The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1240: Should Our Guys Be Joining the Military? w/ John Slaughter, Paul Fahrenheidt and Lee Enfield

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

60 MinutesPG-13John, Paul and Lee join Pete to talk about the positives and negatives of joining the today's military (specifically the Army and Marines).Old Glory Club YouTube ChannelOld Glory Club SubstackJohn's Books on AmazonJohn on TwitterJohn's SubstackEnBlocPress.comLee on TwitterPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekina Show. I've got a round table here today. All right, let's go around the horn. John Slaughter, how are you doing? Doing great, Pete. I'm glad to be back on this wonderful Friday night. All right.

Paul Fahrenheit, how are you doing? Very well, Mr. Pete. Thank you for having me back. You know somebody's going to mention the Spain series, right? Look, I actually, I got to sit down. We got to completely delete that and restart from episode one, because I actually just looked at the two-volume history that I intended on making that series about. and I'm like, oh, I have to actually read this before we can do Spain justice.

I'm glad I love you like a brother because that's the most sturdy thing I've ever heard. Lee Enfield, how are you doing, Lee? Hey, what's up, Pete? Thanks for having me. All right. I invited you gentlemen. I got contacted by somebody who is currently active duty and requested an episode on, I guess, what the military looks like now under Trump and whether, recommending that our guys join, whether that would be a good thing or not. So two guys who are, were in and retired, one who's in active reserves, and three, guys who I think will have not completely different opinions, but there'll be varying opinions here.

So I'm just going to start around the horn. And well, let's start with this. What do you, what does everybody have to say about the state of the military today? And Slaughter, why don't you jump off? Yeah, Pete. I mean, as far as the state of the military currently, I don't, I mean, obviously I've been out for going on almost. like, what, 14 years now. So from what I can see, it doesn't, it appears to be in a better state than it was previously under Biden. It wasn't under good, it wasn't in a great place under Obama, which was most of

my time in. And I think that even though it's on an upswing, I don't see it as being a huge difference. I mean, it takes a long time. And everybody here knows, you know, Obama purged the officer corps. of the good officers, and I watched it when I was in. I always remind everybody that it was the first time a non-infantry officer was made common out of the Marine Corps, in the history of the Marine Corps. It was under Obama, and that's a lot of, a lot of negative consequences of his are going to take a long time to overcome. So I think it's better, but again, that's coming from somebody who's been out for a while. So I'm not I'm not 100% confident that it's anywhere close to where it was in the early Bush years.

Before we go to the guy who is actually active now, Lee, do you want to give your opinion what you see? Because I know you still read like Army War College stuff. So you have your nose to the grindstone when it comes to this kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm in a, you know, similar situation as John. Like I ETSed in 2008, so I've been out, you know, for quite a while. But I, through work, I have, you know, pretty frequent occasion to be in contact with guys who are still in, or are in some component, whether like reserve or guard or something like that. And I kind of echo what John said, that it seems like things are, you know,

somewhat improving in terms of like just the general approach and the you know climate i know things were were rough under uh obama under biden so it seems you know to me as a you know a former guy i mean to be clear i'm not retired like you you use the word retired i want to make sure that i'm clear on that i did did one one contract in et s so i'm not a 20 year guy um but it does seem like right now things are probably on the up trend which is overdue but you know like i said i've been out for a while when i was in i mean i was in under bush uh and you know we can talk more about it later um but it seems like it really suffered under um obama and then biden and um i like uh the the the way that things seem to be going from from the outside at this point

that, Paul. So I'm going on five years now. Now that's five guard years. So take that for what it's worth. I have a few more to go. So I'm not going to be out anytime soon. But what is it? But the state of the military that I have seen in,

I enlisted under Trump one last year of Trump one, I was in, you know, I was, I was in basic during the summer of love, which was very interesting to hear the rumors that were spread during that summer. And, you know, then I spent most of my quote-unquote career under Biden. I was discharged and I re-enlisted under Biden. And now I'm, now I'm under Trump too. And let me tell you, it has, I'm kind of in concurrence with these two gentlemen. It was very bad under Biden. And that was, you know, one of the only cool things I ever got to do was I was at the right place, right time, right security clearance to see the fall of Kabul from a, you know, from a from a from a from an S2 shop, which was pretty cool.

But also pretty demoralizing as to the as to the state of the high command. And, you know, as Mr. Slaughter mentioned, purges of high commands take. generations to undo. You can't just undo that immediately. You know, it takes years to reach general officer and it takes years to undo the policies that general officers create. So, however, that said, there is some life in the Army, at least in the Army. That's the perspective I have. There's some life with this new shift from what's called coin warfare to near peer you'll hear about it a lot if you're in the the d od world the all the army likes to throw around buzzwords particularly higher up officers like to

throw around buzzwords near peer near peer near peer near peer near peer near peer near peer near peer and that is certainly put some life in the army just make this a conversation now i'll uh i'll jump in if i uh have a question or i think we're a little too far off field but anyone anyone can jump in now go ahead So I'll tell you what, as these things typically go, whenever you're discussing an issue, typically the pro side goes first and then, you know, it gives the against side or the doubtful side time to cross-examine. So I will, I have not been quiet about telling our guys, hey, I think joining the military is a good idea. You can take this from someone who is currently in, who lives with that sort of Damocles over his head every time.

you know, pretty much every day, even if it's on a small level than an active duty guy would. I believe it can be a good idea depending on who the individual is and what it is they're looking to get, right? Now, as an upfront statement, if you're going active duty at all, I would not recommend anyone sign anything other than a, three-year contract, no fewer, no more. If you're going to do it, a three-year contract is vital. Why? Because a three-year contract active duty is what gives you access to the bag. It gives you GI Bill. It gives you the VA home loan. It gives you a whole variety of other goodies that are only available after a certain period of active duty months. If you're going to do this and do active duty, you would be stupid if you were doing it for one or two years. Now, there's a few circumstances.

There are some MOSs that give you top secret security clearance. That's a reason to do it is it's a good way to get a clearance if you want to go in defense or something to that effect. But other than a very specialized way of doing that, like three years is the, I think, the ideal time right now. You can get in, get your benefits. And at that three year ETS date, end of time and service, we're going to use a whole bunch of acronyms. And if we don't stop to say what they are, the audience is going to be left behind. End of time and service, which is your end date. At that time, if you like the army or you like the Navy or wherever you enlist, then you can extend.

And if you don't or if you really, really don't like living under it, then it's just three years of your life. Time is a very valuable commodity right now. But I'm pretty sure we have three years, at least, you know, at least at time of recording, that's how long Trump has left in office. So if you're going to do it active duty side, that's what I would do. National Guard reserve side, you know, there's a national guard for the Army and the Air Force and there's a reserve for the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and I think the Air Force. So you can, you know, that's the part-time commitment. Those are more typically six-year contracts initially, although you can do fewer. With the National Guard, I'm a lot more, you know, I don't have

a recommendation as to how long, seeing is how the service commitment is much shorter. And I'll kind of go into a second part of this before I open it up to the other two gentlemen. Reasons why I think you should join the military even right now. Number one, Trump is the best commander in chief you're going to get for a while, or we've had for a while and you're probably going to get, although, you know, God willing, someone just as good comes to replace him. Number two, if you're a listless young man who has literally nothing going on or you're in a bad situation or you have no idea what to do with your life, the military has always been there as a sort of way out for it. You know, you can end a bad lease by enlisting.

You can move from a bad situation from enlisting. If you're weak and whatever, it's not going to make you a bodybuilder, but it'll certainly give you some confidence and some accomplishment and some structure, you know, and it'll pay you, right? Benefits are great in terms of health insurance and the like. Other things, pay is, I mean, if you have dependence, I mean, if you have dependence, that's a whole different calculus. Matter of fact, if you have a family, I wouldn't recommend you enlist unless it's reserves. But, you know, specialized jobs. There are I could go into this more in depth later in the stream, but there are a couple of very specific jobs I would recommend that the Army particular, I'm going to be very Army-centric, but I know a

little bit about the other branches. But there are specific jobs that you can break into by enlisting or going to OCS that you couldn't otherwise. That would be very valuable, both for yourself and for our thing. You know, there are a variety of other things, but that's generally what it has to do with, is if you want some sort of job skill, if you want a GI bill, which can functionally is a go to college for free and they pay for your rent and a bunch of other stuff and you can go be a lawyer or you can go be an accountant or some other skilled professional or an engineer. And then there's VA home loan where you can go and purchase a house with zero percent down. It's a pretty good way, pretty good loan, usually on pretty favorable interest rates.

That's a pretty good way to get homeownership in the market. And that's not even talking about the veteran status. which nullifies the bias against you, if you are of Caucasian descent, veteran status kind of nullifies that, to a certain extent, that systemic bias against you because veterans are a protected group under CRA, if I remember correctly. So those are a lot of the reasons, and I could probably go more into detail about the job skills and the like, but I've been talking for a while. But in summation, those are reasons why one of our, guys would want to enlist even in today's day and age.

You know, obviously it's not going to be perfect. And, you know, these are just the upsides. There are plenty of downsides, which I'm sure we're going to get into. But as far as the pro side goes, those are reasons why you would want to do it. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favorite Liddle items, all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs,

when the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Lidl Newbridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Lidl, more to value. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design. They move you, even before you drive.

The new Cooper plugin hybrid range. For Mentor, Leon and Teramar. Now with flexible PCP finance, and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro. Search Coopera and discover our latest offers. Coopera. Design that moves. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited.

Subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Discover five-star luxury at Trump Dunebeg. Unwind in our luxurious spa. savor sumptuous farm-fresh dining, relax in our exquisite accommodations.

Step outside and be captivated by the Wild Atlantic Surounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas with vouchers from Trump-Dunbeg. Search Trump-Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunebiog, Kush Faragea. Yeah, I'm going to echo a lot of what Paul had to say. kind of in a similar camp. I think my advice, if somebody's wanting to join, is I would want to see who they are and

what their reasons are for joining. There is a lot to be gotten out of the military, as Paul mentioned, especially when it comes to specialized skills or specialized MOSs. I would not recommend anybody go into combat arms just simply because when that is over, when your time and service is over, there's not a lot for you to do. It doesn't confer a lot of skill sets that transfer to the civilian world. Now, you can always go to college and use the GI Bill, as he mentioned. But when it comes to getting out and just getting a job, you're pretty much limited to things

like being a police officer, some form of law enforcement. Or you might look at, you know, FBI or something like that, one of the three ledger agencies. But my recommendation would just be if that's something, you really want to do and you're going to be enlisted, look for a specialized skill, you know, try to get as high a score in the ASVAB or GT score as you can and get one of those skills that essentially functions as free trade school. I've known a lot of people that did their time enlisted and had a, you know, whether it's being a nuke on a sub or being a tech, a radio tech, where they got out and they were able to use those skills to make a significant amount of money immediately

after leaving, unlike someone like myself who there's not a lot of transferable skills from being a forward observer to the civilian world. But my main recommendation, though, would be is if you are capable young man, the officer core is where I would recommend going simply because of the skills you're going to gain, not just through OCS, but also the networking, the clearance, the leadership skills you're going to learn in that. And there's also a lot of opportunities in there. I had a good friend of mine who was lucky enough to come in as enlisted. And in the Marine Corps, they call it the must.

We call them Mustangs. There are people that enlisted, did some time, usually about when they're about a staff sergeant, maybe a gunny. They will put in a package and they'll basically get college paid for. They'll get sent to ROTC. They'll do college. they'll come back as a as a lieutenant. And he did that and then turned around and got the Marine Corps to pay for his law school.

And so he got to do three years of law school while getting paid by the government and not having to do anything but go to school. And he was getting paid as a captain at the time. So there's a lot of higher skills that can be achieved, especially, you know, the Navy is a good place for medical. A lot of people get their medical degree and then join the Navy and have it paid off. So I think there's a lot of benefits, but it's individual based. And if you're at the lower end of that rung and you're trying to get out of a bad spot or you don't have a lot of prospects, the way to go is to find a job that has transferable skills for the future. Yeah, the transferable skills thing that, like I agree largely with that. in sentiment, but I, I don't know, I would also offer, like, combat arms, like I was infantry,

and combat arms is appealing, like when you're a young man, like I'm 39 years old now, and, you know, so it's not, I'm aged out, and looking back, it was, you know, probably, you know, not the smartest things that join the infantry, you know, in the relatively early period of, like, you know, G-WAT. But I really, you know, I've thought about it a lot over the years. And at this point, I don't think I would trade it for anything. So I wouldn't necessarily, like, if you're a young guy, if you're, you know, 17, 18, 19, and you just have that itch where it's like, I just want to go.

like, I don't know, chew some dirt somewhere and just see what that's all about, I wouldn't write it off. And, you know, that's more of like an impulsive decision than something where you're thinking, like, long term about like career prospects and financial security and things like that. So, you know, take this advice, you know, with a grain of salt because, I mean, I I remember, you know, during my ETS process, like you, I assume the military still does something like this where you go through like a series of out processing. It was called ACAP at the time, but, you know, they try to help you, like, write a resume and, you know, teach you about, you know, finding jobs and stuff like that.

And, you know, I remember the lady who was doing it was just like, oh, yeah, you were in the infantry. Like, you're not going to find a job, you know, because, you know, you remember this is like, ETSing into the great recession, right? So like, you know, I got out of there. There's practically no jobs, you know, anywhere. It was very difficult to find even entry level work. You know, I've done okay since then.

But yeah, if you're, if you're someone who's looking for like long-term prospects in terms of job security or like a technical field or something like that and you don't otherwise have access, Like if you're not from the financial means to just go ahead, you know, directly into like a college route, the military is definitely a viable option for that. But I would also make the appeal to any young guys who, you know, like I was not the only guy in the infantry who was there by choice, right? Like you would be surprised who you meet in combat arms, MOS is some of the smartest guys I've ever met were there. And it's not, it's kind of like a meme on the internet where you talk about like, everyone's a retard in the infantry or they're all crayon eaters and stuff like that. But that's not the case. You meet some really interesting guys, some really great people.

And a lot of them are, you know, are very intelligent. and you get to go out and, you know, basically have adventures with those guys. And it sucks a lot of the time, but I always look back on it fondly with, you know, notable but rare exception. And if there's, you know, guys out there who are going to listen to us, who are 17, 18, who are thinking, well, you know, maybe I could go straight into college. And I could do something that's like, you know, respectable. I could be an accountant or an attorney or something like that.

But I also kind of have this itch where I want to like jump out of planes and, you know, just go do stuff like that in some God forsaken hellhold. It's, you know, going to be a complicated and messy situation. And I just want to kind of test myself with that. Don't write it off because that's, you know, that's a big part too. So that's not going to be for everybody. Like you have to give yourself to it. And it can chew you up.

It's a, you know, it's a test of what you're willing to tolerate and put up with mentally to maintain like the right attitude with it. But I wouldn't say write it off. Like definitely weigh, you know, weigh what your priorities are and what you think your disposition is and what you feel like you would be willing to tolerate and, you know, put yourself to. And yeah, of course, like the smart money is always on making money. But don't write off the, you know, adventure aspect of it too. So I would, for a young guys, I would definitely give combat arms a look just for that reason. But otherwise, I agree with what these two gentlemen have said. There are, you know, from a purely financial status standpoint, there are, you know, a lot of benefits.

The military is well funded and it opens a lot of doors. them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design, they move you, even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range for Mentor, Leon, and Terramar. Now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro. Search Coopera and discover our latest offers. Coopera, design that moves. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services, Ireland Limited. Subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply.

Broke wagon financial services Ireland Limited. Trading as Cooper Financial Services is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. Ready for huge savings? We'll mark your calendars from November 28 to 30th because the Liddle Newbridge Warehouse sale is back. We're talking thousands of your favourite Liddle items all reduced to clear. From home essentials to seasonal must-habs.

When the doors open, the deals go fast. Come see for yourself. The Liddle Newbridge Warehouse Sale, 28th to 30th of November. Lidl, more to value. Discover five-star luxury at Trump Dunebeg. Unwind in our luxurious spa. Savour sumptuous farm-fresh dining. Relax in our exquisite accommodations.

Step outside and be captivated by the wild Atlantic surrounds. Your five-star getaway, where every detail is designed with you in mind. Give the gift of a unique experience this Christmas, with vouchers from Trump Dunebag. Search Trump Ireland gift vouchers. Trump on Dunebiog, Kush Faragea. So to the point on combat arms that we've already spoken about, I'm not in disagreement with either of you.

If you're not going to get a job after the military, you don't know how you're going to get a job after the military, maybe you should give combat arms a second thought. but for those of you who feel like you're going to need combat experience, for whatever reason that you think you're going to need combat experience, I'll leave that undefined, for whatever reason that you think you're going to need combat experience, combat arms is the way to go.

And very specific combat arms refers to In the Army, it is infantry, cavalry, field artillery, I guess air defense artillery as well. Although the engineers, though they're not technically a combat arms, MOS do experience combat just as much as the infantry do. If you're a 12 Bravo, which is a combat engineer, they're always attached to the 11 bravos, which are the infantrymen. These are MOSs, which are military occupational specialties. That's your job.

It's always, in the Army at least, it is two numbers. in a letter. And I don't know how, I know in the Marine Corps, it works a similar way. Not the exact same way. But for those of you who feel like you're going to need combat experience, right now, the National Guard, which if you are not familiar with, the National Guard is one of the two halves of the reserve components of the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. It is a state-based military, although it has the capacity to be federalized, and it falls under the same chain of command, the same uniforms, the same rank structure, the same training. You will do training alongside active duty people if you join the National Guard. However, you will primarily act in what is

called a Title 32 capacity, which is the area of U.S. law that's covered, that's state level law, as opposed to a Title 10 capacity, which is federalized, right? So I learned this recently. you're actually not, if you're a guardsman under Title 32, you're not even under what's called UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is military law. If you're a Title 32 guardsman, you're actually under your respective state code of military justice. Like if you're in Texas, the TCMJ or the Texas Code of Military Justice or wherever else. And all 50 states have one. Usually it's a carbon copy of the UCMJ. But the reason that I'm telling this about the National Guard is that right now, well, number one, 50, at least half, more than half, I think, of the U.S. Army's

combat capacity is within the National Guard. This was very consciously done after the Vietnam war to prevent the sort of foreign adventurism that that could bring about unsuccessfully, of course. But National Guard has forward deployed as much as active duty has, has won almost as many medals of honor, done as much combat experience, et cetera, et cetera. And right now, actually, given that Gwatt has sort of drawn down, right now you are more likely to go on a combat deployment or to get on a combat deployment if you are in the National Guard than if you are on active duty. That's not to say active duty doesn't combat deploy. And in active duty, you'll have the opportunity to do far more specialized training,

such as Airborne school, air assault school, pathfinder school, all the cool guy stuff that you see Ranger School, Sapper School, etc., etc., that give you very specialized military skills. You'll have more of a change, because National Guard is broke. National Guard is usually not very, not as well funded as the active duty. So the opportunities to do things are fewer. However, you are more likely to be deployed overseas for that exact reason because right now it's this very perverse calculus. The federal government deploys National Guard units more than active duty because National Guard units are cheaper to send overseas than active duty ones. And this is for very complicated finance and insurance reasons.

But I digress. And this isn't even, I'm sure we'll at some point talk about special forces and the capacities for things similar to that. But if for whatever reason, you as a listener feel like you're going to need some, or at least something resembling combat experience, the National Guard, and I would even very specifically say National Guard infantry, 11 Bravo is probably the way to go. I was going. I'm glad Paul brought that up because I was actually going to ask that question about very specifically what he said. if you feel that it will be useful to you in the future, whether that consideration was something that you guys had thought about. Had you thought about that, Mr. Slaughter? Yeah, I've considered that.

I think, first of all, there's one of the big distinctions between the Marine Corps and the Army is that everybody in the Marine Corps goes to, oh, I can't remember the name of the school now. we go to school of infantry, obviously, your combat arms, but if you're not, you go to, after you finish boot camp, you go to a secondary school where it's essentially a condensed and very short version of school of infantry. So you learn all of the basic infantry tactics because the Marine Corps has this philosophy that every Marine is a rifleman, right?

So it doesn't matter what MOS you pick in the Marine Corps, you're going to get at least a basic functioning level. I mean, you're not going to be great, but you're going to have more skills than the average person, especially if you keep up on those skills and you actually make an effort to retain and learn those things. Now, it's not the same as going to school of infantry, but I do think I would say, as much that I would discourage most people from it still, to Lee's point and to Paul's as well, there's a particular type of young man that you can't worn away from that. And I was like that. My uncle was extremely high up in the Air Force, you know, and he was right around the time he's going to be a pin full bird colonel. He tried

really hard to talk me out of the Marine Corps. But the only reason I wanted to join the military was to do cool shit in my mind. Right. So there was no other option. And I think for those type of young men, I would say if that's really something you want to do because you just can't shake that and you need to do that and you want to learn those skills, keep in mind, and it's difficult. I don't know about the Army, but you can always what's called a lat move. You can move from one MOS to another later on. So you could technically, and it's a risk because you don't know if you're always going to get it, but you can do your, you know, most contracts in Marine Corps four years.

you do your four years and when your time to reenlist comes up, you can put in a package to move to a different MOS. So you could hypothetically, you know, in eight years, you could get both the skills from being in infantrymen or even a tanker, some other form of combat arms, and then move over to a more specialized skill or go to college, as I mentioned earlier with like the Mustang program. So I think for those specific guys, I would say, you know,

you're not going to be satisfied unless you do it, then do it. But if you're looking for anything other than that, then I would stick away from it. Do you have anything to add to that, Lee? No, I think that's right on the money. It's really, you know, it's a matter of preference. And, you know, everyone, like no two guys fight the same war, right? Like everyone, if you join the military, everyone joins for their own personal reasons, in addition to the normal, you know, cliches that you hear, but everyone, you know,

take something away from it, and everyone's in it for a different reason. So if it is absolutely the best advice, like what John is saying, what Paul is saying, like, hey, keep the future in mind, do, you know, the smart money is on some type of technical field, career, you know, degree program, for sure. Like, I, I, I, I, you know, agree with that. You know, and Paul is right. The National Guard, especially their infantry unit, stay very busy. So if you are a young guy who just like, look, I just want to do three years and, you know, get into a fight, basically,

then that's where you would go is, you know, an infantry unit in the Army. It's like the National Guard component. You catch them in the corner of your eye. distinctive by design they move you even before you drive the new cupra plug-in hybrid range for mentor leon and terramar now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro search cupra and discover our latest offers cupra design that moves finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland limited subject to lending criteria. Terms and conditions apply.

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30 November, Lidl, more to value. And now, this is the last year now that you're going to a year and not great a great in Aundoon and lehands the Gala to give the amelphada Ghaea Gauta Deereen. In Ergird, we're taking to talk in one-whunah with funnive in one-oomah.

There's ozherad you on a language on alexlexei and people tariff in one tachty. There are air to cook-dawagin. Full of nismos at Airgrid, point, E. So, I'm sorry, go ahead, Pete. Paul, you had, um, well, finish what you're saying, and let me see if you're going to say what I was in.

Well, I was going to launch into a whole tangent on special forces. That's exactly what I was going to ask. You got. Okay, so, so we've talked a lot about here, like there's two different primary reasons to join the military, and this has been very Army and Marine Corps heavy. Um, we can, to a certain extent, talk about the air force. force in the Navy a little bit towards the latter end of this stream. But we've talked a lot about technical skills and we've talked a lot about the desire for combat experience, right? But if you are

the type of person who can either has or can cultivate a inner strength and discipline to make it possible if you want both a technical skill set and combat experience, the way to do so is special forces. So what is special forces? Well, special forces literally actually only applies to Army special forces, but Socom special operations command. Every branch of the military has their own unit of special forces. With the army, it's the it's the green berets or its Ranger regiment. And then, of course, you know, there's Delta Force, but, you know, And then more specialized ones like ISA or the activity is or or ISA, the activity and another nickname, the Army of Northern Virginia are all one specialized subunit.

You can make this ever, ever more and more and more granular. But that's the Army. The Navy, of course, everyone knows about the Navy SEALs and they also know about Dev Gru. Marines, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure they still have the Raiders and the Marine Scout snipers and then Marine Recon are all kind of of that category of special forces. And then the Air Force, they have the pararescue men. I think I covered all of them. I'm sure I forgot someone's unit. But each of them have a different specialty and some of them are available. So you know how I talk about the National Guard.

A lot of people don't know this, but the National Guard has green berets. It has special Special Forces, 19th and 20th group, our two National Guard. I think your other guest, Clay Martin, was in one of them. You know, you can be in special forces part time in the National Guard. It's one of the better kept secrets in the Army. A lot of people don't know about it. But yes, you do have special force and you do the exact same special forces training and you deploy just as, I don't want to say just as often, or you can deploy just as often as active duty special forces.

But that's specifically Green Berets. Green Berets have a very specific combat profile. They're the ones that are the most familiar with. You have different specialty sergeants that all specialize, because the whole concept with Green Berets is that you can, if you want to see what the concept is, watch the movie, the Green Berets. It communicates it very well. But the whole point is that they're supposed to go into an area and be able to perform with that small team of people just about any task that they can perform.

So if you, and they will get, you will get combat experience. So if you want that and a heavily technical skill set, they are trained very well on each of their respective career fields. I think there's an engineer sergeant, medical sergeant, signal sergeant, which is, you know, IT and radios. So you'll know a little bit about all of that. And weapon sergeant, if you just want to, you know, want to be a cool guy. regiment on the other hand is a lot more of just a very very very very high speed line infantry

unit you will get more than you're more combat than you like and it's also a very competitive culture very hard to get into very hard to even harder to stay in than it is to get in and i would imagine it's the exact same thing in the marine corps but the marine corps that's how it's been explaining me is the marine corps raiders and the scout snipers is it's all 110% all the time and if you can't hack it you're out um i don't know much about the PJs and i don't know much about the PJs and i don't know much about the seals, although I assume the seals are similar to the Marine Corps. And, you know, the seals are the most famous ones. I'm sure you all know all about them. But yeah, that's special forces. I know we've got plenty of X, not only, we've got a ton of

veterans that hang around the scene, but we've got even more than our fair share of XSF of various varieties. So I'm sure if any of you all have any further questions on that, you can speak to one of them. I've done it. I've spoken to them about it. They're usually very happy to share information. Yeah, I just want to piggyback on the SF thing. So the Marine Corps is a lot different, obviously, in a lot of ways. When I was in, one of the things, the Marine Corps raiders originated during World War II, and they were disbanded not long after the war,

mostly because the Marine Corps had this idea that they didn't need special forces, that everybody, our infantry was supposed to be up on par with the ability of what was considered, I guess, special forces at the time. So you'll hear, and, you know, Lee and Paul might not like this, but the Marine Corps kind of looks at like our infantry on par as being just as good as Rangers. Now, people can go back and forth on that, but because of that sort of idea, there hasn't really been special forces. When I was in, you had, as he mentioned, you had force recon, you had scout snipers who famously got in trouble for using certain symbols when I was in. But I digress. The point is, is they realized where the money was going and they brought in what they called Marsoc.

And Marsoc was Marine Corps Special Operations Command. That is recently shifted to taking over the old Raiders name. And I think that was a few years ago. And it was largely because a lot of the money was going into two special forces. And the Marine Corps didn't really have anything other than force recon and scout snipers. So that's a relatively new thing. But the Marine Corps, if you're wanting to do special forces, I would actually recommend the Army because it's easier in the Army or in the National Guard to get into special forces. The Marine Corps is very selective.

And I don't know if this has changed, but for example, whether it was, it was more, Marsock or EOD, most branches, the other three branches will allow you to enlist, you know, under those MOSs. In the Marine Corps, you had to have done four years already. And you had to be, I think, either a sergeant or you were going to pick up sergeant before they would even let you go to those schools in the first place. So it's not as easy to get on that path in the Marine Corps. I think it's an easier route if you take the National Guard or the Army in that regard. Yeah, I think to that point, the Army's program for that is the 18X program. Like the MOS identifier for Army SF is 18 series.

So unless it's changed, as far as I know, it's still the 18X program. But if you're a young man and you go talk to a recruiter and you say, hey, I want to be a special forces guy they may bring up the 18x program that has a very very high rate of failure like your odds of going from you know 18 year old 19 year old civilian all the way through the pipeline to being like a long taver he's very low like your chance of success with that is very low so for for anyone who's considering like joining with with a with a like a long-term goal of going into the special forces. I can only speak to the like the availability in the army because I was in the army. I was not in special forces but it's not, you know,

difficult to try out to be in special forces in the army. Like the slots are not as guarded as I think they are in some of the smaller branches. So like if you are a guy who wants to eventually try for special forces, the army is probably the best way to. go, but it is not a great idea, in my opinion, to go to a recruiter as an 18-year-old and say, hey, I want to take this 18-X program where I go straight from being a high school senior to like a Green Beret pipeline. Because the odds are that physically you probably don't have like the stamina and the discipline or the endurance to, you know, make it through that entire pipeline, or just the basic soldiering skills.

Like a lot of the, like I was in the 82nd Airborne, and so like a big percentage of guys in the 80 second are guys who wash out of some part of the SF pipeline. because, you know, the JFK Special Warfare Center is on Fort Bragg. And so, you know, guys come in and they try for SF, they get hurt or they wash out or something like that, and then they end up in the line 80-second units. And so I knew a lot of guys who were like this. And most guys would just say, like, yeah, man, I just frankly, like, I was not mentally ready for, like, what this is asking of me. and that's fair. I think it's probably kind of a dick move by the Army to entice 18-year-olds and say that

there's a chance you could become a Green Beret when there's a very low success rate of like completing that whole pipeline. And so if it's something that you're thinking about, there are plenty of options to get into the SOCOM community through joining the Army, of course. but I would just advise people to maybe steer away from the 18X program just on the premise that it's not really geared for you to succeed. It's geared, you know, like every now and again, like if you read the statistics on it, maybe 15, 16% of dudes make it through the pipeline straight through the 18X program. But it's, that's not very good odds. and your soldiering skills, and I don't mean like just like being a cool dude.

I mean like how strong are you at reading like a topographic map under a red light when it's really cold outside and you're under a time hack. Like you unless you have like very strong skills with like land nav or like working under pressure or something like that, you are probably not where you need to be to complete the 18x pipeline. So I'm not saying don't try for special forces or anything like that. I mean, that stuff's cool. But just, you know, if you're listening to this as a guy getting out of high school or, you know, way in college or something, I would advise people away from the 18X program, just for those reasons. You catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive. By design. They move you. Even before you

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Little, more to value. And now this is over the same year after she has never, I'm not that I'm sure that Gileghul Gilever and not Gereena in Aondon and Lain de galla to give a father Gaulta deird

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with all the town, and people tariff in the ta'erick too ague Pongue Pongueue

Ponguey. I'm glad you brought that up. That's, you know, Yeah, 18 X-ray is very, very, it very much is a trap. And I've met more than my fair share of dudes who fell for it. And that's just simply because special forces is extreme, like Green Beret is very specifically, which 18x-ray is selecting for is extremely mentally and physically challenging. You know, like you were mentioning, Lee, you know, and I'm sure Mr. Slaughter, you also understand this.

It's like you, a lot of that is just simply you don't know how well you can cope with. being in 120 degree, like 80% humidity weather with a very heavy rucksack and your weapon and your ammunition and you're dehydrated and you've been running frigging lanes all day. And now you have to you know, ruck march like eight, 10, 12 miles to your, to your Biv site where you're going to be spending the night and it's probably not going to be. And you've been up since like 0.5. and you're going to be basically up until maybe 23, if you're lucky, maybe later, right? Just to do the same thing over again tomorrow and the next day and the next day. That's kind of like you're not going to know how well you cope with that until you're there and you have to.

So that's that's kind of what Lee is sort of talking about when he's saying like basic soldiering skills. It's literally it's just you don't you don't know how you'll deal with it until you have to deal with it. Um, so those are, those are things to keep in mind. You know, even something like a Ranger Regiment, like the alternative for 18 X-ray that he said is, uh, is option 40. I don't know if they still do it, but this was to get into Ranger Regiment. Even something like Ranger Regiment, uh, isn't as mentally demanding the same way that special forces is certainly more physically demanding. But if you're, you know, like, like I've, I've seen plenty of high school aged beasts. Um, and I'm a lot of them make it through. Really, Ranger Regiment is just is just how much utter

suck can you endure, but you don't really need to think too hard, right? Special Forces is not bad at all. Special Forces is not only do you need to endure a great deal of physical suck, you also need to be able to continue properly mentally functioning and perform somewhat complex tasks while enduring that physical suck. And that's why, you know, that's why a lot of people, especially young 18-year-olds, who don't know a lot about anything, kind of get sucked into it. But for those of you who, let's are a little bit older or who are already in or who have been thinking about it for a while and you've got some more experience with life and you know more about yourself and you're more disciplined and you're more physically conditioned and you've been in in relatively hard circumstances right this

is certainly something for you to consider a lot more i even heard something last time i was at the schoolhouse i heard something how they're not really selecting anyone younger than 28 right now um it's very rare for them to select someone someone in their early 20s and that's actually a big difference between army special forces or even something like delta force and um and the navy seals because the navy seals are all like 18 to early 20s guys because there's a there's a huge culture of physicality with it that um delta force and as all the delta force is way far and beyond what i think most people listening to this like that's something that they'll call you um you know them to worry about that. But, you know, that's why, you know, matter of fact, that's why Navy SEALs

have so many of the scandals that they have is because you take a bunch of like freaking 18, early 20 somethings. And yeah, they're physical specimens, but, you know, then you give them all of this, this adulation and this fame and this praise that like, oh, you're the best thing since sliced bread because you're a Navy SEAL, et cetera. You're the best of the whole special forces. That's why they have all these, you know, horrible things that they do because it's, you know, the environment isn't there. With SF, Army SF, and Delta Force, they select for late 20s, even early 30s in some instances, which is a whole, you know, I'm sure all of you, I mean, I'm the youngest one here,

but all of you gentlemen, you know, understand that, you know, just the physiological changes that happen to a young man when he gets to about the age of 28 alone, calm you down in a way that, you know, only time can. So, but unless anyone, I think that's, That's a great deal of words that have been said on SF. Well, Paul, I want to jump a little bit to kind of piggyback off the Navy SEAL thing. You know, I know in the Army, they have medics. In the Marine Corps, we don't have that.

We have Navy corpsmen. And one of the most common jobs for guys who wash out of buds is to become a Navy corpsman. And this is a job that, you know, obviously I wasn't in the Navy. And nobody here was. But if you're not looking, you know, at the Marine Corps and the Army, which is what we've been mostly talking about. And there's certain skills you want to acquire. The Navy corpsman program is really, to be a common, we call it Greenside Corman.

Those are Corman that work with Marine Corps. Then you have Blue Side, which are mostly in naval hospitals and on ship. But if you can get on as a Green Side Corman through the Navy, you're going to get some basic combat skills, but also combat medic skills, which, again, in the future could be extremely. valuable. So I just, I think that's an option for for some people to look at. Yeah, now that you mentioned that, I know Lee, you probably had something to say, but now that you mentioned that, that reminds me, you don't have to go the full way all the way to special forces in order to get some of the skills that they teach you. Something similar to that, that happens, Army side,

not exactly the same thing as medical, but more on the engineering side of the house. If you join as a 12 series, 12 Bravo, 12 November, the engineer series in the Army, you can go to something called Sapper School, which is similar to Ranger's School, although it's half as long and it's, you know, it's, Ranger School is not the same as going to Ranger Regiment. I mentioned that earlier. It's not the same. It's technically not related at all. But Sapper School teaches you, you know, improvised explosives, repelling, tactical combat operations the same way ranger school would and that's a lot of the skills that are taught there are similar to what people in special forces are taught so if you just if you just want to get some of those skills now it's certainly it's a very demanding school um you know there's there's a joke with people with sapper tabs who see people with ranger tabs they say oh ranger school that must have been easy um you know but but um but like that's that's certainly something that you can do You don't have to go full hog all the way to like getting your green beret and being, you know, one of America's best and the chosen few, et cetera, et cetera.

There's plenty of ways that you, even if you don't even go to sapper school, if you just go regular the 12 Bravo route, it already teaches you some of that typical demolition, uh, combat sapper stuff, you know, uh, that the army teaches. So there's, there's, there's more than one way is to skin a cat and you don't need to, like there's a certain, you know, what we call in the service economy of force. right you don't need to do more than you need to do right if you really need to get that like ultimate deep far reaching experience that you know group will give you then do so but if you just want some like basic you know not not basic but semi more advanced soldiering skills then let's say your average joe something like that like the navy the the the green side corpsman mr slaughter mention or something like sapper school or even just being a typical combat engineer, you know, you'll learn plenty of the infantry, you know, squad, platoon, company-based tactics.

And then you'll also learn the more of like the battlefield transformation abilities that an engineer has. So and it's not limited to those. There are other things in the Marine Corps. If you're really on to combat stuff, you know, that there are things like that, you can do. Just understand that you don't have to do more than you have to do. Can I interject and bring something up? Something that hasn't been mentioned yet and probably people who are listening are probably wondering. I haven't heard anybody mentioned patriotism yet. So who wants to address that? I mean, I'll be honest and I don't know how the other two gentlemen feel when i joined um i don't i don't know anybody who joined for those reasons

um ever 90% of the people it was a family it was either a family tradition of some capacity or they just wanted to go and i mean i'll be frank a lot of you know if you ask a lot of the young infantry guys they just want to go blow stuff up and and shoot somebody or go on an adventure that's what they want um i don't know i mean to me at least the pay Patriotism was sort of secondary. I didn't, you're really fighting for the guy to your left and your right. That's what it's really about. So I never really saw that.

And, you know, Lee kind of mentioned this earlier. That's the type of people that join the infantry. And you'll find the infantry has some of the smartest individuals you'll ever meet and the dumbest at the same time. And the one thing they sort of have in common for the most part is that they just wanted to do cool shit. So I don't know, you know, and I might also be in a particularly strange boat with the patriotism thing because my family's history and being so tied to the Confederacy. I've never had a strong sense of American pride. So the other two might have more to say on that.

Yeah, like I largely, I'm going to echo what Mr. Slaughter is saying because I don't, I, I, Like, I'll be to some extent, like the corny elder millennial. Like, you know, I was, you know, I mean, I remember watching 9-11 happen. I was in high school. I was still too young to join the Army. But some of my buddies who were, like, ahead of me were able to, like, you know, it was like, oh, shit, man, we got, you know, attack. Like, we're going to go fuck somebody up.

And, like, obviously, we've seen how that played. out. I'm not saying that that was like, you know, like a brilliant political, you know, plan or something for a bunch of, you know, dickhead high school kids in Florida. But, you know, when you're 16 and, like, you watch something like 9-11 happen, and especially before the age of, like, social media and Wi-Fi and stuff, it has, I don't know, more of like a legacy feel. And so there was, like, a sentiment of like, okay, bro, like, we're all, like, all. Like, we're all. almost old enough to do on the Army, like, you know, so let's go do it. And that was a factor to an extent. And I know that's like a quaint idea in 2025, knowing now what we know about, you know, how GWAT played out,

and also the incentives or, you know, perverse incentives were at work there. But, you know, for, you know, at this point, I don't know how much of a factor. it is for guys. I will say that, you know, just because I think, you know, just my merit of age and the circumstance, like that was a factor at the time. But if I'm being totally honest, most of it was, like, that's kind of like a justification for being 18 and wanting, you know, to go do cool shit. So like, you could pen it on patriotism and say, like, you know, yeah man stars and stripes like uh you know Toby Keith whatever uh and that's like maybe 25 percent of it but most of it was just that internal voice that's like hey man like there's a war

going on uh aren't you curious like you know don't you want to go fight in that like maybe maybe it's a lousy war but it's the only one we got man you know why don't you go fucking check that out like what are you going to go do like you know dick with spreadsheets in college like there's an actual shooting war going on. And so that was probably more of a factor, if I'm being honest. I mean, it sounds shitty to say, but, you know, I don't mean it from like a cynical standpoint. I just mean that that's, you know, kind of how it was. And I think that's how it was for a lot of guys.

But there was also mixed in some earnest patriotism, even if maybe it was misguided at hindsight. this is all like you know the stuff about job skills we were talking about earlier like there's easier ways to get job skills if you have the means to or the scruples to i would imagine if you like the place you're from enough to you know suffer uniform service for an extended period of time even if it is for political reasons like there's there's easier ways to do all this now i'm not saying i'm not saying you should prop i'm not saying you should go volunteer in the ukraine because you shouldn't do that. I don't advise that.

But there are people who are doing that, who are getting combat experience or joining Blackwater isn't around anymore, but there are various companies that do what Blackwater does. Like this isn't the only way to do this stuff, but I'd imagine if you're doing this, you'll like the place you're from and the people that inhabit that place to enough of an extent that you're willing to consider. this, but the whole thing about patriotism, I mean, that's, that's, I mean, honestly, more than these,

more than these two guys, I grew up with, you know, watching the military history channel and, you know, the, my image of the U.S. Army growing up was that it was just this invincible, unstoppable force and the road to Baghdad and Desert Storm and, you know, da, da, da, I was, I was a particular, particularly weird young kid, and even, even that, of course proved completely insufficient to face the world that I was going into and it, you know, broke very quickly in, you know, any vestiges of it that I had broke when I first encountered this scene and then, you know, and then when I went to basic training, it broke even further and then it was finally fully shattered when 2021 happened and I saw the pull out of Kabul and

was ordered to take the vaccine at the same time. But, you know, I'm still here. I'm still in it and, you know, there, There's not zero of it, as these other two gentlemen have said, but it's like what is what is patriotism, right? Is it is it liking the place you're from or is it this is it this very kitsch ideological commitment? That's almost like a little bit too much. That's actually a little bit off putting and makes people slightly uncomfortable. That's what people I'd say imagine when you have the Toby Keith and the USO shows and stuff like that. But again, you know, know the plate of the era that you're in yeah i guess the uh patriotism is a you know it's a word it could

even be a trope serving your country is probably the same but it makes a little more i guess it says a little more it describes a little more so um yeah i guess that was the uh that was a kind of response i was expecting from you guys so um Y'all are the experts. We're coming up on an hour. Have we missed anything? Do you think we've missed anything? Screw the Navy in the Air Force, I guess.

Yeah. To, I guess, reemphasize some of, like, practical advice that these guys have mentioned, because it is important if you're, you know, a young person thinking about doing this, I think it was Paul who mentioned that, but maybe I have that backwards. Sign a shorter contract. You can always extend your contract, and the Army will give you the stuff to extend it. So, for example, if you go into the recruiter's office and you get, you know, honey-dicked into signing an eight-year contract and you end up hating what your job is and hating the Army, like it's going to be. pretty bad. Like, there's not a graceful way to get out of the army because you just don't want to be there.

Like, it's difficult to just say, like, hey, I don't want to do this. And it has long. Right. And those have long-term, like, if you get, you know, discharged under, like, other than honorable circumstances, it's going to follow you pretty much everywhere. So it happened to me. I wouldn't. not recommend. Right. So, so sign a short contract because if you hate it and, and, you know, especially if you're like a young guy, if you're 18 and you sign it through your contract and at the end you're like, okay, cool, like I get it, but you know, this is not what I'm going to do with like my whole life. You can just walk away and it's fine and you have access to all the benefits that these guys talked about, the GI Bill, VA home loan, all that type of thing. And you're not

stuck for another five years doing something that you hate every second of. Conversely, if you do three years and you're like, this is awesome, I can see myself doing this for like my career. You have a chance to, if you want to switch to a different job, like you can reclassify it into something that's more technical or, you know, has a bigger upside on the civilian market. You can negotiate for schools that you want to go to. You know, like Paul mentioned like okay, I want to go to Sapper school or I want to go to airborne school or I want to do this or that. Those get divvied out a lot of the time through reenlistment. Like when you are reenlisting, like a recruiter wants you to do this.

It's the same thing, you know, same model as like a corporate recruiter. Like they want you to stick around and they get rewarded for retention. And so do the short contract. If you like what you're doing, then you can keep doing it. probably get a nice cash bonus or like a school or some type of favorable outcome. But if you don't like what you're doing, there's not an easy way out. So err on the side of the shorter contract. That's probably not what the recruiter is going to steer you towards because, again, they want

retention. They want longer term contracts. Stick with the shorter contract would be my advice. Unless you have a very specific reason to do otherwise, I would encourage anyone who's thinking about doing to just stick with the shorter contract. Anyone else? Closing thoughts. Going once.

Going twice. I guess if Mr. Slaughter doesn't have anything left, I'll talk for a little bit more. I'll give you one thing, Paul. I'll give you one thing. The recruiter will lie to you, and if you know what you want,

go for it. Don't let them talk you into anything else. Because they will trick you because they want you to sign the line. So just keep. that in mind. Yeah, real quickly, Paul, if I can just jump in for one second. To that point, the Army, when I join the Army, like what you sign up for, like the job

that you sign up for, that's what you do. In the sense, like, if you go in and you sign up to be an in-flight missile repair man, like you're going to be an in-flight missile repair man, assuming you pass the PT test and make it through basic training and all that type of thing. if I remember right, the Marine Corps does not do that. Like they'll give you like, okay, three options and you'll get like one of them. I'm not sure if that's still how they do it. Like when I was enlisting, like I had talked to a Marine recruiter and he was like, yeah,

I can't guarantee you that you'll be in the infantry. And I was like, well, you know, no thanks, bro. The Army can. So like, I don't know if that's how it still is, but make sure because some branches, it's a guarantee. in some situations it's not. Yeah, the Marine Corps does, but because it's a smaller branch, it's, again, more competitive. So they always gear people towards what they call an open contract,

and then you pick three options, and then it's what's called needs of the Marine Corps, and they fill you into whatever the Marine Corps needs. You can get the specific MOS. It's just a lot of times the ones that people want infantry, things like that, those are already filled up, and the recruiter's trying to make his numbers in another place. but that's usually what they'll do.

They offer open contract, which just means that you're going to go do whatever the Marine Corps tells you to do. Yeah. So I guess kind of to round this out, here's a good rule of thumb for, because I know we didn't talk about the Navy or the Air Force at all. Don't join the Air Force, period, because if you're the kind of guy who could make it into the Air Force, like, just go do it on the civilian side anyway because the Air Force, I know we have friends who've served in the Air Force.

is not going to disparage it too hard, but I would heavily advise against joining the Air Force for political reasons as much as anything else. It's probably the worst branch for that. Although Navy is up there, but Navy you can find, Navy is the waspiest branch if you want to be like high class or whatever, but you know, then you're in the Navy. But a good rule of thumb, a good rule of thumb. Join the Army if you want to do a very particular thing, whether that thing is, infantry or artillery or you know new thing is like cyber security it's actually if you want to get into cyber security army is one of the best ways to do that right now because you'll get

something like 20,000 dollars worth of certs civilian certs you know just by going through AIT that that's a 17 series if you're interested but besides that like join the army if you want to do a thing a very specific thing join the Marine Corps if you want to be a Marine, right? Like if nothing can replace being a Marine for you, there doesn't matter what you do in the Corps. You will be a Marine and you will have that marine culture. It doesn't exist the same way in the Army. In the infantry, yes, somewhat and in, you know, more specialized like the engineers and the, you know, I guess I guess the cab. I don't know about the calf. The calf's weird. It's different. Join the Navy if I, I

I mean, you know, if you're not joining the Navy to be an officer, then like, don't join the Navy. Pete, you can do a follow-up episode with Navy people to talk about what the Navy can do for you. But, but, you know, that's kind of a good rule of thumb. Join the Army to do a thing, a very specific thing, or to get a thing, a very specific thing. Join the Marine Corps to be a Marine, right? That's what I got for you. And as always, as always, as always, as always, before you. you sign that contract, look in your, look at yourself, look at what you want out of it,

how much you're willing to give and, and why you're doing it. That's because if you have any doubt on any of those scores, you know, no matter what they say or how they pressure you, you can always just refuse to sign the contract and leave and, you know, come back to a later point when you're more sure so just be be cognizant of those things and i think i think you'll be fine all right let's finish this up by going around the horn and doing plugs we'll do it just the way i see it on the screen john slaughter what do you got uh well right now i'm getting ready to release a uh i sold 500 copies of my books i'm releasing a special hardback edition with a new cover so people can be on the lookout for that um other than that you know you can follow

me on Twitter at J. Slaughter Esquire or check out my substack at Texas John Slaughter subsdack.com. Mr. Fahrenheit. Join the old glory club, support the old glory club. Yeah, that's all.

Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter at Shortmag SMLE or subscribe to Inblock Press, my newsletter, en, B-L-O-C-Press.com. Like Paul mentioned, CAV is an option. if probably best if you're a member of the LGBT community, that's usually who's in the cavalry at this point.

Back to you, Pete. Thank you very much, Lee. You know, he's not how to make me laugh. Gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom.