NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Military Service in a Nation That’s Lost Its Way
Aired: 2025-04-18
Duration: 01:05:19


=== Military Path to Middle Class (15:11) ===

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[00:00:27]  Dying for your country has always been considered honorable.
[00:00:30]  But what if your country?
[00:00:32]  Sends you to die not to defend your own homeland, but to keep shipping lanes open for multinational corporations in the Red Sea.
[00:00:41]  See, many Christians still see military service as a badge of patriotism, a way to protect home and uphold duty.
[00:00:51]  And with Pete Hedgeth now scrubbing the ranks of DEI policies, removing rainbow flags from barracks, and halting transgender enlistment, some believe the military is finally turning a corner.
[00:01:04]  But what we need to ask is this.
[00:01:07]  Turning toward what?
[00:01:09]  Because beneath the optics of reform, the machinery still grinds forward, sending Christian sons into foreign deserts and oceans to enforce someone else's order while our own border remains porous and undefended.
[00:01:25]  Here's our argument.
[00:01:26]  Defending your homeland is biblical.
[00:01:29]  Dying for your neighbor is noble.
[00:01:32]  But joining a military that may send your son to fight for diversity slogans or for the GDP of foreign nations is not just.
[00:01:41]  A personal choice.
[00:01:43]  It's a moral and theological question that Christian families can no longer ignore.
[00:01:49]  This episode is brought to you by our premier sponsors, Armored Republic and Reese Fund, as well as our Patreon members and our generous donors.
[00:01:59]  You can join our Patreon by going to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries, or you can make a donation by going to right response ministries.com forward slash donate.
[00:02:12]  So, should you encourage your sons to serve, or is the current military still too compromised to entrust with their lives?
[00:02:21]  We'll walk through the recent reforms, the foreign entanglements, and what Scripture has to say about loyalty, love of country, and the just use of force.
[00:02:41]  All right.
[00:02:41]  Good afternoon.
[00:02:42]  Good afternoon.
[00:02:42]  Happy Friday.
[00:02:43]  See you all.
[00:02:44]  Happy Friday.
[00:02:45]  It is indeed a happy Friday.
[00:02:47]  So, this is a topic that I am excited to get into.
[00:02:51]  For one, it has a lot of personal application because my son is 18.
[00:02:57]  And a number of years ago, he expressed a desire to join the Air Force.
[00:03:00]  My father in law went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
[00:03:03]  And my son grew up hearing stories about his time there and just really, really wanted to apply for the Air Force Academy.
[00:03:11]  Wanted to go there.
[00:03:12]  And the Air Force is not off the table for us, but I told him he's graduating this spring.
[00:03:18]  We decided, I told him, and he agreed that it's not an option for this fall.
[00:03:24]  So maybe a couple of years down the road, if things get cleaned up in the military or it looks like the country is headed in a particular direction, we will revisit it.
[00:03:32]  So I'll tip my hand there that I think from conversations I've had and research that I've done for this episode and just talking with him, I think that it's.
[00:03:42]  It's a time to be cautious about sending your son into the military.
[00:03:44]  So, my card's on the table there from the beginning.
[00:03:47]  Never give my bona fides to that.
[00:03:49]  I've been, I joined the military 2013 at 18.
[00:03:52]  I was in the Marine Corps for four years.
[00:03:54]  My sister then went in.
[00:03:55]  This was like 2018, 2019.
[00:03:57]  She did four years.
[00:03:58]  And my brother is finishing up his fifth year in the Army just this year.
[00:04:02]  So, we're talking over a decade.
[00:04:04]  My dad and my uncle were both Marines.
[00:04:06]  So, very familiar with the environment.
[00:04:07]  Same thing.
[00:04:07]  Grew up hearing the stories, enlisted myself.
[00:04:10]  And so, that's my background as well.
[00:04:11]  Yep, absolutely.
[00:04:12]  So, this is a topic.
[00:04:15]  That I think really strikes home for a lot of Christians because, number one, based on the research that I was doing, 70% of the military is made up of people who identify as Christians.
[00:04:27]  So, predominantly Christians join the military.
[00:04:30]  Or, I guess, to be technically accurate, the military is made up predominantly of Christians.
[00:04:34]  And as far as the rank and file, the enlisted men, things like that, 70% of the military claims to be Christian, which is a very large minority.
[00:04:41]  It's bigger than the majority.
[00:04:43]  It's bigger than the majority of.
[00:04:45]  Christians in the country overall.
[00:04:47]  And so there is something, and there has been something in the Christian perspective, American Christian perspective, that honors and esteems military service.
[00:04:57]  And that has been really from the beginning with the Black Robe Regiment preaching their sermons and then casting off their robes of clerical robes and then going off to lead their men into, yeah, yeah, the military colonial uniform.
[00:05:12]  And to me, our military is made up of men that are willing to make a difference, men generally in good shape, and they also happen to be majority Christian.
[00:05:20]  Yep.
[00:05:20]  Who could have thought the men actually making a difference and taking care of themselves?
[00:05:24]  Shocking on average, on the whole.
[00:05:25]  Yeah, and let me say too, a lot of that it's uh, it's cultural south.
[00:05:29]  So, there's tons of guys they were talking about a good time with their girlfriend on Friday, they were going to church on Sunday.
[00:05:34]  There was certainly a lot of that, but by and large, on the whole, like for sure, when I was in the military, Christian was most certainly the name of the game.
[00:05:41]  I can't remember anyone of another faith, be it Muslim or certainly maybe your share of atheists, but that was by and large the majority.
[00:05:48]  Well, to your point, the 24 so there's 70 percent of the military are Christian.
[00:05:53]  The 24% that's after that was just undisclosed, right?
[00:05:58]  And then there was a very small minority, like less than 1% of atheist or Jew or Muslim or that sort of thing.
[00:06:06]  So, predominantly Christian.
[00:06:08]  And even though it says 70%, probably a lot of those 24% would, if you pressed them on it, say, well, yeah, I grew up going to church or something like that.
[00:06:16]  So, the other thing, the other reason why this has been a compelling option for Christian families is simply just from advancing your sons into life, sort of.
[00:06:29]  There are men that I know, even men that go to our church, that did a military career.
[00:06:34]  They got out of the military.
[00:06:35]  You've got connections, you've got a whole post military industry that you can join.
[00:06:40]  And for a lot of our history, maybe that actually was quite a good option path into the middle class, or even in some cases, beyond that.
[00:06:49]  If you retire as a colonel or a general or something like that, and you've got connections and you go private, like that actually can be quite a profitable move.
[00:06:58]  And so a lot of families would look at that and they'd say, okay, well, not only is it honorable to defend your country, to die for your neighbor potentially.
[00:07:06]  But also, it's a way of providing a way for you to get your education, to advance financially, even, and you get a pension.
[00:07:15]  It really has a lot, has had a lot of positives.
[00:07:19]  Wes, I don't know if you want to talk about some of the benefits that you receive just from the GI Bill and all of those things.
[00:07:25]  Like, it's pretty remarkable.
[00:07:27]  We'll get into the influence in a minute, which is a real question.
[00:07:30]  But to your point about kind of like 18 to 22, you can't think of a better system.
[00:07:34]  It's going to make someone be in shape, it's going to make them get up early, it's going to make them go to a job.
[00:07:38]  I mean, you can't really be fired short of doing something illegal and getting kicked out or leaving yourself.
[00:07:43]  So, you're talking about four years when a young man is the most prone to be headstrong, the most prone to get into trouble, the most prone to partying and being irresponsible.
[00:07:52]  In many ways, that's a great thing for someone that's 18 to 22.
[00:07:55]  And it served as a bit of those guardrails during those four years that a young man that could have gone one way or the other, it was really actually the military.
[00:08:01]  They straightened him out and kept him so that as a guy who could hold a job, it's a person who could do a good work, a guy who could be responsible, all of that.
[00:08:07]  And so, certainly an advantage on that perspective.
[00:08:10]  The people you encounter, that's another question.
[00:08:12]  We'll get into that.
[00:08:13]  But for sure, the VA home loan.
[00:08:15]  So, every veteran who serves, I think it's 36 months of active duty, discharged honorably, or maybe even be like general.
[00:08:22]  So, honorable or general discharge, 36 months active duty, you have eligibility to the VA home loan as well as the post 911 GI Bill.
[00:08:30]  And I mean, those two things home education, home education, those are some of the hardest things to do financially, especially today.
[00:08:39]  So, I took the GI Bill and I went and I got my undergraduate degree.
[00:08:42]  My master's degree out of it, and I graduated with zero dollars in debt.
[00:08:46]  And I was supported to do that all the way through all of those years.
[00:08:49]  Eventually, towards the end of my master's, I was working and doing my master's program.
[00:08:53]  But, like, guys, we're talking about like some semesters because I went to Columbia for a bit, $60,000 for a given academic year that I had to take on in student loan debt.
[00:09:03]  That would have been that would have addled me until 35, 40.
[00:09:06]  Yep, paid for.
[00:09:07]  Same thing then on the home loan side.
[00:09:09]  You can get a home loan at a good rate, and you don't have to put a down payment down up to it's about $720,000.
[00:09:15]  So you have that much eligibility.
[00:09:17]  No home loan required and no PMI.
[00:09:19]  So, you're two big things that you're tackling at 22 years old.
[00:09:23]  What am I going to get educated in?
[00:09:24]  And that covers technical school, it covers trade school, it covers you want to go be a pilot, it covers all of those different things, paid for, a stipend even to make it happen.
[00:09:32]  And then on the other side, getting a home.
[00:09:34]  I mean, I was able to own a home a lot earlier than my peers, and I actually use it, I manipulated it well.
[00:09:39]  So, I got two homes out of that $720,000 and then rent one of them out.
[00:09:43]  It was a huge start to my professional life by going to the military.
[00:09:46]  Yeah.
[00:09:47]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:09:48]  And I can attest to, you know, just talking to Wes and sometimes thinking, like, how can you do that?
[00:09:53]  And he's like, well, I've got the GI Bill or the home law.
[00:09:56]  Oh, yeah, right.
[00:09:57]  I forgot about that.
[00:09:58]  Yeah.
[00:09:58]  And so this has been a really compelling option, both financially and both for the sense of duty and loyalty, patriotism that Christian families want to instill into their sons.
[00:10:08]  So there's a reason why it's been so popular.
[00:10:12]  Now, couple that with the fact that for the last decade or so, military recruitment has been Way, way, way down.
[00:10:21]  And it's been dropping year over year over year.
[00:10:24]  not just the size of the military, because some people would say, well, we don't need as big of a military anymore because we're not in war with Russia, because our weapon systems are, it's drone warfare.
[00:10:35]  Yeah, it's all this kind of more high-tech warfare.
[00:10:38]  So we don't need the standing army that we used to have.
[00:10:40]  I mean, it used to be about 3 million people, and now it's about 1.3 million people.
[00:10:44]  But it's not just the size of the military, but it's the recruitment numbers that have been dropping steadily over the last little while.
[00:10:51]  So, Nate, maybe you can put up image number one, and we'll take a look at some of the details here with the.
[00:10:57]  Drop in recruitment.
[00:11:00]  In recruitment.
[00:11:00]  Yep.
[00:11:01]  So this is just the military size.
[00:11:03]  Okay.
[00:11:03]  Since 1985, the highest number there was in 1990.
[00:11:08]  That was around 3 million people.
[00:11:10]  And obviously, there were reasons for that, right?
[00:11:12]  Like we were in Desert Storm.
[00:11:14]  Yep.
[00:11:14]  There were actually hot conflict that we were involved with.
[00:11:17]  We were coming off the Cold War.
[00:11:20]  And so the military numbers were very large and it's dropped, right?
[00:11:24]  But let's look at the next one, Nate.
[00:11:26]  This is the recruitment.
[00:11:27]  Numbers over time.
[00:11:29]  And so this is a 40 year low in 2020 that we hit.
[00:11:35]  And so this is the number of people who are enlisting in the military year over year from 1976 on to right now.
[00:11:44]  And what's crazy about this is, Wes, like you mentioned, the GI Bill is post 9 11, right?
[00:11:52]  And so this military enlistment number, the peak of it was back in the 70s.
[00:11:58]  Where the GI Bill did not exist.
[00:12:00]  The VA home loan did, but the GI Bill did not.
[00:12:02]  The VA home loan did, yes.
[00:12:03]  The GI Bill did not.
[00:12:04]  And so, even as seemingly benefits have increased, I think wages have increased.
[00:12:10]  There's been talk about that some, but certainly the post military benefits have increased.
[00:12:15]  The numbers have decreased of enlisted applicants and those that actually enlisted.
[00:12:24]  So, that begs the question of why that would be.
[00:12:28]  And there's lots of reasons for it.
[00:12:30]  A lot of the failure to believe in the American project.
[00:12:33]  Right, that is present among youth, and people are more cynical about the country.
[00:12:38]  A lot of it, the fact that the nation is more mixed with different peoples here, right?
[00:12:43]  And they don't have the same necessarily the same sort of fidelity to the country.
[00:12:48]  Although I want to be careful there because even coming through World War II, there were people of other nations that did serve in the U.S. military.
[00:12:56]  But a lot of it has been pretty well documented.
[00:13:00]  And Pete Henseth's book was about this the wokeness and the DEI and just the lack of excellence.
[00:13:06]  And zeal for excellence and for battle readiness that the military used to have that they no longer had.
[00:13:15]  So, the last thing I want to mention here before we start looking at some of the other things that Pete Hegseth has done is this.
[00:13:24]  While the military has been declining, when Trump got elected, December was the highest December in like 20 years of recruitment in military history, okay?
[00:13:37]  In the last 20 years.
[00:13:39]  And Trump and Hegseth came out and said, this is because Trump has promised to restore order, okay, to restore battle readiness, to restore a spirit of the warrior again.
[00:13:53]  We're getting rid of the DEI.
[00:13:54]  We're getting rid of the woke.
[00:13:55]  We're going to stop saluting men wearing dog masks, things like that.
[00:13:58]  And I believe that's true.
[00:14:00]  I believe that's true.
[00:14:01]  However, as I was researching for this, I found a number of articles where people came out and said, no, no, no, Biden gets credit for this because actually the whole year of 2024, The numbers were going up slightly, right?
[00:14:14]  They're saying we had already turned their corner on recruitment and the things that we were trying to do as the military, offering better incentives and all these things.
[00:14:22]  We already saw the fruits of that.
[00:14:23]  And January was just the culmination of everything that the Biden administration had been trying to do.
[00:14:28]  Well, here's the black pill for us.
[00:14:31]  It's true that indeed military numbers, recruitment numbers had been increasing through 2024.
[00:14:38]  What they're not saying is most of that was because so many more women were enlisting.
[00:14:44]  So, Nate, let's show that third graph.
[00:14:46]  No, don't love that at all.
[00:14:48]  This doesn't show necessarily the percentage of the growth that was from women, but this just shows.
[00:14:54]  Um, even back in 2017, this was already starting.
[00:14:58]  Um, the percentage of each of the branches of the military that's made up by women okay, so the air force, active personnel 20%, reserve personnel 27%, and guard personnel 21%.

=== Recruitment Surge from Women (05:26) ===

[00:15:11]  Obviously, the marines is a lot lower.
[00:15:14]  Um, kudos to the marines, they're much more physically demanding.
[00:15:17]  Eight percent of active duty personnel were women, and four percent were reserve personnel.
[00:15:24]  I'll point out, too, on the women's side, um, something I've been noticing, and I've heard other women say this.
[00:15:29]  Is corporate America really turning on it?
[00:15:32]  Like, now it's a little bit of a day late, a dollar short, you know.
[00:15:35]  Like, well, we're 40 years into feminism, and I actually don't really like that.
[00:15:39]  You know, I'm having to work 45 hours under fluorescent lights and pay for my own apartment, and I'm not really protected.
[00:15:45]  So they don't really like it.
[00:15:45]  But I think a lot of women are being driven to join the military because they have debt.
[00:15:50]  So they're like, I have tons of debt, and I'm struggling to find a job.
[00:15:54]  And at the end of the day, like, I, you know, I'm in decent shape enough.
[00:15:57]  That doesn't sound like too bad of a gig.
[00:15:59]  I can go, you know, live in California, I'd have a job that would be stable.
[00:16:03]  And so you have to understand that macroeconomic conditions could also influence it too.
[00:16:07]  That it's not necessarily just propaganda, although, most certainly, there was propaganda aimed at women to join these different branches.
[00:16:13]  But most certainly, also, the macroeconomic conditions that have destroyed women as a whole, that has made them depressed, that has made them anxious, that has made them childless, that has made them, in many ways, unmarried and not even desiring to be married, has also driven them to the military, where they're even less feminine, where they have to march and arrange and go to jobs that are meant for men.
[00:16:35]  The only thing, and to that point, Wes, it's really interesting because actually what we find is even active duty women in the military, the numbers show that predominantly they are filling clerical roles in the military.
[00:16:48]  They are doing secretarial roles or management roles or the kind of role that basically they're not getting in corporate America anymore.
[00:16:56]  They're basically a lot of them, even the active duty ones, they're not necessarily the combat troops, right?
[00:17:01]  They're sitting in the general's office filing his paperwork for him.
[00:17:05]  That's exactly how in the Marine Corps, your squadron have different shops.
[00:17:08]  They're called like S shops.
[00:17:09]  Your S1 is admin, your S3 is gear.
[00:17:12]  All women.
[00:17:12]  That would just basically run these things and do the admin for it.
[00:17:15]  Yep.
[00:17:17]  So that is the situation as it has been.
[00:17:20]  And, you know, when Trump got elected, a lot of men, young men, joined the military on the spot.
[00:17:27]  And a lot of Christian families are now thinking, can we go again?
[00:17:30]  Can we join again?
[00:17:31]  I wanted to mention a couple of the things that Pete Hegseth has done.
[00:17:36]  Even just now, since coming into his role as a Secretary of Defense, because he has been trying to turn the tide.
[00:17:45]  A lot of people want it instantly, they want it now.
[00:17:48]  I get it.
[00:17:49]  Things like this take time, especially when it's so entrenched.
[00:17:52]  So, here are a couple of just bullet points of things that Hegseth has been able to do since coming into his position.
[00:18:00]  So, Executive Order 14151 was that they were going to, he oversaw the widespread removal.
[00:18:09]  Of DEI related content across military branches, right?
[00:18:13]  So, really going after a lot of the DEI quotas and requirements.
[00:18:22]  So, that executive order is being carried out by Hegseth.
[00:18:27]  He has, or Trump has, through him, dismissed actually quite a few of the senior military officials.
[00:18:34]  So, no more.
[00:18:34]  Oh, what's that?
[00:18:35]  I might have cut you off.
[00:18:36]  No more four star women generals anymore?
[00:18:38]  Yes.
[00:18:39]  Yes.
[00:18:39]  I might have cut you off and jumped ahead, but.
[00:18:40]  No, you're okay.
[00:18:42]  Well, that's exactly the case.
[00:18:44]  They let go of some of the really woke, like the admirals, things like that.
[00:18:51]  Lisa Franchetti is one of those that you're talking about.
[00:18:55]  And so the dismissals that they have achieved were part of a broader effort to replace leaders associated with DEI initiatives.
[00:19:04]  And so that absolutely has happened.
[00:19:06]  They have suspended transgender policies, but this is a thing that's gone back and forth in the courts.
[00:19:14]  Trump's executive order to disallow transgender.
[00:19:18]  So called transgender people from military service.
[00:19:20]  Currently, they are still serving.
[00:19:22]  The most recent Court of Appeals did not allow a stay on a lower court judge's ruling that Trump is not allowed to.
[00:19:33]  So it's going to end up in the Supreme Court until it's decided.
[00:19:38]  The executive order to ban transgender people from the military is not able to be carried out.
[00:19:44]  But it is going to the Supreme Court.
[00:19:46]  We'll see.
[00:19:47]  That can be a bit of a long process, too.
[00:19:50]  And then There has been just a public tenor.
[00:19:54]  This matters, a public tenor where they have publicly denounced these DEI principles.
[00:19:59]  And so even though, for instance, the transgender executive order has been blocked, there has just been Trump and the White House and Hegseth and all of them have said, look, they qualified as people with a mental disability or mental derangement just a couple of years ago.
[00:20:18]  They're not combat ready.
[00:20:20]  They don't belong in the military.
[00:20:21]  Even just that public discourse has been.
[00:20:24]  Very helpful in pushing the Overton and the military, I would think, back towards reason and battle readiness.
[00:20:31]  So that's kind of where we stand right now.
[00:20:33]  That's where we've been and where the state of the military is right now.

=== Defending Something Else (02:19) ===

[00:20:38]  We're going to hit our first commercial break here.
[00:20:40]  And when we come back, we're going to talk about some of the brewing international conflicts and the reality that if you send your son to the military right now, there is a non zero chance.
[00:20:55]  That he would be shipped overseas to die in some proxy war of some sort.
[00:21:00]  So that's another consideration.
[00:21:02]  We're going to hit our commercial break.
[00:21:03]  We're going to come back and talk about that.
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[00:22:41]  Boldly deployed.
[00:22:46]  All right, welcome back.
[00:22:47]  So, a lot of groundwork that we're laying there.
[00:22:49]  I wanted to lay just a little bit more groundwork, I guess, before the actual discussion happens.
[00:22:54]  And that is this you know, it's funny.

=== Globalism and Shipping Lanes (15:15) ===

[00:22:57]  When I was younger, I didn't totally understand the outrage about the Vietnam War, right?
[00:23:04]  And the older I get and the more that I see how so many of America's conflicts that we get involved in are really not about defending our soil.
[00:23:12]  They're about defending something else.
[00:23:14]  Now, at least with the Vietnam War, you could say it was about fending off communism, right?
[00:23:19]  At least there was that.
[00:23:20]  But now, the conflict that's brewing I mean, which conflict?
[00:23:23]  There's Ukraine still, there's China brewing.
[00:23:26]  But the one conflict that I wanted to mention, what's that?
[00:23:28]  Iran.
[00:23:29]  Iran.
[00:23:29]  That's the one that I wanted to mention.
[00:23:31]  And so the conflict that's brewing with Iran is interesting.
[00:23:34]  It starts with a terrorist group, an Islamic group in Yemen.
[00:23:42]  And this is the Houthi.
[00:23:44]  They've been labeled as a terrorist organization, which, you know, if you haven't been labeled as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, what are you doing?
[00:23:52]  What are you doing with yourself?
[00:23:53]  Stop flying around.
[00:23:55]  In this case, you know, they really do seem to be serious about blowing things up.
[00:23:59]  And so they are in Yemen.
[00:24:01]  Maybe you can pull up image number four here.
[00:24:05]  So this shows the, yep, there it is.
[00:24:08]  The Red Sea is the blue in the middle there.
[00:24:10]  And this is an incredibly important body of water globally because that, um, The Red Sea goes all the way up into Egypt, and we have the Suez Canal there, which has made it possible for goods to be transported from Europe over to Asia and even over to the US by going through the Red Sea at a much shorter time.
[00:24:32]  In a minute, not yet, Nate, but in a minute, I'll show some graphs to illustrate that.
[00:24:35]  I know this geography so well because I remember growing up playing Risk, and I lost a game one time because in Risk, there is no port across that.
[00:24:42]  And I was so mad I went back with a pen after the game and I drew the little dashes.
[00:24:46]  So next time it came up, I could cross.
[00:24:49]  I was like, I know there's a canal there.
[00:24:51]  I should be able to do it.
[00:24:52]  It's so much more strategic.
[00:24:53]  But bringing that up was just PTSD.
[00:24:56]  I'm not there, honestly, because I went overseas and I was.
[00:24:59]  Well, no, that's true.
[00:25:00]  I was actually there, not by the Red Sea, but over in Kuwait.
[00:25:02]  Yep.
[00:25:03]  Anyway, so this is a tribal group.
[00:25:06]  They're not officially the government of Yemen, as far as I know.
[00:25:09]  And back in 2023, they began from what you saw there on the screen, they have a prominent position on the southeastern.
[00:25:20]  Edge of the Red Sea, and they began launching rockets at ships that were sailing in to the Red Sea.
[00:25:26]  In particular, they started out by bombing and threatening Israeli ships.
[00:25:32]  But the reality is, they quickly started threatening and attacking U.S. ships and ships that were allied with U.S. training partners.
[00:25:43]  Well, the reason why all of this matters is the Houthis are supported by Iran, who are For them, because Iran as opposed to Israel.
[00:25:52]  And so the Houthi kind of became the proxy of those who were able to take direct action against Israel because they're not officially a state.
[00:25:59]  They don't have a government.
[00:26:00]  They're not in any way allied with any official countries because they've been branded a terrorist organization.
[00:26:07]  Well, the U.S. has decided that it is our role to keep shipping lanes open in the Red Sea.
[00:26:15]  And so, actually, just within the last week, we've been launching drone strikes at the Houthi who are in that part of the world.
[00:26:21]  And this has kind of just emboldened them and made them entrench themselves even deeper.
[00:26:26]  And the conflict there is picking up.
[00:26:29]  Now, this is something that really does actually have the potential to boil over into some conflict.
[00:26:37]  Nate, let's show the next image, image number five.
[00:26:40]  The reason why this is so important is because you see there the Suez Canal kind of towards the middle of the screen.
[00:26:48]  This is how long shipping takes from Europe and from other parts of the world if the Red Sea and the Suez Canal are not options.
[00:26:56]  So from Rotterdam in Europe, it would take, for instance, 19 days to get to India.
[00:27:03]  But if they have to go around, it's a 34-day trip by.
[00:27:11]  tanker, oil tanker, or whatever those large ships are called.
[00:27:14]  From the US, it adds significant amount of time also, not being able to go through there and having to go around the bottom of Africa.
[00:27:23]  Nate, next graph, or next image there.
[00:27:28]  So this just shows it a little more simply, I think.
[00:27:32]  Same idea.
[00:27:32]  So really what we're dealing with is we can cut kind of through the continent, through the Mediterranean Sea, rather than going around the bottom of Africa.
[00:27:40]  So, this raises the question of is it the U.S.'s job to get involved in armed conflict with the Houthi who are allied with Iran, who see our allegiance with or our ally ship?
[00:27:54]  Is it allegiance?
[00:27:55]  I guess it is allegiance with Israel.
[00:27:58]  The Israel question, notwithstanding, because we tackled that some already this week earlier, but the question of we could be involved in actual conflict with Iran and with the Houthi, sending battle carriers over, over shipping lanes.
[00:28:14]  Right over shipping lanes.
[00:28:16]  Now, shipping lanes are important, commerce is important.
[00:28:18]  I don't deny that that's a real significant cost increase.
[00:28:24]  It is massively more expensive to ship around the bottom of Africa than going through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.
[00:28:33]  I get it.
[00:28:34]  But what we have to understand is the calculus of what determines whether your sons are involved in combat sometimes comes down to is the US going to step in and enforce shipping lanes in the Red Sea?
[00:28:47]  Or is it going to step in and defend Ukraine, right?
[00:28:54]  Or all these things that really are, at the end of the day, not any of our business.
[00:29:00]  What products are typically shipped through those lanes?
[00:29:02]  Are you aware?
[00:29:03]  That's what I was going to say.
[00:29:03]  Well, 17% of global shipping goes through there.
[00:29:06]  So you're talking durable goods.
[00:29:08]  You're talking, do you know of oil, for example?
[00:29:11]  Probably.
[00:29:12]  Probably.
[00:29:12]  Yeah.
[00:29:13]  Yep.
[00:29:14]  I didn't do that research.
[00:29:16]  What's your thinking there?
[00:29:17]  I just, there's a difference between, and that's what's so tough is when you become interconnected and dependent upon different nations.
[00:29:22]  Like, it's one thing with China, like, what are we dependent on China for?
[00:29:25]  Like, well, plastic slot.
[00:29:26]  Like, we is a lot of merchandise and a lot of consumer goods that come from there.
[00:29:30]  But then you could have strategic shipments, and we discovered this during COVID.
[00:29:33]  Like, a lot of our medicines are made overseas.
[00:29:36]  So, we're talking a whole different calculus of oil and medicine.
[00:29:39]  We need to make medicine here.
[00:29:40]  We need to make chips here.
[00:29:42]  And we need to drill be drilled and be able to have all of our energy here.
[00:29:49]  If it was.
[00:29:50]  If we could do those things here, which we can, it's just a matter of will and getting rid of all the red tape.
[00:29:56]  If we can do those things here, then I guess what I'm trying to say is that it seems like part of the reason, you know, that our sons potentially would have to go and die for defending shipping lanes is because of globalism, because we've become so dependent on the rest of the world.
[00:30:13]  And so it's not even just we're doing this for other countries, it does benefit other countries, but we're the ones who always contribute the most.
[00:30:19]  So every country benefits by, you know, by free trade, global free trade.
[00:30:24]  Every country is having its benefits, but we're the ones who make it happen.
[00:30:27]  That's right.
[00:30:28]  We're the ones that make it.
[00:30:29]  You know, that makes sure that you know, like we're the police of the sea, you know, like we're the global navy that makes sure that you know, pirating doesn't take over every single you know, tanker that's going through this straight.
[00:30:38]  So, if that's the case, um, that you know, we're doing all of this, everybody's benefiting from it, but but nobody's contributing to you know, to the degree that we are, um, it'd be one thing if we're getting like some kind of you know, lithium or like some some unique you know, rare mineral that God in His sovereignty only placed in one part of the world and it doesn't happen to be here, but if we're going.
[00:31:00]  To send our sons to war to die for shipping lanes, not to protect our homeland, but shipping lanes to ship plastic slot from China.
[00:31:08]  Well, here's a breakdown actually.
[00:31:09]  Or things that matter, but things that we could do here at home, then we should just start doing them here at home.
[00:31:14]  That's my point.
[00:31:15]  So, Nathan pulled this up for us.
[00:31:16]  Go ahead, Wes.
[00:31:17]  Okay.
[00:31:18]  The Suez Canal for global trade, it moves the most of these types of products crude oil and petroleum, liquefied natural gas, containerized goods, that's electronics, clothing, machinery, all of that, dry bowl commodities.
[00:31:29]  And toys.
[00:31:30]  Yeah.
[00:31:31]  Chemicals and petrochemicals, that's stuff used in like plastics production.
[00:31:35]  Vehicles, ag, and military cargo.
[00:31:37]  So you have a wide variety of things going through them.
[00:31:39]  But a lot of that doesn't need to be.
[00:31:41]  Exactly.
[00:31:41]  It only is because it was cheaper on the dollar to make it or to buy it or to import it.
[00:31:46]  Yeah, cheaper on the dollar, but then all of our sons can't get a livable wage.
[00:31:50]  Right.
[00:31:51]  Because we got rid of all of the GDP.
[00:31:52]  But the GDP went up.
[00:31:53]  You're not looking on the bright side.
[00:31:55]  Yeah, the GDP went up.
[00:31:57]  So yeah, so that was my only point and contribution to the conversation just to say, I'm with you 100%, Michael.
[00:32:03]  That's a great distinction.
[00:32:04]  Like, are we fighting to protect our homeland and our neighbor?
[00:32:07]  And our families?
[00:32:09]  Or are we fighting for the GDP by protecting shipping lanes and that benefits the entire world?
[00:32:15]  But the US is contributing 80% of that defense and every other country does jack squat.
[00:32:22]  And the very thing that we're protecting is like, well, yeah, everybody else is getting a free ride, but we have to do it because we need it too and nobody else will do it.
[00:32:29]  Okay, but we need what?
[00:32:31]  What is it that we're shipping?
[00:32:33]  And if it turns out what we're shipping is medicine, well, yeah, we need medicine.
[00:32:37]  Why don't we make medicine here?
[00:32:39]  Why don't we make chips here?
[00:32:40]  Why don't we drill for oil here?
[00:32:45]  We have incredible resources in this continent.
[00:32:47]  That's part of America's incredible success, right?
[00:32:50]  So I believe that a big part of our success, the quintessential factor, is our Christian foundation.
[00:32:59]  I believe that.
[00:33:00]  So when I look at Christendom and I look at what God did in Europe and then also with Western Europeans predominantly coming to America and what he did here, I'm going to attribute the lion's share of the credit to Christianity, Christian faith.
[00:33:18]  However, I will also admit that part of the reason that America has been so prosperous is its natural resources and also its geography.
[00:33:29]  We're flanked both on the east and the west by large oceans, there's not a whole lot of military threat.
[00:33:37]  To our north, there's a pretend country.
[00:33:41]  A frozen pretend country.
[00:33:42]  A frozen pretend country.
[00:33:44]  The freezer aisle.
[00:33:45]  Right, with a bunch of libtards that, like, I mean, seriously, like Canada is a joke.
[00:33:50]  And it sounds like.
[00:33:51]  That their prime minister came out and said that they're no longer going to be friends with America.
[00:33:56]  Yeah, I saw that.
[00:33:58]  If America will no longer lead the world economically, then we're going to lead the world.
[00:34:03]  You're a joke.
[00:34:04]  You're not a real country.
[00:34:05]  You're a joke.
[00:34:06]  The people, I think, are precious, many of the people.
[00:34:09]  But the country and its leaders are a joke.
[00:34:12]  And so there's no threat from Canada whatsoever.
[00:34:15]  And then beneath us, there actually are some threats like fentanyl and these kinds of things that are killing our citizens.
[00:34:21]  But below, you don't have a country either.
[00:34:23]  You have a cartel.
[00:34:25]  So you have frozen libtards, and then you have Jose and his gangs.
[00:34:31]  And then on the East side.
[00:34:33]  You build a big wall and keep them out.
[00:34:34]  That's right.
[00:34:34]  You build a big wall and keep them out.
[00:34:37]  And then with the North, they're so dumb, they won't even come out of the snow to freedom, even if it was open to them.
[00:34:44]  They're like, no, we love tyranny.
[00:34:45]  Some of them would.
[00:34:46]  Some of them have.
[00:34:46]  Some of them have.
[00:34:47]  And those individuals are in our church.
[00:34:49]  That's right.
[00:34:50]  But God bless them.
[00:34:51]  We love them.
[00:34:52]  But a lot of them are like, you know, give me communism and snow and, you know, give me half of India, please.
[00:34:59]  Yeah, and here in Toronto.
[00:35:00]  That's right.
[00:35:01]  Right.
[00:35:01]  And so, my point is so that's the protections that we have.
[00:35:05]  And then in terms of the resources, just I forget the author, but like I think it's 17,000 navigable miles of rivers that we have.
[00:35:15]  Whereas I think the whole world combined is like just a shade above 30.
[00:35:19]  So it's like 30 to 35,000.
[00:35:22]  Rivers that you can actually drive through.
[00:35:24]  There's a tiny amount of actual rivers and a tiny amount of accessible coasts.
[00:35:28]  Exactly.
[00:35:29]  So, all of our coasts are accessible.
[00:35:30]  They don't have the same kind of deep harbors.
[00:35:33]  Like, God put an abundance of, whether it's so your ability to be on the Mississippi and ship by waterways in the United States, there's not a single other country that has that ability.
[00:35:47]  The protections with the coasts and snow above and Jose and his gangs below, like that is very unique.
[00:35:56]  Um, and then also, you know, to be fair, even if Mexico became a powerhouse, which I don't see happening in the near future, but even if it did, it's geographic, it's a very small country.
[00:36:05]  We have this big country, and then it quite literally bottlenecks this big gulf of America right there, amen.
[00:36:12]  Um, but then also, all of oil, too, all oil, the timber and wood, and then oil.
[00:36:17]  We have with Alaska, the Gulf of America, and Texas, and Texas has enough oil.
[00:36:23]  I think it'd be 250 years we could supply ourselves just with East Texas oil alone.
[00:36:27]  I remember when they kept saying.
[00:36:29]  You know, we're going to be out of oil in 100 years, and they would discover a new reserve.
[00:36:32]  Oh, no, this actually will keep us going for another two years.
[00:36:35]  And I think oil is being made.
[00:36:38]  I don't think it's a bunch of dinosaur bones from millions and millions of years ago.
[00:36:42]  I think it's a renewable resource that the earth is actually continuing to produce.
[00:36:47]  And don't get me started on primary water.
[00:36:49]  So, primary water, primary oil.
[00:36:51]  Primary water.
[00:36:51]  Primary oil.
[00:36:52]  Both.
[00:36:52]  You heard it there first.
[00:36:54]  I think both.
[00:36:55]  So, my point is, I think, yes, America has been incredibly prosperous because of the Christian faith.
[00:37:00]  But also in God's providence, it's also been incredibly prosperous because of its natural, geographically built in defense and protections and isolation, and also all the resources that God has given us.
[00:37:16]  So, that said, we should use them.
[00:37:20]  We should use them.
[00:37:21]  We don't actually have to police the world.
[00:37:23]  Right now, we're policing the world, and it's always in the name of some humanitarian, virtuous motivation of like, oh, well, we care about this poor little.
[00:37:32]  Country like push on that a little bit because a lot of our protectionism and our intervention comes from communism.
[00:37:38]  So you had World War I and World War II, in contrast to communism, right?
[00:37:40]  Like communism.
[00:37:42]  And you have to have sympathy for Vietnam and Korea, these tiny little countries as Eastern Asia is becoming largely communist, these little tiny peninsulas that are isolated and alone.
[00:37:52]  That the US, at some level, said, Well, what are we for?
[00:37:55]  What is our military for?
[00:37:56]  We didn't get shackled the way World War I and World War II did to the rest of Europe.
[00:37:59]  So we adopted this type of interventionist mindset.
[00:38:02]  But I mean, communism is done by the late 1980s.
[00:38:04]  The Berlin Wall falls down, it's no longer the force that it was.
[00:38:08]  China itself has to adopt some capitalist systems, some capitalist parts into its economy.

=== Empire Without Virtuous Reasons (06:38) ===

[00:38:13]  So, what we should have done is taken that thing that did have a time and place, perhaps, and there's a discussion about it, but it's at least a viable point.
[00:38:20]  Perhaps it had a point, but it's not.
[00:38:22]  Perhaps it had a place, but it hasn't been for 40 years.
[00:38:25]  The way that communism was threatening to take over, quite literally, the entire half of the globe.
[00:38:30]  There was a time where we saw that as a real possibility, and for better or worse, fought against it.
[00:38:34]  But that hasn't happened in 40, 50 years, and we still keep that system for today.
[00:38:38]  Right.
[00:38:38]  It's a trope today.
[00:38:39]  So, that's my point is that maybe there were some virtuous, like moral reasons.
[00:38:44]  But there haven't been for a very long time.
[00:38:46]  We still will still, you know, parade out all those virtuous reasons and say, oh, well, it's just because I care about this and I care, you know, we care about this and we care about that.
[00:38:55]  And what are the oil exports of that country again?
[00:38:57]  Exactly.
[00:38:57]  And that's what it always is.
[00:38:59]  You know, like, it's like, oh, oil was discovered in Greenland.
[00:39:02]  Time to export some of our stuff in Kuwait.
[00:39:05]  Let's go democracy for Greenland.
[00:39:07]  We have all of these bases and stuff in this little place called Kuwait.
[00:39:11]  It's a terrible place to be.
[00:39:12]  And it's so clear our strategic interest in that region is the oil.
[00:39:15]  It's not going to be.
[00:39:16]  It would be better if we just came out and said, We're here for the oil.
[00:39:20]  Yeah, and just conquest.
[00:39:22]  But here's the thing I'm not actually inherently, like, for moral reasons, against empires in a timeless sense of like, there can be no time and no place in history where you could ever have an empire.
[00:39:35]  It's always immoral, inherently immoral.
[00:39:39]  That's actually not my position.
[00:39:40]  But what I will say is I don't think you can have both.
[00:39:43]  You can have a nation or you can have an empire.
[00:39:45]  You can have a country or an empire.
[00:39:46]  There actually are, I think, virtuous reasons.
[00:39:49]  I think it's, It's rare and it needs to be providential within what God's doing in history.
[00:39:53]  There could be times and places where empires are actually fitting.
[00:39:58]  But I don't believe that we're in one of those times.
[00:40:01]  I think we have been trying to straddle between having a nation, having an empire.
[00:40:08]  All the virtuous reasons for an empirical strategy like communism are all receding.
[00:40:15]  That's not on the forefront anymore.
[00:40:17]  And so then it just leaves all right, we're going to die for shipping lanes, for resources.
[00:40:23]  And here's the thing.
[00:40:25]  If you just quit being ridiculous liberals, all those resources are here.
[00:40:30]  They're all here.
[00:40:31]  It's literally just, we're literally just, it's just, you know, because we're going to lower our carbon footprint.
[00:40:37]  But here's the thing the carbon footprint in Kuwait and all these other places is raised by us as we go and drill somewhere else.
[00:40:44]  But then we can, so like we're literally doing it.
[00:40:47]  So just so that we, just so that Greta Thunberg won't be mad at us.
[00:40:52]  Like, really, is that US policy is trying to please a 14 year old girl?
[00:40:57]  Because, in the big scheme of things, even from an objective level, and I would push back on all the environmental stuff in a lot of ways, but objectively, it's the same carbon footprint.
[00:41:09]  And it's the same country doing it.
[00:41:11]  They're just doing it somewhere else.
[00:41:13]  It's actually worse because now all the shipping.
[00:41:16]  All the shipping.
[00:41:23]  And China wouldn't keep its word on the green initiatives.
[00:41:26]  It would just pollute and pollute and pollute.
[00:41:29]  So when we would do it in the US, We were, even if you grant the idea that this is greener or better, we were doing it better than those countries that are not.
[00:41:39]  Right.
[00:41:40]  So, all that being said, I think that right now, yes, America first.
[00:41:45]  And I'm a nationalist.
[00:41:47]  I think we need nationhood.
[00:41:49]  We need America to view itself as a nation.
[00:41:53]  Come home, get out of no more Ukraine stuff, no more Israel stuff.
[00:41:59]  And that doesn't mean we can't be sympathetic, but there's not a moral obligation in scripture for us to go and defend these other nations.
[00:42:05]  So, for instance, when we had Ron Dotson, like Taiwan, It's probably a matter of when rather than if.
[00:42:13]  Taiwan is probably going to fold back into China.
[00:42:16]  Geographically, it makes sense, even in terms of customs and culture.
[00:42:20]  And I understand that the Taiwanese people are like, no, we want to be independent because nobody likes China.
[00:42:26]  The people in China don't like China.
[00:42:28]  Nobody likes China because the leaders are terrible.
[00:42:31]  They're absolute terrible people.
[00:42:33]  But I get that it's like, no, save us, save us, America.
[00:42:36]  I'm sorry.
[00:42:37]  I'm sorry.
[00:42:38]  No, it's not.
[00:42:41]  In terms of language, customs, culture, all these different things, you are historically, it's kind of like the same, similar to like Putin and saying, well, these are historic, you know, Russian lands, you know, or, you know, a guy with Belgium, you know, once upon a time, like, you know, but like, they're, like, they're, you know, it's that.
[00:43:00]  And when those things happen, like God has set up geographic boundaries and they can only be manipulated, I think, for a time, temporarily.
[00:43:08]  Eventually, nations go back to a default setting.
[00:43:11]  They do for better or for worse.
[00:43:13]  It's like, no, this actually belongs with this.
[00:43:15]  This continent is a part of that.
[00:43:17]  Like, you can't have, oh, there's a sea of Muslims, and then we're going to have like a little, like, or Hong Kong, you know, like, oh, like, this is going to be a bastion of freedom and capitalism and democracy.
[00:43:30]  And like, no, that's it, maybe for a while, but it's not going to last because it's smack dab in the middle of China.
[00:43:39]  And so I just think that the world, right now, I think the world is snapping back.
[00:43:44]  Into a natural order that follows geographic boundaries that God in His sovereignty and providence put into place.
[00:43:52]  It's reverting back to nationalism.
[00:43:54]  Globalism is becoming, by conviction, I think people are moving away from it.
[00:43:59]  But even aside from conviction or any morals, I think it's becoming just less and less plausible.
[00:44:04]  It's just not doable in a way that previously was.
[00:44:07]  There aren't the virtuous reasons in order to defend it anymore.
[00:44:11]  People are wising up and they're like, yeah, I'm not going to go and die for shipping lanes and I'm not going to die for Israel and I'm not going to die for Ukraine.
[00:44:18]  And so I think that's.
[00:44:19]  And they're not going to die for a condo and Uber Eats.
[00:44:22]  Right.
[00:44:22]  Like, think about the men that went to fight for their homes in the American Revolution and in the Civil War and even into World War I and World War II, insofar as they felt there was a threat.
[00:44:30]  When they fought, when they're on those front lines, what they're thinking back to, they're thinking back to a wonderful woman.
[00:44:34]  They're thinking back to their children.
[00:44:36]  They're thinking back to a home with land and dirt and soil.
[00:44:39]  And that's what's in their mind an American ethos, a flag, our freedom.
[00:44:43]  That's what they fought and died for.
[00:44:44]  Even in Vietnam, at some level, it was communism is threatening us and these freedoms that we love so much in America, we're protecting them.

=== Return to a Place Worth Dying For (14:47) ===

[00:44:51]  Right.
[00:44:52]  People don't die for a 700 square foot condo in Denver where they can Uber Eats all day.
[00:44:57]  Like, those things don't motivate a man to then join the military and to buffet his body and to go overseas and to be willing to lay his life down.
[00:45:04]  He says, eh, okay, maybe China does own it.
[00:45:07]  But, like, do I still have Netflix?
[00:45:09]  Like, they won't die for those things.
[00:45:10]  So you have to have a return to a people in a place worth dying for.
[00:45:14]  Right.
[00:45:15]  That's right.
[00:45:16]  Let's go to our last commercial break and we'll come right back.
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[00:46:18]  All right, welcome back.
[00:46:19]  So, here in this last segment, what we want to do is just actually have kind of a conversation about what would be some good advice and principles for you as a Christian father, Christian family, a Christian young man to think about.
[00:46:33]  When it comes to this question, I'm certainly not going to say if you join the military right now, it's a sinful decision, right?
[00:46:40]  Like we would never bind your conscience in that way.
[00:46:42]  I actually know people who are graduating from high school this year, joining the Marine Corps.
[00:46:48]  You know, fantastic.
[00:46:49]  Pray for them.
[00:46:49]  I pray that it would work out.
[00:46:51]  But we do just kind of want to give some perspective and principles and advice that maybe would help guide your decision.
[00:46:58]  And Wes, I was hoping you could share a little bit about just the condition of the military.
[00:47:03]  Is it a suitable place for a Christian young man?
[00:47:05]  Because I've heard both.
[00:47:06]  I've heard.
[00:47:07]  from people in certain branches of the military who say, I went, the chaplain that we had on base was fantastic.
[00:47:14]  We had Bible study every week, and he was actually a solid Christian chaplain.
[00:47:18]  And it was really a fantastic environment for me to grow as a Christian or demonstrate my faith as a Christian.
[00:47:24]  And I've heard the exact opposite.
[00:47:25]  I've had friends who went into the military and said, man, after I got out, it took me 10 years to kind of come back to my faith and really get my life straight from some of the decisions, the bad, sinful decisions that I had made.
[00:47:37]  While I was in the military.
[00:47:39]  So, Wes, you're the resident expert here on this topic and I think would offer valuable perspective.
[00:47:44]  Sure.
[00:47:45]  Your module will vary, of course.
[00:47:47]  You're looking at about 1.2 million individuals and then 20 to 30 bases, big ones, as well as tons of other embassies and everything that you could be spread out at.
[00:47:55]  And the most difficult thing is that your experience is going to depend greatly, not even necessarily on the base you go to or the job you pick, but your individual unit and even down to your unit, your shop.
[00:48:07]  So, that's the five to 10 people.
[00:48:09]  That's your corporal, that's your sergeant, that's your commanding officer.
[00:48:13]  Those kind of people are going to make your life very difficult difficult to be a Christian, difficult to hold your faith, difficult to just succeed.
[00:48:21]  Or they're going to be, honestly, some of your best friends.
[00:48:22]  Like, that's legitimately some guys go in and those are their brothers for life, especially in special forces where it's smaller, there's more training to go through it, there's a higher selection process.
[00:48:32]  I mean, some of those units, those men just for life, their families and everything, they stay together.
[00:48:36]  And so, I can never tell you, well, you'll go here and it'll be great, you'll go here and it'll be bad.
[00:48:40]  But be aware that you could go to a unit where a young man is going to have to fight for his faith, where he's going to have to make a conscious decision to say, I mean, many times I was invited to strip clubs.
[00:48:49]  I'll come to the strip club out with us.
[00:48:50]  Didn't do it.
[00:48:51]  That is 100% going to be some of the influence.
[00:48:53]  Influence towards drinking, influence towards just reckless behavior.
[00:48:58]  You'll always have those elements.
[00:49:00]  They're going to be worse in some units.
[00:49:02]  And particularly, here's the balance with kind of like the Marine Corps versus the other ones.
[00:49:06]  When you kind of like go down the list, the Air Force is one of the softest branches as far as physical discipline.
[00:49:12]  As far as the standards that they hold, as far as just the people that are allowed in.
[00:49:16]  I mean, some of the gayest stuff we're seeing out of the military, it was the Air Force, as far as transitions and all of that.
[00:49:22]  You got Air Force in the bottom, the Navy.
[00:49:24]  Navy's pretty bad.
[00:49:26]  Army next.
[00:49:26]  The Marine Corps, even just that graph you showed, has the lowest proportion of women, for example.
[00:49:31]  It's the hardest one to get into.
[00:49:32]  So, the Marine Corps experience, for example, is going to be different on the whole from the Air Force experience.
[00:49:37]  So, calculating what branch am I going in?
[00:49:40]  What job am I going into?
[00:49:41]  Infantry, you're going to be around a lot of men.
[00:49:44]  And in many ways, they're going to be the good men.
[00:49:46]  Like a man who's just looking to go to a glorified kind of desk job in admin, get a free college ride and a VA home loan.
[00:49:55]  He's not going to be in the army.
[00:49:56]  That's right.
[00:49:56]  We're going to meet some bad dudes there, but kind of bad in that they're hardcore.
[00:50:00]  They're masculine.
[00:50:01]  They're aggressive.
[00:50:01]  They're disciplined.
[00:50:02]  So, going into infantry, you'll be surrounded by those guys for better or for worse.
[00:50:08]  Versus going into admin, you can be surrounded by a lot of women and a lot of freeloaders.
[00:50:12]  So, all those variables, I can't tell you what one will happen.
[00:50:15]  But, I mean, for me, I could say, like, I met Joel through the military.
[00:50:19]  I went to the OnBase Church.
[00:50:20]  There was a Navigators Bible study ministry there that picked up young men.
[00:50:24]  And I said, hey, on Sunday nights, we go to this place called the Response Church.
[00:50:27]  The rest is history, as they say.
[00:50:29]  So 100% at big bases, there are Bible studies, there are men, there are people that are typically former veterans.
[00:50:36]  They're veterans of the military, they have a passion for young men, help them out, invite them into their home, invite them to church.
[00:50:41]  So 100% always is that.
[00:50:43]  Even on deployment, every Sunday, it was pretty cheesy.
[00:50:47]  We had church out there in Kuwait, in the Middle East.
[00:50:49]  We had a chaplain come in Sunday morning and we would sing and we would worship, I think even take the Lord's Supper.
[00:50:54]  And so there is for sure a Christian presence, whether a young man will gravitate towards that.
[00:50:59]  Or to the negative influence that's going to be around him is up to the soul of the young man.
[00:51:03]  Last thing I'll say in this, and this is something to consider with the military we talk a lot about the importance of home and place.
[00:51:11]  And in the military, changing around, especially if you enlist for multiple enlistments.
[00:51:14]  Like every three years, right?
[00:51:15]  It's about every three.
[00:51:17]  So basically, you'll go to your training, you'll get a job.
[00:51:19]  If you have a four year enlistment, you'll do about two to three years.
[00:51:22]  And then when you're looking at re enlisting, you're shipped halfway across the country.
[00:51:25]  You could be.
[00:51:26]  I know tons of guys, like they stayed, for example, in San Diego for 10 years.
[00:51:30]  And then they came in and, like, we know you have a house, we know you have a church, we know your wife has a job here, but we're going to take you and we're going to send you to Japan if you reenlist.
[00:51:38]  And they had to get out.
[00:51:39]  But here's the thing what do you do if you're 32 years old and all you've known is being an airfield technician?
[00:51:44]  There's not a lot of $150,000 jobs in San Diego, California that will support a man with four kids if all of a sudden you have to move to Japan.
[00:51:52]  And so you have a lot of families and it leads to a lot of divorce.
[00:51:55]  I've watched my different buddies through the Marine Corps, the ones that stayed in, the ones that got out.
[00:52:00]  A lot of divorce, a lot of dads with their kids.
[00:52:03]  They couldn't be near them.
[00:52:04]  The wife took the kids, a lot of alcoholism.
[00:52:07]  And so, the military, on the whole, especially as a career, it's one thing if you're in it and you got to make the best of it.
[00:52:12]  But as a whole, like it is not conducive to family formation because any military base, all the women around there, even the ones in church, they've had 20 military guys try to ask them out already.
[00:52:23]  They are very much so turned off to the idea of dating a military man.
[00:52:26]  So, tough dating market, tough to start a family.
[00:52:29]  If you start a family, Congratulations.
[00:52:31]  I hope you enjoy taking your six month old and moving across the country and then taking them again when they're two years old and moving to Japan and back and forth for literally 20 30 years.
[00:52:40]  That's some of what you're looking at, especially if you make a career out of it.
[00:52:43]  Yeah.
[00:52:43]  So, Wes, are you saying that a lot of the divorce would happen just because the wife would get tired of all the moves, or is it because the man maybe would be deployed for long periods and actually wouldn't be home at all?
[00:52:54]  Like the wife would stay wherever they were located, San Diego in this case, the guy goes to Japan for two years.
[00:53:00]  Like, what?
[00:53:02]  Do both of those dynamics happen, or like how often do families travel and deploy with the husband to a base?
[00:53:08]  Obviously, not in a time of war, yeah.
[00:53:10]  But there's two tours accompanied and unaccompanied tours.
[00:53:13]  So, a man could be sent to Okinawa, for example, for an unaccompanied tour, which could be two years or something like that without his family, as in they're not giving him base housing.
[00:53:21]  They're also accompanied.
[00:53:22]  So you're going to Germany and we're allowing for you to take your family and all of that.
[00:53:26]  Typically, as you get more senior, those are accompanied tours.
[00:53:29]  A deployment, six, seven, eight months, those are very much so unaccompanied.
[00:53:33]  Your family's not coming with you.
[00:53:34]  A lot of the divorces that I saw in the military was it was certainly sometimes the caliber of the man that he was just a man that was not a good leader, good husband, good father, faithful.
[00:53:43]  But a lot of times, too, the caliber of wife.
[00:53:45]  Like you're talking about long hours and you're living in a military community, again, not rooted and grounded.
[00:53:50]  So you're not living in this military community where you just moved to North Carolina.
[00:53:54]  And I got grandparents around.
[00:53:55]  I got church community.
[00:53:57]  It's a bunch of people I didn't know.
[00:53:58]  I didn't grow up with.
[00:53:59]  I don't have ties to.
[00:54:00]  And so I'm trying to raise two or three kids.
[00:54:02]  My husband works 50 hours a week.
[00:54:03]  He's going on deployment next month.
[00:54:05]  And this is miserable.
[00:54:07]  I want to be back home.
[00:54:08]  I don't know this life.
[00:54:09]  I'm not familiar with that life.
[00:54:10]  So that definitely, if we're not talking about the character of the individuals, she was a gold digger, this, that, or the other.
[00:54:15]  Even just the family circumstances from moving around led to a lot of family dysfunction.
[00:54:21]  Yep.
[00:54:22]  The last thing I wanted to ask you about, Wes, I know that even under Biden, The COVID vaccine requirement for military service was rescinded.
[00:54:31]  But I did want to ask you a little bit about just like the.
[00:54:34]  I know that there's a sense where the military disciplines you, makes you fit, makes you have to be strong and even combat ready.
[00:54:43]  What about just the health of enlisted soldiers as far as being taken care of?
[00:54:51]  You know, if you're a mom or a dad who has fed your son well, insisted on, you know, good eating.
[00:55:00]  exercise, all of those things.
[00:55:01]  Is a military career, even a four-year tour going to be in line with some of those things that you've done?
[00:55:08]  Or is that, is it going to be with the vaccines or even just diet, healthcare, all of those things?
[00:55:14]  Any thoughts or comments on that?
[00:55:16]  Especially, sorry, especially in light of the fact that you are entering the age where you're going to be getting married, having your children.
[00:55:22]  And we've talked a lot about how, especially for men, that fitness leading up to conceiving your children is really, really critical.
[00:55:32]  Yeah.
[00:55:33]  Yeah, it is an uphill battle for sure.
[00:55:35]  It's funny.
[00:55:36]  My wife, she's like, I don't want our son going into the military because he'd have to get vaccines.
[00:55:39]  He hasn't had any vaccines.
[00:55:40]  And she's like, You have to get a lot.
[00:55:42]  I mean, like, I was fully vaccinated and I went to the military and boot camp.
[00:55:46]  I had to get a bunch of them.
[00:55:48]  So, for sure, that's a factor.
[00:55:49]  There are religious exemptions.
[00:55:50]  That's a lot of paperwork that you have to jump through for sure.
[00:55:54]  The problem with the lifestyle, so like you're talking about field adventures, like going out in the field and doing expeditions there, you're most certainly talking about deployment, you're talking about the people that surround you.
[00:56:03]  You are talking about most certainly not being surrounded by people that are probably, the way you're kind of referencing it, going to be thinking about health, diet, fitness, and all of that.
[00:56:12]  I mean, in the Marine Corps, it was just notorious.
[00:56:14]  Like, oh, we got a five mile run tomorrow morning, but who cares?
[00:56:17]  We're pounding beer tonight.
[00:56:18]  Like, literally, and people, they're running, they're throwing up on the side of the road.
[00:56:21]  Yeah.
[00:56:22]  But you're, because you're 20 years old.
[00:56:23]  Yeah.
[00:56:23]  Like, you're 20 years old, you're practically invincible.
[00:56:25]  And so, all that being said, if you're a young man, you're going in, yeah, the diet's not great.
[00:56:29]  It's full of seed oils.
[00:56:30]  You're going to be peer pressured to smoke cigarettes and drink and all of that.
[00:56:34]  Doesn't really affect you necessarily earlier on, right?
[00:56:37]  But I will say people's bodies fall apart.
[00:56:39]  I was literally just today in my other job, I was talking to a guy.
[00:56:42]  He threw out his knee years ago, throwing something over his shoulder, slipped his knee out of place, been dealing with that injury ever since.
[00:56:50]  They take young men that are strong and motivated and disciplined, and they use them to do manual labor, you know, to run trucks, to fly in planes, to serve as air crew.
[00:56:58]  And so it is a toll on the body 100%.
[00:57:01]  Now, there's a good cause there, like fidelity to the fatherland, patriotism.
[00:57:07]  Patria, Patrius, it's a term of love for the father, the lineage, the ancestry that made your country.
[00:57:17]  So, it's a good thing to say, hey, I'm young, and especially I think of special forces, guys that have dedicated their life to being fit.
[00:57:23]  They could go compete in CrossFit, they could go do this.
[00:57:25]  And say, no, I'm going to go in this, and I'm going to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of my nation, giving up my body, giving up my health, giving up my youth for all of this.
[00:57:33]  So, that's not a, it's probably not going to be the best for your health between the vaccines, between the diet, between the deployment, between the sleepless nights, between all of that.
[00:57:40]  It's probably not going to be the best for your health, but that isn't necessarily, and it's a bad thing and you shouldn't do it.
[00:57:46]  But be aware you're going to have to make a conscious effort, and it gets easier as you get more senior.
[00:57:50]  As you get more senior, you're going to have more time.
[00:57:51]  You're going to have more money.
[00:57:52]  As you get married, you're not just stuck with, because what they'll do is they'll give you money if you live off base.
[00:57:57]  But if you live on base in the barracks, you just have a card to go to the chow hall.
[00:58:00]  So you're talking like hundreds of dollars if you're married to help you eat better.
[00:58:03]  But if you're eating in that chow hall, it's whatever slop they happen to give you.
[00:58:07]  Same thing for like MREs when you're out in the field.
[00:58:10]  So it is an uphill battle.
[00:58:11]  Gets easier as you get older, but it's not the best for health, at least right now.
[00:58:16]  Do RFK, do Pete Hegseth, does that make a difference?
[00:58:18]  Possibly.
[00:58:19]  But even still, it's going to be difficult.
[00:58:21]  Right.
[00:58:21]  With RFK Jr., there'll be.
[00:58:24]  It'll be a kosher option.
[00:58:27]  Yep.
[00:58:27]  Have no fear.
[00:58:29]  So, I'll be honest.
[00:58:30]  Let me say this though.
[00:58:31]  There's a lot of fat people still in the military.
[00:58:33]  Like you would think it would be impossible.
[00:58:35]  There were tons of guys, and they just, for whatever reason, they were able to run, but they were still skinny fat.
[00:58:41]  Like nothing is going to do it for you.
[00:58:43]  You have to be disciplined, you have to take care of your body.
[00:58:46]  And it's like, well, the military helped you do that.
[00:58:48]  Like I remember guys in boot camp, like they were like, well, I'll just do this and they'll make me do it.
[00:58:51]  They dropped out.
[00:58:52]  They didn't have it in them.
[00:58:53]  That's interesting.
[00:58:54]  Yep.
[00:58:58]  That well, okay.
[00:58:59]  I was gonna say something, but now you've you're that last comment's got me rethinking this.
[00:59:03]  I was gonna say if your son is the kind who you just see the writing on the wall and he's he's probably just gonna work a 20 hour a week job and um play video games with the rest of his time, like maybe maybe kick him in the pants a little bit and sign him up, you know.
[00:59:21]  But it sounds like Wes, you're also saying that's not necessarily a guaranteed um fix, as it were, right?
[00:59:28]  So, well, it depends, younger or older.
[00:59:30]  At 28, I remember this man, like an old, like literally a video game guy who was like, I'm going to do it.
[00:59:34]  I'm just going to sign up for the Marine Corps and they'll make me disciplined.
[00:59:37]  He dropped out, but he was also 28.

=== Clarity on Taiwan Conflict (04:34) ===

[00:59:39]  Got it.
[00:59:39]  20 is different.
[00:59:40]  Yeah.
[00:59:41]  You know, like you can put on a little weight and your body will adapt much better.
[00:59:45]  It's much harder to change those habits, though, the older that you get.
[00:59:48]  And so, totally to your point, an 18 year old man, even if he's lived a mostly sedentary lifestyle for a long time, I'm confident if he's, you know, relatively good health, he could do it.
[00:59:58]  And it would be, you know, it'd be hard and he would change a lot.
[01:00:02]  But he can make it happen.
[01:00:04]  Versus, all right, you're 25, it's time to fly, son, let's make it happen.
[01:00:07]  No, actually, he might not have that left in him anymore.
[01:00:10]  Gotcha.
[01:00:10]  Yep.
[01:00:10]  Gotcha.
[01:00:11]  All right.
[01:00:12]  Well, Joel, any pastoral perspective on this from you?
[01:00:15]  You know, if a family in our church were to say, what do you think?
[01:00:19]  You're not making the decision for them, but anything beyond, we've added a lot of caveats, but anything beyond this that you would want to make sure they're thinking about?
[01:00:27]  I would have strongly dissuaded them in the previous four years, in the previous administration.
[01:00:34]  Just because of what the military stood for.
[01:00:37]  It's like, yeah, you don't want to risk the lives of your sons to go and expand and preserve gay race communism on the other side of the world.
[01:00:50]  So that Ukraine can wave gay flags.
[01:00:56]  We just got to make sure that those poor Pakistanis are being taught about transgenderism.
[01:01:01]  I mean, those are the things that we're doing, that's what we're fighting for.
[01:01:06]  So now that we have a change in administration, my calculus is different.
[01:01:13]  So that wouldn't be as much of a hesitation with Pete Hedsef and with Trump.
[01:01:19]  But now I have kind of a new hesitation, which is just I still would really want to see how things shake out with Israel and Iran.
[01:01:31]  I don't think we're going to be going to save Taiwan.
[01:01:33]  Right.
[01:01:34]  I mean, I think that that decision is just so foolish that even the worst leaders in government still wouldn't make it.
[01:01:42]  They'd be like, Sorry, Taiwan.
[01:01:44]  I'll tell you where it could happen.
[01:01:46]  You know, part of the reason is because I don't think Taiwan has a bunch of dirt on the sitting president.
[01:01:53]  Yeah, fair enough.
[01:01:54]  Like Ukraine, Ukraine was literally just kind of like the purse of the whole world and had blackmail on everybody, especially the Bidens.
[01:02:05]  And so I think that, you know, whereas Taiwan, it's just, it's not our people, not our problem.
[01:02:11]  And I don't think Taiwan has a whole bunch of, you know, puppet strings.
[01:02:15]  Yeah.
[01:02:16]  We need them.
[01:02:17]  No, we need a manufacturing.
[01:02:18]  I'll tell you the only reason why I could see it happening is because I actually think the first nation to get involved defending Taiwan possibly would be Japan because they are in the area.
[01:02:29]  And if we then ended up feeling like we needed to support Japan because trying to attack Japan, that's the scenario where I could see it happen.
[01:02:36]  Not necessarily for Taiwan's sake, but because of Japan.
[01:02:40]  Yeah, maybe.
[01:02:41]  So I personally don't see the Taiwan.
[01:02:43]  There's like three main potential conflicts China, Taiwan, Russia, Ukraine.
[01:02:48]  And then, like Israel and Iran.
[01:02:50]  And so, Ukraine, I think we're done with that, especially under this administration.
[01:02:56]  And I don't think we're going to go back to it.
[01:02:58]  Taiwan, I don't really think that that's going to happen.
[01:03:01]  But Israel and Iran, that would be my one big hesitancy.
[01:03:06]  So, the last four years, I would have been very, very, I just would have given, I wouldn't have commanded anybody, but I would have given a lot of cautions because of just exporting rainbow flags.
[01:03:21]  And with this administration, Um, my hesitancy would be just I don't know what's going to happen with Iran and Israel.
[01:03:29]  I do think that there's the potential to escalate and ramping up towards war, and whether or not we're involved, I don't know.
[01:03:37]  But it doesn't look great, yeah.
[01:03:40]  And that's where I've settled too.
[01:03:41]  I mentioned at the beginning that this is personal for my family, and with my son, my oldest son, he's um getting lord willing, he's been accepted for a two year technical degree in the field, so aircraft mechanic.
[01:03:56]  And we've said, okay, in two years, we're going to evaluate and see what the situation is.
[01:03:59]  That's not too late for him to go and still join.
[01:04:03]  But I think it will be enough time to maybe provide some clarity to see what the situation is in a couple of years.
[01:04:10]  And that's also the decision, the calculus that we've made as well.

=== Lord Wishing for His Son (01:05) ===

[01:04:13]  Yeah, I agree.
[01:04:15]  And for the record, it's not just to, we've already said it, but to say it one last time, it's not, oh, why be hesitant?
[01:04:21]  Because at this particular time, if your son signs up, you know, he might actually have to fight.
[01:04:27]  It's not that I'm inherently against fighting.
[01:04:28]  That's literally the purpose of the military.
[01:04:30]  It is.
[01:04:31]  But the fight that I'm particularly talking about shouldn't be our fight.
[01:04:36]  So I would not want, if it was like a fight is coming to our shores, and it's a new crusade, I'd be back in.
[01:04:46]  Yeah, then it would be an honorable thing.
[01:04:49]  But a fight somewhere else, especially with those particular two countries of Israel and Iran, no.
[01:04:57]  All right.
[01:04:58]  Well, I think that's great.
[01:05:00]  Yep.
[01:05:00]  Good episode.
[01:05:01]  Practically, you know, good practical advice and hopefully helpful for the listener.
[01:05:06]  That's it for this week.
[01:05:07]  And Lord willing, we'll see you again.
[01:05:08]  Easter on Sunday.
[01:05:09]  Have a very blessed Easter.
[01:05:10]  Amen.
[01:05:11]  Good Friday.
[01:05:11]  Most Lord's Day.
[01:05:13]  And then Easter.
[01:05:14]  And then we will see, hopefully, see you guys next Monday.
[01:05:19]  Yep.