Soup Sandwich
Welcome to Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts, and advocates, we'll dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment, to the history of veterans in the US and the future of military service. This podcast is supported by the generous contribution of the members of VFW Post 3033.
Soup Sandwich
Navigating Naval Narratives: Aboard the USS America with Bill House
Ever wondered what it's like to juggle the chaos of military life on an aircraft carrier? Join us as Bill House recounts his unforgettable service aboard the USS America from 1993 to 1995. From a deployment to Haiti, humorously dubbed the "Haitian vacation at the voodoo station," to the logistical gymnastics of housing 5,000 Army personnel on an aircraft carrier, Bill's stories weave a rich tapestry of humor, camaraderie, and the complex realities of life at sea. You'll laugh, you'll learn, and you'll gain a newfound appreciation for the resilience and ingenuity of our service members.
Curious about the rites of passage in the Navy? We bring you the gritty details of "Wog Day," where the trials of becoming a Shellback are as intense as they are integral to building unbreakable bonds. From crawling through rotten milk to being doused with fire hoses, these traditions help mold resilient warriors ready for any high-pressure situation. Whether it's the chaos of emergency drills or the bravery of search and rescue swimmers, we delve into the high-stakes training that prepares our military for the worst while fostering an unparalleled spirit of camaraderie.
But the veteran experience doesn't end at sea. Our episode shines a spotlight on the community and support networks that thrive once the uniform comes off. Hear about the vital roles played by veterans' groups, the importance of the VFW, and the evolving criteria for membership in veteran organizations. We celebrate the spirit of volunteerism at places like Camp Trotter and the VFW National Home while we discuss the ongoing efforts to support military families and children, all while weaving in light-hearted banter and personal anecdotes that bring the veteran community's vibrant tapestry to life.
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
War is a paradox. It has the power to bring nations together, to inspire heroism and sacrifice and to forge bonds of camaraderie that will span a lifetime, but it also has the power to tear families apart, to shatter communities and to leave scars that will never fully heal. And, for those who have served, the transition back to civilian life can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. This is the typical life of military veterans, a world that is both familiar and foreign to most of us. It is a world that is shaped by unique experiences, values and traditions of the military and by the sacrifices and struggles of those who have served, but it's also a world that is constantly changing, as new generations of veterans confront new challenges and new opportunities. Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. Dig your foxhole, heat up your MRE and spend some time with us.
Speaker 1:This podcast is designed solely for entertainment and, occasionally, informational purposes only, and is to be regarded strictly as satire. Comprising of veterans, it delves into their thoughts and experiences in combat, as well as their perspectives on various aspects of daily life that may be unsettling for certain listeners. This podcast is not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. The views articulated in this podcast may not necessarily align with those of the National VFW VFW Department of Michigan or VFW Post 3033. Additionally, we kindly request that listeners refrain from pursuing legal action against the creators or contributors of this podcast. In other words, please don't sue us.
Speaker 2:And here we are back for another episode of Soup Sandwich. Please don't sue us. You know, with the good weather we've got the riders group out doing their rides all the time. We've got you know horseshoes We've got. You know this is Michigan. There's not a whole lot of time to enjoy nice weather outside.
Speaker 2:Take it when we can get it Exactly, exactly. So yeah, welcome back. I am Brent Holbrook. I am the founder of the Soup Sandwich Podcast and the incoming junior vice commander for VFW Post 3033. Tonight we got a new guest with us. He'll introduce himself here in just a minute, and then we got two familiar faces. So let's go this way We'll let House introduce himself last to give him some time.
Charlie Cline:WE'LL LET HOUSE INTRODUCE HIMSELF LAST TO GIVE HIM SOME TIME. My NAME IS CHARLIE KLEIN, life MEMBER, post 3033 AND DEPARTMENT OF MICHIGAN WRITERS GROUP.
Tre Porter:DIRECTOR TREY PORTER, also LIFE MEMBER OF POST 3033. Also IN CHARGE OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE, now Also in charge of the House Committee now, and then the president of the Post 3033, riders.
Bill House:Group and, last but not least, bill House, a life member also, and vice president of the Riders Group, sweet.
Speaker 2:So typically when we have a brand-new person come on, we give them a chance you know a few minutes to just kind of tell about their background and you know where you served and what you did, any interesting deployments and a little bit about your background in general. So what do you got for?
Bill House:us. 1993 to 95, I was in the Navy on a aircraft carrier USS America Was repair division, worked in the CHT shop. Those of you Familiar with the Navy know what that is. The rest of you, I'll spare you the details. One of the deployments that made me eligible for being a post member was a deployment to Haiti. We called it the Haitian vacation at the voodoo station, and so we spent about eight weeks floating around Haiti. We had about 5,000 Army guys on board and all they did was ate all our food and worked out and we got them there.
Tre Porter:How many Army guys?
Bill House:5,000? About 5,000. Dang so ship's company is typically about 5,000. When you add the aviation wing, just general ship's company is about 2,000. Just general ship's company is about 2,000, so total with aviation engineering and so fire division and then the deck department, the whole crew is about 5,000. So we flew the air, the aviation off and brought on the Army guys, so there was probably about 5,000. They took up the whole hangar deck 5,000 total, Total guys. No, no, total Army plus our 2,000. So there was 7,000?. Yes.
Tre Porter:Does that mean, you're over capacity?
Bill House:No, that just means they took up the whole hangar deck Because the aviation wasn't there, we didn't have any airplanes on, and they put all their rucksacks they sleep on cots down there and cots yep, and he's probably stunk probably had to do damage control drills and spray that shit down with the fire hose after they left the only time they were on board was the two weeks there and the two weeks back roughly so the other times they were actually out on the island taking care of what they were taking care of.
Tre Porter:I remember my cousin who is Army Aviation sent me a picture. She was on an aircraft carrier out in the Persian Gulf somewhere. I don't know what the hell she was doing out there, but she did go. She did spend some time on a aircraft carrier for a little bit Before we get too in-depth, right.
Charlie Cline:We got the newbie Newbie's. Got to sign the sign. It's Johnny Hancock. I think I went to college. We got newbie movies. Gotta sign the sign, johnny Hancock. Think I went to college with him, johnny Johnny Hancock. Was that stepbrothers and my am or was that was? That the one where they were doing yeah, they were doing the interviews or something he's like.
Charlie Cline:I went to school with Sloan Kettering and Johnny Hancock, or something to school with uh sloan kettering and johnny hancock or something I think you said. So gotcha uh. As you can see everybody else's signature up there all right, I'll see you go up there and sign however you want, I'll go do it you see everybody else.
Tre Porter:Some of us put our our service and uh time as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, glad we flip it around and if you're watching us live on our Facebook page, you should be able to see the banner right now. But it's tradition here at Soup Sandwich that we got a banner here with our logo on it and we have everybody sign it.
Charlie Cline:Might have to just hit it on the wall real quick, just to get it?
Bill House:Oh, I probably didn't get it. Oh, I probably didn't get it, yeah it's gotta get it Now.
Charlie Cline:we got bird. Now you got a dripping drip.
Speaker 2:Leave it to the Navy guy to leave white dripping shit Right.
Bill House:This is the hazing you guys were talking about. Big spear mark. Oh, now I messed it all up.
Tre Porter:It gets worse house.
Charlie Cline:It gets worse.
Bill House:It's not supposed to be.
Charlie Cline:It's been sitting here most of the winter, so we'll see what are you doing. Look at all those other signatures. Not one person had a problem. It gets from you, yeah, but the market was brand new back then, not when Jimmy was here.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true, it was brand new back then.
Charlie Cline:Not when Jimmy was here.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true. It was pretty new, though, speaking of Jimmy. Hi, jimmy, I don't know if you're listening. He's probably still working right now.
Charlie Cline:All right, but here's a service branch road name. Anything but your condom size, that we don't need to know because extra small is if he wears a kid size condoms?
Tre Porter:what?
Speaker 2:all right back in business yeah leave the right back in business we'll have to get a. We have to get an extra long cord and maybe go landscape view so we can do a wide shot.
Charlie Cline:Anyway, it's a little crooked, but it'll get by.
Speaker 2:It'll get by.
Charlie Cline:I think you sabotaged me.
Bill House:I think you sabotaged me. I think everybody else is saying there's on the flat and you got me on the vertical.
Tre Porter:No, we're going to have to get a new pen.
Speaker 2:We'll get a new pen next time you come up.
Tre Porter:Matter of fact, where is that pen at? How is it sitting sideways lays?
Speaker 2:on that table and maybe house can fix it later that looks horrible this kind of looks like smudges there so we were talking about being on the ship. I also am a Navy veteran. I was not assigned to a ship as a normal duty station. I was on a ship during my deployment and just before we started recording, we were coming up with some ideas of you know, things to talk about. One of the things we came up with is a Navy tradition that that we do. It's always called something different. So well, I've heard it.
Bill House:Yeah, we called it walk day long day, so it was. It's basically what happens when you cross the equator, so okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I've heard it as walk day, I've heard it as just a crossing ceremony it's yeah, that's kind of the so there's a couple different ones.
Bill House:So so across the equator they call it Wog Day. At least that's what they did on our. You know what we heard. We were close to that, but we never got a chance to actually cross the equator. And what it does is, when you cross the equator, you go through a Pretty intensive hazing ceremony. It's all for fun, you know, it's a big celebration, and what they do is you turn from a pollywog into what's called a shellback. And so we do have one of the gentlemen in our riders group that actually has a shellback patch on his vest.
Bill House:Nice in our riders group that actually has a shellback patch on his uh, on his vest nice, so I had talked to him the other day about it. That kind of brought the whole discussion up earlier.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you what I am jealous as fuck because I was close to getting, uh, wog day. Uh, we were out floating off the coast of africa somewhere I don't really know, but there was a rumor that we were going to go sail down to the Seychelles, which would have had us cross the equator, but at the last minute ship's captains got orders to go somewhere else and we didn't get the chance to do it. But talking about Wog Day, it's a really fun tradition, like Bill was saying, or house we just call them house um, they set up all kinds of different obstacles. It's kind of like just a giant obstacle course and nowadays it's still kind of a hazing ritual, but it's it's very, very much died down from what it used to be. I mean, I I remember talking to my dad.
Speaker 2:I was going through some of his stuff and I found his certificate and asked him about it and he was telling me all these stories about how back then that was mid 70s, late 70s, right of passage and it was a rite of passage and back then, just in general let me start there in general uh, kind of the pomp and circumstances. You know, king, neptune and his royal court, who's typically, you know, one of the chiefs on the boat, comes, quote unquote, on board the ship and witnesses all these ceremonies and everything. And yeah, make the make the polywogs do ungodly things. My dad was telling me that they made him crawl through rotten milk and just fucking the nastiest shit they could find, you know, rotten food, rotten milk, whatever. Did they bring the sheeps?
Tre Porter:out. No, no sheeps that I recall.
Charlie Cline:They saved those for the after party. They don't want those things ruined.
Bill House:So those that have previously enjoyed this experience, the shellbacks, actually are the ones that do the hazing to the new recruits, so to speak.
Speaker 2:It's something they look forward to. They always look forward to that next opportunity to pass along the pain and misery. The paybacks, yes.
Charlie Cline:Sometimes, though, that's part of that brotherhood and sisterhood right, I mean it's like you say, it's a rite of passage, and in the marine corps we have the same thing. Sure, right, and you're just waiting for your day to be able to do what was done to you as a brother or sister. Now you're part of us, right?
Speaker 1:like I mean, that's that I I get.
Charlie Cline:Sometimes things can get taken out of out of hand and out of control, right, but if they're done appropriately, right there's a lot of fun to be had.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of tradition and I think tradition is important, especially in the military and I think, to a certain degree, I think, uh, recruit training or boot camp is kind of like that too. All your drill instructors, you know they, they're thinking, you know, six, ten years ago, holy shit, I was in these guys' shoes, you know, and you know their primary objective is to train you and mold you to be a good soldier or a good airman or a good sailor or a good Marine. Right, that's the primary objective. But you can't tell me in the meantime, especially with some of these YouTube videos that I've seen about Marine Corps, mcrd, some of those guys are running in with their campaign covers and they've got the most sadistic fucking smiles on their faces. They run in about to do a fucking tornado, so they have a lot of fun.
Tre Porter:I was a drill sergeant for Jackson? No shit, I didn't know that and uh, I used to think these poor bastards, these poor bastards but you know it's the same shit, I went through.
Speaker 1:It's the same shit.
Tre Porter:The people before me went through. You know what I mean. It's a rite of passage, that's for sure.
Charlie Cline:Past the gauntlet well, what they do too, though, right, is they're always there to push you to your limit, to your extreme, because and then some right, and it's to it's to get you to realize that, when your body and your mind want to give up, that you can continue to push past that point, right. So it's put you under stress, it's to put you in abnormal situations.
Charlie Cline:You know what I mean and to do the most craziest things that you think are the stupidest thing in the world and it hurts but to get you to overcome it, because in combat or anything right, I mean if you guys are on the ship or you know you're in the hospital and you got to pull a 48 hour shift. They want you sleep deprived and be able to know that I can push myself to a point where the pain doesn't hurt anymore, the tiredness doesn't hurt anymore.
Charlie Cline:The tiredness doesn't get to me anymore the mission is to do what the mission is and get to that point. You go on to a sort of autopilot Right, so they call it hazing right, and I get. There's things out there that can go beyond that, but generally speaking, most of the things right. Crawling through spoiled knuckles is not killing anybody.
Speaker 4:No, it's just things right crawling through spoiled knuckles, not killing anybody, no, it's just gross right. So who cares?
Charlie Cline:Right, you're going to wash it off in a half hour anyways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe my dad said something about fire hoses after the end of it all.
Bill House:Oh yeah, they get the old inch of fire, so come on.
Charlie Cline:Nothing out there is going to kill you, right?
Bill House:Well, I don't know that. Well, I don't know that fireman could do some damage. It's kind of like you've seen the movie Rambo where they're cleaning. John Rambo, get them behind the ears. Yeah, they definitely get you behind the ears. Absolutely 150 PSI. Inch and a half fireman, it puts out some water quick. Yeah, it does, as long as they don't get the three-inch ones off the hanging back out.
Speaker 2:Sound of freedom, sound of freedom, sound of freedom there it is so, uh one of the uh. One of the things that came to my mind when you were talking, charlie, was uh just showed a picture of uh of trey oh, yeah, yeah I'll get it up closer yeah, so this is a picture of uh young, of young Trav Drill.
Charlie Cline:Sergeant Travius Porter Yep, look at him Sexy 20, 2004, 25.
Tre Porter:He didn't look that tough did he 2004, 2005.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I was just starting high school. Yeah, and you 93.
Bill House:Yeah, I was like three years old, yeah, 93.
Bill House:Yeah, the funny thing is when, uh, so I flew out, uh, I flew all the way to, uh siganella, sicily, and then, uh, uh, I met the ship on a med cruise. So they uh put me on a helicopter to fly me out to this boat, right, and I'm looking out the little window and I'm looking at this ship. I said well, well, heck that isn't very big. Got on board, nah, still really not that big. Yeah, it was huge. It took me three months to find the ship stored by myself, so I'll just give you an idea.
Charlie Cline:Well, I can tell you this. So when I was at Fast Company we did a lot of training on boats, no-transcript. So you have like the deck and then you have decks below that. So it's like you know, 1 to 12, and then bulkheads. So if you had to get to hatch 34, you might have to go down three decks over four bulkheads. So if you had to get to hatch 34, you might have to go down three decks over four bulkheads, up another two decks over four bulkheads to get down more decks. And then over to the bulkhead, to the door you have to get to. It's not like it's a straight line, like a hallway in a hotel.
Charlie Cline:No, it's not it is absolutely crazy, insane and for us to have to learn that stuff, because we would get basically the ship that we were going to go take. We would get the layout of the ship so we could memorize where we had to be, because each one of our little fire teams that were moving around the boat all had a specific area to clear and check. So we had to learn and every boat is different. Sure, I mean it's insane, right? So you'd get on a frigate or a destroyer. It's going to be totally different than your aircraft carrier. You get on some like ours were oil tankers, which are going to be different than dry bulk ships and stuff. So it was weird, one of the craziest.
Charlie Cline:So I could see how it took you three months to find the ship store because it's a freaking maze in those boats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's definitely a maze. And one of the craziest things was my first duty station I was assigned to. At the time it was called National Naval Medical Center. Now it's Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Speaker 2:I was there during the name change, but my original orders to National Naval Medical Center put me on an emergency medical force assigned to the hospital ship Comfort, and so back then what they would do is they would basically send everybody who's kind of new to the command to go and look at the ship.
Speaker 2:And you know, just know that, hey, by the way, you might end up here one day, you know, it just depends, you know, because, um, if you don't know about the hospital ships, uh, we have two of them that I can think of. Comfort is on the east coast, mercy is on the west coast. Um, we might have more, I don't know. I think it's just the two, but anyway, they're converted oil tankers and the the fuckers are huge. Oh yeah, and that threw me for a loop because you know, I'm shortly fresh out of boot camp, right? I remember how to read the bullseyes, what you were just talking about, the decks and the bulkheads and shit, and I knew how to do that, but it was entirely different on the comfort, so it was an interesting thing.
Bill House:So to go just a little step further what Charlie was saying and to reiterate what you were saying a little bit, so every hatch, basically everything on the boat, has what they call a tack number. So you start with the ribs of the boat. So from the front of the boat to the back, each rib has a number, and so that number tells you your placement from the front of the ship to the back of the ship.
Bill House:Then the next number is your, your deck level, and I may have these mixed up a little bit here, but gives you an idea it's just been a few minutes yeah so so you've got decks below. So let's say, ground floor would be would be deck one, so deck it goes from one down to two to three to four, and then up is levels. So then you go O1, o2, o3 above your base of ground floor.
Speaker 2:And for ships? Isn't that typically waterline, isn't it Typically?
Bill House:yeah, so I think on the carrier the hangar deck was your deck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that made sense because you got the superstructure above.
Bill House:And I think there was six decks below and 12 above the superstructure all the way up. But if you go to any passageway it'll have that tag number on it so you can tell exactly where you were at, whether you on the poorest port or starboard side of the boat, uh, how far from the front you were, or in the back, depending on, and then, uh, what deck, what level you were right.
Bill House:so so you can pretty much navigate the ship that way and every door, every passageway, every you know, has that what they call tag numbers, right? So those navy guys are probably laughing going hell yeah, hell yeah.
Charlie Cline:I remember that shit, Even the Marines. We're more lost on a ship than we are lost in general. So I mean, we were getting all spun around and turned around and everything else, you know. And I was only on an LST. Oh yeah, I was on a Frederick for a couple weeks going from Thailand to the Philippines and that was bad enough. I mean that ship was small. I mean it was probably only what, 600, 700 feet probably, yeah, probably.
Speaker 2:And they were just. You want to see some crazy shit, and I don't know if they did any of these drills while you were on board the ship. But you know, thinking about being just a brand-new sailor, right, you just learned the shit. You're finally on the ship and you go through your first general quarters drill. Can you imagine? I can, because I've lived it Exactly. So now I've only witnessed a couple. Again, I was never assigned to a ship as a duty station, so my experience is way different. But yeah, I mean, it's an organized chaos. Oh sure, for those that don't know, it's an organized chaos. Oh sure, for those that don't know, it's an organized chaos when they call General Quarters. You know the? Bells go off, you run.
Speaker 2:The bells go off, you run, and when they come on the 1MC and they're announcing General Quarters, general Quarters, man, your battle stations, you know, they give you the instructions. You know what is it? I think it's up and forward, starboard side, aft, and downward at a port side of the ship, and so, essentially, it's it's making. It's making whatever direction you've got to go, from your birthing or from the gym or wherever the hell you are when it happens to where your workstation is. However, However, you got to do that. They're making everybody do organized chaos and everybody is moving the same direction.
Tre Porter:So that not everybody is running into each other. Yeah, so you have people running into each other, right exactly?
Bill House:So I was part of the fire party and we had what we called 4 and 5 forward and 4 and 5 aft, depending on if there was the fire, depending on where it was in the front of the ship or the back, depending who was primary and who was secondary. And so we would. We would run when they would call general quarters and I remember one time one of my buddies was in front of me from my, from my shop, and uh, dax, would actually stepped out into the P way and he said make a hole. And he plowed him, knocked him over. I jumped over him, said sorry, sir, and kept running so we end up in the Chiefs mess and was down on our fire equipment. He walked in, brushing himself off, says who was that guy?
Speaker 1:that was that knocked me down and I'm going oh crap, we're going to captain's mass and he says that was me down and I'm going. Oh crap, oh fuck, we're going to.
Bill House:Captain's Mass and he says that was me, sir. He goes, I'm really sorry. And the XO says no, no, no, no. I apologize to you. I got in your way. That was so. When it's general quarters, it does not matter who you are. Right. He did. He knocked him right over, he stepped out right in front of him, he plowed him and I jumped right over him.
Speaker 2:said sorry sir and kept on running. I mean it's, it's a legit emergency drill or not a drill, it doesn't matter. You know you're, you're you're practicing, or it's a real life event and it's. The ship is in danger. None of the other ship makes a difference at that point in time. You know it's you, just you got to do job.
Charlie Cline:Well, that's what they always say, right? You practice like you play, right. So your practices need to be as real world, time-wise, situation-wise, and everything is possible to make sure that you know it's good. Yeah.
Bill House:We had another incident where we actually had a man overboard it was a real, you know and so they called general quarters and man overboard, man overboard. I looked up, we're sitting there in the chow hall and I looked at a buddy of mine sitting there eating lunch and I says holy shit, that's the real deal. He goes no way, I goes. Yeah, that's a real deal. We mustered that whole shit 5,000 people in four and a half minutes.
Speaker 2:That's the organized chaos. Is that trying to?
Charlie Cline:figure out who it is? Is that where you're mustering, so you can head count?
Bill House:They knew exactly who it was in four and a half minutes.
Speaker 2:Yep Crazy.
Bill House:Out of 5,000 people on an aircraft carrier.
Speaker 2:Isn't that fucking insane.
Bill House:Did you ever find out how? They don't remember? Yeah, it was DAC department. He got caught in a jet wash or something got blew overboard, not sure.
Charlie Cline:Dang Defined him.
Bill House:I don't know. We knew who he was.
Charlie Cline:I mean, well, we heard that they knew who he was. We didn't, which you don't know if they ever got to him.
Speaker 2:No, the power of Google.
Charlie Cline:I don't know, you might be able to find that Well, I tell you by the time you're coming off a flight deck, deck, you're falling about 25 stories to the water, so the chances that you survive in. It are probably slim Now there was just a person I read today icon of the seas, that new huge ship. There was a guy that jumped off the top deck of that died. They actually found his body and shit and brought him back on board, but he was dead. They think he jumped on purpose.
Bill House:It seems like my memory tells me that they found him and he survived.
Speaker 1:But you know even if they would have said a name, there would be.
Bill House:There was three other people with the last name House and I only met one of them. The other two I could never find them. And I tried for like six months, I never did find them, but I did find one of them.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, considering you're on a boat and in boot camp. You know we learn, believe it or not. I'll say this before I get into it.
Charlie Cline:This is part one of two.
Speaker 2:Oh, shut up. Two parts is back. I'm back with a vengeance. Now legit the people in my division in boot camp there was probably two dozen who joined the Navy and didn't know how to swim.
Bill House:Oh yeah. It amazes me In boot camp I actually got yelled at for swimming in the pool. They were supposed to jump in, swim to the side and be done. I was enjoying the hell out of it, so I was swimming around. They were going to make me a SARS. Well, they threatened to make me a SARS. Those that don't know, that's search and rescue swimmer.
Tre Porter:Oh shit.
Bill House:Yeah, so I would have been. Yeah, I was like, yeah, okay, I'll swim to the side now.
Tre Porter:I saw that movie with a.
Speaker 2:Technical difficulties if you're watching the Facebook live. I don't even know if it's even on it.
Charlie Cline:If you're watching the Facebook live, I don't even know if it's even on.
Speaker 2:It says it's live, but it's saying that we've got a slow connection.
Charlie Cline:So if it's not working, hopefully they can hear us anyways. If not, oh well, you'll catch it on Spotify, we'll figure it out.
Tre Porter:I watched that movie.
Charlie Cline:They can hear us.
Tre Porter:Speaking of search and rescue swimmers. It was Ashley Kutcher and Kevin Connery.
Speaker 2:That's the Guardian and the Coast Guard and we don't talk about that. Why not Just kidding? It's actually a pretty good movie. I don't know, and I do give it respect, because Ashton Kutcher and all those guys, before they let them pretend to be a rescue swimmer, they put them through a fucking boot camp for a week, wow, and made them do all the shit that the rescue swimmers do. There's video. I don't. I think it was Ashton, maybe it wasn't. Anyway, but in some of the special features there's a montage and dude's just fucking puking his guts out. They made him run, they made him do whatever. He's on the side of the field, just fucking hurling. It was great.
Speaker 2:I think it was Ashton, but I could be wrong. That was a pretty badass movie.
Charlie Cline:Well, I can tell you this Everybody always thinks of the elite units of the military right, it's the Delta guys, it's you know. Nobody, ever, nobody ever thinks of like pararescue, oh god, yeah, or the rescue swimmers are those guys, the air force pjs yeah, the pjs right pararescue guys those guys are just absolutely insane.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know special forces mixed with emts.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, they just never they just never get looked at as elite, because most people don't even really know they exist. Right, the average person doesn't Sure. Yeah, I mean, the shit that they got to do is insane.
Bill House:Yeah, and they're jumping in the water when there's hurricanes and storms and everything.
Speaker 2:Coast.
Charlie Cline:Guard guys, I mean, or the damn pilots you know, the helos that take them out there in those kind of storms too.
Speaker 2:The Coast Guard, I mean the Guardian right, they're up there in the freaking Bering Sea man rescuing people. They've got like 25-foot swells and shit up there. That's insane. Or in Miami they're doing drug interdiction, they're doing all kinds of crazy shit down there, and it's insane Rescuing Cubans.
Tre Porter:Yeah, well, you know those pilots that fly into hurricanes. Yeah, God damn, that's nuts to me. I don't even know how the helicopter flies.
Speaker 2:The pucker factor on that flight. It's going to be so big and heavy I'm surprised the helicopter could take off.
Tre Porter:You got some cojones.
Tre Porter:Yeah, man, I mean, I knew some helicopter pilots when I was at Bragg and they were special operations guys. There was this one guy in particular. His name was Dave Cooper and he's famous. He got the flying cross or whatever the hell that is that pilots can earn, and he was just famous in the aviation world. And I'm really curious to ask him like you know, he's been under heavy fire, everything like that. I'm just curious to ask him like how would you feel about flying into a fucking hurricane? Probably say I wouldn't do that shit.
Charlie Cline:Hey, do you got any popcorn?
Bill House:Probably stale from a month ago, Three weeks probably.
Speaker 2:Well, that stinks, what the hell. What kind of host are you? Yeah, no, kidding Up here at the AJ Sky Lounge he might have some crayons laying around.
Bill House:You know he might, but I'm not really into it. He most definitely has some crayons here.
Speaker 2:I'm not really interested in the crayons but up here in AJ Sky Lounge we've got, we've got a popcorn machine and the sound of freedom that you hear every so often. You know, we're totally drinking non-alcoholic Diet Pepsi.
Bill House:Diet Pepsis yeah yeah.
Tre Porter:I got a coffee in my mug. Yeah right, Coffee. There you go Coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally, doesn't have any you know, Kahlua or anything in there.
Tre Porter:No, not at all, not at all. And you, brent, what have you been doing, man? What happened to the? We've been gone for like six weeks, something like that I know.
Speaker 2:I know Everybody's been busy, been busy as hell man. The post is wrapping up, just all kinds of craziness. I have decided to step down as quartermaster and was able Well, not for you, you, it's unfortunate for us was able to find Con.
Charlie Cline:Con Roy Thomas. He's probably going to listen to this. I don't know if he's on right now. He's at his kids baseball game but he got conned into it.
Speaker 2:He didn't get conned. I gave him proper warning warning that I didn't get conned. I gave him proper warning Warning that I didn't get. No, but you know, in all honesty, when I first took over, I got like a two-hour training session and then thrown to the Sharks. You know.
Tre Porter:It's like a full, damn near a full-time fucking job. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:At our post. It is, yeah, not at every post, right, you know, especially the super rural posts that don't really do much, that's not a big deal. But for us, we're in a pretty decent-sized city, we're in a college town, we got a lot of shit going on, we got pretty active post membership with our writers group and with just different things, and so, uh, with that comes a lot of accounting that needs to be done, and so that's where. That's where the quartermaster comes in, reminds me I need to get you a receipt too. Oh okay, well, let's not talk shop here, all right?
Tre Porter:we're relaxing, all we're doing is talking.
Speaker 2:We're relaxing right now. No, but I've been staying busy with all that stuff. Like I said, I stepped down and sought out.
Bill House:You stepped sideways.
Speaker 2:I stepped sideways, I guess Tell them what you really are now. Yeah, so this upcoming. Don't tell them that, but tell them what you're pulling. No. For this upcoming fiscal year. I have the honor of being voted in as the junior vice commander of the post, so yeah, it's not a sideways step, something like that.
Charlie Cline:It's a lot less you'd have to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that too.
Charlie Cline:Because as junior vice I really don't do much but sit back and kind of learn yeah be prepared for the next step right, exactly.
Speaker 2:But you know, in all honesty, that's what I wanted to do anyway. You know, I, I didn't want to just be in one position, I do want to move up, you know, and you know, get involved at district level, and you know, maybe in 20 years time, you know, maybe even department, who knows, like I don't, I don't know. Um, just kind of let it go. But, um, yeah, just just getting involved and whatnot. But uh, most recently, the last few days, um, every day since thursday, I've been at the michigan vietnam memorial which is here in Mount Pleasant, and I have it on good authority that it is the OG Vietnam Memorial in the state of Michigan. It is, there's a few, but it is the first.
Charlie Cline:And so yeah, yep, it's been down there 20 years A little better, closer to 30, I think, yeah, I was going to say 20 years or better. As a townie, I remember, yeah, that probably would have been in high school, my high school era, which would have been about when Bill was finishing up in his enlistment. Yeah, you're the old guy tonight. No, but I mean I think it was. Yeah, it probably was.
Speaker 2:Early to mid-90s. So if you're listening and you're in Michigan or you are visiting Michigan, come to Mount Pleasant, Take a look it's. All of our war memorials were just recently moved, with the exception of Vietnam. That's been the same spot this whole time. But we had World War I, World War II and a Korea memorial all moved down to the Vietnam memorial to consolidate all of them. Put them in a nice place in Island Park.
Charlie Cline:Beautiful location, Awesome location, yeah we had talked about that in a previous podcast.
Speaker 1:It was in.
Charlie Cline:December, when the city of Mount Pleasant currently is doing some reconstruction to their town center area. That's where the Korea Memorial is at, and down the street on Broadway. I believe it's Arnold Street was World War I and II.
Charlie Cline:Part of that downtown project. They asked us, along with the Legion, if it was okay to move that. Our stipulation was we wanted them all down in the central area. That our stipulation was we wanted them all down in the central area. So the city paid part of their reconstruction project paid to have those memorials moved, which now makes a lot of sense because now you can go to one, you can go to all of them. So we have one two Korea, Vietnam, and then Global War on Terror.
Speaker 2:just passed it, so you'll be able to hit them all. The only memorial that's not there is the Civil War Memorial, and that's because that's at Riverside isn't it? Yeah, that's actually in the cemetery At Riverside Cemetery, and that's just because Riverside Cemetery is where all of our local Civil War veterans are laid to rest Really. Yeah. Really yeah.
Tre Porter:Really, which one is that?
Charlie Cline:So it's the one right behind Elliott's Green Shop. Okay, yeah, or Floral Shop.
Bill House:The first one we went to Right by Nelson Park, yep, so, yeah, it was great. So, working with the City of Mount Pleasant, which isn't too far from where these are really if you go the back path. Yeah, yeah, it was great. So, working with the City of Mount Pleasant, which isn't too far from where these are really if you go the back path.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, yeah, I mean they're walkable through bridges and stuff. The city's got great. City of Mount Pleasant's got great parks and their parks director, along with the city commission and or the city manager, worked well asking us, and the riders group was a big part of that. I was still the president at the time. Bill was on that ride. We escorted all those memorials from where they were all the way down to when they got set. They actually got pulled off their pads and they got set on the new pads. We escorted them in December all the way from where they were at all the way down there.
Bill House:Yeah, it actually snowed on us that day. It did I saw those pictures of you guys riding.
Tre Porter:Yeah, yeah, there was, tim was there. There was, and then.
Charlie Cline:Rich Young, who was the post commander for the American Legion here in town. He was there, that's right.
Bill House:A couple of their members drove, so you and I were on bikes that day, but it seems like there was someone else on a bike too, tim me, you I want to say Marcus was there. I'd have to go back through some pictures and take a look to see who was all there.
Charlie Cline:I know you and I were at the end there was four or five of us from our post there and a few Legion members as well. So it was always a combined effort here at Mount Pleasant between the two entities on stuff that we do. So it was great and I'm glad because you guys just did the Memorial Day parade. Yeah, trey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah, trey had the writers group, so I was just going to say, though, I've been there since Thursday. You know, power washing, getting it ready, parade was great. I think, yeah, I think it went well too.
Tre Porter:There was a lot of people, a lot of participants in the parade as well, and I just want to give a real big shout out to the Infidels MC, red Rum MC and Leathernecks MC. They showed up, they rode with us, but what they did is so that the VFW members could participate in the parade itself. They blocked traffic, so I guess no barricades were put up, so they blocked traffic for us during the parade, for the people on the parade. They also blocked traffic when we were going to the different cemeteries after the parade. Awesome, that's awesome. Big shout-out to them. I told them if you guys ever need anything from us, we'll be there for you, right?
Charlie Cline:Well, that's where it always gets kind of a gray area, right. I mean, you've got ours is a riders group, and then you start participating with the local motorcycle clubs right, which predominantly have tons of veterans in them, tons of veterans and or just they're huge supporters of. So you know, we live in their playground when we're on the two wheels. But we have such a good rapport with all of them. I mean we go to some of their events, they come to some of our events. We work really well together. When we need help, they're right there to help. I mean that's a great testament to all of them.
Speaker 2:When I saw them at the post, which is great. I saw them at the post, I saw their vests and I just thanked them for being there. I mean they're doing us a solid.
Tre Porter:Well, you know the thing is they all work together well. A lot of times in the MC world these different MCs don't get along, but everybody in this area gets along pretty well together and work well together for things like this, and that's the way it should be.
Charlie Cline:There was a bunch of them that showed up. Forgotten Eagles they do their ram ride right around Michigan and I think they put a guy like in a bamboo cage and they took him down to the vietnam memorial and that stuff. You know it was for the pows, right, that's how they got treated during vietnam and stuff. And a bunch of them came out to do that ride with forgotten eagles, which is another riders group. So, yeah, we participate in their ride in August. So we actually ride up toward Holton Lake, join them, and then they shut the whole freeway down from Holton Lake all the way to Mount Pleasant. The cops state police sheriffs and all that.
Charlie Cline:They literally block all the entrance we get. They literally stop traffic on 127 South at holton lake. We get on and then we have two police cars blocking both lanes all the way down to mount pleasant and they have police officers at all the entrances onto the freeway all the way down. So yeah yeah and then we go right down park it's awesome to the, to the memorial, so it's, it's cool, it's good to see.
Speaker 2:But so this year's memorial we had great turnout from the writers' groups and from our local MC friends. We had a couple of things that were different. We had a live singer, I believe her name was. I want to say Alicia.
Tre Porter:Is it Olivia, olivia, olivia?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think this is Susan. She knows Susan's name. It's Olivia, olivia, yeah, I think it's.
Charlie Cline:Susan, she knows Susan's name. It's Susan's stepdaughter. Yeah, tom.
Tre Porter:Tom.
Speaker 2:Kachoffer's daughter, so she did a great job singing America the Beautiful, and we had the Shepherd High School and Mount Pleasant High School bands combine together and they played the Armed Forces Medley and the National national anthem for us. They did phenomenal um. A couple of their buglers, uh, played echo taps for us, um, and that was amazing as well. Um, and it was.
Charlie Cline:It was a great program and I saw we got a nice little ride up in the morning sun. Yeah, we did we did, which was cool. That's kind of the, I mean they've, they've done the parade.
Speaker 2:Actually the picture on the paper was me when I was speaking me and joe or joe. Yeah, I saw joe because I saw you standing there, but when we were, uh, going through the section of our program naming off the different conflicts that we had been in, um, and when I joe and I were going back and forth naming them off and how many were killed and wounded and everything, and yeah, so that must have been when they took that picture, yep, so that was pretty cool to see.
Bill House:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:I don't think I've ever been in the newspaper until now, there you go.
Tre Porter:Well, when you were up there, I was like you know what, and I was thinking about this, and don't get um. You were thinking I was pretty sexy. Don't now, no, but don't get too excited when I say this one. I was like damn, brent looks like he's 50 years old up there. And then number two I'm giving you your two parts. Number two I was like I think Brent could be the post commander one day.
Bill House:I appreciate that Maybe one day I'll never vote for you the step up you're talking about. He will.
Speaker 2:So I had a good time.
Bill House:That was a great program, I bet Charlie would vote for you, though he's just bullshitting you. I think he really would. I don't know, you'll never know.
Tre Porter:I think deep down he has a man crush on you he might he might.
Speaker 2:I uh, there's a thing with Marines and Corpsmen, so yeah well, you know, as long as you bring that silver bullet.
Bill House:I'll vote for you every time and a blue crayon and a blue crayon, that's Sure Tastes like blue raspberry.
Tre Porter:One thing we did at the Riders group is we do this every year we went out to Camp Trotter. Yeah, may, good time. What day was that. Come on, I don't even remember. It was a couple weeks ago. 17th through the 19th, there you go. 17th through the 19th. We went out there.
Charlie Cline:Jesus, you act like Tim now I know you act like Tim now Amnesia every time.
Tre Porter:I knew it was a man.
Speaker 2:Call me 50 years old. You're the one with salt and pepper hair. I'm almost 50.
Tre Porter:I'm actually almost 50. It's usually the kickoff to our riding season. Went out to Camp Trotter.
Speaker 2:Can you tell everybody what Camp Trotter is, in case they don't know?
Tre Porter:Camp Trotter is a VFW camp for kids and they're trying to get participation out there, from what I understand.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, so it's a summer camp.
Tre Porter:Summer camp for kids.
Bill House:And it's not just for VFW, no, it's anybody actually right.
Charlie Cline:So if you're listening, you got kids. If you go Facebook, you can just type in VFW Camp Trotter Pulls up all the information, but it's kids from, I believe, 6 to 12 or 13. It's just a week long. It's $385 for the week, so it's probably the most affordable in the state by far Beautiful camp.
Speaker 1:It's on Bill's Lake.
Speaker 2:They do all kinds of fun shit.
Charlie Cline:Bill's Lake down by Nuego, so from the Mount Pleasant area it's only an hour and a half to get there.
Tre Porter:So the kids aren't all over the state, you know, or very far Beautiful camp Yep. Yes, it is, it is so we go out there and usually help. We do that every year go out there and help. It's just a kickoff for our season, and then we go up to the blessing of the bike that weekend as well. So we had a great weekend. The weather was amazing, beautiful, yeah, perfect.
Charlie Cline:It was so hot. So part of what we do and we actually had as the director.
Speaker 2:We had, because you guys get the camp ready right. Yeah, you put the dock in the water, you get everything set up.
Charlie Cline:So basically, what happens is there's a director for, there's two directors for the camp. There's one that's the all-time director and then there's one that just does a summer program director for when the kids are there. Which one is that? That's Orville.
Tre Porter:Okay.
Charlie Cline:And then Ricky Young is the director of the camp. So throughout the winter and early spring they have some cleanup days and certain stuff where volunteers come and they help do stuff and then at the end, because camp starts in June, runs through July. Basically what happens is they'll they'll put together a list of stuff that they need completed and the writers groups take care of that. So this year we had Harrisonrison uh ryers group 1075 come down for their members, help do cleanup on, put the dock in and stuff on saturday with us they came friday, but this year they must have had a lot of volunteers because our list was very small. Bill put in some flooring and the each cabin has a counselor that stays with the kids in a separate bedroom and the kids are bunk style right throughout throughout the? Uh throughout the cabin. And bill put some flooring in for two of the cabins right in the counselor's room. Um, and the writers groups put in the? Uh the dock and that was pretty much all they had well, and then there was a couple other things that, oh, they did some power wash some of the some of the cabins, because because there was some moss on some of
Charlie Cline:them. Yeah, that mildewy stuff A couple of them took care of that. Yeah, some of the girls took care of that, so, yeah, other than that, we just enjoyed some good time. Yeah, we really didn't have a huge list. There's been years when we raked and sticks and blew off roofs.
Tre Porter:And roofs, and I mean all that stuff was pretty much done when we got there, so there really wasn't a big list. Well we're, which is great.
Charlie Cline:Hope is for the future is that we can get all the riders groups. We have nine and Wyandotte's actually looking at standing up a group. So, oh, I'm waiting on a call from somebody from Wyandotte to send them down the package to stand up a group that'll make ten throughout the state, which would be great. That'd, that'd be cool. Do we have any in the UP? We do not, so Ross Common is the most farthest north.
Tre Porter:We have than Harrison, than us, so we're on the north, if we could get every riders group participating and to come to Camp Trotter. Next year that is my goal, and then we can do a whole lot more for Camp Trotter, including raking everything we bring down 20 to 30 members.
Charlie Cline:Harrison brought down 4. If we could get 10 from each one, you're talking 100 people obviously we can sleep 100 people, we can sleep 300 there, so we have plenty. But I mean, if we get all these riders groups to participate and do stuff for the camp one, that's just less budget that they've got to spend for Hayden and Sky or anybody else.
Charlie Cline:And that's the least that we can do as a riders group is to support the VFW and, obviously, help support the kids. So the Department of Michigan always is going to extend the big thank you for the riders' groups coming down, harrison and Mount Pleasant for coming down there to help out, do the things, and good kudos to the Mount Pleasant VFW riders' group. That group has a large budget. They do a lot of fundraising throughout the year. They have darts and stuff that go on 50-50 sales and all this different breakfast and all this stuff going on. The camp actually had a water trampoline and it went bad last year and they never replaced it. So what happened was when we were there at the camp Orville was talking he's the summer director when the kids are there and the kids were bummed that they didn't have this trampoline.
Charlie Cline:So literally the Monday after we got back we got back on Sunday, monday we had a writer's group meeting and Big Papa here brought it up, as the P brought it up hey, let's buy a new trampoline for the camp. Yeah, I think we had like three people suggested it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, we had like four people second it.
Bill House:I mean, everybody was going yeah, let's do it, yeah, so now the riders group is going to spend about $500.
Charlie Cline:Did you guys purchase that yet?
Tre Porter:I just got the message from.
Charlie Cline:Lord Red today. Oh, okay.
Tre Porter:And said hey, we're good to go. I think Walmart is donating $50 for sweet yeah, so so. I just told her what do you need for me? My car number, whatever.
Charlie Cline:Yep, perfect, so yeah, so that's gonna get purchased, it'll get shipped or it'll be a store pickup for Orville, because he goes to the camp quite a bit, so you can just pick it up at his local Walmart, take it there and then it'll be ready for the kids this summer. So they'll be happy that that water trampoline is back this year because he was like man, we couldn't keep the kids off it. The kids that come back every year. They were disappointed they didn't have it. So that's just another way that these riders groups can help out the department, help out that camp, even if it's just giving stuff.
Charlie Cline:And last year this mount pleasant riders group, along with their auxiliary, put 14 brand new bikes down at the camp for the kids to use, because we would do the maintenance on the bikes. We didn't have to do maintenance at all. There was a group that came in in march and they kind of separated the bikes and did repairs to others. But yeah, we, we had 14 brand new bikes down there for the kids, about $1,000 worth of bikes or something. Because we do have Little Red in our group. Tammy Meyer works for Walmart. She's a manager at the Mount Pleasant Walmart and Walmart's always been a huge supporter. I mean just like you said, right, they gave us $50 to buy the trampoline and they hooked us up with, I think, 20% off on the bikes, so we were able to buy extra bikes with the savings because we said, hey, we're going to spend $1,000. So we got like $1,200 worth of bikes for $1,000, you know what I mean, so they actually yeah, with that discount.
Charlie Cline:We didn't just short it and say, okay, we'll only spend $800. No, we bought extra bikes with the savings you know what I mean.
Bill House:Yeah, we put it right in there.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, so they had more. We were planning on spending that money anyways, right, which is great.
Bill House:Right, and that's the stuff that we do for this camp.
Tre Porter:You know, it's just that that's an ongoing, yearly thing, that we always talk about different things we can do. I mean and that's kind of the way I see this the riders group is yeah, we like to get out there and we like to have fun, but we have a mission and that's to help our community in any way we can. It's an obligation, yeah right, it's not a mission.
Charlie Cline:It's an obligation we owe the community that supported us while we were gone that we're still here. Right. And it's our obligation to uphold those things and show them that we appreciate their support by helping them, just like they help us. It's like you scratch our back, we scratch your back Right.
Speaker 2:Another big one is VFW National Home. That we help out every year pretty heavily. I think most recently they needed a sidewalk plow and salt trunk or something. What exactly?
Tre Porter:was that. Can you tell the people what the National Home is?
Speaker 2:Sure, and I will admit I haven't had an opportunity to go myself. You're going to go this year, but I will go this year because you can ride on the back of my bike.
Speaker 7:Only if I can put my arms around you. If you can squeeze between me and Lady Jen, you can ride on the back of my bike. Only if I can put my arms around you, if you can squeeze between me and Lady Jen, you can ride triple.
Charlie Cline:You will not ride on my bike.
Tre Porter:Thought you Navy boys stuck together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not like that.
Tre Porter:They plug in.
Speaker 2:It's a plug and play they plug in, play they plug it. But yeah so VFW National Home is in Eaton Rapids, michigan. It's a organization that supports military families and children. I couldn't really get into it all, but they do so much stuff for the kids they have. What do they call that? What did we donate to?
Charlie Cline:It was.
Speaker 2:Cash for.
Charlie Cline:Kiddos, I think, is what it was called.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, so the National Home actual complex is like 400 acres. It's huge. There's 40 buildings out there, 50 buildings out there, and if you're a displaced veteran and or say you're deceased with no other kin, your kids can go live at the national home. They go to school at the Eaton Rapids School District, lansing School District, whatever it is, and get their education and get all the way through everything. Or struggling veterans and their families, right, they can come live on the campus.
Charlie Cline:Each state, some states, share a house and the houses they're all kind of a little bit different, but it's like four apartments in a building kind of a thing. Beautiful campus, been around forever. It's the only one in the country, um, but they've got some different programs so it's all funded through the vfw or post memberships, all that kind of stuff, right, um, and what they the cash for kiddo program is. There's enough money to run and update the houses and take care of the grounds and do that kind of stuff, just a general operation, the programming stuff, yeah, for the kids, but they're always looking for extra money to take the kids to McDonald's or out to the movies or pot pot or whatever it is.
Charlie Cline:So there's a separate fund line item that they have. It's called Cash for Kiddos and our riders group always donated like $500 and it comes from all over the place just to give those kids something to do outside of the campus. That's there, but yeah, it's beautiful. I can't wait for you to come down because it's one of those places. It's like going to Camp Trotter. Once you go there you'll fall in love with it and what the mission is that they do, and then you're going to want to help out and the National Home in love with it and what the mission is that they do, and then you're going to want to help out and the national home is the same thing. So they have a lot of different fundraisers. They just did one or they're doing a couple for bricks.
Charlie Cline:Um, so the writers group here in mount pleasant purchased a brick. So it'll say you know, uh, vfw, post 3033, writers group, mount pleasant, michigan. On it it was like a hundred dollars. It's going to go on the sidewalk and I don't know. 50 bucks of the money goes to the brick and 50 or whatever it is right goes to, goes to the national home. And I purchased one with my grandfather's, mine and my son's name as marines, um, for a brick separately. So I don't know when that fundraiser is going to end. And they just came out with a new one. They're going to do something around the flagpole and it's, it's a larger brick, five hundred dollars, that goes. It's like a I don't know if it's a one by one type brick, you know patio paver kind of thing um, but it's, but it's, it's. It's a cool place. You, you gotta go, yeah I've seen.
Speaker 2:I've seen pictures, and I didn't get the chance to go last year and I was beating myself up about that. So I did have a chance to check out Camp Trotter, so that's beat yourself a lot, brett.
Charlie Cline:I cannot confirm nor deny. So the beauty of Camp Trotter is you don't when we go, you don't have to have a motorcycle.
Charlie Cline:If you're out there listening and you're a VFW member and you want to come down to that camp that weekend, all my contact information is on the department page. Reach out to me, I'll get you the information for your post-membership. Whatever. Drive your car, drive your truck, we'll put you up somewhere. Come down and volunteer, check out the camp. You can drive behind us that are riding motorcycles and do the things that we do. Or you can just enjoy a weekend and see the area if you've never really been there. Whatever, you don't have to be a part of the riders group to come down that weekend. Right, you can stay for free it's it's camp style in a bunkhouse. You know you got to bring some of your own stuff. We can go through that stuff, but you kind of nostalgic, not gonna lie, because if you've been to bring some of your own stuff.
Speaker 2:We can go through that stuff Kind of nostalgic, not going to lie, because if you've been to a summer camp as a kid you come there If you've been to a boot camp it's almost the same way.
Tre Porter:But it's just a good time to hang out and meet people. You don't have anybody yelling at you. The lake is beautiful.
Charlie Cline:We had just, I mean, it was 80, 85 degrees, it was absolutely phenomenal so last year we went down.
Charlie Cline:We woke up in the morning and our department commander was down there, ray Lopez, and Tim was the director at the time, and I said, hey, tim, I'm not putting people in the water, it's like 54 degrees at 11 o'clock in the morning and I'm like we're just not doing it. We'll come back another week the morning and I'm like we're just not doing it, we'll come back another week. The commander was a little bit. Oh my god, we gotta get this has to get them. I'm not having people get hypothermia, you know what? I mean Because the water was cold as shit.
Charlie Cline:So we came back the following week and it was 80 and we got the dock in three weeks before camp opened. I mean, it was no big deal this year, we just got blessed. We were able to do it. Yeah, it was gorgeous. We've only had one out of the three or four times we put the dock in. We've only had that one weekend where it was just gruddy and crappy. Other than that, we've been blessed with that 70 80 degree weather. That's cool where the water's still a little chilly, but after about you know, 20 minutes everything goes numb and you're okay because upper body is hot. You know what I mean.
Bill House:So yeah, we were able to we were able to yeah, that's debatable.
Charlie Cline:If you like pudgy white guys, I guess. Jimmy you listening? No, but I'm just saying so. We were really blessed and, like I said, I know the camp appreciates it, the department loves it. Yeah, because that's we're here to do those things, you know, we're here to do those things, we're blessed that they allow it, because at any one time, the next person that takes over, which will be Kimberly Napoleon, this year she becomes department commander here in about a week, july 1st.
Bill House:She was there.
Charlie Cline:She was there with us, yeah, but I mean, if she decides we're not going to have any more groups, she could just pull the pin and it is what it is.
Bill House:And apparently she must have had a good time because she stayed pretty much the whole weekend. Yeah, she did Well, she had to take off Sunday for a district meeting.
Charlie Cline:She was a rep for a district meeting.
Tre Porter:She had a district meeting and she did not know. She had a district meeting in Mecosta, which is not far from there yeah. And so when she came there Friday night, we were like you know, macass is like 25 minutes south of here or north of here. You could have just stayed the whole weekend. She was like I did not know that. Yeah, she said I didn't even think to even look. Yeah, so she went home back to Saginaw and then came back and stayed Saturday night. Yeah.
Tre Porter:So she must have been having a good time. Yeah, definitely.
Charlie Cline:Well, I think it's important that the higher-ups they only hear the bad things about writer's groups, just like they hear the bad things about the Post. There's a lot of good and there's some bad. I mean, that's just the way even in business?
Bill House:Yeah, exactly.
Charlie Cline:There's good and there's bad. Nobody remembers the 100 good things, they just remember the one fuck-up right.
Speaker 2:It's the only. That's just the way it is. The news cycles are always the negative shit that everybody loves to. It's the clickbait. They love to follow it. Same thing.
Charlie Cline:But it was great to have her there. It was great to have Ray Lopez there. They've always been huge supporters and when they see what the good things can happen, it's just getting everybody on board to do it. So I'm glad that the Mount Pleasant group and the Harrison group worked well together. Their post commander up there, scott Taylor, is a great dude, and then Aaron's their president.
Speaker 2:Any time I had an issue these last few months trying to figure out a problem, these last few months trying to figure out a problem, you know, quartermaster related. Anytime I call Barry, anytime I call Scott first ring. Hey, what's going on? Never, never fails. Super supportive, and that's the kind of people we have here.
Charlie Cline:But that's that brother-sisterhood, and that's what we all miss about the military right. And did we squabble? We squabbled, we didn't always like everybody, but at the end of the day we either all better get on the same page because if not, there's going to be repercussions coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 2:And we're all going to have to do it.
Speaker 1:And when daddy's got to step into the shoes.
Charlie Cline:Didn't got to step into the shoes, didn't matter if it was your chief, didn't matter if it was your staff sergeant, didn't matter if it was your gunny, didn't matter if it was your lieutenant captain, whatever. When daddy put a halt to the bullshit, the bullshit's going to end. You don't have to like it, but you're going to do it, or there's even more repercussions if you don't do it Right you know what I'm saying. So tread Tread lightly.
Speaker 2:They say and honestly, I got involved, rewinding time here about a year and a half to two years. I got involved or, excuse me, decided to get involved with the VFW because three years ago I moved here from Grand Rapids. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids. I'm sorry I moved here. It's not too bad. I actually like Grand Rapids. Born and raised in Grand Rapids, I'm sorry I moved here. It's not too bad I actually like. Grand Rapids.
Speaker 2:Anyway Carry on, moved up to Mount Pleasant from Grand Rapids, bought a house up here and for the first year and a half that I was here I was not in a very good mental space. I didn't know anybody here At the time I worked remotely at home, um. So I was sound of freedom, uh, just reclusive, you know. Uh, and talking to my fiance one day and she's like you just got to get out of the house, you just got to go get involved. And it was her idea. She was like what about the VFW, the American Legion? Like go, you know.
Charlie Cline:And so I did, I got involved and you know, one thing led to another, and here I am Now she regrets that decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably, especially since thursday. Uh been, like I said, been there all day, almost all day, every day, since then. But now we can't get rid of you.
Bill House:Yeah, yeah, but not so bad, it's a love hate relationship that comes from the guy that just invited you on the back of his bike yeah, yeah yeah, he. Yeah, he'll keep me warm.
Speaker 2:He's just a little lonely, yeah right.
Tre Porter:I am. My wife is coming.
Speaker 2:I think he's hoping for a reach around. I'm not going to do that.
Tre Porter:My wife is coming back next month. She's coming back for good, for good, for good, yep Woo woo, she's done with her residency Yep Done with her residency Yep, and that means it was nice knowing you guys.
Tre Porter:It really was Play time's over. She really. I mean, I'm coming back on June 13th with just the two kids, two little ones, one and four years old. Oh boy, yep. And my daughter is going to be on my 15-year-old. She'll be in El Paso with her mother, Her mother's, stationed out at Fort Bliss. Oh, she's coming back from Iraq. She just came back a couple days ago. Awesome, five days ago. She came back, sweet good, yeah, where are we still at in Iraq? No, she was in Kuwait. Oh Kuwait, yep.
Speaker 7:I was going to say I thought we were I don't know, it doesn't matter.
Tre Porter:I think we are still in Iraq, though, but I digress, and so she's going to be me with those two kids. I'm like God damn, I need to get my June ride in at some point. But I'm leaving on May 31st, come back June 13th with the two kids and I got to figure out how to get some June riding time in there and I know we're doing the sun up, the sun down. I told my wife End of June. I told my wife.
Charlie Cline:Bitch.
Tre Porter:No, you didn't say that. I didn't say that. I said, you better be back here by June 28th, that's right so we can go on the, but you know what I said?
Bill House:I said bitch, I didn't hear anything.
Tre Porter:I didn't really say that. I said honey, honey Dear. I said please.
Bill House:I said please, please, do you have that button, that cough button, on there?
Speaker 2:I don't have a cough button, I have a record scratcher, there you go. Sneeze button.
Bill House:Sneeze button.
Speaker 2:I did have a what's a?
Bill House:two-second delay. Can we rewind first? I did have a. What's a two-second delay.
Speaker 2:Can we rewind first, I did have a sensor button. I forgot to redial no sensor button. I don't know. The beep yeah.
Bill House:But anyway, yeah, that's the big coming up ride, sunrise to Sunset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 28 to the 30th, talking about another upcoming sooner than Sunrise to Sunset Flag Day. It's Flag Day ceremony.
Charlie Cline:I knew what you were coming up with.
Speaker 2:Yep. So for those of you who don't know, at least locally, I don't know what other posts do, but year-round here at Post 3033, right in our entrance, there is an old post office box that was repurposed, that they gave to us. It's repainted. It looks like an american flag that was an eagle scout project.
Charlie Cline:Oh, was by a local kid. Yeah, oh, okay, painted that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome so it sits in our vestibule and in the post year round. In that post office box we collect flags, us flags that need to be retired, faded, worn, ripped, whatever you can give them to us. And every year at the Flag Day ceremony, we go through the ceremony, we properly retire them and take care of them. That ceremony is coming up. Have we decided on the date June 14th? Have we decided on the date June 14th? We do it on the date. We do it on the day.
Charlie Cline:Is that a?
Speaker 2:Saturday this year I don't know I can't remember I'm coming on June 13th, which I think is a Friday.
Tre Porter:No, it's a Thursday, June 13th, I think, is a Thursday.
Speaker 2:It is a Thursday, so are we doing we might do the ceremony on Saturday. Yeah, friday, so we might do the ceremony on that Saturday.
Charlie Cline:We'll have to figure it out. Well, so Susan Payne and I will be on the radio typically like three or four days before. Okay, we do two of the local radio stations here in Mount Pleasant get on live talk about Flag Day, why it's important I always am the guy that mentions the address and that we have that drop box so that if we don't want people just throwing them in the trash, we want them retired properly and all that kind of stuff and what Flag Day symbolizes. And she goes into her whole spiel and I do my spiel and we've been doing that, for this will probably be our fourth year doing that that's good, you know.
Speaker 2:so a brainchild that I've had about these flag retirements and everything, and maybe this is something that we as a post membership could talk about at our next meeting. But but coming up with a program where you know you come and give us a retired flag and you know we'll give you a replacement kind of a thing, Maybe in exchange for a donation to the post or something to that degree, Well, we do.
Charlie Cline:It sounds expensive, we do have some flags at the post and typically what I've done is I'll grab a couple, jump on the bike and I ride around our local area and if I see a flag someone's flying that's torn and tattered, I'll stop at the house, knock on the door and if somebody's home, I'll replace the flag. If not, I'll replace it myself and then leave a note on the door. And it's somebody's home, I'll replace the flag. If not, I'll replace it myself and then leave a note on the door that says I'm from the local VFW, who I am? Here's my number. Your flag was tattered, torn. Whatever, I've replaced your flag, damn, no cost kind of thing. Just leave them a note and then take their flag, bring it back to the post and in the box. And I've gotten a few call backs where people oh, we've been meaning to do that. Thank you so much. That was great. You know, blah, blah, blah.
Charlie Cline:And I've had a couple calls of how dare you touch my flagpole too, you know yeah, but I mean, but 95 of them have always been a good thing, but yeah, I mean, flags are flags aren't cheap.
Speaker 2:Yeah we don't cheap. We don't want to shame anybody, no no, no, most people appreciate it.
Charlie Cline:When they find out you're from the VFW, they do Like I said it was just a brainchild, but I thought it would be just a cool little program, not on this grand scale.
Speaker 2:We're not going to replace every city residence flag. I'm just saying you know how many flags we burn a year.
Charlie Cline:This is grand scale. We're not going to replace every city resident's flag. I'm just saying you know how many flags we burn a year. Hundreds, about 300. Yeah. Right At $35 a piece. Do the math Right, take it, I'm not leaving Two at a time. What? That's what Tim always said Bring me two at a time, or else it's a wasted trip. $10,500. Yeah.
Charlie Cline:So good news at the post Coming up here next weekend my son graduates high school on the 2nd. He leaves on the 14th for Marine Corps Boot Camp. But we also have some other big news coming up at the post on the 2nd Parking lot. Yeah, Parking lot yeah. Parking lot's getting shut down on that Sunday. They're going to seal, coat, crack, seal re-stripe.
Speaker 2:Nice Things go out to.
Charlie Cline:Zenneberg, ashfall.
Speaker 2:Zenneberg, ashfall.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, they gave us an absolute great price. Anybody that's in the Isabella, claire, gratiot, midland, mecosta, I'm assuming area they all service that stuff. They do a great job.
Speaker 2:They do a great job, in fact. My better half I had noticed I did a coffee delivery this morning to her office and pulled into the parking lot and it looked brand spanking new. And I look over and it's a Zenneberg asphalt sign and I'm like damn. So they do a good job.
Charlie Cline:I'll tell you what they actually hooked us up, because they came over while we did some discussion on how we want to lay the parking lot out with the striping and we want to do like arrows coming in and out as a directional kind of thing for each end and a bunch of different stuff, and they were like hey, just get the dumpster moved. That needs to be a call to Granger, get that dumpster moved over into the grass. Already done Perfect.
Speaker 2:I put in. As soon as this came out that day, I called Granger and I said hey, this is the date. So she already put in a service order. The only thing we've got to worry about is if it's a rain issue. And they got to move to the next week.
Charlie Cline:Just leave it in the grass.
Speaker 2:Just leave it in the grass. Yeah, Leave it in the grass.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, these guys gave us an absolutely incredible discount and it was an already incredible competitive price that they gave us Right. So it's hugely, hugely thankful to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Please support them. They helped us out and we'd love to help them out.
Charlie Cline:Yep. Anybody ask me. It's the only name I'm throwing out Yep. So we have some big things because we got.
Speaker 2:We got bike night coming up after that July 2nd July 2nd. July 2nd Bike 2nd. July 2nd bike night.
Charlie Cline:Last year we had 165 bikes. The weather wasn't great it rained in the morning and it was kind of cool at night. We only had like 165. The year before we had like 205. Oh wow.
Tre Porter:It was full last year. I don't know how you could fit any more in there.
Charlie Cline:They were stacked in like cordwood. So how you could fit any more in there, they were stacked in like cordwood. So this year is going to be a little bit different and I'll go over some stuff with you as the time gets closer. But yeah, I mean, it's always a good night. Auxiliary does well with the food. Yep, they make good money. The canteen does well. We got our open license already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that event is open to the public, Typically speaking. You know, the VFW is a club licensee as far as Michigan Liquor is concerned, which means you've got to be a member. But for Bike Night, that is a fundraising event for us, and so we are open to the public that day.
Charlie Cline:We get a special license just for the public and, yeah, it's a good money generating. And you know it's crazy because we also use it as a recruiting event every year. Yeah.
Charlie Cline:And I bet you, every year we usually typically get one or two into the VFW yeah. As well as the auxiliary usually grabs three or four out of that event Because somebody's got a dad, a brother, a grandpa, grandma, mom, sister that's served and typically veterans like to ride, so we usually grab a few out of that event. So it's always just an easy one and you don't have to have a bike to come.
Bill House:I mean just show up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just come and have a drink and a burger and whatever, I think they're making burgers.
Bill House:We usually do burgers and fries and stuff. Check out a whole bunch of bikes and you know Come hang out, come say hi to everybody.
Speaker 2:In fact, I was just at the casino the other day and I'm sitting there at the roulette wheel and a guy walks up and we get to talking and come to find out he's just retired from the Air Force. Really, I said, no shit, nice to talk to you. I went through who I was and background and everything and I said, hey, by chance, in your 20 years did you deploy? Where'd you go? What ribbons do you got? You got the GWAT Expeditionary. He goes, yep, I got that one. I got a couple other ones, specifically ones that qualify him for VFW membership, and I was like, hey, just so you know, come on down to the VFW you qualify, come on down and hang out with us and get involved. I believe he was.
Tre Porter:Yeah, he obviously hadn't lived here in a while I've ran into two people, one guy I was sitting out in front of my daughter's school on my motorcycle getting ready to pick her up and I've got my airborne it says US Army on my vest and this guy pulls up up and he was like nice motorcycle. And he was like are you a brother? A brother. I was like yeah, so he A brother. He saw my military on my vest, so he was military.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I thought we were going down like the raceway You're racially ambiguous.
Tre Porter:He was a white guy, okay, alright. So he jumped out, brother in arms, yeah, and he was really like I can tell he was like he needed some brotherhood.
Bill House:I told him.
Tre Porter:Look man, come to the VFW, Come and join. There's plenty of people that are going through what you're going through and worse probably, and people that understand. Come and just hang out with us. And I haven't seen that guy since.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, but you planted the seed, but you gave him an opportunity.
Speaker 2:You gave him an opportunity and you planted a seed, and I've had so many conversations.
Bill House:Sometimes it takes a while for them to grow.
Speaker 1:It does, it does.
Speaker 2:I've had so many conversations on social media, specifically Reddit. I'm part of the Veterans subreddit and the Veterans Benefits subreddit and every so often you'll get somebody on there that's bitching and complaining about the Legion or the VFW. So often you'll get somebody on there that's bitching and complaining about the Legion or the VFW. And I remember about six months ago there was this guy I started a thread with and it went into private messaging and he was telling me I told him the basics you know, get in the VFW, so on and so forth, and he was like I will never join. And he said the VFW killed my father. And I said what? Drinking? Yes, yep. There is this misconception.
Charlie Cline:I think I've met this guy.
Speaker 2:There is this misconception that every VFW is filled with crotchety old assholes and it's smoky and it's nasty and the environment's just horrible. And it's not. That may be true for some posts, but it's not true for every single one, nope, nor ours, and especially not ours Right. And I told him. I said I don't know where you're located, but I said if your local VFW is like that, go to the next town over Yep, go find you know, if you really want the brotherhood and you really want to get out there, then get out there. You know, and so I travel for work.
Charlie Cline:I go to a lot of conferences so I visit a lot of other posts and some Dwayne, who is our national commander-in-chief and he was the junior at national, came in. He was like the old geriatric gin joint stare Door opens up and you get all these. You know you get to stare at the door to see who the hell are you and why are you here. You know he even calls it out and it's true because we do the same even at our post. Right, that door wiggles. Right Now we have that screen so we can see who's coming in and stuff. But everybody stops to look. You know, and I have not been always welcomed at other posts, right, but I'm the mindset guy that goes I carry the same card you do. Maybe it's got a different number on it, but I've got every right to be in this place, period unless I act like an asshole and get thrown out.
Speaker 2:That's a completely different situation.
Charlie Cline:But I go up to Traverse City and usually it's for a conference and it usually takes about the third day of me being up there and going in there and I'm buying chips for the old people sitting at the end of the bar. About the third day they'll come down and be like hey, how are you? But it takes a while.
Tre Porter:Because, I'm the stranger, I'm the outside guy.
Charlie Cline:That's very unfortunate because our pulse is so much different than that. Somebody new comes in, man. Hey, how's it going, man? What are you up to? Who are that? Yeah, somebody new comes in, man. Hey, how's it going, man, what are you up to? Who are you? You know, this is who I am trying to make them feel welcome and I don't know if it's because our pulse now has done the shift where the 70, 80, maybe 90 year olds are kind of gone and now it's back to the 30s, the 40s and the early 50s at the post all the time. So it's that younger crowd again and maybe that makes the difference.
Tre Porter:I'm not really sure. We even got the kid now 21. He's up there all the time. Aj Boyle, aj Boyle.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, he just joined the Raiders group too, that's right.
Tre Porter:Yep.
Speaker 2:I think he's our youngest member now.
Tre Porter:Probably I got a guy that I just joined the gym over here.
Speaker 2:Well, that is until Charlie's boy deploys somewhere.
Tre Porter:We'll see Evolution Fitness and there's a kid in there. He's probably 25, 26. He's going to Central but a veteran Army veteran Been to Iraq and Syria and he's like oh well, you know, I wasn't there during all the. He was like I wasn't there during all the action, I didn't see it. So I feel like I was like that doesn't matter, we got.
Charlie Cline:We got the guys in the Navy that just sat on a boat. Yeah, we got Navy guys there. Yeah, like me. Yeah, you know.
Tre Porter:We got Bill House and Brent Holbrook, yeah, so I'm going to get that kid to join.
Speaker 2:You know you bring up something interesting. I hate these fucking definitions that everybody uses. I hate the definition of combat veteran as far as it's concerned with the VA, the way the VA defines, quote unquote combat veteran VA or VFW VA, the way the.
Tre Porter:VA defines combat veteran VA or VFW VA Okay.
Speaker 2:The way that they define combat veteran is entirely different. All of my paperwork says combat veteran. I have not once spent in actual physical combat. Now I've been shot at. We were on the ship and some dumb fucks decided to start shooting at a Navy warship. That's part Beyond me, whatever, we dealt with that pretty quick.
Tre Porter:But but other than that, they were on another ship, on a boat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they were probably Somali pirates.
Tre Porter:Something like that we were off the coast of Africa.
Speaker 2:You could hear ping, ping, ping, ping ping coming out the side of the hole.
Bill House:You dumb fucks. What are you doing? That's when you hear the 50K all wind up, anyway.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I never had been in combat, I was not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but my deployment to Africa was around the time that Boko Haram was pretty active. There was at one point they were rocketing the base that I was at. So during that deployment I got imminent danger, hostile fire, pay. Yeah, that's what I got.
Speaker 2:Which is a qualifier for the VFW, by the way, and I got the Expeditionary Global War on Terrorism medal, which is another qualifier for the VA. So, VFW, excuse me. So that's how I got in. But, like I said, the VA definition of combat veteran, it's all over my paperwork and I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know. And they explained it. They were like that's just our policy and I was like all right.
Charlie Cline:Whatever the unfortunate part is, Trey hit the nail on the head All too often. I feel that veterans out there that qualify to be in the VFW don't feel they're worthy of being in the VFW because I wasn't downrange pulling the trigger.
Bill House:Shooting at people too, right.
Charlie Cline:They just feel like I'm going to be less than everybody else that's there. That's not the case. Nobody gives a shit. We don't care.
Speaker 2:Did you serve your country.
Charlie Cline:Were you in the theater? Did you support us? I've said it a million times on here dude guy back here or the woman back here making sure my paycheck was right or my supplies were getting over to me all your orders were more important. Yeah, 11 typewriters were more important, right, sorry, tim. Sorry Tim's not here as I gotta say no, but I mean, they're just as important to the mission as the guy pulling the trigger. Sorry, I'll be the guy that says it. I really don't care.
Bill House:But they are. I thought that for years All I did was float around on a boat.
Charlie Cline:But that aircraft carrier's not there Putting the fear of God into anybody else that's out there going airstrikes are coming if we start fucking around.
Bill House:That's why we floated around Haiti for eight weeks. They're going to go, yeah.
Charlie Cline:They're going to F around.
Speaker 1:I've got to deal with it.
Charlie Cline:But if you're sitting off there and you've got your planes and you've got all that stuff, they're going to probably think twice about what they're doing. You guys were just as instrumental as the guys on the ground. We all play a role. If you're out there, don't feel and don't let somebody tell you that you're less than. That's not cool at all. I really don't care. That goes back to what that pisses me off.
Tre Porter:Yeah, yeah, really that's it. That's what it like I need. I and I tried to impress upon the kid like that, it doesn't matter, yeah, it doesn't matter. You were there, you did a job.
Charlie Cline:There's a reason there's a reason why those campaign medals or ribbons that you've earned qualify you? Yeah, yeah, you know, but they just feel like they're less than, and that's cool. So how, those campaign medals or ribbons that you've earned qualify you? You know what I mean, but they just feel like they're less than, and that's cool. So you met him at the gym? Yeah, so you just go in and pay your dues and don't work out. That's what I do. I'm just wondering. I'm just wondering.
Speaker 2:The camera's not on.
Charlie Cline:You ain't lifted a weight in 30 years.
Speaker 2:I think, Trey and. I, we got the dad bods here, but I'm not far behind.
Charlie Cline:I'm going to have the grandpa bod pretty soon, I hope. Not yet right. Nothing in the pipe. No, nothing in the. They're a couple years away. I'm close.
Tre Porter:I'm going to wait as long as possible. I got my fifth fucking grandkid on the way. Oh man Number five on the way, congrats. You're a grandfather, your genetics are potent Four times over buddy Bam. Five on the way. I got grand, I got grand. Uh-oh, did we lose it.
Speaker 2:There we go, no.
Speaker 7:Charlie's just fucking around with the technology I plugged a cord.
Tre Porter:I have grandkids that are older than my two youngest kids, so they gotta call them uncle. Yeah, I got some Jerry Springer shit going on.
Speaker 2:Wait, whoa Never mind I don't wanna hear it.
Tre Porter:I have grandkids, my kids had kids and then I had more kids. So my two oldest, 28 and 25, they each have two kids each and my daughter has god damn it. I don't know how old they are, Doesn't matter.
Charlie Cline:So his kids have to call his His youngest kids have to call his grandkids aunts or uncles.
Tre Porter:No, they call the two oldest. No, the two oldest have to call the youngest. That's what I was wondering my grandkids have to call my two youngest, so could you imagine being?
Charlie Cline:like 12 years old and having to call a four-year-old aunt or uncle yeah, Isn't that crazy It'd be a little weird yeah. Yeah so.
Speaker 2:Let me guess you're from the Mecosta area.
Charlie Cline:That ain't some Jerry Remus?
Speaker 2:That's how that makes sense that ain't some Jerry Springer shit, that's some Dr Phil shit, right there.
Tre Porter:It's fine, it's all love there it is A lot of love going on.
Speaker 2:Make love, not war, right? How old's your uncle? About six years younger than me. Seriously, in a few years, can you imagine those conversations that those kids are going to, poor kids, are going to have to have?
Charlie Cline:What do you mean? You got to miss gonna poor kids are gonna have to have right. Well, my uncle just graduated kindergarten.
Bill House:I gotta go to the graduation, my uncle's second wife was younger than his oldest daughter that's what I'm.
Charlie Cline:My second wife is crazy younger, younger than my son.
Tre Porter:There was a there was a Saturday Night Live episode Maybe I'm not. There was a Saturday Night Live episode where they were like these husbands who were married to these women and they were meeting their future wives Right, their future wives. I saw this. Yeah, great, skitit man. First of all, they would come in. It was they. These little girls would come in, be like this is gonna be your wife in 20 years. And the guys are like yeah, oh shit and then and then this what?
Tre Porter:the last one that came on. This woman came in. She was pregnant and the guy was like oh, oh, that's not so bad. They were like it's the baby in the belly, that's who you're going to marry.
Charlie Cline:She's going to be born in three months.
Tre Porter:Oh, that's a bunch.
Charlie Cline:I think one of them was like what do you like to do? I like to kayak, or whatever. The wife was like. I like to kayak. Well, that's how you're going to die in a kayak accident or something. Oh no, yeah, it was a great skit yeah. Because all the guys' wives that were on the game show wives were in the audience.
Speaker 7:Oh, Jesus man, right, so they were finding out who their husband's second wives are going to be. Yeah, and.
Charlie Cline:And they're all like whatever still in the belly, to like 12 years old.
Tre Porter:Yeah, I remember they brought that little girl out. They were holding her hand and I was like oh my God, yeah.
Charlie Cline:But you know.
Tre Porter:Yeah, that skit was hilarious. Yeah, it was. There was one not too long ago, a Beavis and Butthead skit. Oh, I didn't see that.
Charlie Cline:Oh my god, my favorite one is still the Sarah Palin, oh where she actually came out no no it had Tina Fey with Sarah Palin. This is way back with like she did Sarah Palin so good too, it was Chaney and Romney were running or whatever, and then they cut to her and she was like she had the flute up. She's like, oh, is this not the talent portion, like playing? The flute. That shit was absolutely hilarious.
Tre Porter:Well, they did one where Sarah Palin actually came out. Oh really, yeah. So Tina Fey was out there and somebody came. She was at a podium speaking Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, and somebody came in and they whispered in her ear. She was like she's here now. She whispered like here right now and she looked up. She was like okay, bye. She walked off and then here comes the real Sarah Palin.
Bill House:I just remember that skit.
Charlie Cline:It was like absolutely hilarious because it had, I think, joe Biden and Sarah Palin were, because that was Obama and I think it was Mitt Romney or maybe it was Dick Cheney, and you kept saying I come from Scranton, Pennsylvania, the biggest shithole on the planet. And I barely made it out alive. And she was like is this the telephone?
Tre Porter:She had like the flute, like it was the beauty queen thing, right, you know, like it was just absolutely, was she a beauty queen? She was a hockey mom because they were just pit bulls with lipstick or something.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, that was her saying you know Soccer mom, it was hilarious. That was hockey mom, because she's from Alaska. Oh, yeah, it was hockey mom. Yeah, you ever seen it? There's like pit bulls with lipstick or something. They said yeah, but anyways, yeah, she was hilarious. Snl does some good shit and I like that. Colin and Che they do the weekend update. Oh my God, when they rate each other's jokes, when they switch jokes. Yeah, they rate each other's jokes.
Tre Porter:Oh yeah, yeah, man, that is hilarious. Oh man, Because Michael Che is a black guy and Colin Jost is a white guy. He's married to Scarlett Johansson, oh wow. Yeah. So just the jokes that.
Charlie Cline:Michael makes, oh yeah.
Tre Porter:They make him sound like super racist and then also talking shit about his wife.
Charlie Cline:Oh yeah, he goes. Yeah, my wife's little art film Black Panther. I like to call it a little artsy film or something. We called it Black Panther.
Bill House:That popcorn's from like two years ago, by the way.
Charlie Cline:It's probably three weeks old you didn't tell me you wanted popcorn. I would have made some fresh popcorn.
Speaker 2:I'm about to make some fresh popcorn. I know how to work that thing.
Charlie Cline:You don't touch my machine. Oh, I'll touch it. You ain't touching nothing.
Speaker 2:You ain't touching nothing, I'm going to touch it. You don't touch my buttons. Well then, get your ass in there.
Charlie Cline:Next podcast you'll have fresh popcorn.
Tre Porter:Oh man. So back to this kid at the gym. We're going to get his ass into the VFW.
Speaker 2:No good, no, he's right, he's three weeks old. Yeah, we went down that road. We can get his ass into the VFW.
Charlie Cline:No, good, no, he's right, he's three weeks old. Yeah, at least Maybe he'll listen next time. You're like a little kid, daddy tells you.
Tre Porter:There's probably a lot of botulism in it right now. He's probably going to die Popcorn with oil. He ain't going to die. He's probably going to die. Just probably Just stop it, you can take a handful of it, it doesn't crunch anymore. It's like, yeah, it's soft.
Speaker 2:Don't worry, we'll remember you. How long are we going to be here? I mean, it doesn't take that long to make some popcorn, man.
Charlie Cline:Oh, you got to clean out the machine. Yeah, you got to get all the old. Okay, go ahead, go make some. Don't touch the buttons. Go ahead, go make some. Don't touch his buttons. I'm giving you permission.
Bill House:It's going to take a long time. You got permission to touch his button. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:It's going to take a long time. No, I'm not going to do it now. I'm fucking sitting in here and I'm too damn lazy to go and do it now.
Charlie Cline:Okay, all right. Well, maybe you should join Revolution Fitness Evolution.
Speaker 2:Evolution Fitness.
Tre Porter:Oh, fuck that place. Do you know how many?
Speaker 2:guys just.
Charlie Cline:Do you know how many guys just want to tan?
Speaker 2:No, does it fucking look like I tan? Well, maybe you just started.
Charlie Cline:I am the whitest motherfucker.
Tre Porter:They have a massage bed. That he probably Water bed. Yeah, it's a water bed. I do Water bed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do.
Tre Porter:That's worth it alone, right there.
Speaker 2:No lie, seriously, all seriousness. It really is very good Because I deal with fucking back issues and shit and every once in a while it helps.
Tre Porter:Why don't you see?
Charlie Cline:a chiropractor.
Speaker 2:I do, I don't do shit. What do you see him? Well, I take that back. Maybe he doesn't want to say anything? No, I take that. Well, we could talk offline. But no, I see a chiropractor and every so often I'll go in and like get a massage and what it. It just it keeps the pain at a tolerable level. If I go without either of those for more than a couple weeks to a month, I am just in a whole bunch of pain, like I don't know what it is in my back when I fell and I hit my head and I did all this other shit. That explains a lot. It does, it does there we go.
Speaker 2:I got a TBI man. I got moderate TBI. Anyway, is that why you were in the Navy? Yeah, oh, okay, yeah, when I was on deployment I fell down a ladder. Well, oh, yeah, yeah, he knows. Yeah, I've done that.
Charlie Cline:So but anyway, lytlewell went right to the captains.
Speaker 2:That went so quick, didn't it?
Charlie Cline:It always does around here. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Welcome. I'm surprised they haven't made any digs at you. It's probably just because you're new.
Charlie Cline:We're not going to fire up the first night on him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but it's common though. But yeah, over the years I've had x-rays, I've had fucking MRIs and shit. They found some stuff. I've got degenerative arthritis in the spine. I've got displaced SI joint, damn. Yeah, I've got all kinds of shit. I think we can just kick off the thing. My battery's going to die. I thought it was plugged in. I've only got 9% left. It's not charging, just kick it.
Charlie Cline:Take it off, it's not charging Take it off. It's not a charging port, no, it just plays through the thing. So if you're listening to Facebook Live. Sorry, we're out, yep my phone's going to die Next time we're going to have him have a full charge when he comes.
Speaker 2:So, if you're listening, listen to the rest of this on the Spotify.
Tre Porter:When we get that, if you had listening, listen to the rest of this on the Spotify when we get that. If you had an iPhone, you could. I don't think it charges.
Speaker 2:It doesn't charge. It didn't charge mine either. It don't charge. This is not a charging port, it's just data. Oh, so yeah, so that kills the live feed.
Bill House:It just doesn't kill the main.
Speaker 2:No, no we're still recording. They've heard everything up until this point, but from an hour and 40 minutes on however long it ends up being, they'll be able to kick on and pick up where they left off. All right, yep, if you're listening, take it easy, we'll talk to you later.
Charlie Cline:Bye. Sound like you were on a freaking telephone call Kind of am, kind of am Not going to lie.
Bill House:So now we're not live. We can talk all kinds of bullshit now, right, yeah, but it's not going to be on Spotify though Can I say big.
Charlie Cline:No, no, I got you.
Tre Porter:You just get big.
Speaker 2:Perfect timing, anywho. So what? What was I saying? Oh yeah, over the years, you know, I've done MRIs and shit and I've got scar tissue in my back. It's mostly soft tissue injury but it just Is it from falling yeah, fall, mm-hmm.
Tre Porter:Goddamn.
Speaker 2:So when I fell I started falling forward down, but I grabbed myself at the last on the rail, that's probably why I did it right there. So when I did that, I had enough momentum that I basically spun my back out of place.
Speaker 2:That's where the SI joint displacement came in. And then, when I landed on my back, I hit my head on the bulkhead and landed on the deck. Oh, and that banged you even more. Yeah, and it wasn't an open ladder. Well, where it just went down and you went down the P-way, it was next to just a steel bulkhead. So I fucking hit my head, fucked up my back, fucked up my neck a whole nine years my neck and my back, my neck and my back.
Tre Porter:That was another good skit. That was a good one. What movie was that from? Friday Yep, my neck and my back.
Charlie Cline:It's my neck, and then there's a song my neck and my back, oh shit. Where were we Sorry?
Speaker 2:that was the first thing Bill's like what the hell's going on. Oh, I seen Friday.
Tre Porter:I just don't remember that part all I remember is the crackhead fell down in the store you ain't got a job yeah every time.
Bill House:I come in the kitchen, you in the kitchen.
Charlie Cline:I like pig feet.
Speaker 2:I like hog balls but, anyway, so yeah, so knock the when I, when I landed rather kind of midway through the fall, like as soon as I twerk my back, like kind of like that, I felt shooting pain, really like I got zapped by a line. It went straight down to my toe. Oh yeah, couldn't feel my feet for a couple of days, but I was deployed. I couldn't see it. I mean, I was with an emergency room physician but he was like you can't fucking do anything for you. So sorry we're in the middle of the Persian Gulf. What do you expect me to do anything for you? So sorry we're in the middle of the Persian Gulf. Like what do you expect me to do? So you were a light duty warrior. No, I didn't go on light duty, oh really, they. Let me lay down for about an hour.
Tre Porter:Did you appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I was like yeah, thanks, appreciate that. I got a major fucking headache now because, everything is echoing in my head now. But yeah, I laid down for a bit but eventually when I got back to Pearl Harbor they had done the x-rays and everything. When I got back and in that short four months they had already told me I had degenerative arthritis going Wow.
Tre Porter:God damn, yeah, so we were at. I don't know if I should tell this story. You're starting it, you've got to finish it.
Charlie Cline:If it gets real bad, I'll edit it out.
Tre Porter:It was during Memorial Day and these very, very old gentlemen came and they obviously wanted to get in line in front of me and I was like yes, please go ahead. And they were, they they're, and I'm wondering if your back's going to be. They were, they were both of them bent over, like you know, like this literally, and they were making their food plates and shit. And I was like God damn man Chiropractor.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, Keep that shit stretched out in place, damn man. Chiropractor. Yeah, keep that shit stretched out in place.
Speaker 2:No, speaking of chiropractor. I hope that's not you in 15 years. Fuck, I hope not in 15 years Stay on top of it. Yeah, no, like I said, I you know, between just regular massage therapy and massage therapy and chiropractor. Making sure I kind of alternate between the two Keeps things tolerable. My standard pain level is about a four. Four out of five out of ten Always.
Tre Porter:Always Constant On your back. Go to Thailand.
Speaker 2:How about we don't go to Thailand?
Charlie Cline:Best massages you'll ever get, I'm sure. No, seriously, I'm not talking about the greasy ones, I'm talking about the legit. They put you in the bed and they'll do the traction thing where they pull you apart, they crack your hips, they crack your knees, they crack each toe, like I mean, it's the most legit massage, right? They'll loosen you all up and then they give you like a chiropractic adjustment at the same time, and it's a girl that'll give you like the massage you know. She'll walk on your back with the bar thing above, stretch you all out. It's like an hour long, just that. And then the chiropractor guy comes in and cracks every goddamn thing in your body. I swear to God.
Charlie Cline:And when I was in Bahrain, they did the same thing. You got a haircut and they throw a hot towel on your head and they kind of massage your shoulders and your back and stuff, and then they crack your neck. I mean it's like a Turkish haircut. Have you ever like YouTube? A Turkish haircut? Yeah, where they crack your? Yeah, they crack your neck, they crack your ears, they do this whole weird thing. It's like that, I swear to God.
Speaker 2:I've wanted to do it.
Charlie Cline:It's so amazing. If you've never had like your shoulder cracked, your elbows cracked, like it feels amazing, nobody around here will do that shit.
Speaker 2:No, no. It feels amazing. Nobody around here will do that shit, no, no, well, because our laws are different. But you know, for the longest time you know. I for haircuts and shit. I go to sport clips mainly because they kind of do that same shit. They do a little bit of massage, like they use one of those little vibrating massage gun things and whatever, but it's mostly just a haircut and you know I usually go to them just because they support the VFW. You know they do the Help. A Hero scholarship.
Tre Porter:They do that. Yeah, they do. Is there a sport clips here? Yeah, right there where Pay for Less? No, it's owned by.
Speaker 2:Walmart. Yep, it's down by Walmart Los.
Charlie Cline:Aztecas.
Speaker 2:Bluegrass Road, Yep. So I go down there and they're busy as fuck all the time.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, so you got to go to the app, get on the app and you can actually book a time.
Tre Porter:They have hot chicks cutting here. Yeah, yeah, all right, yeah, duly noted. What do they fetch for a?
Charlie Cline:haircut there.
Speaker 2:If you want the whole legit. If you want the whole legit thing, it's like $35, but it's your haircut, I think I pay. It's like an extra $5 or $7 for a beard trim as well if you want your beard lined up or whatever. But yeah, the whole treatment is the haircut. They'll take you back, shampoo you and condition you or whatever. And then is the haircut. They'll take you back, shampoo you and condition you or whatever. And then during that they do the scalp massage, you know, and bring you back. They do a shoulder massage. Not sure that part of the massage.
Speaker 2:So I highly recommend them. But in all honesty, though, I've been looking for a legit barber, like an old-fashioned barber, in the barber's chairs they tip you back. They do the shave with the straight razor the whole nine broadway and adams.
Tre Porter:There's an old barber shop there. I'm pretty sure there are old guys that work in that place because it's been there forever. It's on adams and broadway. I know which one you're talking about. Uh, gainyard elementary, yeah well, west west side, west side, yeah, yeah, yeah so that's uh.
Charlie Cline:I went to actually high school with him. His name is todd. I think he now has a partner in there. He bought this old guy, bill, or bob bill, I think Bill something was the guy that originally owned it and Todd took it over probably 10 years ago, but I don't know what they do. My father-in-law, I think, still goes there.
Tre Porter:They definitely don't give you a massage. No, you want the old school barbers for you.
Charlie Cline:I go to one of Jen's friends and she's my friend, but does the? Hair washes, she does the head washes. She, you know, does the the head thing and then cut your hair. That pays 30. That's what the tip Amanda does a good job and I'm the guy because of work I'll like text her. Got any openings this week and she's like Tuesday at 10. I'll be there, that's it you know, because that's the last.
Tre Porter:I can't book out four weeks, six weeks whatever right. I don't cut my hair. We noticed.
Charlie Cline:Surprise those earphones fit on your head.
Tre Porter:Right, that's just lately. I'm kind of getting tired of it. We'll see how I feel.
Charlie Cline:I don't know how your head hits the pillow, those curls in your hair. It's like an extra pillow. Extra pillow Things like a freaking spring mattress yeah, an extra pillow. That's not me calling you nappy-headed, so don't go down that road.
Tre Porter:I didn't say that you did. I didn't say that you were thinking it. No.
Charlie Cline:Curls. It's not nappy. That's what I said. It looks like a Serta spring mattress. It's beautiful, sealy.
Bill House:I think that's a sealy Sealy poppy. It kind of looked like a raggedy hand, doll, yeah, kind of.
Speaker 2:Anyway.
Tre Porter:I'm good with.
Charlie Cline:It'm quite gray, makes you look established yeah.
Bill House:It kind of reminds me of Lamont.
Tre Porter:Oh Lamont from Sanford and. Sons, Fred Sanford's son. I was looking at my hair today. I was like shit, my hair's getting long. I love that show. I need to do something with my hair. It's just getting long. That was a good show. I love that show. Do something with it. I need to do something with my hair. It's just getting long. That was a good show.
Speaker 2:I love that show. I have no idea what the fuck he's saying. Fred Sanford, fred Sanford.
Charlie Cline:They come right out after Three's.
Bill House:Company Red Fox man. What?
Tre Porter:Red Fox, go home and Google or YouTube. Sanford and Son, I've heard of it, I've never seen it.
Speaker 2:It's pretty funny. I've heard of Cheers. I've heard of Freeze Company. I'm coming to see you.
Charlie Cline:I'm coming to see you. What's the other?
Speaker 2:one Happy Days. I remember Happy Days. He was born like 20 minutes ago. Oh, that's true, so how?
Tre Porter:old, are you?
Speaker 2:Because I'm with you, crotchety old fuckers.
Tre Porter:Yeah, how old are you?
Speaker 2:33.
Tre Porter:Are you serious?
Speaker 2:God damn, you just turned 33 this month. Such a baby.
Tre Porter:You're like 49.
Speaker 2:I was born in 91.
Tre Porter:I'll be 48, this year 48.
Speaker 2:51 right now.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, I'm right behind Bill. I'll be 46.
Speaker 2:Where were you in 91? 91?.
Tre Porter:Middle school, I was in high school. Okay, there you go. Yeah, there you go. You were born in 91? Oh, you were. My wife is 33.
Bill House:Shit yeah. Graduated in high school.
Tre Porter:She's a doctor. Give me my props. She's a doctor, an MD doctor, yeah, 33, 15 years younger than me. 16, 15, whatever.
Speaker 2:And cradle 16, 15, whatever. Cradle robber.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, you could have been on that SNL skit yeah. I don't watch SNL. Your next future wife could be four years old right now.
Tre Porter:I sent that to you guys. That skit, I want to see it. Yeah, I sent it to you guys.
Charlie Cline:I've seen it, it's great.
Tre Porter:Actually, one of those guys looks like Brent, one of the guys that's sitting on the game show. He kind of looks like you black guy no yeah.
Charlie Cline:I'm not racially ambiguous like this guy over here, well, he's.
Speaker 2:Al. Qaeda. Al Qaeda. Is that what you?
Tre Porter:just said we put him on a burqa. He'd look like Al Qaeda. I'm whatever you want me to be, El Caida. Is that what you just said? We put him on a burka. I'm whatever you want me to be Well.
Charlie Cline:In that case, I'll give you my address tonight, All right?
Speaker 2:But I'm always on top Just remember that that's not what you said. Oh shit, it's not what you said. You used to open that up.
Tre Porter:I walked right into that. Oh man, Perfect timing. We need some of that.
Charlie Cline:Oh man so hopefully we have a good summer at the post. Hopefully there's a lot of things going on.
Speaker 2:And just a forewarning to the listeners. I mean, like I said, it's the slow season, so you know people are out and about enjoying the weather. And just a forewarning to the listeners. I mean, like I said, it's the slow season, so you know people are out and about enjoying the during the weather, so we might not be posting as much as we have.
Charlie Cline:I mean, if the last six weeks isn't, you know, warning enough, you know we we get busy during the summer and we don't really post as much, but um, well, this time of year too, that end of spring kind of start of summer, is busy at the Pulse because we have elections, we have a lot of changeover stuff going on, so it's just tough to you know.
Speaker 2:But once that stuff is all settled and handled, I think the latter part of the summer is kind of where everything just kind of gets settled in and you know, we're just kind of relaxing.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, I mean we'll still have stuff going on and it depends on who we have up here. There's always stories and stuff that we talk about.
Speaker 2:You know, something I thought about earlier we really should try and get a commander in here. We should really try and get Arnie. Well, yeah, arnie, but I meant you know Scott Taylor, get our district and our department commander in here. You know, I know Ray Lopez would probably stop by. Yeah, yeah, ray was the outgoing right.
Charlie Cline:So his term was done here on Saturday. His term was done. Kimberly will be taken over.
Speaker 2:And Kimberly. If she lives in, where is she? Saginaw. She's not that far away, so she might come out and hang out.
Charlie Cline:I'm sure she'll be busy, but Ray is the past state commander.
Speaker 2:Are you going to the department convention this week?
Charlie Cline:Well, I have a report to do on Friday to the CFA. Are you coming down with me, kalamazoo? I'm just going down for the day, coming back, I can't.
Speaker 2:I've got to take my dad over to the VA Get him an Uber Trayworks for himself.
Charlie Cline:He'll drive.
Tre Porter:I'll be in Florida.
Charlie Cline:I'm just kidding. Since you're not going, I might actually Ray offered up a bed for me on Thursday night, so that way I don't have to get up at 4 in the morning and drive down. There you go. So I might hit him up tonight, now that I know what you're up to.
Speaker 2:But I do want to start going to some of these conventions. I mean, if you're in the VFW and you want to get involved to a higher degree, to a higher level, you need to go to these conventions. You know, in fact, I think it was you, charlie, that stood up and we were talking about Voice of Democracy and Patriots Penn. I do it every year. Yeah, that's something we gotta.
Speaker 2:We gotta really push, but but anyway, yeah, if you're wanting to get involved, you've got to get involved and you've got to go to these conventions.
Charlie Cline:Well, you can do as much or as little as you want. You're not required to do anything. But the more that you know and you see what happens, you understand what the organization's about, you understand the things that they do and all the different things that they do. So you know there's directorships through department, through the state. There's 30 of them, right? You guys probably only know a handful of the directorships that are actually out there. Some of you might not even know a handful the directorships that are actually out there. Some of you might not even know a handful there's so much that goes on that people don't know about.
Charlie Cline:When you start to go to these and you hear all these things, you're like, oh, that's what that means, oh, that's what that's who that is, oh, that's what that's about. Yeah, right, you have no idea. It's like people that have no idea what camp trotter is. They hear camp trotter but they have no idea.
Charlie Cline:You start going to these things and you find out about it, what it actually does. Or the national home or anything else, all state programs, all american programs, you know there's just all sorts of things that are out there. You start to kind of understand and then you can pick and choose. If you decide to things that you want entities, right, that you want to get involved in at your local post or local community level. Or and you can go all the way right to the state level, right, as you get more versed in it, more knowledge in it, you know and you get to shake some hands and meet some people.
Charlie Cline:And if you're a go-getter and you want to learn and you want to know, you know you can easily work your way through the system right to get to a level to be where things can go in the direction that you want to go in Right At the direction of your commander, your state commander, right? So I can't? As the writers group director, I can't just hey, this is what we're going to do. No, I've got to get permission.
Charlie Cline:Right, so I've got to bring some tangible assets and ideas thought out and drawn out to get approval from him or her Right. Yep, that's great, let's do that and then I can push forward with it. But there's, you know. So you can make change. You know what I mean. So if there's something that you don't like, come up with great ideas and things to make things better or up to date. Because I have said this at our post forever when I first got in and started getting involved at the post, my best analogy to the old timers love them to death because they got us where we're at Right. Now it's our turn to push us to the next level and then my time is going to come where it's the next generation or two behind us that pushes us past where we're at. But I always use the analogy of we all answer the phone. I don't walk to the kitchen and pull the phone off the wall with a little curly cue to answer my phone. I do it from my pocket. He doesn't know that.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. I know what a landline is you dick? We still answer the phone.
Charlie Cline:The phone's not wrong, we just do things differently. Right. Right, but they're in the old school, right. We sit around the meeting and they're like well, what's our liability? Can we get sued? What's the liability of doing?
Charlie Cline:this what's the liability? Well, if we have kids here and they're on a trampoline and they break their arm, what's the liability? On the post, it's like you know they're just so worried about being sued all the time that they discredit younger members that have kids that want to come up there. And it's like you know this is supposed to be a family place. Yeah, we have a canteen, but that doesn't mean kids can't be here. It's the parents' responsibility to take care of the kids, it's not the person.
Speaker 2:And, at the end of the day, if they really wanted to push it, it's like a freaking waiver Right.
Charlie Cline:But what I'm saying is it's so old school, the way that they think, right Like answering the phone is not wrong. We just like answering the phone's not wrong, we just do it differently, right. Right, so what your mission was wasn't wrong, but technology and things. We just have to do things differently to keep moving forward and a lot of them will buy in once. They kind of get the analogy and understand what you're doing and we're not, because they get. They'll get a little bit upset or butthurt that, oh, these guys just want to come in and change everything. Well, well, no, we're not trying to change anything, just adjusting slightly. We're just trying to move things forward in the technology and the way things are nowadays that they don't understand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the podcast is a great example, back in the day it was just talk radio and when the podcast was still an idea in our heads and we were talking about it on the floor, we had to explain it to some of the old-timers of it's basically a recorded talk radio, you know? And finally they understood what it was and you know. And then they were fine.
Charlie Cline:But most of them have no idea what a podcast is. Right, right, and it's just a way for us to express ourselves, our experiences, things that are coming up and try to draw younger members or newer members to join the VFWs or even join the American Legions. I don't care, I'm a Legion member too and all I care about is veterans finding a place for veterans to go, and I hate the fact that my grandfather was a member of the VFW and a life member of the Legion. He was also the commandant for the state of Michigan for the Marine Corps League and he got butthurt because he thought he was a World War II guy. He always thought if you served, you should be able to be a member of anything other than Marine Corps League, because it's only Marines right, just like if you had a Navy League or an Army League, right, you got to serve in that branch. But he was so butthurt he dropped his membership from the VFW because he was pissed off. Same mindset I have. I don't care if you're the clerk you're the pay guy.
Charlie Cline:You're the supply guy, you're the medical guy. Your job is just as important as mine. That was his mindset. So I get it and I understand it. Do you think that's going to change anytime?
Bill House:soon.
Tre Porter:I don't think so think that's going to change anytime soon. I don't?
Charlie Cline:I don't think so. But membership rules right, so they've gotten way more relaxed over the years. Because the membership in the vfw and american legions are dropping. Right, because we don't have the draft years. You know where, no matter what you had to go, it's still voluntary. So even though we had 20 years of iraq and afghanistan, it's still voluntary. So, even though we had 20 years of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bill House:it was still voluntary to go, yeah, but we've got a lot of veterans that aren't eligible because they're not foreign war veterans Because they were peacetime guys, right, Exactly.
Charlie Cline:So that's why I will always push go to Legion, yeah Right, You're still a veteran. Legion will take anybody. Amvets will take anybody right, Go to those organizations, Become a member, get involved, understand what you earn, what you're entitled to and all that stuff. Be around the brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, you can't be a member of ours, which sucks, right, Because they come in thinking that they can be and then we have to tell them sorry man or sorry lady, you don't qualify, and that just is a shitty thing to tell somebody that serves our country and I hate doing that.
Speaker 2:But here's the other thing in two parts Strikes again, and I'm only guessing. Obviously, just like our disclaimer says, I can't speak for the VFW, but I'm going to guess and say that within the next 10, 20 years, membership eligibility could be as wide as as long as you've gone, oconus and been stationed there you're in. That's where I see it going eventually. You know how many people have applied and they were stationed in Germany and they were like why the fuck? Do I not?
Tre Porter:It's like Bob Lackey. Bob Lackey, who's a very active member, he's in the auxiliary, I believe.
Charlie Cline:He's in the Legion.
Tre Porter:But I mean he is, he is an auxiliary member of our post.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, he was a World War II veteran.
Tre Porter:And I just think that a guy like that you know you got Marcus Joker.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, you know he was in Germany, but he was never you know Well and this is the reason why, if you got the GWAT or you got the Armed Forces Expeditionary or you got a couple of these others, you served in that theater. So you know, if you got a GWAT and you were in Turkey, right it's still going to be considered the theater.
Charlie Cline:So if you earn that, ribbon you're not necessarily floating on a boat in the Persian Gulf during the war, right, but you were somewhere in that, whatever that radius happens to be, and you were in that, you know you qualify, or you get the hazard pay, imminent danger pay, all those kind of things you know you still qualify.
Bill House:Yeah, we were in shooting range. That's why we got hazardous duty pay.
Speaker 1:Back in the day, back in the day you know, if you weren't boots on the ground, you weren't getting it.
Charlie Cline:But they had these mass drafts. You know where they had a million people, you know. So the restriction was way harder. Now the membership drops, you start loosening things up. And how far can you go to loosen things up? And maybe at some point, if there's not another conflict coming up, you know, maybe that's what's going to happen, or else, unfortunately, the organizations go away.
Tre Porter:Right, I mean, can you imagine seeing?
Charlie Cline:the VFW going away? No, because they'll keep loosening those restrictions to try to keep the memberships up. Yeah. But I have no idea what that extent is going to be. I mean, that's for the national Right right right. But you know, I just hate seeing the guy come in or a girl come in and they got to turn them away. You know, because they served their country for eight years, but they didn't go anywhere, or do anything which isn't their fault, right, they just didn't have a good campaign.
Bill House:It's always needs of the service. Yeah, you know, it's like my niece right now. I mean if it wasn't for her husband having a campaign ribbon. She's been in the Air Force for six years now. You know, well-decorated but, no campaign ribbon, nothing that would allow her other than she's married to her husband and she could join auxiliary at this point exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm just you know, hindsight's 20-20. I'm just glad that I volunteered for that deployment, because my unit didn't deploy that was an individual augmentee deployment, so I volunteered for that, I'm glad I did. I'm glad you did too. Had I not, I would not be sitting here.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, we definitely needed a quartermaster. Now you can go away Whatever. Whatever, now we appreciate you, brett.
Tre Porter:Whatever. Whatever. Now, we appreciate you, brent. You do a lot for the VFW. I'm not going to lie.
Charlie Cline:You do a lot, I'll try.
Tre Porter:Well, everybody sitting at the table has done something for our post. Except for Charlie he's all about himself.
Charlie Cline:That's it. That's all I care about. No, charlie, I put a toilet in.
Bill House:Does that count?
Speaker 2:it does count. You put in floors too.
Bill House:Charlie, put in a water heater well, I did the trim around the office.
Tre Porter:I put a fence in. I'm trying to stick up for you, charlie, yeah you did put a fence in floors.
Charlie Cline:That was from Trotter, that was, that's not so much for the post, it doesn't matter, it's the FW in general, the FW, the FW In a roundabout way it is, and that's always the thing.
Charlie Cline:People get too wrapped up into what's going on in their own post. They lose sight of what the actual goal or missions are. Yep, you know, you forget. This post only exists because the Department of National authorized this post to exist, right? So that's the reason why we have the All-State, all-american programs, and I'm introducing something similar for the writers' groups. It's going to take effect in June when Kimberly's year takes over, and if you want to be in essentially All-State, all-american writers' group, there's a lot of things that you've got to do to earn enough points to earn that status and you'll get a pin for your vest for each member, that'll say year 2024, 2025,.
Charlie Cline:Your group was honored because they did all these requirements, and all the requirements are obtainable. Nothing is like you've got to go and spend a million dollars.
Charlie Cline:But you've got to be willing to go and do it, but you have to be a post riders group or district whatever riders group that does the things to support the mission of the department. Right, and do the things to help out the VFW, help out the kids, help out the national. Do stuff for your post or your community in order to get it, and shame on you if you're not doing those things. Because, honestly, then what's your writers group about? Just a bunch of guys wanting to ride around and women ride around and just do your own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can do that without being a member?
Charlie Cline:No, because our post membership right. We're an activity of our post. If our post membership decides, or even our post commander decides tomorrow, getting rid of the writers group gone, yes, department of Michigan decides I want to get rid of the writers group. You're gone. You better do the things you're supposed to be doing.
Tre Porter:Don't lose sight of what, why you're there and what you're department again, is the department director again.
Charlie Cline:I'm the department director. That's right. The department commander is who I follow.
Tre Porter:But if you were like, fuck it.
Charlie Cline:I would go to the commander who's appointed me to that position and say, look, these are the issues I have and this is what I'm thinking it's their ultimate say. It's no different than Bill House, as a VP, comes to you and says, hey, this is what I think we need to do. It's ultimately your decision and what actually happens now, depending on what that is, if I catch wind of it or whatever happens, I can always step in and say, look, this is the way it's going to actually be no different than I could get a command come down to me and say this is what's going to happen. I don't have a choice, you know.
Charlie Cline:So, at the end of the day, the chain of command you know that's right, always the way it works, you know if you want to be the guy, be the guy you want to be the girl be the girl. That's right. But at the end of the day, we're here to serve the vfw. We're here to serve our communities, because our communities support us. Our VFW supports us. We have to do the same in turn. We show respect to everybody, do the things we have to do.
Charlie Cline:We get it back twice over that was something that Tim pushed as the director. He started turning things around and I'm going to keep on with what Tim started Missed the hooker. But I'm not going to let him down because he was hardest on me over everybody, because I was part of our group and he made sure that we were on the straight and narrow and the straight and narrow is the way it's going to stay, so Yep. So what do? You guys the way it's going to stay, mm-hmm, so Yep.
Speaker 2:Good, but so what? Do you guys think we're going to segue into another direction, or do you think you want to call it for today?
Charlie Cline:How many hours are we in?
Speaker 2:We're about two and a quarter, I'd say we call it Yep. Okay, well, we got Flag Day coming up. Yep, I would say the next. Let's shoot for another episode shortly after that. Three weeks, four weeks yeah, something like that.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, because it's kind of slow. Really, the Riders group is the only ones out there doing anything, right, I think so, yeah, so maybe do one before we head on our sunrise to sunset. Sounds good to me. Then we'll do another one right before we go to National Home, yeah, which will be around mid-August.
Bill House:Yeah, 17th, I think, is it not?
Charlie Cline:I believe that one is the 11th. 17th is the National Ride for National Home. So that's where everybody comes from all around the country Yep, mm-hmm That'll be a fun one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that'll be a fun one. But during the bad weather season don't we average? Every other week, usually come about November on we kick the heaters on here in AJ's Sky Lounge.
Charlie Cline:That's right still tented in because the weather's cold today we almost took them down, so let's leave them up. We got a podcast tonight the sidewalls and stuff. We left them up so I could have that heater on over there.
Speaker 2:That's nice on the air, alright. Well, can't nail down an exact date right now, but but probably the week following Flag Day or something Shoot around that area. Let me take a look. Do you want to nail one down?
Charlie Cline:No, we don't need to nail one down, but it'll probably be the week of the 17th or the 21st of June, okay. So yeah, you got about three, four weeks. Okay, because there's just not a lot going on to talk about, so it depends on who's all going to join.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, if we nail down a date this early, we can send it out and be like hey this is it. You know we'll plan on it, so but awesome.
Bill House:Well, thanks guys for letting me join.
Charlie Cline:Yeah, no problem you're always welcome, but I'm just glad you didn't talk a lot nah, not like Charlie don't steal Charlie's right. Well, I kind of sit there on your phone the entire night, kind of stole a little of the fun in the beginning, but you know no, you didn't.
Speaker 2:No, that's what everybody does. We like everybody to say their piece.
Bill House:Because on the back end, when I go and put this up, You're going to delete all the stuff that I said in the beginning.
Speaker 2:No, we'll leave it on there. Pull all that out, but the system is actually kind of fancy. It's able to tell whose voice is whose and it will ask me your name so that when I upload this it will put a transcript. It's AI.
Bill House:So it knows who to delete.
Charlie Cline:That's what you're trying to say no, no, no, it'll actually put it in the intro.
Bill House:That's awesome, that's cool.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool, you'll see it. Signing out.
Tre Porter:Yeah, we're signing out. Peace out, america, peace out.
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.