WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Knight In Shining Armor | Boys Only #28

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Nate and Storm gave Shooting Sports Coach Andre Renier 12 bucks and 2 cups of coffee to talk about shooting from birth, building exploding armor and recreating Greek fire, and why we need a cannon at Hillsdale.

You ever designed shields for the King of Spain? One time I did, but it was a while ago. I mean, there was this guy named Guido there. It was a whole to do. A guy named Guido, head of security, from the country of Spain. Yeah, they just flew me to Toledo. I was like, yeah, sure.

I'll go to Toledo. I thought it was Ohio, but they were like, to Spain. I do actually know one guy who's done that. Who's actually done that? He's actually done that. His name's Andre Reneer. He's the shooting sports precision rifle coach, rifle coach at Hillsdale College, and he is our most esteemed guest on this episode of

Boys Only. That's awesome. You did a great intro. That's really, you nailed it. I love that. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. This is Andre.

Andre, say hi. Hello. Hello. Welcome on the podcast. We're just hanging out. You want to give a little, who are you? What do you do here before we get into the meat of it all? A little, this could be the whole episode.

Give us like the very run now because we're going to get, we're going to really dig into that. So just very brief. Very brief. I've been here for four years. I coach the precision rifle and pistol team, basically the Olympic style precision rifle and pistol. I also am an instructor here at the college. Amazing.

Yeah. Excellent. That works. If you're underwhelmed, get ready. This guy has the most insane dad law ever. Nate and I have started taking shooting sports classes. Yeah, last semester we took introduction to shooting sports. We were like, we're all kind of older now and we have like credits to just kind of take and we've heard great

things are cool and I want to learn how to be more proficient with firearms. And so we took intro to shooting sports. Yeah, which is not a self-defense class. No, no. These are all shooting sports classes. These are not self-defense classes. And we took intro to shooting sports last fall and now we're here in indoor rifle and pistol. Fantastic class.

Both with Coach Reneer here. Do you like teaching these classes? Are they a little rudimentary for you? No, actually, I love it. I really, really do. This is my passion. It's my heart place. I really, I couldn't tell you that and be dishonest or not sincere.

I got to back up. When you guys came into the intro class, I told you the first day of class. The reason I do this is because of an experience I had when I was in freshman physics. And I had just a really jerk of a professor who was not at Hillsdale. It was at Eastern Michigan University. And I said, I want to be teaching entry-level class at some point. And now I get to do that with students who are of the caliber of hill. Hillsdale, which is just a huge honor. It's a humbling experience to be here. How did you get into this

life? Like, you're so proficient. You're so knowledgeable with firearms. You're such a good teacher with them. Like, that's, that doesn't come easy. How did you get here? Oh, it's a long twisted journey. I'm, I'm ready to take it. So, how did I get to Hillsdale specifically, or how did I get, like, how did you get into firearms? Like, what's your, your background with, with firearms, like, from, like, where you use them as a kid, teenager? Like, how did we start? Born into them. I was born in the... Born with baron.

So, not a joke. My grandfather, the day I was born, he bought my first gun. I was given my, my first gun came to me. I was, you were destined for this position. Literally, my granddad was one of those guys who was, he was in World War II. He was, he was the man's man. In fact, my granddad tried to get into World War II twice, volunteered. They wouldn't take him because of his physical health and he was old.

He was 35. They wouldn't take him. So he married my grandmother and got a draft letter three months later and went to fight all across Europe. When he came back, he did a lot of cool things, but it was that instilling of him. And so every year on your birthday in my household, you got a new gun. By the time I was 11, I had 12 guns. Yeah, because they have birth. And at 11 years old, you got your first gun, not a gun safe, gun, gun, cat.

cabinet back then. Wow. And I still have that beautiful wooden gun cabinet to this day. That's incredible. So that's how I got into shooting sports has been a family thing. My mom was a marksman. Oh. My brothers and I were all marksmen. So it's just what you did. That's just, so then how did you get to Hillsdale? Hillsdale got a call. Not dude called me cold one day and said, hey, would you come and we want to build a program, an NCAA level program? And would you come and do this? We don't have any money. So you're going to come and do this and can you see some classes here while you're here too? And I'm like, uh, no. No, I am not college material. I am not PC enough to even be at Hillsdale. And after, um, about an hour and a half from the phone, I said,

okay, if you'll hang up, I'll come in. They wanted you so bad. And I was like, uh, but I came in. Um, and it was, it was really a refreshing experience. I was like, Okay, I was at the Halter Center. I'm like, this is pretty cool, but this isn't main campus. No. What are they really like up on main campus? And then I went up to main campus. Like, well, main campus is pretty cool.

And then comes a time when you end up in the third floor of admin. And I'm sitting on third floor of admin. And I'm in this room and there's a bunch of folks who I don't know who they are. And I looked at them across this. There's a big like conference room table. Right, right. And I look at him, I said, you guys make the Kool-Aid here, don't you? What a great line.

Completely looked at me just stone-faced. And then some nods. Yeah, I guess. I'm like, oh, man, if you guys believe it on the third floor, I am so it. So that's why I'm here. Did you teach anywhere before, or did this kind of just suddenly? I'll start teaching. No, no, I started coaching.

adults when I was 13. I was in sports. Oh my gosh. I started, I started in competitive sports at six. I was in swimming. By 13 and 14, I had a whole bunch of medals and that kind of stuff.

And started coaching adults at that time. And by the time I was 20, I was coaching at the collegiate level. And that's kind of always been a side thing for me. I have, you know, real jobs. Coaching does not pay your life.

You're not going to make money coaching. kids don't do it your name isn't Lou Holtz don't do it if you're gonna be if you're gonna coach like something like football

there's a there's a plan for you to make real money if you're coaching sports that aren't like football or high level basketball or baseball and a few others you're gonna have to have a real job

so yeah I've been doing coaching and training and mentoring both at the collegiate level in the corporate world. So corporate coaching, those kinds of things for a lot of years. Something that's kind of stuck with me since,

or that you said last year in the intro class, was that your job is a little bit easier here than has been elsewhere because for some reason, Hillsdale students happen to just be better shots right off the bat, even with very little to no experience. That doesn't make any sense to me.

It doesn't make sense to me either, but what's your experience with that been? And does that hold accurate, you think? Yeah, it really does. I don't have a, I don't know why. In my background, not coaching is in the hard sciences. So I'm a real scientific kind of guy. I'm like, oh, I got to figure that out.

I don't have an answer. I don't know how it is that through the admission process that students that come here, or at least the ones that come in my class, are far better shots on the first time they press that trigger. than the general public is. I've been teaching general public and coaching shooting sports for a long time. I'm like, I'm just trying to think, what year is it now? It's like, I remember the first competition I ran was in 1991. And so I was running competitions at that point.

And you've got to be kind of cautious when you have an open competition, you have the general public come in. You got to vet those people and make sure that they're really able to be safe on the range. Hillsdale students, boy, I don't know what it is about the student body here, but they are very proficient from the get-go, even if they've never touched a gun. They may come from a state that guns are pretty difficult to get, or they may come from a country. I've had students from England, from various parts of Europe, and they've never touched a gun. They come here and they're like, bam. And I'm like, wow, you are like putting them right down the center of the target. Yeah.

That's amazing. Yeah. I would love to say it's my coaching. But it isn't. It really isn't. It's just where you guys started. Well, you do a really good job in making me feel like I'm not stupid. Yeah.

Well, it's because you're not. If you're stupid, I'd be like, you're stupid. You are stupid. I'm the worst shot I've ever seen in my life. You know what? Does breathing come natural? Or does somebody have to remind you to do that? But no, really, I've been such a blessing to be here and so humbled by the student body here.

Really, just amazed. You mentioned your background in like in hard science. You mentioned that like once or twice you've ever brought up. Yeah, I have a degree in like astrophysics, by the way. Yeah. And it's like what education? What is that? Well, it's a very long and twisted tale.

I'm ready to take it. I'm there with you. So I have a lot of. respect for Hillsdale students, first off. If I had my life to do over again, I would literally just come straight to Hillsdale and not go the pathway I did. But I didn't do that. I went down a twisted pathway. And yeah, I did a stint in astrophysics engineering with interplanetary transport systems. Basically, spaceships. That's what I was. Interplanetary transport system. I worked on spaceships in college.

Well, here's a problem. And your generation is going to face this. You're in college right now. And you've got this great plan. You've been planning to do this career. You're on course and AI is coming. Yeah. Well, in my case, it was the Cold War ended.

So I was going to, I was finishing my studies at University of Michigan. And I was working in the field. and the Cold War ended. And all of a sudden there were thousands of astrophysicists and engineers who didn't have jobs, who had 25 years experience. And so I had to pivot. I didn't actually get to work in my field beyond college. I pivoted to the auto industry because there was no jobs.

So I went to the auto industry. And now then I ended up helping out with some other spaceships and developing systems for those. later in life, but right after college, I'm right at the auto industry. Can you talk about, I mean, that's, I don't know, do we want to talk about the auto industry, the fact that he just mentioned, the fact that he just mentioned that later

I worked on spaceships. Can we go to the spaceships? Was that in college or that was later? Later he worked on the spaceships. Okay. Both. So at University of Michigan, there's a laboratory called the Gassanamus Laboratory,

and I worked at the Gassanamus Laboratory while I was a student there because I had matriculated to U of M. I had already been to a number of other colleges by the time I was at U of M. So I was going there for that degree. And one of the things about me in my life is that I, when it comes to my college, I did not go to college for degrees. I went to college for knowledge.

So I went to a lot of colleges. I would not recommend that as course of action to anyone ever. Because I just went and like, oh, I want to learn this. Great. Give me those classes. and I'm out the door of the next college. That is not a brilliant way to handle your life. But it got me to a lot of colleges and a lot of fun places.

Back to spaceships. Yeah, so what I ended up doing was to develop some radiation shielding for spaces, spaces, specifically for the Myers shot. If we're going to send astronauts to Mars, we have a real problem. We have the technology to build a ship. Stick the humans in it and get it there and get it back. The problem is, is the solar radiation and the radiation given off by the sun? We don't have an effective way to shield.

And so they're going to get there. But if they come home alive, their likelihood of survival much longer than getting home is pretty limited. They're going to develop some serious cancers because of their exposure to radiation. And that's an unacceptable risk. So it's pretty easy to send a spaceship there and with a robot or something. But getting a human being there or any carbon-based life form is pretty rough. So developing the shielding was necessary. The Russians had a cool plan.

Water shields, great. We'll just take a cylinder of water and then put a cylinder inside of it and we'll put their astronauts inside the cylinder of water and just sit under Mars. That was a Russian's plan. It's not a bad idea, but shooting a whole bunch of water through space is massively heavy. And so it takes a tremendous amount of propellant. And it's a real challenge. So engineering-wise, that's part of what I did for...

That's fascinating. Yeah, did you come up with any solid? Like, what was the end game? We developed a shielding substrate that was much lighter than just a tank of water. And the shielding substrate does a pretty good job. It's not bulletproof by any stretch. but it certainly will reduce about 90% of the radiation inbound to the astronauts, which is what we have to do to push that barrier.

My, I got to tell you, as a side note, I'm the least cool person in my family. So you want to interview the other cool dudes because, and I'm not joking when I say this, it's not being being humble, it's just me being honest. I am the least cool dude in my family. How many other dudes are there? My dad was one of nine. Oh, man. He was an immigrant family.

And they came over here and they did cool stuff. Like really cool stuff. Who's like the number. Who takes the cake? Oh, probably my uncle Remy took the cake, I think, because my uncle Remy, a little side note, his name was Remigius Octavius Reneer. Yes. Is it this guy?

Yes. It's that guy. So, yeah, my whole family before me was, is, I thought I probably told you, has very Latin names. My father is Francisco's Roberta's. And Remigius, Octavius, Uncle Remy. Uncle Remy. He actually is a guy who was in charge of building the Cape Canaveral Space Station. So the big building where they assemble the Saturn 5 rockets and where they assemble the space shuttle, that was his project.

was building that. Unfathomable. And then the crawlers to move them out. That was his project. But that was at the end of his life. He actually served eight years in Vietnam from 1952 to 1960 when we were not fighting officially in Vietnam. He served there. Before that, he served in Tripoli.

And before that, he served in World War II. He was a 1927 graduate of Notre Dame. Oh, wow. Yeah, he actually had a ship named after him. So the USS Reneer is named after my own grimy. So, yeah. He's way cool. Not my dad's cool.

I mean, they're all like stally cool people. I am not that cool. It's spelled differently. What? Raneer. Rineer. Yeah. It's like rain.

No, no, there's another one. Oh. There's multiple of them. There's no. Oh my gosh. R-E-N-I-E-R. You can look it up. It's now in, in a museum in Cape Cod.

Oh. Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It's now been, it's, it's served its life. It was commissioned in 1968. And for those of you, history buffs, President Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, christened the, uh, christened the, uh, the boat. Wow. And, uh, he swung me old bottle out onto it.

She was right there. She busts the bottle on the bow. Oh, yeah. And, uh, yeah, we got a lot of pictures that is cool. That's incredible. Oh my gosh. I found the article in the historic New England newspaper. What? the heck. Sorry, I always fact check because it's so, it's so ridiculous. Like, it sounds so

I got to tell you. Unbelievable. With me, um, sometimes the internet is your friend. Uh, just go ahead. I bring, bring, I bring your receipts. Um, it's a, that's a damn bonjino kind of thing. Yeah, bring your receipts. But really these days, bring your receipts because people will say that almost outlandish things. And I don't, I don't need to about my uncle and stuff because it's like, that's, that's what he did. You know, that's what he, that's who he is. So I'm not that cool. Yeah. Come correct or get corrected. Yeah, there you go. Home with a plan or leave and defeat.

Yeah, I mean, Patrick Campbell is currently trying to convince me of his rodeo story. No way. No shot. No way, no way. So no receipts on that one. Yeah, I have been with horses literally my entire life. Guns and horses. That's my thing.

Guns and horses. I do not have a good rodeo story. Our friend Patrick, who's on a show a couple weeks ago, or I guess last semester. Yeah, last semester, has this famous rodeo story. He's been sharing this whole semester where he's like, I was at the Hillsdale County. Fair two years ago. And during one of their rodeos, there was just increasingly bizarre events, like people running over people with tractors, people in crazy costumes coming out. And like, I don't know, some celebrity he said was there.

And it just kept getting wilder and wilder every time he tells the story. And he says, he claims that he has a picture that proves it. But he, but he won't, he can't find it. So, you know, no receipts. I, be corrected. You got to have the receipts. Life is funny because things have in your life and you have no expectation. of something occurring

and then all of a sudden you're in a situation where it's just weird and you're like how does this happen? How did I get here? Yeah. I cannot.

That has to be a question for you, you ask for you asked. That's a question. Yeah. That's a question that come, I ask myself all the time. I'm like, how don't I get here today?

It's like, why am I on this podcast? I don't even know. Well, because you told a story about building shield for the game of Spain. Yeah, like brief flashback to the cold open. That was a story you told us

last week in, or I guess two days ago. Yeah, two days ago. In class, while we're waiting for another person to arrive, about how you went to, you didn't know what you were doing. No. He wanted to just tell the story in miniature? Sure.

Just for the problem. That was the pre version. So one of the things I've done a fair bit of is like documentary type film and a recreation of historical things. My background, part of my background is in historical recreations and historical technologies. So part of my education is as a historical. technologist. So what that ultimately means is sometimes somebody will call me up and say, hey, can you

like recreate this? And the answer is probably. I don't know how much money you got. Yeah. And usually it's like, oh, we've got like 12 bucks. I'm like, okay, it sounds good. Yeah, let's do it. 12 bucks, they'll buy me like two coffees at Starbucks.

It's wonderful. And so back to the story. I got a call that said, hey, could you fly over to Spain? And we wanted to, the slightly longer version is we want to do some recreation of a shield. And I think you can do it. I'm like, okay. And so I hopped a plane. I fly to Spain and they get off the plane and they say they put me in a hotel.

They say go down the front of the hotel, take a left, go straight down the street to a guard check. and they'll tell you what to do. And that's really all I knew. And the story goes from there where I told you guys were, they took my passport at the guard shack. Didn't give it back. Didn't give them back. No, I had no idea.

And I was a little concerned now because now I'm in a foreign country without a passport. And that makes me a little scared. Yeah. And they had guns. And so I went across and met with the... They had large fire arms. There's large men with large weapons.

There are a large, they're a large man, large ones. It's a big guy named Guido over there. There was, and I hadn't met Guido at that moment

yet. I just met Guido's, you know, servant guy. Who had a career to, his underling is me. He was like,

hello, I am Guido's minion? So, yeah, I went there, and I met with the, there's a museum at the building I was at. And I,

I met the curator of the museum, and we went through the building the shield that they wanted me to build to see if they could recreate it, and find out how it worked.

They wanted to really understand how the shield worked. A little cliff note here, most people who are in museums and do research and historical stuff have no idea how the technology they're looking at ever worked. So then they write papers on it and those papers usually are highly flawed. So I'm the guy who goes out and test that stuff to see if it actually works. So after meeting the curator, the curator wanted me to see a book. that book, I did not know anything about the book.

The book is kind of like, as I told you, it's kind of like maybe a manga or a, it's like a picture book. It's a picture book. It has pictures on one side and words in the other side and it tells you how to run the kingdom of Spain.

It was from 1280, and they had a reproduction of it. They wanted me to look at. But the reproduction wasn't available right where I was at. So I had to go over to another office. What I was unaware of is where I was physically at.

Because I didn't look at it. I don't ever pay attention to anything like that. I did not know that I was in the royal palace of Spain. The capital T, capital. You look at Madrid, Spain. There's a royal palace. And that's where the president of Spain is.

Well, what I didn't know is that I was going to the office of the president of Spain at that moment. And so I'm sitting in this office and there's this big dude literally named Guido. He was of Italian Spanish heritage. And he was a monster of human being with a machine. Gene got strapped to him in a business suit. And I'm waiting there for the book. And the book finally arrives. And I commented that, boy, I'd love to have a copy of this book just as an offhand comment.

And Guido picks the phone up and he talks to somebody. And there's some conversation back and forth. And he hangs with the phone and he said, well, we'll sell you one for $7,500. And I thought to myself, I have no idea where to come up $1,500 on the spot. What I also didn't know was the person he was talking. was the president of Spain and he had to get permission from the president of Spain to offer me the book for sale which I should have probably given a kidney at that point because that book's probably worth a hundred thousand bucks today but I was not that because we do was the head of security good we do we do we do with the state of Spain like just like where are we in time oh this would have been about uh... twenty eight that's maybe 2012 2012 2013 somewhere there okay continue with incredible so that that's that's the kind of story so that that that book actually had um

kind of how to make these shields. So we used that and then we used a lot of research and development to make the shields. And the shields are truly amazing. They're called it Ardaga's. And that's my bastardization of the word Ardaga.

And it's basically kind of like... Jamie, you check that? So we can know what Ardagas look like, Jamie? Yeah, I'm checking it. Yeah, you can look it up. It's A-R-D-A-G-A, I think. And they're basically like ballistic armor.

of the middle ages. So if you think of how like ballistic armor works, it, as the bullet enters, it separates the fibers and start the fibers gather the energy of the bullet. These shields are made from multiple layers of leather and they were designed to absorb the energy of the arrows coming in. This is bone arrow time and the European battlefields and they're designed for horse cavalry officers to hold the shield out in front of it. And as you hold the shield, the arrow is coming at you. And you can see the arrow. And it's got a little metal plate where your hand is. So the shield is opposed to like holding it like you would think of like a Norman or a Viking shield where it's your arm is through the entire shield. You're actually just holding it in your fist and putting out in front of you. And then you just stop the arrow as it comes in. And it'll pierce the shield, but the shield will stop it from hitting you. and so of course we got to test that

so my middle brother was a pretty good archer so we got the camera crew there and after we built the shield we got the camera crew and I had my brother shooting at me with the camera crew and I'm on my horse and I'm going at this thing

and it's pretty amazing because you can actually see the arrow incoming and trap it with your shield as you go past now the military at the time this is Spain So you've got the Moors coming from the south, and you've got the European aristocrats on the north side. And there was this these battles would go on back and forth, pushing the line of Spain as the Moors would move in and out.

Well, the Moors had this concept called a style of riding called the Jintae style, which was a very athletic style of horse riding where the Spanish had a very kind of statuess style of horse riding. So the moors would just come in with these shields and they'd run at the Spanish lines, the more European side of the Spanish lines. And they'd just attack the right or left flank. And they'd just attack one person. But they'd send 20, 30, 40 horses in at a time. And they'd attack one and the next one and the next one and the next one. Whoa. So they were just eat away at the side of the lines.

It was amazing. And to actually use the shield and then we tried it out. It was like, oh, this is sweet. Yeah. You can destroy a. an entire infantry line with enough horses because you just run past them and continue on. But you adjust the shield's position

when you look at the arrow. Yeah, as you're looking at. Yeah, well, how big is this shield? The shield is probably maybe about two foot by about three, three and a half foot. So it's a good size. Big, yeah. Very, very lightweight.

Very, very lightweight. They're very nimble shields. So, yeah, we built those shields and tested that out. I think it's on, I don't know, Discovery Channel, History Channel or something for one of those companies. another thing you mentioned when you were telling us this story

is you just kind of offhandedly said that yeah you basically reinvented Greek fire and we found the documentary so you want to kind of just run through that also Andrew Hawkin had asked how hard was it to recreate slash make Greek fire we did some research

on the rest of the Discovery Channel stuff that you've done what's the story behind you just get a phone call one day say yeah man you want to make napal yeah it was pretty much how it always happens Yeah, the phone ring's like, hey, can you, can you get Greek fire? And I'm like, uh, 12 bucks and two, two cups of coffee. I gotcha.

And a guy named Guido. Yeah, is Guido there? No, Guido's not there. Um, so they said, yeah, can you, can you do Greek fire? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think so. Um, let me give it a shot. And so we, um, we did a lot of work. It, it was, uh, 42 attempts to get it right.

Whoa. Um, when you're doing a recreation of historic technology, You really have to get back to that time frame. So I got back, by getting back to the time frame, I mean, literally we had to lay out on a table. Everything that was available in the marketplace in Constantinople in the 700s. So what was available? What could I have used? And then we researched that, put that in a table, and went, okay, we know what the historical text say this look like.

we know what the pictures look like. How close can we come to that? And I don't think anyone can be 100% positive exactly the recipe, but I would say that we are 100% accurate to every historical document we could find. Every photo, every picture that we saw, every bit of writing from the time, extant writing that was available, we were able to be within that framework.

And it's amazing. I mean, Greek fire is classic napalm in a very real sense. It's a little different than napalm. How so? It is a temperature stable, room temperature stable, jelly. So napalm is kind of a jelly jelly, generally speaking. But if you think about a gallon of gasoline, back

you know 700 800 AD you really can't move gasoline around or something that explosive around on a ship you have crockery

basically clay amphora which uses ship a lot of things like olive oil but the ships think of Mediterranean based ships there are going to be

wooden ships that are glued together with pine tar pitch so they're They're highly flammable. You don't want any fire on them. And you want to take an explosive thing and put it on there.

And they're not real stable in the water. I mean, you're stable, but not like a modern ship. They were stable for their time. And as a ship goes, they're usually built on a six to one hall. So six long to one wide. Noah's Ark kind of built. That's how you're going to keep a ship pretty stable in the water. but what you have is you have to have something that at room temperature is a solid.

Not like jelly oozy, but it needs to not move around. But then you have to heat it to get it to where it's not. But it has to have a point that its liquefaction point is not too warm. It needs to be just like 140 degrees. Something that's outside of the temperature that's going to sit on a hot deck in the Mediterranean sun and still be solid, but give it just a little bit more. Just give me a few more degrees, and I can get it into a liquid,

and then I can pump it. And once I can pump it as a liquid, I can light it on fire, and once I can let it on fire, I can project it to another ship. And that was really the kick. How are they heating it? To get it into that liquid form, what were they using?

So that was another thing. They had to do it safely. So the best way to do it is through boiling water. So it had to be, it's liquid. had to be at a non-boiling water. So sub-212, sub-100 degrees Celsius, it had to be liquid, so you could have a,

just a warm pot of water that you'd pipe it through, and that would be enough. Holy moly. It's in the technology is pretty amazing because they were using Roman fire pumps. So a Roman fire extinguisher, basically, is what they would use,

but instead of pumping water through it, they would pump, napal. Was it like super viscous like as a fluid? Like what was like water like almost? Yeah.

Once you got it to its temp which was at sub 212 it would really flesherly nice at about 180. Once you got it there my gosh it is like pumping water and you saw the videos

we could pump that stuff like 150 feet and it's it is straight up At that point, napalm. There's no question. You are pumping. Regular napalm doesn't have some of the additives we have today, but it was really just

it would be horrible. If it was something that was pumped at you, I would jump to ship. I would be gone. There's no way. Because it was also like sticky, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because what it does is as soon as it hits the surface, it starts to cool on the surface.

So the liquid that's not on fire. Because the only the outside of the liquid stream is on fire. The inside of the liquid stream is just liquid. So as soon as it hits, it sticks because it cools, but then the surface is burning. So if it sticks to you as a person, it's like goop on you, but the outside layer of the goop is burning. And you're on fire. So you jump in the water. The problem is also that while it will extinguish when you go below the water, there's going to be stuff right there.

on the water is residual on the water that's burning of course too. So the water it doesn't put out and if you notice I didn't probably didn't point it out to you in the video I showed you but there's that that ship hull section we built was actually sitting in water and you can see the water was

physically on fire because it sits on the surface of water and burns because it's a largely oil oil base because it's made out of a variety of things but can you not legally say what it's made out of? Would that get you in trouble? secret ingredient. I can legally say it, but I can't morally say it. Okay. Yeah, we like those things.

It is not, it is something that is made out of stuff that you could go through quite literally a marketplace in Constantinople and get. I'm frequently there. What about a Walmart? Yeah, like, have we got Walmarts here in America, Target, maybe? So, yeah, you can get a lot of the stuff at, right around, right around town. You could find a lot of stuff. There's, there's a couple of ingredients that you wouldn't be able to. find locally. And strangely enough, I found those in Ann Arbor. Yeah, yeah. It was an odd place.

One town over. Go get in Ann Arbor. That's legendary. We didn't have to go very far for that. Was there, I think I may have heard you mention that there was some crossover between that project and your work on behind the scenes in Game of Thrones. Yeah, Game of Thrones.

The producers of Game of Thrones contacted me and said, hey, could you show us how you did Greek fire? We did it in the in the movie and in the series. But of course, that was special effects. They didn't actually use it. Lobb napalm. So I said, yeah, we'll do that because, well, we made a lot of the Creek Fire, the actual, the jelly stuff. So you just had it sitting around.

Yeah, we, we, in a clay amphora. Yeah. More like a fire. safe uh clayham in his garage was four clayam for seven feet tall

I wish I had a that was the only thing we we had to we kind of the clay amphora we only had one it was kind of a small one but it was it was good enough for the thing

but yeah we did that we actually did that over in uh in adrian we shot the filming for that and Adrian uh for their special on the making of yeah the making of game of

and so and so the game of terms people just kind of called you up and we're like hey can we have some Somebody at that table said, oh, I know a guy. Yeah, I'm sure that's what happened. Yeah, you probably saw the special. Yeah, they probably went, I know a guy who knows a guy. Yeah.

He'll do it for 12 bucks and two cups of coffee. Dude, got a big gift card. Yeah, with all this, these astrophysicists, Greek fire, historic recreations, you have to be the guy that they're always talking about when they say, I know a guy. He's the guy. You're the guy. I don't know. I don't think so.

I think there are cooler guys than me. Well, the producers of Game of Thrones and the president of Spain would disagree. I don't know. I don't know if the president of Spain would know me in a crowd of one. Or at least his prime curator. Guido, Guido knows you. Yeah, the curator at the museum over there. Yeah, he knows right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd be like that. That jerk and not him again. That's incredible. Because you also work for historical recreations on armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's one of Andrews questions was how many suits of armor have you made? Because we saw that special also. It was the exploding or collapsing armor for jousting. What was that? Um, so if you go to the, uh, Kunti Shores Museum and Vienna, Austria, excuse me. They have two of the suits from around 1490 in 1531. They were built by the Maximilian I first, or not himself personally, but his armors,

a gentleman by the name of Conrad, and I never can pronounce his last name, Sofenhausen or whatever. And he was really a brilliant armor. Really, you think of him today as a technical. technological machinist of his day. It was amazing. He was building armor that bolted together with nuts and bolts. Literally, you just bolted together and you could adjust it.

It was great. Wow. And they said, hey, could you recreate a suit of armor like this in, sure, 12 bucks and two cups of coffee. There it is.

Yep. And that was one that really pushed us. I'm not going to lie. That was tough. That was 27 attempts to get that to work. It didn't work right away. So the idea behind the armor was very simple. Maximinian spent a lot of money.

He was a technological guru of his time. He was kind of the Austria. Technological guru of that. Yeah, if you look at some of the stuff he designed was like King Henry VIII's suit of armor with the glasses in it because Henry the 8th's eyesight was going. So he built a suit of armor that had actual corrective lenses into it. You can look that up online too.

That's incredible. It's an Ironman-level medieval. stuff. Yeah, yeah, he was, but Maximian spent a lot of money. Travis, adjust my vision. Yeah. Yeah, we don't like that. So what they had was they had to figure out how to make some money.

So jousting was the soccer or the football of its day. It was the big sporting event. And so what he said was, you know, I can't pack 40,000 people in a stadium. Is this the Henry the 8th armor helmet? Yeah, some of it. Yeah. Yeah. That's some of it right there.

Yeah. Looks insane. Yeah. If you're listening right now, Google Henry the 8th horned house. helmet or eyeglass helmet, it looks crazy. Yeah, it's amazing stuff. But anyway, as you were saying. So Max Mayan I first said, you know what, if we could figure out a way that when the two

knights, they'd run at each other and one of the lances struck a shield, the shield could go up in the air, then the crowd could see it. Because jousting is a great sport about 10 rows deep. Once you get past about 10 rows deep, you're too small. It's hard for the crowd to see. So he wanted to put a lot of spectators in the stands because that meant a lot of money. He could sell a lot of food and seats and everything else. And so what he wanted was this mechanical device that didn't exist, that when the shield was struck, it would release and fly up into the air.

And so Conrad Schofenhausen or whatever his name is, he's credited with. with developing this system. And the museum said, hey, can you build us one to test it out? And we said, yeah. So we built that and it took like the 27 attempts to get that done. Oh my gosh. But it was a lot of, a lot of research. And part of the reason was my own stupidity.

I'm going to be honest with you. The researchers at the museum said, well, this is how it was used and this is how it worked. Okay, great. Well, they were kind of not right. Um, so they had some really complex ways that it worked. And the reality is that humans have always been pretty much this intelligent. If you take somebody from 100,000 years ago and you magically brought them forward, you wouldn't, you put them in modern clothes and you get them on iPhone.

They're going to be like, oh, yeah, that's just pretty. Oh, yeah, look at this. I can, I can, I can, I can Google this. Oh, yeah, look at me go. I'm watching TikTok. And I think it's pretty much how it is. But sometimes as researchers, we're like, oh, look at how smart we are. We're so advanced.

Trying to get fancy? Yeah, we're so. And then it's like, no, just take yourself and go, how would I have done this in 1491? This is, you know, Christopher Columbus time. This is literally a year before Christopher Columbus sales. And I just had to get back and go, okay, this is, you can do this. How would I do this? Oh, wait a minute, I do like this.

And that's what was really the breakthrough. And the breakthrough was it had to be simple because you're on a horse, the horse is moving, you've got a crowd there. It has to be resetable. So each time the night's pass, it's about a four second run. And you've got to reset them and get them running against each other again in about 30 seconds to keep the crowd entertained. It's a pit stop. It's a pit stop.

It's got to be stupid fast. And it's got to be so fast that the knight can actually do it himself to do the re-engagement, relocking of the release mechanism. So the crew just has to drop the new shield in place and send it on the road. Cool. So it became that fast. That's unfathomable. Just unreal. Such an awesome variety of projects you've worked on.

Andrew's other, one of his other questions was, what's personally your favorite thing you've ever made? Do you have any other, like, crazy outlandish? We've got two shields, napalm. Arm is armor. And, like, we've got an armor, yeah. Oh, wow.

And the other, I don't know if ever been asked. A spaceship. Yeah. Spaceship pretty cool. But. Cool things that I've, Or just most enjoyable for you. I got to say really, for the enjoyable part is, yeah, building airplanes.

Yeah. I like building airplanes a lot. So that's kind of like my fun place. So it's not maybe that cool or anything. So like what does that mean building airplanes? Yeah, building airplanes. Yeah, like that's like such a broad. Like what part of the process? So all of it are you involved in?

Yeah. So in my case, this is my hobby. I'm going to step away from job stuff. This is just pure enjoyment. You literally have a set of blueprints, and you start making parts. And, you know, from a little sheet metal and tubing. So, like, machining. Yeah, you'll machine and weld those signs of things.

And then you assemble them. And when you get done, you strap an engine to them and go fly them. And you've done this with how many plans you don't? So this, I'm finishing the first one right now. Okay. So I've got the second one coming in, right? I'll be having parts delivered. they said probably next month

so that'll be number two and you did that around here? Yeah yeah I do it right down the road yeah not too far away in Adrian where everything happens everything is in Adrian

all happens Adrian is not the coolest place ever no we we uh it's just my it's my hobby thing so yeah I think that's that's my kind of my Zen place that and playing with the horses but

really it's gonna be a little kind of maybe a little unexciting, but the reality is, is one of the things I really love and the one of the things I enjoy is mentoring and teaching. That's, I just coaching. Oh, that is sweet.

No, that's what I, it's what I, yeah. Like, we can tell. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're ever in one of my classes and you actually hear me giggle in the back as I'll do that ever so often,

I catch myself, it's because some of the students have just got something, whatever it was, they just got it. And they're so happy. And I'm like, yes. Yeah. So that's just, it's so awesome.

I've experienced those. I've had a personal giggle moment. I've had several giggle moments. Yeah. Many, many times I've actually put my booger picker. It's on a giggle switch. And he says, get that, get that off there. I'll never forget watching you fire a Tommy gun for the first time.

It was the greatest thing. As an Italian. Yeah. It was the greatest thing I've ever done. Yeah. Was shooting that Tommy gun. It was so heavy. Isn't that an amazing gun, though?

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's obscenely heavy, but so much fun to shoot. It's because you're like, da-da-da-da-da-da. That was so much better than the- Yeah, you don't bring that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't waste your time. The bolts are this big, don't waste your time.

The bolts are this big, don't waste your time. No, it is, it's such a blessing that, you know, literally, I came here to school and I'm like, they, they open the safe and like, oh, these are guns you can use to teach with them? I'm like, I can use a Tommy gun. Are you kidding? This is great. It's like, look, Christmas is here. Yeah.

Get on Christmas. Seriously, though, if you are a student here at Hillslow College and you've not yet been over to the shooting center, do it. Andreine here, do it. If you can get into one of these classes, they are fantastic. Yeah, that's very kind of. You cannot get enough experience. We have, like, probably the single most underrated, like, aspect.

Yeah. Of Hillsdale is that all of the shooting classes. Over there, off campus, we have, like, one of the greatest, like, shooting centers, collegiate shooting centers in the world now that they've, that they've constructed. The center has just freshly been built, and it is a state-of-the-art facility. It's incredible. It's a great time. I get more because I'm going to shotgun class, too.

Yes, gosh. You know the great thing over there. George? Is that the guy's name? What's the shotgun guy's name? Jordan. Jordan. Jordan.

You know, one of the great things we have there is we're blessed with some great, great instructors. These are some really amazing folks, and I don't think you can go wrong with any class that you might take. I don't know at the Halter Center. It really is. Hillsdale is one of the rare gems on the planet. I don't think, I'm coming mistaken, but I'm not aware of a shooting facility, a shooting sports center like we have at the Halter Center on a college campus. Not only that, it doesn't really exist in the off college campuses either. There may be a shotgun facility that's a lot better.

There may be another facility that's one part of it, but to have an entire complex with all of the different disciplines we have, because we have. We have a shotgun. We have pistol rifle, precision pistol, precision rifle. We now have the ability to quite literally host a World Cup event in the future here at this college, which is it's not, we're not there yet, but we're certainly on the road to that. And just the fact that you can walk over there and see somebody, you know, on a Tuesday who was at the Paris Olympics and meddled and they're there training on, you know, Wednesday or Friday or whatever. And that's who we have here. And that's who are students, you know, your students, your, you're literally classmates, may very well have been at Paris or Tokyo. I mean, yeah, I think one of the girls in our class, 27, like, I can't remember her name and that's such a shame. She's like on the team?

It was for shotgun. She got like first in the nation or something. Yeah, ridiculous. And like she goes to class with us. And it's like, it was like just a few months. ago. I can't remember, oh, I can't remember her name. There, there are, is it a Lucci? Maybe.

There's, there's some, there's some amazing, truly amazing athletes here on campus that you would never know. They're, they're pretty humble and they don't say much. And then you're like, they're like, oh, I got to go. And you're like, where are you going? I'm like, oh, I got to go to Cairo. I'm shooting in Cairo tomorrow. Yeah, just doing a little stint over to Egypt. I got to go. I got to go down to, you know, I got to go on Peru. I'm shooting in Lima next week. And you're like, really? I haven't been to Lima.

Can I, can I, like, carry your bags for you? Yes. You may. Well, when the college is just represented, unfortunately, by the non-humble vocal minority, us right here sitting up. You guys are awesome. Yuck, get out. So, like, college has a lot of money to throw around at things that are fun.

What do you? you want your dream you get this question you get the whole billion dollar in whatever endowment that we have you get all of it they say buy anything you want and and you want you just get it what is it to augment like for for like in the general vicinity of like weaponry aren't like i want a cannon like like what you ever i want like i want like literally uh a civil war era napoleon 12 pounder um and i'll tell you'll be very honest why i this is is it first It sounds a little bit of a joke, but it's not. Not only do I want a cannon, I mean, a nice big piece of artillery.

I want, you know, just enough people who are trained in it that we could actually do a demo shot. And there's a real reason for that. The first time that a human being is near a piece of artillery that goes off, your world changes. Because every cell in your body moves when that artillery piece goes off. And all of a sudden, the way you think about your... your place in the world changes. And for a college like Hillsdale that is literally submerged in the Western civilization culture from Aristotle and Socrates all the way through the Founding Fathers, that needs to occur,

that physical experience for students who come here and they learn the Constitution. They learned how the founding fathers wrote the Constitution. What they don't get to learn is why it was so important. Every single one of the founding fathers, to my knowledge, experienced artillery gone off. They knew what artillery felt like. They knew it firsthand. And they knew the raw, awesome power of that. And once you have that knowledge, that experience, then it changes how you start to think about the Constitution

and how you start to think about your place in the world. because you become an insignificant like little bug in that moment and you're like oh my gosh this is what they were fighting for I get it now and I want students to have that experience so they can take that that brilliant knowledge they've learned on campus and in really put it to some really great work because all of the students all of you guys are our future you know I'm sorry you're all the leaders You signed up. Dang it.

If you didn't want to be leaders, you shouldn't have came to Hillsdale. I'm out. Maybe you should have gone to one of those other places like Harvard or Yale. Ooh, slanderous. Shots, fired. That's okay.

Canon shots. I didn't go to those schools. From a smooth board cannon. That's right. Smooth boards. Yeah, that would be really awesome. I really love to have that. That would be something that I think the school would really benefit from.

And it's a great piece to have sitting there. You know, as you come out, it looks cool. But then to have it where you could do it, even if it's a salutatory discharge where it's not shooting a cannonball, but just, you know, a couple of pounds of powder in one of those things. It's just amazing. Your whole heart like skips. Like it just stops for a second. You're like, oh, my gosh. That's awesome.

Very well said, too. Do you want us to like take this clip of the show and send it up to the budget administrator? Yeah, we'll get financial aid to. So they're gonna tell you the same thing. It's like, that man's been out of it for four years. All he wants is canning, cannon, cannon, cannon, cannon, canning, can't. Yes, please. But you just explained it so eloquent, I feel like.

It was like, you just explained it so eloquent? I mean, have you explained this, Dr.on? I guarantee he would be like, get up a cannon immediately. Because like that's such a thing, he always, not always mentioned that, but like he mentioned that fairly often is like, we are so. A real risk we run here is we are so far in the stratosphere of like what are we doing that we miss out on like the ground. Like we don't keep, like,

our heads are so far up there that we're like, the world doesn't exist. It almost subconsciously fades away. And we don't realize exactly what you said. Like, this is a, this is reality. Yeah. This is life. Like, there are people shooting at each other

and dying, and that's everything we talk about. Every person we study is a veteran. Like Aristotle fought in the middle at Socrates was a veteran. They're all veterans. They're all combat trained people who've seen death and bloodshed. This is a fallen, not peaceful world. And it's like, we need to realize that this is where they're coming from as humans.

It really does change your perspective. Once you've been in battle, your world changes. Once you've really experienced that. And not that I would wish that on anyone, but if we as an institution can give people a little taste of, experiential knowledge that they can couple with their academic knowledge, that really is very powerful. That's one of the things I really hope to be able to do in my classes is to give, like, where the rubber meets the road.

So, you know, the Constitution, the Western Civilization core curriculum here, how is that played out? How does the Second Amendment actually play out? And I hope to give that to each student who comes from my classes, like, real firsthand. This is it. At least a little tidbit of that, a little sampler platter of that, if I can. Yeah. That was what changed my brain, my brain chemistry and the intro to shooting sports class more than anything. The historical guns were really cool and shooting all the different things were cool. But the whole day on the second amendment and then immediately going out and shooting was like, okay, I'm seeing the connect here and why this is, in my opinion, a more integral part of liberal Western education than I think that it's, It should be core.

It should be core. You make it core. Make it core. Make it core. Make it core. Yeah. So that was integral for my experience of that first semester, as opposed to this semester where I've just really enjoyed becoming proficient.

It really is. At least the beginnings of becoming proficient. Yeah. It's the idea of becoming more than you are. You know, it really is it. And why do you come to Hillsdale? You come to Hillsdale to become more than you are. That's the goal.

You could go out and read all the books that your professors assign you. And you know, in your living room, your PJs, you don't need to pay the money to come here. But they can give it to you in a way that is, makes it more efficient. And then that allows you to go on and do more as opposed to spending your life. You know, I do a lecture series on great people who didn't go the college route, whether it was Abraham Lincoln or, you know, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford. Or people who sort of want the college route, but they didn't. They're not known for what they went to college for,

like Copernicus and Galileo. Those guys didn't go to college. Copernicus was gender studies? Yeah, I believe so. I think A, who's actually French post-modern art. Of course. Post-modern art. From the region of Tuscany.

Yes, yes. Unbelievable. It's so specific. So yeah, I do. That sun is not at the center of that painting. That's right. It's actually. I think the lighting is.

are wrong here. You should have used the... More phalo green here. It's the heliocentric painting model. You said it's a lecture. Where can we find? Is it like a thing for Hillsdale?

Like where can people find that? No, no, I do. I do. I actually, I've never done... It's just oral tradition. Oh. Yeah. No, no.

I do that usually. I do about 20, 20 or 30 of those lectures a year. Same lecture, basically. For colleges and universities. Although Hillsdale hasn't asked me to do it. Maybe one did they will. Hopefully.

But yeah. It's like an event we could easily set up. Yeah. It's like the Heritage Room one day. So it's really cool because a lot of people think, you know, Abraham Lincoln is an example. Abraham Lincoln, great president. No matter what you think of things in Vince around Abraham Lincoln's presidency, he was really an amazing man, an amazing president. He was an attorney.

And Abraham Lincoln had two years of formal education, second and third grade. That was it. And you think about that. And you're like, wait a minute. He's really a self-made man. And we'll jump forward to Apple, Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs went to high school and had a semester of college and has altered the world. You know, the iPhone really changed the way.

Yeah, from a garage to. Yeah. Yeah, it was something just, just truly amazing. To a turtle neck. To a turtle neck. To a turtle neck. Several turtlenecks. He did a very good job with a turtle neck.

I've never seen a man look better in turtle neck. No, I, he wore well. You really defined the CEO look for the 21st century. Yeah. Yeah. So that's sleek look. You look at, you know, look at, um, uh, Alexander Graham Bell in eighth grade education.

And, you know, we had the phone. Bang, telephone, yeah. And one of the cool people who went to, went to college, but got kicked out, uh, and got a degree was, um, uh, Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein. Third grade, right? Uh, was the extent of his education?

No, Albert Einstein. I believe so, yes. Albert Einstein actually had a, had to go to college and, uh, got a degree as a high school science teacher, um, because they, They're like leave. You are a rotten student. We don't want you here anymore. We'll give you this degree if you go away. I'm not joking. It's really pretty much how it rolled out. And so he's, he's a dude who is working as a clerk in a patent office. So he just every day he somebody's, you know, he reads a patent. He's yes, I guess that looks like it's all filled out properly. We'll pass it on. And he writes the theory of relativity. Now imagine today somebody who's a clerk who writes the theory of relativity. or something equally and sends it off. No one's going to read that. No one's going to read it.

No one's, if you're not, you know. You have to already have a scientific prestige. You got to have those three letters. You got to have those letters. You got to have those letters. You got to have those three letters. You know, it's one of those things. You know, can I have a lot of letters before and after your names.

Got I have lots of letters. Lots of letters. I have lots of them. I have A's and B's and C's. I have a couple of, I have gotten a lot of C's here. Yeah. Numbers and letters is here. That's amazing.

Yeah. It's just unbelievable stuff. I'll say bringing shooting sports more into the line. light because it's so cool. SSD. Yeah. Great department. Yeah, yeah. I, you know, and I'll tell you, athletics has been really supportive. I really can't say enough. Athletics has been hugely supportive, so I'm really thankful for them for allowing me a little bit of levity and a little bit of, you know, they're like,

hey, do this and make sure they don't get hurt. Yeah. And they really work well. I really, they're good people up there. How connected are you like to the rest of? Because it seems like it's such an alien world. Like I go there and I know the people who are in the class and someone who works there now who did go here, she was a student, and then like you.

And then I see anybody else. I'm like, I've never seen this person in my life. They actually are aliens. They're all from the third star. From Mexico. He brought them back from. No, no, no, no. They're actually extraterrestrials.

Yeah, they're from the third star, from the center, third planet from the center star in the belt of Orion is where they all come. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, they're like intergalactic. He's been playing armored core, sex. Planetary intergalactic. They're, they're good people, but yeah. Beasty boys reference over there.

They shed their skin suits at night when you're not around. The reptiles come out, yeah. So, no, it really, so the question is, is how connected. And honestly, I've never even eaten it saga. That's one of my goals this year is to actually eat at saga. I don't even know where socket is. Oh, we can take you. We'll direct you right there.

It's good people awesome. No, we don't, there's not a whole lot of connection because, not because there isn't a desire. It really is, a lot of us are so focused on our day-to-day job that we don't, we don't get to, we don't get to get out much. Yeah. They're like, no, don't let them up here. They smell funny. I mean, that is such a thing. You've got to counter that like leadism.

Like, it's so easy. for the people in, like I want to get into academia. Like I want to be, in full of minutes, I want to be in academia, because I think it's a wonderful thing. But at the same time, if you're an elitist and a snob, what are you doing with your life?

You're going to get blown up by a camera. You got to be like former guests on the show, Dr. Peters. Dr. Jason Peters. Dr. Jason Peters. lives on a farm. He says this is like 10% of what I do is teach. The farming poet.

It's like a rustic man. Oh, I, that's the life goal. Yeah, yeah, I've got 40 acres of that. Funny, funny story, funny story. That's, I was a little delayed because of some, I, some, it's a cross-pollinization of my world. So I have a farm, full disclosure, it's a part of what I do. And then I have a full-time job.

I don't, teaching is not my full-time job. I have a full-time real job. This is my, my wife calls this my hobby job. She goes, oh, you're going to Hillsdale for your hobby job? Yeah. So I was a little delayed in getting here because of some farming issues we had. And that is a challenge to kind of balance a full-time job, a farm, and being a college. I guess they told me I was an adjunct.

I said, what am I? They said, we were an adjunct professor. I said, really? That's kind of cool. That sounds really awesome. Adjunct. Adjunct. I was like, oh, it sounds, I'm going to get that like on my, no, I'm not getting out.

Tombstone. I don't care. There's a way to stay really humble, and that's you, I think, I think Dr. Peters is right. I have a farm. I was at the gym working out some years ago, and I'm looking at the TV monitor and said, hey, if you want to be in a movie, you can sign up to be an extra. I'm like, oh, it'll be kind of fun, yeah. You like be an extra in a movie. and, you know, maybe you see, you know, 300 yards away, you see someone that looks like,

oh, that could be the star of the movie, maybe. And that's kind of what I expected. I thought that would be kind of a large to go do it for a day. So I go in and I do the audition. And they said, can you work for two weeks? And I said, sure. I said, oh, good. You're going to be cast in a movie.

It's just an extra, but I'm there every day. and I actually had a, I was a reporter number one. It was a big part. Yeah. So I'm, credits. Reporter number one. Yeah, it doesn't even say that. It doesn't even care.

So I'm there, I'm there, and I'm there for first day of film. And it's like, oh, it's pretty cool. Maybe I'll, you know, maybe I'll see somebody. And I go up the staircase, and they're filming this in Michigan. And there's, they say, go up the staircase, way at the top of the staircase. and I said, okay, so I'm waiting there at the top of the staircase. And I'm, I'm, George Clooney walks up and he shakes my hand.

And he says, thank you so much for being here. What movie is this? Uh, hides of March. There's no way. It's just hides or Iads. Iads of March like, Oh my God. So I'm like, I'm like stunned now.

I haven't seen the movie, but I think everyone's heard of that movie. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, I'm sitting there and I'm like, It's just kind of crazy. I didn't expect that because he literally walked up, shook my hand and thanked me for being there. I was like, I think he must have figured, you must lie with somebody else. I figured, oh, no problem. So I go in this little room.

Well, I expected, you know, I'm an extra, you know, like 4,000 people. Oh, no. This is a room that's about four times the size of this studio. And I'm sitting next to Marissa Tourmet and there's Ryan Gossinger and Philip Seymour Hoffman's right there and there's only a couple of people. George Clooney's directing the movie and he's starring the movie and he says first scene, first take, action. And then I hear in the back cut and I see this makeup person trotting towards me.

And I'm, for those of you guys here on the audio section, I'm bald. And she pats my forehead because it was. too shiny in the camera. And off she goes, and I feel like I'm like an inch tall now because I'm like the only dude here who's not like an actual actor. And we go on filming. So we wrap filming about 2 o'clock that day. And we're down having lunch.

And it's crack crab and Philly Mignon and George Clooney's there and, you know, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ryan Gasseling. And they're all sitting around the table. And I'm not saying a word. I am not saying anything. I'm just like, I'm just going to be here. I'm going to eat my crap, crib.

It's really good food. I thank them and I left. 45 minutes later, I'm in a muddy field on my knees, changing a tire and a horse shoe that was flat. And I'm thinking to myself,

what an odd life I lead. 45 minutes ago I was having lunch with George Clooney and now I'm knee-deep in mud and filth and horse feces. That's the life. That's the life. The life.

Yeah, so that's a... Not the horse feces. Maybe not that. But the mud. The mud, yeah. You gotta go chop some wood. Come on now. Yeah.

Talk about Aristotle than chop wood. What are we doing? I could go for some crab right about now. I love crap. I'm so good. So, you know, one of the... Go ahead. Yeah, you're going to say something.

Oh, I was going to say something. Sorry. I was going to ask, it's kind of a topic exchange. So if you have something that's more related. But I was going to ask, do you think your humility? It's kind of a two-part question. Because I don't know if the latter half of this is, true. Do you think your humility comes from the fact

that you are a knight? And are you a knight? We did a little bit of research on you and found that under your accolades it was listed, you are a knight of the order of St. George? Uh, what? Is that? That's like a serious thing. Is that, is this true?

Yes. How did this happen? So you are a real knight. Correct. What? What's the, what is the story there? And does that contribute it all to your outlook on life and your your profound humility.

I don't know. Maybe it does. So I probably had to back the story up a little bit. Like most little young boys, I wanted to be a night in shining armor. And I thought that'd be cool. And I grew up with horses. My mother had a horse boarding training facility. My father was a physician.

So my mom ran the farm and my dad was a doctor. And I wanted to be a night. I was to be a knight. And so we went to the Michigan Renaissance Festival. And when I was a kid, and I thought, oh, that's pretty cool. And they said, hey, if you want to be an actor here, you can sign up and be an actor. And I thought, I want to be a street character. That sounds like fun.

I'll go out and put on like rags and go tell jokes to people. That seems like a fun thing. And they offered me the job for $5 a day. And I had put on my application that I rode horses. And they said, well, if you. you bring your horse will make you a night and you can get paid $25 a day. Now I'm going to tell you what, I may not be the brightest person in the world, but $25 is more than $5 a day. Five times too much. And being a knight is more than not being a night. Right. I mean,

granted, it was a fictitious night. It was just, you know, I'm just pretending to be a night. So I started that and that was about 40, 40 some years ago, 40 years ago, 43 years ago. Is this the origin of this photograph? Oh, that, yeah, that's, that's, that's me and boo. Oh, yes. For audio listeners, it's Andre armored up in full gleaming plate armor mounted on a horse. Yeah, that's, as my, he actually just passed away recently.

Who did? Yeah, that horse. He was, it's Riley as Maximus. That's my horse, Riley. Wow. And he and I campaigned across, you know, States, but pretty much from the eastern, from the east side of the Rocky Mountain Fays, so basically Calgary down to Texas and then the eastern seaboard.

We didn't go over the mountains together. It's too long a drive to take, it's four days from my place to California, so I would ride horses there, and when I compete in Europe, then I ride horses in Europe. So anyways, back to the jousting thing. Started jousting, and one thing led to another, and been doing that for a long time competitively around the world. And the order of St. George was aware of some of the things I had done and asked me if I would come in and help them out doing some other things. And I said it would. They're a philanthropic group. And at one point, they knighted. So it was kind of a cool thing.

At one point, did they soar it on both shoulders? Like, what was the? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it happens. It would just be like a king or a queen? In Toronto. Land of the king. Atlanta, Toronto, Canada. Well, it's a, so Lord Robbie Spruill, who is the cousin of King Charles.

He, so he is. Unbelievable. So anyways, we're in Toronto at the Angling Church. It's a big, beautiful, big, beautiful church. My gosh, that church is beautiful. And, you know, those things that happen in life, you're like, you know, you're pinching yourself, like, what the heck? And there's this dude sitting next to me.

He was getting united too. So the two of us, we're a couple of us are getting united. And we're in the church, and there's a whole big to-do going on. And this guy is amazing. His posture is amazing. I mean, I mean, like, amazing. And these church pew is as uncomfortable as I have ever sat in. And I said, you know, how did you get such great posture?

Because we're sitting there about an hour and a half way. for all the things that happen when you're getting united. And he says, well, I've had a lot of training. And I'm, like, looking at the program and there's my name. And he's like, oh, look, Andre,

dude who does stuff. And then there's a next dude. And it's like, defense minister of Canada. He's like, wait a minute. I should not be. Hold on a second. The defense minister of Canada.

Is this you? Yeah. Is it? And I'm like, this you man. He's like, yeah, that's me. And so we ended up having having dinner together and stuff. And it really,

really really and we've come we've come pretty good friends over the years um we've done we've done this good stuff so yeah yeah so actually yeah the true it's that's it's uh yeah sir sir andre lee reneer sir Andre lee reneer yeah i'm i'm i have nothing more to say i wanted to be so it's funny think i started the story back when i was little kid and i wanted to be a night and then i became a pretend night and then i became a real night yeah then i became a real night And that's the order St. George is out of, actually it's one of the oldest orders in the world. So it's a Hungarian order that was started about 550 years ago.

I think he's just Rick from Rick and Morty. Yeah, he has all the accolades. He's done everything. He's done everything. How have you packed this all into one lifetime? Not a joke. I actually generally have three different career paths simultaneously at all times. Wow.

So I would recommend or you like stay away? Absolutely don't do this. find something you really enjoy and go do that. You know, being being basically somebody who should have been on Adderall for a long time. Yeah, that focus does not stay well. It's like,

oh, I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to do this thing over here. I'll just do them all. It's great. No, it's not so good, but you get some cool stories. Yeah, no kidding. You're sure. You only have, you only got an hour and 13 minutes, of course. Incredible stories.

Yeah, you get some cool stories occasionally, which is fun. I think the last question it kind of pertains to the knight thing that I really want to ask that Andrew had brought up as well was about historical battles because you know a lot about history

alongside all of these different weapons and Andrew and I really wanted to hear your tick on this if you could go back to one battle in history and fight which one would it be maybe also what gear would you use and what side would you be on? And what side would you be on? And you're guaranteed survival.

It's not like you're going to get like your limbs cut off or like just just just cool factor, not like, I don't know, they're going to use mustard gas on me. Cool factor. I mean, I guess my, the first thing I'd say is the war of independence of the colonies. That is, that is, that is such a pivotal set of battles that occurred in the, in the history of this planet. It's hard, even at 250 years on, to understand how important that is.

I think it won't be able to be understood for another thousand before it really becomes like that was really a change. The whole planet changes here in this pivot. Hopefully it's not overshadowed by whatever dumb thing we do next on our planet. But that battle series, the other ones I think I'd really love to be at least a bird and sea would be like some of the Peloponnesian Punic Wars. Oh, yeah. The Battle of Thermopylai, those battles. I think it's really important people go to those places. If you ever have a chance, go to these battles.

I was sitting up on the castle, parapet in Edinburgh. In Scotland? Battle, sorry, Stirling Castle. And there's a battle that took place down just at the, not too far from the base of the battle. You can see it right there from the side of the parapet. And I'm looking at this,

and I knew the history of that battle. And that battle was a battle that was well written and well understood. And you look at it and you're like, it's a ditch. They're fighting over like a ditch in the side of the road here. And this is where the battle takes place. And it's like 150, 200 feet long. I remember having the same experience. I visited Gettysburg in August.

And it's like quaint little rural Pennsylvania town. And it's just some ridges. That's it. And it's like mud and grass. And it's like such a pivotal turning point. The Arts of War happened here, and it's just nothing. It really is nothing. It's nothing when you're there.

And if you go to, an embarrassing story, very embarrassing story for me. I was horrified by my actions. I didn't mean to. I was jousting in Normandy. So I'm competing on the American team in Normandy, and we had got there,

and we had been driving a while. We had to transport the horses and everything there, and we're doing the competition. and I could not find a bathroom any place. I had to go to the bathroom, man, I had to, I had to go. And they said, well, just go, you know, we're, you know, in the hedgerow. Well, you've heard Normandy and the hedgerows. And Norman hedgeros are legendary from, from D-Day and on.

And I'm trying to, like, tuck around this little hedgerow to go to the, use the bathroom. And so I find this little, like, little tiny spot, which is, maybe a few feet by a few feet square when no one can see me. And they said, it's okay, you can go right there. Okay, so you may need to edit this. I start going using... Lilletree.

Yes, of course. And there was a... like a piece of stone there. I'm looking at the piece of stone. That's kind of a nice piece of stone. And as my gaze came down, I realized it was the monument of...

Canadian paratroopers who had died hitting the hedgerow where I was urinating. I tried. I did everything I could to stop in that instant. I was horrified that I did not mean to. I did not mean in any way to disrespect those soldiers, but they're Canadian paratroopers. And I have a photograph of that. I was so, I was so saddened by my actions for not noticing that quicker. One of the weird things was the French coming to me and thanking me.

And it's a bizarre experience to have a Frenchman come to you and thank you for saving his country. When it happened, it was my grandfather. It was there. It was not me. But yet they're so thankful today. And when you go there, all of the American graves have American flags on. It's just incredible to be there. I can't say enough

If you have the opportunity Go someplace Especially not a tourist place On this planet You go someplace in Africa Some place in Asia That is not tourist You go to rural someplace

You go to rural someplace You will come back here And you will kiss the dirt when you land Yeah Because as a good friend of mine said America may suck But it sucks a whole lot less Anyplace else in this planet

So Amen It's a really good place to be It's really safe place to be If you don't want to feel safe, just go someplace else. Yeah, go any place else. It doesn't matter. I've had the great opportunity to be a lot of places.

Yeah. And I love this country. There's one thing we've learned from you. It sure is hell worth defending. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's your generation, unfortunately, we'll have to. Everyone does.

And I just hope it will be not too bad. I hope we get through it pretty quick. Well, thank you, sir. That's about all the time we have on the show today. Excellent. Well, it's been an honor to be here. You guys are so awesome. I love you guys.

This was legendary. It's a chilling episode. Yeah. I'm wowed. I'm going to have to go decompress after all this dad lore. But thank you for coming on Boys Only. This has been an absolute blast.

Do you have any last words for the people? There's all the schmucks out there. Oh, man. Just thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this. I really appreciate this. It's such a great opportunity that you guys gave me to just have a mic today. And it's such a great college to be. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Get out to the shooting center. Yeah. Go meet Coach Reneer and the other guys out there. It's amazing. Go get some life, man. Yeah. You know what?

Read your Aristotle. Go out, play in the mud, play with some horses, make some shields, build some fire, live some life. Amen to that. See you.