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May 7, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
57:26
The Richard Leonard Show: US Navy Trying to Drag in New Recruits With This Strategy.
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Thank you.
Thank you.
Officials in the military will tell you that recruiting efforts nowadays in our country are going just great.
Well, I'm not sure that that's true.
There's been a whole lot of debauchery and treachery, if you will, put forth by military services to recruit soldiers into our military to defend our country against all enemies, Foreign and domestic.
And so today's conversation will be me and my good friend Jason talking about some things that we've seen and found and just kind of giving you our opinion.
Hopefully you will agree with it and maybe hopefully you don't.
But we can have the conversation because we're adults.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
Hey everybody, welcome here to the next installment of the Richard Leonard Show.
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Okay, so we need to get started because there is...
Pretty egregious bullshit going on in the United States military as far as, well, probably a lot of stuff.
But today specifically we're going to chat about recruitment efforts and maybe some of the lies that we are being told as the American people about how many folks are joining and that maybe we're just okay.
So let me get my good buddy here.
Jason, hey Jason, how are you?
Hey Richard, doing well.
Thank you for having me on today.
Absolutely.
I can't thank you enough for your time and I'm really excited actually to have this conversation because some of these things, man, that we hear about recruiting It's just ridiculous.
And so, folks, I want you to know what started this whole conversation.
Jason and I had started this conversation, I think it was on Tuesday or Wednesday earlier this week.
And I'm just going to flash it on the screen here and show you the article.
Right here, the U.S. Navy has used Drag Queen Influencer to attract a wide range of new troops as recruitment.
As a recruitment for the Navy plummets.
Okay, so the Navy has taken an active duty sailor, who apparently likes to participate in being a drag queen, whatever, but now they're making him, her, whatever, the face of this plan to get more people to join the Navy.
And Jason, you found this and sent it to me.
Can you please share with us what your initial reaction was?
Funny enough, it came across in my iFunny feed.
So, sadly, as I've shut down all media, that's pretty much where I get my news is through memes now.
And I thought it was a joke.
Of course, that caused me to flip over and try to find it.
And there it was.
Again.
anybody wants to live their life.
But it sure seems to me if you're in the midst of a recruiting crisis crunch or what have you, boy, shooting way out in the weeds seems like an awful weird place to live.
Well, and so like, what about this idea that, you know, I mean, you spent enough time in the militaries, as did I, but what about this idea that is preached, or at least it was preached when you and I were in, that there are no, there are no individuals. or at least it was preached when you and I Right.
right?
If you're going to be an individual, you're going to die, or you're going to fail on your own.
And now it seems like that narrative is starting to flip a little bit because now it's not about, hey, join the team.
Everyone wears the same uniform.
If you're a man and you have a wiener, your hair is above your collar and your mustache does not proceed past the corners of your mouth.
And this is the standard.
And now we're just, whoever wants to come in, come in.
Which, to a certain extent, I'm not all that against.
As long as we can maintain a standard, you know, of ethics and a standard of uniformity.
But, this whole, I mean, I guess I don't even know what to say.
Drag queens in the military.
Yeah.
I mean, right?
We're all weird.
We've all got something.
It's, you know, whatever.
Be you.
You can't be me.
Be you.
That's fine, right?
But, you know, if the numbers as we see them, as they're reported, the conversation always seems to skew off what reality is.
And if DOD is saying we're down 25% on the year for all recruitment, that's a striking issue.
I kind of take the position of looking at it and going, well, how are you remedying the issue?
And I don't need to hear them tell me what they're doing.
You just watch through their actions.
And getting away from that individuality, that talking point that you were just rolling into, absolutely, the culmination of our parts are always greater than the whole.
You're keeping things simple.
You're keeping them stupid so we can all function at a greater capacity than we're able to do on our own.
Period.
Started with participation awards, maybe in school, and everybody's special, and yes, we are.
But I hate to tell you, but if five people run a mile, there's somebody that finishes first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.
Period.
Yep.
There are winners and losers in life, and that's just the way that it's gonna go.
And just because you're different doesn't mean that you're gonna be special or that you're outside of this thing.
And so I think they missed the mark when they continued to shoot so far left and right within their limits.
Well, and I wonder, is this going to be just the United States Navy?
I mean, as the Daily Caller reports in the article, this is a Navy issue or a Navy deal.
But I am sure that the rest of the branches aren't too far along.
Let me ask you this, because you and I both know a few of these folks.
How do you suppose...
That drag queen recruitment in the United States Marine Corps would go.
You know, I don't see a lot of people in that community just because they have somebody out in front then deciding, oh, you know what?
Yeah, Navy or Army, that's for me.
I just don't see that.
I think it is a particular thing and maybe it develops over time.
I don't really know how that works.
I've never had a deep discussion about that with any of them.
Have you?
Well, no.
I mean, this whole thing about drag queen recruitment was brand new to me until, I don't know what, three, four days ago.
I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that this would be a thing.
And again, the disclaimer is that I don't care.
I don't give a crap if you're a dude and you want to dress up as a woman.
In fact, some of you might even be really great looking as a woman, and maybe you should have been.
But that doesn't negate the fact that you were born with a peepee.
And, you know, it is what it is, right?
I mean, I don't...
I guess I don't understand why this was even allowed to happen.
Is the issue of recruitment...
Really that bad for our country?
And if so, it's scary.
It's a scary situation to be in, in my opinion.
Right.
And I think, you know, that's the thing, right?
We've watched a quick evolution.
What's the new army slogan?
Isn't it one of the old ones from the 80s, early 90s?
Be all that you can be?
It's back, baby.
Is it really?
I haven't seen it yet.
Yeah, it's back.
I know it was a couple of months ago when I first saw it roll out.
And you're starting to see some of the, you know, sadly falling back in line with what people think the military is.
You know, the military is a warfighter.
You can put frosting on it.
You can give it a new scent.
But at the end of the day, this is literally what we're designed to do.
What the organization is designed to do is fight wars.
Period.
And you need to have enough people, you need to have enough equipment, and you need to have enough sustainable pieces on the background to keep that thing moving.
That's it.
So when recruitment numbers are down, that means there's a number of planes that can't fly, there's tanks that will go unmanned, and there's patrols that will be undone, should they be needed.
So when I look at it, I just say, Simply put, if I'm going to assess resources which are very distinct and specific, they say they did not pay this individual a penny more.
Which is fine.
I don't even care if it's a compensated position.
But if I am coming up short in my recruitment goals, or if I'm coming up short anywhere, I want to spend money to get output.
I don't think you're going to get enough people that would be enthralled by this to fill the ranks from whatever these deficits are that we're looking at over the past two years.
Period.
It's just not going to happen.
So, alright, just because I'm an infantryman, let me make sure I'm following you.
Whatever it costs to do this marketing campaign, and let me look here at what they call it.
They call it a, so this person is a digital ambassador for the Naval Recruitment Program.
So, for whatever it's costing the Department of the Navy, you're saying that it's highly unlikely That the money they're putting into this is not gonna yield enough to make it even worth it, let alone that it's ridiculous.
Right?
Well, how many people are you going to push off from this?
You know, I think you and I are fairly open-minded fellas, you know, whatever, be you.
But there's a lot of people.
I mean, think about how you were when you were younger, when you were 18 to 25.
Maybe you come off the farm from North Dakota or South Dakota or Montana, and you want to join the military.
and that's the kind of stuff you know you're seeing in your face it's not something that you ever saw in your everyday life it's not even something other than on the television you saw well now you have this association with that occurring how many people is that turning off from the process potentially well right And then also not having a choice.
Once you commit and you're there, you don't get to decide who your barracks mate is or who's in your platoon.
You got to figure it out and get the mission accomplished.
And so that's a really good point.
And I agree that a lot of these small town good old boys that are maybe thinking about joining the military to do some badass career, Things like this.
And to be honest with you, man, it would have turned me off and I'm not even a good old badass boy.
I was just some dude who was either going to be in a lot of trouble or I was going to join the army and it changed my life.
And so here's the other thing that this makes me think about.
Every other country in the world that fields a military...
Does it with the idea, like you said, Jason, that we're going to train and build a war fighting machine to destroy our enemies by any means necessary with all the tools of war that we have at our disposal.
So let's talk about, I mean, let's think about quickly the Israeli army, right?
Who has a whole, I believe it's like a division or something, of nothing but ladies.
Who are infantry soldiers.
And from what I understand, there's some bad chicks, man.
And so I don't know that any other military force in the world gives a shit about what if you want to put on a wig and then put on your combat uniform and go fight.
And so I think that this is kind of giving that persona and that idea to the rest of the world.
That we're just soft, right?
Because now we're playing into all this BS that you see about the transgender and the drag queens and this and that and which bathroom should we use and I'm sad that I was born with a wiener and I want to cut it off when I'm 10 and all this other bullshit.
What kind of message does that send to our enemies now and potential enemies later?
I think it's not a great one.
Well, just think about it.
Now, I know that in America here, we are very open-minded.
There's no question about it.
Again, live and let live.
Most societies are not like that.
Most of us haven't had that experience of being anywhere else.
So let's just say We've been taught a very particular way to think about the Russians, right?
I mean, if you think Russian military...
Now, granted, we might see their tanks rolling across and know absolutely without question they definitely don't have any powder for those kegs.
You know, whatever.
But they're still there.
Now, let's just say that you turned on the TV tonight.
Sunday night news pops on, and all of a sudden, there's drag queens walking in the Russian military.
What would you think, buddy?
We're going to whoop their ass.
What just happened?
Exactly.
You have this idea of what people are and who they are, and it's that progression.
If you're in a rough neighborhood, you certainly don't act meek or weak.
You act with force.
You walk swiftly.
You move from location to location.
You get in, you get out, and you get the job done.
You start walking around limp and loose and without direction and staring up at the clouds, you're a mark.
That's how they're going to see this.
You know, irrelevant of our feelings on it because I have no idea who this particular drag queen is.
Most likely this guy could kick my ass up and down the street.
There's no question about that.
I couldn't fight my way out of a wet paper bag.
But the perception is, from their look, If we thought about what we see from them and then what they see from us, I think that is rather different.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I believe that casting fear into your enemy is a very, very great tool to have.
I mean...
I think that there's a whole lot of things that go into...
Let's just talk about winning a gunfight, right?
Like winning a firefight.
How do you win any firefight?
Well, you do it with fire superiority and speed and violence of action.
Well, if...
And you know what?
If we're fighting the Russian military, let's just say for conversation's sake, and we're throwing bullets back and forth, and all of a sudden you see some drag queen prancing around to the next cover, well...
I mean, bullets are scary.
Grenades and bombs are scary.
But I believe you also need to try to cast some intimidation just by your appearance and the way that you move and the way that you act and the way that you just do what you're doing.
I gotta say.
I gotta cut you off because there's no way, if they ever dropped a standard where you could actually be in drag in combat, some other things have gone terribly wrong.
But even in the mind that they think that the people behind those guns are that particular of that sect, they already have the upper hand with their mentality.
It's all about aggressive posturing, aggressive thoughts, and all those other pieces.
Because it's what?
Sheer terror and action.
Period.
So if you know when you're going into it, if that's what you project, that's what they're going to assume.
Now, chances are good that that question is going to get answered in a much different way than they think.
But if they think they're tough because we exude weakness, they're at least going to come to the engagement.
The goal is to not even have them engage.
Roll up with overwhelming firepower and never have to squeeze one trigger, that's a win.
Period.
Absolutely.
That's not only a win, but that's dominance.
Right.
And so, here's the other thing.
Why would the United States military play into this, we have to include everybody's feelings crap?
Right.
I get it.
I'm sure we're going to beat the dead horse on this today.
Live your life.
Be who you want to be.
But the world wars that were won, all the great achievements that our military has done, Did so with a standard that, I mean, look it, back in Vietnam and the Cold War and World War II and whatever, don't ask, don't tell, right?
You couldn't be homosexual and be in the military.
Well, that sense went away, which I think was a good thing, because who gives a crap as long as you can do the job?
No big deal.
Love who you love.
Yeah.
So now why are we getting to this place where we have to respect everybody's feelings and we have to respect what your idea of your gender is and this and that.
Just show up in uniform for Christ's sake.
Be on time.
Have your hair cut.
Be shaved.
And, you know, right place, right time, right uniform.
Why does that standard have to change or get and go beyond just that simple?
Like you said, Jason, keep it simple and stupid.
Just show up at the right time.
You know?
And how do all these things work, right?
Because when you're Title X, active duty, whatever, you know, you're supposed to always conduct yourself with military bearings.
Right.
In and out of uniform.
In and out.
Doesn't matter.
24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Now you tell me how that performance from that individual that we saw is anywhere near anything that is considering our military bearing.
Well, it's not.
It's not.
I mean, here's what I'll say.
This guy dressed up as a woman doesn't look trashy.
She doesn't look like a whore or a slut or whatever anybody else would call her.
But she's not a woman.
And so I don't believe that that is upholding the military bearing in which you're speaking of.
And that is asked of you as a member of the military.
Not at all.
Let's just...
Here, I'll put it back on the screen.
That's a dude in the United States Navy.
What's his job?
I guess I don't even know, but I don't think it matters, really.
No.
Again, sadly, it's almost pandering.
When you read through this, they're pandering to folks.
They're not doing this as a hardcore recruitment tool.
It wouldn't work.
Period.
There's no way.
I mean, you're on the fence, and also you're like, oh, shit.
Yeah, I'm in.
Yeah, they let drag queens in.
I'm going to go to the service.
Yeah, I don't know if they will.
I'm going to go check this.
I'm going to go check this out.
No, it's really not.
It's going to take the people that are kind of petering to the negative, all the way negative.
And it's not going to draw anybody from the, you know, you're not going to take the guys out that want to get in anyway.
You know, and those aren't the ones that you have to recruit for.
You've got to recruit for that 51-49.
You know, it's no different than politicking when you're going to get your votes.
You don't need to worry about your base that's locked up.
You need to worry about the difference maker.
And so, you know, we see that in these statistics.
If you're down 25% overall in your goals year after year after year, it's not like you're losing 25% of the military each and every time.
But I was looking through here.
And so if you're recruiting and your retention numbers are basically, it looks like they're about 12% of the overall standing force.
And that's what they focus on retaining and recruiting, right?
To resupply that 12%.
Well, 25% of that is 3%.
Well, if you do that three years in a row, that's a 10% reduction in overall force.
Now, Richie, you deployed with a battalion, brigade.
What was that size element?
3,000 people.
I think the second one was like 3,200.
So 3,200.
Well, next time you're rolling with 2,850.
Yeah, no.
I mean, I would, right?
Because you go where you're told, but I wouldn't be comfortable about it.
No, of course.
What's the thing?
I know you're not just going to strike 10% out.
You'll just lose 10% of the units.
I'm not a fool, and I'm not trying to say it that way, but in three short years, you've lost 10%.
If you continue down this trend, again, that multiplier becomes higher because your retention numbers, as the gross number dwindles, that percentage still maintains and actually picks up speed.
So, So theoretically, in the next six years, or seven years, you could be down 20 to 25% of your overall military strength.
That's the issue.
Well, that's the issue to focus on, right?
And so if you need more people, I think you need a little more focus on how you're getting there.
I don't disagree with you at all.
And I think that when we come back from the break, we should talk a little bit more about a couple of the numbers just so that they're clear.
So we will do that, folks.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, and thanks for joining us as always this week.
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Hey folks, welcome here to the next segment of the show.
Before we ended the last segment, we were talking about bringing you some data, some numbers, some percentages about what's really going on with our recruitment efforts so far this year.
And what I would say is the real pandemic, one of the real pandemics in our country.
The diminishing size of our military force is really something to be worried about, I believe.
So Jason, let me share this with you.
This is from an article that was posted on War on the Rock sometime in mid-March.
It says here only 13% of young Americans said that they would consider military service before the pandemic.
Now, after the pandemic, current day, that number shrank to just 9%.
Only 9% of the younger generation that would be allowed and admitted into the military said they would even consider military service, not say, yep, I'm joining.
That number is simply not high enough to ensure the stable flow of recruits upon which the all-volunteer force relies.
This is a problem.
It's an epic problem.
It went down 4% or 5% or something like that in just two years.
We were talking about retention and all those things.
Let's just say the arbitrary number that we were talking about.
Let's just use 10%.
If we lose 10% due to retirements or medical issues or fat soldiers or whatever every year, and we only gain, I don't know, 4%, let's say, or 5%, half of that every year in new recruits,
I would say that in a matter of 5 to 10 years, we may not even have a force large enough to make it worth even putting them in uniform, because we're just sending them to die if a war breaks out.
Right.
Well, yeah, I mean, you hit on it, you're like, 4%.
Well, 4% versus 12 is actually 33% less people are entertaining the idea.
4% drop doesn't sound like anything, right?
It's from the book, How to Lie with Statistics.
That's why you have to pay attention to what it actually is saying.
So if you went from 12 to 9, and that is just that, that would be a 25% drop, but it was a little bit higher and a little bit lower.
I'd say that marker when I read it too was right around 30 to 33%.
One out of every three people that would have considered joining now will not.
That is a big problem.
Now how much further is that going to be exacerbated by the other foolishness that gets pushed around?
You know, we've got an all-volunteer military by design.
If it's by design, that's positive or negative, but it certainly creates the opportunity for them to channel people in through gates, whichever way they want to have them filled.
So is this something that we're watching where they're just kind of changing the entry point?
Perhaps?
Explain that further, changing the entry point.
So, you know, what was it, the 70s and 80s, they had those programs.
So a lot of times, even when I talk to people, when I told them I joined the military later in life, you know, the immediate run is, oh, were you going to go to jail otherwise?
You know, it was kind of funny.
But I was like, well, no.
But, you know, I didn't think about it until, you know, fast forward a few years.
That was a program that existed because the numbers were dwindling.
And so you had to change the gate to get people in the door to join the party.
And so with an all-volunteer military, you don't have numbers that you can force.
Like, say it's 5% of all high school graduates are going to end up in mandatory service.
You don't have that with a volunteer fighting force.
So you need to go get it.
And if you can't get it that way, you have to get it through other means.
Thus, changing the gate, changing the entry point, you can bring people from different places into the military that otherwise wouldn't have been there.
And maybe that's something that we're watching where they're shooting a, you know, kind of a beta test now to see if they can draw more people in?
Or is it just an act of, you know, woke gesture politics to show that they're part of this community?
This movement, you know, passive or active, I guess this seems more active.
And it's all for show.
It's all for no-go.
I have no idea.
It's odd.
So, do you think that, I mean, because I would go out on a limb and say that the main reason, or one of the main reasons for interest in joining the service is going down Is a multitude of things.
It's not just because they're allowing drag queens into the Navy.
No.
But I believe that there's a whole lot of other things.
And so we've talked about it on this show before.
Things like all the issues going on with VA, for example.
Right?
The VA wants to cut their budget by 22%.
We talked about it last week.
Why would anybody...
Who's sitting in a high school cafeteria and they see some hunyuk walk into the cafeteria in a uniform with some squishy footballs to give away if you can do five push-ups.
Why would they even consider talking to that person when it's very clear that places like the Veterans Administration, whose sole purpose is to take care of veterans, in fact it's in their mission statement, Uh, that's going down the crapper.
So, if I join the service, something happens to me, and I was told I'll be taken care of, but the reality is that I won't be taken care of, most likely.
Why would anybody want to join?
Why would anybody want to join the service when they can, you know, let's just say, go to be a diesel mechanic, right?
Why would I join the Army or the Marine Corps because I want to be a diesel mechanic and it's a good way to get some real life experience, some training, when I can go to school for six months and get the same training and make twice the income.
I mean, nobody joins the military to be rich, right?
I mean, and if you did, there's something else wrong with you.
Right.
Well, there is that.
But, you know, maybe this is, that's where it starts to work in this whole anti-American idealism that people seem to purvey.
You know, and I think when you and I were talking about it, you had mentioned, you know, you kind of see these spikes and these things that kind of drive this.
In America is the only place that we're anti-American.
If any other group of people is oppressed, what is the one symbol that they put on their back and they march in the streets with?
Their flag.
The American flag.
They're not flying their flag.
If they're oppressed, they're having problems.
You go look at any picture.
I don't care where it is.
I don't care if it's in Asia or the Middle East, anywhere where freedom is being oppressed.
They pull out the symbol of freedom.
The symbol of freedom is America, period.
Now, in America, we trash that idea of freedom.
We could all have freedom, but now it's anti-American to want to be American.
How are you going to get people fired up to be part of something bigger like the military when you have so much anti-American sentiment going around?
Did it start with the Obama apology tour that he went on and apologized to all these countries about us being so terrible?
Where was the flashpoint?
I don't know, but I think we're probably seeing some of the byproduct of it now.
Well, and that's the troubling part.
I've tried to think about it myself many times.
Where did all of this start?
Where did we as a country go wrong?
And it didn't seem gradual, which is the troubling part.
It was like 180 instantly to some respects.
And I don't know that a lot of people would be able to pinpoint when it was.
You know, I think that it started, you know, way before COVID, but I think that, like, the real turning point in this country was when George Floyd overdosed on fentanyl on the streets of Minneapolis.
And then all hell broke loose.
That's when we started to see, you know, the burning of the cities and BLM and the Proud Boys and, you know, like...
Groups of people taking over a whole city block and not allowing anybody in or out of there and controlling the whole thing.
And I gotta tell you that around that time, when Stu Peters and I were doing Patriotically Correct Radio, and we had Sheriff Clark on, who was the ex-sheriff of Milwaukee, He said, he goes, if all this stuff is allowed to continue, it's just setting a standard for years to come and it's not going to be good.
He called it.
Yeah.
And so let me ask you this, Jason, because I think that you and I, our ideas about this might align.
Let's just say for conversation's sake that you're the sheriff of the county in which you live.
And a group of people go to the city center park.
That's a one square block.
They set up their barricades and they tell you, you're not coming in here unless we allow you.
What would be your action as a sheriff?
It's over.
Right?
We're taking it back.
You're not going to come into my house and tell me what I'm going to do.
That's like my kids telling me to get out of their room.
No.
Yes, right.
Like, you're getting mollywhopped, bro.
No, no.
I'm not going to do anything, but I'm not leaving.
This is our place, not just yours.
Yeah.
And if that's the way that it's going to be, then you are leaving.
You're leaving my park.
Correct.
And so, like, this whole idea that, well, you know, just give them time, let them be, you know, we'll figure out something and we'll talk nice.
Uh-uh.
We're not talking nice.
And so my worry is that that mentality over time is what may be presented in the military.
And so then when we get into these conflicts, hopefully we don't, right?
Hopefully there's never any more wars.
Yeah.
But we get into these conflicts with another country or a group of people or whatever, and the mentality of the people in charge are like, you know, just give it time.
We'll iron it out.
Don't worry.
Everything will be okay.
In the meantime, we get mollywhopped.
Right?
Well, it's often the rules of engagement.
You know, I can absolutely say with certainty from when I was first there to when you were first there, the rules of engagement were completely different.
Absolutely.
There's no question about it.
I mean, we don't need to discuss it on the show, but I can assure you it was different.
Now, if that's a continuation, it's a softening of everything, right?
So, softening of things does not go well.
I'm not saying that it's not a sign of weakness, but it's also not a sign of control.
And there have to be certain things that are controlled for things to be successful and for everybody to go along to get along.
You can't give in to one particular group at the expense of another group's freedoms.
It doesn't work that way.
You cannot go on 94 and shut down a road And create that inconvenience to somebody else that could even threaten their life should they need to get a person transported on that road to a different hospital.
These things should never occur.
And the fact that they happened once, they will continually happen again and again and again.
And so it's Pandora's box.
They always do it.
Then it doesn't happen for a while and then people just pretend that it didn't happen.
And now the next time it happens, it's even bigger.
And that's where every one of these things heads.
Until it's stopped, it's addressed, it's talked about, it just goes on and on.
Well, and that there, my friend, may lie the problem.
Because I don't know that there is enough people in the places that matter With enough testicular fortitude to have that tough conversation and to lay your foot down.
Enough is enough.
I don't know that those people exist, or enough of them actually, in the places that matter.
Like I've always said, man, I would love to be a judge.
And I would be known across the land probably as the hanging judge.
If you come in front of me into my courtroom and you're a petter ass and you've been touching kids and doing things to kids and beating up women, guess where you're going?
You're hanging right above me from the ceiling.
So the next time somebody comes in that's a petter ass, That's where you're going to go.
So knock it off.
I don't understand where we got from this place where these are the rules.
If you don't follow them, you're not going to like it.
Life is not going to be enjoyable for you.
And now we've gotten to this place where it's, if you don't like it, that's okay.
Tell me what you like, and then we'll just accommodate.
Man, screw that.
I almost slipped.
Yeah.
I almost let one slip.
Close, man.
That was close.
But you know what I'm saying, man?
And so this whole mentality, because this generation is going to grow up and they're going to have kids, these are the people that are going to fill our military ranks.
Right.
And it's never going to be the people that they're pandering to.
It's going to be the other people that are just going to say, you know what?
It's not worth the hassle.
It's not worth the headaches.
I just don't want to be around that.
I don't want to do this.
And that's kind of that thing that you're talking around is, you know, if you don't get reprimanded the first time, you don't see consequences for actions, well, then the next time that you have an action, it's going to be an even greater action.
If the military starts to slide and do those things and allow this and allow that and allow this, well, The counteraction will be people don't want to always be around that stuff.
They don't want to be associated with things that are continually moving and shaking.
And if they don't feel like they have their personal best intentions at heart, they're not going to get involved.
Who would?
I mean, it would be rather difficult for me right now to join the military, right?
Absolutely.
If I were 20 years old and I'm looking around, I'm like, oh, what do we do?
Oh, we just give these guys $300 billion worth of weapons and arms.
Oh, oh, don't forget about this.
$84 billion we left over here.
Oh, no, I'm going to sign up and I'm going to go and let's just say I get to the rifle range and I'm going to go, you know, fire for the first time.
Hey, I hope you can grope in zero in 14 rounds because that's all we have.
What?
Wouldn't want to be any part of that.
And that's just a small faction.
It has nothing to do with any of these recruiting things we were talking about before.
It's the culmination of all these things that they're doing that drives down people's interest in being part of something amazing.
Because I don't think either of us would trade our service.
Never.
Never.
Wouldn't trade it.
I probably won't go buy it again.
But I wouldn't trade it.
I would buy certain parts of it again if I could.
Like if I could buy segments of it back.
I would do that.
But let me ask you this.
Do you think that folks who think like you and I are the minority in this country?
Or is it possible that the folks who like to pander to the drag queens and the trans folks and give in to their demands Are they the minority, but they're just louder than the majority, if that makes sense?
I think so.
I think they are a very loud, small subset of people.
But again, it's that small subset that's creating that frequency and ripple that's pushing the people in the middle.
I'll ask you.
Would you push or recommend to any of your kids or your friends' kids to join the military right now?
No.
No, I wouldn't.
And to be quite honest, I have a couple kids that are graduating next month, and they do have a couple friends that are joining the military.
And earlier this last winter, I did have a conversation with one of those kids who's joining the Army, and he wants to be an infantryman in the active duty Army.
Very high-speed dude.
You know, he's a really good kid.
His parents are really good, down to earth.
They're model Americans, right?
And so my question to this kid was, why the infantry?
Well, you know, my grandfather was an infantryman, and, you know, I like that job.
You know, I like the foot soldier idea, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, well, I get that.
Right, and I was an infantryman for, you know, like 13 or 14 of my 19 years.
I said, but let me ask you this.
What does being in the infantry equate to outside of the infantry?
And he goes, well, what do you mean?
Well, okay, so clearly you're partly infantryman, right?
Because that's not a hidden question.
Let's just say that you join the military, the army, and you go to be in the infantry, and in eight years you get out.
Decide that, you know, you met a girl, you want to have a family, blah, blah, whatever the case may be.
What is it that you hope to do with the only job that you will have had in your adult life?
What's next?
So what's your five and 10 and 15 year goals?
And the truth is that there's a multitude of things you can do when you're getting out of the infantry, but what most people do is they go be cops, firefighters, bounty hunters.
Some of those just more law enforcement geared jobs.
You know, and that's not to say that there's not a lot of infantrymen who are good in construction or, you know, math and accounting and all that stuff, because all of it's possible.
Yeah.
But what I try to drive home to him is, if you have interests outside of the Army, try to do that in the Army, especially, like, for kids who are into computers, right, networking or whatever, whatever it is that they do.
Because you can go and get all the training, right?
You don't have to pay for your education, and you'll live great when you get out.
What a great piece of advice I would have never thought about, like, weaving in future goals into military service.
Yeah, I mean, because that's where I found myself, man, at a certain point in life when, you know, I wasn't thinking clearly, but my thought was, well, either I'd be a cop, a security guard, A bounty hunter or a garbage man.
You know, I never thought, hey, maybe I could do a radio show or, you know, sell motorcycles, whatever it is.
I just think you get stuck in that rut, right?
And you get to this place where there's only a couple options and you don't think ahead.
So, I don't know.
Sorry, I was on my soapbox there.
No, it was a great soapbox because it kind of leads into this next percentage that I think is the most amazing piece.
Where do you think the percentage is of people that currently serve in the military that either have a family member in the military or were in the military?
Direct family.
I'm going to say 7 to 8.5%.
8%.
What?
80% of the people that are currently serving either have previous or family members that were in or are currently in or distinct close family friends in or recently departed or had a lineage of being in the military.
80%.
See, now that's a staggering number because our military makes up less than 1% of our population.
Correct.
It's the exact same.
And that's now, that was that one galvanizing piece when I saw that figure, when I saw that piece, being somebody that pays attention to numbers.
If you have a continuing iteration of Family Tree volunteers coming in, willing, you know where your gate is.
You know this is where it is.
This is the easiest piece that we can go grab to bring in, period.
That other 20%, they're outliers.
They're random roll-ins or this other thing.
But you absolutely know, and you've seen it throughout history, and I guarantee they track that statistic.
That you can very easily create a situation to continue to get that 80%, which means they are losing that percentage of people.
Now, they did not talk about how many of those people currently in this last fiscal year were like that, but you assume everything on a four- or eight-year cycle.
But you talked earlier about that whole drop of recommendation from military members to their family.
That number's dropping.
Well, now that's going to greatly reduce that 80%.
Yeah.
That was the biggest number that jumped off the chart when I was reading it, was that 80% connection to service in their family or close family friends.
That is stagnant.
And it's fantastic because that means people have pride, but that means you're eroding the pride somewhere down that line.
Well, and I don't think multiple generations of service members can all be wrong, right?
The issue lies, in my opinion, in the standard or the diminishing of the standards and the way that we are going to demand that you You present yourself in the way that you just be while you are a service member of this country.
I mean, part of the greatest thing about the military, in my opinion, is the tradition and the history and the great men and women that did amazing things for their country.
And it seems to me that those are the types of things that nobody gives a shit about.
Because we're tearing down statues.
We're throwing out history books.
And granted, some of the history books are wrong.
But still, this stuff is just...
All of this hundreds of years of history of this country is just going right down the crapper.
Because...
Somebody doesn't like you or whatever.
Anyway, we gotta take a break.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, welcome to the last segment of the show here.
We got about five minutes to get out the last of our message.
And so, Jason, I'm gonna give you the opportunity to address the people, if you will, and just what are your closing thoughts about this discussion that we've had today?
So, kind of flashing back over all of it, you know, as jaded as we both sound, I think one of the things that all of us former military and military-aligned folks need to pay attention to It's the fact that we're going through something right now that's odd.
This is an oddity.
This is not the direction that the country is going to go in perpetuity.
Things always swing left and they always swing back right.
They end up somewhere in the middle and that's where it will be.
Right now currently it's in a different place.
It will come back.
Make sure that we're encouraging people and we're sharing those positive stories, but we're also not sweeping under the rug The conversations that are occurring today, and that they are important, but so is being an American, and so is, if it works in your favor, becoming a member of the military, period.
Well said.
To add to that, I think one of the most important things when we talk about this whole idea of serving or not is to not lose sight of who we are.
A very wise person once told me, which was probably a regurgitated phrase, but you don't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.
And I think that as a country, that slowly we're losing sight of who we've been and where we've come from.
And this idea that we can alter...
as you were saying, Jason, alter the gate of entry into the military so far left or right that we're losing sight of the standard that has been set and the sacrifice that has been made by so many people in our past to alter the gate of entry into the military so far left or right that we're losing sight And I really, to be honest with you, man, I'm worried about it.
I'm worried about where our kids are going to be, where our grandkids are going to be and what the state of the union is going to be when you and me are dead and gone.
I mean, you're a lot older than I am, but I'm not that far behind you.
And so our days are numbered, right?
Every day we wake up, we're one day closer to death.
And so these thoughts are in my mind often about where are we going to be?
And so I just think, as you said, that it's important that we share these stories that we have of our military service and why it's important to us and what led us to get there and why we stayed there for as long as we did.
Because it wasn't all bad, right?
But the greatest thing that I got out of my military service, Jason, is the pride that I can carry on my chest.
Knowing that I chose to take part in something that was bigger than myself for a purpose that's bigger than myself and even bigger than just my immediate community...
It's something that I really take pride in.
And for the rest of the days of my life, I will hold on to that staunchly.
And that's part of the glorious part about serving in the military is that those are things that nobody will ever, ever be able to take away from you.
And so, folks that are listening and watching, just please remember that this great country that we live in can be as great as it was just some very short years ago, or even better, but we have to do the work and we have to stay dedicated to the mission and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And so, as always, I want to thank you.
I want to thank you all for joining us.
Jason, thank you for your time.
I know that it's precious and so we appreciate you being here.
And we will see you again next week, folks.
Please do not forget to join us on Sunday evening.
Have a great night.
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