Ep. 200 | Bryan Buckley | Marine Raider and Recon Marine

I guess we can go ahead and kick it off. Brian. I really appreciate it for the people that have wondered, like, hey, where are these clips coming out? I haven't seen this episode before. I actually had someone comment on YouTube video They're like, is this episode going to be coming out? My audio got messed up on the last one. We actually recorded like almost two weeks ago, I think, and for whatever reason, my audio didn't get saved. So I have a I guess an episode, a secret episode out there that I'm starting to drop. Some of the clips.

I put two of them on YouTube. I put two in the audio for the audio listeners as well. I think I'm gonna put the rest on Patreon, So if anybody wants to check those out, go over to Patreon look up former Action guys. But Brian was kind enough to come back and we can talk through some stuff again. Brian Buckley, former Marine Raider. Now he owns the Helmet Valley Growers company, doing good stuff out there for veterans and you know, just trying to be a small business owner out here in California, which is tough. Man. How's it going? Uh? Yeah, you know, I think that's a good way to put it, it's it's been tough. This has definitely been a challenging year, I would say with California cannabis. You know, I think next year's gonna be even worse.

But we're still pushing through, which is good. So we just kind of keep reinventing ourselves and we got some new good things coming out here. Same mission, just kind of listening to the market and what they need. So we have some really cool packaging concepts that are going to be hitting the market here in January. You know, it was funny, like I think I'll tell you a last call. We had a kind of a new saying we put with the company, like for Patriots That Puff. Just looking at the dynamics between Democrats and Republicans and you know, you got seventy four percent Democrats pro cannabis, sixty eight percent of Republicans pro cannabis. So we really wanted to gear our brand to being that kind of all American patriotic brand and

came up with the slogan for Patriots that Puff and just made like a pretty cool T shirt have like a patriot guy giving the thumbs up. And really we just printed out like one hundred of those to see what we had. And I'm walking around yesterday and just everyone's stopping me about that shirt. They're like, dude, I need that shirt's badass. That's awesome. We're like, all right, well that that that's gonna work. So we're really really thrilled for the new year for for that to come out. Some new opportunities are those for selling your site not yet having a meeting with my marketing team tomorrow and we're gonna see what we can do. Ideally, I'd like to do maybe just a quick strike and see if we canna, you know,

put out these hundreds, see how fast they move, and if it's working, we'll keep doing more. Yeah. That's awesome man. You know. So for those that haven't listened to the previous episodes, I think you're on episode one twenty three and one thirty six, I believe, or the two and uh you talk about, you know, going through if youre offser scores, you talk about going through recon and then going into Marsak and all that, you know, getting out and stuff. You have other special operators working with you, right, aren't aren't you? You guys are a veterans.

You're a veteran first kind of organization, you know where or it seems it seems that way from the outside looking in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We do have other guys in special operations world here with us and you know, other veterans as well. That's awesome. So it's really nice too when you know we can find those veterans that are very interested in cannabis community. I think one thing that we need to work on and we're looking to implement that next year as well, is I'm also the chairman for the San Diego Cannabis Chamber of Commerce nice and just been talking with a lot of vets like are like, oh, man, like you know, I hate what I'm doing and bup a up a up, And I'm like, well, why don't you like it? And they're like, I just don't

want to deal with people. I'm like, then why are you working at a dispensary, Like that's kind of part of your thing, you know. So we want to do almost like a course where we show the entire supply chain from you know, security, cultivation, distribution, manufacturing, sales, whatever it may be, and just kind of expose them to it to a quick test to see that they understood everything, and then I think that's going give us a little bit clearer site picture of what they should be doing in cannabis, because you know, some people will probably benefit and cultivation where you're just dealing with the plant. You're kind of on your own doing your thing, if you're not really into getting out in front of people or dealing with

people all day. So really want to kind of streamline that we're just not hiring vets, but we want to put bets in the best spot for them where they can excel. That's good man, that's awesome. Do they have excuse me, I'm getting over being sick, do they have a I know, at like some of the community colleges and stuff they have like farming programs.

Are there cannabis farming programs here in California? I think what people are doing to get into cannabis, and there might not be such a like, hey, this is cannabis one on ones. I know a lot of guys who getting a Hordic course classes. I do know some of this two year schools, and I think some of the four year schools are starting to open up some more cannabis courses. And I do believe like in law school.

Now there are sections where it's like kind of cannabis law. Because I actually have a guy he was an attachment to us on a my Raider team, but he was a dog handler. But he's now finishing up law school and he wants to go practice cannabis law. That's awesome. Yeah, pretty interesting, Yeah, man. I recommend to all people, if you have, especially veterans, if you have a GI bill, at a minimum, I would take a business law class at a minimum because that class I had to take it twice because it didn't transfer. I got. I did the honors class at Mara cosa Community College and got an A in it, and then it didn't transfer to SDSU, so I had to take it again there.

But it gives you such a good just overview of the law your rights, because that's what it is, basically is an introduction to law business. There is some business specific stuff to it. I mean, if you're a business owner, at a minimum, you should pay your local community college. You go take that class, have a lawyer kind of talk through it, and use your own business as like a test case. If you're doing stuff like that, you know how that's the thing too. I always tell people is like, if you're if you're in a business, if you're excuse me, if you're a veteran and you want to start a business and you have your GI bill, use your whatever it is that you want to start as you're testing throughout college. You know, I use the podcast for multiple things that

I use it for editing, artwork, cover art and stuff like that. I used it for actual I had a podcast production course, which wasn't great, but I got to use my podcast for that. You know, It's like, use these things specifically to your benefit. Don't just disregard it. A lot of people disregard there. They just don't ever use their GI bill benefits. They don't use anything like that. And it's like, dude, you can go learn basically anything you know. And that's not just for your universities. It's like tech schools and things like that. I know some unions you can you can use your GI bill benefits with the union, so you receive your BAH while you're an apprentice, and but the union takes your you

know, you the whatever the GI bill fund goes to them. It's a weird. Yeah, my buddy Michael Farrell was here when he got out. He did that troops to whatever you know program that they had. He learned welding on the way out, which he said was awesome. And he got into a pipefitters union here and he said that you can use your GI bill towards that and they pay your bah and stuff like that while you're getting paid by the union as well. It's something I don't know. People can look into it, but what it comes down to is use those benefits, you know, figure out how it can benefit you, and go take advantage.

Yeah. Yeah, was that like the bridge skills? Did he use that? Oh? The skill bridge program? That's a new ones. Yeah. They were talking about that on my way out. And there's so I hear great things from the people that use it, and then I hear great thing or I hear some negative things from units you know that have marines that want to use it. Because the reality is is the generals are looking down at the you know, regimental command or division commanders and regimental commanders and going, hey, here's the task you have to accomplish, and they only have a certain amount of marines and this and a lot of people in a lot of fields are specialized, you know, and if you lose one guy, that's that's or girl that's a big that's a big hit to your overall force.

And kind of like when you lose someone to to like Thad or something, or someone that maybe medical some kind of medical reason that they can't perform, you don't get a replacement until that person is off the roster, like they're gone out of the unit. Like a lot of people don't realize that, like if there's no like if I was to leave, but when I was at tenth Marines, if I was to leave or I broke my ankle or something like that, while I'm being recovered, I'm still there. They're not replacing me. There's not like a Temp eight six one that comes in to replace me while I'm while I'm recovering, they're just down a person. So if I had to use a skill bridge program, then they're down a person for that last six months because I'm technically still with that unit. So I

see. I understand why there's pushback from some units that have high tempo schedules, but I do think that they ought allow people. I I do think one thing I should say is that anybody that's listening to this should take advantage of TA while you're in use that tuition assistance. And there's no command out there that should be denying tuition assistance to anybody. Give that. There's no reason to not do it, even if your guy hasn't been a corporals course or whatever like that. I would never went to any PM zero zero pmme and I somehow was okay. And a lot of guys are waiting for a spot, you know, and that's a requirement that they make, is like they have to be PM complete before they can use TA. Get TA out

there. Let guys use it, let them better themselves and take advantage. So that's my little education rant. There you go. Sorry about that. So we talked on the last episode. It was funny the video that we talked at the beginning, I cut a clip of you and you talking about General mattis basically we're leaving an infantry officer from Infantry Officers course or a prospective infantry officer, and he went on to do other things. A comment on there was I pinned it was a guy saying he knew the situation and he knew the guy, and the guy did great in like the telligence community or something like that. But he got fired by General Madis, like right before you guys were going to graduate. It is very divisive in the comments,

people are like, yeah, you know, that's never questioned orders that's the General Madison. There's other guys like that's why I got out, you know, like can't even do anything, and so I wanted to talk about It is now the most popular video on the YouTube channel. I think it's at like three hundred thousand views. Now, holy crap, Well there you go.

It's crazy. He was blowing up man. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. It was definitely a very I mean General Madis was at that time. I think he was a three star and I forget what he was in Quantico, and you know, we had a couple of run ins with him, and and I mean like in a positive way, like he was really good with us, but he definitely was kind of like at that height of you know, the mad dog Madis and all that. I mean, he did the Afghanistan and did Iraq with with first math and everything, and he didn't really mess around and think like some of the things like we had.

This was a really interesting one. So we were still in the basic school and we were doing land NAV and my course we got there I think like in April, so like our land nav was all throughout the summer and if you've been in Quantico and like you know July August, it is very very hot. So we're going we get our land NAP brief and anyone who's been to like Officer Camp or to the Basic school and the land app course, you know you got thing. It's called like a candidate trail. It's like a one mile gravel road that goes from Camp Barrett where TBS and IOC is and it goes all the way up to the FBI Academy and the land A course would be around there. So typically what you would do is you would run from Camp Barrett and run the mile up to like the FBI Academy,

and then you would start hitting your points. And you're making your points all the way back going to Camp Barrett TBS, right, so you're not like doing a half mile sprint to try to make your time hack or anything. You kind of go as far as away and you're working yourself closer. And so we go in for our brief and there were two landing zones and they're like you'll have your water balls will be in these l z's and everyone's like okay, So all filled up my camel pack ready to go, and I'd run up to the far l Z to start making my way back south, and you know, I walk out, I'm kind of like, you know, I already drank most of my water making this run, and I'm like walking out looking for the water ball. I'm like, I'm just going

to refill real quick, just make sure I'm good while I do the course. And there was no water up there, and there's probably like like ten lieutenants. We all kind of merged from the tree line at the same time, and everyone's just kind of like looking at each other because they're not supposed to talk during it, and we're like and we kind of just were like, there is no water up here, so we just quickly, you know, we I guess we did a violation. We started talking to each other where We're like, hey, let's split up our water evenly to make everyone's good and then best of luck, you know, I guess get to that southern LZ. So as we're going through, I'm running, I'm hitting my points and next you know, I'm cramping, like my left and my left

calf is just cramping really bad, and I'm like ah man, and I'm just like trying to power myself through. I'm kind of like sitting out of a tree. I remember, like it really starts cramping up bad, and I'm like, oh, and I go out to a roadway just so I don't have to run on like you know, uneven terrain, and next thing you know, it wasn't a armored Humby. It was just regular Humby comes by, and like next you know, it's just like they slammed the brakes and do a quick like one eighty and they're like, lieutenant, get into the car, into the Humby. And I'm like I'm still in my course, right it's over, Like get into the Humby like we have to.

And I'm like all right, and I'm kind of picking up, like this is crazy. What the hell? Like how this happened? And I'm like what is going on here? So as I get to Camp beartt it is like a mass casualty like scene set up. They have all the ambulance, fire trucks, all this stuff. It was like I don't know, like sixty or one hundred lieutenants all started cramping up and just started falling out where they were losing guys like I had a real good buddy. He was a forced three con prior and listed real tough dude, and they found him butt naked in a stream just like kind of almost like face down where he didn't even remember it. Like he's like and basically like, hey, like when you're at that point, you're kind of just not thinking normally and your body

was like, hey, you got a cool off and you just took off your clothes and just got into a stream. And so we're all taken into like the the hospital. They were like hey, you guys, say he casually. I'm like I'm not signing that. I'm like no way, I'm like listen, I just had a cramp, I mean whatever, so on and so forth, and it was getting kind of bad, like people were like higher ups were like yelling at us. Well, it was all over the local news like up in DC and everything like that. So next thing you know, they're like General Madis is coming in and he comes just walking into the hospital and it's like, you know, like Moses, like the whole tire world just parted for him. He's in his alpha uniform, Like

I mean, he was doing business in DC and he is like, what the hell is going on here? And yeah, they made us all sign this waiver, saying like it was just stupid, like we all like we didn't prepare ourselves or something like that, like basically blaming us. And he had that ripped up. He's like, no, that isn't happening. He had that destroyed, and I know the person in charge. He kind of had a nice little run in, but yeah, I just remember that was the first time I saw him really pissed off. But he was He was great in IOC. We would have a wit a bar in our barracks called the Hawk, so usually Fridays we would go there. He would always kind of come in and want to talk to us. And then I remember for

a Marine Corps birthday, we're on a mortar range and he showed up that night with steaks and a couple of kegs of beer and he's like, you know, I could be up in d C doing all that stuff. This is where I want to be out in the field with marines. So just a really good guy. And that's why I said when that whole incident took place, like his aides walked in. There was a captain teaching us and the aids like, General mass doesn't want to be seen, doesn't want to be recognized. He has to come in and kind of take care of business.

And he walked in and just did exactly what he had to do and walked out. And that was that, you know, Yeah, yeah, man, that would be wild. All of that would be wild to see. It would have been cool. I never was under him, I never met him while I was in. A lot of people, you know, did Obviously a lot of people change their minds about him after he got out and worked under Trump and there was like the political stuff to fall out.

There was a lot of those comments, and I was like, you know what, I don't know. I don't really know, but I know that, you know, he was respected a lot as a general, and I'm not gonna combine that with what he did as a civilian, you know, And I'd have to look at whatever they're saying about that. The only time I ever heard anything bad about Mattis while I was in was there was a rumor and I don't even know if it was true that at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan that he wouldn't send in a QRF for some SOCOM guys or something like that. But I was like, that doesn't sound like I mean, I don't know if it's true. People can throw that in the comments if they know what I'm talking about. But there was something where the

Marines hit excuse me, a taken over Kandahar and there was a unit that needed some support and he'd like denied the request for whatever reason. But yeah, if anybody has more information, throw that in the comments. I'll pin it up on there so we can so we can check that out. But yeah, he's a legend in the military. He's a legend in the Marine Corps, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. He was married to the Marine Corps. Kind of like a Chessy polar type situation.

And you know what I said, it's like, hey, you're you can find good and bad on everyone. You know. Did that happen in Afghanistan with him? I don't know. I wasn't there, but I will tell people contact matters too. Yeah, exactly, he was. He's a very common sense guy. You might not get his mindset, but at the end of the day, he's going to take care of, you know, people in the military. I mean, he's going to accomplish it. So maybe something might have happened that whatever it was, but yeah, listen, he was a very demanding guy. I think he was perfect for the Marine Corps.

I think he was a very good general. Again, you're not you might not agree with him and all that stuff, but you know, he wanted to he wanted to put people in successful positions. And you know, like we kind of heard the same thing General Madison, like Reconnor didn't like Marsac and all that stuff. But you know, at the end of the day, I think he always put people in positions to succeed. And you know, he would definitely pull a punk card or two if if he felt you warranted it. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think, uh, that's for sure. You know, I think you gotta you gotta use people. He probably just didn't like people that weren't effective, you know what I'm saying. It's famous. There was a scene in I think in Generation

Killer or something where he fires one of the battalion commanders that was underneath him. I think he was either regimental or division commander or maybe his regiment. He fired one of the commanders under him because they weren't doing what he was wanting them to do and brought in someone else, you know, And that's like that happened sometimes, you know. And then when you're talking about combat and literally lives are on the line, there's a time and place to question stuff, and there's a time and place to just get out and do do what you gotta get done, you know, especially when you're doing like an invasion like that. So yeah, and he loved enlisted. He had no Yeah, he had no sympathy for officers. And he would tell you that,

I mean what his operations officers guy named Colonel McCoy, who I think eventually had first betiding fourth Marines I think or something. But he was definitely a Madis disciple. And he came and spoke to us, and I don't know, it's like summertime and we're all hot and whatever, and he's like, how you guys doing, And everyone's like, oh, you know, it's like a little bit hot, goes I don't give a fuck. He's like, you're an officer, doesn't matter. He's like, get over it.

He's like, well, we worry about here are enlisted guys and you know, you whatever you gotta deal with, you better deal with it because you need to take care of your men. And I mean that was really paraphrasing, but that I think was really general Mattison's mindset that if you weren't performing well for your marines, he wouldn't even give it a second thought.

I if he thought you weren't the right person, you're gone. Yeah, And I expect that. I mean, it's it's very much a performance on demand culture that we have on the Marine Corps. And if you can't perform, get the hell out of the way, and someone else is gonna come up and do it. Yeah, one hundred percent. It's funny when I was like a corporal or something like that, I got someone gave me.

I still have it. Chesty Pueller's biography, and it talks about in that a couple of times where he yelled at officers that were at the front of the line for the PX, not knowing that they had waited in line to get to the front. He thought they had cut in front of the lines and just started screaming and you know very much like you're not special, You're gonna line. And I remember I remember reading that book and like thinking about that. And then years later I was on ship waiting in line to go into the ship store, and one time I had a for those that don't know, on ship, officers can cut the front of the line to go into the ship store. The ship store is tiny. There's always a huge line because there's tons of people. I was on an LHD, so there's

like thousands of people, literally over a thousand people or whatever. And I remember I got to the front of the line and one of the majors in my command came in, came down and was like, Hey, I'm gonna go next, and I was like, okay, sir. He went in, and then the ship store guy popped his head out and goes, he's the last one for the day. We're closed and shut the door. And I was like after I'd been waiting in line for like fifteen or twenty minutes or something like that, and I'm like, dude, fuck you know.

And I remembered that book, and I remember, like, what has happened? Man? That for me was why I hated like being on ship was it's very much a hierarchical like, you know, unless you're a chief. As an enlisted guy, unless you're a chief, like no one wants to it's it's crazy. So that is pathetic. I don't know, just even morally as a person like I get pissed off of people who cut lines.

But if like like if you're not like how like lack of situational awareness would you have as an officer, Like Okay, I'm gonna go and okay, one thing. Maybe he's like, dude, I gotta go in here and I gotta buy something real quick, like something's crazy's happening. I need it. But even to a point that he walked in and heard that guy say that, he should have stopped and been like, you know what, man, I cut in front of that marine. Let him go and I'll come back tomorrow. Something I just wouldn't feel right, you know. And again we all know the boys and girls pick up on it. I mean that's why, you know, go wait in line just like everyone else is.

You're no better than that, And I think you're enlisted side where respect you more if you do that. When I first got on ship the first time, they were like, hey, six is you know you're esix and below all eat together. There is a first class mess where they have like a little room where eat. You know, if you're an E six you can go in there and eat if you want, And you could also cut in line for chow too. And I remember first getting on ship, They're like, yeah, you can cut in line, go to the front, and I'm like okay, And I remember like doing it a couple of times for a little bit, and I'm like, dude, this this feels fucked up.

Every time I go, I'll jump in here, like I feel like, because I know these dudes have been waiting, Like the line for chow on ship is super long. Yeah, And I just started waiting in line with everyone else, and everyone would be like, you know, you can go to the front staff sergeant, and I'm like, no, that's cool, I'll wait. And I don't know, man, it just it was little stuff like that. I think that people forget matters, you know what I'm saying. And people see that and they go, man, what a piece of shit. No, don't get me wrong. If I'm on watch or something, I'm gonna come down and cut in front of the line because I gotta get back up to the watch floor and get back to work.

But for just if I'm just there, I'm definitely waiting in line, and I remember pulling some of my buddies over there too. A few times. They'd be like, what's the fuck. I'm like, no, dude, come on, we're gonna go wait in line. They're like, mude, it's like thirty minutes, and I'm like, well, you know, so how it ghost a little tip out there for people, you know, don't be the guy that cuts the line, you know. Yeah. Man, when you were over at excuse me, god, I'm trying to get over this, dude, I've been I've had a cough for like two weeks.

It's killing me. Yeah, it's going around. When you were over at Raider Battalion, was there ever a sense of like imposter syndrome? You know? Is that a thing within that you saw within socom where guys are like they're there, but they're like I can't believe them here. No, I mean it was pretty I mean, if if you were one of those guys, you were going to pop out pretty quickly. I mean, no one really messed around if you if you were just kind of like, you know, we made a very big point like you got to earn this title every day? What we're doing, and if you had maybe you know, maybe some of the younger guys might have tried to push the boundaries. I think on some things with like you know, uniforms or boots or whatever, they

got called out pretty quickly where it was about like the professionalism and what we're doing. And I would say the problems we would have ly were wrapped around uniform, especially when we're deployed, but it was usually due to support side, where the side would get like super so calm up if they're just walking to the chow hal, like wearing stuff that we'd wear out in the field, and you know, we were laughing, like the one time, like where I was at in Afghanistan, if you guys were at leathern Ack or Bashton, we you had an Afghan two fifteen Corps and then inside that you had Camp Dagger, which was where the seventh Special Operations Battalion was for the Afghans, and then inside that that's where Camp Antonik was where we stayed.

So we would every now and then pop out and go over to the PX and Leathernck and stuff like that. But we had other parts of like the company support and all that stuff. They would be over in an area called Camp Claro, which was kind of more of the Bashion area, kind of the NATO side, And we're getting phone calls from our first sergeant like flipping out, and he's like, damn it. He's like, you guys got to keep it together. Like you're walking around with like cuff sleeves and all this stuff. And we're like what, like what are you talking about?

And my team chiefs like, man, no, like everyone's bottled up tight here. We when we go out, everyone's wearing the uniform of the day, Like, I don't get it. And eventually we found out it was like support guys that were in were down in Coolearo walking around super cool guy outfits and everything, like every piece of gear they could find it a third on their body. And you know, that would paint kind of a bad bad image for us, because I again, I still believe there were just Marines on leather Neck who just won nothing but for us to fail, like anything they could find that we weren't one hundred percent perfect that day. We're gonna call that to light and make a huge deal out of something that was

relatively simple or quick correction. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, rule number one has always looked cool, So yeah, they have you have to throw all that stuff on and it just makes sense. Yes, that's it's funny too, that that's what matters. Like people are even annoyed by that. It's like, you know, we're in Afghanistan, right, Like you're worried about cuff sleeves. Like you Anyone that is different in any way is always a target. Like if you're not, like if you're attached to a unit, or you're adjacent to a unit, like within a compound or something like that, and for some reason you're a little different, you're automatically a target anytime, you know, cause it's like you're you're not full special. You

know. There was a guy actually that brings that reminds me of one of the comments in the one of the comments in uh the YouTube video was talking about how there shouldn't be a marsk because no Marines are special, and I'm like, that's so stupid. I was like, you're I was like, that's such a dumb mentality to have that. Then why do we have specialties?

You know what I'm saying. You know, that's that's such a ridiculous thing to even say and to maybe you can argue that we don't need MARSC cause we have Recon or whatever. But there are different mission sets really in different funding, obviously, different command structures, different you know. So, but I don't know what are your thoughts when someone says that, when they're like, hey, everyone's everyone's the same, it's almost like that everyone's a rifleman, comments you hear. I mean, I think you you kind of hit it that these are some of the the problems we were having while I was in Like one just kind of is redesignated to be raiders, you know about a warfare pin. I mean, at one point again it was like

it was just trying to be way too PC, like it was going to be some sort of ribbon with a skull on it, and that's going to say you were in a MARSC unit. And we're just like, you know, we don't need that, and it's like we we just couldn't understand it because like listen, if you go to flight school and you become a pilot, you get something different. If you go to jump school, if you go to dive school, if you go to EUD school, like all these different schools, you get these specialties and sometimes you wear extra flair for it.

M hm. We didn't see what the big deal was, you know, do I think yeah? Or all marine special Absolutely is the Marine Corps a cut above all the other groups in the military, for sure, But I mean, what would it really bothered you? What if MARSAK was called like I don't know, I'm trying to think of something not cool, like you know other operations they called it, or something just very dain would you really care? It's just cause of the whole special ops and that name and what you kind of associate that with and like to say, like, no, not all Marines are equal. You know, there are some that can do certain different things and to make these units like reconnaissance or MARSK and if you go in like, well, any marine can do it, not necessarily

if they could, everyone would be doing it. You know, there's certain things with aptitude, with physical abilities, problem solving, a lot of different things that you get vetted out to make sure you can do this. And again, I mean, you know, I think people look at the end state of like, you know, not what it took to get there or what you have to do to be in those units. They kind of look at the you know, Marine Corps ball and you're in your dress uniform and you get to talk about the cool things you have or something like that, where it's like, man, if you actually knew what these guys had to put into this to get here and to stay here, if you understood the missions that we had to do, where we had to do things that people

might look as impossible, and that was just another day for us. That's why, you know, I think these guys are separate and they and again they they prove themselves and they should, you know, get something a little different, little extra. You know. That's one of my big things with retainment and recruitment. I look at how they treat MARSK Marines or raiders compared to Seals and Green Berets and especially on like the enlisted side, and it's like, listen, these are very talented people who have options, and if you want to keep them, you're going to have to keep them happy and don't say like, well, if you don't want the Marine, we don't want you, No, then you're just a bad leader. You should want

to motivate people to stay with you and keep doing what they're doing yeah, and I needed to take care of that talent. And that's why, you know, we would make sergeants live in the barracks or do all this stuff. And they're kind of like, like, why are the seals able to go out in town? You know, forget it. I got a college degree, I'm working on my master's. I'm gonna get out of here.

I'm just gonna do something different. And then you can't turn around saying well why is everyone leaving? It's like, look at how you're treating them. And you know what always frustrated me with the officer sicks. We always had a lot of the different officers would just hate raiders or hate Mars Sock and they're and I remember one guy like, what was it one of the teams.

They came down, They're in leather neck, they had their hum veils. Stupid they walked away and I guess like they had like one of their attachments supposed to watch a vehicle, and he got distracted and walked over to PX or something. So when they came out as like an unmanned vehicle and all hell broke loose and he's like, you know, we got like majors and lieutenant colonels calling on our vehicle, dismounting our fifty col like, just just going beyond what they should have been doing, yelling at us. And then I don't I don't get it. I don't get you guys. I don't know why we have you guys. And I'm like, you know, you're a Marine officer. You're supposed to get it. And I'm not saying like, hey, these are raiders, accept it. You're supposed to be

a critical thinker, and you should actually understand what these unit's capabilities are and why you have them, because I imagine at some point you're working for promotions, and you know, if you're on the combat arms side, you might all suddenly have special operations guys you might not be in control of, but you can utilize their asset or their capabilities to go accomplish your mission, and that's going to better help your entire unit and the overall mission as it is.

You know, I had a really really cool operations officer when I was at Recon. This guy, I think he's a colonel. What don't surprised me? Is gonna be general one day? E J. Healy. And you know he was a major the time, but like Major Heally, he was straight up Marine Corps infantry, Like he loved the infantry. He you know, had the haircut everything, and he would just make fun of us in a joking way. He's like, oh, you cool, recond of guys, all that stuff. But you know, I'll never forget he got.

He was in charge of first Battalion, it was the first Battalion, eighth Marines I think, And we were over in Afghanistan at the same time, and I get a call in our in our UH Operations center and it's Major Heally or Colonel Heel at the time, and he's kind of calls me up being it's like making a joke about me, like cool Marsac guys, and you know, how how long is my hair and my blast of my boots, just like you know, just having fun with it. And he's like, listen, I'm calling you because I I you know, I want to. I'm kind of asking for a favor and I just want to see if you're into it. I'm like sure. And they were in Marja and people know Marjha was a really bad area and he's like, you know, we're having a little tough time down here and he's like, and I'm just

tired of watching Lance Corporal's hit IDs and all this stuff. And he's like, and I know the acts that you guys wheeled, and I would love to have a command o mission come into Marja and give us some breathing room so we could set up some other checkpoints and do some stuff. And I was like, hey, not my call, but I'm all for it.

Let me see what I can do. And I remember I hung up the phone and I kind of took us like just sat back in my seat. My team chief looked at me and he goes, what was that all about. I'm like, the United States Marine Corps just called us up asking for support. And he was like, no shit, you know, and I'm like absolutely, And we briefed it. You know, we were gonna do some cool stuff and it got shot down because they just had hiss focus on some other areas. But I said to myself, I'm like, colonel heally gets it, like you know, he put as side his ego. He's not gonna be like, oh, we're all Marines, we're all special.

He's like, no, these guys can do certain things, have certain authorities, you know, come with certain assets that could really help us achieve our overall mission down here and give us a little breathing room. And that's why he's a good officer. You know. He never stopped learning. Yeah for sure. Yeah. If you don't understand the assets that are supporting you, man, you're so you're you're your decision making is hindered. You know, your the result the odds of having positive results have gone down. I remember when I was the I was the fire chief for three six in Marsia, and I think it was Keil Company CEO or whatever at the time. Down south there wasn't a lot going on, and he he had no want to

deal with fires people for whatever reason. And I remember he took he took my my scout I sent. So the way it works, for those that don't know, is like I was with two ten at a time, I put together a fire support team. Three six is getting ready to deploy, so we attached to them. Each company gets a officer and a and an eight six' one, a Ford observer and a radio operator. And then normally the Ford observer gets attached to the line units and goes out on patrols and does all that stuff. Them and the radio operator and the officer helps with fire support planning and stuff within the company COC, and they took their radio operator off radio watch like their headquarters radio operator and sent him down to

the line company and put my FO as the radio watch for the FSC or for the COC the command center, and just didn't want him to do any kind of fires planning. I'd be like, hey, you know, I'd be briefing, and they just didn't care. And then nothing was going on down there. And then towards the end of the deployment something happened, and I remember he called my phone. I was in the three to six command center. He called my phone direct and I picked it up and I was like, you know, three six fires, Sergeant Kramer, And he's like, hey, this is captain zone, So can you put up one of those like goalpost or whatever like talk And I'm like, dude, it's what you put up for a high mar shot. And I'm like, sir,

we're already on it. Like if you'd open up your MERK fires channel, like I'm updating everything there. I understand what's going on. And I was just like, dude, like you you are hurting yourself by not like understanding the assets that are underneath you. You know, it's just crazy, it really is. And that's it's like embarrassing to hear that. I mean, man especially too what you can do on the fire side. But that's you know, that's one thing I kind of did regret a little bit about getting out of the Marine Corps because we were still at that time where like officers were doing five years and they sent us back to whatever our mos was and then we would come back to Marsk and they rightfully so changed that. But

you know, they were gonna send me to like an Army's like Captain's careers course or something like that, and then didn't really know why I was gonna go at that point, and again like there's this other factors and I'm like, it's just I just don't feel like doing that. But they did bring up what if we got you to the basic school and you could be instructor doing an instructor gig got infantry officer course, And I kind of like regret it a little bit about not doing that because you want to have that influence on those impressionable officers where you talk about intellectual curiosity, and like, you know, things are going to constantly change, and especially in the Marine Corps, you can just fall into a rut where like someone's like, oh,

that that sucks, lame, we don't do that stuff, and you're like, yeah, forget, forget artillery. Who needs that, you know? And this dad dump it. And then I think it gets to a point where you don't utilize the asset because mainly you have no idea what the heck it is. But then two, internally you're embarrassed because you don't know what it is and you don't want to ask for that help. And it's okay if like you sit down and say, hey, sess or Kramer, I don't understand this goalposting. Can you explain to me why we're doing this and like how it would be set up? And that's Marines love to do that, Like, yeah, let me show you what I do. You know, we would send guys to the eighteen Bravo course, which is like a

weapons course for a special forces and you know, we come back and we'd be hitting the range. Yeah, I can go up to a mod deuce or a two forty and and I know what I'm doing. But I'm like wait a minute, we just sent you to a school to learn this stuff. You tell me how to do this, and see what else I can learn from you, and you can see the excitement in him. And usually you did pick up a couple of different tricks that they learned along the way.

So that's where I think you see a little bit of the ego with some officers, and you see it with like senior enlisted, where they don't want to admit I don't know what I'm doing, and they can really cost their marines by not just raising her hands saying hey, I need a quick hip hocket class or something like that. I mean, one of my most kind of eye opening hip hocket classes was from then a staff sergeant. He ended up a getting as a master sergeant. This guy Brian Jacqueline maybe cross recipient all that, but Brian was a jaytach and I mean, listen, he knew a lot about air to ground munitions. So while we're at our final exercise, we got word a new directive came down that the Griffin missiles

were now put at ground force commander level, which is great, and you know, guys look those things up. I mean their GPS guy little missiles on high def TV. I mean, you can do a lot of awesome things with those. And I'm like, I'd never really even use gift, Like I never deployed them before. I don't really understand it. So I was just walking outside my hooch and I saw Brian and I'm like, hey, can as you you a question? And he's like, yeah, what's up. I'm like and I told him about the Griffins and he's like, oh man, those are now ground force level and he's like I'm like yeah.

I'm like, well, tell me how you would use this stuff because's cool. And we just get down on our knees and brush aside some dirt and I got a great class from Brian on air to ground munitions, and we utilized the Griffins like it was cool. I mean were that was like our primary thing when we had a daytime AC one thirty variant. We were rock and rolling with that thing, killing a lot of bad guys. And I could have sat there and been like, I'm a captain, I know everything and never used them, or I could have just accepted, hey, I need some help and I need to learn this. Let me go talk to someone about it. And it just was another tool, the toolkit for the team. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The Griffin's cool. That's

the for those that don't know, that's like a javelin. Basically, it's kind of similar warhead as a javelin off of the I don't know what they use it on now. I think they use it on quite a bit of stuff. But before what you're talking about was the Marine Corps Harvest Talk because he went thirty went and fly during the day, but Harvest Talk would well, we had the Air Force had a version two. Oh no way, so it was they were gonna be back in twenty twelve time recoil. That was our call signed. But they had a daytime and then we had one harvest stock and we really freaked out that pilot. So I remember he came in to check in and he's like, oh, I'm ready to for my check in brief like, yeah, stand by, and we just gave him

a fire's mission. He was like, oh, well what it's like, yeah, we're going and dude, yeah he shot that and uh, you know, unfortunately, we were working with a not so great OD eight Operational Detach and Alpha Army Special Forces and one of their guys wigged out. They thought that Griffin went into their compound and like called that out over the radio, which like at first you're like, whoa, wait what and there's nothing happened. They got shot up by a mortar from the Taliban, but I remember how sketched out those pilots started becoming at that point, and it was just like, oh, that's it wasn't a good but yeah, because they don't want to drop on the road. Well that those things were badass.

I mean, high definition TV. Everything that was getting transport right to us. I mean you could keep positive identification relatively simple when you I mean it was like looking at high def TV and you're seeing bad guys and they might run to a tree line run out, and you can still positively identify them.

And yeah, we were able to get a lot done really fast and efficiently. Yeah, those dudes, they're super accurate too. And I think I think they told me the number is maybe classified. I'm not sure, but the closest engagement they've ever had was with the gun, which is a twenty five millimeter gun. I believe your twenty or twenty five. I'm pretty sure twenty five, And it was within a few meters of a seal team, you know, that's how close they get engaged. It was basically like the bad dudes are on the other side of this wall from us, you know, and we're being like overrun. I was like, that's fucking crazy, dude. Yeah, the the East Rum wasn't bad at all, even to the point like if we were dropping one here on like a personnel,

if there was one guy, we were dropping two on them. And it literally was I mean, as I'm thinking, i mean, we're hitting I mean, these are all bad guys around each other, but when we have target one, he would go down and the guy, you know, maybe ten feet behind him, was was scared like hell, but he was relatively okay from what we could see. Not that we weren't going to deal with him, but that's just kind of how that went. So, Yeah, it was a really effective and I'd say ultimately kind of you know, safe type of munition to utilize. Yeah, I'm looking, Oh, I have a book. Ian Fritz was just on a couple episodes ago. He was a a oh what's the term for, basically a linguist on the back of a AC one thirty and he wrote what the Taliban told me he was on

a couple episodes ago, and I was talking about, yeah, becoming a special operations like linguist guy and then deploying Afghanistan and listening. He was basically there to listen to conversations as the fight's going on, you know, the Taliban conversations. I was like, that's crazy, you know, that's kind of oh man, that, Yeah, I'd be what a weird perspective to have, right, yeah, because we would we would hear them, we would intercept our stuff, and we could hear real time what was going on.

And this was kind of like it was comical, like there were at the time I think we broke down the Helmet province, there was like five Taliban commanders and just like you know, if you look at like an NFL team, they all had their tendencies, right like some in the fight. Some would be trained features away and you just kind of knew how they operate.

So we had this one guy, I know he was he was killed luckily like a couple of years I mean probably like three, four or five years ago something like that, but he was a pain in the ass. I mean we went at him. He was an objective We went at him a couple of times, took out his number two, took out his brother.

But he was like that guy who would like walk out the back door like a minute before we showed up, type of thing, just like luck was on the side. But you could hear him getting frustrated with his guys that they weren't fighting us hard enough and we were smacking the living shit out of them this day. I mean it was like, I don't know how many high mars we were shooting at that point. I mean I had probably like six target reference points going. I had a couple goal posts going, and normally I do I just keep the apache would be loitering, waiting, and once I made the goalpost close, close goal posts out, bringing that thirty millimeter and let them kind of clean it up, and the tal band come ass. They're throwing they I think they lobbed a couple of underbrowl grenade

lunchers at us, maybe an RPG, and we responded very swiftly and strongly, and I mean the world was rocking, and you hear him, the commander, telling them, like, you guys got to keep fighting, keep fighting. They're like we are, and they weren't. They were leaving like there's no weapon fire, but they were just like lying to their commander like, oh no, no, we're still in the fight. It's really good.

And then it's just like skirting away. And it was pretty comical where it's like, wonder if you's ever going to find out they pretty much res bullshit them the entire time. Good combined arms, you know, that'll uh, that puts the fear in people for sure. It was awesome to do. I mean, that's why I told people. It's like the things we were pulling off in Afghanistan was like literally doing a real time sand table exercise.

Like anything you had. It was just get creative, make sure everything's good and squared away, and god damn, are we really good at what we can do? I mean, that was a lot of awesomeness coming down on some bad guys. If you have some good fire supporters in your unit, it's like, man, they can help out so much by planning timings of fires, bringing in different assets, and if they're proactive, like we tried to have our guys be. You know, if I was in Afghanistan and we had something coming up, I would contact the squadrons directly and be like, hey, here's the op, here's what's going on, you know, just in case, here's all this other information, even if they're not involved, Like here's the information in case you guys get called up for a

tick or something like that. Yeah. I mean that just makes everything so much better, especially when you if you get attacked, then you have all these assets just ready to go, ready for you to say right there this time. Yeah. And I think you bring him a great point too. It's like, you know, kind of building in that rapport as well.

It's like, hey, you just got like a vigilance one to three checking in. It's like, I don't know who you are. Well, you actually like we would do the same things we would, Like Gunslinger, they were the Huey Kobra squadron that was kind of supporting us and guy Lieutenant Carl Lightfoot. I'm sure he went on. He was an awesome officer, and we would shoot over to his place night before missions and just do a face to face to sand table exercise. I mean it was you know, we also had the one sixtieth with us, which they got it. I mean, and some of you guys at home don't know who to one Sickthius is.

That's the Special Operation Aviation Regiment. If you see the movie Blackhawk Down and stuff, that's them. They are by far the best helicopter pilots in the world. They're all chief warrant officers and that's all they do. They just fly and they are fantastic. So we rolled in with a lot of stuff there, but we always wanted to get you know, our guys in two. It's just kind of hard with the audible noise with the cobra.

I mean, you can hear that thing coming from pretty far off, but you know, just when we need something to get done, it was so easy to talk with them because they already kind of knew what we were thinking. We'd go through scenarios with them. We did that with the Air Force, anyone we could grab that we were going to work with as an asset.

We wanted to let them know our story, who we are, how we operate, and how we think. And it just made things happen that much more faster on the battlefield. I mean, so when I got to Afghanist in twenty thirteen as an advisor as a Jaytach advisor, h Or is the jatak for my advisor team. I remember like our first day at Leatherneck, I grabbed my corman. I'm like, let's go over to the flight line, go talk. I'm gonna talk to the squadron, get updated maps from them, and then we can introduce ourselves to the to them and to the the pedro squadron that was there, the Metavac squadron yep, yeah, and be like, hey, what's up Siege two too, So don't fuck me, you know, like, if you hear that, that's me, and it was. It's just good though, because they gave me all the

updated map data. They gave me a rundown. They're like, where are you going? Oh, we're going to sing and they're like, all right, well that's great. Uh, here's what's going on and singing, you know, and it's just good to hear those different perspectives and like make those relationships. That's why it's called liaison, you know, that's why two ten liaison is the Ford observers that go and make liaison with the other people.

You know, you attach these people and provide this support, and a good fire supporter is proactive and makes these relationships and makes it helps people understand like what's available and makes things happen. Maybe maybe there wasn't this squadron on the on the schedule, but you found out through a relationship. Someone contacted you and said, hey, we're flying today, we're on the schedule. If you need something, let us know. You know, like that kind of stuff happens. Oh Man, absolutely, And that's where you know you brought up some great points. I mean that's just a relationship we had with like the one sixtieth. I mean it was a non stop going back and forth talking with them. Yeah, and we were in a bad situation during one

of the missions. And you know, they don't fly at daytime, like they're out there at night. And it was they had three flight leads, and their flight leads would rotate I think like every like sixty days or something like that. So they had a guy named like KP. KP was an older guy. He probably has more time on her night vision than I've been alive. You had a guy's Zeus, and he knew Zeus just flew like a demon. I mean you again at forty seven. I mean he would just haul ass. And then the other flight lead was Buddy and Buddy was an army ranger and he like, you know, it's just like talking to like another marine, Like he got it. You know, he has been on the ground. He gets all that stuff. And what's like, and

you know, we're doing our face face and we're talking. He goes, you guys are I'm gonna be listening the entire time and we'll be tracking you and we're like, cool, got it. So we're just in a bad fight. We're in a troops in contact. All that shit's going down, and next thing you know, you's here, like you know, we're running low on AMMO and we're getting ready to do a resupply request and you just heard the forty seven flying in and it was just Buddy and he's like, hey, guys, I got your bros. And he's throwing speedballs out and takes off and it's like we didn't even call him. He just said, these guys are running out of Schlitz and I got to do something and totally broke protocol to fly at daytime. But he's like, hey, I don't

care. I know what you guys are going through on the ground. You guys need some ass. And I wanted to provide it for you. It was like, that's why our military rocks, you know, just stuff like that. It's just good business, you know, it's just good business to build relationships. That's what people don't even out in the real world, you know. It's all about relationship building and stuff like that. Yeah. For people that are interested in the one sixtieth, go back and check out the episode that I did with Greg Cooker. I did one with him as well.

He uh, he was a little bird pilot talks about the battle at Haditha Dam during the invasion with like the Rangers and I think a small Delta element. Yeah. They were being like overrun and he was like the solo bird for a little bit, little bird, just trying to beat back the the uh whoever the fettyine or whoever they were fighting. It's a it's pretty cool. Well yeah, yeah, it's crazy stuff. Man. There was something else I said. Someone asked me on one of the oh, are there any warrant officers at MARSK. There's a gunner there, right, boy, did we have a gunner? I think they might have a gunner.

I don't know if we had one. I mean cause it literally like when I was at Recon. We got our first like gunner ever, so it wasn't I don't know if they really put him there. But you know, a guy named Nate Lampert, he was intel side. I think he was like a CWO five, like what was like not many of them, you know, but NAB was have some warrant officers on the intel side, and nothing within the teams is not built like an ODA. I think they have a warrant officer per team, but we had a couple, uh, and it's definitely more of the intel side. And I mean I just every time you're asking about guys in that unit that everyone was just awesome guys. I mean, we just got really fortunate. It was just really awesome dudes that

we got to operate with. And thank god because it was some of the worst situations I could ever imagined being in. Well, yeah, yeah, that's combat. That's the unfortunate. That's the unfortunate. To think about combat. Do you think God ying here do you think Marsak could benefit from having warren officers like guys that are on the team move up and move into warrant officer positions. It's kind of like, I guess what the Army does with theirs. Yeah, I think you definitely could. I mean again, like you know, I kind of seen the relationships with like the odas. They seem kind of like a they seem like a good voice in a team and stuff like that, and you know it for all of you something you might not know, like warter officers, Like I don't know if officers really don't

to do with a water officer like they like a CWO five shows up in the general's like uh, like you know, like who's in charge of you? And what do we dow five is basically untouchable. Yeah, exactly. So it's really comical. So like you know, if you get a water officer and he's going up to like a company commander, it's like okay, you know, like it I think it could benefit So I think it would be a really cool concept to do because I think also, yeah, obviously you would get enlisted guys who would want to go after that one officer spot.

And if you can make a MSOT stronger with a water officer and you can have like an equivalent of almost like you know, your team chiefs and master sergeant and you got a war officer on top of that. I mean, that could be a lot of a lot of fun. I think that's just a lot of good talent. It seems like a good opportunity to allow someone that doesn't want to leave, like maybe the team or company level, to stay in that environment but still progress with their career. You know what I'm saying, Like, yeah, exactly, because not everybody wants to go be a staff officer and fucking the PowerPoint. Yeah exactly. I mean, like our guys who we sent on staff off were usually guys who got in trouble and they had to pay their dependence and I guess what you got to

You got eight months in Afghanistan sitting on staff, have fun, go ride the bench for a little bit. Yeah exactly. It's like you're not gonna do that again, are you. So it's a good lesson learned. But yeah, I think that'd be a real interesting concept that they they would implement that again. I just think it would be a stronger, more effective team.

And you know, ideally, sure, we deployed as a company, but primarily msots are moving around as a team, like it's just the four team guys and they're going somewhere. So I think having that a little more senior experience and stuff like that can only help benefit you. Yeah. Yeah, Plus when you're working with other forces, it's good to have. Let's be honest, a lot of forces don't care if you're an They don't want to hear from the staff sergeant or the gunny. He's not an officer.

So if you're in an area where he's the only officer around, a warrant officer, you know, that pulls a little bit more respect from whoever it is you're working for. Yeah, it's such a weird game when you deal with stuff like that, when people won't like respect you at all because you're not an officer. Oh my goodness. I mean we saw in Africa one of the guys we had is black. And you know, I tell people like, you can say what you want to say about our country and systemic races or whatever. I mean, And I'm sure you have too. Like you literally see it in some countries where it's like, hey, your religion is that you're done, you're not getting promoted. But in the places I was in North and West Africa, it was literally three class groups. It

was the white Moors, which were like Arabs, the black Moors, which were blacks who had some kind of status and they could be in houses and stuff. Then you had the Afro Blacks, which was pretty much I mean, I think it's pretty much slavery. I mean that's kind of really oh yeah, it's really bad. And really it was all from the white Moors, like they all kind of came from aristocracy. They're all the officers.

I mean, it was very backwards from how we do our stuff. And they didn't know this guy was an American, so they were kind of talking to him like he was on POS and then once they found out he was a gringo, they're like, oh, oh, you're an American. Okay, sorry about that. You know, It's like, dude, jet, I mean, holy shit. You know. That's where I'm like, I'm not saying we're perfect, but I think we're the best thing going in the world right now. So that's crazy, man, just too. I don't want to trigger anyone, but I don't think that happens on your on your site. So people don't understand. People don't understand what goes on in these other countries, like in Kuwait. Kuwaitis aren't working. All the workers you

see are foreigners that they brought into work because they make so much oil money. That that's you know, it's like and like you said, slavery, that shit still exists over in like Africa and stuff like that. Like there's videos on maybe not on YouTube now, but there used to be videos of like open air slave markets where they're buying people and shit. It's it's crazy, so depressing. I mean that's where even like you know, parts I was in Southeast Asia, I would say probably Malaysia might be like the most progressive kind of Southeast Asia country where you know, they don't really care what your religion is. You know, they'll celebrate Hindu and Christianity and Islam and all that. But we had a guy there that we would work with on

the caarent terrorism side and just an awesome operator. Now he was a Hindu, and you know, he would tell me stories. You know, he would do security for like Bill Gates or like Queen Elizabeth and I'll just never forgot the Bill Gates story. He's like, I just wish I could get excited about anything in my life the way that guy gets excited for McDonald's fries.

Like really, he's like yeah, He's like he was just like his hands of moving. It was just like kind of lose his mind that he was about to get McDonald's fries. Okay, but you know he was solid, Like I said, awesome operator. We were cross trained, we do a lot of stuff. And I'm like, you know, but he wasn't the like division commander. And I'm like, hey man, I'm like, you're kind of like run the show here. How come you're not getting promoted?

What's going on? He goes, well, I can't. And I'm like why. He goes, well, I'm Hindu, and I'm like, so, what is that to do with anything. He goes, If I convert to Islam, they will promote me. They told me that. But since I'm not, this is where I have to stay. And I'm like, ah, wow, that is systemic racism right there, Like you literally can't get a promotion because of your religious beliefs. But yeah, you know, yeah, they're they're not too bad in the main part of Malaysia.

When you get out to some of the outer parts, it's a little bit more extreme, you know, they're uh, I don't know, it's it's that's an interesting place as well. I remember seeing like dead monkeys on the road. It's like a dog that ran into the street just because they came to the palm groves and stuff. Nobody cares like Americans are like. We were like, oh shit, look at that monkey, Like, oh man, I can leave, got killed. They're like whatever, dude, Yeah, that's fucking those fucking monkeys. Yeah. No, I loved I thought was really cool it Mersing and Tenang. I got to sos some like expat areas, but uh yeah that I think Indonesia. That was like Jakarta, Indonesia. That's that's some we were in. I think we were in Sabu

I believe is the area of Sabah something like that. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's close to Indonesia. And at some point there was like an invasion from Indonesia into Sabah and we went through some of the areas where that happened. And that's why they constantly have like training and stuff like that with American forces like and stuff. It's what's crazy too. People don't know man Man Malaysia beaches the water and stuff is just super nice. But the entire beach where we were at was just covered in plastic. I'm talking the entire beach as far as you could see, is just covered in plastic.

And they said that it floats over from Indonesia and they're like, yeah, we got to come out here and clean this up. They're like, it won't be here. We were there was an advanced party setting up a exercise, amphibious landing and all this stuff, and we were checking the beef and like, yeah, all this will be cleaned up before you guys get here.

And we're like, well, okay, I mean you don't have to do that. But they said they have to go out there and clean up plastic every couple of months because it could get so built up. It's just floating across the whatever that sea or whatever it is between them, and I'm like, that's insane, man, that's crazy. Yeah, definitely. You know, I think people over here who think that we have like a pollution issue, Yeah, they saw some of these countries. They would just have a heart attack. I mean it really yeah, it's just I mean, I'd never been to India, but I've heard stories about that. I was talking to this one girl. It was kind of interesting. I was doing this magazine called Cannabis Talk Magazine and it feels weird to say it, but

it's kind of funny. It's like I had to have a photo shoot done, which I've never done before. But you know, you're doing all these stupid poses for like three hours and they take like two pictures and that's what goes out. But the girl running the photo shoot, like we just got into like an interesting conversation about, you know, the things that are going on with like children in Hollywood and you just hear about that weird, that weird kind of world, and so we're kind of talking about that stuff and she's like, yeah, you know, like she was actually a Gerber baby.

So she was like, I've been in the industry literally like almost forever. And I was like, you know, this is this stuff true? And she's like, you know, I got out, but I just remember when I was five years old, they said I was too fat for something and probably not what a five year old needs to hear, right five, I mean, it's like what are we doing? But we started kind of going down the path and then we were talking about like China and some of the restrictions and she was out there with Netflix and they're doing like a couple or not whoever but they're doing site surveys and she's like, it was crazy because you leave with like this cough and she's like it literally was like right before COVID, so you kind of only know, like do we have this

thing just for everyone's interest too. She's like, you know, bats are bad luck in Chinese like kind of the way they think. So she's like, when you heard the whole wet market in a bat or something like that, it was like that, no way that was true. But anyway, she's like going out to these little villages out of middle of nowhere and you start coughing because all they do is just take everything and burn it. So it's like plastic. It's this green smoke going everywhere all throughout the country.

She's like, it's just filthy and you literally kind of feel it on your body right away. And she's like, you know, you come back here and everyone's freaking out about how bad we are, not what we're doing to the earth. Like she's like, good lord, just go to China and see what they have going on. And literally one you know, kind of funny tip one of the people that was working with her, he was luckily in the media, but he downloaded Netflix and got a knock on the door and they took him to the embassy and sent him home. And she's like, if he wasn't in the media, I don't know what would have happened.

But she's like, you might as well go up to someone in Beijing and shoot them in the head in broad daylight over downloading Netflix, like they no American nothing, And she's like, it is like the worst thing you can do over there. Let's have like US propaganda, fucking us propaganda. Have you did you see that recent Chinese propaganda video that made like American pilots look bad ass though it was like, uh, it was like a cartoon video they made. It was like an eagle and a fighter jet. You look. I was like, man, it kind of makes us look kind of cool. I mean, I'm not gonna I'm not even mad about that.

You know, Like you guys got when the Germans called us Telfahundan's you know, we were like, hey, that that kind of rocks. We'll keep that nickname. Yeah that's funny, man. Yeah, it's a different world, man. I just that's my appreciation. That's why I don't really I don't have a I don't have a I don't know. I can't take a lot of bullshit, you know what I'm saying. When people start complaining and stuff, I'm like, just shut the fuck up, you know, like we have it so good. We do, And I mean, i'd be interested to see your take. I mean, how do you you know, want to like, you know, you never try to get an emotional right because you just kind of lose your art that point. But like, how do you deal with people when they start saying that, like, oh

my god, we're so terrible. Oh we got no opportunities here. Oh this country's so wrong. It's like, are you bleeping kidding me? You know, like what the fuck are you talking about? I've had stuff happen a couple times where I'm like what do you you know? I when people are complaining about stuff, I'm like, dude, you're that negative energy is just killing me. Man, Like be positive. Look at all the good things. You know, there's bad stuff, Yeah, you know it deserves attention and stuff like that. But to be so many people focus on the bad stuff and they make excuses for why things are the way they are.

Hey, I didn't do this, I didn't do that. A lot of and it I don't know, it's a lot of excuse making, is what I see for people. Yeah, people and complaining about stuff. I guess it's hard to say. It's hard to be mad though, because if you've never been to another country, you don't know that it can be that bad, you know what I'm saying, Like I just because you saw a documentary on National Geographic about a tribe in Africa doesn't mean you really understand what it's like. And then guys like us that have gone overseas and like slept in a basically a dirt hut for seven months and starved and ate rice with them and you know, doing shit like seeing how other people live, you can fully appreciate it. You can fully appreciate the creature comforts of the United States.

And the people talk about our infrastructure is horrible, ridiculous. You know, it could use improvements and stuff like that. But I mean, the look are roads. I mean you saw the roads in Afghanistan. One they're not lined with bombs, so yeah, that you know, that's a positive positive. There's not checkpoints of random like gangs that'll stop you and you know and make you give up money. Or whatever or kill you. You know that none of that is occurring, So that's good. I can turn my lights on and off whenever I can. I can. Even if you don't like city water. It's hilarious. People will talk about how they hate city water and it's not good for you, and I'm just like, man, I've drink so much bad water and I've seen what people are drinking, like

we have it so good. Yeah, it may not be the best or whatever, but I'm not going to complain about it. You know, I drink tap water. People think I'm crazy, but I don't really drink filtered water or anything like that. It's drink it straight from the tap. I don't know. Man. In college, when i'd have a student or something like that, other students would say something like that, I'm like, I'm like, you don't know what you're talking about. I would point them out.

Like a girl I think I've talked about on the podcast before. A girl said something in my Italian class about how the US has no culture, and I'm like, what are you talking about? Like we have cold, we have what are the blues? You know what I'm saying, Like, what are you talking about? Like you haven't traveled the country. Every region has its own kind of culture. I've lived. I've lived in the South.

I grew up, you know a lot, over a decade in Tennessee. I lived in Indiana for a long time. I was born in Indiana, so I've got that Midwest. I've lived in the South. I lived in North Carolina, in the Marines. I've been in California for years. Between my first year and second year of college, I did like a two just over two week road trip across country to go see, you know, all the stuff that I read about in history books and stuff about the country.

I wanted to go see Mount Rushmore. I wanted to go and see Yosemite Falls, you know. Like I feel bad for people that don't appreciate where they're at and take take the steps to actively like, I don't know, man, like I appreciate where you're at. My kid lives here in San Diego. Right, we'll be cruising down PCH. Excuse me, I'm dying. I keep saying that we'll be cruising down PCH at sunset and he'll be looking at his phone or whatever, and I'm like, bro, people pay to come here on vacation, to see that sunset, and it's just so common for you now that you just like whatever, you know what I'm saying. I remember when I lived in Ocean Side, I was a five minute walk from the pier, and anytime I went anywhere, anytime I drove

anywhere, I would always drive the strand on my way back, just because I appreciated it. Because I lived in Indiana. I remember being a kid watching movies about California and you know, like the beaches and stuff, and just like I just appreciated that I was there. And like, I don't know, I just don't think people appreciate stuff. Part of that is because of they just never been They've never had that opportunity to experience it. But yeah, it's it's interesting, like because you know, people are just kind of like what they're presented, they take that as reality. And I think, you know, with what the media is doing and all this stuff in the way they kind of just say all this negative stuff about our country,

people just take that as like gospel and they're like, well, that's what it means. It's like, but you know, you almost look at like the movie The Truman Show, and they there's like one part in that kind of struck me and like set me down like a path where I'm just noting it, like all this independent research on a different thing. But it was the interviewers asking the director like why hasn't Truman ever questioned, like this world is fake? And he's like, because what we have presented to him, he takes that as his reality, like that is what it is. So it's literally a fake world he lives in, but he thinks it's real because he's never been able to go out and experience other things. And that's where

I kind of my frustration grows with people. It's like, you know, you're reciting things back to me from like what the media is saying, or like because I know what they're saying because you hear the talking points and about ten Media's channel saying the same thing. Or to your point, Oh, I just watched this nat GEO thing and I'm an expert now on Middle East, you know what what's happening here. And that's even too where like you know, clearly we got the whole tire, you know, Israel and Hamas thing and all that stuff going on, and it's really triggered a lot of emotions. I think, especially on the Democrat side. And you know, people ask me where I stand. I'm like, well, I'm pro woman and I'm pro gay. If you like, I'm a pretty much a libertarian.

You can do what you want to do. So think what side that puts me on. It's pretty obvious. But you know, then I hear people on the other side. They're like, oh my god, every Muslim this and that they're crazy, and I'm like, not necessarily. I'm like, I have been all around the world fighting with Muslims, killing other Muslims, and kind of what they all say to me. You know, it's like they always tell us, don't talk about religion and all that stuff.

I'm like, but you're building bonds with these guys. I mean, you're out there fighting, You're gonna have some pretty candid conversations. And I'd ask them, like, why are you fighting against them and with us versus the other way around? And they're like, well, you know, it's like if you're a Christian or you're a Catholic, you know, you would debate me with your Bible in your hand, and I would debate you with my Kuran in my hand. He goes. But they they put the Koran in their war belt and convince you with a weapon. And that's not who we are, what we're about. And I talk to people who are really big on like Christianity and like, oh, that is terrible. I'm like, well, it's not like the Catholic Church had a good run with the Crusades.

And it's like, well, yeah, but they weren't actually doing what Christians should be doing. And I'm like bingo. I'm like, yeah, there are some Muslims and there are some you know, the Sharia law and all the fanaticals. That's crazy, that's out of balance, but doesn't mean you lump an entire religion into it. I'm like, you kind of have to get to know these people when you're out there with them, having eating their rice and being there this and that. Yeah, not saying I agree religiously. I think every religion is like a hair away from being fanatical.

Just is how you interpret it. But it's like, you know, all these people make these blanket statements without having any real world experience, and all they're doing is presenting a fake world that was given to them and they're telling me, no, this is the reality of everything. It's like not true, Like you need to experience more and it's going to make you, I think ultimately just a better person. Like you're not start lumping groups of people together. You're going to look at people as individuals as we should and make sure a good person. Yeah. Yeah, it makes you well rounded individual, you know, you have that world experience. No, I agree, Like if that's the thing I when you speak with a foreigner that does keep

up with US media. The problem with that is, for the main thing is they're only getting the mainstream media outlets what we call now the legacy media, the ones that are dying, you know, like the CNN, NBC and stuff like that. So if all those organizations ban together to have one narrative, then that's all the the entire world is seeing and going. Man, the US is fucked up, you know, like look at them, look at them over there, Look how bad they are. The Internet helps that some because you know, people have interactions on like sites like Reddit and stuff like that with foreigners and they see like, you know, there's nuanced, but it's it is bad man. The way the media, the media does it, it's just not good. And yeah, lumping there's extremists in

every category. You know, there's extremist of everything, so you definitely can't wrap people up in and that blanket of you know, everyone from this group is that bad because that one guy did this, And it's like, Okay, that's fucked up. You know, we could take down any group in the country by using that kind of logic. It's just it's a I don't know, it's crazy, and that's why I couldn't. I mean, I wasn't a general Miley fan in the first place. But after you know, the January sixth situation, and he got up on the floor and a senate here and he's like, I want to learn about white rage and what makes white people tick and why would they do this? And I'm like, yeah, this guy is a fucking clown show, the most intellectually weak officer who

ever put on the uniform. And you're just saying all white people had this rage and do this, Like no, it was it was a bunch of assholes, all right, Like that's who they were. I don't care what color they were, how they identify whatever. But you just can't like sit there and just literally blank off like a part of your country to be like, well, they're all like that, I mean, is so unfair.

And I'm like, man, see any other race group and say that same thing and see what it would happen to you. Yeah. No, it's crazy. That's the world we're living in too, man, that's the world where we've we've swung so far to become so progressive that we're like alienating each other. We're grouping people again. You know, it's like before it used to be like for segregation because the others we don't want to be around them.

And now we're it's like we're doing that again, and that's being being called progressive. It's a I don't know, it's a wild time. Will it'll get it figured out, you know, God, I'm with you, like somehow, some way this is going to level out. I think. Well, I think the reality is is most people walk outside their front door and go to the store and say hi, and you know, open a door for someone, and they're just nice people. You know, if we if we base the world on Twitter rage, then you know a lot of people forget Twitter's not reality. And the problem is all news organizations and all politicians are on Twitter and they think it's reality. So that's what gets driven through the media and stuff is some of the insane shit that goes on there,

and it's all like it's all stuff rage click bait, you know. It's like they just want you to click on these stories and they want you to get worked up because that's how they make money. And anyways, though, well we'll break away from that, but yeah, the media kind of sucks as and I say that as a journalism grad, you know, a student from STSU. So one thing we talked about last time that I thought was interesting and I got some clarification, was Quantico war Fighting Society on or it's either war Fighting or war Fighter Society on Instagram was doing some kind of poll and this got brought up on a couple pages like goons up and stuff like that about bringing back and I believe it was division level patches. Now

this is yeah, so division level patches on uniforms. I think before I thought it might have been down to battalion level, but this would be division level or MLG patch on like alphas and stuff. What are your thoughts on that? No, I don't want it, no blue diamond. No. I just and that's the thing. It's like, you know, you see the world War two uniforms and all that stuff, and that's all well and good, but you know again, I mean if they're like, hey, every marine special, then it's like, then why are we segregating ourselves the Marines and marine? And I just always thought it looked cool when we would just all have the same marine uniform on and there weren't certain things that identified you in a certain union or stuff like that. I mean in patches.

I get it, you're going to have warfare pins and stuff. But I liked it, and I think it also kind of like the other services I think really liked it too. I just you know, one, you don't want to sow a bunch of stuff on. It's one more thing to get inspected. But I just think a lot of people are like, man, your guys' uniforms just look so much more clean, like they're not cluttered with like stuff. And I guess I would always ask like, why would you want that? Like why would you want that on there? What's it for?

Like its division pride or are we worried about that? Like what is the purpose of doing it? And it better be significant because you don't want to have, you know, just do that just big well, Marines, because we said so, and that's what you got to do. It's like because it would look cool man, right, I mean, I don't know.

And again, like I think we were talking about, you know, would you eventually have that brag patch like the Army does, like they have their active unit and their favorite unit and stuff like that. I don't know. I just I like how the Marine Corps uniforms are now. I mean, I definitely appreciate how it. I think in the eighties they tried to go with like the rank on the hat type of thing like the Army does, and that fell away real quick. And I don't know, I just think it just kind of looks cool the way we do our things now.

I guess for a long time they didn't and they never even had name tapes. They only put US Marine or something like that on it, and there was no name on the uniform. Oh no, kidding. Yeah. I think David Armstrong, who's the host of the Moments in Leadership podcast, came on. He's a retired artillery officer, and I think he was saying that was the time when you'd have to iron like the EGA onto your like uniform and all that stuff. That there was no name tapes. It just said US Marines, and like as a leader you had to remember everybody's name.

It was no like, oh, I can look at it, and I was like, oh, that would be such a I don't know, that would be really annoying because I'm horrible names. You need to kind of get and go, like you might take your blouse off and where's my blouse, you know, and just has your name on it and stuff like that.

But uniform changes over the years. We also brought up and I want I wanted to make sure I said this again, was that the only someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But I think the only chevron that is different in the Marine Corps is the band, the President's own band. The members of that are people that come in the military. They do like a six week Marine Corps in doctrination, and they come in and are promoted immediately to staff sergeant and inside their rank is a musical instrument rather than cross rifles, and their only purpose is to be in the band. And the reason that they do that is because these are people that have masters and PhD levels and music and would be working at you know, famous orchestras and stuff, so

they have to give them some kind of pay, and so they automatically promote them to the staff sergeant and do it that way. There may be something else that that's different. I know. The other actually, the other chevron that would be different is now there's like a billet called SMIAK or SIAC. It's like the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff or something like that, and it rotates between the services. So now there's a different chevron for the start and major Stard. Major Black is the guy now who was formerly the start major of the Marine Corps, but they now have a different chevron, but nice uniforms. Man pop A ten twenty point three to four golf changes one through four is what I remember, you know, having

to keep up on all that. I was that guy when someone would come up and be like, hey, you can't have your boots blouse that low, you know between the first and second eyelet. I'm like, no, pop A ten twenty point three to four golf doesn't say anything like that, and they're like WHOA, Like yeah, that's good. I mean they're probably all right and just gotta walk away. Like this guy knows what he's talking about. So I'm gonna go over ask someone else. That's the uniform order for marines. And that was the thing that was something always killed me, was like, what adding extra stuff? Because you did this when you came up or you're a you know, a master sergeant and you want it this way. That's not your place. There's an order that tells you exactly how

to do everything, So let the guys do it that way. If they're within the order, then fucking leave guys alone, you know what I'm saying. That was I would always get frustrated when people would get pissy. Guy I got told my last MEW day one on the ship, you're on ship now, not going anywhere. You know, nothing's happening. They do their like we're off on deployment speech and the sardain major walks by me after they finished and he's like, your cammies are two faded, get new ones, And I'm like, where, like where I'm on ship and this is day one of the deployment and we're on deployment. Who cares? You know what I'm saying? And like and I was like, these are my nice ones.

You should see my other pair, Like Oh that was the kind of stuff where I'm like, this is fucking stupid, and that's why guys get out. That's why people out there like exactly. I mean, like I said, you miss the clowns, you don't miss the circus. We know when when? How's the network for you guys, for the MARSK for former Raiders, it seems like it's pretty tight. Like you guys have a good people getting out, have like a good little brotherhood and like network of people.

You know, what would you say about that? Yeah, it definitely. I mean obviously being kind of like the new kids and stuff like that, it wasn't like a really huge Raider network prior to all of us. Uh, but we you know, we looked at what the Seals were doing in Green Berets and stuff, and they have awesome networks, and we're like, you know, in time, we're going to get there. When people are getting promoted into jobs or starting companies or stuff like that, I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunities. And we all, like a lot of us, we all still talk a lot. We're on different like channels with each other. Everyone's just kind of popping in. Someone needs a favor, someone's gonna jump in real quick. So it's been pretty cool. And

I know a lot of the guys who go into like the Honor Foundation, which has been running as there's one here in San Diego, and I believe they have one out in North Carolina now and that's open up a lot of doors. So as people continue to kind of advance in their careers and get promotions, I think you're gonna see a lot more of that, like, hey, you need a job, give me a call. We can kind of set that up for you, which is good. It is an important and you know, we do a good job too with the Marine Raider Foundation.

It's we only got one foundation that supports the raiders and that's it. I know some other groups they might have four or five, six different competing nonprofits and usually you know, they'll do a good job once a year trying to get as many of us together. Even some of the World War Two raiders who are still around have them out and those are pretty good where people kind of can catch up with each other. So really it's a good network.

Obviously, everyone's and vetted, especially those who you know, experience the combat side. You kind of know everything you need to know about that person and things really work out well. Are you part of like the Legion or VFW or anything like that, Yeah, the VFW and the Legion and not really an active member. You know. That's kind of one things I think they need to look at what they're doing. About a year and a half ago, I was kind of working on seeing if we could turn an American Legion into a consumption lounge and just have that option and like have a dispensary right by there, and really what the what they're looking at is like, Man, our recruitment numbers are down, you know, people are getting older,

and they're like, we're not getting a really new people joining. And I'm like, well, I'm like, you walk into these American Legions or vfw's, they smell like smoke and you can smell like, you know, stale beer on the ground and stuff, and I'm just I was like, listen, you know, the g Watt era, there was a lot of drinking with with guys and that, and a lot of guys have kind of overcome that stuff. So one of the last things some of these guys are going to do is come into a dark dive bar where all the temptations of that life is right there. Especially you're sitting around telling war stories and stuff, and now everything gets flowing. I'm like, I just think people are kind of turned off a little bit. But if you say, hey,

you can buy a pre roll or do that, I'm like, I think these things would be amazing because then you're gonna get people there. They might be splitting a joint smoke in talking about what they're gonna do, get newborn, go home. I think that would definitely help out with the recruitment side and kind of get them into the next generator next, you know, generation of war fighters, because I really think our our group is going to be like the cannabis and psychedelic kind of group that you know, guys started to gravitate towards that to kind of alleviate some of the demons are dealing with.

I have the American Legion Post six right down the street here here in San Diego, and I joined up with those guys. I guess it's the oldest post in California. They were Post one. And then when they open one in like Sacramento in like the eighteen hundred or something, they're like, well, this is the capital, so we need Post once. They made them switch to Post six, but that's a non drinking one. But it also has the same It has the issues with recruitment because it's like, how are you guys, how are you guys relating to the like younger you know generation?

The my my, I'm anytime I go. I'm one hundred percent the youngest person there, one hundred percent, you know, and I'm almost forty. And the only thing they really do there is like bingo and stuff, and I'm like, that's not bringing dudes in, like, guys, don't I mean no, like what most they have the same thing where there's a lot of members, but most of them aren't active because there's no events there that they can relate to. And I was like telling them, I'm like, you guys, you know, you guys have this bingo set up and you have some sort of gaming license. I don't understand it. You know, that's your legalities. You guys can talk more about it, but why not set up like video gaming because have like gaming tournaments and stuff. I

was like, this is a multi billion dollar industry now. A lot of dudes play video games. I mean, I remember being on ship guys would bring like the little it's like a little suitcase that's a built in Xbox and screen that they could play on ship. And it was like, yeah, crazy dude like that is, but that dudes are into that, and I'm like, you guys could set up tournaments here, maybe have a team or maybe sponsor an active duty team. There's there's actually now active duty like gaming teams, Like there's an Army gaming team and stuff like that. Yeah, where they play video games professionally. Yeah. So I was like, you got to figure out something to reach out to the younger demographic because bingo,

ain't it you know what I'm saying, And like I'm not the guy that wants to come in and wear the little hat and all that. Like that's cool and all, but that's not me, man, I'm not I don't want to be on the color Guard and you know, I don't want to do any of that. Like I'm here for the association. I guess the networking. You know, obviously they have people that you can talk to you for like VA benefits and stuff like that. But it's just like it's tough, man, It's tough for them because they're really trying to find their way, you know, they're the it's kind of like the NRA is for guns, Like that's like that's like our grandfather's organization and stuff like. No, most most modern like younger gun guys don't really care about the NRA. Yeah,

they know who it is and stuff, but that's like now whatever, you know, that's like an older like I don't I knew guys that had lifetime memberships of the NRA and stuff like that, and that was like a big big hanging up on the wall and stuff. And younger guys are like why would I give them my Like I don't gonna give my money up for that, Like that's stupid. So I go Vinyl bag from home or something.

Yeah, because I mean, like you know, the concepts of like you know, the FW's American Legions. Again, I love it, you know, in terms of it's getting veterans together. They have a social place I can go to. Yeah, but you know my problem just with you know, and I don't go have a drink. I'm all good with it.

I just think those kind of atmospheres and just some of the veterans I've talked to, they're like, no, I just don't want to be in a situation like that because I know it will happen and it's not gonna be the best thing for me. So that's where it's kind of like, hey, you know, if you guys want to get into the next next generation, I think you guys really we guys started looking at some cannabis consumption lounges within the aside. Yeah, I think it would do really good. That'd be cool, man. I remember being in North I don't know if we talked about this in the last one or not, but I remember being in North Carolina and I really got into cigars while I was there, you know, for a little bit. I have my own humidor and all that stuff.

Actually the computer sitting on top of the humid or for the a little behind the scenes, but I had like my own humidor and stuff. And there was a cigar shop over by one of the I think by Schwana except bar in North Carolina, and you could go there and pay a membership fee. It was like fifty bucks a month or something like that, but you got a humid door that was built into their wall, and then they had like private events and you could you couldn't drink alcohol or that they couldn't serve alcohol or anything like that, but you could bring like a like if I want to go have a cigar and watch a football game, I could go there on a Saturday or Sunday sit down by. I usually brought a cigar and then bought a cigar and then you could bring like a six pack and

they'll just throw it in the fridge for you and give it to you whenever you want, you know. And I'm like, man, they need to have like a private club lounge kind of deal like this for cannabis for people to just comet. Got like an espresso maker over here, coffee shop, got some video games on or sports on, and you can just relax, hang out bs with other people. And it was, I don't know, I think what you're talking about is the way. I think you're also it's one of the ways, and maybe not it's not the way, but you know, yeah, And I mean I think they're gonna get to a point, you know, all these ideas that that we're talking about I think would be beneficial, and it eventually money talks, and if they're at a point

where they're like, listen, we're not getting any new members and all this stuff, like what do we gotta do? Then hopefully they let some new blood kind of come in there and maybe just enhance it a little bit more to kind of meet the needs in the new of the new group. Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. That's what I've been trying to tell those guys too. And one thing, and if you if you're in one of those organizations and you're an officer in one of those organizations and you're listening to this, I offered to volunteer to work with some of do some of the social media marketing or social digital marketing stuff for the local American Legion and do some stuff for them, and which I had no problem doing, but

they started asking me for like a lot of work. You know. It was gonna be like hours a week. And I told the guy, I was like, hey, man, like I'm okay doing some stuff like but you know, at some point I got to be compensated for some of this. And he was like, I'm gonna try to light you or write you into the as a line item for digital market consulting and then you can work for the district, you know, and we can pay you some for your time and I'm like, all right, cool, And he went and talked to the district commander and that guy was like, no, we just want volunteer services. And I'm like, well, that's like asking one of your dudes who's like a painter to paint ten hours of walls for ten hours a week for free. You know what I'm saying, Like they should help out

some maybe the legion needs a little bit of work and stuff like that, but you can't ask guys to come in and volunteer and spend time doing these things. I'm not asking to get paid like for just a little bit of stuff, but I'm talking about like continuous work and stuff like that. And I told this guy this and he was like, yeah, I kind of get that. And I'm like, what you guys forget is you're all old, retired receiving benefits and you have nothing to do, but can maybe come down and hang out at the lodge or the loue, you know, and and Chill, I have a job, you know, I have to make money to survive because I'm not retired. I'm not getting all these like VHX or not vhxs, but like social Security checks and all this other stuff.

You know, you got to understand that. And he's like, oh, I never really thought of that, And I'm like, you know, not all of us that are joining or wanting to join. The demographic you're looking for are working adults, so you have to make it convenient for a working adult to be a member and contribute, you know. So yeah, yeah, yeah, man, Well let's wrap up a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about Huming Valley Growers. What's coming up with you guys, and then you know, we can wrap this up. Yeah for sure.

Yeah. So I think I mentioned in beginning, you know, we're doing a little bit of a rebrand, so we're really excited. That was a lot of work, but we'll have that stuff ready to come out here in California. That'll be out probably the first second week of January, so packages are on the way. We will have some like more swags. So in twenty twenty four, I would expect to see like a little bit of a clothing line start kind of emerging. I just think people are liking our gear, even people who don't consume cannabis are just digging it. So that will help us and help us, you know, with our nonprofit Bower Brothers Foundation, and then a really big project I'm in the middle of right now, but we're almost there. Is We are going to be launching in Tennessee,

Kentucky, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and I don't think Texas is too far off, so we should have product in those those states probably in the first week of January. So we're really just trying to expand the message, get it out there to a broader base, hit some really cool states, and look forward to doing a little traveling out there as well. It's just been really complicated here in California with our tax structure and how they continuously just come back at cannabis to raise taxes and all this stuff. So just you know, doing a little bit of federalism here, if you will, where each state has own little pocket of democracy, you know. So we're just trying to try to do some different things, and you know, the

big end state is to get our research finally funded and get that up and going. And then you know, another goal I have for twenty fours to make Battle Brothers into a veteran service organization like a VFW. You know, right now when we're helping out disability claims. Battle Brothers will pay a for profit group to you know, take care of that veteran. Nothing comes out of veterans pocket. But we're thinking, hey, if we can become our own v SO, now we could actually start doing this right from Jump Street and kind of the goal is to identify people who are getting out about a year before their end of date, and we'll work within that full year to make sure medical records, all that stuff squared away, represent them with the

VA, hopefully get their benefits to where it needs to be and unless thing they got worried about and they can just kind of go off in the world and keep doing some great things. So those are kind of big things coming up. So new packaging, new states, and hopefully a VSO qualification. That's awesome man. Yeah, and you guys are putting I mean that federal illegal for cannabis is crazy for those that don't know. If you grow in California, you can't take that strain. You can't take that product and take it to another state, even if it's legal there, because it's still federally illegal. So you're doing something different where you're setting up stuff in each state, which is cool because at some point, it's not going to be federally

federally federally illegal anymore. And you already have those footholds, you know, where you have everything kind of established. That's I think that's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It likes it's getting really frustrated with our government, you know, particular a guy like Chuck Schumer. I mean, I kind of laugh when I hear people are like, oh, Democrats do this for cannabis, and Republicans are all against it. You know, one my political party as American and I'm not going to paint myself a Democratic Republican, but you know, one thing, it's frustrating me a little bit.

On the Democrat side. I think they just assume they get all the cannabis votes and they're kind of like just not paying attention to what's going on. And one big thing that we need to have happen is safe banking. You guys might have heard something about that, but basically allow us to bank you know at the big banks, like at a you know, city bank or whatever. But since it's federally legal to schedule one drug and we don't have FDIC approval, they won't touch it. So we got to work with a lot of like community banks or state banks, and they will charge a premium for you to bank with them. But what I understand is, like we have it passed the House Safe Banking and the Senate, what I'm understanding between

sixty two and sixty seven vote senators would vote for it. Yeah, Chuck Schumer won't bring it to the floor for a vote. And that's one thing that just want to kind of get out there to people like, you know, don't just assume because of where their political parties are affiliated, that they're doing what you think they're doing. You know, someone Chuck Schumer, he he, I mean, and they keep giving them cannabis awards because he just tweets about stuff that he tweeted it back in twenty eighteen. But things like that just how slow they are moving. And no plant has been researched more than a cannabis plant, and yet we still it's federally illegal. Veterans can't be prescribed it, and it's just getting to a boiling point here that you

know, examples need to be made of people that you know, get them out of office, do something, you know, legally, nothing crazy, but they need to kind of start feeling it because again, we're losing people to suicide here and it just seems like no one's caring about it. I mean, you got these men and women who serve their country, and they're not flipping every stone possible to see what could give them a better life.

It's just getting to be too much. So it's crazy because it's illegal and you can't bank and do that kind of stuff with it because of the regulation and stuff. But you're still expected to pay your federal taxes on it right when you for your sales and all that. Oh yeah, so they'll collect the money, but they won't they won't say it's okay for you to even have. It's such a weird system. It is so backwards, even with some of the bills that you know, again Chuck Schumer and Corey Booker put this bill together and they're gonna have a twenty five percent federal tax, which would just be insane for people in Californiasy. But there was like really no benefits that they were allowing. I mean, I still think it wasn't even

talking about moving to a Schedule three. It'll still be like a Schedule one or something. It was just nuts to me. So it's so ridiculous and you really can't. I mean, I don't think the industry is going to survive until they crack down on like the illegal like cannabis farms and stuff that cartels are growing in our national forest, stuff like that. It's petition and I mean, if anything, Yeah, obviously they're doing a lot of business and people don't have to spend a lot of money with them because they don't have to take all the taxes. But then I always bring up, like, hey, it's a safety issue. I mean, they're not testing their products. I mean, we use a third party state tester and they go through and they make sure ourselves good and the passes. If not, we

can't use it. Yeah, you know, these illicit growers aren't doing that. You have no idea what they're putting into their stuff, and you got bentanol going everywhere. I mean, it's just it's so crazy to me that if they would just lower taxes, lower regulations, make it a more kind of attractive thing to get into, you're going to get a lot of that listed market will come into the legal market, and they're going to make a lot more on tax revenue. If they just kind of water things down and did more of a volume play with it. But it's just I just don't know. I mean, I think it's I think a lot of it as politicians that have never been like into that, you know, they've never smoked or anything like that, and they're just looking at it as a piggybank,

like oh, well, we'll just make this legal and collect as much off of it. And it's like, well, yeah, maybe, you know, when you start adding all these regulations and taxes and stuff, the market's going to go where the market goes. I mean, there are advertise on social media out here. There are these like weed farmers' markets basically where people rent a little warehouse space and you go and there's like fifteen or twenty vendors that have just pounds and bags and bags of stuff and trash bags and whatever that you can just go buy for much cheaper than you can get a dispensary for you know, legal absolutely, so it's like, yeah, of course people are going to go do that, especially younger people like people that may

not have as much money. They're going to go for the cheaper version of it. So oh absolutely, and then you know, hopefully you start seeing, you know, again, federalism in motion here. I mean what California has lost over the past three year, seven hundred thousand people. Yeah, you know, and I think we've lost like two or three seats in Congress.

It's crazy and you're going to keep seeing that happening, because again, California is like the epicenter of cannabis in the world. I mean, it's the biggest market, all that stuff. Everything should be coming from California and kind of setting the trend. But they've done such a bad job, they being the politicians with this program that you're just seeing companies are going to get up and leave. Yeah, it's like, why even would you want to start building like an empire here in California that you might want to sell who wants to come by a California organization. I mean, you're going to packs and all that through the backside. It's just not making sense. And again I don't know why, like where the disconnect is, but they just don't

seem like they care. Again, whatever their agenda is, maybe we're just not privy to it, but it literally seems like they're trying to do everything backwards. Well, the American people are getting tired of it. I think so hopefully people. The biggest issue that I have with people is that they bitch about stuff online. They bitch about stuff to their friends, but then they don't have time to go vote, you know what I'm saying. And it's like, it's like, if you have an issue with this stuff, research what it is, and go out and vote. You know what I'm saying, There's no reason for you to not go out and vote. And I had someone tell me or I heard it one place, someone said, you can either get involved with politics or politics will get involved with you,

you know, And it's better to be informed and go make these smart decisions and not just by what you're getting from one media source. Like research. Some of these people do a deep dive, do an Internet search and look at various resources that are talking about topics and people that you're voting on, because they will even try to confuse you on the ballots and stuff. They did that here with the gas tax and stuff, and where people weren't really sure what they were voting because the way it was worded, it could have been I was voting for it or against it on either one of the decisions, like when it gives you the description of what you're voting for. You got to It's like they do that kind of shit because they know, I

don't know. It's it's frustrating, so go vote it is And you know, you kind of remind me, you know, I know, like and you feel the same way. I mean, I really believe in this experiment called America, and we all have our duty and you got to play your part. And I was thinking about the time it was like Ben Franklin's last time. He was an independence hall in Philadelphia and he was like he's walking out and the mayor of Philadelphia's wife runs up to him. It's like, doctor Franklin, did we do it? Do we have a government? And he looks at her and says, you have a republic and it's yours as long as you guys want to work and keep it. And you know, when people are going out there one not voting or ill informed, you're not

doing your part, because you know, I just find it fascinating how people are so quick to want to give up their liberties because the TV's telling them these are the right people to vote for, and everyone else is this or that, and it's like you know, once you give up your liberties to the government, they're not going to give it back to you. Way.

It's like and you really got to like go through with a fine tooth comb of like understanding who is for what and what's going to do and who is supporting them, because ultimately, whoever their donors are, they come back for their favors and they're got to kind of go by their way. And you're seeing this with DA's and all this stuff that's going around where it's just throwing America into a chaos. So everyone, yeah, you need to get informed and you need to go out there and vote, and we hopefully can write this ship. Yeah, man, for sure. Well that's a good way to end it. I really appreciate it. Man. Brian Buckley again, everybody go check out his website. It's a Helmet Valley Growers Company hvgcompany dot

com. Right, that's it. That's it. Mind's Jcremergraphics dot com. Check that out. If you guys are looking for custom designs or if you're looking for bulk orders, unit T shirts, stuff like that, reach out to me and then also hit me up if you guys need any kind of digital marketing stuff. Se O you know, Google Ads, stuff like that.

I am available. Thanks again, Brian, thank you,

Ep. 200 | Bryan Buckley | Marine Raider and Recon Marine

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