Whiskey, War Stories, and Fake Boobs – Veterans Day at the VFW

his Veterans Day, Todd Nicely takes the podcast When Does the [ __ ] End? straight to the heart of where the stories live—the local VFW. In this raw and unfiltered episode, Todd is joined by a panel of veterans from multiple branches and generations for shots of Screwball, wild stories, brutal honesty, and that signature brotherhood banter.

You’ll hear about:

• Shark bites, bear attacks, and fake boobs 🦈🐻🫦
• Jungle warfare and medics who didn’t want to be medics
• Explosions in Thailand, cold war injustice, and a commander with attitude
• Inter-branch rivalries, respect, and hilarious trash talk
• The truth about veteran life—before, during, and after service

It’s chaotic. It’s hilarious. It’s brutally real.
 Grab a drink, buckle up, and listen in on what it's really like when the uniforms come off but the stories don’t stop.

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Twitter:    https://twitter.com/WDFKRYE
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLK1ho6AACjaEoQGWO2f_uQ

Transcript

[Music]

0:08

[Music]

0:16

that one and i've been eaten by a shark twice twice first time it got my arms second time got my legs by a bear i've

0:23

been attacked by a bear in uh san francisco getting real elaborate with your oh yeah cuz i got tired of people

0:29

asking me so i was like you know what i'm going to start having fun with it and just tell them what i want bigger than the bear he beats the [ __ ] out of

0:35

yeah i got beaten by a bear in san francisco hey go get me a double box you wear your

0:41

hat mil it won't make you feel any better but my boobs are fake

0:46

that makes me feel a lot better i don't know what's going on here there's 13 kind of makes me want to see them all 13

0:52

characters yeah that won't happen well i know but you threw it out there i told you i'm going to say whatever i want i

0:57

got diarrhea mouth whatever's on my mind comes out of my mouth okay if i can't

1:02

fight back i'll let crack see this is all good podcast material i don't know why we're talking don't worry oh we're

1:08

getting it what all right i mean she's going to ask you question well we're not getting her she they didn't hear what

1:14

i'm saying is he coming you mean him hey tom where the hell you think you're going shut the

1:20

board's over come on tom terry come over here with me buddy give me that career stuff come on did you come home clean

1:28

did you come home clean can i come what about the other guy talking over here see you mñana tomorrow night show me the

1:34

money the guy behind tom is he coming uh the gentleman with the hat on i he said

1:39

he was coming come on get your butt up here you only got a half an hour let's go double time

1:47

the hell usually we lay down and wait on women uh mine sir if you'd like

1:55

and if you want you can sit on my nub and i'll turn you into a puppet

2:00

you and i can share yeah so you guys are going to share a mic and these two will share mic let's get you let's get you a

2:06

chair just don't lick it you can sit with you put it in your mouth cuz you had it in your mouth earlier

2:16

there we go all right so i'll do my introduction and then we'll go right into it back home

2:22

okay yeah hey we ready okay this is on yeah it's on

2:30

seriously what do we do now okay i've never done one just wait a second i'm going to run through something and then we'll start asking questions we're ready

2:36

to go all right hey ladies and gentlemen welcome to another episode of when does the [ __ ] end with todd nicely i got

2:41

an a special episode today i'm at the vfw and i got some veterans cuz the other day was just veterans day and so i

2:48

like to run down and ask these veterans a couple questions so i got a panel of veterans here it's going to be

2:54

interesting it's going to be fun but you know how this goes you know what we do at the beginning of the episode we always have a screw ball shot so let's

3:00

do that okay let's do it let's do it hey hey hey cheers all right cheers so we

3:08

only got a couple mics but we're at the vfw so you might hear some music in the background but that'll be all right oh the lord almighty

3:15

damn [ __ ] [ __ ] he said very good isn't it oh

3:23

yeah ain't no peanut ain't no skippy peanut butter out there right protein it is are you going to take yours or what

3:29

are you drinking down there sir he needs some microphone drink well when you talk you got to have the microphone oh well i

3:36

thought you were hello there you go sir we got to share what would you like to know well what i'd like to know is what

3:42

you got and what's your name and when did you serve my my name is michael luma i joined oh

3:48

you got talk into it hi my name is mike luma i joined the service in august of 1964 right out of high school

3:57

uh out of basic training i went to infantry school fort poke louisiana and

4:04

then jump school at fort benning georgia and then when i got to fort campbell as

4:09

a paratroop troop guy he snagged my ass off and sent me to uh san antonio texas

4:15

and made a medic out of me i love a medic medic saved my ass yeah well i i i

4:21

was kind of ashamed that i was but anyway what do you want to know well you

4:27

just told me some of it so let's go no no no no i was over there two and a half weeks and we got

4:35

uh 1001st airborne division second well i was 32 at the time it was a all the medics came from medical battalion

4:41

doesn't work that way anymore but uh they uh went from van rang which was the

4:48

base camp to tuiwa and that's where the [ __ ] happened you know and i it sort of

4:53

like a mash unit and all that crap and it grabbed me and stuck me with a second 50 deuce and i was in a jungle ever

4:59

since and i i never figured out why cuz i look like a 12-year-old boy oh that's

5:05

interesting well i did i did and and and then my top sergeant here at the club i belong here to the vietnamese vietnamese

5:12

he said "michael," he said you had an infantry mos he said you had infantry mos before you got became a medic that's

5:19

why they sent you with an infantry outfit and i i played games around here a little while you know and uh never

5:26

caught anything like garia never no no i never i never got tagged i never got

5:32

tagged and uh it was come time to dro and they didn't dro me back back then

5:39

they called it a critical mos now they call it stop loss or something like that and then he offered me nine grand in it

5:45

stripe to uh to extend the rest of it out so i signed up for that and first

5:51

thing i did was catch malaria i thought you said you didn't catch anything well

5:57

malaria malaria normal thing so i i i came back home and nine months left to

6:03

go in the service and but uh i uh stomped through the woods

6:10

would uh be company second 50s for quite a while it seemed like quite a while and

6:19

uh well if you don't mind sir we'll get back to that cuz i'm going to ask these other guys what they did as well thank

6:25

you very much yeah i seen you struggling there so your name and what you did i'm greg

6:30

king i uh served from 71 to 77 in uh air

6:37

force uh i served in daang and then they sent me uh the 366 fighter wing at uh

6:45

air force from there they sent me to takley thailand and it was doing really well

6:51

all there all the way up to 5 days from going home and there was an explosion i

6:57

got my kneecap popped and uh i got my kneecaps popped too yeah i know i seen

7:02

that yeah but you got you got a lot of metal there mine are replaceable that's not funny that's not funny but

7:10

that's pretty funny that's very funny that is that's pretty good anyway the the wife you know i told her you know

7:17

they weren't going to i no they're going to send me to the philippines for 90 days and i said "no no way in hell." my

7:23

wife's uh middle brother died in vietnam stepped on a landmine 3 weeks in the

7:28

country and they sent a telegram on father's day and i went "nope you're not sending my wife a telegram i'll just

7:34

suck it out and get me to my next base so when i got back uh sat in the airport

7:41

for forever and a day and the pilot and the the all the short ladies come down

7:47

and i'm sitting in the damn chair and i he said "sarge what are you doing?" i said "i'm waiting for a goddamn family i

7:53

guess they never showed up and didn't thought about me." but how long you been gone i said "well i don't know i have 13

7:59

14 months." he goes "they can't come down here anymore." okay so we went

8:04

upstairs and there they all were oh so that was good so you sat there waiting for them all oh wait for them all yeah

8:10

so anyway seen the bride she had all car decorated with all that yellow ribbons and [ __ ] like that so we we got out of

8:16

there out of the airport and we're going down get out of

8:22

the airport which you're normally supposed to make a right she made a left and all these cars are honking their

8:28

horns and blasting their lights and [ __ ] like that and there she's waving everybody and stuff i said "n i don't think you're doing the right thing here

8:34

i think you're going the wrong way in a goddamn interstate made it through 14 months and the [ __ ] is going to kill me here in in

8:41

less than 15 minutes." all right that's a good one we're going to get to all your stories but i want to introduce

8:46

everybody so that way everybody knows who we're talking to when we start getting into these conversations next believe it or not is a woman veteran and

8:54

guys there are them you got to believe it cuz i sit in here right next to one she is the commander post she is the

9:00

commander of the bfw post right now and she told me she had fake boobs i was trying to you know make me feel better

9:07

about my fake fake prosthetics by any means i got prosthetic boobs yeah i'm supposed to be happy about that i too i

9:12

kind of was i was happy about your prosthetic boobs well i generally am too every morning

9:19

when i wake up and they're still there my wife wants some i tell her no cuz i'm not paying for them for another man to

9:25

play with them oh man all right so run us down on your

9:31

you and what you did where you served who you okay uh my name is arla i'm a

9:36

retired us army master sergeant i went in in well i raised my right hand in

9:43

1981 soon as i turned 17 2 weeks after i turned 17 and

9:49

then i retired october 31st of 2004 that's that's a long time yeah yeah um i

9:57

was going to do that but unfortunate events right right those those happen a

10:03

lot more often now than we would like to see them occur by any means right um my

10:10

qualifications come from serving in korea i was trying to pull our our other buddy here tom terry yeah uh him and i

10:17

reminisce about south korea all the time because we were both sitting up there with the second infantry division and um

10:25

you just really never know what spot you were going to get into right i i do this

10:32

program with focus me and uh my buddy and we have a korean marine that comes in and he was part of the cho chosen

10:38

frozen oh my god and he tells us this story about tootsie rolls and how they actually saved his life because well

10:45

i'll get into that later but the tootsie roll they asked for tootsie rolls which was a code for drop us more ammo and

10:52

somehow the army thought that it meant drop actual tootsie rolls so they dropped a whole bin of tootsie rolls and

10:58

that's what they ate on while they were there cuz they couldn't get food wow uh you know blessings in disguise right all

11:05

the time right right yeah um stationed what korea most of the time hopped

11:13

around here and there uh the rest of the side the rest of the time mostly stateates side okay so um

11:21

like i say retired in 2004 was going to stay getting ready to pcs and it was my

11:26

son's high school year and i'm like nope i'm out you don't want us to go we don't go you know so we had moved all over

11:35

let's move on to this gentleman we got another army army cat 82nd airborne i'm being surrounded by army that's unusual

11:42

[Music] yeah well you know the air force is here to stand in the middle you're not talking into the microphone no one can

11:47

hear you one second i should have wore my shirt cuz i do it for my marines here you know when i know they're going to be

11:53

here and it says army because even marines need heroes oh yeah well you know what we say in the marine corps

11:59

army aren't ready to be marines yet oh they tell me that all the time the air force says if you just scored a couple

12:04

of more points you could have been in the air force i thought marines stood for you got to talk to

12:12

we ride our navy equipment we know what the men's department of the

12:18

navy okay you know what we call navy sailors and air force women m&m's marine mattresses cuz we lay on you oh please

12:27

you can say whatever we told marines we land hey give them the microphone we're airborne we told the marines we landed

12:33

on them and you know what we liked it that's why they come back on ships

12:40

do they still issue marines we liked it we were waiting for you to get there do they still issue first in last leave

12:46

crayons when they go into service i like the grape ones yeah because you put out

12:51

with a pencil is that what the deal is yeah i mean i like the windows for a living no what was that thing i was

12:56

going to say my ass rides on navy equipment marines well yeah we have to

13:02

we have no choice all right sir your turn uh my name is bob beller and u i

13:08

went into the service through roc so i went in as a second lieutenant at fort

13:13

benning georgia we have an officer and easy at ease at ease at ease i ain't

13:19

saluting you on deck [ __ ] that [ __ ] and so yeah i went through a airborne

13:24

school down at fort benning right out of officer basic uh was stationed with the 82nd airborne at fort bragg for six

13:30

months before they sent me to jungle school in panama and then to vietnam uh

13:36

in vietnam i was a platoon leader for with the fourth infantry for about five months in the central highlands and then

13:43

uh they pulled me out of the field and made me a battalion s1 for a month to clear the battalion home and i sent them

13:49

home and then i sent rest my career the last 6 months in vietnam with the second

13:54

and the first americanel division and we followed in wherever the marines pulled out of we moved in so when they pulled

14:01

out of the dmz we went to the dmz you you know i got to i got to stop you on that one wherever the marines pulled out

14:07

of we took over that's right that's right we got to go in and then you guys just keep it safe apparently after we

14:14

take over going home obviously y'all wouldn't wouldn't have been there unless the air

14:20

force got your asses there listen to me see the banter that's going to go on here here's the deal ladies and

14:25

gentlemen get your ass kicked call the air force ends you know the navy and the air

14:31

force everybody becomes infantry once they hit the ground but you know everybody's infantry in the marine corps

14:38

well that's a given right you know there's very little mos changed the ground without a with a thud

14:46

didn't you it depends on how the shoot did

14:52

all right so we've got to know everybody a little bit you're going to hear some banter going on because that's what veterans do and for people that are

14:58

listening you'll understand as this show goes on just exactly how veterans get along with each other most civilians

15:04

will never understand anything that we've been through ever whether it be just basic or you know going to war or

15:11

just even serving in the military whether you're in war or not no one understands the culture or the ideas of

15:16

what we've done so that's kind of what i'm trying to do for people for veterans day is to give them an understanding of

15:21

how vets are what we do how we think and how we speak anybody got any thoughts on that well

15:29

i'm you're talking about the veterans everybody's a veteran that served you put that uniform on you raise your hand

15:35

you're a veteran i got a best buddy of mine his name is terry craft and he's an

15:40

army but he served in germany they say he's not eligible to join the vfw

15:46

because he was in the cold war which i think is [ __ ] because you you slap that uniform on you're a veteran no

15:52

matter what completely agree because and when i was in and i was in 03 which is

15:58

infantry back then i thought you know you're a pog you're just a guy who fixed the planes but without the guy fixing

16:05

the planes i wouldn't be able to do what i was able to do so everybody that raises their right hand has a chance of

16:10

dying or a chance of missing their christmases or loved ones everyone that raises their right hand is a veteran to

16:17

me it took me a long time to figure that out because i was so disgruntled but everyone is a veteran whether you served

16:23

in war or got shot at or not excuse me no go ahead one perspective

16:29

that i've uh run into that i didn't understand with my dad my dad came back

16:34

from world war ii he served though uh he didn't serve in europe he served in india he was a the admin tech that sent

16:41

everything up the burma trail into southeast asia he joined the vfw when he

16:47

came back the pro he was an officer for a couple of years and then all of a sudden he quit the vfw and and just

16:54

faded away and i asked him about that one time he just says "well i i kind of disagreed with some things or whatever."

17:01

i understand now why he wasn't a combat veteran and almost everybody he bumped

17:07

into in the vfw are combat veterans and i think that's the reason that

17:12

he people would come up to him and say "where'd you serve?" "well i was in india." "what did you do in it?" and you

17:20

can see i i see that today i see people in here that were cooks and people come up what did you do you're cook oh okay

17:27

well my favorite if you served you served the microphone ma'am yep if you are overseas

17:33

by george you deserve credit let us clarify that not even overseas you

17:39

raised your right hand and signed you are a goddamn veteran of the united states of america and you are protecting

17:46

everyone we say coast guard yeah but you know well look you know every branch and

17:52

i know y'all have heard this before but every branch has their own enlisted and

17:57

officer balls and stuff like that and i ran into this thing i think on tik tok

18:03

and they said "now we've got space balls too." yeah space [ __ ] space force i'm

18:09

sorry tell i'm sorry i'm not making fun of you but it just cracked me up it was a military thing i am making fun of

18:16

space force because they're not even in space you do have a valid point there i

18:21

got to say something here go ahead uh i finally get you got to put your you got to suck on that thing oh i got where's

18:28

your thing treat it like a lollipop finally got service in august 67 my

18:33

mother was the chaplain of the auxiliary of the vfw

18:39

on paige avenue in overland all right she was because my stepfather was in the service now i came back from vietnam

18:47

they would not accept me as it was a conf in uh august of 1967 i could not

18:55

join the vfw because i was never in a freaking war right they call it a conflict now and a lot of people don't

19:00

know that it's still a conflict it's not considered a war and that should be something that is handled in dc congress

19:07

because cong we're not going to politics no we're not but that is the only way that can change is if you petition your

19:13

senators to ask them to go forward and make that change to be all-inclusive

19:18

listen i understand this man's hostility towards it because a lot of these men went to do something that we made them

19:24

do when we signed up my generation it was voluntary correct okay right well i

19:30

bet you did but you said some men did two volunteers two volunteers to go to vietnam but a lot of men didn't

19:37

and to not call it a to not call it a war is just disgraceful

19:43

you know how many americans we lost during that time i don't know the exact number but it's up there

19:50

54,386 i believe the number is coming from over 50 vietnam veterans you know how many men we lost in iraq and

19:57

afghanistan nowhere near that where the numbers are soaring is suicide right

20:02

yeah the afterart guys carried all that goddamn equipment you hear he needs the microphone man he's killing me down

20:08

there how the hell did you carry all that freaking equipment all them helmets with lights on trust me i wish i didn't

20:14

have to it was 117° you know i'm going "what the [ __ ] was that?" hey man everybody's got their

20:20

own war and ours was a little different we had to mule pack everything we owned we could hide in the jungle

20:27

yeah yeah in the desert you just you walk for 17 18 days in a row in a row i

20:33

lived in an abandoned house for 7 months really yeah there was no going back huh

20:39

it took me i didn't have a shower for over a year and a half oh you you no because i was buu [ __ ] gi i'm not

20:46

i'm not buu [ __ ] i'm not buu [ __ ] alabama blacknake [ __ ]

20:53

well no no listen for 5 months i was in afghanistan to 7

20:59

months i didn't have a shower and then i got injured and i couldn't take a shower because of my injuries on you or what no

21:05

my injuries i couldn't put water on my open wounds i was still healing so it was a year and a half they come and get

21:11

your ass out of here and play 17 miles back and give you a bath they did with wet wipes

21:17

oh come on you want to wipe my ass i i heard all those marine stories before you know this is true ask my guys ask

21:24

them ask them i didn't have a show for a year and a half all right i believe

21:30

my skin all i can tell you is we we y'all y'all couldn't see this [ __ ] in the jungle so

21:37

we decided to make this magic cocktail and put it on the airplanes and spray

21:44

it and the the government still denies that to this day oh the agent orange agent orange i was there i loaded the

21:51

barrels i loaded in helicopters i loaded in a kc135 and we put it on the planes

21:57

and they sprayed it yeah 24 hours of these massive jungles 24 hours later it

22:04

was like winter time you couldn't see a leaf on there but the snipers that were sitting in the trees they're dead yeah

22:11

so well that's the thing you guys have age of orange and our our disease that's coming around is burn pit lungs burn we

22:16

sat so close to the lithium batteries burning and all the trash any metal all

22:22

that [ __ ] smoldering toxins into the air and so a lot of us are coming back with burn pit

22:28

long holes burning equipment even you know finally passed legislation this year for the pack act the pc act yes

22:35

completely unsure yeah it did it passed okay because i also have a caregiver

22:42

and they were trying to take away my caregiver pay too that got passed that got overlooked and

22:49

now there's no more word about it they were trying we made a fuss and then it went away you got to stand together on

22:55

this stuff because there's too many people out there that don't care well that's the problem this generation growing up i i hate to say it is a bunch

23:03

of people that don't appreciate what they actually have because they're jaded by american society that's right they

23:08

feel entitled i i call them snowflakes i'll give i'll give a shout out to my dav people because they they help me

23:18

quite a bit and uh but i'm telling you

23:23

george shut the [ __ ] up yeah george shut the [ __ ] up george george george

23:29

anyway pay attention george oh that's fine i love it i do have to give a shout out to my wife though because the only

23:35

reason i didn't reinlist is because she was going to divorce me if i reinlisted

23:40

so she's awesome well you know what it probably saved your life you never know yeah well i don't know 50 51 years later i

23:49

guess i still keep her around we lost mike down there on the end him and for having a side conversation

23:55

that's it n so now you all got your own microphones so we can sit here and do this and you all say whatever you want

24:01

oh don't quit looking at your watch you got time i've got time yeah bob's got time you know what they call me when i'm

24:07

floating around on the water bob i don't swim

24:12

hey he's he's the only officer at the table the main question i really wanted to get to tonight after we run down all

24:18

this stuff is what does it mean to be a veteran to you because veterans day just happened and that's what we're running

24:24

down so what does it mean to you to be a veteran why did you sign up

24:31

i had had to turn this over to commander she's she's the head chief come on i'm asking all three of you she's up first

24:37

y'all three have your own microphones right now okay um honestly when i first joined i mean i can remember i'm the

24:44

youngest of 10 and five of us in my family served my father served in world

24:52

war ii um my two sisters at the end of

24:57

vietnam and two of my brothers in the late 70s

25:04

so and then so definite military family and um growing up listening to the

25:11

stories i think it was just ingrained into me that this is what honor is this

25:16

is what integrity is this is where you learn what pride is about

25:23

um i've had i mean just i've had the privilege

25:29

of meeting so many people around the world just that alone aside from serving

25:34

in the uniform having the ability to uh visit other cultures whether we like them or not um

25:42

and the so many opportunities are out there for us but we also sign a document

25:51

up to our life that we will give it in defense of this country and and that's another thing that i want to speak on is

25:57

you said cultures around here cultures around the world a lot of people are stuck in their own little

26:02

bubble and they don't realize what is actually going on around the world they think that it should be their own way or the highway so once you join the

26:09

military you also become open-minded to facts and ideas that other people just don't understand because you've met these cultures you become open-minded to

26:16

the other idea you serving with mexicans and the african-americans and the

26:23

chinese and anybody that's american in culture if you're not growing up around that and don't understand that you don't

26:30

understand it and you come up with these ideas and you're closed off so i'd have to say that serving in the military

26:36

myself along with you guys i would believe has given you a different taste and love for this country entirely i

26:42

think that one thing that i i it hit me especially with what was going on in the

26:47

60s uh in this country back here uh you had the racial tensions you had cities

26:53

burning you had riots you had people being assassinated uh when you're in a

26:59

field though it doesn't matter what color you are no you got the uniform on

27:04

that person next to you that is your family is your blood and soul and you're it don't matter and so you bring that

27:11

back with you and uh i you know i think that's a big thing that a lot of us uh that served in that situation we rely on

27:18

each other and the color has not it's your uniform right your uniform is what we want well i wouldn't even say uniform

27:24

because i'd rely on a veteran i would say it's a service anyone who signed the dotted line and can you shoot straight

27:30

right that's all that matters if you can drop that bomb great you know that's that's good too if you can fly high in

27:37

the air and drop that bomb right but anyway yes as far as veteran i am my

27:43

whole family is proud navy the entire family from great grandpa all the way

27:49

down to my my one guy that wanted to be a man and my my dad my brothers

27:56

everybody we're all navy when i come home and told my old man i joined the air force he didn't talk to me for two

28:03

weeks before i left yeah and but he finally decided okay this is the good

28:08

thing for him to do became a jet engine mechanic and it was a thing to do joined

28:14

it loved it and i would never give it up for the world

28:20

if she would have just let me reinlisted we're going back to that all right uh

28:26

bob what does it what does being a veteran mean to you well when i look back at it except for

28:33

the fact that you're an officer e that's okay we'll let him stay yeah you survived i don't know how because in

28:39

vietnam people like well let's not talk about that well the bottom line is if

28:44

you take care you have two missions in the military as an officer number one complete whatever a mission assigned

28:50

number two take care of your men if you're not trying to if you're not trying to win the war when i got over

28:56

there uh in 1970 we were not trying to win the war after i get somebody hurt in

29:01

the first encounter my philosophy changed my it's not to get the mission done it's get take care of my men and if

29:09

the mission is important to the overall situation we're in then i'll do that yes

29:14

so uh yeah i i did things there that could have got me in fort levvenworth

29:19

because i didn't do what the army wanted me to do well sir i commend you for that because when i got to afghanistan as a

29:25

squad leader my mission wasn't their mission my mission was to bring everyone home so what they asked me to do sometimes i

29:31

tell them to [ __ ] off they didn't like it too much and you can ask my guys my first mission was to take care of them

29:36

and make sure to take care of the guy on the right and left and god bless it i brought every one of them home i was the

29:42

only one that got injured minus a guy that got hit in a truck when i told him not to get in it and kind of injured his

29:47

knee but he didn't lose any limbs so i commend you for that because sometimes your agenda isn't what the militaries is

29:55

when you get there not if you're trying to win a war when you see people going home and we already had the 82nd already

30:01

gone home uh the couple fourth i was with was going home in about a month after i had started there yeah we're not

30:10

trying to win the war and so that that spends you spend a lot of time thinking about when you got somebody hurt what am

30:16

i supposed to be doing and bottom line is now i'm taking care of the moon right and a lot of us were probably in

30:22

leadership roles i can probably expect and that takes a toll on your brain your body your mind your soul right

30:29

everything that you live for i think mike wants to say something

30:35

[Music] it's already on mike oh hi uh little

30:40

story is it going to be a little story i'm i'm i'm uh not in base camp it's

30:47

called battalion forward if i guess you guys know what that is but uh got to get

30:53

closer chaplain got to get closer mike chaplain tap ten in there mike pay

30:59

attention and i was the medic and uh i used to go over chaplain's tent two

31:04

three times a week to go to confession and i drink his booze and he smoke my

31:09

dope that was vietnam for you though like you

31:15

know hey that's right hey sir i need to confess and i need a little bit more of that jesus blood

31:22

well i i'll tell you right now i i applaud all the young men that are now

31:28

serving like yourself come home looking like you do and i appreciate everything you guys did

31:36

this old farts over here i'm telling you we accommodate i tell you we we applaud

31:41

you guys and it's just like when i came back home i got spit on i got yelled at

31:48

and but now everybody every oh yeah california that's something that i like

31:54

to say i would like oh i'm sorry is is that if it wasn't for the vietnam guys

31:59

doing what they've done i would not have it as good as i do and i appreciate it

32:04

yeah no i appreciate technology huh it's better technology no i'm talking about

32:10

the appreciation i'm talking about the point i'm talking about the appreciation of coming home because society feels

32:17

like they've done you guys so dirty that now we're appreciated and if it wasn't for you guys right that's that's that's

32:26

i love it i love it that you guys served and you guys are coming home and step up

32:32

join the vfw yeah well that you heard it you heard from gary that that is the truth i want to hear from him and we

32:38

need you don't want to hear from him he's air force like gary we need we need more of those greg i'm sorry i keep

32:44

calling him gary why am i calling him gary everybody called fired you're supposed to have me notes come on kyle

32:50

kyle gets fired pay attention kyle gets fired every episode every episode you're fired can i fire him i haven't fired him

32:56

yet so i had to find a reason kyle you're fired yes now you're double fired now we're

33:03

doing a reality show that's pretty much what this is

33:08

just a talk show that's reality without the camera but okay so we've all served

33:14

we all understand what it sorry kyle's yelling at me he just got fired and i'm getting yelled at by the air force

33:21

that's a good damn thing i'm going to keep calling you gary now

33:26

okay all right sally one okay sally you can call me sally gary but anyway bob

33:33

and arlo arla arlo i i could i couldn't spit it out i was gonna say arlo arlo

33:40

you know look i've had i've even had text messages that come out and say "dear atlanta," and i'm like "okay all

33:46

right that sounds great." but you got to understand the camaraderie that the four of us have on this stage you wouldn't

33:52

understand it because you never served and that's what i was talking about at the beginning veterans whether you're a veteran that

33:58

was in combat or a veteran that served completely we have this camaraderie and this respect for each other that a lot

34:04

of people will never get so like if we were in a bar and i had a air force guy next to me i can bust his chops i'm

34:11

going to do that he's expecting that he's going to bust mine but if a civilian walks up and says something you

34:17

better believe that me and the air force guy are going to yeah all of a sudden we're best friends you're a wall right

34:23

exactly yeah i i agree with that 100% i i can you got to go mom's got to leave

34:30

so we're going to lose thank you for being hey thank you for doing this see you soon my dear now you can give mike a

34:36

microphone oh yeah no he can have a mic he's leaving too i think uh well i think

34:41

mike's taking off too unless he wants to stay and talk with us hi hey how you doing bud well airborne all the way

34:48

airborne so like i say like go home like a virus well you know it's the

34:56

junior league of special forces it's all

35:01

volunteer and uh we had the best record of kas in vietnam so it's like [ __ ]

35:08

with a condom on it's just not fun it's something to brag about is it it's something to brag about no you're good

35:14

you're good all right god bless you guys no god bless you sir hey he's taking off too that those are the airborne guys i

35:20

think they got something to do mike's just going to hang around we don't know what mike's doing i well go ahead greg i

35:26

just want i just want to say like we taught it earlier you put that uniform on you raise your right hand i don't

35:32

care if you're cold war or whatever like i said my buddy terry craft i love that

35:38

man he's my best friend and that man needs to be a full-time pulse member and

35:44

like every everybody that put that uniform on needs to be in the vfw

35:50

auxiliary or not they need to join forces and hook them up well yeah we're

35:55

basically segregating ourselves right now here's here's my thing i don't want one veteran as a commander of this

36:01

facility i do not want one veteran or one family member of a veteran to walk

36:08

through this door and not feel and feel and not feel welcome not feel important

36:13

or to leave like they feel we're going to let them down because then i'm not doing my job taking care of the church

36:19

what about gold star families are they not veterans of foreign war they lost somebody shouldn't they be and they should all i mean they should be yes sir

36:26

good night mike say good night say it into the microphone hey am i going to hear myself on a podcast if you want to

36:33

listen to it i need some information with all that all right yeah you're

36:38

going to hear yourself on a podcast you listen to yourself talk i hope you don't wake up in the morning and go "what the [ __ ] did i say?" you got you got to

36:44

watch out for we need another screw mouth he's he's hiding something somewhere yeah it's in my ass mike

36:52

god bless man it's that damn spinning hand all right all right

36:58

yeah you could totally mess with somebody with that oh yeah oh yeah if they're not paying attention well now

37:03

we're down to two i believe what we were hitting on was gold star families and stuff right why

37:09

aren't they allowed in the veterans of foreign wars because they lost a love that their loved ones not allowed to be

37:15

here because they can't be here but yet we can bring family members in here's here's the thing if they are the family

37:22

member of we have an auxiliary so you have your vfw member and then you have

37:30

your vfw auxiliary that is comprised of family members

37:36

um other relatives right as long as you have a blood relative that served in a

37:42

conflict or you can join the auxiliary or they don't even have to have served in a conflict if they're joining the

37:48

auxiliary they just have to have a dd214 that's an honorable where is my opinion

37:54

on this we have the vfw we have what's the other one legion

37:59

american legion the american legion uhhuh we have the marine corps league we have all these entities why don't we

38:05

just have one that says veterans why isn't there one yet all-encompassing

38:11

yeah everyone whether you served in a foreign what makes me a better veteran

38:16

because i served in a foreign war because i happened to be in a time of war that doesn't make me lucky doesn't

38:23

make me any better than any other veteran absolutely not they signed up to go to war they signed up to protect our

38:29

country in case war happens with the same mission that we had and here's here's the thing it's not because we

38:37

despise or hate what's in front of us that we're heading into it's because we love what's behind us and if all

38:43

americans really knew how much every troop that is in that uniform loves this

38:48

country you know i i don't know i would just like to see it make a difference i would

38:54

i would like to see what you're saying right there is the veterans the veterans organization because i hope to god there

39:01

is never a need for veterans of foreign wars again well you know what they call

39:07

it the vo and that's a liquor and all veterans love liquor i i don't want to see any any kids go

39:13

over and fight like you did and like ara did and myself and anybody else because

39:20

some people come home some don't well and some come home in pieces

39:26

i'm a test i'm a i'm a testament to that well we haven't heard from kyle all episode because we've been sharing

39:32

microphones and i'm wondering what kind of questions kyle might have for these last two veterans we got sitting up here show up um i would hate to say it i have

39:40

been just not paying attention a lot to this i've been well see kyle's in here but he's not a veteran of a war he was

39:47

actually an air force veteran not during time of service he never made it into the country but what'd you do kyle i

39:53

wish i would have said this during the airborne guys were here so he packed parachutes i part of my job was packing

40:00

parachutes and i got taught by army riggers actually um so that was awesome

40:05

but my uh afc was um air crew flight equipment it's new it's um between uh i

40:13

can't remember the old jobs it was like uh survival and rigger i think it was okay so basically i worked on the pilots

40:20

helmets and their their parachutes their emergency equipment and then their night

40:25

vision goggles and stuff like that yeah that's all important equipment but see that's the [ __ ] that us infantry men

40:30

need in order to do war so that's what we're all talking about i mean who exactly some guy's going to jump out of

40:36

that damn airplane you know damn good and well he ain't going to pack his own shoot he doesn't know anything about packing that shoot nope all he knows is

40:43

how to jump out how to jump out of it and and land we could sit here and talk about helmets and about all the

40:48

variations of the helmets and the kevlars and stuff like that well yeah like mike said the gear that we had to

40:54

compare carry compared to what they had to carry like one of the reasons i joined the military was because i seen a

41:01

movie called saving private ryan yes great and that movie at 16 years old had

41:07

jarred me to a point to where i felt that i needed to do something for this country because all those men landing on

41:13

that beach and giving their lives up knowing that that was about to happen for a country that they believed in i

41:19

felt like i needed to do the same thing whether what kind of war i was in or not

41:24

i had to do it i got you know it just you said private saving private ryan so

41:31

now shaving private ryan saving that we're not talking about the porno shaving private yeah okay not not that

41:37

one yet how would you know about that [ __ ] back we're talking about going back to like my era a little before his and

41:46

when i joined i'm pretty sure that was when uh private benjamin came out so

41:52

every time i got a letter from my father he would say "dear private benjamin." is that the song uh huh is that a song no

41:59

it's a movie i've never seen it oh it's older than you sorry honey yeah i'm way you're young i'm 38 well you're not much

42:06

well you're only a couple years older than my kids oh milk mommy if you're all talking

42:13

about i know they're fake you're all talking about movies you ever want to see the most realistic thing oh god

42:19

we're going to get something in black and white and still frame yes from greg the young i mean gary we were soldiers

42:25

we were soldiers by mel gib mel gibson i've seen that that's a great one i love that one i got this not an old one i

42:31

thought you were going to come out with something like black and white like charlie chaplan movie or something i'm not that damn old well your hair says

42:36

otherwise well shut up where's yours this is coming from the air force well yes

42:43

see i got the banter i talk about we love each other but we're just dicks this is what i'm trying to sell you you scored a couple more points you wouldn't

42:50

be looking like you're doing right now you want to bet i scored an 84 on my ass i could have done whatever i wanted and

42:56

i said you know what i want to be infantry and they said "you're the dumbest smart person i've ever met." oh man that proves a point yeah they were

43:02

probably still shaking their head when you left the recruiting station i licked the window on the way out they go "okay

43:07

he's a marine." yep he fits in just fine okay yeah we'll take him we get it now

43:13

he's got no what time we got

43:20

uh it is 8:28 no i'm not talking how long are we into the pot kyle you're fired again 44

43:27

minutes 44 yeah you said what time i mean we could go another 20 minutes but we could also stop are you guys up for

43:33

more questions and banter or do you need another drink or yeah we we can pause and pick it back up you want to go get a

43:39

cocktail whatever you know what no i'll get one of my cronies to get you a cocktail talk to my bartender we're sean and uh

43:46

we're sean i got it on my no i i got tabs oh well talk to it i got a tab

43:53

running okay we don't have that so i'll do a rum and coke get your there's nancy right over there yeah get over his wife

43:59

like i'm talking to my wife we're at the vfw right now so beers are flowing everywhere hi man she got to go to

44:06

christmas now here comes i got to go we need to get her on for a little bit she was a veteran with our festival i just

44:13

came on one second no there isn't one second ma'am step to it all right you sit over here um i'm out what

44:22

okay all right so this guy right here he's going to leave his car here okay

44:27

okay well good for him that's called the uber you'll be back tomorrow right babe

44:33

we'll see you hey mike okay honey see you buddy nice all right all right i

44:38

didn't know you going i wish everyone could hear the conversation that's going on right now like sometimes i wish these

44:44

things weren't directional cuz you could hear the where you going greg your happy ass over here gary now i can't remember

44:50

if it's greg or gary that's good okay there's his beautiful bride right there yeah i i met her earlier she i wanted to

44:57

actually get her opinion on being married to a veteran well i'll tell you what i couldn't do this stuff all by myself it takes a lot of women to run

45:03

this place i'm going to tell you women run the world i'm telling you my marines and folks are probably going to be i'm going to get her you guys understand

45:10

you're the gatekeepers no one can have sex without a woman saying yes that's true otherwise it's rape

45:18

a guy will do anything we'll [ __ ] put our holes into a wall and let someone suck it on the other side that's why you were a marine no [ __ ] huh no i heard you

45:26

like the grape crayons though i do they're my favorite so go ahead and introduce yourself and let us know a

45:32

little bit about you we got a late comer a late bloomer yeah post 377 she's the bartender here so she couldn't get away

45:38

but we're going to get her for a minute she was stole her from another one of those unicorn infamous veteran women

45:45

my name is megan mobly i was in the i was the 82nd cap 86 calav unit i was one

45:50

of four females that did convoys in iraq um i worked in the motorpool i did all

45:55

kinds of high bands 05 to08

46:00

fun years what months in '08 i i came in there around november and then oh

46:07

november of08 that's when i left so that's what i was kind of getting at where were you at yeah in campi campi

46:12

okay i was up in red zone i was in raa so i went to al-assad uh-huh yeah so

46:19

basically um b my mission was to like do supply runs do convoys she's even

46:25

standing at parade rest i kind of like it for those of you who don't know parade rest is with your hands behind

46:30

your back but she's got one hand behind her back and one hand i'm not an officer you can be at ease

46:36

i'm not bob he's not bob yeah so yeah i served for four years and

46:45

um and then um came back home i went to um paramedic school and went to be i

46:53

actually wanted to be a pharmacist and went to paramedic school and then i became a contractor and now i bartend so

47:00

well that's great also and also now i'm junior vice over in fesus yep i'm third

47:07

command of the whole post i'm the only female that's ever been in charge of any officer position there oh that that

47:14

women are advancing in this country and they say they don't have extra rights see look though if you look at that 1%

47:19

of the 1% out of all the troops i'm sorry i i appraise you women because if

47:26

i was a woman i'd be a webcam [ __ ] oh no i'm just oh no oh no no no no no no i

47:31

would i'm a little modest for that but no that's why i praise you it's so easy to make money being wow that was almost

47:38

a perfect shot onto the other pool table sorry well that came out of nowhere i missed you came out of left field i'm

47:45

sorry i almost got hit by a q ball you almost did i was going to jump over you son of a [ __ ] todd that wasn't even close that's how veterans

47:52

roll i know if i shot like that i wouldn't be alive

47:58

it was honor to shake this guy's hand i mean like having all this stuff that happened to him it's just inspiration

48:04

this is this is the main question that i've run through everybody tonight is and you since you missed it how do you

48:09

feel about being a veteran what does being a veteran mean to you it's very proud it's comforting to know that i

48:16

help people with the protect the rights that they some sometimes do not

48:21

appreciate um with everything you see in this country and out of control how things

48:27

are becoming is becoming to where we want to shake our heads but we know it's

48:33

going to come back to the right thing where we fought for so we all there's 18 million of us opening and my brothers

48:40

and sisters they they fought before me and i fought for after them and there's

48:46

one thing i always say and it's don't piss off the [ __ ] 13 million people that you trained to go to war yeah

48:54

because guess what we will come bite your [ __ ] ass congress real fast and

49:00

they trained us yeah they trained us so you don't piss off the people you don't bite the hand that feeds you you don't

49:06

you don't you know piss us off guess what there's going to be another revolution and i guarantee it i think that's why we need people in leadership

49:13

positions in dc that have had military experience i've said that since i was 18

49:19

years old i wouldn't say that because not all of us are are capable of not being grind balls well true but i still

49:28

think you got to have some sort of background other than just a brief

49:34

exposure to the troops going out there you know for a parade or something you got to know what they're doing out there

49:40

on that ground even though you got your four and fivestar generals responsible for that you're the commander and chief

49:47

and i'm i'm going to get a little political with the military real quick i believe that in order to be an officer

49:53

you should have to do an enlistment as an enlisted three years i agree at least

49:58

because then you see what really goes on the ground work i'm sorry guys i had to go but the bartender she's going to bring us

50:06

bartend thank you but i believe that the officers where is hey gary get over here

50:13

gary aka greg they're coming my ass you're over there sitting at the corner of the

50:18

bar like norm everybody does know his name right

50:24

everybody know except for me i call him gary look call him norm say he looks

50:29

he looked yeah get your ass over here we ain't done yet

50:35

actually i'm going to call this out real fast is there any other veterans in here you want to come on my podcast it's

50:40

about veterans day yeah come on huh well the eightball's about to go in

50:48

yeah after the pool game yeah right after all right we're going to we got another contestant on the price is right

50:54

right good here comes creeping gary

51:04

all right buddy yeah he he's making it it's those knees that he needs replaced that's that's what i got popped five

51:10

days from going home i told you that what your wife's making chicken pop pie snaps crackles and pops oh it's like a

51:16

rice krispie treat oh that was for me thank you from what sitting in your barracks no

51:22

actually walking across your compound look i can't say hole i walk across

51:29

something and break a toe anymore you know no actually we're coming out of the actually we do fight in the jungle

51:35

because i had to spray that [ __ ] so yes he got a mic here he goes yeah you you

51:41

come sit up on stage what all right so we got another guy over at the bfw jimmy

51:48

oh jimmy's here this one might run over man he may or may not keep in mind we

51:53

got another vet to run all these questions down through and we got a panel to listen sometimes he can so tell us about

52:00

what you did who you served with what your name is what so wesley smith uh

52:05

united states army i retired in 2020 [ __ ] another army guy i broke my neck and my back i was uh sotac special

52:11

operations terminal attack controller okay um i was with 10th group the 173rd first 82nd then 10th group uh in nangar

52:18

province afghanistan i served in 44 different countries around the world wow that's amazing including ukraine before

52:25

everyone talked about the war in ukraine what years were you in so i was in from 2012 to 2020 2020 then a parachute

52:32

accident cut my time short and then i medically retired out that's cuz kyle packed your parachute oh yeah kyle was

52:37

with the air force and he packed parachutes you missed that whole conversation i did i missed that whole portion yeah you missed a lot of it but

52:43

i'm here to get what cuz veterans day just happened so i'm doing my podcast to entertain the people on what it actually

52:49

means to be a veteran and what it means to us so that's what i'm kind of going through you know the banter and everything and so what does being a

52:56

veteran mean to you what did it what made you join what what drives you i joined because first i had nothing else

53:02

to do when i got out of high school actually i joined when i was 17 years old and um i wanted to join because my

53:08

grandfather he fought in world war ii so does she and she gave us fake boobs well i wasn't in world war ii my dad was but

53:14

you joined when you were 17 yes i did but uh he was on the uss ashbula and he was in the navy now my parents they're

53:21

both doctors and they were like "oh we need to we need a doctor in the family." and my mom was like "when you go in the

53:26

military like go in for medical reasons." and i was like "oh i'm not going to go in for medical." i was like "i want to be cool right?" so i went in

53:31

as a 13 fox uh joint fires observer and then after that went to soc out of um

53:38

yuma arizona and then um well yot or sotac cc out of yuma so explain what soc

53:45

is to the people that don't understand so basically it's equivalent to what a air traffic controller would do or a j-tac or

53:51

or observer basically yeah but instead of just artillery you're also calling in air strikes as well so like um for

53:58

instance like the majority of my job was on a phone right but i was front lines like i was with the infantry we're with

54:04

a with an sf team and my job was to have a phone and my job was to call in the air strikes for the sf team so like um i

54:12

went to men are pretty stupid yeah they're pretty they're not that very smart yeah no one does no one does bring

54:19

to bring in the shells a little closer or farther back because well not just shells you're talking air strikes air

54:24

strikes right so yeah exactly so he's ladies and gentlemen he's talking to the pilot on the ground to coordinate a bomb

54:31

being dropped yeah that skill is unheard of it's very very hard you might think it's easy but you're talking about a jet

54:38

going and you're trying to give him an observation from the air on what you're

54:43

looking at and what you're seeing exactly and so we'd use what's called a rover feed right i don't know if you guys have heard of rover feeds but being

54:49

in the air force so basically the pilot would have a rover which is what their slur is right their forward looking

54:56

infrared system and we would connect to that so anything white hot or black hot i could see on the ground so whatever he

55:03

was seeing in the sky i could see what he was looking at and he can zoom in like 100 times zoom so if he's going 600

55:11

m an hour you know from 30,000 ft which is what most aircraft that we were talking to f-16s fa18s and stuff like

55:17

that what they're what they're going through we can see everything that they're seeing and it's crazy because they can steady a camera on an on an

55:23

observation point while wheeling from 5 miles away so you can see almost exactly you can see what the people are carrying

55:29

what they're if they're eating what they're doing that's why we wear ir patches exactly exactly so they can see

55:35

friendlies but um yeah that was basically my job in the army i did that over in afghanistan i did that in numerous countries around the world so

55:41

the vietnam guy over here is looking at you like a little bit more talking about right now i had a mule yeah it was

55:48

literally it was literally a camera it was a it was an iphone actually it was a samsung galaxy s10 which had the atc

55:54

system on it and you could switch to rover feed and it was on your chest so i could look down right here and see

55:59

exactly what the pilot was seeing nice all right we got a new guy up here we

56:05

got another one this is come here you see me past commander marine mattress a

56:10

navy guy past post commander jim loren another come up the next when does the

56:18

[ __ ] end well that's it he knows the drill here you go jimmy oh oh hey watch

56:25

out you don't need any any no i'm kidding he almost tripped and fell down i think he drank too much

56:34

yeah and he's drinking shitty beer so all right jim how you doing todd i'm all right sir how are you doing great uh so

56:43

you know we've already run it down to everybody that's on the podcast and talked about it but what does it mean to

56:48

be a veteran to you when did you serve what did you do i've already said you're a cb but we know what i know what you

56:54

did but they don't i got a surprise for you a fart

56:59

no i was army infantry first then what the [ __ ] are you wearing a cb hat for

57:04

because i went and joined the cbs afterwards so you're a dual sport life

57:09

was better than i like to ride you even more take a double banger as we would say and show me the you weren't an

57:15

officer were you no no we only had one here and i'm

57:22

surprised he made his ass holy [ __ ] i can see the shine off your

57:28

head no i'm kidding anyway sir i got to shine someplace else too hell yeah see

57:33

that's what i'm talking about us veterans we just we just we just get along i mean there's there's not a veteran

57:39

that i've actually met that i hate except for when they're negative towards other veterans it's true they're like

57:46

"oh i [ __ ] hate being in the marine corps." i love what i did and i'm sure all of you guys did as well do i like

57:52

being out now yeah i don't have to deal with the [ __ ] being told what to do all the [ __ ] time and like i listened

57:58

anyway you can sleep in right and i get to sleep in yeah tell me about it half the time i didn't i'd be up at 3:00

58:04

drinking and be like "well [ __ ] it i got [ __ ] formation in 2 hours i might as

58:09

well just keep drinking yeah in vietnam you smoke three packs of cigarette days and corn to boost i tell people that's

58:15

what that's what the army does they breed alcoholism in all military branches like you go if you go to any

58:21

any base and you go into the gas station or anything at the base 80% of the of sales the sales are alcohol and it's

58:28

they have tons of alcohol and not only on that they have vending machines inside the barracks in the army where i

58:33

was they have vending machines for pedialyte really yeah so you can go and buy pedialyte 80% of the shelves

58:40

rehydrating in the px because it's a post exchange at the px you have um you

58:46

have 80% of the shelves are alcohol and then you have pedialyte in your own barracks so you can literally just go

58:52

and get pedialyte when you need so we got jim on here and i'm going to go ahead gary okay todd actually it's greg

59:00

guys i'm sorry but anyway yeah we had vending machines but uh you put a dime in it popped out coors like oh yeah i

59:08

doubt that you know what you had vending machines for in the air force it was to get that chair to vibrate again in the

59:14

[ __ ] chair force i mean you got they did have cigarettes back in the day too

59:19

m they had cigarettes nowadays you can't even have that i heard some vietnam vet was telling me that they actually dropped carton like a a resupply of

59:27

cigarettes into the [ __ ] field for these guys we had to have them mailed by our own spouses unless you bought

59:33

afghany cigarettes from the guy over there's a marine veteran the guy in the red shirt well bring them over here

59:38

ashton come on over but but but first we're going to get to this guy yeah get to gary first we no not g not gary jim

59:46

that's greg we got to get to jim so jim tell us what you did and what it means to be a veteran for you it's it's just

59:52

it's great to be a veteran and i'm damn proud of it put 30 years in and i'm damn

59:58

proud of it i in a way i didn't even want to get out but i hit your tenure and i had to go

1:00:06

you just kept going huh yep so anyway i started off in the army got i'm sorry i

1:00:12

volunteered for the draft in ' 67 and uh cuz i found out college wasn't

1:00:18

for me i wasn't cut out to be a college puke so most of us weren't unless you

1:00:25

were an officer huh yeah and uh so anyway i uh went basic at letterwood

1:00:33

went ait ft training down at fort poke louisiana aka fort buuke [ __ ] at the

1:00:41

world and then i shipped to uh vietnam on 10 january 68 and ended up with the

1:00:48

fourth infantry division during the ted offensive in ' 68 and that offensive really

1:00:56

man that's been a few years ago that's a big one before you ever thought of yeah

1:01:02

i was the best part of me ran down my mom's leg sir

1:01:07

yeah and and uh anyway it it was tough we we we lost a lot of guys i think i

1:01:13

had likeif around 15 just out of my own platoon that i was with got kia over

1:01:20

there and i don't know probably at least that many or twice as many wounded and

1:01:25

everything i locked out i only got hit once no i'm i'm going to hold that

1:01:31

thought anyone who's listening the 10 offensive look it up on google that was the first actual suburban combat how

1:01:40

city to city door to door yeah yeah it was and it's just amazing to think about

1:01:46

it gives me goosebumps right now i mean you can see them just thinking about it that was the first actual house-to-house

1:01:52

fighting that anyone has ever endured yeah they hit they hit all big major cities i know with we were i was in

1:02:00

kontom when they hit up there and we had street fighting and it it wasn't fun

1:02:07

yeah i can't imagine sir and then what's worse is at least well neither either

1:02:13

there or even out in the bush you never knew where charlie was you know i mean we charlie's not your dog ladies and

1:02:19

gentlemen charlie is the vietnamese and that's

1:02:24

right fcc suck my dick i'll say what i want in my case it was all north vietnamese we fought strictly north

1:02:31

vietnamese that never did deal with the vc cuz they were mostly down in the mikong delta down south and i was up in

1:02:40

the central highlands and i mean highlands it was up and down hills now

1:02:46

that wasn't smoking pot was it no i didn't do that [ __ ] i'm i'm just kidding i'm just kidding wasn't there something

1:02:51

else hey microphone come on gary there's something else over

1:02:58

there other than pot uh we had opium uhhuh yeah you didn't ask him about that

1:03:04

we were walking around opium fields i'm kidding now you're we're in a safe zone i call this the potato tree you know

1:03:11

it's safe zone you can say whatever the [ __ ] you want because no one gives a [ __ ] i would not do any weed or weed

1:03:18

anything that came from an old man okay younger generation i would not do any weed you would not do anything like that

1:03:24

because you were a married man and he all your [ __ ] comes back on your medical

1:03:29

records someday you're going to go back your wife's going to see your medical record you got caught with weed or you

1:03:36

got vd that's not a good thing tell you why venerial disease you know what i say

1:03:42

i say that zero is the and kyle i've already said this before zero is only

1:03:47

good when we're talking about stds because you don't want one

1:03:52

no that's the only time zero is the only number you want if we're talking about dollars you want one you don't want zero

1:03:58

yeah and those are those you know even back in the i don't even know what the statistics are now today but 60s,7s 80s

1:04:06

man oh yeah you guys were horrible oh my gosh speak for yourself i did you

1:04:11

weren't alive then i just spoke for myself okay well yours is more recent go back to jim here with yeah we got to go

1:04:17

back to jim i knew a guy had three types of ed at one time holy [ __ ] i didn't

1:04:22

even know there was three types no no i knew a guy that did he knew a guy

1:04:28

everybody knows a guy no that that that would that had to be a hard day for him that

1:04:34

penicellin penicellin penicellin that's right it was amazing though you'd be out

1:04:40

in the middle of now place you know and all of a sudden you hear this little honda 90 coming wheeling through the

1:04:46

through the jungle and here here he's peeling he's

1:04:52

come wheeling in and got three [ __ ] on the back of that thing he was a [ __ ]

1:04:57

pimp all right jimmy we got another one who just showed up you mind if we jump over to him no you stay here cuz we're

1:05:02

going to finish this round table i mean this episode's going to go quite a bit i have a feeling we can always chop it

1:05:08

into part two too kyle if you look at the ages the ages here go straight from

1:05:14

young yeah i mean he could have been my kid from the looks of his face how old are you like 18 19 19 yeah you could

1:05:21

have been my kid oh my he could yeah i'm 38 i could have had my kid at 19 years

1:05:26

old you could have been my son you could have been my son he told me to be my grandson what's your name where'd you

1:05:32

serve and how do you feel about being a veteran uh my name is ashton hammers and i ashton hammers that sounds like a porn

1:05:39

star name i was mention it yeah right yeah i was a marine and i the first

1:05:47

marine that we've had up here i've been surrounded by army cats all

1:05:53

night long really you know what it's just like korea they surrounded us but they left and then we had to fight our

1:05:59

way out so i i was only in for a year and a half unfortunately but that was

1:06:04

because uh after training i got uh injured during sparring mhm so i uh

1:06:12

dislocated my shoulder and that tore the ligaments and labum all the way around so medically discharged yeah they i was

1:06:18

going to i was in the infantry so they discharged me cuz i was medically unfit well that's unfortunate but you still

1:06:24

raised your hand absolutely to be part of a fighting force that wants to see

1:06:29

the world be a greater place he's exactly what we were talking about earlier when we were talking about our

1:06:35

veterans and who we you know who we welcome in who you know what is a veteran to us it's not just it's not

1:06:42

just someone who's been to a forum or someone kyle it's young men like this that are just going in and coming out

1:06:48

now i mean he had an unfortunate event and it happens to a lot of guys right and then a lot of those guys feel they i

1:06:56

i'm not speaking for you i'm just speaking from what i think but a lot i

1:07:02

feel like a lot of those guys feel like well i didn't do nothing i [ __ ] you signed on the dotted line to give your

1:07:08

life up for this country you might have only did a year and a half but you still did it how many other people are doing

1:07:14

that right now i wonder how often you actually hear that well i didn't do anything i've

1:07:20

heard that they look at me and they're like i didn't do nothing i say well i didn't do anything either i'm like you

1:07:25

shine those boots you signed that paperwork to put your life on the line you made it through somebody if you

1:07:31

didn't make it through boot camp you can suck on my nuts if you like cried "i'm gay." get out of here if that guy get

1:07:36

you kicked out because you were gay now they take gays in the army and the marine corps i don't care as long as you can shoot a gun straight but a lot of

1:07:43

kids use that as an excuse to get out when i was in they would be like "i'm gay." and they'd be like "all right well

1:07:49

you're out." well you know what don't ask don't tell was bill clinton's policy but that got you out if you told you

1:07:57

know i i knew people probably through my whole career that were the don't ask

1:08:03

don't tell folks and i mean i knew i mean you kind of knew you knew without

1:08:11

ever without ever confirming anything because you don't have to because straight people have gayar straight people have i know you're gay yeah well

1:08:19

it never it what my point is it it never bothered me and to everybody that i was

1:08:24

stationed with with those people i won't say men or women um

1:08:32

oh you can be as much as you want we loved them just as human beings not be you know we did not treat them any less

1:08:39

right by any means unless he tried to grab my dick then i was like "dude get the [ __ ] off."

1:08:46

i'm not saying it happened i'm just saying if that would have yeah probably he may be alluding to something here

1:08:51

that we don't know about folks would you like to expand on that maybe i shoved it down in my self-conscious and i don't

1:08:56

want to talk about it well as long as it was in your self-conscious arla

1:09:03

you know i remembered your name you did i thought of arlington texas oo arla

1:09:08

arla you know my my great uncle i'm named after him he helped build the san

1:09:14

francisco trolley that's where i got eaten by a bear were my grandmother that you got eaten by a bear there in san

1:09:19

francisco oh my god they're all over that's how i lost my limbs all of them all [ __ ] all of them i mean [ __ ] them

1:09:24

bears hey it wasn't pd was it no it was the chicago bears football team okay

1:09:33

[ __ ] chicago no i'm sorry chicago chicago you all

1:09:39

right you all right cuz i can take a train there and get wasted on the way there i like chicago he's been all right

1:09:44

jimmy we're coming back to you there sir oh okay it says cbs can't do what can

1:09:49

the cbs do well first thing we do is we go clean the beach

1:09:55

and set up lemonade set up lemonade stand so the marines can come in well

1:10:01

you might as well because we're thirsty when we get there yeah but we just give you lemonade kool-aid we got the beer in

1:10:08

the in the rear well see you aren't ready to be a marine yet and you're part of the women's department of the navy so

1:10:14

when are you going to become a man jim marines always ride in navy equipment that's cuz we have to we don't choose to

1:10:22

that's right so what is your point here jim you guys are part of the navy that's because you won't let us go cuz we make

1:10:29

you too much money yeah well the only reason no one buys a navy t-shirt for fun everyone loves a marine you know you

1:10:36

know why they put marines on the ships don't you to [ __ ] you in the butt to make you happy so you get [ __ ] done so

1:10:41

you got somebody to dance with no exactly damn exact you just made fun of

1:10:46

yourself hey i wasn't on a ship hey jim jim you know why them davy guys have them 13 buttons across different that's

1:10:53

that's a the bib for the marines the shock absorber you know why the officers

1:10:59

had to wear a [ __ ] stitching on the top of their hat is so we wouldn't shoot the [ __ ] in the head on during firefights

1:11:05

yeah okay we'll get back to this hey opa may johnson was a barracks [ __ ] all right so hey i was i was out of the army

1:11:13

a couple years and like i was working construction so this is when you were part of aren't ready to be a marine yet right saying this is when you were part

1:11:20

of not ready to be a marine yet right well if that's what you think yeah but

1:11:26

anyway i like this gym guy already i joined i joined the navy cbs and the

1:11:31

reserves cuz i was like i say i was working construction and we'd get rained out we didn't get paid and i ran our big

1:11:39

thing then was you get rained out you go hit the local bar and have a few beers

1:11:46

and had some guys there that talked me into joining the bees and so i did and

1:11:53

uh i got in as a first class they had what they call an apg program advanced

1:11:59

paygrade and i was working in my rate that i went into in the cbs which was a builder so i uh i hung around i enlisted

1:12:09

i think for three years some [ __ ] and uh i kind of liked it and uh took

1:12:18

the chief's test and made made pass the chief's test every time i took it and i

1:12:25

got first two times was uh passed but not advanced so i was in like six years

1:12:31

and i made chief and another six years i made senior chief another six years i

1:12:36

made master chief you know jimmy in your day didn't wasn't it kind of the same

1:12:41

way with promotion that the higher ranking you got the harder it was because it was face per space so there's

1:12:48

less space yeah they had to stop building legos no they they there was only so many

1:12:54

billets and and you know and the older guys you know they'd hang in until they had to go no i i i give it to the cbs

1:13:02

because when i was in iraq you know what i lived in a storage [ __ ] container guess who built the bunk beds in it the

1:13:08

cbs the cbs yeah stephanie dolan too she did that it's like a [ __ ] union you

1:13:13

can't do nothing by yourself you got to call the cbs in to build the [ __ ] bunk beds i could have taken some 2x4s and slapped them against the wall no i'm

1:13:19

kidding jim so so anyway i hung around and uh after i'd made senior chief uh

1:13:26

the uh gulf war came up desert storm desert storm and desert shield and uh so

1:13:32

i hear you're part of history is this where we're going yeah so we uh i got orders to go to

1:13:40

california for a weekend for a u conference and we found out then that

1:13:46

our unit was being shipped to to gulf war and so we left on 7 january

1:13:53

91 uh i was still running around diapers maybe and uh i spent 6 months over there

1:13:59

after the war was over we got attached to the uh scentcom over there and we

1:14:05

were putting up big sprung buildings building buildings and all kinds of other stuff and ran the motor pool for

1:14:13

the uh the base over there so anyway and i hung around so so jim tell me why

1:14:20

that's a part of history why were you a part of history by going over there into

1:14:25

well i went from one extreme to the other well you know you told me this

1:14:30

just a little bit ago and i think he's not hitting on it what's that him being a part of history from being in the gulf

1:14:36

war with yeah um having dual units working together yeah between his

1:14:43

services between you know just the various conflict wars that he's actually

1:14:51

stepped ground into and had been a part of that you look thankfully thankfully

1:14:57

most americans talk with her hands should never i don't have hands and i still talk with my hands you want to use

1:15:02

mine if you want we could do an arm transplant and then i can jerk off with

1:15:08

arla's hands oh my god no i don't know what i was saying she

1:15:14

done lost her train of thought you were you in vietnam too yes so we have a

1:15:19

question and no one can hear him saying but someone just asked jim if he was in vietnam you were you were in service through all these panama golf the golf

1:15:27

war the panama and grab the mic and vietnam yeah you got if you want the mic

1:15:33

if you want to talk you got to grab the mic so you were in vietnam then you were in uh the cold war back in the 80s all

1:15:41

you got to do is ask panama and then the gulf war in the '90s yep

1:15:48

and then you got out right before afghanistan in in 2001 yeah that's pretty i retired in 2000 so you retired

1:15:55

a year before that's impressive well like i said a lot of people don't meet a lot of people some of these things like panama and the gulf war they know about

1:16:03

vietnam panama was more of a fight in my opinion panama was more of a fight than the golf war yeah i mean it really was a

1:16:09

lot of people don't know about these though and the gulf war was all because of oil because of george senior so i

1:16:14

mean we're not getting into politics we're not getting into politics tonight but not tonight no that'll be another

1:16:20

episode when i want to piss everybody off after the election yeah you talk religion or politics i'm going if i talk

1:16:27

i'm just i'm just saying the day i talk religion is the day i'm probably in my casket

1:16:34

but in my opinion though the gulf war was not as severe as as the panama canal

1:16:40

war it was more important especially to trade with the united states via the old

1:16:46

all right it's going to go to politics but i'm not trying to it's because the old trade arrangement that we had with mexico it's not that you're not trying

1:16:52

to you just did well i'm a politician so that's what politicians do oh you're a [ __ ] politician jesus christ if id

1:16:58

have known that i would have [ __ ] give you a swirly come on come on

1:17:05

jesus what are you [ __ ] red or blue cuz i'm a realist i don't believe in democrat or republican me neither well

1:17:10

good run for governor i'll vote for you that's the plan but i can't announce that right now i i'll be your [ __ ]

1:17:16

assistant governor we got we got a very strong backing for our 2026 run for governor i'll be your hr department

1:17:24

yeah we'll be your hr department i talked to you when i ran for congress last year oh jesus we got a [ __ ]

1:17:30

politician on the podcast so anyway you came back over because you mentioned me

1:17:36

her say something about a revolution about the second revolution right and it's it's going to happen but i heard

1:17:42

you say that originally which is why when you when you asked if there was any other veterans and i raised my hand i

1:17:47

was like i want to talk about this because ifant because people don't realize it's

1:17:53

a real idea it's already happening it is happening but what are we waiting for

1:17:59

the right person to stand up and say "let's make this [ __ ] happen." we're not the problem is with with the

1:18:04

american populace people live on the fact that of survive and not thrive

1:18:11

[ __ ] if i were to get a bunch of guys together and start this [ __ ] i guarantee it would start rolling well

1:18:16

you should join the telegram with us veterans [ __ ] that telegram there's 2,000 veterans on there including people

1:18:23

like me then someone stand the [ __ ] up and say "let's do this." because i would do it i could i did but i i'm one person

1:18:29

i would [ __ ] what are we waiting on are we waiting for the federal government to tell us that's the i think that's the issue when anything is you

1:18:37

know if you don't have the right backing you yeah because i don't even i'm not i need more careful with what i say we got

1:18:44

we got to talk because well it's nothing that no one listens to this show so you

1:18:49

got to have a large population following you if you're going to try and do something you know what i mean it starts with one you got to you got to come join

1:18:56

my podcast it's called the wolfpack podcast to get about 10,000 listeners per week oh [ __ ] well maybe i can get

1:19:02

your listeners to listen i need to get you on there because we can talk about this second i'll i'll do it second revolution thing because i talk about it

1:19:08

all the time i've talked about for like 10 years now i and this isn't i'm not bringing politics but i'm going to

1:19:14

mention it i talk about how me personally i supported donald trump but i don't

1:19:20

act tell cuz i'm not going to bring politics into it but then i talk about how is that the way of the republican

1:19:27

party or what is the united states or what are americans what are we waiting for cuz when i when i ran for congress i

1:19:33

talked about it i said "what is the american people to take this country back for what we fought for we're

1:19:38

veterans we fought our heart out we lost our friends blood sweat and tears." and that's why i say you don't train over 13

1:19:44

million people to fight for a war and then turn around and [ __ ] them in the ass without lubrication but i talk about

1:19:50

even on even on the campaign i only ran for va rights yeah oh without repercussion that's what i'm talking about the lubrication when i ran for

1:19:58

congress they told me "oh bring us a million dollars and we'll support your run." [ __ ] you i'm a realist i don't

1:20:03

even republican that's what i said i told them i said "fuck you." they're like "well why are you running for federal off instead of something petty

1:20:08

quote republican?" there goes jim we're talking about politics no it's not they said "why don't you run for something petty like board of education?" i said

1:20:15

"petty?" all right the vietnam guys are gone talking politics it's got to go i i

1:20:20

i'll leave guys i'll leave don't you guys don't leave but uh i think we're getting to that point to where we're running down anyway what time we where

1:20:26

are we at kyle you go hour 20 hour 20 all right yeah turn everyone off i scared no no no we're going to call it

1:20:32

cuz that's an hour and 20 minutes that's a long episode i i i don't like to make my episodes longer than an hour hour and

1:20:38

15 minutes because then you start to lose people's concentration sure yeah and so i'll come to your podcast if

1:20:45

you'd like then we can talk politics all the time you can talk whatever you want it's kind of i'm kind of happy that

1:20:51

everyone we'll host it right here for another two hours oh my gosh yeah but i don't like to make my episodes run very

1:20:56

long because then you start to lose people's concentration and they're like "why am i still listening to this it drags on." but you get to the point you

1:21:02

make your podcast about what you want it to be about and then they listen they stay so i'm going to do what i usually

1:21:09

do and i'm going to run down some of the organizations that i usually go through and that's sent for five fund wounded

1:21:14

war wounded warfighters engaged tunnels towers gary foundation

1:21:22

um joshua chamberlain society focus marines foundation and these are all foundations

1:21:28

that i stand behind because they all are over 90% in giving back to the actual veteran population they don't spend your

1:21:35

money on [ __ ] it's not a [ __ ] club they don't make sure that your money goes and they got to put it in

1:21:40

their pocket like save the save the pett of people i don't [ __ ] know but you

1:21:46

put a dollar in and they take they only give back 19 cents no you put a dollar in they give out 90 cents so that's the

1:21:54

way that these foundations work that i always praise so out there again have a good night i hope you enjoyed the

1:22:00

podcast uh arlo would like to say something put in a plug for whatever the [ __ ] you

1:22:05

want okay so i am in a competition called fab over 40 do you show your

1:22:12

breasticles no but i don't know if any of the others do i don't but i'm just saying cuz

1:22:19

they're fake i just want to know yeah hey no put the plug in go they're good um anyways i am down into the top five

1:22:28

at this point from many many what's the link the link yeah how do we how do we

1:22:34

vote for arla

1:22:42

www.votefab40.com2022 back slash a rl a hyphen tweed dy i hope you all vote once

1:22:52

every 24 hours and the reason i want to bring it up is because my end goal i want to build our veterans memorial here

1:22:59

you know we've got jimmy we've got you we've got this is gonna bring up a whole another subject because i once did a a a

1:23:07

uh fundraiser here to build a memorial for a wall somewhere around

1:23:13

here that was supposed to be for oaf oef veterans and vietnam veterans they wanted to reduplicate it was that down

1:23:20

in pville maybe for pville no cuz i think it was here it might have been i

1:23:26

don't know but i know they have one over in illinois huh you guys should have talked to me if you guys want something

1:23:32

built or something the blonde the blond the blonde politician uh i will ann

1:23:38

wagner was here ann yeah oh no no i ran against an um oh [ __ ] yeah that may have

1:23:44

been before me but i know we do have the the bricks and stuff out here that we've had but i don't know i the ofo was

1:23:52

probably before me trust me we'll we'll talk off air yeah yeah yeah but anyways

1:23:57

that that was the only reason i brought it up is because i really want to build help the city of arnold build the

1:24:04

veterans memorial here and it's going to be a big one down at the rec center yeah i believe that every city should have

1:24:10

some memorial for their veterans that live in the community yeah we're purple heart city we need to celebrate most are

1:24:16

nowadays nowadays yeah and you know we want to keep our veterans in the spotlight yeah i think i put lake ozark

1:24:22

on the map when i moved down there now i'm out so they should have to take their signs down thank you

1:24:30

home top nice even if even if it's a walk though like something is bricks with that are that have people's names

1:24:35

on them um i know in florida down there in daytona v they have yeah that's i

1:24:41

live down in bard and and i have friends that live down there um and so i think

1:24:47

including people that know like ryan pitts and and they have their own

1:24:52

veterans memorial even if it's a walk where people are stepping on the names but us veterans who know those names who

1:24:58

recognize those names especially oef and and oaf veterans we we need something

1:25:03

like that here in arnold um but i think like you said every city should have one because

1:25:09

veterans come home and they don't have we won't talk about it right now because i know you're trying to close out you're

1:25:15

trying to close out but i'm not going to talk i'm going to close out we're going to talk off off stage here but i think

1:25:20

we've gotten the point across about what a veteran means how close-knit we are

1:25:25

kyle you're fired um yeah but i i do believe this i'm not getting paid for

1:25:30

this this is this is a longer episode than we usually run and that's to make up for the last one that we did that

1:25:36

kind of i was i wasn't there i wasn't in the mood i wasn't in the groove so thank you ladies and gentlemen

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[Music]

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heat up here

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