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Oct. 19, 2025 - Stew Peters Show
01:21:48
Foxhole Refrom: Fighting Human Stupidity, One Base at a Time
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Earlier this year, when uh President Trump was inaugurated, uh, we were made a lot of promises.
Uh one of those promises not only came from the president, but also came from Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense, now labeled Secretary of War.
One of those things that Pete Hegseth stressed in his confirmation hearing, his speech after he was confirmed, and has maintained this whole time is that his intent is to take care of soldiers first.
And now many people are uh on the fence about whether or not he's really actually doing that.
Uh today we're going to have a conversation about some of those things.
Uh and one thing in particular is the improvement of soldier, the soldiers' lives uh on military installations.
Um for the sake of this conversation, we'll be discussing uh army bases uh around the world, uh, but most importantly here stateside.
So stick with us, don't go away.
We start now.
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Uh okay, um Army bases.
Army bases.
As I said in the intro, uh, the president Pete Hegseth and many others in all of these halls in DC and and uh uh all these the the Pentagon and all these places the new the new administration,
the new regime, if you will, has vowed that they're going to shift focus on America, but most importantly, Pete Hegseth said specifically, we want to make the lives of soldiers better.
We want them to be uh engaged, we want them to focus on training and lethality and and all of those things.
And I believe that he has made some good steps towards that.
Uh today we're going to discuss um an article that I found.
It's titled The Army Secretary to Soldiers.
Uh they want to help get human stupidity out of the way.
And uh our our secretary of the Army is Dan Driscoll.
Uh he was confirmed also at the beginning of this year, and he has also maintained that we need to make the lives of soldiers better.
And uh when I saw the title of this article that says we need we need help to get human stupidity out of the way.
Uh at first glance, I couldn't agree more.
Uh as a person who spent just under just under 19 years in the United States Army, albeit my whole career was National Guard, but I did have the opportunity to do many different training missions through the course of any other active duty I did, deployments, coming home, going over.
Uh got to got to stroll around US Army bases in quite a few different places in this country.
Uh and of course, army bases overseas, although um, you know, army bases and forward areas are a whole lot different than what we find here stateside.
And in a lot of places, like for example, Fort Polk, Louisiana, the the uh the accommodations and the condition of the base and many of the buildings that we got to use to occupy when we were there for training were quite dismal.
Uh the I recall the barracks that we stayed in, our whole platoon stayed in.
Uh part of the daily maintenance of the place, right?
You wake up, you you shit shower and shave, and then you do barracks maintenance.
You mop the floors, clean the bathrooms, get all your your crap put away and and and stored properly, make your bed, blah, blah, blah, all those things.
Well, the place we stayed in, we were told we can't sweep.
Don't sweep the floor here.
It's not safe.
Well, wait a minute.
That's part of our daily routine.
It's part of our daily barracks maintenance.
And ever since I joined the army, every day there's barracks maintenance.
Why do we not sweep the floors?
Well, the building is riddled with asbestos.
So if we sweep the floor, it's going to kick up all that stuff, and it's not safe for you guys to breathe it.
Oh, but it's safe for us to shower here.
It's which, by the way, in our particular place, the shower didn't drain, and so after two or three days, the water was ankle deep because everyone had to shower.
But we can't sweep the floor.
We can sleep here.
We can fold our laundry in this place.
We can keep all of our personal items, our toothbrushes, our deodorant, all that stuff, personal hygiene stuff.
We keep all of that in here, but we can't sweep because we're going to kick up the dust.
Well, when you spend a couple weeks in one in one army barracks, uh it gets messy, right?
Soldiers aren't always uh the most tidy uh in a training scenario when you're when you're out in the field uh working for you know 10 to 15, 16 hours a day.
Things seem to get a little they get a little dicey, get a little messy.
So we of course you need to need to make a roster for barracks maintenance and all those things because not everybody's awake at the same time, and 24 hour operations are happening, And just a lot of moving parts.
Well, I went around the block to go across the street to say things like this for veterans and people who are currently serving is probably good news.
It's good news.
And so that's another thing, right?
We don't we don't always necessarily have good news to talk about.
You know, there's a lot of upheaval.
There's a lot of uh division and polarization going on in our communities today, and so those things tend to uh to be talked about more.
But I thought it would be good to kind of go over this uh because I think it's a pleasant surprise.
And this is exactly what we were told was going to happen.
Things like this, to improve the lives of soldiers.
We need to put soldiers first.
Of course, the mission is always first, but taking care of the men and women that conduct these missions, the the people who are going forward and making the sacrifice, they should be taken care of.
And along with that, they're families.
And it's a it's a it's a well-known idea that our families serve to, and in some respects, it's probably a little tougher for families.
And so things like our kids um do a a lot of firsts when they're really small, and soldiers miss all that.
For example, uh my son was six months old when I left to go to Iraq, and when I got home 24 months later, he was to me, uh he wasn't a grown man, but to me, he was damn near a grown man because when I left him, I could hold him like a loaf of bread.
Uh and so I missed first steps.
I missed his first words.
I missed him using a fork or a spoon for the first time.
I missed him taking his own drinks.
I missed him do all kinds of things.
And that's tough.
It's rough.
Uh, I think it wears on people, right?
Because those are the things that we look forward to when we have children.
Um of course, a lot of other things.
Uh, but but those things in particular, for me anyway, um, it was hard to swallow, but we made a commitment.
Uh you you do what you're told when you're called to do it, and that's what what that's what I did.
So let's get started here.
Uh, and we'll uh we'll put in we'll we'll put in our two cents along the way.
Uh U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll encouraged soldiers and families to help the Army get human stupidity out of the way to improve the life on installations.
Uh he said this.
We and you and sailors and families can fix almost everything.
He said this uh this last Tuesday during a forum on military times uh at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army.
We just have to get human stupidity out of the way.
You will be the ones to help us do that.
You will be the ones on your bases and your communities pushing every single day to improve the foxhole.
And then we try we will try to do that too.
Uh so here he's talking about uh uh a multifaceted approach.
Uh the soldiers and their families need to not be silent.
They need to not be silent, they need to push for the things that are going to make their lives better, such as living conditions, like we were talking about earlier.
Uh, in a session that lasted over an hour, Driscoll, Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, and Sergeant Major of the Army, Michael Weimer.
I hope I pronounced it right uh correctly.
Uh sorry, Sergeant Major, if I if I murdered it, uh said that they were working to improve the quality of life measures for soldiers and their families.
The improvements could help soldiers and military families focus on their physical and mental well-being, as well as help soldiers rest and recover from their primary mission of training to fight.
So it wasn't long ago, a month ago now, maybe just only two weeks, that Pete Heggseth called all the army leadership, all the top brass, to one place, put him in the auditorium, and gave him gave him gave him the rundown of what's what what knew was happening in the Department of Defense, or excuse me, the Department of War across all branches.
Um of the main things he talked about was we are going to focus a whole lot more on training, training, training, to become more lethal, to become more professional, to tighten up our shit.
So that when and if, and in my opinion, it's more likely win than if we need to go to war again.
That we are lethal.
That we are shoot, move, communicate, and do it better than your enemies, because if not, we all know what the outcome to that is.
If we don't do that well, we don't do that better than our enemies, we will fall.
We will die.
And that's not what any of us need.
And Driscoll said the army has let down families whom he described as the absolute backbone of the army.
Excuse me, and I I agree, I agree with this sentiment a thousand percent.
As I said, there are there are many things that soldiers have to endure throughout the course of their service.
uh, there's a, there's a whole lot of, there's a whole lot of shitty times.
There's great times.
most of my military career.
The people you meet, the relationships you form, the skills that you gain, the perspective on life is just different.
It's different than what anyone else gets in any other profession.
But when we have seen in the past examples of soldiers who may not have a good support system.
They may not have family and friends that support them from the outside in.
It doesn't go very well.
So when he says things like families are the backbone of the army, it's a thousand percent true.
It is a whole lot easier, in my experience, as an infantry soldier, to leave the house for the day or the year, the month, a few weeks.
It's a whole lot easier to leave the house when you know that you have a support system behind you.
Especially if you're a person who has children, whether you're married or not, but married, these things are what weigh on soldiers' minds.
It's a difficult occupation to be a family member of a soldier, especially soldiers who uh serve in combat arms, infantry, um field artillery, scouts, uh, snipers, and all this stuff, all the stuff, all the the combat MOSs, and even the combat service support stuff, you know, like the Ford Observers, the MPs, all of these things.
If you do not have a peace of mind about your affairs, your family, your kids, your spouse, all of those things when you go out to fight, those are things that are going to make you less prepared.
They're gonna make our soldiers less lethal.
And in turn, we would see, in the case of a war or battle, we would see a whole lot of boxes draped with American flags coming back to whatever base or wherever wherever they're taking them.
Having those things clear from your mind when you are embarking on a journey to to fight an enemy or to support the fight of an enemy are absolutely paramount.
And so I agree, Mr. Driscoll, that families and their support, I guess we could we could phrase it as a soldier's support system are absolutely one of the main things that keeps our military strong.
Because without it, I think a lot of people would have a lot tougher time.
And maybe it doesn't uh maybe it doesn't affect everybody.
Maybe it's not across the board for everyone.
But I believe that even soldiers that won't admit it would probably have a whole lot easier time if they did have a solid support structure behind them.
The civilian leadership for a very, very long time has not put the soldier first.
We're going to get into this one for sure.
They have not put the family first.
They have done all sorts of sinful acts, and and those and those sinful acts have harmed you.
One example is cost.
We spend a lot of money on you and your families and the things we give you, but it doesn't go far enough.
We have incredibly passionate, wonderful people who are civilians and soldiers trying to work and care for you.
But the system for far too long has just gotten in the way.
For example, the cost of building army bases now, apparently, is 68.5% more expensive than construction outside the fence line of any base.
Uh for many items, not just not just services, not just construction, but for just about everything that goes in these places.
And in my experience, it's very true.
I'll tell you a little personal uh a little personal story about this type of thing.
When we were deployed to Iraq, uh, I was a gunner in the Humvee for majority of my time there.
And part of what our mission was in my particular truck, uh, we were the scout truck.
So we would conduct convoy operations and we would take um 20 to 25 semis full of goods.
Sometimes it was construction materials, sometimes it was food, sometimes it was uh like I think one time we had uh a couple Burger King trailers because you know they have restaurants and all these bases at the PX areas, uh to go plates like styrofoam foldable, you know, the plates you get to go when you don't finish your meal out to dinner.
But anyway, it was all logistical, logistical supplies, food, fuel, maintenance equipment, construction, vehicles, all that stuff all loaded on trucks.
Well, our job was to be anywhere from 500 to a thousand meters in front of the main body of the convoy.
Our job was to find any hazards that might stop uh us continuing to move forward.
You don't want to stop on the highway if you don't have to, that's when that's when uh shit hits the fan.
Also, we were looking for IEDs for roadside bombs.
Those can certainly uh stop a convoy right in its tracks.
Uh unfortunately we ran into a few.
Um the biggest one that I encountered was the one in which I I was awarded my purple heart, and it did it, it stopped us right in our tracks.
But while we're driving down the road, and you see hazards, you see potholes, you see garbage, you see dead animals, you see destroyed vehicles, you see all kinds of confusing shit on the road.
And at that time during the war, you never really knew what was what uh they were hiding uh uh IEDs in the ass end of dead animals, dogs, camels, uh, what uh goats, whatever it was they had.
Uh and usually the only way you really found them was uh either you would be suspicious because it just doesn't seem like it belongs there, or you would see, you know, uh one time found saw a dog uh and you could see the wires running out of its ass.
Okay, well, stop back up.
Uh let's not let's not proceed.
Uh call the OD, They come out, they send the robot, they do a little investigation.
Yep, it's an ID, so they place explosives, blow it up.
Charlie might continue on down the road.
Well, when you find these hazards, when you find these things that may stop you, we used chem lights, you know, the little clickable, you know, light sticks, you you bend and it clicks and usually they're green or orange.
Uh we had red, blue, green, uh, white.
We also had infrared ones, which were uh which threw people for a loop every now and then you would crack them and you wouldn't see anything.
Like they didn't work.
You had to look through night vision to see them work.
And so uh at one point, uh there was another convoy that was on the road with us, and you saw you saw these light sticks just flying out of the turret.
And as you pull up next to them, you can hear the guy in the turret just cussing.
What the what the fuck is going on here?
And he's tossing them out.
Hey, buddy, those are IR.
Um put your nods on.
You can see now it looks like you're on you're in you're under a spotlight.
They're they're everywhere.
He must have had 20 of them out of his truck before he he figured it out.
But anyway, we throw them to mark hazards.
And as you're driving down the road, you radio back, uh, there's a dead animal on the right, stay left, marked with a green chem light.
Well, I must have unwrapped 100, 150, 75, somewhere in there, every time we left the wire.
Every time we would leave on a mission, my little ammo box up in my turret was plumful of chem lights that were already unwrapped out of the package.
All I did do was grab, grab with one hand, click it, toss it, toss it this wherever it was.
Come to find out, the U.S. Army was paying like three dollars and forty-five cents or something like that per chem light.
And here I'm I'm throwing them 150, 100 of them a night.
Well, you walk into the PX on any base, they have the same exact chem lights for sale in the PX for they're like a dollar seventy-five.
And so I say all that to say uh when Mr. Driscoll was talking about cost and how it affects our families or affects us, that's exactly what he's talking about.
Um people who sell things or goods or services to the United States military pay a whole lot more.
Excuse me, the military pays a whole lot more than everybody else does for the same exact service or good or construction or whatever.
And for some reason, it's just been okay this whole time.
And the running joke in the military when I was in was well, all of this, all of this crappy shit that we have, well, it's all made by the cheapest bidder.
Well, I don't know about that.
If the cheapest bidder is a dollar fifty or two dollars more per chem light, that's the cheapest.
So did we get other bids?
Did the DOD get other bids for the same exact chemite and it was $17 or $10 or $8?
I don't know about that.
And I guess I don't know how that works, but it's a thousand percent true.
The United States government pays to these contracts way more.
Uh let's just say you needed a wheelchair ramp built at your house.
Well, if it's on an army base and the army's covering the bill, the army's gonna pay two to three to four thousand dollars more than you're gonna pay because that's what the contractor's gonna bill them.
And they don't ask questions, they don't seem to get all kinds of quotes and go with the cheapest one.
And if it is the cheapest one, then the gig is up.
Everybody who solicits the military for construction or anything else hikes the price because they know that it'll get paid.
So that's what he's talking about.
Sorry, that was kind of a long uh drawn-out thing.
Um the cost of building army bases is more.
Um Mr. Driscoll, Mr. George, and Mr. Weemer, Sorry Major Weimer, talk about this regularly.
It enrages us, and we're doing everything we possibly can to break down this corrupt system.
The leader said that the Army is focusing on ways to reduce unnecessary regulations and increase efficiency to improve programs that help soldiers and families.
One other thing I'll say about the cost thing, because it kind of, it kind of grinds my gears to be quite honest with you.
Um, I don't know, maybe they do it more now, but back then I don't know how in depth and how deep they got into like researching these, these companies or these contractors that are, that are submitting for these contracts.
I mean, it's, it's a, it's not a, it's not a secret.
That uh Mr. Cheney and his wife who are who were or maybe still are shareholders, large shareholders in things like KBR, Kalog Brown and Root, that was making I don't know, couple million dollars a day in contracts during the war in Iraq.
KBR was everywhere.
They were the ones that serviced our generators.
They paid the people that cleaned our bathrooms, that cooked our food, that pumped our gas, that did all kinds of things.
And these people that worked for KBR, especially the KBR drivers that drove the big, super, super burly, completely armored international semis.
Every now and then when we left, we would be escorting a KBR convoy.
Okay.
And they were these big huge international sleepers, international sleeper cab semis.
And they were encased in armor.
Now, unfortunately, the uh the the insurgency figured out how to beat all that armor.
They beat our armor, they beat their armor.
A lot of them, a lot of them got killed, uh hit by roadside bombs.
But boy, were they making a lot of money.
You know, you stop at a base to refuel halfway to your to your uh your final destination that day, and you start talking to these guys, they were the only drivers we had that really spoke any English.
Start talking to them about you know their job and what they're doing, how they like it, blah, blah, blah.
And every one of them that I spoke to personally said, Well, you know, it's really not that bad.
Or some of them would say, Well, it kind of sucks and it's hot and blah, blah, blah, all the all the all, all the things, but you can't beat the paycheck.
Can't you can't go drive a truck for 10 hours, uh, a couple 10 hours a day, a couple two, three, four days a week, and make a couple hundred thousand dollars.
And then on top of a couple hundred thousand dollars, you get like 45 days off a year to go home, to go wherever in the world you want.
Well, that's a it's a pretty damn good, uh, it's a pretty damn good salary.
Now, you're risking a lot.
A lot of those guys died.
They don't have weapons.
They did give them body armor and they up armored their trucks.
So they are they are sacrificing, and it's a it was an extremely dangerous gig.
But they got paid a whole shit ton of money.
And I wasn't really able ever to have any kind of intelligent ongoing conversation with any of the local national drivers.
We had drivers from a lot of them were from Turkey, um, other places in the Middle East there.
They would they would come down and volunteer to drive trucks because it paid pretty well for them, but nowhere close to the KBR guys.
And so the government for a long time, especially the military has been paying uh a very very large premium for the goods and services that we, the soldiers get to use.
And I will tell you that a lot of these things were complete shit, junk.
All the way down to the pens, skill craft pens.
If you click them ten times, you gotta throw it away.
So we would go and get boxes.
Each of us would get a couple boxes of pens because you click click them a couple times, they're you they're worthless.
Um let's continue.
Uh, we got to take a break here in a couple minutes, but let's continue.
Uh, the next section is change to child care and dining.
Uh Driscoll said he's optimistic that within 90 to 120 days, the Army will set up a structure where spouses who want to work at child development centers can get approved one time and then receive a fast pass to work at another child development center at their next duty station.
And so the way this works is spouses and families, they can all work on base, but you have to be approved.
You got to do the background check, you got to do all those things, and then interview, of course, uh and and obtain the job.
Part of the problem is that that process apparently is pretty spendy.
It's time consuming, and these places on installations are understaffed, and as we're finding out, underfunded.
So when you get your PCS, your permanent change of station orders, and you move from uh Fort Hood to Fort Lewis in Washington.
Well, if my wife wanted to go work at the child care center, or anywhere else on base for that matter, but most importantly, child care center, because now you're dealing with kids, so they do a little bit extra looking, or at least I hope so.
It's a whole nother process.
It's expensive, it's time consuming, and in my opinion, sometimes it's pretty invasive of people.
But let's let's be clear that invasive background checks for people who are taking care of my children or your children should have to go through the ringer.
We need to make sure and be as sure as we can that our children are in good hands when I'm at work out in the field training, and when my wife is at work or doing whatever it is she's doing.
And so these types of things make the lives of soldiers a little easier because as we talked about, all of these things that that I as a husband would worry about are things that in some places on some installations are pretty fucked up.
And there is cause to worry about it.
Where are my kids going?
Who is watching them?
Have they been vetted?
Yeah, we're on a military installation, but people are still people.
Uh and so being able to know that this person has been vetted.
Oh, well, you guys are new to the base.
You worked at the child care center at Ford Hood for four years.
You're in good standing, you show up to work on time, the people there love you, they put in a good review or whatever.
Boom, come to work Monday.
That's great.
That's great for soldiers who are moving to a new base, a new unit, a new community, a new normal.
Helps relieve some of that stress.
Now I can on Monday, when my wife is going to the child care center to work, I can report to my unit.
I can strap up my gear, my shit.
Let's go out to the field and train.
I don't have anything else to worry about except concentrate on being as lethal as I can and moving with as much speed and violence of action in training, just like I would in combat.
It's a huge help, I think.
Uh anyway, folks, we got to take a break.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
Stick with us.
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Hey folks, welcome back.
Let's continue on.
I want to make sure that we get through all of this.
The next part uh they talk about is dining, which for soldiers is a big thing.
Soldiers like to eat.
They like to eat good.
Uh and truth be told, if you didn't know, or you didn't believe if you were told before.
In many places in the United States military, the food is dismal.
Dismal at best.
There are some places where it's really good.
Um ironically enough, when you are at on bases that have a separate dining facility for officers and you know those higher ranking uh NCOs and officer types.
Food's really good in there.
But the E1s up to the E7s and eights.
The O one to the O three.
You know, Lieutenant to Captain, private to first sergeant.
Gets pretty dismal in some of these dining facilities.
Uh so let's continue.
Uh Mr. George said that they're rolling out a campus style dining concept at Army dining facilities to five locations first.
And he what he said was we want to go fast.
But it's always a but federal legislation and regulations are hampering efforts to expand that that concept to improve the army dining halls, Mr. Driscoll said, and he hopes that they get a waiver soon.
Now, here's what I find interesting.
Federal legislation and regulations prohibit some of these things that they're trying to do for whatever reason.
But I find it very interesting that here is yet another example of our legislators, our federal government.
Most of them who have never in their lives put on a military uniform.
They've never had to walk in the steps that soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, space for I don't know what you call the Space Force people.
I guess I've never heard that yet.
They never had to deal with that.
They've never had to make that sacrifice.
Not just to go to combat and deploy, but to make the sacrifice to raise their hand and swear on a stack of Bibles that they'll defend this place against all enemies foreign and domestic.
But we can't get them, we can't get soldiers better food.
They're gonna sit in the way of that, they're gonna stand in the way of that.
And of course, I know things are expensive, right?
As time goes by, shit just gets more and more expensive.
But if we have been hearing for a long time, and I believe that we have, I believe our government has probably heard for a long time how dismal Army Chow is and the conditions of some of these places.
Find it very interesting that we can sit in the way of that, according to Mr. Driscoll.
But then an hour later, or in the next breath, we're advocating to send 250 million dollars to some foreign place.
We are we are more apt to send money to a foreign government for some bullshit.
Maybe it's not bullshit, but it isn't taking care of our troops.
When probably improving the quality of the food, maybe improving the quality of the facilities in which the food is uh prepared.
I believe that there are some military bases that have really cool dining halls and and great new equipment, but there are many that do not.
And this plays into my frustration with all of this because it's not just the conditions on bases, it's not just the barracks, it's not just the food, it's not just the quality of life of our soldiers or service members.
There's a whole lot of other things that we forego or put on the back burner or just poo-poo right away.
But then our legislators in their next breath will advocate to send 500 million dollars to the Ukraine, or we are will advocate to send weapons, or we're we're doing this, or we're doing that in other places in the world.
But our government also will sit at the same dais in some committee hearing and talk about how it's a shame that our soldiers, any of them live in less than adequate conditions.
It's a shame that any of them eat less than adequate food.
It's a shame.
But I don't know that we should, I don't know that we should fund any more.
I think we should I think they're I think they're good.
Maybe they just need to be better about what they're spending the money on.
Oh, you want to send 250 million dollars to Vladimir Zelinski?
No problem.
We'll do that tomorrow.
But fuck our soldiers.
They don't need better food.
They don't need better places to live.
They don't need better facilities to rest and recover from training.
But what we are going to do is tomorrow, we're going to tell them we need to train harder.
We need to train as we fight.
So what we're going to do is we're going to go out to the field, we're going to do an FTX for four days.
We're going to play some war games.
And men, I want you to fight in this war game.
Just like you would in combat.
Balls to the walls.
Give it everything you got.
And when that exercise is over and there's some sprained ankles, there's a bunch of sore people, there's equipment that's damaged from just use.
I don't know that we need to spend any more money.
Okay.
I think they just need to take better care of their shit.
And this type of thing.
But not we're not going to send them any more money.
We're not going to improve anything for them.
But hey, old Zelinski, the old the old penis piano playing son of a bitch, he's going to get 250 million dollars tomorrow to fight some war that we probably don't even need to be involved in.
To me, it seems ass backwards.
And maybe to some, maybe to some it seems trivial.
And it really really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
I would I would I would argue against that idea.
I would say that if we're going to have our president, the the uh secretary of war, the the Secretary of the United States Army, the Army Sergeant, the Army, the Sergeant Major of the Army, all these people talking about, hey, this is really stupid.
I believe this is what they mean by human stupidity.
Because none of this shit makes any sense.
But we're going to tell our soldiers.
You need to fight harder, you need to train harder, you need to do a better job at maintaining your equipment, keeping track of your stuff, and keep keep your keep your shit straight.
Make sure your families are good, make sure you're good, make sure your equipment's good, and be at training at 06, ready to go.
We also heard Pete Heggseth Just reminds me, we also heard Pete Heggseth talk about fat soldiers.
It's pretty hard for some, apparently, uh, to be a healthy fighting machine when your food is processed.
Just process junk.
Fake chicken.
For those of you who served in the past, how many times did you get country fried steak?
Which was some frozen veal patty, they said.
Breaded, frozen, just like you get from Cisco.
And then they slather it up with all kinds of all kinds of shit that tastes really good.
But yet we have fat soldiers.
And truth be told, there are there are healthy options in dining facilities.
Uh but not a ton.
There's more junk than there is anything else.
Uh, most locations should start seeing hybrid versions of something that's that's significantly better within the next 24 to 36 months.
Mr. Driscoll said this.
Uh, when him and his family moved to joint base, Henderson Hall, Virginia, earlier this year, he said he was excited about taking his children to the dining facility at Fort Meyer for breakfast.
He reports that it was awful.
It was not healthy, and all of it was processed.
The conversation Needs to be reversed about the quality of life amenities on installations.
So our major of the army said.
In this day and age, we can't train the way we're going to be required to fight at our home station, which includes barracks, because you ought to be able to take care of yourself and focus on rest and recovery.
If we can't do that, then our home station is failing us.
Our posts and installations exist so that we can fight to win.
This is exactly what the Secretary of War was talking about.
It's exactly what the president is talking about.
We need to be able to provide conditions and facilities for our soldiers not only to train as we fight and do it fiercely with speed and violence of action.
We also have to have a way for them to recover.
If they twist an ankle, if they throw a shoulder out of socket, it takes time to heal.
And trust me, majority of the soldiers that get not wounded, but injured in training, whether it's small or a severe injury, every one of them is most likely thinking about how they can get back in the fight.
Because that's what we're trained in basic training to do.
If you get shot but you can move, you better get up and keep firing.
Pat yourself up quick.
Maybe a buddy's got a bandage for you.
Uh, but in in in one to three minutes, hopefully, you're in a situation that you can at least roll over, find a target, and shoot at it.
But if we don't have the facilities to help us heal and recover, not just physically, but mentally.
It's not gonna work.
It's not gonna work out.
Um, Mr. Sergeant Major of the Army, he added, um, they don't exist so that we have a great place to live.
Awesome child care centers, uh, discounted food in the commissaries.
We all need that stuff so we can train and to be really, really good at our jobs.
And he was just reiterating that our posts and installations exist so that we can fight to wind.
They don't exist so that we have a great place to live.
However, he said, I think for a long time we have had the conversations reversed.
Hmm.
When you get out, when you when you get the conversation right, now all of a sudden, the barracks make sense.
Upgrading the barracks so that they're they're they're nice, they're comfortable.
The campus style.
Hey, folks, welcome back.
Um, let's continue on.
Uh I just want to I want to make sure that we get through all of this.
Uh, the next stop, the next part uh they talk about is dining, which for soldiers is a big thing.
Soldiers like to eat, they like to eat good.
Uh and truth be told, if you didn't know, or you didn't believe if you were told before, in many places in the United States military, the food is dismal, dismal at best.
There are some places where it's really good.
Um, ironically enough, when you are at on bases that have a separate dining facility for officers and you know, those higher ranking uh NCOs and officer types, food's really good in there.
But the E1s up to the E7s and eights, the O1 to the O three, you know, Lieutenant to Captain, private to first sergeant, gets pretty dismal in some of these dining facilities.
Uh so let's continue.
Uh Mr. George said that they're rolling out a campus-style dining concept at Army dining facilities to five locations first.
And he what he said was we want to go fast, But it's always a but federal legislation and regulations are hampering efforts to expand that that concept to improve the army dining halls, Mr. Driscoll said, and he hopes that they get a waiver soon.
Now, here's what I find interesting.
Federal legislation and regulations prohibit some of these things that they're trying to do for whatever reason.
But I find it very interesting that here is yet another example of our legislators, our federal government.
Most of them who have never in their lives put on a military uniform.
They've never had to walk in the steps that soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, space for I don't know what you call the Space Force people.
I guess I've never heard that yet.
The Navy guys, they never had to deal with that.
They never had to make that sacrifice.
Not just to go to combat and deploy, but to make the sacrifice to raise their hand and swear on a stack of Bibles that they'll defend this place against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
But we can't get them, we can't get soldiers better food.
They're gonna sit in the way of that, they're gonna stand in the way of that.
And of course, I know things are expensive, right?
As time goes by, shit just gets more and more expensive.
But if we have been hearing for a long time, and I believe that we have, I believe our government has probably heard for a long time how dismal Army Chow is and the conditions of some of these places.
Find it very interesting that we can sit in the way of that, according to Mr. Driscoll.
But then an hour later, or in the next breath, we're advocating to send 250 million dollars to some foreign place.
We are we are more apt to send money to a foreign government for some bullshit.
Maybe it's not bullshit, but it isn't taking care of our troops.
When probably improving the quality of the food, maybe improving the quality of the facilities in which the food is uh prepared.
I believe that there are some military bases that have really cool dining halls and great new equipment, but there are many that do not.
And this plays into my my frustration with all of this because it's not just the conditions on bases, it's not just the barracks, it's not just the food, it's not just the quality of life of our soldiers or service members.
There's a whole lot of other things that we forego or put on the back burner or just poo-poo right away.
But then our legislators in their next breath will advocate to send 500 million dollars to the Ukraine, or we are will advocate to to send weapons, or we're we're doing this or we're doing that in other places in the world.
But our government also will sit at the same dais in some committee hearing and talk about how it's a shame that our soldiers, any of them live in less than adequate conditions.
It's a shame that any of them eat less than adequate food.
It's a shame.
But I don't know that we should, I don't know that we should fund any more.
I think we should I think they're I think they're good.
Maybe they just need to be better about what they're spending the money on.
Oh, you want to send 250 million dollars to Vladimir Zelinski?
No problem.
We'll do that tomorrow.
But fuck our soldiers.
They don't need better food, they don't need better places to live, they don't need better facilities to rest and recover from training.
But what we are gonna do is tomorrow we're gonna tell them we need to train harder.
We need to train as we fight.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go out to the field, we're gonna do an FTX for four days, we're gonna play some war games.
And men, I want you to fight in this war game, just like you would in combat.
Balls to the walls.
Give it everything you got.
And when that exercise is over and there's some sprained ankles, there's a bunch of sore people, there's equipment that's damaged from just use.
I don't know that we need to spend any more money.
Okay.
I think they just need to take better care of their shit and this type of thing.
But not we're not going to send them any more money.
We're not going to improve anything for them.
But hey, old Zelinski, the old the old penis piano playing son of a bitch, he's going to get 250 million dollars tomorrow to fight some war that we probably don't even need to be involved in.
To me, it seems ass backwards.
And maybe to some, maybe to some it seems trivial.
And it really really shouldn't be that big of a deal.
I would I would I would argue against that idea.
I would say that if we're going to have our president, the the uh secretary of war, the the secretary of the United States Army, the Army Sergeant, the Army, the Sergeant Major of the Army, all these people talking about hey, this is really stupid.
I believe this is what they mean by human stupidity.
Because none of this shit makes any sense.
But we're going to tell our soldiers, you need to fight harder.
You need to train harder.
You need to do a better job at maintaining your equipment, keeping track of your stuff.
Yes.
And keep keep your keep your shit straight.
Make sure your families are good, make sure you're good, make sure your equipment's good, and be at training at 0-6, ready to go.
We also heard Pete Heggseth, just reminds me, we also heard Pete Heggseth talk about fat soldiers.
It's pretty hard for some, apparently, uh, to be a healthy fighting machine when your food is processed.
Just process junk.
Fake chicken.
Um, for those of you who served in the past, how many times did you get country fried steak?
Which is some frozen veal patty, they said.
Breaded, frozen, just like you get from Cisco.
And then they slather it up with all kinds of all kinds of shit that tastes really good.
But yet we have fat soldiers.
And truth be told, there are there are healthy options uh in dining facilities.
Uh, but not a ton.
There's more junk than there is anything else.
Uh, most locations should start seeing hybrid versions of something that's that's significantly better within the next 24 to 36 months.
Mr. Driscoll said this.
Uh, when him and his family moved to joint base, Henderson Hall, Virginia, earlier this year, he said he was excited about taking his children to the dining facility at Fort Meyer for breakfast.
He reports that it was awful, it was not healthy, and all of it was processed.
The conversation needs to be reversed about the quality of life, amenities on installations.
So, our major of the army said.
In this day and age, we can't train the way we're going to be required to fight at our home station, which includes barracks, because you ought to be able to take care of yourself and focus on rest and recovery.
Uh, if we can't do that, then our home station is failing us.
Our post and installations exist so that we can fight to win.
This is exactly what the Secretary of War was talking about.
It's exactly what the president is talking about.
We need to be able to provide conditions and facilities for our soldiers not only to train as we fight and do it fiercely with speed and violence of action.
We also have to have a way for them to recover.
If they twist an ankle, if they throw a shoulder out of socket, it takes time to heal.
And trust me, majority of the soldiers that get not wounded, but injured in training, whether it's small or a severe injury, every one of them is most likely thinking about how they can get back in the fight.
Because that's what we're trained in basic training to do.
If you get shot but you can move, you better get up and keep firing.
Pat yourself up quick.
Maybe a buddy's got a bandage for you.
Uh, but in in in one to three minutes, hopefully, you're in a situation that you can at least roll over, find a target, and shoot at it.
But if we don't have the facilities to help us heal and recover, not just physically, but mentally.
It's not gonna work.
It's not gonna work out.
Um, Mr. Sergeant Major of the Army, he added, um, they don't exist so that we have a great place to live.
Awesome child care centers, uh, discounted food in the commissaries.
We all need that stuff so we can train and to be really, really good at our jobs.
And he was just reiterating that our posts and installations exist so that we can fight to wind.
They don't exist so that we have a great place to live.
However, he said, I think for a long time we have had the conversations reversed.
Hmm.
When you get out, when you when you get the conversation right, now all of a sudden, the barracks make sense.
Upgrading the barracks so that they're they're they're nice, they're comfortable.
The campus style dining and why we'd want to pay a little bit extra for better quality, it makes a lot of sense.
And one thing that I think our politicians and bureaucrats up on Capitol Hill are not good at making a whole lot of goddamn sense.
Uh, and I I hope, I hope that I'm not I'm not being bamboozled here, because it seems like Mr. Driscoll, the sergeant major of the Army Weimer, that they do have troops' best interests in mind.
Hopefully, it's not a facade, it's not some kind of show.
Uh, because if these changes were to come, not only would it help soldiers feel better and train better and recover better, but think about what that might do for recruitment efforts.
Think about what that might do for people who are going to be getting out and see these change changes happening.
The best stewards of our community and the way of life in the military is us.
The the men and women that had to live it or who are currently living it.
And for that matter, even the people that work in it.
What would happen if we if we paid the people that work on bases a little bit more?
In my experience at some of these military installations that I've been to, most of the workers seem to be families of soldiers, spouses, teenage children, but but the rest of them seem to be the locals that live around these bases.
We don't always see people who appear to care about being professional.
They're usually pretty low-income jobs, cleaning, cooking, working the cash register at the PX or the commissary, maybe maybe ride in the lawnmower, cutting grass, area beautification experts.
I guess that we could call we could call them.
That's what they called us in basic training when we were when we were dusting rocks, area beautification experts for a day.
What if we paid them a little bit more?
And what if they did a little bit better job cleaning because they're getting paid a little better, a little more motivated?
Maybe it would help, maybe it would help the community outside the the walls and confines of uh of the army base.
Pay them a little bit more.
Maybe the economy outside the base gets a little bit better.
People take care of it a little more.
Maybe not.
Maybe I'm yeah, maybe I'm off in left field.
But all of this just seems to be something that he said, like Sar Major in the Army said, just makes sense when you reverse the conversation.
When we're not talking about how how uh how soldiers are living in less than adequate places and all this negative stuff.
What if we flip the conversation and start talking about well, why don't we do why don't we just do this better?
Why don't we just make this better?
It makes a lot of sense when we want our our fighting force to be in tip-top shape.
We want them to be mentally sound, we want them to be physically superior.
We want a whole lot of things, and all of that equates to our country being safer.
It all equates to us not having to worry as uh as a community as a country about whether or not we're going to win.
I think that there's a lot of people in this country, and probably a lot of people that are or have worn a uniform that wouldn't be wouldn't be too sure that we're going down a good path and that we can win.
Because like uh Steve, like Pete Hegh said, we have we have fat soldiers, we have soldiers who aren't motivated, we have soldiers that just aren't aren't strong, they're not physically and mentally tough.
Now, I say all that in full disclosure that I was never the most fit.
Uh I didn't have I didn't, I wasn't the most fit soldier.
I always struggled with it.
Always struggled maintaining weight and and body fat and all the other stuff.
But I believe, um, in my opinion, that I provided a whole lot to my team, to my unit in knowledge, in teaching, in just aptitude, things of that nature.
I wasn't running two miles in 10 minutes.
Shit, I wasn't running two miles in in 14 minutes.
I struggled with all of that stuff.
But I feel that I brought a whole lot other things to the table, which nowadays wouldn't fly.
They probably would have kicked me out.
And that would have been unfortunate.
But I understand why the change needs to be made.
I understand why these conversations are happening.
All right, technology.
The leaders, all these leaders that we're talking about, said the army is looking at ways to use technology to reduce burdens on both soldiers and the installations.
For example, army leaders are considering how to use technology in some areas in order for bases to focus on things that humans must be responsible for, such as welcoming and onboarding people.
And this is important.
This is this is these soldiers and their families first experience at a base.
If they're not feeling welcome, and they don't feel supported, they're not going to perform.
They're not going to integrate into the community.
We're not going to have strong communities within the walls of our bases.
And all of those things, in my opinion, are important to increase the lethality and effectiveness of our of our country's military.
He acknowledged that there is a resistance to change At some locations.
For example, he said, well, there may be a QR code on permanent change of station or PCS orders.
Some installations are still asking for 10 printed copies of those orders.
So the way that works is when you change duty stations or when you get deployed or anything like that, you get orders.
They come from, you know, the command structure above.
You get orders to go here.
In the past, they give you ten copies because they're there's bound to be at least seven to eight people that need a copy, if not all ten of them.
Now, apparently, in some places, they cut your orders, they give you one copy with another piece of paper and a QR code, so anybody who needs it can scan that code, get your orders with some kind of password or something like that, I'm sure.
Some kind of pin code or something.
But there are folks that love doing things the old school way, and they're going to resist.
And so these are the things that need to be ironed out.
And maybe it just takes conversation for these folks to know to know exactly what's going on and then fall in line with it.
But part of me thinks that there's also people who are going to resist because they don't want to lose jobs.
There are people that are going to fight it.
There are people that are just not going to do it until there's no other choice because they don't want to they want to lose jobs.
Everyone at some point has to justify their existence within their within their job, within their career.
And so that might be something that's going on here.
Why army leaders are working to address many of these issues, Driscoll told the audience, where we're still failing you, please let us know.
The system isn't a biblical, divine, or ordained system.
It can be changed and molded and bent to the will of you and your families.
Please feel inspired, feel passionate, and just know the system is going to require your energy and effort to help change it.
I think what he's getting at here is you guys keep bitching from the bottom, we'll keep bitching from the top, and we'll hit all these bureaucrats in Congress and the and the Senate and Capitol Hill and the President, the White House, and the Pentagon, we'll hit them all from both angles.
And at some point, the squeaky wheel will get the grease.
And I, you know, I think that I think that this type of thing is a good change for our military.
I mean, yes, in the last year or so, recruiting's been way up.
Let's face it, since Donald Trump won, or at least it was projected that he was gonna win before the election.
In my opinion, when he got shot in the ear, that's when he won.
I think that secured him the election, but that's just my opinion.
But recruitment's been up.
All branches of service seem to be extremely close, if not right at and hitting their goals.
But these are the types of things that will make our military a desired career path.
It'll make our military a place where people want to grow up and join.
And maybe it's not for patriotism, maybe it's not for call service, maybe people will join because their parents just don't make enough money to send them to college and they don't want a bunch of loans, but I'll go serve in the military for four years and do something, whatever it is you pick, either infantry or IT or whatever, and get your free college education.
And I think that that's okay too.
Whatever you need to improve your life, and for folks who are willing to sacrifice and do something that's bigger than themselves and give back to the collective as a whole, like serving in the military, you deserve a free college education.
And if you only stick around for four years or six years, that's fine.
Thank you for your service.
Have a good life.
I hope that you're successful.
We'll set we'll see you on down the road.
Uh so um that's about all I got for today, folks.
I know it's not as uh not as high strung and and and vicious as as some other shows, but I think that these things are important.
I think it's good for our communities to understand a little bit about what's happening uh not just on Capitol Hill and Not just in Congress and not just in in uh in Israel and Gaza and Ukraine and Russia and China and all that other bullshit.
Sometimes it's nice to hear that someone is trying to make a positive change in some of these systems.
And I believe that Mr. Driscoll, uh, unless unless this is all bullshit, all of it, is living up to what he said when he was confirmed.
We are going to focus on the soldiers and their families, and that will produce better results.
Pete Hex has said the same thing.
Some people don't like him.
Some people think he's an asshole, and he's a he's a racist and a fascist and all this other bullshit.
He may not be the best dude.
Maybe he has a questionable, uh, questionable moral character, whatever whatever it is people want to say about him.
But he did say he was gonna look out for soldiers.
And that was one of his first priorities.
And things like this show that he's doing what he said.
Maybe he falls short in other places, but for veterans and military members.
That goes a long way.
I appreciate it.
I would have appreciated it ten years ago.
I would appreciate it six years ago.
But I won't complain about my experience.
Um, because it all worked out.
I had a great time in the military.
So, um, these things are good to talk about outside of these situations, uh, especially when people start getting all wrapped around the axle about stupid shit that's going on.
This is something positive that we can look at look at and talk about.
Um have a great rest of your night, folks.
We'll see you next week.
Good night.
Good night.
As Christians in a Christian country, we have a right to be at minimum agnostic about the leadership being all Jewishly occupied.
We literally should be at war with fucking Israel a hundred times over, and instead we're just sending them money, and it's fucking craziness.
Look at the site of Israel, look at the site of Tel Aviv and look at the site of Philadelphia.
You tell me where this money's going.
You told me who's benefiting from this.
I am prepared to die in the battle.
Fighting this monstrosity that would wish to enslave me and my family and steal away any rights to my property and to take away my God, go fuck yourself.
Will I submit to that?
And if you've got a foreign study, you go dual citizens in your government, who do you think they're supporting?
God, right now, would you protect the nation of Israel and protect those of us, not just our church, but every church in the world and in this nation that's willing to put their neck on the line and say we stand with the Trump's cabinet, you can Biden's cabinet,
stole Jews, I have a black friend in school.
I have nothing against blacks.
She has nothing against me.
She understands where I'm coming from.
Excuse me, I'm a Jew, and I just like to say that you know, in our Bible, it says that you're you're like animals.
The Jews crucified our God.
The Jews crucified our God.
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