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
Brotherhood Beyond the Battlefield: Stories of Patriotism and Perseverance from VFW Post 3033
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Navigating the precarious path from military service to civilian life is a journey many veterans face with a mix of determination and uncertainty. Join Charlie Cline, Tre Porter, Joseph Gates, Tim Artibee, and Brent Holbrook at AJs Sky Lounge for a candid discussion on the fostering of national pride and why the Pledge of Allegiance still matters to the youth of America. With the backdrop of Mount Pleasant, Michigan's spirited local events and the shared bonds within our Post 3033 Riders Group, we peel back layers of veteran life, patriotism within the community, and personal anecdotes that fortify the spirit of service beyond the uniform.
The crew lend their voice to our exploration on everyday heroism, leadership, and the evolving nature of patriotism. From the role of local first responders, to the parallels between military recognition and sports team appreciation, we navigate the inner workings of leadership and the importance of acknowledging dedication in every form. The threads of our conversation weave together laughter, reflection, and an enduring camaraderie that transcends the battleground, as we reveal the significant impact of educational programs like Voice of Democracy and Patriot's Pen on nurturing our future leaders and providing an avenue for paying for their future education.
Strap on your helmets and shake the ground—our tales of motorcycle rides and mechanical hiccups bring a lighter note to the table. Even in Michigan's coldest December, our Riders Group thrives on the brotherhood that unites us. Yet, life can throw us a curveball, and the threat of a night-time bike accident becomes a stark reminder of the unpredictable road we all travel. Through thick and thin, VFW Post 3033 stands as a testament to resilience, community, and the bonds of brotherhood that define the veteran experience. Tune in for a heartwarming mix of conversation, insight, and the rich tapestry of stories that make us who we are.
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
War is a paradox. It is 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 2Good evening everybody. We welcome you back to Soup Sandwich hosted by VFW Post 3033, Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Tonight I'll be your host. My name is Charlie Klein, I'm the VFW Post 3033 riders group president and tonight we have with us.
Speaker 3Tray Porter Post 3033 riders group vice president.
Speaker 4Joseph Gates Post 3033 riders group member and Post member.
Speaker 5I heard you the adjunct. That is well, okay, I'm just checking. I want to make sure that I didn't forget something. Okay, so then you have Tim Artebe, post commander for 3033, riders group, sardine at arms, and their director of the riders group for the department of Michigan.
Speaker 2Excellent guys. I appreciate everybody being here tonight, so let's dive right in Different things that we have going on at our post here in Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 5All right. So, winding down to the end of the new year or ramping up to the end of the new year, however you want to look at it, we have our New Year's Eve party on Sunday, December 31st. It's a no theme kind of thing. You just come as you are. If you want to wear your pajamas, wear your pajamas. If you don't wear pajamas, then put pajamas on.
Speaker 2Okay, whatever you actually thought it was. If you don't wear pajamas, you get free beer. No shoes, no service, no shirt. Free beer, that's for the women.
Speaker 5Oh, yeah, yeah, Okay. So and then, rolling into the new year, we have a riders group Christmas party on the first, where we're going to watch we are going to watch Michigan Smackdown Alabama and then, rolling on through there, we have a district 11 VOD banquet, and then a dark tournament on the 20th for Special Olympics, where we raised $5,000 last year. And then ending out is the midwinter conference, which I will have to go to because I'm also the district commander where we vote on a state winner that could go to national and win up to $30,000 in scholarships to go to school.
Speaker 2So, for those of you out there that don't know so, these scholarships for Voice of Democracy or Patriots been right, depending on their age group. What they do is they write essays right that are judged. So these are all good things. So if you're a school teacher, a school administrator that's out there, try to get your students involved, because you know when they're looking at paying for colleges right, regardless if it's, you know, your community college that's local to you, and or state colleges wherever you're at, you know all this money is definitely going to apply right. So and it seems like every year, you know it's kind of a struggle to get these kids and even the schools right on board with the things that we need or, you know, get kids to write essays. So if you're an English teacher or a school administrator, make sure you get your students involved in these things, because there's a lot of money that's out there that some of these students have no idea it's even available to them.
Speaker 5And this is something that as a district commander. I've been a district commander for the last two and a half years and I've slowly seen the school participation has slowly dropped because, like anything else in our country now, it's been a more liberal kind of thing and it's went away from the red, white and blue. It's went away what what makes America great. It's went away from all the stuff that these young people need to do to grow up to be great Americans. But there's a lot of liberal teachers out there and school administrators that won't let us in the schools, which is actually screwing the students. Because there's a lot of young people out there that still love America, they still have their own head, they still want to do what's great for America. But we have these administrators and these school teachers that says, well, we're not changing our curriculum, we don't want you in the school because we don't necessarily believe what the the theme for is, and that's that's a damn shame.
Speaker 5There's 52 states. Then you have, then you have the Philippine area for the VFW, and then you have the Europe theater for the VFW. The VFW is all over the damn world and these and this goes for if you're, if you're, a VFW and you put kids in for this. They can win money and it's a damn shame that these administrators and and I'm going to be nice people don't support the United States of America because of their own political beliefs, their own stuff. It's about the kids. If we can give them 30 grand to go to college, why in the hell ain't we pushing this? Why aren't we pushing it?
Speaker 7I want to throw something in there. And first of all, who are you? Oh, is Brent Holbrook again.
Speaker 2He's late to the game.
Speaker 7I'm late to the game, my bad, you know. Correct me if I'm wrong. Any administrators, any teachers that are out there listening correct us. But growing up I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before class every day and to my knowledge they don't do that anymore. They're not even even on a basic level, instilling basic patriotism and appreciation for the country in which you live.
Patriotism and Recognition of Service
Speaker 7Those of us in the VFW have been into some horrible countries. We've seen what it could be like. You know, and that's just kind of how I see it and I want to. I would just want to say like I don't want to really get into the politics, but it just, if you think about it for a minute, as society has changed and as politics have changed over the last 20 years, slowly schools dropped reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. They've dropped certain things and more censorship in certain areas has become more prevalent. I mean, little changes like that are happening at on the school board level, and so those are just some changes that I've noticed. So to answer your question about why they're not doing it, I think it's just become a pattern over the last 20 years.
Speaker 2So I could tell you this right when I was K through six here in here in my pleasant right that was the elementary school we always, at the beginning of the year, right, we raised the flag on the flagpole in front of the school and we did the Pledge of Allegiance. And the last day of school we lowered it again and did the Pledge of Allegiance. That was the end of the school year, right? So my daughter's 24 years old right, she didn't do that. So at some point that that changed, that patriotism changed, and it's unfortunate, but I will say this right, I attended Veterans Day ceremonies from Shepherd, which is just south of us, to Mount Pleasant here, to Claire, just north of us.
Speaker 1Claire.
Speaker 2Right and what they do for the veterans is unbelievable. I actually put a post out right, my personal Facebook page of the students. That made me a wood flag. It hangs in my office right here, right right at the AJ Skyloge. I always got to put a plug in right here in my shop.
Speaker 2It literally hangs right, and I sent an email to the wood shop teacher, right, saying hey, I really appreciate what your students did. Hopefully you share this with your administration. You know these students put in all this work. I really appreciate it. Put the post out on Facebook and it's hanging right above my desk, right, it's awesome, awesome, right.
Speaker 2That's some schools that do it and some that don't, and that's a shame because these some of these students, right, if they get then instilled at them at the lowest level, the grade school level. Right, the kindergarten through fourth grade, third grade, sixth grade, whatever your elementary school is, all the way through high school, when they see these programs come out, right, we're even at the local level. Say, here, our VFW. Right, say, the VOD winners of $800, right, and they compounded the district level, which is the next stop, right, the regional level could be another $1,000 or $1,500, they win. And then they go to state level could be another $5,000, they win, and they go to national. It could be a total of $30,000. That's huge for these students that we're here talking about at national politics, right, we're talking about loan forgiveness, right, and now you have an opportunity for these kids. They could run the gambit, get up to $30,000, right, and teachers or administrations not not not putting it out to these students that they, they could get that you know. It's just a shame.
Speaker 5And to caveat on what Charlie was saying, I also got a flag from a young man and he asked me a lot of up in Claire right up in Claire, yep, up in Claire.
Speaker 5He asked me a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff about my service and they played. They had a great program and they played. They played a little thing where the soldier comes home and the family jumps in their arms and and the people that died for the country, and stuff like that, and I'm crying. I'm sitting next to this, actually a sophomore. I'm sitting next to this sophomore and I'm trying to. You know, I got my, I got my head down, hand on my over my face because I don't want nobody to see me cry, because that's not what we do. We're steel-eyed killers, motherfuckers, oops, sorry, motherfuckers, but we're steel-eyed killers. We don't cry. And that young man put his hand on my back and rub my shoulders and and I was so grateful for that young man.
Speaker 5But this is the same school that won't let the Claire VFW come into it and do the VOD Patriot Penn. Same school. They bend to the school board meetings, they bend to the everything and the teachers say we got a curriculum. School board says we got a curriculum and that's not in the curriculum. So therefore it doesn't matter. And shame on Claire's schools. And, yes, I'm going to call them out, claire, michigan, michigan, the pioneers. Shame on them. They have a woodshop teacher that honored Charlie.
Speaker 230 veterans, 30 veterans, yeah, I would say that's probably 30, maybe even more 30 combat veterans.
Speaker 5They had a 96-year-old World War II veteran that they they honored with that board and that administration would not do VOD Patriot Penn. So therefore, Claire missed out on a thing called All American, which is something that the Claire VFW, claire VFW, something that we do to to example, by posts that go above and beyond, and one of them is you have to have a VF, you have to do a Patriot Penn VOD teacher of the year. They couldn't even get a teacher of the year because nobody wanted to do it. You know it's sad.
Speaker 2And those programs are no different than like. We have part of the program, right? Yeah, it involves first responders. So it doesn't matter if it's a police officer, doesn't matter if it's a firefighter, doesn't matter if it's an EMT person, right. So we reach out and say, hey, who's gone above and beyond? It's not like you have to save a baby from a burning building doesn't mean you have to save a baby from a car accident or anything else. Who's your police officer? Who's your EMT person that volunteers for the shifts that nobody else wants to work for, or constantly fills in for the people that want to take vacation? The first one to raise their hands. So, yep, I'll cover that shift or I'll do this or I'll do that. They don't have to do some heroic, crazy thing, right? But that's the person that you can always rely on when you need somebody. They're always the person to raise their hand. And for us we struggle even here. We have state police, we have the tribal police, we have city, we have county, we have all these different departments.
Speaker 2We have all these different entities and for even for us here in Malpuzan, we struggle to find these people. We send them in and say hey, who's your best person? And we get no response.
Speaker 5I went to Isabella County Sheriff Mike Mann, right, maine, maine, whatever. And I said who do you have? Because I need this, I want to, I want to put an officer in for a VFW level. Well, we don't have anybody. Everybody just does their job. You know, that's not a motherfucker I want to work for. That's not somebody I want to work for, because there's always somebody that goes above and beyond, always somebody. There's somebody that's a cut above and he said no, there ain't nobody special here. I did the same thing to the fire department, I did the tribal PD, I did it to city PD, I went to EMS. I can't even get anybody to come back to EMS. And those are the people that should be the people, because they're out there every day car accident saving lives.
Speaker 2Well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're city PD, your county, sheriff's.
Speaker 2EMTs or even fire Fire respond to all those accidents too. So those are the people you would think that their leaders would have. Somebody that's in their right hip pocket, that we always said right, it's the go-to guy, the go-to gal girl that is always going to be there. When I have to call on somebody, they're going to step up, regardless of what they have to sacrifice to take care of the mission. You know what I mean, and it's a struggle, right.
Speaker 2When we have these things that we need to do, we want to highlight somebody in the community and you can't get the leadership to say, hey, jim or Jan is my person. That whenever I have a problem or whenever I need something to be done, this is the person I go to. You can't even get a response to say, yeah, this is the person, and I agree, because if I was a Sergeant of Marines, right, and I needed somebody, I have somebody. I have a road captain that I rely on heavily and I'm not shy. I'm the guy that's not shy to say Viper is my guy, sean Beal is my guy, amen. If I have something to do, I task him with it. It's going to get done because he's the guy that's in my right pocket and if I need it done, he's going to get it done.
Speaker 2Even if we end up on gravel road or we're going north to go south, whatever. Sometimes you have to go five miles north to go south.
Speaker 5I get it. It's called the Michigan left.
Speaker 2I get it. It doesn't matter if it's an I-75. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2It doesn't matter, there's a 105 acts between here and there, he's going to get us there. But what I'm saying is when you're a leader regardless of if you're an office manager or you're the sheriff and you have a bunch of deputies below you, you have somebody below you that you rely on all the time. I mean, we did in the military. You know what I mean. You have somebody that has to be your person. Unless you were a clerk, unless you're in the Navy then you just have a bunch of semen below you.
Speaker 2Because, I know he's going to talk right now.
Speaker 5Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 7I'm only talking because now I have an idea.
Speaker 5Man. I don't like his ideas. He has a lot of them.
Speaker 7No, I was going to say you know and there was the RTO, fucking shit up.
Speaker 2This is the reason why we don't let those techie guys around. They like to spill drinks on the table.
Speaker 5And he'll be the first fucking guy that yell at you about having fucking drinks close to the fucking computer. He'll be like no, put no drinks next to the computer and then he's got to be the guy.
Speaker 4Someone's got to do it. Go ahead Brent.
Speaker 7Anyway, you know, from a leadership perspective, just so everybody knows.
Speaker 2Real quick, Brett, I'm going to cut you off. We do have some people in the studio at the SkyLogs tonight.
Speaker 4We have a peanut gallery.
Speaker 2Yeah, the peanut gallery. They're going to eat popcorn and have cocktails over there. Well, we're on this tonight, but yeah.
Speaker 7I was just going to say about, you know, the leadership aspect, like I guess I can see it from a couple perspectives. You know they want to exude this idea that you know they're one team, right, but at the same time, a proper leader, in my opinion, is one who is still, despite, like you know, making sure you're on one team, you're still going to recognize the people who really, like you said, are going above and beyond. I think you know his lack of response in that situation was erring too much on caution, I think.
Speaker 5Okay, so being politically correct in a way. Okay. So, with that being said, I'm going to throw this out at the clerk, which is airborne dude, worked with, worked with the special operations group and all that. Okay, I'm gonna throw this out at him. Okay, when I was an infantry squad leader, I had a fucking point man and his name was Nick Nickerson and he was 82nd airborne golf war vet. He came back to my unit and the minute, the minute, I met him and saw what he could do, he was my fucking point man.
Speaker 5Okay, he was the dude, he was the flipping dude and, by the way, nick, I'm going to send this to you, so you have to listen to it. So he was a dude that he made the calls because he was the point man. Correct, trey, correct, correct, he was a dude. Okay, and every, every and every, every type of organization has that dude that when the dude isn't there, you have another dude that makes the call, and that dude should probably be put in for these awards. Correct, correct. You have a undershelf, right? I don't know. Charlie knows more about that.
Speaker 2Well, you know, yeah you know for years my wife, the prosecutor's office here right at Fresable County and yeah so. So the sheriff's department, they sheriff main right and there's an undershelf right, so when he's gone right he's doing things, and then there's deputies below that right which would be the role patrols or the responding officers or the correction officers, or whatever.
Speaker 2So more than likely, even at the city level, right, you're going to have the chief right, chief police and there's going to be like no offense. I apologize because I don't know she talks. I listen, doesn't mean to understand what she's saying back then, but so I don't know. If it's it's not going to be like an undercap, then it'd be like a lieutenant. Yes, some years it's going to be a military order, I'm sure right.
Speaker 5Yes, and that's my point. And if you are a sheriff of Isabella County and you can't put in your undershelf for a leadership award that's recognized through the VFW and not just the Department of Michigan we're talking about the national you, the whole fucking United States of America and all the VFWs around the world, then that dude shouldn't probably be doing that fucking job.
Speaker 2So you elect, I know, at the county level, cities different and we have CMU police, that's.
Speaker 5CMU here too.
Undersheriff's Role and Team Appreciation
Speaker 2So, right, central Michigan University, those guys are hired in, so they're going to hire in their chief or their captain, right or whatever? I don't even know what that is. Under sheriff isn't elected, is it? County is? County is elected, but the undershelf is not. That's what I'm saying. So what? My understanding and I very well could be incorrect, so don't definitely don't quote me on this I believe they are going to be nominated and or appointed by the sheriff to be the undershelf. I might be incorrect, but they're definitely not elected. The sheriff is elected.
Speaker 2the undershelf? I'm not sure. So the undershelf would be the second in command, right, so the sheriff's gone on vacation or dies or whatever. Right, there's the next guy, no different than you. Right, you have your commander and you, right, yes, you're senior, your junior, the VFW. Right, there's gonna be a guy that's gonna step up. The undershelf is in all the works, but they're not elected. Yeah, we don't. We don't hear in Isabel, kind of, we don't elect an undershelf, we elect a sheriff. I'm not sure how the probably points.
Speaker 2I'm sure it's gonna be the most senior guy with the most experience. Blah, blah, blah. Right, that's that. That deals in the same mission as the sheriff has. He's gonna be his guy Right. So I agree with you. How would your undershelf not not get it? Because your undershelf should be your guy Right.
Speaker 5Absolutely.
Speaker 2So it should be an easy transition if you have to give a name and if I was the undershelf and my sheriff's not gonna nominate me to be the guy, fuck you, I'm going somewhere else.
Speaker 2It's not, I'm gonna go somewhere else because you still got bills to pay and kids to feed. Oh, that's what you put on the table. I get that too. But I would definitely be a little suspect if I hear this and I'm like my sheriff didn't say I was his guy, right, and you're not looking for the guy that's saving babies out of burning cars, right. Well, you're looking for the guy that steps up and is there to do the things when I can't be there, right, that's that's. That's your guy. We're not the VFW. The American Legion is whatever.
Speaker 2The M Vets, when they have these programs, are not looking for the guy, right, pulling kids out of out of burning buildings right. They're looking for the guy that's going to pick up the shift so that his subordinates right, those deputies could be at home for Christmas. And I'm going to be the undershifer. Whoever right, this period guys, it's going to work those terrible shifts or fill in when needs to be filled in, not going. Well, give it to the. Give it to the new guy, because he's the new guy's got to pay his dues, yeah you know.
Speaker 3So every organization that you, that is a successful organization, has that one to maybe three punch. You know, like Jordan had Pippin, magic had Kareem, larry Bird had Robert Parrish and Kevin, Micael Pippin.
Speaker 2Pippin was a dog man because he he did all the hard work and Jordan got all the glow.
Speaker 5Right, pippin was a bitch man, tony.
Speaker 3Koo coach, I'm just saying he did have a fever he did have a fever didn't he Steve Kerr? He still played a game, there's got to be some depth on a roster to any organization. You know, absolutely. You know when I was in there was always some depth. If the top guy went down, there was somebody ready to step up and take his place.
Speaker 5I got to go here, charlie, so why would you?
Speaker 2nominate that guy for something.
Speaker 3Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2I got to go here though.
Speaker 5So, like with Trey, if the top guy broke a fingernail and the next guy got like a sliver under his fingernail from typing, you got to have a third guy that actually use the ink pen.
Speaker 3Believe it or not? Believe it or not, I actually do need some ink.
Speaker 2We had a Clippers who's got some.
Speaker 3We had about a. During my first deployment, we had about three, three purple hearts One of my soldiers, one of them believe it or not.
Speaker 5What'd he do?
Speaker 3Stub his toe on the desk Exactly Stubbed his toe on the desk, I think.
Speaker 4Going back to this other stuff, it's kind of a two-parter one that they put someone up there like that, it's a way of giving them a thank you and appreciation A lot of them absolutely around here At least places I've been don't really do that. They're just everyone's here, part of the team. And then not only that. How can you make your team better if you're not promoting simple stuff like that?
Speaker 3It's the little things that add up or show them that appreciation you know what I mean you got to show them, put your soldiers in for awards. You know what I mean.
Leadership and Recognition in the Military
Speaker 4It's your value that's gonna become valuable.
Speaker 3Yeah, if you weren't putting your soldiers in for an award when you were, when we were serving, you weren't doing your job. What are you doing?
Speaker 4as a leader.
Speaker 5Well, I'll tell you what I was terrible at it I was. I was terrible at it because my thought process was probably like some of these other people. My thought process is you're here to do a job.
Speaker 3I'm not going to reward you for doing your job, I mean, but those soldiers that went above and beyond.
Speaker 5Well you know what I'm saying is.
Speaker 5I was wrong, as six guys blowing seven because someone had two dicks in their mouth, because I should have been rewarding them for doing their job, because there's a lot of people out there that didn't do their damn job, and they got promoted at the same time. You got promoted and you were doing everything that you were supposed to do and this dude was flogging the, flogging the dog, and they all get promoted together and the good troop is going like wow, you know, this guy hasn't did anything and I'm busting my ass. So why do I have to bust my ass? Because I'm going to get promoted anyway, just like he is right sends the wrong message.
Speaker 4Absolutely. And I tell you toxic leaders. And to the ones who didn't have to do anything, what's say that get? I say that's how you end up getting the toxic leadership up there. The ones who didn't really have to do the work to get where they're at, they just promoted because of time.
Speaker 7And I think there's a split there. I mean, I don't know what it is, it's definitely not 50-50, you know, but it's, you know, 60, 40, 70, 30 something. But as a leader, your job, yes, is to lead and to be that person to make some, you know, initial decisions. But I would say a decent majority of your job should be raising the people up under you, because one day you're not going to be there Absolutely. And to you know, allow for a decent turnover, for whenever that happens, whether it be forced or not, you know, you get broadsided by a bus one day. Well, now what you know. So, forced or not, whenever the turnover happens, somebody's got to be able to do that job, right, Right. And if you don't adequately, you know, prepare the people under you to do it, you're going to be in for a hell of a time.
Speaker 7Well they will be hit by the bus. That too, or retired, or whatever you know, but you know I could go on and on about decent leadership because, I'll be honest, my experience in active duty I you know, with one exception during the five and a half years, you know I didn't really have a great experience with my leadership. So I unfortunately had a track record of getting toxic leadership. So okay.
Speaker 5So let me ask you a question, and that's that's good that you bring that up, because I would say the majority of the people that I led would tell you I was positive from the bottom up. I was positive because I trained people I could train because we would work on it until it was perfectly Lombardi. We're going to run this sweep and we're going to keep running it and keep running it. We're going to run it as much as we run it. They can know it's coming, but you know what? They're not going to be able to stop it because we're going to do it perfect.
Speaker 5But I had a lot of, a lot of issues with some, some leadership from the top down and, and I'm guessing a little bit of that might have been my hardheadedness, my brashness, because I wasn't afraid to speak my mind If I thought something was fucked up. I didn't, I didn't care. I told the lieutenant one time fuck you, you think you can do a better job, hop on the toe and you do it. You know. And the company commander really didn't like that a whole lot. Either did the first sardin and either did my platoon leader, my platoon sardin, because they drug me out of the tower and said whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't do that and I'm like fuck him. He's not going to sit there and talk bad about my troops, he's not. My job is to take care of them and protect them.
Speaker 7Right, and I think you know, and I'll call them out in a positive way, and damn, it pains me to say this, but the best leader I had was actually an Army NCOIC.
Speaker 5Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 7And the reason why is because I was stationed at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, maryland. But I was there during the transition into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and so part of that was, you know, a little bit of a stint with an Army NCOIC when I worked in ophthalmology and I don't know what his rank is now, but back then he was Sergeant Daniel Labeta and pretty, just badass.
Speaker 3I mean, you know, true leader and you know was there, you needed him, and so Well, being an Army NCO, I can speak to this and I'm not down in any of the services because I, you know, I was not a part of any of the service. I can't really speak to it. But I think the Army does a hell of a job raising leaders in their ranks. Beginnings what we do, yeah, that, yeah, they start from the beginning Raising up these leaders. It's very effective what the Army does with these leaders. I think maybe the Marines are comparable, but I doubt it. They're lagging behind. Come on, man.
Speaker 7Haters always hate what's that saying, I can't really remember what it is. If you ain't one, I don't know you hate me because they hate me.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's it you hate me because they hate me Our motto is always Semper.
Speaker 2Gumby right. You got to be flexible in all situations right, you know, remember Semper Gumby as a kid.
Speaker 7Well, each experience may vary, but when I picked up what most would call noncommissioned officer status in the Navy that you know, which was like E-9, right the time you guys got there. Yeah, that's what it feels, like I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 7No, but E-4, Petty Officer, 3rd Class. When I picked up E-4, you know I went through this leadership course and again, experience may vary if you went to a different. You know if you're at a different unit and you know you had a decent experience. But I'm just going to be honest, my experience was dog shit, it just was. I mean honor, core value is the Navy's honor, courage and commitment and this. They sold that for the Marine Corps, by the way.
Speaker 2The Navy came first, but we'll continue there weren't even the Navy when we had Marines defending their ships. But that's cool. That's why we got the leather neck name right. It's cool though the Sarah story they could tell it. Everybody's just shaking their head.
Speaker 3I don't believe a damn word, charlie says.
Speaker 2I don't either, if you don't like the truth.
Speaker 7That's cool, but yeah, my experience was horrible. I mean, it was a three-day, you know, leadership course. The first day was about honor, second day was about courage, the third day was about commitment and it was just a load of dog shit. It taught me nothing about actual leadership. And so my question for you guys around the table, especially the ones that are NCOICs what was your actual leadership experience? I know the Marines have the sergeants. Course we go right out to Corporal's course. Oh, there is a Corporal's course, so E-4s Okay.
Speaker 2E-5s right.
Speaker 6You and DC. Well, you know, because that's what we call it.
Speaker 2I'm going to break real quick. But in the Marine Corps we do things at a little bit lower level than the Army does, and that's probably the best comparison. Right, because the Air Force isn't going to be there, the Navy's not going to be there. We all have a different mission, but Army and the Marine Corps are pretty close on parallel with the same mission, right, we just we're so small, we're 280,000 people and the Army's a million, right, so you guys just do things one notch up more than we do. So what? You guys expect that of E-5, a sergeant, right, we expect that of an E-4 Corporal, right? So, just it's. I'm not saying one's better than the other, right, but we just we have to do things at a smaller scale because you guys are so much bigger.
Speaker 3What is the role of a Corporal in the?
Speaker 2Navy so. I can only talk to the experience of infantry right.
Speaker 2I was at FAST Company and or an infantry line unit, fleet Marine Force unit. So a Corporal could be anywhere from a fire team leader to a squad leader in the infantry. So typically, if you go by the book, it should be a fire team leader. So you're in charge of three other Marines below you in an infantry platoon. Right, you'll be a fire team leader, right, but as a Corporal, you could also be a squad leader, which would typically be a sergeant, right, right, you know what I mean, and I think for you guys it'd almost be the opposite way. Right, it'd be a sergeant, would be a fire team leader.
Speaker 3No no, no, it's going to be a squad leader and then a staff sergeant. As a platoon leader, staff sergeant will be the first squad leader, number one squad leader. That's, that's seven. Seven would be a platoon, so platoons are so in the six can step up and do that. So for us, for us in E six is a.
Speaker 2Is that a maximum of platoon sergeant? Ok, so at a minimum. That that's it. That's you're going to be that or you're going to be almost in trade coming company gunner, sergeant tray, coming from the clerk stuff this whore.
Understanding Squad Structure in the Military
Speaker 4I love you, I love you, brother, that's right so in the infantry.
Speaker 5An infantry squad is 13 people. Ok, it's one staff sergeant who is a squad leader and three, three fire teams of four people. No, that's a platoon, I'm talking about a squad. That's a squad, a squad in a perfect world.
Speaker 5In a perfect world, a squad leaders in E, six Team leaders that are five's, and then three people each that work under this, the team leaders. So you guys are totally different. Yes, totally. Then in a, in a platoon, you have three infantry squads and then you have a weapons squad, which would be the M 60s. The ornaments, yeah, so basically, basically, Army platoon would be a platoon leader, a platoon sergeant, plus 13 times four. Yeah, you do the math because I was a very good man.
Speaker 5Joe 50 to 60, some 52. Yeah, so that's basically. That's basically how the infantry Now it's changed that was, that was back when we still use muskets. Ok so it's changed a little bit yeah.
Speaker 5Yeah, so platoon and a tow platoon still 11, bravo 11 hotel. But my squad, or my platoon, was a platoon leader, platoon sergeant. We had a platoon sergeant driver, platoon leader, driver Right, so there's four people, and then we had four six man squads. We had 28 people. We had a squad leader, driver gunner, assistant squad leader, driver gunner. The assistant squad leader was usually an E five, could be an E four, but unless you had a DA corporal, it was an E four or an E five, okay, so let me put this out there.
Speaker 2So in an infantry, marine Corps infantry, you're going to have three squads of all regular infantry men. Right, there's going to be 0, 3, 11 infantry guys. Each squad's got three fire teams, each fire teams led by a corporal E four.
Speaker 5Okay, and then that squad is led by a sergeant, so you have 10 people to a squad, right oh?
Speaker 211. Well, you'd have 11 with your son, right? So our difference was and then the fourth squad was made up of weapons Shoot. I was fire team of like 0, 3, 51s which were the smog dragon dragon guys right, right, right done away with that.
Speaker 2One fire team would be your mortarmen 0, 3, 41s. Now. Then you have machine gunners right, you're 50 cal guys, right? So those guys would be the 0, 3, 31s, with their own sergeant that should be leading them. But typically it was like we would call them a senior landscropal and E three Right. Right, there's no such thing as a senior landscropal. We like to claim it because guys would get stuck there forever, waiting to be, waiting to be promoted right, they'd have crazy scores, but they just couldn't get promoted. And then you would have an E six, right, your staff sergeant would lead the entire platoon of all four of those squads, right?
Speaker 2But most of the time it would be done with a sergeant, because your fire team was a three person fire team. It would be like you'd have a gunner and two assistants and then a corporal leading it, so it'd be it'd be a four man fire squad.
Speaker 5Fire team and you had fire fire team and you had three of them in a three of them would be like E three and below, and one would be an E four.
Speaker 2But you have three of them in a squad three of them in the platoon, plus a weapons squad. So what was your squad? A squad is a squad would be well, a platoon would be four squads, three of which would just be regular infantrymen and one would be a weapon which is squad. If you had a squad, if I had a squad, so you, if you're just regular infantry, you'd have four, or you'd have three, sorry, you'd have three fire teams of E threes and below, led by in each one.
Speaker 5You'd have one E four, so you would have three times four, so you'd have 12 people plus a squad leader, plus a squad leader, and then you'd have a weapons would be still in that same platoon.
Speaker 2So you'd have, technically, four squads One's a weapons squad, one's. Three are regular infantrymen, your 11 Bravo's that you would call them right, just a regular guys. But the fourth one would be made up of the weapons weapons, heavy, heavy machine gunners, mortarman's missile guys, right.
Speaker 5So you would have three, three times four, 12, 13 in a squad, and then you'd have four of those, you'd have four of them so 13 times four yeah you're.
Speaker 2you're roughly 45 people Right. Plus your platoon leader platoon sergeant, which would be a staff sergeant, which would be the six Right. The majority of the time they're run by a sergeant E five. Okay, right Because we're we're promoting from below.
Speaker 5So right right right.
Speaker 2Your fire team leaders would typically always be an E three, Lance Corp Right, and then, as you're progressing, right everybody. So the senior E five sergeant would be primarily running the platoon Right, Not always Right, but majority of the time would. Would be that way. We just do it. We're like we're. We've had these conversations a million times where we seem to be like one grade below what you guys do in the army, but we don't have a million people like the army, does you know? So we, we always do less with more or more with less. I've said that like four times wrong. Yeah, kind of like the guard.
Speaker 2Yeah typically, and I just is the way it is, you know, and I think the reason why a lot of times, you know, in the Marine Corps they instill the leadership aspect of a lot of things because you have to do more or less. You know, and maybe some of the other branches the same way. I'd love to have an Air Force guy come on this podcast and tell us how that shit runs. So I've got. Do we have an Air?
Speaker 2Force yeah well, we do, we have, we have a couple, but they're sold school. I don't think they even know what a microphone is. They barely know what a flip phone is.
Speaker 7Well, we got Brent Scott.
Speaker 2Well, he's somewhat recent. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean that's Brent. No, no, no great great guy, but you know, and he could give an insight, and I don't even know what he actually did in the Air Force. I mean, I have no idea what his, his MOS or his job was.
Speaker 5I mean, I mean, he had the recruiter, but he's still recruiting.
Speaker 2I mean we had Tyler. I'm yeah, tyler would have been a great guy for you Because he's still yeah, he's still active, right, but at the end of the day, you know, we all serve a different purpose, we all do different things and I think we all have different experiences. So I've reached out to a guy who served within security forces. He's a Massachusetts state trooper. He works at Logan Airport. So for him it's going to be tough because he's like a shift shift sergeant. So for him, depending on when we do this, it's going to be tough to get him on.
Speaker 2And I've reached out to one of my former guys at 3rd Battalion, 7 Marines and 29 Palms. Reached out to him. He's a retired Sergeant Major. Now he's a retired John Nunez. He retired, oh, I think, on Facebook a couple, two, three years ago. So we talked about this in the last podcast. I'd love to reach out to these guys to see what the differences are since we've transitioned into the veteran status, to these guys that are still hanging out and are now doing things in the way you know, as far as the sexual harassment stuff and all this different procedures and trainings and stuff have gone on to find out he was. He was a, he was a general instructor three, four tours overseas and combat zones. I mean, he's legit dude and he was one of the guys. He was just senior to me and I talked about that. Captain Sano sounds like me, is that what it is?
Speaker 3The guy you're describing.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, he's, he's. He's a bad mofo man.
Speaker 5Yeah, captain Sano, captain in Sano in Sano, for sure.
Speaker 2So he was the guy. So, out of out of all those guys I talked about before that transition, the veteran status, right, we're like this. This leadership has ruined us. Right, we're all getting out because I don't want to deal with another four years of this guy, yeah, leading us. Right, john Nunez stayed in and he was. He was long haul. Right, he's like the. He's from Puerto Rico. Right, he was about four foot 11. And he was he's.
Speaker 2He's a little dude but he was badass and straight squared away. Love the guy to death. And I had another guy, tony Paul skill. He was on the Marine Corps shooting team and he actually became. He became an officer Right, but he was. He was a warrant officer Right and it was on the shooting team. He retired probably two, three years ago to there were right. We actually all served together and these are the guys that stuck it out, did the thing and I was actually in Tony's wedding over in Wisconsin.
Topics and Personal Stories Discussion
Speaker 2Shit forever go. Jen and I went over there, but awesome guys and I would love to get either one of those guys in on this podcast to tell us, like, their experiences and their different stuff. So these are the guys that I'm going to be reaching out in the near future. I've already reached out to John, but I'm going to try to get ahold of Tony, find out what he's got going on and get their insight right on their transitions. There are different things and the way that the Marine Corps change or even the military change a little bit for them, you know. I mean I think it would be a good insight since most of us have been gone quite a while besides you Joe right, You're probably the most recent guy.
Speaker 4Just seven years ago, 2017.
Speaker 2Yeah, and Brett, where were you?
Speaker 7Got up in 2015.
Speaker 2So yeah, you guys are right around the same age, right? So you know, when we see her talk about what could the changes be, we don't even know. The October 2017 and you still don't know what's going on. So that's a double climbing guy for you.
Speaker 5Well, he's a clerk, that's what you see.
Speaker 3Listen, my 20 years of clerk one. It's active duty supersedes your part timey infantry, whatever that was.
Speaker 5Hey, hey, still get the same retirement.
Speaker 2Don't don't get mad at him, because he gets 10% for those paper cuts. That's for the VA.
Speaker 5Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2He does. Every paper cuts were 10%.
Speaker 5That's right. Right.
Speaker 7Did we? I came in late, sorry, my bad, so I'm just going to ask did we have? Did we have an agenda that we wanted to talk?
Speaker 5about. We don't do agendas here, dude? I mean, we just keep rolling.
Speaker 7Whatever, fine, fine, whatever.
Speaker 5We can talk about something, hooker, talk about it, but we don't do agendas. Agendas are old school man, we're new school. All school agendas is what the clerks use back in the day, says the 80 year old.
Speaker 7Yeah no shit.
Speaker 5No, we don't need agendas. Why, what's on your agenda? I don't.
Speaker 7I was just curious if we were trying to stay into a certain I think we stayed in a pretty good.
Speaker 5We talked about the VOD patriot pen and how important that was All right.
Speaker 2The only thing I want to bring up real quick. I'm a straight up in the rough to you. Our rise groups, bad ass Right. Bingo so so, as a president, I'm going to give a little bit of kudos to our team. On that rise group we had six seven members wrote Christmas Day here in Michigan, yeah Right, it's like 50 degrees. We're out there rolling down the roads today After Christmas once again seven, eight of us rolling down the road. Right, we're wearing the cuts, wearing the patches, man we're with the right numbers and you would be surprised.
Speaker 2You would be surprised in this late December in Michigan, how many people fist pumping their hands out the truck windows, car windows like, or even when we make a stop right To have a refreshment and I'm going to use refreshment rather- than what we probably were drinking, but as a refresher water, water we had to come up to us and said man, I can't believe you guys are all right, that's fucking awesome, right Like that's, that's cool as shit.
Speaker 2You know and I don't know, joe, when you were riding with us today, how many people do you see waving at us?
Speaker 4or sticking it. Yeah, I mean, that's something I was doing, yeah.
Speaker 2It's crazy because those, those people put their bikes away and and I've said it for years, man, I've never. I'm knocking on wood. I'm going to do it here at the AJ Sky Lounge. I'm going to put another plug in.
Speaker 5Right.
Speaker 2I have never pulled my battery out of my bike. It sits here at the shop. I go downstairs every couple of weeks and fired up and let it run for 1015. I never pull my fucking battery. I ride that bitch if the roads are dry. I don't care if they're wet. But I mean, when I mean dry, no snow, no ice. Right, I'm going to put it. Last year I missed January. I don't want to miss January this year. I will ride in the rain just to get January this year, even if I just stay in town.
Speaker 5I ride wood, you're a ride, so.
Speaker 2I'm on it, I'm on the road and my turn signals work, then that's going to constitute the ride this year on the block, because last year I never got to. It was like 44 degrees or 42 degrees and the raining and I was like, no, I'm not going to ride in the rain this year. Fuck that, I ride that bitch. So I could say I was hoping to get 12 years straight, or 12 months straight you own it.
Speaker 4We should get a pass for the group for all 12 months. So you didn't get James.
Speaker 2So then I would be the only guy that wears it. That's not cool, because you can't just have the president wear one.
Speaker 5No, I wouldn't get it too.
Speaker 2We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 5We'll see.
Speaker 2Hooker, I doubt that.
Speaker 5Why I did February, March, April, May, June, July, October.
Speaker 2You're almost there, man. You're almost there with me.
Speaker 5I'm not saying with the incentives.
Speaker 7He's a little senile, so he's a misogist. I'll get it, so he did misogist.
Speaker 5When Charlie was saying all them people fist bumping and stuff like that, I didn't see any of them because I was looking at Phoenix's backpack.
Speaker 6So for all those that don't know Joel, joel is on the podcast tonight. He has. His real name is Tech his better half way better.
Speaker 4Much better looking. I don't know how I got so lucky.
Speaker 5We all wonder the same thing. We're all wondering the same thing.
Speaker 4There's a reason I don't pay for lottery tickets, because I already won.
Speaker 2It, either it, either you must be hung like a fucking rhinoceros?
Speaker 5Not at all. Or you're a millionaire.
Speaker 2We're trying to figure it out. You got lots of money, you're hung like a horse, but either way, yeah. So when the first time I ever met her right, we're doing a bike night, we go up to Sanford bike night. We do it every week because it's great promotion for the VFW when we all show up and we're supporting the causes and doing the things. First time I ever met the later Joe's, new to new to our post, over the summer we roll up and I'm like he read the contract sport bike right, cow's eye, yeah, ninja, yeah, I'm not sure what it is. Okay, this is exactly what it is. It's like 100 horsepower, a little thousand, what is it? Thousand.
Speaker 4This is 636.
Speaker 2Okay, so 600 CC. They come rolling up to a bike night. She hops off the back, they come in the gate, you know where the beer tent is and all the stuff, right. And I'm like man, you look great as a backpack. And right then her road name got set up backpack and that apparently becomes a derogatory term, which I didn't like it, she hated it. She hated it, I love it Hated it.
Speaker 4It's the best. She felt like it was an item, like she was a possession.
Speaker 2So then, we try to change it to duffel bag, duffel bag or flight bag or flight bag.
Speaker 4We could have went now on my bag. We tried to change the time. I'm going to come out and plug at one point.
Speaker 2Okay, I'm going to work with that, but that's usually what Tim uses on his Harley. Bingo is the public. But I mean at the end of the day. Yeah, she absolutely hated it. So not yet. So her real name ended up turning into Phoenix, but I will tell you this I'm the rear road captain no you're starting arms.
Speaker 5Well, now I'm starting arms. I was just a rear road captain and I really enjoyed riding behind them. I'm just saying.
Speaker 2Well, she wears like a hundred and thirty dollar pair of jeans when she rides right. Yeah, and they're all cut up all the way the seam is ripping, so that's maybe what you liked. Bingo Is that I did hear the complaint about five pair of jeans at 160 bucks a piece. Yeah, who pays that much for yeah, that's, that's the same. Well, apparently tax got a lot of money over there. Especially, I don't know where it's going, especially when they're all ripped up.
Speaker 5The jeans are going to jeans Ripping, yeah, especially when she buys them all ripped up. I just like the strategically placed rips.
Speaker 4By the time you see, them are ripped up.
Speaker 5Yeah.
Speaker 3You know what? I think I'm a guy. I think she's a lucky woman. That's what I think. What's?
Speaker 1up.
Speaker 3She's a lucky woman. That's what I think I had a job about my own jeans.
Speaker 2You have your own job and you buy your own jeans. Well, here's Amicount. Amazon account says that's a lie.
Speaker 3I think Joe's the better half, joe's a better half, definitely. Joe's got to be the better half to put up with you, joe, is the better half.
Speaker 5No, I just. Well, he is a good adjunct.
Speaker 2So what I'm going to say. You have the president and the vice president of the range group sitting at this table tonight right and her reapplication after the first few years definitely in jeopardy at this point Because we don't have to accept it right. So, like, just like I say right, we don't have to accept it, she can go oh there we go.
Speaker 2Well, just follow her around oh yeah, that's right, she has, she has. She's getting her own bike right. She's getting her dad's bike. Yeah, yeah, which would be awesome. So you know our speeds be much lower though, which is cool, because you know my wife has her endorsement. Jen, lady, lady, jen the right, she has her own endorsement, so I had to. 600 Honda shadow.
Speaker 2So this is so she, she loved it, it was obviously too small Got rid of it. Kids are going through sports and doing all the things, so I got rid of it. Then I got the Harley. She's like, oh, I can ride that, you know. So she hops on it, dumps it like within five feet, dumps it.
Speaker 2She's going from like a 400 pound bike to a 900 pound bike and Lady Jen weighs about a buck 30. Right, and she's like five, four, she could. And I have a lowered seat because I'm not a tall guy, I'm like 511. I'm not tall, right, and for me, sometimes pushing that thing backwards, if we're in a parking spot and we got to go up to a building and you know the parking lot slopes, I, yeah, I did, yeah, for sure, 100%. I, I didn't dump it though, right, nope, but yeah. So she's even worse than me and trying to lug eight times her body weight backwards. You know, yeah, she just straight. There was just way too much for her, but she thought, you know she was, she had it still, you know, and it's been five years, six years, since she's sound of freedom, since she's ridden the bike. I love that.
Speaker 4I remember the first time I got on top of here during the stoker course I was going on a curb. I was grinding the whole way around so I can't turn on a crotch rocket. I was like I know that, no.
Speaker 5So with that being said, joker has some little midget legs too. I had to. I had to get off the bike, but why is Sean Parkerson upward?
Speaker 2upward. I said the same thing, we went, so yeah so we're gonna have to talk about my per.
Motorcycle Mechanics and Night Riding
Speaker 2So Viper, come up here to the shop. He stores his bike here, so he comes out. Unfortunately, it's crazy. The Honda right all everybody that doesn't ride a Harley makes fun of Harley's right. We leak oil this, that and the other right. So I go. Two weeks ago, three weeks ago go I going out on a ride. Harley fires right up Honda. He has a Honda VTR, vtx 1800 things crazy, fat, crazy fast. It is doesn't start. So I'm, I'm message him. You know he's. He's a world-class mechanic for GM. I was like 1500 in the United States. Yes, he is dude, is legit, right. If you got something to be fixed, I don't care if you got a Toyota, you got, whatever the hell you drive, send your shit to him, he's legit, he'll be my mechanic for life bike doesn't start.
Speaker 3It sounds like you want a Marion but well, I digress at least like you know, he can rub up your wife's gonna.
Speaker 2He can rub up your wife when, when we're out, we're out in Vegas for a dark tournament, so I do snuggle with him for sure okay, all right that's kind of guys wear, but his, his Honda doesn't start, so of course they send him a video. You know then, like, of course Harley starts, but the Honda because I was making fun of us about our oil leaks or whatever else.
Speaker 2So he comes here and he jumps it earlier and we go to, we go to have lunch before we're gonna ride today, which was mostly beer, I mean super soup.
Speaker 5You had soup there you go, so no be that way, so another light soup.
Speaker 2We go to, we go to back up and he picks the spot against the building where the parking lot sloped away from the building, obviously as it should be, and I'm like I'm trying to lug you know 900 pounds backwards and I'm like, really, man, you think my road captain would at least put me in a park? There's a million parking spots out here and he wants to back up to the building like the cool guy yeah.
Speaker 2I'm trying to slug the soul. Anyways, we got this guy Joker. He's tipped his bike over twice the last month once well, we out at Loomis lounge. He tipped it there and he tipped it before that, because I was with him before that.
Speaker 2I didn't know that I think he's done a third time. To be honest with you, I think he's not a third time, so he's just a short dude. You know he's trying to pull the equivalent of street glad, right, he nine airpounds trying to pull it backwards in a spot. He's tiptoeing it, you know, and it gets this time of year, everything is wet all the time and you have dirt everything else in the parking lot, right. So, yeah, he lays it over, but I did it. I did it two months ago, right, we went to an open night, yeah but you didn't lay it down?
Speaker 2no, I did, I straight up laid it down on the road, it on the road.
Speaker 5It was a parking lot. Sure, I didn't see that oh no, I was pulling on a parking spot and that thing straight 180 down yeah, but you went on there, you went on the roadbars, oh yeah, oh I did not.
Speaker 2Yeah, I came, I came right off and had tip it back.
Speaker 5I was I was right you and I was starting that's why I couldn't see, because he's got that fucking blinding headlight hey.
Nighttime Bike Accident
Speaker 2LEDs man, 100%. If you, if you got a bike out there and you'll listen to this, led, 1000%. Spend the money, get a great headlight because you never know what's gonna be out there and I hate red net dusk. I'm not gonna ride in the summertime between, like you know, eight, nine o'clock. No, I'll wait till 11 o'clock to leave somewhere. So it's pitch black because I get the full effect of my headlight. Yep, all about safety first over anything else. So we not leaving. We had to an open night at a club that's with us here in town and I want to leave and the parking lot had like mud and dirt and grass growing up between the cracks, straight spun my bike sideways and straight up laid it down and it took me to turn the bike off, turn it back on to get it started again was it was that night?
Speaker 5was it just me, or was it like really cold, crazy dark? No, no well it's.
Speaker 3I thought it was crazy dark. It's where we were at. It was really dark. It's late, it's late it was.
Speaker 5It was late fall in Michigan, man, it was like October, november and it gets dark at four o'clock well, no, I understand that, but when I'm when we were running, we come down, isabella, and then we come down yeah, and they open that.
Speaker 2They open at six and we got there like at 6 30 and it was dark.
Speaker 5Oh, it's crazy dark, but I thought it was darker than normal. Yeah, I, that's what I thought you're, you're.
Speaker 4Did you have a sunglasses on?
Speaker 5no, no so it's so, it's a deal like don't make me fire you adjutant no, when I can't fire, no one else do the job no, when there's, when there's snow.
Speaker 2Everybody knows when there's snow and it's eight o'clock at night and there's the full moon, it's bright outside because the snow's, the snow's reflected in the moonlight right, so in the fall there's no snow and it's dark. At six o'clock it's just fucking dark well, I mean there's nothing to reflect the light off the ground it was exceptionally dark.
Speaker 5No, fuck.
Speaker 3No, I agree, I thought it was really dark that night as well.
Speaker 2No, I just straight spun that shit. No, we're not talking about, we're not talking about you, fuck up.
Speaker 5I'm just talking about the ride over. I thought it was, I thought it was dark even driving through town and yes, I agree. And Sergeant First Class Tray Porter, you ain't got a, you ain't got to agree with the, the infantry guy, okay.
Speaker 2I would disagree with the infantry right guy on a general rule, just so you know, like the summer solstice, right like, ends in September and that's when it starts getting dark. And then, like in December, is the winter solstice and it starts getting lighter every day. Right so like right now, we're already past the darkest day of the year and now we're getting into the lighter day of the year no, I tracked that, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 5That night, when we rolled, I thought I just want to make sure we're clarified yes, me at the end of the, because I, I run, I'm the tail gun. Yeah, I'm the tail gunner. It. I was like man, this is just fucking dark man and that's kind of what I thought the whole way through, even coming down by Walmart in there and even down Isabella with the lights, I was like it just seems, you see, and maybe my headlights ain't what they should be, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2Yeah, I must find the money. Yep, I'm gonna fix them. Use that commander funds. There you go. Don't, don't get like 500 a month to fix my motor cycle.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, if you're out there doing post commander business there you go man sure there's a way to write it off right, right, we got the quartermaster here tonight. I mean, come on, man, not a chance. And come on, we gotta make sure that the commander uses his funds if the riders group votes tell you how a motion for that right yeah, you gotta make a motion for that no, he's just a rector. He needs department funds for that bingo. Oh yeah, there you go but if he's out there doing post commander stuff, he should be post commander funds, no what? Do you mean no, we'll?
Speaker 2let we'll let a judge decide this.
Speaker 5I am the judge. No, I am the judge spent the money we'll let.
Speaker 2It is about a county judge.
Speaker 5Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2I'm saying but no offense was this about some.
Speaker 5It was a man in about. Tray said I could do it. I say you could do it. Charlie said I could do it. I wife used to work for the broskier you don't think.
Speaker 4I think of this. Maybe it was a cloudy.
Speaker 5I think it was cloudy. It was a cloudy night. I just thought it was. I just thought it was darker than normal.
Speaker 7I was just gonna ask if you're like you were higher or something, because maybe I'm not a motorcycle guy, but to me dark is just dark. No, versus light, and we'll see you know again.
Speaker 5That's the difference between somebody who runs around on a boat and somebody that runs around in the field.
Speaker 7You want to know dark. Do the balls to four o'clock, watch on a ship in the middle of the ocean and that's dark.
Speaker 5How about dark is tip when you're doing patrols in a jungle? Triple canopy at 5 30 pm and guess what it's?
Speaker 2fucking dark Tim only only enable guy will say balls to 4 am balls the 4 am. Yeah, that's right, that's right we're gonna, we're gonna say zero hundred, zero four. Yeah, he's gonna use the word balls because that's what he's getting most and normally Marines stick up for the Navy guy, but I just hate to say it much a hater. Hey look who.
Speaker 5Look who joined the group yeah, no, the clerk what's the work?
Speaker 3they hate me cuz they ain't me there you go.
Speaker 5No, I love you, cuz you paid me we love you cuz we eat unless you started talking shit, then you got cut off.
Speaker 4I don't know why your pace stopped guys that I swear there's a specific pot of money, if you guys have to have put to the side. So we fix one soldier's paper problem, shift the next guy yeah, you screw the next guy.
Speaker 2Well, I could tell you this. I can tell you, this is a rotational deal may take a thousand guys don't get back to you. But yeah, we're gonna make this a rotational.
Speaker 3D fast had a, you had to have an accuracy rate of 95%. That means 95 to. It might have been as high as 97, but what that means is five to three percent of people's pay is gonna be fucked up at any given year round, yeah and a minute. We're talking about a million people, at least a million people. How? How many is three percent of a million?
Speaker 2I would be one of them, and I'm gonna say 30,000 30,000 at 3% 50,000 we always seem to have somebody to level okay. I'm just saying, I'm just a gyrene trying to throw spit numbers out there. Okay, so there you go, look at that so here, here I go.
Speaker 5You know I fuck with everybody, right? I mean, I don't care if you ain't a grunt, you're nothing you ain't infantry. Hold on, hold on. If you ain't in for tree, you're nothing. But I'll tell you what the most important people when you're deployed was your pay people no no, no, yes sir tell me no, let me.
Speaker 5Let me say hold on, let me, let me finish my statement. Then you can say you're the pay people, because pay is morale. You don't get paid, the morale goes whoo in the sheer so you're saying the clerk is important yeah, absolutely, I'm saying the clerk is as much as I fuck with a clerk let me ask you this one deployed pay is everything. Pay is everything.
Speaker 5I never had one problem when I was deployed, never once. The only problem I had is when I come home. And then they kept wanting to charge me the the child support that I had signed up for, why it was on active duty. And then, once I come home, they never. They never stopped it because you had to go through a whole another bullshit about it. You know, you don't. You know I'm talking about, right? Yep, that's the only issue I ever had when I asked you question.
Speaker 2Yes, sir, when you were deployed. You care about ammo, you care about your child to care about your gear. Would you just care about your pay?
Speaker 5we cared about everything, but pay was the pay was the most important thing.
Speaker 2No, no, I tell you, if you didn't, if you were anywhere. Yet no well, share me here. But let me ask you a question, though. But if you didn't have those other things, did you know life not suck? 100%.
Speaker 3So don't say that's the most important thing, because I hate to tell you, but you were always getting challenge. You were always getting ammo. No, yes, always, because they always made sure but, what.
Speaker 5I think was the one, the one thing that could get fucked up by a somebody's, but so ammo on it so
Speaker 2could you tell? I'm sure it could, because there's still some dude sitting in office or woman sitting in office mistyping number and rather, in order to thousand rations, she ordered a hundred rations we got stuck in Afghanistan for like an extra week or two because our transportation guy didn't book a damn airplane to get us home.
Speaker 5Okay, I can see that so now, so now.
Speaker 2So now, wait a minute, I can't be out to that, right? So now you have a ride home. For how many people for a week? About 60 of us, okay. So 60 at three, three squares a day, right, you're talking 320 meals per day. Time, tell me days, 10 days, seven days. Right, so you can be talking 360 meals. So if that person wasn't on their game and had them fed for a week at that, 360 meals or 420 meals depends on how many days they were there, right, that is a big f up yep. So that person was just damn as important as a person to make sure their pay was there 10 days after they got back. They weren't even eating while they were there but unfortunately, let me, let me break you're worried about child support?
Speaker 2no, let me.
Speaker 5Let me break your heart, okay. When, when you were in for the four years five years you were exactly right. Ammo and child was a big thing. When I, when I, went to Iraq, they had a fucking 24 hour, 24 7 mess hall that you could go to whenever the fuck you wanted to, and they didn't care how many troops run through it. You could run through it as many times you fucking want to do it. The ammo was in a bunker that your platoon sergeant went to. Your first sergeant said hey, we're going out on patrol and we need excellent ammo.
Speaker 5We didn't have to do it like where I'm talking about when, when me and you early on, yes, the platoon sergeant said hey, I have to have X amount of rations, I get X amount of fucking food but, but no different, but no different to yours.
Speaker 2Right, you could run through this child as many times you wanted, but that's just say they only had a thousand pounds of chicken and there was a thousand guys. They went through their head of you. You don't get chicken, no more no, you'd get state fuck.
Speaker 3You know I'm gonna suck is eating a lot of chicken.
Speaker 5But what if you got nothing? But what I'm saying, charlie, is you never did because these people, we had surf and turf every Friday because you had someone there making sure the ship was ordered. It was there for you to eat it was called KBR is called KBR got paid billions well, yeah not to fuck that up.
Speaker 2I get it because we talked about us live pop last podcast. Right, like we had. We had the locals right that were cleaning our place. Never, they were doing our shit in guitar. Right, I get what you're saying, but at the end of the day, someone still had to type something in the computer no different than your pay, right, to make sure you got paid. They still had to type in to make sure that you had the supplies that you needed, regardless if there was a hundred of you there, a thousand there, agree. If they typed in the wrong multiplier and rather than do it by a hundred, they were supposed to be doing it by a thousand, he did it by a hundred. You're still short. It's not like stuff's getting there. You know, fedex the next day, right?
Speaker 5no, I agreed, right, but KBKBR, kbr's and I don't know a lot about KBR, but they're thing was we had our fob which had X amount of soldiers on it, and you do three, three meals and then you had the, the midnight sandwiches and stuff like that, but they did all that bullshit and then times that by 10, so you were never out of food. The only time we were ever out of food, the only time we are ever hurting, is when we had to go to the field for four days and they threw us MREs in the back of a fucking Humvee that had been sat in the fucking hot ass conax melted the shit when you open the mother fuckers.
Speaker 3They were rotten yep you know other than that I was in Bosnia and I don't know Bosnia, oh yeah, dude nobody is that where you're mad ever no, nobody cares, so anyways you remember this whole shit with slobber down Milosevic and then he was a country over yeah, in the UN, the hostage first class yep, so I was there when that whole thing started and they gave the locals who worked in our child hall a choice.
Speaker 3They said either you stay on the fob, you leave, you don't come back till all. This is most of chose to leave. I'd say 98% of them left like, nope, we're going home. And boy, that was a rough three months because we didn't eat anything but MREs for three wow we became pretty some, some connoisseurs, some chefs.
Speaker 5So I'm gonna so the MRE.
Speaker 2Yep, I'm gonna do a great. This is a great segue to the MREs right. Mre so we were not so sorry. We went to the field for weeks, right? Two weeks ain't nothing but MREs, right, we get back on the bus. We're going back to base. I ain't shit in ten days, literally, I let one go. Right, it was bad.
Speaker 5I shit, you shit I haven't.
Speaker 2I haven't shit in ten days. So it's like either this is gonna be gas or this is not gonna be good, it's gonna be.
Speaker 5I gotta change my drawer.
Speaker 2I let one go. I'm watching guys roll the windows down the bus they're trying to get fresh here right, mm-hmm, I let another one go in my staff start in the front of the bus goes he's changed the smell. I'm tasting something different. That's that bad. Like you could tell the difference between the first one and the second one. He's like he's changing flavors.
Speaker 2He's changing flavors, guys are hanging their heads out the window. It was that bad, like when you have first thing we did when he got back. We always had we was, we were at the field, we made sure you had Coca-Cola. Right, you start slamming Coca-Cola when you got back to the next room oh yeah, that'll clear your system on heartbeat. If you've been packing after you've been packing two, three weeks at. My recent staff starts like it's changing flavors.
Speaker 5Is it better than me? So lack of it was bad bro.
Speaker 2It was bad. We used to take our boots right. We call them boots your private we call them boots.
Speaker 1You want?
Speaker 5to do just the other boots, right?
Speaker 2yeah, so we know he's like you know, they always try to impress you what else would you call the motherfucker other than boots?
Speaker 1they go on footwear. Go on your fucking.
Speaker 5No they call you guys they call them footwear in the Navy in the air, for so we know that's what they dance in so we'd always take the crackers, right, we'd make them do a race off.
Speaker 2See, you take two packets of the crackers you like. Whoever wins doesn't have to do duty tonight. Right, fire watch when you're in the field. These mofos are taking two packets of MRE crackers oh, no, they're the driest fucking things ever when you the big. You can't drink the big four by oh yeah, oh yeah. Big big squares. It's like four club crackers all in one square. There's two and two big.
Speaker 5Yeah, there's eight crackers.
Speaker 2They're eight of them oh they're the driest fucking things on the field. You might as well lick sand. Yeah, sand has more water, no water, no, water, no no and whoever finishes up two packets of those fuckers doesn't have to stand fire watch that night yeah, it's certain amount of time to finish it and ease it.
Speaker 2No, we would just do a race off if you had four of them saying there, right, the one guy that wins doesn't have to do fire watch that night. These guys are trying to pack them things down and they're spitting crumbs out there. They're crying for mom. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5Like it was terrible somebody pee in my mouth, somebody in my house crackers were the worst.
Speaker 2There weren't allowed to drink nothing. You know, they just had to do it raw dog, do it dry, take her dry. And you know we're sitting there to say that we're doing. We're laughing watching these guys. They're just shoveling them.
Speaker 3We're like that's not the right strategy, boys yeah, we call those the reindeer games, so that that kind of stuff. And yeah, we had, we had guys that used to they would take that damn can't. I can't think of was it milk of magnesium?
Speaker 2yeah, yeah. So it's like, yeah, like it may relax, kind of shit yeah yeah, we're, you're gonna shit oh yeah, instantly.
Speaker 3Yeah, pretty much 30 minutes right and whoever held it the longest, that's the one who won. So it would drink a bottle of that, and then whoever held it the longest. So the one thing.
Speaker 5I said you guys are fucking you guys are fucking ruthless yeah oh, that's what. That's what the boots back the only thing we did in the infantry is tea bag. Mother fuckers.
Speaker 4Okay, red bull, what's that? You never did the night calling Red Bull? No stays awake the longest that way like well in red bull no, fuck that that's new school.
Speaker 2I like that. We didn't have Red Bull back in the day. We didn't have Nas.
Speaker 5We didn't have any of that when I was in Iraq we had Tiger piss and that's what it's called in. That shit would be like no we had like those.
Speaker 2What have the eight hour, ngs, 10 hour and G's where? We're called like those shop bottles, yeah, or those five hour five hour energy. Yeah, yeah, we had those, but we didn't have them. Red Bulls monsters no, no, that's not a man. We'd. You'd pack a couple of those for you went on. Duty man, you're shaking like leaf. They were terrible, man. I had a bad experience on those things shaking like a query in a hot dog. Sorry, I can't say that the Marine Corps is part of the.
Speaker 2Navy so maybe that was the Navy this podcast is marked explicit for reasons cool thought ahead, you fuckers those are. You know the fun things we did with our boots, you know. So I was at fast. Yeah, we still, we still have a lot of games. We didn't call them reindeer games, but yeah, we definitely did talk about games, we definitely did some. Yeah, we always said you know our drilling structures.
Speaker 5They were like I'm Milton Bradley, you know gang they were.
Speaker 2I'm full of games, so to the recruits and boot camp. We'll play the games. I'm Milton Bradley, we.
Speaker 4I developed the games right this wasn't so much a game that we did, but it just made me think of it. So I had my stripes on Colorado and there's another eight. Five was in the unit and Mondays we usually get our stuff done pretty quickly, you know doing the motor pull stuff, but we had this day. This is a lunchtime. No matter what we were doing, we had to save the lunchtime. We had this guy come in. His last name was gobble and his wrong Thanksgiving time, so his actual name was gobble his actual name was gobble.
Speaker 4So we one of us was down one side multiple. No much, daniel, we go. Whoa, you have to go running. He about three cores away down the motor pool get one in the shot so it's on boot camp.
Speaker 2Right, you're a recruit in the Marine Corps, right?
Speaker 2you're not a private or anything else, right, regardless what your rank is PFC when you get out and you'd be like, oh, you recruit so-and-so needs to make a head call. The drill, sir, be like fuck off straight up, fuck off your pistol pants, I'm gonna fuck. No, sir, this recruit has to make an emergency head call. They're like I don't hear a siren, so they would literally make him run making like their estate trooper, making the fucking siren noise and shit. Hilarious dude. Oh my god, that's great. So you know. So I have to have to say this because my son was pissed off.
Speaker 6He was here yeah, I told you guys, I told you guys.
Speaker 2Last podcast my son listens podcast sees down his bedroom right. Me and the wife are sitting in the living room right watching a show. Whatever he comes in, pause it. So I pause it and I'm like what's up, dude? He was like motherfucker, I don't run a mile and a half in a little ten minutes and 30 seconds.
Speaker 2I do it in six minutes and 50 seconds, or whatever. I had to straight up, correct it. So I want to make sure that he's gonna listen to this, and I told him I was gonna say it no, it's a great segue, because he was pissed at me.
Speaker 3You should probably, I think it's. It's faster than six minutes and 50 seconds. You should, I think.
Speaker 2I just want me to say six minutes, flat five minute miles I you might want he.
Speaker 3He literally said he ran two miles, a mile and a half two miles and 11, something he said to me that I thought it was.
Speaker 2I thought it was a mile and a half and six.
Speaker 5We better call him okay no, how about he just prove it? Well, you can call him Charlie, but we, we want to sit there and watch him run a mile and a half and six minutes you know I take everybody at their word and no offense. The kid played soccer no, I know he can run and the kids. A beast. No, he is a beast.
Speaker 2I know I'm not saying he's not, he's, he's a tough kid, but he's, he's ripping the 20 some pull-ups, but we're, we're dickheads. Prove it, trust me. I'm his dad, I'm the biggest dick there is to the peanut gallery wants to say something yeah, he's, he's from my recall.
Speaker 5I want to know who is chasing her. When she was running the 1.7 probably your husband, joe.
Speaker 4You sure wasn't seven minutes when she's running me it was way after that, way, way, although she did watch me win a race, but we hadn't, officially not yet what kind of race was it?
Speaker 3okay, and you want it. When was this?
Speaker 4no 2006.
Speaker 5Joe thinks he can play basketball. I'd like to do it, but my I blow a knee or a hip, I made my post cuz I would. I would fucking turn him upside down like I did shim. All I got to do is stand by the basket. You got to come there, no, I don't, I'll come out there and push you on the ground there.
Speaker 3I don't care, I'll make it.
Speaker 2I'll trip your ass I don't care, you shut your mouth he won't make it all right, so just try to call me. Didn't answer, of course he says me the voicemail like every other millennial all right screen, it's greenest call so. I just text him tell me to call me. So I'm gonna throw him on speaker because I don't know how the Bluetooth to this podcast, but I'll throw my speaker and he can. He can yeah, we.
Speaker 3I want to make sure we get this right. I don't know, he was pretty fucking up. Hey, trust me and he come down and he he had the daggers and the eyeballs right.
Speaker 2He's like dad, I don't do it cuz, okay, okay so his name is Andrew.
Speaker 3Right, andrew, yeah, okay, so you call me Andy come all right. So just so we're clear me and so that everybody out there in the world calling boot that, andrew, not a boot, yet he didn't even recruit training. Okay, andrew slash. Andy Klein is a beast when he's running his three miles. Okay, he's running at least an 11 minute two mile, probably like a like a 13 minute three mile, right, no, no, he's, he's gonna be, like a three 13 minute, I'm gonna give him that bullshit.
Speaker 2I'm not, I'm not that dad that's gonna sugar go out tell you what?
Speaker 5I know the. He played soccer and you know that's, that's a nice girl sport. I mean, he played soccer but you run all the time.
Speaker 2So I know that he's very fit it's like cheerleading is a sport, right?
Speaker 5yeah he's very fit and I know he played, I know he played football, I know he played football and he was a DB and he was on the kick off. Kick return, yeah, in the kick off, kick off, kick off and he was a gunner and he outrun every motherfucker on the field so I'm guessing.
Speaker 2I'm guessing. Here's the deal is deal. I'm his dad. I'm never gonna sugarcourt anything. I'm not gonna tell you my kids anybody, and he is no different than anybody else. I was mistaken. He told me he run like a mile and a half and like 650 to 630 that's a limping running record.
Speaker 2That's what he's telling me. I can't tell you it's truth or not, I just tell you what he tells me. I think that's a little fast from what he's saying. And he tells me he was kind of on cruise control. If he calls me back I'll let him tell everybody what it is, and then there's no sugarcoat, because it's him saying what he says. I'll put him on speaker form how tall is he, he's damn near six foot, maybe six, one, six.
Speaker 5I'm gonna he's.
Speaker 2He's taller than me six, one and I'm like five eleven five.
Speaker 5Well, joe's taller new, no, you know, he's six one.
Speaker 2If he's on his tip toes Joe's telling me usually he's on his knees, though my wife will definitely tell you, I'm all six foot. I had a soldier, he was about six one maybe six.
Speaker 3Two, and his name was Eric Vaughn. Hopefully here's one day my real name's gonna be anaconda, this kid was a afro. This kid would run a mile in five minutes and run a two mile in about 11 minutes then why is he running the Olympics? Man listen he would smoke a cigarette before he did this and then smoke a cigarette right after. Like he was just naturally gifted, could run like a, like an antelope then why didn't he go into the Olympics?
Speaker 5why did he go in their fucking army man?
Speaker 3because he liked drugs too much okay, all right.
Speaker 2All right. So I just found out why he didn't answer my phone call. He's at work oh, okay so I just had to check his family. Is that he's? Begging his girlfriend now he's a lifeguard right, so he was legit as a kid we have a lifeguard where at the water?
Speaker 5park there's the San.
Speaker 2Diego casino water park. So as a kid we had a program it's called the Pacer program. Here I'm up by the so it's a club level competitive swim team. Right, don't bring anybody that can actually swim, but but they would pair kids, you know, based on their abilities and they make relays and all stuff. So he was actually a state level competitor. You swam in states and they won states. They were like first place, you know, in a four-man relay. So like what you watching Olympics? Right guy gets in, does freestyle, next guy gets in, does butterfly, next his back.
Speaker 2That says butterfly right right, he was on a relay team that won. States though that he was. He's that good of a swimmer, right, so I'm not worried about him as far as qualifying at the boot camp, right yeah he's. He's a fish. His sister was same way our daughter. She got scholarships to college for swimming for being a fish.
Speaker 2She could have gone to school for free to be a fish the fucking swim, right, yeah, and turn them down. And they were, like you know, division two, that she wasn't, you know gonna swim Michigan or Illinois or whatever, right, but she would swim at, you know, the Grand Valleys, or?
Speaker 2William and Mary or was she wanted to go up in the North country. Yeah, so, and, which is a blessing, because she met her husband. I love the guy that right then, ben's a great dude. But long story short, our kids are in their mom. Jen right, lady Jen is was. She was a competitive swimmer as a kid, really. And yeah, no, yeah, jen was a hell of a swimmer sister. Same thing, they went through the same program. So anyways, yeah, so he's, he's a, he's a lifeguard for the water park. So I just checked the family calendar and that's where he's at, so he'll be out in, you know, half hour, 45 minutes. So probably give us a call if when he when he sees this. But so what was you?
Speaker 5good at me, you was no good at grammar okay, so how will we move?
Speaker 2on now, should I?
Speaker 5should I tell you what?
Speaker 2I was actually good as a kid, or should I tell you the BS story?
Speaker 5yeah, never mind.
Speaker 2I was good at quiff.
Speaker 5I knew it. I knew he's going there that's.
Speaker 2That's the BS story. So I played football at my buzz, my school baseball probably a safety so yeah, defensive back actually. Db corner safety and then on the offense wide receiver, wide receiver, and then I play third base.
Speaker 5So I was on the all-star team. Well, I can see you doing the wide receiver thing.
Speaker 2So I was always. I was always called the fearless kid right growing up. So you know I played third base, play church stop. And then Kyle pickin Scott pickings he was actually Scotty was a bullpen catcher for the Detroit Tigers yep yep, but no, all about him.
Speaker 2So my brother, my wife's sister, katie she married Sean Kerry. It's mom and dad own a radio station here in town graduated with Scotty. I would back up catch for Scott when we were younger and it being a bullpen catcher for the Tigers, so he'd go down to a game and there's Scotty right warming up catchers and shit awesome. And he actually caught for Brandon Ninge. Brandon Ninge pitched in an all-star game during the homerun derby and it's got a little yeah they actually actually travel together?
Speaker 2yeah, so when they got paired in rooms when they were traveling, those two were together. So when, when the Tigers around the road Brandon Ninge so did you and Scotty Scotty were.
Speaker 5Did you catch playing baseball or third base?
Speaker 2I backed.
Speaker 5I was primarily third base and would back up catch if needed in high school see, when I, when I played in high school little league, pony league, peewee league, and I think I don't know if you remember it we were at Murphy's and Jerry Williams come up and said hey, he was our catcher. I always caught, played a little upfield, played a little right field, so so what?
Speaker 2if I was, I was pretty fearless. That's why I played third base right. It's where all the hot balls go third base in church, in church step okay third base is not fearless, it's stupid. Well, okay, you're. You're playing up in the grass in a ball yeah you're just 100 miles an
Speaker 2hour, you're just no different than a shortstop right you're just. You got to be on your hand up there you gotta be willing to take one to the face. Yep, yep, right, so you're pretty fearless. So the guy that I would be as a kid, right all through, you know, point of league, farm league, all the stuff, right, kind of back up if we're on the same team, and those leagues with Scottie.
Speaker 2And this guy was that good that he became a bullpen catcher yeah, that's pretty cool so unless he was having an off day or wasn't feeling good or his knees hurt or back hurt or whatever was going on, would I ever put pads on. I mean, he was that good as a catcher? Yeah, the ball never. But you have to have a guy that's fearless, because every pitch is getting thrown to you. It could get tipped, it could get this, it could get that. So you got to be pretty fearless back there at the plate and it takes a special kind of f'd up to stand there. Yes, regardless of how much gear you got on and take something to the face or take something to the arm or whatever, right, it's not being protected by a pad, right, right?
Speaker 4that's a nice guy with the bats.
Speaker 5Yeah, in the bat you the whole. I mean you gotta be all right.
Speaker 2So I mean you, you, you have to be even crazier to be a catcher right. I, you had to be good at what you didn't and have the fundamentals, and he had the fundamental. I mean that's the reason why he got to where he got at right, because he was good but he wasn't like pro level.
Speaker 5Good, he was, all he was he was pro enough.
Speaker 2He was getting paid by the Tigers well, but when he played and he caught an all-star game, right what?
Speaker 5I'm saying is he wasn't. He wasn't good enough to be a standard rotation. Be on a pro level, but, but I need to tell you.
Speaker 2I mean, would you say I'm not at the pro level? I'm on the practice squad of the Lions. No, no you're still on the lines right, so so if you're a if you're a ball pen catcher for the Tigers, still a pro level. You're still kid. You're still wearing the uniform right. You're still traveling with the team.
Speaker 1You're still doing all the shit you're still getting paid by the Tigers.
Speaker 2Yeah, regardless of whether practice squad for the.
Speaker 4Lions by our escows, you're paying.
Speaker 2Paid by the Tigers, right well, right, but I mean, but I mean you get, I'm saying, yeah, maybe he didn't make the full league right, but you're still good enough to want to be a guy, because I'm sure which I guess I could ask, but I'm sure, at some level, if whatever their catcher went down and they had to bring somebody in, that's probably who they're gonna bring in, because he knows the pitchers, he knows the things. That's why they haven't. So it's like the end I shall, yeah.
Speaker 5I watched so he'd be like a four string catcher.
Speaker 2I watched a tic-tac video. There's a guy from you know. I don't know if it's it was like. Montreal or whatever.
Speaker 2Right, he's like the guy that's sweeping the ice on the Zamboni, but he was also the emergency gold tender and then, yeah, then he had to come in and play for, like, the Miami Hurricanes and he's like from Montreal, yeah, they're playing Montreal, but they brought him in to be the emergency goaltender because there are other two goaltenders, yeah, yeah, and this guy comes in like shuts out his home team, right, so he's not necessarily on the team, but got brought into the team because of injuries or whatever. So he would have done the same thing. I mean, he was legit, he was no, I'm not saying.
Speaker 2I'm not saying he wasn't, no, no, I know you're not doing that, but what I'm saying is like you're still at that level where, if you were brought in as an emergency and I'm sure he could have been Right like, hey, we're gonna put this guy in the IRL or whatever right, and then this guy got injured and we could bring this guy in. So I'm sure that's what happens.
Speaker 5So, charlie, when you caught, you were a cup.
Speaker 2No, you don't wear cups and we didn't even have knee savers back then. So there's a knee saver which was like a wedge.
Speaker 5No, I know what they knew. Oh, you're talking about the one behind.
Speaker 2It was behind your knee right, so that way when you squatted down, it kind of it was like a wedge. Yeah, so help hold you up. So there's a guy's name is iron right.
Speaker 5There's, I'm going, I'm going.
Speaker 3Tim was thinking about the knee pads. No, I'm going somewhere.
Speaker 2There are, so when I'm the back of your knee, not the front, yeah, when I uh, when.
Speaker 5I totally different when I played in in junior high, high school and all that. I Didn't wear a cup Because it restricted me, because I couldn't fit it all. I couldn't fit it all in that little.
Speaker 2I tried out a three out three XL cup and it still didn't fit bingo, so the cups didn't even matter, so I knew I was destined for that. No, at that point.
Speaker 5So so I I'm catching right bull shit over there. I'm catching in my coach. My coach come up and he's like, hey, you got your job. And I'm like, yeah, I'm wearing it. He goes, you got your cup. And I'm like, yep, he goes. Where is it? I'm like he's like you need to put that shit in there. I was like, no, it's not that big a fucking deal. Well, I took a foul ball. You love this tray. I took a foul ball off the back of the fucking plate, came right up, hit me in the dingleberries and I just fell over. Boop, you a catcher, I was a catcher.
Speaker 3Oh, you should have been wearing a cup.
Speaker 5I just fell over and my coach run out there and he's like you, okay? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm okay. So he grabbed, he takes his hands, puts it inside my my. I Probably could have sued him for sexual abuse, but he put my hands inside my, my pants, and he Just jerked me. So my, my fucking nuts are going Bah, bah, bah, coming back up where they should be because they were like up by my ear lobes. So he calls you know, of course there's time out. And he, I'm rolling around and he's like you, dumbass, didn't you wear the cup? And I'm like well, no, I don't like it, it's uncomfortable. He's like here, I'm like oh, put that shit out there.
Speaker 5Put that, put that fucking cup in there, and then I went on to play the rest of the game. But as a catcher, if you're a catcher, your son's a catcher, anybody you know as a catcher, wear a cup.
Speaker 7How many kids do you have? That didn't cause me the lasting damage did it?
Speaker 5No, I have one kid and then I got snipped because I told my ex-wife that I'm gonna be done now because I'm not gonna pay child support on 1,400 kids, because all we like to do is screw and we're gonna be divorced in a year.
Speaker 7So Like a bunny huh.
Speaker 3Smart man, smart man.
Speaker 5So oh go ahead. Can I? Can I throw her out there?
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5All right. So here we go. All right, the clerk. We all talked about the clerk, right? You know, that's what. I've changed my road name. Yeah, you should be the clerk. Ah, so we got the clerk and the clerk. He was a finance guy and we love him. We love him more than Then we like his buddy sham, but anyway, we love him and he. Uh, why are we hitting on shem tonight? Because I hate on shem every night. But so he. He worked for the United Nations. He worked in Poland. Nato, nato, sorry, yep, isn't. Isn't that the same thing? No, no no nation's different.
Speaker 5Okay, he worked for NATO and he meant this gorgeous, beautiful young lady named Eva, and and she is here tonight with us. She, just, she just popped in, she, she, through, shem, earth, shem. She threw trade tax and said where are you, hooker, because I want to know where you're at. And then she just showed up.
Speaker 3That's pretty much what it is. I invited her up here because I want to know I wasn't up here banging a.
Speaker 5Joe Joe. Charlie or you or me, so so she's here. She's here, and AJ Skylone. So she's up here and she's sat around and and listen to the podcast and and everybody say welcome, welcome, young lady.
Speaker 3We're trying to get her to join the riders group when she gets back to Michigan, but she wants she wants her own bike.
Speaker 5She should the way you listen. She should the way you ride clutch.
Speaker 2Isn't there a V-Rod sitting around somewhere?
Speaker 4You're gonna get his point of trouble.
Speaker 5Yeah, you're in trouble.
Speaker 3So anyways, no, she wants an electric bike, go in, go in.
Speaker 4What I thought. Mine was quiet. I guess I won't be the quietest, like no.
Speaker 5No loud bikes. Save lives. You got to have gas. No electric, no one will know you're there. No pull out front of you and you get run over and dead.
Speaker 3No, no, no, no, no. Okay, listen, I agree about the cars. Motorcycle that's a completely different story.
Speaker 5The car I could see because it's bigger, bigger platform, but a motorcycle if they can't hear you, they can't see you.
Speaker 7It reminds me like it was hilarious little while after, you know, the electric vehicles started becoming a thing they had. They had to start putting.
Speaker 2Ingenuinen's.
Speaker 7Ingenuinen's, so that the blind, like any blind people trying to cross the street, would know that there was a car. Come on, or just you know Even point just drive a gas car or even, or even bicyclists.
Speaker 4Right, totally get it, you imagine, when NASCAR finally goes electric. It's a quiet, quiet race.
Speaker 2You know it's like, hey, we got a 45 minute intersession while everybody pit stops to recharge. I remember they got the superchargers, but it's gonna take 45 minutes, so we're gonna take a long commercial break yeah.
Speaker 7I remember when I was a kid, you know, daytona 500 on TV and they made this huge thing about. You know, turn up your TV now, just as the cars would go by and they'd give you the the pure, like HD sound of the engines. You know, can you imagine that happening when they all go electric? Turn it up now.
Speaker 3So so ladies and I, those electric motorcycles, those electric motorcycles have about 80 to 90 mile range. Yeah, they don't have it.
Speaker 2No dependent on the freeway speeds right, right, yeah, yeah and listen.
Speaker 3We cannot. Supposing, supposing there's an infrastructure, okay, supposing there's the infrastructure there for for the electric bike.
Speaker 5Electric bike.
Speaker 3Yeah, so posing there is because that's few and far between where we're riding out there in the middle of nowhere. It's hard to. Then we got to wait 30, 45 minutes.
Speaker 2Drill, let me let me say this real quick. So Viper and I right Sean and our riders group Right. We go out to Vegas for the national NDA dire tournament trips out there. So we rent bikes while we're out there and the guy that I rented my bike from it was a 16 street glide, so very similar to what I ride. I ride a street glide, but not that new. He actually rents and and rides a electric Live wire. They call it through Harley. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2Yeah, and he rides it, but he still rents it, right. So someone wants to rent it when they're out there on a trip, right, He'll rent it out. He says it's trash. And I can say the guy's name because I do know it and he works at the Harley shop but doesn't run along the side of course it's trash and he says the same thing.
Speaker 2So like it'll say he has 280 miles when he charges it in the garage, he hops on the highway to get to the dealership and it goes from 280 to 130 Because he's riding highway speeds, right and he goes. I should be able to charge it Once a week. So depending on the way that he goes, depends on how often he has to charge it and a good friend of mine owns lots of breweries and and restaurants and bars here in my pleasant bought the Ford Lightning, which is the Ford fully electric after 50 pickup truck.
Speaker 2Same thing. He'll charge it his house. And as a plumber I do all his work, my company does all his work for his breweries, distilleries, all shit. Right, said the same thing. Like you know, tell me I have 380 miles to go and they goes. I go to Detroit when I have to charge it because they'll tell me I got 380.
Speaker 2So, like Detroit, from here, from my pleasant's, you know, 180 miles yeah but, second, he hops on the highway and he gets up to 80 miles an hour. And he's like four miles off the highway here in my pleasant right you go straight to. You know 180 miles, that's all you get. So he's like I barely get to Detroit.
Speaker 5I have to charge it and how long does it does?
Speaker 2it has to set the recharge, Well so, depending on if he has the superchargers right, like we have here at coin I have superchargers it can charge your battery faster and he can sit there and and I don't, I don't know what. And I have another friend that owns an internet Conglomerate right, all the fiber, all the stuff. He's huge into anything, technology, he, absolutely he has the, you know the Tesla's, he has the new Hummer, that's whatever all and he'll. He'll race him. He'll go down to a drag strip South of here and he'll race against any fucking thing into the Hummer and whoop their ass. And I 100% agree right, like electric, you, you push the pedal. It goes zero to 100. Right now you have full power. The second you hit the, you hit the pedal. Whatever it's got, it's got. There's no lag, no, nothing like there is with fuel. My issue is and as a business owner, if I could put my guys and work trucks that were electric, I'd probably do it how long does it take to charge?
Speaker 5them.
Speaker 2Well, but but they could all bring them back here to the shop and they could charge them all night.
Speaker 5I'm talking about out on the road.
Speaker 3We're okay, I can, I can answer this this is the downfall right.
Speaker 2So if they're hauling loads and and they have to drive tons of miles a day which most of my farm and do that take our trucks, hmm, they're probably not gonna get it. They got to go home. They got a plug him in.
Speaker 4I did see a little while ago that they're supposedly supposed to rolling out roads, that Azure driving charges them. Listen, I can, I can answer. I can answer roads, yeah, I can answer this question.
Speaker 3My. So my wife has an electric car, she has an electric Mustang.
Speaker 2Is that the my key? Is that the my key? Yeah, yeah, ford or my key. Yes, I want my wife to actually get that.
Speaker 3Listen, when, when she, when she comes back, when she comes back here, I'm gonna take you for a ride. It's gonna listen.
Speaker 4No, it'll change the fastest car.
Speaker 3I've ever been in in my life this is my friend's Mustang on the Autobahn.
Speaker 5I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a boat fast dude.
Speaker 3Listen, I'm a boat. Rip your face off now. What, what she? What she does is she? Most people, what they do is they drive to a car, they drive to work and they drive home Yep. She plugs it in at home, it's charged up by the morning.
Speaker 5But she rips my face off.
Speaker 3Children won't make it home because you run our over, told We've driven it from northern Florida down to Miami before we had to make a couple of stops. It takes what? 20 minutes? 20 minutes? Yeah 20 minutes to charge it to 80%, and then we can continue on our journey 20 minutes 20 minutes. How long does it take to gas up five? Go there, gas up, scratch your nuts. You got to go in get some water or get some, take a piss, whatever, and you know.
Speaker 2I'm not gonna say what she said, but it's a it's it.
Speaker 3depending on the infrastructure, it's not a bad deal.
Speaker 5It's really not what. We don't have the infrastructure.
Speaker 2So let me ask you a question. She has a monkey. Yes, yes what does she pay for registration every year? How much For, like when you, when you, when you get your license plate tabs? Okay, so what I want to know? Here's a gig with in Michigan.
Speaker 5Okay, but what I? Want to know is how come if they're not using gas, why are they on our roads? Because our gas tax.
Speaker 2Right so this is a problem.
Speaker 5That is a problem.
Speaker 3This is what I was gonna say.
Speaker 2So I have.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I got you. I have two friends that have, you know three to four electric vehicles amongst two friends. One is a hundred percent all about the electric. One is on the fence, like I'm on the fence right, like I wanted my wife to get the Mikey. I love it. My sister was worked for Ford salesperson. I love the car Like it would be great for her to have, be great for her to have, so for her GMC. You come right. It's like 300 dollars a year for registration.
Speaker 3So my buddy that has his Humvee, or my other buddy, this guy's lightning and he's got, he's got that the one Humvee that drives around my pleasant to white.
Speaker 2We will definitely have a conversation later. I want to do it on this podcast. All right, I have a conversation because we might be talking about the same guy. He has that property that one.
Speaker 5We're not throwing nobody under, I'm just not gonna do it.
Speaker 2I'm not gonna do it on here, but we'll have a conversation. But so what I've heard is Say the normal. You know you have a 60,000 dollar car. It's gonna be 300 dollars a year, like my wife's right. So his is like 1200 or 1400 a year Because he's not paying the fuel tax to fix the roads. So what the state of Michigan has done is up did to compensate for you not fueling up because when you go to the gas station You're paying a road tax or fuel tax that tax, all the bullshit's like 16 cents a gallon or 29 cents a gallon or whatever it is.
Speaker 2So they just figure some sort of a nominally number to it and If you have an all-electric vehicle, they just add that to it, right for your registration. Maybe Florida does it, doesn't do it, I don't know. I mean, you guys get they get more sun down there than we do up here. I have no idea. Like you're figuring, you have solar panels, I I don't know.
Speaker 2Right right but at the end of the day, I mean, that's obviously a major expense, right like hey, here's happy birthday. You have a car registered your name. Your birthday comes up in February. Here's a bill to re-register your car.
Speaker 2That's $500. You know what I mean. Like Now, all of a sudden you're looking at you know you go from $300 to register a car to 1100 to register a car Right, because you're not, because you're not right, and then whatever cost you to charge your car which I, which I get the smart charges they only do it at night, they do it off peak hours and there's all these different things. Like I get it, but it's so new I don't know. So like my house, my house my grandparents built in 57. I have a hundred amp service in my house. I Could not charge a car in my house without upgrading the entire house to a 200 amp or 300 service.
Speaker 3No, the issue for sure.
Speaker 2No, because I can't plug it into 110. No, listen, and not taking 44 days right, I can't remember.
Speaker 3I have them. It's the same as a dryer. The same as a dryer.
Speaker 2Yeah, 222, 220 yeah, it's 220, so I'd have to convert my dryer, my house, to gas? No, I would, because I only have a hundred amp service.
Speaker 3Everything is a hundred amp.
Speaker 2Yes, I only have a hundred amps the most he has is a so if my wife plugged her car in the rest of my house, half my house would not have power right, you see. I'm saying so.
Speaker 3You have to look at what that much though it wouldn't be that much to upgrade that.
Speaker 2No, yeah, it might cost me eight grand.
Speaker 3No, no, no way. I bet you would no.
Speaker 5To bring in a whole 200 amp service from the ball from the ball.
Speaker 2Upgrade my meter up grade meter.
Speaker 5Then you got a bunch of douche bag Put a new back. Sure then it inspectors that come in, then I gotta pull another.
Speaker 2Yeah, then I got a pull line from the meter into the house, line into the house that upgrades the service, and then you have to put the panel in the electrician, upgrade the panel and all the other shit.
Speaker 3No, I just this is. I had to change out the the meters at one of my properties, had to change out the meter and everything. Everything, okay, grade the service.
Speaker 2So here's, here's a good, here's a gig to grand I'm. I'll get a quote. I'll get a quote to put a Charger in my garage and I'll call licensed electrician. They'll pull the proper permits and do all the things. I Will pay up to a thousand dollars. Everything above that you'll pay and I'll go electric.
Speaker 3I don't know about that.
Speaker 2Well, if it's not, that expensive for the average American to do, why wouldn't you want to take it?
Speaker 5I want to.
Speaker 2I want to know why, if it's not, I'll pay the first thousand bucks, brother.
Speaker 5I want to know why the rest if?
Speaker 2it's not that much. I want to know why there's a difference little horsey horsies it's cheaper for me to pay the tax on the road
Speaker 5and shit all over the place. Why ain't they paying, fucking?
Speaker 3You know, I saw highway check listen, I saw a meme the other day. Right, I'm gonna become Amish. I.
Speaker 5Think I am too.
Speaker 2Well.
Speaker 5I'm gonna pretend like I'm a mish and I'm gonna bang everybody.
Speaker 2I kid maybe, maybe this building is gonna become an Amish church.
Speaker 5Well, listen bingo. Aj, aj, skylone slash I'm a church and I'll be, I'll be professor, I'm not a quack. Oh, that's, that's Iraq. Never mind, that's guys.
Speaker 3We're going off the rails here.
Speaker 5I'm a crazy, crazy too many, too many drinks. No, but it's the same thing, man, all these people that are they're able to use the roads but not pay the road tax, because I want to see if I could, if I save this meme, because well.
Speaker 2So actually the state of Michigan actually talked about turning I 75, the 69s, m20s in the toll roads. They actually thought about that. So gradual it might right when she wanted to fix, fix the damn roads and I think that's wrong as six guys, because if I do that then I shouldn't have to pay, but that was but that was the point, though. She was gonna take away the state road tax off the gallon of fuel.
Speaker 2So the more you drive, the more you pay. That was part of her, her gig that she wanted to do, but she was gonna put up the scanners that scans your license plates. So Bay City, right, which my parents had a boat at forever right since I was a kid, they did the same thing. So all those roads, except for the state highway, all the private bridges that the city of Bay City has Now scan your license plates and they'll send you a bill for going across the bridge for upkeep maintenance. So the Liberty Bridge, the you know all the different ones, right like. We've rode over there to different stuff, tim, but we always cross the straight, the, the state bridge. So we don't, we don't have to pay for it.
Speaker 7So a couple of things here. I just looked it up. Number one Michigan has an electric vehicle tax and it's hundred dollars for all electric vehicles under 8,000 pounds and 30 dollars for plug-in hybrids under 8,000 pounds. So as of 2023, that was about a hundred and forty dollars a year for an electric vehicle Driver plus what your vehicle yeah, plus your, plus your normal registration.
Speaker 2Normal registration. So if you had a 280 dollar registration, you're gonna pay plus 120, 130, whatever it is and that's it right, and that's and that's it.
Speaker 5Okay, but I pay a hundred. Well, I don't because I'm a hundred percent disabled, but if I had to pay, I'd pay $225 for my, for my registration, and then I would have to pay tax Every flipping time I got a full tank of gas. That's bullshit. That's what they do what they do?
Speaker 2is they figure what the state road tax is based on 16 cents a gallon, or?
Speaker 4nine cents a gallon. They probably do it based on the average.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's just an average based on how much your vehicle weighs.
Speaker 3Tim, they got thirty thousand dollar electric vehicles. Go ahead, brother, listen, I saw a meme. I saw a meme the other day.
Speaker 5Look at you, I ain't going electric where it was it was.
Speaker 3It was it was drill, baby drill it was a horse, a horse, and carriage, and then electric or not electric, but a but a Gas powered vehicle right and and the horse. The horse and carriage was saying, oh, what are you gonna do with that gas powered vehicle? You're not gonna find gas anywhere. The infrastructure is not there. Da, da, da, da. Yeah, this is all new. In in time, trust me, everything's gonna be electric.
Speaker 5So the problem over and okay, so in time it can be, but right now Don't force me to do.
Speaker 2Don't force it.
Speaker 3No one's forcing it. I mean California will but not Michigan yet, so so wait a minute.
Speaker 2So one of the things that gets brought up. Right, I'm a plumbing and mechanical contractor. The city of Ann Arbor Will not allow you if you do a new build there, will not allow you. You put a gas dryer, a gas furnace, a grass stove, nothing in your building. So if you build a new home, you remodel your apartment condo, whatever the fuck you own, will not allow you to put anything that's got gas in it. In it you have to go all electric and they're trying to make that statewide. So here's deal, if they make any sense.
Speaker 2So wait a minute. So if they make that statewide, the only thing I can tell you right now Save your pennies. Whatever you have for a dryer, stove, furnace, boiler, whatever you got, go on by six of them, motherfuckers. Put them in your garage, put them in your shed, put them in your attic, whatever basement, whatever you got, because you will not be able to put them in by a licensed contractor in San Michigan. They want everything to go to electric and I wanted, wanted to talk.
Speaker 2No, sir, I'll let Tim get this off his chest. When I, when I, when I go to meetings, right, and we have people at high levels that come to our meetings and tell us what's going on in San Michigan, it's legit. So, like I got buddies, you know, living Massachusetts. They still burn oil, fuel oil. So what would have fucked? Burns fuel oil.
Speaker 3So why it up?
Speaker 2because they don't have natural gas out there.
Speaker 3There's people here in Michigan, right here in central Michigan, they're using wood stoves absolutely wood boiler.
Speaker 2If I could do a wood boiler In the city of my pleasant, I would have a wood boiler but that mother fuckers are gonna come down and say oh, you got to do the electric so I can't do a wood stove.
Speaker 5Oh, because?
Speaker 1no, the smoke.
Speaker 5You can't do a wood stove, because then the insurance won't cover you, and then you have smoke, smoke.
Speaker 2That's the smoke on your neighbors. That's why you can't in the city of my pleasant Fuck these people. No, you can't here's.
Speaker 7Here's a couple of things I wanted to point out to you, since we were talking about, you know, the gas tax and everything else. So, according to the SWMPC, which is the southwest michigan planning commission, which is for barian, cast and van buren counties, they put out a little pamphlet Talking about what our state gas tax is From michigan. Michigan charges 19 cents per gallon on gas. Okay, and here's the thing I totally get, you know, electric vehicles paying more and everything, because that's fair. But here's the problem that I have If it's for gas to, if it's the gas tax, it should go for fucking transportation period. And this pamphlet right here and you can see it, I mean the people here can see it but it says 20 cents Out of every gallon of gas sold goes to schools and local government and only 6.7 percent, or, excuse me, 6.7 cents goes to m dot and county roads.
Speaker 2So so this is the problem. That's a lot of horseshit.
Speaker 7So this is the problem.
Speaker 2Right, you go. You go buy a lottery ticket. They go buy a lottery ticket power five or whatever the right. It's all for schools.
Speaker 6What do they tell you? It's all for schools. Yeah, so this goes to the county.
Speaker 2So this goes to, goes to show you. At the end of the day, they'll tell you one thing. It's like don't see behind the man behind the curtain, right, exactly, the wooden wizard of Oz. Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain, right, right, because you're gonna pay all this tax that's supposed to fix the fucking roads.
Speaker 7It doesn't fix the fucking roads and ask any long-haul trucker what state that they hate the most, when they're on the road besides california. It's gonna be michigan. You're driving in ohio Wisconsin.
Speaker 5I 94 I 94.
Speaker 7Great roads down there. The minute you hit the michigan line it turns to shit.
Speaker 5I 94 is the highway of death.
Speaker 2Here's the problem. Here's the problem At the end of the day. If you actually had people that tell you you legitimately what the money goes for and they use the money legitimately what it should be for, right, I don't care that you charge me 19 cents a gallon or 16 cents a gallon for the roads. Put it to the fucking roads.
Speaker 7Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3I have no problem with being taxed if it's used for good purposes.
Speaker 2But I give, but Right, so. So give me six cents to the roads and give me nine cents to something else. Right, and still make 16 cents. Right, charge me somewhere else, put it on the fucking sales tax and put it to teachers in the schools or whatever else. That's fine, I don't have a problem paying it. But if you're gonna charge me it, put it to what the fuck it's supposed to go, and that's the other thing. We already pay.
Speaker 7We already pay property taxes, which, in most areas of the state, is where your local school districts get their funding At least some of it so why is additional school funding coming from somewhere else? Gas tax like that is such an obscure, random thing.
Speaker 2And then, and then you want to say fix the damn roads. And your slogan yeah, it's gas tax.
Speaker 3Look.
Speaker 7Well, lottery too, but you know, it's lottery all of it's supposed to go to schools.
Speaker 2No well, I don't know if it's all supposed to go, but they always say when they started it out they said I know machine lottery about about half and and and and the, the swp mc I think I just said their name right.
Speaker 7They're quoted on this pamphlet of saying about half the state tax on gasoline goes to schools and local governments, not to transportation.
Speaker 5So should all go to. It should all go. If I'm paying for gas tax, it should go for my roads.
Speaker 7So wait a minute. Yeah, an infrastructure for the roads. Our bridges in michigan are Horrible.
Speaker 2I'm gonna say this real quick and I'm probably gonna be an amily guy, maybe, maybe, not right. So we pay private tax to isabella county let's just say houses or whatever else. They turn 100 over to the state and then they get back A portion of what they should get. So they get a hundred percent isabella county and they're gonna get 40 percent back. Why doesn't isabella county just hold the 40 percent and only send 60 percent up the chain?
Speaker 7Yeah, why not simplify it?
Speaker 2Well, what happens is what happens is isabella county will send 100 up the chain and they'll get 22 percent back Because the state deems they need to hold some back.
Speaker 5Okay, hold on hold, on real quick. This will be a great perspective. Hold on, yes, hold on. And I want to throw this out there Charlie, charlie, trey postmembers, joe gates, brenton, holger, uh whole brick same way.
Speaker 2Last whole brick. Charlie clad, that's not my name.
Speaker 5It's smith, oh, charlie smith. And we all agree that the most important thing about some of these podcasts is the, the aspects that comes from the people, the significant others. I mean, like Brenton, might have a boyfriend and a girlfriend. I don't know, I don't know, but don't say that his wife, as much you might get upset. Yeah, so, um, but the important thing about it is right now. Right now, we have two, two significant others. We have the backpack, miss phoenix, who's joe gates, his wife, and she's over there playing on her phone, being very good and quiet. She's in the far ones, yep. And now we, now I think it's important with, uh, with trey porter, the clerk, love you the clerk, um, his, his wife is here and, ta-da, she's from poland. She is from poland, she's, she's from a whole different program and she's come to this country. What's this gonna give us? A great perspective? And give us a great perspective because she's from poland, she's, she's from a different different.
Speaker 3Well they, they were a communist country, you know, up until 1989.
Speaker 8Absolutely and 89.
Speaker 3Yeah, 1989.
Speaker 5Yeah, when when they broke apart, when everything broke apart? Uh, because I went to latvia, I went to lithuania. Yep, I was the first Yep. All beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful women. Yes, yes, ugly man, beautiful women. Okay so, but I, I would 100 percent and this is something me and charlie talked about Is we want, we want the spouses, we want the supporters, we want them on this podcast, we want?
Speaker 2for sure, because we want an outside perspective of what's going on. Right, that's right, it's.
Speaker 5It's great when you have someone from a totally different culture, totally different culture we're talking about electric vehicles.
Speaker 2We're talking about the way things are here in america. She's gonna bring a real world world perspective of the way her country is especially as far as like transportation and infrastructure.
Speaker 8I love their high speed rail out, but but wait a minute, wait a minute, I just want to say one thing whenever I drive on highway here, guys, you gotta speed the hell up. I am sorry, but 70 miles per hour like.
Speaker 5Honey, we don't have their autobahn, Okay.
Speaker 7You think that's bad? Hawaii's speed limit is 55.
Speaker 8I know like, how is that even like working those? Those people are just standing in the place.
Speaker 6Not even moving like no, that's the first thing you you got to speed the hell up Okay.
Speaker 8That is one thing. Another thing is like you are all arguing about taxes and electric vehicles and stuff, guess what. It doesn't really matter, we are all being screwed up. Okay, whether it's gas money, lottery money, it does not matter, it goes where you don't want it to go and guess what? It's like that everywhere. But in europe we pay less taxes that you guys pay here, and I got my education for free and you're a doctor and she's a.
Speaker 2She's a doctor like an md doctor md.
Speaker 3Yes, right, right, yes, yes, yes, she's yes I.
Speaker 5I tray broke his hand when he t-boned somebody and over the phone she was like yeah, that's, that bitch is both. That bitch is broke. That bitch is broke. I know you don't have to go to the hospital, I can tell right now that bitch is broke.
Speaker 8I think I use better language than that. Maybe they didn't. I'm saying is we just need to find a way To spend that money better, because, guess what? All of those kids, they need better education.
Speaker 7No we we hear right, absolutely. I mean, I can tell you right now like I got my education through the gi bill, as most of us did. Okay, um, but if you pay attention to the paperwork that they send you at the end of your semesters, it will tell you how much that they paid for you to go, and I did one whole year, um, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in health administration and one whole year Was. I think it ended up being, uh, 26,000 dollars, right?
Speaker 8Yeah, yeah and uh, most of my kids, my kids, my friends that uh graduated here in the us. They are down in like three 400,000 dollars in debt. Just starting out, just starting out.
Speaker 5Okay, so young lady, um, so how does, how does that whole process work in poland? Well, how do? How do, how do you get to where that you can do?
Speaker 8so you, you cannot do anything for free. Uh, you know how, here you go to high school and you have uh like finals after high school.
Speaker 8We have same thing in here and in poland and uh, based on your score, you can apply to Any university you want to apply to, and you might not get what you want to do. You might not Not get medical school for free, but if you don't get that one for free, you're going to be able to do something else. So, either way, you're going to get some kind of education for free, and it's not really for free. Free, we know that we pay those taxes to get our kids education.
Speaker 8But everybody kind of understands that that's the way it goes. We pay all of those taxes on our cars, on our businesses, roads, gas, anything we buy, but it goes into. Just part of that goes into education. So your kids can actually, if they are working hard. They can be lawyers even if you don't make money.
Speaker 2They can be doctors even if you don't make money so I guess I want to ask this question so Essentially, at the end of the day, right here in america we in college right which Might relate to what you did in poland Do you have classes that are like music majors or Things that here, right, we have. We have kids that go to cmu here in malpasad and they're going to be a music major, probably will never get a job.
Speaker 2In that major teaching music Because there's only so many band directors or whatever. So they're going to go to, they're going to go to university and they're going to get a degree in that could literally never, ever work in Because there's so few of yeah, but also the government Indicates how many spots each university in each major has.
Speaker 8So if we don't need, 30 000 doctors. Right, we're only going to make 20 000 spots. If we don't need 20 000 music teachers, we we're only going to make 5 000 music teachers. Okay, so this is a problem here in america.
Speaker 2Right, we'll literally teach kids a course in basket weaving. Yes and and that's a terrible thing to say because you hear it all the time- underwater. Underwater basket weaving that's what there's, no jobs out there for underwater basket weaving, but we're still going to make you pay for a class.
Speaker 8You know, you guys tell your kids, you can be. Whatever you want to be no, no, it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 4So you got to be somebody who contributes to the community.
Speaker 2So let me 100, 100 fucking percent.
Speaker 5Okay, so let me let me ask a question, because you, you, you, uh, you said, you said a couple things that Everything you're saying. So what you're saying is um, the taxes that people play pay in poland, yeah, okay, all the taxes. Some of that tax Goes to education.
Speaker 2Yeah, big chunk of that yeah a big chunk of it so and you want to be a mechanic, but you don't qualify to be a big mechanic because we don't need mechanics. You're not going to be a mechanic. We're not going to pay for you to be a mechanic. You're going to be a fucking shoestmith, and you like it or not, and we'll pay for you to be a shoestmith. If you don't want to be a shoestmith, then don't take the money.
Speaker 5No, but my point is. My point is that we don't do this, that in the united states, in the united states in the united states we, our taxes, go to roads, uh, schools, but it doesn't go to University, it doesn't go to help people.
Speaker 4It goes to defense. What's a big one? They go to deep.
Speaker 5Well, it has to go to defense, so it's you got to go to. But but that's the big thing I took from what she said, you said okay, she said. She said that that you paid taxes. All these taxes, you paid a portion of it. Want to hire education.
Speaker 8Is to educate your kids so you can have well functioning community country 20 years later. So you have people that are educated, that know what to do and how to do it and how to contribute to the and we don't do that, man, we don't do that, and and it's the- cost of freedom.
Speaker 3Here's the thing like you. You said we have to. We have to pay all this money To defense. We pay more for defense than the following like 26 countries combined. So let me ask your question.
Speaker 2They're gonna, 25 of whom are allies. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3I'm gonna go with that, but, but why so polling gets evaded tomorrow?
Speaker 8Oh, they're, they're going down, we're down, we're down.
Speaker 3Oh, but we wait a minute.
Speaker 8Oh, wait a minute tomorrow, we are gonna give up today.
Speaker 7But what I'm saying is so you have happened once already.
Speaker 8So no but but but you have a very well educated soldiers.
Speaker 7So so this is they know what 2 plus 2 is.
Speaker 2So wait a minute. So this is where I'm going with this right. So we're gonna spend our money at the fence Right rather than educating our kids to defend you guys which are well educated doctors or or teachers or whatever but if you get invaded? If you get invaded, are you gonna call on?
Speaker 8on us. We are sending all of our best doctors and physicists and scientists to you guys, because that's what always happens. No war so Our best, we will send to defend you guys.
Speaker 5We will send the lurch units, we will send the navy. No, we had not probably we'll send the core will send the core will send the army. We'll send everybody to protect your country, because you are our ally to. Yeah, but you know what?
Speaker 8guess what? Like I, I think it's awesome. It's amazing, it's beautiful, but also you should be thinking about protecting your own kids.
Speaker 2So this is where we go across the ocean.
Speaker 8Protect your own kids. So this is where we go back to the your grandkids have this beautiful land and where they can thrive and get education for free and not start the life with 400 000 dollars in debt.
Speaker 2I I agree 100 with what you're saying. So when we look at, we look at the Biden administration right now and we look at the trep administration beforehand, right? Or you look at, you know, the obamas to the bushes, back to the clintons, right? Yeah, we, we should take care of the homeland first. So I've said it a million times to the vfw Absolutely how much? How much money do we give away and we don't take care of our parking lot or signs?
Speaker 7How many homeless do we have on the streets?
Speaker 2You know, I mean Like we get things away. So he's doing really good about that.
Speaker 7But that's beside a point. No but still homeless in general. I mean down the downtrodden, I mean but the the bottom line is.
Speaker 5The bottom line is here. Here's deal back in the day we had a president was isolationist, where he didn't give two fucks what happened in the world, as long as it didn't affect the united states. I no. It was before world war, two before world war two, and then we got into the whole world war. Maybe who I don't know, google, is it Joe?
Speaker 7Google eyes it.
Speaker 2Tim, we're on, we're on the same boat. So what I'm saying is the way that you're backs Right and and we're going to just use pulling as an example Right, they're more, they're not worried about defense, they're worried about taking care of themselves first. And we literally had a president a term ago that was all about america first, right, and didn't care about the rest of world, said, hey, you have to deal with yourself, we're not, we're not going to be your big brother, right, you deal with yourself, we're going to take care of ourselves first, right, right, pretty, pretty straightforward, I mean that's yep.
Speaker 5That's the way he was.
Speaker 2Yep, yep he was, and everybody else, first america first, and then that was seen as Nazism, because that's the way hitler was. Hitler was all about germany first over than anybody else, right, no, but I mean, that's no.
Speaker 5You can say that that's because it's god damn the truth, but that's the way.
Speaker 7I mean Talk directly to your mic.
Speaker 2Oh, oh, sorry, you couldn't hear me. No, no, I'm sorry. I could hear you no, but that, but that's the way hitler was right. Hitler, it was all about germany.
Speaker 7Germany yeah, you, that's that's what rallied the german people Is. He was very, you know, he was outspoken, he was charismatic.
Speaker 2And, and unfortunately, trump was the same way. Right, he was all about america, but also trump.
Speaker 5And now you're here also. Trump said hey mother fuckers, you're gonna fuck with america and I'm gonna go bomb you to fucking the stone age.
Speaker 2So no, we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is taking care of the american people, right? So he was all about Injuring independence. We're gonna drill an oil, we're gonna. We're not gonna rely on Saudis. We're not gonna rely on Iraq. We're not gonna rely on any of the other people. She's the same thing with with poland, right? We're gonna worry about our doctors and our teachers.
Speaker 8Hey, don't be wrong, it sucks in poland, okay. No, we're not all saying this all the roses and rainbows.
Speaker 2No, we're not. No one's saying that. And us as americans, no, but poland also knows.
Speaker 5Poland also knows that if they, if they needed something, the united states of america Would would fly in there and take care of business. We're already there, but the problem is we're already, I know we are, but the problem is we would spend.
Speaker 2We would rather spend a dollar Defending poland than we would spend a dollar Defending america.
Speaker 6Now I want to, I want to and I'm not bagging on poland, right.
Speaker 2I mean, this is, this is great content, because I love the fact that that they realize we need to take care of ourselves, right, and we need to make sure we have the people in place, the degrees in place, you know, the doctors, the nurses, the whatever teachers, whatever it is. We need to make sure we take care of ourselves first, and instead in america, we're more worried about taking care of everybody else. We're worried about taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 2You know what I mean, and that's, that's unfortunate because, just like tracer, we'll spend in defense 25 times more than our next ally In defense spending. Then we will worry about making sure we have enough doctors and lawyers or teachers or whatever here in america. Right, if we took, if we took three.
Speaker 3Well, if we knocked it down like 75 percent of what we spend for defense and took that other 25 percent and spent it on our children to get some education?
Speaker 2I, I think.
Speaker 3I think the american people at all of them by and large would agree with that. I agree let's get our kids educated and do that, close the borders, and I think.
Speaker 8You know, what we got to think of is all of those women that Worked really, really hard to get some kind of education and they want to work. They can't work because once you have a kid, you know how much it is to put those kids in daycare. They're a lot, insane.
Speaker 7I insanity.
Speaker 8So, like in every european country, the government makes sure that you, as a woman, can go back to work, and the government's gonna supplement you to pay for daycare, because they know that you are going to Make taxes, pay taxes, make money. You are going to make this country better by working, and then you are also paying someone to take care of your kids, so then you're paying taxes right there. So they know it's actually better for them to make it easy for the mother to go back to work.
Speaker 5So it's kind of a cross that's cross between I.
Speaker 2I'm gonna jump this I'm gonna jump this real quick Hold on, hold on.
Speaker 2I absolutely love the fact that you're here tonight, because I think majority americans have no idea we're, we're, we're sheltered into a a small cove of of the world and the fact that you're here to actually give us a real world perspective, right on what legitimately happens when most people don't don't get it right, like as americans. So when we all travel overseas you know, I went into places where the grandmother, the grandfather, we had three or four generations living in the same apartment or house together you don't get it. Or cave, whatever it is right, I mean you don't, you don't get it. So the the fact that you're gonna sit here and tell us Right that, yeah, we pay a shit ton of taxes, but we're worried about us first, other than you first For us, we're worried about everybody else first, before ourselves first and correct right.
Speaker 5But what am I?
Speaker 2am I incorrect when I say that?
Speaker 8and you know my very bad question is like Comparing my sister to me, right, my sister? Hey, hey hey.
Speaker 5He likes that movement a lot, so he likes it when I do that to him too.
Speaker 8So my sister is still in poland. She's a doctor as well. She has two kids. Uh, got her education for free. Her husband's doctor as well. She got pregnant with her first kid and, uh, she had one year of paid leave After she had her first kid. She had a choice to go back to work after six months and, uh, she Elected not to, so she took all six more months and then she got pregnant again. She still works from time to time. She's not working full time, but she has time to raise her kids. Well, be there for them, breastfeed if needed you know what I mean Educate them and all of that. And my question is like how am I forced to go back to work 10 days after I'm having my baby if I pay more taxes than my sister does? That is my question. Like, I don't think it's good to be able to be out of work for one year. I think it's a little ridiculous.
Speaker 2Come on. Well, your baby does not need you for like, so wait a minute.
Speaker 8So so if when is the money going? If I am not allowed to take three months off to be with my baby you know, in poland, do you have Uh, you know homeless living on the street?
Speaker 2Do you have churches?
Speaker 8not as much as here.
Speaker 2Right, so yeah.
Speaker 8I was actually surprised because I thought I'm going to see Nothing even close to poverty when I came here and I was shocked, right, so I was really shocked.
Speaker 2So you actually come to America and you see more poverty, yeah.
Speaker 8Yeah, I actually saw more poverty.
Speaker 2Here than I saw in poland, which was really shocking to me.
Speaker 3Well, okay, so in large, yeah, and I'm not talking, I'm not talking about average people like.
Speaker 1Right, it's not a thing like if you're rich.
Speaker 8you're rich here. If you, if you want to Find your way to make money and be super rich, you're gonna do that better here than you ever thought.
Speaker 2But the average person, the average american, yeah, no, I get it and that's. And that's why I want to ask you, because you know, typically in the, in the, in the middle eastern, eastern Right, doesn't matter if it's it's japanese, it doesn't matter, chinese doesn't matter if it's. You know the joseph and families.
Speaker 2And what typically happens is you as you have your grandparents living with you, so and and your supplementary, so in in america we're all about access, right, so we have to have our own house. Our grandparents have to live in their own house. If they're on the streets or on the streets, you know like it's. It's just a different culture, people are so freaking spoiled here I can't hear it? Yes, and.
Speaker 5I'm talking about people who have money. Okay, so Something, something I want to want to ask you because, um, so, basically in poland it's kind of like a socialism democracy, because socialism is where. See, that's that's where that's where I'm trying to wrap my head around, because basically the state's saying, the government's saying, hey, if you do this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this, which is kind of socialism, but they're giving you the freedom to say hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Speaker 8Yeah, we say hey, hey, hey, all the time.
Speaker 5Yeah, we have freedom to say that that's what I'm saying. So it's it's kind of a. It's kind of a socialist democracy, see, because socialism is when you do everything the state, the state does everything for you, sweating around here.
Speaker 8Oh, let me ask you a question Okay so so you graduate your your high school level?
Speaker 2I don't really call it grade school, I don't really call it. So you take a test. Yeah, does the government say you're gonna be a nurse?
Speaker 8No, no, no, they don't say that. They don't have a say no, no, they do not tell you what to do, but they say.
Speaker 2But they say if you want to be a doctor, will pay for you.
Speaker 8No, no. So it's all about the score. So let's say, my medical school, where I applied to, had, let's say, 300 spots for my year, where I applied nine. Bless you, thank you.
Speaker 2Well, but what happens if you don't make the score to qualify to be? Then you know somewhere else.
Speaker 8You apply to a whole bunch of schools right. So we always. It's kind of like here, but the problem is like you don't have to pay for it.
Speaker 5You know right, that's what I'm saying. It's kind of like the asvab test, that's just no, I'm asking what I'm saying is what I'm saying is the taxes that you pay. Yeah, the taxes that you pay when you become a senior in less taxes than we pay in the US just okay, the taxes that you pay when you become a senior in high school.
Speaker 5You take the test, yeah, and you say, hey, I want to be, uh, underwater, I want to be an underwater basket weaver. And they say, and they say, well, we got 13 spots for that, yeah, and then, and then, then they go you can be it, you can be it, you can be it, you can be it, you can be so, but it's a taxes.
Speaker 8It's a taxes that that your parents pay, yeah, and I have no problem with that, because guess what it takes. It takes, all it takes all kinds of people you know to make this country like that. That's just how it works. You got to have people who pave the road and you got to make people who you know make the country Happen like. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5You got to you got to have Everybody, from every single, so this is so our school, our school tax here that we do by the Lotto, the Lotto that generates so much flipping money. It isn't even funny. That school tax should come into the point where, when you get them high school seniors, that come out of school and they say, hey, I want to be a doctor, then they say, okay, well, we only need x amount of doctors and you use the school tax. That's from the Lotto, no, from the Lotto.
Speaker 2And you're going you're going too deep.
Speaker 8I don't care where the money comes from. What if my mom or my dad Get sick and they're dying and they need somebody's hands to save them. Honestly, I don't care if those was Lotto or road tax. I don't care what the difference is that you're you're saying like we all, we all pay the money, we all pay taxes, say we only need a thousand doctors this year right doctors we need a thousand okay and you in the in the Score testing you scored a thousand one.
Speaker 2You're not going to be a fucking doctor, we only need a thousand no, I understand the guys that scored a thousand and above, are going to be doctors. You're going to be From a thousand one to a, you know, a thousand nineteen. No, you're going to be a nurse.
Speaker 5No, I understand that you're going to get paid to go do. What I'm saying is, if we use the, the tax that we, not the tax, the funding that we get from the, from the Lotto doesn't matter, tax Lotto doesn't matter. If we set that aside so that people like, like her country did they, you can go to college. Okay, what do you want to do? Okay, I want to go to college for this. Okay, well, you don't qualify, but you qualify for this and we'll pay for you're looking at right.
Speaker 2You're looking at right. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, tim, it doesn't matter. No, no, you don't understand.
Speaker 5Yes, I do, you got to apply, you have to apply, but if they don't need a thousand and one doctors.
Speaker 2You're not going to be a fucking doctor for a thousand.
Speaker 5No, I understand that I understand that.
Speaker 8Let's, let's, let's stop with doctor shed because like Well, no I'm just using as an example. That's a mechanic, whatever if you get sick and you've been living this country your whole life, paying taxes, and you also served for this country. You should never, ever worry that you're not going to be able to afford your treatment. That's all I'm saying you paid your taxes.
Speaker 8You served like you've been living here. You should not be worried when you get cancer or you get a car accident that you're not going to be able to pay your bill, which is like $30,000, and if you went to any european country will be like $200. That's how it compares. So that's what I'm talking about. It's all about the money in here and we need to stop it. It should be about people. It should not be about the money, because you know, you know what happens is like they make us argue about those little things. They make us believe that, uh, you know small changes they do matter. It doesn't it's, you know, making rich people richer and getting us more upset and argue even more. We should yeah, we should not Worry about being able to educate our kids and get health care when we need it when we live in the first World country, like we should not even think about that.
Speaker 5You know that should be given right, and that's that's what I'm saying about. Um, all the money that they put in, that they're doing this and this, what you guys do. You pay taxes, right? Yeah, you pay taxes and that goes into a fund. Yeah, so to so that people can go to school, yeah, okay and like don't do it, it's not perfect, it's you know, but it's really not, but it's not perfect. The lotto how much money does a lot of man?
Speaker 7I have no idea over like six billion dollars. Okay, so if you took.
Speaker 5If you took that six billion dollars and put it in the fund so that our seniors, our people, can go to school in the in whatever they want, then that's what it should be, because they they put it into the elementary and the high schools, and the elementary and the high schools are Shit because they don't put any money into the elementary and high school.
Speaker 8So they just put it in the general fund and they just use it for whatever the flip they want to use it for Basically, what we're saying is it's not the problem that we don't have money, it's not used the way it's supposed to be used bingo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, you know I.
Speaker 8I just want to say that I am not in a position to judge this country. It gave me great opportunity. You know I came here and you know after some struggles I finally got my license and and you know it's a wonderful country. I love it. But also you got to open your eyes and see how I'm sorry You're being fucked in the ass every day. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4Wow, I keep saying that when we do our taxes every year, there should be a spot in there to where I can go through and go. Hey, I want five percent. I stopped at the school. This is five percent to the roads. Well that way the people get the.
Speaker 5The fucked up thing about that is when you say that I want to run away from charlie.
Speaker 7Well, let me, let me say a couple of things, because I've been waiting here for a hot second and I wanted to address a couple things. So number one she had mentioned you know how much we pay in daycare and I have a child in daycare and I will tell you that I pay two hundred and thirty five dollars a week.
Speaker 5You're getting raped.
Speaker 7A week. Okay, there you go, but you know, but again, it's still pricey, so, like you know, anyway. So then we started talking about, you know, education and kind of like this, this socialist Socialism idea. Okay, and I just wanted to throw this out there, the way that she was explaining it was in my mind it sounded a lot like the military entrance test, the asvab test, that, based on whatever your score is Right, kind of dictates what you're eligible to do.
Speaker 7So, like I can, again, I can speak on the navy, right? So you score a 99 on the test, they're going to ask you to go and do like nuclear reactor shit, right, because you're you're smart cookie, yeah, whatever job you want to do, but they're going to ask you to fill in some of the gaps that they're missing, right? That was just my example, but you know, it just reminded me of that, right? So what I got to thinking about it was we have this you had mentioned the cost of freedom, right, we have the freedom to choose whatever we want to do, whether or not we're good at it, right? But, um, what I came to my mind was Are we not kind of socialist by action? Well, because you're me out here, yeah.
Speaker 7Right, we have the student loan program. Right, if you want to go and get a degree in underwater basket weaving, you can get a student loan for that. Now, it ultimately that loan is on you and if you default and you know what it messes with your financial credit, that's that another thing. But you know, let's be honest, a lot of people don't really care about that. So you know, if you kind of wanted to part and parcel out last, she was saying, uh, what you could do. I have a suggestion you can keep the student loan program, you can do whatever you want to do with that.
Speaker 7But department of labor, bureau of labor and statistics, has the um, the On-net online system, which you can look up basically any job you can think of and it will tell you, based on their statistics, where you're needed or where people are needed. You know plumbers and doctors and lawyers and whatever. Right, here's, here's my idea and I'm just going to throw it out there. You want to get a student loan. You want to get a student loan for whatever it is you want to do, that's great, but tie your eligibility for the student loan To whether or not that job has a what they the on-net online calls a bright outlook, which means over the next decade. They see, at least I believe it's a seven, six or seven percent increase In need of of people there. So so that's my idea is like you want to take out a student loan for whatever? We got to remember, student loans are subsidized. Most of them are are subsidized by the american taxpayer. So if you want to be eligible for that money, that's great, but it's got to be.
Speaker 4Maybe it's a percentage, a percentage assigned.
Speaker 7Yeah, you know, outlook will give you more well but the program, and this is the point I was trying to make. Sorry, we have the student loan program. Anyone, it doesn't matter if you're poor or rich, you can get a student loan if you want one. Right, not saying you're not gonna pay a shit ton of interest. But that's beside the point. You still, we still have the program. So, in a way, are we not kind of socialists, you know? Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 3Yeah, and that's what I was gonna say Listen, the fire department is a socialized thing, the police department socialized we pay taxes for all the Education socialize. So many you know everybody talks about this word socialism, like it's the boogeyman and it's so bad.
Speaker 7You know, I get what they're saying and I get like, okay, we don't need it's just because of our general distrust of government Right, but our country was founded because of that.
Speaker 3And not just that, but also the I guess the big red scare back in the 50s.
Speaker 7The red menace.
Speaker 3Yeah, the red menace.
Speaker 5So first of all, let me hit you. Our country was not founded on socialism.
Speaker 7No, no, no, no. I said the country was founded on a distrust of government. We were founded, you know.
Speaker 5We were founded on a distrust of government and then we made a program that made the government answer to we, the people and unfortunately, we the people are a bunch of fucking pussies.
Speaker 2Well, you can say what?
Speaker 5about pussies, but we're Because we, the people, wouldn't have people thinking they're cats and peeing in a fucking-.
Speaker 3That's not happening. That's not really happening Really. No, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 7Even Joe Rogan found out that this is not really happening. But I really don't-.
Speaker 3Well, yes, that part yes, but peeing in a litter box at school, that's not happening.
Speaker 7Sounds like a personal problem, right, but I you know, and this is gonna be hard to say and it's gonna be hard to listen to it, excuse me, and it's even harder to say but the way that we elect our people is representative, Right, which is great. But the problem with that is that the politics get too much in the way. We have become so about our identity. Yes, yep, that we're not getting shit done, it seems, and what she was saying is a perfect example. A person you know, like Tim, who's 85 years old and has worked in this country his whole life and has retired oh, he's 86, okay, he worked in his country the whole life. You know. He's retired from the military. He's done his part. Okay, she's right. You should not worry about getting in a car accident and having to go to the ER. I know personally people who have refused an ambulance, despite the fact needing one very badly, because they couldn't pay the ambulance bill. How fucked up is that, you know, and so I'm 50-50 on the thing.
Speaker 7You know. I agree, like education is extremely important.
Speaker 4I just think we're doing it the wrong way, going back to the comment you made about the student loan stuff, why is it that 18, 19 year old kid can go out and get $100,000 worth of loans but they can't go out and create their own business?
Speaker 7Amen to that too. That's a great example. You know, you get $100,000 over the course of like what four?
Speaker 3years or so.
Speaker 7Get $100,000 in loans but you can't go out and start a power washing business.
Speaker 5Okay, so I'm gonna throw this out there.
Speaker 3Trey, yes, sir.
Speaker 5How you doing, I'm good.
Speaker 3I'm good.
Speaker 5You are my favorite clerk. You know that I do.
Speaker 7They're touching each other right now Because you paid me some money.
Speaker 5You paid me some money on Rock of Maya and I appreciate that. You never fucked up my paycheck, okay, and the ex-wife got the money why she was home and everything went well, good and I appreciate.
Speaker 3Spent all your money, didn't she? I?
Speaker 5appreciate, nope, because I switched to the USAA.
Speaker 1Okay, good boy, good boy.
Speaker 5So, so. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you. What is your college level?
Speaker 3I've graduated college.
Speaker 5Okay, so here we go. I'm having a bachelor's degree, so now we're hold on.
Speaker 7I'm not saying that either. I'm not saying you gotta have a degree.
Speaker 3I got about three years of college. Okay, three years of college.
Speaker 5Miss Mesh Pimp, yeah me too, me too. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I did this and I did that and I did that, and I wanted to be a security guy, but I couldn't program because I didn't pick it up when I was three, like most people do nowadays, you know. So I was just behind the eight ball, so I, you know I got some credits, so. So here you are A clerk, a damn good one, by the way. And you you started out. You started out the empire man.
Speaker 7You started out the empire. And the empire collective.
Speaker 5Yeah, the empire collective. You started out with your mom and your brother right, and you and now we're, we're, we're at right now.
Speaker 3I'm doing very well, so I'm not asking.
Speaker 5I'm not asking for money figures, Right right. I'm just asking how you doing, brother Um so.
Speaker 7He owns a motorcycle.
Speaker 3I do that. He a couple.
Speaker 7And and a cage. I believe, don't you, I do, I do. Yeah, a cage and a motorcycle. He's doing that well.
Speaker 3I got a couple, a couple.
Speaker 7But I got a house in.
Speaker 3Florida. I got a house up here, so you know I'm I'm doing without giving away what my like net worth is.
Speaker 6I don't want it. I don't want to know You're doing well.
Speaker 3I'm doing very, very well. You're doing well. You're doing extremely well. Better. Better than most college educated people.
Speaker 5Uncolly.
Speaker 7Yes, yes. Most college educated, and I'm not college educated- and I, I would be the first one to tell you you do not need a college education to do a lot of stuff.
Speaker 4Well, a lot of the class. They make you tankers. It's fluff, bullshit.
Speaker 7Oh God, yes, Don't get me started on that shit.
Speaker 3Well I can tell you. And going back to my wife, her college education, you know how you do. First you got to get a degree. She's a doctor. First here you got to get a degree. Then you do four years of medical school.
Speaker 5And then you got to blah blah.
Speaker 3She did six years straight medical school. Six years straight medical school. That's it.
Speaker 7And they get. They get paid garbage, by the way.
Speaker 8I need to say, I just want to say that some of the most intelligent and smart people that I've ever met in my life they had no college degree.
Speaker 5Thank you.
Speaker 8There's difference between being book smart and life smart.
Speaker 7Amen to that.
Speaker 8And if you have both, that's great, but there's a lot of people that have this like book smartness.
Speaker 4Zero common sense to go in.
Speaker 8And then they cannot translate it to real life. And then you have people that have, like, no college education and you know, maybe they're not doctors, maybe they're not lawyers, but guess what? They are 10 times smarter than those people because they can navigate real life and you know what? That's one problem about a Polish educational system, and I was gonna say that like, yeah, we kind of went overboard with getting degrees to everyone, because guess what? A person that fixes your car or make sure that your house works well, they don't need to have bachelor degree or master degree. And we went a little overboard with that because everybody, literally everybody, has master degree. So I just wanna say you don't need to have a degree to be life smart. Yeah. And a lot of stuff too.
Speaker 4If you don't necessarily need to have a class to deal with it. Do you like what trades people do? You're gonna be a plumber. Take a trade school Do like I do IT.
Speaker 1Yeah, do the trade school.
Speaker 7Why do I need to go?
Speaker 4through and, like I, take an anatomy class in school.
Speaker 7An apprenticeship.
Speaker 4A lot of IT guys take an anatomy class for it.
Speaker 7Right, and just cause I'm curious, what was your specialty? Family medicine? Okay, cool. Yeah, cause she said six years, or excuse me trace it, but anyway Six years straight medical school. But here in America you do your bachelor's degree and then you do medical school. So that, right, there is eight years Plus. After that you gotta get At the minimum eight years At the minimum, and then you gotta get matched to a residency program and that's another two to six years, depending on two to seven. Yeah, cause I'm thinking like a neuro doc. You know they're like-.
Speaker 3Neurosurgeon.
Speaker 7Neurosurgeon. They're in there forever. But here's the other thing they get paid garbage during residency.
Speaker 3I can attest to that Okay so it's not that bad, okay, Well, you know it's so before it's average of what Americans make.
Speaker 5Before the quartermaster went on his rampage I just had a couple. I had a couple of questions for Trey with his business. Yeah, okay, so.
Speaker 7But that's what we were gonna say, though, is like we can get these student loans, you know, to get us started educationally, but you can't walk into a bank and say hey, I wanna start the empire collective.
Speaker 3Right, and then you gotta pay that. I was lucky in that regard.
Speaker 5So let me finish, because again Brent went all crazy, the quartermaster went crazy on me, so Whatever. So you, you know you came home out of the army.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 5Obviously you married a beautiful young lady. Yeah, you guys started popping out kids like no tomorrow. Oh man, yeah, Woo, woo, woo, woo. And then what made you think about the whole empire thing? Because at that point that was just on the cusp. Right right Of that being okay to do Right.
Speaker 3What I was looking at doing was I was looking at doing a caregiver grow, which is. It would have been just me. Find some land, throw a pole barn on, make it really nice and then find some people that needed it and then grow 72 plants and then you sell it to dispensaries around the state.
Speaker 3They kinda cut that out. So it's a good thing I didn't get into that. But I had and this is why I say I was lucky in this regard is because I had other people with means around me that knew what I was trying to do. And they came to me and said hey, Trey, I know you're trying to do this caregiver thing, why don't we do a commercial grow? I was like hey, you got some money, she got some money, he got some money. Let's put all our money together and do something big. We can do that. So that's what we did. A lot of it was all family, friends and family, so one family friend, the rest of it was strictly family and we all put our money together, got started up here in Clare and Loomis, by the way, not Clare Loomis, yeah yeah, and one thing I was good at when I was in the military was putting together a good team.
Speaker 3That's what I was good at.
Speaker 5I'm gonna say another thing that you were good at just from the short time I've known you is you have a gift. You have a gift to gab. You could be a used car salesman if you really wanted to be Trey, right, because you have that. You got that sweet, soulful voice and you're really calm and you're really good. Yeah, and before you know it, I'd be dropping my pants for you. You know, that's what I'm talking about. That's what.
Speaker 8Actually, I see some pants dropping down, somebody's getting underneath, and I just wanna say that, yes, my husband has this way of selling things as easy, even though they're not easy.
Speaker 3That's true, I do. That's a whole argument, though.
Speaker 5And the pants dropping down was. Not the Navy guy. It was the Navy guy.
Speaker 7It was the guy talking to Trey like this so that's what we did.
Speaker 3We got this started and I really can't complain. We're doing well. We're getting ready to open a second store and a lot of people went in like Whole Hog full, like opening 10, 20 different stores. Those are the guys that are shutting down. But our biggest puzzle piece was, for me, was getting a guy who's our master grower and a quality master grower that's doing great things. He finds us good strains and quality strains and then that's it.
Speaker 5So what would you do?
Speaker 4I guess this is true again, so I gotta take off. I'll see you guys later. All right, see you.
Speaker 7Thanks for dropping in, brother.
Speaker 5See you, adjutant, you and Phoenix, take care, Be safe. Well dear, what would you, trey, I guess? What would you do, trey, as a entrepreneur? As an entrepreneur, right, what would you do? What would you do to give suggestions for other young people?
Speaker 3Well, you're not very young, but other people that would I'd be younger than you.
Speaker 5Other young people that would wanna go out there and try the entrepreneurship. What would you say to them?
Speaker 3I would say find something that you love. Find something that you love and work hard at it. That's really-.
Speaker 7So prostitute would not be a good thing, because I love that that's still not legal in this state.
Speaker 3So, basically, you just find something that you love doing and you work extremely hard at doing it. Charlie can attest to this as well. I don't know if he loves what he does, but-.
Speaker 2Absolutely, you know. I mean, at the end of the day, right, we're all out there to produce something that's good for the public, kind of regardless of if it's grown something naturally to pipe the old fittings that we call it in my industry. But at the end of the day. Right, everybody's told it's got a flush hot wires gotta be on the left, cold wires gotta be on the right. You know? I mean, that's really what it's all about. So you know.
Speaker 5Yeah, everybody's gotta do what they wanna do, like for me.
Speaker 7Jackoff.
Speaker 5Most of the time. I love the VFW, so I go there every day. I go there every day and I clean the ice machine, which the son of a bitch is giving me problems, but I'll fix it. I clean the ice machines, I do what I need to do to keep the posts running. I do my bar manager job, I do the post-commander job and if I didn't love it, you wouldn't be there. I'd be like hey time to go.
Speaker 3And I can tell you, tim and this is not me giving you the fluff You're one hell of a commander. No bullshit. I appreciate you.
Speaker 7They're touching each other again.
Speaker 3Just slightly.
Speaker 2It's a tough job to do if you're still working, oh yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3That's more than a 40 hour week and that's the thing Tim gives it 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2I've had the conversation with him on the way down to some district stuff. He was director of the RADS groups and I asked him the question you had to give something up once. You give up, because you can only be pulled in some of your directions and you have to be able to do things successfully, yep, you can't half-ass anything at any one time, yep. So if you're gonna take on more, you have to give something up Because you can only give 100%. The old saying gotta give 110%, it's bullshit. You can't give anything more than 100%, right? So at the end of the day, if you're gonna give 100%, right, and you're already running 100% and they want you to do more and give more, you have to give something else up.
Speaker 7Yep.
Speaker 2Because you have to have your personal time right. You have to have the stuff, otherwise you're going insane. Well, you just can't do anymore Because you're gonna forget things or things are gonna slide by the wayside, and that's not good, right, right.
Speaker 7What I? One of the things I wanted to mention was you were like you gotta find something you love, and one thing in my opinion that we lack in the education of our kids is really finding something that they're good at and that they love. We are so focused on shit that doesn't really make a difference. Standardized tests just to see if they know what two plus two is.
Speaker 8It's shit, I don't need to know what two plus two is right.
Speaker 7Well, true, but you know what I'm saying, though, is it's just, it's stuff that really doesn't Well.
Speaker 3I can tell you this I never, never found, I never found something that I really loved when I was in school.
Speaker 8You know what I mean Because we did not allow weed at school.
Speaker 3Well, yeah, that could be. Could be. I mean, what I love about weed is helping people that need help and also be in my own boss. That's really. I could be doing something else other than weed. As long as I'm my own boss, I'm good.
Speaker 5Okay, so this this has been long, it's been fun and really appreciate the young lady from Poland Cause she's really helped us out with some stuff. But to wrap it up to wrap it up because it's been a long, long night to wrap it up Charlie made a comment about you can only do so much and you get pushed and pulled and pulled and pushed, and he's exactly right and we have talked about this because you know, as a post commander, I have the post level stuff. As a district commander, I have the district commander stuff. As department director of the riser group, I have that group. So I'm all three levels.
Speaker 5I'm getting pushed and pulled and pulled and pushed. And he asked me a question one time. He said what would you give up? And I said if I had to give something up, I'm not giving up post. If somebody else can be a better commander me, then they can run against me. And if the membership says, yep, we want him rather than him, so be it, I'll take it. I think I'm a pretty good post commander. I think I do a good job at the post level.
Speaker 7I agree. We've been all American for how many years now?
Speaker 5Yeah, two, all state for five. But that's a post thing. It's not me, it's a post, it's what you guys do.
Speaker 3Yeah, but you're at the head, you're the head of the snake.
Speaker 5District, all American district commander. But I think I'm done at district. I'm done at district. I will be chief of staff or something, but I'm gonna let somebody else run through the district. Hopefully Charlie will. Yeah, that's right. This is for all you, ladies out there For all you ladies out there Ah.
Speaker 3Tim's available. That's right.
Speaker 5But I'm gonna run for department judge. Advocate man, I think it's my time to move up. You got my vote. It's my time to move up.
Speaker 3If you do department judge advocate, does that mean you give up the post? Nope, okay.
Speaker 5No, I'll still be the post commander. I just won't be anything in the district because I'm starting to think this guy would be a good post commander, yeah.
Speaker 7What. Yep, you, britton, and Tim is rolling his eyes right now.
Speaker 3When Tim is done. I think you would be. You got my vote, you, charlie. There's a couple people.
Speaker 5I think Charlie would be a great post commander.
Speaker 7I think it would be.
Speaker 5If Charlie run against me next year, I'd be done. Terry and Sancio, if you run against me.
Speaker 7I'd be done.
Speaker 5Oh well, yeah.
Speaker 7Well, and I appreciate that comment, but there's quite a few people that I can think of Charlie being one of them that I would like to see cycled through. Right Again if they want.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 7And listen, but otherwise, as quarter master, right now, right, my power is the purse, right, right. But I would want to, just for experience sake, cycle through junior vice and senior vice and whatnot. We should, you know, and you should. But again, if nobody rogers up, right, I mean, you know, you can only do so much, and if you don't want it, you don't want it. I mean, that's our policy anyway, right, you know, if somebody's nominated, do you accept this nomination?
Speaker 5Do you?
Speaker 7You know it's always your choice, so so.
Speaker 3All right so, but, bretton, you're doing good things though. That's what. That's my point, yep.
Speaker 5And as a commander, you're a good quarter master, Even though I ride you like a little bitch. Well, and I shouldn't ride you the way I do because you're you didn't get properly trained. You didn't get properly trained.
Speaker 3But.
Speaker 5But he's doing good, but you know what we're working through it. We're getting our 990s done, we're getting all this other stuff. You're bringing Brent and Scott into the mix and we're getting shit done, giving him proper training, proper training. So, with that being said, I think it's been a good night.
Speaker 3It has been.
Speaker 5It has been a good night, I mean.
Speaker 7We're over three hours at this point.
Speaker 5Yeah, I think, going forward, maybe we need to do like an hour and a half and then cut it and then, if we're gonna still wanna talk, do an hour and a half hour and a half segments.
Speaker 3Yeah, three hours.
Speaker 5Three hours is a long time for some of us it is.
Speaker 7It is so then. But again, they'll listen in their car and you know, three hours goes quick if you're driving from here to Detroit, you know.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 7But, but you know, let's, let's leave it to our listeners, yeah, and give us some feedback. So you know, email us.
Speaker 5So that's, that's what I wanna ask you, brinton, because you're kinda in Joe left, you're kinda the head person, you and Joe, or you guys are techie too. Is there something on the podcast website that they can? They can email us and say, hey, we'd like to hear about this. Yeah, we'd like to hear about that, we'd like. Nah, you know you guys go into this too much, you go in this, and is there some way we can put it out there and say, hey, tell us what you want.
Speaker 7I think. I think it's already there. I might be wrong and if I am, hey, whatever. But I'll check on that. By the time you know this goes live, I'll double check and make sure, but if not, I will make sure that our email is listed there.
Speaker 5So they can VFWPost333.
Speaker 7Yep VFWPost3033 at gmailcom. And Subject Line podcast feedback. I mean, you know it'll get to us. Let us know what you think, what you wanna hear. If you, you know, have ideas for topics, ideas for people to bring on, that'd be great. We wanna hear about this and get this podcast going.
Speaker 5Yep and clerk God, we should have named you.
Speaker 3I'm the clerk and he's the cocksucker.
Speaker 5Yeah, hey, hey. T-bone, t-bone. What'd you got Anything? Last party message.
Speaker 3No, I think we need to go save Charlie and call this a night.
Speaker 5Good, okay, so we're gonna go save Charlie and call it night, but I'm gonna say heads up, outstanding job. Eva T-Bone's wife.
Speaker 8Eva.
Speaker 5Eva, sorry, dear Like never, ever. Never, ever, okay, that's the way I'm gonna tell you ever, hey, never, ever, okay, so never ever. She come in, and she came and she talked to us about the way stuff is in a different country.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 5And that's outstanding. That's outstanding because that's what we want.
Speaker 3Very proud of my wife right now.
Speaker 5Yeah, you should be.
Speaker 8Just to close it up, our military sucks Like we would not stand up for one day.
Speaker 3That is true, like listen.
Speaker 5The Poland military or our military, Polish military?
Speaker 8No, no, Polish one but hey we have a good education right.
Speaker 3Listen. If so, her dad was in the military. Her dad is a retired lieutenant 32 years. Retired lieutenant colonel and I'm trying to make this quick. If they came to him and said his name is VS Swaff, vs Swaff, vs Swaff, that's not a transformer right. Yep VS Swaff. You are deploying to Iraq in two months. Get your shit together.
Speaker 5No, I'm not no.
Speaker 3I'm not he could be like no, I'm not going, he wouldn't go. He would not go. I was like what yeah Okay?
Speaker 5So hold on. I would like young lady grab the headphones, cause when we're done I want you to hear the outgoing thing. So, for all you people out there, this is the post, commander Borla Hannah, post 333, and we appreciate you and we're going to put these on out there and you let us know what we want. You have a good night, take care and remember drink beer.
Speaker 8Drink beer or vodka.
Speaker 5Or vodka.
Speaker 7Or non-o alcoholic beverages.
Speaker 5Or non-o alcoholic beverages. It's Indian coffee, yeah.
Speaker 7Good night, All right. Good night everybody. Thanks for joining us. I want you to hear the old one. I go.
Speaker 1Thank you for joining us at 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 the US military, the future of military service and everything in between. Whether you're a veteran yourself, a spouse or family member of a veteran, or simply interested in learning more about this community, this podcast is for you. So come with us on a journey into the heart of the veteran experience and discover the stories, struggles and triumphs that have shaped our nation's brave after they've returned home.
