Soup Sandwich
Welcome to Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts, and advocates, we'll dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment, to the history of veterans in the US and the future of military service. This podcast is supported by the generous contribution of the members of VFW Post 3033.
Soup Sandwich
Navigating Transitions: Insights from Military Veterans at VFW Post 3033
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Join us on a journey through a captivating world that is often overlooked - the life of military veterans as they transition back to civilian life. We're members of VFW Post 3033 and we're here to share our experiences, our struggles, and our achievements. We're also here to shed light on how organizations such as the VFW are making a profound difference in the lives of veterans and their communities.
In our discussions, we touch on several intriguing topics, from the challenges of maintaining long-distance communication during deployments to the evolving perceptions of VFW among younger generations. We explore the unique bond shared by the Military. We also welcome a sergeant who shares a gripping tale of leading a company through the desert at night, and the invaluable lessons he learned from the experience.
But it's not just about us and our stories. We also delve into the broader picture, discussing how the culture of veteran organizations is changing and why it's essential for these organizations to continue their work. We discuss the power of camaraderie and support, highlight the necessity of welcoming younger veterans, and reflect on how our experiences in the military have shaped our worldviews. Join us for an enlightening discussion at Soup Sandwich.
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
War is a paradox. It has the power to bring nations together, to inspire heroism and sacrifice and to forge bonds of camaraderie that will span a lifetime, but it also has the power to tear families apart, to shatter communities and to leave scars that will never fully heal. And, for those who have served, the transition back to civilian life can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. This is the typical life of military veterans, a world that is both familiar and foreign to most of us. It is a world that is shaped by unique experiences, values and traditions of the military, and by the sacrifices and struggles of those who have served, but it's also a world that is constantly changing, as new generations of veterans confront new challenges and new opportunities. Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. Dig your foxhole, heat up your MRE and spend some time with us.
Speaker 2Thanks for joining us here at Soup Sandwich. My name is Brent Holbrook and I'm here with three post members of VFW, post Number 3033. I'm going to just do a round robin and, starting with Tim, I'll let you go around and introduce yourself.
Speaker 3My name is Tim. I'm the post commander of Post 3333. Army veteran, 20 years, served a year in Iraq.
Speaker 4My name is Charlie VFW, Post 3333 member. I was in the United States Marines for four years, served in Africa and Middle East, along with a couple other deployments. It's about it.
Speaker 5And I'm Shem sexual chalk Thompson. That's right. I am the junior vice commander of Post 3333, served 17 years. Half of that was on active duty, the other half was in the National Guard.
Speaker 2Breaking the ice? Huh With the sexual chocolate.
Speaker 5The one and only.
Speaker 3Here we go, it starts.
Speaker 2By the end of this episode. You're going to have to tell that story because you started it.
Speaker 3You can just figure it out.
Speaker 2Oh man, that was funny Sorry.
Speaker 4You threw me off. You threw me off there.
Speaker 2Shit.
Speaker 4Well, you know, probably a lot of people don't realize right, we have a writers group through the VFW National and our post has been great. We have a great writers group membership made up of post members, auxiliary members as well as community members. Right, support the military, police, fire, ems you know all those first responders, right, and those support writers mean so much because the writers groups as a whole, you're an activity of the post, right, and there's three of us sitting at the table Shem, tim and myself. I am the president of the writers group and Shem is the is a Sergeant in Arms as well as a road captain, and Tim's our actual department director for the state of Michigan, so he's in charge of all the writers groups, right, so he's he's held responsible by the department commander for the state of Michigan to make sure that the writers groups that are in the state right are doing the things it's supposed to do. And in our writers group and I will straight up brag them up 100% of the time I do it at the post meetings, I'll do it in our personal meetings, right, that our group has, and our past department commander, john, and our incoming now Ray, our current now Ray, will absolutely do the same thing, right?
Speaker 4So our writers group does so much for camp. Try to for kids. It's a kids camp in the way go. We head over there for a couple of times for some long weekends putting the dock you can't clean up. We're on the bicycles, we donate games, we donate sponsorships for kids to go there so that their parents don't have to pay because maybe they can't afford it. Just just all kinds of great stuff, right? So there's all these different entities, right, that us former military members now can get involved with, right? That make us feel good. You know what?
Speaker 4I mean and all these things are so important? I don't think a lot of people, you know, they just see these motorcycle guys ran down, ran down the road and groups, right, they have. They have no idea, right? You know, we're not all the, all the one percenters that are out there ran crazier or doing these things right, but it's these average old. Oh, oh, he got to bring up old.
Speaker 4Come on, I'm gonna say older, older, older retired veterans, right, that are out there doing these things. And then and then our invited participants right, which aren't affiliated with the VFW either through the auxiliary or through the membership aspect, right, they're just, you know, tom and Jane, that live down the street. You know that support the military that we allow to join that group. They're actually probably more important to the group than the auxiliary members.
Speaker 3I agree that and the post members Absolutely.
Speaker 4These people really have no skin in the game and they do so much to help support our cause and those other causes that that we do. It's incredible, man. It's really incredible.
Speaker 2Well, and on top of that, I would say you know obviously the VFW and you know some of our. You know I would call sister organizations like the American Legion. You know we're all about, we're all about veterans, right, but that's not just where it ends. I would argue that you know most posts are out there for their community to absolutely you know, and that's, that's what we stand for.
Speaker 2We're there to help out and do what we can. And you know activities such as the Riders group you know they do all kinds of fundraising events and that kind of thing To exactly what you just explained was you know, you know fund some of these, these camp costs, the scholarships for camp, and you know, and that's just one example of the many, but you know it's to be a staple of the community and to help us, help us all out.
Speaker 4Well, for sure and you know when it, when it actually comes down to it. You know it's such a unique group inside of a group, right, where you know we're like you say, we're a subgroup of the VFW, we're what they call an activity of the VFW, right so we have to be sponsored and allowed by the VFW membership at the post level to have this group right. So our duty is to support the post right. Right, support that that group that's helping support us, be it we do breakfast a couple times a month, we do 50-50s during dark nights or other fundraising things, where we, through January this year, through May, that group has donated over $2,200 to different, different things. It's cancer benefits at Special Olympics events. Camp Traders is a huge one, right, because Don't forget VFW National Home.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah and we will.
Speaker 4Actually we're doing a fundraising with a raffle for a bike giveaway that all of our memberships involved in, along with the American Legion and a local radio station here, 98.5, with this custom bike builder, dean Myers. Yeah, dean Myers, customs right, and it's going to be in closed trailer. That was donated.
Speaker 3I don't, I don't.
Speaker 4I want. I think I know who it is, but I don't want to say, in case it's the wrong company, but it's a, it's a local to mid Michigan.
Speaker 4Yes manufacturer that makes custom trailers. But anyways, it's going to be this enclosed trailer along with this custom motorcycle by Dean Myers where he deems only going to recover basically his material costs. All of his labor costs is going to be free, right. And then any extra proceeds that go on top of this, half of half of those proceeds are going to go to the American Legion for their like they have like a Christmas for the kids kind of kind of program where they buy, you know, gifts for disadvantaged kids or whatever.
Speaker 3Yeah, well, that's toys for time. That's the marine. Yeah, similar toys for talks.
Speaker 4Yep, and then us, through our VFW and the writers group, we're going to give. Half of what we get is going to go to camp Trotter. The other half is going to go to the National Home Cash for Kittles program. So the National Home is an Eat Rapids, michigan. Right, they've got money to run the different houses for displaced veterans that that need to get a start, right, that's what. That's what the National Home does.
Speaker 2I was just going to say, for those that are listening that don't know what the National Home is, can you explain?
Speaker 4that Probably Tim knows that. Let Tim explain it more than I do.
Speaker 3So the National Home for Children is a campus that if you are a veteran that is deployed and your spouse and kids are struggling, they will take you in and put your kids in school and you can live there and I don't believe there's any cost for that. There has been a gentleman. He's in California now. He called our post at one time to join our post, even though he lives in California, because I believe during Vietnam his dad was killed and shortly thereafter his mom was killed in a car accident and they sent him to the National Home and they raised him from three years old to graduated from high school.
Speaker 5I was going to say they're also for orphaned.
Speaker 3Orphans yeah orphans.
Speaker 4Or if you're a single parent, right. Or a single parent. Yeah, and you get deployed, then your kids can go to the National Home while you're gone overseas on your deployment six months a year, whatever it is, and they'll help make sure that your child is taken care of.
Speaker 3Great organization, great organization.
Speaker 4So where I was going with it is the other part of the proceeds besides going to Camp Trotter, right, they call it a cash for kiddos program. So the National Home has plenty of money to maintain the homes and they feed the kids. They do all the things right to make sure that the kids are taken care of. What they lack is extra funds, for instance, to take them off for ice cream or take them to the movies or get McDonald's one night, right, I mean, they have a big kitchen, they're fed their three squares a day. You know I mean great, right, right, but it's those extra little things that they don't always have the money for. So the other part of the proceeds that the fundraiser that the Ryers group is doing is going to go to that program, right, so that these kids can, you know, they can run, they can take them in the bus down the road to get Taking the baseball game.
Speaker 4Right, anyway, we're talking our donation for that portion of the program probably close to $1000, and that $1000 can go a long way for those kids, right, right, and with the home with the National Home, the way it's set up.
Speaker 3it's an Eaton Rapids, michigan, and each state can sponsor a home, like I think the new one was California and Nevada. They pay for that home on the campus. Michigan has a home at one time they had three, but now I think they're down to one and the the, the VFW in Michigan, pays for the operating costs of that home which is down in Onondaga, michigan, eat Rapids.
Speaker 5It's Eaton Rapids. Is it Eaton Rapids?
Speaker 3Yeah, just just down from Ryan's house, actually not far from town.
Speaker 5I always see a sign on 127 when I'm coming up and it's in. It says Onondaga, Michigan.
Speaker 3Oh, but it's an Eaton Rapids. It's just not far from Ryan.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's probably one of those communities where we all say Detroit, but then there's Sirling Heights and Dada, Dada, right, but we all think of Detroit. You know they got 19 suburbs or whatever. Well Eaton. Rapids.
Speaker 3Everything's Detroit to me. Yeah, so I mean it's. The campus is beautiful. And then they do like Michigan days, Ohio, Michigan, Ohio, that place down under they have a.
Speaker 3They call it Michigan days, where one day Michigan will cook for Ohio and the next day Ohio will cook for Michigan. So they have that day and then they have a West Virginia day, like West Virginia and Wisconsin, illinois. So each state will come there and they will. They will support the camp and raise money. That's what they do all year Raise money and then give it to the, give it to the national home and they actually have a really cool program and Tim and I rode down to it last year.
Speaker 4This part of the Riders group.
Speaker 3Well we'll get into the right home here in a minute.
Speaker 4But what's really cool is you go down to the campus and they have all the flags, right. So when it's your day, all the posts, all the districts from the state of Michigan show up and you post your flag in this awesome. I mean, I'm going to say just a disjustice by saying it's the yard, it's like a flag area, right, it's beautiful monuments and stuff there and everybody posts their flags that they're on the campus that day and you can you can take a tour of the campus and all the stuff. But they do this awesome check presentation program, right, and they do skits and sing songs and all these kind of different things. And each post or group that come in that want to donate a check to the national home, they form a line and they walk up and okay, this is the check from this poster, this is a check from this group. So there's actually Marine Riders. Yep, they showed up from the Kalamazoo area somewhere, somewhere, by.
Speaker 4Kalamazoo. These guys rode up. There were 10, 10 deep, 10, 12 strong, right Just a bunch of Marines that have their little NC right. You know their group, they rode up and I think they you know they they gave a nice size check.
Speaker 3It was a thousand dollars. Yeah, something like that, you know.
Speaker 4I mean. So it's awesome there's all these other groups that help support that cause, because the national home is so important. You know, when you're looking at being a parent being deployed, being killed something you know you know that your child's going to be taken care of and that the fact that the VFW does this stuff is so important, you know that's just. It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2And that's let's talk about that for a minute, because I was wondering if you were going to go there because I was wondering if you were going to go. If you're overseas right, your mind has got to be in the game, Absolutely 100%. It is real life, it's as real as it gets. And it's hard enough being over there without your kid without your kids, I should say but to be over there constantly worrying about them, you know, national home just fills that, that, that spot of fear.
Speaker 4Oh for sure it fills it fills a void as a parent to know, right that you know you're, you're displaced, you're gone and your child has the opportunity and a place that you know they're going to be taken care of and not taken advantage of, right, right.
Long-Distance Communication During Military Service
Speaker 4Which is, which is huge. I mean, that's got to be a huge relief. And, and you know, we all kind of served in a different era and I was. I was 98 to 2002. So I was pre Iraq war, but I was, I was there, you know, and for me, when I I was, I was in the calling card day. I had to call long distance my my folks actually got a waiting hundred number at their house so I could call a one hundred number, punch in my pen number and my parents phone ringing in their house.
Speaker 4So that it so that it no. Those are one nine hundred Sorry.
Speaker 4No because so that way I didn't have to go buy a $50 calling card, right Cause, just to call my parents. My parents are, we want you to call us whenever you get a chance, right, Right, so they had, you know, so they paid, I don't know, a hundred dollars a month or whatever for me to have this one eight hundred Number. I could call in, punch, punch my pen in and I could call it. But with my wife when I was gone she was in Virginia or she was in California, right, my two duty stations, so for her it was tons of email and you had to go to internet cafe.
Speaker 4Yeah, back in the day, you know, and I had to pre-register for my half hour, my hour, and it was the crazy dial up and we're, I mean, and my wife still has in her Yahoo email. She's got a folder, and I'm not kidding you, if it doesn't have a thousand emails in it still she's printed them just in case, right, yahoo gets rid of it. She's printed them there in a folder all up in a filing cabinet in the attic, right she's. She's kept them all. You know, she was like, you know the things that we used to argue about while you were gone. I'm so sorry about you know, because it was like, hey, direct deposit, hey, they should have direct deposit. Hey, I didn't get my BHA. I didn't get this.
Speaker 4You know, and I'm and I'm sitting in Bahrain, or what can I do about it? Yeah, so, or I was in guitar or some some crazy place, Couldn't, couldn't even check, you know, and I was like you know, and she got the phone call. You know I'm going to be gone for 45 days or 60 days, and if you don't hear from me, that's a good thing. Yeah.
Speaker 4You know, and when I get back, so of course when I get back had the opportunity to make another phone call to her, right. But a 50 minute or $50 phone card was about a 15 minute conversation because it's international overseas phone calls, right, and we were scraping by. You know she's at home with our daughter, there's back her and she's in hot dogs.
Speaker 4You know, and Robin noodle, robin noodle, right, that was, that was legit the way it was and the stuff that we argued about was so stupid, you know, and it was like it was those distractions, like you're saying, you know. Last thing, you want to worry about your kids, right, or your spouse or your girlfriend or your parents or something dumb. So the fact that the national homes there to fill that void is huge, right, it's absolutely huge.
Speaker 3So there's something I want to hit on, because Brenton has had this discussion with me in time or two about the younger generations, and I think that's a big lack of interest in the VFW, because it's a preconceived notion that it's a bunch of old people. Yeah, why'd we? Bring up the old thing again, damn it. It's a bunch of old people sitting around drinking beer, telling war stories.
Changing Perceptions of the VFW
Speaker 5You know, that's what that generation was brought upon. Even when I was growing up, my my perception of the VFW growing up, because my grandfather was a member of the VFW, he was World War II. Anytime I, when I was a kid, visited a post, it was a bunch of old dogs I'm talking 60, 70, 80 years old sitting around with some whiskey and just talking shit. And it wasn't. It wasn't my, it wasn't my cup of tea. You know, as a young man growing up, I was into other things. That's just what that generation did. The one thing about our post it's full of a lot of young, younger guys. We, we tried to keep up with the times and it's just. You know, I visited a lot of other posts throughout the country and our posts probably one or the other posts that has a real, a real young membership.
Speaker 2Yeah, we do.
Speaker 5Not just a bunch of older vets like Vietnam era vets, world War II era vets. Now we're talking. You know first golf war, oif. You know Afghanistan. You know my generation Right.
Speaker 4Yeah, well, those are still veterans that served 20 years ago. Hey, that's yeah.
Speaker 2It's hard to think about that.
Speaker 3But compared to veterans that served 50, 60 years ago, Well, even with our post, if you think about it, the only real Vietnam vets that are real active Terry and Sensio the eagle, the greatest person I've ever met. He saved so many lives. It isn't funny that walked through them doors and he was that guy that said come here, you need help. Terry and Sensio comes in, john Goffnett, tom during the day, and then Terry, the other Terry, the Colorado guy that had his truck at bike night. So, other than that, colin doesn't come in other than meetings, terry Coons doesn't come in other than meetings, and they're Vietnam veterans. Terry Russell.
Speaker 5But they're not real. Terry Russell doesn't.
Speaker 3They're not real alcoholics like we are, they're still amateurs. Is that what you're trying to say? Yeah, but yeah, and that's true with Colin. Colin used to drink a lot and now he just prefers not to be around.
Speaker 4Right, right, which is understandable, I get it.
Speaker 3But what I'm talking about is Brenton said that he's been on some websites where younger members are like, yeah, I won't ever join the VFW because of this. And that yeah. And I think what's important is we got to get out there that we're more than that. Yeah, Do we like to sit around, drink some beers and talk about the stuff that changed our lives Actually, I mean it really did and laugh about some of the dumb shit we did where we probably should be dead?
Speaker 4from yeah.
Speaker 3You know, yeah, but we do more than that. We do so much for the community and the kids and that's important for the VFW to push that out there to get people to know that we take a yeah, and those are things that people don't know that we do.
Speaker 5No, right, you know.
Speaker 2They don't know until they get involved.
Speaker 5Yep, and that goes back to our you know, our Writers Group, our support writers. You know we're getting they're now. Those are people that had no clue what the VFW was about, other than their preconceived notions Yep, and now they're actually seeing and they're just by word of mouth, you know, even though they got no skin in the game like we do, like Charlie says, now they're putting that out there and it's going to generate a following.
Speaker 4It's going to generate Well, actually in our post, Sean and Lisa right.
Shift in Veteran Culture and Camaraderie
Speaker 4Mm-hmm. Great support writers for us Outstanding. They have a friend, craig, right, he was a member of the Middleton VFW or Brickard Ridge VFW, ithaca, ithaca VFW. Okay, I'm acquaintances with him. We're not as close as Sean and him. I mean, they went to school together and everything right. So those guys have been tight. Craig and I are friends, right, I mean we don't hang out. He listens to death metal and I'm not a death metal guy all the time, right, so I mean, but he actually joined our post. He came in one night. Transfer shot he started hanging out.
Speaker 3He was on a dart night.
Speaker 4Straight up, transferred our post right Mm-hmm, and I'm going to try to get him a little bit more involved, but this time me or him and his wife. They go to three concerts a week.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4They're gone all the time, but I mean he'll be a good member and he's my age or a little bit younger, actually Sean's age, so he's upper 40s, right. But we got a lot of good members, older members, the Vietnam era members, the Gulf War members, right, like we got Cappy that came in, cappy, right. But we're getting that those older members have. They've paved a way for us. They put their time and they put their dues in to do what they need to do. Right, and they're taking a backseat a little bit right.
Speaker 4They're relinquishing control to the younger guys to push us in the next generation, which is so big, right. So you know, when you look at your leadership and they're all in their upper 70s or 80s, right. That doesn't inspire a young guy to want to come into the VFW or the American Legion or the MVS or all these other organizations, right, because it's going to be the good old boys club that's going to be resistant to change, you know, and that's tough. But where it comes back to, we're getting those younger members in right which are late 30s to 40s, and that's a younger member, which is unfortunate to say Unfortunately, but there's times that are different.
Speaker 4So, like my dad and my grandfather, they owned a business downtown here and they got out of work, they went down to the moose, which is a block away. They had a couple beers and then they went home, right Hard. Generation of women, our wives, our girlfriends they're like no, you got to be the kids baseball games. No, you got to be home right after work. No, you got to right. So that's why you're not going to see those younger members until those kids are grown and gone, because you know, I can count on my hand and I played baseball through high school and I bet you, on one hand, I could put how many times I saw my dad in the stands.
Speaker 4Honestly, it wasn't because he didn't want to be right. I mean, he obviously could have been, but it was. He went down to that club, to the moose, because that's where the business guys all went after work and that's where a lot of business took place, right. So now our wives or girlfriends, right, they're like no, you're going to be involved with kids, fuck everything else, you're going to be here. You know what I mean. We kind of cave to make peace. Yeah, I was struggling for the word, so I definitely appreciate the peace part of it Right.
Speaker 4You know, but yeah, I mean so there's, there's been a shift in the culture over time.
Speaker 2Absolutely, I mean, there's no more 50s housewives anymore right, Absolutely. So and I would say, you know and call me bold, because I have sat here and watched on Reddit r slash veterans and it seems like almost every week there's somebody complaining about their experience walking into a VFW or a Legion or an ambats.
Speaker 3All right. So we have an eagle, we have an eagle and his name is Terry and sensio. And that man, as I already said, great person. You walk in there, he will walk up to you and he will say welcome and he will buy you a beer. He will sit and talk to you, whatever, He'll probably buy you several beers.
Speaker 3If you will, yeah, and if that's your thing and if it's your thing and if not, he'll buy you a pop or he'll just sit down there and talk to you and our thing is. Our motto is when the eagle's not there, be the eagle, Be the eagle. Be that guy that walks up and says, hey, how are you doing? And it's hard for me because I'm very standoffish, I do better now but I'm not that guy that's going to walk up to a stranger and say, hey, what's up, how are you doing?
Speaker 4I'm better than I used to be. That must be in everything, because I always get the comment as being a Marine. Right, tim will be in there talking to somebody or somebody to be like hey man, this is Joe, he's a Marine, I'll walk right up. Hey brother, what's going on? Man, give big bears, these guys are like man. You guys are all crazy.
Speaker 3And that's because of the camaraderie between Marines and the size of the Marine Corps, for sure.
Speaker 4We all tune it man.
Speaker 3Army. The Army's a bigger unit, bigger branch, but now our people we served in combat with, we see them. But you guys, the Marine Corps does it with every Marine. The Marine could be 900 years old and the other Marine could be three and they're going to be like oh hello, how are you doing? And it's cool, and that's one thing I respect about the Marine Corps that camaraderie, that everywhere you go you know if that dude's a Marine and you're having problems, he's going to help you.
Speaker 4He's going to show up, but we should be doing that in general, as veterans, to each other, to everyone. You shouldn't just be one sided right with the Marines.
Speaker 5That's the same experience I've had. I don't know about you, Tim. You have me with your generation, but with me Come on man, you got more gray hair.
Speaker 3That's why, he says that he's got gray hair too.
Speaker 2The only hair he has is gray.
Speaker 5That's be honest. My tenure in the service and the Army and all my tours and combat. I've always gotten that, no matter where I've gone, whether it be Marine, navy, army, air Force if you served and you know they served, or did some time in the sandbox or whatever I've always gotten that camaraderie and I think that was something that was generated after 9-11, when our country was going through some turmoil here at home and people were not standing together and all of a sudden, people are standing together and that was something that I was raised with. You go to combat, you spill some blood, sweat and tears in the fucking sand and you come home yes, you're going to be fucked up, but those guys around you, they had your back, just like the camaraderie that you were just talking about with the Marines.
Speaker 5My second oldest, he's a Marine. He understood that before he enlisted because that's something I instilled in him. That's something that I've got no matter where I've gone. I've had just one first time I ever met Charlie. He knew I served, walked right up to him. What's up, brother, gave me a big hug.
Experiences and Transitions in the Military
Speaker 3Well, no, I get that. I'm talking about even in my battalion, the 3rd Battalion, 126 Infantry. Even during that in the early days I was a combat support company. I was in the Scouts. We had mortars, scouts, Toes. We weren't a line company, we weren't a headquarters company. We were kind of an offshoot of headquarters but we'd get tasked out to the line companies because that's kind of how they use us. They took a scat team which I hate the sound of that.
Speaker 3Sounds like a bad point, so they would take a scout squad and a tow squad and they'd farm us out to one of the line companies. And then when you got there, you were on your own. Sure, the first side would be like, hey, it's chow time, hey, the shit is over here. But other than that there wasn't a lot of interaction between the line companies and combat and the support companies.
Speaker 3Even though most of the time the scout teams and the Toes they were out in front of the line companies Because basically, we went there.
Speaker 5That might have been the rift between, like Sid, I'm sorry to say it again, but your generation and my generation. When I was coming up through the ranks, I experienced the same thing. I belonged to, you know, when I came off of active duty, went right to a hotel unit Toes support, you know. But we got tasked out to do the same thing, just like you were just talking about. But there was still. When we got brought into that fold, it didn't matter. I was treated as one and the same as everybody else.
Speaker 4You're unequal right.
Speaker 3Yep, I guess I'll say this as my time progressed within and I grew in rank, you know, squad leaders, team leader, platoon sergeants then it was easier because I learned the other. I learned who the other platoon sergeants were, the other squad leaders, blah, blah, blah, blah, the NCO thing. But early on it wasn't like that. Early on I served from 83 to 2008. So early on.
Speaker 5it wasn't like that. It was like that, just like you were talking. It was like that when I first listened, when I signed on a dotted line in 1993, it was right at the end of the first golf war. Yes, I experienced that same thing. What I'm getting at is, like I said, my generation.
Speaker 5I guess I felt that I was at the cusp of things when, when, when doctor was changing, when the way soldiers or Marines, whoever that's where we're, we're, we're transitioning to a new way of life in the, in whatever service you were in, we had to, I had to adjust, I had to adjust fire, I had to adjust for the change that was coming. And, like I said, I was, I experienced what you were talking about. But I also expected people to treat me, my my brother, to treat me the same, no matter where I was at, whether I was in support or, you know, being tasked out, and I didn't belong to actually officially belong to a certain unit and I was a part of something else. But if I was working with you, I'm still there, I'm still you. Treat me the same. I'm going to treat you, you know, with the same respect. Yeah.
Speaker 4See, that's weird, cause I was with a unit fast company out of Norfolk, virginia, right, it's the fleet, and I tear some security team company, and we had six patoons at at first fast, right, so two were always on a six month deployment, possibly up to three depends on cause. We had, like you know, naples, italy, there's Bahrain, there's one in Japan, but there's also a second fast company up in Yorktown I think they've done some combination stuff and I think everybody's at Camp Allen in Virginia, right outside Norfolk Naval base. But anyways, so there would be, you know, three to maybe four patoons from first fast there at the barracks at any one time, you know. But there was actually six levels. So if all six happened to be there, right, everybody had accommodation stuff. I hardly knew any of the other guys out of those other fast teams, right, those other patoons, cause we deployed as a 25 man unit and that.
Speaker 4That that included our officers and our corpsmen, right. So we had a patoon sorry, regular patoon size, right. And then the, the, the officers, right. So we're the only time I'd ever get to hang around them, cause we were always training. We'd be, you know, up and down that training where that's where the seals train quite a bit of them, where we'd be down at Chesapeake, where our school's at, so there was all these different facilities that that we had the opportunity to use. So it was weird because we had this bar that sat right in between us called the bunker.
Speaker 4That's some awesome pictures of the bunker, yep, and that thing would be staffed by some civilian would come in and it would be like. The VFW was like my first experience of like what a VFW was, right, so we could drink there all night and it was like, you know, dollar drafts or whatever. So it's crazy cheap. But and then we'd have these guys coming out of the woodwork, right From all these other patoons, and you're like, oh man, who are you? Who are you, who are you, you know? So you kind of became friends. But then we were deployed so much right, so like I was only with my unit eight, eight or nine days and I went to Africa.
Speaker 4When the embassy bombings happened. There was a, a patoon from second fast. They went to Dar es Salaam, tanzania, and then we went to Nairobi, kenya, right, 98, august, seven, fifth, six, something like that, and 98, right, we were gone. We came, came back and there was different guys there. That other patoon that was there was gone. So I maybe knew three guys out of that one, and now there was fourth but it was back, and third but it was gone, or whatever you know. So it was like you're constantly meeting all these new people but your missions were always the same but they were so different because these guys were trained in to go to here, these guys are trained in to go there, or whatever. So it's just weird. So I I never had the feeling where any of the units that I was ever with I got attached to somebody else. Right, I got my squad, my unit, whatever got.
Speaker 3You know you're so you're, so you're, so we're organic. Yeah, but then all the guy.
Speaker 4But then I went out to the fleet Marine Force in 29 POMs, with their battalion, seven Marines, and we deployed, as that entire company, you know what I mean we all went the whole right. So and it was different because there was three companies in that battalion, so we all went, and then we had a weapons company where the toes, the 50 cows, the fun stuff, the 60 million, meter mortars or whatever.
Speaker 4They were right, because I think our guys are the best. Yeah, right, because I think our guys had the 40. Is it 40 millimeter, 32 millimeter? What are they?
Speaker 3The small ones that the inventory, oh, the 60 million or the 60s.
Speaker 4So it was the 60s, and then the big ones would be the ones were the 88.
Speaker 4Okay used to be called, so that's what it is, yeah so then those guys were on the weapons company and I had a guy that went through security force. School was because it was only a two year. So my, actually my son, andrew, just unlisted right and that's what he's trying to do is you can actually enlist to go to fast company, which you couldn't back then. There's still a lot of requirements that he asked to, he asked to do right to be able to do it. His program won't open up, probably until October, so he's enlisted in delayed entry for the Marines.
VFW Membership and Service to Veterans
Speaker 4So getting back to we were talking earlier about the old guys, so kind of my first experience, my grand, my grandparents, live next door to us. My parents build a house next door to my grandparents, so as a kid I used to run across the yard right and every couple of years and my grandfather's World War two guy right, so he was island hopping all the way across. I should land in on Okinawa, but there was probably back when I was a kid, 1012 of them Right still alive. They would show up to my grandparents house and they'd be parking motor homes and they'd be staying in the house or they'd get a hotel room or whatever right, but they'd be partying at my grandparents house when I was a kid and I used to walk on the screen and porch the one night I said, I know, as I bought about the house of my, my parents, these are whole war dogs, man telling stories, drinking whiskey you can just get hammer drunk and they came from Iowa, they came from Tennessee, they came from Georgia, they came from, I mean, all walks of life.
Speaker 4These guys and all the wives obviously had something common, right, which is cool. That's what love about the VFW, right, like there's no way that my wife right would ever be able to meet another member's wife, right, and they kind of be able to form their own group. So when it comes to membership, when your wife sees that you know you're not just hanging out at the regular bar, right, this is a place where you're hanging out with your brothers and then they form a sisterhood Right, and they kind of get their own little groups. You know, as they get to hanging out or they get involved in things, it's more acceptable for you to go to the FW or to be able to hang out at a bar or hang out at whatever where some women nowadays don't really want you to be doing that stuff.
Speaker 4Right, you know they want you to be home all the time and it's like you know there's. We all see that there's a bigger cause than ourselves Out there, but you know it's a continuation of service?
Speaker 2Well, for sure, absolutely, you know, I mean. I mean, isn't the VFW is slogan that our service didn't end? Something like that, yeah veterans.
Speaker 3we do more for veterans or something what it is Right but our service.
Speaker 4Nobody does more for that.
Speaker 3Nobody does more veterans and, yes, it part of that is we service our veterans and that's terrible, but but that, yes, that's what it is we like. For instance, talk about membership and what. What I would like to put out to any of the young people out there that are still in college, because we've got a what is it? Student vets of America, or something like that here at Student Veterans of America.
Speaker 2Okay To them. I say that as a former vice president president.
Speaker 3Okay, so Good, they should join the VFW because what they don't understand is the numbers of the VFW is coming down so much and I know this because I'm kind of involved at department level and a little bit at national level, and Our membership speaks to Congress. Okay, if we get below a million members, congress don't really listen to us anymore, because we're not that big, because everybody knows politics. They, whoever, whoever has the biggest numbers and bitches the most, they're going to get the. They're going to get what they want for sure, right. So even if you are a student and let's say, cmu will just throw it out there and then you leave school and your job takes you to California and you join the VFW. There's VFW is everywhere. You don't have to, you don't have to do anything. You can. You can be a. I'm trying to think when I'm trying to, not in a post, not not just be able to just be a member at large.
Speaker 3Yeah, member at large, you can be a member of large, but but that helps the VFW, the PAC, that that we got signed. You know that was big. That was big because now all these people that that on ships and and the burn pits and all that bullshit when you got lung problems, which most everybody does, it's?
Speaker 3I mean, I come back from Iraq never having allergies in my life and now, all of a sudden, I have to take all these stupid pills, otherwise my head feels like I'm going to explode because I get stuffed up, right that's from the, the burn pits and stuff. Well, can we?
Speaker 2can we talk about the PAC Dact for a minute? And not just the PAC Dact, but just? You know, you were talking about membership being over a million and you know, go back in time a little bit and the GI bill which many of us use now I guess I use mine right I use mine. That was what a complete result of the hard work that you know our service organizations are serving organizations did American Legion DAV and that's the.
Speaker 3FW because they joined and they said look it, we need to take care of us. We need to take care of veterans, because they put their ass on the line and they wrote a blank check saying that up to and including my life, I will defend this country. Right, right, and they need to get something back for it. But the only way we can do that is have these young people join Right and I'll.
Speaker 2and because, on that note, I will say this, and I'll say it boldly, that you know, and I'm confused, that some out there are feeling betrayed, why I don't understand. That's the part that I don't understand. Again, watching our veterans on Reddit, they're giving off these notions that they felt betrayed by walking in and having one instance of a person that wasn't nice to them, you know, and then it, just it, poisons their, their mind about what the VFW is about.
Speaker 4Well, no, and it's wrong. Well, it is because I could walk into a restaurant and the waitress treats me terrible, doesn't give me the proper service, has an attitude, has something going on, right, right. Does that mean the restaurant as a whole sucks?
Speaker 4no, it's terrible and I should never go back, absolutely not. So just because you walk in anywhere and someone's having a bad day, right, doesn't doesn't mean you should walk away forever. Exactly Now, if I I'll use the restaurant as the example, I'll go in three, four times, and if the food sucks, I won't go back, right, right, so I can be three, four days in a row, right, but it might be this week, the next week, the next week, the next week and over the course of a month that the food sucks.
Speaker 4I probably won't go back right or maybe I'll wait six months to go back. So just because you walk into a VFW, american Legion or Amvats, right, and you get, you don't get the experience that you think you're gonna get the first time right doesn't mean you don't go back right because there's so much that comes out of walking through those doors eventually.
Speaker 4That's so fulfilling and so good for yourself because it's you're around, your brothers or your sisters that did a lot of the same things as you are an experience in life after being in the military.
Speaker 4Right, right, those challenges, because those challenges happen to us every day there's not a, there's not a much part of the day that I don't think about. A guy served with, or I found out that you know he committed suicide, and I'm like, god damn man, you know, you have all, you have all these things right. We, some of our members, just experienced that within the last three, four months. Yeah right, you know you guys, you guys got a call and you know, here they are getting together at the VFW because it was a guy that they served with, right, and that wasn't a member of ours, right, the.
Speaker 2He lived in a different area but you know, our members that served with them all got together and and worked it out right, and let me walk back my statement, then, because using that as an example, as a sad example, but you know it is the true example you know, now I, now that I think about it that way, I can understand why some would feel betrayed.
Speaker 2They've walked in, maybe maybe that was happening to them, and so their mental health, their, their mind, at that moment in time, when they walk through that door, hoping that somebody on the other side is going to just be there and, like we were saying, you know, the Marines coming together and giving each other a nice big bear hug, maybe that's what they were hoping for and they didn't get it, okay.
Speaker 3But and I agree with you. But if they didn't get it, don't quit exactly that's not that's not what.
Seeking Acceptance at VFW Posts
Speaker 3That's not what the United States military does. We don't quit if we don't get it there. In Michigan there's 248 posts. If you can't find it in shepherd, come to Mount Pleasant. You can't find in Mount Pleasant, go to Claire. Can't find in Claire, go to Midland. You will find it. You just got to look for it. And yes, it sucks, because if I seen somebody that came into my post and one of my members did that to them, I would article 9 their ass so fast. It wouldn't even be funny, right because, we're there for the brothers.
Speaker 3That's why Terry's so important in that post, for sure, and what Terry wants, terry gets. Unfortunately, that's why we call him the Eagle. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4Well, I'll give you a great example. Right, and I love Traverse City, so I'll do a three-day conference for work and I go to Traverse City we, we're up there and I'll go to the Cherryland post, traverse City post. Beautiful post, phenomenal post. You got to buzz myself, you know. And they open the door. I go in. I made a comment how beautiful their post is. Canteen bartender, right, she asked what do you want? So I'll have a Miller light draft. Okay, can I see your card? Yep, no problem, sure, my VFW card. Right, it's club. Get my beer. Not one person, the old-time result. At the end of the bar they all just kind of look at me. I sit down at the. I'm at the other end of the bar, yeah, because I got, because I got the VFW, stare right they're all who's this new guy in my house, right?
Speaker 4well, I'm a VFW members, all it's my house too, right? Yep, maybe I can't vote on your floor for whatever you guys want to do, right, but this is still. I'm still welcome here, right, right, so I buy them all around, right? I kind of get the head nod, a you know the finger wave like thanks, kind of thing. Not one of them comes down. I go in the next day after my cops over, go on the next day, right, do the same thing, right. Finally, the third day I go in after my last conference, I go in same same bartender all three days. Finally, recognizes me, remembers me, right, and then same people sit at the end of the bar there. They're every day at four, whatever, right, right, you know, they're the usuals. Finally, the last day I get a couple of them come down. Hey man, you know who are you. It's great to meet you. I'm glad you're coming in, but it takes time, right, it's literally three consecutive days.
Speaker 4So it's literally the same people at the other end of the bar that finally warmed up to me, right, right, and I wasn't going to give up. That's if. If I'm going to go, I'm away from my family up north. If I'm going to go somewhere to have a beer, I'm going to give it to the VFW. Right now, my legion member. So the VFW doesn't have canteen. I'm going to go with one of those, right, but VFW first for me. But you have to try, you have to try, you have to try, you have to try. As much as it does suck, right, but I was going to watch you those doors every day until they warmed up to me eventually. You know what I mean, because this is what we're supposed to be doing now. If those guys came down our post, I guarantee you they'd be what they'd be. Anyone came down here, the sort of casino to gamble. They stopped in our post. I guarantee you they would have got the bear hugs, yep the eagle would have met them at the door.
Speaker 4Yep, right, welcome. Come on in right to have you.
Speaker 2Thanks for coming and I think it's important to say, obviously, that not all posts are like what we're saying is.
Speaker 4You know, we're almost the anomaly sometimes because, we travel around man and we are. Our post is the anomaly, which is great.
Challenges With VFW Membership and New Members
Speaker 5I have another residence down in northern Kentucky, just south of Cincinnati. When I started looking for VFW down there, didn't realize there was one, two blocks from my house, so I had googled one of the big ones. It was an older post in Letonia which is right outside Covington, kentucky, sits way out off the beaten path. No, if you weren't looking for you would never know us there. So I have found this place, drove back up in there, beautiful, that sits back off the Lickin River. They have a huge pond that they allow people to go fishing on. So I walk in there and immediately I walk. As soon as I walk in I immediately the divide, that, that stigma of oh, this is a post, this is a place, just a bunch of World War, old World War, two vets sitting around getting drunk talk, telling war stories. That was the, that was the vibe I got and I stood there and all these guys, I mean I literally I swear to God, I got the death stare like who the fuck is this walking into our post? Right, you know, and I'm like hey, and I introduced myself, I'm, I told my member of the VFW post chair in my pleasant and really I sat down. It's still nothing. And I'm trying to, and I'm trying to engage these guys like, hey, I'm just like you, I've served in combat, I'm not just just this, this younger generation that just don't give a shit or anything. I'm with you, I want to learn from you. You have a. These older guys have a wealth of knowledge, but I still was getting that death stare like proof, proof, proof to us that you belong here. So I, of course, I had to pull out my, my VFW card or my membership card, and they were like this is fake, because every last one of them had the old style metal card that they that the VFW used to give out for your life member.
Speaker 5You get a old metal I stamped, I mean it. Nowadays they're laminated, but they're looking at me like they've never seen this before. I'm like, no, I'm a member, this is what. Look, if you want, if you got my check it. Yeah, check it here's my.
Speaker 5Here's my membership number. Check it right. And that was the last time I went there, right, because the vibe I got, the welcome I got, this is not what I was expected and so I found. About a week later I ended up finding the one like said that was two blocks from my house. Happened be had had a larger membership when I walked in.
Speaker 4Wonder why I'm not gonna get a good membership if you treat people like that.
Speaker 5When I walked in they, I had one guy come up to me to see some here's beer. Okay, thank you. But I kind of still got that, that ostracization or whatever you want to call it, from one of the older members at that post and I'm like, hey, I, you know, I had to introduce myself. And he's like, well, you want to be a member here? I'm like, well, no, I'm already a member at the at the VFW. My pleasant, give me that beer back. Well, I kind of got that vibe too. But it turns out, you know, they, they, I guess down to that because it's an urban environment, you know, in Cincinnati, you know Cincinnati Metro area. So they and the guy though the, the postal manager there at the Ralph Ralph Fulton post, he was so much like, yeah, we've had to run off people that would that come in. We've had a lot of issues with people walking in, saying they're this, saying they're that, pretty much stolen valor.
Speaker 5And in the past year at that point it was like in the past year. I'm like nope, here's my, here's my membership card. You can check out my D214 and I'm like, I'm like. I'm not going to be here matter of fact, I went back out to my vehicle. I had a copy. I had a copy. My D214 in my in my truck brought it back in here.
Speaker 2I will prove to you, and soon as you see, nationally welcome. Yep, and I mean it's, it's, you know we're, we're a club environment, right, we're, we're based off of membership. So obviously, proving your eligibility for that membership is is one you know, you know, I guess you know, for I guess those posts that we're talking about, I mean, take this as a warning, right, if you want new members, you have to be welcoming to new members absolutely. I mean to anybody.
Speaker 2You do not know who is going to walk in your post period and and I'll say it again, I'll be the bold one and say this it could be a female veteran. Oh, absolutely that, and I know. For us that's. You know, we shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes because we have female membership. But some of these old posts that again, or is this stereotypical? You know from what I'm getting from these reddit posts, the stereotypical? You know dark, you know smoky, smelling old buildings, just filled with old vets sitting there drinking. You know it, you know it's, it's a. Obviously it's been I don't know how long 40 years, 50 years since women were allowed to serve in the military. What is that? Like? The 70s, I think, is when that happened.
Speaker 2But anyway, I digress point is is, you know, one member or one person posted that she wasn't welcomed. She was, she was told that she was expected to serve alongside the auxiliary members, despite the fact that she was, you know, an actual member. So well, that just. And that's Wade, that's way over to the top, but that's just to say that what's happening at some of these, some of these places, you know and I'm not trying to call anybody else specifically because obviously I don't know where this was all taking place but you know, that's the kind of stuff that some people are dealing with. You know, and I don't know what to say other than that well, I can tell you this.
Speaker 3Okay, I don't agree with the the process, but you can refuse membership. If a person is eligible, you cannot take that person. If you choose not to, if the post chooses not to, they cannot. They have the right not to accept that eligibility.
Speaker 5Well, that's why everything's done by vote.
Speaker 3It is true because yeah, I mean every every time we get someone that applies right, we have to vote on men at their meeting, right so to see basically what we need to do and this is something for the post and for us to think about it we need to have a membership committee, which is three people that go over the DD 214.
Speaker 3They discuss the person, maybe find out if the guys are armed robber, whatever I mean it's always that, that screening process, yeah, and then they make a recommendation and then but right now we don't do that we basically say he's eligible, let's go you want to know why?
Speaker 4because we need the membership, because VFW pushes membership. Yep, it's quantity over quality. Yep, when it comes to membership, every year. Right say, we have 200 members this year, we need to have 205 next year well, you know, and if we don't, we're not a hundred percent right, so we're gonna take any any swinging dick that wash through the door and I can. I can attest to it here.
Speaker 5In the past five years our post here in my pleasant. We've accepted some people maybe we should not have accepted because it's caused problems within within our ranks with our brotherhood yeah, I get you, you know, just because they're eligible.
Speaker 5But, you know, maybe maybe we need to be a little bit more stringent on a screening process and I'm you know, I'm not saying I'm I want to, you know, not accept every member, because I love every veteran. I love, you know, when somebody comes in a post and they want in it, you know, I want to be able to give somebody a place that has served and has been in the fucking mix, a place to come to, a safe space. Yeah, a safe space if they don't have any other place to go. No matter what, I don't care who you are. If you you come home fucked up in combat and yeah, you're fucked up maybe we can help you. Maybe you're not a good fit for our post, but maybe this are, you know, coming into our post will be the spark to get you somewhere, get you in the right direction, get yourself back so let me ask you a question then.
Speaker 4So you're your combat, that let's just say, right, that comes back mm-hmm, and I'm gonna tell you that you're not a good fit to come into our post.
Speaker 5I would never say I'm not saying, I'm just generalizing you apply.
Speaker 4Yeah, I'm just generalizing you apply you have all the criteria to meet for membership, mm-hmm, and the post is no. That membership tells you no, we're not gonna let you join.
Speaker 5That's kind of fucked up as a sound right. Well, that's.
Speaker 4That's exactly what you're saying, I know that's not.
Speaker 5I was just generalizing. That's not what I was. I was getting at that's not, so my intent was no, I know I, you know just through you, out of the box, that was it my intention. I decided you the other way don't don't get it.
Speaker 4You know six wheels to be talking about. These are the things need to be brought up.
Speaker 5You know I would never. To me personally, I would never turn away, no matter how fucked you are. Never you are never, no matter what you're going through, whatever, whatever's going on, I will never turn a veteran.
Speaker 4So so that's why I don't think we need to have a membership committee right, because if you meet the criteria and you need to do 14, right, true then you should be eligible for membership and I hate the fact that we could turn somebody away that possibly needs yeah it was the joint yep and we're pushed under membership membership membership membership.
Speaker 5That's why I say, that's why I say it's quantity over quality, and that's why I say, hey, I will never turn you away, maybe even if you decide that that person decides that, hey, they're not a good fit for this place. But if we can give it, you know we can be the clarin we can be that that, that, that spark to get them off there, whatever funk that they're going through or whatever it is. We can be that inspiration. Well, it all, it all it takes is one, one spark no, like that fire.
Speaker 4But what I'm saying is, the easiest way to put the spark out is hey, I qualify to be here, yep, and you're telling me, no, I can't so any so they had the spark to come in and actually fill the paperwork out and want to join, right, right, and then they get told no, right, I mean, that's like, that's like we ever said no.
Speaker 4Well, no I, but this is the conversation I have right is is we only want to bring in these people that are going to be a benefit or these people that are going to be a bonus to the post, right, but in the same instance, right, these people that want to come in, we're going to say, yeah, maybe another day, right, or you're not a good fit for us. So yeah, it's it's. It's all these things that are that are tough because we get pushed membership. So I think you know when it, when it comes down to it, I think and I get what national wants to do with the VFW, I'm sure, and that's the same, I'm sure the American Legion is same right. All these organizations are probably the same right you got to have the million members.
Speaker 4You got to have the two million members. You got to have the ten million members right to, that's your voice that's your voice. No, I get it right.
Speaker 4So then, can't be picky, so yeah, you really can't be picky because if we have 200 members this year they're going to require 205 next year, which means we got to bring five in. So next year we have 205 and I want to 15 the following year, right. So you can't be picky because you get a 12 month calendar year, right, and you've got great post commanders out there. We have one here up in Harrison, right in our district 11, scott Taylor Harrison post. This dude is a hundred and sixty two percent. I mean, he is blowing it out of the water, this dude, his membership as a whole, because I can't believe it's just him, right, but he's got some magic formula. I don't know what's in the water in Harrison, michigan, but he, this guy's got something going on that I was talking to him, right, tim district commander. I said I would make, I would make him a membership guy. He is in if that position doesn't exist. I'm making it.
Speaker 4Make that thing exist yeah, because I don't know what he's got going on. I don't get it. I mean I've only, in the three years I've been around, brought in four or five people, probably that's it. He does that in a month or maybe maybe maybe three weeks, he does that in a month. So what does that do doing? I have no idea. It's crazy, yeah that's.
Speaker 3That's. That's crazy. There's another dude. He's from Ann Harbour, the Ann Harbour post, and he's the top recruiter in the state. He brought in like 39 members. But they're, they're in a. They're in a situation where they can afford to do it because they just pay for their the guy's membership where a lot of posts can't do that. But um he, he took calls removing obstacles. If you want somebody to come in and they have a, they have a reason that they can't. I can't afford it.
Speaker 4The obstacle, pay for it well, for sure, and we have like relief funds.
Speaker 4We have all these different things right, that we could do that for people that are struggling, because we want them to come in, we want them to feel accepted, we want them to get the help they need, because you get help from the same people that chewed the sand. Right, they're in the sandbox, or they were in the dirt, they were in the jungle, they were wherever the hell they were at right. Those are the guys that you can lean on to ask the honest, true questions to. That are going to give you the no bullshit, true answer, if you like it or not, thank you. Sometimes I'm gonna say stop being a pussy yep, absolutely right suck it up yep drive
Speaker 4forward. What you're complaining about is so small. Remember the things that we used to bitch about? That were 18, 19, 20 year old kids. Yeah, that we had to deal with, that were real problems. And you're whining over a flat tire. You shut the fuck up, suck it up and move on. That's, that's. That's piddly bullshit, fix it. You know, when we're 19, 20 year old kids fighting for our lives, gone 2000, 3000 miles away from our families, our kids, our parents, our sisters, our brothers, whatever right pulling triggers? That's real world problems.
Parenting and Tough Love in Marines
Speaker 4Yep a flat life that's like a flat tire when you're 15 miles outside of town is nothing, yep, right, but that's first rule problems. We had real world problems, yeah, and that was crazy. I mean you started thinking back of it, like I'm looking at my son, 17 years old right, you've got one in now, right in the Marines. So you look at what they got to do and it's like, unfortunately, my son takes a lot of brunt for me because I'm a pretty straight shooter guy, right, sir, usually don't sugarcoat much. I do get called a politician because I'll always see. If I'm not in the fight, right, I'll listen to both sides and deal my deal. But when it comes to him, I'm like, look, kid, this is the way it's gonna be. I did it. So if I could do it, you can do it. My grandfather told me the same thing. You're talking old salt dog from World War two, right?
Speaker 5sir this dude's.
Speaker 4Actually this is the bracelet my grandmother gave him before he deployed for combat overseas. And his enlistment, right when he signed up because he actually enlisted, rather getting drafted because he wanted to be in the Marines yep, his enlistment was duration and war were to duration. Oh wow, there was no EAS date. Right, like you're doing a four-year deal and then you're out, or you're doing a six-year enlistment, you're out. His said duration, so that war went on for 22 years. He's still be doing 22.
Speaker 4Yeah, you probably still be in it if the Japanese didn't surrender. You know, I'm saying yeah, it was legit, like it was to the end of this bitch, regardless of its six months or 16 years. So that's a real world problem, right, and he hit like four or five, six different islands, right going across and like say he landed last one was ok, now, right, so, but yeah, it was. It was that crazy. That's a real world problem, you know. But when our with our kids, you know you chewed it.
Speaker 4Yes, sir right now he's doing it, so you probably don't get my lot of slack either.
Speaker 5You know my sons, especially my, my second older, who's a Marine. You know I was so hard on him as he was in what, as he was coming up, and he could never understand why I was so hard on him and we it was it put it put a big strain on our relationship. So when he had came home, when he, when he graduated boot camp and he came home, it was like all that went away. It was the same way with me and my dad. My dad was an asshole. He was alcoholic, hard no, straight to the punch. He's an old Vietnam guy. He just didn't pull no punches.
Speaker 5You do this as a man growing up. This is how you're gonna survive in this world. That's how I was raised. That's how I raised my son and I can remember and it almost brought me to tears because it was the same situation I was in when I came home from boot camp. When my son got home from boot camp, he just looked at me. There was no word said it, just I gave him a look, he gave me a look, I nodded, he nodded and everything else that he thought went away and our relationship became stronger and it was like nothing is like we have the best relationship. To this day, I talked to my son. If not every day, every other day, well, that's awesome the same thing,
Speaker 5with my dad. You know, like said, growing up I had a real strange relationship with my dad because of his issues from Vietnam, but the way he raised me, he raised me how to be a man's man. He taught me how to survive in this world that we're in today. And when I came home from boot camp, that's all he did. He just shook his head at me, gave me a look, says now, yet, which said now you understand, and I did. At that moment in time, I understood where I, where my place was in this world, and the same thing my son now understands.
Speaker 4And I can't wait for my, my boy, to get that right. Yep, because he whines about doing chores around the house, right? Now he's now he's enlisted right, so they so in the in. They caught the Pooley program, right, so they've got him. You know, once a month or once every three weeks, right, they get together. They PT right he's, he's a PT studies. Are you doing 18 pull-ups? Right, he's running my he's be doing more.
Speaker 4He's running a mile he's running a mile, mile and a half, like 11 minutes, so he's definitely got to get that up because it's it's 18 minutes to get a hundred points right, 18 or less for three miles, right, so he's, he's definitely got to work on that how long does it take him to run a mile? Mile and a half and like 11, 10, 10, 40 ish, 1050 ish, oh he needs to be running.
Speaker 5He needs to be running a minimum a seven minute mile right, but he goes.
Speaker 4The goal is 15 right now, so he goes. I'm basically running on cruise control yeah, he's not pushing that he played soccer for the.
Speaker 3Oh, I know that's all they did, yeah, so he used to run about seven yeah, he used to run seven miles right in a match, yeah right for 45 minutes almost straight and then they get their break and then another 45 minutes straight, right, so you'd run like seven, eight miles in a match yep he'll.
Speaker 4He'll be a 3t. He'll be a 300 point PT kid coming out right, which is awesome. I feel bad for my son-in-law right that married my poor daughter, so we had so we had, we, you know, we had her daughter Rosina Marines, right.
Speaker 4So she lived in Virginia, out to California. She was as little, you know, but she got raised probably at my worst because I was fresh out, right, she was you know, for I think when I got out, and then you know, all the way through right until now, she graduated colleges where she met her husband at, but I raised her to be a hard-nosed bitch. Take, I mean, I used to pick on her.
Speaker 4I would rag on her, she's more of a dude than most dudes or dudes. You know what I mean. So I, in my son-in-law's pretty, pretty big kid you know he's a farm kid, you know but I guarantee if she puts her foot down, he ain't, he ain't gonna step to the plate, he don't want to swing the bat because he knows he's gonna get smoked right, you know, and that's that's unfortunate that we've. We've raised our kids I think mine.
Speaker 4Anyways, I'll speak to myself without without the love that probably a normal dad would give them. Just because of our past experiences and you know, and that makes sense it does make sense.
Speaker 5That makes perfect sense because we're GeneXus, you know we're. That's how we were raised. We were raised by boomers. We were raised to change when the times are changing and to prepare our kids for the tough times. Otherwise, because right now we got what these Millennials needs Gen Z's. Now, whatever, whatever generation they're calling that's coming up now. They're soft to me, they're soft as fuck and the, the world itself don't give a fuck. The world is hard. If these kids don't realize, when they step away from home, when, when they get kicked out the nest and they have to adult and they have to be grown, they're not gonna have the tools to survive because this world would chew them up, spin them out and roll right over and keep going yeah, no, no, no longer is about your feelings, exactly no that's a problem because now
Speaker 3everything's about their feelings that's, that's what we're saying there is no safe space, man you walk into the office to go to work.
Speaker 5It's about performance, yeah, in production, and I was raised to I don't know how many times this was before that term, even that the term fuck your feelings even became popular.
Speaker 5My dad, was telling me this when I was a child, back in the 80s and 90s. He would always tell me I don't give a fuck about how you feel. This is how, this is how it's gonna be. You either suck it up and drive on and be something, or let this world consume you and chew you up, spit you out and you're just gonna slay there and be a little bitch. That's the end in my dad, what I was telling me. That's not the type of man I'm trying to raise.
Speaker 4That's our core. Right there it is.
Speaker 5I mean people look at me, yeah, I'm a softy, I'm a big, I'm a big love bull softy. But I also get but, I, also get taken as an asshole just because I'm straightforward.
Speaker 4Well, right, you see, and and that's one of the character traits right, the Marine Corps and still denies, I'm sure the army didn't you guys do. Right is we had acronym called JJ did tie, buckle, right and each you told us JJ what what JJ did tie buckle okay, right so 14 leadership traits right in the Marine Corps, right oh yep yep, and I still live by those today during during grain in my head. And you move forward right in life, so any decision you make right and if you're in a leadership role at all.
Speaker 4Those are the things that that that you should be doing right to make sure that you're fair. Right, you got knowledge to what you're talking about. Right, you got enthusiasm right for what you want to have happen. You're loyal right to either who you work for your family, an organization like the VFW, I mean. There's all kinds of things that go into it, right, some some applies, some don't right, because they're more military geared than they are civilian, but a lot of them actually relate to what you do in your personal life after the military, right. So when it, when it comes down to it, with your family, right, you were raised hardcore. I was raised pretty hardcore. I don't know how you were raised them, but pretty hard I'm probably pretty sure hardcore right.
Speaker 3So I was raised smart because I had two older brothers. So I watched them and said I ain't never tell you, I know, I think our generation they and I watch a lot of memes with about GeneXus and they call us Farrell.
Disconnect Between Generations
Speaker 5We really were fucking Farrell as fuck. You know my parents would kick me out the door first thing in the morning this said don't come back in.
Speaker 4Oh yeah oh yeah, until the street lights come up.
Speaker 5Yeah, street lights come on you take off.
Speaker 3I lived on a lake when we were the only family that was there year-round, so in the in the winter we'd go sledding and we came back for dinner. We'd leave in the morning after breakfast.
Speaker 4Ball gone, you're gone you know, yeah, so here here in Michigan, right, my, my parents had a. They had a boat in Bay City.
Speaker 4They have those little rubber dinghies right at a 15 horsepower motor, out at 5 gallon gas can oh yeah it's an early 90s, you know my parents get up in the morning on a boat and shit all the other other kids, right, we'd all jump on our dinghies and shit. My dad would hand me 20 bucks and said gotta be home by 8 for dinner, right, because they wanted to party with all their friends and shit, they didn't want the kids around. See, they had me 20 bucks, right, they go down, fill up. You know gas is 90 cents a gallon. Already had to, pre already had to pre make soil.
Speaker 4You know shit. We'd be up in freaking Linwood, caw, collins, 20, 30 miles through the bay, right open water Lake, here on up way up north. No radio, no cell phone, no, nothing. I mean we could have been floating to Canada, yep, and our parents wouldn't even have known about it. You know rough, there was no like now. My wife's got the kids on 360 our daughters 24 and married and she's like, oh, they're at home.
Speaker 1You know she's going to go to check in with the kids are doing. I'm like that's because these parents were so crazy back.
Speaker 5Yeah, but I look at our generation and I think a lot of disconnect with our generation and our in, in in our kids is because a lot of these mothers have been in. Parents have been ingrained a whole. You got to coddle your children because you know, whatever reason, you know that the world is so rough, and not these kids or they, they've been. Let me rephrase that the kids nowadays have been pacified. When they were fresh out the womb they were pacified. Every time they threw a fit. Our parents had had it in there. Their parents had it in their mind saying, okay, we got to give our kids whatever we never had. So it got to the point we were spoiling them and giving them whatever you.
Speaker 5Also, when a kid figured out, just like any animal figured out, hey, I can do this to get what I want, and what I want is really to do nothing and be fucking lazy and sit in front of a. So I'm gonna throw a fit and so I get what I want. So I can get what I want. So that's generation being. We know we grew up. We grew up there. They grew up in the electronics age. They had screens, they had iPhones, they had gameboys, they had playstations. So this art, you know, the parents of our generation said, said, okay, when these kids throw a fit, we're just gonna pass from throw them in front of a screen. And what are they doing? They're not out in the world getting real world experience.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, we used to jump out of bikes, right. That's how you knew where all the neighborhood kids were, right. You started riding around the block and we're all the bikes were piled up. You know that's where all your friends were, right. So, like my parents, right, and we raised our kids that way. If they were crying because they were over tired, we didn't hold them, we threw them in the crib.
Speaker 4We made them cry themselves asleep like our parents did yeah right now, nowadays, man there's cameras and monitors and all this stuff that they're there.
Speaker 3We're like 35 people in there, yeah, yeah. So I mean, there's just a difference and I think that comes from our parents, the way they raised us and why.
Speaker 4You know, when we went to service we were kind of no shit, that's just get the mission accomplished, right and and move forward. But the afterlife of the way we came out we still have that, that that boomer mentality, and I think that's why the Xers are different than the Millennials and the Gen Z's and the whatever nowadays right, that's the way we were raised yeah, I was.
Speaker 5I was raised pretty feral, like I said. My parents kicked me out the goddamn household, and long, I said, and my mom refused to entertain me so I had to entertain myself, so I'd be out in the woods mm-hmm, you know, building forts, yep building forts, digging, digging dams or blocking off creeks, or or going up and fucking up some shit on the neighbor's property. Yeah, without them knowing. I grew up hunting young grew up shooting deer, small animals. So I mean I did what young boys doing rural communities, so what?
Speaker 4do you think that we can't get? You know, I mean, I obviously we've got a lot of these guys right that have served from 2003, or let's just say 2000 to 2021, right? Besides, maybe they're raising families, but there's a lot of single guys still out there, women out there, right. What? What do you think the biggest hurdle is that we've got to get them to come to an American Legion, come to the WFW's is, to be exact, what's over there, right? Let's talk about some of that. You think it's still that because I I had that that same stigma, right?
Membership and Pride in Service Organizations
Speaker 5because I grew up with my grandfather and his buddies right hanging out, so I thought the VFW's going to be the same way. Is it more promotional stuff of its? Well, whatever it is that they it pretty much. We just got to get in in front of them, in front of those type of people too, so they could see it, show and do you know, yeah, but everything where you just don't give and that in there, and that's where you got to start. I mean, it's not a start somewhere? Well, right.
Speaker 4But I mean, if you see no offense, our honor guard is great, right, but we have one member under the age of 50 on it. Probably right, and Andy Beals there's probably there's probably the one guy under 50 on it. So if I show up to a Memorial Day parade and I see the honor guard and it's a bunch of 1670 year old guys on it, you know, I know why I mean I'm actually.
Speaker 5I mean, this is this, is this is the problem that we've got you know, to me, this is how I'm taking it, you know, for my thought process. For me, I know why this generation, or whoever, is coming up and they feel this way because they got no fucking pride. They were taught not to have any pride in shit, and you'd ah how I was raised. You know, when I look at my flag, I look at my country's flag with pride. I look at any flag, whether it be a military flag or anything that I used to represent or still do represent. I look at that with pride, because I put the work in, I did what needed to do, and it's something that makes me feel good.
Speaker 3Well, here's a question. You have a renter right. Yes, Bechard eligible for VFW. We talked to him, Yep.
Speaker 4How come he's never come in?
Speaker 3Because he's. Ah, I don't want to.
Speaker 5He is real. You know, I think the generation coming up now are real introverted.
Speaker 4They just are so Too much screen time. I can have all my buddies on the.
Speaker 5X-Files and too much about how my feelings. They don't really realize that they need to let those feelings go because it's all to me bullshit and get out there and experience people and that's the disconnect in this world today is people. I really do. I mean, I will admit it, I fucking hate people. I hate people. People are crazy these days. I keep my circles so damn small that when somebody asks me oh, who are your friends? I tell them I don't have any friends.
Speaker 4Really, man, really, we're sitting right here brother, I got family. Oh, look at this guy. He turned the script out of the middle.
Speaker 5Yeah, that's shit. I seriously that's how I fucking feel.
Speaker 3So I got a question for you show how many people and I think we need to bring this up in our golf outing how many members of our unit are in the VFW that we served in combat with oh, you guys do your hooligans. Golf outing. Golf outing how many?
Speaker 4It should be every one of them.
Speaker 3Should be every flippin' one of Ryan Chief just joined the Charlotte Post. Well, he's been here. What two, three years now.
Speaker 4I tell you what you should do.
Speaker 3Take membership son.
Speaker 4And there should be a requirement. There should be a requirement If you're gonna golf in the hooligan golf outing, you gotta be a member of the team.
Speaker 3You gotta be a member of the VF or the American Legion, I don't care.
Speaker 4Well, that's, you know, you gotta be a member of one or the other. I'm a member of both, right.
Speaker 5There are some legal things that have to be taken care of in order to get to that point. As far as our golf outing is concerned, those are easily you know.
Speaker 4Well, it'd be a legal thing. That's a requirement. It's like you gotta have golf clubs to golf in a golf outing.
Speaker 3Well, we actually have, we're working on getting, or we have one. We actually have a 501C foundation to when we raise that money that we give out to non-profit.
Speaker 4The best thing is, if you wanna get around it if you're a VFW American Legion member, it's 75 bucks. If you're a non-member, it's 100 bucks. Honestly, if you wanna get around it, you wanna spend another 25 bucks. You just spend another 10, whatever, you can join this one or you can join this one For just 10 bucks more right, give a discount to those that are part of a service organization and don't for the ones that aren't.
Speaker 3Ah, that's something we could throw at new, because, realistically, I often wondered that Now Homie still owes us right, so we need to go see Homie and get his ass signed up for the post.
Speaker 5Oh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3And then we'll rename the post Echo Company. Well, shit, I got like. I got half a dozen people that served together in the post.
Speaker 4There's a half a dozen out of 189 members and you wanna rename the post?
Speaker 3There would be active. There's me, you Really, that's Duby Cherry, Duby Cherry, you Seaboard.
Speaker 5Bill me.
Speaker 4And you're out of names at six.
Speaker 5That's eight of us.
Speaker 4Who. He's only got six on his hand. I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 5He's already counted me and him.
Speaker 3Oh, oh, so me and you yeah that's eight. You Betz, I'll take eight. Who.
Speaker 5Adam Betz, major Adam Betz oh.
Speaker 3Betz.
Speaker 5He's yup, duby, cherry, brian, who else? Who else did I say Seaboard, seaboard. Yeah, don, and there was one other one. That's so there's eight of us.
Speaker 4So you're like a half a percentage of the post. We're not, we're not, we're not renaming the post. No offense Because nobody knows how to spell who again. So that sign would still be messed up.
Speaker 5Make it a spell. Yeah, he would still be messed up by Pickersfree. I don't know about you Marines. I mean, you guys did eat quite a few crayons.
Speaker 4Only only the purple ones. They taste like grape. Oh, yup, that's it, man, it's all about the flavors. It's like. It's like nobody calls there. It's like hey, what kind of Gatorade you want? I want the red one. Nobody has any idea what flavor it is, it just you go off the color. Right, I want the red, I want the light blue, the dark blue, whatever it is, you know. Yeah. So crayons, crayons are no different to us man. And for Christmas gift at least give me the 64 pack.
Speaker 3Yeah, there you go, that's a variety for my desserts, you know.
Riding Groups for Membership and Support
Speaker 4He's only eat three a day, keeps the doctor away. That's funny. Well, you know, and this has always been the biggest challenge, right Is, how do we because we've got a shit ton Eligible veterans, any of these organizations that come back, but how do you get them to come in?
Speaker 3How do you get them to come in?
Speaker 4It's hard right, Because most of the promotional stuff that we put out is about joining. It shouldn't be about joining. It should be about just coming in through the doors, Because if you come in through the doors and you have a great experience, you have the eagle right and all these posts right that welcome me in.
Speaker 5And it's just it's.
Speaker 4Then the membership portion becomes simple and easy. But yeah, absolutely. But if it's come, join us. No, I don't want to. I just want to come in and have a good time and not be pressured in a joining.
Speaker 5And let me join when I want to join, and that'll open up a door to resources that these other vets didn't realize they had.
Speaker 4See, and that's why I think we're also go back to the writers group stuff. Right, if you have a love for motorcycles, right, and you support the military, right, or you served in the military, you could join this separate subgroup of the VFW or American Legion, because they got Legion writers out there right and then you can become a part of the VFW through this other entity. And that's huge, because we're out at bike nights, we're out at all these cancer benefit rides or and you just got to wear them.
Speaker 4Veteran suicide awareness through veterans for USA out of Alma.
Speaker 5Michigan. But you just made it a point. You just made a point right there. That is that really resonates with me. It's a really deep issue. You know, guys like us, we were raised a certain way. We have fathers that serve, we had grandfathers that serve, so we were raised with a certain amount of patriotism and pride and you good.
Speaker 4Well, you and I have had these conversations.
Speaker 5Yeah, and it's about to me, it's teaching how I was raised with that moral, that simple moral of when you walk out, when a man walks out into this world and is trying to be a man on his own, it's about being a part of something greater than yourself.
Speaker 4Well, that's what we served, right? Yep, we were one tiny cog in the wheel.
Speaker 5Yep, but I was raised and I love how I was raised because I was taught not to be selfish. I was taught to help others, put my feelings aside and help somebody that may truly need something that I have to offer, and to me that's that moral of goodness that needs to be put back in this world, as fucked up as this world is.
Speaker 4Yeah, and I think, in the grand scheme of things, right, everybody has to find their place. Yep. That transition from being told what you want to do 24, 7, 365, right four years, or six years, right Yep To now, all of a sudden, you're free on your own to make your own decisions and your own choices. You get lost, because the world's a big fucking place. Yes it is Right.
Speaker 4There's a million things going right and that transition and some people pick that transition up in a year or less.
Speaker 4Some take 10 years to do right, to find their place, to find their mission, to get it, to understand it, to eat it, to chew it the whole thing right, yep, and that's why I love the motorcycle groups is because a lot of us rode in the military right and we got out. We kept on riding right and this gives a way to ride with people that we understand, to ride with people that we get. It gives us a great perspective on what these organizations like the VFW can do right, and it's a great gateway. We've picked up quite a few members, new members, to our post just through having a riders group, and I think that's something that the Department here in Michigan is trying to do is to get more riders groups throughout the department because it's a huge recruiting tool right when we're out doing these rides. One it shows these other organizations like Veterans for USA right, we attend their suicide awareness ride. Right, we lead it. Right, they had us out front leading the group this year because one we're proficient with riding.
Speaker 4We know what we're doing. They wanted to have veterans out front of everybody else, right? Not riding in the rear, right. They want us to lead the way, because that cause, that Veterans suicide awareness cause, is so big for us because we've dealt with it. I've lost out of my fast team. I've lost three guys. How?
Speaker 5many have we lost Since we've been back 11? Oh man, We've lost way more than we lost actually in theater. Yeah 11, right, right, close, right, close to 11?. Yeah, we're about, yeah, it was about 11 guys. We've lost just suicide.
Speaker 4Yeah, so these are the causes. And that Cousy's killing me, dude, that Dean Myers. Cousy with the bird on the bottom the middle finger bird is killing me. It's perfectly aimed right at me when you were taking a drink.
Supporting Veterans and Motorcycle Groups
Speaker 3It was absolutely hilarious. I loved it. By the way, I'm drinking soda.
Speaker 4Is that what you're drinking? I'm drinking Miller Lite, sponsored by Anaheiser Bush, by the way. I think it's Anaheiser Bush, I don't know. It's Union May Beer and I'm at Union Cottage. No, it's not.
Speaker 3Anaheiser Bush is Bud Light stuff.
Speaker 4Who is it?
Speaker 3Miller Brewing Company.
Speaker 4Oh, miller Lite, how come I didn't know that? Cool. This Miller Lite sponsored by Miller Lite Brewing Company. My apologies, Best taste is beer and it's Union May, so that's why.
Speaker 3I drink it, oh yeah.
Speaker 4So we always support Union Workers in the United States of America, by the way. No, but when it comes down to it, right, those are the things that we should be doing, and the VFW as a whole, or American Legion as a whole, couldn't do it without having these other groups. Absolutely.
Speaker 4There was no way that they're going to jump in a cage or a car or a truck or whatever right, and then ride these things because they're from motorcycle groups. So the fact that we do it is huge you know what I mean and obviously it's a big cost. So there's going to be that Mission 6 service dogs ride to the Leathernecks do up in Harrison, right? So we'll be riding for that, helping support the cause for veterans that need service dogs when they come back. Oh, yeah, right.
Speaker 4And that's just a way that we can give back to the community. That one our local post gets credit for, the VFW gets credit for right, but it's also a great cause that we should be supporting. So we pay to go on these rides. Sometimes it's $20 a person, sometimes it's $40 a person. You know what I mean. Just depends on what the cause is. But that's that generosity that our members which is crazy, we were talking about the support people earlier right, they don't have an affiliation other than through that motorcycle club, their group right, but they're willing to do this.
Speaker 4They're willing to shell it out on our behalf.
Speaker 5Enjoying these cars is huge Yep, and that's what it takes to get the word out.
Speaker 4Well, and I think this has been a good tool to gobble up those younger members Like. Joe Gates is a great one. Right, this guy works in Saginaw. Here's, we got one. Comes in Now he's going to be a crazy active member, and he's actually. He's well, besides Joe. How was Joe? Probably in his 30s late?
Speaker 320s, mid 30s. Mid 30s 35, maybe, maybe, maybe.
Speaker 3OK, so besides, and how we got him is he called up and he said, hey, I'd like you guys need any help or whatever. And I said something about a rider's group. He said you got a rider's group. I said yeah, and he goes. Well, I'm eligible to be in the VFW. And I'm like then, why the hell are you? I'm like what the hell dude? And he's like, well, when will you be there? And I told him and I told him about the group and all that bullshit. And then Joyne come to find out he was a member of Coleman. That led his membership laps. Oh really, because his grandma was an auxiliary president over there and put him in way back in the day.
Speaker 3And he probably didn't even know, about it Never went and didn't even know about it. So you know, and the dude's a great IT guy, look what he did on bike night, man, I mean.
Speaker 4Yeah, so those are the other things. Right that these motorcycle groups? Right, those riders groups can do for the VFW American Legion? Right, we host a bike night. Right, so you're looking at the auxiliary's doing food in the kitchen sold out food, right, posted. Well, you gotta stop using that coosy man. It's killing me. Well, once again, dude.
Speaker 3Want me to aim in a different way? Yeah, aim at Brad. Aim at Brad when you do it.
Speaker 4Because he's no but these are the flashbacks.
Speaker 5These are the things right.
Speaker 4that play a huge role and I think it can help drive that younger membership. Because what I hated and the reason why I didn't join forever right, and I actually joined as membership at large through national I was I'm not, I'm a techie, but not a crazy techie, right. So I jumped online right and I scanned in my DD 214, crossed off my social right. Sat it in. I get my card in the mail and I was like member at large through national, for I was post 10,994, whatever the hell, it was right.
Speaker 4Whatever national is, didn't do nothing with it. I paid three years in a row or something like that, maybe four years in a row paid. It never came into the post. Then a buddy of mine, randy, who is long as I remember.
Speaker 3Gilray, gilray, grimace, yes, grimace.
Speaker 4Yep, yep, he was up there, right he's awesome. And I see him on Facebook. He posts I'm like oh shit, randy's up there, I better go up there, walk in there, and I never left sense right.
Speaker 4And then I transferred from national to the post here, right, and then obviously I've been getting involved in things going on there, so the way I did it was just weird. I was like you know, my grandpa would be pissed because they have the Marine Corps League here in Michigan, right, and he was the commandant, so he'd be no different than department commander.
Speaker 3Right right right.
Speaker 4My grandpa was commandant, right, he never joined the VFW and I'll dive into that in a second, but he was a member of the American Legion and the reason why he never joined the VFW was because he felt that it was shameful that, even if you served over here, you never left the United States. Right, he always thought you should still be able to be a member because you supported those that were over fighting. So I get it right. Like my wife used to email me when I was over there shit, the direct deposit was fucked up. Now I'm dealing with that. But if that dude or girl back here, woman back here, wasn't doing her job, I'm dealing with some bullshit over there that I didn't need to deal with right. So that payroll specialist or whatever right was just as important as me pulling the trigger over there because if shit or my MREs didn't make it to us.
Speaker 4You know what I mean when we were over there Bees and bullets, yeah, I mean that was just as bad, right. So he was under the impression, right and this is him right that if you served, you served. So that's why he got involved in the Marine Corps League and then he got involved with the American.
Speaker 3Legion but not the VFW.
Speaker 4Not the VFW, because he didn't feel he didn't feel right that you should segregate like that.
Speaker 3And there's been some conversation that I've had with people in Claire the great thing and a curse also of being a post-commander district commander, whatever is because people, no matter where I go, people come up to me and hey, how come this is? And I run into a couple guys up there that said you know you should be able to be in the VFW if you served in that time frame. And I said, ok, the VFW stands for Veterans of Foreign Wars. And he's like, well, I was in a foreign war. I'm like where he said, well, I was stationed at Fort Bragg during Vietnam. Or I was Germany, bob Lackey during Germany, and I'm like, but it wasn't made up that way. I mean, I understand it, I'm not saying I'm against it, but then we're just all American legions.
Speaker 4Yeah, because basically, well, or am vets, Well the difference between American legion.
Speaker 3In order to be an American legion member, you have to serve during a time of conflict, but you didn't get deployed. Am vets are. Anybody that's a veteran can join the am vets.
Speaker 4OK, so I guess I didn't realize with the. American legion, because I just thought it was any veteran I thought it was any veteran. No, I was like I'm during the time of, but not actually in combat. Yes, gotcha, gotcha and I was like well why?
Speaker 3What's the difference between am vets, American legion I just thought it was an offshoot. And but the am vets are, anybody can join. They served their country. Legion got to serve during a time of conflict, but you didn't go to the conflict. The VFW boots.
Speaker 4On the ground bullets are firing people are dying, blood's flying, yeah, so it's actually good knowledge because I didn't even know that and I've been a member of the American Legion for about 10 years and I will not pay their life membership due is because when I went to look at it it was like dude.
Speaker 3When I did it.
Speaker 4When I did it, it was almost $1,500.
Speaker 2I think, you're a life membership.
Speaker 4This guy makes way too much money if he paid for that life membership. I'm just saying because literally you'd have to live to about 90 by the time you pay your $45 a year. I mean seriously, right, I'm 60, and I'm checking out. That's probably as long as I'm going to live.
Speaker 6Yeah, there you go, but I mean just seriously right, because I just ride too many miles.
Speaker 4Something stupid is going to happen, the way it's going to be, and I'm like $45. At 10 years it's only $450, another 10 years, that's 20 years 800. I'm like man, by the time I get to it's like 25 years of paying $45 a month. That's crazy to me, but that's the way they do it.
Speaker 3I don't understand how the JV team costs that much.
Speaker 4Well, because they have a lot of members that are eligible way more than we have.
Speaker 3No, I get that, but what I'm saying is I don't understand why they set it at $45. Because I would join the Legion, but I get my disability and that's about it. I'm not paying $45 a year when I can pay $35 a year to be on the varsity team. Well, but just like that. So let me ask you.
Speaker 4I'll tell you 100% exactly the reason why, I did it, and I don't like the word the JV team, but that's cool man, it was funny, it was funny. I did giggle a little bit silently, by the way.
Speaker 4No, but the reason why is because so many VFWs don't have a canteen. So when I'm traveling around, when I drive by a VFW, they're going to be closed. If they don't have a canteen at 4 or 5 o'clock at night around on Saturday, they're probably closed. They got nothing going on, or bingo no offense, I'm not a bingo player, Me either.
Speaker 3I should be, because it actually looks fun. If you can drink beer while you're doing it, I'm in.
Speaker 4Yeah, no, all right, 100% agree. But American legions all have a canteen. They all have a bar. So, no matter where I go, if I drive by an American Legion I've never stopped an American Legion ever. That's never had one ever. I think that every one of them has it. So you know what? If I drive by the VFW, it's closed. I go right to an American Legion. No offense, but that's what I do.
Speaker 3Well, I personally think that they, both entities, should honor each card. Oh, absolutely. But if you go to the Firewell Claire Legion, if you walk in there and you don't, I went in there after a bike night and I knew the bartender because I was in there with Eagle and the Eagle wasn't with us and you missed that bike night, charlie, I believe. And they walked up and said well, I need to see a card. So Sean pulls out his credit card because that's what he's saying he's pulling out his credit card.
Speaker 3And she said, no, I need to see a Legion card. So I look around and I'm like I'm Fuck, there ain't nobody here. That's a legion member, mm-hmm. And I looked at her and I said I said, ma'am, you know me right. She goes yeah, you come in with Terry all the time. I said, well, none of us are legion members, but because tonight was a bike night, we thought that maybe we she's like. Well, just don't tell anybody.
Speaker 4Yeah, I'm lucky.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, because if you get the old sticklers oh yeah, no, sorry Out that you can sit here all night.
Speaker 4but yeah so it's crazy. I'm obviously not a member there. I'm a member here in my pleasant right, but I go up there. I'm never been carded once. I'll actually get my card out waiting Right and but I'll hold it under my wallet or under my hand Just waiting to see. Yep, never once been carded in there. And I don't even go in there that often. I mean maybe five times a year, six times a year.
Speaker 4And when we maybe a little bit more now that that we're riding a little bit more, you know for the riders group, but but when we do we who do we run?
Speaker 3into the eagle oh yeah, Usually Terry's on his tours the. Terry tour the Terry tour the.
Speaker 4Terry tour. Yeah, so we actually were. We went up to Leathernecks Open house right Friday night Great, great motorcycle club, you know, and we're out there to support them, just like they support us to come to our bike night stuff. So we, we had their open house and we had our burger and our beer up there. I'm gonna out and shot the shit with some of the some of my marine brothers, right, mm-hmm, although they're their own motorcycle club, so they're different.
Speaker 3I actually had to stop them from humping each other's legs.
Discussion on Veterans' Memorials and Collaboration
Speaker 4Well, I tell you what I get around that many jar heads. It gets you know that chubby starts happening. No but so we end up stopping to the clear VFW on the way home, right, right. I'm like, well, shit's eight o'clock and most of you have W's about eight o'clock. They're closed.
Speaker 3Claire's, claire's rocking, they're there they're doing very well, since they put their boards in there.
Speaker 4They're doing awesome and, of course, a lot of those guys when we go down to department stuff right, the conventions, the conferences, midwinners, johnny one, all that stuff right. 1900, johnny Wad man.
Speaker 1We hang out with those guys, right, so we walk in there.
Speaker 4They come up. Oh man, great, see you guys. You know they're just so friendly up there, so we stop in there. We're there not even five minutes. We just set our drinks down at the table and in comes Terry. Yep. Terry the eagle doing is doing is Terry tour. You know Terry's out on tour that night. You know it was insane, like what? What's the? What are the odds? Yeah Well, probably pretty high with Terry because he's all over the place all the time.
Speaker 4But you know it's pretty cool, it is it was definitely pretty cool, but in the, in the grand scheme of things, that's the way that all VFW post should be, that's the way all American post should be, and I do agree. But here's the issue if the American Legion allowed a VFW member to have the same privileges as their membership does, I don't think that the VFW would allow an American Legion member to come into a VFW and give them the same privileges because, as you said earlier, they're the JV team, so I don't think no, no but I mean and then this is the terrible part of it I don't think that a lot of VFW Memberships at the hierarchies right will ever accept it going the other way.
Speaker 4They, they, will think right, the VFW hierarchy will always go. Well, we should, we're better than them, so they should allow us. Right, they should have the privilege to allow us to come into their place. Unfortunately, you're probably correct, right and in that and it would know I'm not either, and it would never go the other way. We won't let someone less than us to come in. I think that's bullshit. I really do. I do too, but I think that's the reason why it'll probably never happen. You agree?
Speaker 3Yeah, you know. I mean there's obviously not gonna change, change the whole Stipulation that in order to be in the VFW you have to be a member of a form war. They're not gonna change that stipulation.
Speaker 4I get that.
Speaker 2That was what it was founded for. Right was the very founding principle, so there's no way that I get it.
Speaker 4But but these two entities should be working together. Yes for the common goal, because we all have the same common goal man serve veterans. That's right, right, that's right and we're lucky, our communities that we're in.
Speaker 3Luckily, here in town, rich young is a life member of our post.
Speaker 4Yeah, and he's a commander of the Legion and he is command of the Legion.
Speaker 3And we're me and him work together very well, like we're gonna we're gonna work on the War on terrorism memorial memorial.
Speaker 4So and I don't know if you, if you've heard so we have here in Mount Pleasant, right, we've got where we're, one more or two right that are separate memorials, right down a Broadway, we got Korea downtown at town center, and then we got the Vietnam, the Vietnam Michigan wall, right Island Park, along with the global used to be called the Justin Ellsworth Because he was a Marine that was killed during the Iraqi conflict, and Some people Said that, hey, it shouldn't be just for one person, it's got to be named after.
Speaker 4so they call it, the Iraqi Afghanistan Now no, I think it's global war on terrorism.
Speaker 3Oh, is that one? Yeah okay, I thought they changed it to because we don't have a desert storm one, so I think it's I think it's doing the whole desert storm, iraq, afghanistan conflicts so we're looking at redoing that memorial because His fiance at the time floated back in the town and Beautifully young lady, very smart, rides a wicked bike to no really got a choke.
Speaker 5Oh yeah, it's got the choke.
Speaker 3Yeah, something, she got the big eight fingers 16 is a hanger.
Speaker 5Yeah, but.
Speaker 3But she wants to get involved with that and start something to build that memorial, kind of like the one they have in Harrison.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's a beautiful one. So, anyways, where I was going with this is the city of Mount Pleasant is gonna redo town center Right, so they just got awarded a grant through the state. They've been, they've been working and spending the works. They reached out to us and at the VFW, along with the American Legion, about moving All the memorials down to downtown, down to Island Park, yep, and take the one out of town center because they want to. They're gonna redesign the whole town center area and we said they want to know if that would offend us or if it was okay to for them to do it. And Michelle Sponseller here she runs the downtown.
Speaker 4Development district, business area thing for the city, and I happened to be up there doing a proclamation thing for for work and I said absolutely Just make sure we're involved with it, because we want to have our honor guard there, probably the riders group there to help escort the monuments down to Island Park, absolutely stuff like that. You know what I mean. So just make sure that we're involved in it.
Speaker 4But absolutely we want them all together, we want one spot for everybody to go and they should all be and yeah, they should all be together and everybody, and then you could just drive to one location and you can see them all. Right, I mean, they should be in some sort of order.
Speaker 3Right and so you do World War one then, to then yes so they would have to start on the if you're looking at the Vietnam wall, they would have to start to the east well, yeah, I mean they would, but it should be in a Right.
Speaker 4It would just make sense to have it that way. So there'll be some discussions that's gonna be happening now that they got this grant, some other things. I think that that that town center area is under. They had a concept of what they want to do, but I think now it's moving forward.
Speaker 3It's gonna be like a green space.
Speaker 4Yeah, so they're adding more parking and stuff, because that's just a cluster fuck down there.
Speaker 3Yeah, it really is, but so we're fucked up. Then a run over dog down there, yeah is Because.
Speaker 2Okay, so Mount Pleasant already has the Michigan Vietnam Memorial. Yes, yes so once we move everything to there. Do we know of any other memorials Statewide, or would that honestly become the Michigan veterans memorial, do you think?
Speaker 3No, cuz Harrison has their own Memorial.
Speaker 4Coleman's gotta be a phone to have. It has one, but I will tell you this though we need to.
Speaker 3We need to ride down to Down by Greenville, belding, belding, and see the one that Denny Craig craft put up down there, because that's supposed to be high.
Speaker 4I will tell you this if you live in Michigan and you support veterans and you want to see a fantastic Memorial, coleman is awesome. Yes cuz they got brick, pavers and stuff. But the Harrison one is.
Speaker 5Legit.
Military Service and Marine Corps Experiences
Speaker 4It literally has a wall. So if you served and you were from this county, this county, this county, this county, although the local central Michigan counties, right, isabella's, the Claire's glad ones, right their names around the wall, and then they have these little little gardens that you have. World War one, world War two, right. Golf war, vietnam, korea, little warranty, as they go, they go around Afghanistan, they're ackee ba ba ba right. And then, if you served, right in that time, prane, you can get a brick with your name in it. Yep, right, it is unbelievable. Unbelievable that's probably besides going to Washington DC, right, which I think which, I which.
Speaker 4I've Been through them all right which are narrowing it. Oh, yeah, yeah. So actually when I was at Fast Company we actually took a bus. They took our open to and up and we did we should do a post visit.
Speaker 2Yeah, man post Anybody who is wanting to go rent a coach bus and just be a little money to well, we have to raise money for that.
Speaker 5That'd be a pricey trip.
Speaker 2That'd be a hell of a trip, though. So so we I got nice trip. Sorry, sidebar, but no no, no, you're good.
Speaker 4So on that trip, right and DC, right, we did all those, all those more else. But we also got the opportunity to go to eighth and I, which is the Marine Corps barracks eighth and I and that's where the silent drill team is Right. So at Fast Company, we would help. Do they call them evening parades? Right, they do like two a month right on on the Norfolk base, where our headquarters is that For the public to come in and see? You know, we'd be marching around doing all the all the stuff and address blues, but we got to go to eighth and I and watch what they do. That sound drill team comes out. You literally have to get on right now and register your four spots. I think it's like five bucks or something. I mean something stupid, right? You probably cannot get in there until 2025 or 2026. They're booked out that far. It's unbelievable. If you've never seen the Marine Corps silent drill team, I know probably the Army has one, I'm sure the Air Force has one, I'm sure everybody has one.
Speaker 2Unfucking real, unfucking real gives you a little bit of a chubby. Huh, Well, yeah, Well I get a chubby, just beat him around.
Speaker 4Marines in general.
Speaker 3Right, but you see the stuff that these guys do, slinging rifles around, all shit man. Now we're talking a whole zero zero cadence, zero calls or anything.
Speaker 4They literally walk out. That's why they're silent. It is absolutely off the hook.
Speaker 2Not to disrespect the silent drill platoon, but I think that's the first time a Marine has ever been silent about being a Marine. Don't hate.
Speaker 4You were attached to Marines, right? I wasn't. No, oh, you're not me, you're.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, I was blues, what they call so blue, so you had a ship. Yeah, I was blue side, green side. So green side is FMF fleet, marine Force with with the Marines and blue side is Everything that's not with the Marines. Yeah, so hospitals, clinics, ships I was not on the ship. I did a tour at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, which is now Walter Reed.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was there during the name change and everything, I had to have my orders reissued. That was crazy, how's weird. But then from there I went over to Naval Health Clinic Hawaii. When I got my orders for Naval Health Clinic Hawaii, I was actually trying to go FMF, but Needs of the Navy didn't allow that to happen. So what do they do? They get me at Naval Health Clinic Hawaii and they put me on a kind of yo-hey bae.
Speaker 4Oh, with all the Marines and all the Marines and you're in Hawaii, so you're not bitchin.
Speaker 2I wasn't bitchin, but I still wanted to be. You know whatever, but it is what it is.
Speaker 4So that's what, after you served at County of Hawaii Bay, did you really still want to be around Marines? No, not really. Probably not. Yeah we get a lot of debauchery. If you give Marines in time, nothing good happens.
Speaker 3Sounds like the infantry.
Speaker 4Oh, so I actually actually did a refuel defuel when I was a fast company we actually deployed to Pearl Mm-hmm and where they take the nuclear fuel off the sub or the ships right and put them back in and we actually do security. Well, that's happening right. So we're already in a base but we're doing legit around it. We had to wear the, the TDS monitors right for the radiation on the shit right. So I spent about three months out there and it was awesome because we were three days on, three days off. So those three days off I was. I was an NCO as a corp of the time, so all the other NCOs, we had a van at the time did this?
Speaker 2does this story end and you not being a corporal? Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 4Probably if they found out what we did. So we had this little click right, there was four of us right. So, yeah, when we, when we had our three days off yeah, it was spent a lot down at Waikiki Beach Spent.
Speaker 2It was awesome, man. I had an apartment right on, right off the Waikiki, a block away from Waikiki, yeah.
Speaker 4I mean we, we, we hopped in the Gov. You know, we had a, we had a card for gas. We, just man, we were all over the little monitors.
Speaker 4Yeah, so it's called like I think it was a TDS monitor and measure the radiation, right. So they had what they called a TSL time-sensitive operation. So they literally, like we locked the sub down. All the hatches are double-locked.
Speaker 4We had to go through the sub at the time I think it was the California that was there Everything was locked up and Every employee that worked there there's lots of villains that work there, right, because that's not just military but there's lots of villains. We had gangways that went out because it's dried act, right. So we had a guy literally bomb the dried act just walking around the ship Whole time down there 120 feet down. You know it's a lot of steps Up and down, right, but anyways, all these gangways that went out to the sub, everything's barricaded off and they all had color-coded badges, like ours were orange, so if you had a red one, you you had to go through the red gate Down your gangway into the in the sub.
Speaker 4For whatever you had to do I don't know what they did on the subs or the ships, because we did one in Bremerton, washington too, but we had a guy we were in Bremerton, anyways comes out, he had a red badge on it, came down a blue gangway and you shot him, and I had one of my guys because I was a corporal there too. Literally m590 Mossberg, shotgun, with a civilian dude on his face, shot gun to the back of his head Because he came, because he came out he.
Speaker 4A different colored badge came out the wrong off the wrong gangway, off that ship, and actually I think the California was a ship I can't remember what the sub was, but anyways Comes. Yeah, I mean, it's like how the hell did you get? Because they compartmentalize, right everything, so certain people can only get in certain areas, but yeah, so anyways, when they're removing that, those fuel rods, they have those huge dock cranes, right. So there's crews that go up, there's like four guys that go up in those cranes and they have everything from kitchens to bedrooms to everything, as they do like a 24-hour shifts, right, oil guy, whatever and they pull those fuel it's like a big container with the fuel and they drop it into a Container like a rail rail container, get sealed in there and then they haul it wherever. They bury it in the mountains.
Speaker 3So that's why you got a third ear grown out of your, for that's the reason why my lower extremities?
Speaker 4people would think I'm African-American right. Touches my kneecap every now and again. Yeah but no. So I mean it was just all these crazy things. I'm looking back when I'm that 20 year old kid Right and I literally get a call over the radio and I was driving a golf cart right, because I have to go from one side of the dry dock those things are thousands of feet long Over to see the guy. You know he calls over the radio.
Speaker 4I will shoot this mother Well we had a cold, just like the police. Do you know 906, gate blue, or you know 906, whatever right, that was something that was happening. You know I had to get over there. So I'm cruising around and I roll up and he's got the shotgun of people like, oh my god, it's gonna shoot this guy. How the hell did you get from when you went? So they shut everything down. They pulled everybody out of the boat Right off that sub and they went in there and found out how that's that hatch? Because it's double locked. It's like from one side life on the other side. So how, why was that other side unlocked for that hatch to open? Right? I mean, it was a huge deal. I mean I was like you know, generals are calling and you know, because we got the civilian with a shotgun back in the back of his head laying out of the concrete. You know the fuck's going on. Yeah, it was. It was wild at 20 years old, like I mean that he had all rights to shoot the guy right.
Speaker 4I mean, that was that was it. They all know the game.
Speaker 2Right, especially with nuclear. They don't joke around with no. The one experience that. I have with nuke. With nuclear was actually not when I was active duty. It was. You guys are probably laugh, but it was back when I was a C cadet that's a great program, man. It's the C. Cadets is a great program and you still have to wear that faggity wet uniform.
Speaker 4Jack Nicholas man.
Speaker 3Some fucking courtesy.
Speaker 2It's all right. You guys are old, so I don't know the reference that you're talking about.
Speaker 3Oh he's he's he's Want the truth. Did you know? Bills. Did you know bills? Yeah, some bills, sorry bills. He could run through that and he did it in a major pains voice.
Speaker 4We digress.
Military Training and Security Clearances
Speaker 2To tell the story. I'll tell real quick about the secret that's. It's a great program. You know Anyone ages 10 to 17 if they're interested in the sea services Coast Guard or Navy that they can join and they can learn all kinds of different stuff. But anyway, one of the things that I did was port operations training, and so to do that, I ended up going down to Kings Bay, georgia.
Speaker 4Oh man, I had some Marines from security forces down there. They did security on the base.
Speaker 2Okay, so Loan the Rockets, yeah I did a two week training down there back in 2006. I did a two week training down there with the C cadets and the base would shut down, seemed like almost daily. And then, you know, sirens would go off and you used to just sat wherever you were outside, nobody moved, nobody moved. And they told us that and it was kind of crazy. It was kind of crazy how they did all that. And then a few years later, I had graduated high school and I was I was active duty. Well, one of the guys I graduated high school with, he ended up going Naval security force and he ended up doing Nuke nuke security down in Kings Bay as well.
Speaker 4Yeah. So it's crazy is when I went through security for school, my one of my best friends still best friends I actually went visit them out in Boston a few years ago Well, probably five, six years ago at this point, but it was good for school together. I went to fast company, qualified to go there, got selected. He ended up going to Kings Bay, georgia, with another buddy of mine, steve Harwood. They both live Massachusetts for Mount area now, but anyways they went down there. So I just got Damian to actually join the American Legion and now he's joined their Legion ride writers program. So I'm getting him involved, right. And it comes down to he bought a Harley, right and I'm like, hey, brother, you know you got to get.
Speaker 3American steel.
Speaker 4Unfortunately, unfortunately, doesn't qualify to be in the VFW. Oh, really no, because, like you know that's, I Qualified through my service at fast company, right. But he didn't have that right. He was standing at Kings Bay, georgia garden, nuclear missiles Loaded them on the subs or whatever right, back and forth as they come and go, do it doing whatever right. So yeah, he just never got that experience. Then we met back up in the fleet at three at Thorbiton submarines on 29 palms. We just did a quick pump over to Japan for six months, never signed anything over there. But yes, he just doesn't qualify. But at least I got him in something, which is which is the important, the important fact right, we're gonna say how you serve. Right, join something. Now he absolutely loves it. He's becoming an active member of that American Legion in Massachusetts which he's actually a state trooper has been Fuck, he's got to be lieutenant by now. He was actually Was at Airport when we landed, so he was a shift commander. So he came over and grabbed us from the gate, which was pretty cool, man.
Speaker 4And then some of the other third pretend something were in brothers of mine. We all met up, went out to dinner with all the wives and shit and girlfriends. You know it was, it was cool. So I just went over there to actually see it was. I haven't seen him since we got out. You know we got out within a couple weeks of each other, but we had the other eas time, right, all the extra leave. So, yeah, I actually left early, right like 30 days, but yeah, it was, it was, it was cool and that that's where that brotherhood part comes from, right?
Speaker 4So these guys that you guys Serve with an Iraq right, you guys get together, you guys are doing golf outings, right, or you're, you're hanging out, you're going up to someone's cottage up north or doing whatever. Unfortunately, all my guys have got a frickin fly halfway across the country to go see him, so it doesn't happen as often as it should, but we actually Jump on the phones and we FaceTime once a month. You know I'll sit, I'll go back, I'll go down to one of the spare bedrooms. You know We'll crack beers and we FaceTime and bullshit, just like we're doing right now, which is crazy important, right, you know so. But yeah, so I actually had somebody that was down to Kings Bay, so it's cool that you've been there. I've never been there.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and I remember all the craziness that I had to go through to get there. I had at how old was I? 15, 16 years old. I had to fill out the 12 page paperwork to get a security clearance to even be on the base, you know, and Most of our training was they all. What they call it the upper and the lower base is, I think, is how they called it and Lower base is out by the water where all the ships and stuff were. And you know, upper is when most of my training was, but when we obviously were out on the water then.
Speaker 3So they made a 15 year old get a secret security clearance to go. Well, how fucked up can it be 15 year old be at that time? Ninja assassin. Yeah so that's that's exactly we had that.
Speaker 4We had that secret security clearance is to be in security forces. Yeah, because we're around the but. But what's the same example of an 18 year old to a 15 year old? Well, I mean, you could still be a turd at 14, as you can be an 18 right.
Speaker 3I had to have a secret because of the the Singars. To operate the Singars, you had to have what's that? It's the radio system.
Speaker 4Really and when I first I could the new school and make my machine.
Speaker 3No, it's not so. Basically, when I went in, we have the. We had the prick 77 and the prick 46 we always had the prick E7.
Speaker 4We always had the prick E6 of the we had the prick E7 for the staff. So it's a dick, so.
Speaker 3But you had, in order to do To change the frequencies and stuff you would have to do, authentification. So you had carried that ceo I so what it basically was like in the movies you got to break it open.
Speaker 4No, no, not like that. That's a big book.
Speaker 3I mean it's like nine pounds, and then you'd have to find the fucking day and the time and then you call into your fucking your headquarters guy and you'd be like, hey, this is me Authenticate. And then he come back and say authenticate, charlie tango. So then you'd have to go through this fucking book and find out what the that's one is, and then you'd be like whiskey.
Speaker 3You were now logged on to the net so that what they did is they got rid of the prick 77's and all that, and I'll call you back Erlton. They got all that bullshit on there and With the Singars it's like a frequency hopper. You didn't have to do that. They would give you a frequency, but the once you got on the, the radio, it would, they would simultaneously, and yeah, they would jump, they jump frequencies, so they could be synchronized.
Speaker 3So when his radio is jumping, mines jumping so that they couldn't triangulate. You know this other bullshit.
Speaker 4That's cool.
Speaker 5Yeah, it was, it was, it was a level of those radios operated on satellites. Yeah, and it was all encrypted. We had, you know, we had encryption boxes that would, you know, change our frequencies.
Speaker 3That's right, because a chief and Caucus the Culkinator would have to come up and put the CU plug it in and and get the days codes and stuff. So it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, but a reminder for operational security. Gentlemen the crazy. I know that's old technology.
Speaker 4But no, but that's that's the. That's the crazy part of it, right? Is you talk about I Made a joke about the enigma machine, right, like I longer took him to crack that and you're talking World War two stuff, right, yep? And now we have stuff that can hop frequencies right, you could do the same thing with your, your computer, right? Right, I'm not, I'm enough to be dangerous, but don't you have like whatever VPNs or something that can bounce you all over the fucking place so you can't track people right or whatever? So I'm sure that that stuff nowadays is so high-tech that I should have learned computers.
Speaker 4I'd probably be a gazillionaire by now.
Speaker 2There's certain things that you know if you enlist, and there's certain MOS codes and whatnot that basically guarantee you Top secret clearance to do your job.
Speaker 2You know when you can walk in anything when you get out, I'm sure it's crazy because, as as a Navy corpsman, I had to have a secret clearance because I'm dealing with people social security number. I could have stole anyone's identity if I wanted to, you know. So you had to have, you know, those clearances and it's I don't know. Look it back, it just didn't seem like a big deal, but and how old were you?
Speaker 420 yeah 18, and this is where I always circle back to. I look at 19 and 20 year old kids nowadays. It's typically your 18 when you go in, but you can't drink a beer in a bar in Michigan. But by the time, by the time you will, you always go to Canada.
Speaker 1No, but I mean by the time you know right, you're, you're.
Speaker 4You look at a 20 year old kid and I see him at the local bars or something right, or out in town, because we got CMU right, and I'm like what in the? Fuck. I'm like you would never make a day in the military like the shit we dealt with in the technology that we use and the mission that we drove. It's so crazy. These kids tonight have no clue because they're soft.
Speaker 5They're soft as fuck they have not gotten out and experienced the real world? Yeah, they don't know they're. They're so inundated with what's in front of them and it's usually a screen or a phone or something, but they don't know real-world shit.
Speaker 4Yeah, they had big shit. So let me ask you a question Do you think everybody should serve two years in the military?
Speaker 5Yeah because, it doesn't Israel do that.
Speaker 4I think Israel does a lot of a lot of countries.
Speaker 5European countries. Israel is one of them.
Speaker 3So it's one of them, it's, it's, it's everyone, everybody. Well, right, no, I know, I know, it's in everybody.
Speaker 4No, I get it but would you Want to serve with somebody that had zero interest to be in there?
Speaker 2No.
Speaker 4I wouldn't either. Honestly, I wouldn't want to either but it'd make your country better?
Speaker 3Well, because they'd get whipped into shape, or were they?
Speaker 4just say fuck it and throw me out. I Don't care. What are you gonna do to me?
Speaker 3Throw me out.
Speaker 4I guess I'm making 11 worth until your time's up and make their yeah, but then you'd make their attitude against the country worse.
Speaker 3Well, that's true too right For me.
Speaker 4I want to be, and I did have right, a few guys. When I got out to the fleet. They were in to get the green card Right, they do four years honorable service right, they could become a US citizen. They were Cubans right, awesome, 100% agree with it. Right, they're. They're great guys. They're still doing great things out there. I had one. The judge says I got one of two choices. You're not you're, you're gonna go to prison or you're gonna Marines.
Speaker 4Yeah, Guess what I serve with a guy great guy. I think he's still doing good things right. I haven't heard anything bad about him because a lot of us still talk. You know, Facebook's a great thing, but in the grand scheme of things right. I don't think me personally would I want to be with somebody that had zero interest to be in there.
Speaker 5You know, you know if they usually those type of people that have zero interest of doing that stuff. They've been to me, they've, they've been inundated with not they're selfish there, I mean, I would say that's a broad generalization, it's just they've. They've never been taught anything Other than themselves. They've never been taught to say hey, sometimes you got to be a team player, sometimes you got to think about things other than your immediate environment To get through this foot through, get through this world.
Speaker 2What's the? There's a quote coming to my head. You guys might know it, but I think it's. What is it? It's Tough times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And weak men create tough times.
Speaker 4Yep, that's exactly. It's full circle and it's full circle. So so you start talking about generations, right, and now we're looking at the generations of World War two's. To the boomers Yep, right, boomers. To the Gen X guys right. And now we're back to the week. People are gonna create tough times, right?
Speaker 5That's what I say to that brick is that's exactly it. I was thinking about that, maybe a few weeks ago. Yeah, I had came across an article or a video log of Somebody saying. It wasn't that exact quote, but it was somebody saying something along those, along those lines, right, you know? I want to say it was one of.
Speaker 2That's the simplest way to put it. You know no for sure, because it is that way yeah.
Speaker 4I mean, I can remember my, you know the grandparents, right they were. They were huge on canning food.
Speaker 1But we used to walk into the basement and there'd be.
Speaker 4So three years full of shit that's canned. We don't can anything anymore very rarely, right, let me know us there's. There's a few right now. Preppers unfortunately get get a bad rap. Right, there are these conspiracy people, right, but you look at COVID times short time ago, you couldn't get shit from the grocery store, right, and the people that I've lived.
Speaker 5It are the people that have prepped well, comfortably survived it.
Speaker 4Right, they're the ones that are canning the food, crannied, you know, the green beans or whatever's coming out of the garden, the tomatoes and shit. Those are the people that are that get it right. But our grandparents did it because why? Every ounce of food, every Piece of metal, had to go to the war effort? Right? So they struggled through the times. Right, they had victory gardens, but they called them back then right, they, they the canned, they did the prepping, they did all the things. And then now we've gotten to the point where we rely on Myer or Walmart for our food. And if myer, walmart don't have food, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 4Yep right you know I'm saying, or what happens when the gas station shuts down right, people are not here.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, look at how I don't know how long ago is, probably a few years ago now but ransomware attacks shut down that whole pipeline on the Southeast East Coast.
Speaker 4Yeah, it was the East.
Speaker 2Coast yeah. Yeah, for sure shut them down. For what a week. People are running out of gas, like what do you do without gas? Yeah, you know what are you gonna do when it's the fan and your only choice is to survive.
Speaker 4Well, but typically you're gonna get the guys right from the military that have lived without a lot of things Right because we've gone to the field right. I would, I would well, I would go to the field for two weeks and then give us 15 MREs. Right, we break them down field style, throw them. Our packs are humping it and I knew I only had crackers today with Jalapeno cheese was the fucking bomb.
Speaker 5Bro I made.
Speaker 4I made when I was a fireteam leader. I swear to God, I made every one of my guys. I checked their packs, for we ever went, mrs Dash, seasoning Small, the small bottle, yep of a one, bold and spicy yes. Cuz. I don't know if you ever got the vegetarian fucking MRE main meal. Fuck that. Garbage, garbage back in the day, garbage. You put a little Mrs Dash in that bitch, a little poor, a one bold and spicy, mix it up Best meal you ever ate in your life, but out of an MRE pancake.
Speaker 5Oh, you put him huh range of pudding Well we would, so I well, I don't, let me.
Speaker 4Let me. Let me tell you we didn't raise. You take the pound cake, which I think was a lemon pound cake. Yep, we crumple it up, you open up it up. You take your cocoa, a little bit of water. Yep, you mix it up so it's real thick, right then pour it in there. Is that what it was?
Speaker 5Yeah basically no, we get our crackers, we use our MRE crackers to oh really, you know. I mean, you know you cannot with the MRE crackers. You can't take a bite of that shit without taking a drink of something that's just gonna bind you to fuck up.
Speaker 4You need about four gallons of water.
Speaker 5Yeah. So we would take that, you know, crumple it, just break them down to pretty much a powder. Mm-hmm, you know whether or not we want to dump some pound cake in it. Take the fucking cocoa and coffee and the cock in the creamer Packets, the the Folgers instant coffee in the creamer packet, dumping in our stirred up Into a pudding consistent consistency. Yeah yep, that was, that was our dessert.
Speaker 4So yeah, so we just took the, or I just took the, the cocoa powder, right, mm-hmm, mix it up, so it's real thick, right, and I just pour it over the pound cake. That's the way. Yep, I didn't know about the cracker thing. But we used to take the non-rates the boots right, that just came out.
Speaker 5You had to hydrate those crackers cuz.
Speaker 4Yeah, oh yeah, they straight suck every ounce of liquid in your body right out, right. But we would actually take yeah, we would actually take Our boots right, that just came to us, and we would do a cracker race right, so we get to the field, right, these guys are maybe Maybe to the unit couple weeks, right, we'd be out in the field. We'd make those motherfuckers open up the crackers right, and there's usually back. I don't know if you only had one. Did you have one wafer or did you have two, two? Yeah, we had one. Yeah, so there were like a double pack, right, but there's like four crackers in each wafer kind of thing. We'd make them race Right, so you could finish first, and the one that finished first no fire watch that night the loser had to stay in double shift right, you're a dick, so that guy might be up at 1100,.
Speaker 4that guy might be up again at 04, right, but we would make him race, so they would get the first one just about down. They looked at the second one going. I don't know if it's worth it, because they weren't allowed to drink when they did it. No canteen water, no, nothing.
Speaker 4You had to eat it dry and they'd be like, oh, I can do it. You're all trying to act all tough and shit right, they don't know AMRE crackers. Man, they would hit that second cracker and they'd be pfft, pfft, shit's falling out of their mouth dry shit, Not one ounce of fucking saliva in their mouth left at all. And they were like you guys were dicks to us.
Speaker 5Oh shit, yeah. I took a half canteen of water just to hydrate.
Speaker 4But they were the first ones to make the next set of boots that came to the unit. Do it right, because they were like you know, I did it.
Speaker 5That's because shit rolls downhill.
Speaker 4But is it hazing? Maybe a little bit, but not really, because we're not physically abusing someone.
Speaker 2Yeah, you weren't hurting anybody. Yeah, you know what I mean. It was just a fun joke that you were teaching them about MREs.
Speaker 4It gets passed on. Yeah for sure, man Make sure you pour water on the crackers.
Speaker 2I've only had a handful of MREs, Obviously at Navy. We don't.
Speaker 4You guys read that Denny's every day. I tell you what, though? Mres are the best shit. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 5Air Force eats that Denny's every day. Do you know? Weeks worth of MREs. I'm telling you the type of shit you would fucking take after MRE most civilians would dope. They will never, ever comprehend.
Speaker 4US Gen US Gen XMECer. She had a two liter Coke at the house when I come back from the field.
Speaker 5You were shit, literally a center block.
Speaker 4I would drink a whole two liter when I got back to the house after coming out of the field for two weeks and I would not leave the bathroom for about 48 hours Because yeah, that's MRE will bind you up.
Speaker 5It is.
Speaker 4Well, by design, but that's the purpose of it right, so you're not hitting the head call all the time.
Speaker 3right, I'm going to use Mavitair the corpsman's got to come in there and do the old.
Speaker 5Yeah, let me give you an imminent item of you guys got to stick the old thumb up there and pry that fucking rock out.
Speaker 4You're hoping it's just the thumb. Yeah, Ha, ha, ha ha.
Speaker 2Can't give away the trade secrets. Yeah, it's why they don't keep goats on boats, just stay away with the silver bullet brother.
Speaker 3I don't want the silver bullet Keep goats on boats.
Speaker 4That's right?
Speaker 2No, so I only had a couple MREs over my years.
Speaker 3But like ravioli. Ravioli was decent. I'll tell you what the sea rats Because. I'm aging myself here. When I first joined, it was right when they were transitioning from sea rats to MREs 1972. 83,. Thanks anyway, Pretty much the same difference 83,.
Speaker 4I think I was in third grade.
Speaker 6So I had this Vietnam back. I had this Vietnam back.
Speaker 3We're eating MREs in the old P-38. You're opening up with them and he goes. You know what the best thing about these are? I'm like I really don't know, because it looks disgusting. He goes. You can put them in a sock and you can beat gooks off you with them and I was like what he goes yeah.
Speaker 3This one time on this fire base, we got overrun and I'm like whole and he's sitting there the whole time he's eating it. He's like making love to this fucking sea rat. Yeah, they saved my life. Yeah, I was like what the hell man? What have I got myself into? Let's do this the same one. I was an E5. He was an E4. Figure that out right Combat veteran.
Speaker 4He's got a CIB Vietnam and I'm his boss Because he had zero fucks, so he didn't care about that. Yep, he had zeroes, Zeroes, oh yeah.
Speaker 3So I'm his boss right and the first siren and we were going from the long handled E-tools to the D-Rates the D-Rates yeah. So the first siren came out and he said hey, you need to go and you need to get all your squad, they need to turn that shit in.
Speaker 4The long handles.
Speaker 3You're talking about the long handles to get, the short handles To get the collapsibles?
Speaker 4Yeah, to get the collapsibles. The old wood handle.
Speaker 5When I first listened to it, I listened to it.
Speaker 4I'm trying to track where you're going because I don't know this before my time, the D-rings.
Speaker 5Yes, I know about the old wood handle E-tools Because when I listened it was right. At that time everything was still transitioning from the old Vietnam era to all the new stuff. So when I got into my unit everything was already issued out. The only thing they had left were old Vietnam eras. My TA-50 was all still old Vietnam. I had the fucking old LBE. I got issued the old, fucking Vietnam era fucking Rucksack the E-tool. I looked at it. I was like what the fuck is this?
Speaker 3Yeah, so everyone knows what the wood handle E-tool looks like. It's got the shovel on one side and a pick on the other so that if you're in the field to take a dump you can open that up and you put your hand on the pick side and you just have your cheeks hung off the other side and you can do your business. So anyway, they told us that we had to turn them in and I went up to Nick and I said read city posts.
Speaker 3I think when we did the plus he said I ain't turning them in. I was like I was like damn it, nick, come on. And he's like hey, sorry, I'm not turning them in and I'm like you have to. And he goes no, I don't, I'm not turning them in. And I said why he goes. Do you think you can beat Gooks off you with that fucking D-ring?
Speaker 6And I was like here we are Because he was the same one with the fucking sock and the.
Speaker 3I was like what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, he goes. I can tell you the story. I was on this fire base and we got over, run my 16 jammed up and and that's what I had. He goes, and I had to beat motherfuckers off me to stay alive. I ain't giving it up. So, anyway, I go to my squad leader, allen Corsair, who was a Vietnam veteran, but he was like a river rat.
Speaker 3He did the boats up the river, so he didn't. He didn't have much experience beating Gooks off, he just shot him with a 50 cap.
Speaker 450 cap.
Speaker 3So then I go to my platoon sergeant, sergeant Lannick, vietnam, that, and I told them both. I said Nick's not going to turn it in and they're like why Does? He said you ever try to beat Gooks off you with a D-ring or some shit like that, and they started laughing. So we're getting held up because that was the only one that wasn't in First Sergeant Monogu. The guy joined when he was 16. I don't know how he did that. He was a first sergeant there for 39 years or something. Salt dog.
Speaker 3Yeah, salt dog. He's like what the fuck's going on with the scouts? There's one D-ring out there and this guy has it and it needs to be turned in, and of course, corsair and Lannick throw me right under the bus they just look at me and said, sergeant Hardaby, why has specialist van Coovering not turned that in? I looked at him and I said he said that because I have no idea what it's like to beat Gooks off him with a D-ring.
Speaker 3Or with a E-tool and the first sergeant looked at me and goes OK, he can keep that. So the next drill. We go to drill right and we're out in the woods. He's sitting there and he's sharpening. He's got a sharpening edge on that bitch he's sharpening both edges and the pick, and I'm thinking, dude, we're engrailing for the love of a fucking god man, Nothing's going to fall out of the sky that's going to hurt us. And he's like you, never know, the motherfucker was great. He was fucking cool.
Speaker 4But those are those old school guys right, yeah.
Speaker 5You just don't forget it right, you know I came up around a lot of old school guys and I learned a lot from a lot of old school guys and I've got family, I've got cousins, that kind of look up to me and when I go visit them.
Speaker 5They always you know that too Well they always bring up stories. I would tell them. When I first enlisted and I had this one cousin, he asked me he was probably, I was 18, fresh out of fucking AIT, I think he had it been probably six or seven. And he asked me he's like hey, cuz, what do you do? Somebody shoots at you. I just kind of, you know, nonchalantly, I'm like shoot back.
Speaker 3Shoot back, no kidding right. Shoot back Like duck and shit.
Speaker 5I mean, what the fuck? But that's just one of those things that you know he did not take. I mean, he took it literal at the time, but as he grew older and he actually learned something from that meeting, he's always be prepared. Yeah, and he's always been prepared.
Speaker 4That's like the.
Speaker 5Scouts model right, yep. And he's always been one of those guys, you know, that has learned something from old school. I learned from old school, so there was something that I made. You know that I realized that I passed down to him you know, from my. You know what I learned from old school teachings and doctor.
Speaker 4So when I was in right I was at Fast Company and the past started majoring in Marine Corps Troy Black. He was a staff star six-petune. I was with fifth-petune right. Insane To actually say that. I taught to him as a staff star. You know what I mean and now he became the star major in the Marine Corps right.
Speaker 4So out of all the star majors, he was the guy right, senior enlisted. It's absolutely insane to me. So unfortunately I wasn't around. I was around a few Gulf War vets, right, not very many. Definitely not around any Vietnam guys, because I was late 90s, right. So we just had a few Gulf War guys that were still around, but not very many. You know, they would have been a first-side or something like that in the Marines, so I didn't get to talk to them or anything. You know, they weren't in my leadership. I mean they were, but they weren't. They were so high up that I never got to talk to them. But yeah, I mean it's just crazy the way those guys look. So I don't remember what year the movie with Clint Eastwood came out, the Grand Torino.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, oh yeah Was that, like late 2000s, mid-2000s, let's ask Googles.
Speaker 3Yeah, ask Googles. But my dad and I loved that movie right. Because, yeah, because 2008,.
Generational Understanding and Prejudice
Speaker 4Right, so my grandfather just passed away, right, and Clint Eastwood's got a saying in that movie, right. My dad loves it because Clint Eastwood in that movie was my grandfather Straight up old school. I think it was a Vietnam vet at the time.
Speaker 3No, he was Korean War vet.
Speaker 4Was he Korean War? Ok, well, so my grandfather wrote World War II. But he was like this is your fucking grandfather, 100% Old school, just grit his teeth all the time, pissed off at the world. That kind of guy that was my grandpa.
Speaker 5I mean. Ain't Rural. Ties a shit-out steel.
Speaker 4But he was like I used to fucking stack you nips 10, I used you for sandbags, he goes. Your grandfather said shit like that you know. That's just the way they were. You know what I mean. And they had to live it, so I get it. I didn't grow up with the prejudice like they did, right? So he was actually here in Mount Pleasant. He was the president of the what's the business organization.
Speaker 3Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 4Chamber of Commerce, right, and CME opened up that plant on the south end of town. They built fuel pumps. On the summer. I was a Japanese company and they said, hey, you got to go to their grand opening. This is in the 80s. My grandfather was like the fuck I do, I ain't doing it, right. So the vice president or whoever went and did it, and he kind of got scolded by the state group, whatever Chamber of Commerce, for not doing it and he goes, you just don't get it. You know what I mean. And those are the unfortunate. So for us, right In the sandbox, right, we kind of get those prejudiced. I try not to. I'm not going to include everybody. Right, right, but he did. But his experiences were way worse, right, three years.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4Hopped across islands right. He did like nine months right to three years and he watched the guy on the right and the left right never come back, constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly. So he got to the point. It was weird because when I graduated bootcamp right, I grew up with a photo book right and there were all his buddies hugging and whatever. There was a very mellow photo book from his time of service. I graduated bootcamp. The other photo book came out right, the one of the action pictures and the crazy pictures that you don't talk about at parties.
Speaker 4Definitely the picture. Yeah, for sure, right.
Speaker 5Yeah, I got the pictures.
Speaker 4And it wasn't until the point when I graduated bootcamp right, we actually became a Marine. He brought that book up.
Speaker 4My dad's never seen it until he passed away right oh really, and my parents were unpacking the house right Right before we bought it, putting what they wanted to keep in the basement of their house. That's when my dad saw the photo book. And I was talking about the photo book after I graduated, like hey, I saw Papa's photo book and my dad's like what are you talking about? No idea it even existed, right. And I'm like well, this, this, this, I've never seen that. You know, dah, dah, dah. And I can only assume he asked his dad about the book, right, and he was like yeah, there's no book he's going to straight up, lie to his own kid.
Speaker 4Right, like whatever, I don't even know what he's talking about. Probably right, and until then, my dad's like holy shit, you were telling me the truth that there's this photo book, so that's why I assume that he asked his dad about it. Right, never got to see it, but it was literally their arms around and they're holding a head with spines hanging off it. Right and whatever. Boganville Island, right, you know wherever they were at, right, tirewood and shit that he was on. You know, like you don't understand it, right, yes, so like. So you don't understand the prejudice that comes from it.
Speaker 3No, I understand the hears no, you do, I'm talking about the general civilians. They don't understand that.
Speaker 4So they're all pissed off that he didn't want to go do this ribbon kind of ceremony for a. Japanese company. Well, he had to fight the Japanese for years and years, and years.
Speaker 3Yeah, those sons of bitches were trying to kill him every day.
Speaker 4So yeah, but he didn't have a prejudice about anybody else, right? Just because these people right, they bombed us and then we watched his friends die. You know what I mean? And that's real-word shit like us, right. Like I mean, they bombed us, we went over there and tried to take care of them. When they're killing us, right? So we have prejudice right against a certain ethnicity, right, just like he did. And I've grown up to the point where I try not to do it as a whole. I'm not going to lump everybody into one right. So I've gotten a lot better at that and we've raised our kids to be like that too. You know what I mean. Like, hey, this is me, not you, right, I can have it because I chewed it. Right, like my grandfather had it. Because he chewed it, my dad shouldn't have it. I shouldn't have it for those people, right, because they didn't do anything to me, they did it to him or whoever?
Speaker 3right.
Speaker 4So, don't you know, if you see me not happy, don't be happy because you know that should be your own experience. Right, and this is something that we all struggle with. Right, doesn't matter, veterans doesn't matter, civilian side doesn't matter, whatever. But as we get older we become able to accept a little bit better and I don't think our experience is compared to past generations. Right, we talked to the Vietnam guys. Right, they like one of the best commercials ever. And now Shem and I have talked about this at the post at night one time. Right, oh, at the Tiki Bar, my favorite commercial ever was a Budweiser commercial Absolutely phenomenal commercial. They show a whole bunch of soldiers. Right, army guys walking through the airport. It was right, after 9-11.
Speaker 3I think it was a.
Speaker 4Super Bowl commercial actually.
Speaker 3Probably was, yeah.
Speaker 4And everybody in the airport stands up and claps right. They're changing planes and doing or going to their plane or whatever it was right Coming home everybody stands up and they're clapping for the soldiers as they're walking by, and some of them are crying. You know, absolutely Americana, americana, commercial right, when the United States came together for a common goal, right, we got attacked. We're going to go take care of business. That's what we do, that's what we're trained to do. That's why we signed the dotted line.
Speaker 5Damn right.
Combat Veterans Discuss Trust and Stigma
Speaker 4Right, that's what we do. Best fucking commercial. I love it. I still watch it. I do YouTube it. Great commercial. So unless you chewed it, you might not understand. We all try not to be that way but unfortunately sometimes that happens to us, right?
Speaker 3Well, something that pisses me off. Obviously I was in Iraq. So Muslims, iraqis, iranians, that culture, yeah, that culture in the Middle East, when I see them, don't trust them. But I have a certain amount of respect for them, because they're not like the people here in our country that run around and stomp on the flag and shit on the flag and do all these other fucking things yeah but did you have terps with you, interpreters with you?
Speaker 4Oh, Joe and Randy were awesome man, so that's what I'm saying. So now, you've got, Not all of them, OK. So this is where we need to have this discussion, because there's probably a lot of people that might listen to this. Right, they might struggle with the same things, right. So you see somebody out and about and because they're in this city, right, you might not trust them. Right, but you can't lump them all in one group. Not at all. Not at all.
Speaker 4Because we all had terps with us, right? Yeah, so when you're over there, these are the guys that are. They know the area, they know what's going on. Same thing with the Vietnam guys, right they're saying they're something scouts, they called them.
Speaker 3Yeah, I can't even remember what they call them yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's an old school term that they got right. So they still had the local right. That still helped them out. Yes, and we had terps like literally I just watched a TikTok the other day. I think they called the guy George literally in a firefight right, everybody's behind the berm right Shooting this dude, walks like 100 meters ahead of everybody with a frickin' RPG.
Speaker 2Yep, you saw the video, yes.
Speaker 5And they're like man.
Speaker 4George is a bad mothole. He's like launching RPG shots.
Speaker 5Takes out a tank.
Speaker 4Yeah they're all hidden in the woods, you know, and he just walks right out rounds, cracking by him and shit, and he's just like man, he just strolls back back to cover. He was like he's a bad dude, so they're out there.
Speaker 3Absolutely. They're Joe and Randy and we had embedded terps, yeah.
Speaker 4We ran with the platoons.
Speaker 3I worked with Joe and Randy in the headquarters. They were my interpreters. So if I had a problem with a police station I'd be like Randy, call these motherfuckers and find out what the fuck. And Randy would get on there and he'd be like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What'd they say? Hey, can you do that one more time?
Speaker 2I just want to make sure that the translation is right there. I know Where's the video at when you need it, right.
Speaker 3So, but no, Randy and Joe were both like that and the bad thing about that is well, when we came home, Randy went on home on leave and he was supposed to get his papers to be a citizen to come to the United States. Because Joe's in Montana or some fucking place like that right In Montana yeah, why in the fuck would somebody who lived in the hot all the time want to live in fucking Montana? But Randy's in Montana, or Joe's in Montana, and Randy went home to visit his family. Before he left, the mighty militia caught him and strung him up and skinned him in this family's front yard and that dude was a turp for us for seven years, some shit like that. Right when the war started, he was an interpreter for the United States because he wanted to make the country better. And it was crazy, as Joe was a Sunni and Randy was a Shia, which are basically Mortal enemies.
Speaker 3They were mortal enemies, but them too. I sat down one night and talked to them too. Amazing, amazing to listen to. Everyone said Saddam was a cock. He was, but I'd be a cock too if Montana let Canada come in behind us and wipe out one of our armor brigades, if we had a conflict with Canada. But it's amazing, but it still doesn't change the fact that here here now, right now, when I went to school at mid, where the old Holiday Inn used to be, I'm there getting ready to go into my computer class. I'm sitting there. I see three middle Eastern guys with backpacks walking around. All of a sudden I see one of them put the backpack down and leave. I instantly went into holy fuck mode.
Speaker 3Holy fuck, I would have had to grab the backpack throwing it out the building, I would have had to run with it. So what I did is I found a professor and I said, look it, you need to get people out of here. And he's like what's up? And I'm like, look it. And he knew my background and I told him and so he did, he cleared the building. Well, then the dudes came out of the bathroom, picked up their backpack and walked away. And then I got people kind of looked at me like well, look at you.
Speaker 5That's that paranoia that we develop as vets, especially combat vets, and it's a stigma that's part of our PTSD, because we get nervous, we see shit that most people don't see.
Speaker 4No, I didn't notice.
Speaker 2And that's the thing they will notice it and we're always.
Speaker 5For years we're trained to be a certain way and most people don't understand. You just can't flip that switch off.
Speaker 2Right, and so it sucks how, like you said, it's a stigma. Our country has asked us to go and do a job, and when we come back and we can't turn it off, then we're the enemy again.
Speaker 4It's like it's a double standard. We still don't turn it off.
Speaker 4And it's been 20, 25 years later we still haven't turned off. So here's the greatest thing and Chem just alluded to it we see things that most people don't see. So I went to the Desiree and Marksman School and it was a fast company. So first day of class we're all sitting in tables and chairs, got a big projector on the wall. Starters walk in. Hey, you know, welcome to Desiree and Marksman School. Da, da, da. They introduce themselves. They go hand out sheets of paper, one through 10. Just written, write your name at the top, blank all the different lines. They said we're going to play a tension-getter video. We'll be back in 10 minutes. Dude hits play. They walk out the room. It's a porno, literally a porno. There's a dude and a chick on the bed going at it. Right, they walk in. About 10 minutes later they turn it off. They say how many pillows were on the bed, what was the painting above the bed, how many lamps were in the room, what color were the sheets?
Speaker 5They ask you everything else around actual action, Because you know, goddamn a bunch of grown-ass kids, and how many? Marines were jerking off.
Speaker 4Every one. It's the number one how many jerked off everybody. No, no but seriously.
Speaker 4So what they're trying to do is to get you to notice other than the obvious thing, right, because they want to see if you're going to be a shooter, you're going to be a spotter, right, kind of a guy, right, so you have to. They're going to do something to distract you and something else is like the trick, playing football, right? Hey, look at me over here, don't see what I'm doing over there, kind of thing, right, it's a classic diversion. So when you notice the backpack dropped and the guy walks away from it, first thing you think is the same thing you were trained at, right, the same thing that we had in that class.
Speaker 4They got us to think outside of don't look at the action, notice everything else around it, right, yeah, because there's something else, right, and it's so hard to turn off, like I still sit down from boot camp 1998, dude, I still eat my dinner. In about 3.2 minutes I scarf it down and I sit at the table while everybody else is eating luxurious, because if I didn't eat my food fast, you didn't eat, I probably would not eat, right? I mean, I'd get halfway through and I'd throw the rest of it away because we had to move on to the next training exercise or whatever right. So I sit there and it doesn't matter if it's blazing hot.
Speaker 3You just eat it.
Speaker 4I just eat it. You know what I mean. And my wife's like I don't know how you can eat something that just came out the stove. I'm like if I don't eat it, I'm not going to eat, and I haven't been able to turn it off ever since. You know what I mean. It's insane. I'm always the first one done and I've gotten to the point where I've had to tell myself slow down. Well, take a bite, put your fork down.
Speaker 4Count to 20. As you chew Right, Pick your fork back up. I said I hope my fork is just going to be shoveling. I have to actually put it down on the table. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 4And that's just those hard things that we all have to break that. They've been with us forever, man. So we all struggle with the same things, right? We all deal with the same things, and those are just the habits that you can't get rid of. As they say, you do anything for 21 days, it becomes a habit, right? I can never get myself to that 21 day. I'm like day 12. I quit putting my fork down, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4Or the same thing, right. I mean you walk into class, you can't do 21 days and not notice the guy that puts the backpack down, not notice the bag, so you can never break the habit.
Speaker 2Because you're trained so long. One of the biggest wake-ups yeah, one of the biggest wake-up calls for me was prior to going overseas was the required training I had to go through and it was bullshit, like online training, whatever. But something about it to this day still sticks with me, and that is there was a whole section of it talking about if you get a choice, what hotel room to pick, one that's on the opposite side of the building from the entrance, not directly above the entrance, but more towards down the other side.
Speaker 2Things like that what airplane seat to sit in? All of?
Speaker 4these things, the pilot's seat, always the window seat, always the window seat, because the terrace walks up and down the aisle right. They're going to grab the people that are close to them. So that's why you always leave your lap belt locked and on. So even when the passenger seat belt sign goes off, you always leave it on, because if they're going to grab somebody to take as a hostage and your seat belt's done, they can't pick you up. They'll grab the next person. And if you're not sitting in an aisle seat, you're sitting in a window seat or the middle seat, they're going to grab the person on the aisle. They're not going to grab you right. So that's what I was always trained.
Speaker 4I'm sure it's probably on the same lines of you right, just obviously.
Speaker 2The whole point of the training was not to make yourself the obvious and easy target. Don't fly in your uniform.
Speaker 4Oh, absolutely not.
Speaker 2That's inviting a bullet, yeah.
Speaker 4And then the same thing they always invite the active duty to board first. Don't ever do it. Nope, don't ever do it. Even though you're wearing civvies, right, don't ever do it. So, shem and I, we went on a ride with the wife and stuff over Fourth of July weekend and my wife was trained to our kids right, that always sees the door Right.
Speaker 3Always, always sees the door.
Speaker 4So we walk into boomers and Coleman right, and we're having a beer, getting food, whatever, and Shem sits down or goes to sit down, nice, and I'm good Sitting here with my back to the door because there's a back door with the hallway, so Shems checking out the front door.
Speaker 3You're checking out the back door.
Speaker 4Directly into the back door, coleman Michigan man. Who the hell is going to come in and shoot up a bar at Coleman Michigan? It's like population 18. You know, what I mean, but that's still what we do to this day.
Discussion on Military Dining Practices
Speaker 3Even the VFW. Where do?
Speaker 4I stand. Well, we always stand at the end of the bar, so we can see the front door. So we're actually looking at changing that door and putting a one-way glass in it so we can see out the door and not have to wait till the door opens. We can actually see who's walking in their entrance or breezeway before they actually come in, so we can actually see them right, because we all, as soon as we hear the outdoor, open and the door wiggles.
Speaker 4Yeah, everybody's checking it out Every time and that's just a stigma that we can't ever drop.
Speaker 2And for me it's the whoosh of the wind. That door will jump in just enough. Everybody just turns.
Speaker 4We all look, but it's been 20-some years. Man, I can't drop it. So, shem, I was just telling a story about us at Boomers or bombers over in Coleman. You're watching the front door, I'm watching the back door. It's been 20 years and we still live by it. Brother, you know what I mean and love my wife to death because she trained the kids. The kids know where to sit. You know what I mean. So we walk in the restaurant. I'm always the last one to sit down, but the kids knew right where to go, always know where to go. That's just the way it is.
Speaker 3So you were saying about shuffling because you never know when you're going to eat again, because you got to go.
Speaker 4So I was the guide for a while in Marine Corps Boot Camp. So we had like 115 guys in my platoon so everybody eats, then the guides always last. Right.
Speaker 4So by the time I sat down I got through the line. I sat down. I maybe had three minutes to eat whatever's on my tray, so I would sit down. I didn't even get nothing to drink. The first guys depends on if they one, two, three in the line, for what squad you were in or whatever, Because you're marching squads of four right Lines of four, so it depends on which one went. I always went last, anyways, when I was the guide.
Speaker 3As you should.
Speaker 4Well, it's your men always eat before you, right, I mean that's that's somebody's going hungry.
Speaker 3It's going to be the NCO.
Speaker 4It's always been the way. So yeah, I mean, if I said that, like these guys were going up, they're getting chocolate milk, they're getting fruit punch, they're getting water, they're getting whatever right Orange juice, fuck that. I never drank shit when I was the guide. I sat down and I would be walking to drop my tray in a scullery still eating.
Speaker 4Yeah, right, because we had our whole platoon had to eat in 20 minutes. So the time I actually sat down yeah, I'm lucky to get three, four minutes. Lucky to get three, four minutes. I'm, before I hand my tray to the recruits, work in the scullery. You know where the dishes go. I'm still shoveling as I'm walking. Hopefully the drill sergeant doesn't see me doing it, because you're not supposed to do it, but you had to eat. So I still sit down to this day.
Speaker 3So we first started monogying Terrible. He used to have us eggs to order in the field. He would make the fucking kitchen Because at that time we actually had a mess hall. It wasn't farmed out like it is now.
Speaker 4This must be the national guide. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3So it was a branch of service, by the way. So, anyway, whatever he would your story he was Well, we could go there, but that would take a lot longer. We got, so he would have us do the eggs to order. And I would always be like you know, I ate after my troops. I had two troops because we were a six-person squad, so there was a squad leader and then there was, he had two people in his Jeep and then there was me as a team leader with two people in my Jeep, so the squad leader would eat after me. So it would be the team me squad leader.
Speaker 3Well, as they'd go through the kitchen, guys like, how do you want your eggs? I'm like done and I'm just yelling each one, and so they're here. And so there was a slop in the fucking shit on there when they went and bitched. They went to fucking bitch to the first sergeant, and this was the dude. That's about 40 years in the military, right, they went bitch. Well, how come everybody else gets their eggs like over easy and whatever.
Speaker 3So, and Corsair loved it because it took the heat off, because he put it right on me, so first our money could come over to me and he goes what are you doing? I said what do you mean? First, sir, he goes. When I bring the mess hall out and we do eggs order, they get to order their eggs. I'm like first, we ain't got time to do that. And he said well, what do you mean? I said OK, we get up, we get in line. Usually the scouts are the last ones to eat. We have a hit time, we have missions to do, we have stuff to do. And if I let my men lollygag around and get fucking sunny-side up or super hard or whatever fuck that, I said now we're behind and what are you going to do? You and the commander are going to come down on us and say, hey, you missed your hit time Because we're playing around with our food. Eat it, shovel it in, get your shit ready to go, get on the fucking jeep and get ready to go.
Speaker 4So we had options for eggs. Either you get them or you don't. Yeah, exactly, that was pretty much it right For those that may be listening that don't realize that the military actually did have jeeps after World War II in Vietnam. So some of these older guys right? Oh my god. Maybe the 90s, and still have jeeps we all had Humvees in our day, right, so those old school guys still running around in jeeps. It's cool, though I like it. Sound of freedom.
Speaker 3Sound of freedom. Yeah, but the jeeps were cool though, the jeeps could do fucking anything. You could make it a two-wheel jeep, a three-wheel jeep, a four-wheel jeep, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2Hey, do you?
Speaker 3pack them in a crate. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2Do jeeps have keys for ignitions? Nope, ok, just checking.
Speaker 3No, easy to steal. That's why you always got to put that chain around the steering wheel. Could you imagine that?
Speaker 4Where are my keys? Yeah, we got to go somewhere and just miss the set of keys.
Speaker 3Yeah, the only keys I had was the keys to the padlock, so you can unlock the steering wheel.
Speaker 4That's not smart. I didn't even realize we still had jeeps in the 90s, something like 80s.
Speaker 3No, this would Well. I joined in 83. We phased out of jeeps about 88. That's when the Humvees started taking over and of course excuse me the toes got.
Speaker 4Oh, you got your Humvees first, because they were in my armor, so they got them. Yeah, you got them out. Yeah, you got them out the toe, so we.
Speaker 3And we liked the jeeps, because you could take the cheap jeeps where the rabbits wouldn't go. I mean, they were so small and maneuverable. And then we got the Humvees and we get fiberglass bumpers broken, chipped off because we're hitting trees, and shit like that.
Speaker 4So when we were a good tire. We were out riding Humvees, we were doing a mission for Operation Southern Watch. Navy's firing P3 spy planes, wrapping sonar buoys, tracking Saddam was smuggling oil.
Speaker 3That's an app.
Speaker 4Saddam, you son of a bitch, wasn't supposed to, so we would throw some Marines on that plane had missiles on it. Right, we had it rained and it was insane with the rain, right, puget mud puddles. Well, one of the Humvees got driven through and I didn't realize. In Humvee they literally have a plastic fan to cool the motor. The fins the fins were plastic, broke the fins. We're down to one Humvee right On our little section of the Katari Air Base right. So we had a. He was a surgeon, got busted back to a corporal. He did what he was supposed to do. His mission was to do something and he did it, but the higher ups didn't want to take responsibility for what he did so he got thrown under the busk by fire.
Speaker 3Yeah, and then they re-re-re.
Speaker 4So then he got a promotion, for he found scrap metal right and he redesigned, remade the fins for that Humvee and got back up around, he got a Navy, the NAM right, the Navy Achievement Medal, and then he got a promotion back to Sergeant for it. But he got busted back for about four or five months. You know, yeah, this is the way the military works, so, yeah, so who wants to take responsibility? For I tell you, do something. But I already didn't tell him that he did that on his own and I was like, come on, man. So anyways, yeah, he and him get a NAM out of it. But I didn't even realize that Humvees and I guess that's on design, yeah, on design they're supposed to break away and not puncture the radiator, whatever, right, yep, well, I didn't even know that. But he was a fire boy from Arkansas or whatever the hell that could build shit. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 2I think the next question I have for you guys is could instigate another hour's conversation? Keep it rolling. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3But we still got beer. I got plenty, I mean pop, pop.
Speaker 4There's plenty of pop at the AJ Sky Lounge.
Speaker 3Had to throw the plug in for that.
Speaker 4You know it. You know it, boys, this is what we're doing, yeah, and.
Speaker 5I just noticed a sign right there below the window yeah, which is sitting?
Speaker 4by AJ Sky Lounge open today Yep.
Civilians Applying Military Leadership Wisdom
Speaker 2That's it. I'll summarize by saying this what do you think about civilians kind of piggybacking off of the military, our wisdom, our different things like that? Now give you an example. There's a guy that I follow. He's a motivational speaker. He's also an expert in leadership and that kind of thing. His name is Simon Sinek. I don't know if you've heard of him before, but he wrote a book called Leaders Eat Last. I'll give you one guess as to where he got that from.
Speaker 2Military For sure, exactly, he claims that he's got a lot of higher ranking friends. That's where he's learned all this stuff from, but not just him, but everywhere. The little wisdom snippets that we have. Like eaters, leaders eat last, or eating as fast as you can because of XYZ reason, we got missions to go on or, god forbid, the base comes under attack and you got things like that. They're trying to take those bits of wisdom and apply them to other walks of life, which I'm not against, but I am curious as to what you guys think in that regard.
Speaker 2For Simon Sinek, he's mostly booked as a speaker for corporate events and things like that. So he's taking all of these things that he's interviewed us and learned about from us and he's applying it to corporate America. And one of the coolest things that he's done is one where he spoke with a bunch of Navy SEALs and they talked about who they would want to be their leader and he went on this whole thing about. If you were to graph it, your Y-axis would be your level of trust of a person and your X-axis would be your level of expertise in your craft or in your field, and so you don't want the person of low trust and low expertise, obviously, and so he goes on and on and on about that and just kind of elaborates and it's a really good snippet. If you ever get a chance to YouTube it, I would definitely do that. But what do you think? What do you think about?
Speaker 3Well, first of all, I guess my thought process would be and this happens in the VFW when you go to a function, usually the higher ranking people eat first, right, for sure they do. I mean corporate level department commander, national commander, auxiliary president the national. I think, once you get past a certain level, I'll just give a, for instance Whatever happens in our post when we have an event and we are serving food, I wait, Even if they say hey get up here head table each first, which would be a good way to put that right Head table each first.
Speaker 3If I'm setting up the head table I'm going to be like, yeah well, you guys go ahead and I'll wait. So I don't know if that kind of makes sense, but it doesn't make sense because they're not really following what the leadership principles of the military is.
Speaker 4Well, see, and I get exactly what you're saying because when you're the stormtrooper right man, you're the boots on the ground taking care of the guys right, that's your job. Make sure your troops are always fed before you, make sure they got ammo before you, they make sure they got medical before you, they make sure they sleep before you, you make sure they do everything before you. But I think once you get to upper echelon rank structure right, regardless of its corporate level, right, you're part of the sales team, then you're part of the finance team, then you're part of whatever right, as it goes up right the chain and then you're the owner, right or whatever. I think you lose track of where you've been, where you came from, because some people might start at the top right, because they got some crazy degree and their daddy owns the place. They have no concept, right, so they have no idea what it's like to be All of us that started as privates, right, or PFCs, private first class, whatever.
Speaker 4You guys started at right and we worked our way up Siemens, right, siemens. You lost right. Siemens recruit, siemens recruit, then yeah, as you worked up your petty officers and all that stuff right. So I think you kind of understand a little bit more, right? It's about taking care of the people that take care of you, right?
Speaker 3Yeah, I would say that.
Speaker 4And I think, once you get to a certain level, you forget where you came from. Absolutely you know what I mean, and that's terrible thing to think.
Speaker 5And that goes back to what Britton was saying, with civilians being into taking some of the doctrine that we've learned. They may not know about trying to implement. That I wholeheartedly agree. And that kind of touches on the point that you were talking about whether our government should require every citizen to serve at least at the minimum two years, like other countries in the world do. That type of lifestyle does instill certain morals, certain values that will sit with you all your life.
Speaker 4Yeah, but leadership is different, right.
Speaker 5Leadership. I just want to learn to be a leader, if you don't know how to follow. How do you learn?
Speaker 2Well, that goes back to the age-old argument of these old timers that are pissed off when they have this newbie coming in with the college degree and knows absolutely dog shit, right he?
Speaker 4knows the book and they hate his guts, but he's got no experience, and that's the reason why it's always experienced.
Speaker 2I've worked with them.
Speaker 3So I've worked with them and I can tell you one of the guys I butted at Edwards he was a cadet. He went to Iraq. He was the best fucking platoon leader over there and unfortunately I did not get to be his platoon sergeant and his name was Lieutenant Vanderbee that fucker rot. And when he first came in he was a cadet and he didn't see the light. And that's what old NCOs are taught to do to new lieutenants is show them the light. Just because you are in charge doesn't mean you know what's fucking going on. Doesn't mean the soldiers are going to follow you.
Speaker 2Doesn't mean, you know what's best.
Speaker 4Yeah, but we've all heard of the natural born leader, right?
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 4So there's just people that have those characteristics about themselves right, ok, so that leads to another thing. But wait a minute, though you can train them to get it, Doesn't mean they're going to apply it right. So I still think you've got to have some sort of leadership characteristics, either way you were raised, or that natural born leadership quality to be able to do it, Because I've had. Trust me, the Marine Corps does less with more. Does more with less.
Speaker 2I was going to say you had that backwards, I do have that backwards.
Speaker 4I had to think about it for a second. But, yeah, we do more with less, right, and that comes from and still leadership into you. But that doesn't mean just because you went through this training, you went through the school, you're going to grasp it, right? I think at some point you've got to have that born into you of being a natural born leader in order to be able to actually lead effectively, right? So go ahead, tom.
Speaker 3Well, no, I agree with you, Because that comes to the age old question is are you born with leadership or is leadership trained?
Speaker 4Yeah, so this guy could be a motor vehicle.
Speaker 2That's like an egg. What comes first, egg or the chicken?
Speaker 3Well, no, I personally believe in order to be a good leader, like Charlie said, you have to have some natural charisma as a leader. You can't be a dude that knows his job and knows how to do it, but nobody, he doesn't know how to turn that into people following him Natural leaders, like a quarterback on a football team. So there's a quarterback out there.
Speaker 4You can be the best player on the team, but the line's not going to block for you. Yeah, that's right. That's right, you can be the best player.
Speaker 3So there's got to be some fucking, there's got to be some leadership qualities within the individual in order to make leadership. And. I had these in all my leadership classes, a-noc well, I'm going to age myself again PLDC, b-noc and A-Noc. Now it's called Warrior Leaders, course 1. There were some, you know, so, going through that. That was the question Are leaders born or trained, borned?
Speaker 4True leaders have a born leadership ability right, and they get their own skills by being trained right.
Speaker 2Because we're asking young men and women. I was just going to say that because it's kind of like a happy medium. Well, it is.
Speaker 4So you've got to have some qualities going into it and you can get refined in leadership skills as you move forward. But you can't take somebody that has zero born ability and train them enough to be able to lead somebody to take the hill right.
Speaker 4Or run into the fire or kick the door down. Right, some people have the charisma, tim, as you said. Right, they've got that. Hey, I'm going to follow this guy to the fucking end of hell, right, and I'm going to be right on a six, or you know, if he tells me to go kick the door, and I'm going to go kick the door and not going to hesitate one second. But there's people out there, right, you go tell me to do something. I'll be like, hey, who the fuck are you? Right, I don't trust you. Right.
Speaker 4Right. So this is where exactly, brent, where you were going with it earlier, right, some people have it, have that stick to them. Some people don't have it. You know it's crazy because, when you think about it, doesn't matter if you're corporate level, doesn't matter if you're small business level, doesn't matter if you're military level right. We've all worked for people or been led by people we like and ones we don't, and typically the ones we like they have.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, you'll chew the barbed wire for them, right? Yep, because they have that leadership, charisma and style to them that articulates to you and your style, right. And we've all had the ones that we're just like. You're just a figurehead. I'm going to do my own thing. You can tell me, but I'm going to do my own thing, right, and I don't care what you say. I don't think you're right. And there's other ones that I know they're wrong and I'll still do it Because I have that trait to them, right.
Speaker 2So yeah, what do you think about the impacts of leadership? Because where I was getting with this is I just think it's funny how again kind of talking back on what we were saying not too long ago some of the things that we bring home with us, they like to poke and prod and make fun of us and this, that and another thing. Because we're different, right, but because we were forced to be different due to our environment, right. So then I just think it's funny now that they do that and yet they're piggybacking off of our wisdom and our leadership abilities and all of that stuff. So and I guess that was probably one of the main questions I had was what do you?
Speaker 4They piggyback off what we've learned and the way we've been trained, because they know what they've been doing. Forever is wrong.
Speaker 2Right.
Leadership and Experience in Different Fields
Speaker 3And what we've been doing works. You can't take somebody. They've been doing this for 200 fucking years. It works.
Speaker 4You can't take somebody that's gone through college, right, and they've got some degree, or they got some whatever, and thrust them into a leadership position if they've never actually done it. My industry right in construction, right. We get these kids right out of Ferris State or Michigan or Michigan State or whatever. They have these degrees right. Yeah, they educated absolutely, but have they ever put a bolt in a nut together? Probably not right In real world application. Yeah.
Speaker 4Right. So I think when it comes to corporate America or it comes to these other entities, right, they realize that we were born with some qualities, we were led by doing right and we got leadership skills through doing things and being trained to do things right, where you can't just take somebody just and I hate to say it, right, because I think people they get college degrees or they're smart people, they get it, but doing it in a book or in a controlled classroom and doing things real world are totally different.
Speaker 5Yes, they are.
Speaker 4Right. So when it comes to leadership, right and you got rounds cracking over your head and it's life and death it's a total different type of leadership than it is just because I hired into a job and now I'm your boss, now I'm your foreman, now I'm your plant manager and I'm whatever, if you weren't the guy that did that sweeping the floors, and now you're going to run the plant, how are you going to tell the guy that's sweeping the floors wrong? He's doing it wrong. You've never done it?
Speaker 2right, exactly.
Speaker 4So I still think that those people right that get the degrees, they should move up right. But they should have to do. They should have to sweep the floors, they should have to run the machine, they should have to build the car, they should have to run the electrical wire, they should have to dig the hole right.
Speaker 5Because they don't know the fucking guy, because they don't understand it, so that it took to get somebody to start the bottom.
Speaker 4So I think, when you talk about leadership, there's a difference of I've been there and done it, so I know I've got some experience to what I'm telling you, compared to I've read it in a book, right, and I got this fancy piece of paper hanging on my wall and I know that sounds terrible for me to say that, right, but I live that all the time and the job that I have.
Speaker 2Right, so let's paint a picture of the stereotypical, horrible leader. Do as I say not as I do Exactly 100%. If you say me, I'm going to cry.
Speaker 4And I will literally bet that anybody that works for anybody will live and die by that. Do as I say, not as I do, right, I mean, that's just the quintessential terrible leadership.
Speaker 2Right. Well, and I'll say this because and I'm just going to get real on as to my military experience but that type of leadership, I think to a certain degree, is rampant in our military right now.
Speaker 4For sure, and that just comes from the generation that we're in.
Speaker 2Yeah, your poison, and we get to a point where it just gets to be too much.
Speaker 4Well, for sure.
Speaker 2And then we just give up and we just don't care anymore.
Speaker 4Well, that's right. So when I got out, my decision of getting out was based on several factors Right, 9-11 had just happened. Right, I've already been over there. The program that I wanted to do I actually got accepted to CMU to go to college was the ROTC program. Right, I had a 10-year enlistment. Got put on hold because 9-11. Right. So when I was more worried about my family not myself right, because I'm still married to my hospital sweetheart, two kids right.
Speaker 3He was going to go dark side shit.
Speaker 4No, no, no no Right, but I had terrible leadership. My last platoon commander, right, we call him Captain Insano, captain Insano. Which is off of Adam Sandler right.
Speaker 3The wrestling movie right, so we call him Captain Insano.
Speaker 4His name was Captain Monty. This guy was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. If he could do something to screw with us, he did. And he didn't care, absolutely had zero care about the troops. It was fun for him to make us do the dumbest things that didn't need to be done. If it made us mad the more mad we got, the happier he got. So his leadership was terrible and nine months before I got out I bet you half the platoon at that time was transitioning out. Right, they weren't going to re-enlist because his leadership let us down that much that so many of us got out. If we would have had my previous platoon sergeant right when I was at Fast Company or something, I probably would have said hey, babe.
Speaker 3I'm here for the ride.
Speaker 4We're here for the ride, but he was so bad, so bad that I was gone. I mean, it wasn't necessarily that I was going to be thrust back into it again, right, and being gone all the time and all the things, right. But his leadership was so bad that I just figured the next guy is going to be just as bad as him. You know what I mean. And I dealt with him for 18 months, 19 months, and I wasn't going to do it again. I wasn't going to do four years of having a guy like that. Right, and he was a freaking captain. He was an 0-3. It was terrible, fucking terrible, and it pisses me off because we should have wanted to stay. I wanted to stay, but between the family obligations and then just terrible leadership, yeah.
Speaker 2It was an easy call for me, piggybacking off of what you said, my decision to get out was a multitude of things. I had done a lot of maturing since I joined. I joined straight out of high school and obviously hated high school. Think I graduated with a 2.1. It was very average. That's why you weren't in the Navy.
Speaker 3Ha ha ha, very funny. Ha ha, ha, ha ha. Hey, it's higher. Never mind, I'm not even going to go to the Marine Corps. Ha ha, ha, ha ha.
Speaker 4Sees, get degrees right.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly no, but I joined the Navy and just learned that obviously there was such thing as having an interest in what you were learning. So fast forward a little bit, and I did a hell of a lot better in college. But I digress Back to the point. Point was. One of the biggest reasons, though, that I decided to leave was because of a person who just shouldn't have been put in a leadership position period. We're talking about a person who, technically, was one grade higher than I was at E5. I was E4 when I left. I was a pediatrics of third class and had one higher grade than me, but had less time in service and had never been deployed. And we're talking about experience here. We were just talking about experience, and what does the word experience translate to military Time and service?
Speaker 4Time and grade. Time and grade yep. Time and right yep.
Speaker 2And she had made it. She had made life so freaking insane and you just heard her walking down the hallway.
Speaker 5You guys were addicted. I'm going to see that fucking ass. How many dicks did she suck?
Speaker 4It's totally good that we don't have a camera on us right now? No, we don't have.
Speaker 3Because we'd have to take the platoon off the table. I said how many dicks did she fucking? Suck.
Speaker 4Come on.
Speaker 3They're not all that way.
Speaker 4Just 90%. Just kidding.
Speaker 3The lieutenant in Egypt. How many platoons did she run through? It's our major's driver in Iraq, yeah.
Speaker 4She automatically became a lieutenant.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3Meritorious promotion yeah, a meritorious promotion Field commission yeah, I get you on that, because the whole leadership thing is, there's a way things are supposed to be done and then there's people getting leadership and they think that they can do it the way they want to be done. Right, right, I went to NTC. I took a platoon.
Speaker 5National training center. National training center.
Speaker 3Fort Irwin, right next door, 29 stumps Right next door. Out by Barstow.
Speaker 4Yeah, barstow, yeah, barstow's on the other side of the mountains from us.
Speaker 3Yeah, so right there I took a platoon of a commo maintenance 11 hotels which told Missile Crewman, I took a squad, six of us, seven of us, something like that. So I took seven of them, or some shit like that, and we went out to NTC and we did four, which is in case anybody's wondering, ntc is the national training center. The 11th Cav is out there and they do the op for units getting ready to deploy, and at that time it was a whole Soviet Cold War kind of thing. So their tanks and their helicopters are mock-ups of Soviet tanks and shit like that. So we went out there and we got this thing called a movement to daylight.
Speaker 3Ok, and so I'm one of these leaders that I'm not going to make you do stupid shit just because. So, first of all, we're a tow platoon and for the mile system on the toes there's just a day site on it, basically they don't have to take the night site and all that bullshit. Well, they were going to make us carry all this bullshit because they thought we were an infantry guy that didn't know anything about the toes, because we were attached to an infantry unit. So this staff sergeant comes up, tells my dude, wally Qualsack, confirm, kill in Desert Storm with a tow awesome guy. They told Wally that you have to carry this and Wally's like no, we don't. And he's like you have to carry this. And it was the day site or something. It was the day site and the culminate.
Speaker 3Oh yes, it was a culminator, because the culminator is what hooks the day site and the night site so that they can see the same thing, so that during the day you can use the day site and at night you use the night site.
Speaker 4Yeah, but it's still zero. At the same time, yes, the culminator, the tow zero.
Speaker 3And this guy's like no, you've got to carry it. Wally's like no, we don't. And the guy's like, yes, you do, and Wally was an E4. He goes, yeah, specialist, you're going to carry it because I said so. Wally's like OK, sorry, I never to be here. So I come over and Wally's like, hey, he's telling me I'm going to carry this. I looked at the dude and I'm like dude, we ain't carrying that. And he's like staff sergeant, you're carrying, and I'm like staff sergeant, we're not carrying it. I said, do you know our MOS? And he's like 11 Bravo. I said, well, I have an 11 Bravo MOS, but I'm a 11 hotel. And he's like, oh, I said so you're not going to make us carry shit. Yeah.
Speaker 3That you don't know about, just because you want us to carry it.
Speaker 6Even though it's the latest series, we're never going to tell us to make a nice move In combat you might have to do this.
Speaker 3Well, in combat I might get shot in the fucking chest. Are you going to take me out in the fucking side yard and shoot me in the chest? So I know what it feels like. So, anyway, pissed that guy off, right? So then we're going. Movement to daylight is what we called. We had this captain. Called him Captain America.
Speaker 4So we got ready. I like Captain Assano better.
Speaker 5Yeah, I do too, captain Lowry.
Speaker 3Captain America Lowry. So we're getting ready to go on this mission and, mind you, this is an infantry company that has a squad of maintenance commo tow right. So the captain kind of comes up to me and says, hey, you guys are leading the movement. And I'm like why don't you have one of your fucking infantry squads lead it? Right? He goes well, we're going to have you do it and I was like all right. So I go up to Captain America and I'm like OK, sir, so what's?
Speaker 3the we need we need direction, distance as myth. He looks at me and goes just follow me. I was like no sir. I said what happens if you fall down and break your leg.
Speaker 3And I have no idea where to go. I don't know where to go and he goes look, we ain't got time for this, you just follow me. I'm like, hey, I ain't fucking moving until you give me direction, distance, and, as myth, he goes. Well, you see that saddle and the thing there. Just head towards that. And I'm like whoa time out, it ain't happening, sir, it's not happening. So he threw a fit, got the company commander in the first hour and they come over and they're doing the your.
Speaker 4They're arguing, yeah, they're arguing, for sure. And they're doing their old thing.
Speaker 3Captain Kiddings, who turns around and looks at me and goes just follow him. I'm like hey, I'm like hell. No, sir, I want to know where I'm going, how far I'm doing it and the as myth I'm taking to get there.
Speaker 4That's actually protocol, right Protocol. I mean, come on, that's a standard operating fucking procedure.
Speaker 3So the first sergeant which, very disappointingly, this guy was a snake eater special forces Vietnam. The dude was slick, he was weak, very good, he looked at me and goes South, Sergeant, do it. So Sergeant Bills was my point man. And we had the old PBS fours, the old stupid dual-eyed fucking thing. We had those too.
Speaker 4Yeah, you could have been four miles away, though you were four feet. Yeah, yeah, I guess that was it.
Speaker 3So I went up to Sergeant Bills and I said OK, look it. I said I'm running point. A staff sergeant doesn't run point. He's like what do you mean? I said I'm running point. I said you do not move this company until I stop and turn around and flash you the cat eyes, and when you do, you walk to me. And then, when you get to me, we'll move again, because Captain America had the high speed deltas. And all the stars, like sing-go.
Speaker 5Oh yeah, he has a high speed ones.
Speaker 3So we take off. So Captain Kinninger comes up to Bills and says why aren't we moving? And Bills like sir, I was given a directive that I don't move until Sergeant RDB flashes me the cat eyes. He's like well, you need to follow him. He goes, sir, I'm sorry, but Sergeant RDB is my squad leader and I'm not moving until he flashes and he's an E5. Right?
Speaker 4So I get up there. He's got some balls to him, right? Yeah, I like that guy.
Speaker 3He wasn't very smart, sergeant.
Speaker 4Bills was not very smart. But he had some fucking balls.
Speaker 3So Captain Kinninger was like all right. So I went up there about I don't know 50 meters, turned around Bam, he brought the company up and we kept doing this You're.
Speaker 4Lee Poppins.
Speaker 3Yeah, we just kept doing this, he kept doing this and I stopped the Captain American. I'm like dude. We've been walking for four fucking hours. We started at 10 o'clock at night and now it's 2 in the morning.
Speaker 4I'm like what the fuck is going on, that's 0-2 for the rest of us right.
Speaker 3Yeah, oh, sorry. Yeah, that's what we're doing now. Ha, ha, ha ha.
Speaker 4I just want to throw that out there. It was 2 AM 0-2,. It's on here 0-2.
Speaker 3And he's like well, we're almost there.
Speaker 4They were like what's 0-2?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 4I know, I know 2 AM, I know 0-2.
Speaker 3So he's like well, we're almost there. And I'm like, all right, we need a break. He's like all right, so we hunker down. The squad gets around me. Chief Bansmer comes up to me and he's like dude, what in the fuck are we doing? And I'm like I don't know, we're just walking. I'm like we're just walking through the desert, right, and he's like do you know how far? I'm? Like I have no fucking clue. I said I'm just following this guy.
Speaker 4You see that saddle up in the mouth. We're going that way, right, you know what I mean. That's it.
Speaker 3So all right, now it's like 5-30.
Speaker 40-5-30.
Speaker 30-5-30. Wally comes up to me and goes are we almost there? And I'm like we have to be because the sun's coming out, man. So we walked until about 6.
Speaker 20-6. 0-6.
Speaker 30-6. We set up fucking Humvee, pulls up a fucking dude, jumps out of the fucking vehicle and says I'm the tow gunner. I was like you are fucking lost, you're fucking mine. I said we just fucking walked fucking seven hours with this fucking tow and you're telling me you're the tow gunner. Yeah, he goes, we're at 4. And that's what we do and this is how this is and this is to train you guys. I'm like, oh fuck, no, I said that ain't going to happen.
Speaker 5Yes go, sit your ass down. We're going to shoot this bitch.
Speaker 3And he looked at me and he goes hey, staff, sergeant, and he was at E-5. I said, hey, sergeant, my full house, I'll bring you three of a kind. I said so go set your fucking ass down, because my gunner did just hump this fucking thing. He's going to shoot, he's going to shoot it.
Speaker 5Damn right.
Leadership in Military and Corporate Environments
Speaker 3So then he went to the fucking first Sergeant commander and then they come back and said well, sergeant, I ought to be, you got to do this and you got to be, and I was like he's done. That's terrible leadership right there.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean 100%, and that's the stuff that makes us mad. And that same thing, right? If you got a workforce that works for you, you go through all this drama and all this BS and then stuff gets staked out from underneath you, right? It pisses you off. Oh hell, yeah, you know what I mean. It's ridiculous. So, as much as we want to bring somebody in from the military to train corporate America or whatever else, right, great idea, right? I don't know if you remember 10 years ago all these corporate companies are doing these team building exercises. So my sister-in-law works for Consumer's. Energy right.
Speaker 4And if I can recall correctly I'm not going to say yes or no it's Consumer's Energy, right. But I have other friends in corporate America that they were doing these team building exercise days where they would bring the office together or whatever right, and they were doing all these mock things that we in boot camp would do, right.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, we called the crucible. Well, we called it the obstacle course.
Speaker 2OK so it's a battle stations.
Speaker 4So the crucible in the Marine Corps is a 54-hour exercise at the very end of boot camp.
Speaker 3We called it the mungadang.
Speaker 4But we did the obstacle course during boot camp and stuff like that too, but it was a lot of team building stuff. So they're mocking what we do, right, or mock-uping what we do. They're not making fun of us, right, but they're trying to incorporate that stuff to try to get the team to come together, because you might work in this office and I work upstairs at you or whatever, and I don't even know you. So they try to bring everybody together, right, for a common goal. Right, but the leadership portion of it great idea, none executed very well, because one day of us walking across the monkey bars or walking across the balance beam or whatever, holding a bag of whatever A bag of dicks Probably isn't the same as what we were doing, right.
Speaker 4I mean, it's a great concept and idea, but that still doesn't mean you know the guy that works upstairs at you or the guy that works in the cubicle next to you. That well, right. So it's a good concept. I don't think it works the same and that's why it fails corporate-wise, because they're not doing it together, like we literally live together, we eat together, we shit together, we sleep together. We do all the things together, we drink together all the time For months and months and months and months.
Speaker 4Maybe third platoon and they're only doing it for an afternoon or a day, right, so it's a cool way to meet your coworkers that you don't really know, but team-building-wise, I think it just fails. I think it falls short. I think it's a good concept they're leadership but I don't think it's the same.
Speaker 2And I don't know Obviously I don't have the experience in the sergeant's course for the Marine Corps or whatever your other leadership courses are, but all of them what I'll tell you about my experience with the leadership course that I had to do once I had picked up E-4, it was garbage. Just to tell you the truth, it was over three days and because the Navy's core values are honor, courage and commitment, they split this training up into three days and the first day was all about honor and the second day was all about courage and the third day was all about commitment and all I wanted to do is just go back to fucking work. It was the stupidest shit.
Speaker 4So the Marine Corps is, and it taught me nothing about leading anybody. So the Marine Corps has something similar. Right, we have a corpus course, a sergeant's course that says you're picking up, right, because you're going to go from a Lance Corporal and Marine Corps E-3, e-4. So now you're going to be in charge of E-3s, e-2s, e-1s, right? So you have to be able to separate yourself, because I was literally living in a room with another Lance Corporal.
Speaker 2Let me just say this real quick that's how the Marine Corps works. But I can tell you that's not how the Navy.
Speaker 4Well, no for sure. And this is Well everything's done.
Speaker 2And it's probably not all the.
Speaker 3Air Force sports either.
Speaker 4Well, like you know, we got three of the four branches here, right, right.
Speaker 2A PFC or whatever. Forget Space Force. Well, even in Air.
Speaker 5Force fucking them assholes. Everybody got their own condo. Yeah, they just test out.
Speaker 3That's how they get right, because they just take a test and then, if there's a slot, they take a test, they move up.
Speaker 2Well, when everything is all said and done, they go down to Denny's and have dinner.
Speaker 4For our leadership stuff, though. Right, so you go through Corpus Cores because I'm living with another E-3, lance Corporal. Now I get promoted, I have to move rooms. Yep, so either I'm living with another Corporal, I get my own room, because I'm not allowed, after hours per se, to hang out with an E-3, e-2, e-1.
Speaker 2And that's what I wanted to tell you was, at least for the Navy is concerned, like a Marine Corps, pfc is going to listen to what a Lance Corporal says.
Speaker 4For sure 100%.
Speaker 2But a Navy semen recruit, or in my case as a corpsman, we're called hospitalmen. A hospitalman recruit or whatever, is not going to listen to an E-3. There is a higher rank there, obviously, but they don't look at each other like that. I think the Marine Corps At least in my experience the Marine Corps is different, right.
Transition and Rank in the Military
Speaker 4So I talked to Shaman, I talked to Timbough at the Army Life right, and they're talking about E-6's do a job that the Marine Corps and E-5 does right. And the job that E-5 does and the Marine Corps and E-4 does right is a Corporal. So it's just because they're so big right, with so many enlisted right, that they can do that. So that's where I go back to. We do more or less. So we expect a lot more out of our younger members, our junior members. But those courses teach us right and Corpus Course is a great course. Army Course is a great course as well, and it teaches you that transition of what you should be doing and what you shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 4So, for instance, right, like we have on our bases, we have NCO clubs and non-NCO clubs. So the privates, pfcs, lance Cobbles, so E1, e2, e3s, they have their own little bar they can hang out at, and then we have the NCO club, corporal Sartre's hanging out at that, and then there's a staff NCO club, sart, e6's, staff, sergeants and above go to and our officers clubs right, and they all I'm assuming they all just have one club. Yeah they do.
Speaker 4They all get to hang out at right, so that transition period's hard because I might be rooming with Shem. And we're-.
Speaker 4And you're best buddies hanging out all the time we're the best buddies and all of a sudden I become his boss. I have to be able to separate, and that's hard. I had to be able to separate. Hey, dude, we were just hanging out yesterday and now I gotta tell you to go do a shit job, and you better go do it, no matter how good of friends we are. I think the Marine Corps does a good job at training us Well, coming from boot camp.
Speaker 5Army has a doctrine. It's probably the same in the Marine Corps On active duty. I know when I started climbing the ranks on active duty anytime I was ever trained to go into a leadership position like, for instance, back when I was enlisted first time I was getting my sergeant stripes. I had to go through PLDC primary leadership development course. As soon as I graduated and I got my fucking my stripes, they took me and they shipped me off to another duty station.
Speaker 3That's all the army does.
Speaker 5Yep, they pulled me away that way because there was one thing that was. It was never taught, but it was an underlying you just you know the so that you didn't have the.
Speaker 3You didn't have the. He's now, all of a sudden, he's ordering around the dude he was drinking with yesterday.
Speaker 4Yeah, marine Corps is not like that at all, right? So when I transitioned right, I went from a fire team member to a fire team leader right, I'm still in the same guys Now maybe I might switch a different squad, but it's still the same platoon, so it's not like I don't know the guy, right? And then I can shift me platoons or whatever else.
Speaker 5When I first got promoted to sergeant, I didn't leave my unit. They just put me in a different platoon. So I, you know, I was still around.
Speaker 4I was still around the guys that I came up with, but you weren't in charge of your friends, right, yep. So the Marine Corps is not like that, at least when I was in right. Maybe it's changed since then. Right, it's been 20 years.
Speaker 2The Navy, I should say, does do that. I don't want to bash on, you know everything, but you know, when I did pick up rank they did transfer me to another clinic. So in practice, in a way, they did do that.
Speaker 4Yeah, no, Marine Corps does do that.
Speaker 3I personally think that's detrimental to the morale and welfare of the group, because who are you gonna fight harder for? Your friend, for sure your friend, the person that's been there, the person that we've been drinking beers banging.
Speaker 4Quiff let's say Quiff, right, right, I got you there, good saying, good saying, I was here for you, brother, yeah.
Speaker 3But that's but to me that's the most important my friends that I served with for 24 years in Echo Company. First it was combat support company, then it went to Delta Company, then it went to Echo Company.
Speaker 4Yeah, but you think about it though, right? So now, all of a sudden, you get promoted, and now you get shifted to a whole another duty station, right? So not only you know is that you personally, but maybe it's your family that's gonna now move too again right. So you think about that toll take. So you start talking retention right Now. All of a sudden it's like man, I don't even wanna get promoted because I gotta freaking move again. My family's gotta move again. My kids gotta move again.
Speaker 4So you start talking about other things that are crazy.
Speaker 2Okay, so in the Army and in the Marine Corps? Cause I can tell you, for the Navy, the answer is yes to this question, but is rank forced on you?
Speaker 4Up to a certain level in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2I don't think.
Speaker 3Something in the Army yep Up to a certain level In the Army. Not used to be, not used to be. Hell, I was a fucking E6 for 13 years.
Speaker 5I was an E6 for 13 years.
Speaker 3And then finally they came with you had to move up or get out.
Speaker 3So then all of a sudden, either I had like 18 years in and there's like hey, you need to go to a platoon sergeant, or we're gonna get you out and I'm like I don't wanna be a fucking platoon sergeant, because then I'm taking myself away from the people that I, they care about, the people I love, the people I wanna eat the dirt with and I wanna kill the people with, you know, and so as far as the Marine Corps is concerned, so an automatic grade or promotion.
Speaker 4If you're a private, after like six months you become a PFC right.
Speaker 4And then a year and six months you become a Lance Corporal right. And then when you move from E4, e5 all the way up right, it goes off a year's in service. You gotta have a minimum amount of time in In grade and service, in grade and service right. But you also have to have what we call a cutting score and I'm assuming it's still the same. It very well could have changed. But for instance, right, like the Marine Corps needs so many, your MOS corporals, right. So it goes off your grade and proficiency marks that you get from your leadership right. It goes off your PFD score, your F-erange score for that year. All these different things, right. They come up to an accumulative score.
Speaker 3Right, yep, the Army does that too.
Speaker 4Say, in the Marine Corps I have 1,000 points for my and the cutting score might be 1,100. So if I had 1,100 or more I would get promoted. If I'm at 1,000, I'm not. This month, every month it changes because the guys are coming and going, the guys are getting out, guys are getting promoted.
Speaker 3That's how the Army did it too. Towards the end of my career, we started doing that. You had to get on a list.
Speaker 4Yeah, so basically that's what it was right, and it would show your name on this list with what your score was right. And then if you made they needed 500 corpals, that score might be 900, and I would have got promoted to 1,000. So then we needed 400,. I might have been 1,200,. Yeah, so there was all these different factors that kind of came in, but I never ever heard of anybody turn it out of promotion in the Marine Corps never once.
Speaker 3Why would you?
Speaker 4Well, you did you wanted to.
Speaker 3No, I didn't turn it down. Well, I just wasn't. I was happy where I was at, because if I could have stayed as Staff Sergeant for my entire career because I wanted to be where the bullets- where the rubber meets the road. But they come up with that thing that said, hey, you have to move.
Speaker 4So I heard something similar in the Marine Corps when I was in or coming out right If you didn't move from E6, which is a Staff Sergeant, up to Gunnery Sergeant after 12 years or something like that you were out.
Speaker 3Yep, yep, that's where the Army did that.
Speaker 4Yeah, so if you didn't make the score from six to seven, right, you got transitioned out.
Speaker 3Because they didn't want you to be stagnant.
Speaker 5They wanted to keep the Well that and retirement I mean Christ retirement pay at E6 and the Army Still pretty fucking good.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean. Well, we all get paid the same regardless, right? E5, no matter what branch, are insane and it, you know, like any company in the world. There might be some difference if you're married or you're deployed, but why would somebody pay?
Speaker 5somebody you know sit there until the retirement. Now we gotta pay extra. I mean, that's one of those government financed things, but that's whole another fucking.
Speaker 4Yeah, well, and I think each branch is kind of similar at the same instance, right, but when it comes down to it, you know, I think there's a point in leadership where either you need to move up or you need to get out. Absolutely, I do agree with that, right, but sometimes, because they bump up, you lose good leadership too. So it's like a catch-22 sometimes, right, you know, regardless, if you're working in a factory, right, and your supervisor is a great, great person, they bump up. Now the next person gets promoted as a ship bird. Right now you gotta deal with a ship bird. That's like man. Life was good. This guy made sure that we had everything we needed, or this girl's got to make sure we have everything we needed. Life is good, conditions are good, and all of a sudden, everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Quick Straight, quick right, and nobody wants that.
Speaker 3So and the thing with me for me is my readiness NCO former Marine and he was our full-time guy. He couldn't do the platoon sergeant thing so they moved me from second platoon into first platoon so that I ran the platoon because I was kind of the next guy on the list. But at that time the list was I wasn't high enough on the list because I refused to go to college, because they pushed the whole college thing. You got more points if you went to college than practical experience that you have boots on the ground and doing the job.
Speaker 5So Right, let's go ahead and wrap this up, because we got real life shit to do. We're grown men. I gotta go cut my grass, you haven't cut your grass yet. Fuck. No, it rained yesterday. I was gonna do yesterday, Hooker, I thought you did it before you came. Motherfucker.
Speaker 3Go to my house and cut my grass first. You don't cut your own grass. I don't want to. Well, let it grow. I wanna go drink.
Speaker 5I wanna go drink beer. Well, go do that. I'm like I'm gonna drink. Well, I'm not gonna drink beer, but I'm gonna drink something while I'm cutting my grass.
Speaker 3Oh, there you go, there you go, so All right.
Speaker 2Well, what do you guys think? We did quite a bit of talking here. We're at three hours and 41 minutes.
Speaker 3Well, I liked it because we just kind of floated around and we just not scripted, just real talk about real veteran bullshit, you know, and how we deal with shit.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 3I think it was a good session, and me personally. I don't think you should edit it, I think you should just just post it. Yeah, he's got his mama wants him home. Yeah, we were talking about this earlier, right, yeah, yeah. So but that's kind of my thought process is.
Speaker 4There was not much break anywhere. I mean, this is like I say when we're up at the postman seminar get into a two, three hour pretty easy, just talk about it.
Speaker 2We're still recording.
Speaker 4Well then, you know, we were still recording. Sorry about that, yeah.
Speaker 2I just got to wrap it on.
Speaker 3Well, you got to make mama happy. Yeah for sure.
Looking Forward to Deeper Discussions
Speaker 4I get it. So we'll go from there and we definitely need to do more of these, for sure, man, because this is what you know, just that talk right when other people out there that have done what we've done or thinking about what we're thinking about, and we'll get way more in depth as we go on. This was pretty good intro one.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 4Places we've been, things we've done, but moving forward, right, we'll get into some more deeper stuff, for sure.
Speaker 3Yeah, I agree. So, all right, all you folks out there have a good day. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and please stop back again. Hallelujah Shall, we now sing.
Speaker 2No, no, we're not singing, we're not singing, we'll save their eardrums, yeah, but I will say thanks for joining us at Soup Sandwich. We'll hope to see you on the next episode, thank you.
