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
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 2:Good 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 3:Tray Porter Post 3033 riders group vice president.
Speaker 4:Joseph Gates Post 3033 riders group member and Post member.
Speaker 5:I 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 2:Excellent 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 5:All 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 2:Okay, 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 5:Oh, 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 2:So, 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 5:And 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 5:There'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 7:I want to throw something in there. And first of all, who are you? Oh, is Brent Holbrook again.
Speaker 2:He's late to the game.
Speaker 7:I'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.
Speaker 7:Those 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 2:So 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 1:Claire.
Speaker 2:Right 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 2:It 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 2:That'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 5:And 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 5:He 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 5:But 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 2:30 veterans, 30 veterans, yeah, I would say that's probably 30, maybe even more 30 combat veterans.
Speaker 5:They 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 2:And 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 2:We 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 5:I 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 2:Well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're city PD, your county, sheriff's.
Speaker 2:EMTs 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 2:When 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 2:Even 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 5:I get it. It's called the Michigan left.
Speaker 2:I get it. It doesn't matter if it's an I-75. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It 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 2:Because, I know he's going to talk right now.
Speaker 5:Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 7:I'm only talking because now I have an idea.
Speaker 5:Man. I don't like his ideas. He has a lot of them.
Speaker 7:No, I was going to say you know and there was the RTO, fucking shit up.
Speaker 2:This is the reason why we don't let those techie guys around. They like to spill drinks on the table.
Speaker 5:And 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 4:Someone's got to do it. Go ahead Brent.
Speaker 7:Anyway, you know, from a leadership perspective, just so everybody knows.
Speaker 2:Real quick, Brett, I'm going to cut you off. We do have some people in the studio at the SkyLogs tonight.
Speaker 4:We have a peanut gallery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the peanut gallery. They're going to eat popcorn and have cocktails over there. Well, we're on this tonight, but yeah.
Speaker 7:I 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 5:Okay, 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 5:Okay, 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 2:Well, 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 2:So 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 5:Yes, 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 2:So you elect, I know, at the county level, cities different and we have CMU police, that's.
Speaker 5:CMU here too.
Speaker 2:So, 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 2:the 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 2:I'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 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:It'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 2:The 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 3:So 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 2:Pippin was a dog man because he he did all the hard work and Jordan got all the glow.
Speaker 5:Right, pippin was a bitch man, tony.
Speaker 3:Koo 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 5:I got to go here, charlie, so why would you?
Speaker 2:nominate that guy for something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:I got to go here though.
Speaker 5:So, 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 3:Believe it or not? Believe it or not, I actually do need some ink.
Speaker 2:We had a Clippers who's got some.
Speaker 3:We 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 5:What'd he do?
Speaker 3:Stub his toe on the desk Exactly Stubbed his toe on the desk, I think.
Speaker 4:Going 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 3:It'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.
Speaker 4:It's your value that's gonna become valuable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 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 4:as a leader.
Speaker 5:Well, 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 3:I'm not going to reward you for doing your job, I mean, but those soldiers that went above and beyond.
Speaker 5:Well you know what I'm saying is.
Speaker 5:I 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 4:Absolutely. 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 7:And 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 7:Well 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 5:So 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 5:But 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 7:Right, 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 5:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 7:And 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 3:I 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 7:Haters 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 4:Yeah, that's it you hate me because they hate me Our motto is always Semper.
Speaker 2:Gumby right. You got to be flexible in all situations right, you know, remember Semper Gumby as a kid.
Speaker 7:Well, 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 7:No, 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 2:The 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 3:I don't believe a damn word, charlie says.
Speaker 2:I don't either, if you don't like the truth.
Speaker 7:That'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 2:E-5s right.
Speaker 6:You and DC. Well, you know, because that's what we call it.
Speaker 2:I'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 3:What is the role of a Corporal in the?
Speaker 2:Navy so. I can only talk to the experience of infantry right.
Speaker 2:I 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 3:No 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 2:Is 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.
Speaker 4:I love you, I love you, brother, that's right so in the infantry.
Speaker 5:An 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 5:In 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 5:Joe 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 5:Yeah, 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 2:So 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 5:Okay, and then that squad is led by a sergeant, so you have 10 people to a squad, right oh?
Speaker 2:11. 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 2:One 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 2:But 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 5:Fire 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 2:But 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 5:You'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 2:So 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 5:So 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 2:you'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 5:So right right right.
Speaker 2:Your 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 2:Yeah 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 2:Force 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 7:Well, we got Brent Scott.
Speaker 2:Well, 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 5:I mean, I mean, he had the recruiter, but he's still recruiting.
Speaker 2:I 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 2:And 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 3:The guy you're describing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, he's, he's. He's a bad mofo man.
Speaker 5:Yeah, captain Sano, captain in Sano in Sano, for sure.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:He'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.
Speaker 2:Shit 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 4:Just seven years ago, 2017.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Brett, where were you?
Speaker 7:Got up in 2015.
Speaker 2:So 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 5:Well, he's a clerk, that's what you see.
Speaker 3:Listen, my 20 years of clerk one. It's active duty supersedes your part timey infantry, whatever that was.
Speaker 5:Hey, hey, still get the same retirement.
Speaker 2:Don't don't get mad at him, because he gets 10% for those paper cuts. That's for the VA.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:He does. Every paper cuts were 10%.
Speaker 5:That's right. Right.
Speaker 7:Did 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 5:about. We don't do agendas here, dude? I mean, we just keep rolling.
Speaker 7:Whatever, fine, fine, whatever.
Speaker 5:We 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 7:Yeah no shit.
Speaker 5:No, we don't need agendas. Why, what's on your agenda? I don't.
Speaker 7:I was just curious if we were trying to stay into a certain I think we stayed in a pretty good.
Speaker 5:We talked about the VOD patriot pen and how important that was All right.
Speaker 2:The 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 2:You 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 2:You know and I don't know, joe, when you were riding with us today, how many people do you see waving at us?
Speaker 4:or sticking it. Yeah, I mean, that's something I was doing, yeah.
Speaker 2:It'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 5:Right.
Speaker 2:I 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 5:I ride wood, you're a ride, so.
Speaker 2:I'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 4:We should get a pass for the group for all 12 months. So you didn't get James.
Speaker 2:So 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 5:No, I wouldn't get it too.
Speaker 2:We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 5:We'll see.
Speaker 2:Hooker, I doubt that.
Speaker 5:Why I did February, March, April, May, June, July, October.
Speaker 2:You're almost there, man. You're almost there with me.
Speaker 5:I'm not saying with the incentives.
Speaker 7:He's a little senile, so he's a misogist. I'll get it, so he did misogist.
Speaker 5:When 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 6:So 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 4:Much better looking. I don't know how I got so lucky.
Speaker 5:We all wonder the same thing. We're all wondering the same thing.
Speaker 4:There's a reason I don't pay for lottery tickets, because I already won.
Speaker 2:It, either it, either you must be hung like a fucking rhinoceros?
Speaker 5:Not at all. Or you're a millionaire.
Speaker 2:We'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 4:This is 636.
Speaker 2:Okay, 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 4:It's the best. She felt like it was an item, like she was a possession.
Speaker 2:So then, we try to change it to duffel bag, duffel bag or flight bag or flight bag.
Speaker 4:We 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 2:Okay, 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 5:Well, now I'm starting arms. I was just a rear road captain and I really enjoyed riding behind them. I'm just saying.
Speaker 2:Well, 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 5:The jeans are going to jeans Ripping, yeah, especially when she buys them all ripped up. I just like the strategically placed rips.
Speaker 4:By the time you see, them are ripped up.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what? I think I'm a guy. I think she's a lucky woman. That's what I think. What's?
Speaker 1:up.
Speaker 3:She's a lucky woman. That's what I think I had a job about my own jeans.
Speaker 2:You have your own job and you buy your own jeans. Well, here's Amicount. Amazon account says that's a lie.
Speaker 3:I 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 5:No, I just. Well, he is a good adjunct.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:Well, 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 2:So 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 2:She'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 4:I 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 5:So 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 2:upward. I said the same thing, we went, so yeah so we're gonna have to talk about my per.
Speaker 2:So 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 3:It sounds like you want a Marion but well, I digress at least like you know, he can rub up your wife's gonna.
Speaker 2:He 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 2:So 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 5:You had soup there you go, so no be that way, so another light soup.
Speaker 2:We 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 2:I'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 2:I 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 2:no, I did, I straight up laid it down on the road, it on the road.
Speaker 5:It 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 2:Yeah, I came, I came right off and had tip it back.
Speaker 5:I 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.
Speaker 2:LEDs 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 5:was it just me, or was it like really cold, crazy dark? No, no well it's.
Speaker 3:I thought it was crazy dark. It's where we were at. It was really dark. It's late, it's late it was.
Speaker 5:It 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 2:They open at six and we got there like at 6 30 and it was dark.
Speaker 5:Oh, it's crazy dark, but I thought it was darker than normal. Yeah, I, that's what I thought you're, you're.
Speaker 4:Did you have a sunglasses on?
Speaker 5:no, 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 2:Everybody 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 5:No, fuck.
Speaker 3:No, I agree, I thought it was really dark that night as well.
Speaker 2:No, I just straight spun that shit. No, we're not talking about, we're not talking about you, fuck up.
Speaker 5:I'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 2:I 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 5:That 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 2:Yeah, 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 2:Yeah, 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 2:let we'll let a judge decide this.
Speaker 5:I am the judge. No, I am the judge spent the money we'll let.
Speaker 2:It is about a county judge.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2:I'm saying but no offense was this about some.
Speaker 5:It 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 4:I think of this. Maybe it was a cloudy.
Speaker 5:I think it was cloudy. It was a cloudy night. I just thought it was. I just thought it was darker than normal.
Speaker 7:I 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 5:That's the difference between somebody who runs around on a boat and somebody that runs around in the field.
Speaker 7:You 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 5:How about dark is tip when you're doing patrols in a jungle? Triple canopy at 5 30 pm and guess what it's?
Speaker 2:fucking 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 5:Look who joined the group yeah, no, the clerk what's the work?
Speaker 3:they hate me cuz they ain't me there you go.
Speaker 5:No, I love you, cuz you paid me we love you cuz we eat unless you started talking shit, then you got cut off.
Speaker 4:I 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 2:Well, 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 3:D 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 2:I 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 5:You 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 5:Let 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 5:I 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 2:Yes, 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 5:we cared about everything, but pay was the pay was the most important thing.
Speaker 2:No, 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 3:So 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 5:I think was the one, the one thing that could get fucked up by a somebody's, but so ammo on it so
Speaker 2:could 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 5:Okay, I can see that so now, so now.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:no, let me.
Speaker 5:Let 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 5:We 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 2:Right, 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 3:You know I'm gonna suck is eating a lot of chicken.
Speaker 5:But 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 2:I 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 5:no, 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 3:They 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 3:They 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 5:So I'm gonna so the MRE.
Speaker 2:Yep, 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 5:I shit, you shit I haven't.
Speaker 2:I 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 5:I gotta change my drawer.
Speaker 2:I 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 2:He'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 5:Is it better than me? So lack of it was bad bro.
Speaker 2:It was bad. We used to take our boots right. We call them boots your private we call them boots.
Speaker 1:You want?
Speaker 5:to do just the other boots, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, 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 1:they go on footwear. Go on your fucking.
Speaker 5:No 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 2:See, 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 5:Yeah, there's eight crackers.
Speaker 2:They'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 2:No, 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 5:Like it was terrible somebody pee in my mouth, somebody in my house crackers were the worst.
Speaker 2:There 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 3:We'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 2:yeah, 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 3:Yeah, 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 5:I 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 4:Okay, 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 2:I like that. We didn't have Red Bull back in the day. We didn't have Nas.
Speaker 5:We 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 2:What 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 2:Navy 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 5:They were like I'm Milton Bradley, you know gang they were.
Speaker 2:I'm full of games, so to the recruits and boot camp. We'll play the games. I'm Milton Bradley, we.
Speaker 4:I 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 4:So 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 2:Right, you're a recruit in the Marine Corps, right?
Speaker 2:you'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 6:He was here yeah, I told you guys, I told you guys.
Speaker 2:Last 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 2:I 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 3:You should probably, I think it's. It's faster than six minutes and 50 seconds. You should, I think.
Speaker 2:I just want me to say six minutes, flat five minute miles I you might want he.
Speaker 3:He 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 2:I thought it was a mile and a half and six.
Speaker 5:We 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 2:I 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 5:I want to know who is chasing her. When she was running the 1.7 probably your husband, joe.
Speaker 4:You 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 3:okay, and you want it. When was this?
Speaker 4:no 2006.
Speaker 5:Joe 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 3:I don't care, I'll make it.
Speaker 2:I'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 3:I 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 2:He's like dad, I don't do it cuz, okay, okay so his name is Andrew.
Speaker 3:Right, 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 2:I'm not, I'm not that dad that's gonna sugar go out tell you what?
Speaker 5:I 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 2:So I know that he's very fit it's like cheerleading is a sport, right?
Speaker 5:yeah 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 2:I'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 2:That'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 5:I'm gonna he's.
Speaker 2:He's taller than me six, one and I'm like five eleven five.
Speaker 5:Well, joe's taller new, no, you know, he's six one.
Speaker 2:If 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 3:Two, 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 5:why did he go in their fucking army man?
Speaker 3:because he liked drugs too much okay, all right.
Speaker 2:All 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 5:park there's the San.
Speaker 2:Diego 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 2:That 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 2:She 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 2:William 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 5:good at me, you was no good at grammar okay, so how will we move?
Speaker 2:on now, should I?
Speaker 5:should I tell you what?
Speaker 2:I was actually good as a kid, or should I tell you the BS story?
Speaker 5:yeah, never mind.
Speaker 2:I was good at quiff.
Speaker 5:I knew it. I knew he's going there that's.
Speaker 2:That'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 5:So I was on the all-star team. Well, I can see you doing the wide receiver thing.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:So 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 2:yeah, 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 5:Did you catch playing baseball or third base?
Speaker 2:I backed.
Speaker 5:I 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 2:if 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 2:hour, 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 2:And 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 4:that's a nice guy with the bats.
Speaker 5:Yeah, in the bat you the whole. I mean you gotta be all right.
Speaker 2:So 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 5:Good, he was, all he was he was pro enough.
Speaker 2:He was getting paid by the Tigers well, but when he played and he caught an all-star game, right what?
Speaker 5:I'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 2:I 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 1:You're still doing all the shit you're still getting paid by the Tigers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, regardless of whether practice squad for the.
Speaker 4:Lions by our escows, you're paying.
Speaker 2:Paid 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 5:I watched so he'd be like a four string catcher.
Speaker 2:I 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 2:Right, 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 2:I'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 5:So, charlie, when you caught, you were a cup.
Speaker 2:No, 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 5:No, I know what they knew. Oh, you're talking about the one behind.
Speaker 2:It 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 5:There's, I'm going, I'm going.
Speaker 3:Tim was thinking about the knee pads. No, I'm going somewhere.
Speaker 2:There are, so when I'm the back of your knee, not the front, yeah, when I uh, when.
Speaker 5:I 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 2:I 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 5:So 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 3:Oh, you should have been wearing a cup.
Speaker 5:I 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 5:Put 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 7:How many kids do you have? That didn't cause me the lasting damage did it?
Speaker 5:No, 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 7:So Like a bunny huh.
Speaker 3:Smart man, smart man.
Speaker 5:So oh go ahead. Can I? Can I throw her out there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5:All 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 5:Okay, 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 3:That's pretty much what it is. I invited her up here because I want to know I wasn't up here banging a.
Speaker 5:Joe 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 3:We'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 5:She should the way you listen. She should the way you ride clutch.
Speaker 2:Isn't there a V-Rod sitting around somewhere?
Speaker 4:You're gonna get his point of trouble.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you're in trouble.
Speaker 3:So anyways, no, she wants an electric bike, go in, go in.
Speaker 4:What I thought. Mine was quiet. I guess I won't be the quietest, like no.
Speaker 5:No 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 3:No, no, no, no, no. Okay, listen, I agree about the cars. Motorcycle that's a completely different story.
Speaker 5:The 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 7:It 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 2:Ingenuinen's.
Speaker 7:Ingenuinen'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 4:Right, totally get it, you imagine, when NASCAR finally goes electric. It's a quiet, quiet race.
Speaker 2:You 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 7:I 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 3:So so ladies and I, those electric motorcycles, those electric motorcycles have about 80 to 90 mile range. Yeah, they don't have it.
Speaker 2:No dependent on the freeway speeds right, right, yeah, yeah and listen.
Speaker 3:We cannot. Supposing, supposing there's an infrastructure, okay, supposing there's the infrastructure there for for the electric bike.
Speaker 5:Electric bike.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 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 2:Drill, 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 2:Yeah, 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 2:So 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 2:Same 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 2:So, 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 5:I have to charge it and how long does it does?
Speaker 2:it 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 5:them.
Speaker 2:Well, but but they could all bring them back here to the shop and they could charge them all night.
Speaker 5:I'm talking about out on the road.
Speaker 3:We're okay, I can, I can answer this this is the downfall right.
Speaker 2:So 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 4:I 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 3:My. So my wife has an electric car, she has an electric Mustang.
Speaker 2:Is 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 3:Listen, 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 4:No, it'll change the fastest car.
Speaker 3:I've ever been in in my life this is my friend's Mustang on the Autobahn.
Speaker 5:I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a boat fast dude.
Speaker 3:Listen, 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 5:But she rips my face off.
Speaker 3:Children 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 2:I'm not gonna say what she said, but it's a it's it.
Speaker 3:depending on the infrastructure, it's not a bad deal.
Speaker 5:It's really not what. We don't have the infrastructure.
Speaker 2:So 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 5:Okay, 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 2:Right so this is a problem.
Speaker 5:That is a problem.
Speaker 3:This is what I was gonna say.
Speaker 2:So I have.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I 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 3:So 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 2:We 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 5:We're not throwing nobody under, I'm just not gonna do it.
Speaker 2:I'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 2:So 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 2:Right 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 2:That'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 3:No, the issue for sure.
Speaker 2:No, because I can't plug it into 110. No, listen, and not taking 44 days right, I can't remember.
Speaker 3:I have them. It's the same as a dryer. The same as a dryer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 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 3:Everything is a hundred amp.
Speaker 2:Yes, 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 3:You have to look at what that much though it wouldn't be that much to upgrade that.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, it might cost me eight grand.
Speaker 3:No, no, no way. I bet you would no.
Speaker 5:To bring in a whole 200 amp service from the ball from the ball.
Speaker 2:Upgrade my meter up grade meter.
Speaker 5:Then you got a bunch of douche bag Put a new back. Sure then it inspectors that come in, then I gotta pull another.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 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 3:No, 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 2:So 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 3:I don't know about that.
Speaker 2:Well, if it's not, that expensive for the average American to do, why wouldn't you want to take it?
Speaker 5:I want to.
Speaker 2:I want to know why, if it's not, I'll pay the first thousand bucks, brother.
Speaker 5:I want to know why the rest if?
Speaker 2:it'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 5:and shit all over the place. Why ain't they paying, fucking?
Speaker 3:You know, I saw highway check listen, I saw a meme the other day. Right, I'm gonna become Amish. I.
Speaker 5:Think I am too.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 5:I'm gonna pretend like I'm a mish and I'm gonna bang everybody.
Speaker 2:I kid maybe, maybe this building is gonna become an Amish church.
Speaker 5:Well, 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 3:We're going off the rails here.
Speaker 5:I'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 2:So 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 2:So 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 7:So 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 2:Normal 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 5:Okay, 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 2:is they figure what the state road tax is based on 16 cents a gallon, or?
Speaker 4:nine cents a gallon. They probably do it based on the average.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just an average based on how much your vehicle weighs.
Speaker 3:Tim, they got thirty thousand dollar electric vehicles. Go ahead, brother, listen, I saw a meme. I saw a meme the other day.
Speaker 5:Look at you, I ain't going electric where it was it was.
Speaker 3:It 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 5:So the problem over and okay, so in time it can be, but right now Don't force me to do.
Speaker 2:Don't force it.
Speaker 3:No one's forcing it. I mean California will but not Michigan yet, so so wait a minute.
Speaker 2:So 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 2:So 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 2:No, 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 3:So why it up?
Speaker 2:because they don't have natural gas out there.
Speaker 3:There's people here in Michigan, right here in central Michigan, they're using wood stoves absolutely wood boiler.
Speaker 2:If 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 5:Oh, because?
Speaker 1:no, the smoke.
Speaker 5:You can't do a wood stove, because then the insurance won't cover you, and then you have smoke, smoke.
Speaker 2:That'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 7:Here'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 2:So so this is the problem. That's a lot of horseshit.
Speaker 7:So this is the problem.
Speaker 2:Right, 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 6:What do they tell you? It's all for schools. Yeah, so this goes to the county.
Speaker 2:So 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 7:It 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 5:I 94 I 94.
Speaker 7:Great roads down there. The minute you hit the michigan line it turns to shit.
Speaker 5:I 94 is the highway of death.
Speaker 2:Here'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 7:Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:I have no problem with being taxed if it's used for good purposes.
Speaker 2:But 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 7:We 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 2:And then, and then you want to say fix the damn roads. And your slogan yeah, it's gas tax.
Speaker 3:Look.
Speaker 7:Well, lottery too, but you know, it's lottery all of it's supposed to go to schools.
Speaker 2:No 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 7:They're quoted on this pamphlet of saying about half the state tax on gasoline goes to schools and local governments, not to transportation.
Speaker 5:So should all go to. It should all go. If I'm paying for gas tax, it should go for my roads.
Speaker 7:So wait a minute. Yeah, an infrastructure for the roads. Our bridges in michigan are Horrible.
Speaker 2:I'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 7:Yeah, why not simplify it?
Speaker 2:Well, 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 5:Okay, 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 2:Last whole brick. Charlie clad, that's not my name.
Speaker 5:It'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 3:Well they, they were a communist country, you know, up until 1989.
Speaker 8:Absolutely and 89.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 1989.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 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 2:for sure, because we want an outside perspective of what's going on. Right, that's right, it's.
Speaker 5:It's great when you have someone from a totally different culture, totally different culture we're talking about electric vehicles.
Speaker 2:We'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 8:I 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 5:Honey, we don't have their autobahn, Okay.
Speaker 7:You think that's bad? Hawaii's speed limit is 55.
Speaker 8:I know like, how is that even like working those? Those people are just standing in the place.
Speaker 6:Not even moving like no, that's the first thing you you got to speed the hell up Okay.
Speaker 8:That 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 2:She's a doctor like an md doctor md.
Speaker 3:Yes, right, right, yes, yes, yes, she's yes I.
Speaker 5:I 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 8:I 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 7:No 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 8:Yeah, 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 5:Okay, 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 8:so 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 8:We 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 8:But 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 2:They 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 2:In 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 8:So 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 2:Right, 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 8:You know, you guys tell your kids, you can be. Whatever you want to be no, no, it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 4:So you got to be somebody who contributes to the community.
Speaker 2:So let me 100, 100 fucking percent.
Speaker 5:Okay, 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 2:Yeah, 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 5:No, 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 4:It goes to defense. What's a big one? They go to deep.
Speaker 5:Well, 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 8:Is 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 3:Here'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 2:They're gonna, 25 of whom are allies. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go with that, but, but why so polling gets evaded tomorrow?
Speaker 8:Oh, they're, they're going down, we're down, we're down.
Speaker 3:Oh, but we wait a minute.
Speaker 8:Oh, wait a minute tomorrow, we are gonna give up today.
Speaker 7:But what I'm saying is so you have happened once already.
Speaker 8:So no but but but you have a very well educated soldiers.
Speaker 7:So so this is they know what 2 plus 2 is.
Speaker 2:So 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 8:on 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 5:We 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 8:guess 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 2:So this is where we go across the ocean.
Speaker 8:Protect 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 2:I 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 7:How many homeless do we have on the streets?
Speaker 2:You know, I mean Like we get things away. So he's doing really good about that.
Speaker 7:But 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 5:The 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 7:Google eyes it.
Speaker 2:Tim, 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 5:That's the way he was.
Speaker 2:Yep, 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 5:You can say that that's because it's god damn the truth, but that's the way.
Speaker 7:I mean Talk directly to your mic.
Speaker 2:Oh, 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 7:Germany yeah, you, that's that's what rallied the german people Is. He was very, you know, he was outspoken, he was charismatic.
Speaker 2:And, and unfortunately, trump was the same way. Right, he was all about america, but also trump.
Speaker 5:And 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 2:So 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 8:Hey, don't be wrong, it sucks in poland, okay. No, we're not all saying this all the roses and rainbows.
Speaker 2:No, we're not. No one's saying that. And us as americans, no, but poland also knows.
Speaker 5:Poland 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 2:We would rather spend a dollar Defending poland than we would spend a dollar Defending america.
Speaker 6:Now I want to, I want to and I'm not bagging on poland, right.
Speaker 2:I 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 2:You 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 3:Well, 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 2:I, I think.
Speaker 3:I 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 8:You 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 7:I insanity.
Speaker 8:So, 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 5:So it's kind of a cross that's cross between I.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna jump this I'm gonna jump this real quick Hold on, hold on.
Speaker 2:I 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 5:But what am I?
Speaker 2:am I incorrect when I say that?
Speaker 8:and you know my very bad question is like Comparing my sister to me, right, my sister? Hey, hey hey.
Speaker 5:He likes that movement a lot, so he likes it when I do that to him too.
Speaker 8:So 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 2:Come on. Well, your baby does not need you for like, so wait a minute.
Speaker 8:So 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 2:Do you have churches?
Speaker 8:not as much as here.
Speaker 2:Right, so yeah.
Speaker 8:I 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 2:So you actually come to America and you see more poverty, yeah.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I actually saw more poverty.
Speaker 2:Here than I saw in poland, which was really shocking to me.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, so in large, yeah, and I'm not talking, I'm not talking about average people like.
Speaker 1:Right, it's not a thing like if you're rich.
Speaker 8:you'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 2:But 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 2:And 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 5:I'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 8:Yeah, we say hey, hey, hey, all the time.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 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 8:Oh, let me ask you a question Okay so so you graduate your your high school level?
Speaker 2:I 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 8:No, 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 2:But they say if you want to be a doctor, will pay for you.
Speaker 8:No, 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 2:Well, but what happens if you don't make the score to qualify to be? Then you know somewhere else.
Speaker 8:You 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 5:You 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 5:You 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 8:It'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 5:You 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 2:And you're going you're going too deep.
Speaker 8:I 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 2:You'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 5:No, 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 2:You'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 5:Yes, I do, you got to apply, you have to apply, but if they don't need a thousand and one doctors.
Speaker 2:You're not going to be a fucking doctor for a thousand.
Speaker 5:No, I understand that I understand that.
Speaker 8:Let'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 8:You 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 5:You 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 7:I have no idea over like six billion dollars. Okay, so if you took.
Speaker 5:If 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 8:So 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 8:I 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 4:Wow, 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 5:The fucked up thing about that is when you say that I want to run away from charlie.
Speaker 7:Well, 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 5:You're getting raped.
Speaker 7:A 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 7:So, 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 7:Right, 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 7:But 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 4:Maybe it's a percentage, a percentage assigned.
Speaker 7:Yeah, 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 3:Yeah, 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 7:You 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 3:And not just that, but also the I guess the big red scare back in the 50s.
Speaker 7:The red menace.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the red menace.
Speaker 5:So first of all, let me hit you. Our country was not founded on socialism.
Speaker 7:No, no, no, no. I said the country was founded on a distrust of government. We were founded, you know.
Speaker 5:We 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 2:Well, you can say what?
Speaker 5:about pussies, but we're Because we, the people, wouldn't have people thinking they're cats and peeing in a fucking-.
Speaker 3:That's not happening. That's not really happening Really. No, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 7:Even Joe Rogan found out that this is not really happening. But I really don't-.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, that part yes, but peeing in a litter box at school, that's not happening.
Speaker 7:Sounds 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 7:You know. I agree, like education is extremely important.
Speaker 4:I 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 7:Amen to that too. That's a great example. You know, you get $100,000 over the course of like what four?
Speaker 3:years or so.
Speaker 7:Get $100,000 in loans but you can't go out and start a power washing business.
Speaker 5:Okay, so I'm gonna throw this out there.
Speaker 3:Trey, yes, sir.
Speaker 5:How you doing, I'm good.
Speaker 3:I'm good.
Speaker 5:You are my favorite clerk. You know that I do.
Speaker 7:They're touching each other right now Because you paid me some money.
Speaker 5:You 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 3:Spent all your money, didn't she? I?
Speaker 5:appreciate, nope, because I switched to the USAA.
Speaker 1:Okay, good boy, good boy.
Speaker 5:So, so. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you. What is your college level?
Speaker 3:I've graduated college.
Speaker 5:Okay, so here we go. I'm having a bachelor's degree, so now we're hold on.
Speaker 7:I'm not saying that either. I'm not saying you gotta have a degree.
Speaker 3:I got about three years of college. Okay, three years of college.
Speaker 5:Miss 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 7:You started out the empire. And the empire collective.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 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 3:I'm doing very well, so I'm not asking.
Speaker 5:I'm not asking for money figures, Right right. I'm just asking how you doing, brother Um so.
Speaker 7:He owns a motorcycle.
Speaker 3:I do that. He a couple.
Speaker 7:And and a cage. I believe, don't you, I do, I do. Yeah, a cage and a motorcycle. He's doing that well.
Speaker 3:I got a couple, a couple.
Speaker 7:But I got a house in.
Speaker 3:Florida. I got a house up here, so you know I'm I'm doing without giving away what my like net worth is.
Speaker 6:I don't want it. I don't want to know You're doing well.
Speaker 3:I'm doing very, very well. You're doing well. You're doing extremely well. Better. Better than most college educated people.
Speaker 5:Uncolly.
Speaker 7:Yes, 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 4:Well, a lot of the class. They make you tankers. It's fluff, bullshit.
Speaker 7:Oh God, yes, Don't get me started on that shit.
Speaker 3:Well 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 5:And then you got to blah blah.
Speaker 3:She did six years straight medical school. Six years straight medical school. That's it.
Speaker 7:And they get. They get paid garbage, by the way.
Speaker 8:I 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 5:Thank you.
Speaker 8:There's difference between being book smart and life smart.
Speaker 7:Amen to that.
Speaker 8:And if you have both, that's great, but there's a lot of people that have this like book smartness.
Speaker 4:Zero common sense to go in.
Speaker 8:And 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 4:If 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 1:Yeah, do the trade school.
Speaker 7:Why do I need to go?
Speaker 4:through and, like I, take an anatomy class in school.
Speaker 7:An apprenticeship.
Speaker 4:A lot of IT guys take an anatomy class for it.
Speaker 7:Right, 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 3:Neurosurgeon.
Speaker 7:Neurosurgeon. They're in there forever. But here's the other thing they get paid garbage during residency.
Speaker 3:I 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 5:Before 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 7:But 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 3:Right, and then you gotta pay that. I was lucky in that regard.
Speaker 5:So 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 3:Yes.
Speaker 5:Obviously 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 3:What 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 3:They 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 3:That's what I was good at.
Speaker 5:I'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 8:Actually, 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 3:That's true, I do. That's a whole argument, though.
Speaker 5:And the pants dropping down was. Not the Navy guy. It was the Navy guy.
Speaker 7:It was the guy talking to Trey like this so that's what we did.
Speaker 3:We 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 5:So what would you do?
Speaker 4:I guess this is true again, so I gotta take off. I'll see you guys later. All right, see you.
Speaker 7:Thanks for dropping in, brother.
Speaker 5:See 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 3:Well, you're not very young, but other people that would I'd be younger than you.
Speaker 5:Other young people that would wanna go out there and try the entrepreneurship. What would you say to them?
Speaker 3:I would say find something that you love. Find something that you love and work hard at it. That's really-.
Speaker 7:So prostitute would not be a good thing, because I love that that's still not legal in this state.
Speaker 3:So, 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 2:Absolutely, 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 5:Yeah, everybody's gotta do what they wanna do, like for me.
Speaker 7:Jackoff.
Speaker 5:Most 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 3:And 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 7:They're touching each other again.
Speaker 3:Just slightly.
Speaker 2:It's a tough job to do if you're still working, oh yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:That's more than a 40 hour week and that's the thing Tim gives it 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:I'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 7:Yep.
Speaker 2:Because 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 7:What 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 8:It's shit, I don't need to know what two plus two is right.
Speaker 7:Well, true, but you know what I'm saying, though, is it's just, it's stuff that really doesn't Well.
Speaker 3:I can tell you this I never, never found, I never found something that I really loved when I was in school.
Speaker 8:You know what I mean Because we did not allow weed at school.
Speaker 3:Well, 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 5:Okay, 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 5:I'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 7:I agree. We've been all American for how many years now?
Speaker 5:Yeah, 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 3:Yeah, but you're at the head, you're the head of the snake.
Speaker 5:District, 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 3:Tim's available. That's right.
Speaker 5:But 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 3:If you do department judge advocate, does that mean you give up the post? Nope, okay.
Speaker 5:No, 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 7:What. Yep, you, britton, and Tim is rolling his eyes right now.
Speaker 3:When Tim is done. I think you would be. You got my vote, you, charlie. There's a couple people.
Speaker 5:I think Charlie would be a great post commander.
Speaker 7:I think it would be.
Speaker 5:If Charlie run against me next year, I'd be done. Terry and Sancio, if you run against me.
Speaker 7:I'd be done.
Speaker 5:Oh well, yeah.
Speaker 7:Well, 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 3:Yeah.
Speaker 7:And 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 5:Do you?
Speaker 7:You know it's always your choice, so so.
Speaker 3:All right so, but, bretton, you're doing good things though. That's what. That's my point, yep.
Speaker 5:And 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 3:But.
Speaker 5:But 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 3:It has been.
Speaker 5:It has been a good night, I mean.
Speaker 7:We're over three hours at this point.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 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 3:Yeah, three hours.
Speaker 5:Three hours is a long time for some of us it is.
Speaker 7:It 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 2:Yeah.
Speaker 7:But, but you know, let's, let's leave it to our listeners, yeah, and give us some feedback. So you know, email us.
Speaker 5:So 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 7:I 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 5:So they can VFWPost333.
Speaker 7:Yep 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 5:Yep and clerk God, we should have named you.
Speaker 3:I'm the clerk and he's the cocksucker.
Speaker 5:Yeah, hey, hey. T-bone, t-bone. What'd you got Anything? Last party message.
Speaker 3:No, I think we need to go save Charlie and call this a night.
Speaker 5:Good, 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 8:Eva.
Speaker 5:Eva, 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 3:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And that's outstanding. That's outstanding because that's what we want.
Speaker 3:Very proud of my wife right now.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you should be.
Speaker 8:Just to close it up, our military sucks Like we would not stand up for one day.
Speaker 3:That is true, like listen.
Speaker 5:The Poland military or our military, Polish military?
Speaker 8:No, no, Polish one but hey we have a good education right.
Speaker 3:Listen. 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 5:No, I'm not no.
Speaker 3:I'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 5:So 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 8:Drink beer or vodka.
Speaker 5:Or vodka.
Speaker 7:Or non-o alcoholic beverages.
Speaker 5:Or non-o alcoholic beverages. It's Indian coffee, yeah.
Speaker 7:Good night, All right. Good night everybody. Thanks for joining us. I want you to hear the old one. I go.
Speaker 1:Thank 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.