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March 9, 2022 - Viva & Barnes

02:07:28

Sidebar with USMC Special Ops Lynn Westover - Viva & Barnes LIVE!

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	Well, I only have a minute left.
	Let me ask you, does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?
	Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to I'm sure
	you're aware that the Russian propaganda groups are already putting out there all kinds of information about how they've uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to release biological weapons in the country and with NATO's coordination.
	If there's a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside of Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that 100% it would be the Russians that would be There is no doubt in my mind, Senator, and it is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy, what they're planning to do themselves.
	Can we appreciate what we just saw there?
	What we just heard.
	Good evening, everyone.
	Can we appreciate what we just heard?
	Marco Rubio asked a very straightforward question.
	And if I have to replay it in order so that we can rehear it, I will.
	Are there any such things, biological or chemical weapons, in Ukraine?
	To which this individual to whom he asked the question, all she had to say was, no, there are not.
	But you'll notice, acutely absent from her long-winded response, is a no.
	There are no chemical or biological weapons there.
	What you had was an aversion to answer the question, and then a diversion onto a separate matter, which was, no answer.
	There are chemical facilities, and we don't want the materials getting into people.
	A simple no would have sufficed if a simple no were an actual accurate answer.
	But you can't lie under oath.
	So what do you do?
	Just don't answer and divert away to look over here.
	Let's talk about this.
	There are facilities.
	There are research facilities.
	Yes, that's a yes.
	I'll ignore the original question.
	And then Marco Rubio's next question.
	If something happens, if...
	Would you be 100% certain that it was Russia?
	First of all, likely, possibly, potentially, there are very few things in this life that are 100% certain.
	We know the joke.
	Death, taxes, and I just saw a car insurance ad, it was called Shields or something, and car repairs.
	He asks a question which had an easy no answer, if that were in fact the answer that, I'm sure that's the answer he wanted.
	If he did not know that he was not going to get that answer, then Marco Rubio might be less intelligent than I even gave him credit for in the first place because rule number one of law, typically you don't ask a question if you don't know the answer that you're going to get to it because you might not be happy with the answer.
	So if he's asking a question that he doesn't know the answer to and the answer which he was expecting was no and the answer was not no, well, my goodness, did he just step in it?
	And then in order to try to step out of it, my old expression, you know, he stepped in the poop.
	Instead of just stopping and then moving on, he decides to run around the whole house and then pad his question with, well, if something bad were to happen, it would 100% undoubtedly be Mr. X's fault.
	Oh yes, 100%.
	Because they always do.
	They always accuse others of doing what they're doing.
	Which is ironically exactly what that person just did in that response.
	But it gets even better, by the way.
	It gets even better because this...
	Fits rather well into an earlier tweet that also came out of Marco Rubio's Twitter mouth.
	Let me just see if I can pull it up here.
	It's this one.
	Okay.
	Boom shakalaka.
	If, using the Lord's name in vain again, God forbid there are any chemical or biological weapons used or any nuclear incidents in Ukraine, have zero doubt who is behind it.
	So, like, you know, not only can Marco Rubio, like...
	Not understand the past, but he can predict the future.
	And by even suggesting this, it's a curious thing.
	But the funny thing is, I went to just...
	I discovered this platform.
	Hold on one second.
	You can actually find people's...
	Where is my face here?
	You can actually find people's deleted tweets.
	And it's very cool.
	It's very cool.
	Let's just go through...
	I mean, it's not that like...
	It's an...
	Absolutely idiotic tweet because it's almost like getting ahead of the curve, military style.
	And it's a peculiar, bizarre tweet.
	Oh yeah, here we go.
	So I said, not only can Marco Rubio see through the fog of war, because we are living through an era now where accurate information in real time is very hard to get.
	And you should be very cautious before tweeting statements of fact.
	In the Twitterverse.
	Not only can he see through the fog of war, he can predict the future.
	You know, Marco, there's a website where you can see deleted tweets.
	Your judgment on Twitter recently has been questionable at best.
	And wait until you see this, guys.
	Wait until you see this.
	Let me go bring this up.
	It's so amazing.
	The internet is forever.
	Think before you speak.
	And if you make a mistake, apologize for it.
	But let's just go see some of the gems that came out of Marco Rubio's Twitter mouth.
	Let me just see.
	Where is it?
	How do I get to...
	How do I get to the thing?
	You know what?
	I think I have to go back here, and then I can go in here.
	Oh, no.
	Come on, come on.
	Figure this out, Dave.
	You're embarrassing yourself.
	Pro Republica.
	Check this out.
	Check this out.
	Let me just make sure that we're seeing the same thing here.
	StreamYard.
	Yeah, we are.
	Okay, good.
	Let's just go read through a few of these.
	Delete a tweet from Marco Rubio, Republican Florida.
	I hope the Saudis and Emiratis reconsider.
	When was this one?
	Oh, this was deleted after two minutes, by the way, you can see right here.
	I hope the Saudis and Emiratis reconsider, but the message here to Biden is very clear.
	If you are going to demand they exercise restraint when they get attacked by Iran, they are also going to exercise restraint when Russia attacks a European country.
	I'm not even sure I understand that one.
	This one was deleted after four minutes.
	I mean, I want to know what happened in his head.
	Was it a delete?
	To correct a typo or was it a delete because you regret that tweet immediately?
	I immediately regret this decision.
	I can't emphasize enough how much Putin and his risk calculus has changed.
	He will push Belarus into war, use chemical or biological weapons, slaughter millions and impose Stalinist restrictions in Russia to avoid humiliation or the perception that he was forced to back down.
	This is another one of those every fear hides a wish tweets.
	Rubio is...
	And why did he delete it?
	I'd like to know why he deleted it and what he replaced it with.
	Oh, here we go.
	And then we got another one deleted after 29 seconds.
	I don't even...
	Okay, whatever.
	This might have been a factually incorrect statement.
	This is what happens when you are, I imagine, not prepared.
	And I want to play it one more time because I want to go over in real time the diversion, the dishonor, the deceit in this answer.
	Where was it?
	Oh, did I shut down the...
	Oh, darn it.
	I think I...
	No, no, here it is.
	Here it is.
	We have to, like, just do this in real time.
	Well, I only have a minute left.
	Let me ask you.
	Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?
	Chemical or biological weapons?
	That's the question.
	The Ukraine has something else.
	Biological research facilities.
	So that's a true statement.
	Which, in fact, we are now quite concerned.
	And now you're off on details of a tangential question that nobody asked.
	That's nice.
	If they have biological weapons, they probably have biological research facilities.
	The question was.
	The question was.
	Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?
	The answer is yes or no.
	Ukraine has biological research facilities.
	What are they doing with those biological research facilities?
	Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to...
	What would be the concern of the Russians gaining control of these biological research facilities if they don't have biological or chemical weapons there?
	So is that a confirmation?
	Some might say yes.
	So we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of...
	Research materials now.
	It went from substances, what they have in those, to research materials.
	What does that even mean?
	Does that mean the product of research, which would be an actual, exactly what Rubio asked for?
	Sorry?
	Russian forces, should they approach?
	I'm sure you're aware that the Russian propaganda groups are already putting out there all kinds of information about how they've uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to release biological weapons.
	Rubio did exactly.
	He himself has done that.
	He's already put out tweets to the effect that if it happens, have no doubt who's behind it.
	And now he's accusing Putin of doing just that.
	I mean, do people see this?
	I hope people see this.
	In the country and with NATO's coordination, if there's a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside of Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that 100% it would be the Russians that would be behind it?
	There is no doubt in my mind, Senator, and it is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy what they're planning to do themselves.
	Wow.
	Okay.
	I mean, that's jaw-dropping, eye-opening, stomach-turning, shocking, outrageous.
	And it would only be that to anybody who saw it and to anybody who would interpret it the way it needs to be interpreted in order for people to understand why this is so shocking.
	And by the way, I'm not saying, I'm not suggesting for a second that Putin is not...
	Doing this?
	Capable of doing this?
	Will not do these things?
	You know, accuse your enemies of doing what you are doing so as to create confusion.
	It wasn't Putin who made that up.
	There's some theory that it was, what's his name, Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister.
	But my goodness, Rubio either didn't understand the question, sorry, he didn't know the answer to the question, or he prepped this witness.
	Or knew that this witness was going to answer the question in a diversion, deceitful, concealment type of way.
	But my goodness, did they reveal everything nonetheless.
	And, you know, interpret all of that with Rubio's own tweets from a few days prior.
	That's it.
	Now, on the issue of what this all means in the global geopolitical context, our guest tonight, I don't know if I should have referred to him as retired.
	USMC, which is United States Marine Corps.
	Intelligence counterterrorism experience.
	20 years.
	Five tours.
	He sent me his resume.
	And I was going to read it.
	Maybe I should.
	Maybe I should.
	Let me do that now, anyhow.
	Because I don't see...
	Barnes is going to come in in a second.
	But his resume is...
	It's intimidating.
	If you're dating...
	I don't know if they have any daughters yet, but if you're dating his daughter, it'll be intimidating.
	Where did it go?
	Right here.
	Thumbnail for image.
	Okay.
	Oh, you know what?
	I can't even find it.
	It doesn't matter.
	He'll give his own credentials, but lots of experience.
	Lynn Westover, who is actually...
	Well, I'm just totally, totally blanked out.
	Alison Morrow's husband.
	Alison Morrow, you may know.
	The reporter.
	Gone rogue.
	We all know them.
	We have a beautiful community that we look after one another and also make for good guests.
	Before I bring Lynn in, standard disclaimers.
	I've missed a bunch of Super Chats already.
	Thank you in advance for the Super Chats.
	YouTube takes 30% of those Super Chats.
	If you don't like that, you can go over to Rumble, where we are simultaneously streaming as well.
	Rumble has these things called Rumble Rants, the equivalent of Super Chats.
	Rumble takes 20%, so better for the creator.
	Better if you want to support a platform that you like supporting.
	You can always find Robert and I at vivabarneslaw.locals.com.
	You can be a member where you get a ton of non-exclusive content for no support, or you could be a supporter and you get tons of exclusive content.
	Now, let me just see if I can bring up a few of these super chats.
	You need to watch Oliver Stone's movie, Ukraine on Fire, to give you just a glimpse of the real Ukraine.
	I mean, I've heard not enough time in the day, Ukraine on Fire and Oliver Stone documentary 2016.
	Must watch to get the context.
	I mean, I'm going to.
	It's just, you gotta find time in the day.
	And this is not a defense of Putin, and there's no but.
	This is just, you know, if anyone thinks American politicians, Canadian politicians, you got Justin Trudeau, the two-times ethics breaching, constitutional rights violating, bringing the military to bust up a peaceful constitutional protest dictator, calling another person a dictator.
	It's like, look, look at the dictator calling the dictator a dictator.
	What did I see here?
	This is the same girl that was giving out cookies in Kiev before everything went violent in 2014.
	They are trying to stir the public before they do something.
	There's nothing better than fighting, nothing better than gambling with other people's money, paying out settlements with other people's tax dollars, and fighting wars with other people's children.
	And gambling with other people's lives.
	Nothing easier.
	Okay, with that said, I'm going to bring in Lynn.
	Lin Sherpa Westover.
	He's got a nickname in there.
	And then everyone tell me if the audio is good.
	Rubio.
	My goodness, Rubio.
	I don't know if that was intended to be a fail, but that was beyond a fail.
	That's an eye-opening red pill for many people.
	With that said, Lin, let me just do this here.
	How goes the battle, sir?
	Well, I actually went to the store today and picked up an extra box of crayons.
	Those in the chats will know exactly what I'm talking about being a Marine.
	Actually, let me fix my focus just a little bit so I'm about the same size as you.
	You're going to have to tell me exactly what on earth you're talking about, crayons.
	That sounds oddly innocent, but oddly sinister.
	Well, commonly...
	Marines are referred to as crayon eaters because it's implied that we have a lack of intelligence.
	So I'll just leave it at that.
	So those who know, know.
	Those who don't are like, wait, why do you have all these shares in Crayola?
	It is.
	Well, I'll tell you one thing that I know from experience.
	If you eat enough crayons, your poop actually turns multicolored.
	It's quite fascinating.
	This is true.
	This is true, Viva.
	Before we get started, I always do the same thing.
	The standard elevator pitch, for those who may not know you, but I think a lot of people watching are going to know you.
	Dude, I got some questions before we get into the geopolitics side of it.
	Elevator pitch, who are you?
	And what's in the glass?
	Well...
	I was going to wait until Barnes got on here, but I have a nice bottle of Blanton's here.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so I'm celebrating because, you know, it's an honor to be on with you and Robert.
	So at any rate, let's see here.
	30-second elevator pitch, Jim Carrey style.
	North Carolina Public Education, join the United States Marine Corps before September 11th.
	I was actually in Albania when 9-11 happened.
	Started out in the infantry, went into Marine Corps Special Operations, became a forced reconnaissance Marine and a scout sniper.
	Deployed to all the other lovely vacation spots you can think of.
	Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, been down south, Latin America, Japan, yada, yada, yada.
	Aside from that, I was a part of a lot of different programs in the military.
	Human behavior pattern recognition programs such as combat hunter program under General Mattis.
	Master certified school instructor, curriculum developer.
	Formal schoolhouse instructor for everything recon within the Marine Corps.
	Did my final tour in Okinawa.
	Left after that final deployment in Afghanistan.
	Continued working for the DOD for their human behavior programs, their regular warfare programs.
	I went unarmed and embedded into Afghanistan to identify insider threats and teach not just U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, but also NATO and coalition soldiers there how to identify insider threats.
	And I own a business where I teach law enforcement officers how to use observations within human behavior real time to make...
	I have a beautiful wife, Allison Morrow.
	We have an awesome producer, and yes, that is my daughter.
	I'll be having an eye out for when she starts dating.
	And aside from that, I work for nonprofits.
	I do work for Veterans Empowered to Protect African Wildlife.
	We train African rangers for the counter poaching mission.
	And I'm an advisor for the Recon Sniper Foundation.
	I want to get back to that sniper.
	I won't say you snuck it in there in the middle, but I did pick up on it there in the middle.
	I'll read also your resume.
	Lynn has 20 years experience in intelligence and counterterrorism, with 12 years in the USMC Special Operations Force Recon Scout Sniper.
	Lynn has five combat tours, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and served as formal school instructor, master instructor, one of the first Marines to participate in the Combat Hunter Program.
	Lynn ultimately became an instructor for Combat Hunter ASAT, SOFSAT, and ITSAT.
	The only SATs I know were...
	Situational Awareness Training.
	They're Army programs.
	Okay, it's not student aptitude tests.
	Damn it, I'm such an idiot.
	Anyhow, Lynn, some of the chat is saying you have some stories, and I have no doubt that you have some stories, but can I ask just the obvious question?
	You were a sniper in active combat.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	I guess we'll get into that in a bit.
	I'll have to ask you in due course, but I don't want to start it off on that.
	No problem.
	I may ask that question.
	I'm 40 years old.
	Where were you born?
	How many brothers and sisters?
	What did your parents do?
	And how do you end up in the military doing what you were doing?
	So, I'm from my dad's second marriage.
	I got a half-brother, had a half-sister.
	She unfortunately passed away right before I did my second deployment to Afghanistan.
	I still have one little sister remaining.
	Grew up in North Carolina.
	I knew I wanted to join the military.
	Specifically, I wanted to join the Marine Corps.
	I actually had aspirations of becoming a fighter pilot, so I had applied to the Naval Academy.
	I got nominations, but I did not get an appointment.
	But I was so...
	I'm sure about wanting to join the Marine Corps for a bunch of different reasons, one of which being I grew up near Fort Bragg.
	So, A, I wanted to get out of high school.
	B, I wanted to get out of North Carolina.
	And C, I knew there was a good chance if I joined the Army, I could end up stationed in North Carolina.
	So, one of the big reasons among many that I joined the Marine Corps was to get out of North Carolina.
	I went to boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, and then I got stationed in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina for seven and a half years.
	I always wanted to be a Marine, and that was all before 9-11 occurred.
	My father was in the Army.
	My uncle was in the Army.
	He just passed away.
	We buried him in Arlington.
	Actually, we were supposed to do a sidebar about a month ago, if you remember.
	But I was at D.C. doing that.
	And, you know, I've got other family members who are all Army.
	So my grandfather was in World War II.
	And I just remember whenever my grandpa Gaddish talked, I listened.
	So it was just kind of one of those things.
	I chose to serve.
	And, yeah, I'll never forget.
	We were actually in Albania when 9-11 happened.
	We didn't even know what was going on until we got on ship.
	And just for everybody's, like, awareness, that was still when we didn't really have the prevalence of flat screen TVs.
	So the TV in the ship's birthing area was like the old tube TV with the two knobs, you know.
	And there was 80 of us crammed into a place that could, you know, a space that could fit probably 25 people, just minds blown, thinking it was, you know, Independence Day.
	Version 2. But, yeah.
	That's pretty much all there is to me.
	Now, hold on a second.
	I see Barnes is in the backdrop.
	I'm going to bring him in because then this is going to get...
	Oh, Barnes.
	Actually, Barnes, how goes the battle, sir?
	I had to take a quick trip to Ukraine to help make sure certain biological labs were safe and okay.
	And don't worry anybody, it's just like extra strength Tylenol, Advil.
	There was nothing dangerous in there.
	We're particularly terrified that the Russians will take it over because we don't want them to get our extra strength Tylenol prescription.
	Barnes, come to Washington.
	I drug tested it.
	You're good.
	It's clear.
	It's clean.
	Some Blantons for you.
	Very good.
	Everyone in the chat, let me know if the audio sounds...
	Robert sounds a little low to me, but if it's good for everybody else.
	Oh, so hold on a second.
	Yeah, no, Robert.
	I mean, that Rubio question and that answer.
	Someone in the chat asked a question.
	I've got to ask it before I forget.
	Sniper, you have glasses?
	Were you the spotter or were you the trigger?
	No, I was the sniper.
	And a misconception is usually the doctrinally...
	The spotter is actually the senior sniper.
	As far as my glasses, as far as these things are concerned, I never wore glasses.
	I had extremely good vision when I joined.
	The reason why I have to wear glasses is because of some of the explosions that I've experienced.
	It causes my left eye to constantly do this.
	So when that happens, my right eye tries to syncopate, and it creates basically migraines that I can't do anything.
	So I wear glasses.
	I have medication I take for migraines.
	I'm 40 years old, and I have an O2 unit.
	You should have seen Allie's face when they dropped it off.
	So if I feel a migraine coming on, I actually sit on O2.
	Just to hopefully prevent that from going far.
	But that's why I wear glasses.
	It has a lot to do, too, with fluorescent lights and things like that.
	One of the classes I was teaching at St. Louis County, right there in Ferguson, one day I was teaching, me and my business partner and one of our other instructors, and I was up in front of the class, and one just hit me like that, and I couldn't form complete sentences.
	And I actually literally put the clicker down.
	I couldn't even see my partner, and I just said, I'm done.
	And I went back to the Airbnb and just hung out.
	So, yeah, I have to wear glasses because of the migraines, because of some of the effects of those explosions and traumatic brain injury.
	How accurate or inaccurate is the Sniper series of movies with Tom Berenger?
	You know, there's little nuggets in there that are pretty cool.
	But obviously, I mean, they take creative license with things.
	I have to say, so the movie Shooter is actually based on a series of books by Stephen Hunter.
	And anybody who likes Tom Clancy kind of stuff or Clive Cussler kind of stuff, they're...
	They would probably like Stephen Hunter, and I would say that is one movie where they actually did a very good job with keeping it true to the books.
	But yeah, there's little things in that movie that are little throwbacks to reality, even though the actual storyline may be a little far-fetched, but not too bad.
	Tom Berenger was a badass in that.
	Any Marine sniper, definitely.
	Loves that movie.
	Maybe not the later ones.
	If I ask a question, I don't want to ask like a craning your neck at a car accident type thing.
	It's a question that I've always had.
	I presume you get asked it, but if it's a total taboo, then I...
	I already know where you're going, so just let her rip, tater chip.
	Has it happened, and what does it feel like the first time you have to do something like that?
	To take the pound and a half or so out of the trigger?
	Is that what you're asking?
	If I understand you correctly?
	To take the 28 grams out of someone else's existence.
	How does that work?
	You train your entire life, and it's all fun and games when you're in training mode on targets and whatever.
	What goes through your body, your spirit, the first time it happens in reality?
	And you know what you've done.
	Well, I would say that in any circumstance, whether it is behind a scoped rifle or just in an impromptu, hey, I'm clearing a room, I've been in a lot of different altercations, I'll put it that way.
	And the fact of the matter is, yeah, most certainly it's a part of a job.
	And there's a part of that job...
	With the training where you're mentally prepared for that, so when the time comes, you do it, there's some automaticity there that happens.
	At the same token, you think about it.
	You know what you did, and those are things that you deal with.
	I would say for most people, and I'll just speak for myself, the things that keep me up at night, Are not the things that I did, but more so the things that, you know, I've been in many a situation where I knew what I was looking at in the crosshairs, but I didn't have what I needed to, you know, legally, morally, and ethically take that shot.
	And those are the things that folks wrestle with because you wonder, like, hey, what ended up happening later?
	As far as when it comes to taking a life, you know, I would say it's probably the same kind of feeling that any person has who's ever been in that position.
	You know, you talk, you look at, I mean, you're both, you know, lawyers, attorneys.
	I don't know what, like, personal experiences you've had as far as, like, talking about, like, deadly force, use of force situations or representing somebody who's been through that kind of trauma.
	But it is trauma when you get forced into a position where you have to...
	Protect your own life.
	That's not an easy thing.
	I'll point to Rittenhouse.
	He didn't feel good at all about what he had to do.
	I would seriously question somebody's mental status if a little part of them, if they didn't question their motivations about what they did or how they did it.
	That being said, the caliber of People that I've worked alongside, they knew what they were getting into when they got into it.
	While on one hand they wrestle with those demons left and right, on the other hand, it's a part of the job.
	It's not for the weak or the faint-hearted.
	I don't want to dwell on it too much because obviously it's a hard thing to talk about.
	For those who've never been in that position, they couldn't understand it.
	I will say this.
	A lot of times, especially now when I train law enforcement, and we've had situations where people...
	We actually lost housing.
	I don't know if you guys remember this.
	I know you both talked to Ali about it, but somebody said, yeah, we don't want you to live next to us or live in our...
	We don't want you to rent from us because you killed innocent people in Afghanistan and you teach cops how to kill black people.
	And it's like, no, I couldn't be further from the truth.
	Matter of fact...
	If you've ever had to take a life, then you have the utmost respect for what that life represents and what it means.
	I don't know if I'm using the term correctly.
	You're the French guy there, Viva.
	But it is apropos to some of the things we're talking about because regardless what side of the street you sit on with regard to Russia, Ukraine, so on and so forth, I think anybody could agree that the people on both sides who are being impacted...
	buy this like immediately um that's that sucks that's not a good thing to see and i so at any rate like to you know kind of tie that in a bow uh yep it's happened and um I don't dwell on it, but it's one of those things.
	It's part of the job, and if you can't hack it, then you shouldn't be in the job.
	Now, in terms of training, how much of your training was...
	Two questions.
	One is, I've heard horrifying stories about basic training, so I'm curious about that.
	But also, it was the number one reason I had no interest in going into the military.
	I was like, I wouldn't last two days.
	That's just not my thing.
	But in terms of your training, how much of it was physical?
	How much of it was developing a skill set?
	How much of it was organizational?
	How much of it was tactical and strategic?
	To keep that as concise as possible, Robert, I would say there's a lot of layers to all that, and it overlaps.
	And there's little things, like I'll give one example.
	So all the Marines in the chat, they'll get this.
	Something as simple as get online, all right?
	Quote, unquote, get online, right?
	That is a chant.
	That is a ditty that occurs when you're going through Marine Corps boot camp.
	And what it symbolizes is...
	Really back to the days when we were in, you know, formation warfare of getting online, like getting into formation and it's hey diddle diddle right up in the middle ducks in a row.
	However, there's the term that we use called brilliance in the basics.
	And when you're talking about geometries of fire.
	And identifying like, hey, say I'm doing like a hasty ambush right, hasty ambush left, or I'm setting up into an enfilading fire position or whatever the case may be.
	It is extremely important to know that the individuals to your left and to your right are in the right position.
	Because when rounds start going downrange, if people are not in the right position, and like, especially when we're talking about CQB kind of warfare, where we're talking about clearing houses and so on and so forth.
	A matter of inches can mean you're catching one between the running lights and you're not.
	So it's things that are beat into your head and there's that muscle memory that occurs, the automaticity that I was talking about earlier where it's either 10,000 hours or 10,000 repetitions.
	And you may not understand initially what the so what is to it when you're there in the middle of it.
	But then later on, you're like, aha!
	You know, you have a little bit of an aha moment.
	The jokes about the Marines eat crayons and so on and so forth, or even the Army dogs or the Doughboys, the misconception is especially your infantry is your cannon fodder, your bullet sponges.
	But the reality is you have to be a thinking man.
	Because I'll use even the example of Afghanistan.
	You know, when we're dealing with the Taliban, or even in Iraq, the Mujahideen, but something as simple as, you know, you're looking at these guys, they're wearing shower kameezes, paykoles, and they're rolling around in sandals and stuff like that.
	But these are individuals that are going to the point of taking things like aluminum spray paint, spray painting it on tarps, drying it out, breaking up the aluminum powder in the spray paint so they can add that to their explosive charge.
	To blow your legs up better.
	To increase the kinetic weight to that charge.
	That is a true believer.
	And that is somebody who should be respected and understood and not diminished.
	And so therefore, being able to recognize something like for me, the reason why I even brought that up is I found myself in a situation.
	We walked into a compound and all I saw on the floor was the overspray.
	Of the aluminum spray paint.
	So you're talking about highly analytical thinkers, advanced critical thinking, and the ability, whether it's top-down or bottom-up processing, to look at a situation, examine all of its parts, understand situational awareness, and make a decision real-time.
	My cautionary tale to anybody is don't paint yourself in a corner and never underestimate who it is you're dealing with because they may be a much more sophisticated individual than you give them credit for.
	And that's what I was going to ask about because one key thing in this whole context of the current conflict or any conflict is the importance of strategic empathy.
	But that at our certain sort of intellectual levels, this has mostly been lost.
	In fact, it's seen now as kind of evil.
	That if you try to get into the mind of your adversary or just the other side or another party, whomever that may be.
	Tactical cunning.
	Exactly.
	Try to understand where they're coming from, understand who they are.
	That on the battlefield, you don't have the illusion of being able to just demonize your opposition in ways that...
	It denies them their human capacity, their capacity for rational thought, their capacity, as you're describing, sophistication, dedication, so on and so forth.
	It's our elites who have afforded themselves this luxury that is the expense to everyone else.
	But could you explain the importance of that simply from a tactical perspective?
	That you're not, as a soldier, you're not behaving badly by trying to understand where your adversary is coming from.
	You're not an apologist for the Taliban or for Putin.
	You're better abling your capacity to be successful in your military objective by understanding who they are and where they come from on real terms.
	Well, I think because I was thinking about it, it's funny.
	I'll say this.
	I was on a run today because I'm doing this virtual run.
	In memory of the Vietnam conflict for the Marine Corps Marathon Association.
	It's a 196.7 mile virtual run.
	And I've got about 70 miles left in like 10 days.
	So yeah, sorry.
	Over what period of time do you have to run that distance?
	It was from February 1st to March 18th.
	So I'm coming up on the deadline here.
	And I'm most of the way there, but I got to hustle.
	And it was funny, like today, my intention was like, okay, I got this thing with Viva Barnes.
	I got some other stuff.
	I got to sit down with the producer, my daughter.
	You know, I got things going on.
	But I was thinking about these things.
	And one of the questions you just asked, Barnes, popped into my head as I was running.
	And, you know, I'll be damned if I went from the run was only supposed to be five mile run.
	I ended up running eight and a half miles because my brain just kept running with it.
	I want to answer your question with kind of like a little comparison here.
	On one hand, I can look at Putin and specifically what he did with his troops.
	He slow rolled that.
	He started massing troops.
	He started setting his pieces on that chessboard.
	And I won't even go into like the level of planning he went into talking way back when to when he first was dealing with like Clinton after Gorbachev died and all that stuff took place.
	I'm just going to talk about even Crimea, what took place for that.
	So he started setting his pieces, setting his board.
	And even right now, he had all those pieces set up and waiting.
	And people were like, any night now, any night now, any night now.
	And he held and held and held and made people second guess.
	That was a brilliant strategic move.
	On the flip side of it, Zelensky, one of the biggest decisions that he made By putting weapons into the hands of civilians and issuing them out like they just rolled up into the armory to get weapons was very smart.
	And I'm not talking from the Civil Dispense Act aspect of it.
	Colin Noor, I hope I said his last name right.
	I love that guy.
	But he did a little kind of talk about that as a reaffirmation as far as Second Amendment rights and things like that.
	But I don't think that was necessarily, or at least it's my opinion, that that wasn't necessarily the decision-making process behind him doing that.
	The decision-making process behind doing that is if I put a weapon into the arms of a civilian, now you create a whole police action difficulty because initially this was going to be a uniformed, conventional war.
	Was what was taking place.
	And the minute you take convention out of it, and this is the thing I feel strongly about, like, America right now is not ready for a conventional war.
	We have been fighting an unconventional war, looking for a needle and a stack of needles in regard to irregular warfare.
	And so, like, one of the things that we saw in the transition immediately in Iraq was when the Republican Guard soldiers started taking their uniforms off, and we also had...
	The insurgency is going.
	They would go and stage weapons in cache sites.
	I'm over here and now I'm shooting.
	And then as soon as the weapon goes down and I'm running over to here, now I'm a civilian.
	And I'm a civilian until the second I pick that weapon up.
	So others in the chat can disagree with me on that one, but I lived it, buddy.
	So you create a potential for a human rights violation, so on and so forth.
	It's like, look at them.
	Now they're shooting at civilians.
	And whichever side you're on, whether you're on the Russia side, the Ukraine side, so on and so forth, I feel like that's the other thing that came up to my mind, and I'll leave it at this because I know everybody will probably jump on me like, you need to shut up, Lynn, but I was thinking about this too today.
	I feel like us as a global, like everybody observing this, I feel like it's one of those Twitter videos where you're seeing some kid in a classroom getting beat down.
	And it's being videotaped.
	And everybody else is watching it.
	And you have a few people that are like, hey, no, stop.
	Oh, no, don't do that or whatever.
	But the reality is nobody's intervening, really.
	It's just a bunch of freaking talk.
	And the kid is still getting bashed in the head from behind.
	And what's really going to happen to all this?
	I'm certain Putin thought about what the aftermath was all going to be in this.
	And he still did it.
	If I may ask, I want to get back to this in a second because there's another aspect to that arming the civilians that we're going to get to.
	But for anybody who wants to attack or undermine or who wants to be reassured by your credentials, setting aside your military experience, I presume you still have good connections to people on the ground in the system who are...
	You're not speaking from the layperson's perspective like me.
	You have actual intel that is accurate and on the ground.
	I have to be careful what I'm about to say next, but I just did training for a group of individuals who are actually set to be deployed to a location in Europe because of preparation, which is a common thing that happens in the military.
	People don't freak out.
	That doesn't necessarily mean we're getting involved in this thing, but there's prepositioning that's occurring and other things that is happening.
	Yeah, they've been looking at this kind of stuff seriously for a couple years now.
	This is not something that, as far as the military is concerned, that they didn't see coming.
	Even though our politicians are shocked by it, amazingly.
	The other thing is, especially in terms of the rules of war, what you were describing was why something might give...
	Ukraine a tactical edge.
	People might debate the morality of it, the politics of it, the policy of it, but that's separate from military tactics.
	Because it goes back to the old patent debate and some other debates.
	I mean, you could also go back to Wallace and LeMay and all that.
	But at what point do you make a certain tactical decision that gives you a military edge if that tactical advantage might not be looked at kindly by public opinion and so forth?
	When you're on the ground, how much did that ever fact enter what you're doing, or you're just there to achieve the military objective, not worry about any political fallout of any tactical choice you make?
	I think, simply put, I can distill that down to this.
	Me and my Marines and the enablers I had, because I've worked with more than just Marines, we knew...
	That the way we behaved, the way we interacted, the way we treated the people in any village that we walked into determined whether or not we were walking out of that village under our own power or if we were going home in a dust-off, which is a medevac flight and chances are you're going to end up in a ramp ceremony in a flag-draped coffin.
	So it really does go back to we're talking about people here and recognizing that politics aside and...
	Those things, it does boil down to how you treat people.
	It really does.
	And in that context, the audience you're worried about is that community.
	It's not so much your bosses say politically, this looks good, this looks bad.
	Some story goes viral in social media, the press.
	It's more, how is the community we're going into going to perceive what tactics we utilize in terms of being able to achieve our military attack?
	Well, there's certainly that aspect of it as well, Robert.
	How much of that restraint?
	One common theme in some of the cinematic version of military films since the 1980s has been this ongoing tension between achieving a military objective and some political boss wanting something else done that made the military objective more difficult.
	How did you balance that out when you were in the field?
	There's even individual motivations.
	You could call them biases, whatever you want to call them.
	Stu Scheller, who I've talked to quite often about some of this stuff, when he was going through his thing, which was a huge...
	For him to...
	Step out and speak the way he did.
	He took an amazing shot to the face on that stuff.
	But you also even down to the commander level.
	So we're talking field grade officer level where there is even politics that are involved with that.
	And you realize that there is a driving motivation.
	It's often in mission planning called the commander's intent.
	And you do have to leverage that with the decisions that you make.
	And you realize very quickly, too, that if you make a mistake, you will get burned down without hesitation, even though you're doing your best to execute the mission as you perceived it.
	So those are all things that are taken into account.
	Depending on the level of mission.
	And you look no further than you guys can look it up or your audience.
	Look up Fred Galvin.
	I forget what year it was, but I worked under Fred Galvin.
	And he was in two situations.
	One, under the MARSOC debts when they were accused of war crimes.
	And then two, after all that stuff was cleared, he then...
	He disagreed with our battalion commander in the use of munitions danger close to us.
	And there's a whole bunch of other things involved in that.
	I won't go down that rabbit hole.
	But he essentially got relieved of his command.
	He got told in the talk to the Tactical Operations Center, hey, you're relieved.
	And we lost our operations officer in the first days of our deployment, the last deployment I did in Afghanistan.
	And it took him years to get back.
	From that through military tribunals and courts and so on and so forth.
	So, yeah, there is a lot of things that go on in the background.
	And for people who do not understand the way it works in the military, you are responsible for every round that you put downrange.
	And you have 15-6 investigations and things like that.
	It is almost to the level of what it's like being a law enforcement officer as far as...
	You know, articulation of what you did.
	Just because you're in a combat zone does not mean you have indiscriminate ability to just kill everything that dog don't hunt.
	And is that unique?
	To America?
	Or how much is that universal around the world in your experience?
	Because, like, one theory is that the Mongol army was a very effective army because it wasn't operating under any of those restraints.
	Now, we can argue about the morality and politics of it, but putting that aside.
	But that there is a school of thought out there that we are of unduly restraint.
	Trump even occasionally went this direction.
	Not fully, but now and then.
	And I thought it was worthy of a robust debate more so than just being dismissed.
	Do you think are other militaries around the world under the same self-restraint, number one?
	And number two, to what extent is there a debate to be had on whether or not that self-restraint is always in the best interest of either the soldiers or the people they're serving?
	I won't make the mistake of painting myself into a corner with regard to other services around the world.
	While I have had plenty of experience with other I've worked with Canadians.
	I've worked with Britons.
	I've worked with French.
	I mean, you name it.
	I've worked with them Italians, Albanians, Polish.
	I've worked with a lot of different services around the world.
	And the mentality and the mindset is pretty much the same.
	I will say that.
	With regard to as far as the level of restraint, I would maybe take restraint and replace that with discretion.
	There is an understanding of there's a time and a place of when, okay, we've tipped over from, you know, we, like, there's a portion, like, say, in some type of assault or an attack, like, we have an assault through.
	So you assault through the objective, and you are full on, all out.
	You are going the whole nine yards, which is also a military euphemism.
	If anybody wants to know about where that came from, my grandfather taught me that one.
	But you go the whole nine yards, and then you're waiting for, you consolidate, and you wait for a counterattack.
	Once that assault, once we're at the completion of that, then there is a transition to where it's like, okay, we're not letting our guard down, but we are transitioning from a full-on...
	You know, we're going for it to, like, now we're trying to level, bring the homeostasis to a level kind of keel.
	Like, Operation Phantom Fury is a good example of that in Fallujah.
	But, yeah, so since I threw it, I'll just go ahead and say it if you guys will oblige me.
	The whole nine yards comes from how I heard of it from my grandfather was I came off the bus one day, I got beat up pretty bad.
	That's what happens when you're un poquito.
	You're a little guy.
	Everybody wants to take a shot at the title, right?
	And my grandparents, they watched me and my sister while my mom and dad both worked.
	I came off the bus all bloodied up.
	And my grandfather, he's Roman Catholic.
	He never used expletives, never cursed.
	He never laid hands.
	He never spanked us or anything like that.
	But I was terrified of him because you just know.
	You know what I mean?
	And I knew he was a World War II vet and all those other different things, survived the Depression, but he never talked about it.
	And I came off the bus and he said, son, you come off that bus bloodied up again, I'm going to bloody you up.
	I got my attention.
	And so then he goes, hey, you need to go the whole nine yards.
	And I said, okay.
	And I'm thinking, is that a win one for the Gipper?
	It's like 10 yards to a down.
	What does that mean?
	So I asked him, I said, grandpa, what do you mean by that?
	And he goes, son, in World War II, the P-51 Mustangs had nine yards of ammunition in it.
	So when you say you go the whole nine yards, that means you drop the whole magazine.
	You give everything you got.
	And so those are the things that I think is, my personal opinion, I think is also missing a little bit.
	Not just in our country, but around the world.
	We can't see past our noses.
	Meanwhile...
	And I'm kind of combining two things here.
	We can't see past our noses while at the same time we are too far over our skis in some of these things.
	And we're not paying attention to things.
	Aviva, you saw in the chats earlier before Barnes jumped on, but they were talking about things with the Oliver Stone interviews with Putin.
	And I have to say, if that is true, what Putin said...
	In those interviews, in that documentary about him having a conversation with Bill Clinton about being a part of NATO, and he was basically kind of just waved off on that.
	On one hand, like, okay, whatever.
	But on the other hand, it's like, you want to talk about everybody who's screaming for...
	There to be pressure put on.
	What better pressure than to be a part of an organization like NATO where you have the full capacity of the organization to start with?
	Let's not go to the level of sanctions.
	Just like, hey, listen, you're a part of the organization and you're doing X, Y, and Z and we don't think that's right.
	Same thing, because that was the whole argument about Ukraine joining the NATO.
	And I could be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure way back when, Poland...
	It was initially when it came to NATO, you know, following the heels of World War II was like, we're not so sure about that because both we had Germany come in and supposedly Russia who came in was our saviors and then they did what they did and like, you know what, we're just interested in being a sovereign nation and we don't want to have to rely upon anybody to ensure our well-being.
	We'll take care of it ourselves because we can't trust anybody apparently.
	You know, we could go back and start talking about the European Union and all that other stuff.
	We won't do that.
	I mean, there's only so much time in a stream, but I have one question about arming the citizens.
	I'll just read this super chat.
	Great stream.
	Much of your chat is ignorant to the realities of war.
	Too young, too idealistic.
	Supporters have sent the social workers to respond to 911 calls.
	Hard to say, but great.
	That's great info.
	But now we have a rumble rant.
	On Rumble, and it's going to lead me into this question.
	It's from Dread Robert, which is a Princess Bride reference.
	Very good.
	It says, after draft and weapon distribution, there are no civilians, all clearly legitimate targets after Zelensky's decisions.
	That's more of a moral judgment, but my question is this.
	From your intel, from your sources, from your knowledge, is it true?
	Barnes said it, and people don't believe it, that Zelensky gave these...
	I'm not saying assault rifles, but whatever, AKs.
	He gave weapons to citizens, but that also includes corrupt gang members who then subsequently took them and started shooting up each other and at some point will get citizens caught in the crosshairs.
	Do you have any info on that?
	Do you have any opinion or knowledge of that as to its accuracy?
	I don't have info or knowledge on that as far as to the accuracy.
	I won't pretend to.
	As far as an opinion, well, I would say, you know, how's the saying go?
	Never let a crisis go to waste.
	Never let a good crisis go to waste.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And we saw that.
	There's all little cartels.
	I call them cartels because the difference between a criminal and a terrorist is very subtle.
	Not all criminals rise to the level of a terrorist, but all terrorists exhibit criminal behaviors.
	Whether you're talking about organized crime or so on and so forth, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
	I think that is the other side of that.
	I would not discount that.
	I do think that there is a liability issue involved with that because you just basically made a whole bunch of people who are untrained on one hand legitimate military targets.
	On the other hand, you have individuals that There was no checks or balances that were put into place as to whether or not they should have firearms.
	And at the end of the day, people are going to make decisions based on their own political, ideological, or cultural, religious beliefs or whatever.
	And so, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
	I hope I don't offend anybody.
	It's a shit show.
	It is a legitimate shit show.
	So I feel confident in saying that.
	Several tours in Afghanistan, several tours in Iraq.
	Were you surprised by the outcome in either one of those places in the sense of, particularly the most recent one, the Afghani military that we set up that some had said for a while was not quite the same as an actual military?
	Were you surprised or did it go as you expected in the sense of the complete quick collapse of the regime we'd given a lot of money and weapons to over the years?
	No, I'm not surprised in the manner in both those situations of how things took place because in the manner in which we pulled out.
	I am disappointed because very much so.
	I'll give the example for Iraq.
	When you even look at the changes in their flag, they went from having...
	You know, a flag that represented the Pan-Arab Union.
	It was in Saddam's handwriting.
	They changed it to Kufic handwriting.
	They removed the stars symbolizing the Pan-Arab Union.
	Like, those are very subtle ideological and cultural changes that people probably will never realize.
	But the thing is, is your iconography, the things you wear, the things you do, the things you say, say a lot about you.
	Yeah, like I recommend to people studying people's national anthems and how they've changed over time because they're often very revelatory about the mindset of a population.
	Yeah, and I think it saddens me because when I came back from Afghanistan on my second tour, I got the opportunity before I left the Marine Corps to go to Vietnam.
	And it was really interesting to me to see how I was treated with...
	A lot of grace and dignity and had no issues in Vietnam when I went there.
	And I even saw a lot of Vietnam soldiers who were visiting to go see the old battlefields, the old tunnels and, you know, Ho Chi Minh City and so on and so forth.
	And I thought that was really interesting.
	And they even call it the American War there.
	And I realized right then and there that I would never get the opportunity to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan because of the way that...
	We were dealing with that situation, which is sad.
	I mean, when I was in Iraq, I saw where the hanging gardens of Babylon were.
	I saw where King Nebuchadnezzar's palace was.
	I was very much a student of history before I joined the military.
	That was my favorite subject in school.
	Or even understanding, like, it is the fertile crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
	That's where the anthropologists believe that's where the Garden of Eden was.
	And it wasn't an apple.
	It was a pomegranate.
	That was where it was at.
	Jesus walked through there.
	So, you know, it's sad to me to see how those things transpired.
	And the loss, not just on our side.
	As far as U.S. and coalition forces, but the loss on the, like, there were people that I became very close with, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, and especially in Afghanistan, I look back on photos of me with some of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police that I worked with in all those tours, and I wonder, I find myself asking, I'm like, did this guy even make it?
	Is he alive?
	That sucks.
	Actually, and Lynn, this is one of the questions.
	It might be sort of a diversion or a detour and we'll come back.
	You come back from one tour.
	You don't know when you're going back on a second tour.
	I have two questions.
	How do you reintegrate into society when you come back?
	And then do you come back only thinking, gosh darn it, I just need to go back to another tour.
	When is there going to be another tour?
	Or do you come back saying, I never want to go back again.
	And it's a sort of trauma that you are trying to get over.
	And then lo and behold, tour number two comes up.
	Like, how does that work?
	And I don't know if you can only speak for yourself, but what have you seen among your brethren?
	different.
	I'll speak for myself.
	I know there are a few people that would probably echo this with me because we do talk to each other.
	But there is the feeling of at least when I was over deployed and talking to the people I talked to, dealing with the local nationals that I dealt with.
	At least felt like I knew where I stood with them.
	Whereas even in my own country at times, especially in the last couple years, my goodness, people are so, you know, the vitriol.
	I see it with Allison.
	I mean, Allison's actually in the process right now.
	It was funny.
	She brought me in to look at some of her videos.
	She's like, I've gotten so much heat for just bringing on different personalities to talk about this current conflict, what's going on.
	And she's not taken aside.
	But people are just going after her.
	And she's like, you know what?
	I'm going to create a skit that's called, it's like kind of a J.P. Sears, similar thing.
	Like, the news that we don't know anything about or something to that effect.
	And it's going to be hilarious.
	You guys need to mark your books for it for when it comes out.
	Because she showed it to me and I giggled my ass off.
	And I'm very much a student of comedy.
	I love the oldies.
	I'm into the 80s comedy era movies.
	I think that's the thing.
	I think a lot of people...
	I watch your Man on the Street kind of stuff, Viva, and I feel like you ask the same kind of questions.
	I feel like sometimes even Barnes with some of your detractors, they don't understand why you say the things you say.
	They mistake the fact that some of it is...
	A little over the top for dramatic effect to really, hey, give me your attention.
	Listen to what I'm trying to tell you here.
	But some of it is like, hey, if we can't have a conversation and have a dissenting opinion without it turning into something else, we're losing our humanity here, is reality to me.
	And I've seen some of the most inhumane things in the world, but when you can't sit down and have a conversation with somebody without...
	Somebody in the chat's talking about how they want to, you know, do whatever.
	Like, okay.
	All right there, tough guy.
	I was going to ask about it.
	Let's see it when the rubber meets the road, you know?
	Rogan often talks about these people that, you know, want to get into bar fights and things like that, want to take on boxers or UFC fighters.
	How much when you see the same thing in the context, these armchair warriors, people who are all gung-ho, you see this very militant, militaristic kind of mindset from people who usually have no background whatsoever.
	In actual military conflict.
	It may have been Eisenhower, but somebody who said anybody that's been around war long enough knows to hate war, doesn't welcome it, doesn't want it.
	Maybe the Mongols might have been an exception.
	A few Vikings, too.
	Putting some historical groups aside, what do you see when you see that?
	When you see people so eager to get involved in a war, send people to war?
	Right now, we're recruiting anybody to go to Ukraine.
	Global advertisement.
	You're 15, 16, 18. It doesn't matter.
	Just get on a plane somewhere and somehow go to Ukraine.
	It doesn't matter if you have no military background, never seen a war in your life, you have no idea what that looks like, no idea of what these regions are, don't even speak.
	What do you see when you see people so gung-ho about a nature of conflict between man that people that have actually witnessed it don't want to visit it upon anyone else?
	Ignorance and emotion.
	That's probably the simple...
	I would say they need to go find Jesse Lee Peterson and watch several of his podcasts, deal with their anger issues, and maybe forgive their mother.
	Aside from that, it's just, hey, realize too, I have several friends or people that I've known that they're a little triggered.
	They have experienced combat.
	They're a little triggered about this thing going on in Ukraine.
	And they're like, hey, I want to go over there and do this, that, and the other.
	Like, hey, dude, cool.
	Recognize this.
	You're doing...
	There's ramifications to this.
	Did you know that...
	A couple years ago that Australia was offering to service members, U.S. service members from certain backgrounds, because I got the email and it was legit, that, hey, we'll bring you into the Australian SAS, Special Air Services.
	We'll give you dual citizenship and so on and so forth if you would join us.
	So a quasi kind of French Foreign Legion thing.
	But you do realize that once you do that, you lose your American clearance and there's a whole litany of other things that come into play with that.
	As a cautionary tale, you're going down the same kind of rabbit hole that you're potentially going down as people who decide that I don't like what's going on in Syria and what America's role is in that and so now I'm going to go and join the caliphate.
	Same thing happens for Israel.
	There's a lot of people that join the IDF.
	And I'm not saying any of that's good, bad, or indifferent.
	I'm not saying that.
	All I'm saying is that consider the second and third order effects, because there will be some to that.
	That would be my...
	Guidance, if anybody cared to listen.
	Well, I have grown to appreciate the resentment or the suspicion that people have to dual citizen members, regardless of your dual citizenship, who serve in one government while having dual citizenship.
	I see the problem there, and I can be very sensitive to that problem.
	And not to bring it back then, but I got to know.
	So you come back from your first tour.
	Are you excited or reluctant to go to another tour, not knowing when it's going to happen?
	And what do people like you do to reintegrate?
	Or what do you do in the intern?
	You get back from war.
	What do you do in everyday American life now, not knowing when you're going to get deployed again, if you even want to get deployed again?
	Well, as far as if you want to or don't want to, that decision occurs.
	Basically, you make a decision, well, I'm going to leave active duty service or whatever.
	And there are some people who do that, and that's their choice.
	They serve their time.
	They did it honorably.
	They deserve the recognition for that.
	And whether you serve four years or 30 years, if you served your country, you received an honorable discharge, you rate that.
	That's respect in my eyes.
	As far as, you know, the feelings coming back from all that.
	More often than not, I was very excited to be home.
	I wanted to see my family.
	I can count on my hand, maybe there was a couple of deployments where, leading up to the deployment, I was actually legitimately scared as to what was going to happen.
	And I would argue anybody that says, oh, I wasn't scared of this, that, and the other.
	It's like, one of two things occurred.
	If you're not scared, same thing we say to law enforcement.
	If you're not scared, if your butt's not sucking up the fabric.
	In that driver's seat of your vehicle, when you're doing your job, one of two things is taking place.
	You've even been doing the job for too long, and that's a problem, or there's something else going on there, like you're lying to yourself.
	But the point is, yeah, you do start to look forward to going back because it becomes your job.
	It becomes a part of what you do.
	I would compare it like this.
	You guys are lawyers.
	And depending on what law you're practicing or who you're representing, on one hand, you look at it through the lens of, well, if somebody is coming to me to seek representation, whether it's criminal or civil, chances are for them it's the worst situation.
	It's the worst day of their life.
	It's either jail time or I'm going to pay serious damages.
	Which could ruin my life.
	All these different things.
	Even all the way up to self-actualization, we're looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
	What defines me as me is at stake here.
	On one hand, I could see the trepidation and the moral turpitude for a lawyer being this sucks for this individual and I don't wish bad things to happen to people.
	However, at the same token, This is what I went through eight years of law school for.
	I've passed numerous bar exams, depending on which state I'm practicing in, and put considerable money and investment into my education and training and my ability to adjudicate and speak eloquently in a courtroom as a trial lawyer or plea bargain or whatever.
	And you want to be tested.
	You do the job because you realize that whether you're a lawyer or not, these situations are going to take place, which brings about the whole need for the industry.
	So, okay, well, if that's what's needed, then send me in.
	I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do the best that I can do by my clients because their alternative is they get steamrolled.
	So it really just boils down to motivations.
	And looking at it that way versus, hey, you know, the misconception is that, like, when you're talking about military or law enforcement or even security, like, oh, they're looking to get into something.
	No.
	The belief system usually is altruistic moving into it.
	Now, it sometimes turns into something else, but that happens over time.
	And that can happen to anybody.
	The first time you went into a tour of duty, what was the thing that surprised you or caught you by surprise or was unexpected the most?
	Are you talking combat or are you talking regular deployment?
	Because there's two different things.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Just regular deployment.
	Just like the first time, you're no longer in the States, you're on the plane, you're at wherever you're at.
	What caught you by...
	I'll give an example, just a random example, that doesn't relate to military.
	People that come from certain countries around the world, Africa, Latin America, where there's not as much resources.
	One of the first things that shocks them is the massive amount of things in a grocery store.
	That blows their mind, all the diversity.
	So what was it that it was like, okay, this is totally different than what I expected, something that was surprising, good or bad.
	But hold on, before you get there, explain the difference between regular deployment and active duty, because I don't know what the distinction is.
	So when I joined, we were not in quote-unquote combat.
	So it was just, as far as the Marine Corps works, I was going back to that.
	Pre-positioning, you have marine expeditionary units that are special operations capable, and they are working with an amphibious readiness group.
	They are there to be ready to go.
	So if you remember back in the days, like the Gulf War, when you saw SEALs and other special operations coming onto the coastline in Kuwait and even in Iraq, which Iraq, I could be wrong, but it's like 36 miles of coastline that they do have in the Gulf.
	That's that pre-positioning.
	There are amphibious readiness groups all around the world that are ready to go to shorten up that time gap.
	They call it the Americas 911, basically.
	So that's what I'm referring to as far as a regular deployment where there's no specific location we're going to.
	We're just kind of mainly doing training, working with other militaries, and we're just there.
	We're like a beat cop on patrol is basically the way to look at that.
	So as far as that regular deployment feeling goes, it's such a new thing, but then you realize very quickly once you get on the ground.
	My first overseas port of call was in Spain, and my limited Spanish is un poquito as well.
	So I resemble that comment, I realize.
	You realize very quickly that people are people and people are the same everywhere you go.
	The biggest thing that was difficult for me was understanding the Spanish lira at that time because we didn't have the euro then.
	So every place you went to had a different conversion rate.
	And then there was the other fact that the assumption was that everybody thought you were an ugly American and people hated Americans.
	Not quite the case.
	Not the reality.
	As a matter of fact, people were very fascinated and wanted to know.
	I think people like the idea of America.
	And I think that's exactly why 9-11 struck people so hard.
	I've talked about that across the world.
	And people, even though they have no aspirations to become American, they love their country they're from.
	But that day really affected everybody because they're like, you know, just the idea of it.
	So compare that to like combat.
	It's a little different.
	Yeah, what was it?
	No matter how many times you've done it, you remember Finding Nemo?
	Yeah.
	You know the part where Bruce shows up, which by the way, the Bruce character, the shark in that, is a throwback to the Jaws character in Jaws because they named the mechanical shark Bruce, just in case anybody wanted to know that.
	I'm a bit of a movie buff.
	But there's a part where Bruce is like, hello there, my name's Bruce.
	How would you two like to come with me to a little get-together?
	Right?
	And when they show up, you got...
	Hook and the other character there where there's a little guppy that's like...
	Like that?
	When you go to combat...
	Yeah, when you go to combat, whether it's the first time or even the fifth or sixth time, there's a little part of you that's that little guppy that's just like, okay, what are we doing?
	Everything wants to kill me.
	What's up with that soda can over there?
	What's up with that piece of trash?
	Everything wants to blow up.
	There is a slight difference there, but there's similarities.
	Where was your first act of duty?
	As far as for combat?
	Yeah.
	The first one was the initial invasion into Iraq in 2003.
	What was that whole thing like?
	How much of it was you're just absorbed in your little part of the world, you're focusing on your mission, what your objective is, the rest of the world vanishes, or how much of it is you're part of all of it, you're connected to all of it, you're absorbing all of it?
	It was fast.
	And it was scary.
	And we were in mop level 4 gear for the first 7 or 8 days.
	Sorry, you've got to stop there.
	What did you just say?
	Mob level 4 gear?
	Military occupational protective posture.
	Level 4 is basically you're gas masked up and you're head to toe covered up because you're expecting chemical warfare.
	You had 2-pam chloride and...
	Epinephrine pens on you in case you got hit with a nerve agent.
	And they were actively launching stuff at us.
	I just got to stop you right there.
	That is what you're describing is a life and death at any moment, 24-7, every day.
	How do you sleep?
	How do you think straight?
	Or do you just come to grips with the fact that you might die at any given second?
	Oh yeah, there's been several occasions where, so on my 30th birthday, this is Afghanistan, so I know it's a different time and place, but it's a similar thing.
	On my 30th birthday, I'll save the whole totality of the situation, but I found myself pinned down in the middle of a field laying behind corn furrows.
	So if you guys...
	Not to insult anybody's intelligence here, but when they disc and harrow a field, because my dad grew up on a farm, we did stuff on a farm, so we understand that.
	So the little valleys, the little kind of things that the corn grows out of, right?
	The rises and falls in the field, they do that in Afghanistan.
	In fact, their planting times are very similar to ours when it comes to wheat and corn.
	Poppy plants and so on and so forth.
	And I got pinned down in this field and I'm taking fire and I can feel it hitting against the corn furrow that I'm laying against and I'm getting myself as small as possible.
	I took a round through my helmet and then that was the first hit I took.
	I took another round through my cargo pocket after I got up and ran for a little bit.
	My team was laying down suppression fire.
	And I managed to make it back.
	My point man, who is 19 years old, had a 19-year-old wife and a daughter that he hadn't met yet.
	Petrie was his call sign.
	He came out.
	I'm like, what the F are you doing here?
	And he's like, what the F are you doing?
	Why are you?
	You know, because they thought I was done.
	They thought I was dead.
	And I remember very significantly in that specific circumstance, there are others like it, but that one, the most so of me sitting there like the first time the round.
	Actually, here.
	I got it right here.
	Shut up.
	Hold on.
	No, bring it closer to your face.
	Bring it back a little bit.
	So that is where the round went through my MVG bracket that was mounted on the front of my helmet.
	What's an MGB bracket?
	Night vision goggles.
	So on the front of my helmet, I had my night vision devices, because we were getting ready to transition to darkness.
	And so this is on my 30th birthday, July 26th of 2011.
	And you're six inches away from, and I don't want to be graphic, but you're six inches away from a violent death.
	Yep, and I just said to myself, so this is how it's going to be.
	And, well, I got one of two choices.
	So make it happen or it's going to be academic at this point.
	You know, hope, good Lord willing, you pray, you don't pray, God, Allah, Vishnu, Dolphin, and Lamp.
	That's up to you.
	But hope somebody's up there ready to go for me and help me get out of this.
	You become very, you know, cognizant of your own mortality very quickly.
	In the round I took through my cargo pocket, I didn't even want to look at it.
	It hurt so bad.
	I thought I was hit.
	I put a tourniquet on it without even looking at it.
	And then when I walked into the compound that we were staying in, All my guys in my platoon commander were looking at me like, what the F over?
	And I was like, well, I made it to 30. Didn't think that was going to happen, but it happened.
	I think some things you're prepared for, some things you aren't.
	The character of a man or a woman is totally dependent on the moment.
	As the saying goes, either you define the moment or the moment defines you.
	I'm nobody.
	I'm nothing special.
	Working for Recon Sniper Foundation and doing some of the other things that I do, I see who the special people are out there.
	They're everyday people walking down the street just like all the rest of us.
	I think that's the thing to keep in mind.
	I think we're losing our humanity in all this stuff.
	The politics, stuff going on in Ukraine, stuff going on with our politics within our own country.
	I'm shocked by the fact that things are taking place in Canada the way they are, Viva, and nobody from America is saying anything about it.
	That blows my mind.
	I have to say that because I'm watching your videos and it's irritating me.
	We talked several months ago.
	I don't know if you remember.
	A lot of things have taken place, but I was like, hey, let's go up and let's link up because I know you like to run and do different things.
	I was like, hell yeah, we'll make it happen all figured out, but you guys are in such lockdown.
	I remember it very well.
	I have a good memory when it comes to some things and then totally nincompoop when it comes to others.
	And in fairness, Fox News was up there in Ottawa doing some decent work.
	Steve Bannon, War Room.
	They vowed not to let the world ignore what's going on in Canada, and they did an amazing job.
	No, but it is losing our humanity.
	We're willingly running ourselves into tyranny for the prospect of security, but the people who are doing it, they don't even see it because they've never had the experience that you have had.
	It's almost too much to deal with.
	My question to you, though, the bottom line from these experiences, do you live in a constant state of trauma-terror, or are you almost at peace with existence and can deal with anything?
	I don't think anybody can deal with anything after this, but how do you mitigate this?
	Are you sort of more on the lines of, you know, I've seen the worst and life can only get better, or constant state of terror because I've actually seen what I've seen?
	You know, I wake up every morning that I'm home because I travel three to three and a half weeks out of the month to provide for my family and train law enforcement across this country.
	And the days I get to wake up next to my wife and my daughter, that's freedom.
	And I will protect that at all costs.
	And as far as how I feel about all those other things, I think anybody that knows knows.
	I think I would do a disservice to them if I tried to articulate that in the same way because I don't feel prepared to say that.
	But I say it's all...
	I do think it's all...
	We're all...
	People are people, man.
	You know, the same motivations that you have with regard to your family are no different than mine or Robert's or anybody else.
	And so we just, you know...
	Yeah, that's a tough one.
	That's a deep one that's going to have me thinking.
	I don't think anybody in the stream or whatever may realize how profound that question actually is.
	As far as how I deal with some of those other things, man, I just deal with it.
	I don't have it figured out.
	I certainly have tough times with it, but I know there are others out there that are tougher.
	Dealing with it tougher.
	As a matter of fact, one I'm speaking with today.
	As a matter of fact, a family is dealing with today trying to get their veteran from a state hospital to a VA hospital and everybody is refusing to talk about it.
	And I think for a lot of the people watching, they're like, okay, all this...
	Crap that's going on externally and so on and so forth.
	Like, it's important.
	That's what we have leaders for or whatever.
	But what's going on in our own country right now?
	And what are we doing to help it versus what are we doing to make it worse?
	Or what part of it is a political agenda?
	You know, you throw...
	As Trump would say, little Marco up there, you know, in the very beginning, you know, you start to really, you know, I think it would be interesting with our politicians, whether it's in Canada or the U.S., imagine if everybody said, hey, guess what?
	We're going to treat this just like we treat any other service we pay for.
	Like, if I hired either one of you as my lawyers, my legal representation, and you weren't cutting a mustard, whether it was legitimate or not, I just said, I don't like what you're doing.
	So guess what?
	You're fired.
	I stopped paying you.
	I stopped paying retainer, so on and so forth.
	Well, that's going to get your attention real quick.
	But somehow, all these folks that were supposedly paying for service of representing us, they've forgotten that.
	Imagine if everybody just tomorrow morning woke up and said, hey, until you start representing me the way I want you to represent me, You're going to get no paid dues.
	Across from everything that happened with COVID, in my mind, the thing that I do know is this.
	I lost 17 courses in the first couple months of COVID.
	It almost sank my business.
	Not because of anything I did.
	Not because I had a terrible business model.
	Not because of whatever.
	It was because of COVID and the summer of love.
	Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies were crying, screaming for training.
	They didn't have enough people on the streets to be able to do training, or they didn't have the money because people were trying to defund police.
	The funny thing is, in all of that, none of our politicians had to worry about where their paychecks were coming from.
	That's a problem.
	Why did you choose to leave the military and do something else?
	That wasn't my choice.
	It's a thing called service limitations.
	It's not exactly exciting to talk about, but basically the Obama-Biden administration, they started their drawdowns.
	And so what they do is they lower what's called service limitations.
	So I was at 12 years.
	I had 13 years to make rank to the next rank.
	They lowered the service limitations that year.
	I was at board for promotion where I would have received higher tenure.
	I was eight years away from promotion.
	Eight years.
	Two enlistments.
	They lowered the service limitations from 13 years to 8 years.
	Me and several other hundred at that time sergeants felt the same fate.
	And they said, oh, well, now you're at 8 years service limitations, so thank you for your service.
	Goodbye.
	So you get a pink slip.
	You get an honorable discharge, but...
	You don't have the opportunity to re-enlist.
	And they whacked out, when that happened, they whacked out all of the leadership, all the people who spent the last, at that point in time, 12 plus years of war fighting.
	Because, well, all the people that are at higher tenure, it's just like getting laid off from business, right?
	All the people who are already at higher tenure, we have to pay their retirements.
	All the people we just paid to put them through training, well, we just brought them in.
	So, you know, we don't have to worry about them.
	A lot of them we're going to lose.
	So, yeah, that's what happened.
	You mentioned earlier, and Colonel McGregor has made the same point, that he does not think the U.S. military is currently well-equipped, in part due to personnel issues, to fight a conventional war.
	Could you explain your reasoning on that?
	I think you have to look no further than the Marine Corps and their decision, oh, by the way, we don't need tanks anymore.
	So they got rid of them.
	Because North Korea, Iran, Soviet Union, China, they got rid of their tanks, right?
	Oh, but we've been fighting a war where tanks weren't really useful because that's where I go back to, hey, we can't see past our noses yet at the same time we're over our skis.
	During that same period of time when I was fighting in two combat zones, two combat zones in the Middle East, They were also trying to hamstring specifically the reconnaissance communities and other special operations communities that had mainly amphibious mission.
	And they said, well, amphibious is not as important to the mission now, so we're going to start removing some of those requirements from the, it's called, like, in your level skills, it's kind of, think like college, like you go to a 100 level, 200 level, 300 level course.
	In the military, those skills are, like, specifically in the Marine Corps, you have 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 level requirements.
	So they said, well, we're not in an amphibious operation right now as far as combat goes, so why are we requiring recon marines to have to do a 15-minute for 500 meters swim standard, so on and so forth.
	And then when we said, well, that's a requirement to be a marine combat diver to be able to go through open circuit and closed circuit diving.
	For insertion capabilities and are like, okay, well then we'll just pull that capability from the reconnaissance community.
	That's one big example.
	And the number one question on our locals board, which is Viva Barnes Law.
	Dotlocals.com.
	Dotlocals.com.
	You can follow Allison at, you know, like son of Muhammad Ali, Ali's son.
	Is it AllisonMoral.locals.com?
	Yeah, that's it.
	But how much when you were going through it is there's a lot of concern that I've heard from people that are in the military and family members, etc.
	And they've had two big concerns since the Biden administration particularly, but some of this was percolating before then.
	One is this sort of wokester belief structure and this kind of super trying to convert the military into believing certain things politically, socially, culturally now as part of their military duty.
	How much did you have to deal with that and how much have you heard complaints about it from people that are in it now?
	How much of a problem is it?
	And then secondly, well, I'll get into the second one later.
	Let's deal with that one first.
	Well, let me say this.
	That there needs to be a zero tolerance for the way we treat people in the military.
	That's first and foremost.
	You know, there's a lot of preconceptions as far as what actually makes somebody ground combat MOS versus not so and so forth.
	I actually spoke with the instructors because they were fellow Marines of mine, peers of mine, when I was an instructor at the Reconnaissance Center of Excellence.
	And they were there.
	I forget her name, so please forgive me for that.
	When the first female Marine went through recon training.
	And I talked to those guys and they're like, hey, we didn't pull any punches.
	She kicked ass.
	And not only did she kick ass, she...
	Because there is, for a long time, and there still is, two standards.
	Like, for example, males between females as far as physical fitness standards and so on and so forth.
	I went to SEER school back in 2002 in Maine.
	And that's all I'll say about that.
	But she kicked ass.
	And I know these guys, they would not put it...
	So on that hand, hey, if you meet the standard, you meet the standard.
	Now the problem lies for me is when we start lowering standards or so on and so forth.
	And the other thing that lies that I view as a big problem is the military, whether it's Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, whatever, Space Force, is not a social experiment.
	They have a single task and purpose, and that is warfighting for whatever.
	You know, in the U.S., it's U.S. military.
	Like, dude, we did cross-training with Canadian forces when I was at the School of Infantry.
	In Camp Pendleton, as we did with Israeli Defense Forces.
	And it is what it is.
	A warfighter, a soldier is a soldier, you know?
	So, you know, I think that we need to put away some of these other non-priorities to warfighting and focus on that, while at the same time holding people accountable to like, well...
	We're still in the business of treating people humanely and with respect.
	And that's, again, I go back to that's the biggest respect.
	There's photos of it and videos of it and all kinds of things where you see soldiers who are in the midst of the most hellacious combat, but showing levels of humanity that that is what makes us who we are.
	And, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are.
	Closet philosophers anyways.
	There was one question.
	One super chat.
	One Rumble rant on Rumble, which I keep losing.
	It says, someone else that thinks getting rid of tanks was a bad idea.
	Semper Fi Lin.
	Don't forget the Delos.
	Go on, sir.
	So the...
	With the Marine Corps, it's Semper Fi Delis.
	Always faithful.
	It's Latin for always faithful.
	But we shorten it to Semper Fi.
	So that's a joke, an inside joke of like, okay, one guy says, hey, Semper Fi Mac, or whatever.
	Yep, Semper Fi, don't forget the Delis.
	Because it's a key part to that.
	Did you know, by the way, the Marine Corps hymn could be sung to the tune of...
	The Flintstones, God rest ye merry gentlemen, and Gilligan's Island.
	That's a whole other story.
	I'll save that for another time.
	Which does trigger another question.
	What percentage of Marines are at least a little bit crazy?
	In my experience, there's a little bit just enough of the right kind of crazy in the Marines that I've had the privilege of interacting with.
	You know, I don't know.
	It's like...
	I don't know how to express that.
	That people who are drawn to the Marines have just like a little bit of an edge, a little bit of, you know, just a little bit more so than some of the other...
	I'll tell you what, I'll defer you to my mother on that, Robert, and she would be more than happy to wider my level of insanity.
	If I analogize it to the practice of law, I will say anyone who's in there after five years, all of them.
	The only ones who are not crazy, who don't get off on the practice of law, they tend to find other alternative practices in life.
	And the ones that stay there and seek partnership...
	Love the practice.
	Robert, I'm looking at you right now.
	They might be a little bit of crazy, but it depends on what end of the spectrum of crazy they are.
	Crazy malicious, crazy determined, crazy stubborn, crazy I'm going to stand up to the bully.
	That's a broad question, Robert, but I think I know where you are, Robert.
	I think I know where you are, Lynn, and I think I know where I am.
	I hated it.
	When you were saying...
	You know, the people who leave with honorable discharges and you never want to see it again versus those who look forward to seeing it again.
	Yeah, I mean, we all put ourselves on one end of the spectrum.
	Well, they earned that right to feel that way.
	And I think to tie that in a bow, what you were just saying, Viva, if you would oblige me, is like, you know, there's a lot of lawyer jokes out there, right?
	There's certainly a negative connotation to the law, attorneys, and so on and so forth.
	And the thing is, yeah, nobody likes a lawyer until you need one.
	And nowadays, nobody likes a cop until you're calling 911.
	And so it's just kind of...
	That's the way I look at it.
	So that's my story.
	I'm sticking to it.
	And if I may, if I may analogize it to one thing, nobody likes a border until someone's crossing yours in an aggressive way.
	And they're like, wait a minute, we should respect borders.
	Nobody likes firearms until it's like, holy crap, we're being invaded.
	Let's go arm every citizen.
	And then it's like, yeah, there it's good.
	But because we don't have that urge.
	Yeah.
	Now, the second question on our VivaBarnesLaw.Locals.com board was the what do you think about people that have military background that enter politics?
	Do you think that gives them any advantage or is it just kind of neutral because, you know, their politics tend to be all over the board?
	You get people that are really pro-war.
	Dan Crenshaw, I don't think he's like John McCain, hasn't found a war he can't.
	He can't celebrate.
	You have people like J.D. Vance, who, because of his experience in Iraq, is very skeptical of American elite's decisions to send kids overseas.
	In any sense, the degree to which...
	That military background helps them versus it's like anybody else.
	It's like anything else.
	It depends on who they are.
	Well, actually, perfect timing because, Viva, can you pop that one back up of funky blue?
	Was it this one?
	Here we go.
	Yes, Juan.
	Yep.
	The military is most certainly a social experiment because you find yourself...
	But when I joined the military, my first platoon in the infantry was half Crips, half Bloods, and some Latin kings sprinkled in there.
	I know it's kind of Fox News level percentages, but you get where I'm at.
	Are you being hyperbolic?
	Or is it just the way it was divided up?
	Or was it literally gang members in the military?
	It was literally...
	Because what the Marine Corps was doing at that time, because you have two schools in the Marine Corps, you have the East Coast and you have the West Coast, you have Parris Island, you have San Diego.
	And a lot of guys in my platoon, yeah, I was being a little hyperbolic, but there were quite a few members in my platoon that were all former gang members on the streets, so on and so forth.
	Watts, Compton, Altadena, like, I won't throw names because I don't know what those...
	Where those dudes are right now, but I love those guys.
	And the reason why I say it's a social experiment is you had to be able to interact and work with people who came from a completely and totally different walk of life from you.
	They prayed to a different God.
	I mean, I had Muslims in my platoon.
	Baptists to Catholic to you name it in there.
	Some people were in there who weren't even citizens yet.
	My RTO, my radio telegraph operator in my second recon team that I was in, the second recon team that I had, he was British and didn't have his citizenship yet and was getting ready to go to Iraq the second time with me.
	It was his first time.
	And I was like, you are not going to Iraq and fighting for a country that you do not have citizenship in yet.
	So when I say that's a social experiment, that's what I mean by that.
	It's a melting pot of people who can, again, relay on the same thing.
	Going back to what you said, Barnes, because I think that I was trying to dovetail into that, but it kind of took me off kilter.
	Can you just repeat what you said?
	I apologize, but I saw that comment and I had to say something.
	Oh, I mean...
	Well, I mean, a good transition of what you said.
	In my experience, the best of the military, when it applies universal standards, is that it's a very democratizing, very American experiment.
	When it goes AWOL is when somebody wants to superimpose some other definition and starts changing standards to make a point.
	You know, men as women and whatnot and all of that jazz and some of this other stuff doesn't make a lot of sense, especially, like, at least around the world.
	China, Russia laughs at some of our current military commercials.
	You know what I mean?
	I mean, whereas you look at the Russian military, they got guys out there with their pet bear helping them train.
	That's their idea of an advertisement.
	I saw that video on TikTok with the dude on the branch and he's like...
	I was like, that's an impressive video.
	Whereas you compare that, you know, this gangster nonsense.
	You know, I'm like, this is no wonder they don't, you know, they're not going to be terrified.
	I mean, I mean, down deep, there's still every there's not a country that isn't terrified of the American military, including Russia down deep.
	To what degree does this whole wokester go against what makes the military good?
	You can have a democratizing treatment that doesn't discriminate against anybody that's deeply American versus remaking it in the image of some wokester politician or someone like Madeleine Albright who thinks soldiers are just little risk things to play around with and send them around.
	I remember because you also, in both, you talked about McCain, which I love John McCain as far as, like, I even read his book, Flags of Our Fathers.
	And, you know, I even know, like, I'm sure you're familiar with General Chuck Yeager, but I actually know his son and his grandson.
	I worked with both of them.
	And they served as well.
	And so you're talking about amazing individuals, but everybody has a shelf life.
	So that's one thing.
	The other thing is we are a...
	We are a conglomeration of our own experiences and our own lives.
	So that's another thing.
	And that stuff has relevance and it has meaning and it should never be forsaken in my eyes.
	I tell law enforcement officers when they walk into a classroom, listen, I'm not here to tell you, I'm not a bearded Moses that's telling you the way you've been doing it for the conglomerate.
	I'll walk into a room like...
	I've taught thousands of law enforcement officers stood in front of them.
	We're talking thousands of years of law enforcement experience.
	I'm not going to sit up here in front of you and tell you the way you've been doing it for quote-unquote thousands of years is irrelevant and that I'm Moses and I'm going to show you the way.
	Your experiences matter and they're relevant and all those people's experiences matter and they're relevant.
	However, that being said, we have a common goal here and I think that should be remembered.
	And not the exception to the rule.
	And that's where I think...
	And you look at the average person.
	The average person who joins the military, they're joining the military part and parcel to prove themselves.
	So you will see a sense...
	And there's stats for this.
	I don't know where.
	I will admit to that.
	But I know the research is out there.
	I do know that.
	I can't point anybody exactly to it.
	But there's stats where it shows, and I've seen it myself in training young men, specifically because that's who I was training, is that if they don't feel like they've been challenged, they feel like they've been shorted.
	Everybody wants a shot at the title, but they want to know that the title was legitimate.
	If you jump into the ring with Floyd Merriweather and you knock him out in two punches or he lays down for you, then what did you really accomplish?
	That's why back in the day, the old Marine Corps commercials were the Marine fighting the dragon.
	And he had the Marmaluk sword, which is an officer's sword.
	That thing's got significance and symbolism and background.
	Not to use a...
	Boondock Saints reference, I believe the word you were looking for was symbolism, not symbology, right?
	just like the NCO sword harkens back to the, that's the oldest weapon in the military edge weapon that is still in use.
	You have the battle of Chapultepec, the bloodstripe on the trousers of the Marines, like the leatherneck itself.
	The reason why Marines are called leathernecks is because during battles at sea in the Revolutionary War, they wore high collared leathernecks to protect their carotid and jugular in battle.
	That was, at that point in time, the flak jacket for the Marines.
	Those things have symbolism and meaning and people...
	View those as important.
	And when they go into a job set like that, they want to be challenged.
	They want to feel like they earned it.
	And if you make it so easy for them that anybody could do it, well, yes, anybody can do it, but you got to meet the standard.
	You got to pass the test because if you don't, we are, as they say, I forget who made the quote, but we are one generation away from annihilation.
	I think that's a variation of Ronald Reagan, never being one generation away from losing freedom.
	And by the way, Boondock Saints, if anybody hasn't seen it, it's a classic.
	You should see it.
	And I was just looking this up, by the way, Robert, when you mentioned wrestling bears, look, I love Conor McGregor.
	But there's a reason why Khabib Nurmagomedov, I keep screwing with his last name, there's a reason why he beat him.
	And that dude was literally wrestling bears as a child.
	Where people think, oh, that's terrible, that's abuse.
	And then meanwhile, it turned him into the most vicious UFC fighter out there for a reason.
	I love Conor, and he's great.
	Everybody reaches their plateau at some point in time, but I love Conor without exception.
	Have you ever seen Joe Rogan's video about when he was the scariest look he's ever seen in a UFC fight?
	I don't know if it was a Silva fight or whatever, but like, I think it just happened.
	The dude was a former Russian, like prisoner or something like that.
	I could be wrong.
	So don't quote me on that, but there's some scary individuals out there, man.
	Just saying.
	Yeah.
	No doubt.
	One of the other most popular questions on our locals board was, how did you meet Allison?
	And the subsidiary question was, which hypnosis technique did you use to convince her to marry you?
	Two parts.
	So, I met Allison totally by accident.
	I was doing training for, so Ryan Tate, you can check him out.
	Go to Instagram, look up VetPaw.
	Those guys are doing amazing, great work.
	It's been an amazing experience for me to be a part of that as the Director of Operations and just working for that nonprofit organization.
	But, so, a friend of mine, we were doing training.
	We were part of a training company.
	I was doing maritime security, executive protection, kidnap and ransom due diligence, and things like that.
	And he's like, hey, this group wants you to come over and wants us to do some training for them.
	We're going to do it pro bono because they're a non-profit.
	Are you down with teaching them some human behavior stuff and teaching some man tracking?
	And I was like, sure, I'll do that.
	So we go there.
	And it's in Florida.
	And I meet Ryan.
	And what's funny is we didn't realize it because we're sitting around the campfire that night as a lag in training.
	It was a several-day event.
	And he's like, I know this dude from somewhere.
	He actually bumped into me when I was going through sniper school way back when.
	I'll save that story for another time because it's a pretty cool story.
	And by the way, you do have to come back on by consensus of the chat.
	So we'll save that for another day.
	Okay.
	So we will save that story for another day.
	Maybe we'll bring Ryan on because he can talk about things going on in Africa and stuff like that.
	He worked in the State Department and different things in that nature.
	But at any rate, me and Ryan were Marines.
	We're sitting there talking.
	Well, Allison showed up.
	She was working for King 5 at that time.
	And they basically hooked her up to go down there to cover the training event because of how big of a deal whatever was.
	There was a resident from Washington who was a part of the group.
	So the first time I saw her, I was like, who is that?
	And so, quite frankly, I'll be honest, you're damn right, I tricked her.
	Because I met her and I was like, this is way above my pay grade.
	That's a Marine-ism.
	We got along and everybody was watching this thing because my friends even told me afterwards, like, dude, you need to talk to her.
	Like, she's digging you.
	You're digging her.
	And I had a good friend from Kentucky.
	We had some legit moonshine.
	We were playing hook and ring.
	And hook and ring is a game, for those of you that don't know, where you got literally a hook on a wall, a ring hanging from a string, and you're trying to get the ring to hook.
	Land on the hook and there's rules to the game and so on and so forth.
	And I'm pretty good at it.
	Sniper.
	But Allison's like, okay, well, we're doing yoga hook and ring.
	What she did not know at the time was that I was very much into yoga.
	So now she's rattling off all these poses and I'm still spanking her.
	And so we ended up exchanging information.
	And so I like to say that I tricked her into falling in love with me over some moonshine and hook and ring.
	But the funny thing is about Allison, because you guys have gotten to know her really well.
	So a couple months went by, and again, she was living in Seattle.
	I'm living in Florida, so couldn't be further apart from each other.
	And it was pretty evident that our friendship, our budding friendship, was going from a friendship to something else.
	And I was still dealing with some stuff, and I was trying to be honest with her, and I knew she had other stuff going on.
	I was like, hey, listen.
	I don't want to give the wrong impressions here or whatever, so how would it be if we just kind of took it easy for a little bit, stayed friends, it's clearly going in a different direction, but I don't want to, you know, I know long-term relationships and all this stuff is hard, so what do you think about that?
	She says to me, I have enough friends, especially in Florida, I don't need another one in Florida, and click, hung up on me.
	And we didn't talk for, I don't know, six or eight months.
	But I got my stuff together, and then I texted her back, and I was like, hey, listen, I want to come see you.
	And from there, it is history.
	It is the best thing that ever happened to me.
	By popular demand of the chat, I have to bring up a picture of Allison so people can know.
	By the way, people, don't put too much emphasis on physical beauty.
	Physical beauty is very nice.
	Spiritual and emotional beauty is what is more important.
	It can turn a physically average person into someone great.
	But I'll say, I know Alison, she's got both.
	And I'm allowed saying that because I'm married and happily married.
	This is Alison Morrow.
	She does.
	But just so everybody can appreciate this.
	No, but Lynn, I've got to ask the question because I'm shocked.
	I haven't met you in person yet.
	And I'm just shocked at every time I meet someone in person.
	At how big they are compared to how big I presume they are based on what I think people are.
	Are you over six feet tall?
	You are.
	You are over six.
	You're not five, five and a half like I thought you were.
	I am five foot six, my friend.
	Lynn, I tell you what, man, I knew it.
	I told you.
	Un poquito, dude.
	Okay, I know you speak.
	I don't know how you say it in French.
	Right?
	But in Spanish, un poquito means small, bro.
	You're still a half an inch taller than me.
	I think I can stretch my back.
	We see eye to eye on a lot of things of Viva.
	No, no, it's amazing.
	First of all, it's fantastic.
	And my goodness, so not everyone in America is six foot...
	I saw Barnes.
	He's over six feet.
	I saw...
	Robert, who else?
	Well, Barnes is kind of a big deal, you know?
	Tim Pool is a lot taller than I think a lot of people expected.
	Oh, dude, that's right.
	You guys were on...
	I saw that.
	I just have to say that was cool.
	James O 'Keefe.
	I thought James O 'Keefe was...
	He's a football player compared to me.
	It's amazing.
	He reached out to Allison.
	Do you guys know that?
	I'm probably going to get in trouble for bringing that up.
	Don't say anything you're getting in trouble for.
	This is an exclusive.
	One hour, 55 minutes, people.
	Clip it.
	Clip it now.
	Okay, sorry.
	What were you saying, Glenn?
	No.
	He reached out to her.
	Oh, dude.
	She's...
	Yeah.
	That's...
	I tell you what.
	If...
	Of all the things in my life that I've been through, we actually talked about this.
	I had a conversation with somebody about it because they were talking about, oh, I would change this and I would change that.
	I have made some mistakes in my life.
	I love the whole saying, oh, I live with no regrets.
	Bullshit, you haven't lived.
	That's my thing.
	There are certainly some things that on one hand I would do differently.
	On the other hand, That right there, the producer, as we affectionately call her, if anything I changed in my life changed that outcome or the outcome I have with Allison, I would happily go through that and more just to be where I'm at right now.
	So, yeah, it wasn't ideal.
	Things suck sometimes, but you can't re-adjudicate the past.
	You have to look at the here and now, and that's what's important.
	Dude, she is so rad.
	She's running around all over the place, going crazy.
	She loves climbing.
	Oh my gosh, she climbs all over everything.
	I'm like, you're going to bust your nugget, man.
	It does get tough sometimes.
	I'm on the road a lot, so we do a lot of FaceTime.
	But it's really cool when you hear that, daddy, daddy, on the FaceTime, and she tries to kiss the phone, so you'll just see her forehead, because she's...
	You'll explain to people now watching what your schedule's like.
	That's one of the things that got me from the trucker's convoy, is that a lot of these truckers, they spend weeks away from home.
	They know their kids.
	The kids are growing up without them through help of family and friends.
	They see them digitally.
	By the way, Eric Hunley, Who's also on Locals.
	I believe it's erichunley.locals.
	It's unstructured.locals.
	My man Eric.
	I've had a few beers with him.
	I love that guy.
	Well, right now he says, you and Lynn are very close in height.
	I've met both of you.
	Eric Hunley's the other dude.
	I think we paired a hotel room at Tim Pool.
	Eric Hunley's another 6 '6".
	I don't know what's going on in America.
	But Lynn...
	Thank you for making me feel more at home.
	But, Lynn, tell people what your schedule's like in terms of what you're doing so people can appreciate what you're doing, where, I don't know if you're open to civilians, but, you know, if you want to promote it, where people find you, what you're doing, and what that schedule looks like for a dad, a husband, and a 24-7 working individual.
	Well, so I'm going to pull a play out of Robert's book.
	So you can find out more about what I do at www.slcsquared.com.
	That is whiskey, whiskey, whiskey.sierra, Lima, Charlie, Sierra, Quebec, Uniform, Alpha, Romeo, Echo, Delta.com.
	And if you go on there, we have a training schedule that has a calendar that has everything that we have going on.
	We also, if you go to www.slcsquared.io...
	You and Robert also have links to that.
	I've sent you some of the e-learning stuff that we do, so they can go and check that stuff out and find out more about what we're doing.
	You lost me after the Romeo.
	It's www.slcsquared.com.
	Is it squared like it's in the word S-Q-A-R-M-E?
	I'm an idiot.
	Sorry.
	I was so happy.
	I knew international code.
	Then you lost me.
	I just put it to you in the private chat there, Viva.
	Okay, so let me go get that right now.
	How do I find private chat?
	Okay, I got it there.
	Boom.
	SLCsquared.com.
	Okay, I think I put it in properly.
	So whether you're military, whether you're security, or you're just a defensive-minded civilian, the whole point to our training and what we do is...
	This is what I say to the cops.
	If we're to a point where I've got to teach you how to use that firearm or teach you how to use the baton or the CS or the OC spray or the bola wrap or the Burna, then we've got problems.
	There's other things that I failed before that.
	My role is to teach you about the decision-making, the things that happened in that three-quarters of a second right here, right now, because that's average human reaction time at zero feet, zero meters is three-quarters of a second.
	Hicks-Hyman Law.
	You guys can look it up.
	But the decision that you made to pull that pound and a half out of the trigger or whatever, those are the decisions that you can't pull those rounds back.
	There's legal, moral, ethical considerations.
	There's advanced critical thinking going on.
	And that's what we teach people how to deal with.
	I've trained the Well-Armed Women, which is an organization, is a great organization for women who are defensive-minded and are specifically around firearms.
	All the way up to agencies and organizations that I cannot bring up on this livestream.
	But the point is, the biggest thing that I've seen in my career that has caused problems is interruptions in communication and an inability to articulate and defend your decisions against a legal, moral, and ethical framework.
	And I think you guys as litigators would agree to that.
	That's the problem.
	The way I basically boil it down in North Carolina-ism, and I saw you had a comment on there.
	I was like, what's wrong with North Carolina?
	Not a damn thing wrong with North Carolina.
	But our public school system is not known for a whole lot.
	But I do know this.
	I played Clue as a kid.
	And in Clue, when you said it was kernel mustard with the candelabra in the library, those are defensible facts.
	You just had to be able to prove them.
	So that's what we teach people to do is how do I make observations in human behavior to defend what I'm doing?
	And the thing is, as I touch back on one thing you brought up with regard to Second Amendment things, gun rights, so on and so forth, I think the biggest thing that people misunderstand and misinterpret is, first of all, just because I go and get a concealed carry permit and I go to the class that's the required minimum eight-hour class or whatever it happens to be for your state or province or in California, it's by county.
	Which is crazy to me.
	That doesn't make you some kind of gun nut gun guru.
	That just means that you have officially acknowledged the fact that you are responsible for that responsibility you've taken to carry a deadly weapon into certain areas.
	And you also understand that by me carrying it in the areas where it's prohibited, that I am legally liable.
	Both criminally and civilly.
	So there's that aspect to it.
	But then the other side of it is, when I use force, regardless of the type of force, the method, the modality, whether it's a gun or it's a big pencil, if I use deadly force, deadly force is deadly force.
	So I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there about all that stuff.
	But we go into that stuff.
	So we gear it specifically towards, like, hey, I'm a defensive-minded citizen.
	Versus I am a, you know, I'm a law enforcement badge-toting individual.
	And as a matter of fact, next week, I will be leaving this weekend to go to St. Louis again.
	We have a contract there with the St. Louis Police Foundation to train St. Louis County Police Department because of decisions that they made as they want.
	These type of things to be incorporated in their standardized training at their academy, but we are also going to be presenting at the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association Conference there in St. Louis, Missouri.
	That happens every year in St. Louis.
	They're at the Union Station, so you can find us there as well.
	You can look up ILITA on the internet and find that there, and you can come check us out.
	Yeah, I think it's the way I remember it is it's a Square Mormon from Salt Lake City.
	So slcsquare.com.
	And for the, you know, now I think up and coming is News with Booze with Eric Hundley.
	I don't know if Allison is going to be on tonight too, but otherwise you can follow them at Unstructured and Laidback News and some other channel names on YouTube and at Allison1L.
	Like Muhammad Ali, son of Ali.
	That's how I remember her name.
	AllisonMorrow.locals.com Thanks.
	This has been great.
	We'll definitely have you back and have some more fun discussions and conversations about the nature of things, particularly a lot of the nature of your work, which is about the body language part, the training part, all of that aspect that we didn't have time for.
	We weren't going to focus on for this one.
	Not only are you coming back, we're going to book you on Branca's Law of Self-Defense.
	Okay, so Hunley is standing by.
	Everybody watching right now, when we tune out, I know Zot is live, and you might want to go check out Zot.
	Eric Hunley's going live.
	I don't know.
	Go check out Eric.
	EricHunleyunstructured.locals.com on Locals.
	He's on YouTube.
	Go check him out right now.
	Pick your next source of information.
	Lynn, we're doing this again, period.
	I've still got questions and it's two hours and five minutes already.
	Thank you.
	A sincere thank you for the service.
	I don't think it's anything most people can understand.
	What you've done, what you've given up, what you've gone through and what you're going through and what you're trying to continue to give.
	I don't know.
	People say thank you, and maybe it rings hollow, but thank you.
	And people in the chat are thanking you.
	Well, I would just say there's a lot of people out there that are doing a lot of talking, but they're not willing to put themselves on the line.
	It's one thing to talk in your personal conversations or even throw a little tweet or whatever on there, but you guys get out there, you got out in front of it, and agree or disagree with whatever you say.
	You know, that's one thing.
	But even for me and my partner, we were like, hey, we want to make a change in this world.
	And the only way you can do that is you get off the sidelines, you get in the game.
	And that's scary.
	It's hard to do.
	But I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to get on and talk with you guys.
	I love you guys.
	This is kind of like a big, you know, win for me because I'm like, why would they want to have this, you know, jarhead on there?
	No, you know what I mean?
	Eric has confirmed.
	What's the best, not necessarily most accurate, but the most fun or the best military movie?
	Let's save that for the next episode, because I've got to think about that a little bit.
	You're putting me on the spot there.
	Jarhead 1, Jarhead 2, that's what triggered Jarhead 3. But there's a lot.
	You've got the Vietnam ones, you've got the Korean ones, you've got the World War II ones, you've got Band of Brothers, you've got all these other ones, but there's some good competition.
	John Wayne, Sansa, Iwo Jima.
	Yeah, there's a lot out there.
	Well, you'll think about the answer for the next time.
	Chat, go watch your war movies.
	In the meantime, I've received confirmation.
	He's going to be live with Allison on Laidback News now.
	So, everyone, get out of here.
	Go there.
	Lynn, Robert, stick around.
	We'll say our proper goodbyes.
	But everyone in the chat, thank you very much.
	And we will see you very soon.
	Peace out, everyone.

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