Speaker 1: Ah beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military
Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys and the community
Speaker 1: softwarep dot com on time on target now is a
Speaker 1: lot of you, know, especially those who have been with
Speaker 1: us for a while. We were experimenting a few months
Speaker 1: back doing some members only shows. We're not doing that anymore,
Speaker 1: although can we still hope you become a member at
Speaker 1: soft rep dot com. But many of you who listen
Speaker 1: on Apple podcasts, on SoundCloud, uh, on Stitcher anywhere else
Speaker 1: to get your podcast never got a chance to hear
Speaker 1: those episodes. So we wanted to use this opportunity to
Speaker 1: play one of those shows from the summer that the
Speaker 1: majority of you I think have not heard. And some
Speaker 1: of those we were just amazing shows, some of our
Speaker 1: best shows, and I thought this one was really awesome.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, Nick Kaufman, our marine writer, joins us.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen his work at software dot com, writes
Speaker 1: some excellent pieces for us, and Derek Gammon joined us
Speaker 1: for this one as well. As always, anything you want
Speaker 1: to send to us, send it to soft Rep dot
Speaker 1: Radio at soft rep dot com and let's get right
Speaker 1: into this episode from a few months back that many
Speaker 1: of you were hearing for the first time. Nick Kaufman, Yes,
Speaker 1: so pretty much minutes before we recorded, we were hearing
Speaker 1: there's a terrorist attack in Times squares. Are you are right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and then I was reading reports that said elderly man,
Speaker 1: you know, basically goes through a crowd of people. But
Speaker 1: now I'm seeing year olds from the Bronx with the
Speaker 1: history of d U I or d w I. I
Speaker 1: already had friends sending me memes within minutes. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: the Muslims, the damn Muslims. It's alka, you know, it's
Speaker 1: we've got to get them out of the country, build
Speaker 1: the wall. And it's apparently though, you know, it is unfortunate.
Speaker 1: One dead, uh, I think like around a dozen injured.
Speaker 1: The reports seem to be a little different. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a du yeah, but not terrorists. But I think
Speaker 1: everybody just jumps the gun. The one thing is we're
Speaker 1: just walking around New York City. I'm sure people who
Speaker 1: heard the news it would it takes a lot to
Speaker 1: shake up New Yorkers. It's just kind of the way
Speaker 1: we are, um Like I think in other parts of
Speaker 1: the country. They would hear suspected terrorists. People would be
Speaker 1: like having their plan to leave, which I'm not saying
Speaker 1: would be a was not that happened like a year ago.
Speaker 1: Was there like a bombing or a suspected bombing. I
Speaker 1: think it was around this area. There was a mailbox, right,
Speaker 1: nobody gave a ship. No, no. I remember I was
Speaker 1: at a party and like one person laughed and everybody
Speaker 1: was just like, you know what, that's just kind of
Speaker 1: the attitude of New Yorkers. And I'm not saying that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Like we're not the most prepared people.
Speaker 1: You remember that crank collapse that was another one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually that actually killed somebody, Okay, Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: just we're so used to hearing alarming news in that
Speaker 1: type of thing that it's just it takes a lot
Speaker 1: to shot us. Although you watch that video from like
Speaker 1: Penn Station, which I played on the show, where there
Speaker 1: was a they taste a mentally unstable man and handcuffs.
Speaker 1: Was that was that it? I think they taste him.
Speaker 1: Now they may be handcuffed him as well, but you
Speaker 1: just saw people rushing out of Penn stations. Those of
Speaker 1: the tourists. They're in Penn Station. Man, they're not New Yorkers.
Speaker 1: But when you start to see the flock of people
Speaker 1: heading out, I think even the New Yorkers start to
Speaker 1: follow because everyone's scared. I talked about that with Brandon
Speaker 1: because I said, you know, you guys have more experience
Speaker 1: with this type of thing, and I know you don't
Speaker 1: just join the herd. But let's say you are at
Speaker 1: Penn Station. You see a flock of hundreds of people
Speaker 1: heading one way, kind of in fear, looking to leave.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you handle that if you're especially
Speaker 1: as a former operator, as someone who you know, it's
Speaker 1: the whole I get off the X thing, and I
Speaker 1: mean figure you probably find your way out of the
Speaker 1: station too. I mean do you want to answer, but
Speaker 1: it's do you just join the herd or do you probably?
Speaker 1: I mean this is funny because Brandon said ops, and
Speaker 1: he's like, no, you don't go with the herd. You
Speaker 1: run towards the threat. No, no, no, But I think
Speaker 1: you kind of stop and analyze where my exits in
Speaker 1: that type of thing and maybe try to find exit.
Speaker 1: Not everybody's going to I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's even what he specifically said. But sure, it's an
Speaker 1: interesting question because what do you do in that scenario?
Speaker 1: There's no easy answer, I don't think. I mean in
Speaker 1: Penn Station, there's only a couple of different exits. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're going one way or the other. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if everyone's running one way, are you gonna run towards
Speaker 1: the way they're running away from? Yeah? Does that make sense? No? No,
Speaker 1: not really? But you also, I guess it's just why
Speaker 1: is everybody running? There's probably a few people who got
Speaker 1: alarmed by um someone being tased during Brandon's case when
Speaker 1: he was at UM JFK where there was an accidental discharge.
Speaker 1: But should the reaction beatle like panic? No? I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: unless I'm hearing gunshots or I'm here in a body
Speaker 1: going off, I'm probably not going to run anywhere. Well,
Speaker 1: accidental discharge you are hearing on one shot? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it would also be different. It's like if I
Speaker 1: was like with my family or something, my response would
Speaker 1: be different than it finds by myself. Like for mom,
Speaker 1: I own, I don't really give a ship, but like otherwise,
Speaker 1: but you don't. You you got to be able to
Speaker 1: be home for your daughter. I mean you do have
Speaker 1: a family, yeah, yeah, But I mean it's just a
Speaker 1: different situation. I wouldn't be so afraid if I was
Speaker 1: by myself. Yeah yeah. And I guess your reaction as
Speaker 1: when you were an operator too now is going to
Speaker 1: be pretty different. You also, you're not able to carry here, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I don't get too worked
Speaker 1: up about this stuff. I mean, you gotta keep your
Speaker 1: head about you. Cooler heads prevail. But I think the
Speaker 1: best thing you can do is just not panic. Have
Speaker 1: you ever thought about trying to get a permit to
Speaker 1: carry like Brandon has? Yeah? I have. Um, if I
Speaker 1: was to get a permit to carry, I wouldn't tell
Speaker 1: everybody about It's like Brandon has. The purpose of concealed
Speaker 1: carry is that people don't know you're carrying. Right. So
Speaker 1: we actually earlier got to speak to Derek Annon, who's
Speaker 1: at spick. Am I saying it right? So thick, so thick? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wait so when we say soft rep, yeah is it?
Speaker 1: And well, you know it's weird as people have come
Speaker 1: up to me and they always say, sof rep. Does
Speaker 1: that happen to you? And I just have always noticed
Speaker 1: the soft soft rep. Well that was like some parody again. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard all sorts of different things and so you
Speaker 1: know more about it. But this is basically it's similar
Speaker 1: to Shot Show, but it's more for the as you
Speaker 1: guys would say, sort of mockingly industrial the military industrial complex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a forum for UM private industry to show
Speaker 1: off their technological UM products and things that are working
Speaker 1: on to the Special operations community. And likewise, it's an
Speaker 1: opportunity for Special Operations Command to talk to these companies
Speaker 1: and tell them what they want. So they can sit
Speaker 1: down or have a forum or whatever and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're Special Operations, this is what we want to buy,
Speaker 1: this is what we want you guys to develop, We
Speaker 1: want this and this and that, And likewise, the vendors
Speaker 1: can show their wears and show up show off what
Speaker 1: they have. So it's a it's an interesting conference, a
Speaker 1: lot of interesting folks there. Um. I actually like it
Speaker 1: a little bit better than uh the Shot Show. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit more low key. It's a much smaller conference,
Speaker 1: and it's it seems like it's uh different types of
Speaker 1: people in the industry. It's not Shot Show, even though
Speaker 1: it's closed off to the public there. It's not the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to get into. A s shot show has
Speaker 1: like the whole tactical community there. Like the dress code
Speaker 1: is cargo pants, knife in the pocket, friction adapter, belt,
Speaker 1: hat with the velcrow of the American flag, veltro on
Speaker 1: the sleeves with morale patches. Uh, what else do you
Speaker 1: have have to have? Well, the thing is even you
Speaker 1: don't have to own a weapons company or something to
Speaker 1: be a presenter there or to be on the floor there.
Speaker 1: There's people with T shirt companies, there's people with it's
Speaker 1: just kind of if you're in that community you own
Speaker 1: a company, you can or know someone who does, you
Speaker 1: could pretty easily be a part of it. As so fick,
Speaker 1: it's more like either suit and tie or khakis and
Speaker 1: polo shirt and uh and military members are wearing their uniform.
Speaker 1: So it's more a little bit more formal, not a
Speaker 1: little not so much. Um you know that that weird tactical.
Speaker 1: You know, my friend calls it, calls that dress code.
Speaker 1: He calls it um business tactical. Okay, Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: not mention it on the show that Terry was on,
Speaker 1: but one of the things that I thought was funny
Speaker 1: at that shot show that I still remember is Terry
Speaker 1: Shapherd was wearing like the opposite of what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to wear a shot show. He was wearing like a cardigan, yeah,
Speaker 1: and sandals. He was wearing like just regular flip flops.
Speaker 1: And I remember while I was talking to him, some
Speaker 1: other guy was a Green Moray who I didn't know,
Speaker 1: asked Terry, who are you and why are you relevant? Again?
Speaker 1: And I don't know if he was asking it jokingly.
Speaker 1: It was a little strange though, And then Terry's response
Speaker 1: was he was just like, I don't think I am
Speaker 1: that relevant maybe a few years ago, but I love
Speaker 1: those kind of questions and like the smart ass responses,
Speaker 1: Like I remember I was at a shooting school one time,
Speaker 1: and uh, there's at one of those courses, it's a
Speaker 1: total like dick measuring contest everything, and everyone's talking about
Speaker 1: the back story like oh, he was this and that
Speaker 1: and he was this and X this or whatever, and uh,
Speaker 1: one of the guys on on my team actually he
Speaker 1: went up to one of the instructors and said, who
Speaker 1: are you, what were you? You know this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and instructors are like, well, I was a pedophile for
Speaker 1: a lot of years, and then I moved down to
Speaker 1: the South because their laws are a lot more lax
Speaker 1: with the beast reality, it was just total smart asking
Speaker 1: market was making to one of the kinds of my team.
Speaker 1: I thought it was hilarious. That's pretty uh, pretty intense,
Speaker 1: and also just thinking on the spot of the craziest
Speaker 1: thing that you can come up with, the craziest bullshit
Speaker 1: answer you can possibly give. So yeah, we'll have Derek
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about that in the Iron
Speaker 1: Man suit as he calls it. Um, we have Nick
Speaker 1: Kaufman coming on, who's a former marine network operator. Before
Speaker 1: we do, I had one email to get to from
Speaker 1: sent to a soft rep dot radio at soft rerep
Speaker 1: dot com. So keep those common guys, keep the voice
Speaker 1: memos coming. Um. This was one that I just thought
Speaker 1: was good. I try to get to at least some
Speaker 1: of them when we can. Uh from Eric, who assume
Speaker 1: is a former marine because he says semper fire or
Speaker 1: maybe even current marine. Big fan of the site and podcast,
Speaker 1: keep up the great work. My question is, what are
Speaker 1: the odds North Korea actually has an e m P
Speaker 1: weapon that can be used against the US and its allies,
Speaker 1: and what are the actual consequences or results of such
Speaker 1: a weapon being used? Good question. I really don't know
Speaker 1: what the odds are. I think it's within their capability
Speaker 1: to build a e m P weapon. It could be done.
Speaker 1: Um what the threat is, Well, for instance, you know
Speaker 1: a country could detonate an e MP above the United States,
Speaker 1: you know, in low orbit and caused substantial damage to
Speaker 1: the United States. North Korea doesn't have that kind of capability.
Speaker 1: They could detonate an e m p UM you know
Speaker 1: around the d m Z or around around South Korea
Speaker 1: which is the military zone. Uh, or maybe um put
Speaker 1: it on a on a ballistic missile and debtonate over Japan.
Speaker 1: Even so, but I think the damage they could do
Speaker 1: with an e m P is relatively small, and military
Speaker 1: systems are more or less most of them are protected
Speaker 1: against e MP to some extent. Um So the e
Speaker 1: MP threat I would look at it, I would say
Speaker 1: it's not a huge threat in a conventional sense. It
Speaker 1: could be more of a threat and an unconventional sense
Speaker 1: that like, maybe they could smuggle an e m P
Speaker 1: UM into a port or a airport or something like
Speaker 1: that and detonated just before an invasion, you know, something
Speaker 1: like that. That's how I would kind of perceive that
Speaker 1: threat from the North Korea. Okay, good answer, So send
Speaker 1: those over any questions soft Rep dot Radio at soft
Speaker 1: rep dot com, keep them coming. Uh. And then the
Speaker 1: other piece of news that I wanted to get into
Speaker 1: before we played the interview with Derek was the protest
Speaker 1: in Washington against the Turk, the Turkish probably president Urdigon
Speaker 1: in d C. Okay, I'm pronouncing that incorrectly. Okay Urdawan. Um,
Speaker 1: that got extremely violent. So the people kicking the protesters
Speaker 1: included um, government security for Turkey. Yeah, so all of
Speaker 1: those guys should be hemmed up and deported. And see
Speaker 1: that John McCain tweet there if you want to read that,
Speaker 1: which was kind of interesting. Yeah, John McCain, he said,
Speaker 1: this is the United States of America. We do not
Speaker 1: do this here. There's no excuse for this kind of
Speaker 1: thuggish behavior. Um. And yeah, I agree with them. I
Speaker 1: think those guys there's we need to stop handling Turkey
Speaker 1: with kid gloves and start putting some pressure on them, um,
Speaker 1: diplomatic pressure, political pressure, um, using whatever kind of leverage
Speaker 1: we have with Turkey, because Urdawan is a Neo Ottoman,
Speaker 1: fascist Islamist whack job trying to install himself as dictator
Speaker 1: for life and doing this thuggish, thuggish bullshit on United
Speaker 1: States soil. That's that ain't happen. That can't happen. So
Speaker 1: they need to start putting the boots to his ass. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll read the at least some paragraphs from the article
Speaker 1: for those who want to keep up with this. The
Speaker 1: cool thing is now that we recorded the day day before,
Speaker 1: we could do a little bit more breaking news type stuff.
Speaker 1: Um So the articles from the New York Times. Urdawan
Speaker 1: security forces launched brutal attack on Washington protesters. Officials say, uh,
Speaker 1: And this is from Nicholas Fandos and Christopher me Mel,
Speaker 1: supporters of President I Can I can barely pronounce his
Speaker 1: last name Lettle on his full name. Accept Jeep Urdwan
Speaker 1: of Turkey, including his government security forces and several armed individuals,
Speaker 1: violently charged a group of protesters outside the Turkish Ambassadors
Speaker 1: Residents here on Tuesday night, in what the police characterized
Speaker 1: as a brutal attack. Eleven people were injured, including a
Speaker 1: police officer, and nine were taken to a hospital. The
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a news conference
Speaker 1: on Wednesday to Secret Service agents were also assaulted in
Speaker 1: the may Way, according to a federal law enforcement official.
Speaker 1: The State Department condemned the attack as an assault on
Speaker 1: free speech and warned Turkey that the action would not
Speaker 1: be tolerated. Uh. And then the quote is, we're communicating
Speaker 1: our concern to the Turkish government and the strongest possible
Speaker 1: possible terms. Oh wow, we're communicating. Oh I'm so scared. Department. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's from Heather Nard. A state department and a group
Speaker 1: of Republican lawmakers went a step further, calling the episode
Speaker 1: and affront to the United States and calling for Turkey
Speaker 1: to apologize. I kicked the ambassador out too. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I wondered, what do you what do you do? Because
Speaker 1: this not only is just not tolerated, it's completely illegal.
Speaker 1: The protest is is very legal in America, but when
Speaker 1: he gets violent, and when you have officials from a
Speaker 1: foreign country getting violent with protesters, that completely violates the law.
Speaker 1: No matter where they have, they have diplomatic immunity, So
Speaker 1: we can't really like jail them. But I mean, you
Speaker 1: can arrest all of those guys and then deport them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you can start making like we did with
Speaker 1: the Russians. You know, you'd be like, listen, you guys
Speaker 1: up to no good, So we're deporting thirty of you
Speaker 1: by But diplomatic community really means you could start assaulting
Speaker 1: secret service members. Like that's insane. Do you remember here
Speaker 1: in New York City? Uh, when Giuliani was the mayor,
Speaker 1: there's a Russian diplomat who punched at an NYPD cop.
Speaker 1: And Giuliani did everything he could to try to prosecute
Speaker 1: the Russian diplomat and he couldn't. He was powerless, he
Speaker 1: couldn't do anything. Yeah, so keep they sent up, They
Speaker 1: sent them home, the diplomat, but they couldn't prosecute. It's crazy, man,
Speaker 1: keep up with this story. Um, I'm sure we'll have
Speaker 1: something up on software. The New York Times article kind
Speaker 1: of covers it all the videos. You really have to
Speaker 1: watch the videos to get a feel for Yeah. It
Speaker 1: was Battle Royal on Embassy Row right there in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And people got some really good video of
Speaker 1: it as well. Yeah, yeah, we're posting about that. Um cool, Well,
Speaker 1: is there anything else to get to before we play
Speaker 1: this audio that we had with Derek and then get
Speaker 1: to Nick Cough. But I don't know. I mean, the
Speaker 1: only other thing is that turd Chelsea Manning is out
Speaker 1: of prison, got a presidential pardon, so she's out on
Speaker 1: the streets. Now, Yeah, what's your take on that should
Speaker 1: be in jail. And she waked all those classified diplomatic
Speaker 1: cables and every other damn thing. So I mean it's weird. Man.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of conversations, a lot of like
Speaker 1: public conversations in the United States about like classified material.
Speaker 1: This is classified, that's classified. And you can see it
Speaker 1: happening today with Donald Trump and did he lead classified information?
Speaker 1: Did he not? We saw it with Obama. We saw
Speaker 1: it with the Seal Team, six guys writing articles or
Speaker 1: writing books about bin Laden and all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But it's like, for all the hemming and hawing, there's
Speaker 1: very little real consequence, you know. I mean, Chelsea, she okay,
Speaker 1: she got convicted, then the president pardoned her. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: been no repercussions for uh for a lonely ed because
Speaker 1: he ran away and defected to Russia. Um. All these
Speaker 1: people who are accused of breaking classifications, and the only
Speaker 1: person I can think of really paid a cost really
Speaker 1: and served his term was who's that? C I a
Speaker 1: guy Cura cow kurak cow he Uh, he got convicted
Speaker 1: and uh and and he served this time. I think
Speaker 1: he's out now. Like I said, for the all the
Speaker 1: hemming and hauling, there's very little actual consequence for people.
Speaker 1: So do you think there needs to be stricter consequences
Speaker 1: for when people lead classified information? And well, when you
Speaker 1: talk about the president, it's always going to be difficult,
Speaker 1: um because the president has the ability to declassify whatever
Speaker 1: he wants. So, like people are getting all excited right
Speaker 1: now saying, oh Trump, we classified information to the Russians
Speaker 1: and the Oval Office. Like, well, whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not, Trump can declassify whatever he wants when he wants. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I mean there's all these like Democrats who are
Speaker 1: like chomping at the bit talking about impeachment and stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's like, guys, you're going to be disappointed here,
Speaker 1: Like it's typical letting emotion overcome you know, rational thought. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the whole thing is I do see people online saying,
Speaker 1: well Bill Clinton got impeached for four LS, but Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton led under under oath, different different story. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you get Trump to lie under oath, you can impeach. Well,
Speaker 1: people have this false, uh historical idea of what happened
Speaker 1: of just saying, oh he got impeached for getting a
Speaker 1: blow job, for having another what it was at all? Yea? Um, alright,
Speaker 1: So let's get to Derek Gannon. Always good hearing from Derek,
Speaker 1: especially that he's over at SOFI or so fick uh
Speaker 1: and getting to check out some really awesome weaponized weapons
Speaker 1: systems that will be used in the future, all the
Speaker 1: high tech. We're on the line with Derek Gannon. He's
Speaker 1: down in Tampa at the SOFI conference. Derek Gannon, he's
Speaker 1: a eighteen Delta Special Forces medic who served in fifth
Speaker 1: Special Forces Group and uh, you know, he's also a
Speaker 1: soft rep writer and writes a lot about Africa centric
Speaker 1: security issues and Derek's tears cure cancer. Uh. He won
Speaker 1: the Battle of the Bulge against the Nazis. That happened.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like Captain America and the Howling
Speaker 1: Commandos if you ever saw that film, it was basically
Speaker 1: just like that, except like picture Derek's face on top
Speaker 1: of Captain America's body. Uh. So, anyway, Derek, do you
Speaker 1: want to tell us a little bit about on the
Speaker 1: SOFI conference, what it what it is, and kind of
Speaker 1: what the vibe is down there this year. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: for I need to clarify something first. It's not my
Speaker 1: head on Captain America's body. It's my head on like
Speaker 1: a dad body. So let's don't get it. Don't get
Speaker 1: too excited. I'm not distled out of American steel much
Speaker 1: a dad body. No, No, I'm not super soldier. I
Speaker 1: falled out and scraped myself a lot. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: So the Suffolk Conference is basically the industry conference where
Speaker 1: a lot of the big names like Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics,
Speaker 1: you know, sig any kind of any kind of industry
Speaker 1: that you can think of from the military industrial complex
Speaker 1: is basically is basically present at this This this conference itself,
Speaker 1: which I kind of dubbed the Commando Con because it's
Speaker 1: basically like like a comic con for war fighters, but
Speaker 1: it's it's more of a uh, you know, a business
Speaker 1: casual kind of vibe. These industry leaders are coming and
Speaker 1: meeting a lot of key commander's key you know, groups
Speaker 1: of folks that are willing and are looking for new
Speaker 1: products to take take to their guides back to so
Speaker 1: calm special operations and and start to use this new
Speaker 1: technology and kind of start fielding it to kind of
Speaker 1: advance the technology that we have in the war fighting
Speaker 1: as we do right now. Uh, it was it was
Speaker 1: a very interesting conference. Is the first time I've ever
Speaker 1: been to this as a civilian, so I was able
Speaker 1: to kind of look from the outside in its kind
Speaker 1: of like that you know, inside kind of knowledge, and
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty fascinating, Dag, It was. It
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. What I mean, what do you think
Speaker 1: is the current trends going on as far as that
Speaker 1: interface between private industry and the special operations community. What
Speaker 1: are the new technologies that are on the horizon that
Speaker 1: they're looking at in the next coming years. The every
Speaker 1: every part of what I saw the the advancements is
Speaker 1: it's robotics, it's it's high technology, it's it's AI, virtual reality,
Speaker 1: everything to include even down to you know, aim points
Speaker 1: for power scopes is starting to integrate that stem type
Speaker 1: of advancements in high tech that we have now where
Speaker 1: we can kind of push what we what we're seeing
Speaker 1: in the civilian community in towards the the war fighter community.
Speaker 1: For instance, uh, unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, swarm bots,
Speaker 1: anything that you can think of that you've seen from
Speaker 1: I hate to say this, but from Call of Duty
Speaker 1: to Battlefield four, even a Star Wars. It's some of
Speaker 1: the some of the helmet augments of the new night
Speaker 1: vision goggles and everything, the augments for the new helmet
Speaker 1: offs core stuff. It's called sort of like taking the
Speaker 1: stuff that we kind of grew up on into sci
Speaker 1: fi and in manifesting it intended reality. It's it's I
Speaker 1: think we're being pushed really into the unmanned robotics. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, you know, robotic pack needles all the way
Speaker 1: down to these these these highly highly deployable, very lightweight,
Speaker 1: throwable five pound robots that are basically they can go
Speaker 1: in and clear an entire room for you, paint a
Speaker 1: picture and three D and then on the fly the
Speaker 1: operators can integrate, you know, with the heads up display
Speaker 1: and basically just hit a target with with the entire
Speaker 1: staying completely map. I mean, they know the whole thing
Speaker 1: in in real time. It's the tech. It's very very
Speaker 1: very robotic centric. Drones are the drones are the new
Speaker 1: hotness are you seeing any uh, you know, forward thinking
Speaker 1: or any advancement as far as you know what back
Speaker 1: in the nineties, they I think they called the land
Speaker 1: Warrior system, and then there's a bunch of like future
Speaker 1: soldier programs to integrate like a heads up display into
Speaker 1: the infantry or special operations you know, ground troop um.
Speaker 1: And then there's also you know, all these issues with them,
Speaker 1: like they keep coming up with these like weird proprietary
Speaker 1: tablets and stuff like that. So I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you've seen them um kind of coming up with some
Speaker 1: better solutions to bring that information to the actual soldier
Speaker 1: on the ground, anything that actually looks viable. Actually, I
Speaker 1: remember the land Warrior project. That was a giant mechanism.
Speaker 1: I remember how heavy that that those devices look. There
Speaker 1: were several several iterations of it too. As you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years well, I think I think what I could
Speaker 1: tell you right now is that some of the widgets
Speaker 1: that I played with, all of that stuff is now handheld.
Speaker 1: Think of think of your average smartphone. That's the new
Speaker 1: technology that's coming through. Like for instance, I sat within
Speaker 1: Devin Robotics with the with the unmanned ground vehicles, everything
Speaker 1: is integrated with a touch pad. Because you have to
Speaker 1: understand that we're objeck. We really are old. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love technology, but the new operators that are coming through,
Speaker 1: they can literally, you know, for for someone like you
Speaker 1: and I that would take let's say an Android based
Speaker 1: smartphone and try to track a target with that, it
Speaker 1: would probably take us five minutes to get a weapon
Speaker 1: system that's that's integrated with this, this, this, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: grew up with walkman's and these kids they grew up
Speaker 1: with tablets. This, these these I mean, I'm talking like
Speaker 1: these guys. They had a guy, a kid there. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't comm a kid, he's probably like thirty, but a
Speaker 1: kid there that could that could point, click, put, squeeze,
Speaker 1: expand everything within seconds and acquire a target and adjudicate
Speaker 1: it all off of a handheld. We're already if you've
Speaker 1: seen those pictures of the Kurds in northern Syria and
Speaker 1: they're using tablets to designate targets for US air strikes,
Speaker 1: and that is exactly what I thought likely. These these
Speaker 1: tablets are inside an internal what we call a mesh network,
Speaker 1: which is basically an internal if you will, a g
Speaker 1: S m or at first, it's like yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: a it's like a Wi Fi land network that is
Speaker 1: encrypted sort of six bit encryption, which is amazing that
Speaker 1: the digital handshake is robust, and it's two factor authentic,
Speaker 1: authentic centification, and it's it's basically proprietary to that land network.
Speaker 1: At these these war fighters can can literally be in
Speaker 1: real time speaking with one other and controlling robotic robots,
Speaker 1: drones and robotic weapons systems and an instantaneous lee just
Speaker 1: with a with a point and click, a finger touch
Speaker 1: and the drone moves to a predesignated I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example, and Devil Rod Box has a has a
Speaker 1: what I call the Johnny five looking robot. What's interesting
Speaker 1: about this thing is that the the operator can use
Speaker 1: a swarm bot if you will, to map three d
Speaker 1: virtually retally, virtually map the target and three in three dimensions,
Speaker 1: find the targets, fix the targets, upload the targets of
Speaker 1: the Johnny five. Johnny five takes off, find cover and
Speaker 1: concealment itself and then pops up to adjudicate up to
Speaker 1: six targets with three five three five second bursts from
Speaker 1: a two forty to fifty caliber so on point, on target,
Speaker 1: and all the operator does it just hit execute. So
Speaker 1: it's basically for the host older generation, it's basically it's
Speaker 1: basically like commanding conquer. We're getting to the point where
Speaker 1: there's gonna be autonomously androids that do our door breaching
Speaker 1: and room clearing for us. Well, that was sort of
Speaker 1: the concept of what the u g vs are. We're
Speaker 1: kind of pushing towards these these cat like robots that
Speaker 1: can go in and be able to maneuver in through
Speaker 1: a through a very high threat environment, to be able
Speaker 1: to absorb rounds for the for the human element that's
Speaker 1: behind them. And yes, so you're basically not so much autonomous.
Speaker 1: I mean that is that that is the future is
Speaker 1: the is the just advanced the AI robots that you
Speaker 1: give a command to. And not only that, but I
Speaker 1: also saw there was another company there that had a
Speaker 1: U a V that could actually control on the ground
Speaker 1: ground drones and aerial drones as an autonomous you know,
Speaker 1: robotic command and control center. The human being, let's say
Speaker 1: back in the States, gives this giant robe, the big brain,
Speaker 1: if you will, the big brain robot brain, the task
Speaker 1: conditions that standard the WARNO and then this big brain
Speaker 1: robot subtests it out to his little minions and they
Speaker 1: can basically run through like you know, terminator and do
Speaker 1: what they need to do. Is long, but there's still
Speaker 1: as a human element involved, there's still as an operator involved.
Speaker 1: There still is a when I say operator, I know
Speaker 1: that sounds like soft, but there's a human brain behind.
Speaker 1: There's a human brain to that, and we're also starting
Speaker 1: to push towards them. There was another interesting, uh kind
Speaker 1: of a conference that General Thomas. It's so the commander
Speaker 1: game was that the new the new warfighters. They're looking
Speaker 1: at the latest, the generation that hasn't graduated from high
Speaker 1: school and college yet that are wanting to go into
Speaker 1: special operations. These these young kids that have been completely
Speaker 1: integrated with every tech that you can possibly think, and
Speaker 1: they're they're able to program on the fly. So you're
Speaker 1: basically looking at operators that are gonna be able to
Speaker 1: not only advance themselves in cyber offensive cyber operations, but
Speaker 1: also kinetic operations and commingle those with the robots, with
Speaker 1: the robot pals. So I mean we might even be
Speaker 1: getting rid of the you know, the do you think
Speaker 1: that that's something? Um? I guess you could say, do
Speaker 1: you think that's a realistic goal something that a unwieldly
Speaker 1: bureaucracy like um, you know, the Pentagon and to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent, you know so Calm, which is like seventy
Speaker 1: people at this point, do you think they're actually going
Speaker 1: to be able to accomplish this? Well, okay, so I
Speaker 1: sat in the brief Let's okay, let's let's talk about
Speaker 1: bureaucracy for a second. In technology when it comes to
Speaker 1: worth fighting. I sat into I sat in the Talos briefing.
Speaker 1: Very no pictures were allowed and you couldn't record. It
Speaker 1: was it's a secretive program, the Talis, the Tactical Operators suit,
Speaker 1: the Iron Man suit. And I sat into that and
Speaker 1: I basically listened to it. Now that thing is five
Speaker 1: D six hundred pounds, the steps of giant system. It's
Speaker 1: a huge system. And basically the the essence of this
Speaker 1: is that the briefing that we were getting from Colonel
Speaker 1: Miller was they the main focus of the Talents suit
Speaker 1: is to put it's to put special operations, special special
Speaker 1: operators who are adept at direct action. So now you
Speaker 1: know we're talking about the Tier one units that they
Speaker 1: need to have a suit that they're able to nimbly
Speaker 1: move through a CQB environment at close quarters combat. And
Speaker 1: me coming from a direct action background, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this giant suit and i have no clue how anyone's
Speaker 1: going to be able to move nimbly. But the five
Speaker 1: and this this the system is the system, And he
Speaker 1: was very forthright, this this is still this still isn't
Speaker 1: concept phase. Every new advent that they come up with
Speaker 1: the Talo system, they have to re engineer the entire
Speaker 1: suit around this new widget that's been plugged into into
Speaker 1: the system or hypothesized into the system, so they have
Speaker 1: working functional portions of the tallow suit. So back to
Speaker 1: the bureaucracy is what we're looking at. Is is he
Speaker 1: was very honest. He said we were probably not going
Speaker 1: to field the Taalos system and for another fifteen years.
Speaker 1: So we're looking at before we have before we actually
Speaker 1: have a direct action team of the Chier one team
Speaker 1: who has been completely outfitted with the Talo system. They're
Speaker 1: not even looking at having a fully functional, fully operational
Speaker 1: one suit. One fully operational suit with a blade of
Speaker 1: armor titanium plating all of the all of the the
Speaker 1: the e MG software that the electromagnetic gradients, the sensor software.
Speaker 1: It's a completely integrated system. They're not looking to have
Speaker 1: anything like that fully operational till until late August, and
Speaker 1: that's even tentative because technology keeps out out pacing what
Speaker 1: the TALO system tries to implement a very fluid system.
Speaker 1: So then you start to think of the bureaucracy. This
Speaker 1: is mcraven's child, This is mcraven's idea. The Iron Man suit,
Speaker 1: the exoskeleton suits, exoskeleton outfitted suits were actually another major
Speaker 1: draw so Fick as well. There's other companies like lockeed
Speaker 1: Martin has a very very as already has a functional
Speaker 1: exos looking suit that's been tested. Uh, it's been tested
Speaker 1: by some of the outer echelon Socom, some operational guys,
Speaker 1: and they absolutely love it. For instance, I was able
Speaker 1: to sit with Lockheed Marton and the director of the
Speaker 1: program basically said he put this on a he put
Speaker 1: this on an operator than they were doing a briefing
Speaker 1: and while he was while lockeed Martin was actually talking
Speaker 1: to this operator's commander. Within five minutes, this guy was
Speaker 1: doing pile jumps. And now I said, Tito jumps at
Speaker 1: that crossfitting you jump up to a higher level. This
Speaker 1: guy did from this from standing doing absolutely nothing. He
Speaker 1: just jumped up from the floor to the top of
Speaker 1: a table and he turned around. He goes, I want one.
Speaker 1: So that where you see Lockheed Martin and the Talos
Speaker 1: systems taking the operator's input directly as each evolution comes through,
Speaker 1: and it looks like it looks like the Talos system
Speaker 1: is is a giant sandwich to eat, whereas lockeed Martin
Speaker 1: has found something that they can actually use. It's functional,
Speaker 1: and it's already in the it's already in the phase
Speaker 1: for Testingly, big got operators running through sewer systems and
Speaker 1: you know, going up six nine degree gradients without they're key,
Speaker 1: without even loss of energy. Now I'm saying energy, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the human factor. They want they want to maximize.
Speaker 1: They want to maximize the metabolic efficiency and output of
Speaker 1: the of the person wearing the exoskeletons. Uh, you know, mechanism.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this is being pushed, if you
Speaker 1: remember Jack, A lot of this, this technology that started
Speaker 1: as war fighter technology is being pushed towards paraplegics and
Speaker 1: veterans that have you know, lost limbs can no longer
Speaker 1: can walk. And that was another thing I really liked
Speaker 1: about Lockheed Martin was we want to take care of
Speaker 1: the warfighter with the exo suit from their time in
Speaker 1: the service, all the way out if they do get injured,
Speaker 1: all the way to the aftercare for the veterans. And
Speaker 1: it's like it kind of is it's thank you. That's
Speaker 1: kind of like where we're going. It was very ghost
Speaker 1: in the shell, like are you like we have the technology,
Speaker 1: we can't we can we can't perfect you. It was
Speaker 1: like a million dollar man for us older, older, older folks,
Speaker 1: you know, the six million dollar man. Excuse me, that
Speaker 1: was more expensive. What I what I was told about
Speaker 1: the Tallows suit was that it's basically a boon doggle
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen, but that's so common. Is
Speaker 1: hoping hoping that they'll be able to develop associated technologies
Speaker 1: within that program, Like I've told about things like a
Speaker 1: grenade that causes seizures for instance. Like there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of different things that are plugged into Tallos that they're hoping,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like earmarks or something like that that
Speaker 1: they're hoping to get out of the program. Even if
Speaker 1: the suit itself doesn't ever mature. Well, my opinion as
Speaker 1: the suit will mature. And here's why, because that's another
Speaker 1: thing that they also spoke onto is that, Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: go back to the times of Big Fat Man and
Speaker 1: Little Boy. When we were developing the atomic weapon. The
Speaker 1: government went and decided to start asking these you know,
Speaker 1: colleges and universities, m I T, you know, academia, how
Speaker 1: to how can you help us develop these types of weapons.
Speaker 1: And we've been kind of pushed away from that during
Speaker 1: the g WAT and for for several years we just
Speaker 1: kind of we you know, we have DARFA. We try
Speaker 1: to do we try to keep everything in the house
Speaker 1: and try to bring the scientists into the into the
Speaker 1: government employ And what I've noticed is that you're actually
Speaker 1: right the mark to mark three, A, D and C.
Speaker 1: That was the BOONM doggle portion, that was that was
Speaker 1: the pie in the sky. Hey let's put some cool
Speaker 1: guy kids on folks. Until they realized that a blade
Speaker 1: of armor when you start to make, you know, making
Speaker 1: armor is easy when it's when it's just a square.
Speaker 1: When you try to make try to round it and
Speaker 1: curve it out, that becomes more expensive, and it also
Speaker 1: becomes more heavier. This suit right now, at five and
Speaker 1: six d pounds is the lightest has ever been. Now
Speaker 1: wrap your head around that. So what's so common is doing?
Speaker 1: And I think what the Pentagon is doing is they're
Speaker 1: going back to that old World War two, post post
Speaker 1: war kind of model where they reach out and incentivize
Speaker 1: the STEM programs in universities to say, hey, here's a challenge,
Speaker 1: what can you do. That's why they're trying to snuggle
Speaker 1: up to Silicon Valley in the last couple of months
Speaker 1: and see all this stuff in the press very much.
Speaker 1: So I think that's a good idea. I think I
Speaker 1: think that I think we I have an opinion about
Speaker 1: Russia and China and Chinese. Russian and Chinese technology it's
Speaker 1: being at least tend to twenty years ahead of us.
Speaker 1: And what those those two countries do is that they
Speaker 1: lean heavily on the academia side and incentivize these universities.
Speaker 1: And there's there's also for them, there's no separation between
Speaker 1: church and states so to speak. So I mean in China,
Speaker 1: like what is private industry, it's nominally under the control
Speaker 1: of the Communist Party, So there's no there's no difference
Speaker 1: between the two. When I found interesting about what this
Speaker 1: how how SOCOM was breaking the talent suit is that
Speaker 1: they are actually that's how they've they've changed the mold
Speaker 1: sort of just and they're inviting industry in with the
Speaker 1: caveat that the war fighter portion of what you're creating
Speaker 1: we would like to be proprietary obviously secret to the
Speaker 1: Special Operations Command. But the third, the second and third
Speaker 1: and fourth order effects of the technology, that's that the
Speaker 1: government's paying these in the academia to kind of develop,
Speaker 1: kind of giving them a blank check, if you will,
Speaker 1: to kind of figure out new tech to kind of
Speaker 1: glean and edge is they're saying that you can take that,
Speaker 1: you can take that technology, you can take what you
Speaker 1: proprietize and create civilian application. A lot of industry was
Speaker 1: there to kind of glean that stuff. You know, this
Speaker 1: exo suit is an amazing, amazing advancement because think about it.
Speaker 1: They use an example of central Africa where you can't
Speaker 1: get forklifts or or heavy heavy equipment to to develop
Speaker 1: and build, you know, build out some spots and let
Speaker 1: their new dish use Africa for example. He said, you
Speaker 1: know Bald Industries or Locky Martin Industries, or even General
Speaker 1: Dynamics that they wanted to get into the exo suit game.
Speaker 1: They could develop this for civilian applications where they could
Speaker 1: get this these engineers into these exo suits where they
Speaker 1: could clear out and build and lift you know, tonnage
Speaker 1: of equipment without having to put a you know, a
Speaker 1: diesel footprint, environmental footprint anywhere other than the exo suit. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, the exo suit doesn't gonna run on some
Speaker 1: sort of like gasoline battery powered hybrid engine or something
Speaker 1: like this. Okay, so that's where, Okay, that's where my
Speaker 1: question started coming from my standpoint of having to clear root.
Speaker 1: You and I've been through rooms, Jack, we understand that
Speaker 1: the majority of the operators you're you're laden with about
Speaker 1: what two pounds of the man themselves. Then you add armor,
Speaker 1: which is fifty eight pounds pluses can't plus double double
Speaker 1: load animal, you're looking at about three hundred pounds operator
Speaker 1: trying to nimbly move through a room quickly, rapidly in
Speaker 1: adjudicate targets. I know that for for from my perspective
Speaker 1: and the way that they were selling the Tallows suit
Speaker 1: was this was the you know, a a direct action
Speaker 1: augmented six plated armored suit with a lot of bells
Speaker 1: and whistles and heads up displays and I s R feeds,
Speaker 1: live feeds, all these other things. And then a question
Speaker 1: came from an Australian press guy. I don't in his
Speaker 1: name escapes me, but it was a great question. He
Speaker 1: he asked, what would happen if if if these gentlemen
Speaker 1: were hitting a target. Let's say these the suits are
Speaker 1: doing and they get hit with an e MP, what
Speaker 1: happens then? And that was a fantastic question because how
Speaker 1: the hell do you get out of this suit? Because
Speaker 1: what I what I was looking at was a plated
Speaker 1: you know, first of all the operators in this full
Speaker 1: body like resuit. Full body that's another that's another question.
Speaker 1: So these are all the questions that were being asked.
Speaker 1: So then the Talos team kind of positive the question
Speaker 1: back because there was there was STEM industry folks in
Speaker 1: that room, and they basically said, the question goes back
Speaker 1: to you guys, how can we And my question follow
Speaker 1: up question was to the e MP was how fast
Speaker 1: can these guys get out of the suit? Because I
Speaker 1: know if the suit dies up. Murphy's law. All right,
Speaker 1: you you slap around twenty six plates of armor around someone,
Speaker 1: there's still low percentage soft areas of of where you know,
Speaker 1: tissue and flesh could still be penetrated by something. Plus
Speaker 1: Murphy's law. Will you know that's gonna happen? So how
Speaker 1: does the operator effectively get out of the suit If
Speaker 1: it's six hundred pounds, he's falling up, He's he's a
Speaker 1: he's a buick sitting sitting in the middle of a
Speaker 1: combat zone. He's just a dead stick. So now he
Speaker 1: said that, you know, the briefing was, well, we want
Speaker 1: to be able to rapidly get get the operator out
Speaker 1: of the suit if there's a fatal fatal you know,
Speaker 1: catastrophic air work where the suit stops working. All right, well,
Speaker 1: now you gotta see. Now you have an operator in
Speaker 1: a combat zone running around in a full body like resuit.
Speaker 1: He has nothing him but a black ninja suit and
Speaker 1: his weapons system that's integrated into the TALLI system. It's
Speaker 1: not integrated, I mean's still it's still a rifle and
Speaker 1: a a our styles weapon or whatever they're gonna be using.
Speaker 1: How do we protect that guy? What happen is there
Speaker 1: and it goes back to the power pack. Now, the
Speaker 1: power pack, it was interesting that he didn't really touch
Speaker 1: along on the fuel portion. I was more interested in
Speaker 1: how are you going to recharge the twelve giant batteries?
Speaker 1: That are these giant many they look like motorcycle batteries.
Speaker 1: There's twelve of an apect in a row in this
Speaker 1: power pack on top of the brain which is a
Speaker 1: E c M computer suite your hydraulics, and then below
Speaker 1: that is the compressed is A is A is a compressor,
Speaker 1: very a miniaturized compressor that pushes fluid through the body
Speaker 1: suit to cool or heat to the operator. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of moving parts. That thing also weighs about a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pounds. So I'm starting to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the operating what's the max operating time for this
Speaker 1: and that? Right now they have it up to an
Speaker 1: hour an hour, So snap t s t s are
Speaker 1: not an option for the tallow suit. This has to
Speaker 1: be a deliberate assault and it also has to meet.
Speaker 1: You have to land on the X and you have
Speaker 1: to be out of there in an hour, because then
Speaker 1: what happens and you have a bunch of dudes who
Speaker 1: just start powering down and this is this is this
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds is not including ammunition, equipment, medical gear,
Speaker 1: engineer stuff. You know who's the breacher is this is
Speaker 1: the breacher tallow suit larger so he can donkey kick
Speaker 1: the ship out of side of the walls. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: last the last I knew there was a breacher model
Speaker 1: and an assaulter model. That may have changed though. And
Speaker 1: then another guy brought up the and and he was
Speaker 1: this was an industry guy. He brought up he's like
Speaker 1: with the advent of women in special operations, which it was.
Speaker 1: There was a collective groan through the room because there
Speaker 1: was there's that one guy. There's you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: boobies in special ops. How do we so they get
Speaker 1: they can't wear the plus suit? Right? Seriously he brought up.
Speaker 1: He basically said, well, the advent of women coming to
Speaker 1: special operations, how do you see them? How do you
Speaker 1: see the tallow suits fitting them? And you know there's
Speaker 1: somewhat of the smallest slight collective grow into the room.
Speaker 1: But the Talos team answered it very eloquently, said, right now,
Speaker 1: these Talos systems are for the top e league. Now
Speaker 1: we're talking about tier one guys. Okay, these guys have
Speaker 1: made it to the top of the top guys. Are
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. We don't know what special operation is gonna
Speaker 1: look like. We don't we have no idea who's going
Speaker 1: to be in it. So he basically said that there
Speaker 1: is no issue mail or female. There's no issue with
Speaker 1: the TALO system because each TALO system will be at
Speaker 1: social I mean, there's social these are these things will
Speaker 1: be assigned to these operators that the entire system will
Speaker 1: be developed around them. They will go into a three
Speaker 1: D you know, imaging where that their entire body is
Speaker 1: three rendered and the entire suit is built around them. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much that's gonna cost per operator.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really matter if
Speaker 1: it's the male or female. And that was the question
Speaker 1: was interesting. I wanted to bring it up on the
Speaker 1: radio because I just thought, well, I mean, what are
Speaker 1: you really worried about? You know, I don't understand what
Speaker 1: you'd be worried about. Why would you care if for
Speaker 1: females where if if if a female operator is at
Speaker 1: a position where she's being outfitted with the tallow suit.
Speaker 1: I think she's made her bones. I think she I
Speaker 1: think she's earned the tallow suit. So it was an
Speaker 1: interesting question, but it didn't have They had the mock
Speaker 1: ups there, they didn't have anything other than just the
Speaker 1: engineer staff. I could see this having an application and
Speaker 1: conventional warfare, but for counter terrorism, I just I don't
Speaker 1: see it. Man, a five pounds suit and you're going
Speaker 1: to use that for surgical raids, hostage rescues, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me. Like I said, to
Speaker 1: see that, that's what the that's what the current brief.
Speaker 1: He said that the end state is to have this
Speaker 1: suit as nimbly as move as nimbly as the operator,
Speaker 1: and that comes down to the e G, e MG sensors.
Speaker 1: Those sensors will the sensors are completely integrated into this
Speaker 1: body suit. And what they do is they is they
Speaker 1: pick up on the electrical electrical connectivity of the muscles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's bullshit because I mean, if you're a pound
Speaker 1: suit plus the two pound dude, I mean it's gonna
Speaker 1: go through the floor and a lot of these third
Speaker 1: world countries, I mean literally, Yeah, I didn't even think
Speaker 1: of that. Like second you'd be landsliding yourself all the
Speaker 1: way through this. Yeah, you won't even be able to
Speaker 1: make it up the stairs. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And like I said, man, it's it's a concept. It's
Speaker 1: a concept. It's it's they're gonna push it through. And
Speaker 1: I honestly believe here's the here's the positive I see
Speaker 1: about the Talos system is that the technology that's going
Speaker 1: to be pumped into not to try to make this work,
Speaker 1: it's gonna we're gonna see a lot of advances in
Speaker 1: technology in the industry, law enforcement, any even the conventional side. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the other attendees that the
Speaker 1: Talos briefing kind of brought this up there, like, well,
Speaker 1: is this like a is this like a one size
Speaker 1: fits all kind of thing? And you know TALIS team
Speaker 1: kind of laughing, is that you will not see this
Speaker 1: system in a I t' You won't go to your
Speaker 1: you know, you won't see a conventional soldier finished a
Speaker 1: I T with you know, with in six weeks of
Speaker 1: the talent you know, being trained and using the Talos
Speaker 1: and then getting an issue to him in the eighty
Speaker 1: two you know, like you get like a gun like
Speaker 1: here here you go. It's you know, like you're just
Speaker 1: getting a used Talos system where you've got to learn
Speaker 1: it and and and augment it. Because the Talos engineer
Speaker 1: I spoke with said that these things are everything is
Speaker 1: mapped down to the to the millimeter of the of
Speaker 1: the body structure of the operator. So he said he
Speaker 1: was he put another guy's suit on because they had
Speaker 1: the test subject with six of that days. He was
Speaker 1: somewhat of the same size. He said the suit didn't
Speaker 1: operate as efficiently because there was the connection points throughout
Speaker 1: the suit weren't the same as as the as the
Speaker 1: test subject. So there's that probably this is would be
Speaker 1: very difficult to feel this now. Blockeed Martin's exo exoskeleton, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know metabolic aptemizer that their lower portion, the leg
Speaker 1: portion that they that they developed. I could I could
Speaker 1: see that by seven being a fully feelable, conventional use
Speaker 1: uh system. I could see that more than the Talus.
Speaker 1: The Talus is more of the Yeah it's cool, you've
Speaker 1: got bionic legs, but I've got this five pound Iron
Speaker 1: Man suit and I'm bad as fun. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: this is this is well well well down down the
Speaker 1: spectrum down to the scope. But the drone software, the
Speaker 1: drone technology, swarm box, everything, it was amazing. It was
Speaker 1: like playing call it. It was like a like being
Speaker 1: a call of duty. Advanced warfare. There was It's just
Speaker 1: there was it. And these were functional. These were these
Speaker 1: weren't just like mock up models. These these things were
Speaker 1: flying around the convention hall. They mean the clicks and
Speaker 1: words that I that I'm telling you that was. Everything
Speaker 1: was robotic, everything was high tech. Everything was you know,
Speaker 1: a soft English voice like your GPS would tell you
Speaker 1: turn right. This was you know, shoot that guy in
Speaker 1: the face. I mean, it's just very pleasant, very very integrative.
Speaker 1: It's it's the new, the new, the new warfighter is
Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of bells and whistles that he's
Speaker 1: got to be plugging into his you know, his his
Speaker 1: op score. So there's a trainable And that's what I
Speaker 1: kept asking guys, how what's the trainability of this? Because
Speaker 1: Joe is inherently dumb and he's going to break everything.
Speaker 1: Even the smartest of door kickers, he's gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: break it because it's not theirs. It's like when we're
Speaker 1: over in Iraq, Jack, they gave us some the f
Speaker 1: one fifties. They're not ours trash him. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's unfortunately, it's it's it's what they do. And
Speaker 1: what I was at the answer back was at every evolution,
Speaker 1: every step, even the tiniest of steps, they take that
Speaker 1: new step, they take that new evolution, and they go
Speaker 1: right to their operator tests. Ben, like, what do you
Speaker 1: think in these guys they'll say, no, that's bullshit, or yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's actually cool. And what I what I
Speaker 1: heard from versus the Talos versus the luckied Martin was luckied.
Speaker 1: Martin's EXO skeleton is getting a lot of thumbs up,
Speaker 1: whereas the Talos is everyone's kind of like good concepts.
Speaker 1: I like what I'm seeing in video. It's really cool looking.
Speaker 1: How heavy is it? Lost five hundred pounds? The first
Speaker 1: thing I thought was, well, that thing's gonna die on me.
Speaker 1: How do I get out of it? And I'm running
Speaker 1: around in It's like the land Warrior system, like it's
Speaker 1: going to have to go through several generations, several different
Speaker 1: iterations of the same program before they get something that's workable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and alockeed Martin exoskeleton suit that they I think next month.
Speaker 1: What he told me was they haven't jumped it yet,
Speaker 1: satic line. Its time now. He was telling me he's
Speaker 1: got that. You know, he's he was a fifty two.
Speaker 1: I think I shouldn't say that. I I mean, he's an
Speaker 1: older guys on my age. We all have bad needs.
Speaker 1: And he said he took this, he took the latest
Speaker 1: system home and he decided to jump off of his
Speaker 1: staircase down to the floor just from top second floor
Speaker 1: to the first floor. Not an issue. I didn't even
Speaker 1: feel it. And he was able to just leap around
Speaker 1: the room. And this is this is something that's already
Speaker 1: able to be used. And they're they're using a proprietary
Speaker 1: battery source which is kind of the same size as
Speaker 1: r C car batteries, you know, and and they're able
Speaker 1: to because of the kinetic energy, the kinetic movement of
Speaker 1: the exoskeleton suits. It maximizes in it, it becomes efficient,
Speaker 1: that the energy used becomes efficient, so they get a lot,
Speaker 1: they get a longer use out of it, and hot
Speaker 1: swapping batteries. It's simple, it's it's easy. It's like those
Speaker 1: you know, cordless drills. You know that battery runs out,
Speaker 1: you just hot swap into another way. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a similar I'm I'm simplifying it. Obviously it's more technological
Speaker 1: than that, but it's as from an operators standpoint, carrying around,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve extra motorcycle batteries to throw into the
Speaker 1: Tallos when I go down in an hour versus a
Speaker 1: six to twelve hour operating schedule on on a four
Speaker 1: battery pack where I can just switch those battery packs out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's weight there, but the exo suit, the exoskeleton suit
Speaker 1: from Lockheed Martin, augments that and creates an easier environment
Speaker 1: for them to carry a heavier load. Interesting, it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And I've I've been invite there in Florida, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna gonna tell you this first. I've been invited, uh
Speaker 1: next month ago to the Lackey Martin's Tests Center and
Speaker 1: they're gonna let me run through the excel suit. That's
Speaker 1: a jumping on stuff, kicking doors in and running around.
Speaker 1: So I'll be I'll definitely be doing a report report
Speaker 1: on that. That's pretty blessed to kind of be invited
Speaker 1: that do that. So Tallos not so much there's like
Speaker 1: here's a here's a pamphlet. It's really needs colored all right, man, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for the update on the SOFA conference Derek.
Speaker 1: It's been pretty good. I wanted to. I learned a
Speaker 1: lot too. It's interesting to hear what all the latest
Speaker 1: and greatest is over there. Thanks for coming on, man,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. It's a great update on on this conference
Speaker 1: and everything. Um. You guys know Derek. I mean you
Speaker 1: read his articles, but I always like to make sure
Speaker 1: that people are familiar if their new listeners and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Um, and you can follow Derek on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Mike six but spelled of course M one K
Speaker 1: three five one X. Do I have that right? That
Speaker 1: is absolutely correct off the top of my head. Killed it, um,
Speaker 1: because you've been having to repeat that for years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: any anything else that you're promoting before we get out
Speaker 1: of here. No, it's it's been a really interesting time
Speaker 1: of SOFIC. I'm you know, I'm nording out so pretty
Speaker 1: much all that cool text stuff that's not right. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you guys can make it down there this year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sending me absolutely Thanks man, talk to you soon,
Speaker 1: all right, take care of joining us on the show
Speaker 1: for the first time is Nick Kaufman. Nick's been a
Speaker 1: writer for the site for a while and it has
Speaker 1: actually contributed to the show in ways that, uh, some
Speaker 1: of you might not even know. Um. He got us
Speaker 1: the hook up with Marine Corps Major Fred Galvin for
Speaker 1: the episodes that we did talking about his uh, his
Speaker 1: issues with supposed war crimes and getting into the real
Speaker 1: story of what happened. And you did some really in
Speaker 1: depth articles about that. You can check out those episodes
Speaker 1: in the archive episodes two oh six if you haven't. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nick served five years as a Marine Corps network operator,
Speaker 1: serving with the eighth Marine Regiment and later with mar Forecom,
Speaker 1: and he now actually holds a master's degree in I T. Management. Uh.
Speaker 1: You have a book out from a few months back
Speaker 1: called The Other Marines, God's Plan and Provision for two Marines.
Speaker 1: So it's great to have you on, man. Yeah, thanks, guys,
Speaker 1: it's good to finally be on. You know. I know
Speaker 1: it fell through a few times, and the only disappointment
Speaker 1: for me is, uh, I had this master plan to
Speaker 1: have b K crash the show with me and not
Speaker 1: tell you. So you've since had him on as a guest,
Speaker 1: but it's uh, it's good to finally be here. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: b K is great and it's always good to have
Speaker 1: him on. Yeah, we'll have him back on soon. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: I guess before we even get into the book itself,
Speaker 1: you you said you didn't mind talking about this, so
Speaker 1: your book. The publisher of your book, the other Marines
Speaker 1: just recently got into some hot water. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say, yeah, you could say that, Um, so that
Speaker 1: the company is that is that a business? Um, I'll leave.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not hard to find. If you do, uh,
Speaker 1: do a search for the book, you'll see the publisher is.
Speaker 1: But just to keep myself at hot water, I won't
Speaker 1: say their name, but basically the president and then the
Speaker 1: CEO who is the son to the president. Um there,
Speaker 1: I think it was eight felony counts that they are
Speaker 1: brought against them. Um it's like embezzlement, fraud, and uh
Speaker 1: several others. But they're gonna be in jail for a
Speaker 1: long time, I'm pretty sure. So so so as a result,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be plugging the book. UM, happy to
Speaker 1: I'm happy to talk about it. But uh, basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was something that Uh, I started off,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of putting my thoughts down as
Speaker 1: I was getting close at the end of mine listening,
Speaker 1: and uh, I thought it would be kind of cool
Speaker 1: to have something like that for for my kids and
Speaker 1: you know, just you know, family and things like that,
Speaker 1: and um, it's a as Jack would know. Uh, the
Speaker 1: book gig is a tough one to get into, and
Speaker 1: my options are pretty limited. So I knew from the
Speaker 1: start that the publisher was a little shady and they
Speaker 1: had a reputation for not being uh too honest with
Speaker 1: their authors. But basically the president who I talked to
Speaker 1: at a certain point, he he's a former marine and uh,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure his sun was too for that matter,
Speaker 1: but he basically instead of paying thousands of dollars to
Speaker 1: to publish my book, um it was like a few
Speaker 1: hundred basically, So I figured I didn't have anything to lose,
Speaker 1: even though they had a bad reputation and and you know, frankly,
Speaker 1: at this point, with the company out of business and
Speaker 1: um my my book basically no longer on the market. UM,
Speaker 1: I made the few bucks back that I put into it,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad I'm not those guys because they're gonna
Speaker 1: be in They're gonna be uh in prison for quite
Speaker 1: a while. Well, I mean, if we want to, you know,
Speaker 1: be honest here about publishing books, is you've self published Jack.
Speaker 1: Before we started the interview, Jack and I were just
Speaker 1: kind of talking about this, and you were basically saying
Speaker 1: Nick could just put out his own book through Amazon
Speaker 1: the way you did and and there would be no issues. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean what I'd say to to you, Nick and
Speaker 1: anybody else really who's thinking about publishing. It's just like ethically,
Speaker 1: money is supposed to flow to the writer. The writer
Speaker 1: isn't supposed to pay a publisher to publish their book
Speaker 1: like that, like right away that should like, please don't
Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, they're looking back on it. So the
Speaker 1: book actually didn't get released until a few months after
Speaker 1: I started writing for you all, but I didn't even
Speaker 1: I wasn't even on with you guys yet when the
Speaker 1: book deals was already done. So timing wise, it would
Speaker 1: have been nice if I could talk to you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, before I signed the deal. But it all
Speaker 1: kind of worked out in the end because it's had
Speaker 1: a literary agent explained to me, like, if you're not
Speaker 1: famous infamous or have some crazy story that needs to
Speaker 1: be told, then your chances of getting it published or
Speaker 1: are slender none. So so yeah, I would agree with that,
Speaker 1: um from my own experience, if I ever decided to
Speaker 1: do another book, it's to be going that route. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, well, now now that's publisher. Now that the
Speaker 1: publishers out of business, I mean, did the book rights
Speaker 1: pervert back to you? So that's it's funny because even
Speaker 1: after they were out of business, and you know, the
Speaker 1: the attorney general for the state that they're in had
Speaker 1: gone after him. Even after all that, they basically set
Speaker 1: up a They sent out an email to all of
Speaker 1: the writers that said, hey, send us a check fifty
Speaker 1: bucks and sign this agreement and we'll send you a
Speaker 1: copy of your you know, like um, basically we'll send
Speaker 1: you all of your materials and it will be years
Speaker 1: to keep that. And and what they actually found was
Speaker 1: that they were actually taking that at the fifty dollars times.
Speaker 1: However many I would imagine thousands of writers did that.
Speaker 1: They actually took that fifty bucks and went straight into
Speaker 1: their personal account, not even like the company account, So
Speaker 1: that even that was a scam. So oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 1: So my philosophy at this point is if uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if I decided that I want to publish my book,
Speaker 1: uh you know through uh like Amazon or something like that,
Speaker 1: they can come after me if they want. But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna be tough to do that from jail.
Speaker 1: So I think you should do I think you should
Speaker 1: do it just if you have the rights to the book, man,
Speaker 1: you just could do it yourself. And from what you're saying,
Speaker 1: Jack is someone who's done it yourself with your deckcard novels.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even need to put any money up front.
Speaker 1: The book is is done, they'll press it for you
Speaker 1: and if people want to buy it, you'll get the
Speaker 1: profits from that. Yeah. I've already said that Nick I
Speaker 1: will help him out with his audio book man. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it never comes to that. I'll let you know, Man,
Speaker 1: I really do appreciate that too. Yeah, no problem. How
Speaker 1: do you feel though about you know, this isn't just
Speaker 1: a book publisher, like it's got to be kind of weird,
Speaker 1: a marine screwing over a fellow marine. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: that's actually kind of leading into something that is pretty
Speaker 1: important to me as far as my work with software,
Speaker 1: which is at this point, I mean it's not exclusive
Speaker 1: to Marines, but a lot of the articles that I've
Speaker 1: been working on, especially recently, or related to me just
Speaker 1: looking out for other Marines. And uh, even even when
Speaker 1: I was in, but especially since I'm out now, I've
Speaker 1: never really bought into the whole simpler fi I always
Speaker 1: faithful thing, Like I hate when guys say that to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't ever say it either. Um. Basically, I
Speaker 1: saw enough when I was in the Marines to know
Speaker 1: that you know, your brothers are you know, they're always
Speaker 1: gonna be there for you. But um, as far as
Speaker 1: everybody else, I mean, they don't really care about you.
Speaker 1: Like I guess in combat, I think that would still apply, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not just gonna leave somebody there if
Speaker 1: they need, you know, if they if they can help you,
Speaker 1: they will. But as far as just man demand personal
Speaker 1: life and stuff like that, it's, uh, it's a dog
Speaker 1: eat dog world. And um, I'm not really surprised that
Speaker 1: these scumbag publishers did, but they did. Um, and again
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really hold it against them because
Speaker 1: I kind of got the last laugh. I mean, there
Speaker 1: I feel bad for some of the publishers or some
Speaker 1: of the authors that spent like thirty grand I think
Speaker 1: in some cases on the rights for their book and
Speaker 1: then actual books, and then they didn't get a single book,
Speaker 1: um let alone, you know, a dollar from sales. I mean,
Speaker 1: they didn't get anything. So I think I made out
Speaker 1: pretty well. I mean, so this was like, this was
Speaker 1: like a fairly large publisher. I mean you're talking about
Speaker 1: a good number of authors. Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was not a small small publisher in the sense
Speaker 1: of of their their client base. I mean they had
Speaker 1: they had a lot of work. So it's all kind
Speaker 1: of like a Ponzi scheme. It sounds like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: really does. Um. You know, like I said, I'm I'm fortunate,
Speaker 1: Like I feel bad for a lot of these authors
Speaker 1: that are out big money, but for me, UM, I
Speaker 1: got the upper hand on the deal. So I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna try to go after him for anything. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm content just to move on from it.
Speaker 1: But it is kind of a barmer because the reason
Speaker 1: I wrote the book, um again, other than just kind
Speaker 1: of having something from my kids to read one day,
Speaker 1: is um just a different side of the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: So I was I was an infantry support in my MS.
Speaker 1: It was a network operator like you said, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a different world from you know,
Speaker 1: I was with an infantry unit. But um, obviously our
Speaker 1: our roles are much different and uh, you know, our
Speaker 1: our little world within the Marine Corps is is a
Speaker 1: lot different too, So I just wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: shed some light on that. And then then I talked
Speaker 1: to a few of my other friends that were in
Speaker 1: you know, whether it was an MP or an EOD
Speaker 1: technician or whatever it is, and you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to get their story out there too, because
Speaker 1: there's not a lot, I mean, especially from Marine Cory
Speaker 1: O D. I don't think there's a single book out there.
Speaker 1: So um, I basically the book is about my time
Speaker 1: in the military obviously. And and then a good friend
Speaker 1: of mine his named Seawan, the EOD tech, really good guy,
Speaker 1: and um, you know it's it's I thought it was interesting,
Speaker 1: um and uh, you know, if anybody's interest that at
Speaker 1: this point and taking a look, you know, feel free
Speaker 1: to reach out to me on Twitter and or you
Speaker 1: can email me if you can find all my contact
Speaker 1: infot on soft wrep and I'll be happy to share
Speaker 1: it with you because at this point I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not in it for the money, that's for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: what's what's the book actually about? So, uh, it's basically
Speaker 1: the Seawan and I. We we met whenever I was
Speaker 1: He's probably ten years older than me, I think, but
Speaker 1: I remember him from my hometown. Uh kind of growing up.
Speaker 1: We knew each other through church and some mutual friends.
Speaker 1: But when I got stationed at Campbell June UM in
Speaker 1: North Carolina, hit him and his wife were actually living
Speaker 1: out there and he was stationed there too, so um,
Speaker 1: they kind of became like a second family and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, would cook me meals and take care of
Speaker 1: me and just check in from time to time, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he his time in the in the military
Speaker 1: started off slightly. It was just before nine eleven. He
Speaker 1: was actually an aviation ordinanceman, so he was taking care
Speaker 1: of helicopters and um. He while he was deployed to
Speaker 1: Afghanistan right after nine eleven, he met a couple of
Speaker 1: you know, the guys that I think they were basically
Speaker 1: talking about a chicken that they had captured and how
Speaker 1: they were like being m R. E s and they
Speaker 1: were going to like fat it up to make some
Speaker 1: like stew or something like that. And these dudes were
Speaker 1: just crazy, and he was like, I want to know
Speaker 1: more about these guys, Like, you know, it's not just
Speaker 1: the fact that they're crazy, but it sounds like your
Speaker 1: job is pretty cool too. So he switched from being
Speaker 1: an air wing guy to an EOD technician after a
Speaker 1: few years, and I went on a lot of deployments. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, saw a lot of things. And in the book,
Speaker 1: it basically just talks about the selection process for that,
Speaker 1: the school that he had to go through, and then
Speaker 1: some of the deployments that he went on. So just
Speaker 1: to stop you, is this book more about his story
Speaker 1: than yours or just your story? It's pretty evenly split.
Speaker 1: So so obviously the book hasn't really been at the
Speaker 1: front of my mind recently, obviously, but to set it
Speaker 1: up a little bit more, it's it's basically evenly split
Speaker 1: between our decisions that led us to join the military,
Speaker 1: and then like our past throughout and then how they
Speaker 1: kind of crossed for a little bit, and then as
Speaker 1: we transitioned out, um, and then again the the goal
Speaker 1: is to show a different side of the marine corps. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of recon books and regular infantry,
Speaker 1: your tankers and things like that, but to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything else like it on the market.
Speaker 1: So well, I'm wondering, what's what's the main um point
Speaker 1: that you tried to get out in this book and
Speaker 1: what separates it from other books of former marines like yourself. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not, um, I mean, it's definitely got
Speaker 1: a religious undertone to it because that's a big part
Speaker 1: of who I am and shown too. But it's not preachy,
Speaker 1: and it's not you know, it's not trying to convert anybody.
Speaker 1: But it's basically just sharing our stories and showing how, um,
Speaker 1: you know, our our faith in God kind of let
Speaker 1: it each each step that we took in the military
Speaker 1: to uh to bring us to where we ended up
Speaker 1: with our families and everything like that. Um. So it's
Speaker 1: it's it's basically just kind of a testimony to show, um,
Speaker 1: you know, how how God let us through some of
Speaker 1: these crazy decisions that we made in situations we were in.
Speaker 1: And then, um, you know, the second point is for
Speaker 1: it to just get a little insight into the side
Speaker 1: of the marine where that most people don't know about.
Speaker 1: I think that's cool, man. I mean there's been authors
Speaker 1: on the show who faith is a big part of
Speaker 1: their life, guys like Respianto and other guys who don't
Speaker 1: have faith is a part of their wife. Does your
Speaker 1: faith get shaken when once you see combat as marine?
Speaker 1: Well so for Sean definitely, uh he uh he was
Speaker 1: in I was never really any any hairy situations. Um.
Speaker 1: When I deployed in two thousand nine, it was it
Speaker 1: was pretty slow over there. Like I remember my last
Speaker 1: the last conboy that I went on was with an
Speaker 1: infantry battalion that they were trying to get a lot
Speaker 1: of their boots combat action ribbons. So they basically, you know,
Speaker 1: as far as the setup of the convoy and how
Speaker 1: we did things, they changed a lot, basically making us
Speaker 1: a target, trying to pull the bad guys out, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, no matter how are we tried, it just
Speaker 1: seem like it was you know, I think I have
Speaker 1: three d guys and are in my regiment. There were
Speaker 1: like there's one purple heart and like a handful of
Speaker 1: of combat action ribbon. So um to sum it up
Speaker 1: pretty slow deployment for me. But for Sean, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he he had He's literally been standing on pressure
Speaker 1: plate i e. D s before that didn't go off. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that, just this crazy situations and um,
Speaker 1: you know there's a lot of that that's outlined in
Speaker 1: the book. So it's really interesting to me how combat
Speaker 1: has like these diametrically opposed impact on people, especially people
Speaker 1: who their faith is really important to them. It seems
Speaker 1: like it either drives them further towards their faith or
Speaker 1: completely separates them away from it. I've seen it go
Speaker 1: in both directions. Yeah, that's it's a good point. And
Speaker 1: uh you know I know that, uh like from just
Speaker 1: kind of speaking on Shawn's behalf again in his story.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's in his line of work, he worked
Speaker 1: with a lot of guys that weren't overly religious until
Speaker 1: they were overseas, and then it ranched out pretty quick
Speaker 1: when you're in those situations. Yeah, it's funny how it
Speaker 1: affects different people, you know, in different ways. I interviewed
Speaker 1: um Paul Redgate, who served in Fourth Ranger Company in
Speaker 1: the Korean War, and he was in the article series
Speaker 1: I wrote about Special Forces Detachment Korea, and his account
Speaker 1: is uh is in the beginning of that article. Um,
Speaker 1: him in the Korean War and they assaulted a damn
Speaker 1: and his best friend, one of his best friends, and
Speaker 1: his squad was killed and the guy basically you know,
Speaker 1: died in his arms and uh, and he said that
Speaker 1: was the day I became a Christian. His his his
Speaker 1: friend's last words were, I believe it was for his grace. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll that'll do it. I mean, I can't imagine being
Speaker 1: in that situation. But it's no surprise when you hear
Speaker 1: you hear stories like that that guys. You know, I've
Speaker 1: served with a lot of guys that were pretty openly
Speaker 1: um you know, whether they're atheist or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I don't know what they went through,
Speaker 1: um in their personal opinions of their own. But I
Speaker 1: was fortunate that nobody ever gave me in grief about
Speaker 1: my own personal beliefs or anything like that. And uh,
Speaker 1: it never caused any problems overseas, so that that was
Speaker 1: always nice to not have to deal with that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel I can look, I'm the civilian here,
Speaker 1: but of the guys that met. There's a pretty good
Speaker 1: mix of guys who are religious. Faith is a part
Speaker 1: of their wife. And there's plenty of guys I've met
Speaker 1: who are atheists. You included Jack who are Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was in the back of my mind as I was
Speaker 1: saying that, and it's all good. Um, so I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: is it is Sean still with us or is that
Speaker 1: did you write this book kind of on his behalf? No? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he still with us? He Uh, I think he
Speaker 1: had a thirteen year It was to over thirteen years
Speaker 1: that he wrapped up, if I'm not mistaken. Um, but
Speaker 1: he's he actually lives in the same time as I
Speaker 1: do with his family, and he's still got an awesome job.
Speaker 1: He's still basically he's doing E O D at A
Speaker 1: at a base I you know, won't go into it,
Speaker 1: but he's he's got a job blowing stuff up, still
Speaker 1: under much better circuit you know, circumstances and surrounding. So well,
Speaker 1: what did what did you think of you telling the
Speaker 1: story of of both you guys. I mean, honestly, it
Speaker 1: was it was just more therapeutic for him than anything, because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I first met him as
Speaker 1: a Marine. You know, he I showed up at Campbell
Speaker 1: June while he was deployed two I think he was
Speaker 1: in Romandi at the time, and uh, you know, things
Speaker 1: were hopping and UM when he came back, I just
Speaker 1: I just remember thinking, you know, this guy seems a
Speaker 1: little high strung, and you know, it's pretty pretty private guys.
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, even though I'm around him, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give him some space. And it wasn't as we
Speaker 1: started working on a book that I found out all
Speaker 1: the stuff he was dealing with, you know, losing losing teammates,
Speaker 1: or just the general stress that he was under. Um,
Speaker 1: I had no idea until years later. So for him,
Speaker 1: you know, he hadn't told his wife a lot of it. Um,
Speaker 1: the majority of it. He definitely hadn't told his parents
Speaker 1: or his brother or anything like that. It was it
Speaker 1: was all pretty fresh for him. So UM, in his case,
Speaker 1: it was it was helpful. UM. He was actually really
Speaker 1: like by the time we've wrapped up the process, he
Speaker 1: felt like a new person. You know. That makes me
Speaker 1: wonder like, if there's anyone whoever asks him, like, hey,
Speaker 1: what type of stuff did you do in the military,
Speaker 1: is he able to just give them what you wrote
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, read this book. It tells my story.
Speaker 1: I know what's happened in a In a few cases
Speaker 1: since the book came out, but generally speaking, I think
Speaker 1: he pretty much just says E O D. And they
Speaker 1: don't know what he's talking about, but they nod their
Speaker 1: heads okay, or they think about the heart locker or
Speaker 1: something like that. Um, you know, he's I don't think
Speaker 1: he ever really gets tuned too much. Um, he's pretty
Speaker 1: quiet about it in the first place. So like most
Speaker 1: most marines that I know, like they'll tell you their
Speaker 1: marine like you don't have to, you don't have to
Speaker 1: find out, it'll tell you. But he's something here about
Speaker 1: steals more than marine. I haven't much about marine. Marines
Speaker 1: can give him a run for their money. I mean
Speaker 1: when I meet people, you know, who I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about, and they asked me they found out I
Speaker 1: was in the military, they asked what I did in
Speaker 1: the in the military, I just told him I was
Speaker 1: in the infantry and leave it at that. It's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you are, I don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it with you. Yeah. I usually just say like,
Speaker 1: I mean, nobody cares that I was in the air
Speaker 1: co operator and technically mine always changed a few times
Speaker 1: when I was in Like I'm not even sure why
Speaker 1: it just did. It just showed up in our system.
Speaker 1: Is something else even though I did the same job.
Speaker 1: But um, basically I just have to say I was
Speaker 1: a calm guy. You know, most people know what that means.
Speaker 1: They just you know, instead of they're trying having to
Speaker 1: explain everything, they just as seem when I was like
Speaker 1: a radio operator or something like that. It's good enough
Speaker 1: for me. But you're a guy who made a pretty
Speaker 1: successful transition to from doing that to holding a master's
Speaker 1: degree in I T management. I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Um, I mean it's it definitely was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy, but I mean I think it was
Speaker 1: is like the situation I found myself in was was optimal. Um.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of like my job before I
Speaker 1: got out was lined up I think eight months prior
Speaker 1: to my e s um. So, I mean just a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that guys have to deal with
Speaker 1: after they get out, we're already in place before I
Speaker 1: even left. So, um, again, you know, just really fortunate
Speaker 1: that my my skills translated into the profession I'm in now. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a lot of personal regrets about um,
Speaker 1: you know, having served in an infantry regiment and known
Speaker 1: a lot of grunts, and you know, I always wanted
Speaker 1: to do that, but I never did, so I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I kind of I regret it, but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I'm thankful for the path that
Speaker 1: I took because because it's set me up for where
Speaker 1: I'm at now. So I try not to try, try
Speaker 1: not to worry about it too much. But right on
Speaker 1: man um, A lot of people really dug the interviews
Speaker 1: that we did with Marine Corps Major Fred Galvin. As
Speaker 1: I said, you wrote multiple parts series on his trial
Speaker 1: and the allegations against him. So how did you get
Speaker 1: poked up with Fred? So? I think it was Desiree
Speaker 1: who was like, Hey, there's some guy that says he,
Speaker 1: you know, remembers you from working at mar four Colm
Speaker 1: or something like that. He's got this story and he'd
Speaker 1: really like to talk to somebody. I think he'd be,
Speaker 1: you know, probably the best option to take the story.
Speaker 1: And so we we talked at first, and I remember
Speaker 1: him kind of laughing because I was under the impression
Speaker 1: like I knew the general story because Military Times had
Speaker 1: covered it um prior, and I kind of thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: well we'll do We'll do an article and you know,
Speaker 1: no big deal. And he's like, I don't think you
Speaker 1: really understand how how heavy, how much? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's very complicated. And um. One of the great
Speaker 1: things I like about being with soft WAP is that,
Speaker 1: you know, Jack and Brandon have never once said now
Speaker 1: you better not you know, go there, be careful with
Speaker 1: this or that. I mean, you know, if there's material
Speaker 1: that we can use in an article, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always gotten a green light, and some of the
Speaker 1: other like Military Times not you know, they did a
Speaker 1: great job with their series, but they didn't touch, you know,
Speaker 1: but a fraction of some of the unclassified materials that
Speaker 1: had just been released. So it's uh, you know, there's
Speaker 1: the case of the three Green Berets who are killed
Speaker 1: in Jordan's and you know, I wrote a bunch of
Speaker 1: articles about that, and uh. And then what happened was
Speaker 1: the fifteen six got released and the families came out
Speaker 1: and held a press conference, and there's a there's a
Speaker 1: real scandal out what happened there, that these three Green
Speaker 1: Berets were murdered, and I was shocked, absolutely shocked by
Speaker 1: the mainstream media headline, and this is almost verbatim. It
Speaker 1: was like green Beret murdered. Green Beret is not responsible
Speaker 1: for their own deaths. And I was like, that's what
Speaker 1: you took away from all of that? Really, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty bizarre. Like I've had just enough interaction with a
Speaker 1: few major news outlets and some of their big editors
Speaker 1: and things like that, you know, to where in talking
Speaker 1: to them, I'm just I'm blown away by how selective
Speaker 1: they are about what they care about and often oblivious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: either they're they're oblivious or they just don't care because
Speaker 1: they don't see what it can do for them, Like
Speaker 1: why should we cover this if it's not going to
Speaker 1: help us out, or you know, it's it's totally backwards
Speaker 1: from the way software operates. And I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I really did enjoy and I thought it was important
Speaker 1: our interviews with UH with Fred Gavin because I was
Speaker 1: one of those guys who I heard sort of the
Speaker 1: room and about that Marsock operation and how things went bad,
Speaker 1: and UH and Fred really like blew the lid off
Speaker 1: of that and kind of talked about what actually happened
Speaker 1: out that day, and the two stories are diametrically opposed
Speaker 1: to one another. It was fascinating to listen to what
Speaker 1: he had to say about it. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know how many hours I've spent with him on
Speaker 1: the phone and even in person, and it never gets old.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just a fascinating guy. And uh, I
Speaker 1: actually remember messaging you about the story when I first
Speaker 1: got the assignment from Desiree and asked what you thought
Speaker 1: about it, And I think you said something along the
Speaker 1: lines of like, oh, is that when those MARSK dudes
Speaker 1: like shot up some village or something like that. It's
Speaker 1: it's crazy. How you know that that was the narrative
Speaker 1: that that was the story that I floated out to everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like Socks and had released, uh, you know, had
Speaker 1: a media released that it was a less than a month.
Speaker 1: I think it was after the the incident happened, and uh,
Speaker 1: the investigation was still getting going, and uh they released
Speaker 1: a press release that said, you know this, many civilians
Speaker 1: killed and um, you know this many injured and this
Speaker 1: and that, and the bottom line is like not only
Speaker 1: was it premature, but it was just reckless because the
Speaker 1: investigation was still ongoing for one but after the investigation concluded,
Speaker 1: they never found bodies or anything. And like they tried
Speaker 1: to say that they didn't find brass case things from
Speaker 1: you know, the the enemy, Well they did, but just
Speaker 1: a week before n c. S was was to pick
Speaker 1: them up, they somehow magically got destroyed in a burn pit.
Speaker 1: And there's just so many instances, you know, where it
Speaker 1: was just shady from the start, and uh, it's amazing that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to see Fred's determination to you know, he
Speaker 1: he was after the Court of inquiry, it was clear
Speaker 1: that he wasn't going to jail and they were quote
Speaker 1: unquote proven innocent. But um, it just shows the type
Speaker 1: of character he has to fight for for the other
Speaker 1: six Marines that weren't you know, under his command. For
Speaker 1: ten years later, he's still fighting for him to get
Speaker 1: him cleared properly. You know. Yeah, it's unbelievable that they
Speaker 1: haven't like truly apologized or cleared their names. And uh,
Speaker 1: and what was it. Fred was saying just recently that
Speaker 1: one of the generals in charge of that he was
Speaker 1: under he was under this guy's command in Afghanistan when
Speaker 1: it happened, and the guy accidentally called Fred, yeah, and
Speaker 1: Fred gave him the earful Yes, I don't. Fred may
Speaker 1: kill me for talking about it. He didn't said it publicly,
Speaker 1: I think, uh maybe, but either way, I'll touch on
Speaker 1: it a little bit. But basically, someone heavily involved with
Speaker 1: with the outcome of of the the incident um accidentally
Speaker 1: called Fred and basically said, you know, Fred basically laid
Speaker 1: into him for ten fifteen minutes and it spleen um
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter. And the guy basically said,
Speaker 1: why I subscribe to a different set of facts? Said
Speaker 1: and it's just mind boggling. You know. Either the guy,
Speaker 1: I mean, he knows, regardless whether or not he's read
Speaker 1: our article series or not, he he was a part
Speaker 1: of it. He knows what the what the deal was,
Speaker 1: but he's either blatantly choosing to ignore it or he's
Speaker 1: just that twisted where he believes is on side, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the facts are the facts are the facts, and you
Speaker 1: can't change it. You know, if you say you subscribe
Speaker 1: to a different set of facts, I mean one is
Speaker 1: true and one's not. A court proved that one set
Speaker 1: was was true. You know, I just don't understand. That
Speaker 1: buggles my mind. But but it's crazy to think that
Speaker 1: some of these guys that were involved. I mean, you've
Speaker 1: got General Nicholson over in Afghanistan. He's the you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the top guy in Afghanistan, and uh, he's he's basically
Speaker 1: gotten off Scott free. I mean, in the court of
Speaker 1: inquiry it was proven countless times that he was at
Speaker 1: best negligent and at worst, I mean he was reckless.
Speaker 1: I mean he he made so many decisions with the
Speaker 1: investigation and how he handled the the incident that we're
Speaker 1: just mind boggling. And you know, he's cruised all the
Speaker 1: way up to four stars in the top spot and
Speaker 1: at the end it would be really really interesting to
Speaker 1: try to get to the bottom of you know, the
Speaker 1: big question is why, um, why this like witch hunt
Speaker 1: after Marsk and uh, Fred kind of alluded to that
Speaker 1: he thinks it was about money, um, in other words,
Speaker 1: funding and that I mean, to me, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it was a deliberate effort to try to sink Marsk
Speaker 1: on their first outing. I don't I don't know what
Speaker 1: your impression is, Nick, Yeah, I don't it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to you know, point to one thing specifically, but that's
Speaker 1: definitely part of it. I mean, if you remember back
Speaker 1: and it's covered in the article um the series, but
Speaker 1: before MARSK was stood up, they had that one, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, Debt one was they did a great
Speaker 1: job on their I believe it was their only but
Speaker 1: on their first deployment, and you know, I think it
Speaker 1: was iraq um. They nailed it. They did a great job,
Speaker 1: and the men that served in that unit, you know,
Speaker 1: should be proud of what they did. But the fact is,
Speaker 1: Debt one is not what General or Donald rumsfeld Uh,
Speaker 1: that's not what he asked for. He asked for Marstock,
Speaker 1: he asked, he asked for something that was much bigger,
Speaker 1: um and much more um fully functioning than that one.
Speaker 1: So from the get go, they, you know, the powers
Speaker 1: that be, tried to you know that they knew that
Speaker 1: they had to comply with with Mr. Rumsfeldt's you know request,
Speaker 1: but they basically tried to slow roll it and and
Speaker 1: just you know, be halfhearted about rolling out that one.
Speaker 1: And he finally said, no, that's not what I asked for.
Speaker 1: You you're gonna give me what I asked for so
Speaker 1: they started rolling out mar Stock, but it was like
Speaker 1: they were trying to Definitely from the outside there were
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, factors that were were up
Speaker 1: against them, but even internally, I mean there were just
Speaker 1: a lot of things within the Marine Corps that were
Speaker 1: lined up against them from the start. So it's I
Speaker 1: think you described it as harrowing, uh, the series that
Speaker 1: we worked on, but I mean it's just if any
Speaker 1: readers haven't checked it out yet, go they take a look,
Speaker 1: and just I mean it's it's incredible. Yeah, the whole
Speaker 1: the whole series you wrote about Fred Gavin and the
Speaker 1: Marsok experience definitely must read. And um and there's also
Speaker 1: a series about debt one on the website written by
Speaker 1: Pete Neil and if people are interested in checking that out,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty cool story. Also it's funny too with
Speaker 1: Fred though, um, you know, on one side, you could
Speaker 1: look at it and say it looks like trouble followed
Speaker 1: him around no matter where he went to the the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, you know, he he always stood
Speaker 1: up for what was right, So no matter where he went,
Speaker 1: if he saw something that was wrong, he was not
Speaker 1: afraid to call it out and stand up of the truth.
Speaker 1: And there's another really good article that I worked with
Speaker 1: him on in a Bunch of Marines from Third Recombat Tition. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's basically about a platoon from Third Recombat Tition in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven that they they brought on patrol, they
Speaker 1: got you know, they got ambushed, and whenever they requested
Speaker 1: for fires, they the commander of that battalion he basically
Speaker 1: slow rolled a lot of decision making for about an hour,
Speaker 1: putting these guys lives at risks. And and then he
Speaker 1: was getting advice from Fred, who was trained on using
Speaker 1: the proper munitions to drop the appropriate ordinance on that
Speaker 1: position to help these guys out, and he basically he
Speaker 1: literally disregarded that advice and dropped a five pound bomb
Speaker 1: like well within danger clothes. Um. And you know, the
Speaker 1: article talks about some of the fallout from that for
Speaker 1: those men and for Fred. So if any readers are
Speaker 1: interested in that, UM, I would recommend checking that one
Speaker 1: out too. Yeah. I was gonna ask, and I think
Speaker 1: he might have given us an answer on this, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember Jack. Don't you remember him saying that
Speaker 1: he's had trouble with employment now, right, because if people
Speaker 1: google and from the other yeah, this is what this
Speaker 1: is what comes up. So hopefully you know, the stuff
Speaker 1: that we put out combats that a little. But what
Speaker 1: is he actually doing now? So just to touch on
Speaker 1: a little bit more before I go into what he's doing,
Speaker 1: um right now, the it's true that a lot of
Speaker 1: those guys are are having trouble finding employment because it's
Speaker 1: you know, you just do a quick web search and
Speaker 1: their names pop up. Um. And then to add to that,
Speaker 1: there there are still media outlets ten years later that
Speaker 1: are reporting that they killed civilians even though it's you
Speaker 1: can you know clearly, if you do some research, you
Speaker 1: can see that it's not true. But that stigma is
Speaker 1: still out there and the Marine Corps never done anything
Speaker 1: to to fully clear that. So, uh, what's actually the
Speaker 1: next step is congress Congressman Walter Jones from North Carolina
Speaker 1: has actually introduced a bill that is uh, basically, what
Speaker 1: it's gonna do is asked the common down the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps to once and for all, properly exonerate these men
Speaker 1: and clear their names because it's it's long overdue, and
Speaker 1: hopefully it passes. I think they're supposed to vote on
Speaker 1: it this month, so that that that will hopefully be
Speaker 1: the end of this whole ordeal. But um, back to Fred.
Speaker 1: He he lives in Kansas City and he's got his
Speaker 1: own business. Um, he's also working on a book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: talking about how tough it is to crack into the
Speaker 1: book industry. I mean, this guy's got the story of
Speaker 1: all stories, and uh, you know, it's it's one thing
Speaker 1: after another as he's trying to to get this book
Speaker 1: deal lined up. But he's he's got the story detailed,
Speaker 1: and he's got help from from somebody that that we
Speaker 1: know through software that's helping them out to basically rewrite it.
Speaker 1: And um, when that does come out, it's you know,
Speaker 1: I hope that the book, along with this House resolution
Speaker 1: are gonna finally clear things up once and for all.
Speaker 1: I would think if Congressman Jones gives like a great
Speaker 1: passionate speech about this and also includes all the facts
Speaker 1: of what went on, people would feel wrong not to
Speaker 1: vote the way they should on this. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you would think so. But like even at the Congressman
Speaker 1: Jones had a press release for the bill. It was
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and you know, all of
Speaker 1: the facts were discussed, and they had different different folks
Speaker 1: get up and talk about the story, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was very clear for anyone that paid attention. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that these men were innocent. And in spite
Speaker 1: of all that, a reporter that was at the press conference,
Speaker 1: whenever it was time for the Q and A was
Speaker 1: asking read about, you know, how many civilians did you kill?
Speaker 1: And Fred is kind of taking it back, like do
Speaker 1: you are you serious? You know, like you're really asking
Speaker 1: me this. So Fred addressed it and explained that that
Speaker 1: wasn't the case, and then it wasn't a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: the same guy was asking him the same question. And
Speaker 1: it's just I don't know if people don't want to
Speaker 1: believe it or if it's that hard to wrap their
Speaker 1: minds around. But yeah, it's like what happens, you know,
Speaker 1: you repeat it so many times it becomes the truth
Speaker 1: in people's minds. Yeah, So we'll see what comes to that,
Speaker 1: but I'll be sure to you know, I know that
Speaker 1: there have been a lot of readers that have been
Speaker 1: faithful to supporting this this cause and writing their congressmen
Speaker 1: and congresswomen, and um, I'll be sure to keep everyone
Speaker 1: up to data that progresses. So I was also going
Speaker 1: to touch on you write a lot of really great
Speaker 1: pieces for the site that you do some thorough research for. Uh.
Speaker 1: The latest is Veteran Brain Injuries, Understanding and Treating Traumatic
Speaker 1: brain injury and chronic traumatic and cephal and cephalopathy. I
Speaker 1: look toff how to pronounce that word, because I was like,
Speaker 1: what is this? I just I just picked with CTE. So, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: get into that with us. This looks like a great
Speaker 1: article about some innovations that are happening. Sure, So the
Speaker 1: the article actually came about um after I wrote the
Speaker 1: article on the incident with Third Recon. I was talking
Speaker 1: about where the commander dropped that bomb danger close and
Speaker 1: then later admitted to the fact that, you know, if
Speaker 1: he had to sacrifice a few of his own troops
Speaker 1: with the greater good i e. The counterinsurgency philosophy, that
Speaker 1: he would do that. So that article got released in
Speaker 1: the father of one of the marines that was there
Speaker 1: that day reached out to me his son had actually
Speaker 1: just committed suicide and he you know, as a result,
Speaker 1: the topic was clearly very important to him, and so
Speaker 1: of course I wanted to help get the word out
Speaker 1: any way way I could, and UM he actually did.
Speaker 1: I mean he did tons of research uh as as
Speaker 1: far as the brain injuries, and we work together and
Speaker 1: and hopefully UM as a result of this article, he's
Speaker 1: got some some contacts that he's working with UM too
Speaker 1: to basically lobby and try to get some change made
Speaker 1: within the Marine Corps and the d o D. But
Speaker 1: his research basically showed that there are some ways that
Speaker 1: the v A and the d o D can can
Speaker 1: treat these these victims of brain injuries. And UH, some
Speaker 1: of it is you know, following protocols that already exist,
Speaker 1: whether it's a concussion protocol on a deployment you know.
Speaker 1: UM in the case of third recon in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven, I mean, these guys got blown up NonStop
Speaker 1: and they were sent right back out on patrol, even
Speaker 1: though they already had a protocol to to monitor him
Speaker 1: and you know, give them a little bit of a break,
Speaker 1: but it never happened. So you you let that go
Speaker 1: for a while and it adds up. UM. So there's
Speaker 1: some stuff you can do on the front end, and
Speaker 1: then on the back end there are some treatments with uh,
Speaker 1: you know, CBD and some of the things that are
Speaker 1: outlined in that article, um, you know there it's still
Speaker 1: in the early stages, but basically calling on people on
Speaker 1: the penning on to UH to start taking some action,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, there's there's plenty of power points,
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of you know whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call them, like basically marketing initiatives for for getting word out,
Speaker 1: but there's just not a whole lot of actions. So interesting, man,
Speaker 1: Well check that article out once again. Veteran Brain Injuries
Speaker 1: on soft reap. Nick has plenty of interesting pieces, so
Speaker 1: we're really glad to finally get them on the members
Speaker 1: only podcast third edition of this UH. People have been
Speaker 1: giving us some great response to the members only podcasts
Speaker 1: that we're doing. Anything else that that you're we're working
Speaker 1: on before we let you go, man, Well, hopefully, hopefully
Speaker 1: in the near future, I'm going to have something on
Speaker 1: the incident with the three two Sniper Your Nation incident. Um,
Speaker 1: basically it has to do with the the guy that
Speaker 1: actually released the video. There's been a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of talk about the incident obviously for years, and
Speaker 1: one thing that hasn't really been touched on is how
Speaker 1: it actually got released. In the first place, and it's
Speaker 1: there's some pretty shady stuff that went on with it,
Speaker 1: so um, trying to coordinate with the right sources to
Speaker 1: make it happen. But so it wasn't like some of that.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it wasn't like some marines on social media,
Speaker 1: just that the film didn't put it up you know
Speaker 1: now it was. I don't want to get too much
Speaker 1: aware right now, but it's basically, uh, someone profited from
Speaker 1: that video, so um. So yeah, it'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see where this road. If you go on to like
Speaker 1: YouTube or something like that, you can there's this Delta
Speaker 1: Force operation where they did a hostage rescue in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: I think it's called the Italian Job. And there's an
Speaker 1: interesting little backstory about how that video got released also
Speaker 1: little Serpentine paths that one out to. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: been out. It's been out for years. Um and yeah,
Speaker 1: but a friend told me how it actually got leaked out.
Speaker 1: But maybe one day we'll talk about that too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if we'll ever be able to get an
Speaker 1: interview through Nick or something of the guy who filmed that.
Speaker 1: That would be a pretty interesting interview. Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: uh again, not to not to get I guess I'm
Speaker 1: giving away a good bit here, Okay, but that's what
Speaker 1: we do here. I'm pretty sure that that guy is
Speaker 1: no longer with us to his own wrongdoing, gotcha. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's leave it. It's again, it's it's a crazy
Speaker 1: story and um you know, I'm not gonna go into
Speaker 1: detail until I have a few other things confirmed. But
Speaker 1: that's that's basically the gist of the story is, uh,
Speaker 1: this this guy was a character. So I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: our audience is really going to look forward to that article.
Speaker 1: I know I am. I'm looking forward to seeing Um.
Speaker 1: I guess the last thing I was gonna say, man,
Speaker 1: you should republish this book, you know. I'm I'm sure
Speaker 1: you could just get it out there on Amazon, just
Speaker 1: like Jack as or even I mean, since the it
Speaker 1: is a faith based book, I think there's like Christian
Speaker 1: publishers and we want to hear a marine marine story
Speaker 1: from a faith perspective. It's it's possible. I mean, if
Speaker 1: they reach out to me and they have a better
Speaker 1: reputation than my previous publisher, I'll consider it. But I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna go to the route that Jack mentioned.
Speaker 1: If I do that at all. So I should do something, guys.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm gonna give it a little bit
Speaker 1: of time and see how this all blows over with
Speaker 1: this current publisher. But yeah, you should. You should definitely
Speaker 1: do something though. I mean, you work too hard on
Speaker 1: this book for it for just to be out for
Speaker 1: a few months, just to gather digital dust on your
Speaker 1: hard drive. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so I appreciate that. I
Speaker 1: mean I was going to ask you if you don't
Speaker 1: mind in like, I'm kind of curious now that you're
Speaker 1: full time, uh, in your current gig. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: what's your normal day? Like, I'm I'm pretty excited for
Speaker 1: you and what you do now. Yeah. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm doing a busy Yeah. I'm doing the the two
Speaker 1: podcasts a week, one for members one or uh you know,
Speaker 1: the public, and we put it up a week in advance,
Speaker 1: uh for the members. But I'm just booking guests, getting
Speaker 1: in touch with everybody, you know. We just got in
Speaker 1: touch with Rob O'Neil's people. They'll be coming on and
Speaker 1: setting up for when people in New York to do
Speaker 1: the Facebook live and that type of thing. Uh. Speaking
Speaker 1: with the sponsors that we have for the show that
Speaker 1: we put on Apple podcasts and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's been, uh, you know, keeping busy, but by
Speaker 1: today you're busy coordinating. I am. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest and Jack knows this. It's a lot
Speaker 1: freer of a schedule from when I was doing this
Speaker 1: along with producing Senator Bill Bradley show End Call screening.
Speaker 1: Wellcal uh, this is this is a nice change of pace. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I can imagine, man, when I was writing full
Speaker 1: time for software. Um, I was, you know, putting in
Speaker 1: thirty four hours a week on that on average, and
Speaker 1: then working at least forty hours a week at my
Speaker 1: my other job. So, um, you can run your ragged Yeah.
Speaker 1: To to Jack and Brandon's credit, they've always treated me
Speaker 1: really fair and when I had to step down into
Speaker 1: more of just like a contribute as you can roll. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys have always treated me a little
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that. Yeah, it's one of the good things.
Speaker 1: The job has a lot of flexibility. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for any any former software writers that are winers, you
Speaker 1: guys can go pounds and as far as I'm concerned, well, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can. Jack and Brandon take care of us. Oh
Speaker 1: hell yeah. Um. You could follow Nick on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Kaufman and our check out his articles at Nick Coughman.
Speaker 1: You'll see him on softwarep dot com for the members
Speaker 1: out there. And we'll definitely do this again soon. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get the book out some way, we should
Speaker 1: have you back on to talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: in depth about Yeah, definitely, Yeah, that'd be awesome. And
Speaker 1: then if I if I get this whole Sniper Your
Speaker 1: Nation video thing played out, then I'll I'll be happy
Speaker 1: to come back on and talk about that whole story too.
Speaker 1: That's a big one, man, because I remember that being
Speaker 1: blowing up all over the mainstream, and then it also
Speaker 1: sparked a debate of some people being like this is terrible,
Speaker 1: but I honestly think more people saying, oh, some marines
Speaker 1: pisted on some terrorists bodies, who cares? I mean if
Speaker 1: you factor in that those Marines, like if if you
Speaker 1: think about what they've gone through up to that point
Speaker 1: with their own brothers getting dismembered by Taliban. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you compare the two, it
Speaker 1: may not make it right, but yeah, the guy, they
Speaker 1: definitely shouldn't have done that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: every time this kind of stuff comes out, it's like
Speaker 1: amazing how naive Americans are about what their soldiers are
Speaker 1: going through in combat. Like there's completely oblivious to it.
Speaker 1: Like some pictures of like some dead terrorists or or
Speaker 1: something like that happens every so often get published and
Speaker 1: come out in the media or something like that, and
Speaker 1: people are like shocked by it. It's like, what the
Speaker 1: fund do you think these guys have been doing for
Speaker 1: fifteen years? Yeah, I know, I don't hear about the
Speaker 1: other stories about you know, marines that I'm aware of,
Speaker 1: and elite units that you know, they get captured, they
Speaker 1: get their position, gets overrun because they get you know,
Speaker 1: their their uh you know, requests for evacuation denied. They
Speaker 1: get overrun, get executed and thrown off of a cliff,
Speaker 1: and uh you know, the American public doesn't even hear
Speaker 1: about that. Honestly though, Nick, the military covers some of
Speaker 1: that stuff up too, because they don't they don't want
Speaker 1: people to know. Yeah, like we we cover up our
Speaker 1: failures quite frankly, sure try Yeah that well, you think
Speaker 1: of like the Pat Tillman thing that was something like
Speaker 1: that I think also some of the stuff, Um, what
Speaker 1: was it Operation Anaconda, Um, where you had the PJ
Speaker 1: I'm thrown off the back of the Oh no, was
Speaker 1: it was a deaf group guy who got left behind
Speaker 1: on the mountain and later it turned out he was alive.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just stuff like that that the military
Speaker 1: tries hard to gloss over some of their failures. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's amazing how selected they can be about
Speaker 1: going after, you know, certain people for for lesser offenses
Speaker 1: and different things like that too. Just it hurts my
Speaker 1: head thinking about it. But hopefully once I get some
Speaker 1: more info on this three two incident, um, it'll be
Speaker 1: a little bit more manageable to talk about two. Because
Speaker 1: talking about this Fox Company series and and everything else
Speaker 1: that I've worked on with Fred, it's I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just that Fox Company series alone was over twenty
Speaker 1: thousand words, and uh, trying to come on a show
Speaker 1: like this and talk about it, it's, uh, it's hard,
Speaker 1: a little bit intimidating and hard to put into words.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I know. I remember the first episode we
Speaker 1: would ask Fred one question and it went on it
Speaker 1: wro half an hour. Yeah, and uh, well that guy's
Speaker 1: gotta remember like a steal a trap too. He remembered
Speaker 1: every detail. It's amazing. Yeah, thanks for hoping to stop
Speaker 1: with Van. Well, we'll talk to you soon. They appreciate
Speaker 1: you coming on the show. Appreciate it, guys, Thank you. Thanks. Yeah,
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