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Feb. 5, 2024 - Stew Peters Show
53:26
Pro or Con: School on Veterans Day
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Over on many different platforms and outlets that there was an argument or upheaval or whatever you want to call it in the Connecticut School Board meeting.
And the topic of conversation was all about whether school on Columbus Day and or Veterans Day.
When the school board voted to keep schools open, citing that The school year goes too far into the summer already.
We can't give kids another two days off of the year.
There was an eruption amongst parents and other community members.
Well, we haven't here at the Richard Leonard Show, and today Jason and I are going to have a conversation about that.
So stick with us.
Don't go away.
we start now.
Hey everyone and welcome here to the next episode of the Richard Leonard show.
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Okay, so we have an interesting conversation.
But first, we need to bring on Jason.
And there he is.
Look, he's so studly.
Hi, buddy.
How are you?
Very good.
And yourself?
I'm here.
I'm just awestruck by your presence.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just want to throw that.
Okay, so all the bullshit aside...
Kids in school on Veterans Day, brother.
What say you to said topic?
Right?
I don't like it.
If we're going to call it a federal holiday, give it the same time off that any other federal holiday would get.
And that was my initial reaction to it.
And the further you and I had talked past, I thought you had some pretty awesome ideas.
Well, before we get to my idea, let me ask you this.
What other, if any, federal holidays that you know of, do states or counties or school boards or whoever controls it, what other federal holidays do these systems get to decide whether or not they observe or how they observe it?
Any?
I don't know of any.
I haven't, you know, I pulled up that whole scrubbing through it, and I think maybe Juneteenth is the one where there was a little bit of wiggle room with certain schools kind of adopting the policy, but certainly not opting out like Veterans Day, because, you know, why not?
Well, okay.
Out of Christmas, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, Memorial Day, Washington's birthday, Martin Luther King Day, or New Year's Eve Day, or New Year's Day.
Yeah.
I think if you opt out of any of those, it'd probably be an uproar or an issue, but Veterans Day seems to be the one, right?
Well, yeah, apparently.
But also, what the hell even is Juneteenth?
Do you know?
It's June 17th every year.
That's what I know.
Okay, so we can't have the kids there.
Do we know what the holiday Juneteenth is supposed to observe?
No.
So, I'm reading it right now because I did not know.
It commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States on the anniversary of the 65 date when emancipation was announced in Galveston, Texas.
Celebratory traditions often include reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, Singing traditional songs, rodeos, street fairs, family reunions, cookouts, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth condoms.
Oh, so now they're...
So, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
So now we have a holiday to observe the end of slavery, which I don't...
I'm not going to say that I oppose that, because I really don't.
I think it's important to recognize.
But a beauty contest as part of a Juneteenth observation?
Now again, I'm not going to deep dive, but this is grabbing off of Wikipedia.
I'm taking it at face value because I didn't know anything.
But apparently, I mean, the beauty contest must be a big thing.
I don't know how they're defined as your craft shoe.
Good point, good point.
Yeah.
How does that hit the top seven in things to discuss about the holiday itself?
It kind of seems, or not the holiday, but the observance of this particular day.
I don't know how that would celebrate the enslaved people, but hey, traditions are traditions for a reason.
Okay, so I ask because of this reason, not here.
Let's just say for conversation's sake that the subject of Juneteenth, the reason why we have that holiday was...
October 17th, and it was called Octeenth, right?
So it's in the school year.
So within the school year is the point.
Is that more important?
The reason behind Juneteenth more important than Veterans Day?
Well, I mean, I don't know how to...
I can't come up with a way to rationalize importance.
But I would say, I mean, growing up, the young man of near 50 I am, Veterans Day used to be...
It's widely celebrated.
I would say not widely celebrated, but it certainly was celebrated widely.
But it had more impotence.
Every small town had a Veterans Day parade.
Now they're pretty sparse or sporadic.
There were always things going on.
It was, you know, a flyover, an actual air show, gatherings, like communities kind of on Veterans Day specifically.
And I think, you know, By whatever rhyme or reason, we've certainly gotten away from that.
And so maybe my question, or maybe the thought process is that not as a Veterans Day activities, thus the tradition becomes less important to maintain.
Well, that's an interesting take.
My answer to that question is absolutely not.
Now, With this being said, Juneteenth is an important holiday in my opinion.
I think that it's important that we recognize the end of slavery.
Slavery was a horrible time in our country's history.
But, had we not had a chain of events that happened before Juneteenth, and the men and women that it took to make this country a country...
then we wouldn't have to worry about Juneteenth.
So in my opinion, things like Veterans Day, Memorial Day, all those things, way more important.
And see, I think part of the problem is that we've gotten away from talking about how we got to where we're at, and we're really focused on the atrocities that mankind committed in the name of the United States of America or within the borders of this country, not how we got to where we're at. and we're really focused on the atrocities that mankind committed
And what it takes to, what it took for the men and women that made this country what it is, and for the men and women that carry on their traditions and the idea of the United States of America.
And even if it cares or gives a shit about veterans or anything else, that doesn't matter.
The fact of the matter still is that millions of men and hundreds of thousands of women have sacrificed a whole lot For this country to be what it is.
And for us to even have a conversation about why it's important or not that we need to observe it in or out of school is absolutely ridiculous to me.
And so why this even made the news cycle conversation in any school board meeting is absolutely, it's dumbfounding.
You realize how many schools...
It seems to be a static average now.
Everybody's moving towards this.
Well, and so here's the thing.
Here's my thought about Kids Beans Day.
I don't have a problem with...
The fact that all my kids are graduated from high school and they're doing their own thing.
But when they were in school, I didn't have a problem with them going on Veterans Day.
Where my problem lied was when my son would come home from school on Veterans Day and I would ask him, Hey buddy, how was school?
And of course you get the, eh, it was fine.
Do you have any homework?
Did you know that?
Yeah, I know that.
You told me.
What did your school tell you about Veterans Day?
Oh, well, they just told us at the beginning of the day in the announcements that it was Veterans Day, and so if we have any veterans at home to make sure we say thank you.
Thank you for what?
Wow.
Right?
And so, of course, that he can't articulate because they didn't tell him what to thank them for.
And that's where I had a problem.
So with this whole thing, if we are going to our kids to school on Veterans Day, which I'm okay with, why is it not mandated that they learn about why Veterans Day is important?
Why is that a curriculum already?
Why does that have to be part of the conversation?
I read in an article from the New York Post, the New Year's Post, the New York Post, that there was going to be mandated on Veterans Day.
Well, why does that even have to be mandated?
And why and where did we get to a place in this land where we have to prompt our teachers and prompt our neighbors who are parents or just prompt anybody?
make an effort to observe a holiday or any day for that matter, that is so very important to the foundation of what it is that we live in.
That was a lot, I understand.
But, I mean, that's all my thoughts right here out on the table.
I'm throwing my nuts on the table to be smashed.
But it's the truth.
And it bothered me so much.
And one day I was scrolling through, it was probably MySpace at the time, and I saw a picture of a letter that this guy wrote, which went viral, I'm sure a lot of people, thousands of people have seen it, that the guy wrote to his kid's school that on Columbus Day or one of these other days that they have off, Martin Luther King Day, my kid's not coming to school on Veterans Day.
I'll take care of it.
I'll teach them.
I'll show them a documentary or whatever.
Because now we've also gotten to a place where we don't know what our teachers are telling our kids in school.
And if I remember right, Jason, in which your kids go to school does a pretty good job at observing Veterans Day, correct?
They do, and they even discuss it amongst the different classes that the kids take.
I've heard through my kids, and I will say, they are wonderful conduits of information.
Some didn't take it all in the right way.
But when I asked about it, I said, what did you learn specifically about Veterans Day?
And they brought up that they, in reading and writing, they read a story about a local veteran.
They also, for every one of the kids, they were able to post a pic and do a quick little paragraph about a veteran in their family that they wanted to honor up and down the hallways all week.
And it was awesome to walk in and see that and then see how many military people actually affected each of these kids.
I feel like they have their finger on the pulse.
They might not know.
But then the school engages with him throughout the day about different things about veterans, about the lives that were sacrificed and lost, about the continuation of service.
I mean, we've got a 20-year global conflict.
That's just recently in our review.
We have some stuff to talk about.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And, you know, I don't care if it's a, you know, do you remember word problems in math?
Yeah, they were the bane of my existence.
Terrible, right?
What a powerful place to be talking about it and factoring and showing how large numbers can be, talking about the lives lost on Normandy.
I'm not saying that they ever did that, but that's where my mind went.
Veteran sacrifices known to people through the school.
And so what a wonderful opportunity.
If it's a federal holiday, number one, so clearly some people somewhere, someplace decided it was important enough to write real legislation about and declare it.
The people that work for the same organization that created the law, not come up with some curriculum that goes around it.
If we can spend a bunch of time talking about, you know, Masturbating when you're five years old in a public school, we can shoot Iwo Jima or any other conflict.
I mean, there's nothing more terrifying than what we think they're teaching them versus hearing about the carnage of war and understanding a veteran's sacrifice.
Yeah, and you know what?
That's an interesting take also because I believe that when we talk to our kids about war and the sacrifice, of course they're children, right?
So you got to tame it down a little bit from what it actually is.
But I don't think that lying to them about it is helpful either.
And talking to children, especially young adults, you know, that are juniors or seniors in high school, if any parent thinks that their student in high school hasn't heard or seen or partook or partaken or whatever the correct, Some effery or some debauchery in and around school, they're sadly mistaken because it's everywhere.
And you're right.
If we're talking about whether or not it's okay or putting litter boxes in high school bathrooms, which in our local high school happened.
My son sent me a text message, a picture of it.
The day he walked in and saw a litter box in the bathroom.
It's asinine.
So why are we going to tame down the real view of what war does to the land we fight it in, to the land that we left behind?
A lot of it is great and glorious and beautiful, but there's a large percentage of all of those stories and all of those experiences that is not pretty.
And especially the guys that were in the shit, their stories are not, they're not probably kid-friendly.
And they're not transcribed from Call of Duty, right?
The same media that sits there and says, well, all these violent video games are dumbing down, you know, children to a point where, or not dumbing them down, but numbing them to violence, right?
Would be the same people saying, well, if you really talk about, you know, what people have to, what veterans sacrifice in a military or in a wartime environment.
Ouch.
Well, you can't play both sides of that thing.
Kids need to know that this is what it took to get us to where we were.
And then each and every year, a new group of men and women trying to keep it.
Freedom isn't something that you just get in your hole and that's it.
It's not like you don't get it forever.
Every year we have challenges.
Every day we have challenges to keep that freedom.
The same freedom that you and I love to have locally, the government, through veterans, are keeping globally.
Yeah.
Somebody has to.
Right?
Gotta talk about it.
Somebody's gotta stand up on that wall or we're gonna fall.
And so, I don't know.
I've never understood it.
I mean, I shouldn't say I never understood it because I do understand that we need to try to protect our children from some bad things, right?
They need to be able to have a place where they feel safe and accepted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
I agree with all of it.
Kids about what the world is really like, especially our kids who are getting ready to move out into this crazy world and figure it out for themselves.
I don't believe that we need to hide any of it.
I am not the father of girls because I would be beside myself just knowing what is going on out in the world.
It's been, I don't know what, three and a half years or something like that since Stu and I did any bounty hunting and actually saw how nasty people can be to each other on a day-to-day basis.
It's only gotten worse, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Why hide that?
And why shield them from that?
When there is a potential, more so than ever, ever since, there's more of a potential now since Pearl Harbor, right?
Like, that was the last time we did, and we actually did.
And, you know, I mean, 9-11, we didn't, nobody saw it coming.
I seem to think that somebody somewhere had an idea that Japan was up to no good, but that's probably a whole nother.
You better watch Pacific Rim, bro.
What's that?
That Pacific Rim, that tells the whole story.
It's absolutely wonderful about Pearl Harbor.
Pacific Rim.
Isn't that the show with the robots fighting each other and the guy that plays Wolverine?
Okay, well, I'll look it up.
Sorry, I knew I'd lose it if I didn't say it right now.
It's funny, when you said that about Pearl Harbor, I'm like, you know, there had to be a warning sign.
Just like 9-11, there had to be a warning sign.
And again, that movie did such a great job of explaining what was actually happening, how the ciphers were doing their job, and all these other pieces.
And I'm just sitting there, like, you know, watching an open border right now.
It's like, oh, there were signs.
No shit, there's signs right now.
Yeah, well, but we shield innocent and our children from things like that.
And, you know, to a certain extent, rightfully so.
But when we're ready to send our kids out into the world, we do them no favors by not exposing them to what's really out there.
Because, unfortunately, there are more forces of evil than there are of good, in my opinion, when you're just walking the streets of Minneapolis or Chicago or New York or L.A. or Sacramento or anywhere, Dallas, Cleveland, it doesn't matter.
There's evil out there, and they're looking to prey on you.
And so, I don't know.
I think just the war and the veteran story is just another thing that we can use to open the eyes of the innocent and really like and how people really are in real space.
Well, and getting that idea, too.
Like, every time we think or say kids, you know, the idea is all the way to, but, you know, we have those formative years in junior high school and high school where these things couldn't be discussed in a more open forum.
And I think, you know, maybe it is true, you know, maybe not in fourth grade that they need to hear the Ibojima.
Why the hell not when you're 14?
Right.
Right.
There's a lot of cool other stories that we can teach the kids in 5th grade about war heroes or conflicts or whatever.
But I still think that it's important to talk to those 4th graders about, you know, that many men are now dead.
They gave their lives.
They're in heaven with Jesus or they're buried in one plane at the children, death.
That it happened on a large scale.
And why did we do it?
World War II, for example, why did we send all those men and lose all those people?
Well, it was because, well, there was a lot of reasons, but the first thing that comes to my mind, because directly of me, is that there were millions of people being executed.
The Holocaust was a real thing.
It was nasty, and it affected a lot of people.
Still today, in 2024, my grandmother still has effects from watching people be seen again.
And she's 93.
And so, for us to shield our kids from that, or anybody who doesn't know, I think is a disservice to them.
How can we as adults, teachers and parents, shape the minds of our children without telling them the truth, even if it's ugly?
So, I don't know.
I think we've gotten off track, as we usually do.
But it's important, I think, bro, because all this stuff plays together.
And so, these conversations need to be had.
Maybe it's just a fact that we need more time.
And speaking of time, we're out of time on this segment.
So, Jason, I don't mean to cut you off.
Keep what you got.
Chew on it for a kite back, folks.
Hey, folks.
Welcome back here from the break.
I think, Jason, that we hammered the subject pretty good, but I want to just reiterate before we move on to the next part, the question about whether or not we feel it's all right for the kids to be in school on Veterans Day.
I think it's okay as long as they're learning something about why Veterans Day is important, which never insure.
That our students are learning the right stuff in school.
So for those reasons, maybe it's best that the kids don't be in school.
But if they can put out a curriculum, I think it's an okay idea.
What about you?
Yeah, I like it.
I mean, if you're going to have the day off and the family, you know, hopefully if it's a federal holiday, maybe there's a parental unit in place that can actually, you know, engage the kids.
And it kind of gets back to that whole thing of how the community used to engage around Veterans Day in a much greater capacity.
That's what I would say.
I think it would be unheard of if you went back 40 years and said, oh, you're going to school on Veterans Day, because there were so many things going on.
Whereas now maybe some of that even lends back towards the schools having to start to carry some of that load because of the community.
I'm okay either way, as long as the kid learns something.
Uh, just a little something every year.
Well, there you go.
Um, and so I think that, you know, I mean, I want to say, uh, I don't know that you had the same opinion, but maybe through the conversation, uh, that we, we kind of changed your mind a little bit, which, which is fine.
I like having that effect on you.
My friends sometimes need to learn too, folks.
Yeah.
I'm not dumb.
If I'm not learning something, it's the day I don't want to wake up.
But I didn't, you know, I kind of was just irritated over the fact that you have another federal holiday that, you know, is being disregarded.
And it just so happens, well, it's a veteran, so just, you know, the dildo of unintended consequence once again.
Yeah, right.
So...
Don't worry.
It'll do its own thing.
You know, it does.
They do their own stuff.
We're used to it.
Yeah.
But you did have one point that we talked about off good, and I agree with you a thousand percent.
If we offered the teachers one or two less prep days, that might help with not impeding on the summer for the students or the teachers.
Parent-teacher conference prep day.
You know, I understand.
But it would be alarming to me If a teacher that was teaching my child didn't have just like an impromptu gauge on how my student was getting into test scores and blah, blah, blah, I feel like I should be able to have a conversation with my kid's teacher about how they're behaving, whether or not they're participating, and I think that most teachers would be able to say, well, yeah, you know, Richard just doesn't turn his work in on time, so we need to work on that.
But I'm not in those shoes.
I think that they're overworked, underpaid, and all those things.
But one or two less prep days might also help with that before we talk about getting rid of observation of Veterans Day.
Thank you.
And so in true Richard Leonard Show fashion, Jason...
Yes, sir.
We...
Do not like to offer a problem without a solution.
So you had said offline, you have a idea for offering a solution.
So what is that?
How about a perfect world scenario versus a solution?
But could you imagine if, again, veterans start to assemble in some greater numbers and start to get together and maybe take the lead in our communities to make sure our cities do something to honor that day?
Not necessarily because of any one of us, but certainly based upon the collective whole and what the veterans have meant to the fabric of this country.
You know, it's not just hanging a flag on a lamppost.
If they can spend a thousand dollars throwing up some Christmas lights, they could probably figure out a way to do something cool, something that would actually get the community involved.
You know, I don't think just taking a random vet and throwing them in a parking lot with a little soapbox where they give a five-second spiel, something that is necessarily thoughtful or positive.
And that's why you get these poor engagements that most cities have.
So, you know, maybe the city can or We could get more involved to create things like that.
So maybe there is some type of incentive for if these students get that time off, for the families to spend time with their kids to go to veteran events, or if they're going to stay in the school, then work with those schools or work with the county or the city, however their functions are paid.
Let's do some veteran-specific curriculum on that day.
Well, I agree a thousand percent.
Having...
Boy, this is going to lead me into an old topic I got, but I think that in a perfect world, we would not really need to have just one day for veterans.
Veterans and just military culture...
Good, bad, or indifferent would be celebrated all the time.
If we really, as a country, strap up some boots, grab a rifle, or stand a post, and move forward to destroy an enemy against all odds with all the tools of war that we are given to use at our disposal, that is something that should not be ever forgotten and never talked about.
It should be always remembered all the time, And in the effort to build patriotism in the younger generations of this country, which in my mind, if you just walk down the street in a highly populated area,
you will learn right away that there are many young people in this country that could give two shits about what it took for them to be able to walk freely and bash the institutions in which we fought for.
And so, having Veterans Day is great.
In a perfect world, our kids would go to school.
And on those days, they would go to monuments and they would go to seminars and they would listen to other veterans talk about their experiences and they would learn what really happened to make this country what it is.
And the understanding that it wasn't just the military men and women that built this country.
I mean, there's all kinds of huge events that interlace the fabric of this country, right?
But if we're talking about that specific topic, I don't believe that it's something that we should remember just once or twice a year.
And it shouldn't be just a day for you and me to go to Applebee's and get diarrhea for free.
You know what I mean?
Well, but yeah, I mean, God bless Applebee's for offering free meals to veterans, but it gives me bubble guts every time I eat it.
So thank you, but no thank you.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
And so the guts of another conversation or series of shows that we can march down in the future.
But the solution to me is simple.
The solution to me is talk about it all the time.
Make it part of the curriculum that our students learn today.
And many, many months ago, I did a show about this exact topic.
I believe, still to this day, very strongly, that if we were to...
Well, back up.
What is, Jason, what in our societies, in our families, most important to us?
What is the one thing in your life that is most important, the most important thing above everything else?
Faith.
Your family, your faith, but your kids.
Well, that's family.
Yeah, so they're the most important thing.
Why would we not, as a society or as a country, choose to put...
Roll measure in place to make sure that they are protected as tightly as possible and not put veterans in schools to secure them.
I love that idea.
Well, and I think that it goes very deep and it solves a lot of problems, right?
Our kids can be around veterans who are interested in being around kids and making sure that they know that they're safe They're protected.
They don't have to worry about it.
Their kids don't have to worry about it, but they're going to get to know these veterans, and they're going to know their story a little bit about it, and they're going to ask questions, and they're going to talk, and it's going to start this whole conversation piece around the schools.
In my opinion.
Don't have to worry whether or not as much that their kids are being protected.
Of course, you can't protect them 100% of the time all the time.
But having somebody in and around a series of buildings on a piece of property that has already at one time in their life vowed to take care of the people that they love.
And the people of their country and just their country as a whole, why would we not put them in charge of securing our most important asset, important people, our favorite people?
And of course, until they become like 18, 19, they're not your favorite people for very long, until they get a little bit older and learn some things.
But at the end of the day, they're still and we want to protect them and we would give our lives for them.
And so why would we not have this discussion?
The third point is we have veterans all over this country that are down and out, that are suicidal, that are homeless, that are broke, that are broken in their experiences.
And whether or not they've taken the right steps to make their lives better is a whole other conversation.
But if they're not chemically dependent, if they're willing to have any kind of common sense, Why wouldn't we give them a mission?
Give them a mission to protect the most important asset a family has, and that's their future, their generational futures.
That's not even a word either, but it's their most in pain.
It's your most important thing.
It was my most important thing.
They still are important to me, but they just don't live here anymore.
Why would we not solve that problem, too, by giving veterans a mission?
We've talked many times, veterans don't have a mission is a hard thing for them to grasp and move on with.
I think this solves three or four problems, if not more, asking them to be in charge of making sure our kids are okay at school.
Dude, turning it back on again.
Because it probably, in a lot of the instances, it never shut off.
And now you're going to be around...
And I don't know what your feelings are on it, but there is nothing that I enjoy more than going to my kids' school and being around just a bunch of happy kids.
I mean, there are certain things that certainly aren't as enjoyable.
But, you know...
Dude, I think he's struck gold.
Well, I think so, but I probably don't agree.
Because those conversations will be led with, well, you know, veterans, they like to drink, or they like to do drugs, or they like to do this, or they like to do that, and I don't know if they're the right people to have around our children.
Well, how about if they have a mission...
They're going to act right and they're going to show up looking right and they're going to do because after all, we were raised in a military culture where integrity is pretty important.
Honesty is pretty important and selfless service is pretty important.
Right.
Well, I think that's always the argument, too, when you start talking.
It's the one community that they can stigmatize relentlessly because of those reasons that you just said.
If you ever said that about another culture of people, you would be a racist.
You would be sexist.
You would be an ist of some sort.
No, no, no.
They're crazy, Cousin Eddie.
He can show up in his camper and pump the shitter into the sewer, but beyond that, they're not staying for Christmas.
They're too screwed up.
I don't really think that we are.
That when you use such a small...
And don't get me wrong, the problems seem to be magnified.
So when things do happen, they happen, to quote Trump, more bigly than...
Than they do in other areas of our population.
But it's such a small fact that the argument that you brought up, why would it even be discussed?
We know there's plenty of people who are down and out looking for jobs that are, you know, in the military, ones that I know, or are underemployed.
You know, where this would give them a part of where they become, is it federal or state employees?
I don't know how teachers are paying.
I think it's state.
It's regulated by the state.
So state.
So now they've got paid time off.
They've got good health care.
They've got all the things missing.
Because I think that's the other thing in the veteran population.
I'm telling you this, bro.
We need to get into this one.
Underemployed veterans.
Because I'm so sick of The employment rates, which are total bullshit.
There's no 5% or less.
But I would like to know how many veterans are underemployed.
How many veterans who have taken jobs that are beneath their abilities just because of whatever issues they're going through or other things in survival mode.
And it's difficult, I think, for normal people to understand veteran survival mode.
But if you can have a favorite MRE, you can be in survival mode too.
Because they're all shit.
Now they're not all shit.
The jambalaya from 2002.
Other than bubblegut Applebee's that we've already discussed, we'll set down 12 blazing wings in front of you.
Should that be your flavored jambo?
You're going to get that jambo?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yours?
No!
With the little baby Tabasco sauce bottle.
I hope the fan is watching this right now, and I don't know, but it should be at 100%, purely from that statement.
Bro, I'm telling you, if you use that little MRE heater, throw your jambalaya in there, and then also put your jalapeno cheese, crack open that little tiny baby bottle of Tabasco, sprinkle that sumbitch in there, pour in that cheese, mix it up.
There is not a better meal.
You can put 10,000 blazing wings in front of me.
I'm taking the one satchel of jambalaya.
Hands down.
Eat out of the dumpster of the restaurant aforementioned.
After a full cooler and freezer failure, then eat what you just...
It's because you haven't lived, my friend.
But yes, I would eat the jambalaya.
People probably don't give a shit.
And we've really got off in the weeds.
But we're going to take a break, folks.
We'll be right back.
Welcome here.
Welcome back here for the rest of the show.
Unfortunately, our friend Jason had some technical difficulties in his office as it relates to his camera and computer.
So you're stuck with me 12 or so minutes of the show.
And I think that it's important that we talk about the why, right?
I mean, we have been talking today about children in our schools on Veterans Day and why they should or shouldn't be in school.
And I think line, you know, all these things to bring everything full circle.
We've talked about kids in school, veterans protecting the schools, those conversations that need to be had.
The idea really is, as it pertains to defense of our country.
And so I think that it's important that we talk about the why, right?
We want our history, learn about the veteran experience, learn about what it took for all of us to rest easy under this proverbial blanket of freedom.
But why?
Why is it important?
Why?
And I think that it's important to make sure that people understand why it is that soldiers fight.
Why it is that the military even exists.
And it's not just police.
It's not just to be the world's bullies or the people in the world that solve everybody's problems every day all the time.
For our own knowledge, our own salvation, really, to just understand that every now and then, every now and then globally, there's an issue that really kind of endangers our way of life.
The American way of life.
And also other countries' way of life.
Things like the UN exist.
Although I'd say that I don't know how powerful the UN is anymore.
To be quite honest, I don't pay a lot of attention to it any longer.
But understanding why the military has their function...
Would also help just the common man, the common person, to understand why it's important to have political conversation, the veteran experience and veteran culture.
Because if we understand what war and the military means politically for this country, we can understand a little bit more about why we're directed to do the things that we do.
And there's many different opinions about this, right?
I mean, have come out and said, well, we only fought the war in Iraq because we want to be bullies or it's the oil or it's the money and it's this and that.
And although I don't disagree with all of that, I think that there is a lot of people, Danny, based on whether or not there's a war being fought somewhere in the world.
Because fighting a war is very expensive, right?
You mean we got to pay the soldiers.
We have to get the equipment to where it needs to be.
We have to pay the contractors or whoever is doing, service the generators that power our living areas, clean the bathrooms, pave the roads, cook in the chow halls, all those things.
And so the idea of the military back in the day was self-sustaining, right?
We have cooks.
We have sanitation people.
We have people that can treat water to make it drinkable.
And the military is capable of sustaining itself anywhere at any time.
But it doesn't work out that way any longer.
When we were in Iraq, the people making the most money off the war was Kellogg Brown and Root, KBR, which in turn seemed to be a company owned by our vice president's wife at the time.
These millions and millions of dollars a day were being paid to KBR for us to have any kind of Home-like amenities, right?
So we had running water.
We had air conditioning.
But somebody has to maintain that.
Somebody has to switch it out when it breaks for rockets or mortars coming over the wall, whatever that is.
And so I'm not here to say that we need to teach our kids about the political...
But understanding why war is fought and why the military just follows the orders of the government is also a political game.
But it doesn't release us from taking the idea of freedom, the base of what this country is built on.
It doesn't release us from that obligation as Americans.
And I believe it is an obligation.
I believe that we are obligated as American citizens to pay homage to the men and women that made this country what it is.
Don't think that...
I'm shielding our children or the people that don't care to pick up a book and read about it from what the truth really is.
The truth isn't always pretty.
The truth is, you know, and as we see in our current political system now, we couldn't be as a country more ugly than we sit right now with all these things going on.
And we're trying to put Trump in jail and the Hunter Biden debacle.
Biden lied to the country and his press secretary is a complete moron.
And there's just there's all these negative things.
But also understand that all these things are happening and the military, a topic of conversation amongst all these circles of politicians and all these circles of people in positions of power all across this country.
history.
Some of the biggest companies in this country that make the most money are the ones that make the rockets and the missiles and the bullets that fight these wars.
And unfortunately, In the history of this world has come up with a way, effectively, to deal with conflict in the world.
The answer still remains to fight and kill each other.
Is it the most desirable way to handle things?
No, no it's not.
As we've talked about before, the human mind is not meant to To go on killing sprees, right?
And be exposed to all this trauma and have to be shooting it out every day with an enemy.
The human mind isn't built that way, in my opinion.
But, unfortunately, it's necessary.
And so we find ourselves in these conundrums about veterans issues and the positives and the negatives.
But it's necessary, right?
There's no way, there's no way that we were going to stop Adolf Hitler from taking him without killing him.
We weren't going to solve the issues and negative actions brought upon this earth by Osama Bin Laden without killing him.
And that goes for all these, Gaddafi, Mussolini was killed.
I mean, all these tyrants and dictators.
The only way to solve it that we know of that's effective is bloodshed.
And so, unfortunately, the only way for us as a country to remain free and have the things that we have that we are comfortable with, that we enjoy, that we prefer, sometimes is bloodshed.
And we have to be the most proficient at spilling our enemy's blood, unfortunately.
And we're not in a time in our society, in our world, in our existence, where we can be relaxed about that.
We can't be relaxed about the idea of what it takes to defend this land when and if it's necessary.
And unfortunately, it seems like today, now, we're in a situation where it's not a question of if, it's more of a question of when.
And if it were to happen now, it's nerve wracking.
With all the divisiveness that we have going on and just the upheaval, we are so...
I don't know how it would shake out if somebody were to invade our country.
Are we going to stop and have arguments about who's more patriotic or are we just going to take out the people that are trying to take our...
I don't know.
I wish that I could say I am confident that as Americans, no matter what, we will band together to defend our home.
But I don't know if that's true.
Somebody might have an opinion about, well, you know, they probably didn't mean to, but they're running from something that's, you know, where they came from, and this and that and the other thing.
Well, who cares?
Who gives a shit about any of that?
And that's why it takes men and women that are willing to bear the burden for our kids and for our whole way of life.
And so that brings up all these other conversations about why is it important to secure our border?
Because it's our border.
This is our home.
This is our stuff.
We're willing to share.
I'm willing to share.
But I'm not willing for it to be taken from me.
And I'm not willing to share more than I'm comfortable sharing.
Because that's the American dream.
We get to be who we want to be, however we want to be it, when and where we want to be it, move around freely, go wherever we want, whenever we want, within reason, within confines of the law, to ensure that everybody has the same rights and the same...
I don't want that taken from me or from us, from you.
So yes, to bring this whole show around full circle, that we make sure our children are knowledgeable about why we have what we have and what it took for us to get it.
But more importantly at this point maybe, why it's important to be about keeping it.
We need to keep what we fought for, what we've built for.
And we can't effectively do that if our younger generations aren't bought into the idea of America.
The way to get them, in my opinion, to really buy in and understand why we do what we do and have the things that we have is to make sure that they are a thousand percent knowledgeable about what it took.
Defend it and keep it.
And why, when somebody decides that they're going to try, why they get obliterated.
Why there is so much bloodshed and why war is so ugly.
I mean, the emotions of a soldier that is fighting a war.
And why they choose to do that in the first place.
But I can tell you, for me, it was about...
You go into my house, take my shit, and then tell me how to live the rest of my life, where to go, or even if I get to live at all.
And so, if you F around, you're going to find out.
And that is our job, in a nutshell, as Terry.
You're going to learn today.
I feel like this topic, we could talk about this for many, many, many more minutes or hours or whatever.
Unfortunately, we've run out of time for the week.
So please, everybody, take care of yourselves.
Have a great evening, and we will see you next week.
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