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Nov. 26, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
57:33
Richard Leonard Show: Why Society Must Know Veterans
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We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
I had some other thoughts that I also wanted to expound on and I found a really good video of a gentleman explaining why he believes That it is the moral obligation of our communities to acknowledge and know the veterans that have fought the war and put in the work.
So today we're going to discuss a little bit about that and who knows where the conversation will take us.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
Hey everybody and welcome here to the Richard Leonard Show again this week.
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Okay, so as I said in the intro, when Jason and I were on the show last week, we had a pretty lengthy conversation about what it means to Re-engage with the soldiers and sailors and Marines and Airmen and Coast Guard folks when their time on active duty or their time overseas is over.
And as we know, this transition from military life to civilian life becomes an extreme burden for a lot of people.
And truth be told, I think, guys, that There are a lot of individuals who don't really have a very difficult time, but I think that the amount of people that do is larger than those who don't.
And so I think that this is the reason why we keep touching on this and we keep talking about this because it becomes It seems that it's becoming even more important as time goes by and our society and our communities become more polarizing and we have these conversations about all this BS at times that doesn't seem
to matter.
We have conversations around the water cooler about what's being taught to our kids in school.
There's these extremely volatile conversations that happen amongst people about gender fluidity and all kinds of crap.
And I think that...
This topic of re-engagement of our veterans is important because it's a very small amount of our population.
It is an extremely important part of our population.
Just a couple statistics for you.
Since we did away with the non-volunteer military, it was like 1973, 74, somewhere in there, our government has put our military members into combat Called them up to duty.
National Guard soldiers, reservists, the active duty military has put them in harm's way about 135 times.
And you're going to hear these two statistics.
I found a video that I want to show you.
I really want to share it with you guys later on in the show.
But also keep in mind when you see it that it's some years old.
You know, it's four or five years old.
And so some of these statistics have probably tweaked a little bit.
The fact of the matter is that just under 1% of our nation's population has and in some ways continues to shoulder the burden of war.
The longest war in our country's history.
Less than 1% of the people that live here, that are documented, have shouldered that burden.
Have went to a foreign land, lived on foreign soil for, you know, as little as six months, up to a couple, three, four, five years, whatever it is, everyone has a different story about deployment length.
And found, sought out, found, and destroyed our enemy with extreme prejudice.
And there's arguments about what the motivation for going to war was and if it was right or not and all these other things.
And to me, that doesn't really matter in this conversation.
I definitely think it's a valuable conversation to have at another time, but this idea of re-engaging and transitioning our soldiers back to the lives that they once knew is a different conversation.
So, around 1973, when we did away with the all-volunteer military, or we started the all-volunteer military, did away with the draft and all those other things, our lawmakers have put Our country and our soldiers in the direct line of fire, into combat, into the danger area, about 135 times.
Now, why is this important?
Because if we look back to pre-1973 when we had drafts and our military was not 100% volunteer, they only used military force 24 times.
And, you know, so we could argue about, you know, the length of time and blah, blah, blah, but the fact of the matter remains that, and as this fellow will tell you, our government uses military force as leverage.
And so, when we put our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters into harm's way, it could be Maybe a moral obligation for us to be able to know who these people are.
Know who the people are that shouldered the burden of the war that we collectively, as a society of people, put them in.
And I think the argument would be made by many people that, well, I didn't send any soldiers to combat.
And maybe to a certain extent, this is an issue of being guilty by association, right?
You're an American.
We all vote, and up until recently...
Well, I shouldn't even say that, because who knows how long it's been since our elections have been dishonest.
But the idea that we...
We are a country.
We are brothers and sisters.
We are collectively responsible, if you ask me.
We all have a hand in sending men and women into combat.
And the answer would be, yes, you didn't officially put soldiers into harm's way, but you did or have been living here In this country, reaping the benefits of being arguably the biggest superpower the world has ever seen.
And so I think that that makes all of us culpable.
Even those of us who did serve and have been to combat, we were still living in this country under the blanket of freedom that was provided to the generation of military members and veterans before us.
Our fathers, our mothers, our aunts and uncles and our grandparents served.
We lived under that blanket of freedom that they gave us while they were serving.
And so I believe that we all have this moral obligation to at least know who these people are.
When we were talking last week, Jason had brought up a really good point about how veterans are really good at hiding.
Really good at hiding in the corner and not making themselves known.
I agree with him a thousand percent.
When he was saying that, I was thinking about a recent trip that my wife and I took.
We're here in Minnesota, and so we are Minnesota Vikings fans.
Go Vikes!
Hopefully you make it to the Super Bowl, but I'm not going to be hopeful because for my whole life we've been let down.
But I'm excited to see where it goes.
Anyway, we went on an all-inclusive bus trip from St.
Paul to Green Bay when the Vikings played in Green Bay a couple weeks ago.
The game was a tragedy.
We got our butts handed to us.
But there was some overconsumption happening.
But it was a really good time.
It was a really good group of people.
And I can remember hearing conversations around me at a bar while we were eating dinner, and I was engaged with another one of my buddies.
And I could hear a couple people behind me, who I knew and who are friends of mine, telling the other people in the group that I had just met that day that I was a veteran.
I think that there was probably some questions about why I was grumpy.
Because sitting on a bus with 63 people, and we got stuck next to the bathroom, and so people were coming and going, and they're wiping their butt on you while they're going through, and then they try to pass each other in a lane that's this big, and I'm already this far into it because I'm a wide person.
So I was just having a tough time with that.
But we got through it.
Everything was good.
We had a good time.
And some of the responses that I overheard were, oh my God, really?
Well, that's pretty cool.
Well, I never would have known.
I never would have guessed.
And so later on, my wife had heard it also, because later on in the evening when we got back to our hotel room, she had asked me if I heard that conversation happening.
And I said, yeah.
She goes, well, why didn't you engage?
Because I don't need to engage.
I don't need to go and tell people, hey man, my name is Richard, by the way.
I'm an Iraq war veteran.
I don't know that I feel like I need to be recognized.
I don't feel like I need to be patted on the back and things of that nature.
In fact, it makes me uncomfortable.
I think it makes a lot of veterans uncomfortable.
But now that we have this idea that maybe...
The society and the community that has sent us to a forward area should acknowledge the sacrifice that was made.
I guess I have mixed emotions about it.
In the next segment, we'll watch this video, and then maybe it'll be more clear.
And so I'm torn between the two about how to feel about being recognized and being, you know, my buddy Mike.
It's a joke to him now, but it still upsets me that he introduces me as an American hero to people that I don't know.
Because I don't believe that I'm a hero.
My service is no better than the guy who was on my left or right.
So it bothers me.
Of course I wasn't watching the clock.
We've run out of time on the segment.
But stick with us.
We'll be right back.
And we're going to watch this video.
And then hopefully my whole rant will be a little more clear.
So stick with us.
Hey guys, welcome back here for the next segment.
I want to get right into this video.
It's a TED Talk.
And you know what?
I really like these TED Talks because I feel like you get to hear from real people about real issues.
And I'm glad that they do this.
It's called The Moral Obligation to Know Our Veterans.
I think that there'll be some mixed emotions about this whole thing, but it kind of made a little more sense to me based on our conversation Jason and I had last week.
So let's get into it.
It's about 11 and a half minutes-ish long.
So let's watch it here, and then we'll get right to it.
Here you go.
So I'm here today to tell you a simple story.
It's a story about citizenship, responsibility, and, dare I say, maybe even morality.
It's a story that when I shared with some of those close to me before I came out here, they said in a very cautionary way that maybe I should not tell this story because it may make some of you feel uncomfortable.
My response when I got that feedback was perfect.
So here's my story.
This is what I'd like to share.
I have one of those jobs that unfortunately requires that I spend a lot of time on airplanes.
And not too long ago, I boarded a flight like I always do, took my seat, and as I was drifting off to sleep, the pilot came over the public address system.
Two young soldiers had boarded the airplane and took seats just a few rows in front of me, and the pilot asked everyone on the plane to thank them and acknowledge their service to this country.
There was a polite round of applause on the airplane, and those close enough to reach the two young men gave them a handshake and a pat on the back.
And I couldn't help but notice, as this was going on, the woman sitting next to me was making a particular show of her support, so much so that I began to wonder if this was as much about her as it was those two soldiers.
I am a social scientist by academic training and I have been known to do, let's say, impromptu social experiments in situations like this.
So I decided at this point I was going to engage this woman in a conversation.
And I told her I was a military veteran myself.
I told her that today I direct a large academic institute at Syracuse University focused on the social and economic concerns of this nation's 22 and a half million military veterans.
And with that she was hooked.
I got her.
And she travels a lot like me.
And one of the first things she said to me was that whenever she's in an airport and she sees a soldier, she makes sure to say thank you for your service.
I thanked her for her gesture, but then began to subtly, or maybe not so subtly, shift the direction of the conversation a little bit to some of the challenges that are facing particularly this generation of military veterans.
I told her, for example, that Many of this generation of veterans, particularly the youngest, have struggled mightily to find jobs when they come home and leave service.
And that maybe some of those struggles are a function of the fact that many of these young men and women who have served over the last 12 years are leaving military service with disabilities at a rate unprecedented in US history.
Conservatively, 30% of them will live out the rest of their lives with disabilities.
Connected to her service.
And the more I talked, the more agitated she became.
But what did me in, what did the conversation in, was when I told her about the suicides.
When I told her that 20% of this nation's suicides are military veterans, even though they represent less than 10% of our population.
When I told her That 22 military veterans a day commit suicide in this country, one every 80 minutes.
I told her that by the time we land, three more will have taken their own lives.
I told her that in recent years, more veterans have died by their own hand than service members lost to the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And at this point, she looked at me like I had two heads.
And she said, none of this can be true.
This isn't Vietnam.
Didn't you see us clap for those soldiers?
America supports our veterans.
She proceeded to pull out her iPad, pop on her headphones, and turn on a rerun of Home and Garden TV. I knew it was a rerun because I like that channel.
I watch those shows all the time.
But she was clearly done with me.
And honestly, I sat there and thought maybe I had gone too far with my little experiment.
And then a young man, couldn't have been more than 24, 25 years old, sitting on the other side of the aisle, tapped me on the shoulder and looked me square in the eye, stuck out his hand, and he simply said, thanks.
And it turns out, his name was Tim.
Tim was a military veteran.
Tim volunteered and enlisted in the Marine Corps when he was 18 years old.
Served for five years.
Three of those five years he spent in Iraq or Afghanistan.
He got out just about six months ago and he had a plan.
He was going to go to school.
And he seemed ashamed to tell me that he only lasted about two months on his college campus.
Because he said, I just didn't feel like I fit in.
I didn't feel like I belonged.
I had nothing in common with my classmates, with my teachers, with my administrators.
He'd been trying to find a job, no luck so far, and he told me he's really hoping that the docs at the VA can figure out how to stop the ringing in his ears so he can get more than two or three hours of sleep each night.
And you know what, to be very honest with you, because of what I do, I've heard all that before.
None of that necessarily surprised me.
But what hit me like a punch in the gut is what he said next.
His eyes welled up and he said, Mike, worst of all, worse than all of that is since I've been home, I feel anonymous.
And at that moment, I turned and looked at the woman who was sitting next to me, and she's lost in her reality TV, and, you know, Tim was not the only one at that moment looking for a tissue to wipe his eyes.
Now home among the very people who sent him to war, he feels anonymous.
I'd ask you to reflect on that for a second.
In 2012, at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival, General Stanley McChrystal became the first senior commander of the post-911 generation of military leaders to make a public call for a return to the draft.
His argument was never again should the cost and consequences of war be so disconnected from society and its citizens.
Nobody paid him any attention.
It made the news for about a day.
So, post-Vietnam, it was America's response to Vietnam that largely served as the impetus for the creation of the all-volunteer force.
After Vietnam, the idea of conscription and mandatory military service for all was widely rejected by all Americans.
Still today, it is the all-volunteer force model that has the overwhelming support of Americans and, quite honestly, most military leaders.
Importantly, however, we are coming off the first extended test of the all-volunteer force, and as with any test, it's my hope, and certainly our collective hope, that we may have learned something.
Let me tell you what I have learned.
What I have learned is that the moral outrage that galvanized much of America after Vietnam was subsequently translated into policy and then practice in a way that actually runs counter to the idea that war is something to be avoided at all costs.
In fact, the all-volunteer force makes it much too easy For us to leverage military conflict as an instrument of public policy.
Since 1973, when the all-volunteer force was enacted, our leaders have actually used force as an instrument of policy at an escalating rate.
In the 40 years since the all-volunteer force has been in existence, our military leaders have sent our men and women of the military into harm's way 134 separate times.
In the 40 years prior to the all-volunteer force, when all of our citizens were responsible for our defense, our leaders used force 24 times.
Why is Tim anonymous?
Tim is anonymous because we have disconnected the costs and consequences of war from all of you.
Over the course of the last 12 years at war, the burden of that war has been shouldered by less than 1% of all Americans.
Because of that fact, odds are Tim is not your brother, your father, Your son, your neighbor, your classmate, your teammate, he's probably not even your friend.
And because of that fact, far too many Americans are not invested in Tim's future.
But let me tell you, Tim is somebody.
Tim is the somebody that we, all of you, collectively entrusted and conferred this nation's moral compass when you sent him off to find, fight, and kill our enemies.
And now he's home.
And just like that woman sitting next to me on the airplane, not enough of you, not enough of us, are invested in his future.
So, here's the thing.
Let me tell you about Tim.
History and those who have come before Tim have proven to history that he's smart, educated, resourceful, and entrepreneurial.
He wants to be a leader in your communities, on your campuses, and in your governments.
He's mature beyond his years, he's honest to a fault, and he's fiercely loyal.
Sure, war has changed him, but on so many dimensions, more for the better than for the worse.
Thomas Jefferson said that a nation as a society forms a moral person and that all members are responsible for society.
I stand here and attest to you today that when you made the decision to defer the defense of this country to Tim, you made a moral choice that incurs a moral obligation.
What is that obligation?
It's a very, very simple thing.
It's the only thing that Tim wants from you.
Tim wants you to know him.
I implore you, find a way to know Tim.
Thank you.
So, find a way to know Tim.
It's a pretty powerful thing, I think, that Mike was talking about Because I feel like it's a situation where both sides need to agree.
Both sides need to agree that it was the moral obligation of the country to know these people, but also, on the flip side, we as a veteran community and a population need to be okay with This moral obligation for the country to know us.
And maybe it's not as easy as just knowing them personally, but taking onus of their future when they come home.
And I think that there's been some of that.
We'll cover that in the next segment.
But I really kind of struggle with this.
And I agree with many of the things that Mike said.
I think that it is our country's responsibility to kind of take these folks under their wings, so to speak, because we put them there.
And then we benefit, or did benefit, From that blanket of freedom, as I talked about before.
But stick with us.
We've run out of time again, of course.
And we will be right back.
Hey folks, thanks for being here again with us this week.
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Hey folks, welcome back here for the next segment.
I want to kind of just unpack some of the things that we saw in the TED Talk.
One of the things is that Mike was saying that we as a society, as community members, have a moral obligation to be involved in Tim's future.
But he also was talking about The one thing that really rung out to me was that it was our decision collectively as a country to do away with the draft and do away with everybody being involved in our country's defense.
And so this is one thing that I really agree with him on.
You know, for those of you, some of you who are listening or watching maybe lived it, lived the Vietnam era and the upheaval that the draft caused and the protests and this and that.
But many of us weren't there.
We learned about it in school and at this point, who knows if it was accurate, if the information was accurate.
But we aren't.
We aren't invested because there is no personal connection for many people.
I mean, think about it.
If less than 1% of our population shouldered the burden of fighting the longest war in our country's history, Mike's right.
For many, many people, Tim is not your brother.
He's not your family member.
He's not your cousin.
And he's probably not even your friend.
Tim may be the guy that grew up down the street from you who was two or three years older than you, so you didn't even talk to him or play with him or get to know him or hung out with him or whatever.
But when everybody had a hand, everybody had skin in the game, When it came to defending our borders, it was a little bit different, I would imagine.
Because it's easy for us to hear stories of soldiers and veterans that have found themselves in tragic situations or that have success stories.
Or that just have a sad story or a depressing story, whatever it is.
It's easy for us to get on YouTube or Rumble or whatever and watch these things.
And so I will admit that over the years, that things like social media and YouTube and all these types of ways for us to get our words out have made it easier for people to hear our stories, whatever it is that we're willing to share.
It's still easy to dismiss it.
It's still easy for us to go, man, that really sucks, and then go about what we're doing.
Because the feeling that Tim has after being home now doesn't have to be burdened, or I'm sorry, doesn't have to be shouldered by any of us, because we don't know who he is.
And then this also goes back to how veterans are good at hiding.
You don't have to shoulder the burden because you don't know who I am.
It's easy for you to listen to my story from my mouth or from Mike's mouth or from anybody's mouth.
Give it a little bit of thought and then move on to your own thing.
And to be fair, we all have crap going on.
We all got stuff going on.
So I get it, I understand that sometimes you gotta look out for number one.
But when numbers like less than 1% of our population bore the burden of war, and at the time of this video was released, and so there's been some argument about veteran suicide numbers up or down, 22 a day, 26 a day, 19 a day, Whatever it is.
But to know that at some point in recent history that 20% of every human being in our country who decided to take their own life was somebody who wore a uniform in defense of this country is staggering.
It's astounding.
The idea that you volunteered to write the government a blank check for up until the price of your life and go over to the armpit or the butt crack of this world, of this planet and fight your ass off and survive all of that.
Beat the odds in many cases.
And then come home.
To end it yourself.
That's a problem.
It's a huge problem.
And so, when Mike talks about the fact that we as a society don't have skin in the game because it's not personal to us, I think that that's something to take note of.
And I understand that many people, if we did have a draft, would not have been drafted or none of that stuff.
But I think that what would happen is that folks would be a little more in tune about what's happening around them.
If they knew that there was a chance that their son or their daughter could be drafted.
You know, there's other countries in this world where military service is mandatory once you reach adulthood, I believe, like in Israel.
Once you reach 18 or whatever the age is, you must serve two years in their military.
And so...
And then I believe, I probably should have done the research before I brought it up, but I believe that if you'd like to stay, then you can.
They'll keep you.
As long as you're a contributing member.
If not, you turn in your gear and go about your business.
Do what you do, man.
I believe.
I believe.
That we must find a way for people like Tim not to feel anonymous.
And I don't believe that it needs to come in the form of applause and back patting and hugs and fanfare and things like that.
I don't believe it needs to be...
In that form.
And I also will go out on a limb and I'll say that there are many ways in which, and probably even many steps since this TED Talk was aired, that communities have done better at acknowledging veterans in their community.
You know, like here in Minnesota, we have the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program, so businesses can be yellow ribbon businesses, and there's benchmarks that they have to meet to be labeled as such.
Cities and towns and counties can be labeled yellow ribbon cities.
And so there's benchmarks that they have to meet to get that nomenclature And so there have been some steps made, but I guess what I wonder is, have there been steps made by us personally?
Have any of us been walking our dog in our neighborhood and noticed that the guy four houses down has a Vietnam veteran license plate on his vehicle?
And have we stopped to just say, hey, I don't want to make a big deal about this, but hey, welcome home and thank you for your service.
You know, things like that.
And so I guess I would love to have a further conversation with this Mike guy to ask him what that looks like.
What does fulfilling this moral obligation that he says we have as a society to know people like Tim...
What does that look like?
Because I believe that it probably doesn't just come in the form of discounts at the local restaurant or shop or whatever.
What does it look like?
And would veterans who have already become accustomed with being anonymous, even though it's hard, it's a hard road to travel, And I'll share this with you.
One of my biggest pet peeves when I'm out in public or out in the community is hearing people bitch about what's going on around them and complaining.
A prime example is you know when you're standing in line at McDonald's let's say and You hear people complaining about the time in which it's taking for their food to be done or, you know, that it doesn't taste the way it should or doesn't look like it does on the menu board.
And it's like, you know, if these are things that are like super important to you and that cause you this kind of unrest, I believe you got a bigger problem.
Because those of us who went to the forward area to serve dealt with things way more, way more complicated than that.
And way more frustrating.
And so I did, I have once, in fact, I think, I believe I was in a Burger King.
And this type of similar thing was going on.
And I just asked the, it was a dude, it was a guy.
I asked the guy, I'm like, so...
You made your order about four or five minutes ago and you have to wait another four or five minutes for them to make your food and then put it on a tray and give it to you.
I said, would you be even more frustrated if it was 130 degrees outside?
Would you be even more frustrated by this whole thing if you were standing in the middle of a dust storm or a sand storm?
Would you be even more frustrated about this interaction if the sirens were going off and you could hear mortars whistling over your head and they're hitting two blocks down the road?
And then, when that happens, they close up shop and they run for a bunker.
But now you've paid Burger King your $12 for your value meal.
And all you've gotten was your paper cup that you put your Coke in.
And all of a sudden, everyone disappears.
And so something just trivial like that just drives me crazy.
And it happens at the gas station.
It happens at the grocery stores.
It happens when you're driving down the road.
And this guy's response to me was, well, I'm not there, so it doesn't matter.
Okay, maybe so.
But in my mind, this is, hey, have you got to take an extra four minutes to make sure that my food is going to taste okay?
All right.
Because I remember the time when the mortars were hitting two blocks away and the Pizza Hut trailer closed down.
And of course you can't just stand in the middle of the PX area waiting for your pizza when mortars are coming in.
You gotta go.
You gotta find cover.
And who knows if you're ever gonna get what you paid for.
I can remember standing in line with no awning and the sun beating down on us and it was 115 degrees waiting for the local nationals to fuel up our trucks.
Well, they wouldn't allow you to sit in the truck while they fuel it.
It's dangerous.
If the safety officer came by, he'd be chewing butt.
So those are the types of things that just...
Life is so much less complicated than folks make it out to be.
And if that's the case...
Maybe those are things that we as a community, as a population of veterans, can teach our society, but we have to feel comfortable doing it.
Feeling anonymous sucks, but it also, at times, is not a great feeling to be patted on the back and given a hug and a fanfare.
And I think it depends on everybody's particular situation.
Did you lose a buddy?
Did you lose a lot of buddies?
Did you get hurt?
Did you lose something?
Did you lose part of yourself?
I think there's a lot of factors that go into it.
And so I think that it's a tough intersection to cross with the civilian population and the veteran community.
But I think that there's value there.
And I believe that this moral obligation That Mike talks about is a real thing.
But the question is, how do we get there?
How do we get there to have this moral dilemma solved?
What does meeting this moral obligation look like?
And how do we come up with one that's fashionable for both parties?
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Hey guys, welcome here for the last segment of the show.
I feel like this topic has been kind of heavy.
At least it has been for me.
I mean, I experience a little emotional response, if you will.
But I think that when we talk about and discuss...
How do we fulfill this moral obligation?
I think that we maybe...
Check it out.
I think that maybe we as a veteran population might have to do a better job at explaining where we're at.
And it's hard.
It's a difficult thing.
I don't think that it's very common because it's difficult and it's easier at times to just navigate the world in our own little bubble.
But I think that the transition game that they call reintegration I like to call it transitioning back to civilian life if we want the long title There's a lot of things involved that make it more difficult than maybe it needs to be.
You know, I think things like survivor's guilt might be a tough thing.
It might be, well, might be.
It is a tough thing.
The idea that your brother or your sister Didn't walk off the plane when you got home but yet carried off by six soldiers is hard to fathom because we're taught that this is a big team game and what's really important when the bullets start
flying and the IED start going off and chaos ensues Is the person to your left and right?
Yes, there's always a mission.
There's always a mission to be accomplished.
But the real important mission is the man or woman on the left or right of you.
There's kind of this unspoken vow made And in some units or teams or platoons or squads or whatever, maybe it's a spoken vow that I will not leave you.
I won't leave you behind.
You go, we go.
I believe on our team, when I was deployed, it was more of an unspoken truth.
We didn't have to talk about it because we already knew.
We already felt it.
And everybody had the same mindset.
We already knew.
You go, we go.
And so to the best of our ability, we're all coming home together.
And you kind of just come to terms with this fact that, hey, we better do a damn good job tonight.
We better do a damn good job this year because I'm not walking off that plane without you.
And so then you go back and you start thinking about all the things that led up to the time in which you had to get on that plane in the first place.
One of the worst feelings of my life was pulling up into the parking lot Of the armory the day that we were leaving for Iraq.
It was September 25th, 2005.
At like 4 in the morning or something.
My son at the time was 6 months old.
My now ex-wife had driven me.
And I can remember getting out of the car, getting into the back seat and taking him out of his car seat and holding him.
My eyes were welling up, probably a tear or two running down my face.
And I was doing all I could to not cry because I didn't want my exit from my family to be full of tears.
I wanted to be as strong for them as I could be.
And then at some point, my platoon sergeant, or maybe it was our platoon leader or something, knocked on the car window and was like, hey man, we gotta go.
We gotta get on the bus.
We're out of here.
And I remember thinking that this is the hardest effing moment of my life.
I reached my son over to his mother And I thought to myself, well, this little guy is six months old and this may be the last time he ever sees me, feels my touch, smells my nasty breath when it's four in the morning.
This could be the last time.
And then you just walk away.
you.
You just go and get on that because that's what you have to do.
It's the commitment that you made to the people.
It's the commitment that you made to the country.
The warrior ethos.
The army values.
The commitment.
I will go and lay down my life for you.
But I think what's missing maybe is the acknowledgement of the common person to the veteran community about what led you there maybe.
I kind of just had this epiphany about it.
And, you know, some weeks back we discussed sacrifice.
And the sacrifices that are made by the men and women who wear a uniform to provide this blanket.
I keep saying, and maybe I sound like a broken record, but this blanket of freedom.
When you go to bed at night, and you snuggle up under your heating blanket if you're in Minnesota, it's cold as hell up here.
But when you snuggle yourself into your warm bed at night, Do you ever think about the men and women who are sacrificing for you?
I mean, because obviously there's a time difference, right?
You're in different time zones.
But that doesn't matter because we fought from three in the afternoon.
We're not fought, but we worked from three in the afternoon till whenever it was over.
Sometimes noon the next day.
Or sometimes till one in the morning.
We work through the night.
So when we saw combat, it was at night.
Most of the time.
98% of the time, I guess.
But do we really stop and think, before we close our eyes, about the men and women who are sacrificing for us to do so comfortably?
And maybe what Mike was getting at is that because we have an all-volunteer force and the burden of our defense isn't on everybody.
The burden of our defense is on men and women who make up less than 1% of our population and then their loved ones.
Because I guarantee you If my son was deployed to a forward area, I'd be thinking about what he's doing at all times.
Especially if I knew he had a combat role.
If I knew he was an infantryman, or a cav scout, or a sniper, or a mortar man, or a field artillery guy, or a truck driver even.
They're driving out in combat too.
Got to get the supplies where they need to go.
So maybe that's a huge piece.
Maybe that's what we need to be talking about.
When we talk about not just saying thank you for your service in an ungenuine way, like many do, but saying thank you for your service by thinking about it.
Thinking about when I challenge you folks tonight when you lay down your head at night before you close your eyes think about somebody you know or maybe you don't know that sacrificed everything and was willing to give up everything for you to rest peacefully.
Maybe that's lost on a lot of people in our society.
I don't know.
I hope not.
But it's quite possible that it is.
So I think we set out today to just further the conversation from last week.
I hope that we did that.
I kind of have this epiphany with like three minutes left in the show, so we'll have to come back to it.
In fact, I'd like to get Jason's take on it since we were the ones that started the conversation, and maybe we can do that next week.
But thank you for joining us.
I really appreciate you being here.
Stick with us.
Come back next week.
We love you.
Thank you.
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