In this episode of The Richard Leonard Show, Richard reflects on friendship, aging, and military service after witnessing a close veteran friend lose memories of a defining chapter of his life. The monologue underscores the urgency for veterans—and all who have lived meaningful experiences—to tell their stories before time, illness, or silence erases them.Show more Brought to you by Cortez Wealth Management! Proudly supporting America First values 🇺🇸! Looking for retirement and asset growth strategies from someone who shares your values? Check out Cortez Wealth Management, led by a proud Christian husband, father, and patriot. 👉 http://cortezwm.com/
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Hey folks, welcome here to another installment of the Richard Leonard Show.
I'm recording this is my first time ever recording remotely.
My wife and I decided to get out of the sub-zero weather in Minnesota and come down to Florida for a few days, do some relaxing.
We just ended the busy time for my wife's business, and so it was time to get out of the chaos.
Of course, unless you've been living under a rock, you know what Minnesota is like.
It's everywhere.
It's all over the news.
Everyone's talking about Minnesota.
Well, it was time to get out of there for a little bit.
It's real nice to be able to do those things when and if you can.
And so we came down here to Florida, and a very good friend of mine spends his winters down here.
He's a Minnesotan.
He is a veteran.
He's a Navy veteran, Vietnam veteran.
And he was a captain, not a captain, he was a communications officer on a big Navy ship in Vietnam.
And the reason why I tell you is because today's message, I kind of want to talk about getting right with people, solidifying relationships, having conversations, making sure that people who are important to you in your life know it and they know it now because you don't know when they're going to find themselves in a situation where they can't know it anymore.
And my friend is in that situation.
He's in his 80s now.
We've been friends for many, many years.
And his service in the Navy was always very important to him.
Now, this man, outside of his military service, is an Ivy League college graduate.
He played hockey for an Ivy League school.
He became a very successful businessman in the financial industry, in financial planning, and the stock market and all these things.
And amongst all of those things, his military service has always, in my opinion, in conversations throughout all these years that we've been friends, his military service was always very, very important to him.
It was always something that he was very proud of.
It was always something he liked to talk about.
And because I'm a veteran and he's a veteran, we had that camaraderie and we've had some amazing conversations, not just about the military, but just in general.
We get each other, right?
We're vastly different in age.
But that one common denominator that we have, which is our military service, even though different branches, connected us and kept us connected.
And I can honestly say that this fella is one of my best friends in the world.
He's taught me a lot about life.
He's taught me a lot about how to deal with the adversity that you face, not only from my military service, but, you know, going through divorce, going through life changes, problems with my kids when they were coming up and being when it was just me and my son before I met my wife, you know, those challenges that you have as a single parent.
And he's just been an amazing teacher.
And he's been an amazing example of how even when you're faced with situations that want to knock you down, that the one thing that he learned in the military was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
And even our military experience is vastly different.
It's extremely different.
He was a naval officer.
He was the communications guy.
So he was on the bridge of the ship working for the captain, sending and receiving secret messages to the other ships and the other places around the world that they needed to communicate with.
So he got to know a lot of information about what was going on, even though he was swore to secrecy because his job was to ensure that these messages from higher are getting to his boss, and the messages from his boss were getting to whoever they needed to get to.
And so he was privy to a lot of information via this written messages that he would have to send and receive.
But now he has dementia.
And I don't want to say that he's withering away, but he's certainly aging.
He's in his mid to late 80s.
And we just recently, we had dinner, right?
We're down here to visit them.
We had dinner the other night.
And he looked at me and he asked me if I knew whether or not he had ever served in the military.
And it caught me by surprise.
It was a shock.
This four years or five years or however long he did, he doesn't remember.
He remembers bits and pieces.
Here and there, he'll bring it up, or he'll just out of the blue share a memory that he has.
But he doesn't remember.
He doesn't remember the time in his life that was so important to him, that was a massive part of his identity.
He just doesn't remember.
And it took me by surprise.
It shocked me.
Because all these years that we've been friends, I'd say close to 20 years now, we've been friends.
That was always part of his life that he was very proud of.
It was always something that he was excited to talk about.
And now he just doesn't remember.
And the reason for that is probably all over the map.
It's all over the board.
But it's eye-opening.
It's sobering to watch this guy who has been a pinnacle of success in his industry in the civilian world, in the financial market.
He did very well for himself, all based on his own merit.
And it's just gone.
Not always.
There's bits and pieces, but it's gone.
And so it made me think about how we as veterans lead our lives after our service and what we do and how things that we've done and places we've been define who we are.
It made me realize that at the snap of a finger, a blink of an eye, it could be gone.
You could just forget.
And the unfortunate part about my buddy's situation is that he told the stories so well.
You could see in his face when he was telling some of his stories or a lot of his stories, you could see in his face that he was proud.
You could see that it brought him elation to talk about those times in his life and then also talk to somebody about those things that understands or has at least a clue.
And I have always gathered that through the course of our friendship, when he talks about these things, he kind of always insinuated that the people around him just don't understand.
And I get it.
I do understand that.
And so I guess what I mean to say is that we need to be able to be confident, in my opinion, need to be confident as we age that our stories don't go untold, that our experiences and things that we've done in our lives, they don't go unsaid because there's a lot of value in them.
And maybe not value to the whole world, maybe not value to everybody around you, but to you, it's valuable.
To your family, the people that support you, these stories and this information is valuable.
And we've talked on the show many times about the massive power of storytelling, of sharing your experiences so that people can understand a little bit more, not just about you, but about the way that you chose to lead your life and how life and how the things that we do throughout our lives can ring in history.
And those stories can be carried on.
And hopefully people can learn from them.
Because there are people, I believe, that after my buddy has passed, whenever that time comes, I believe that he's done a good job at sharing his stories and sharing his experiences and teaching the people around him who are willing to listen and learn a little bit more about what life is like for veterans of this country and what life is like in the military.
And I think now more than ever, we're at a point where if we don't talk about these things and help the younger generations for sure understand a little bit more about who we are and why we did what we did and how the actions of men and women who decide to serve in the military,
how they affect our communities, whether it's the masses or whether it's just your own inner circle, they're powerful.
And I think that a lot of men and women who served, they don't really understand how powerful their stories can be.
Even the most simplest thing, right?
Like we can talk about, you know, times on the range or times being deployed and, you know, the fun times we had, the shitty times we had in the military.
And everybody can kind of, in one way or another, if they're open to listening, they could take something away from it.
And so my message today is to, if you are a member of the veteran community, if you did serve this country, find somebody that you trust.
Find somebody that you think could learn from your experience and tell those stories.
Make them known.
It's going to be, in my opinion, it's going to be important for people like veterans, for people like cops, for people like doctors and teachers, and all these professions that give back to the community as a whole to talk about your experiences, good, bad, and indifferent.
Because unfortunately, it seems to me, and maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the younger generations in our country, they don't understand.
And for whatever reason, they really don't want to know in many cases.
They don't care necessarily.
It doesn't affect them.
They got their own shit to worry about.
The world is moving so fast.
And I think that sometimes these important life lessons that seem to come to us at times when we're not expecting them, they pass us by because we're not even open to catching it, to seeing as it is approaching us, stop it, learn from it, and then let it go.
For whatever reason, we're not very good at that any longer.
And it's unfortunate.
So I guess the real message is that the power of your story can be extremely important for other people.
It can be valuable and it can be therapeutic for you.
If you're a person that has a story to tell, if you're a person that has lived through some life experience, and I guess not even just military members, but if you lived through some life experience that really taught you a good lesson, be open to telling that story.
Sometimes they're painful.
Sometimes they're hard to talk about.
Sometimes they're embarrassing.
But if somebody close to you can learn from those things and not repeat them, it seems to me that it's valuable.
And how that carries over into the veteran community is that if we are open to sharing our experiences and having an audience that's willing to listen, that will listen, that will learn from it, it's a thousand percent worth telling.
I believe that we could all agree that we've all made mistakes.
We've all made mistakes along the way.
I know for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that I have.
And if my kids, if my family, if my friends, if my neighbors, my co-workers can learn anything from my stories, however valuable or invaluable they may seem to anybody else, maybe somebody can get something.
But the stories of our service, the work that was put in to get us to where we're at.
And even though right now, even I agree 1,000% that right now things are pretty dismal for our country, it seems.
Maybe we're not as in bad of a shape as it seems that we are.
But the younger generation in our country doesn't understand the same struggle, just like we didn't when we were young.
And I know for sure that in my years growing up, that I did have people in my life, even though I probably didn't recognize it all the time.
I did have people in my life that were guiding me, that were teaching me lessons, even though I wasn't open to learning them.
It was something that I was able to remember and something I was able to learn from later.
And so those things are important.
Tell your stories, folks.
Don't sit on them.
Don't die with them.
I know that they're hard.
For some people, it's very hard.
I mean, you hear stories all the time.
Many People's Stories00:04:55
You hear people say, well, you know, my dad or my grandfather was a World War II veteran, but he never talked about it.
We didn't know.
You'd be surprised maybe to hear how many people I've talked to in the last several years that had a grandfather, a father, an uncle, a brother.
Not brothers, I wouldn't say brothers, but family members or even like close personal friends that they never even knew served in the military.
You know, so when you hear someone say, oh, you know, my grandfather was in World War II, and he was in Europe for a couple of years.
And, you know, my grandmother or my uncles or whoever said it was a pretty tough time, but he never talked about it.
We never know what really happened.
And it's unfortunate that we didn't.
And I agree, it's extremely unfortunate.
It's unfortunate that you don't know what your lineage, what your family name did to help further the cause.
And if I'm being honest, the only way that this dream of America can work maybe is if we all agree to put in our fair share.
And so this is probably a huge argument, right?
It's a huge argument amongst Americans.
It's a huge argument amongst the population of our country.
But why would we not?
Why would we not all want to put in our fair share?
Like if we think about it, real quick, I don't want to get off in the weeds and the whole fraud thing, but if we think about it, the billions of dollars that were stolen from the state of Minnesota, right?
If we were able to catch it or someone was able to have some goddamn integrity and say this isn't right, we should probably do something about this.
How much nicer, much nicer could the state of Minnesota be?
How much nicer could our roadways be?
How much nicer could our public places, places of gathering be?
What would our parks for our kids look like?
What would the school system look like?
What would care for veterans look like?
Like if Minnesota didn't lose 10 to 12, 15, who knows?
Maybe it's even $100 billion by the time they figure it out.
Who knows how much?
Could Minnesota have ended veteran homelessness in the state with some of that $12 billion?
The answer to that is 1,000%, absolutely they could.
Could homeless people in the state of Minnesota, veteran or not, have better places to stay when it's 10 below zero?
Could there be better social programs to help people that really need it?
What would our communities look like if our state had $12 billion to put towards improvement?
If the state still had $12 billion to alleviate some of the tax burden on the taxpayers, what would it all look like?
And so if we all put in our fair share, things would probably look a lot different.
It would probably be a lot better.
We probably wouldn't have so many people struggling.
But for some reason, there are folks in this country that just can't, they don't see it.
They don't understand it.
They can't get behind it.
And I know that there's a lot of hurdles.
There's a lot of hurdles in our communities and our society nowadays.
And I get it.
There's a lot of things to figure out.
But if we seemingly all got on the same page, contributed what you were supposed to contribute within reason, without getting gouged, without being robbed, without being all kinds of shit, what would our place look like?
What would our country look like?
How beautiful could it be?
How much easier could life be for Americans if they didn't have to struggle as much?
And so, I know it's probably a pipe dream, maybe it's a tall order.
Sometimes it seems like insurmountable odds for America to get back to where it was, to good.
But I think if everyone kind of took the initiative, and for many people, just keep doing what you're doing, keep going to work, keep raising kids that are going to be contributing members of society.
Keep doing all of those things.
For some people, life wouldn't change that much because there are many people that are doing the right thing.
Keep Doing What You're Doing00:07:56
They're contributing.
They're helping out.
They're sharing their information, their knowledge, their expertise, and making everybody around them better.
But also, there are so many that are not.
And if we can, if we can just get along just enough for everybody to agree to work together, even if you don't ever got to talk to nobody or see nobody, but do your share, contribute, and then go about your day.
How much better would this place be?
And so we've kind of got off in the weeds, I know, but I was hit with all of these thoughts the other night at dinner when I was with my buddy and his wife and my wife and another couple that's here.
It was really difficult to see my friend who had this massive part of his identity that he was extremely prideful of.
It's just gone.
He forgot.
He doesn't know.
He's confused.
And did some great things.
I mean, Hallie's even showed me he was on the cover of Time magazine back in the back in the early 70s.
He wasn't the main focus of the picture, but the captain of his boat was.
He was standing next to him.
He was the communications officer.
He worked with the captain of the ship day in and day out.
And so when the media came to take pictures of the captain, there was my boy right next to him, chilling.
He doesn't remember any of it.
And it's sad to see.
And I'm thankful.
I'm thankful that throughout the course of our friendship, he was somebody who was willing to share his stories.
And so that we know the people that are close to him, his kids, his wife, our circle of friends, those types of things are extremely important.
And I hope that things like the relationships like this one I have with him and I have with other veterans, I hope that they're mimicked in other places around our country, that these older veterans who are seemingly starting to die off or Vietnam veterans are going to start dying off.
They're in their 80s.
We've almost gotten, we almost lost all of the World War II veterans.
There isn't very many left.
And a massive amount of them died with their stories because they didn't want to look weak.
They didn't want anyone to feel sorry for them.
They didn't want to think about it.
They didn't want to have to relive it.
There's a whole lot of reasons why.
But those guys just came home and went to work.
But we can learn a lot.
I think that as a country, we could learn a lot.
Maybe not.
Maybe I'm wrong about all of it.
And so I don't have a full show for you today, but I did want to get on here and I did want to talk about this because it's fresh in my mind.
It just caught me the other night and I instantly thought, well, this is what I'm going to talk about on the show this week.
We do a lot of pissed off reporting.
We do a lot of emotional responses in the stories that we talk about here because there's so many things to be pissed off about.
There's so many things to question.
There's so many things to second guess all the time.
And so sometimes it's nice to have a break from that.
So the message this week is: if you know a veteran, especially one who's aging, gently ask them questions, unless you know for sure it's okay that you do.
Ask them questions.
Learn about their experience.
Learn about why they joined the military.
Learn about what their experience might have been because everybody's path is a little bit different.
You know, for example, I was an Army infantryman.
If you put 20 Army infantrymen that served from 2002 to 2021, if you put 20 of them at a table and all of them had similar experiences, at least were in similar spots and did similar deployments, did similar things, everybody's story would be different.
How, if you put 10 infantrymen that I deployed with, that I worked with, that were my battle buddies, my brothers, all of our stories, all of our experiences would sound and were different for each of us.
And no matter what the action was, I think that everybody's story is meaningful because everyone sees it a different way.
Everyone processes it a different way.
So ask those stories.
Ask those questions.
Learn.
Learn about what it took for this country to be what it is.
Even if you think, even if you think you're sure without beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was all a lie, that we've all been lied to, we've all been bamboozled, we've all been hoodwinked.
It doesn't take away, and maybe that's all true.
Maybe you're right about that.
But that doesn't take away, in my opinion, from the individual experiences of the men and women that fought the battles.
It doesn't take away from how they saw it.
It doesn't take away from how it affected them or still affects them.
It doesn't take away the fact that even if we were wrong as members of the military, even if we were wrong about the reasons why we joined, maybe we were lied to and we bought it.
And we joined anyway.
They still did what they did.
They still had the experience and they still have the story to tell.
The reason why anybody was there was not their decision.
Their decision, our decision as veterans was to join the military and help defend this thing that we call the American dream.
Maybe we were lied to.
Maybe the time I spent in Iraq getting fucked up was all for nothing.
In theory, maybe people see it that way.
But I don't.
And I would think that so many other men and women that serve, they don't feel that way either.
But they got a story to tell.
And they're usually pretty compelling.
So, ask and learn.
If you're a person that has a story to tell, tell it.
Tell your story and make sure that you don't leave anything out.
Because when we're gone, those are the stories that we're going to be remembered by.
Hopefully, you're also going to be remembered by great things you did for your family, for your friends, for your community.
But it will always be part of your story.
It'll always be part of your story that you were a military member.
It'll always be part of your story that you were someone who selflessly served.
So, anyway, I hope that you guys have a great rest of your weekend.
Exclusive Access Membership00:08:34
Sorry for the short show today, but we'll be back.
We'll be back next week back in the cold in the frigid cold in Minnesota.
All right, so you guys take care.
We'll see you later.
Don't forget to tell your stories and don't forget to ask.
Have a good night.
Hey, folks, real quick before we get back to the show.
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What these researchers found was that vaccinated children had 4.29 times the rate of asthma, 3.03 times the rate of atopic disease, 5.96 times the rate of autoimmune disease, and 5.53 times the rate of neurodevelopmental disorders.
A number of different diagnoses, including diabetes and ADHD, and a number of them, in the unvaccinated group, there was zero.
In other words, all these chronic diseases that we're accepting, the reality is maybe 99% of them don't have to exist in children.
That's not the way God made us.
They looked at over 47,000 Medicaid claims between 1999 and 2011.
Those who are vaccinated versus unvaccinated, I say an odds of ratio would be like 2.81.
2.81 to 1.
So that would be 181% increase.
Epilepsy seizures, 252%.
Learning disorders, 581%.
If you look at all these different diagnoses, they're all higher.
For example, I'll just give you one example.
Learning disorders in the full term is 581%.
In the preterm, the ones who are vaccinated, 884% increase.
Every single vaccine has an excipient that is human toxin.
Human toxin.
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Exclusive access for local subscribers 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 side 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 tell 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've got 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 them?
You go to Trump's cabinet, you go to Biden's cabinet, it's full of 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 like animals.
The Jews crucified our God.
There's nothing we wouldn't do for our pets.
They're like our children.
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