Speaker 1: Oh, bout 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 Radio on Time on Target. We are at episode
Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty three. Jack is with me. I
Speaker 1: am Dennis. Uh, your daughter is with us. She doesn't
Speaker 1: want to talk, but she is in the room. She's present.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make that known with for the last
Speaker 1: time we had her here. She destroyed part of the studio.
Speaker 1: You remember that, little girl. Yeah, you knocked over the lights.
Speaker 1: And if you go back and listen to that podcast
Speaker 1: on there, you'll hear me. Jesus Christ, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: As a stern father? Should don't mess with the lights.
Speaker 1: But she brought Oreo and Jessica with her to her Yeah,
Speaker 1: her American girl doll. And the doll has a pet
Speaker 1: cat American. Luckily, I didn't go through a doll phase
Speaker 1: when my parents were like, oh, you want to be
Speaker 1: a boy or a girl? I feel like it's up.
Speaker 1: It's a raised now kids are raised like well. I've
Speaker 1: had a friend that was like, I'm gonna decide, my
Speaker 1: kid's gonna decide when they're old enough. Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I never told her what toys she's supposed to play with.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just which is the right way. But
Speaker 1: she just ended up with my little pony and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. Like we would have been playing G I
Speaker 1: Joe together if it were up to Daddy. But you know,
Speaker 1: here we are. She does, she does go and pull
Speaker 1: out my G I. Joe's up at h up at
Speaker 1: Grandma's house and sits them down. So the American girl
Speaker 1: doll is dating a service connected uh disabled veteran. He's
Speaker 1: got a whole back story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he has
Speaker 1: an eye patch. Oh yeah, okay, he lost an eye
Speaker 1: during the war. Sorry for his loss. Uh. We're recording
Speaker 1: today is Thursday, June six, with which obviously coincides with
Speaker 1: the seventy five anniversary of D Day. Is today, Um,
Speaker 1: obviously the podcast comes down on Friday. But I'd be
Speaker 1: remist if I didn't ask or discussed, I mean, your
Speaker 1: thoughts on D Day. I the first thing that comes
Speaker 1: to mind, um, before you even came in, I thought,
Speaker 1: is in American history is D Day? The most significant
Speaker 1: military day? Like I'm trying to think of like or
Speaker 1: recognizable on maybe is the word D Day, like I
Speaker 1: think of the Battle of Gettysburg for me, is one
Speaker 1: that jumps out. I don't necessarily nine eleven isn't a
Speaker 1: military thing. It was an attack on us, there was,
Speaker 1: I mean from there it was Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: would have been my third Like yeah, um, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're way more historical than I am in this realm. So,
Speaker 1: I mean so much has been written about D Day
Speaker 1: and about World War Two. I'm not sure how much
Speaker 1: I would have to add to it, but I mean
Speaker 1: it's certainly a historical event. It's one that changed the
Speaker 1: tide of the war. It uh was history altering. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, I'm this was where we
Speaker 1: established our beachhead to begin rolling back the Third Reich.
Speaker 1: Had that not happened, I shudder to think what the
Speaker 1: world would look like today. Um. So it was a
Speaker 1: significant moment in world history, without a question. Um. And
Speaker 1: being the seventy fifth anniversary, we we had talked a
Speaker 1: little bit. You reposted a piece on Sergeant Major Jack
Speaker 1: Hutton and we were just Jock, excuse me, not Jack, Jack,
Speaker 1: You're Jack, He's Jock. Um, And just the I was
Speaker 1: like joking with you, and I didn't want to belittle
Speaker 1: any military members since then, but it's almost you know,
Speaker 1: they don't make them like they used to. And this
Speaker 1: man was quite the the hero is is the best word.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted you to speak on about him
Speaker 1: a little bit and just what he brought to to
Speaker 1: the war and life after that. Yeah, I don't I've
Speaker 1: never met him personally, although I would have loved to
Speaker 1: and pick his brain a little bit. But some of
Speaker 1: the other folks that I communicate with, UM knew him
Speaker 1: back in the day. Um worked with him in the
Speaker 1: military and so but as you say, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't make him like that anymore. UM. I think
Speaker 1: men were harder back then. A lot of these guys
Speaker 1: grew up in the Depression on the American side of things. Um,
Speaker 1: same thing, and and and you know great Britain at
Speaker 1: the time. I mean even to this day in some regards,
Speaker 1: it's just a hard way to grow up. And I
Speaker 1: think men were tough back then. Jock was a boy soldier,
Speaker 1: tried to enlist early on, and uh, I think before
Speaker 1: he was eighteen. They initially turned him away, came back,
Speaker 1: got in, Um, he jumped into Normandy with the paratroopers
Speaker 1: and saw action a couple of times. Um went back
Speaker 1: for more fought in the Ardnse Forest. Um got captured
Speaker 1: by the Nazis at one point and escaped. He UH
Speaker 1: went on to have quite a impressive military career, serving
Speaker 1: elsewhere around the world. I mean, so he served in
Speaker 1: UH Palestine in forty five to forty eight, Cyprus, in
Speaker 1: Egypt fifty two, and then Malaysia, Singapore and Java fifty
Speaker 1: two to fifty four. And then after that, in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five Jock went to Rhodesia and he took part
Speaker 1: in the very first Rhodesian s A S selection course,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of years later, by fifty seven
Speaker 1: he became nineteen fifty seven he became the first Sergeant
Speaker 1: major of the Rhodesian Special Air Service and he stuck
Speaker 1: around throughout the Bushe War in Rhodesia. UM after the
Speaker 1: country collapsed in nineteen eighty he went and he joined
Speaker 1: up with South Africa's five Reki in Night one. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to remember which one. So there's there's a maritime
Speaker 1: Reckie team, but five I can't remember if it was
Speaker 1: five Rekie or six Reckie, but it was like all
Speaker 1: the Rhodesians ended up in one Recki troupe um in
Speaker 1: South Africa, and a lot of them ended up leaving
Speaker 1: UM fairly quickly because some of the operations they were
Speaker 1: sent on were mismanaged. Um. Also, different cultures like South
Speaker 1: Africa and Rhodesia were kind of different culturally. UM. But
Speaker 1: be that as it may, Jock Hutton, I mean it's
Speaker 1: kind of a legend. I don't even think kind of.
Speaker 1: I think he's a full fledged legend. And he just
Speaker 1: jumped into Normandy again at the age of ninety four,
Speaker 1: ripe fule, age of ninety four, nine four years young.
Speaker 1: H he did it? Uh what a couple of years
Speaker 1: back for I think the seventy at the anniversary, I
Speaker 1: think he was eighty eight. So now he's keeping it
Speaker 1: and now he's ninety four doing it again, God bless.
Speaker 1: Imagine he makes it to a hundred. You, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's already done it at eight eight at ninety four.
Speaker 1: You gotta go again at a hundred, right like he might.
Speaker 1: I mean he looks like he's in pretty good shape
Speaker 1: for a ninety four year old. He doesn't look at
Speaker 1: day over seven, which is something to be said um.
Speaker 1: But I mean just those people and we had talked affair.
Speaker 1: How you know he was he was this great hero
Speaker 1: and you said that he never wrote a book. He
Speaker 1: never did anything like that. And it's crazy because a shame, right,
Speaker 1: because he has such a great story to tell. But
Speaker 1: you almost feel like, you know, he just looked at
Speaker 1: I can without even knowing this man he would he
Speaker 1: without a doubt in my mind, he would just say
Speaker 1: I was just doing my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: bet if you if you if you pressed him on
Speaker 1: something like that, he'd probably say, like so many men
Speaker 1: died at Normandy, like, who am I to write a book?
Speaker 1: You know, I bet he he From what I've been told,
Speaker 1: he is a very old school gentleman. He he doesn't
Speaker 1: curse and it doesn't use it doesn't use cuss words,
Speaker 1: you know, very um by the book kind of guy. Um. So,
Speaker 1: probably the the notion that he would write like a
Speaker 1: memoir or something like like I did and like many
Speaker 1: of us do now, is probably a kind of alien
Speaker 1: to him. And also again it's a different generation, a
Speaker 1: different culture like back in those days, you know, for
Speaker 1: a fighting age man to say, yeah, I served in
Speaker 1: the military, I was in World War two people, Okay,
Speaker 1: we all did, yes, So what you know, I saw
Speaker 1: you there, you know, so yeah, different generation, different time,
Speaker 1: different culture, man, Um, But it's I mean, if Jock
Speaker 1: were to write down some of his experiences, UM, I'd
Speaker 1: be the first one to want to read them. I mean,
Speaker 1: how could you not that just the stories like we
Speaker 1: we had opened with that D Days probably one of
Speaker 1: the more, if not the most historic event, I said,
Speaker 1: in America. But you you took it globally and you know,
Speaker 1: we've had movies, we've had books based on it, and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't do it justice from somebody who literally
Speaker 1: lived it. They were there, and whether it's survivors or
Speaker 1: morse or whatnot, a lot of the people feel almost
Speaker 1: guilty to like, like you just said, how you know
Speaker 1: we lost it? Was? What was it? They said upwards
Speaker 1: of ten thousand, with like four thousands firm definitely did
Speaker 1: on D Day. It was like, you know, why am
Speaker 1: I going to tell my side of the story, Like
Speaker 1: there's so many people that that gave everything. I was
Speaker 1: just writing yesterday a little bit about it, um, revisiting
Speaker 1: the rangers who scaled the cliffs that point to Hawk
Speaker 1: and went back into the books and you know, doing
Speaker 1: some research and stuff like that. And um, they the
Speaker 1: rangers came up on D Day, UM to the cliffs.
Speaker 1: Their objective was to hit these guns, these like big
Speaker 1: cannons that were up on the cliffs. UM. The landing
Speaker 1: craft were firing these like cannons with like rappling hooks
Speaker 1: basically up onto the cliffs the ropes were they the
Speaker 1: sea was very shoppy coming in, so they were like
Speaker 1: thirty minutes late, thirty eight minutes late from eight hours.
Speaker 1: So there's D Day in h hour. Each hour is
Speaker 1: the day of the eight hours the hour of the
Speaker 1: invasion on D Day, so they're a little bit late
Speaker 1: coming in. UM. The because of the choppy seas, the
Speaker 1: ropes were heavier than they should have been. There soaked
Speaker 1: wet with salt water, so a lot of the ropes
Speaker 1: weren't going up. They finally did get a couple up.
Speaker 1: And then also because of pre assault fires like naval bombardments, UM,
Speaker 1: some of the cliffs had collapsed and create like created
Speaker 1: big like mounds of rock. So they were able to
Speaker 1: get up on top of like one of these forty
Speaker 1: ft tall mounds and put a ladder on there and
Speaker 1: get the ladder up to the cliffs. So then they
Speaker 1: were able to scoot a bunch of people, but they
Speaker 1: were coming under some fire from Germans on the cliffs.
Speaker 1: They took fifteen casualties. UM down at it wasn't even
Speaker 1: a beach at the bottom. It was just like rock,
Speaker 1: like shale rock. He was a beach quote unquote right right.
Speaker 1: And they the commander got under like a little overhang,
Speaker 1: like a little kind of cave kind of thing and
Speaker 1: set up his his tactical operations center there, like his
Speaker 1: little ops in area UM, getting the radio up UM.
Speaker 1: So the rangers got up to the top of the cliffs, UM,
Speaker 1: scaled the cliffs, got up there UM and started moving
Speaker 1: out to their individual objectives. There's a Nazi observation post
Speaker 1: that they came under a pretty good fire from They
Speaker 1: hit with a bazooka and took that out. And when
Speaker 1: they got to the guns, they found telephone poles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a Nazi deception operation. And the guns had actually
Speaker 1: been moved back. I believe they had been moved back
Speaker 1: because of those preassault fires. I think they took them
Speaker 1: off the front line so that they didn't get blown up.
Speaker 1: And one of the guns was actually sent back to
Speaker 1: the factory because it had been damaged already. I think
Speaker 1: that's why they did that. Um. So there are a
Speaker 1: couple of rangers who noticed um like tracks like like
Speaker 1: wheel tracks in the in the muddy road, and we're like,
Speaker 1: huh like, and they're looking for these guns still, like,
Speaker 1: where the hell are that they're here somewhere. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they went down they went down the road, two rangers,
Speaker 1: and they discovered that there were there were like five
Speaker 1: of the six guns were there unfired. Wow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good find. Yeah, definitely. So UM, from there,
Speaker 1: the rangers, you know, they held in play and they
Speaker 1: were waiting for reinforcements and then they moved out and
Speaker 1: they were continued fighting the Nazis elsewhere from there. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of the story of UM of Point to
Speaker 1: Hawk and UM the rangers for the seventy five anniversary. Um,
Speaker 1: they went and they scaled the cliffs again. So they
Speaker 1: put out these cargo nets and so you can go,
Speaker 1: you can go and find pictures on them. The article
Speaker 1: I posted on the website or or elsewhere. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are pictures all over the place now of these rangers,
Speaker 1: some of them are some of these guys are wearing
Speaker 1: UM period uniforms and gear, and then others are wearing
Speaker 1: you know, the modern Ranger uniforms and their scaling the cliffs.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty cool to see. It really is awesome
Speaker 1: because I mean, obviously being the seventy five anniversary, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're eighteen at the time that we should be
Speaker 1: the youngest you would be allowed what's quick math there,
Speaker 1: you'd be Back in those days, there were guys who
Speaker 1: lied about their age, like sixteen fifteen. Yeah, you want
Speaker 1: to be a part of it. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be the one that's sitting on the sidelines. But so
Speaker 1: you're you're either in your very late eighties or your
Speaker 1: early nineties if you if you had skirted this system.
Speaker 1: But the fact that these guys are are doing that
Speaker 1: still like our man jockey like it just yeah, you're ready.
Speaker 1: They were just they were bread differently, we're much softer
Speaker 1: as hey as a as a nation. You know, those
Speaker 1: guys they also didn't come home from the war, and
Speaker 1: I mean some of them were suffering from PTSD quite badly.
Speaker 1: But I just feel like there's such a difference between
Speaker 1: my generation and there's like my generation is definitely the
Speaker 1: like tooting their own horn type of guys. These guys,
Speaker 1: I remember the World War Two veterans when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, Unlike the Memorial Day Parade or the veteran
Speaker 1: was the Veterans Day Parade, and they would come down.
Speaker 1: They were wearing their little caps and their sports jackets
Speaker 1: and stuff, and it's like it's just hard to imagine
Speaker 1: those guys like yelling at somebody and Applebee's because of
Speaker 1: their veterans discount, you know, or like telling telling people
Speaker 1: that they need to be thanked for their service. Like
Speaker 1: I just don't see it, you know, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: I think that translates to to us as a society. Now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an entitlement thing. It's going from like you know,
Speaker 1: blue collar workers where you know you're in the coal
Speaker 1: mines and you know there are blue collar guys who
Speaker 1: like the fight like that, and now it's everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: with social media today, it's a you know, look at me,
Speaker 1: like where the Spartan Warriors. I'm trying to I'm trying
Speaker 1: to go viral, like look at what I can do,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and it's I saw a and and
Speaker 1: you're never sure if you want to go here, but
Speaker 1: I am. I'm gonna. I want to say something positive.
Speaker 1: You know, something that started off negative I think and
Speaker 1: and kind of became something positive. Was Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of people are probably familiar with social media personality. UM.
Speaker 1: He's also an Army veteran, former drill sergeant named John Burke.
Speaker 1: And UM, I think he's a good person. I think
Speaker 1: he's a good guy. Um. But he also got really
Speaker 1: into the like doing social media. Rants was kind of
Speaker 1: like one of those guys who would be in the
Speaker 1: front seat of his car driving down the road, just
Speaker 1: like looking at the camera, ranting and screaming about politics
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I was just watching that. It's like, John,
Speaker 1: come on, man, Like you gotta like try the decaf.
Speaker 1: You gotta chill out. You gotta take care of yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit here. Man. You can't be getting wound
Speaker 1: up all the time. And UM, I got curious because
Speaker 1: I was thinking somebody mentioned this phenomenon to me, and
Speaker 1: I went and I looked up John Burke again and
Speaker 1: I saw this video he posted on his Facebook and
Speaker 1: he had this like come to Jesus moment where he
Speaker 1: realized like all that Vet Bros. Stuff is just negative
Speaker 1: and counterproductive, and it's not you're not helping yourself, you're
Speaker 1: not helping other people. You're just kind of like participating
Speaker 1: in the social media outrage and um. And he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: for a while, you know, I was chasing the likes
Speaker 1: and the clicks and all this kind of stuff, but
Speaker 1: I was just making myself sicker. And I realized that
Speaker 1: a lot of the people that that bros. Are into
Speaker 1: this stuff, they don't really care about you, Like they
Speaker 1: don't care if you're a veteran you're holding a gun
Speaker 1: to your head, like, they really do not care about
Speaker 1: you at all. It's just participating in this sort of
Speaker 1: like emotional exaltation on the internet. And so it's very
Speaker 1: interesting to see John kind of come to that moment
Speaker 1: of realization and now he's trying to turn his thing.
Speaker 1: It turned himself around, I guess, and to try to
Speaker 1: interact with people in a more positive way. So I
Speaker 1: really appreciated seeing that. Actually good for him with uh
Speaker 1: with social media, like especially with I mean, we would
Speaker 1: have to ask him personally, but like, how much of
Speaker 1: it do you think is like he like you said,
Speaker 1: he was chasing likes and he admits it is he
Speaker 1: You think he's playing a character like he knows, like, look,
Speaker 1: you know, in order to get the most eyeballs, like
Speaker 1: I gotta you crank your It's like working on a
Speaker 1: former wrestling podcast. It's like you take a the best
Speaker 1: Wrestlers made, like you acted like yourself and then you
Speaker 1: just turned it up to eleven yea. So you think
Speaker 1: that was like obviously he probably agreed with most of
Speaker 1: the stuff he was saying, but you think he just
Speaker 1: like magnified it to I think he got wrapped up
Speaker 1: and started believing his own character and EO. And that's
Speaker 1: a problem. Now there are other people on social media
Speaker 1: who are playing a character like um, like Robert Frank,
Speaker 1: you know that guy? What can be more like Jim Bros.
Speaker 1: Do supersets I've done in the two you know. But
Speaker 1: I love Robert Frank. But he's playing a character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he knows he's playing a character. He knows exactly what
Speaker 1: he's doing, and he's doing it for comedy, for fun. Um,
Speaker 1: So I I think that's okay, that's perfectly okay. You're
Speaker 1: doing it for fun. It's a joke. We all know.
Speaker 1: It's a joke. And you know, Robert Frank is a
Speaker 1: totally like normal guy. I think, uh normally, but you
Speaker 1: go check out him for check out Robert Frank social
Speaker 1: media for yourself. He's really funny. He's really funny because
Speaker 1: he really does play the Jim Bro perfectly and he
Speaker 1: knows it so well because he's over in Jersey. He'said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think he knows that like the Italian
Speaker 1: American community put Unico meathead, like, yeah, he knows, he
Speaker 1: knows that world very well. But I don't think he's
Speaker 1: really a meathead Jim Bro. Although he is in great shape.
Speaker 1: I'm he looks the part. I'm not not saying he is,
Speaker 1: but he looks the part. Yeah yeah, but he's I
Speaker 1: think he's a fairly normal, down to earth guy actually,
Speaker 1: And you know, and again that's okay if you if
Speaker 1: you know that, you know, you know you're playing a character,
Speaker 1: it's okay, but you don't want to believe your own bs. No,
Speaker 1: And I think what I mean, Alex Jones is the
Speaker 1: first guy that comes to mind, and it's like he's
Speaker 1: like he's nuts, right, But how much of the if
Speaker 1: he's playing a character, Like what if he's trolling us,
Speaker 1: and he and he's he is he is trolling us,
Speaker 1: which is I mean, yes, obviously his gay frog talk
Speaker 1: and whatever. I love that. I love that remix video
Speaker 1: you can find on YouTube. It's amazing. You have to
Speaker 1: go look for it. They're putting stuff in the water,
Speaker 1: the freaking frogs guy and it just goes on like
Speaker 1: that for three and a half minutes with like this
Speaker 1: electronic track. I wish we could play it. We'll probably
Speaker 1: get a copyright and for that, but I mean everybody
Speaker 1: knows I would hope everybody knows that. But he's nuts
Speaker 1: and then he like you just buying into your own
Speaker 1: cool aid and it's you know, you get some guys
Speaker 1: that can take social like Robert Frank And that's the
Speaker 1: positive side of social media now, is that you can
Speaker 1: turn a character into that if you if if you're funny, entertaining,
Speaker 1: what have you, and you can make money off there,
Speaker 1: like the ads they make. I mean, the Kardashians are Kardashians,
Speaker 1: but I think Kim Kardashian gets like a million dollars
Speaker 1: per her Instagram poe. I mean that's whatever, because good
Speaker 1: work if you can get it. Yeah, what's wrong with us,
Speaker 1: And I mean I don't necessarily have a problem with
Speaker 1: like capitalism. It's like it's when you're using those powers
Speaker 1: to like actually hurt people and be like detrimental, right,
Speaker 1: if becomes a problem and then that that But that's
Speaker 1: my thing. Like politically, I just feel like there's not
Speaker 1: room for that. Like obviously you've got to have discourse
Speaker 1: on both sides, but you can't. You can't do your
Speaker 1: Alex Jones and your John like well John Burke's and
Speaker 1: you can't. The com of Jesus moment was probably the
Speaker 1: best thing for him, oh for sure, to realize like
Speaker 1: all right, look, yeah, you know, tens and thousands of
Speaker 1: people are watching my video, but like at what cost? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I get it. I mean I understand
Speaker 1: it better than most. I mean when we're literally doing
Speaker 1: a podcast. Yeah, And also because I could see John
Speaker 1: he had gotten out of the military and he was
Speaker 1: frustrated and angry about a lot of things, with totally
Speaker 1: legitimate reasons for being angry about some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that happens in the military, and he's venting about that.
Speaker 1: And I mean I kind of did the same thing
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. You know, I was frustrated.
Speaker 1: I was angry about the war, about all kinds of things,
Speaker 1: and like there were times where I should have expressed
Speaker 1: myself in a more productive manner rather than going on
Speaker 1: on a rant. Um. So I understand why where he
Speaker 1: came from and how he got how he went down
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole, and uh, you know, John, if you're
Speaker 1: out there someday, I hope we meet up, and I
Speaker 1: hope I buy you a beer and you'll let me
Speaker 1: do that. Um. I just bring this up because I
Speaker 1: think it was interesting to see, you know, he did
Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole and he realized it and
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I need to like turn some things
Speaker 1: around here, which is great self reflection. Not I don't
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people would be able to
Speaker 1: have that same because you get social media is designed
Speaker 1: for it to be addictive, and it is, and you
Speaker 1: start getting like see like my my jock Hutting post
Speaker 1: here got fifty six likes. You start sharing, you start
Speaker 1: chasing the likes, you start getting addicted to it, and
Speaker 1: it's like, that's cool that people are are sharing this
Speaker 1: information about um, a World War two veteran. But if
Speaker 1: you're chasing the likes for something that's just like angry
Speaker 1: ranting political stuff, and it's almost clickbait. It is clickbait.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're, you're, and you're you're actually like
Speaker 1: hurting people and then it's not good. I mean, speaking
Speaker 1: of clickbait, you're that articles right there. You want to
Speaker 1: read that headline, m the world's hottest marine Shannon like
Speaker 1: that class names something with an eye strips down in
Speaker 1: new desert photo shoot. She's world hottest marine strips down
Speaker 1: in the desert for Trump. Don't forget Trump's in there. Oh,
Speaker 1: if you're going read this article to support Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: UK visit, I mean, what better reason to this is
Speaker 1: a Fox News article. It's like, wow, that's and there's
Speaker 1: like pictures of her obviously scantly clad, you know, in
Speaker 1: the bikini or in the thong and everything, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, when I think of women in the desert
Speaker 1: in the military with a pistol and the pistol belt,
Speaker 1: I mean, I appreciate beautiful women as much as anyone,
Speaker 1: but I mean I never really understood what the point
Speaker 1: was that those like photo shoots where they like hand
Speaker 1: to model a gun and they're like, like what if
Speaker 1: be it far from me. Maybe men love men love weapons,
Speaker 1: and we love hot women. I feel like that's one
Speaker 1: of those things like if you're like a you have
Speaker 1: to be like a sixty year old overweight guy in
Speaker 1: the gun industry to like really like, oh yeah, look
Speaker 1: at her this girl. Yeah, like what's the Democrat? Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like the booth babes at the shot show. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, those are eric. It's like, uh no, noo babes,
Speaker 1: and you feel bad for them because they're just trying.
Speaker 1: You know, they're in a dollar. But it's like the
Speaker 1: clientele that they attract is it's it's not for me
Speaker 1: to belittle working women, No, not in the least, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the type of guys who go in for that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, it's like, dude, you like need to scala
Speaker 1: self self reflection. Self reflection. Self reflection is a good thing, guys. Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to go from there. That
Speaker 1: would you know? We went from D Day to babes
Speaker 1: in bikinis, bikini babes. Um, so what else is going on? Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a stuff going on with you here we go. Um. Melgarer,
Speaker 1: green Beret who was killed by the two dev group
Speaker 1: and Molly and there's some new information coming. I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna get into it with with my daughter here
Speaker 1: right now, but you guys can go and use your
Speaker 1: your search engine skills and read the latest on what's
Speaker 1: happening with that case. It gets kind of it gets
Speaker 1: worse and worse. Um, well we'll we'll discuss that another time,
Speaker 1: but you can go and read the news on your own. Um.
Speaker 1: What else was there going on a little bit a
Speaker 1: little bit lighter news? Um? I saw that one of
Speaker 1: my favorite sci fi shows is being um after like
Speaker 1: a hiatus of like ten years, fifteen years. That's not
Speaker 1: a hiatus, that's they're they're bringing it back for a
Speaker 1: third season. So um, the mid two thousands were a
Speaker 1: really good time to be a Ghost in the Shell
Speaker 1: fan because they did to UM two television series too too,
Speaker 1: as Seasons of Ghost in the Shell standalone Complex, and
Speaker 1: then they did like a movie after that called Solid
Speaker 1: State Society, and they were terrific. UM It's ah it's
Speaker 1: based on a Japanese comic book which was also made
Speaker 1: into a movie nine five or so, which is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite films actually. But then they made the
Speaker 1: television series which is also really good, and it's a
Speaker 1: blending of you know, UM, near future politics, espionage, and
Speaker 1: covert operations. And it was a really cool, really well
Speaker 1: done show. And um they are bringing it back. Netflix
Speaker 1: picked it up to do a third season and they're
Speaker 1: bringing back like the the original director and thing. So
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to it. And I've been actually
Speaker 1: going back and I rewatched um the first season of
Speaker 1: the show, and I started the second season that I
Speaker 1: haven't watched myself in like ten years. Just really cool
Speaker 1: to For the most part, there's some c g I
Speaker 1: stuff in it that is clearly like mid two thousands,
Speaker 1: but the sci fi aspects of it, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it was ahead of its time. With all the
Speaker 1: stuff we've seen happen over recently with memes and disinformation
Speaker 1: and UM influence campaigns and things like that, surveillance, I
Speaker 1: think the show, oh is well ahead of its time,
Speaker 1: and it still stands up pretty well as far as
Speaker 1: the themes and and the dynamics of what's happening in
Speaker 1: the plots of the show. Well, congratulations the Ghost in
Speaker 1: the Shelf for coming off hiatus after all these years. Yeah, yeah, so,
Speaker 1: And good on Netflix for for making that possible. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to see that when it happens. I know not
Speaker 1: everyone's probably like huge sci fi cyberpunk fan that I am,
Speaker 1: but well, it is happening there. They have to listen
Speaker 1: to it. If you're listening to the podcast you had,
Speaker 1: you had to hear that. So if you tuned out,
Speaker 1: don't before we have Jeff Kirkman, who I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to hearing. I would like to tell you guys a
Speaker 1: little bit about air Drop. The show is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Airdrop. Air Drop is a new selection on
Speaker 1: Creep Club where you can find essential gear and killer
Speaker 1: apparel that you can buy separately from our monthly and
Speaker 1: quarterly club subscriptions. There's some great stuff on there that's
Speaker 1: heavily discounted, but a lot of these items are gonna
Speaker 1: sell it quick, so you should really act on it now.
Speaker 1: For example, we've got a few more cry Precision Ballistic
Speaker 1: soft armor inserts and Create Club fishing spears, but other
Speaker 1: items like the Gerber multitool that's gone so I can't
Speaker 1: get that back. It's up now on its own section
Speaker 1: on Create club dot us, or you can go to
Speaker 1: store dot create Club dot us to check it all
Speaker 1: out that store dot crate club dot us tons of
Speaker 1: gear you're going to love on air drop and with
Speaker 1: that we're gonna bring on Jeff Kirkham, So enjoy. Hey, Jeff,
Speaker 1: how's it going, man? Good? Jeff? Are you? I'm good?
Speaker 1: I just finished your book is a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: How do you like it? It's good? Man. You know,
Speaker 1: you're great at telling the good, the bad, and ugly,
Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, being the commando is in all
Speaker 1: Hollywood and rambos and you know, by the way, there's
Speaker 1: sections of the military that are completely fucked up. Give yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, man, I think that's like, at least I
Speaker 1: felt that's kind of the part of the responsive relity
Speaker 1: you have when you write a book like that, because
Speaker 1: you know, when I was thinking about joining the military,
Speaker 1: I went and read all those Vietnam memoirs from guys
Speaker 1: who are like leerps and stuff like that. So I figure,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of people are probably gonna read
Speaker 1: my book are a lot of like eighteen year olds
Speaker 1: who are trying to learn more about the military and
Speaker 1: more about special operations. So I'd be kind of remiss
Speaker 1: if I just kind of you know, pumped myself up
Speaker 1: and made it seem like it was all great. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. It's like you try. I resounded a lot
Speaker 1: with what you said in your book list, Like if
Speaker 1: you're going to try and tell the truth your friends,
Speaker 1: some of your friends are gonna blink. You're going to
Speaker 1: be like, oh yeah, I don't know that guy. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I mean that's part of the quote unquote the community
Speaker 1: um is that you know what I think every soft
Speaker 1: guy fears the most, even more than than mission failure,
Speaker 1: is being ostracized by their peer group. So the lengths
Speaker 1: people will go to, I mean, and unfortunately it turns
Speaker 1: into group think at a certain point, and you know,
Speaker 1: guys just one't thing for themselves. Yeah. Absolutely, when you start,
Speaker 1: when you start calling a spade a spade, people don't
Speaker 1: dig that. I mean, it's it's very strange. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure that you know, like reading the stuff in your
Speaker 1: book and stuff. I was at the end when you
Speaker 1: were talking about how you got you were getting beat
Speaker 1: up by some folks. I was like, well, I can,
Speaker 1: I can I can identify with that because I'm sure
Speaker 1: he did. It was like, yeah, this program was cool,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of ways it was fucked up too,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well yeah, yeah, it was yeah, like
Speaker 1: false reports going up. Yeah, isn't an amazing Like everybody's
Speaker 1: like yet seeing in my tour we did great. These
Speaker 1: guys are doing awesome. And then the next crew rotates
Speaker 1: in and they're like, man, these guys are hogans, go
Speaker 1: shi go over and over and over. That's uh, you
Speaker 1: know why I was. I was surprised that people were
Speaker 1: surprised when all that stuff about Niger came out and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well the um the conop had false
Speaker 1: information on it, they were saying, And it's like, buddy,
Speaker 1: every conop has false information on it, Like, who are
Speaker 1: you kidding here? Yeah, every tonop has false inpo because
Speaker 1: guys want to get out and do stuff. But if
Speaker 1: they you know, but it's but you know, you've got
Speaker 1: the you've got the risk averse. I mean, you nailed it.
Speaker 1: You know. It's zero zero defect risk averse entity that's
Speaker 1: scared shitless of getting in trouble or losing their job,
Speaker 1: and so you have and then that way that gives
Speaker 1: them the out that they Needer was like, well, these
Speaker 1: guys didn't these guys didn't tell me they were doing that,
Speaker 1: because if they did, then I wouldn't have let them
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, well that's yeah, lit that happened with
Speaker 1: a lot of the Bow Bird golf stuff that they
Speaker 1: were putting in conops saying they were going after bow
Speaker 1: and really had nothing to do with that. That saw
Speaker 1: in your books that you know, Dale comp stuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know Dale. Yeah, so Dale and I worked together
Speaker 1: for a few years, and he's one of the guys.
Speaker 1: You know, Dale's a little bit bigger than life, and
Speaker 1: he's definitely one of the guys that would get beat
Speaker 1: up from the community. And I was and I was like,
Speaker 1: why do you care what Dale was doing? Well, blah blah,
Speaker 1: And it's like, who cares? He's trying to feed his family.
Speaker 1: Is he doing anything in moral and ethical even alone? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he should be better. And it's like, okay, but
Speaker 1: who are you to judge? There are sometimes I just
Speaker 1: speaking candidly, I I wish Dale would do things a
Speaker 1: little differently for his own sake, just to help himself out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if a guy's making like a tactical DVD
Speaker 1: set or something, I mean, who am I to judge?
Speaker 1: I don't care? You know, have fun with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, and everybody does so like Joe ted I.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're running down rabble like go ted I is,
Speaker 1: do you know Joe? I don't know Joe now, so
Speaker 1: he he Um. That's an interesting story we should talk
Speaker 1: about sometime because Joe is a character and I've known
Speaker 1: Joe for a long time and the community came out
Speaker 1: whole hog after him, and it was all based off
Speaker 1: of lies. It was all it was all lies based
Speaker 1: off this guy Mike Cox. He does a bunch of
Speaker 1: survival stuff, like rapidly went after him and and it
Speaker 1: was like and people asked me, They're like, do you
Speaker 1: know Joe? And I'm like, yeah, I know Joe. And
Speaker 1: they're like he lied about you know, being Halo and
Speaker 1: school and all that stuff. And I was like, look,
Speaker 1: I never saw the dude certificate, but I've stepped off
Speaker 1: the ramp between nine thousand feet in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. I never saw a school certificate, but you know,
Speaker 1: And I was like and and I never saw a
Speaker 1: certificate for diving, but I've been on divycalls with that guy,
Speaker 1: and it's like and I and I saw him in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and I saw him in the rock. It was like, so,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what you guys are screaming about. Now.
Speaker 1: Is Joel a character? Oh? Man, Yeah he is. He
Speaker 1: is a character. But I mean he did do the
Speaker 1: things that you know that you know those things, but
Speaker 1: the community just came after him. I mean, just for
Speaker 1: my part on it, I'll tell you that I had
Speaker 1: people coming to me wanting me to like weigh in
Speaker 1: and um and that dude Michael Hawk came to me
Speaker 1: and wanted me to do want me to do like
Speaker 1: expose as on him. It's like, dude, I don't care
Speaker 1: about this, Like why are you wasting my time? And
Speaker 1: now Michael Hawk goes around posting stuff about how I'm
Speaker 1: an asshole and I'm a piece of ship, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: are you like serious, man? Like I don't even know.
Speaker 1: And just because I said this on this podcast, He's
Speaker 1: probably gonna like take out like build up a whole
Speaker 1: new website like Jack Murphy is a fraud dot com
Speaker 1: and you know, post up like my d D two
Speaker 1: fourteen when I go over it with a little magnifying
Speaker 1: glass like oh, I'm not sure this date is right. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's like, dude, like you need to get a life man, like,
Speaker 1: get a girlfriend, you know, settled down, have few beers,
Speaker 1: find a hobby. You know. The thing is is it's
Speaker 1: not only worthless, it's detrimental. It doesn't do it's not
Speaker 1: it's not just worthless time that's spent like you know,
Speaker 1: watching soap opera. It's it's like it's detrimental to the
Speaker 1: entire kid. It's not helping anybody out. Yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you're an employer, like do you want to employ guys
Speaker 1: like this that are like a bunch of like catty
Speaker 1: little school girls exactly? And I'll tell you, like, you know,
Speaker 1: because like a ready man and rats and you know,
Speaker 1: and all these entities that I'm that I'm working with.
Speaker 1: We get people that come through and ask us for
Speaker 1: helping stuff. And we help a ton of different folks.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got a whole incubator here on the
Speaker 1: side of the building. It's all veteran known businesses that
Speaker 1: that's a ready man is set up here at the
Speaker 1: Black Rifle Coffee building and and we've had people that
Speaker 1: have that have come in and as we check them out,
Speaker 1: it's like, man, there's such drama queens on on social
Speaker 1: media it's like, you know what, man, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't think this is a good fit. We only want
Speaker 1: if you have time to be so negative, then then
Speaker 1: that tells me that you're not going to be successful
Speaker 1: in your business. And you and it's like and we
Speaker 1: don't have time for that. We're all about being positive
Speaker 1: and building each other up. That's cool, man, I didn't
Speaker 1: know you did that. Yeah, we've got like savage gentleman
Speaker 1: is over here, and we've got another coffee company, student
Speaker 1: of the gun polemercal of former marine is here. We've
Speaker 1: got a bike Loube company is a former infantry officer, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And then I get I mean, jeez, I
Speaker 1: get a couple of that's come through the door. You know,
Speaker 1: probably want a week that come through and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know advice or what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: Or can help or a way up amount And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll do whatever, you know, We'll do whatever we can
Speaker 1: as much as we can to help. I'm a firm
Speaker 1: believer in like the tide races all ships, and so
Speaker 1: it kind out on my definits times, but it's it's
Speaker 1: like my it's like I'm to the point of like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, god, damn it, I'm gonna at track this
Speaker 1: community into a positive light, because man, we could be
Speaker 1: such an incredible force to be reckoned with if we
Speaker 1: if we just figured out a way to build each
Speaker 1: other up instead of, you know, instead of doing the
Speaker 1: troll fests. It's tough, man. I'll just tell you myself.
Speaker 1: I mean I've built up some scar tissue because it's
Speaker 1: like you try to help help a guy out and
Speaker 1: then they turn right around and stab you in the back.
Speaker 1: Like that hurts. That hurts, man, I'll be honest. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but you just I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: And me like, you know, we're because that that that
Speaker 1: has happened to me. You know, like when the big
Speaker 1: bashing was going on against me, and it was just
Speaker 1: like geez, my whole community has turned against me just
Speaker 1: saying like file things about me which were completely untrue,
Speaker 1: completely completely untrue, and and you know, and it's like
Speaker 1: all right, well, I'm I don't know what, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's I don't know what it is there. It's
Speaker 1: like you know what, Okay, I'm going to double down
Speaker 1: and see where I can't you make things better for folks,
Speaker 1: because just just swimming in negativity are going to do
Speaker 1: me or anybody else any good. So yeah, you definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least I find myself, like I very
Speaker 1: intentionally and deliberately remind myself of the fact that, like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I've come in contact with some of these bad guys,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, think about how many awesome
Speaker 1: military veterans I've met in the course of doing this job.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think the positive outweighs the negative,
Speaker 1: and it's just important to like keep all of that
Speaker 1: in mind, keep it in perspective, you know, rather than
Speaker 1: getting you know, like you said, dragged down into the negativity. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. It's like a couple of the
Speaker 1: sites that were bashing me, a few of the sites,
Speaker 1: like I reached out to the guys who were the
Speaker 1: admns and stuff and and just open up dialogue and
Speaker 1: conversation with him, And you know, when at first there's
Speaker 1: that trepidation on their side, there's like, oh, is this
Speaker 1: guy going to come after me? And it's like, hey man,
Speaker 1: I get it. It's like, please tell everybody, I forgive him.
Speaker 1: It's I get it. There's a dogpile, and you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, it seems like it's the fun thing
Speaker 1: to do because the rest of the cool kids are
Speaker 1: doing it, and it's like that's fine. It's but all
Speaker 1: of those adments now, like we chat back and forth
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, man, I'm doing this. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? It's like, yeah, absolutely, this is
Speaker 1: what we've done in the past to help. So like, actually,
Speaker 1: we're now conversing back and forth with with a bunch
Speaker 1: of these guys. We are conversing back and forth with
Speaker 1: several of these guys saying, hey, what are you doing for? Oh,
Speaker 1: you've got you know, you're coming out with a soap
Speaker 1: company or something. Well, let me know if we can help,
Speaker 1: we'd be more than happy, you know. And these are
Speaker 1: guys like four months ago, three months ago, we're like,
Speaker 1: karkam is a horrible u thing. That's like now, man,
Speaker 1: now that's cool. Now that's cool. I've had that experience
Speaker 1: to reconciling with people, um, you know, down the line
Speaker 1: after the fact, and I mean it's always again, you
Speaker 1: gotta keep in mind the positive experiences. But before we
Speaker 1: get too far down in the weeds, I want to
Speaker 1: kick off this is supposed to be the A K
Speaker 1: forty seven episode, and I, yeah, I know, we got
Speaker 1: we got off going down the rabbit holes with uh
Speaker 1: with Joe ted I and Michael Hawk and all this
Speaker 1: other stuff. But um I did. I went back and
Speaker 1: I reread your article about the M six team and
Speaker 1: this is such a complicated or such an all consuming
Speaker 1: subject that Kalashnikov. Um do you want to start with
Speaker 1: your experiences with the A K or do you want
Speaker 1: to start with the history of the rifle itself and
Speaker 1: how it came about? Well, yeah, it'll probably be a
Speaker 1: schizophrenic mix of both. But you know the main purpose
Speaker 1: of writing that article. And geez that the article exploded.
Speaker 1: You know, people are using that to dash me. It's like,
Speaker 1: not only the bad person, but he doesn't like the
Speaker 1: sacred cow of the M sixteen and so he must
Speaker 1: be a really bad anti American communist. That person own
Speaker 1: stock in uh in like read Night or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I know, I know, I know. And it's like, guys,
Speaker 1: I said, is the is the rifle good for preppers?
Speaker 1: And it was. It was actually like a lot of
Speaker 1: my articles that I write for my own pert art blog,
Speaker 1: the ring that blog is just to get people to think.
Speaker 1: It's like, think, think critically about what you're doing, Open
Speaker 1: up your eyes, open up your perspective, step outside your
Speaker 1: paradigm and think a little bit. Don't just take stuff
Speaker 1: at blind faith because social media said X, Y and Z,
Speaker 1: but but get in there and really think about it.
Speaker 1: And and then and that's where it's like for me,
Speaker 1: you know, is I would argue, I'm familiar with the
Speaker 1: with the M sixteen platform, very familiar with it, and
Speaker 1: as I was a former eight team Bravo and stuff,
Speaker 1: and and it has shortcomings. And so my whole contention was,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's funny is in the eight in
Speaker 1: the A R article, like, I didn't say anything really
Speaker 1: about the clash crop, there's one line in there about
Speaker 1: the clash of cop and I intentionally left the A
Speaker 1: K out of there because people know that I'm the
Speaker 1: A K guy, and so I didn't want it to
Speaker 1: be a pro a K article. I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be a question that question what you've been told here
Speaker 1: vertical so that it makes sense what was it? I mean,
Speaker 1: when when did you encounter the Colashna clov overseas and
Speaker 1: decide that this was the rifle you want to start carrying. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. In two thousand and two, so
Speaker 1: we were we were spinning up and it looked like
Speaker 1: you know, you know, September leven, that just happened. This
Speaker 1: is early two thousand and two. Um I was in
Speaker 1: nineteenth Group, and um I was actually I was a
Speaker 1: special agent with d e A Open Seattle at the time.
Speaker 1: And then nineteenth Group we were getting mobilized because at
Speaker 1: that time it looks like we were going to go
Speaker 1: into um look like we're going to go into the Philippines,
Speaker 1: and we were starting to do the the PDSs that
Speaker 1: you know, the site surveys for the Philippines and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And so with that, you know, because the rest of
Speaker 1: nineteenth Group was going to Afghanistan and was already in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and because we were up we're a company up in
Speaker 1: Seattle and we're most of our guys were former First
Speaker 1: Group guys. It was like, well, you guys will go
Speaker 1: with first group, first groups, get Asia as the emphasis.
Speaker 1: You guys will go the first group an augment first group.
Speaker 1: So anyways, I went over to went over the Philippines
Speaker 1: for a little bit, then came back and while I
Speaker 1: was still I was still in those active orders, there
Speaker 1: was a hey you that went out and was like, hey,
Speaker 1: we need s F guys to come out and test
Speaker 1: to a laser system for the into A free that
Speaker 1: Crane had developed or Crane was testing it. So we
Speaker 1: flew out to Blackwater, UM their range and then also
Speaker 1: UM one of the Marine Corps ranges anyways, full out there.
Speaker 1: And then when we got out there they said, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you guys are testing the laser Jeff and Craig and
Speaker 1: this guy was an E seven out of range of
Speaker 1: the time. They're like, hey, there's a request that's come
Speaker 1: down to test the the a K as a system. Now,
Speaker 1: a backstory to that is nineteenth Group guys here in
Speaker 1: Utah that I know previously had been testing the SR
Speaker 1: forty seven, the Night's Armament SR forty seven, and they
Speaker 1: had they had nothing good to say about it. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, first of all, in Night's defense, creating a
Speaker 1: new rifle, even if you're putting a new caliber in
Speaker 1: it is very difficult. And then the nine tends to
Speaker 1: burn really hot, and so they're running into heat issues.
Speaker 1: The rifle was they also got and crashed it together
Speaker 1: in like two weeks or something like that. Then that
Speaker 1: then they're they're cramming this thing together. And actually the
Speaker 1: Robinson was part of the testing two the Robinson armament,
Speaker 1: the XDR was put in that testing, and actually the
Speaker 1: XDR one, but because of political stuff and logistics and whatnot,
Speaker 1: then they pushed it over to nights. And so they
Speaker 1: were continuing the testing with the Knight's rifle. And at
Speaker 1: that time the guys came back and they're like, this
Speaker 1: rifle doesn't work. And so it's so calm. The guys
Speaker 1: that was their pet projects went to the colonel it
Speaker 1: was signing the checks, and said, hey, we need more
Speaker 1: money to continue developing this project. And the kernel said,
Speaker 1: why are we spending you know, it's like five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a rifle or something crazy, And he was like,
Speaker 1: why are we spending this money on rifles? Why don't
Speaker 1: we just use a case. And and then it was
Speaker 1: the old you know, the the what we later found
Speaker 1: out with old lifestyles or urban this ak is the
Speaker 1: ergonomics sucks, and they get too hot, and the accuracy
Speaker 1: is horrible, and the sites are difficult to use, you know,
Speaker 1: and just all the litany of stuff that people will
Speaker 1: spout about that about the a K. Well, the colonel said, okay,
Speaker 1: show me the data, show me the studies that prove
Speaker 1: what you're saying. And so they were like, well, everybody
Speaker 1: knows this. And the colonel, to his credit, was he said,
Speaker 1: I don't know this. Show me the empirical data that
Speaker 1: proves what you're telling me before I spend another dime
Speaker 1: on a new rifle when we have a rifle that
Speaker 1: will probably work just fine. Because they wanted the s
Speaker 1: R forty seven for battlefield recovery so they could put
Speaker 1: in it would shoot. It was an a R platform
Speaker 1: essentially that would shoot seven sixty nine and accept b
Speaker 1: K magazines. And so they scoured so these these guys
Speaker 1: that were running the project, it's so common they stout.
Speaker 1: They could find no data, no studies of of the
Speaker 1: a K where it had been like, no ship tested,
Speaker 1: and so they so there's colonel said, okay, well that's fine.
Speaker 1: You guys tested and then come back with the results
Speaker 1: and we'll talk further. So fast forward, you know, several
Speaker 1: months and Fierce Jeff and Craig, you know, Craig the Ranger,
Speaker 1: Jeff the s F guy. I think I was in
Speaker 1: the eight at the time, and um um, they said, hey,
Speaker 1: we're testing the AK we need to we need to
Speaker 1: figure out if this is a viable rifle. So I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I know about a
Speaker 1: k IS. I'men. They came back and so we tested
Speaker 1: the a K as a fluke. We zeroed it at
Speaker 1: the correct range, and by the end of the second
Speaker 1: day we had we had essentially proven that the accuracy
Speaker 1: something was a complete myth, and we had we had
Speaker 1: so done so well on the results. And mind you,
Speaker 1: the test was set up to fail. So and what
Speaker 1: I mean by that was the rifles that we had
Speaker 1: were chi comi is with folding stocks. They looked like
Speaker 1: they've been pulled out of a dumpster. M We were
Speaker 1: testing accuracy, they were filthy. We were testing accuracy and
Speaker 1: reliability at the same time, which you would never do.
Speaker 1: They were no rail systems for a ks at that time,
Speaker 1: so Crane had kind of jerry rigged some stuff together
Speaker 1: and so we were like literally zip tieing like lasers
Speaker 1: and a cords and stuff onto the rifle. By the
Speaker 1: end of the second day, the c W five that
Speaker 1: was overseeing the study, Every single round was accounted for,
Speaker 1: where it went, what happened with these two different rifles
Speaker 1: that me and this ranger were shooting. By the end
Speaker 1: of the second day, the c W five called back
Speaker 1: the Soucommon with the results and they said, you guys
Speaker 1: are fabricating years olds. There's no way those rifles are
Speaker 1: performing at and and and as you know, Jack, I
Speaker 1: mean that you were talking two thousand and two was
Speaker 1: when this happened. Well, c W five, there were like
Speaker 1: five c W fives in the entire military in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. So this guy, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a general lofser So this guy had some very choice words.
Speaker 1: He was a he was a Vietnam vet. He ben
Speaker 1: s F and Vietnam and I you know, and he
Speaker 1: was on the phone yelling at these day saying, I've
Speaker 1: been telling you sons of bitches that this is a
Speaker 1: good rifle for years and now you and now you're
Speaker 1: calling me a liar. And then I was like, oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: g from So the testing proceeded for three more days,
Speaker 1: and by the end of it we had proven that
Speaker 1: the rifle was very accurate. Um, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: not match great or anything. But it was, but it
Speaker 1: was very accurate um that the ergonomics were actually quite good,
Speaker 1: um and they could be overcome. The sites were actually
Speaker 1: the limitations, and the sites were actually some of the
Speaker 1: things that were the strength of the sites. The reliability,
Speaker 1: you know, that was the one true thing that everybody believed.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the AK is like phenomenally reliable.
Speaker 1: And it was like, yeah, it was true. We had
Speaker 1: two out of the three thousand rounds that we shot,
Speaker 1: we had two malfunctions, and both of them were failure defeats.
Speaker 1: Mind you, we're changing different ammos they were shooting. It's like,
Speaker 1: so everything bad that you could do for a test,
Speaker 1: the rifle performed well through of it. And so it
Speaker 1: was like round two thousand nine hundred ninety seven and
Speaker 1: round two thousand nine, both of them were failure to
Speaker 1: fully feet. So he just reached up and hit the
Speaker 1: charging handle ford and shot the round. But by the
Speaker 1: end of that test, both me and the ranger were like, well, damn,
Speaker 1: this is a dude rifle. Why aren't we using this thing?
Speaker 1: And so in the test results went in and that
Speaker 1: was what killed the SR forty seven program and ultimately
Speaker 1: the soapcom started buying a K S from I believe
Speaker 1: it was from Crane, so that they could you know,
Speaker 1: every what their goal was, I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it ever happened, but their goal was, Hey, every
Speaker 1: every team guy, every od A guy would have his
Speaker 1: end for and he would have an A K And
Speaker 1: so that that's pretty much what started my you know,
Speaker 1: my infatuation with the rifle, and I would actually support
Speaker 1: something like that, especially for O. D A. S UM.
Speaker 1: One of the problems, and this is Jack Murf. His
Speaker 1: opinion is, we have all this cool guy high tech equipment,
Speaker 1: which is amazing and awesome and has been a game
Speaker 1: changer for our troops on the battlefield. But the more
Speaker 1: of that stuff we integrate, particularly in the s F,
Speaker 1: the further you're widening the gap between the American Green
Speaker 1: Beret and the indigenous soldiers that they have to work with,
Speaker 1: who have basically nothing and certainly none of those high
Speaker 1: tech you know, I R lasers and nods and cool
Speaker 1: guy optics and stuff like that. So it's not always
Speaker 1: a good thing, um that that you have young, young
Speaker 1: SF guys who know how to use an a COG
Speaker 1: but don't necessarily know how to you know, site in
Speaker 1: an a K forty seven. Yeah, And that was and
Speaker 1: that was a major saying that I saw with with
Speaker 1: guys that were saying that a case were inaccurate, is
Speaker 1: they were zerowing at the wrong distance, because it's like
Speaker 1: we zero the M sixteen at at what range? Right battleside? Zero? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so and you know it's like we get it
Speaker 1: in our head. It's like wherever rifle was zero at
Speaker 1: that Well, it's like if I told you that you
Speaker 1: were going to zero your three hundred wind mag at twenty,
Speaker 1: you'd go, you're crazy, or you're three oh eight, you know,
Speaker 1: you're some sixty fifty, Like you're crazy. Well, the ballistics
Speaker 1: obviously you're different on its own sixty thirty nine than
Speaker 1: they are six. So if you zero the thing incorrectly,
Speaker 1: boom right off the top, you're you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: hard time hitting anything. And that was something that I
Speaker 1: saw from a lot of Americans that we're trying to
Speaker 1: do partnering forces, because they were like, man, these rifles
Speaker 1: can't hit you. And I was like, well, youse zero
Speaker 1: them in correctly, and then once you zero them, then
Speaker 1: they were good to go. Yeah, I remember when we
Speaker 1: first were field testing the M one ten, which was
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, the Army's answer to the
Speaker 1: s R. And a lot of guys coming back talking
Speaker 1: about like how great this M one ten was, And
Speaker 1: I was like, have you ever shot another semi automatic
Speaker 1: sniper rifle before? And they're like, no, have you ever
Speaker 1: shot any sniper rifle before? So, I mean they think
Speaker 1: it's great because it's the only experience they have with it. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go, right, I mean, if your entire world
Speaker 1: is wrapped up in one thing, then obviously it's the
Speaker 1: best you've ever And that's why you had all these people,
Speaker 1: all these people shipping bricks because you were saying something
Speaker 1: bad about the M sixteen. It's like it's like in
Speaker 1: the d n A of the American Soldier. You can't think,
Speaker 1: I think outside the box. It is. And I think
Speaker 1: some of it too, you know, is I mean, admittedly
Speaker 1: it's some of it's propaganda. I mean, if you tell
Speaker 1: soldiers that it's like, hey, you've got the M sixteen,
Speaker 1: it's not as good as the A K or the
Speaker 1: G three or whatever the other guys are using, you're
Speaker 1: not I mean, you're not motivating your troops, right, and
Speaker 1: so so what do we do. It's like, well, that rifle, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's reliable, but guess what, they can't hit anything and
Speaker 1: it gets really hot, so they can't be sustained fire.
Speaker 1: And here and I must suck on it so that
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And it's like a motivational
Speaker 1: propaganda thing that I think gets perpetrated that all of
Speaker 1: a sudden turns into fact which is not true. So
Speaker 1: here here would be My main counter argument to the
Speaker 1: kalashnikov would be the ammunition issue. So the average American
Speaker 1: soldier is carrying, you know, six seven magazines thirty round
Speaker 1: six seven thirty round magazines. Uh, with a Kalashnov, you're
Speaker 1: probably carrying I mean, you can carry more, but the
Speaker 1: ammunition ways more. Um. I think like the guys, like
Speaker 1: the Rhodesian guys who are carrying finn Fouls, they I
Speaker 1: think they had like four or five magazines of seven
Speaker 1: six two by fifty one. And one of the advantages
Speaker 1: of an M sixteen style weapon is the five five
Speaker 1: six ammunition is lighter, so you can carry more of it.
Speaker 1: What would you say to that argument, Well, I'd say yes,
Speaker 1: but let's look at the historical context of why we
Speaker 1: went to the five five six. So prior to the
Speaker 1: five five six and World War Two, we're shooting seven
Speaker 1: six two by sixty three, which is a thirty yacht
Speaker 1: six obviously. And then we came out of that with
Speaker 1: the in one grand we adopted that move that over
Speaker 1: and it became the seven sixty fifty one, the three
Speaker 1: oh eight, you know, and and the purist up there
Speaker 1: are going to scream because I'm in a mixing three eight,
Speaker 1: so bear with me, but um. But then we went
Speaker 1: to Vietnam, and what happened is we elected a president
Speaker 1: Kennedy who brought in mortin Era and they simply went
Speaker 1: through and did a mathematical equation, and they said X
Speaker 1: number of bullets kill x number of enemy soldiers or
Speaker 1: more than more to the point wound and removed from
Speaker 1: the battlefield x number of enemy soldiers. And so the
Speaker 1: whiz kids, who was the Kennedy administration at that time, said, well,
Speaker 1: that's easy. Let's go to the smaller bullets. We can
Speaker 1: carry more bullets so that that all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we'll be able to carry more bullets, which means we'll
Speaker 1: hit this ratio that we need to hit because it's
Speaker 1: a simple mathicqracition. Well, on paper, that makes sense, but
Speaker 1: if we look at bans Um Banzy and analysis that
Speaker 1: takes the totality of this, of everything that's going on,
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't make as much sense. And I'm saying maybe.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying absolutely, I'm saying maybe. And so what
Speaker 1: happened was is the original the original platform that Stone
Speaker 1: was putting together was a seven six two by fifty one,
Speaker 1: and then it came down from on high change the caliber,
Speaker 1: make it smaller, to make it make it lighter, so
Speaker 1: soldier steak carry more, and so that went down to
Speaker 1: the five six, which just looks like a miniature seven
Speaker 1: six thirty seven six two by fifty one. And so
Speaker 1: it was it was a mathematical equation that allowed that
Speaker 1: to do that. But what it didn't take into account
Speaker 1: was battle rifles. You know, if we're just shooting other
Speaker 1: human beings, that's one thing. But when we have to
Speaker 1: shoot through other things to get at the human beings,
Speaker 1: like bombs and trees and cars and metal and body
Speaker 1: armor and metal, then all of a sudden we start
Speaker 1: running into problems, which is why we started off with
Speaker 1: the fifty five grain five six. Then we moved to
Speaker 1: the green tip because of the penetration problems because of
Speaker 1: five five six ain't get enough ass it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a physics problem. There's not enough mass to
Speaker 1: retain the energy to smash through cover that your enemy
Speaker 1: might be hiding behind. And so it was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's the solution. We'll put a tungsten penetrator in there. Well,
Speaker 1: then we ran into some of the other problems of well,
Speaker 1: now the little bullet that's moving really fast isn't cavitating
Speaker 1: or yawing when it hits bone and tissue that's causing
Speaker 1: the damage to put people down. It's just ripping right through.
Speaker 1: So you end up with this with this issue. So, yes,
Speaker 1: the smaller round allows you to carry more bullets, but
Speaker 1: the problem you run into is, you know, you've got
Speaker 1: some physics that are coming in there, and you've got
Speaker 1: to look at the history as to why we even
Speaker 1: went to the smaller bullets to begin with, which was
Speaker 1: some college guys, I mean, they weren't college days. They're
Speaker 1: very intelligent, but but it worked out great on paper,
Speaker 1: but in reality we have to start making adjustments for
Speaker 1: it if we went to seven six two by thirty
Speaker 1: nine or seven six two by fifty one or now
Speaker 1: now there's all these other like uh you know s
Speaker 1: a terra calibers out there that they get floated around
Speaker 1: all the time, you would end up having to decrease
Speaker 1: the basic load as far as the number of bullets
Speaker 1: that soldiers are able to carry. Potentially, yeah, I mean potentially.
Speaker 1: But remember, and I'm not saying the seven sixty thirty
Speaker 1: nine is all that and a bag of down. It's
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of this is. You know, I
Speaker 1: go back to what I know what had said about
Speaker 1: a miracle was we need to think about this stuff.
Speaker 1: Let's let's not just to accept a rifle that we've
Speaker 1: been using for over fifty years. Now, let's not accept
Speaker 1: that we haven't come up with that we couldn't come
Speaker 1: up with something better. But the seven six thirty nine.
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you look at the seven
Speaker 1: six thirty nine that the main cartridges that the Soviets
Speaker 1: were using at the times, you had seven six by
Speaker 1: fifty four, which is the longest stand approaches on the battlefield.
Speaker 1: You had seven sixty thirty nine, and you had seven
Speaker 1: six so the seven shot out of the talk in
Speaker 1: the p PSH forty one and forty three, so it's
Speaker 1: a it's a crystol round, but it's very hot, and
Speaker 1: so consequently the Soviets have an additional armor level to
Speaker 1: stop the seven six by twenty five when it's shot
Speaker 1: out of the Carbean. But my whole point of that
Speaker 1: is the seven six by thirty nine. The whole night
Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union was behind two things in the
Speaker 1: late f at East. One was news and two was
Speaker 1: an assault rifle. And before they before they put together
Speaker 1: the assault rifle, they put together the round. And they
Speaker 1: did a ton of testing on that round and figured
Speaker 1: out this is the sweet spot for a lower powered
Speaker 1: cartridge because the majority of engagements were happening at three
Speaker 1: hundreds and inn in the majority of those engagements were
Speaker 1: on and N and so the thirty cow. There's seven
Speaker 1: thirty nine, which is a thirty cow, and it's roughly
Speaker 1: the equivalent of a thirty thirty that was used all
Speaker 1: over the American West. It would seem to be the
Speaker 1: sweet spot after all of their testing, but the entire
Speaker 1: mt of the Soviet Empire was behind the development of
Speaker 1: that round. So it's not half stands and a lot
Speaker 1: of people would leave you to believe that, Well, they
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of thirty caliber machines and so
Speaker 1: that's what they did because it was easy. Now now
Speaker 1: that's not true, and so you know, is that you know,
Speaker 1: you know, and obviously that's you know, sixty seventy year
Speaker 1: old around now. Could we do better, Yeah, certainly. But
Speaker 1: there's a lot of thought that was put into that bullet.
Speaker 1: The conical shape of the bullet or the casing. Really
Speaker 1: it's really important to the to the reliability of the
Speaker 1: overall platform. And so I'm sure we'll get into the
Speaker 1: reliability of the a K and being in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but but that's there's there's some there's some stuff about
Speaker 1: the bullet that makes it great. There's a combat rifle
Speaker 1: on a combat route. I was hoping to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the history that you touched on it
Speaker 1: a little bit there about Mikail Kalashnikov and why he
Speaker 1: invented and how he invented his rifle um which was
Speaker 1: largely born out of the trauma dot Russia and dured
Speaker 1: in World War Two. Yeah. Absolutely, So you figure in
Speaker 1: World War two, so put it in a perspective, right,
Speaker 1: World War two, the Soviets lost what million people? It
Speaker 1: was the equivalent of like sixty visions. I mean it
Speaker 1: was insane. Yeah, I mean it's it's numbers that I mean,
Speaker 1: like literally two and two and a half generations wiped
Speaker 1: off the map. Yeah and so and and think about
Speaker 1: and they were fighting the finest mechanized infantry the world
Speaker 1: that ever seen. They were fighting the boffin ss on
Speaker 1: the Eastern Front. They were unbelievably well trained, they were
Speaker 1: unbelievably well equipped, and they were motivated. You know, you've
Speaker 1: got you've got the three big ease that you need
Speaker 1: to have effective combat troops. And so the killer ratio
Speaker 1: between the Germans and the Russians was like one. So
Speaker 1: for every one German that was killed, you lost about
Speaker 1: sixty Russians and so and you figured when they were
Speaker 1: developing this rifle one they wanted to appease, you know,
Speaker 1: uncle Joe Stalin because he obviously didn't have much of
Speaker 1: a you know, you want to talk about zero defense.
Speaker 1: But then but then too, every single Russian was touched
Speaker 1: by World War two. Every single Russian either fought in
Speaker 1: or lost erect family members in World War Two. So
Speaker 1: you're talking a group of individuals and when the and
Speaker 1: when these guys were dying, they weren't just dying from
Speaker 1: bulletins and our tories. They were freezing to death or
Speaker 1: they were they were running out of logistics. So I
Speaker 1: put the starvation and so I looked at that and
Speaker 1: it's you know, and that's part of my class that
Speaker 1: I teach people about the A K is that's like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: this is the mindset of these men and women that
Speaker 1: came in here. So I don't think it was Collas
Speaker 1: Nacroft that necessarily um was the sole developer. I like
Speaker 1: to call it team Collashnacroft because you know, you have
Speaker 1: team success actually requires a diversity and balance of different
Speaker 1: talents and people and expertise in a group. But one
Speaker 1: person will typically get the credit. So that you know,
Speaker 1: the glaring example for Americans is, you know, did the
Speaker 1: quarterback really do all the work, but he certainly gets
Speaker 1: all the credit. Right The lead singer of the rock
Speaker 1: band is getting all the credit, but they're nothing without
Speaker 1: you know, the band that's playing behind him. But that's
Speaker 1: just you know, that's human psychology. So Klash Nacroft. You know,
Speaker 1: in the Soviets understood that for propaganda, and so Kalashnacroft,
Speaker 1: you know, he got the credit, but it was really
Speaker 1: it was a team that was behind him. But that
Speaker 1: team was highly motivated because they are all the Russians,
Speaker 1: true or not. All the Russians thought that there was
Speaker 1: a war coming with the Americans, and it was right
Speaker 1: around the corner, and so they were they're hyper fixated,
Speaker 1: and they're like, holy crap, we've got to develop a
Speaker 1: rifle that we can put into the hands of a
Speaker 1: peasant that they can keep up with an army like
Speaker 1: the Boffin ss for We've got to give them a
Speaker 1: higher rate of fire. It's got to be reliable. And
Speaker 1: if we don't have logistics for spare parts and for oil,
Speaker 1: this thing has got to keep working. There they did it.
Speaker 1: The mythology behind the Kalashnikov, of course, is that uh
Speaker 1: Mikhail Kalashnikov was n c O. I believe he was
Speaker 1: a tanker and he was injured in a military hospital
Speaker 1: and supposedly he went from soldier to soldier, laid up
Speaker 1: in the hospital beds and asked them what features would
Speaker 1: you like to see in our battle rifle, and he
Speaker 1: started incorporating that into his design um. And so that's
Speaker 1: supposedly where it came from. There's also been claims made
Speaker 1: over the years that Kalashnikov was influenced by the STG
Speaker 1: forty four um that the Nazis had built, which that's
Speaker 1: also been there's been doubtcast on that because it seems
Speaker 1: unlikely that Kalashnikov ever would have seen one of those
Speaker 1: rifles from from what I've read anyway, And and you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to the fact that the steam devera was
Speaker 1: out on the battlefield, and it was it was on
Speaker 1: the Eastern Front. Now that Kalashnikov ever run into it
Speaker 1: on the Eastern Front, who knows at this point, right,
Speaker 1: but it was undoubtedly there were steam givers that were
Speaker 1: uptured by the Soviets. But the thing that but the
Speaker 1: student here other than you know a lot of people go, well,
Speaker 1: the ak is just a version of the steam here,
Speaker 1: and it's like that. No, not because if you look
Speaker 1: at the aesthetics, yeah, okay, they kind of look similar.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the internal workings and you
Speaker 1: understand this jack the steam givier is a tilting bolt
Speaker 1: whereas the AK is a delayed rotating bolt. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so I make an argument in one of my videos
Speaker 1: where I'm like, look, the M one grand is probably
Speaker 1: more the grandfather of the AK than the steam Givier.
Speaker 1: Because the bolt faces are almost identical. Then the systems
Speaker 1: are almost identical. I mean the STG if I recall correctly,
Speaker 1: I mean internally, it looks more like a G three
Speaker 1: or an MP five, doesn't it. But no, actually closer
Speaker 1: to the fb L because it's a tilting bolts the
Speaker 1: G You've got the rollers, yes, yeah, the rollers that
Speaker 1: are in the bolt, the bolt mechanism of of an
Speaker 1: MP five or G three yep, yep. Whereas you look
Speaker 1: at the you look at the tilting bolts of the
Speaker 1: f AL, which was a great rifle, um, but the
Speaker 1: studentiver was was much closer to that. Interesting. Do you
Speaker 1: recall any of the history after that how the Kalashnikov
Speaker 1: was adopted by the Soviet Union, Because one of the
Speaker 1: things that maybe worth pointing out to people who don't
Speaker 1: know is that the name of the rifle, a K
Speaker 1: forty seven is the it stands for automatic Kalashnikov, and
Speaker 1: then seven is the year it went into production, yeah,
Speaker 1: soft production, and then it went into full production in
Speaker 1: the early fifties. Interestingly enough, we found a case in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan that were stamped in nineteen fifty three and they
Speaker 1: still worked those badass ones that are made out of
Speaker 1: like a solid metal billet that was drilled into Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the full the float billet. The mill receivers, you know,
Speaker 1: and there's two different as you know, there's the mill
Speaker 1: receiver than the stampers were and inside the ap world,
Speaker 1: you know, it's always like continuing, you know, which one
Speaker 1: is better, the stamp or the you know where the
Speaker 1: where the mills and so the mill is a little
Speaker 1: bit and I always carried a stamp when I was overseas,
Speaker 1: but because it was a little bit lighter. And actually
Speaker 1: the Stuviets had come out and said, um, there were
Speaker 1: better harmonics and the stamp receivers than in the mild receivers,
Speaker 1: and so that's why they had one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they had pushed the stamp, and it was the ease
Speaker 1: of production as well. It's super interesting. The other thing
Speaker 1: I've noted in doing some research on the Kalashnikov was
Speaker 1: how it spread all across the world and this is
Speaker 1: another little interesting snapple fact that people might not think
Speaker 1: of off hand. But the uss are obviously communist country.
Speaker 1: They don't believe in patents or copyrights or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so the design was just freely spread anywhere they could
Speaker 1: get their tentacles in. And also, of course, just as
Speaker 1: the United States did and does today, we like to
Speaker 1: um get other countries reliant reliant on our military material,
Speaker 1: on our war material, so that they have to come
Speaker 1: back to US for ammunition and such. And the USSR
Speaker 1: did the same thing, but without any kind of copyright
Speaker 1: or patent restrictions, So they just spread that gun all
Speaker 1: over the world. Yeah, I mean eight, I mean it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it's every country is manufactured the thing,
Speaker 1: but damn near every country is is manufactured. And then
Speaker 1: of course, um, I could get your opinion on this, Jeff.
Speaker 1: The a K seventy four was this that the downfall
Speaker 1: of the Kalashnikov chambered in what is it seven or
Speaker 1: five point four five? I believe, yeah, five four five
Speaker 1: by thirty nine in in actually the five four five
Speaker 1: it's a great round. I mean it's a great round. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the urban myth goes out that says that
Speaker 1: the Soviets once the hit, um, they saw that this
Speaker 1: is a this is a good round, we can use this,
Speaker 1: and that they copied us. Actually in the original testing,
Speaker 1: based off of my research, the the Soviets had played
Speaker 1: with a smaller grand round, a smaller round, but it
Speaker 1: discounted it because they wanted a thirty count because they
Speaker 1: need to smash through, you know, cover like that we
Speaker 1: had discussed before. And then and then Vietnam kind of
Speaker 1: proved that, um, hey, this this is actually could be
Speaker 1: a viable round. So the five five like shooting that thing.
Speaker 1: It's actually it's a great round. I mean, those Atkins
Speaker 1: called it the poison round because you know, a jail
Speaker 1: block test. They round will do a double yaw when
Speaker 1: it goes through, and it's not really known a lot
Speaker 1: of folks the first three millimeters of the nose of
Speaker 1: the five ft five. So first of all, you've got
Speaker 1: a round. It's a hot round. It's moving about three
Speaker 1: thousand feet per second, and it's a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: so it's right being that ragged edge of stability when
Speaker 1: it hits, so it's designed to yaw. And then then
Speaker 1: what the Soviets did and based off of what I
Speaker 1: was able to, you know, figure out, or what I
Speaker 1: was able to basically conclude was because their manufacturing processes
Speaker 1: really were not as good the first three millimeters of
Speaker 1: the nose cone, because it was a full metal jacket round,
Speaker 1: the first three millimeters was left hollow, and that that
Speaker 1: was accidental. But then they figured out that it actually
Speaker 1: improved the ballistic performance of the of the rifle when
Speaker 1: it was hitting stuff, because what would happen is that
Speaker 1: nose would hit even tissue and it would crumple, which
Speaker 1: caused the yaw for this round. So you get that
Speaker 1: double yaw which made it you know, it was a
Speaker 1: it was causing the horrific damage in folks. And so
Speaker 1: that's when the Soviets launce. Had naturally a lot of
Speaker 1: the close end CT units in the Soviet Union still
Speaker 1: or that Russia now creson epos Civic Union but sorry
Speaker 1: now teen eighties army gay but um, but you know
Speaker 1: they're close end guys like their CP units and stuff.
Speaker 1: They still carry the five four five, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a great round. It kicks about as much
Speaker 1: as a twenty two long rifle, but it's but it's
Speaker 1: really hot. Well, what was the motivation for them to
Speaker 1: deviate from the glorious, the glory of the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: the seven six, two thirty nine. Well, you know, you
Speaker 1: can probably figure that one of the main motivators was
Speaker 1: is warfare was getting more urban in um in in
Speaker 1: in its context. So you know, one, when it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more urban, it's a little bit harder to supply,
Speaker 1: could be. But then also because it's more close and fighting,
Speaker 1: because remember the Soviets at that point in the fifties,
Speaker 1: they were basically crushing everybody that was around them. You know,
Speaker 1: Hungary was the first one that they went into and
Speaker 1: that's where that that was the first picture of a
Speaker 1: case out on the battlefield was Hungarian guy standing there
Speaker 1: with a captured one. So I think they realized that
Speaker 1: a lot more of their fighting was taking place on
Speaker 1: the urban environment where the bigger, heavier round wasn't as
Speaker 1: necessary as it is in the rural environment where you
Speaker 1: start trying to go through trees and and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I'm speculating on that, but I think that's where they
Speaker 1: saw it. And I think also there was a push
Speaker 1: too because they were looking for more commando sque type units,
Speaker 1: so that these guys, you know, when they're jumping in,
Speaker 1: you know they're para trooping into an area. Then you
Speaker 1: go back to well they can carry more ammo as well,
Speaker 1: and then not only ka moammo, but the flights can
Speaker 1: carry more lammo in all of that. I have a
Speaker 1: picture here actually in C. J. Chiver's book about the
Speaker 1: Kalashnikov Um showing a picture of this dude. Just read
Speaker 1: the caption, real correct, real quick. Joseph T. Bar Feggies
Speaker 1: or feis the first known in surge It to carry
Speaker 1: an a K forty seven. Fahy's obtained his prize after
Speaker 1: Soviet soldiers dropped their rifles during their attack on revolutionaries
Speaker 1: in Budapest in ninetifty six. This photograph, taken after a
Speaker 1: ceasefire agreement, appeared in Life magazine and drew the attention
Speaker 1: of the A v H. The secret police who tracked
Speaker 1: phase down the Hungarian Revolution Mark the a K forty
Speaker 1: seven's True Battlefield debut. Interesting stuff. Yeah, that's a great
Speaker 1: book to anybody that's listening, if you want a great
Speaker 1: overview about the a K. That it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: great book. It's called The Gun by C. J. Chivers
Speaker 1: I and I admit I have had this on my
Speaker 1: shelf for a while, but I have not read this book.
Speaker 1: There are two other histories of the Kalashnikov that I read,
Speaker 1: and I went looking on my bookshelf to try to
Speaker 1: find them. I think I must have left them somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Um and I. One of them was very good. The
Speaker 1: other one was written by a British journalist, um and
Speaker 1: it carries that uh, that British bias against firearms. Basically,
Speaker 1: the guy this thesis of the book is that all
Speaker 1: of these wars in Africa, in the Middle East and
Speaker 1: so forth wouldn't happen without the Kalashnikov. Um That the
Speaker 1: Kalashnikov perpetuates these conflicts and keeps them going. And you know,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't happen without Mikhail Kalashnikov's invention. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know how you feel about that, Jeff. You know,
Speaker 1: you're kind of stepping outside my my area of expert
Speaker 1: you know, the geopolitical, and like everybody's kind of got
Speaker 1: their own opinions. And on one hand, you could go, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't have guns, but then would they just you know,
Speaker 1: would they picked up rocks and smash each you know,
Speaker 1: you can kind of go back and forth on that.
Speaker 1: But um, so maybe, but I'm familiar with that book.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it either. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like very few books I don't finish reading that was.
Speaker 1: That was one of them because I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just so biased. Just give me the information.
Speaker 1: I remember the cover of the book. It has these
Speaker 1: like big red dots on it. Um. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name or the author's name. Um. I
Speaker 1: would just weigh in on it this way. Let's take
Speaker 1: the continent of Africa. It has more ethnic groups and
Speaker 1: more spoken languages on it than any other continent on Earth.
Speaker 1: And I would argue that that has a lot more
Speaker 1: to do with why you see so much war there
Speaker 1: than the introduction of the a K forty seven rifle.
Speaker 1: My two cents, without it, without a doubt, without a doubt,
Speaker 1: my two cents. So, do you have any stories about
Speaker 1: the kalashnikov in action from your own deployments overseas? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, like for me, you know when I was
Speaker 1: when I was in the CT unit, you know, all
Speaker 1: of our guys were married up within ditch forces, and
Speaker 1: I worked both Iraq and Afghanistan, but I was heavy
Speaker 1: on the Afghan side just I'd like the you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from Utah, and so maybe it was the mountains
Speaker 1: I felt more at home in Afghanistan or something like that.
Speaker 1: I kind of identified with the Afghans a little bit
Speaker 1: more too, I think. And so, but it was also
Speaker 1: you know, I carried one of the sales in the
Speaker 1: unit for twelve years and um, and I carry an
Speaker 1: AK every one of my every one of my deployments.
Speaker 1: And and I carried it for a couple of different reasons.
Speaker 1: You know, I carried it because I believe in the rifle.
Speaker 1: Is it. I thought it was a great rifle. And
Speaker 1: I feel like I got pretty good at the mechanics
Speaker 1: of the rifle as well as you know, I'm the
Speaker 1: reloading and the speed and all of that stuff, the
Speaker 1: speed and as well as the accuracy and the fluidity
Speaker 1: more than anything of handling the rifle. Um. But then
Speaker 1: also it was a big report builder too. I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily agree with Okay, we're given, you know,
Speaker 1: we're given above us one rifle. But now here I'm
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with my five thousand dollar. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm not getting at before. What's that? That's what I
Speaker 1: was getting at before that there's this like chasm between
Speaker 1: us and them because we have all these high tech
Speaker 1: to exactly you know, and so like when like when
Speaker 1: Mike commandos were having a hard time hitting targets, they
Speaker 1: couldn't go to me and go, you know, it's my
Speaker 1: rifle because you know, because I could pick up their
Speaker 1: rifle and hit the targets out on the range and go,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with this rifle. Come on, you know
Speaker 1: what you know and and go back through the BRM
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. And so I it was
Speaker 1: one of those sources of rapport as well as pride
Speaker 1: for me where it's like i'll, you know, with with
Speaker 1: the endage of I'll carry what you carry. I carried
Speaker 1: their equipment and I carried their rifle. I'll do what
Speaker 1: I asked you to do, like I was with them
Speaker 1: when we were on assaults going into buildings. Well, like
Speaker 1: very very close is when I was reading your book
Speaker 1: talking about the the Idraki swat team that you were
Speaker 1: working with, it was like, yo, yeah, I'm very familiar
Speaker 1: with that. It's me and me and a couple of
Speaker 1: other Americans and a whole bunch of those other dudes.
Speaker 1: And I hope I one one, report two did a
Speaker 1: good job training these guys, and in in three do
Speaker 1: a good job in front of these guys too, because
Speaker 1: I respect their thing, because these guys are soldiers as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's absolutely like the Lawrence of Arabia approach, or or
Speaker 1: even che Guavera. Frankly, I mean he was an authentic
Speaker 1: revolutionary who like he was not afraid to be a
Speaker 1: field commander. Yeah, I wasn't afraid to get out there
Speaker 1: and mix it up. And I'd hear that from my
Speaker 1: guys where they're like and they always knew that I
Speaker 1: was looking out for him, and so and that's with
Speaker 1: you know, we go out there and do you know,
Speaker 1: reloading drills and stuff like that. It was you know,
Speaker 1: I could I could do it as well or better
Speaker 1: than than they could. And so I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: he okay, we can listen to him. He's nextually and
Speaker 1: running through the house doing close bater bottle and all
Speaker 1: of that. And then we when it counted when we
Speaker 1: were out on targets, that's the rifle that I had
Speaker 1: with me and you know, and I think that was
Speaker 1: a that was a big pushing But but that was
Speaker 1: also is because like I I knew the rifle, I
Speaker 1: was trusted the rifle. I was surrounded by a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of AMMO bearers, you know, so if I did
Speaker 1: run out of AMMO, then the guy next to me,
Speaker 1: I could use his AMMO. I never really understood carrying
Speaker 1: a M sixteen when we're surrounded by a bunch of
Speaker 1: other guys curing different calibers, um and so. But then
Speaker 1: it all and then it also I looked like the
Speaker 1: guys that I was with, and so I always kept
Speaker 1: it in the back of my head. If like, if
Speaker 1: I'm some chechen sniper or some you know, whatever sniper,
Speaker 1: who are you going to shoot? Well he's got the
Speaker 1: radio and he's carrying the M sixteen. Well, well that
Speaker 1: guy he must be the American regardless if he's wearing it,
Speaker 1: he's got a beer or whatever. I'm from, I shooting
Speaker 1: him first. Yeah, that's huge. When I was Interack in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, it was like we always said that, like,
Speaker 1: how come there's this general order from some officer that
Speaker 1: we have to be in a c U s all
Speaker 1: the time when we're going out on target with indigenous forces,
Speaker 1: we should be wearing their uniform arm And then like finally,
Speaker 1: like a couple of months into that deployment, like it
Speaker 1: came down like you must be in the indigenous uniform
Speaker 1: is just going from night and day. So yeah, we
Speaker 1: went up and we started wearing the same knockoff mar
Speaker 1: pat uniforms that the Iraqi swat team were. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's a you know, it's a force protection thing. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and no one will even know there were Americans on target.
Speaker 1: M hm. Never do. And you do a great amount
Speaker 1: of good when you do that because now, like the
Speaker 1: locals are like, well, this is our own military um
Speaker 1: and so it bolsters the you know, the the legitimacy
Speaker 1: of the government as well. I mean, it's just a
Speaker 1: huge force multiplier. We used to say that for every
Speaker 1: one of our commandos that we had, we were replacing
Speaker 1: five Americans that didn't have to come over and flight
Speaker 1: in the war. Yeah, and blending in like that keeps
Speaker 1: the Jeff Kirkhams of the world safe too, absolutely absolute.
Speaker 1: Way I gotta So here's a funny story. We're on
Speaker 1: the target one time and anyways, we went into an
Speaker 1: area as held by Taliban and blah blah blah, and
Speaker 1: we had some Marsak guys were attached to us, so
Speaker 1: it's us with local indiage and then we had a
Speaker 1: Marsack contingent that was that was with us and um.
Speaker 1: So we're holding this section of the village during the
Speaker 1: day and we're expecting to get attacked at any moment
Speaker 1: because we're in the middle of Taligan held territory. And
Speaker 1: and I'm walking down the street and at one point
Speaker 1: in my life I could speak Poshtu very well. And
Speaker 1: we're walking. I'm walking down the street, you know, these
Speaker 1: dusty roads, and there's this little girl is standing out
Speaker 1: on the street and I'm like, hey, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, I'm not here getting water. And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, you gotta get off the street.
Speaker 1: That's dangerous. And she was like okay. And I was like,
Speaker 1: where you live? And she's like, Hey, I live in
Speaker 1: that compound right there. What was the compound that the
Speaker 1: Marines had occupied when we came into this This Warnut's
Speaker 1: nest right And so I was like, hey, come on.
Speaker 1: So I walked her over to the gate and you know,
Speaker 1: there's a marine up on the wall looking down at
Speaker 1: me kind of sideways. And mind you, I've got like
Speaker 1: a great big beard, I'm wearing. I'm wearing the uniforms
Speaker 1: these guys have. I haven't. I'm carrying an a K
Speaker 1: and all their kids. And so I bang on the
Speaker 1: door and the door opens up, and this young marine
Speaker 1: looks at me and he's like yeah. And so I
Speaker 1: talked to the little girl. I'm like, hey, go inside,
Speaker 1: don't come back out on the street because it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: And she's like, okay, thanks, and she, you know, she's
Speaker 1: like five or six years old. She runs inside and
Speaker 1: I and I looked back at the marine and he goes,
Speaker 1: do you even speak English? And I go and I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I speak English. And I walked off. Well,
Speaker 1: I come to find out I met that guy years
Speaker 1: later and he was like, dude, I was that marine
Speaker 1: on that He's like, I've told that story about a
Speaker 1: million times because all thought you were just some big
Speaker 1: aft Yet no, now, you know, do you have any uh,
Speaker 1: any interesting stories you can tell us about when you
Speaker 1: guys did get into some dustups with the endage and
Speaker 1: you've got to see the Kalashnikov in action out and
Speaker 1: you know what's a you know, obviously you know, a
Speaker 1: very austere environment out there in Afghanistan. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the klashnikov is is interesting. And I saw this a
Speaker 1: couple of times too, where it's like, you know, if
Speaker 1: we're doing a helicopter assault, you run through the run
Speaker 1: through the moon dust, and then you'd you'd start mixing
Speaker 1: up guys, you know, guys to tell me. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm faster with my you know, this is where
Speaker 1: beans analysis is going to kick in, right, the totality
Speaker 1: of the system where you guys would go, well, I
Speaker 1: carry the you know, I carry them four because I
Speaker 1: can reload it faster. And I was like, well, can
Speaker 1: you reload it faster if you've been doing immediate action?
Speaker 1: Drolls your moon dust? Because how many of us have
Speaker 1: had magazines that have got stuck in the magazine well, um,
Speaker 1: from the fine grit moon dust. And then they're okay,
Speaker 1: you're right, and I was like, well, I've never had
Speaker 1: a magazine hang up on the m A A K. Never,
Speaker 1: And so you know, running off, you know the same
Speaker 1: thing happened one night, you know, and it's also too
Speaker 1: interesting too, is bullets are bullets, and in ballistics are
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. So and it's like we this is
Speaker 1: this constant debate that we've that we have here in
Speaker 1: the United States about the lethality and one stop kills
Speaker 1: and all this other stuff with bullets, and you know,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting at least in my experience of time
Speaker 1: over there. And I've seen numerous wounds on individuals, bad
Speaker 1: guys him good guys, And there's no rhyme or reason.
Speaker 1: I've seen guys shot with A K S that it
Speaker 1: was a through and through. I've seen guys shot with
Speaker 1: an aks look like somebody took a a ice cream
Speaker 1: scooper of meat out of the back of that guy. Um,
Speaker 1: you know. And I've seen the same thing with five
Speaker 1: six and so it's kind of interesting. But I will say,
Speaker 1: like these guys, you know, when we when we were
Speaker 1: when we've been moving, like when we got into fights,
Speaker 1: you know, the A K s they worked, you know,
Speaker 1: the guys could use them at night. I think the
Speaker 1: techniques that we that we developed, well we didn't develop them.
Speaker 1: They just kind of evolved. And we were stealing from
Speaker 1: Peter Rock Paul and to try and figure out the
Speaker 1: best way to manage this, manage this rifle and conflict.
Speaker 1: And you know, that thin slice down there for a
Speaker 1: couple of years to the way that you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the way that I teach people to use it now.
Speaker 1: But it was always satisfying to see that when we
Speaker 1: got into fights, you know, the rounds were going where
Speaker 1: they were supposed to go. And that's because of the
Speaker 1: design of the a K. It's designed to impact the
Speaker 1: earth if you're just shooting over the top of your sites,
Speaker 1: as human beings tend to do under stress and in
Speaker 1: the dark, but it's designed to impact in a hundred meters.
Speaker 1: And I saw that over and over again where we
Speaker 1: get at night, under stressed, where we begin, you know,
Speaker 1: get into these fights, and the a ks were impacting
Speaker 1: in the area where they were supposed to impact, or
Speaker 1: impacting in the bodies. And then it was also like
Speaker 1: the round two like on the receiving end from bad guys.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of one of the stories of raps
Speaker 1: Trnicket of why I developed the rats is we're we
Speaker 1: moved up to a compound one night and U we're
Speaker 1: getting ready to assault it. You know, it had one
Speaker 1: to five Volcada guys inside, we weren't really sure, you know,
Speaker 1: reminiscent of your book where you kind of get some
Speaker 1: pretty forms and intelligence. He did the bad guys there,
Speaker 1: and it's like the day, let's get well how many
Speaker 1: are there? Well, I don't know one or five. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a big difference. And so in anyways, we're lining
Speaker 1: up on the we're lining up on the door, are
Speaker 1: getting ready to line up on the gate. You know,
Speaker 1: guys are putting the charges in place. Two guys we
Speaker 1: got compromised. One of the a Q guys comes out
Speaker 1: and he starts frozen the gate down, so the gates closed.
Speaker 1: He starts crosing the gate down with a k around.
Speaker 1: So my two guys that are up in the in
Speaker 1: the line of fire, they get hit in the legs
Speaker 1: with with a case. And this is one of those
Speaker 1: instances where you know, one guy looked like a chunk
Speaker 1: of meat had been taken out of his sy like
Speaker 1: somebody taking our ice cream scooper and done it. And
Speaker 1: the other guy was just a thrown through. And that
Speaker 1: was after it drawn through this gate that you would
Speaker 1: argue would have probably have made it started gone to
Speaker 1: slow down or something but you know, two guys, same build,
Speaker 1: you know, same gate, same gun, same bullets, you know,
Speaker 1: two different wing channels. And I was like whoa, And
Speaker 1: you know, so we jumped up and we drugged these
Speaker 1: guys down into the into the into a ditch so
Speaker 1: that medics can get working on them. And then you know,
Speaker 1: and that's another another story for another time where I
Speaker 1: watched the medics kind of fun. You know, we're in
Speaker 1: the dark under fire, medics wearing gloves, you know, they're
Speaker 1: Afghan medics wearing gloves, you know, fumbling with the tourniquet
Speaker 1: that we've been issued. And so there was one of
Speaker 1: those snapshot moments where I looked at it and I
Speaker 1: was like, that's that's weird. And then you know, and
Speaker 1: then it was back on trying to conduct the fight
Speaker 1: and stuff and so um. But that that was another
Speaker 1: one where you know, the a K just performed really
Speaker 1: well on you know, on the other guys and you know,
Speaker 1: we ended up getting him. But but but on the
Speaker 1: but on the back end worked really well there too.
Speaker 1: You know, the first raps was a guy that was
Speaker 1: shot in the leg with an a K and that
Speaker 1: you know, again it was like a chunk of meat
Speaker 1: was taken from that guy's leg and you know used
Speaker 1: or used one of my tourniquets on his leg to
Speaker 1: stop used actually as a guy that had decided to
Speaker 1: fight us one night. And so but go, I answer
Speaker 1: your questions, pretty cool stories, definitely interesting and uh, I
Speaker 1: mean the is just like quintessential to Afghanistan too, like
Speaker 1: you will never separate the Afghan people from their kalashnikov.
Speaker 1: And even though I was bringing up on the last
Speaker 1: podcast because we were talking about how we're going to
Speaker 1: get into the US on this episode, I think the
Speaker 1: kalashnikov has appeared on like the flags of what two
Speaker 1: or three different countries over the years. It has, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it certainly has. It should be on that. I think
Speaker 1: there's one of the Middle Eastern countries, and then I
Speaker 1: think a couple of the African countries have they put
Speaker 1: it up on their flag. They do make those Afghan
Speaker 1: work carpets though that feature the kalashnikov. That's true. I
Speaker 1: might have brought a few of those homes. So you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think the basis of you know, the
Speaker 1: entire conversation is a there's there's the a ks are
Speaker 1: great is a great system now am I saying that
Speaker 1: the United States military should you know, switch hole hog
Speaker 1: over to a a K though, I think that's that's
Speaker 1: not what I'm saying, And I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: you're saying either, Jack. I think the whole premises we've discounted,
Speaker 1: we've discounted this genius and engineering now for like seventy years,
Speaker 1: and and maybe just maybe we should look at that
Speaker 1: and then a doctor owned so that we could have
Speaker 1: an even better rifle than the one that we have now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so for sure. I think especially for SF teams,
Speaker 1: there's something to be said for you know, like if
Speaker 1: you're going to a country that uses kalashnikovs and that's
Speaker 1: the kind of bullets you're going to find on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: just carrying a K terry and carrying a K. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's you know, I used to I used to have
Speaker 1: some of my buddies that were like, well, I carry
Speaker 1: him forth, doesn't more comfortable with it? And it was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's not really an excuse. Your your professional which
Speaker 1: means ultimately you should you should be such a better
Speaker 1: expert in every rifle system, but most especially the ones
Speaker 1: you're you're most likely going to encounter. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're working with a military that carries the F
Speaker 1: A L or you're working what's that Israeli rifle, the
Speaker 1: tav or or whatever, I mean, whatever the bore. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, you know, And that's and really that's a
Speaker 1: I guess I mean that the risk of sound and crass.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I'm not trying to be crass, but
Speaker 1: that's kind of the difference between a professional and you know,
Speaker 1: and and somebody who's who's not a true professional. Just
Speaker 1: you know, it's like constant improvement in the constant you know,
Speaker 1: the constant thin slicing down to get to the root
Speaker 1: of understanding of as much as is in your profession
Speaker 1: as possible. You know. It's kind of like a musician,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, Prince the musician or the
Speaker 1: musician formally known as Prince I guess before he passed away,
Speaker 1: but but you know, and I'm not a big fan
Speaker 1: of Prince, but you read articles about this guy and
Speaker 1: he literally knew how to play like every instrument that
Speaker 1: you could put in front of him. He was like
Speaker 1: unbelievably versed in everything to do with music, and so
Speaker 1: You've got to respect that. I mean, really, you've got
Speaker 1: to respect that because it's like, Wow, this guy knew
Speaker 1: how to do it all. And that's what I think.
Speaker 1: You know, you think about a special force of soldier
Speaker 1: or something that's I mean, so should we or at
Speaker 1: least that's what we should be striving for or at
Speaker 1: least you know, when I was in that's what I
Speaker 1: was striving for. Absolutely. So any final thoughts on the
Speaker 1: a K before we start wrapping this one up. No,
Speaker 1: I think you know, there's a lot of there's been
Speaker 1: a resurgence or a surgeons of people that like the
Speaker 1: a K, now especially likely with Rady Man. You know, um,
Speaker 1: we see this. We get a lot of preppers and
Speaker 1: survivalists and emergency preparedness and a lot of the farms community,
Speaker 1: and we've seen this, you know, surgeons of people that
Speaker 1: are interested in the a K. And it's growing, um
Speaker 1: where people are interested in the system. And so it's
Speaker 1: not as you know, it's not as an achy you know,
Speaker 1: former comblock rifle that it used to be prior to
Speaker 1: the war and so and so I think that's good
Speaker 1: because ultimately, ultimately I want people to try out the
Speaker 1: a K. To open up their paradigms so that they
Speaker 1: can go, oh, you know what, the cig. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe the CIG is a great riffle because it's incorporating
Speaker 1: some of these aspects of the riffle of the a K,
Speaker 1: but the ergonomics of of the in four platform, or
Speaker 1: like the Robinson XCR, which I'm a big fan of,
Speaker 1: Like the Robinson you know, that's like this true mashing.
Speaker 1: If you the XDR looks like an INFO on the outside,
Speaker 1: but you take it apart, it's gets or an a K,
Speaker 1: which is what I find really cool, the way that
Speaker 1: Alex Robinson put that together. But and that's that's all
Speaker 1: I'm pushing for, is like, hey, let's let's open up
Speaker 1: the discussion so that we can continue to get better,
Speaker 1: so that we can evolve and get better and better.
Speaker 1: That's really what such few Americans apart from everybody else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've been having a hell of a time because
Speaker 1: it's really because our act was issition process is just
Speaker 1: completely broken, and fielding new pistols and new rifles in
Speaker 1: the US military, it's like just disgusting. All Right. You remember,
Speaker 1: like a year ago when they were talking about getting
Speaker 1: giving every soldier a side arm and they quoted the
Speaker 1: Pentagon like some astronomical number in general was like, I
Speaker 1: can go down to Cabella's and and get this for
Speaker 1: like one percent of the quote you're giving me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's it's uncle sugar, right, everybody. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: pound of sugar. Yeah, you know, the price goes up,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, absolutely, you know. But then there's also
Speaker 1: you know, there's chrony capitalism and all that. You talk
Speaker 1: about that in your in your book a little bit
Speaker 1: and touch on a little bit. It's it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: the curement process, isn't an interesting that this guy it
Speaker 1: was in the process, and now he's working for the
Speaker 1: company that you know, and if and if if the
Speaker 1: OS do it, it's okay, But if the US do it,
Speaker 1: then you dick and oh yeah, the dude who they
Speaker 1: work on the in the FORCET mod shop for their
Speaker 1: unit and then they end up working at the company
Speaker 1: that they previously bought stuff from for the military. It's like,
Speaker 1: there's no corruption in the military. Jeff, come on, man,
Speaker 1: It's like j Edgar Hoover saying that the mafia doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: It's a myth man. Yeah, yeah, And and What a
Speaker 1: statement coming from the guy who controlled the the FBI,
Speaker 1: which was a secret essentially the secret police of the
Speaker 1: United States. You control them for like what is the
Speaker 1: administrator for like forty years something. Yeah. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: shenani ifs doing. No there no corruption in the military.
Speaker 1: Come on. Corruption is for other countries. Other countries have corruption,
Speaker 1: not not here in the good old US of A. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's the human condition, right anyway, you have humans,
Speaker 1: you're going to have You're gonna have some Shenanigans. You are,
Speaker 1: I mean, you are, well, man, this has been fun.
Speaker 1: I uh. I kind of put the eight Team Bravo
Speaker 1: Jack Murphy. I kind of put him in the closet
Speaker 1: and forgot about him for a while because I don't
Speaker 1: really mess with guns so much. I used to eat, sleep,
Speaker 1: and breathe this stuff, but I kind of put it
Speaker 1: behind me. So it's really fun actually to go back
Speaker 1: and revisit all this. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean, the
Speaker 1: the A Team Bravo, I mean is I think it's
Speaker 1: out of all the moss and the military, A Team
Speaker 1: Bravo's got to be the funnest open to so much
Speaker 1: different stuff that I'll have to like next time you
Speaker 1: have me on the show, to remind me and I'll
Speaker 1: tell you my mortar story. Okay, all right, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a good eight Team Bravos story. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I think it is by far the funniest, most interesting
Speaker 1: military occupational specialty you can have in the military. Do
Speaker 1: you ever see that? It's like a blog post somewhere
Speaker 1: and it's about how the O d A supports the
Speaker 1: eight Team Bravo. It's like, like the O d as
Speaker 1: entire job is to support the eight Team Bravo. No,
Speaker 1: I'd love to see I'll have to I'll have to
Speaker 1: pull it up. It's it's a tongue in cheek, you know, humorous,
Speaker 1: humorous article written about the the A Team Bravo MS.
Speaker 1: But it's really funny. But I mean, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: to be, you know, the senior A Team Bravo on
Speaker 1: my O d A. And it's like, man, that's like
Speaker 1: the best job in the army. It is. It is
Speaker 1: like when I went to first group. Um, there was
Speaker 1: you know this first group in the nineties. I was
Speaker 1: an E five when I showed up to group, and um,
Speaker 1: I was the only Bravo on the team. So you know,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of hard work, but and
Speaker 1: I had a blast. The only downside to be in
Speaker 1: the A team Bravo, is like the other specialties on
Speaker 1: the team, you know, the medic, the engineer, that the
Speaker 1: communications sergeant. Like, no one is going to pretend they
Speaker 1: know more about radios than the communications sergeant. No one's
Speaker 1: gonna pretend they know more about combat than the medic.
Speaker 1: You know, but everybody on that O. D A. Thinks
Speaker 1: they know more about guns than you for some reason.
Speaker 1: Like they get up to the range, they see a
Speaker 1: gun that they've never fucked with before, they think they
Speaker 1: know how it works. Like they wouldn't go up to
Speaker 1: a radio they've never seen before and think they know
Speaker 1: how it works, But they think they know how that
Speaker 1: gun works. These are the in the same guy had
Speaker 1: a medic on one of my teams and and I
Speaker 1: walked out of the room and I came back in
Speaker 1: and he had a hammer in his hand, like a
Speaker 1: ball team hammer, and he was taking a part to
Speaker 1: fifty cow and he was getting ready to start smacking
Speaker 1: on the back and was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: He's like, Oh, it's just stuck a little bit. I
Speaker 1: needed tep on it. It's like, no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: don't need to do that. Mr. You can do my job,
Speaker 1: but I can't do years. Yeah, they start doing crazy
Speaker 1: stuff like oh stop stop, stop stop. But we're we're
Speaker 1: pretty bad too with our big rubber mat Let's um
Speaker 1: the stereotype. I think I wrote about that in the
Speaker 1: book to how we have the big rubber mallet and
Speaker 1: the eighteen Bravo course and you use it to pound
Speaker 1: the trigger plate off of the dishka. Yeah, it's fun times,
Speaker 1: fun times. I mean, you know, well, thank you for
Speaker 1: coming on the show again, Jeff. This has been fun,
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll do it. We'll have to do it
Speaker 1: again another time. We'll tell some more eighteen Bravo stories
Speaker 1: because I can tell we could go on for hours
Speaker 1: and hours here. Oh yeah, oh yeah, there reminds me
Speaker 1: is a good one. So okay, well we'll say we'll
Speaker 1: save that for next time. I think you'll appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That sounds awesome, all right, man, thanks again, Jeff. Uh,
Speaker 1: when we will, I'll stay in touch all right for sure,
Speaker 1: for sure. And you need anything at all, I mean,
Speaker 1: you got my you got my contact tempo hit you
Speaker 1: up anytime, all right, right, on, man, have a good
Speaker 1: day YouTube teacher? All right later, Man, that was Jeff Kirkham.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see. Um. I wanted to give him
Speaker 1: a proper intro, obviously, but he came on and he
Speaker 1: just right off the bat wanted to talk, so didn't
Speaker 1: get a chance to do that. But the man is
Speaker 1: passionate about his a K forty seven, that's for sure. Yeah, Jeff. Um,
Speaker 1: trying to think how to phrase this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to put any words in his mouth, but Jeff was
Speaker 1: obviously in Special Forces and then he worked for the
Speaker 1: d A and then he worked as a paramilitary contractor
Speaker 1: after that. Um, and we you can go check out
Speaker 1: the previous podcast we did with him and he gets
Speaker 1: into it a little bit, episode four on the Spot,
Speaker 1: Johnny on the Spot. There, Dennis, I wanted to do
Speaker 1: my research. Johnny on the Spot could work well, so
Speaker 1: a least I can do if I was going to
Speaker 1: enjoy you guys talking about guns for that long. Did
Speaker 1: you enjoy it though, Dennis? I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the ins and outs like you do, but this
Speaker 1: is gunn nerds stuff like you really have to be
Speaker 1: into it. But I'm a fan of anyone that's passionate
Speaker 1: about anything. And obviously Jeff very much for him to
Speaker 1: just be like, you know what, the M sixteen. Thanks,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with this one. And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the comic gun. He's like, yeah, but guys, give
Speaker 1: it a shot. Don't knock it till you try it.
Speaker 1: It's true. Um, And he wrote that article um talking
Speaker 1: about the things about the M sixteen that are problematic
Speaker 1: and like people just went ape shit over that. It's
Speaker 1: it was like you had slapped their wife in the
Speaker 1: face or something like by the kind of reactions, like
Speaker 1: emotional reactions you got. And I don't know much about
Speaker 1: military guns, but I feel like whatever one you believe in,
Speaker 1: and you guys had mentioned this in the interview, was like,
Speaker 1: that's the one, Like my gun is the right gun.
Speaker 1: Whatever you say, you're an idiot. Yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I'll pick up a dusty oozy on the battlefield and
Speaker 1: that if that's what you get. Yeah, yeah, whatever's in
Speaker 1: front of you. When the ship hits a fan, you need,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you can get your hands on. UM.
Speaker 1: Great interview by Jeff. As always, he very very passionate,
Speaker 1: very insightful, and it was nice to see you guys
Speaker 1: bond over over some gun nerding. It was absolutely it
Speaker 1: was enjoyable to watch talk Yeah, for sure. And then
Speaker 1: obviously we'll have to remind him of the one twenty
Speaker 1: story for next time because I don't know what it's
Speaker 1: gonna be, but it's gonna be good because he made
Speaker 1: reference to it and then brought it back. Make sure
Speaker 1: you remind me so we'll hit it up next to
Speaker 1: something something's gonna happen with that. Be sure to check
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Speaker 1: Those are all the reads. Jeff spoke at length. I
Speaker 1: don't really have much else to say. I know you're
Speaker 1: Would you like to speak about what you're doing this
Speaker 1: weekend at all? Quickly? Yeah? Sure. I'm gonna be speaking
Speaker 1: at the Special Forces Association meeting UH out in California,
Speaker 1: just giving a speech, talking about a few things. Um
Speaker 1: my friend invited me out there to give a talk,
Speaker 1: So I'll be doing that, and then my daughter and
Speaker 1: I will be going to see World afterwards. Do you
Speaker 1: want to say anything, Princess, I don't know. That's not
Speaker 1: what when you have an you've got to say something good. No, well,
Speaker 1: at least you're going to see world. At least tell
Speaker 1: tell the listeners what what animals you're looking forward to seeing?
Speaker 1: Sex you have? Do you have a particular shark in
Speaker 1: uh in mind? No? Great White? Yeah, good choice. I
Speaker 1: don't think they have the Great White there, but the
Speaker 1: Great White is pretty cool. There's no question about that.
Speaker 1: That's the Terranosaurus Rex of sharks. Well, I want to
Speaker 1: see t Rex too, but until Jurassic Park is real
Speaker 1: or they build time machines. Yeah, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: hold off on that one. But no, congratulations to you.
Speaker 1: That's I'm sure that'll be a great honor to speak.
Speaker 1: She's holding her doll and the cat up to the microphone.
Speaker 1: They can come. I don't know how to follow that up.
Speaker 1: That's uh, there is no there is nothing to follow
Speaker 1: up this this Uh, this episode has a K forty
Speaker 1: sevens and gritty war in Afghanistan and American girl dolls,
Speaker 1: and we'll wrap with with kittens and dolls. Uh, next episode.
Speaker 1: Who do we have that guy from the Diplomatic Security Service, Sir.
Speaker 1: His name is Cody Perran. He's a former marine as well.
Speaker 1: DSS guy. First DSS dude we've had on the show,
Speaker 1: I believe. So that's cool, Okay, he was he's excited
Speaker 1: to come out. I haven't met somebody that's like been reluctantly.
Speaker 1: Oh you know what, I guess we'll do. Everybody's been
Speaker 1: like yeah, man, I'm love to talk, like really appreciate
Speaker 1: the platform. Really, you know, Jack Murphy. Really not yet.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm waiting for the guy who's like Jack
Speaker 1: that I don't want to your daughter here, but you
Speaker 1: can fill in the blank. I haven't. I haven't come
Speaker 1: across that yet. But when I do, I'm gonna defend you.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. It's okay. If you can throw you can
Speaker 1: drag my name through the mud. What I mean, what
Speaker 1: else can be said at this point? You know, I
Speaker 1: mean nothing yet. I haven't. I haven't came across any
Speaker 1: negative criticism of you, nor would I want to. It's
Speaker 1: all good, It's all good. Um, I'm excited for the
Speaker 1: next episode. I think we have some really good guests
Speaker 1: lined up, and I'm lining up several more also on
Speaker 1: my end. Yeah, I mean we're sending our emails constantly
Speaker 1: on people I'm going to send your way. Um, some
Speaker 1: guests who you've never heard from before or they've done
Speaker 1: very few interviews, so they're going to be some pretty
Speaker 1: which is awesome. I like the ones, the really one
Speaker 1: the ones that you can zero in on and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: they've only spoken to like three other people about this.
Speaker 1: If ever, Yeah, it's it's just some unique stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but we'll and we'll keep pressing on that. So that
Speaker 1: was episode four sixty three. Uh, please subscribe on any
Speaker 1: platform you can give us, leave us a review. We
Speaker 1: appreciate any kind of feedback. I want to thank Jeff
Speaker 1: for coming on as always. Uh, great conversation and we're
Speaker 1: looking forward to having Cody on next episode Murphy's Law.
Speaker 1: Hy Grab the book. Grab grab the book, Grab the
Speaker 1: audio book. Grab the kids on d s Now, how
Speaker 1: long there's the kids on D yet? Uh? Just you
Speaker 1: hold them like the cover of the book with just
Speaker 1: my face wearing Oakley sunglasses and a ball cap, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh uh, the audio book is out, the
Speaker 1: e book, the hardcover, it's all out there. How long
Speaker 1: did it take you to do the audio? Um? I
Speaker 1: think three days? Okay? Bad? Yeah, I powered through it.
Speaker 1: You didn't think they have into it? No? No, I
Speaker 1: want to do it myself. It was my book. Fair,
Speaker 1: but I requested. I requested that I got, I narrated myself.
Speaker 1: Fair request. Um. And if you have read it, please
Speaker 1: leave a review on Amazon. But that's it. That's my plug.
Speaker 1: So thank you have Murphy's Law. By it or you're
Speaker 1: a sucker by it, or you're a communist that too.
Speaker 1: You can use an A K forty seven if you're
Speaker 1: in America, but if you're if you're a commed, please
Speaker 1: don't that was that soft up radio. Tune in next
Speaker 1: time please. You've been listening to self Rep Radio. New
Speaker 1: episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow the show on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio