Army Recruitment Shift: Warning Sign or Smart Move?
Stew Peters announces the U.S. Army's April 1st policy shift, raising the enlistment age to 42 and waiving marijuana convictions to counter declining recruitment and perceived cultural apathy. He argues older recruits offer vital maturity for logistics roles while maintaining that America remains worth defending despite political turmoil. The episode also features unrelated segments promoting a paid network, alleging vaccine health risks with specific statistics, expressing anti-Israel sentiments by comparing Tel Aviv to Philadelphia, and advertising CBD products. Ultimately, Peters frames these military changes as a necessary adaptation to modern societal challenges rather than a simple strategic error. [Automatically generated summary]
Just a few days ago, the Army announced that it is adjusting its left and right limit.
It is raising the maximum allowable age for enlistment.
There's also a couple adjustments to what kind of criminal offenses are now more allowable than they were in the past.
So today we're going to have a discussion about how the U.S. Army is changing its enlistment strategy.
What might it mean?
I think that there are some opinions out there with a couple different angles.
And of course, I have my own opinion.
So we're going to have a discussion about that today.
So please stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
Hey folks, and welcome here to another installment of The Richard Leonard Show.
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The United States Army.
They are adjusting their left and right limit.
So just a few days ago, they announced that they are raising the maximum enlistment age requirement or stipulation to 42 years old from 35 years old, where it was previously.
And there's a lot of mixed emotion about this and conversation that you see and hear online in different places.
Some people think that this is a good thing.
Some folks think that this is a sign that the Army is struggling for people.
And maybe they are.
What we do know, which was also outlined in the information that I gathered, is that in 2022 and 2023, the enlistment numbers were way down.
In 22, if I remember correctly, we did a show about it.
I want to say in 2023.
I want to say that in 22, the numbers were dismal.
I believe they missed their recruitment goal, the army.
specifically.
And if I remember right, it was about 15,000 recruits.
And so people are going to talk about, well, what's up?
Why are the numbers down?
What is this a sign of people not agreeing?
Is this something that is being done because the American people no longer agree with the government's intervention and the way that the military is used abroad and quite frankly here at home?
And I would be lying if at times, me personally, I don't kind of sit back and scratch my head a little bit.
What I try not to do is jump off the handle right away about things that are going on that pertain to the way our military is used.
Sometimes it's helpful to try to think through what's really going on because usually there is a lot more to what's happening in any military operation.
And if we use what's happening in Iran currently and the Strait of Hormuz and the Middle East and all that in general, there is a thousand percent.
There's a thousand percent a lot more going on than what's on the surface, what we're told, because a lot of times what we're told and then what you see in different places that aren't mainstream media, they don't line up.
Right?
And so like these are converted, this is a conversation that quite often I have with my wife.
My wife is not a person that enjoys consuming the news at all.
Her take on it is every time you turn it on, it's bullshit.
You're going to be pissed off or there's some tragedy happening.
Somebody's getting hurt or killed or there's some event or accident and it's always tragedy.
And I get it.
I get where she's coming from.
And I think that there's a lot of people.
There's a lot of people that have the very same opinions about this stuff.
But as we've also talked about on this show in the past, sometimes being willfully ignorant on what's happening because you don't like it, in my opinion, is not always the best approach.
But that's just my opinion.
I understand where she's coming from and other people who have the same opinion.
I understand where they're coming from.
Sometimes it's just, it takes enough of your energy to get through the day with whatever it is you in particular have going on to not, and then you don't want to be all spun up about what's happening around the world because that's also something that we have zero control of as it's happening.
Cannabis Use in Military00:10:08
Are there ways we can make a difference later or maybe even beforehand in some cases?
Sure.
But as it's happening, as you're having this emotional response, there's nothing you can do about it.
But I believe that it's a very good idea to stay informed.
So anyways, recruiting.
Some say that this is a pressure move of sorts, right?
The Army is raising the age gap from 35 to 42.
Some are saying that this is not a tiny tweak.
It's a very meaningful expansion of who they're willing to consider.
It tells you the Army is trying to widen the funnel of who they get coming in and seeking out this career path.
And then, of course, we need to also consider some of the reasons why that we know of widely that people join the military.
And sometimes some of that is for education purposes.
One of the best benefits of serving in the military is being able to secure yourself a meaningful education, whatever that means for you, whatever career field, whatever course of study.
Service in the military makes that journey a hell of a lot easier for people.
And so for folks who are willing to make the sacrifice, put in the work, do the time, it's a great benefit.
I used my education benefits to get my bachelor's degree.
Not only that, but the United States military also paid off my school loans that I incurred before joining the military.
And then once all those were paid off and I decided to go back to school, I didn't pay a dime.
In fact, the GI Bill gave me a little bit of pocket money to help out with the time I missed work to be in class.
And so it was a very good benefit.
It's one of the best parts of joining the service.
is one of the best benefits you can get um but but if we need so many more bodies and if last year in 2024 the recruiting the recruiting numbers went up now they say they went up from about 21 or 20 i'm sorry it was 22.2 years of age in 22 to the average now being 22.7.
It seems like a very small number, but in the course of three years, almost a whole year older, which just shows the trend that young people in our country are not walking in the recruiting stations.
My opinion is that that's more of the conversation.
That's more of the issue that needs to be discussed and figured out and a plan formulated for how to fix that.
It seems as though recently in our country, being patriotic and doing things like joining the military at a young age are not what's happening.
And I think that we would be really stupid to not identify that there is just a very significant cultural change in young people in America from right now to 10.
And that's natural, right?
As time goes by, every generation is going to be different.
But it seemed to me that from the end of World War I, or maybe even the end of World War II to current, our numbers were pretty high.
Like, I don't remember reading a whole lot of historic records or a whole lot of history.
And truthfully enough, I haven't dug into the history of the recruiting numbers of our country.
Maybe I should.
It's applicable.
But it never seemed like joining the military was something that people shied away from because of reasons other than their own personal issues, like people that don't want to do the physical labor.
They don't want to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and go run three miles.
They don't want to be told what to do, the structure and the way that you have to abide by your authority figures.
Some people just don't like it.
And that's cool.
It's not for everybody.
But the idea that our youth are way less patriotic than they were in the past.
And I think we've seen all that, right?
With all the current things happening, like we had the whole ICE debacle here in Minnesota and then other places in this country in the last three, four, five months.
It was a disaster.
It still is a disaster.
But we saw a lot of young people.
We saw kids doing walkouts of school in protest of ICE, in protest of our government trying to get the folks that don't belong here out of here.
And even unfortunately, the folks that don't belong here that don't mean anybody any harm.
I believe that for many of the folks that were deported, or maybe even some that self-deported or in danger of, I agree, there's probably a lot of good people and they're here to work hard.
They're here to raise a family.
They're here to do all these things, chase the American dream.
But unfortunately, I mean, like, we don't need to beat this dead horse, but unfortunately, you broke a law to get here.
And then many of your compadres, other illegal immigrants, did way worse shit and fucked it up for everybody.
It's kind of the way I see it.
So if you need to leave, but you are a good person, go and come back the right way.
And you shouldn't have any problem.
I think that they said that.
If you just choose to go and put yourself into the pipeline to come back, then you there shouldn't be a problem.
Of course, it takes a long time, right?
Especially now.
I bet the way it is is super long.
But that's the process.
And so all of these things are extremely impactful to our youth.
And I don't know that there's enough conversation happening in our communities about that.
I think that there's a lot of people in our country that see this as a problem.
The patriotism of young people fading away, I believe, is a serious problem.
And the question is: well, what do we do about it?
Well, one of the Army's answers is to raise the recruiting age to 42.
The other thing that they talked about that they are doing, and it's all taking effect, I believe, on April 1st, so a week or two away, is they are now saying that if you have one singular marijuana conviction or a drug paraphernalia conviction, that you're good.
It no longer requires a waiver.
So this will do a couple things, right?
There's a lot of people that, when they're young, they make a lot of really, really stupid mistakes.
And I think that this is also a sign that our government as a whole is lightening up on the whole cannabis deal anyway.
I mean, all over the country, recreational and medical marijuana is legal.
It's being consumed at a much fast.
I believe actually that when and if the marijuana and cannabis industry ever becomes unregulated like alcohol is, it could be a serious problem for the alcohol industry.
I think there's a lot of people that enjoy the effects of cannabis more than alcohol.
And if we're being honest, there's a whole lot less death, violent crime, domestic disputes, drunk drive.
I mean, there's just so many less crimes committed by people who are consuming cannabis recreationally.
Now, that's not to say that it should be just free rain, right?
You can smoke an ounce of weed all day and get in your car and go to dinner.
No, I don't know that that's I don't know that that's a good thing, but I think that there's a there's a whole lot less trouble that can be had when people are smoking a bunch of weed and shoving Snickers bars down their throats and eating pizza and giggling and laughing and having a good time, which are also things that happen when people drink too much.
But we just lose our minds.
People lose their minds when they've had too much to drink.
Officer Corps Politics00:14:47
So to me, it's kind of a no-brainer.
You know, but there's all these conspiracies about why the government allows this, not that, and these.
Maybe that's a whole nother conversation.
But one other question I have about this recruiting thing is: is there, do you suppose that there is a benefit?
Do you suppose that there is a benefit to allowing older people to join the military?
What are the differences between a 22.7-year-old dude who joins the military and, let's just, let's not go to 42, that's grandpa age but let's say, a 39 year old dude who wants to join the infantry?
Is there a difference?
Is one of them better than the other?
And I think that if we really stop to analyze it and think about it, I think that we could say that both have significant strengths and both of them have weaknesses.
Now, an article I read was talking about how older, older soldiers, older people, men and women, may be a lot better at their jobs, their military jobs, than younger soldiers, but not in all jobs, of course.
Things like the infantry and the cav, scouts and snipers and military police and combat heavy jobs.
You know the, the special forces operators and then those kind of elite units, the army rangers and the green berets and the Seals and the Delta Force and and the force Recon and the pararescue and all those, those tip of the spear dudes who do some insane shit.
Uh, their stories are awesome.
Maybe the older guy is not the best, not the best for a combat heavy job.
I'm sure that there are a few, right?
There are folks out there who are in their late 30s that are in good shape that could be effective at combat in the infantry.
One of the biggest positives, in my opinion, is that you can't put a value on life experience.
You can't put a value on even the little bit of wisdom you gain from the time you're 22.7 years old to 38 years old.
Life kicks you in the nuts quite a bit from your 20s to your 40s.
And I believe that if you are a person who has never been kicked in the shorts by the universe, by life, from the time you were 20 till you're 40, either you're extremely lucky or you were born into a situation where money wasn't an issue.
Anything.
It's probably mostly money, right?
You born into a trust fund or a rich family or something.
And life gets pretty easy in the way of everyday life struggles, right?
I understand rich people have their own problems.
And it's a whole different level that most of us who aren't rich can't understand.
I get that.
But in the topic of recruiting for the army, I think older folks will also bring, will certainly bring more experience.
They'll be able to know how to manage people a little better.
They'll be able to know how to manage things like a supply room a little better.
Because what do we know, right?
We do know that if you are, let's say you are a new soldier and you join the army to be a supply person, right?
As a young enlisted soldier, you're the supply clerk, right?
You're the one that talks to the folks that want to come in and get their boots.
They need some batteries for their NVGs, whatever it is, any supply and logistic issues.
And the guy, that's the boss, it's usually some crusty old E7, been doing supply for a long time, pissed off at the world, pissed off at the army, but he's really effing good at his job.
And he's going to train that next person.
And so like there is some continuity there.
But imagine now the same crusty old E7 who's been running his supply room for the last seven years and knows where everything is.
Don't come in and fuck with my stuff.
Do as I say.
It's my supply room or you can leave.
That type of NCO.
Now imagine he gets a fresh E2, E3 supply clerk who has had some experience in logistics, had some real world experience outside the military, in the civilian sector.
I worked in a warehouse for four years after high school.
I was trying to get through college.
Well, now you bring somebody in that has that wealth of knowledge.
They have the experience.
You don't need to spend so much time training.
Now you can do things like make sure that your supply room is fully stocked.
Make sure you have all the things that soldiers need.
Make sure if there's any kind of new equipment or anything new or any new standards, so new counts you have to do, or all this shit that's been sitting in a supply shed, you know, downrange for the last two years and you just haven't had time to get to it.
Now we can be effective at our jobs.
And at the end of the day, if that makes that supply room and that supply staff way more effective in the grand scheme of things, well, that's a better use of our tax dollars.
It's a better way to keep our military units that need to be efficient and their readiness is super important.
You know, units like the 82nd Airborne, for example, out of Fort Bragg.
The 82nd Airborne has been designed almost since its inception, if I'm remembering the history correctly, almost since its inception to be able to have X number of troops anywhere in the world with X number of hours.
I want to say it's like 48 hours.
It can have, I don't know, 500 troops or 1,000, whatever that number is.
But the 82nd Airborne's mission is, as part of their mission, is to be a QRF, a quick reaction force to just about anywhere in the world that they may be needed.
So that's not a new concept.
But if we're going to throw a bunch of 38-year-old dudes in there that maybe played some sports in high school, maybe dabbled in athletics in college, but weren't quite good enough to make the team or something like that, or maybe they did play.
And now you put all these older dudes in the infantry and not all of them are up to snuff.
Well, now that becomes an issue.
So maybe places like the infantry and field artillery and the Cav Scouts and all of those forward operating jobs, combat heavy jobs.
Maybe the younger soldiers are better for that.
But the other thing to keep in mind is the best thing for a young infantry squad or young infantry platoon, in my opinion, in my experience, is when and if you have that old crusty E6.
It's been an E6 for a long time.
Maybe they're just like, they're bucking the system.
Their bullshit meter is real sensitive.
But man, are they an amazing soldier?
Not great at walking the line.
But man, you get this guy downrange with 10 to 12 other infantrymen, other soldiers, and he can't be touched.
Tactically, he's sound.
By doctrine, he knows what he's doing.
He knows how to direct soldiers.
He knows how to fix any weapon system on the spot if it's possible.
He knows where people should be and how we should move and where we should go, how we should.
I mean, those types of things, just like many other professions, men, police officers, firefighters, any of those jobs where your instincts are extremely important for survival.
Those are the type of older dudes you want in an infantry platoon to train the young soldiers.
You see, the Army, in particular, because that's where my experience is, the Army's really good at publishing manuals And having books, like the soldier smart book, when I was in, was like this thick and it was full of stuff.
You know, we used to do hip pocket training, right?
If we were if we were downrange at the range, right, for doing weapons qual, or we were doing reflex of fire, we were doing LAN nav or something, and there was half an hour in between, you know, this event and this event, and it's half hour break time.
Well, if you're going to be sitting under a tree smoking and joking, pull out your, your, your smart book, your soldier smart book, and read five pages, right?
The goal is to try to take in as much of that stuff as you can.
So when you need it, you don't have to reference the book, but you have it.
And so maybe there's some truth to that.
But I will say that in my experience in the Army National Guard, for sure, I felt many times when we would go to training events and we would work with other active duty units.
For example, we went a few times to Fort Lewis out in Washington State, just outside of Seattle, to do some war games, right?
It was more of not necessarily a tactical in-the-field war game.
It was more electronic.
It was more about not actually fighting the battle, but how to track the battle, how to direct the battle, how to advise the commanders about where units are and let them do their metrics to figure out what they want to do and where they want to send soldiers first and last and where they want their assets to be, all that stuff.
And it was a very interesting ordeal because what you got to see was younger officers working with older officers.
And then, of course, they had the grunts, right?
And the grunts would sit at laptops and they would do what they were told by the battle staff.
And the grunts at the laptops acted as the soldiers in the field.
So they would get commands.
They would input the information and report up that their unit was doing whatever they were commanded, right?
So this exercise was more about command and control than it was actually tactics and soldiers out in the field moving, shooting, and communicating.
But what you find was that even the older officers at times were a little clueless about what to do.
Confused.
I shouldn't say clueless.
Confused about what to do.
Sometimes more than the younger officers, more than the lieutenants, but these majors and captains.
And every now and then there was Lieutenant Colonel Roman around, confused.
And what did they do?
They leaned on an older NCO, an E6, an E7, maybe an E8, right?
There's always a sergeant major or a first sergeant around, a senior enlisted guy who's been around a long time.
And that's kind of the deal, right?
Like experienced NCOs help advise the officers who are doing command and control functions so that they can make best decisions.
And the information they get from the senior NCOs comes from a place supposedly, allegedly, of the soldiers in the field, right?
The senior NCO corps is there to beans and bullets, right?
Sure, soldiers are doing what they're supposed to do, make sure they're taken care of, make sure they got the things they need so that they can concentrate on fighting and training and being proficient and just being the best that they can be.
And as we probably can imagine, there are many senior NCOs and officers that fall short in those areas.
But there are a lot of good ones.
There's a lot of tactically sound and proficient dudes in the officer corps.
But sometimes what you find, of course, is a lot of politics up there.
So sometimes the dudes who are making a name for themselves with the lower enlisted guys are not doing that well in their space.
So there's some politics going on.
Anyway, anyway, I've went down a goat trail.
I didn't intend on going.
This is a good place for a break.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Supporting Independent Media00:07:01
Hey, folks, real quick before we get back to the show.
It's no secret that we have been experiencing a loss of sponsorships.
Sponsors have been leaving the network or the network leaving sponsors due to our convictions.
And so we have recently began to ask you, the viewer, for help.
We need your help.
You are the most important thing when it comes to this network.
You are the lifeblood of the Stew Peters Network.
And so we are asking for your help once again.
And in doing so, the way that you can help is to go down below on this video.
Right here, you'll see the red button that's titled Stew Crew.
You see it blinking there.
You can click on there and it'll take you to the Stew Peters Network locals page.
You can sign up for a membership.
It is $90 for one year or $9 a month.
If you do the $90, you'll get two months for free.
Also, when you go to checkout, if you use keyword Stew Crew1, you'll get the first month for a dollar.
So these things are extremely important.
Keeping the network funded and bringing you content and information that you're not going to find on the mainstream media.
The truth bombs that you're not going to get from the mainstream media.
This is where you get them.
The new age of information is not the mainstream media.
It is platforms like this one.
And we bend over backwards and break our backs to try to find you the content and the topics that are going to really affect you.
So for $9 a month, you can join the Stew Crew, get exclusive access to behind-the-scenes footage, all kinds of extra content that will be available to you.
Also, monthly giveaways.
This month, Curable, which is a local CBD company, has a huge basket of body creams and lotions and bath bombs and Epsom salts and booty scrub.
Not quite sure what that is, but it sounds interesting.
They are going to give this basket away to one Stew Crew member.
So if you join the Stew Crew or if you are a person that just wants to give a one-time donation, that's great.
We will accept that too.
And you also be entered into a drawing.
So get on over to the Stew Peters Locals page.
You can also go to stewpeters.com and sign up there as well.
But it is easier to just go down and hit the red button there that says Stu Crew and sign up that way.
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So thank you once again for being here.
Thank you for joining us.
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We really do appreciate it.
We really do love you.
Thank you.
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, they were zero.
In other words, all these chronic diseases that we're accepting, the reality is maybe 99% of them don't have to exist.
And 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 ratio for like 2.81.
2.81 to 1.
So that would be 181% increase.
Epilepsy seizures, 252%.
Luring disorders, 581%.
If you look at all these different diagnoses, they're all higher.
For example, I'll just give you one example.
Luring 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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They tried to lure me back onto the plantation with millions of dollars and I rejected that.
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Life After the Army00:14:52
Hey, folks, welcome back here.
The last thing that I wanted to talk about in the difference between what older folks, not vets, older folks bring versus younger folks in the military is maturity.
I don't know that there's any substitute for life experience and maturity in something like the military, right?
You definitely have to be a thick-skinned person to serve.
Part of service, part of the mentality of being a soldier, in my opinion, is that you have to be able to be able to roll with the punches, right?
Like we, for all the years I was in, we effectively picked on each other like nobody's business, right?
Like we had idiots, but don't let another unit, definitely don't let an outsider come and talk shit to our idiot because he's our idiot.
We love him, but he's our idiot.
You can't call him an idiot.
We can call him an idiot.
That type of thing.
We were very protective of each other, but boy, did we sometimes physically, but verbally beat the shit out of each other quite frequently.
But that's how you build, that's how you build a team, in my opinion.
If you can't have fun with each other, you can't make fun of the stupid shit that we all did at times and then laugh along with it as you're being picked on.
Some places in the military are probably not for you.
The infantry for sure is probably not for you.
Because no matter what anybody says, of course, hazing is bad and all these things.
Well, the United States Army Infantry, in my experience, that's just part of the deal.
And quite honestly, at times when life really sucked and you're out in the field in the rain and the cold and the mud, for example, and you can sit with your buddies in the cold, wet forest and start razzing each other and get a little chuckle out of it.
It makes it a little bit easier to be out there anyway.
So that type of thing, in my opinion, just adds to the experience.
And I think it's a necessity for team building.
You got to be.
You got to have those instances of, hey, you're a dip shit, but don't let that guy call you dipshit.
Now we'll all get together and defend you because you're our dipshit.
But also just the life experience of living life.
And as I said earlier in the last segment, if in between your 20s and 40s, you haven't been kicked in the nuts and had to take a step back and go, whoa, what the fuck is really going on here?
And check yourself and be humbled by something that life had to throw at you.
You're either very privileged or you're extremely lucky.
But those types of things are what build character in people.
Those types of things help somebody joining the military at a little bit later age be way more effective, in my opinion.
The cool thing about the National Guard was that we weren't all just soldiers who joined the active duty military right out of high school or in our early 20s.
A lot of us joined when we were young, right out of high school or in our early 20s.
But because we were National Guard soldiers, we also had civilian jobs.
And of course, we had families just like regular active duty soldiers have.
But there was a whole other life to live outside of the uniform.
Where versus active duty, every day you get up, you go to PT, you shit shower and shave, you go to breakfast, you go to work, then you get lunch and you go back to work, and then the duty day is over.
And then, you know, and so like every day, that's your job, of course.
But as a reservist or a National Guardsman, well, Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, once a month is Army.
I'm always in the military, but for these days, I'm putting on my uniform every morning or I'm getting up.
If we were at Camp Ripley, which is in northern Minnesota, PT, not always PT.
Of course, later in my career, we didn't do a whole lot of PT in the mornings.
It was kind of on your own because we had a lot of shit to get to in a couple days.
Get up in the morning, you shit, shower and shave, you go to breakfast, we have formation, you go to work, you go to lunch, and then you go back.
I mean, the same process.
But outside of all of that is a whole life full of obligations, a whole life full of other jobs.
Of course, there's families, there's aging parents, there's all kinds of shit, right?
But there's a whole nother set of things to have to worry about and manage and deal with.
It's not your only job.
And so what happens is you get a lot of people with a lot of different experience in the same place.
And the cool thing about the National Guard, in my opinion, was I could go to drill and now here for the weekend, there's this 55 dudes in an infantry platoon.
There's garbage men.
There's web designers.
There's some cops.
There's some security guards.
There's some college kids.
There's some construction workers.
There's a social worker.
There's a pastor.
There's all kinds of different people from different walks of life and different careers.
And all of them bring their own life experience.
Not just what they did as a child through high school, now into the Army, but now what they did as a child through high school, maybe through college, maybe not through college.
All of these things, right?
All of these life experience things that happen for civilians happen for reservists, National Guardsmen on top of their military service.
And then when the government comes a calling and says, hey, guys, 34th ID Red Bulls, for example, Minnesota's first brigade, next year, next March 15th, we're going to be sending you to God knows where.
You'll have a six-month train up and then you'll be wherever we're sending you for 18 months, which when we deployed to Iraq the first time was the plan until we got close to coming home and got extended.
So we were there for about two years.
So in that time, then your life stops.
Your life outside of the army stops for you.
But for everybody else, life keeps moving.
Your spouse keeps getting the kids up and taking them to school and the soccer and going to work and dealing with all that daily life.
That keeps going without you.
People at your job, they keep going.
And sometimes even your job moves on without you.
Because all they have to do when you come back from military service is give you the equivalent, same or equal.
So many times people come home to not even the same job that they liked or were comfortable in or just got or whatever.
So that brings a whole different experience.
It brings a whole different wealth of knowledge.
So now let's imagine that an active duty unit gets 15 new soldiers on April 1st.
And half of them, right?
Half of them are between the ages of 33 and 41.
What kind of experience are they bringing to that unit?
What kind of, how much wisdom?
What kind of wisdom?
What have they been through in their life?
Maybe they're shitbags.
I don't want to sit up here and say that every person that joins the military is a stand-up person because we know that's not true.
But if we're getting quality people who are in their mid to late 30s, that's a whole lot more life experience that that person had went through than the 21-year-old recruit.
Now they both have their advantages.
But what I will say is that the older person, if they're still physically able and capable at 37 years old, can be a benefit in both combat and non-combat jobs because there's no substitute, in my opinion, for that life experience.
There's not because nobody knows.
But the younger soldier, who may be a little checked out, so to speak, right?
They've been growing up in this America that tells young people to cut their dicks off and all kinds of crazy shit.
They've had to grow up that way.
And sometimes that's hard to put in perspective, right?
As an older or middle-aged person, it's kind of hard to put yourself in the shoes of a young person.
Like I have a sometimes I find it difficult to put myself in the shoes of our two youngest boys.
They're both 21.
And they're doing different things with their lives, but they're presented with similar conundrums at times.
And it's interesting to see how they navigate them.
But then you try to put yourself into their shoes because some of the things that they have to deal with on their own, like in their friend circle or just their age group, are things that are completely foreign.
Completely foreign to people of my age, of course.
But my kids, they have very strong traits of my wife and I.
And I believe that they do pretty well.
But to imagine them being presented with these things.
Things that when I hear about them instantly piss me off.
Like, well, well, why the hell would anybody expect you to have to deal with that bullshit?
Like when they were in high school and there was all this talk of kitty litter dishes in the bathrooms and all kinds of crazy shit that was happening.
If I walked through that school and saw that, I'd be extremely upset about it.
But these kids are expected to just pay no attention to it or support it, use it.
They expect them to act as if it's normal for there to be kitty litter dishes in the bathrooms at school or having a safe space for the transgender students to go and cry.
They had cry rooms at their high school.
So they can have a safe space to be themselves.
Well, what you're asking 16-year-old kids to pretend like this is normal?
This is the world that they had to grow up in.
And so when we're talking about putting these young people into occupation that requires them to learn how to be shit hot all the time when they're in that uniform, of course there's going to be some growing pains.
Clearly, a lot of people figure it out.
There's a ton of people in the military, and majority of folks figure out how to get through it without getting kicked out, getting dishonorable discharges, or getting into trouble.
And they have fruitful careers and hopefully fruitful lives after.
But when we talk about bringing these folks in the military, like we're asking these folks, these kids, to pick up a rifle and go stand a post.
And if put in that position, to make a decision about taking human life.
Now, it's probably fair to say that with proper training, anybody can learn to do anything.
But yet we still have these issues with soldiers after the fact.
Like we've talked about it on this show before.
There are things that we have learned through the stories of other soldiers that the human mind they say was not really intended to process these types of things.
The atrocities that other human beings do to each other in different corners of this world are sometimes not even, you can't even talk about them.
But the problem is that there is a large community of people in all different corners of the globe that either one believe it's not happening or number two choose not to identify it because it's hard and it doesn't affect me.
Worth Fighting For00:11:32
So, you know, I got my own life to live, which is understandable to a point.
But this willful ignorance thing that we talk about every now and then always comes to mind.
I like to try to think about How I would feel if some of these things were happening to my family, if I had a daughter and she was assaulted the way that some of these other ladies are.
I mean, just all this different shit.
And then we expect them to make a decision about taking human life and then act like it's normal.
And so the real conundrum about all this is: well, if that's the problem, then why do you do it?
There was some comments on my show from last week, and one of the comments was somebody talking about, well, if brain injuries from firing weapons and PTSD and all these things are so ridiculous and so harmful, and everyone's so distraught about them, then why does anybody sign up for it?
And that's exactly the problem.
It's exactly the problem.
The fact that young people do not see this country as something worth defending and fighting for.
Even if you believe that right now, at this current juncture, that we're in a tough spot and we look sad and maybe America's wrong, right?
A lot of people believe that.
Still having the opinion that this country isn't worth fighting for is a problem.
Because even if you don't like it here now, if you're an American and you're not proud to be one right now, hopefully that changes for you.
But I don't know that the current president, the current roster of politicians that we have, of course it all makes a difference, right?
And people use that as a gauge to whether or not they want to serve.
And that's not what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is the fact that our young people don't see America as something worth fighting for is troubling.
And I wonder if they would feel the same way.
I wonder if these folks would feel the same way if they were forced to go live in Somalia.
Go live in Somalia for two years.
Go live in some of these remote places in the Middle East, in Africa, these third world countries in Eastern Europe, India, anywhere, even the nicer places.
And if you still don't like America, well, then I guess you're at a place that you'll like.
Now, I agree.
I agree with people to a certain point when they say being American is embarrassing right now.
I agree with that.
I agree that we got some fucking work to do.
As Americans, as a country, as a community, we got a lot of fucking work to do.
But it's still worth fighting for, in my opinion.
There isn't, even right now, with the way things are, there aren't anywhere else I'd rather live.
I mean, sure.
I'd probably like to go hang out on the beach in Tahiti for a week and drink my tithes and watch dolphins jump.
That'd be cool.
But I'll always want to come home.
And maybe it's because maybe it's because I people will say, well, Richard, it's because you drank the fucking Kool-Aid, bro.
You drank the Kool-Aid.
You bought it.
And now you went through it and you got all these issues.
Now look at you.
Well, I would do it all over again.
And so anybody that wants to say, I'm stupid, I'm brainwashed, I'm this, I'm that, whatever, cool.
You're entitled to your opinion.
But my opinion is that this place, our home, is worth fighting for.
Even if we don't agree, it doesn't mean that all is lost.
I mean, hell.
There's a whole lot of people around the world that would like to change places with us, even with all the bullshit going on.
There's a whole lot of people in this world that would love for Donald Trump to be their president.
And there's a whole lot of Americans that hate him.
So maybe, maybe we should offer a swap with proper vetting to make sure we don't have more fucking pedophiles and terrorists and shitbags.
We'll do some proper vetting.
Anyone that hates America, you can switch with that guy.
And if that guy doesn't want to act right, well, then I guess he gets to go home too.
But that's just my opinion.
Anyway, folks, we're coming to the end of the show.
We kind of got off the, of course, we got off the topic of recruiting and paraphernalia charges and drug charges.
The main point is this.
The Army has raised their maximum allowable age for enlistment to 42 from 35.
I think it's important to note that when I joined the military in 2002, the maximum age of enlistment was 43 years old.
Now, that was 02, just after 9-11.
The country was hurting for personnel.
So I don't know when it went to 43 and then back down to 35.
I guess I never really paid attention to that.
But the idea that it's back up to 42 to me isn't alarming.
I think that there might be some staffing challenges, right?
We may be coming short on some recruitment goals.
And hopefully they do something to fix that.
But allowing older folks in the military, I think, will be a benefit.
I think it'll be a benefit for the younger soldiers who are coming in, even younger soldiers who may not came from a good home.
They can have a mentor.
They can have people that have life experience, that have been kicked into nuts, that can tell them, hey, man, this really ain't that big of a fucking deal.
Let's tighten up our boots and get to work and just get the job done.
Those types of people are valuable in small teams, in platoons, in whole units.
So I would say it's not a bad thing.
It could be a very positive thing and could increase the effectiveness of our military even more.
Now, of course, there are some downsides.
And I'm sure that they'll figure all that shit out and we'll be presented with what the further plan is.
But at this point, I say, let some older folks in.
You only help the younger folks be better.
And maybe the younger folks can teach the old codgers something.
Lord knows that sometimes we need, as older folks, we need all the help that we can get.
So anyway, folks, that's the it.
That's it.
That's the end.
That's all we got for today.
Thank you for being here, and we'll see you next week.
Enjoy the rest of your evening.
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 side of Israel.
Look at the site of Tel Aviv.
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.
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.
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