

Starting point is 01:11:53 the 14 days that I need it would be great. But how many people died, Mar? 44,000. I said 50,000. That's not far off. That's not far off. Anyway, but three times as many, more than three times as many, four times as many people died from heat-related illness. I think more people died in Paris this summer than in all of American recorded history from mass shootings. Just Paris, just this summer versus every mass shooting in American history since records began in like the 50s, 50s or 60s. Yeah, it's not good. It's not great. I once stayed in a hotel in London about three years ago. And bigger buildings, newer buildings, they'll maybe been retrofitted or they'll have had them built with AC and AC wasn't working. The only way that I could get to sleep, two in the morning, three in the morning, I've got this thing, this event to do the next day. I'm fucking hating my life. One of those ones who you're like, this is going to suck and I've got all this pressure tomorrow and it's going to be horrible. And I put a wet, I put a bath towel in the bath, ran cold water on the towel and then slug. leapt under a wet towel, like how you'd blow heat off you in an attempt to...

Starting point is 01:13:00 Yes, it was the most soggy, horrible solution to... I did a video on this on British people refusing to use air conditioning, and it went viral. All the British reactors watched it. Okay. And they had some crazy environmentalists on there, giving you alternatives instead of AC, because, you know, AC's bad for the environment.

Starting point is 01:13:18 Okay, go on. Her first tip was to sleep under a wet sheet. I wasn't doing it through choice. I was doing it through necessity, okay? They get worse, though. Okay, go on. Her next recommendation was to just soak your feet in a bucket of water while you're working at home the whole time. Does that help?

Starting point is 01:13:33 I guess. I don't know. He's got wet feet. But then it kind of climaxes with her final solution of smearing yogurt on all the windows of your house. What will that do? Block the sun out, I guess. I don't know. You can pull it up on my video.

Starting point is 01:13:51 I clipped her out of it. But she's like, yeah, smearing yogurt on the windows of your house will actually help lower the temperature in your house. It's just like, just getting a name. My country is full of insane people. And not in a cool way. You know, they're not, they're not building a new B-52. I would say stubborn. There's definitely a stubbornness.

Starting point is 01:14:09 But this is, look, in defense, we were talking about this this morning. America is a country which is essentially a teenager. It's like just about starting to find its feet a little bit. Thought he knew who it was in its childhood years, thought it was going to grow up to become a postman or like an astronaut or whatever. And now it's like, ah, I'm not really too sure. sort of what's going on, like, where I thought I was and where I'm going, like, I'm going to be rebellious. What if we just, like, turn the table over? What if we, like, do something crazy, man?

Starting point is 01:14:36 And it's like, okay, lots of great innovation comes. America is 4% of the world's population, but had 50% of its new millionaires last year. The UK, 0.8% of the world's population and had, uh, it was second highest 10% of the world's millionaire exits came from it in 2024. So, look, that's on the leaderboard so far not great but but the pump and the circumstance it is stabilizing in a way where stuff don't change that much right and that's not always great because it means that you don't get air conditioning when it's sometimes very very hot but it's also great because it means that like hopefully insane stuff doesn't happen at quite the same velocity that's fair um it does also mean like when i graduated university there's some

Starting point is 01:15:28 odd customs that happen. Like there's a series and I was reading it in the pamphlet thing that explained what was going on and there's a mace bearer that walks out with a literal medieval weapon. Hell yeah. And the guys at the front of it. It's like it's a, how do you say like a...

Starting point is 01:15:43 A ceremonial mace. It's not like he hasn't got spikes on it or whatever. But he walks out and then they all doth their caps in different orders. Like it's the hierarchy of the thing and he doths his cap to this person and you're looking in the color. the fact that this has got a blue stripe on it, that means that he's, you know,

Starting point is 01:16:01 the Kingsman of the Guard or whatever the fuck. All of that stuff. This is nice. This is a little Battle of Hastings, Game of Thronesy type thing that's going on. Whereas I do it here and everyone's fucking twerking at their high school graduation. That's fair. I don't think I want more dust.

Starting point is 01:16:19 I want more dust on everything. And there's not enough dust in America. I think if you were a dustier nation, I think things would be improved. And I think if we were a more agile nation, things would be improved. That's my... I like that.

Starting point is 01:16:30 I can respect that. I always describe America as like the shark tank of cultures. Because that's always the biggest criticism of America. Like, you guys don't have any cultures. No, no, no, no, we do. We are quite literally the shark tank of the world's cultures. Like, you come here for opportunity. What do you got?

Starting point is 01:16:46 Mexicans? Tacos? Fantastic. That's ours now. We're keeping that. Italians? Pizza? That's ours now.

Starting point is 01:16:51 We're keeping it. Like, you know, whatever's bad? We, no, not popular. The world brings its best. ideas to America. Survival of the most insane. It's a battle of the bottom of the brain stem for all of American people. A quick aside, you've probably heard me talk about Element before, and that's because I've started every single morning the same way for the last five years now,

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Starting point is 01:17:45 Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of elements most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to link in the description below. heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. Going back to, you've given us a couple of stories that are to do with Americans. Is there a favorite that you have that's from somebody outside of your home nation, but do you refuse to feel as patriotic around? No, I don't. I don't refuse.

Starting point is 01:18:17 I can appreciate a hero, you know, fighting for, own nation. I've covered some British people before. I've covered some French people. I still am in the works for doing a video on Patty Main, British. So yeah, no, I've done them before. I'll do them again. But Patty Main is probably the next one I'll do that's not American. That's pretty exciting. Yeah. I mean, the Ministry of Gentlemenly Warfare was a little bit of a shame. The movie? No, the book. Because I was such a fan of the book first. And I don't know

Starting point is 01:18:48 whether you ever listened to the audio book that's behind it, but the guy that did the audiobook has just got the most brilliant, classic sort of 1940s posh British accent. It's so immersive to like have somebody speak. Well, you know, what was very interesting about Churchill's war? You're like, oh, I'm there. I'm fucking there, dude, right? Like, give me the enigma machine. Like, we're going to rip this thing. Yeah. And I loved that era of what I think British people are particularly good at, which is the, it is the MacGyvering. It's the sort of spit and sawdust and cellotap and cable ties of coming up with relatively innovative solutions. And one of the ones, you know, the depth charge mine, the limpid mine, that was invented as a part of this in

Starting point is 01:19:36 the UK. And what they needed to do is they needed to find something that would reliably dissolve at the same rate. And they're trying all of these different complex chemical interactions between well, with the saline and the salt water, and sometimes it changes at different depths, it's going to be different parts of the ocean, what are we going to use? And then it turned out that an aniseed ball, a sweet, like a little sweet, that would be perfect to keep the two firing pins apart. And when you drop it, it's very reliable of how long it takes to dissolve in saltwater over time, and then it goes up. But in order to protect the ball so that it didn't degrade humidity that was in the air, they needed to use condoms.

Starting point is 01:20:16 They were like, well, we're going to, we'll wrap it in a condom and we'll keep it dry by having by having the condom around it. And in the book, the guy says, so in an effort to not be found out about what it was that they were using, they covered their tracks by going to each of the different pharmacies in the local village. And they were buying all of the condoms, but different people were going and they weren't going at the same time. And they were going for overtime and distributing themselves around. And he just had this little parentheses. And he said, it is unclear whether or not nine months later the births in Little Higington had increased due to the shortage of condoms that were available because they'd all been taken to create these fucking limpid mines or these debts charges. It's exactly the cause and effect you'd look for though, which is hilarious. Yes, yes, yes.

Starting point is 01:21:03 You guys also were famous for putting chickens inside a nuclear landmines, if I recall. Chickens in nuclear landmines. Why would you do that? Yeah. That's how you kept them warm. The chickens? No, the mines. Why would we need the mines to be warm? The electronics inside of them.

Starting point is 01:21:19 If they get too cold, they're going to stop water. Yeah, so like basically during the Cold War, they had the, um, uh, shit, what's a, what's it called the gap, something gap? The, the main gap, they were worried the Russians were going to pour through with tanks. Okay. Um, that was like, everybody had battle plans drawn up for this. And one of the things the UK had was a nuclear powered landmine. Well, you didn't want to bury the landmines because, you know, they, you didn't

Starting point is 01:21:40 want to just have a nuclear bomb buried under the ground. So the plan was to have the holes pre-dug, have the mines there. And if the Russians were coming, we're going to bury the mines real quick and dip out. Well, then it was a question of how do we reliably fire this thing, keep it warm, keep it dry, yada, yada, yada. They tried heaters. They tried all kinds of different things. And ultimately what they decided worked best was they did the math on how long three chickens could survive with the air inside of this bomb when they were sealed in. And then how long it took for their bodies to cool off.

Starting point is 01:22:09 And then that would be the detonation for the air. the nuclear landmine because it was like eight hours or something. This is so much more impressive than a fucking Aniseed bowl. Holy shit. That was your guys' plan was to put chickens inside the nuclear landmines, bury them. And then when the chickens died, their bodies went cold. It would set off the mines. This is the sort of innovation that we're missing.

Starting point is 01:22:26 This is the sort of shit that I really wish that we were doing more of. One of my favorite ones, so I had John Lylon, the Dirty Tricks Department. He's here in Austin. And what I love about him is he's got access to the archives. And he goes and does so much of the research, like a source, source material in the archives, dusting shit off. Have you heard the story about how there was a psychological assessment done of Hitler and in an attempt, perhaps unsubright, you didn't need to do a psychological assessment of it to work this out. Hitler had a fragile hold on his masculinity. That was one of the things that

Starting point is 01:22:59 the psychometric evaluation, the psychological evaluation determined. So the allies' attempt was if we can somehow disrupt Hitler's relationship with his own masculinity, then he will begin to go so insane that he won't be able to maintain the control that he needs. So their plan was to literally trans Hitler. They found the gardener that grew the vegetables for the crow's nest. What was the Eagles nest? Eagles nest. Thank you. They found the gardener that grew the vegetables for it. And they did the bring you on board slowly, slowly recruitment process and they gave him female sex hormones

Starting point is 01:23:46 that the plan was to inject the female sex hormones into the vegetables and then Hitler would eat the vegetables but his estrogen would go up and his mustache would fall out and his hair would go and his voice would go soprano and he would lose his mind and his masculinity would be destroyed and we'd win the war. And like that was one of the plans that the dirty tricks. Did they go through it? They gave it. They gave him the sex hormones. They don't know if the gardener, the vegetable grow man ended up putting

Starting point is 01:24:12 it in, whether or not Hitler ate it, et cetera, et cetera. But that was one of the plans. That was one of the attempts. That's fucking insane. I love it. I love everything about it. There was another one, one of my favorite stories from the Dirty Tricks Department by John is, I think foxes are a bad omen for Japanese people that seems a horrible omen. So one of the plans that they had was, well, if we can get a bunch of foxes and we can dump them on the shore, that will, the dead foxes on the shore of Japan, that will demoralize the Japanese, they will see it as this horrible omen,

Starting point is 01:24:46 and it'll mean that they're not going to fight back and we'll get to win the war. But it turns out that they couldn't find enough foxes, like the total number of foxes that they could get a hold of wasn't big enough. So they decided instead to paint raccoons, because they could get tons of raccoons. So we're like, well, we can paint the raccoons, and actually, fuck it, we might as well paint them with a luminous paint because this would be, that would be scarier. Like if they were all glowing in the dark, that would be great. But we can't get close enough

Starting point is 01:25:15 without being detected. So what we'll do is we'll work out where the tides are going, get them at low tide, dump them off the coast, and then they'll get like swept in and they'll be left on the shoreline and then everyone will be really worried. Well, first off, they got the tides wrong. Secondly, the water washed all of the paint off them. So there was just some dead raccoons that appeared. So that didn't fucking work. Okay, so this is what we're going to do. We're going to get a massive loud speaker with a pre-recorded message in a scary voice

Starting point is 01:25:44 talking in Japanese. And we're going to get like an animatronic fox head and stick it on the side of a boat and just broadcast messages as if this fox is like speaking about them. So this is, you've gone backward to walk from, you know, advanced military technology to like medieval feudal, like God, we're just going to sow seeds of discord by saying like Zeus is mad at you

Starting point is 01:26:09 type thing. That was what they assumed. Also trying to demoralize the Japanese as an uphill battle. Those guys were fanatics. I mean, I think the last guy surrendered in 76. Still fighting in the jungle. Yeah, Hero Onoda in the Philippines. He didn't surrender until 30 years after the fact.

Starting point is 01:26:25 And he heard people walking around, right, and assumed that it was enemy trips. It's a lie. Oh, they sent they sent his, I think they sent his wife over at one point to try to talk to him and he's like, not buying it. They finally got him to quit by finding his old commander like 30 years after the fact

Starting point is 01:26:43 that had to go out in the jungle and get him and tell him like it was over. Like those guys weren't believing shit. But also, crazy military. Have you seen, do you know about the bat bombs? Oh, they tried to put bombs on bats? No, they did put bombs on bats. Yes.

Starting point is 01:26:58 Yeah. The giant colander bomb. looks like a, they took a, a bomb shell that would like open up after it with a parachute and like let all these bats out and the bats were strapped with incendiary incendiary devices.

Starting point is 01:27:13 So the theory was, yeah, so that's when it's closed and then it opens up and releases all these bats. Okay. So it's a it's a bomb that contains bats with bombs attached to them. Yes. Inside of it. Yes. And it was three times more effective than

Starting point is 01:27:29 a normal incendiary bomb. Because it would going to the under the eaves of shit, like underneath bridges. They were going to fly up into the attics and everything right before it was time to roost for daylight and then incendiary device goes off is going to light all of Japan on fire.

Starting point is 01:27:44 That was legitimately the backup plan for the atomic bomb. What are some of the other most surprisingly hardcore animals from history that have been used? Uh, you got Voitech, the Polish artillery bear. You've got... What?

Starting point is 01:27:58 The Polish, uh, the Polish were held POWs for a period of time, I think, by the Russians, and then they got released to go fight back at the Battle of Monte Cassino. And, like, while they were on their way there, they picked up a, I believe it was a Siberian brown bear. They named it Vitech. And, uh, that was like their pet bear. And, uh, are you fucking kidding me?

Starting point is 01:28:19 That's a man in a bath suit. No, that's, that's not a real picture, but like, it's, there's a lot of mockups of it. But like, it really happened. They had a, they had a pet bear that they were using to help just, like, carry ammunition and shit, like, loading it on its back. Well, the bear was smart.

Starting point is 01:28:32 It liked them. And it kind of like figured out like, oh, during the battle when it's really loud and the guns were going off, all the guys are picking up these big artillery shells and carrying them to the guns. So it learned it. I'm going to help. It started doing that too, walking artillery to the gun. Yeah. And then there was another story where they like used it during an interrogation to scare the shit out of some guy. Like, I'm going to feed you to the pet bear.

Starting point is 01:28:55 Bring Vytec in. Yeah. So you got that. Sergeant Reckless is probably my favorite. it. Sergeant Reckless. Yeah. Horse.

Starting point is 01:29:03 Okay. America's war horse, man. Okay. During the Korean War again. Hang on. They were still using horses during the Korean War? No. No, the Marines acquired one.

Starting point is 01:29:14 What's that mean? What acquired is doing a lot of heavy lifting? They acquired it, okay? Basically, at the ass end of the Korean War, at the, you know, the 32nd parallel, basically where the border is today. It's very mountainous, hilly terrain. So what was happening at this point? time is like diplomatic relations are going on and Americans are basically up on on high points on

Starting point is 01:29:35 hills all across the peninsula and they're just trying to hold this line long enough to get this peace treaty signed whereas the Chinese and the North Koreans want to punch through because they only have like 15, 16 miles to get to Seoul. And if they can take over Seoul, negotiations are going to go much better in their favor. So America is just trying to hold the line. And up top, these hills are like, you know, it's not a terrain you can drive a truck up. And the only way they're going to be able to hold these hills from these massive meat walls that communists are willing to throw is artillery, but they can't get artillery up there. So the best thing they have is this thing called a recoilless rifle. It's basically a big bazzieuca on a tripod, a 75 millimeter recoiless rifle.

Starting point is 01:30:19 They can walk these up there and then walk the ammunition up. And that's what they're having to do. They're just running ammunition up these hills to fire this big bazooka. And eventually that gets tiring. So they're like, they go down to Seoul. They go to the racetrack. And they're like, we're buying a fucking horse. So they buy this horse.

Starting point is 01:30:36 It's a Mongolian mare. And they bring the horse back. The Marines put it through hoof camp, boot camp, hoof camp. See what they did there? That's clever. Oh, yeah. So they train the horse. They get it acclimated to like hearing gunshots and stuff and like get it, get it so it's immune to that.

Starting point is 01:30:52 And they basically train this horse to just walk ammunition up and down these hills during firefights and stuff. And she's awesome, like the Marines lover. And during the Battle of Outpost, Vegas, um, there's basically three hills that form a triangle called the Iron Triangle. And it's like right there. It's like the spot they would really want to punch through to get to Seoul. And it's called, um, the three hills are Reno, Nevada and Carson, the three Las Vegas

Starting point is 01:31:23 gambling cities because it's a gamble whether or not we could hold them. And the Battle of Outpost Vegas is what it's called. And they throw everything they have at these Marines. And this horse, Sergeant Reckless, carries, I forget in the video, it's hundreds of tons of ammunition. This horse carries up and down the battlefield, getting new ammo to the guns during this fight. And she's like, arguably the reason they were able to get through was this horse delivered so much ammunition. And she covered, it was like a ridiculous amount of mileage just going up and down these hills. She was carrying wounded soldiers back down. Like this one horse was this humongous game changer.

Starting point is 01:31:59 They wind up holding the hill. And then the story gets even like the cool part of the story is when the Marines go to go home, they're like, all right, well, we're bringing Sergeant Reckless with us. And the army or the military is like, now you're not. She's got to stay here. They're going to sell her to make glue or give her away. And they're like, no, you're not. So the Marines in her unit actually coordinate with other lower enlisted guys in the military and get this horse on a plane to Japan and then coordinate a civilian ship to pick up the horse

Starting point is 01:32:31 and get her sent over to San Diego. And then the Marines pick her up. They smuggle this horse into the United States of America from South Korea. And then they get held up at the dock because you can't just bring livestock into the country because it could have diseases or whatever, whatever. So they want to kill her. and the Marines are down there with this guy from, I forget the government agency they sent in there,

Starting point is 01:32:53 but they're like, no, you're not. And they basically, like, these Marines are ready to kill this guy over it. And he's like, well, maybe we can just take a blood sample. He goes, eh, it's a good fucking idea. So they take a blood sample of the horse. And then as soon as that guy leaves, they take her out and they smuggle her. Sorry, not San Diego, San Francisco. They then smuggle her into the building.

Starting point is 01:33:16 They're having the Marine Corps ball. and they bring the horse in for the Marine Corps ball. She's, like, eating the flowers. And, like, they've already taught this horse how to drink beer and shit. And, like, the horse, you know how a horse's jaw, like, go off to the side when they chew? She'll actually offset her jaw and let the Marines pour straight whiskey and soda and stuff into her mouth. They're mixing drinks for the horse. So they get fucked up with this horse.

Starting point is 01:33:39 And then they don't know what to do with it. So they've got, like, they've got her hiding on this farm. And then the PR comes out. that, oh, this war horse, this is blah, blah, blah. And they're like, oh, oh, this is good PR for the military. So now the military's back on board. So they bring her onto the actual Marine base and she, you know, gets a home there. She spends the rest of her life there.

Starting point is 01:34:01 She's actually given the rank of sergeant. Like, not ceremonial. She's legitimately a sergeant in the Marine Corps. And privates and anybody lower enlisted has to address her as such. They have to treat her as such. nobody was allowed to ride her and they would always pick some farm kid that knew how to take care of animals

Starting point is 01:34:20 to be her liaison that had to exercise her every morning well how do you do PT with a horse you can't ride it because it's a higher rank than you so he just had to run next to this horse every morning for like 10 miles and it was a running joke in the Marine Corps that he was the most in shape

Starting point is 01:34:36 Marine and the story keeps going and you know Sergeant Reckless becomes famous she's an icon in the Marine Corps and she's getting old and they kind of come to the conclusion that like, all right, well, we need Sergeant Reckless to have some kids. So the plan is to bring in some high-in race horse that's famous to have kids with Sergeant Reckless and create the ultimate war horses. Nobody tells this to the kid that's in charge of looking after Sergeant Reckless. This kid just gets orders one day like, hey, take Sergeant Reckless to the normal horse pens with the other normal marine horses and let her, going there and he's like, that's weird.

Starting point is 01:35:15 She has her own pen. She's not a normal horse. We don't. She doesn't associate with these horses. So. So. So he goes and puts her in the pen and he like goes and gets breakfast and he comes back. Well, she's getting mounted by one of these ordinary garden variety marine horses. He freaks out, beats the horse off the off of her. I hope he doesn't. Yeah, for sure. So he's freaking out.

Starting point is 01:35:39 A little while later, truck pulls up big fancy, you know, horse carriage or whatever. and they unload some big fancy race horse and they leave. Well, again, nobody told him he was supposed to breed Sergeant Reckless so he doesn't let, he just cock blocks that horse from having sex with Sergeant Reckless the entire time. Cockblocking the next one. Exactly.

Starting point is 01:35:59 Yeah. So then like a couple weeks later or whatever, he shows up to work and there's like all these news people in generals and they're like, Sergeant Reckless is pregnant. He's like, oh, fuck, I'm in trouble. Like, and he's like, uh, okay, that's a good thing. And they're like, yeah, no, that's a great thing. And he's, okay, okay, that's weird.

Starting point is 01:36:17 And then one of the reporters asked the kid, what's the name of the racehorse that bred Sergeant Reckler? What's the name of the thoroughbred that's the dad? And he's like, I don't know, it was just one of the bucking horses from the pen, gets yanked around the side of the pen by the general. What the fuck did you just say? What is going on? And he explains what happened.

Starting point is 01:36:35 And so, like, she didn't have a mayor with this, you know, super stud race horse. So it was like, you killed the whole PR campaign. So then the way they recovered for the PR was all they did was they had a big sign outside of the Marine base and it said, it's a dot, dot, dot. And then basically when they found out if it was a boy or a girl, they promoted it. And then, like, that was the big PR push for the Marine Corps, which is funny because the Marine Corps inadvertently created gender reveals. Ah. So, yeah, now, Sergeant Reckless, probably my favorite war animal. I watched a video

Starting point is 01:37:14 recently of I think the maybe bomb sniffer dogs there's some sort of a parade happening and there's a bunch of Alsatians there and I'm currently

Starting point is 01:37:25 in, you know the Truman show and like the entire world's kind of curated for that I have a working theory that Big Golden which is the company behind golden retrievers the large industry body

Starting point is 01:37:38 that is behind golden retrievers that they are seeding very cute golden retrievers into my life at a higher frequency than normal to try and sigh up me into getting a golden retriever and it's working. So I'm currently sort of in the market looking and learning about golden retrievers and shit like that. And I saw this video. Can you try and find it, Mark? There's like a video. Oh, here it is. This is it. Look at this. And all of these dogs are just so locked in. And there's a couple of watched. He's just, I mean, I want that. Like that's the level of

Starting point is 01:38:11 dog that I think is important to. I want one that is single-digit IQ. Bro. Ideally. My wife made me get a golden doodle eight years ago. Sick. I don't think she grasped how big a purebred golden doodle was. And he's like...

Starting point is 01:38:28 70 pounds? 80 pounds? Bro, he's like 110. He's a fucking horse. He is a fucking horse. And when I let his hair grow out, he looks like a giant chicken tender. It's fucking hilarious. I love this dog.

Starting point is 01:38:41 much. It's so funny. She's like, he's too big. I wanted a little cute dog. I was like, no, he's fucking awesome. He's perfect. He's perfect. I'm feeding him more. He's on protein shakes now. Yeah, fuck me. Going a little bit further back, you looked at Washington before Trenton stuff, right? Like, obviously, it's kind of weird. I guess American people don't realize how little British people learn about the revolution and about you don't tend to talk about your losses

Starting point is 01:39:13 in the same way that you talk about your Ws right but what did you because that seems like a really fascinating story that not many people know about like that period of sort of Washington's existence what what have you learned from sort of looking at that

Starting point is 01:39:28 and the kind of characters that have been around that era of history oh God again I mean it's all the same do man. War, war changes. The men that fight it never do. It's always just some dude that is too stupid to quit with a never say die attitude that's willing to tell you to go fuck yourself that changes the world every single time. I guess you ask it specifically about the Battle of Trent or just revolutionary war. Yeah, the Trenton one is particularly good because it's like on whatever midnight on December 31st was like a uniquely important. Yeah. So I mean, basically what had happened up until this point. in the war is Washington, you know, we had initial success, and then it's just been, Washington has basically done the textbook right thing. And we talked about how you're supposed to do the right thing, not the, you know, the bold, rebellious thing. For the rest of the war, you know,

Starting point is 01:40:21 through New York and everything, he basically fights a very conservative defensive war, trying to basically nickel and dime the British and make it too expensive for you guys to want to keep going. And by this point in the war, his back is up against the wall and he's like, Fuck it. I need a W. I'm going to cross a frozen river and kill a bunch of you guys in your sleep to inspire people to keep going. And the reason it was really important is because at this point in time, a lot of the colonials are just volunteers or they signed like a one-year contract. And their contracts are about to expire. Winter's about to hit. And if that contract expires and everybody goes home and we end this fighting season, so to speak, because you don't really fight in winter at this. point. If we end the fighting season of this war after I just racked up, you know, eight, 10, 12 losses and we've done nothing but get our asses kicked the entire time, when summer and springtime comes back around, nobody's showing up to fight. And this is, this is over. So it was basically his back was up against the wall and he needed a W. And he found a way

Starting point is 01:41:26 to make it fucking happen. Um, he, hold on. Sorry. The, um, so Battle of Trenton. He basically coordinates with three separate units. They have to go and they're like, we have to cross this river. We have to do it at night. And they go and they commandeer all these boats that are on the river. This part of the river is used for like a lot of commerce and everything else. So they have these, I don't know, they're like big fucking canoes basically that you can put like iron ore and crops and shit in and ship them down the river. So at first they try to buy them.

Starting point is 01:42:00 They're like, because you know, you don't want to upset all the local people. Like it's hard to be like, hey, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, fighting a rebellion against the tyrannical government. We're here to steal your shit. Give me your stuff. Yeah. So they try to buy them at first. And if they can't buy them, they try to rent them.

Starting point is 01:42:13 And then finally, if they can't rent them, they're like, well, we're fucking taking it. Sorry. And they take it. And they wind up getting, only two of the three groups actually wind up making it across the river and where they're supposed to get. They launched this ambush on Trenton. And the coolest part about this battle for me is Henry Knox, who is Fort Knox, the, no base, he's kind of like the godfather of American artillery. Like, he's the man. He's a 24-year-old

Starting point is 01:42:41 built like a brick. Everybody always portrays him as fat, but he was like, he was taller and he was like 220. Like, I'm pretty sure he was just a built fucking dude. But he was, he ran a bookstore. And he was just a huge nerd. And he just read everything about military tactics that he could. And he just became our artillery guy. So Henry Knox is on this mission. And artillery cannons, it's usually like put them up on the hill and we're going to rain hell down on the enemy. He's like, now we're trying to take a town. I'm going to bring the fucking artillery with me. So he actually, when they go into Trenton, they basically wheel the artillery in into crossroads and are like, all right, this road's ours.

Starting point is 01:43:22 Anybody tries to come down this road. They're fucking getting it with canister shot, which is basically a giant fucking shotgun. So canister shot is instead of one big cannonball, imagine a, burlap sack of pool ball-sized cannon balls. Boov! No, thank you. Just clears everything in that direction. But yeah, I mean, they ransack it.

Starting point is 01:43:45 A bunch of civilians actually start helping them out with the battle. Most of them were Hessians. They weren't actually British regulars. Hesians were the German mercenaries, more or less, loyal to the British. But yeah, they took over Trenton, chased them all the way back up, got that victory. and then after that I believe they went into Valley Forge. After researching all of these people, what do you think most normal humans misunderstand about bravery?

Starting point is 01:44:13 Because it sounds from the outside like everybody involved in this incredibly courageous, a singular minded mission, etc., etc. What do people get wrong about bravery? I think they underestimate themselves, for sure. I mean, I think that there's a lot of people that if you put if you put them in the same exact circumstance that they would have done something or tried to do something similar at the very least

Starting point is 01:44:39 um so i don't know but i think that kind of bleeds into like if you can't imagine yourself in that circumstance you can't imagine how you would react so then you just avoid putting yourself in that circumstance so like i don't think i don't know i just think it's uh i think the average person is capable of a lot more than they want to believe they are Craig Jones, who is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy, spent a good bit of time in different war zones, now appears to be on this weird, like, child predator sting thing.

Starting point is 01:45:09 Like, he's now a private investigator tracking this dude down around Australia. It's kind of strange. Anyway, he told me a story about when he'd gone to Ukraine. He spent a good bit of time in Ukraine. And he was, like, near to where the core bombing was happening. And there was this lady who had a bakery. It's an older, nice lady, and he'd been eating there. And then the windows of her bakery had been blown out by the aftershock of some bomb at some point.

Starting point is 01:45:34 And the next day, she'd got up and was serving baked goods through the newly broken window. They had just taken a broom handle and cleared the rest of Jason Bourne film. It was like, oh, I've got a new hatch to serve through. And I think that point to me is like, you don't know what situation, you don't know your reaction until you're in a situation like that. And I think what's interesting, at least about the Ukraine war, there was only one going on, right, when Ukraine and Russia happened. There was only one, like, kinetic incursion. So we were able to watch it. Now it's like having cable as opposed to like, you know, five channels. There's so many conflicts like, which one do I want to watch? And I get confused. But with that you got to see this thing first hand, and he was telling me these stories. And I saw this too. I saw how many people that from the outside you wouldn't assume would have this bit of this heroic tumor or the streak in them. Normal people. doing what seem to be extraordinary things. I think it's very hard for both of us to relate to it just because you're UK, I'm American.

Starting point is 01:46:35 Both of our countries have pretty much been hosting away games the entire time. You know what I mean? I don't think the average person realizes that like in these war zones that are urban areas and like, when shit happens, people literally do just pick up and continue on with their lives by and large a lot of the time. Like, why? Because there's nothing else to do. What else would you do? You wake up one day and you're like, my favorite coffee shop just got blown up. I guess I got to find somewhere else to get coffee.

Starting point is 01:47:05 Like, and it's weird and it's horrible. But like, what else do you do? Like, it's going to keep going on and people just live through that. And I think Americans and British people are very disconnected because again, like when was the last time either of those nations had a war on their soil and had to even remotely experience that? Like, nobody alive today. What do you make of the Greenland thing? You know, I'm kind of fascinated by how different periods of history have been facilitated by tactical advantages that maybe weren't so visible at the time. Like Europe having deep ports, right, meaning that you've got better access for Navy, better ships, et cetera, et cetera.

Starting point is 01:47:44 it seems like Greenland from a tactical perspective, potentially quite keystoney, you know, it's an area that's very, very important. What do you make of that? Presumably you've been tracking it, thinking about it from a military perspective. I have a video on it. It's not one of the videos I brushed up on before coming here. But basically Greenland, a lot of it is just backlash because people just don't like Trump and they won't like anything that he does. but America wanting control of Greenland is not new, and we've wanted it for over a hundred years. We have tried to buy Greenland multiple times.

Starting point is 01:48:23 We've had bases there since World War II. We've had a secret underground ice base there at one point. You can look up Operation, I believe it's called Operation Iceworm. We had a secret underground nuclear facility that we built there without telling anybody. America has always wanted access to Greenland because it controls that North Sea and it's the only way that the USSR is going to be able to actually launch like a major naval campaign or the fastest way for them to do it. Like it's extremely important. It has been for hundreds of years. It's not new that we want control of it at all.

Starting point is 01:49:00 Yeah, it's interesting thinking about I looked at a breakdown of the specifics of the deal. And I think that there's something in it that even if Greenland was to separate from the Dutch with regards to its relationship that the American deal would still hold. It's like in perpetuity for now and forever, it's sickness and in health. Like we get to. Unless you can make us move, America's not moving. It doesn't matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat in office. America will not give up military control of Greenland. And I understand it like, oh, Greenland belongs to the East.

Starting point is 01:49:37 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It really belongs to whoever the fuck has the most guns there. That's America. You can say whatever you want. America has control of that island. They have since World War II. They're not giving it up for anybody. That's just the way it is. What do you think to the likelihood that Canada has, America tries to make a bigger push toward Canada? Very, very small. Like try to take over Canada? Maybe not try to take over it, but tries to do something diplomatic to subsume it as best they can. I could see what is it, Alberta that kind of already has a political movement to join America. I mean, I could see America allowing it.

Starting point is 01:50:20 I don't know that they're like overly interested in taking it. Canada is just, from what I know of it, which granted is not a lot. It's a very weird country just because the majority of their population, it's like 80% or more is localized within. 60 miles of the U.S. border. I mean, it's right there. And the rest of it's just uncharted tundra. You know what I mean? So I don't know.

Starting point is 01:50:43 It's... Have you ever seen the population distribution of Iceland? It's like a donut, like a really, really, really fucking thin donut. And almost the entire middle of this thing is like sweet fuck all. And then you've got Reckievich down here and then a little bit more. And then there's like some other stuff over here. Australia is kind of the same. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:03 Yeah, exactly. You got like Perth on one side and then that coast and then like the middle is just a big empty donut. And that's kind of it. It's me. I'll be in the middle. Yeah. That's where I want to be at. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:14 What are some of the more unglomerous jobs that during the research that you've done looking at wars, people maybe don't think about giving enough credit to? I mean, a horse that carries artillery up and down hills is maybe one of them. But I have to assume that not all of the most obvious position. are perhaps the ones that are the most pivotal or, like, highly contributing, or they're a little bit less glamorous, but it's still very important. I mean, it's all of them to a large degree, you know,

Starting point is 01:51:42 like everybody glamorizes, you know, the dude on the front lines with the gun, actually, you know, doing the work or whatever. But the amount of logistics and people that you have to have working behind you to get you on the front line with ammunition, with food and water, it's like a hundred and 150 people per guy on the front line,

Starting point is 01:52:02 working on the back end to actually get everything done. I mean, that's where the saying war is won by logistics comes from. So, I mean, everybody's job is super important. And yeah, nobody gets all the credit that they deserve when they're just like, I was just a cook, I was just to that. But you know what I mean? Like how far do we get without all of those people? Not very far.

Starting point is 01:52:23 The guy with a gun can't shoot much if he hasn't had a meal for a week. Yeah, but I mean, to give you like a very specific answer, if I had to pick one, it would be truck drivers. Like military truck drivers are like the unsung heroes of, you know, during World War II, you had like the Red Ball Express. During GWatt, you had all the 88 mics that were out there doing missions. Like everybody's like, oh, what do you do? I'm just a truck driver. It's like, what's your job? I drive through IED infested roads to get food and water to the guys that are actually fighting these guys. In a massive target, a massive moving target that can be seen from miles away. Exactly. And like you see the truck drivers in all the wars having to improvise and. adapt and do a bunch of gangster shit just to survive. This is the same thing, where it's like, enemy knows, logistics wins wars. And if we can stop their logistics, we win the war.

Starting point is 01:53:11 During Vietnam, the truck drivers were literally doing this shit. They were turning their trucks for supplies into heavily armored gunships. What's that on top? That's a fucking 50-calf. It's a giant antenna and 250 cows. Look up the Vietnam, the Eye of Destruction gun truck. the eye of destruction. You know what I want to know?

Starting point is 01:53:34 I want to know who the guy is that gets the copywriting department that comes up with the nomenclature for this. That's what I want. That's my job. Hey, what was your job? You're just as important.

Starting point is 01:53:45 The cook, very important. Apparently, I spoke to a historian who's very influential in this. Oh, what was your job during the war, Chris? Oh, I came up as the sick names. I came up with the scary, sick names. That's just the guys that run the crew, bro. Like, tanks always have funny names.

Starting point is 01:54:01 Like, you know what I think about if World War III breaks out? Because, you know, like, World War II, we were having, like, now you can't do it because we're not in, like, big, you know, big war time. You can't be painting shit all over your planes. But, like, World War II, people were painting pinups and shit on all their planes and stuff. And it's like, now, like, dude, if we have World War III, 100%, they're going to be painting anime chicks with massive pits on the side of a bomber. A thousand percent that's happening. A big natural bomber. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:54:28 Yeah. I'm like, see, that's why you should be employed. What's this? What's this big, scary thing? Is this it? Oh, that's not it. That's the Eva destruction. The eye of destruction.

Starting point is 01:54:41 You ever seen a... The eve of destruction. Sorry, sorry that we got confused between the eve of destruction and the eye of destruction. One of these trucks had a... Have you ever seen like the anti-aircraft thing that you sit in and it's got four mini guns or four 50 cows? And you like sit in it and it's just got 50 cows here and 50. cows here. They mounted one of those in the beds of these trucks. Okay. Just to fight off the people that were attacking them so they can deliver surprise. It's like a gyroscope thing. Yeah. But I mean,

Starting point is 01:55:09 and that's just like what it and you know, like during the global war on terror, you had truckers that were lining the bottoms of their beds and their, you know, the inside of their cabs with sandbags because they were getting blown up by IEDs and having those sandbags there would help. Like, to protect them. It's just like these guys aren't held up as, you know, the dudes on the front line doing the fighting, but like they're constantly getting attacked and putting themselves in harm's way to get those dudes the shit they need to do their job. And it's just like super underappreciated. If you could go back, if I could transport you back to any place in history, time in history, battle, what do you think you'd want to be a spectator of? What are some of the ones that

Starting point is 01:55:48 something that comes to mind where you're like, oh God, it would be fucking sick to just watch that thing unfold? Is there something that comes to mind? dude there's so many um i just did a video on my friend ed the first time i've ever done a video on somebody that's still alive seeing his his battle would be pretty cool he uh so ed ed eatin was a sniper in vietnam and um he's he's still around he was on my podcast over on unsubscribe and uh met him talked with him so it worked really hard on the video because it was the first time i actually had the real source. Like, I could call him and ask him questions.

Starting point is 01:56:28 And he got to watch the video before I uploaded it and be like, yep, send it. So, like, that meant a lot to me. And basically his story is he joins Vietnam fairly late into Vietnam just because he's a young kid, just graduated high school, wanted to go off, see what he was made of. And he volunteers to go. He wanted to be a medic, but they made him infantry instead. and they send him out on infantry and immediately he's just

Starting point is 01:56:56 he's in over his head he uh you know the boat before he even gets to his military base of operations in the main Kong Delta gets hit with uh like a sabotage attack and he wakes up at the belly of this ship on his first day in country getting transported there and he wakes up and the room that he's in is filling up with diesel fuel

Starting point is 01:57:19 like up to the fucking ceiling and it's up packed You know how the portholes in a boat are like this and there's like this much space. It's already past the door. So he's like treading diesel fuel. And he fucking has to duck and swim under through diesel fuel to get up a ladder to get on top of the ship. And by the time he gets up top, he's soaked in diesel fuel. And they're stuck there for like a day waiting for somebody to come rescue him.

Starting point is 01:57:43 So he's sitting there in the sun of the Macon Delta. Everybody's naked. They took their clothes off because they were soaked in diesel fuel. Just getting sunburned to shit. That was like his first day. He was there. And then he winds out going on a mission and they make him the RTO, the radio guy, we're kind of common to have the new guy be the RTO because the RTO sticks right next to the squad leader

Starting point is 01:58:05 because the squad leader needs to have access to the radio. Sounds kind of like an assistant. I mean, his job is to carry the radio and do whatever, but his job necessitates him being right there next to the head guy in charge. So the head guy in charge kind of gets to keep an eye on him. Oh, okay. Right. So, like, that was his job initially.

Starting point is 01:58:20 trainee kind of. Yeah. And his first mission, you know, he has multiple people get heat stroke. Four of them wind up getting brain damage. They have heat stroke so bad. And every time they call on a medevac for these guys, they're like, bring more water. We don't have water. Nobody has water.

Starting point is 01:58:35 They never bring the fucking water. He almost falls out with heat stroke, winds up surviving. Like the first couple missions that he walks you through, and I go over him in the video and in his book are just, it's brutal. Just trying to adapt to the climate and the heat and the mosquitoes eating them a lot. and everything else. And it's kind of a story of how he goes from this kid that just got in way over his head to becoming the guy that can survive this environment. And then eventually he gets the opportunity to go to sniper school. And sniper school was brand new at this point time.

Starting point is 01:59:09 It was just getting stood up. It was a new thing. Usually military schools are like trained or taught at this base in America and whatever. They were literally teaching these guys in Vietnam. So he goes back to a base in Vietnam and he talks about like enemy snipers taking pop shots at him while he's at sniper school learning how to be a sniper. Well, there's nothing like learning on the jump. Right. Like it's just crazy.

Starting point is 01:59:33 And, you know, sniper school has a super high attrition rate. A lot of people flunk out. And basically what they did was the first week they were there, they had some initial training and then they had a competition. And they only kept the top 10 guys. Everybody else got kicked out. He was the top shot out of those 10 guys. So he stayed, goes all the way through sniper school, goes to do his final, and then misses the 900 meter target on his final. And he's the out of the 10 that actually made it to do all of sniper school, he's the first guy to ever fail.

Starting point is 02:00:07 He was the third iteration of sniper school ever. So there's only 20 dudes that are snipers at this point. And he was supposed to be 30 and he failed. So now there's only 29. So he just gets sent back to his unit to be an infantryman And he goes and does that I mean he winds up being a squad leader Then a platoon leader he learns every job

Starting point is 02:00:25 He's a grenadier for a while he's he does it all He goes from being you know the fucking new guy that doesn't know Anything to being the experienced guy that is trying to get himself and other people through this And eventually they start running these missions that are basically Checkerboarding strategy like instead of like moving troops into an area and like controlling that area, they're just going to be like, we got to intel that there's enemies in this village. And they're like, we're going to fly in at night with helicopters, insert, hit the village in

Starting point is 02:00:56 10 minutes, and then get back on the helicopters and dip out. And that's what they're doing. And on April 3rd, he winds up, you know, he's been in the field for three days doing normal missions. And they're doing this volunteer only mission. And him and all of his more experienced guys are all smoked and they're like, I'm not going to go. and his commander, Captain Perkins, basically, you know, asked him like,

Starting point is 02:01:19 all I've got is fucking new guys for this volunteer-only mission. Ed, can you come with me? And by this point in time, Ed has already, he's not a sniper, but he's friends with all the snipers. So he has acquired a sniper rifle with a starlight scope, which is like an early version of a night vision scope. Again, Acquired's doing a lot of heavy lifting. Acquired.

Starting point is 02:01:40 Yeah, he acquired it. Don't worry about it. Um, so he's like, fuck, fine. He's been in the field for three days. Like, fuck, fine. I'll go. So he goes out on this mission and they land in this rice patty and he said the mud was just like peanut butter. He said it was like trying to walk through two feet of peanut butter. And like the whole scope of these missions are get on the ground, clear the village, 10 minutes in and out. We got a fucking dip. So they go in and they clear this village. They don't really find anything, but they find a cave network that has concrete. That's not normal in Vietnam. especially in the May Kong Delta. Tunnel networks weren't common in the May Kong Delta, but having a concrete reinforced structure, definitely not fucking normal. Kind of the tip of like,

Starting point is 02:02:21 there's a lot bigger military presence here than we're ready to handle with two helicopters full of guys. So like, we gotta go right now. So they hightail it back out to this rice paddy. And they're waiting for the helicopters and like the meme, the trees start speaking Vietnamese.

Starting point is 02:02:38 And Captain Perkins and Ed can both like kind of speak Vietnamese at this point, they know enough to hear them talking about machine guns and rockets and helicopters, which basically tells them they've got the big guns and they're waiting for the helicopters to show up to try to shoot the helicopters down on their way out. Helicopters get in, they load the helicopters and they fucking take off. The cobras come in with the hughies. The cobras light up the wood line with a bunch of machine gun fire rockets, give them covering fire.

Starting point is 02:03:05 They load the hughies. They dip. As they're taken off, they do a head count. They're fucking missing a guy. And by this point, the mission's over as far as each individual helicopter is concerned. So the cobras have already changed radio frequency and they're headed to their next spot. Captain Perkins in the helo with Ed basically like turn around. We've got to see if we can fucking find this new guy that's not on the helicopter.

Starting point is 02:03:28 And they turn around, they see him in the fucking rice patty. And Captain Perkins said he did the sign like he knew he was going to die. So Captain Perkins is like, fucking we're going to go get him. So they land down, they touch down. This guy jumps on the helicopter on the left side or the right side, whatever. And then apparently they didn't fucking, everybody wasn't on the same page as to what we were fucking doing. Because as he hops in the helicopter on one side, one of the other fucking new guys hops out on the other side and the helicopters take off again. So you've exchanged one dude on the ground for another dude on the ground.

Starting point is 02:04:01 Well, now they start taking fire. They go to loop back around again to pick this guy up and the helicopter gets shot down with Ed and Captain Perkins and the other guys in it. helicopter gets shot down, smashes, does a fucking barrel roll. Ed wakes up with literally pinned underneath the helicopter with like his face

Starting point is 02:04:21 above the waterline breathing. And he's like able to finally wiggle himself out from underneath this fucking helicopter. And he starts helping get all the other guys out of the helicopter. And everybody else is just fucked up. Ed's fucked up. But everybody else is combat ineffective.

Starting point is 02:04:37 They can't do shit. They're still taking small arms fire from the woodland. It's dark out. So Ed climbs up on the helicopter and just throw me a gun. All the guns got thrown fucking everywhere when the helicopter crashed. So one of the pilots finds an M16, they throw it to Ed. Ed just starts mag dumping towards the enemy fire.

Starting point is 02:04:56 Like what else do you do? We can't fucking see anything. Like I see the muzzle flash over there. I'm going to shoot over there, I guess. Tell him to not come get me at least. So he's on top of this helicopter on fire. On top of the helicopter. He's on top of the helicopter that's on its side.

Starting point is 02:05:10 He smells fuel like this could go up at any minute. He's returning fire with an M16. Yeah. And they're just trying to find Ed magazines and everything else. Well, they finally find his sniper rifle. The sniper rifle's buttstock is cracked lengthwise. So his gun's broken, but he can still kind of shoulder it and fire it. So now he's rotating back and forth between this M16 and this sniper rifle with a starlight scope.

Starting point is 02:05:31 It's got night vision so he can actually see now. So that's a big advantage. So he's lining up his shots and he's firing at these guys as they're, you know, firing at him. and they're, he can see through the Starlight scope. They've split up into two groups and they're trying to close in on his position. If they come and get them, they're fucked. They're done. They're going to get tortured to death.

Starting point is 02:05:49 So Ed is firing at these guys, but the bullets aren't hitting. The scope got all fucked up during the crash. Like, it's all out of zero. He puts the crosshairs. That's not where the bullets going. So he just keeps doing what he can do. He's basically using the Starlight scope to kind of see where they're at. Fire rounds, just suppressing fire to keep them down, switch back to the M-16, fire at the same spot.

Starting point is 02:06:07 Hope he fucking hits somebody. and eventually when he's firing his sniper rifle he catches a glint of where the bullet landed like crosshairs are here the bullet landed over here so then he just Kentucky windages and adjusts fire and instead of putting you know the crosshair on the enemy he just puts them in that spot and he starts dropping dudes um the estimates are seven to eight that he kills doing that and the estimates the conservative estimate that ed believes is probably most accurate from what i've talked to him is somewhere around 30, but I've seen crazy estimates that were to like as high as 150 guys. We're out there fighting him.

Starting point is 02:06:44 So he gets in this firefight and he manages to hold him off until the fucking helicopters show back up. The first helicopter shows up, shows up with the cobra gunships. They lay down his pressing fire. And it's his colonel, this crazy dude named Pistol Pete, who in character runs out of his helicopter with a fucking pistol and starts firing at the enemy. and they go to get captain they get the first group of guys loaded up it's not enough there's still some guys on the ground and it's ed captain perkins and a couple other guys and captain perkins is

Starting point is 02:07:18 he's completely out of the fight at this point both his hips are broken um it's not good they they get another helicopter in there and they get pistol piece helicopter and captain perkins at this point it's ed captain perkins and one guy the one guy goes to help load Captain Perkins onto the helicopter. And Captain Perkins is like, I'm not going to make it because that helicopter's full. They're going to have to sit on the skids to get out of there. And Captain Perkins has two broken hips. He's not going to be able to hang on.

Starting point is 02:07:48 So he's like, just leave me. So that guy gives him a grenade and is like, okay. And goes to leave him. Well, Ed doesn't realize this is happening at the time. So that guy goes, hops on the skids. Ed goes, hops on the skids. And the helicopter goes to take off. And then Ed realizes the fuck is Captain Perkins doing it down there.

Starting point is 02:08:05 And so Ed hops back off and Captain Perkins, you can pull up the interview. Captain Perkins says it himself. He says, you know, he was laying there and he with a grenade like, this is it. I'm the last one. This is how I go out. And through this firefight, he heard Ed say, I'm not going to let the old man die alone. And Ed comes in and lays down next to Captain Perkins and continues to repel the enemy long enough for more helicopters to show up. another Huey with another cobra shows up and you know,

Starting point is 02:08:39 cobra, you can't fit anybody in it. It's just the two pilots. It's an attack helicopter. The Huey's full. The Huey's, uh, and Captain Perkins has to lay down. He can't sit up. He can't hang on to shit.

Starting point is 02:08:51 So it's just Ed and Captain Perkins at this point. This helicopter lands. The dude in the helicopter orders one of the Vietnamese Tiger Scouts, friendly Vietnamese. Get off the helicopter, stay with Ed. They load Captain Perkins on that helicopter and it takes off. So now it's just Ed and this Vietnamese Tiger Scout there still. And Ed's like, fuck, I'm going to die.

Starting point is 02:09:10 And then the cobra attack helicopter pulls up next to him and opens the canopy and is like, sit on the fucking skids. We're leaving. The only spot to sit on the skids on a cobra attack helicopter is with your back to the fucking rocket pod. And Ed said there was still a rocket in it. So, but what are you going to do? So Ed hops on the skid of this fucking cobra attack helicopter and they take off into the night. And it's at this point that Ed realizes that his. His chin is flapping in the breeze.

Starting point is 02:09:36 When he was on top of the helicopter, they'd fired a rocket. And he caught shrapnel that skinned all the flesh off of his chin. And it's now just dangling in the breeze as he's sitting on the skid of an attack helicopter. That, uh, yeah, going through it's pitch blackout. He can't see shit. Doesn't know how high off the ground he is, doesn't know anything. And after a while of flying, it slows down to a hover. And the attack helicopter guy, like signals jump off.

Starting point is 02:10:01 He can't see the ground. So he's like, fuck you. I'm not jumping off this thing. And finally the dude opens can. He's like, fucking get off my helicopter. I got to go. And Ed's like, okay. So he jumps.

Starting point is 02:10:14 It was only like a four foot drop. It's just so dark he couldn't see it. And once he drops, that was like the final, the straw that kind of breaks the camel's back. During the helicopter crash, Ed had actually broken his back. So he's done all of this with a broken back. So now Ed is, Ed can't walk. He can't get up.

Starting point is 02:10:32 He's fucking stuck there. And the tiger sky. that was on the other skid comes crawling up to Ed. He speaks Vietnamese and American. And he's like, where are we? And Ed's like, I have no fucking idea. Dude, I don't know. And then they start hearing Vietnamese from the fucking bushes again.

Starting point is 02:10:47 And he's like, fuck. And then the Tiger Scout eventually is like, it's okay. They're Republican Army. They're the friendly Vietnamese. They dropped them outside of the Republican Vietnamese Army base. So friendlies. And they basically waited there for a real medevac to show up. And Ed, Ed gets saved.

Starting point is 02:11:03 And, uh, yeah, did all that. with a broken back. And you got to meet this guy and talk to him? Got to meet him, talk to him, text him all the time. He's good shit. How does it feel doing a story about someone that you know he's going to get to see it? Intimidating. It's the first time I've ever done it.

Starting point is 02:11:20 It was, uh, yeah, it was, it was scary. It's probably the, the coolest thing I've ever done. Also the scariest thing I've ever done. Uh, obviously it takes way more work. I gotta do, you know, not, I don't ever want anybody to, uh, Like my biggest fear when I do these videos is for somebody's fan, like somebody's kid to come out of the woodwork and be like, I hated your video. Didn't you do it on Colonel Sanders and his like nephew was like, yeah, that's sick. Like here's a couple of amendments, but pretty much you nailed it.

Starting point is 02:11:47 Yeah. So like Colonel Sanders, like distant relative was happy with my video. I've had, uh, I don't know. You don't have piss off the KFC guys. Yeah, for sure. The KFC mafia. That's someone you don't get on the wrong side of. But I've had, I've had a lot of videos where family members reach out where they love the videos.

Starting point is 02:12:01 And like, that's always the coolest part for me. like I usually pin the comment and then I usually reach out to the family and like talk to him. But I mean, that's happened multiple times. But to be able to do it with the guy that actually that actually did it. And the cool part for me is, you know, I, hey, here's the rough draft of this video. What do you think? And he's like, you know. And I went through and I refilmed a lot of that video.

Starting point is 02:12:23 I made corrections because he didn't like the way I portrayed this or he didn't, my verbiage was wrong here. And I, so there was a lot more work, but that's completely fine. And the cool part for me is, you know, the other criticism was like, I feel like you're kind of making a bigger deal about some of these things than they really were. And I go, of course you feel that way. Like, you get like, classic war hero minimization. Exactly. Like you did, like, dude, that's fucking crazy to the rest of us that you managed to accomplish that.

Starting point is 02:12:51 I like it. It's cool that you don't think it's a big deal or that big of a deal. But like that shit's fucking incredible. I think that if you were doing more videos about people that were still alive or if more of the people that you were doing videos, about we're alive, I think that would be one of the most common responses. It would be this sense of like, yeah, well, come on. Like, if, I mean, like, factually it happened like that. Yeah. But, like, symbolically, it's not, you're making it a bit more of, and, you know, maybe that is, this is really interested. I'm kind of obsessed with this psychological bias, and it's called the fading affect bias.

Starting point is 02:13:25 So fading affect bias is our psychological immune system. So good memories and bad memories, both fade with time, but bad memories fade more, and they often can become good memories. Rarely do good memories become bad ones, but quite often bad ones can become less bad, or maybe even funnier humorous over time, right? Fuck, who was I talking to? Some SAS guy from a few years ago, and he was telling me this story about when one of his teammates shot, accidentally shot another one of his teammates in the ass while there were being, there was attack coming in from all sides in the middle of somewhere in the Middle East. And at the time, it's like, fuck. Like, we need to, now this guy's not going to be able to walk. We need to come and get in all this thing.

Starting point is 02:14:05 It's all this stress. Afterward, like, that's one of the best ongoing jokes that they have in the entire friend group. So bad memories fade with time and so do good, but bad memories fade more. And it's part of what we call a psychological immune system, which is minimization, distancing, disassociation, stuff like that. So it's good that you and me and everyone that's listening isn't pinned underneath the challenge that we went through when we were 10, right? Because that would be highly maladaptive. Like, you need to be able to get over bad things. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:14:35 One of the problems of that is that it can cause you to forget the lessons that you learned from negative experiences. This is why people go back to their toxic X. This is why people relapse into a drug that they swore they would never take again. This is why people get back into debt after they worked very hard to get out of it. Not just because there's this temptation, this sort of gravitational pole that was the reason they got in there first, but also that, distance from the information doesn't mean, typically we assume us in the future learns more,

Starting point is 02:15:02 so we're more wise, right? Wisdom tends to come with age, you get older, you got more information, but distance from emotion actually means that you are less accurate in your ability to understand how important that thing was than you were at the time. That's why you at the time is like, I can't deal with this fucking relationship anymore. I can't deal with the arguments. I can't deal with whatever the fact that you're going through. And you, a year later, when you bump into her on a walk around the lake, is that maybe things weren't that bad. Bingo, bingo, bingo, bingo, bingo, bingo. Same thing with people that are recovering from health problems.

Starting point is 02:15:34 Like, I can't believe how much I let myself get burned out by that job. Never again, I'm going to be present and I'm going to sleep and I'm going to take care of my health. And then 12 months later, they're like, well, you know, I quite like the rush and the adrenaline and all the rest of it because fading affect bias doesn't work equally on all of our memories. It's selective and it seems to get away the bad ones. So not only are these guys classically heroic, which means that they want to kind of focus on everybody else, they make the hero of the story, all of the other people, but also you have this weird sort of selective reduction of the grandness of things that were challenging and difficult. Well, you know, it wasn't that hard. Because if they did realize just how hard it was, overcoming PTSD, no matter how hard that already is for a lot of guys that come back from difficult.

Starting point is 02:16:24 situations would be so much more without this discriminating evaporation of particular painful memories. Time heals all wounds. Yeah. Concept. It does certainly to some degree, or it causes you to minimize your heroic escapades. Well, I always describe the military as the best shitty time you'll ever have. It seems to be everybody's recollection of it. There was an interesting story from Edward Slingland as well. He wrote this book, The History of Alcohol throughout time. And what? Just alcohol. Yeah. He's talking about how one of the bonding procedures, one of the bonding rituals that used to happen to some armies a few nights before battle when they first came together is that the generals would encourage all of the guys to get drunk together. One of the reasons is not just that when you're drunk, you were a better liar detector and a worse liar.

Starting point is 02:17:17 It's an interesting asymmetry in terms of alcohol. So if we're both drunk, I can work out when you're lying better than I could when I'm sober, even if you were or were not drunk. And also, you're worse at lying because your prefrontal cortex is tuned down. So you can't deceive and you can detect deception better. So it's like a truth serum. It's kind of like a weird sort of group-sized truth serum in a way. But the main reason they did it beyond, hey, this is us, you know, our inhibitions are lowered and we get to put our arm around each other. maybe we clear up some issues that we've had, or we have a fist fight, and then we clear up

Starting point is 02:17:44 the issues that we've had. It's a suffering the next day. Everyone wakes up, stinking hangover, and you have had a little titrated dose of some suffering. It's fucking hell. Trauma bonding. Nick, I can't believe that you did that. You shot in the tent, in the tent last night. Like, that's unbelievable, whatever.

Starting point is 02:18:02 And then, okay, now that we've got that, when we go into battle together, we've already gone through something difficult. It's going through something difficult together, I think that really sort of cemented. I mean, that's all military training, too. I mean, they make you go through the gas chamber together. They make you do this together, that together. Like, that's all, it's just government-funded trauma bonding. That it seems to be effective.

Starting point is 02:18:23 It does. What is next for you? What's on the agenda? By the way, I do like, everyone needs to go and subscribe to the Fat, your stuff fucking rips. You're one of the best storytellers I've ever seen. Can one of you guys grab my backpack for me right on the couch out there? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:18:35 Sorry. I'll show you. I brought you one. Oh, thank you. For what's next. Unreal. I mean, I'm just, I think what you do is, It's this weird blend of like morbid curiosity,

Starting point is 02:18:49 masculine heroism, fantasy porn, and like tribute to stuff that's great. So everyone needs to go and subscribe to you because as big as you are, you need to be even bigger. Nick Flood, aka the fat electrician, heroes are raised. Book 1, The Flight of Richard Bong. That's what I'm up to next.

Starting point is 02:19:15 Brave books? Ten book series. What if an ultra-tech tape player could blast you back in time to save history's greatest heroes, to save history's greatest heroes? Is this a kid's book? Yeah. This is sick. And who's brave books?

Starting point is 02:19:32 This is a publisher that I worked with. Unreal. So basically my biggest thing that I always get for comments and requests is, hey, I love your videos. I want my kids to hear these stories, but you know, you're too graphic. You say fuck too much. yada, yada, yada. And I originally tried to do...

Starting point is 02:19:49 You don't say fuck enough. I tried to do censored videos, and those just didn't work out. So this was my next swing at trying to get war hero stories to kids. So I basically impregnated a fictional story with the nonfiction story of these real life war heroes. Is that a plane shooting an alligator? That is a P-38 shooting an alligator, which actually happened. Okay. Is that an important...

Starting point is 02:20:13 Alligator is an important enemy? No. So book one, the hero that they save is Richard Bong, America's ace of aces, the greatest fighter pilot America's ever had during World War II. And part of his story is one of his guys gets shot down and crash lands into a pond or a lake. And he's running patrol overhead. And when he's running patrol overhead, his guy's in the water swimming. And that's for you, he can keep it. In your shot. That's my. Oh, I got you. And he basically has this giant alligator swimming towards him and Dick Bong, Richard Bong swoops down in his P-38 and strace an alligator. I don't call him Dick Bong in the book. I don't in the book because it's a

Starting point is 02:20:56 kid's book. But that's his name. Dad, what's Dick Bong? Yeah, yeah. Dude is awesome. And this is a 10-book series. Yep, 10-book series. Everyone's a different hero. So basically I took- Why do it for kids? Why don't it do it for adults? Because the adults have my videos and I want the kids to have something to get them excited about history. I feel like history's boring. I feel like most people don't like history because it's top boring and this is my attempt at

Starting point is 02:21:18 making history fun for kids. So I basically took, it basically takes place in modern time. The two characters are my sons, Cutter and Cash. And then I am a museum curator slash electrician. And we're living in an alternate reality where the Nazis won World War II. Okay. And I basically figure out that Germany managed to accomplish this. by using time travel to do something to the timeline to get rid of America's 10 greatest war heroes and prevent them from becoming the heroes they were supposed to be,

Starting point is 02:21:54 thus changing the entire outcome of World War II and allowing them to win. So this is how pivotal individual heroes can be. Change the entire course of the world, yeah. And I'm going to go back and fix it myself, but I get kidnapped and my sons find all my notes and they find the device that I've recreated that I managed to track down

Starting point is 02:22:13 and they have to go back and fix the timeline to save me. And that's why they're glowing green because that's the teleportation technology that's... So they basically, they initially the tape recorder that they have, their time travel device, is a recording of me, and it's basically a montage of this real war hero's real life, and that's all real information.

Starting point is 02:22:34 It's a fictional story, but all the acts and everything are real things that happened from my videos. And it's a montage of me walking the boys through like what this guy did, what he accomplished, how he did it, how pivotal he was supposed to be in the world, blah, blah, blah, blah, but Germany did something to change it. They prevented him from becoming this guy somehow, and then they have to go in and they can hit the record. And while they're in this montage,

Starting point is 02:22:56 they're like ghosts. They're witnessing it in first person, but nobody can see them. They can't interact with the environment. But then when they go to do the record function, they actually travel back in time and they have to correct whatever the Nazi time travelers fucked up to make sure that that guy becomes who he's supposed to be. And every time the timeline gets a little bit more and a little bit more correct. But it's just a fun way to actually expose these kids to like, here's a bunch of history about America's greatest fighter pilot. All that's true.

Starting point is 02:23:22 All that's accurate. And the cool part for me is we put the books through like beta testing. We had parents and kids read the books. And in the beta testing, one of the questions that we asked them after they had read the book was like everybody liked them. They were fun. We asked them if they felt like they learned anything about history. It was no across the board.

Starting point is 02:23:41 They didn't feel like they learned anything. And then we told him, take 10 minutes on your phone or we can get you a computer if you need. Google Richard Bong and just read about him. And then they came back and re-answered. They felt like they learned a shit ton because they didn't even, they were having so much fun reading the book. They didn't realize that the entire character of Richard Bong in this book, that was a real person and all that shit actually happened. Because it sounds so fantastical. Exactly.

Starting point is 02:24:05 And it's just, it's just not the stuffy. On April 17th and this date at this time at the battle of blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just like, oh, it's fun. Oh, he actually shot an alligator with his plane. That's awesome. Like, that really happened. So then they, after looking at it, they're like, oh, shit, I did learn a lot.

Starting point is 02:24:23 So that was really cool to see. Is that available now? It's available for pre-order now. And then it's officially released, I believe, November 24th is when we're going to start shipping them out. Bro. Yeah. That's so cool. It's good.

Starting point is 02:24:35 To do the kid thing as well, I was with Jocco. Fuck, a beverage forum in May or something this year. I've got New Tonic. He's got a jococonic. go go and um we were in this was a particularly what i mean he's a good friend but like it's a intimidating thing to be around him at the best of times just the size of his head um but other than that he's lethal and uh we had concurrent meetings with the buyer from walmart or something it's like you said uh shark tank yeah it's kind of a little bit like that so there's this weird it's all bonnie

Starting point is 02:25:06 blues like queue up to stairs whichever one which whichever you prefer let me in there's a room where action is going on and you have to wait outside until it's your turn. Jocker was going and we were talking about how this is going to happen with Walmart and all the rest of it. And he showed me the early cut trailer for Way of the Warrior Kid, which is Chris Pratt. And he's doing something which is a cinematic movie equivalent, I think, of what you're trying to do with this book, which is, I can't remember what it's called. It's called like an all-ages movie or something. I think inside from Pixar was somewhat similar.

Starting point is 02:25:50 The movie sort of occurs at multiple levels that the kid can watch it and it's not sufficiently graphic. It's like PG-13 or maybe even less than that. And there's a story that, but also the parents can go and they take something away and maybe different things away and the kids sort of get to do the thing too. And it's not too dissimilar as this, like the co-reading thing of if it's sufficiently engaging that both parents and kids like it and we'll go through it at the same time.

Starting point is 02:26:14 But that's his whole pivot too. And to see you doing the same thing, but in buck form is fucking sick. Tell me about it. This is your drink? Tell me about it. Yeah. So I founded this. We started four years ago and launched it three years ago.

Starting point is 02:26:27 I see that you're a fan of cold frosty beverages. So I'll be able to turn you into an acolyte very soon. I also have my own energy drink. Really? Ashelon. Oh, cool. Yeah, so I have an echelon energy drink, so it's cool. I feel like we're all copying each other.

Starting point is 02:26:43 That's true, yeah. So we launched this three years ago. We have just completed our Series A, which is very exciting. So that'll get announced pretty soon. And yeah, we've been working on this hard. It's in Australia. We're going in 7-Eleven and Ready Mart in Australia. I hope I haven't got that wrong.

Starting point is 02:27:02 We're in Sainsbury's. We're currently the best-selling drink on the meal deal side behind. in Red Bull in all of Sainsbury's at the moment. We're about to go into a ton of retail. I mean, you know this. Isn't it, isn't it weird how, like, predefined the route of a beverage has to go business model-wide? It's crazy.

Starting point is 02:27:20 It's the most formulaic thing that I've ever seen. I've done a lot of businesses. This is by far the most, like, no, this is the trail you have to go on. There is no other way. No, before you go there, you have to go to Kehe and you have to go to Kroger. And you can get into H-EB, but the only way that you can get is by and going through central market. And once you performed at central market, four, uh, whatever it is, rate of sale needs to be four per skew per store per week. And then once we've hit that, if you can get yourself up to

Starting point is 02:27:47 seven, then we can unlock these next few stores. And then from there, you go, but, blah, but, but, it's actually for someone, like if you've just got that, like a, you know, a dash of autism, it's the right process because you go, okay, well, I understand if you give me a spreadsheet, I can work my way through the projections for this. I know when I'm going to run out of money. I know when I need to get a new injection of cash. I know what my burner. rate is, I know all the rest of this stuff. It's, it's like a video game as far as like, this is the objective. You need four of these things to continue. Right. And then you, like, yeah. Yeah. So like right now we just got into, uh, we just got into specialty. So we're in

Starting point is 02:28:20 vitamin shop right now. So like that's where we're at with it. And, uh, yeah, so that you're a little bit further down that path than us, but even, even so far, it's been like, I've had it explained to me and I've looked at it. And it's like, this is very much like, it's, this is the only way. You're on a set of train tracks and, you know, product market fit is kind of a very sexy word that gets used a lot in in everything but i really do think especially with the world of energy generally at the moment smarter energy which with like halfway between like functional and energy which is good because it means that we can when we want to play in a relatively small pond we can and when we want to play in a big pond we can as well we can get put

Starting point is 02:28:58 next to red ball if needs be but we can also get put on something that's more functional like well i'm going to eat kin kardashian's lunch with update like we're about to go in we're about to sit next to her on a bunch of shells and we're going to eat her alive. There's a bunch of other product that are great but different in terms of functionality and offering and stuff like that and taste. But if you've got the right product market fit and you can hit the right price point, it is just, okay, you start to pour more like gas into the top of the tank and out the bottom creates growth and then you just make sure that you don't fuck it. Like if you, it is yours to lose. So it's a really interesting, really interesting like industry to be in and it's sick.

Starting point is 02:29:36 I want to be on rotation for your thing. You've seen in there. We've got like everything. We've got bloom energy. We've got jococut stuff. We've got all of the new tonics. I'll send you, I'll send you some of our new one. We're the first energy drink that I'm aware of to put zinamite in an energy drink.

Starting point is 02:29:49 Zinamine is what zinemite is built off the back of, right? Yeah. That's the equivalent of going parazanthine and adding that in. So we looked at zinamine as part of the literature review for this. Tell me about it. Basically, we, we collabed with my friend Pewview, who I don't know if you ever seen him. He's probably the best trick shot guy with guns right now. So he can, he, you can pull out videos that shorts of him.

Starting point is 02:30:11 He can take his wedding ring and throw it in the air and then shoot a bullet through the wedding ring. He's got like a big ultra high speed camera. Okay. If you look at Pew View wedding ring, it'll pop right up. Pew View. Yeah. Craziest trick shot I've ever seen in my life. Anyways, we, we worked with him.

Starting point is 02:30:29 He takes Zynamite supplement. It's apparently what they give like fighter pilots before missions. Mine is like extreme focus. So he's been taking it for a while, and he has actually done like his own research, whatever. He's done his split times, see how fast you can pull the trigger, how fast you can hit targets, reaction times, all that stuff, because he's doing, you know, a tenth of a second to him's a big deal.

Starting point is 02:30:50 What's he shooting? It's a Terran Tactical. Dude, eat shit. He does that stuff on the first try. He's crazy. First time I ever met him, he lives like 30 minutes from me. So we're like the, there's like four YouTubers and I, So, like, we've gotten a hold down.

Starting point is 02:31:13 He's like, come out and film with me. I'm into guns, too. Like, all right, I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it was going to be a total dude perfect situation. Like, I'm going to sit out here for eight hours while this asshole tries to shoot through a wedding ring. Not the case. He's a freak of nature. I've never seen him.

Starting point is 02:31:27 What's his background? He's a farm kid that grew up in Iowa and he, dad gave him money for bullets. He's been shooting 10,000 rounds a month since he was like 11. No military. No military training. nothing. Heavy equipment operator until he started doing YouTube full-time. Absolutely great. Dude shoots insane. First time I met him, there's like a white foldout table in front of us with all the guns and like 15 yards down range as the targets. I'm standing at the white table. He's standing next to me.

Starting point is 02:31:59 And he's like, all right, pull your concealed carry out and shoot at a target. I'm like, okay. Ting, shoot at the target. He goes, okay, shoot at the same target in the same spot. I had no idea what the fuck he was doing. I go, okay. He wanted to see where my brass was ejecting. I fire again, He steps back, kicks my brass into the air, waits for my brass to arc downward so the bullet doesn't shoot over the berm. And then once it's low enough that the bullet will go into the berm, fires and shoots my brass in midair on the first try, unprompted. What the fuck? Dude, perfect. Bro, it's the most insane shit I've ever seen in my life.

Starting point is 02:32:43 Yeah. First try. Is he doing it? Is he shooting competitively as well? No, he just doesn't care to shoot competitively. He just wants to do tricks. Yeah. He calls to make it fun.

Starting point is 02:32:55 He, he, he, he entertained. The dude is obsessed with guns. And then he'll, he'll go out and shoot guns for eight hours a day and film it because it's his full-time job. And then he'll go home and to decompress, he's ungodly good call a duty, shooting digital fucking guns. Okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:33:11 Well, look, if you can't, if it's too late to shoot, You might as well just do it in virtual reality, I guess. Can you, Mark, can you look up, um, uh, Zynamite for me and Zynamine? Oh, yeah, but sorry, that's, uh, so he's been taking it for years for his reaction time. Yep. So we did a collaboration with him for his favorite flavor. Or like an LTO custom drop. Yeah, that's why we put it in there for him.

Starting point is 02:33:32 But you put it in, okay, Zynomite. It might be Zinamines. Zynomite might be the commercialized one because I know it just became water soluble. And that's why we were finally able to do it. Yeah. So that's why we were actually able to pull it. off and put it in a drink without it all just getting granular and floating to the bottom. Interesting. Yeah, well, I mean, the problem that we have with this is there's fucking

Starting point is 02:33:53 Panx, ginseng, and rodeola in that, and they are active compounds, right? Like, they're fucking adapted. They're from a herb. They're from a shrub. So you put that in. And if this season had more sun on it, then the entire, like the actives can increase more. And you go, okay, so we now, in order to hit what we say as dosages and to keep the bitterness profile the same, it's a fucking nightmare. But the Xenomite stuff was the active version

Starting point is 02:34:22 of that previously. It's like cognizine. Cognosin is an activated alpha-GPC. Alpha-GPC is like the classic version of that cognizant which is what we've got half a gram of them there is similar. Ever since I got into like the energy drinks in different businesses, I do I basically do fat electrician videos but I do them on businesses too on my other channel.

Starting point is 02:34:38 It's called Fat Files. Okay. Some of the product history is insane. Like, lunchables, absolutely wild. Why? What's a story behind lunchebles? I didn't realize there was law. Lunchables is genius, right? Think about lunchebles from a marketing perspective, right? They're not putting the sandwiches together at the factory. You're putting the sandwiches together at the factory. And then you're paying extra because the kids have fun doing it. They basically Tom Sawyered your ass into paint and the fence for them. It's called the IKEA effect. Is that what it is? The

Starting point is 02:35:11 psychological bias is referred to. The difference between pick your own strawberries and cheap strawberries. Pick your own strawberries sounds like an experience, and you love things that have had effort applied to them in a greater weight. So yeah, okay, that makes sense with luncheables. That's why I started looking into it. You know who fucking came up with the marketing for, give it a guess? For luncheables?

Starting point is 02:35:35 Yeah. How old are they? Started in 83, 84, I think. Don't tell me it's like the cigarette. fucking indiflop morse ah come on it's always them why is it always them bro it's dude there's the reason

Starting point is 02:35:51 my theory is there the reason the obesity epidemic started yeah process foods well they so they bought lunch they were buying all kinds of stuff so it was rg reynolds started it in the 60s basically once people were figuring out the cigarettes are bad for you they diversified into the food market so the first product i was able to track down that they did this with was r j r j reynolds bought hawaiian pacific fruit company Hawaiian Pacific Fruit Company is a company that makes Hawaiian Fruit Punch.

Starting point is 02:36:16 Okay. Hawaiian Fruit Punch at that point in time was a cocktail mixer. And then they remarketed it as a kid's fruit juice. So they were buying into all these companies and they bought, Oscar Meyer got bought out by Kraft and then Kraft got bought out by Philip Morris. Yeah. And they were in product development for luncheables. And the working theory for luncheables at the time was it's quick and, easy so a working parent can grab it, throw it in the lunchbox and take it to work.

Starting point is 02:36:46 Yep. And they said, nah, no, no, bro. Kids. This is for kids. And then the way they went through the marketing for it is, because they have all this, all this consumer data from decades of getting people to smoke. They know what people want. Yep. Right. So when a mom is, the issue with marketing to kids is kids aren't buyers. So it's like the one product industry where there's a goalie in between. So you have to convince the buyer that the end user that they want it, but you also have to convince the goalie in the middle of mom and dad that they should buy it for them. So you got to convince them it's good for them. So when a mom is looking at food, Philip Morris realized moms want to give their kids fresh, healthy stuff. How do you portray the image of being fresh

Starting point is 02:37:30 and healthy? You put it in clear wrapping, like they just picked it up from the deli. And that's Why lunchables have the clear and they have the cutouts so you can see the ingredients through the thing. And then they made it look like a school lunch tray to portray the image of being a full meal. Yep. Yeah. Look at how complete this is. Exactly. You can see the meat, the cheese, the grain. Oh, that's like half the my food pyramid. Harkening for some luncheables right now. Yeah. And so yeah, all this marketing just went into like convincing mom that it was good for the kids and to buy it. So then they also used, what's the term? reputation laundering, I think, is the term.

Starting point is 02:38:10 So because they owned craft, they owned all, it's a massive food conglomerate. They owned all these brands, right? So then when they, like, unveil the pizza lunchable, they're going to put branded tombstone pizza sauce with it because mom has already given the kids tombstone pizza. This is just a tombstone pizza. They can build for themselves.

Starting point is 02:38:27 This is what Ryan and the guys from Ghost are able to do because they're owned by Keegig, Dr. Pepper. So they can do an A&W root beer collab. They can do a sprite flavor. They've got Oreos and like Reese's pieces in their protein powder. They're ripping it at the moment because they've got access to this big body of inventory and goodwill that's now being used in a slightly different market than like no one's making a caffeinated version of 7 up in any case. So it's like, well, just you have the caffeine thing will make this flavor, this brand in this new delivery format. Yep.

Starting point is 02:39:02 Yeah. So then, yeah, so they do reputational laundry. That leads to lunchables, but then I started looking into all the other stuff that cigarette companies basically came up. I can see why the conspiracy rabbit hole has been one that you've tumbled down a bunch of times. Yeah. Well, then it's like teddy grams. What's that? It's a little tiny cookie that looks like a teddy bear. Okay.

Starting point is 02:39:24 Teddy grams developed under, I believe R.J. Reynolds did teddy grams. So teddy grams, what's healthier that? What's the healthy version of a cookie? Like a granola bar? A cracker. Yeah. Right. So teddy grams are designed to be cookies, taste like cookies.

Starting point is 02:39:40 They're designed to look like crackers, but then the kids won't want to eat them. So how do you convince a kid that eating crackers is as fun as eating a cookie? Make it into a teddy bear. You make it look like a teddy bear. They're the ones that came up with lifesavers. They, when they, Lifesavers was the mint brand, the little circular mints. Like polos? Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 02:40:00 Yeah. Okay. So we call them lifesavers. And basically they had already. own those. Well, kids don't like ments because they're spicy. Yep. So they came up with gummy lifesavers, the little gummy versions. Like, and they, they came up with all these different food, like processed food products that were just like specifically designed to target kids. And then I found a study from, I think, 91 that, or no,

Starting point is 02:40:23 that study is from 2003 that basically showed that during the time period where R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris owned these huge food conglomerates, the processed food that they were, manufacturing was 80% more likely to be hyper palatable, which is like the scientific right ratio of salt to carbs or salt to fat to make it so you can just sit there and eat the whole box. So they like basically used all their flavor engineering and everything to just make food that you just could not stop eating. Have you seen, have you ever seen when hunter-gatherer tribes are given cheesecake for the first time? No, but I would, can I? I might be able to find it.

Starting point is 02:41:03 It was a bit of a niche video. And cheesecake, I think, is from a flavor design perspective, if you're on the sweet side of the spectrum, I think on the savory side of the spectrum, probably French fries, but on the sweet side of the spectrum, fat, carbs. And then I learned about this stuff called orification. So that's the design of the texture of food. So ancestrally, it's very novel to have multiple textures within the same food. Stuff is slimy or it's crunchy or it's whatevery.

Starting point is 02:41:31 But if you think about Oreos, right, you have both sort of smooth, soft, fluffy with crunchy. The same thing is true of French fries, right? Well done, nicely done French fries. The same thing is also true of cheesecake. And you have all of the different flavor receptors. Like, okay, humans like sugar. Well, why is it that I don't just like want to take a spoonful of sugar and put it in my mouth? Why is that not interesting to me?

Starting point is 02:41:55 Humans like fat. Okay, well, why don't I just like pour olive oil in my mouth or something? It's like, well, no, it's like in specific combinations with specific kind of packages and flavorings and textures as well. And yeah, when you think about, like, even with fucking luncheables, dude, like you've got crunchy wafer,

Starting point is 02:42:12 whatever that cracker thing is on the outside, and then you've got the smooth on the inside and you've got something that's a bit more satisfying and chewy in the meat. Tribal people try. Brow. Brow. That's the owl doing.

Starting point is 02:42:34 It's the owl doing. He sleeps with his eyes open, believe me. Bro, if you put cheesecake in front of me, I'm not thinking about any. This shows that he hasn't ever had it before because he's not thinking about doing anything else. You know what this reminds me of? Have you ever seen the videos of the people that worship American GIs? Worship? Like deities? Yes.

Starting point is 02:43:05 No. Oh, my God. Pull this up. So during World War II, there was like, Obviously, American forces came in contact with, like, isolated tribes on islands in different places. Okay. There's some of these tribes that are still around today, and they literally worship a deity that was the American paratrooper. And they, like, dress up and try to look like American paratroopers because, like, to them at the time, they were tribes people living in the Stone Age.

Starting point is 02:43:30 And some dude parachuted out of the fucking sky with a magical wand this big that could blow a hole in a water buffalo from a mile away. and there's all kinds of footage and like there's been people that have tried to like reach out and be like, hey, this is what was going on but because it's 40 years removed and all the people that were first-hand witnesses are now deceased.

Starting point is 02:43:49 We can't convince you. We can't convince you that that's what this was. Well, I mean, if you imagine, if you tried to do that to people with religion nowadays, speaking of the Philip Morris thing, so this is an interesting pivot that we're doing at the moment. So we're doing focus pouches,

Starting point is 02:44:02 which are nicotine free. So cognizant, which you'll know is cytokoline, 50 milligrams of caffeine, full spectrum B vitamins, all the rest of this stuff. What's really fascinating about that is the focus pouches that we've gone for. They sit basically what I've realized, this wasn't the intention. It sounds like much more of a genius thing before I actually, saying in retrospect. A lot of people now have got really hardcore on using nicotine, especially in pouches. But a lot of people feel a little bit bad about maybe what their usage is.

Starting point is 02:44:32 So we are now with those slip streaming behind. a new delivery mechanism that people, some people want to dilute down. Some people just want to use the focus pouch. They're good. It's an easier way than to drink. It's easier to carry. You can take it on a plane. You can do whatever. But a lot of people like, fuck, man. I probably should just push the brakes a little bit on the Zins or the Alps or the whatever, like Lucy's or whatever I'm using. So I'm going to go like, I'm going to alternate between something that is like a better for you pouch and something that is, you know, really what I'm sort of clamoring for, which is my nicotine. And people are titrating themselves down. So that's been something else, which is interesting

Starting point is 02:45:12 to think about from like a cognitive health perspective. Yeah, I just, that's- I saw another brand doing something, same concept, except their thing was you bought it and it was like a kit. And it had like, I don't know if it was like 10 or 20 cans, but it basically started out at like six milligrams nicotine, just like everything else. And then like, all right, Here's your two cans of sixes, and then your next two cans are like five. And then the next two cans are four, and then the next two cans are three. And it basically like works you down, until you're down to just the blank ones that have this type of stuff in it. Wow.

Starting point is 02:45:48 After the fact. And then you just stay using that new one. Hilarious. The oral fixation and whatever else. Speaking of that, the Phillips, Philip Morris is of the world. The guys have been on a fuck ton of calls with them because they're now looking at, okay, like, where is legislation going to come to? What can we do that is better for you? And there's a bit of me that's like, fuck.

Starting point is 02:46:06 Like, these guys know what they're doing. And it's sick to be in conversations with people that understand human nature may be better than any. You're the hot girl thinking you can change the bad boy right now. That's what you are. I can fix it. I can fix it. I can fix it.

Starting point is 02:46:20 Watch me. Philip Morris. I can fix you. I can make them good for everybody. Come on. Come on. We can do it. Dude, you fucking rule.

Starting point is 02:46:26 Like, all of this stuff's great. The book's fantastic. I think your YouTube channel is just fantastic as well. should people go to check out everything? Yeah, YouTube, fat electrician. You Google it, it pops up everywhere, fat electrician on all my socials. And yeah. And what's the one about business?

Starting point is 02:46:42 That one's called the fat files. Yeah. But you're not fat. It's a long story. It was originally a joke to my wife. My whole content story started because I tore my peck and was off work in a sling. And my wife finally bullied me into making a TikTok account. And you have to have a username just so I could watch the TikTok she'd send me.

Starting point is 02:47:01 So I just said the fat electrician as a joke to my wife because I can't work out, I'm going to get fat now. And then I got a wild hair up my ass. My first TikTok I ever made got 12.5 million views and now I'm here. You've got to be careful what you register social media. It could have been so much worse. I know.

Starting point is 02:47:18 A new grand scheme of things, something that can go on the front of a children's book, it really could have been. It could have been way worse. Yeah. Dude, you're the best. I appreciate you so much. All right.

Starting point is 02:47:30 Goodbye, me, beauties. Until next time. Okay, bye. Dude. Yes.

Modern Wisdom - Forgotten War Heroes Who Changed The World - The Fat Electrician - #1165

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