Speaker 1: Loot for us.
Speaker 2: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 2: listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails on straight
Speaker 2: talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 3: Hey, what's going on? It is rad and welcome to
Speaker 3: this episode of soft Rep Radio. As always, I have
Speaker 3: to mention I have a merch store. We have a
Speaker 3: soft Reap merch store. Go check it out on the
Speaker 3: website at softwap dot com and just maybe pick up
Speaker 3: something for you or for a loved one. Send a gift. Hey,
Speaker 3: thanks for keeping our lights on. The other thing is
Speaker 3: we have a book club, and I really want to
Speaker 3: push that out there because reading is a really good
Speaker 3: thing to do. So it's soft rep dot com Ford
Speaker 3: slash Book hyphen Club. So rewind what I just said
Speaker 3: and listened to soft rep dot com Forward slash Book
Speaker 3: hyphen Club. Now today I have someone who has written
Speaker 3: a book, an author. He's also served our country. His
Speaker 3: name is Peter Fever and he is the former National
Speaker 3: Security Council Member on Public Confidence in the Military. Am
Speaker 3: I saying that correctly?
Speaker 1: Well, I've written a book on public commtists in the military,
Speaker 1: but my job at the White House was for strategic
Speaker 1: planning and institutional reform. So I was headed the Strategic
Speaker 1: Planning Cell in the Bush White House, and before that,
Speaker 1: I was worked in the Clint administration in the Defense
Speaker 1: Policy and Arms Control Directorate.
Speaker 3: Right, and here it also says, let me just drop
Speaker 3: this in that there is a brewing crisis within the
Speaker 3: United States. Military recruitment and enlistments are down across multiple branches.
Speaker 3: Countless veterans no longer want to see their family members
Speaker 3: following in their footsteps and joined to serve. As the
Speaker 3: nation's labor market remains pointly contested, becoming a new service
Speaker 3: member isn't the same appealing option for long term financial
Speaker 3: stability that once was, right, joining up, having these upfront
Speaker 3: bonuses and all this opportunity. Talk to me a little
Speaker 3: bit about what I just read to you.
Speaker 1: Well, this is actually the fiftieth anniversary of the All
Speaker 1: Volunteer Force, So fifty years ago this summer, the nation
Speaker 1: chose to transition from a draft based form of military
Speaker 1: service to one where they just had volunteers. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're not true volunteers, they're recruited, encouraged to join. And
Speaker 1: that all Volunteer force has lasted longer and worked better
Speaker 1: than anyone thought. But we're seeing some of the strains,
Speaker 1: and you identified some of them in what you just
Speaker 1: said that there is it's getting harder and harder to
Speaker 1: recruit folks. They're still meeting their targets on retention. So
Speaker 1: people who are in are tending to stay, but we're
Speaker 1: struggling to bring in new people. And so that's a
Speaker 1: challenge for the US military as they shift from the
Speaker 1: war on terror to meeting high intensity peer threats. But
Speaker 1: all of this is happening against the backdrop of changing
Speaker 1: public attitudes towards the military. And then that's really what
Speaker 1: my book is about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the book is thanks for finishing for me, Thanks.
Speaker 1: For your Service, The Causes and consequences of public confidence
Speaker 1: in the US Military. That title thanks for your services,
Speaker 1: that phrase that many of us have used. You know,
Speaker 1: you go into the airport, you see somebody or you
Speaker 1: learn that they're in the service or veterans, and you
Speaker 1: might reflectively say thanks for your service. And often the
Speaker 1: recipient of that may feel awkward by that. They may
Speaker 1: may or may not want to be thanked or feel
Speaker 1: you know, put on a pedestal in some way. So
Speaker 1: the book looks really closely at public attitudes towards the
Speaker 1: US military, and the premise or the basis of it
Speaker 1: is this striking fact. As Americans, most of us don't
Speaker 1: know much about the US military at all. Most of
Speaker 1: us don't have personal connections to the military. We haven't
Speaker 1: served ourselves, and increasingly we don't have family members who served.
Speaker 1: But we all know one thing about the military, and
Speaker 1: that is that the public seems to hold the military
Speaker 1: in high regard as a high competence. That's what political
Speaker 1: scientists call a social fact, something that everybody seems to know.
Speaker 1: They don't know why, but they kind of know that
Speaker 1: other people seem to hold the public in high regard.
Speaker 1: I mean hold the military in high regard. It's high
Speaker 1: regard at high remove. You know, it's thanks for your service.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're doing it so I don't have to.
Speaker 3: Kind of like someone who rounds up their receipt at
Speaker 3: the local drive through to give to charity and then
Speaker 3: they drive away for that extra thirty cents, saying, oh
Speaker 3: I did my part today, so you know, instead of
Speaker 3: driving the meals on wheels vehicle to the dude's house
Speaker 3: to feed them, you know, going that extra Further, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying everybody can do that. Some people have time
Speaker 3: to go and volunteer or hands on, and we're grateful
Speaker 3: for all of those helpers out there. But I would
Speaker 3: say that USURREC United States Army Recruiting Command has a
Speaker 3: little bit of a challenge. And I find that, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not always the football device at the fair that's
Speaker 3: going to attract the individual to come and want to
Speaker 3: join the military. And maybe if you're going to try
Speaker 3: to pitch West Point and the football team, then you're
Speaker 3: going to pull in that one dude that could throw
Speaker 3: the football. But maybe if you brought out just some
Speaker 3: dirty hum v's, some stinky canvas with some netting over
Speaker 3: them and set them up. Hey, man, even have like
Speaker 3: a little radar thing from the local National Guard you
Speaker 3: to set up at the fair, you know, like something
Speaker 3: like that, like oh wow, is this is what's all
Speaker 3: this camouflage? What's that big conduit thing going into that
Speaker 3: air conditioner? That's an air conditioner? You know, all these
Speaker 3: different smells and the environment. Otherwise, somebody's sitting at usurrec
Speaker 3: paying or excuse me, at somewhere high levels, paying for
Speaker 3: these footballs and for like all these different NASCAR. Right,
Speaker 3: let's talk about ROI per recruit, right, trying to get
Speaker 3: them in the military. What's the ROI if you were
Speaker 3: to work, it's around a quarter of a million dollars
Speaker 3: per individual on advertising dollars. And that's taking the whole
Speaker 3: aggregated amount of like NASCAR radio, now the Broadcasters Associations
Speaker 3: of America, you know, like the FCC whatnot. Who runs
Speaker 3: the radio? You have to give the military free airtime. Right,
Speaker 3: it's a long well.
Speaker 1: Part of this is valuable, setting aside whether it recruits
Speaker 1: anyone into the military, because it at least introduces or
Speaker 1: keeps the military in the minds in the general. Otherwise
Speaker 1: they might not run in There's large sections of geographic
Speaker 1: sections of the country where there's no military base within
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles, and so they're just not likely to
Speaker 1: run into the military. So the way that the military
Speaker 1: is prominent in public sports and national celebrations and it
Speaker 1: almost becomes something of a civil religion. And so there
Speaker 1: is a function for that. But one reason why it
Speaker 1: matters is that going to the heart of the recruiting.
Speaker 1: The way people are recruited into the military is through
Speaker 1: influencers people coaches, parents, uncles, aunts, whatever, who say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think going into the military might be a good
Speaker 1: option for you. And public confidence in the military helps
Speaker 1: promote influencers promoting others to join. That's why people are
Speaker 1: worried because public confidence has dropped in the last several years.
Speaker 1: And if public confidence declines, that's going to make recruiting
Speaker 1: even more difficult as people begin to say, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I want you my beloved nephew or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to go into the military. I'm
Speaker 1: worried about sexual assault or what have you.
Speaker 3: What do you think about this, Peter, let me throw
Speaker 3: this so I've got friends. Let me just think a
Speaker 3: little bit more on my background for you. I do
Speaker 3: airsoft war games here in Utah on a large scale
Speaker 3: where I have everybody from like a nine year old
Speaker 3: to a ninety nine year old running out playing war
Speaker 3: games with all the gear on. Right. It's a really
Speaker 3: fun time, large scale sometimes small little operations that we do.
Speaker 3: We love it all. But at that point you get
Speaker 3: these folks that come out that want to join the military,
Speaker 3: and then they step off from something so simple as
Speaker 3: what we're doing out there, and then they go to
Speaker 3: the National Guard. And so the National Guards are like, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of friends in the National Guards
Speaker 3: through this exact thing I'm talking about, just playing some
Speaker 3: war games. You know. They're like, how come you know
Speaker 3: all these guys are joining the Guard? If they want
Speaker 3: to put put two and two together, right, where's the
Speaker 3: positive information coming from? Because a lot of folks say
Speaker 3: I want to join the military to me and I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: you should go guard. Why do I say don't go
Speaker 3: active duty? Why do I say don't go reserves? Because
Speaker 3: they take them away for like two years to some
Speaker 3: place and they need to go. But Guard will still
Speaker 3: deploy if it's needed, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I do. And let's be clear that the number one challenge,
Speaker 1: by far and away, the biggest challenge for recruitment is
Speaker 1: the condition of the civilian labor market. So if you
Speaker 1: need to know only one fact, learn what is the
Speaker 1: how easy it is it to get a job in
Speaker 1: the civilian labor market. When it's easy, recruiters suffer when
Speaker 1: it's hard. That's a good recruiting environment. So part of
Speaker 1: the challenge that we're experiencing today is just the fact
Speaker 1: that the labor market has been so tight for several years.
Speaker 3: Yes it has, and some of that thing has been
Speaker 3: just Rubik's cubed out of our control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's one thing. The second thing is the pool,
Speaker 1: the size of the folks who are eligible to serve,
Speaker 1: and that pool is shrinking. People aren't meeting the conditions
Speaker 1: on health. You know, they can't have felony convictions, they
Speaker 1: have to pass the aptitude tests and so forth, and
Speaker 1: only about twenty three to twenty seven percent of the
Speaker 1: American youth actually are even meeting those criteria. And then
Speaker 1: so that's you know, a shrinking pool. That's that's a challenge.
Speaker 1: Obesity for instance.
Speaker 3: Well even the same as pe then you know, like
Speaker 3: when I would in junior high in the nineties, we
Speaker 3: still had pees and you know, hit the showers right
Speaker 3: and like calesthetics up and downs and everything.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, and here's two other two other challenges
Speaker 1: that are significant, and that is the pandemic made it
Speaker 1: difficult for recruiters to get into high schools because it
Speaker 1: was yeah, it was lockdown.
Speaker 3: They was a recruiter jumps in on your zoom class. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 3: anybody want to join the army?
Speaker 1: If you think, if you think it's hard to learn,
Speaker 1: you know, math on zoom, imagine trying to recruit something.
Speaker 3: Oh man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's that. And then the last thing, which
Speaker 1: is not widely known but is is a real challenge
Speaker 1: for recruiters is that as national health records improve, then
Speaker 1: the military finds out more about health issue, whether you,
Speaker 1: for instance, have are taking certain riddle in and other
Speaker 1: other kinds.
Speaker 3: I've got That's what I was gonna say, is I've
Speaker 3: got moms who've written prescriptions, gotten their kids prescriptions prior
Speaker 3: right eighteen.
Speaker 1: And it used to be the case that, you know,
Speaker 1: recruiters had some wiggle room, they could waffle around those waivers,
Speaker 1: but now all of that information is right there in
Speaker 1: the file, and that makes it harder to get those waivers.
Speaker 1: So those are the long pools on the tent. Those
Speaker 1: are kind of things that we don't have much control over.
Speaker 1: And I'm homing in on the what is not the
Speaker 1: most important fact, but it's still a relevant one, and
Speaker 1: that is the way the public thinks about the military.
Speaker 1: That's important too, and we need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: that because we as civilians are unwittingly undermining public confidence
Speaker 1: in the military by dragging the military into partisan culture wars.
Speaker 1: So we've made I've got this modest proposal I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get both sides to agree to. That's treat the
Speaker 1: uniformed military as non combatants in the culture war. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: you have a culture war, you have an argument. Those
Speaker 1: are legit policy disputes. Are you civilian to the civilian, republican.
Speaker 3: To the uniform out of it, we don't.
Speaker 1: Shoot at the military, but right now we're shooting at
Speaker 1: the military, and we're making the military of the target.
Speaker 1: And that has the effect of politicizing the military by
Speaker 1: dragging it into partisan politics.
Speaker 3: Completely. And we're seeing that today. You know, I don't
Speaker 3: usually like to date my shows, you know, because I
Speaker 3: like people have this like timeless classicis But I mean,
Speaker 3: you got a book coming out Thanks for your Service.
Speaker 3: It's that time of year, and right now you've got
Speaker 3: people holding out on the aisle for getting our generals
Speaker 3: elected and uh confirmed excuse me, yeah, I'm so apologize.
Speaker 3: It's frustrating, right, and I'm sure my listeners all aware
Speaker 3: of it, and it's and it's and it's really harming
Speaker 3: our talent. It's really like why would someone want to
Speaker 3: have to put all of this time to go to school,
Speaker 3: all of this time to learn strategic planning, put all
Speaker 3: this time into West Point, just to be put on
Speaker 3: hold if they ever get the shot.
Speaker 1: Right, And it's not just one individual.
Speaker 3: Right, hundreds thousands.
Speaker 1: Well, it's hundreds of individuals. But each individual is also
Speaker 1: a family, right right, and they can't their family is
Speaker 1: on hold, they can't move, they can't start school, and
Speaker 1: each one of them is sitting in a job that
Speaker 1: someone else is supposed to go into. So it has
Speaker 1: a second order effect.
Speaker 3: Of correct that they move up, they move up.
Speaker 1: Right, and their families and so it's reaching thousands of
Speaker 1: you know, individual humans, even though it's only only I
Speaker 1: say only, it's several hundred, now close to three hundred.
Speaker 3: And these politicians are going to think that these military
Speaker 3: men and women who'd sworn oath to the nation of
Speaker 3: the US of USA. That's what it says on their
Speaker 3: name tape. US. It doesn't say anything else. It says
Speaker 3: US Army, US Marine Corps, US Coast Guard, you know,
Speaker 3: US Air Force, US Space Force. Yes, Yes, there we go, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, man, you know these guys are
Speaker 3: sitting here looking at you like, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: What are you doing? What are you doing? Who's holding
Speaker 3: up the Tubberville? What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: Are you picking up a spear? Are you going to war?
Speaker 1: Let me be clear, there's a legitimate policy dispute at
Speaker 1: the root of it, and so you know, Senator Tuberville, first,
Speaker 1: he has the prerogative to do this, but he also
Speaker 1: has you know, it's part of his job as senator
Speaker 1: to argue the policy. My proposal is argue the policy,
Speaker 1: have the vote on the policy, but don't target the
Speaker 1: military in order to achieve the policy debate.
Speaker 3: That's the point and the reason why he's even doing
Speaker 3: this is because he wants abortions to not be favored
Speaker 3: to women, to personnel who need to go have the
Speaker 3: procedure in a place where they didn't choose to be,
Speaker 3: but they're serving, and so they have the right to
Speaker 3: go to wherever they need to go. But he's saying
Speaker 3: you don't have that right. He is saying that, he's
Speaker 3: saying he doesn't want to he doesn't want to confirm
Speaker 3: these generals until they take that out of the entire situation.
Speaker 3: And they're going off of this whole you know, urban dictionary,
Speaker 3: woke definition out there that's like just made up by themselves.
Speaker 3: This is all made up. You know, I'm on the ground,
Speaker 3: I'm forty five years old. It's all these guys that
Speaker 3: are just like saying these words that don't have any
Speaker 3: They're just making up this like what am I trying
Speaker 3: to say? This narrative?
Speaker 1: Well, the generals and flag officers that are currently being
Speaker 1: having their confirmations held did not make the policy. The
Speaker 1: Biden political appointees made the policy. So the argument is
Speaker 1: between correct publics and Congress and.
Speaker 3: The executive and the les the branches.
Speaker 1: That's where they're the ones that are going to have
Speaker 1: to sort this out. But in the meantime, both sides
Speaker 1: in effect are you know, hurting the US military. The
Speaker 1: uniform military are not resolving this, and of course the
Speaker 1: people who are suffering. I mean, the long downstream consequences
Speaker 1: are that the military will be less rich to meet
Speaker 1: the national security threats. If we lived in a benign
Speaker 1: time when we didn't really need the military and we
Speaker 1: weren't facing serious challenges, and maybe we you know, the
Speaker 1: consequences wouldn't matter all that much. But precisely because it's
Speaker 1: a dangerous time. This is a very risky maneuver to
Speaker 1: be doing, to be playing politics with the military promotions
Speaker 1: this way. But it's not just the promotions, all of
Speaker 1: the debates about you know what, it's called diversity, equity,
Speaker 1: and inclusion. That term just now has become a trigger
Speaker 1: term and it doesn't mean what it may have meant originally.
Speaker 1: Here's the facts. We have to recruit from all walks
Speaker 1: of life. We can't just recruit people who look like
Speaker 1: you and me. First of all, that happen to get
Speaker 1: a haircut.
Speaker 3: No, No, I've been lost in Afghanistan. I'm a peronel. Now,
Speaker 3: it's been twenty years. I've been lost with my unit. Right.
Speaker 1: But the point is they can't just recruit from one
Speaker 1: subset of the Americans. They need to recruit across the board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a color palette. All walks of please.
Speaker 1: And all walks of life have to be able to
Speaker 1: work together and get along with their differences and learn
Speaker 1: how to put mission first. All of that requires socialization effort.
Speaker 1: The military has learned how to do this, but they've
Speaker 1: done this by not ignoring the elephants in the room.
Speaker 1: And when they did, in the you know, they took
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 3: Where Colon Powell really kind of kicked off, you know,
Speaker 3: the don ask hotel to allow everybody just to be
Speaker 3: in the military and don't ask it, don't tell Okay
Speaker 3: that he was an advocate for that community to say
Speaker 3: let's have this in place.
Speaker 1: That was a compromise from the nineteen nineties. It was
Speaker 1: very controversial at the.
Speaker 3: Time, that's right, and it was a.
Speaker 1: Change from what had gone before. But take the issue
Speaker 1: of race. You know, this is also so the seventy
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary of the Executive Order nine nine to eighty
Speaker 1: one that Truman did to integrate it. Before yeah, before
Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, we had African Americans serving, but they
Speaker 1: had to serve in black only.
Speaker 3: Units, segregated units, segregated.
Speaker 1: Units, and that you know, was recognized as an approach
Speaker 1: that would not work in the long run. It was
Speaker 1: undermining military effectiveness. And as you you know, as Truman
Speaker 1: looks to the future in a Cold war, he's going
Speaker 1: to need to tap the full strength, and so he did.
Speaker 1: But here's the crucial point. Just merely signing the order
Speaker 1: didn't take away the problem of race in the military.
Speaker 1: It actually took several decades of tough work, and there
Speaker 1: were times we had race riots in the military in
Speaker 1: the late sixties early seventies, real racial strife within the units,
Speaker 1: and it you know, there's still some concerns about racism
Speaker 1: in the military even today. You talk to men and
Speaker 1: women of color who serve and their experience is a
Speaker 1: little different from the experience of say, white soldiers, and
Speaker 1: so it's still an issue today that has to be addressed.
Speaker 1: Of course, with the militaries made leaps and bounds progress.
Speaker 3: I could never imagine it not being, you know, such
Speaker 3: a colorful unit. When I was in my squadron. It
Speaker 3: was just like I met Shytown from Shytown, you know,
Speaker 3: I was like I would never I could never imagine
Speaker 3: not being friends and having all of these comrades and
Speaker 3: you know, fellow soldiers and airmen next to me from
Speaker 3: everywhere because they accepted me.
Speaker 1: Right well, and and just you know, go back to
Speaker 1: the Korean War, so just a few years after the
Speaker 1: integration through in order, the Marines are fighting the rearguard
Speaker 1: action and Chosen reservoir and chosen and it's it's one
Speaker 1: of the great you know, heroic tales of the US
Speaker 1: Marine Corps. They couldn't achieved that without the integrated units
Speaker 1: that they had from just a few years before. And
Speaker 1: so when you're in the foxhone, you're being shot at,
Speaker 1: you know, all you care about is that the person
Speaker 1: next to you has got your back, and so the
Speaker 1: person next to you has to have your back. And
Speaker 1: if they're poisoned by whatever, you know, bias or prejudice,
Speaker 1: then that's a problem for you and for the unit.
Speaker 1: But if they are mission first, then then the race is.
Speaker 3: Secondary a hundred and again that goes back to like
Speaker 3: the draft and conscription. Right, wouldn't you say that's kind
Speaker 3: of the same thing where you're goind of getting forced
Speaker 3: to join a military is conscription? Right, here's my.
Speaker 1: View on the draft. Yeah, I think it's a cure
Speaker 1: that's worse than the disease.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you say, well, we I'm worried that Americans
Speaker 1: have not come together, Let's have a draft to bring
Speaker 1: Americans together.
Speaker 3: I don't think that works.
Speaker 1: I don't think it works. That's not been that was
Speaker 1: not the experience.
Speaker 3: For patriotism is not. Yeah, all volunteer army military where
Speaker 3: you want to go and do it, you're like wholeheartedly
Speaker 3: in it. I choose to do this. That's a patriot well,
Speaker 3: and the.
Speaker 1: And the factors that are all volunteer force is much
Speaker 1: more capable, much more competent, much more professional than was
Speaker 1: the draft. They want to be there, and we expect
Speaker 1: our US military today to fight according to the laws
Speaker 1: of war, to meet a standard that the draft army
Speaker 1: just never could meet. And they didn't fight that way.
Speaker 1: It couldn't fight that way.
Speaker 3: Are you speak like the Geneva Convention.
Speaker 1: Style, Yes, well, not targeting, so okay, and of course,
Speaker 1: you know, not committing war crimes, et cetera. And our
Speaker 1: current force is far more professional because there's so much
Speaker 1: better trained and they're able to use high tech weapons
Speaker 1: that are more precise rather than the you know, area
Speaker 1: blanket of bombing that was the case.
Speaker 3: In just the brutal aspect of like you know, trench
Speaker 3: warfare or you know.
Speaker 1: That that requires the professional military that we have. And
Speaker 1: that's why I prefer making the all volunteer force viable
Speaker 1: and then solving the problem of national civic pride through
Speaker 1: some other way. I'm open to the national service and
Speaker 1: opportunities to serve, but a military draft is a cure
Speaker 1: that's worse than the disease unless we meet you know,
Speaker 1: some you know World War three situation where now we
Speaker 1: need everybody.
Speaker 3: So Terminator is here, yeah, you know, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's coming to life, right. The movies from the eighties,
Speaker 3: these guys that are getting older are like, how do
Speaker 3: I win my war? I need terminators? I need something crazy? Man,
Speaker 3: we got it? What video was that? Blade Runner? What
Speaker 3: are we? How are we gonna do it? Man?
Speaker 1: Come on, you need the Wolverines from Red Dawn?
Speaker 3: So oh please Wolverines all day? Huh, all day? Go ahead,
Speaker 3: go back to town, you go to your daddy, go
Speaker 3: on the sideline.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll have me back for this. But I teach
Speaker 1: a course with General Dempsey, the retired Chairman of the
Speaker 1: Joint Jesus Staff.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I teach your course here called American Grand Strategy through Film.
Speaker 1: And I taught that. I teach the course because my
Speaker 1: students were not getting my references to Red Dawn and
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, the average undergrad hasn't watched Red Don
Speaker 1: and so I said, that does it. I'm teaching a
Speaker 1: course that will require you to watch Red Don and
Speaker 1: many other movies.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've had Darren Dalton on the show from Red Dawn.
Speaker 3: He plays Daryl, the mayor's son. He's like, uh, a
Speaker 3: student body president. I elect that we all go back
Speaker 3: to town and gives ourselves up.
Speaker 1: It's a.
Speaker 3: Oh he did. Oh yes, Thomas, No, is it a
Speaker 3: different subject?
Speaker 1: Is it? Though?
Speaker 3: Is Red don a different subject?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 3: Though? Really? No, you're great. I would love to have
Speaker 3: you back on, and uh you can even bring uh
Speaker 3: General Dempsey on and we can have a three way
Speaker 3: here and just we could talk about it. Because I
Speaker 3: just had some guys on the other day, former Ranger,
Speaker 3: former Green Beret, and they have a show called Shift
Speaker 3: Fire on YouTube and they'll pause movies. I said, well,
Speaker 3: right there, that backlast from the RPG probably would have
Speaker 3: killed everybody in the POWs of Rambh. Let's keep playing it.
Speaker 3: Uh huh oh and then he wakes you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, a lot of problems with those kinds of movies,
Speaker 1: and especially the Ramba. We watched the Rambo movie and
Speaker 1: that you know it when he shoots down a helicopter
Speaker 1: with a bow and arrow. It's a little you.
Speaker 3: Know, oh man though, but he does that draw on
Speaker 3: it so beautiful man on that rock, it's like, you
Speaker 3: know what's going at.
Speaker 1: It anyway, Well believe aggress But let me bring it
Speaker 1: back to the topic. Because increasingly what the average American
Speaker 1: knows about the military may come from movies, right, right,
Speaker 1: So the military can't ignore Hollywood, and of course it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It works closely with Hollywood to try to get its
Speaker 1: message out, and that's right. It should do so because
Speaker 1: for many Americans that's their connection to the military. They
Speaker 1: they see the military, you know, before an NFL football
Speaker 1: game on TV, and they go to a movie Top Gun,
Speaker 1: Maverick or something, and that tells them what they think
Speaker 1: they know about the military. And so that's a concern
Speaker 1: we public confidence of the military is a function of
Speaker 1: how much your personal connection is to the military. People
Speaker 1: with a personal connection or who know more about the
Speaker 1: military have higher confidence in the military as well.
Speaker 3: I have some pretty high confidence in them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's because you have personal connections.
Speaker 3: I sure do. I sure do. Now with thanks for
Speaker 3: your service, are you referencing you know, folks that come
Speaker 3: back from you know, their time over there and they
Speaker 3: have the same perspective that actually happened to them and
Speaker 3: occurred over there, or they kind of like exaggerate on
Speaker 3: what took place to them even though they already were
Speaker 3: wounded anything like that.
Speaker 1: So that's not the book doesn't look into that. But
Speaker 1: I know what you're you're talking about. That's there's a
Speaker 1: whole other field of study that looks at what's the
Speaker 1: experience of war and combat on the individual, and then
Speaker 1: what's it like for them to go back to civilian
Speaker 1: society and to imagine I mean all the way back
Speaker 1: to Homer's Odyssey, Right, that's what that's about. This is
Speaker 1: a a longstanding concern in Western literature, and I teach
Speaker 1: about that in other courses, But that's not what the
Speaker 1: focus of.
Speaker 3: This book is on that. No, Nope, and sow. So
Speaker 3: the public confidence in the military impacts the enrollment numbers,
Speaker 3: and then our foreign policy initiatives and defense spending are
Speaker 3: also involved. I mean, if they're going to try to
Speaker 3: cut defense spending from the military, won't that make me
Speaker 3: feel like if I'm trying to join, then there might
Speaker 3: not be enough for me to get paid.
Speaker 1: Well, you're right. People with higher confidence of the military
Speaker 1: are also more likely to support defense spending, right, And
Speaker 1: people who have higher confidences of the military are more
Speaker 1: likely to trust the military tool in a foreign policy crisis.
Speaker 1: So the attitude is linked to all these other attitudes
Speaker 1: that people care about as well. Now sometimes too much confidence, right.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that we do in America
Speaker 1: is we use the military when we don't think we
Speaker 1: have a civilian tool that could handle it, when there
Speaker 1: should be civilian tools. Like a good example is this
Speaker 1: is in the COVID crisis, they were going to ask
Speaker 1: the military to distribute the vaccines. Well, that doesn't require
Speaker 1: any military expertise, that was just we have a crisis.
Speaker 1: The military is our only institution that works. Let's ask
Speaker 1: the military to you know, take over and distribute the vaccines.
Speaker 1: And that can sometimes backfire by taking the military out
Speaker 1: of where they are best used and putting them in
Speaker 1: situations where you know they're not well trained for. And
Speaker 1: a good example of that is when you're trying to
Speaker 1: bring the military in for law enforcement and crowd control.
Speaker 1: That's while they get some training for that and the
Speaker 1: National Guard gets more training for that, that's really a
Speaker 1: law enforcement function and it's not good to bring the
Speaker 1: military into that. Every time the military has been dragged
Speaker 1: into one of those settings, it's not gone well.
Speaker 3: No, because they blend in with each other. Because the
Speaker 3: uniform that the police wear today was denied years ago
Speaker 3: when it was offered to the military. And then the
Speaker 3: military said we're going to rock this ACU pattern in
Speaker 3: the army and the Marines had their marpat and so
Speaker 3: the civilians were like, well, we have this pattern that
Speaker 3: we have to sell, this multi cam patterns that we
Speaker 3: have to sell. So they start selling it to law enforcement,
Speaker 3: civilians and hunters and all this kind of stuff. Air
Speaker 3: Softwares were really buying it. So now it's on the
Speaker 3: civilian market, and now you have police departments and swat
Speaker 3: teams wearing multi cam okay.
Speaker 1: And it's blurring the distinction, correct, And.
Speaker 3: Now you have people saying we need to defund defund
Speaker 3: but the police and all this kind of stuffcause where
Speaker 3: they getting it. But it's really demilitarized, see, because they
Speaker 3: get access to It's not so much they have all
Speaker 3: this money these departments need to be defunded. It's that
Speaker 3: they wrote off requisites to get old surplus that are
Speaker 3: drmos getting rid of through the military, which is a
Speaker 3: warehouse of old vehicles and gear and night vision and
Speaker 3: all that stuff that the war no longer needs and
Speaker 3: it's getting thrown away. So instead of throwing it away,
Speaker 3: they say, hey, write us a letter and we'll send
Speaker 3: you some stuff to your departments. And so you get
Speaker 3: like a three cop department in like say somewhere southern Utah.
Speaker 3: Here that's just all of a sudden, now got fourteen
Speaker 3: m force, an m RAP and a bunch of combat
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff, and maybe two of those guys
Speaker 3: on that team are veterans from the military. And so
Speaker 3: now you get those guys wearing their multicams, okay, because
Speaker 3: that's a civilian pattern. And then they get these vehicles
Speaker 3: in these things that were tan at the soul or green,
Speaker 3: and they paint them black so it looks civilian. But
Speaker 3: then you put the same guy who has the heartbeat
Speaker 3: of driving that thing in that thing, how can he
Speaker 3: not be military already and try to uphold the law. Right,
Speaker 3: So go ahead.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that the polls show is
Speaker 1: that these distinctions which mean something to experts like you,
Speaker 1: but blurred and lost in the general public as a whole, right,
Speaker 1: because they'll just the public doesn't really draw sharp distinctions
Speaker 1: between Army, Air Force or regular versus guard versus reserve.
Speaker 1: The public doesn't even draw much of a distinction between
Speaker 1: current and retired. The public doesn't know who's retired or not.
Speaker 1: And in retirement, the senior officers, they keep their rank, right,
Speaker 1: you're a retired. If you're a retired general, your first.
Speaker 3: General general the rest of your life the general, I'm like, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: what's that general? Still general?
Speaker 1: Exactly? And so that speaks to yet a different issue,
Speaker 1: which is that the professional norms that we ask the
Speaker 1: active duty to live by, we must also be encouraging
Speaker 1: the retired to live by as well. And this is
Speaker 1: a problem because retired, of course, have more civil rights
Speaker 1: than the active duty. Active duty. A lot of Americans
Speaker 1: don't know this. Active duty don't have the same First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights that you and I have. They are restricted
Speaker 1: in what they can say. In particular, they can't speak
Speaker 1: ill of the president as commander in chief. That would
Speaker 1: be an Article eighty eight violation of the of their
Speaker 1: Uniform Code of Military Justice. So they have to be careful.
Speaker 1: But then you get retired military whose first name is
Speaker 1: still admiral or general going on TV and lace, you know,
Speaker 1: and speaking in the most bitter partisan terms, and that
Speaker 1: creates confusion in the public, and it helps to politicize
Speaker 1: the military. So your point about you know, fine distinctions
Speaker 1: and bluring those lines is it's exactly right. They the
Speaker 1: public is not seeing that, and so that's incumbent on
Speaker 1: the military and retired community to say, we're going to
Speaker 1: hold ourselves to a higher standard, and otherwise we're going
Speaker 1: to be dragging the military down. The non partisan active
Speaker 1: duty force, which has to obey the president no matter
Speaker 1: who he or she is, we're gonna be dragging that
Speaker 1: into the partisan monk.
Speaker 3: And just to piggyback on that uniform conversation, I was
Speaker 3: just mentioning, you know, years later multi that color, that
Speaker 3: pattern was adopted finally by the Army, right, and then
Speaker 3: the Army is now using it today, and so is
Speaker 3: the Air Force. And so you get these guys. If
Speaker 3: you have a law enforcement team and then the Army
Speaker 3: or air Force together, they're just gonna look like one unit.
Speaker 1: Right, right. Yeah, And this is a this is a challenge,
Speaker 1: and we ran into this in twenty.
Speaker 3: Twenty with the protests and the whole night, yeah.
Speaker 1: And trying to maintain civil order.
Speaker 3: It was a challenge, and so even General Millie said,
Speaker 3: I would never have walked out there in my uniform
Speaker 3: if I knew that I was being walked out there
Speaker 3: in my uniform like that. He's like, I would not
Speaker 3: have crossed the line of the US because with respect
Speaker 3: to you and to others that I have on the
Speaker 3: show who have that kind of rank, I asked them,
Speaker 3: how do you stay for one, you know, like one
Speaker 3: brand like the Bush to the Clinton's, how do you
Speaker 3: stay that way? And one one general said, Brad, it
Speaker 3: says us right here, and that's why I quote it.
Speaker 3: I say US army, US, you know us. It says us.
Speaker 1: Well, our military officers they sign an oh or not signed.
Speaker 1: They they give an oath of allegiance to the Constitution,
Speaker 1: not to the President of the United States or not
Speaker 1: to an individual. Now, of course, by registring an oath
Speaker 1: to obey the Constitution, that means they will obey the
Speaker 1: president's commander in chief when he gives a lawful order.
Speaker 1: So of course it has direct implications of how they
Speaker 1: interact with any individual president. But their loyalty is not
Speaker 1: to that person, to that individual, it's to the office
Speaker 1: as reflected under the Constitution. And this is an important
Speaker 1: distinction that the uniform military have drilled in them. They
Speaker 1: understand that. But you know who doesn't understand that so well.
Speaker 3: Civilian civilian population, well.
Speaker 1: Civilian population, but even civilian politicians.
Speaker 3: That's what I yeah, yeah, I agreed, Yeah, the people
Speaker 3: that become the boss.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's very hard. If you're you know,
Speaker 1: a civilian political leader, those ideas blur in your mind.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I once asked my dad. I said, Dad, you know,
Speaker 3: how come we don't just elect all veterans? And he
Speaker 3: was just like, well, Aaron, you don't really want to
Speaker 3: have the military running the whole show, right, That's what
Speaker 3: he told me. As a younger man, I had asked
Speaker 3: them that, like, how come you know we're all great?
Speaker 3: You know, the perception is perfect, and how come veterans
Speaker 3: aren't just every congressman's a veteran or whatever. What's your
Speaker 3: thoughts on that same thing? My dad mentioned, So, I.
Speaker 1: Think it's good for veterans to run. I think if
Speaker 1: the percentage of veterans is too low, then you lose
Speaker 1: a certain amount of awareness and you know, knowledge base.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why I like veterans in Congress,
Speaker 1: in the executive branches veterans will hold the military accountable.
Speaker 1: So some people might think, well, if their veterans are
Speaker 1: going to go easy on the military, No, because their
Speaker 1: veterans they'll go harder. Senator McCain was ruthless in holding
Speaker 1: their military accountable precisely because he had served and new
Speaker 1: So I think there's value in it. But I think
Speaker 1: veterans may overstate the value in it. And many people
Speaker 1: run for office thinking, well, because I served, that makes
Speaker 1: me a good politician. Not necessarily. If the only thing
Speaker 1: you've got going for you is your heroic military service,
Speaker 1: then chances are you won't do well as a civilian
Speaker 1: political leader because it is a different skill set. And
Speaker 1: of course we had we've had generals who were very
Speaker 1: capable presidents, General Washington, President Washington, General Eisenhower, President Eisenhower.
Speaker 1: What they both had in common, though, was they were
Speaker 1: exceptionally able political figures even while they were in military office.
Speaker 1: They weren't partisan, they were not partisan, but they had
Speaker 1: political skills. That's why Eisenhower was chosen for his job.
Speaker 1: It was his political skills as opposed to his combat
Speaker 1: skills that made him, you know, the five star commander
Speaker 1: that he was. That was political skills also translated into
Speaker 1: being a good president. And so it's not the case
Speaker 1: that every veteran will be a good political leader. But
Speaker 1: I do want some of our political leaders to be veterans.
Speaker 1: And it's also the case that when you run for office,
Speaker 1: you become a partisan.
Speaker 3: So what do you mean by that? What do you
Speaker 3: mean by that? Yeah, tell me what you mean by that.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the point I'm trying to make. I want veterans,
Speaker 1: particularly senior retired you know, four stars, retired four stars.
Speaker 1: I want them not to be in the business of
Speaker 1: endorsing candidates for president. You know the spectacle every four years,
Speaker 1: the Republicans trot out their list, the Democrats trot out
Speaker 1: their list. This is not a good look. This politicizes
Speaker 1: the military. These are retired for stars. They have the
Speaker 1: right to do this, so that's not the issue. But
Speaker 1: it's not the right thing for them to do, because
Speaker 1: it's trading on the status that the military, as a
Speaker 1: non partisan institution, has to endorse a president and to
Speaker 1: say this president, not that president's politicizes the military. But
Speaker 1: if you run for office, okay, now you're no longer
Speaker 1: trying to keep one toe as a non partisan. You
Speaker 1: are a partisan, so you run for office now you're
Speaker 1: a Republican or a Democrat, and that's okay. So crossing
Speaker 1: all the way over running as a veteran, that's okay.
Speaker 1: But trying to say, well, I'm going to keep all
Speaker 1: the privileges that come from being a non partisan, but
Speaker 1: I'm just going to do this very partisan act of
Speaker 1: endorsing this or that candidate. That's where the problem is.
Speaker 1: And it makes the job of the current military that
Speaker 1: much harder. And so that's why it's it's striking every
Speaker 1: chairman of the Joint Chiece of Staff, going back to
Speaker 1: Admiral Mullen, they've made a priority saying let's try to
Speaker 1: get the military out of the endorsement business because they
Speaker 1: worry that it will undermine it will politicize the military,
Speaker 1: and then undermine public confidence in the military.
Speaker 3: No, one hundred percent, and that's our show. No, No,
Speaker 3: that's great. No, it's true. You're you're so well spoken.
Speaker 3: That was just really great. You know. Uh, it does
Speaker 3: politicize it, it does put the spotlight like hey, now,
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, like this general says something and
Speaker 3: that whole entire establishment is under his control. Still but
Speaker 3: he's retired, and you know.
Speaker 1: And am the average American might be thinking, Aha, I
Speaker 1: bet this is what the active duties force would say
Speaker 1: if they were allowed to. But if that's the case,
Speaker 1: now we've got the active duty force in the election,
Speaker 1: you know, as a partisan actor. Not good, because the
Speaker 1: active duty force has to obey whoever wins, even if
Speaker 1: it's not quote unquote their candidate. And this is something
Speaker 1: that we have an extraordinarily proud record in the United
Speaker 1: States of the military remaining subordinate to civilian control regardless
Speaker 1: of who wins. And even if the new guy comes
Speaker 1: in and changes all the policies, they salute, obey, and
Speaker 1: implement it. That precious thing. And we shouldn't take it
Speaker 1: for granted or play loose with it.
Speaker 3: Officers and enlisted, you know, still have the duty to
Speaker 3: themselves to disobey an immoral order, that illegal order, illegal order, right,
Speaker 3: like right? I mean if they Tom.
Speaker 1: Tells an important distinction.
Speaker 3: Let no, you know, okay, so in illegal order, right,
Speaker 3: So tell me the difference between the illegal and immoral.
Speaker 3: You know that they have to follow.
Speaker 1: The difference is the lawyers. So the lawyers think about
Speaker 1: this legal immoral unwise. So illegal, immoral, unwise. Our system
Speaker 1: requires that the military not carry out an illegal order,
Speaker 1: but they are supposed to carry out in order they
Speaker 1: deem to be immoral or unwise if it's illegal, and
Speaker 1: if they have a question, you know, is this legal
Speaker 1: or illegal? Okay, that's what the jag is for the lawyer,
Speaker 1: the military lawyer. The military lawyer will say, sir, we
Speaker 1: can't do that. That's illegal, that's against the laws of war. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to carry it out. If they carry
Speaker 1: out an illegal order, they could be court martialed. But
Speaker 1: if they refuse to carry out in order they deemed
Speaker 1: to be immoral or unwise, they could also be court
Speaker 1: martial And let me give you an example of a
Speaker 1: of you know, a boundary example. Take the order of
Speaker 1: President Biden's order to withdraw from Afghanistan no matter what,
Speaker 1: no matter what the consequences. Many people, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was one of them, thought this was an unwise
Speaker 1: decision by the president, that it was going to hurt America,
Speaker 1: hurt American interests. I thought we should have stayed at
Speaker 1: the low level we were in Afghanistan. Many other people
Speaker 1: also thought it was an immoral decision because it broke
Speaker 1: faith with the Afghans who had sacrificed, and it broke
Speaker 1: faith with those who had died, you know, Americans who
Speaker 1: had died on the mission, because he just you know,
Speaker 1: sort of abandoned the Afghan government to their faith. And
Speaker 1: of course the Taliban won in May. We can argue
Speaker 1: about whether it was unwise, we can argue about whether
Speaker 1: it was immoral, but it was legal. He had the
Speaker 1: legal authority to order it, and so General Milly and
Speaker 1: the rest of the true did the right thing. They
Speaker 1: advised the president that said, we don't think this is good, sir,
Speaker 1: you should think about it a second or third time.
Speaker 1: Presidents that I have, I'm gonna do it. Okay, they
Speaker 1: didn't like it, they thought it was unwise, and many
Speaker 1: of them were disturbed by what the consequences were. But
Speaker 1: they carried it out. And that's what civilian control in
Speaker 1: a democracy means. So illegal orders the military must not
Speaker 1: carry them out. But orders that are they think are
Speaker 1: immoral or unwise, those they have to carry out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a tough job, absolutely, yeah, And.
Speaker 1: This is why you need to have very highly trained,
Speaker 1: yes military, and that's why we need the all launch job.
Speaker 3: You know, just the thought of, you know, that whole
Speaker 3: situation and having to Millie the guy to call. He's like,
Speaker 3: what's up, sir, sir? We have some people, sir, And
Speaker 3: he's probably saying, I know, but what else can we do?
Speaker 3: And they went back to be a fly on the wall.
Speaker 3: Holy cow, you know, thoughts in the minds at night
Speaker 3: when you're going to bed, you know, when you're trying
Speaker 3: to make your ultimate business decisions, you're like.
Speaker 1: Well, he served during in a very extraordinary time. So
Speaker 1: them's had and you know, the last six months of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration very challenging time to be chairman, and
Speaker 1: of course the last two years also a challenging time.
Speaker 3: He's a Green Beret, though, I believe well a college.
Speaker 1: Of mine Corey Shockey and I like to say you
Speaker 1: should judge a chairman of the Joint Us of Staff
Speaker 1: the way you judge Olympic diving. That is, they get
Speaker 1: points for the difficulty of the dive that they have
Speaker 1: to do. They kick up a little splash, but it's
Speaker 1: a very difficult dive. Okay, still we're going to grade
Speaker 1: them high because it's a very difficult dive.
Speaker 3: Oh man, it's like forty meters up, you're gonna go back?
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know you don't want to date the podcast,
Speaker 1: but you know, right now, the Senate is considering whether
Speaker 1: to confirm C. Q. Brown, who is President Biden's appointee
Speaker 1: or nominee, I should say, to be Chairman of the
Speaker 1: Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he I think is a
Speaker 1: strong choice. He is a combat veteran. He he's an
Speaker 1: Air Force pilot, and I think it's actually good just
Speaker 1: to rotate the chairmanship across the services. It's been a
Speaker 1: while since we've had an Air Force leaders and he's
Speaker 1: really focused on accelerating the transition of the Air Force,
Speaker 1: modernizing to meet, you know, the next gen threats. So
Speaker 1: he's got a strong focus on that. And he's just
Speaker 1: a down the middle kind of guy. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that will calm some of the waters with the
Speaker 1: waters have been roiling. Yeah, and General Brown is kind
Speaker 1: of a straight, down the middle kind of guy.
Speaker 3: What would get him not what would get him confirmed?
Speaker 3: Right now? How can we what would get him to
Speaker 3: be that? Who has to pass that?
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting Senator Tuberville has a hold on
Speaker 1: him right now. But Tuberville himself indicated that he thought
Speaker 1: he'd be a good candidate and would vote for him
Speaker 1: once he lifts his own hold on him. So I
Speaker 1: think the Congress recognizes that this is a good choice,
Speaker 1: a good choice for America. They just we just got
Speaker 1: to get the holds lifted so that the Congress the
Speaker 1: Senate can vote on it. It's the Senate's got to
Speaker 1: do it's job.
Speaker 3: So with the Senate and the Congress and you serving
Speaker 3: in a national position, you know, under different administrations, do
Speaker 3: you think that you're going to be back up to
Speaker 3: bat at the White House or anything like that. Do
Speaker 3: you foresee that? Do you want that? Do you want that?
Speaker 1: Well, this is the old Woody Allen joke. Do I
Speaker 1: want to join any club that would have me for
Speaker 1: a member? You know? So if the president asked you
Speaker 1: to serve, then you serve. And I if any president
Speaker 1: asked me to serve, I would I would probably serve,
Speaker 1: regardless of the party and regardless of the president. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was one of those folks who saw
Speaker 1: and a lot of letters saying that they would not
Speaker 1: vote for President Trump, even though I'm a Republican and
Speaker 1: critical point in a Republican, I signed all those letters
Speaker 1: and said I would not vote for Trump, and I
Speaker 1: did not vote for Trump President Trump, but if he
Speaker 1: had asked me to serve, I would have thought seriously
Speaker 1: about doing so, because that's serving the country. Now. He
Speaker 1: didn't ask me, precisely, because I signed those letters, I
Speaker 1: recognize that, but I had many friends who went in
Speaker 1: to serve and work for him. They served honorably, They
Speaker 1: did the best they could, and I did what I
Speaker 1: could to help them from afar, and that's what the
Speaker 1: country needs. The country. There's real disagreements between Democrats and Republicans,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to pretend that there's no difference
Speaker 1: of opinion. There's real differences of opinion. But at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, we're going to have to work
Speaker 1: together to move They're really big threats which are outside
Speaker 1: and if we make our internal disagreements the big threats,
Speaker 1: then we're in trouble.
Speaker 3: We should be kicking our own butts. We should not
Speaker 3: be in house fighting. We want to keep it from
Speaker 3: our shores, right, So I.
Speaker 1: Do what I can to help the current administration. I
Speaker 1: do what I can to help Republicans on the hill
Speaker 1: understand the issues better. And so whoever is president, I'll
Speaker 1: do what I can to help them.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that that's a wonderful way to wind
Speaker 3: down our show. Okay, I've had your time for a
Speaker 3: good hour, and I really want to thank you and
Speaker 3: my listener for being on the show. It's thanks for
Speaker 3: my service, Peter, thanks for your service. I'm looking right
Speaker 3: at you though, and I just you know, we've all
Speaker 3: been there, and I know a lot of service members
Speaker 3: say it's a job. I'm doing a job. I'm getting
Speaker 3: a paycheck, I put on a uniform, I'm doing a job.
Speaker 3: You don't have to think me for my service. I
Speaker 3: think a lot of civilians are always going to kind
Speaker 3: of put them at that like thanks for their service.
Speaker 3: Just accept that when you see them at the airport
Speaker 3: and say you're welcome. Okay, and again, Peter Fever, former
Speaker 3: National Security awesome guy, Duke professor theater, Wolverine. Okay, Wolverine
Speaker 3: all day, and a shout out to my homeboy, Dar Dalton.
Speaker 3: Let's see if we get C. Thomas Howell on the
Speaker 3: show one of these days, and then yeah, let's have
Speaker 3: you back. Maybe you can get the general on with
Speaker 3: you and we can have like a fun theater versus
Speaker 3: reality show or something Okay, you're great.
Speaker 1: That would be fun. Great talking to you well.
Speaker 3: Thank you, and to my listeners, please keep supporting us
Speaker 3: and go check out that merch store. Thanks to Brandon
Speaker 3: Webb who puts me on the air and believes in me.
Speaker 3: And to you. Do something nice for your neighbor today
Speaker 3: or someone that you see, so say hi, and that's
Speaker 3: saying peace from software.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to self rep Radio