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Nov. 11, 2022 - Doug Collins Podcast
25:36
Today we celebrate Veterans Day
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You want to listen to a podcast?
By who?
Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
How is it?
The greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life.
I could not believe my ears.
In this house, wherever the rules are disregarded, chaos and mob rule.
It has been said today, where is bravery?
I'll tell you where bravery is found and courage is found.
It's found in this minority who has lived through the last year of nothing but rules being broken, people being put down, questions not being answered, and this majority say, be damned with anything else.
We're going to impeach and do whatever we want to do.
Why?
Because we won an election.
I guarantee you, one day you'll be back in the minority and it ain't gonna be that fun.
Hey everybody, it's Doug Collins.
Glad to have you with us today.
It's a special episode of the Doug Collins Show today, special today.
And just wanted to spend a little bit of time with you as someone who's still in the Air Force, Air Force we've ever been in over 20 years, served a little bit of time in the Navy as well.
I love Veterans Day.
We talked about this, the holidays back in Memorial Day, and I made a very large point back then that the two, our Very different.
Unfortunately, many people try to conflate the two.
And Memorial Day is for those who gave their life in service to this country.
That is a very special day.
It ought to be honored in a very special way.
It is not for people who serve.
Memorial Day is not for people who just regularly serve.
Veterans Day is.
Today is Veterans Day.
So today is an exciting day to just celebrate the fact that there are men and women who across the country celebrate this day as a special day because they serve.
And we can celebrate with them.
I love how it is Veterans Day.
It's no apostrophe.
It's Veterans Day because it's not owned by veterans.
We celebrate veterans, those who serve.
As we get into this.
So just for a little while today, I want to spend some time.
Let's talk about Veterans Day.
I like to do this on holidays so you know where it comes from a little bit.
And then also I'm going to share some stories, real life stories, of folks who every day go out and do this.
One of the things that concerned me the most in serving, it was a statistic that I heard just a few years ago.
When we were attacked on 9-11, and then went into Afghanistan in late 2001, or in 2002, Iraq in 2003, and then continued on in Iraq until...
You know, 11, 12, then Afghanistan up until last year.
What was interesting is that first, you know, about 10 years of the war, I heard a statistic, and I didn't believe it at first, and it was somewhere between a direct impact, direct service in our military, there was less than about 2% of the population of the United States had actually had direct service contact with that war, when those wars, if you want to put it in plural.
And that was pretty amazing.
And, you know, it became, you know, many people were very supportive of the troops.
They were very supportive of us who went.
I was there in 2008, 2009. And, you know, people were very supportive, but many times it was from a secondary approach.
They may have known a neighbor of a neighbor, or they may have known somebody in their town.
What we had lost in many ways was this totality of the fight, that if it meant something for our country to be at war or our country to be in service, that you would have a much more broader mind.
We just didn't have that.
And that's why Veterans Day is so important.
And Veterans Day is so important because the amount of people in the military as we speak is relatively small compared to the size of our country.
But yet we have the most elite, the best military in the world.
not only from the terms of personnel, but also in the equipment that we have.
So today, I just want to celebrate Veterans Day, doing so, and just talking about it and how we came about.
Veterans Day was originally known as Armistice Day.
This was the 11th hour, the 11th day in 1918. It was Armistice Day, which is when The end of the World War I came to be.
Legislation was passed in 1938 that November levels was dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day.
The legal holiday was honoring World War I veterans.
Well, after 1954, being through then having World War II, Korea, Congress...
Then, at the urging of veteran organizations, changed the word armistice from the original after World War I to veterans, and it was approved in 1954, June 1st, November 11th being the date.
Now, I have to tell you a funny, you know, a lot of this podcast we deal with the craziness of our federal government.
Well, here's a craziness of our federal government.
In 1968, the Uniform Holiday Monday Act, yes, we actually have one of those, Uniform Holiday Monday Act.
Ensured that three-day weekends for federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Monday, Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day.
Under this bill, Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday in October.
Many states did not agree with it.
In fact, many states said, we ain't doing this.
We're going to keep celebrating it on November the 11th.
And the first Veterans Day under the law caused a great deal of confusion because it was celebrated on October 25th.
Finally, Gerald Ford, in one of the better moments that he had in his presidency on September 20th, 1975, signed a law that returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to the original date of November 11th, beginning in 1978. Since then, the Veterans Day has been on the November 11th since then.
Again, the one thing that I want to emphasize is, as I talked about it earlier, is the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day.
Memorial Day is for those who died in service.
Veterans Day is for just all who serve.
I want you to...
Listen to this proclamation that Dwight Eisenhower, when he was president, sent to Harvey Higley, who was the Administrator of Veterans Affairs, designated him as the Chairman of the Veterans Day National Committee.
He said, I have today signed a proclamation calling upon all citizens to observe Thursday, November the 11th, 1954 as Veterans Day.
It is my earnest hope that all veterans, their organizations, the entire citizenry will join hands to ensure proper and widespread observance to this day.
With the thought that it will be the most helpful to coordinate the planning, I'm suggesting the formation of a Veterans Day National Committee.
In view of your great personal interest as well as your official responsibilities, I have designated you to serve as chairman.
You may include the committee membership such persons as you deem to select and requesting that all departments communicate this.
And he said, I have every confidence that our nation will respond wholeheartedly in the appropriate observance of Veterans Day 1954. Interesting.
That, you know, the former general had that kind of respect and wanted it to be very well known that Veterans Day was something to be proud of.
And that is, you know, really where Veterans Day comes from.
And what does that mean?
It means somebody who served, somebody who said, okay, and it's not just, and I hear this comment that they said, well, I wasn't, I didn't go overseas.
Okay, that's great.
Thankfully, most who serve many times in our armed forces never had to deploy in harm's way.
They just didn't.
Because either we were not at war or the conditions did not see fit for their job or their units to actually have to be deployed.
But they served a very valuable role here on the home front or wherever they were stationed, even across the world.
Veterans, I want you to hold your head high.
You made a commitment.
You raised your hand, whether you were drafted or whether you volunteered, wherever in between.
You raised your hand.
You said, I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
And that means something.
It means something in a country that was founded on the fact that we have...
We have these, you know, kind of discussions that it, you know, the understanding that veterans mean so much to our country because it is one's You know, that have provided the freedoms we have.
The freedom of the press does not come from the press.
It comes from the soldiers who fought and died for that for so many years and fought for it.
You know, the freedom that we have in this country to move around, the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion, all of those come because they were defended early on in our country by those willing to take a step up and say, I'm willing to serve in the armed forces of our country and to make sure that our values are put forth in a way That is there for the long haul, there for the eternity of our country.
If our country fails in its very mission of protecting its borders, protecting itself, then we are not a country and our military is the ones at the tip of the spear making sure that that helps.
Now, we also protect those around the world.
We've stepped into many battles in which we have fought the rise of communism and fascism and Totalitarianism all across the country and the world, terrorism, and that is what our military is for.
I will say this.
The political leadership of the military sometimes gets it wrong, but the military responds as they are trained to do, and that is to respond to those orders and to do the very best job that they possibly can.
No matter what you may feel about the political leadership in our country, it is the veterans, it is those who certainly serve, they're the ones who carry out the direction of our country, and they do so out of a love for the country, a love for the flag, a love for the folks that they could leave their homes for to go serve with.
This is what makes our military so special.
This is what makes our military the bright and shining light across the world, and also the best in the world.
I want to share and just take a few minutes to share with some stories.
And whether you're active duty, reserve, guard, we all have common experiences.
And it's just the love of the, quote, as you would, war stories.
The things that we go through, whether it be a boot camp drill instructor, whether it be, you know, your first platoon sergeant or squadron commander.
You know, these are stories that bind those of us who've served together.
And for our veterans out there who may be watching this podcast, or even if you're not a veteran, there's some things that I want you to be very proud of.
I want you to know the kind of Of people that serve.
There's many times in our country's history in which the younger generation is looked at as like, you know, with scorn or disrespect that, you know, they don't have it together.
The young people don't get it.
But folks, I'm going to tell you, the young people that go into our military get it.
And we've had a lot of problems, you know, with recruitment.
We've had a lot of problems with a lot of things lately.
But the ones who come and serve our country are some of the best around.
I want to share just a few stories of just the folks that I got to serve with.
I mean, in my time in the reserves, I'll just start here.
And because, you know, always active duty, it's understood, and, you know, I'm in active duty, and, you know, that's your day-to-day occupation.
But the reservist, I want to highlight as well, as being a reservist for the last 20-plus years, I mean, you have to go and drill at least one time a month.
Typically, the first weekend of the month, you have two weeks out of the year.
Depending on how your reserve duty entails.
And I will guarantee you, every time that something's going to happen at your house on that weekend, something where your job's going to go wrong, something is just going to be there to distract you.
If you want to have a distraction, then know that your drill weekend is coming up, and I guarantee it's going to happen.
The water heater's going to break.
Your kids are going to get sick.
Your wife's going to get sick.
The dog's going to run off.
Something's going to happen, but yet you still have to show up.
You still have to keep focused, and you have to To learn and do your job.
And that's what reservists and guardsmen do, and active duty do it every day.
We have a unified military.
Our reservists, guard, and active duty are all one.
Now, there's a lot of infighting between the reserve and the guard and the active duty, especially between guard and active duty, and reserve and active duty, as to, you know, who's better.
At the end of the day, we're all the same.
We all put on the uniform.
We all perform the jobs.
Reserves and guards take up a great deal of the jobs in the military that currently has to get done.
For example, in the United States Air Force, all of the refueling is done by reservists.
The weather, the hurricane hunters that you always hear about is done by reservists.
There's just a lot of those jobs that are done by reservists year-round that are not done by active duty.
So again, we're one force and I hope that we continue to have that.
But why do I say that the young people are the best in the world?
Let me tell you a couple of stories.
From some of my time, TDYs, deployments, and others.
I remember at night when a couple of stories that I want to tell you for when I'm in Iraq.
And I would get to travel around the flight line at night.
And Balad, Iraq, it's a pretty big place.
And you could travel around it.
We had our...
Uh, guard stations and our, our entry points all across from the, uh, outside to the, uh, outside entry points to inside access points.
And I would drive at night and I would go through our command centers, command post.
I would go, uh, where our F-16s were and, and talk to the pilots, the maintenance officers and all keeping, uh, In touch with them, letting them know that they were there to talk about it.
We were experiencing suicides.
We were experiencing depression.
We were experiencing loss of life from the battles.
A lot going on.
We were getting constantly under shelling that would happen regularly at the base.
I remember one night I was going around in my truck and I got to one of the little checkpoints.
And it had been one that I had gone to many times before.
And the When I got there, typically there's a young man or young lady that's there, that's keeping watch over the area which I wanted to get into, and nobody was there.
I waited, and I waited, and I sort of jokingly said to myself, wait, did everybody go home?
And they forgot to tell me.
But pretty soon, here come this young A1C who comes out of the back, Airman First Class.
He came out of the back of the guard shack that he was in.
And he was all apologetic.
He said, oh, chaplain, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to miss you here.
I apologize.
And, you know, I was back working.
And I said, well, one, I'm glad that it's me and not your supervisor who's coming by here to see what's going on because, you know, I'm probably a little more forgiving than they would be.
But I did ask him, I said, what were you doing?
And And I was there in the fall.
I was there in the fall of the year.
So I missed all the football season, missed all of the holidays, Christmas and Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving.
And he said, well, he said last year, and you've got to remember, this was several years back in the 07, 08 timeframe.
And he said last year he was graduating high school and his father was a contractor, a builder up in New England.
He said, look, frankly, you know, the recession, we didn't have, he didn't have a lot of work.
And in our family, we didn't have a lot for Christmas.
And he said, I remember that.
And he said, now that I'm, and I'll never forget this.
He said, now that I'm making big money, this is an A1C, probably bringing home six, even with hazardous duty pay, maybe 600 to 800, maybe $1,000 a month.
And he said, I'm making big money.
He says, so I was making a budget.
And I thought to myself, later on in my other life, after that, I was a member of the state legislature in Georgia at that point, but then becoming a member of Congress, I said, you know, it's an amazing thing that here a young 20-year-old in the desert can be talking about a budget, understanding that you have to know how much you have to know how much you spend.
It was pretty a humbling experience.
Well, the...
I said, well, what was going on?
He said, well, I'm making a budget.
He said, because this year, since I've got some money, he said, I wanted to make sure that I kept out a little bit for myself.
He said, but my sister, she's going away to school, and I want to buy her a computer, and a laptop computer.
And he said, my brother, he's all there, and he said he needs a bicycle.
And I just stopped.
And What any thought of him, you know, doing something wrong, not being there at the gate when he should have been, sort of melted for a few minutes.
And I talked to him a little bit further, and he went ahead and opened the gate, and I went on through, and I just thought to myself, you know, here is the best of our generation going on.
A little bit later on, I had a...
And I'm pretty well into my deployment.
We all sort of deploy in similar timeframes.
So you get to know who's there, who's not.
You know which unit's leaving, which unit's not.
And I went and met this young lady on another guard post.
And I hadn't recognized her.
I mean, I had been there many, many times and had never seen her before.
So I started a conversation with her.
And you could tell her mind was distracted a little bit.
And she said, That she was late getting to her deployment.
I said, well, what happened in your deployment?
I said, why were you late to your deployment?
And she said that she was late because she had a six-month-old back home.
And that had delayed her deployment because she had just given birth recently and she was making sure she was getting everything back up.
And again, I'm sitting here looking at this young person who left their family and she could have gotten out of that deployment rotation.
There was ways that she could have stayed at home with her young child, but she chose not to.
And I said, you know, and I asked her, I said, why didn't you just put this off?
You could come back another time.
She said, no, this was my unit.
This was the ones I trained with.
They'd accounted on me.
I thought, yeah, and you had every reason to stay at home, taking care of the one who counts on you as well, and that's your young child.
But she said it meant something to her to be there.
I'll never forget that because she showed me a picture of her little one.
And so over the next month or two, as we were gotten to know each other, we would start sharing pictures of our kids.
My kid's much older at the time.
I shared from afar The birth, you know, this new one who was beginning to take their first little crawls and noises and sounds, and she would share the little videos with me.
Again, here was a young person who put aside personal convenience to be in the war zone with her Comrades who came with her, those who came within the units with her because she knew her place.
Without her, she didn't want them to find anything lacking.
The years have come by, I've been with airmen and soldiers who struggle with divorce, who struggle with getting to a deployment or getting to a weekend and having one of their loved ones tell them that their girlfriends say, I'm not going to be here when you get back.
And dealing with that depression, you go to the war zone, the first thing you get there is you find out that your fiance or your wife is asking for divorce and having to deal with that.
Dealing with the death, dealing with life, dealing with just the everyday monotony of being in the military.
Our folks do it every day, every place in the world, reservist, guard, all together.
These folks are the best that we have.
They're the best our country can offer.
And this Veterans Day, I hope that you will take that in mind, that you'll see that veteran and not only thank them, but then I'm going to ask, what are you doing?
We have a lot of young people today who are bouncing between jobs, not sure what they want to do.
How about the military?
You know, be a part of something, giving back to all the freedoms that you expand, giving back.
We have a real problem.
We have almost 70% of our 18 to 25 year olds can't pass the physical.
Maybe we need to focus on our giving of ourselves and military is a great way to give of ourselves by getting ourselves in shape and seeing our military grow.
Lots of great stuff.
I could go on with stories after stories and laughing.
The bonds that you find in the military are some of the strongest that you'll ever have.
You end up realizing it's about your country, but it's about the ones who serve next to you.
It doesn't matter where they come from, what they look like, what they talk like.
They become the folks that you count on.
They're the folks that you trust.
They're the folks that get you through the good times and the bad times.
So in this Veterans Day, I encourage you, thank those who serve, whether active duty, reservists, or guard, whether they served overseas or not, whatever they served, it was worth it.
And I also thank their families, for their families also paid the price for them serving, but for the many hours of them being gone, whether it be in deployments, TDYs, or just general duty, they're gone from their families.
So families are a part of this as well.
I just wanted to spend some time, lightheartedly look At the day that we call Veterans Day to honor those who give us the freedom that we have.
They are the ones at the tip of the spear.
They are the ones that go at a moment's notice.
And when the Commander in Chief say go, they click their heels, salute smartly, and go do it.
That's the kind of commitment that our country has had for over 200 plus years, and that is the kind of commitment that we need to continue to see if we keep our country strong.
How do we do that?
We have good people who go into our military, And number two, we thank those who do.
You may not be able to go in, but others have.
Thank those who have been there for you.
So God bless you on this day, the Doug Collins Podcast.
Thank you for your service on Veterans Day.
Thank you for listening to the podcast.
I want to remind everyone, go to thedougcollinspodcast.com.
We have a big trip coming up in April.
And go to the DougCollinsPodcast.com forward slash DC.
You'll get all the trips.
Eric, the travel guy, myself, Lisa, we're going to be in DC.
We're going to tour the monuments.
We're going to tour the Capitol.
We're going to share stories of our faith and our history in Washington, DC.
Come April, you do not want to miss it.
Go to our website and you will find the DC DougCollinsPodcast.com forward slash DC.
You'll have a chance to save some money before the end of the month.
Go there now, though, and make sure that you are a part of this wonderful trip.
Limited space is available.
I want you to be a part of it.
And with that, we'll see you next time on the Doug Collins Podcast.
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