Soup Sandwich
Welcome to Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts, and advocates, we'll dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment, to the history of veterans in the US and the future of military service. This podcast is supported by the generous contribution of the members of VFW Post 3033.
Soup Sandwich
Riding to Remember: Community, Camaraderie, and Military Memories
What if your adventures on the open road could uncover deep bonds and heartwarming stories of camaraderie? Join us as we embark on a thrilling motorcycle journey through Tennessee's renowned routes like "the Dragon" and the Devil's Triangle. Alongside my fellow veterans, we shared laughs, memories, and insights into life after service, weaving tales of brotherhood and the unique connections forged through our military backgrounds. Our escapades are not just about the thrill of the ride but also about the communities we touch, including our visit to the National Home for Children, supporting military families in need.
From the joys and challenges of civilian life to spontaneous reunions with fellow veterans, our conversations brim with humor and heartfelt moments. Whether reminiscing about childhood adventures or discussing the transformative M20 corridor project in Mount Pleasant, the stories highlight the enduring bonds formed through military service. Our banter covers everything from leadership insights to Halloween pranks, all while emphasizing the significance of friendships and the resilience required to navigate life's unpredictability. We cherish the spaces that bring us together and celebrate the brotherhood of veterans.
We also explore efforts to honor our past, from escorting the remains of a Medal of Honor recipient to discussing the intricacies of Purple Heart qualifications. Our commitment to community service shines through, whether maintaining roadside memorials or adopting highways. We share touching stories of honoring veterans at local events, with ideas on creating lasting tributes within our communities. As we wrap up, we invite you to join our efforts in promoting the Soup Sandwich Podcast and become part of a community dedicated to the stories and experiences that matter most to veterans. Grab your MRE, dig your foxhole, and tune in for an engaging journey into the lives of military veterans!
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
Thank you and to leave scars that will never fully heal and, for those who have served, the transition back to civilian life can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. This is the typical life of military veterans, a world that is both familiar and foreign to most of us. It is a world that is shaped by unique experiences, values and traditions of the military, and by the sacrifices and struggles of those who have served, but it's also a world that is constantly changing, as new generations of veterans confront new challenges and new opportunities. Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. Dig your foxhole, heat up your MRE and spend some time with us.
Speaker 1:This podcast is designed solely for entertainment and, occasionally, informational purposes only, and is to be regarded strictly as satire Comprising of veterans. It delves into their thoughts and experiences in combat, as well as their perspectives on various aspects of daily life that may be unsettling for certain listeners. This podcast is not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. The views articulated in this podcast may not necessarily align with those of the National VFW, vfw Department of Michigan or VFW Post 3033. Additionally, we kindly request that listeners refrain from pursuing legal action against the creators or contributors of this podcast. In other words, please don't sue us.
Speaker 3:Welcome back. I know it's been all summer, basically since last time we've had a soup sandwich podcast. My name is Charlie Klein, a lifetime member of the VFW Pulse 3033 and the director of the VFW Riders Group Department of Michigan. That's here tonight at the AJ Sky Lounge, as Tim would always say, aj Sky Lounge, and tonight we have with us.
Speaker 4:Tech or Joe, I do our RIT around the post. I'm the adjutant and the secretary of the Riders Group.
Speaker 5:Bill House, former VP of the Riders Group. Bill house uh, former vp of the writers group, um post member lifetime.
Speaker 3:Member lifetime member there, you go so in that I waited, but in the tradition of tim not being here tonight.
Speaker 4:Yep, we're still gonna do the sound of freedom, let's get it started right?
Speaker 3:uh, hopefully we're live on facebook. Facebook tonight under the post Facebook page. So anybody that listens to this hopefully you heard the disclaimer 18 and under. Please turn this off. For those of you that are over 18, you're more than welcome to continue to listen, but we also have a Facebook page, so unfortunately, Facebook's changed a few things. You know, in order to go live under our Soup Sandwich Facebook page live, we have to have 100 followers. We're close to that. So if you're listening tonight, please try to find that. It might be under Brent Holbrook. He was the founder, or is the founder, of this podcast. It might be under his name. We're on Spotify iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4:I'm going to put a link under the comments too.
Speaker 3:Please click that link on your Facebook. Follow the page. So we don't have to join on the post Facebook page. We can do it under our normal Soup Sandwich Facebook page. More than welcome to go back. We've got probably 10 or 12 episodes logged in over the years If you want to go back. We've got probably 10 or 12 episodes logged in over the years if you want to go back and hear some of the different things that we've talked about. But just so you know, this is comprised of a bunch of veterans sitting around talking about veteran things. Some of our language becomes colorful Depends on who's?
Speaker 3:all in attendance during the night, or even those that call in. So I know we're going to have we call them affectionately two parts Brent, our founder, the Navy man, because everything he has to say always has a question, and then a follow-up question that leads to it, or a statement. Follow-up statement. He should be calling in, hopefully shortly. I'm sure he's logged in online right now, probably blowing up the comments, because that's what he does he's home taking care of the kids while his wife is traveling, like a good little boy. That's right, he's at home, susie.
Speaker 4:Homemaker.
Speaker 3:I was going to say Susie's not the word that we use in the military, it's Susie Rotten something. I'm going to say Betty Crocker.
Speaker 5:Yeah, mr Mom, watch Full Metal Jacket, you'll know what it is.
Speaker 3:Maybe we ought to call him Mr Doubtfire. There you go, mr Doubtfire. There you go, mr Doubtfire, that's right, I bet he's got the apron on already.
Speaker 5:He probably does Toodle-oo. He's got a wig on or something.
Speaker 3:And unfortunately Halsey here served in the Navy, so he's probably going to stick up for him, maybe Doubtful, but maybe Probably will, probably will.
Speaker 5:All right, so anybody got something they want to talk about tonight before I get diving into my stuff. Well, it's been a long summer, it's been crazy, it's been a hot summer, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's been a good summer. It's been a real good summer.
Speaker 4:Lots of miles on the road this summer.
Speaker 5:That's right. Yeah, a couple out-of-state trips.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we always talk about a lot of stuff going on at the post and in the same instance, we always talk about a lot of things in the riders groups and stuff like that. But yeah, so my wife and some friends my niece got married down in Tennessee so we took a bike trip, went down to Tennessee, rode Tale of the Dragon, sherlock Skyway, skyway, foothills, parkway, stuff like that. We took a week and went down there and did a lot of riding. It was great. I tell you, one of the coolest things we just got into Tennessee we had to stop and put helmets on. We got maybe five, six miles in. We went to the rest area, the Welcome Center, we wore our cuts, we were flying. So for those, non-biker guys.
Speaker 5:That's the best.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we had our, we had our colors on the back, which is our, our vfw riders. Uh, back patch right. Um. We stopped there and put our helmets on. You know, rest area, all that kind of stuff, and I had so many veterans come up to me and say how cool it was to see us there, and Ken Bleaver from Michigan and all the way down there on the bikes and all those different stuff, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean it was really cool to see it and and so many veterans didn't even know that, that VFW in general even has a riders group right, or there's guys out there on motorcycles doing things and they were drilling me with questions.
Speaker 3:You know what do you guys do and where are you all from and how many groups do you have and all the things. And there's certain protocol that we all live by, right? Like I don't mind saying how many groups we have in the state of Michigan, but how many members we have. I state of michigan, but how many members we have.
Speaker 3:I don't ever say yeah but uh I know, yeah, it's always enough, right, but I, I always will tell them all the good things we do, right, we support cancer, we support you know, there's uh, there's all kinds of events where, uh, somebody's killed in, like here in mount pleasant in michigan we had a. We had a road construction worker get killed, and those are the kinds of things we support. Not only do we support our posts with the kids' events and charity events and even supporting posts monetarily and all the different things, but there's always something out there that we do. And I am so proud of all the riders' groups in the state of Michigan for all the things they do, because I get to see those reports now, which is cool, because, as the president of Mount Pleasant when I was there a year ago, I knew what we did.
Speaker 3:I never really understood what all the other groups were doing. And we're talking District 4, which is a big group, but it's comprised of several VFW posts, but out of the Detroit area and those guys are small. They got not that many members 15 I think. We don't talk about numbers.
Speaker 5:We don't have very many members.
Speaker 3:But what I'm saying is those guys are so busy They'll divide and conquer. They might have four events in one weekend and they might take their events in one weekend and they might take their members and it's like four go to this, six go to that, two go to this, one goes to that.
Speaker 3:And it's Friday and Saturday and Sunday. They're all over the place. It's impressive. Like I see their report at the end of the month and I'm like, oh my God, like you've got that many people and you're doing all these things. It's insane, insane. And I'm looking at mount pleasant. We have like our numbers are exponentially larger and we're in mount pleasant, middle of mitt, right like you look at michigan, you put your finger right in the middle. That's like where we are right. There's nothing, so flat lands of michigan and there's nothing. I mean it's hard to find stuff to go do, almost, and those guys have three, four events a weekend.
Speaker 3:It's just crazy and and they're, they're out there doing their thing, man, and I'm I'm proud of them yeah like I mean, I'm proud of them because those guys are dedicated down there and their women are dedicated down there and they do a lot of good things.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's fun to go ride with them, guys. You know, just to change the pace different people.
Speaker 6:Well, you got a girlfriend down there. Yeah, yeah, right.
Speaker 3:So I actually got lucky because I went down and rode. It's a Wall of Honor, oh yeah, which is the traveling Vietnamietnam memorial wall. The travel's been continuous travel since like 1986 or something that was amazing day right, so we rode from. I went down the night before we stayed in saint claire shores, went to the post down there, which is absolutely phenomenal. Yeah, that was bruce post, oh my god, you, you talk about, not the district four that we're talking about.
Speaker 5:You know that this is a separate yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's out st claire shore yeah, it's outside their district.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, my girlfriend lives. But we went down there, we had a great time, great hosts, yeah, awesome post. Uh, totally appreciate their hospitality. And then we rode up to brighton and we, we picked up this wall ride and there was 200 motorcycles.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, probably, At least maybe 300 on this ride.
Speaker 3:And so for those of you who don't know, the Wall of Honors, Vietnam wall, traveling wall, it's been in consistent travel since, like, yeah, 1986, 1988, whatever it is, and it constantly moves around the country and it takes years and years and years to get it is. And it constantly moves around the country and it takes years and years and years to get it booked. And this was the Hamburg ride and they had a Huey helicopter, a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter, fly over us and we escorted it from Brighton, Michigan, to Hamburg, Michigan, which is only like 10 miles away, but we took like a 30-mile route. We went through all these little towns and I tell you what I was not any more proud of myself police escorted, so they basically shut the whole.
Speaker 5:You know our path down, so where we were going through, I mean a couple hundred motorcycles.
Speaker 3:They shut they shut everything right down yeah, they shut all the intersections down. They shut all the curves down. They did all the the curves down. They did all the things.
Speaker 5:So all these businesses, you know, didn't have any business because the road was shut down. So they all come out and watched us drive by and waved and flags everywhere. It was amazing. Every school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just going to say all the elementary schools. This was what was so cool, awesome. You're riding through these small town america. Yep, right, elementary schools, middle schools. They shut the schools down. They had all the kids at on the street. Yeah, along the roadside, yeah, american flags waving. I bet you we went past a dozen schools.
Speaker 5:Yep, elementary, middle school lined up, teachers, all the kids I mean, and not only you couldn't even go 100 yards without even people in their houses coming out and say, not even just businesses, but people that you know lived along the path. I mean they would come out and and watch this, go by and wave and you know, having their flags out and everything it was. It was awesome. That was probably the best, one of the best rides I've ever been on. Yeah, yeah I.
Speaker 3:I was so happy to be able to be there and then for me, you know, to be able to do a ride with District 4. Right From being up in Mount Pleasant, to be able to go down and ride with those guys and meet who they are and hang out and have lunch afterwards and do stuff with them, was really cool, because I don't I've actually been on a couple rides with them, you know so. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Before that. So yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:And you're lucky because we're all one team, one mission Right. One team, one mission right. Regardless of where you're from or what you're doing, we're all on the same team and we have to get that and we have to realize that. But yeah, it was dealing with some personal stuff, so for me it was a little bit tough, you know, getting in here to get another podcast going, but I'm happy to do it. So Holberg's asking to get the volume turned up. So I don't know how we turn the volume up for him, is it? That's too far away, possibly? All right, we're doing things a little bit different.
Speaker 5:Unfortunately, it's been way too long since we've done this podcast, we're going to try to figure things out. My sound check person said they could hear it.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's just two parts. Is having a problem? Two parts? Maybe you need to turn up your volume.
Speaker 4:Have them check both those volumes, check both your volumes.
Speaker 3:I'm told Tech is saying this is on your end not on our end.
Speaker 5:We got another. Let's do another sound check. I'll find out here. Hold on One of these days.
Speaker 3:We're going to get this finally figured out, joe, one of these days.
Speaker 6:We're gonna get this finally figured out, joe. One of these days we're not gonna have these problems.
Speaker 4:We've been talking about these problems for like a year now yeah, you know, but every time it's a different issue, it seems like to it's always a different issue never ends.
Speaker 5:Well, that's the part of it, that's the fun of it, right? So well, since we got a little lull there, uh, charlie was bragging about his uh trip to tennessee and uh thought that that sounded so good. So, end of august? Uh, liz and I have uh birthdays at the end of august.
Speaker 3:As she says, she can hear us, so well, you know what they always say right and uh, so in, it's not intimidation. What do they say?
Speaker 6:Imitation is the best form of flattery yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Is that what?
Speaker 3:it is. Here's his story.
Speaker 5:So for our birthday weekend at the end of August we pick some place and we just go and run away for the weekend and as a joke I said, well, hell, let's just go to the dragon. She says, okay, I'm like, are you serious? She goes, yeah, why not? And I'm like I guess we're going to the Dragon. So we went down there and I got to back up a little bit. We went to National Home and we had their Michigan Days at National Home. I'm going to pause you real quick. So those of you who don't know the National.
Speaker 3:Home is the National Home for Children. So it's in Eaton Rapids, michigan, and for a deployed member of the military or deceased member in distress that has kids, they can come live at the National Home and they have. It's like 800 acres the place is huge, all these different houses, all these different things 29?
Speaker 5:No more than 29 houses They've got quite a few.
Speaker 3:I mean it's like 30-something houses. But houses could be like a duplex or a quadplex kind of thing and each state kind of sponsors a house. But your kids can go there, you can go there, you live for free, you get training or it's like a displacement kind of thing 32, 42 42 and and, and. At the end of the day, you know you, you right these, these military members, and you can live there for a long time, like a couple years and years and years especially if they're just kids.
Speaker 3:So, like you know, you think of mom, mom and dad get deployed. Single mom or dad, they get. They get unfortunately killed in combat or in the military. Their kids can go here, they get raised right. So the national home is is huge and they have their own website. I always encourage people to go on and donate. They always, they always need things. I mean, this is, this, is for the kids.
Speaker 5:This, this place has been around 100 years coming up in 100 years this year and I'm just 100 years, yeah, so I'm, I'm, I'm working on some stuff for some fundraising.
Speaker 3:As far as writers, groups that come from around the country and it's going to be in june we're talking about dice run, poker runs, different things to generate some income for them. But you know. So I mean yeah, so go on with the national so.
Speaker 5:So anyway, you know every so anyway, every year each state kind of has their own little weekend event. So ours was one weekend. We all went as the riders group, we all rode. There was quite a few.
Speaker 3:In August. Yep Third week of August.
Speaker 5:Almost all of us in the riders group from Mount Pleasant went Well. Anyway, the following weekend was the VFW riders group, for all of the riders groups in the whole United States basically had their riders group weekend. Well, liz and I actually went to represent Michigan and so we went down there and we met some people. Well, one of the gentlemen we met was from Massachusetts, had just moved to the Nashville Tennessee area, so we said, hey, we're going to be down there here, you know end of the month or so.
Speaker 5:And uh, he says, yeah, meet up with us. So we actually met up with him and rode with him and his wife. That you know, and we rode the, uh, the skyway and a few other, you know rides and whatever you had the 28 right no, we did that after the dragon, but no we did.
Speaker 5:We did that, uh uh, devil's triangle. And then we did a couple other ones. Uh, we, we rode quite a few of them, uh, spent three or four days down there. Anyway, we got to meet up with them and actually ride with a vfw riders group. Member from somewhere else while we were in tennessee, so that was actually where we spent a whole day with them, met up for breakfast and parted after dinner, you know.
Speaker 3:So it was uh, and he probably hasn't caught you since, because he realized who you really were.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, you know, and that's it was cool.
Speaker 5:So you get a chance. You meet people all over the country.
Speaker 3:But we all have the same goal in mind Same mission.
Speaker 1:The brotherhood, the sisterhood, that's what we all miss about the military.
Speaker 3:So, when we get a chance or an opportunity to go do things and be around ourselves. Right, they might be 30 years older or 30 years younger, or you know different economics than what we live in, or whatever their case may be, it doesn't matter because we all have that bond, yeah, so you met a guy on a Sunday in August and a week later you're meeting up a thousand miles away from where you met the first time and you're hanging out for the day and you guys formed a bond and the wife formed a bond.
Speaker 3:How cool is that that's what it's about those are the things that are. You just can't. They're blessings.
Speaker 4:I honestly feel sorry for those who didn't get the chance to experience the sorts of stuff that we get to.
Speaker 3:You do and you don't, because it's definitely not for everybody doesn't it If you served in? The Navy you served in the Army, or the Marines. Like me, we all dealt with the BS. Some people are cut for it, some people aren't Right.
Speaker 4:Definitely.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean I went out to Boston one time, right, we took the girls out for holiday weekend, four-day weekend my business partner and I and his wife and my wife and we went out to Boston which is where some of my buddies were when I was at Fast Company and met up with them, you know, and hung out, had lunch, had dinner, got to meet their significant others or whatever, and it was a great day. But that's what we do and that was 15 years after the last time I saw these guys. But I tell you what 15 years is like? 15 minutes, and we get together and once a month on a sunday, we all sit while we're watching football, cracking beers and we do a facetime messenger thing, right, and we all sit there and bullshit and talk and I mean we still kind of keep up with each other, right, everybody's.
Speaker 3:A couple guys are state troopers, a couple guys are, you know, they're working construction or they're doing whatever. So they're working on even those days because things are good or things are busy or they're hunting or they're whatever. So it's not always the same group of guys every time, but like, how freaking cool is that? You know, we can still sit down and still have a beer together. See each other, but hugging each other is totally different.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:In person, right other is totally different. Yeah, you know, I mean my tongue gets raw. When I mean another marine, my tongue gets rock. Is that that make out sesh? I think canker sores for week. That's another marine.
Speaker 5:You know, I'm saying we embrace that weirdness you know that's what we do, so that that was so. You know that's what we do, so you say that though, a couple years ago some of the guys from the boat you know, we partied together, we did a lot together when we were in, and we'd all talk to each other individually every now and again Facebook and whatnot.
Speaker 5:Well, one day I called one of them and I says, hey, let me call one of the other guys. And then next thing, you know, there was four of us all on the same phone call and that was the first time since 95 that we all heard all of our voices at the same time. We were on the phone, so it wasn't quite in person, but man, was that so cool, the four of us just sitting there shooting the shit for about an hour, hour and a half. Man, it was just awesome.
Speaker 3:Catching up.
Speaker 5:Yep Catching up. So you know, we all talk on Facebook and whatnot, but it's just not the same, Because they're like, well, how do you do it?
Speaker 3:I'm like here let me add another call. Let another call 100%. That's why these podcasts are so important, because we all miss this kind of banter. We all miss this kind of talk. We all miss just sitting around with the boys and BSing Nobody getting offended over stupid crap.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, I still get offended by you, joe.
Speaker 3:Everybody gets offended by Joe. Joe walks in, I call the cops. I want him in the parking lot of AJ.
Speaker 1:AJ.
Speaker 3:Sky Lounge. If JC gets a little sideways, they can just come handcuff and take him away.
Speaker 5:Funny you say that because I just told the police officer it was okay.
Speaker 6:He was here on his conjugal visit.
Speaker 3:He's been trespassed twice. That's why I have to bring him in the back door now.
Speaker 4:That's why I have a little hallway from home down there. Yeah, right, yeah, that's why I have to bring him in the back door now. That's why I have a little hallway from home down there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah, that's why he sleeps in the storage unit downstairs.
Speaker 1:No, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:This is the big brother, little brother, right? That's what we always miss, you know. And it's cool to be on the Pulse Facebook page tonight because it obviously has a lot of followers, right? I mean, this has popped up and maybe someone's listening and they might stop into the VFW if they're on Dart League, or they just stop up, or they've got friends, you know, that are veterans and they come up and have a couple beers and they kind of hear what's going on at the canteen or what's kind of going on at the post. They might not really understand it, right? We're all a bunch of degenerates.
Speaker 6:We really understand it right, we're all a bunch of degenerates.
Speaker 3:We're just normal people, man. We all come from different walks of life. What was that? A basket of deplorables. Huh Well, we're definitely deplorables. There's no. Thank you, clint. Thank you, clint. Appreciate that. And I know, hopefully, big pop is listening tonight. Come one week from now, he's going to be crying. His daddy Don is going to be putting his diaper on him. Oh no.
Speaker 4:How mad would he get if I put a picture on his office door? Oh, 100%.
Speaker 3:I think he should 100%. I would right at the end of the driveway. I would spray paint. Spray paint Trump 2024 at the end of his driveway.
Speaker 4:So when he pulls into the office in the morning he has to drive right over town 100%, or put a big flag right in front of where his truck parks every morning, I know he hates.
Speaker 3:Walking into my shop, I got about 12 flags hanging right when you walk in the shop. I got a two-story building and it's an open shop. When you first walk in, I got American flag, marine Corps flag what's it? Trump 24. I don't know what that blue one is. The Michigan flag? Absolutely not Michigan CMU. I think that's another Trump flag. It's an American flag. Next to it, steelers Lions. Yeah, that's Jeff, my business partner. He's on his way back from Pittsburgh right now.
Speaker 5:He was at the Monday night game. I wanted to see that game. He's on his way back from Pittsburgh right now. He was at the Monday night game last night. Yeah, I wanted to see that game.
Speaker 3:I couldn't get it to broadcast.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so he's got some friends out of Shepherd. At least he's got a Lions flag.
Speaker 3:That's good. Well, absolutely, man. That thing's been flying here. The old 16 year it was flying. You know what?
Speaker 5:I mean, they got a good year this year.
Speaker 3:Number two in the nation right now. When you're a diehard, you're a diehard man and I tell you what suck it up because those bandwagon fans.
Speaker 5:So now my buddy from the Navy. He's a big Kansas City Chiefs. He's from Wichita, kansas area.
Speaker 3:Good for him Loser.
Speaker 5:I did have to rub it in a little bit on preseason that the Lions beat the Chiefs.
Speaker 3:Speaking of which you beat, beat the.
Speaker 5:Chiefs, you know, speaking of which, he beat them at home opener last year. The Chiefs didn't win a single preseason game this year, but he says that doesn't count.
Speaker 3:So fun fact, Fun fact my ex-father-in-law he got these T-shirts in their own 16 year. There was a radio station he listened to. He was a UPS driver so he listened to radio during the day. The Lions were undefeated in the preseason. They went 4-0 in the preseason, then they went 0-16 in the Hot Rod Marinelli year 0-16. So he bought these t-shirts Perfect, they had a perfect season. He bought these t-shirts and it said 4-shirts Perfect, they had a perfect season. He bought these T-shirts and it said you know, 4-0, had all the games listed on the back. So you know, 4-0 in the preseason and 0-16 in the regular season. It said winning when it counts right on the back. And it was I don't remember the radio station in you know 1957, you know on the front, which was the last time that they won a championship that was before the Super.
Speaker 3:Bowls right. So I mean, but it was just the best year ever Winning when it counts. I'll never forget it.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you what they're playing. Good, I hope they continue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Sunday's game was amazing. Their last five games have been amazing, right. I mean, they dismantled Dallas Cowboys, which is great Actually one of the guys I served in Fast Company with.
Speaker 3:He's an electrician down in the Dallas area, houston area union guy. So we text each other during the game and the week before and a couple weeks before and all that he was like yep, I knew it. Going in Dax is a $60 million guy. It sucks, they all want him gone and I hate to say it, jerry Jones will only ever bring in a coach that's got experience and a guy that's got some pedigree to him.
Speaker 3:So, they got McCarthy in there now out of Green Bay. He's a good coach, right? But sometimes you've got to give the wild card a shot, right, dan? Yeah dan come out of new orleans as an offensive coordinator right, never, never had coach, but he's got the fire in the drive and he's a guy's guy yeah military guys. We want the guy's guy. That's right.
Speaker 5:We're all alpha males and take chances, joe I.
Speaker 3:I mean we got Joe and we got two parts, yeah, well, I mean, the rest of us are alpha guys. You know what I mean, but I mean at the end of the day.
Speaker 7:I think we have a backlist of who the alpha guy is.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we want the guy's guy, you know what I mean. We want the guy that's going to lay it out of times too. Yeah, yeah, I, I sorry you can't, you can't. I mean no, I was gonna try to stick up for him, but I can't, but I can't, sorry, buddy, big, yeah, big, big pop.
Speaker 5:Well, hey, you know, give him a shout out. He did, uh, he did just make p again. So what the hell must be doing something, right, right?
Speaker 3:well, I don't know. I see his reports. I can't say he's doing things right. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 6:He's all right.
Speaker 3:And I even explained it to him. He's not here though no, which is great, so we could totally pick on him. Unless he calls my phone to get on the air. He's going to have to listen to this later.
Speaker 5:He's free game, right, he's definitely free game, but you know I felt bad. I feel like paybacks are going to be hell on that, though, After the hooker passed away.
Speaker 3:I just didn't have time to train him. I was always like I'm always available by phone. You can come up to the shop. We can do all kinds of things at the office.
Speaker 6:You know I'm here to help you.
Speaker 3:I'm not leaving you on an island, right, yeah, right, and I can only do.
Speaker 5:I'm not gonna do any more than you asked me to do.
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna do anything more than what you asked me to do. Right, but if you, but if you need help.
Speaker 5:I'm here to help because I'm not getting anything. But I see up there, there looks like a bunch of messages he's asked.
Speaker 3:He's asked great questions and you know I think he's doing an okay job.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no oh yeah, they're coming through on here. They're just a little, a little laggy on the page.
Speaker 5:It's not showing anything, so that's yeah, click on the comments.
Speaker 3:So now we're gonna hear a feedback've got to hit mute on your thing. I'll get back out of there. There's always any type of transition. It doesn't matter if it happened again this year. He's only going to probably have half the information, because I was only able to give him half the information. We all have different leadership styles. We all have different ways we want to do things, you know, and I think he's doing an okay job, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean there's always going to be complaints man, people didn't like it when I was a P and people probably don't like it when I'm the director, because I'm pretty strict. I want you to do your job right. Don't be the guy if you don't want to be the guy. Don't be the guy. If you don't want to be the guy, right. I do the same thing to my foreman here at work Right. If you want to push work, cool, I want you to push work. Do your job. I pay you to do it. Right.
Speaker 6:If you don't want to do it, don't do it.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. Just be a hand on the tools. I don't have to pay. You don't want the pickup truck, don't get it, that's right. Just be a hand on the tools. That's cool. Do the job. That's really all I ever ask for man.
Speaker 3:It's not that difficult, right? I let you. I don't micromanage, I don't complain unless I need to complain, right? But you know we've been doing a lot of good things at the Post. I know the writers group was part of the post. Uh, um halloween, right? You guys just passed out candy to the kids at the post. You were there, right? Yeah yeah, so what was going?
Speaker 6:on with that we.
Speaker 4:We had a lot of people coming through. We didn't have as many tables as we had last year, if I remember, but I know we ended up having to have somebody bring in brad brought in extra candy for us. We didn't get enough in the beginning, which was good news they came in and then we end up having an extra bag at the end that we end up just kind of devouring through whatever was there during a football game.
Speaker 3:Well, so that was always the thing. You know. I as the p there for three years, I always spend about 200 bucks in candy. That's about what they did yeah, so that's good then you must have a good turnout, yeah yeah, and last year we had four or five bags left over, but we were you know we give.
Speaker 7:We have one this year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, which is good. We give pretty generous handfuls to the kids that want to come up there. It's like a trunk or treat at our VFW Post in Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 3:We have three bowls and one from each one, so there's a lot of people coming through, yeah, which that's a great way for kids to get out early. They get dressed up, they get excited about Halloween. It's a safe place for them to come. You know what I mean. It might bring a couple moms or dads through that. Oh, I didn't even know there was a VFW here. Everyone says it's the bingo hall.
Speaker 4:What's that? Everyone always says it's the bingo hall.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is what people think about our post for sure.
Speaker 4:Although, talking about that sign, they did get an LED sign put up over the summer, so it's put up across the now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I know the riders group approved to have a sign made. I wasn't at the last monthly meeting but on that south end of town or south end of the building that faces Pickett Street, the riders group approved $400 or $ dollars to get a four by eight sign Put up on the building. We kind of bring it up in front of membership to get that voted in. I wasn't there last month and Roy Thomas, our quartermaster, wasn't there either as he was coaching football. Yeah, so we'll get that done and hopefully get that made and get it up on the wall and you know, just just more advertisement, because things get hidden behind trees and People don't know.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:So it's, and they're putting out like a bench or something out there. Now to the city. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so here in Mount Pleasant we have the M20 corridor that runs east of town, comes off our main road of mission, which is 127 north, and then we have M20 that runs east and west out of town. It's a two-year project. They're ripping up the street totally, redoing everything water, sewer, storm, all that different stuff and, yeah, it's part of the Michigan Department of Transportation. Yeah, they're putting benches in and you can put up new signage and all kinds of grants and different things for that corridor, which is nice, and that's like in the final stages right now. I mean it's like down to striping and that's about it. I mean they got all the construction done, the seating's done, the curbs are done.
Speaker 4:I know the one side coming into town today they finally took the cones down. We have two lanes coming into town now.
Speaker 3:On the east side, yeah coming in yeah that's amazing, man. I mean it's been a long two years, yes, it has. I mean that's like, put them up, take them down, put them up, take them down the main.
Speaker 5:basically, you know the secondary main drag, you know the main drag north and south.
Speaker 3:This is south, this is the main drag, east and west, yeah, but it ties into the north and south. That's the worst part. Yeah, it's, you know, I mean that's, that's literally. That's literally a stone's throw away from the sky lounge, right? So like for me to go that way. I don't even go that way right, way north of town or way south of town, and but everybody's doing the same thing, I'm doing you know, so it's still uh yeah, it's been a cluster. It's gonna be nice to have it done and it's it's already nice yeah, long, long, long, long time in the making.
Speaker 5:Yeah, don't want to touch it for another 20 years good, it's gonna be way good.
Speaker 3:Well, well, needed to be done, so like that two-lane.
Speaker 5:When they went from two lane to four lane on, I'm 20, all the way to Midland, yeah that was a hell of a project. What was that?
Speaker 3:back in the 80s I was that back in the 80s 90s I was a kid. Yeah, it was back in the 90s, late 80s, early 90s, yeah. So my mom and dad had a boat in Bay City in the marina that we'd stay on on the weekends. It was a 30, 35-footer, whatever it was back then and we'd be. Yeah, we used to drive that road every weekend, man, friday night. Come home Sunday night, all the construction and all the different stuff, man, I mean, I grew up in that town. That was a great town to grow up in. Man River goes right out to the bay and the crotch of the thumb. If you're looking at the map, you know Michigan, you know it was a great place to grow up. As a kid Spent all my summers, all my weekends, on the water. Man, it was cool Back then. It was like the Wild West, man. There was no cell phones, no pagers. I had a land-to-shore radio or shore-to-shore radio.
Speaker 3:My mom and dad would hand me like 20 bucks and be like you're home by 8 o'clock that's when dinner is and they'd be getting hammered drunk with their friends, you know, at the marina or whatever, and I'd jump on the dinghy and I'm like up in Linwood, up in Collin, I mean we're out in the bay as kids 14, 15 years old on these you know, 15-horsepower, rubber boats, basically right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and you've got to be careful.
Speaker 3:Hell we'd go all the to Saginaw man, it's like an hour to get to.
Speaker 5:Saginaw down the river, and you've got to be careful too, because the wind picks up and you can get some pretty hefty waves on the bay. That's why we had radios $20 and a can of two-stroke oil.
Speaker 3:We were good to go, man. We had lunch, dinner, a little party money. It was a good time. Man, you need a full tank and snacks for $20.
Speaker 5:Apparently, you and I need to speak up a little bit, I got you.
Speaker 3:It was like $0.95 a gallon back then, right? So I had a four or five gallon tank that sat in the dinghy. So you're talking like $5. I had $15 for lunch and pop and whatever else I could get into. You know what I'm saying Twice, once on Friday, once on Saturday, and we going home on Sunday man.
Speaker 4:So I was like making cash yeah, it was good stuff, did it right.
Speaker 3:You take some home with you that never happened because I had a couple girlfriends in the marina. You know what I mean. So depends on who I took on Friday and who took on Saturday. I always took the specs of expensive one on Friday because I didn't have that much money. So what was his name? One time it was Tim, the next time it was Bill.
Speaker 4:I knew he had some skeletons. Yeah, you know that's cool man.
Speaker 3:It was back in my exploratory days.
Speaker 4:So when I first came around, you guys, were grooming me, then me being the young guy, that's right. You being the young guy, that's right.
Speaker 5:You are the young guy, that's right, so give us a story, joe. What was your military experience?
Speaker 4:Well, I did commo and communications. There you go.
Speaker 3:Talk to the people.
Speaker 4:Talk to the people. I know a lot of it. For me was it's a hobby. I think I didn't really get to do a whole lot of it when I was, uh, in high school or anything like that. So I got in and I told the recruiter right away I know what I want to do with life. If you can't get me to that and I guess I'm going to college or you can get me that position and I'm signing up and we're leaving. So I know that part of it. Um, it's good to start with. But after doing it for a few years the help desk side of things I don't really care for it. No more. You get a lot of, a lot of stupid questions. That can be, I guess, for me their common sense can be doing for so long at this point. I've been going for almost 20 years, but that's uh the IT part, yeah there's.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with equipment, or probably even with your computers and phones, that a lot of people just have no idea. That's even there.
Speaker 3:Well, the only thing I know about computers is I can take a hammer to them, that's about it.
Speaker 5:They make a good a laptop makes a good Frisbee. Good Frisbee, yeah. Now I sit at a desk most of the day. I work in an engineering office, so I think it's basically sit at a computer. It gets old sometimes, but it's a job right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Pays the bills In the beginning. If you set everything up correctly, you should be able to just sit there and just let stuff run for the most part. Every so often do updates and and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:But so did you uh. So so you served. Uh, when did you serve I?
Speaker 4:was 7 to 17 7 to 17.
Speaker 5:What did you see?
Speaker 4:um. I went to iraq, afghanistan, afghanistan.
Speaker 3:The second that means he graduated high school and I was like 27, yeah, oh seven you were like 67 yeah, so you're the old guy, now you're Tim
Speaker 4:no one of the interesting, what did? You say 07?, 07, yeah, I graduated. Did you graduate 87?
Speaker 3:Honestly, when did you 92. 92?
Speaker 4:I was 93 to 95 when I was.
Speaker 5:I was four years old, it's all right.
Speaker 4:We all shit green at one time, that's right Doesn't matter.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so the office I sit in is there's three in my office that are 25, 26-ish, somewhere near 27 maybe, and you know I don't feel like I'm the old guy, but double their age down here. It's like you know, I just laugh, I just shake my head and laugh.
Speaker 4:I say, yeah, life hasn't even hit them you know, I got a question to ask why did you end up going in the army?
Speaker 3:um, it was the job that I wanted for the most part, but you couldn't do that job in the Air Force.
Speaker 4:I didn't like the idea of the smallest bunks, so that kind of took the Marines, the Navy and Air Force were off the table and there's no way I was going Coast Guard, so kind of defaulted me to the Army, so you preferred a tent. I'd rather have the tent than have those tiny-ass little things you guys have to sleep on on the ships.
Speaker 5:Yeah, see, they sold the. Called bunks In the Navy they call that a coffin rack. Yeah, so that's smaller than even a bunk bed.
Speaker 4:That and my uncle was Army, my grandfather was Army and after I actually joined I found out that my father was also Army. Well, you must have liked it. You put 10 in. Yeah, I got out for my son. Yeah, I had my paperwork all ready to go to do the warrant officer stuff and I was going to go that route. I had eight months left of E-5 time so I could actually put that paperwork in.
Speaker 4:But one of the warrant officers I was in Afghanistan with, we got to talking. I was down at an advanced leadership training in Fort Worth, georgia, ran into him in the hallway and we caught up. He's like well, what's your plans? I told him I wanted to do send him all my packets and stuff that I had ready to go. He comes back and says, well, your stuff looks good. I was like yeah, from what I understand, I can have one item and get a waiver for it. I was like I figured I'd be able to do that for my NCO time. He's like that's the only item on the list that you can't get a waiver for, so you have to wait the three years?
Speaker 6:Oh, I was pissed.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's a bummer.
Speaker 4:Sounds about right, though, so yeah there's, there's parts of it in this and there's parts of it I'm like, yeah, I'm going to have to deal with that crap no more.
Speaker 5:Yeah, well, that's with anything. I think yeah, so yeah, and then you, so are you from this area?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I grew up over in Coleman. It's really tiny.
Speaker 6:Gotcha 53 people in my graduating class. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm familiar.
Speaker 4:Yep, coleman. And so then you came back home and Found the VFW and joined the writers group. Yep, I was actually about to meet in between positions. So I called up Tim, picked up, we got to talking for a few minutes and he said well, you're not behind anything, so there's nothing we really do. And he started talking about the writers group and I was like well, I'm now, I'm an instructor. So I came up, talked to him for a bit and I was like you, know that's a motorcycle motorcycle instructor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, riders instructor yeah, for the motorcycle safety foundation. I do it out of Grand Rapids Community College, doing it six years now. I took this last summer off. I had a buddy that actually taught me to ride when I was in that ended up dying a couple years later.
Speaker 4:So I kind of do it as like a memorial for him nice beginning, beginning of our classes, we always go through a bunch of questions with the uh, with the students. You know where they're from and how long they've been riding. If they've been riding, find out what their experience is, and usually something else. Really all we care about is how long they've been riding, so we know who's been doing it for a while and who we need to pay extra attention to. And when they come around to us instructors, it's usually how long we've been riding, how long we've been teaching, and I would throw that piece in that I do as a memorial for my buddy yeah kind of sets a perspective?
Speaker 5:yeah, so did he. Did he pass on a bike?
Speaker 4:yeah, yeah he uh, I got back from afghanistan, he was in iraq. He's actually my roommate in iraq. He got out. When we got back, I went on a deployment. He went down to I think georgia and then when I got back from deployment, he went down to I think Georgia and then when I got back from deployment, he his girlfriend or fiancee, won got orders for drum. She came up and he's like hey, yes, prayer, remind. Come up to like, yeah, come on up. We came up.
Speaker 4:He decided he wanted to start riding again and get a bike. You know what? I might as well get one too. So we spent some a couple weeks after we're going out riding, which I shouldn't have been doing. So I wasn't licensed yet I I don't remember what I found out my ass was in the grass. Yeah, I come back to Michigan and do the class for it and then go back out. And then, a couple years later, my supervisor was this same guy that was in Iraq with us and he calls me in the office one day and he goes hey, white died. I'm like bullshit. He. He's like no, yesterday there was a bike accident going through someone's rear windshield. Oh man.
Speaker 4:So when I gathered, some old lady like pulled out in front of him and ran through her rear windshield. So Thought.
Speaker 3:maybe that was Shem ruling out. Yeah, Married that loud bike man. There must have been a truck going by. Yeah, you know, that's the heartbreak man.
Speaker 6:Now you've got, you got two losses on the bike yeah you know, I mean you got your boy, and then we got tim, you know what I mean I've actually got a third one.
Speaker 4:He was this other guy that I met when I was up at carson. It wasn't the bike that he ended up dying through, he had a super corvette, um, but he was like a cookie cutter version of me. We had the same hobbies, you know motorcycling, video games, all that crap. We're both communications.
Speaker 5:I don't know if we could handle it. He's on the satellite side of things where I did.
Speaker 4:You know the land management side of things, and then you know I'm going on texas.
Speaker 6:So who was the big?
Speaker 4:spoon? Oh, neither of us they each other.
Speaker 3:We know they face each other.
Speaker 6:Crossing swords the whole time.
Speaker 3:There ain't no doubt about it, we know.
Speaker 6:They only pivoted right. Nobody pivoted left. That was a Tim joke, right? He's like we all rotate right, nobody go left.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he is.
Speaker 4:No, he got out about six, six, eight months later he had his corvette out. He was uh drag racing some dude and I guess he had some alcohol in the system and it was one of those uh like divided highways where people could come in. Take that left-hand turn and someone kind of yeah you call it michigan and uh, this car pulled out in front of him and I guess he just plowed right into him, the car like crumpled up big fireball, some kid, like 17-year-old kid, and him dragging him out of it.
Speaker 5:He was like yeah, he was dead on impact. Yeah, there's not much in a quarterback.
Speaker 4:He's like well, at least he went out.
Speaker 3:Piece of fire glass. He's like, oh, fuck his face, damn. You know, that's always the hardship man For me and this is what kind of pissed me off about Tim, because I had a lot of conversations with Tim over the years and I said, man, one of two ways I want to die One's in combat.
Speaker 3:right, Die for my country. Right? I mean, that's why we all signed on the line. Right, Die for my country. I was okay with that, Come back. And the second way I said I just want to die with my hands on the handlebars. Motherfucker, beat me to it. I was pissed, I was fucking pissed, you know, and I was like damn Brand new bike too.
Speaker 3:But, yeah you know I mean it's sad. I get the heartbreak because you know I mean I got a tattoo on my arm. I understand it, especially if this is a guy you're roomed with or you've known for two weeks, but all of a sudden you click with somebody.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I mean, it doesn't matter, it could be a civilian out there, man, you meet somebody, you click, it's like that's my long-lost brother, my long-lost sister.
Speaker 4:Whatever it is man.
Speaker 3:It's weird how you can click with another person.
Speaker 4:Even our upbringing, even our upbringing, even our upbringing was with the one guy. His name was Jesse. Even our upbringing was really really similar. Yeah, which is crazy.
Speaker 3:And you know he might be from Oregon and you're from Michigan, or he's from Florida and you're from Michigan, whatever it is. I got one of my really good friends, damien Canale D I call him D. He's the state trooper out in Massachusetts. He's a sergeant or lieutenant, whatever works at McCarran Airport, mccarran Airport out there. So when we flew out there he actually worked the shift that night so he could be at the gate to bring us off the plane. But I mean I just built that friendship with him and it was a pretty short friendship man. We went to security force school together. I went to FAST, he went down to Bangor, he went to Kings Bay, georgia, where they were loading and unloading nukes. I went up to FAST Company in Virginia and then we ended up meeting back up in 29 Palms.
Speaker 3:I was 3rd Battalion 7 Marines in 29 Palms and we were both corporals. I was living in family housing so I was married and he was single. So you know I just left my shit in his room, never slept there, right, but you know my day-to-day stuff was in his room. We knew each other. So I mean we hung out all the damn time, man. I mean my wife would cook dinner and have D come over and, you know, knew our daughter, since she was barely walking. You know what I mean. Like I mean, it was just that kind of guy you know where. You know he was the reason why we flew to Boston for that that Christmas trip, you know I mean because he was out there, you know.
Speaker 1:So now, I see the guy you know.
Speaker 3:So mean, it was just those kind of relationships that most people don't get, because they maybe know somebody from here 20 miles away, 30 miles away, 40 miles away. Maybe they went to college with them for some people. So that range might expand a little bit farther. It might be 100 miles, 120 miles we're talking thousands of miles and different backgrounds, different upbringings, different stuff, you know. But when you serve with them and you're with them in certain situations, be it combat or just being around each other on base every day, working together, in a in a crazy short amount of time, man, you can build some.
Speaker 3:Build a bond, yeah crazy bonds, I mean when you went out on float, the guys that were working in your shop, or when you were out on deployment, like me, the guys working in your tent, or guys that I went on patrol with, or whatever those were. Your boys, that's like showing girls.
Speaker 4:Man, that's crazy I just talked to one of them yesterday, the day before one yeah, he just had his anniversary, him and his wife.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, who did my buddy Sean from the bowl?
Speaker 3:Sucks to be him.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he didn't learn. Huh, yeah, good dude.
Speaker 3:Might be, but he ain't very smart, yeah, well.
Speaker 5:I'm just kidding. He is a friend of mine, right.
Speaker 3:He's definitely not smart of mine, right, he's definitely not smart, I'm not even your friend. I don't even know why you're here. I don't either.
Speaker 5:In fact, it might be past my bedtime. Well, you're that old.
Speaker 6:You missed the early bird special down at Stans.
Speaker 4:Damn it. That was at four. It's time for second dinner for him.
Speaker 3:It's time for his vanilla ice cream yeah, but I'm a diaper ice cream sandwich head to bed.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, surprising, there's still some ice cream sandwiches left ice cream don't last longer on me well, shelby's been up to the house all week actually is that your computer. She didn't eat them all you've been checking?
Speaker 4:You've been checking? Yeah, I've been checking, but that was for a five-minute street drive. I replied to.
Speaker 3:I know, but you've got to say it, though You've got to hear what the comments are.
Speaker 4:He just said that AJ's the young guy, aj.
Speaker 6:I said you're right.
Speaker 4:And then he just said, careful, that was almost alcohol abuse because of the thing went.
Speaker 3:Oh, is he talking about AJ Boyle?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well. Aj Boyle ain't never been here. The kid? Yeah, he is the kid. This is AJ's sky lounge, not to be confused with AJ Boyle I didn't think about that, don't ever confuse that.
Speaker 4:We'll have to get him up here, just so inside AJ's.
Speaker 3:AJ at AJ's, aj's at AJ's, that's cool.
Speaker 5:I haven't seen him in a while. Is he even around?
Speaker 4:Yes, he's working a lot down there now I gotcha Well, I know he just had a baby, right, like?
Speaker 3:I mean, baby's only got to be at three, four months old, yeah Right.
Speaker 5:Well, I know his bike broke down last.
Speaker 3:I knew he had that Kawasaki Yamaha. He had something. He had a fairing on the front after a marker fairing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. But I thought it broke down.
Speaker 3:It did.
Speaker 5:He wasn't riding it this summer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was misfiring last year. Something was going on with it.
Speaker 4:He said the amount to fix it was almost the amount to just buy another bike.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So some crazy news, right. My son-in-law got in a bike wreck.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was when I was in Tennessee.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he got in a bike wreck probably six, eight weeks ago. Yeah, lady pulled out in front of him. He had a 02 Ultra. So full dresser Harley and lady pulled out in front of him. He rear ends her, flies over the car, broke his wrist 20 feet past the car flew oh yes, no helmet, no, nothing.
Speaker 3:I mean he was bruised and broke a wrist, caught up, you know, I mean it was. It was pretty traumatic for for my daughter right and finally got all those insurance stuff settled, you know, got the bike paid off, all whatever you know, medical bills done, missing work stuff. So they come down here a couple weeks ago and what's, what's he do? Brand new 2024 street glide.
Speaker 6:Yeah, well, the cool thing about this show.
Speaker 3:Well, and so my wife and I are out riding and he shows up with a buddy of his from up north and he's wearing a helmet. So we rode over to Midland. We rode over to Midland where D-Rock's at Went to dinner and stuff, you know, and you guys are with us.
Speaker 6:Yeah yeah, liz and I went too, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so we rode over to Midland and he's wearing a helmet. And we were like you're wearing a helmet Because in Michigan you don't have to wear a helmet. And he was like yep, ever since the accident I'm wearing a helmet. We're like did Madison make you wear a helmet?
Speaker 5:He's like not really but yes, she kind of did. I can't see it.
Speaker 4:I can't see it. Leah says glad, are the people roasting? You too, uncle Bill Francis? He's usually the main target.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so my niece is watching the podcast. She's an Air Force vet. She's in the Air Force right now Awesome.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 5:Where's she watching from? She's actually in Missouri, I think. I don't know. Tell her to post on it where you're at. Lee, I don't know where the hell you're at, but anyways, we're over state lines now.
Speaker 3:But anyways, now he's wearing a helmet. So we were like, hey, why are you wearing a helmet? Just curiosity, I don't care what you do, right, whatever. And he was like, yeah, just after that, kind of put me in a little bit of check yeah. Because he got pretty well unscathed.
Speaker 5:But I'll let you tell the story about his new harley. Yeah, so so he goes to the harley dealer, right, and uh, he wanted this. Uh, what is that? The shark skin blue color. Well, the only way shark skin blue comes is with black.
Speaker 5:It's all blacked out trim. Well, somebody want, uh, wanted one of the green ones, and I don't know what the color, the forest green, the dark green, yeah, but they wanted black. Well, that only comes in chrome, yep, so this guy that bought this green bike paid to have everything pulled off of the green bike to put on the blue bike and swap them out so that so the trim on one bike went from black to chrome and they switched bikes, right.
Speaker 5:So so he bought this blue you know sharkskin blue bike, which should be black, which should be black now it's chrome, and the only way to get that is you have to actually flip flop with a black one and pay. I think the guy paid over, yeah, over three thousand dollars to have this switch, which which, luckily for him, he didn't have to pay. He didn't pay it. The guy that got the green bike paid to have the chrome taken off and the black put on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so he goes and buys this sharkskin blue 24 street glide Chromed out, which you can't have.
Speaker 5:It's all chromed out.
Speaker 3:So unless somebody else around the country has ever done this right, he's going to have the only one, one of one bike, and it is sweet, the only one that's got that 24 street glide with chrome on it, because, unless someone else paid that cash, yep, or painted their bike, you know, painted it to be different. Yeah, painted it black in the chrome or whatever. What advice?
Speaker 4:She says she's out in Whiteman.
Speaker 3:Still not as at.
Speaker 4:Missouri. I have to look it up, don't?
Speaker 3:look it up, make her answer the question she's.
Speaker 6:Air Force for.
Speaker 3:Christ's sake, she can't take directions no she, where are you?
Speaker 5:Yeah, where are you? She's going to punch me.
Speaker 7:You deserve it. Yeah, I do no she's I'm real proud of her yes, Missouri.
Speaker 4:she says uh, I'm real proud.
Speaker 5:I'm real proud of her. She's uh, she's doing real well good uh, she called me tonight. Actually, I just talked to her a little bit ago what's her name?
Speaker 3:leah leah leah. Thanks for your service, we appreciate it out.
Speaker 5:We totally appreciate it, her husband's in the air force also and he just, uh, just had surgery that a little bit of a cancer scare oh no, but uh, she told me she called me tonight and said that cancer, no, cancer it's all good. So yeah, it was a little scare there for a minute.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, that's good to hear, yeah. And tell your husband thanks for his service as well. Man, we totally appreciate it because you know, all too often there's not enough of us right? We talked about the 1 percent. We talked about the one percent before, you know, and nowadays it's almost probably just as bad. You know how long she's been in the air force or he's been in the air force, but you know we had a recruiter at our post that refused the covid shot right and then that was a mandated, so he got out yep and luckily in his instance, jake, when he got out he had served enough time that he didn't get a hit on his DD-214.
Speaker 5:Oh good, you know what I?
Speaker 3:mean when? If he was like two years before that, I think he got out at eight or nine years. If he was like six years, he would have took a huge hit, I mean it would have been a general discharge rather than an animal discharge. Oh that's not cool. No, no, no.
Speaker 5:I think she's been in six-ish years-ish.
Speaker 4:Okay, she says thank you, you guys too yeah.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Well, we appreciate it. Thanks for listening. Tell Lily to quit eating all my damn chocolate. By the way, that's only the reasons, yeah, reasons.
Speaker 5:Reasons, reasons. Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, you got me hooked on those for a bit. Oh man, them are good.
Speaker 3:I had to stop walking into the gas station because I was getting those reasons all too often.
Speaker 5:So every time Leah calls me her daughter Lily, I can hear her in the background.
Speaker 4:Uncle Bill, Uncle Bill, I ate all your chocolate. She said 10 years in January 10, okay, a little off, but yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm kind of an uncle to you. You don't even have any clue. You're off like a decade.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, time flies when you're having fun. But yeah, I figured she was in Arizona for, I guess, four. But maybe it was six, maybe it was eight, maybe it was eight, maybe it was you know, maybe she was in somewhere else before that. I tell you what 10 years man she's only like she's half way there, man, that's awesome she plans at least I'm hoping she plans to stay in for the full, she said, as long as it still works for her so 20 years in the Air Force relates to like 9 months in the Marine Corps.
Speaker 3:Right like I, mean 9 months is 20 years in the Air Force, because I actually went to Mildenhall, england. I'm way back from Iraq and I tell you what. They abandoned the barracks. They built new barracks there. Right, we stayed in their old barracks. We walked into their old. They're like sorry guys, we didn't expect you to come in, we don't have accommodations. I was at Fast Company, Like you know, there's only 40 of us. Right, you got to stay in our old barracks. We're like all right, you know whatever you know. I'm getting the word down from the staff sergeant LT. You know, the captain, whatever. Right.
Speaker 6:Club med.
Speaker 3:We go into this thing and we were like the fuck, these are their old barracks. Drywall, carpet, shit's made of wood. You had your own bathroom. Like what is going on? There's no gang bathrooms at the end of the hallway, you know, like shower trees and stuff.
Speaker 5:So I heard rumor, though, if Air Force people have to stay at Marine Corps accommodations.
Speaker 3:They get hazardous duty pay?
Speaker 5:I don't know maybe she'll chime in and say, if that's true, they actually get it's called sub get hazardous duty pay. I don't know, maybe she'll chime in and say, if that's true, no, they do, it's called substandard living pay?
Speaker 1:No, they do.
Speaker 3:Literally, if they come out to 20 and Palms, they get substandard living pay. I mean that's legit.
Speaker 5:Bad day for the Air Force is when the Wi-Fi is going to glitch. Our daughter actually almost went to the Air.
Speaker 3:Force Academy for swimming. She Our daughter actually almost went to the Air Force Academy for swimming, yeah, and she decided to go to Northern Michigan University. But she almost went and I'm like kid, this is the way to do it. I try to talk my son before he enlisted in the Marines. I try to talk him into even going to the Air Force. I'm like look man you get great training great living.
Speaker 3:You get paid the same, but your technical skills like that is where you go if you want, like b2 bombers. Like what's her clearance to work on a plane?
Speaker 5:well, I know her husband's an airplane mechanic.
Speaker 3:So yeah, like I had, I had a secret clearance that fast she does say yes, we get hotels, or Straight up.
Speaker 5:So when she talked about going in the military, you know she was talking about it and, and and my sister was in the Marines, you know as well and uh, both of us told her if you're going to go in and you want to do this, go in the Air Force, because they treat you better. That's just straight up. They just treat you better, you know. So that's what she did, so good for her.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no 100%, and we all have a different mission to do. Yeah, Right, so you know when people come up.
Speaker 5:It fits her better though.
Speaker 3:Well, but when people come up to our VFW right, we're all military, we're all veterans they don't maybe understand. So part of it is teaching people especially younger people that decide they maybe want to do the military what the differences are, because most people don't understand what the differences are Right, like why would you join the Marines over the Army?
Speaker 6:Why would you join the Navy over the?
Speaker 3:Air Force.
Speaker 5:He was thinking about it, I was going to say something snappy.
Speaker 3:Then I realized we're on the post Facebook.
Speaker 5:So I'm trying to keep it kind of no, really. He just had a flashback to that blue crayon that he ate earlier today.
Speaker 3:Because it tastes like blueberry.
Speaker 1:Grape's my favorite.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, we all have a mission. We all have different technical skills, depending on what you want to do in life depends on what fits you. To do in life depends on what fits you. Some people are not mentally strong enough to be in one service, even though they might have the same technical thing, might be on a little bit different level, but if you're a comm guy in the Army compared to a comm guy in the Marine Corps, it's probably pretty much the same. We're using the same type of equipment Pretty close you know what I mean.
Speaker 6:I mean they're probably pretty close.
Speaker 4:I'm going to give it to you guys. You guys are probably still getting our hand-me-downs. No, no, no.
Speaker 5:Radar tech in the Navy. I mean, it would be pretty close to that too.
Speaker 3:Same type of scenario, but for your, so I. So I actually had a cousin's husband Depends on what boat you're on? He was an air traffic control guy, went in the Army. He could have been air traffic control in the Air Force. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 3:And they're probably pretty similar, right. Like a commo guy in the Marines infantry unit, probably the same as the Army, right. I mean they're pretty on parallel. But different missions, different attitudes and some guy would probably should have gone in the army, joined the marines and couldn't hack it a little bit more hardcore than the other guy. You know what I mean. So I mean we're all a little bit different but we're the same. Kind of depends on your attitude and who you are as a person. But you know there's. You ain't gonna be in the Marine Corps working on a B-2, right. You're not gonna be in the Marine Corps working in a shop on a Navy ship, you know. I mean we all have a different job to do. That all complements each other and gets the mission done, and that's what I love about the VFW, right.
Speaker 3:So we have people that, like Joe Joe's the tech guy at the post, you got Brent two parts. That was, you know, quartermaster in leadership of the post. He brought good things to the table. You had Tim running the post. You got Trey or myself as a writer's group bringing stuff to that entity. You know what I mean. So it takes people from all over the place that have an expertise in something as the willingness to do something for the common good of all of us In the heart, right, you know, and some people are better at other things, like we're talking about. Like, I could take a hammer to that laptop. I work in an office 10 10 hours a day. Right, I'm not a tech guy. My computer breaks down.
Speaker 5:I yell at my business partner.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah hey call cms. My, you know, my computer's down like what the fuck's going on. I couldn't even link. I got two, two printers in my office and I couldn't get one to work. For six months I had to go into his office to scan stuff to put onto my computer because we're all networked together why?
Speaker 6:didn't you call me.
Speaker 3:It's that ridiculous 15 minutes would add you up, but I'm not that guy.
Speaker 5:You have your strengths.
Speaker 6:Everybody has their strengths.
Speaker 5:But you're a master plumber. Not everybody knows how to.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you said master plumber, not master fisherman.
Speaker 5:Plumber plumber, Not fisherman Plumber. Damn Marines. They're always in the gutter, ain't they? That's why we went in the Marines, that's right. We're not that smart, but I mean, you know, going back to that, you know that's what I did in the Navy. I was a plumber. So I mean I did pipe fitting, I did, you know plumbing work, but did you do it right?
Speaker 5:Probably not. There you go, you know, because nothing was right anyway. So what did it matter? There it is, there it is, so you know. But I, I mean I learned a lot of it. I a lot of it was more commercial actually believe it or not type plumbing than than what you would find in residential. You know, growing up with uh rentals I learned some of the residential stuff, probably all wrong anyway, so it doesn't matter. But uh, you know, everyone has their little niche. I actually like doing the maintenance part of it, so I worked on a lot of the pumps and a lot of the you know the the inline garbage grinders and a lot of the you know the things that were were part of the plumbing system that you would never see because it was down in a pump room.
Speaker 3:So it's actually kind of crazy because my daughter works for an airplane supply company and they build tools and parts and all that kind of stuff. She's kind of got into their oh, hold on a minute, Holberg's calling.
Speaker 5:Uh-oh, two parts Got to talk. Two stories, two parts you on.
Speaker 2:Yep, can you guys hear me?
Speaker 3:yeah, I can hear you. Good, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 2:oh, I'm doing. Okay, how are you doing? Did you get the kids to bed finally no, I got one sitting on my lap as we speak. She's wondering who I'm talking to.
Speaker 5:Santa Claus, you're gonna put that Christmas list in early. She's on the naughty list, santa Claus, I was just going to say You're going to put that.
Speaker 3:Christmas list in early.
Speaker 2:She's on the naughty list. No, you've been good.
Speaker 5:How old is this?
Speaker 2:one, she's three.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah, fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you guys are. I got you on my Bluetooth earbuds, so I can't trust you guys to be on the speaker.
Speaker 3:I'm being good tonight.
Speaker 4:Good call that's why we have a disclaimer I've been watching a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been watching a little bit.
Speaker 3:so anyway, well, we just want to make sure, since you've been watching a little bit have you followed our Soup Sandwich podcast on Facebook? We do follow our Soup.
Speaker 2:Sandwich podcast on Facebook. We absolutely need to get everybody to watch.
Speaker 3:There you go. We need people to follow us because we've got to get to 100 people, so we can do live on there rather than do it live on the post.
Speaker 5:I'm looking at this and it says 84 plays. I don't know what that means here, but so apparently 84 people are watching this. Is that what that means?
Speaker 4:Apparently up here it says 84 plays.
Speaker 5:I don't know what that means.
Speaker 3:That's probably people that looked in and jumped out, maybe, or that yeah, okay, but anyways, they're probably like oh, these guys. Oh, probably like oh, these guys, oh yeah, these idiots, these idiots.
Speaker 4:Never mind, we'll pass. Yeah, that's when a video starts to play, either automatically or after someone clicks on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you got to follow us, and then we can start doing those lives on that Share, like and subscribe, just like YouTube.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm just going to.
Speaker 4:They clicked on the page, saw our ugly mugs and said nope.
Speaker 5:Not today. Don't you always hear that when you're watching YouTube, share, like and subscribe? Yeah, that's what I say In.
Speaker 2:Joe's case. They saw the back of his head and said I know that guy Never mind.
Speaker 5:Oh, jesus Christ, I thought we were going to keep it clean. Here you are.
Speaker 2:Hey, I didn't say nothing, I just assumed't see you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, part two. What's up? Give us the second story.
Speaker 3:They might have saw the back of his head and said, yep, I remember that, I like that. I'm going to follow that one.
Speaker 2:I don't have a second part on that one. That was pretty straightforward.
Speaker 4:Nothing straight about that. That's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 5:Nothing straight about that. That's a first.
Speaker 2:I'm watching this live as I'm on the phone. I just see Margaret Pratt just popped in. Hey boss, lady.
Speaker 3:Oh, she's definitely the boss lady. Yeah, she's probably wondering why we're on the.
Speaker 5:How come I don't see all that?
Speaker 3:She's probably wondering why we're on that, because you're just looking at it on that page. You got to click on it. Yeah, but I did that, but then you just hit mute.
Speaker 5:Where's the mute button?
Speaker 2:He's also not an admin on that page. I don't know if everybody watching is able to see who all is watching. Does that make sense? I?
Speaker 4:think it's just the live one.
Speaker 5:Oh, it's 165 plays now. I think he can hit mute on his phone though. Yeah, but I don't know how to. It's muted here, but I don't know how to.
Speaker 3:Now you need to mute it again I have a word of way to mute it, just like you do on your YouTubes.
Speaker 6:There, you go See, just like on YouTube.
Speaker 5:Just like on YouTube, Just like there. Now I can see everybody.
Speaker 3:See look at that.
Speaker 6:You're teaching old dog new tricks.
Speaker 5:Army ain't ready for.
Speaker 3:Marines, yet Well, okay.
Speaker 5:Brent, you say Army's ain't ready to be a Marine yet. What does Navy stand for? Let's see.
Speaker 2:Forever again volunteer yourself.
Speaker 5:You got that right.
Speaker 3:Choose your fate, that's right.
Speaker 5:Choose your fate. That's right.
Speaker 3:USMC Uncle Sam's misguided children. Yep See, death before dishonor. And that's Roy Thomas' list tonight. Old, freaking mad eye, one eye out there.
Speaker 5:What the hell. I thought he was getting here.
Speaker 3:Well, he's actually had his sister's birthday. Oh that's right. They had a dinner for her tonight and he thought he might be able to pop up afterwards. Be too late. You never know. He lives like 20 miles south of here, so he's got a little bit of travel, jim.
Speaker 2:That was the funniest thing when I told him that I changed his name in our chat group to Mad-Eye Moody.
Speaker 5:Well, now my comments aren't streaming as they go through. Is that because nobody's commenting?
Speaker 3:Yep Roy's a good dude. He's a huge member of the community of Shepard. They had an issue a year ago.
Speaker 5:Air Force rejected me yesterday. Might have been a year ago. That's a new one for the Army, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's a new one. That's really good, Leah.
Speaker 3:Might have been a year ago. They were short on crossing guards for their school. Oh and Roy Volunteered their school. Oh and Roy volunteered.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 3:He was crossing kids. Man, I mean, that's what we do. You know, there's a whole community that we recognize or see Shepherd's such a small community that they're so tight-knit. I love that small town. I mean, when I talk small town, they don't even have a flashing light, maybe. No, I don't think they even have a flashing light. Who's that Shepherd? It's like Rosebush, just north of us. I don't think they even have a flashing light. I don't think Shepherd's got a flashing light. That small of a community man, but they're crazy tight, I don't think so, but they've got a McDonald's.
Speaker 5:Rosebush doesn't even have a restaurant, hardly They've got a part-time restaurant. Hey, speaking of volunteer, tell them about that ride. We just went on with Patriot Riders.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so one of the cool things we did, cool. Yeah, cool Appreciate you calling in tonight. I know you got the rugrats why wife is gone, but uh, yeah, I'm good with it well, you know, we talked about your apron earlier, so hopefully you're still wearing it.
Speaker 2:Hey do you.
Speaker 5:You got the dishes done and dessert in the oven. Got your wig on no flashing light.
Speaker 3:Three four-way stops in shepherd, yeah we're actually going to call you Mrs Doubtfire.
Speaker 3:Might have changed your name, no but so you know, one of the really cool things is I was down at the Department of Michigan, we had a VFW conference, fall conference, and we got word of a Medal of Honor winner from the Indian Wars which is in the 1800s, right. So this guy's been deceased for 100 years. He was in an unmarked grave in an abandoned cemetery in Owasso, michigan, which is down in the Flint-type area between Lansing, which is our state capital, and Flint to the east, and they found his grave, dug him up and found enough bones to actually for a coroner to say this is actually a body and he was a Medal of Honor recipient from the Indian Wars and they put him in a funeral home there in Owasso and between the Patriot Guard riders here in Michigan and the VFW riders in Michigan and Michigan State Police, we escorted the body from the funeral home in Owasso to the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, michigan, which is about 40, 45 miles away 40 miles away which is about 40, 45 miles away.
Speaker 3:40 miles away, yeah, and then had him re-interned with full military honors as he's well-deserved Right Medal of Honor recipient. Yeah, medal of Honor recipient, but we left here in Mount Pleasant. It was about 36, 37 degrees that morning when we left Mount Pleasant. If that and we got down to Owasso, which is about an hour and a half away. It maybe touched 40 degrees by the time we got there.
Speaker 5:The temperature of that day was 50 degrees. It was 50 degrees, yeah, at least it was dry.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it was dry, it was dry.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we pulled out of Mount Pleasant about 09, 9 o'clock in the morning, four of us, and we escorted them from Owasso at 11.
Speaker 5:Four bikes, yeah, four bikes.
Speaker 3:There was five people, six people and yeah, I mean you know it was on a Tuesday, you know short kind of notice because they had to wait to get the arrangements to get them in the National Cemetery, which is pretty tough to get in. I mean it's very structured, Like you pull in there and it's like to the second as the military order works. You know there's four lanes, so there's four funerals and then 30 minutes later there's four more funerals and then 30 minutes later I mean like you get to set a lot of time and if you're there, you're there. If you time, yeah, and if you're there, you're there, if you're not, you're sol like I mean it's very regimented, which is the way we like it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, nothing's drawn out, nothing's anything happening, but I mean it was. It was a really cool thing to be able to do and it was. It was cool as, uh, you know, the, the vfw, as well as the midland riders group, district four riders group, the mount pleasant riders group, to be able to be a part of that, because I will never, probably in my lifetime ever, have the chance to be able to escort another Medal of Honor recipient to their final resting place. So just to have the opportunity to give my time, give myself as well as all those other members I know, you know Bill and Liz were on the ride. I was Joe. Joe shot Joe yourself, right. I mean for us to be able to take the time, trey was there.
Speaker 3:Another guy with Joe shot got a middleman. Was there. Guy had a district for Bill Schaefer. Was there? Guy out of District 4. Bill Schaefer was there, yeah, and I mean he wrote a cage up.
Speaker 5:But I mean all the VFW people there, well, and Terry Koontz Terry Koontz was the chaplain. Yeah, so he's our post-chaplain.
Speaker 3:He's our district chaplain and he's the Department of Michigan State of Michigan chaplain that did the invocation and stuff. You know.
Speaker 5:Department of Michigan State of Michigan chaplain that did the invocation and stuff. I mean it was just cool to be able to. He followed us in the cage before us to come out of Mount Pleasant. He followed us.
Speaker 2:Hey, I got a question about that. Yeah, sorry, I'm still watching the live. You guys have a couple second delay. Hey, how did they find him? He was in an unmarked grave, but was he next to anybody else in unmarked graves? Like, how did that all go?
Speaker 5:down there was. There was people searching for for this gentleman. For like two years they searched for him and when they they finally found him, there was a, there was a marker on the grave so you can actually find where it's at. If you go to Google Maps because I did this and I went in the grave site that he was at, you can Google search it and it's like four-foot-tall grass you can kind of see that there's a cemetery there. So they spent a couple years finding him and I caught bits and pieces of what they were talking about. But it took up to once they found him, up to a year to actually get him to the cemetery and get him exhumed.
Speaker 5:Because, there was so much politics involved.
Speaker 3:So kind of go along with that. And I'm going to paraphrase from Barry Walter at Department of Michigan. He's our state quartermaster adjutant at the VFW of Michigan. He is somehow right through his position. He's in with the National Medal of Honor Society, obviously, american Legion, he's working with all these different entities but through those organizations that he's a part of, they had found out about this guy, I think part of that National Medal of Honor Society group.
Speaker 3:I think they're trying to make sure or find missing members. That's exactly it, and it took them quite a while to even find where he was at, much less all the paperwork to, through the government right, be able to exhume somebody and then re-intern them. Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's, it's. This is like a two-year, three--year deal finding him, getting him out of the ground, actually having enough to say there's a body there, and then getting him re-interned with all the honors that he deserves.
Speaker 3:I'm sure the first time he was buried, you know he probably had the honors. Who knows? I mean it was 100 years ago, right. So I mean, but I know there's a lot of vfw members around, uh, the state um, that were in um searching, not only searching online or or through the public records and all those different things, but I mean literally searching through the ground with shifters right, trying to find enough of this guy, because they were pine boxes back then yeah right to be able to say that they could find enough bones or whatever, to actually say there was a person buried there, so that was yeah it was quite.
Speaker 5:It was quite the I mean this first time I'd ever seen a ceremony to that extent. You know that was. That was pretty cool. Yeah, it was very cool.
Speaker 3:Like I say, I'll probably never have the opportunity to do it again, so I wasn't going to miss it for the world. I was super proud of all the writers groups around the state of Michigan. On short notice, I put out an email blast to all the presidents about a week or two ahead of time saying, hey, it's going to be this day. I have no idea the times. Who knows what the weather is going to be this time of year and I'm not expecting someone to ride 300 or 400 miles that day when it's 30 degrees out.
Speaker 5:Luckily it was sunny. I mean, it was cold, but at least it was sunny too.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I just pulled my cold stuff out of the shed.
Speaker 3:I literally put my cold weather windshield on my bike the night before.
Speaker 5:I did it that morning.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so you know, that's what we do. Because you know if that was us, right, you know, say we get buried in a family plot tomorrow and 100 years from now. Someone's like, hey, they're doing something different for veterans now and there's going to be guys in 100 years that take the time to do that for us. Yeah, I would hope so. Well, right, so we would want the same respect that we gave this guy. We don't know this guy. There wasn't even a family member there. Who knows right?
Speaker 3:But just out of the respect you know that that guy that gave the flag to wasn't a family member. No, he was. He was part of the the michigan uh national okay medal of honor society.
Speaker 4:You wouldn't have thought any different though no, I mean, it was like cool, there's a. It was presented like, I mean it was presented just like a family, like you know we present this flag and yeah, yeah, full military it was full.
Speaker 4:It was awesome as it should be right, it was uh, yeah but no, I actually when I was when I was active duty still we actually had a living guy that had won the Medal of Honor come through from Afghanistan. I did a big speech. There is no winning it Well, I earned it, thank you.
Speaker 3:Sorry, you don't wake up one day. I'm not bagging on you, but you don't win shit, because most of those guys will always tell you you said that earlier too, though, Charlie, no. I didn't say win, I said he was a recipient. Yes, you did. Yes, you did Rewind the tapes.
Speaker 5:Oh shoot.
Speaker 4:Here we go, you got a mission there, part one.
Speaker 7:I'm going to hang up on you, part one.
Speaker 2:No, that's all right. Wouldn't be the first time.
Speaker 3:It's not going to be the last, no, but I mean, at the end of the day, most of those guys will always tell you I don't want it, I didn't do it for myself. I did it for the guys to the right and the left of me the ones that didn't make it.
Speaker 2:That's the ones that should be getting it yeah so you know, what story I really want to hear about Medal of Honor, though, because they have it on YouTube. It was the first ever Medal of Honor action to be recorded and witnessed, because I think it was a predator drone that was recording it, and he, the guy who was awarded it, was a war. I think. He was awarded two medals of honor for two separate incidences within like 10 or 15 minutes of each other, and the entire thing was caught on a Predator drone camera. It's on YouTube.
Speaker 3:So I would be interested in that, because I heard and I don't know, it's like getting a Purple Heart and this. I wish Roy was here tonight, because Roy is a recipient of a Purple Heart One of my good buddies is too.
Speaker 5:Aka, the enemy's marksman badge as he likes to call that. Liz could probably chime in.
Speaker 3:I think he actually has two, but from what I understand is they have to be two different engagements. So, for instance, say Roy gets shot and then 15 minutes later he gets hit by a grenade or roadside bomb, that's going to be considered the same engagement same engagement right right. But if he gets hit today and then you know, seven hours later, nine hours later, he gets hit again. Oh, look at you there's the link.
Speaker 5:There's the link, maybe. What's the link? Joe, just put the link of that video. That two parts was one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm not saying it's not happening. I always thought they had to be two separate engagements. Not a clue.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I have no idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I wish Roy was here, because Roy might be able to chime in on his behalf of because literally say you got shot twice, do you get two Purple Hearts or is that still considered the same engagement? You got shot twice? Well, the part in the video. Say for instance you got fragged by a grenade and you got 30 pieces of shrapnel. Do you get 30 Purple Hearts? No, no, you get one from the one grenade, right? I'm generally curious because I've never earned that.
Speaker 4:You hear about it too, like during, like World War I, world War II, where these guys go up and destroy a machine gun nest and they're riddled with fragments, you know, from the grenades and bullets and all sorts of stuff but they get one, I believe.
Speaker 3:Right. So what? My question is but I don't know, is it what do you define an engagement? Because I've always heard this engagement, right? So now you've got a guy that's got two Medal of Honors from 15 minutes apart. Is that two separate engagements? I don't know. I mean, is it okay you shot me and then he shot me? Is that two different?
Speaker 5:How do you justify it? Two acts of heroism.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 5:I mean, I'm generally curious. Same engagement maybe I don't know, but I know a friend of mine. I want to say he has two purple hearts. But yeah, he just retired from the Army. He was one of the few Army guys that actually was Secret secret service to defend the president.
Speaker 4:Oh nice.
Speaker 5:Yeah, usually it's Marines. I mean it's pretty exclusive, but this guy, he was the guy.
Speaker 4:When I got done with one of my Well still the guy I mean.
Speaker 5:I'm not. When I got done with one of my NCOERs that they gave me for the year they actually put down the bottom of the bullets.
Speaker 4:for it I got recommended to do the.
Speaker 6:White House communications okay, yeah, I thought about it I was like I, want to do the morning thing first.
Speaker 5:He spent some time, as you know.
Speaker 4:Secret Service that would have been a cool, cool gig too. Go ahead, everybody set everything up.
Speaker 5:They come in, do their stuff, tear it down and he, he got the badges and everything when he, when he retired from that assignment, they gave him all his badges in a shadow box nice pretty cool.
Speaker 5:I don't know. I don't know how much he wants his stuff advertised, so I'll just keep it as that. Oh, so now I know, like the day after he had surgery to remove shrapnel from his knee, he because I trained martial arts with him and he was doing some kicks into some padding that I was holding on and he was blowing me back like 10 feet, laughing, batting that I was holding on and he was blowing me back like 10 feet, laughing, saying how upset his doctor would be if he knew what he was doing. At this point in time, guy is just an absolute beast. I mean just absolute beast, all I can say is.
Speaker 6:I'm glad he was on our side.
Speaker 4:I've seen a few of them like that out there.
Speaker 5:Yep, I'm glad you're on my team Hand-to-hand combat instructor of the year for the whole US Army. You know, a few years back, hell of a guy, nicest guy you ever met, but man.
Speaker 4:Who the heck is pwning on what that's W Charlie.
Speaker 3:What are you pin' on? Well, you know, the kid needed bacon, cheddar, popcorn flavoring. And it hasn't been used at the Sky Lounge in quite a while, so you had to punch him in the face. Three times I didn't punch him in the face.
Speaker 5:What?
Speaker 3:I did was I had to take the container and get it on the table to break it. He's in there punchin' himself in the face what I did was I had to take the container and on the table to break it points and himself in the face. No, I had to break it up in the powder because it gets clumped up if you don't use it forever. You know compacts, right sugar. You know you look like a Suzy home baker. You should know what that's like. Who's that?
Speaker 5:two parts, yeah he knows what that's like he wears an apron.
Speaker 3:It's cool.
Speaker 5:He didn't deny it Still with us, or did you fall down I?
Speaker 4:fell asleep.
Speaker 2:Oh he's probably warming up a bottle or something. No, currently I am drinking tea that my daughter is making in her little play kitchen.
Speaker 5:Oh, you got a little tea party going on. Huh, that's cool.
Speaker 3:I miss those days when the kids were little.
Speaker 4:Oh man, to be honest with you, I think they get more difficult the older they get it definitely gets harder, Definitely for sure.
Speaker 3:I miss the tea parties. I miss the little fake kitchens.
Speaker 5:You just miss the Barbie Jeep. You're not kidding anybody.
Speaker 3:I did put an 18-volt battery in that thing. It did about 30 miles an hour.
Speaker 6:We didn't make the adult version of those things.
Speaker 3:I rewired it, Rewired it. Well, I do have the toilet go-kart downstairs. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, I think I'll toilet go-kart downstairs. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, I think I'll pull a wheelie man. My boy actually rode that in the homecoming parade for small engines class.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, I've never seen that. See, most people have the bar stool go-kart.
Speaker 3:He's got a toilet seat go-kart.
Speaker 3:So we did my company, I don't know plumbing company, mechanical contracting company, and uh, we did a renovation on a church down in St Louis, about 20 miles from here. I mean it was big. They put a big addition on I mean those mega churches, right, oh yeah. So they did this huge. It was like on our end it was like Bathroom men's and women's. I mean it was big. So they a guy had this bar stool go-kart. They took that off and they put a toilet on it and they did like I mean they had their tech guy. It was like pre-recorded. You know, the pastor went in there, comes rolling out of a stall on this go-kart and then they had him lined up in the doorway and everybody's watching the big mega screens and all that shit. And he come rolling out rolling down the aisle in this go-kart right and flames are flying and all this stuff. So I asked him because they had a second phase coming up right that we wanted to be a part of.
Speaker 3:And I said hey, you know what are you doing with that go-kart? Still hooking and jabbing. They go. Well, you know, probably nothing. You know we just you know guy had this. You know, we just made this toilet on it, whatever you know for this thing. And I said, hey, well, what do you want for it? X amount of dollars, I'm like we'll buy it, heck, yeah. So we bought it from the church and guess what? We got the second phase of the project too.
Speaker 1:You know they're the only bidder on it, but so that's that cost of business stuff we do you know so I still have it.
Speaker 3:It's been down there in the lower bay for 15 years, yeah.
Speaker 5:I've seen that the other day and it still runs. Man, it's cool.
Speaker 3:So actually, if you go up to my house, I have the Budweiser. There's a Budweiser bar stool go-kart. I actually have that stool at my house that sits up against my workbench, so yeah, but it has like a creeper gear for parades that the pastor used, because that thing will do like 30 miles an hour.
Speaker 1:It's scary, dude.
Speaker 3:It's scary, I was 15 years ago I was early 30s. I was scared to get on it. Dude, it would do 40 miles an hour. Man, it was crazy fast. Wow, you put that creeper gear on and you hit the gas, it'll pull a wheelie in a heartbeat. So the boy rode it in the homecoming parade for the high school, his senior year. So I'm sitting on it. My sister lives on the parade route, Nice beautiful porch. You know all the stuff. I'm sitting out there, I'm taking pictures and they get all my boys that are downtown, all pleasant, sending me pictures of the boys. They're like that was the coolest thing of the whole parade.
Speaker 3:You know the boy riding the toilet, you know.
Speaker 6:I knew that was your kid, you know.
Speaker 3:That's awesome, well, of course. So we've never put it in a parade, but we should put it in a parade.
Speaker 5:What was that? Your poker hand? What's that? Well, it popped up.
Speaker 4:That was for the other thing. I just put that away so I could figure out what that was.
Speaker 3:Oh, the other thing Playing poker, it was the other thing.
Speaker 5:That's your poker league going on Look like cards.
Speaker 4:No, it was the chat.
Speaker 3:Hey man, I hit a five-leg parlay. I don't know what that means. Bet on the Steelers game last night. Five-leg parlay Put a buck on. It Won like 54 bucks. Really, when I bet on sports I just put a buck here, a buck there. I don't bet serious money. Try to win money.
Speaker 6:Yeah just for fun, but it makes the game fun when I'm watching them.
Speaker 5:That guy scored all Kind of like the squares. When you buy the squares, the Super Bowl will take them.
Speaker 4:Imagine if you put 20.
Speaker 3:Right, but I didn't lose 20. The worst case scenario, I lose a dollar. So I don't do it to make money, I do it just to make any game.
Speaker 3:Well, it's like playing fantasy, football, fantasy football man when Jen and I used to play that stuff when we had like a neighborhood thing going on. She doesn't know a lot about football. She's pretty well versed in football though Wow I mean. But it makes you watch the games and get better at watching games and you're trading players and you're starting people and you're doing stuff, but it made every game throughout a sunday an important game. Is he coming up?
Speaker 4:so I didn't say it, but uh yeah you know what I?
Speaker 3:mean he's pulling in.
Speaker 6:Is he?
Speaker 4:pulling in he's pulling in Roy, oh cool.
Speaker 2:Good old one-eye. Hey guys, I'm going to jump off the phone here because it's time to bake some muffins in our play kitchen.
Speaker 6:Yep, no worries brother, All right Nice to hear from you guys.
Speaker 3:We'll catch you on the next one Yep, sounds good, brother, we'll catch you. On the next one Yep, sounds good, brother, We'll catch up. All right, bye, bye, all right, roy Thomas, pulling in AJ Skylounge, we're going to take a quick break. I see you texting me, but that was the guy that had a. You still looking or jabbing.
Speaker 4:We are what is that high-pitched squeal? I'm not the only one hearing that squeal?
Speaker 3:No, I'm hearing it right now too. I'm like you're doing that crap again. I hope yeah, that's called tendonitis when you're a veteran for sure. Here he is, old Mad-Eye Moody coming in. Sorry that you hear that beep noise. That's garage door shutting. I get to do that stuff on my phone nowadays, that technology thing. Try to keep the noise down here at the Sky Lounge.
Speaker 4:Be careful, because you can capture that and someone else can use it.
Speaker 5:What's that?
Speaker 4:Your wireless stuff to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, get past all my cameras in this shop. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Lions football. That's what I'm talking about, killer Hell yeah.
Speaker 7:Good good, it's great to see you, man. Yeah, sorry, took forever. No, you're all good.
Speaker 3:Birthday party. All good. If you want to grab a set of earphones, you can. If you don't really need them, if you want them you can take them.
Speaker 5:Everybody can hear you. They should be plugged in, can you?
Speaker 3:hear? Yep, I'm going to listen out of this ear, just in case I've got to play with the machine.
Speaker 5:All right, you've got to introduce Tell the world who you are, who you are what you know.
Speaker 3:You're an hour and 40 minutes late. Are you dead? Fashionably?
Speaker 7:late, fashionably late. I'm Roy Thomas, quartermaster post-303333, united States Marine lifetime member lifetime member since Civil War.
Speaker 3:Purple Heart recipient. We talked about you earlier. Were you listening online?
Speaker 7:no, because I was at a birthday party doesn't mean anything well, welcome. Hey, thanks, how are you good? Good, good, good to see you.
Speaker 4:Joe, good to be back.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's been a while so one of the questions you brought up and I'm glad you're here to answer the question. So two parts Brought up a Medal of Honor recipient that got two in the same within like 15 minutes. It was caught by Medal of Honor recipient that got two In the same within like 15 minutes. It was caught by Predator drone, reaper drone, something For the Purple Heart. Right, I was always told, and I don't know if it's correct. Right, you're the guy.
Speaker 1:There had to be two separate incidences.
Speaker 3:Is that correct? So like for instance, say, joe shot you and then I shot you Right, do you get two, or is that considered the same incident.
Speaker 5:Yeah, in the same law In the same firefight.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or do you get fragged and then you get shot. I mean, did you get two purple hearts for that or did you just get one? Because it was the same conflict at the time.
Speaker 7:It went down. I guess it's really on how it gets written up, you know.
Speaker 6:Okay.
Speaker 7:You know whether it's your platoon commander or you know your XO or whoever. You know, after all the after-actions reports, how they write it up. Do they write it up as one or will they write you up, you know, as separate, because you know from a fragmentation to a bullet. I mean that's obviously two completely separate wounds.
Speaker 3:Right, but does that mean it's from the same person or a different person? I? Guess is what my perspective is Because we've all thrown frags Right and we've straight up gone to firing rounds down range. So you might frag a guy and still shoot the same guy. So is that considered too like we were? Just we don't know, and you're going to be the best expert to answer the question yeah, I think.
Speaker 7:I think that just boils down to how it's written up with your platoon, commander.
Speaker 3:Because for me it was kind of weird. When I hear a guy getting a Medal of Honor or even put up for it twice, or even putting up for it twice as being something, 15 minutes apart, it seems like it's the same.
Speaker 5:If you open that, you can mute it. I had an issue with it too.
Speaker 3:To me that kind of feels like the same interaction. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, Maybe, maybe not.
Speaker 7:Yeah, no, I think that's a valid, legit. That's a tough question. Generally for a Purple Heart you get wounded. So if you get wounded twice, I mean generally you'd think you'd myself, I mean you'd be a multiple recipient award, whether same battle or again I think within that battle situation. It just goes down to how it's written out.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 7:Well, that's why we're asking the question.
Speaker 3:I mean we're not yes, no, I mean just from my opinion.
Speaker 7:I think that's that's so.
Speaker 3:If you took a, frag and then you get shot. If that's written twice, you could get two but if you get shot twice, it might only get written up once. It might be from two people, two separate insurgents, I think right there it boils down to how it's written up.
Speaker 5:That's the reason why I kind of question that there might be a time frame if you're in the beginning of the excursion or towards the end of the excursion and there's a notable difference in time say it's a 6 hour firefight or something you get shot in the beginning.
Speaker 4:Those are clearly two separate instances that may say it's a six hour firefight or something you get shot in the beginning. Those are clearly two separate instances. My mind was going right to during the World Wars, where guys were running up to machine gun guns and getting shot.
Speaker 5:They just called it one At that point they're done anyway, most of those guys. They're done anyway. Yeah, most of those guys perished in that.
Speaker 7:So, unfortunately, yeah, and you know the, the qualifications, you know for the, for the purported change as well, due to, you know, this Iraq war with the VBIEDs and stuff, the concussions, you know, you don't, you don't got to have been shot or Generally it was like if you got shot or shed blood, you know, on a foreign war, but you had to essentially shed blood, not no more, like now. You know, if you get a concussion you can still get written up for a purple heart. Oh really.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah, well, that's because they know so much about concussions now, more than they did.
Speaker 3:Right, you can get TBIs and different stuff right from traumatic brain injuries and stuff from football players.
Speaker 7:Yeah, but I want to say, I don't know 08-ish, I think, somewhere in there, somewhere in that time frame, they started changing the stipulation of the purple heart just because we had so many you know, vb, ieds, not, you know ieds that were, you know, traumatically cut concussions and just taking, you know, uh, military members right out of the game. So and they started, they changed the purple heart to, you know, if you got a concussion due to a blast or whatever you were eligible now.
Speaker 3:I love the fact that you're here, because these are a lot of questions that we have from those that aren't recipients of the Purple Heart or even understand especially in my time being before, or Bill that just floated around the earth.
Speaker 6:He didn't really do anything but fix boilers, apparently. You know what I mean. But for the rest of us, you know what?
Speaker 3:I mean it's nice to know because I have questions.
Speaker 7:I mean I don't know everything, so the fact that we've got which, unfortunately you know I think it's you and Terry Incencio- are the two members of our post that are Purple Heart recipients you know what I mean, which is a great distinction to have you know what I mean, which is a great distinction to have you know what I mean, which I understand.
Speaker 3:it's unfortunate that you've got that distinction.
Speaker 7:Enemy marksmanship badge.
Speaker 3:Well, I said that earlier right Ray calls that the enemy marksmanship badge. But, you know, I mean it's a huge honor to get it, but at the same time I mean I know it's a disservice to have it too, because you know, obviously you're injured in combat, which isn't always a cool thing. But you know, chicks dig scars. So I mean, at the end of the day. You know I mean there's a reason why you're with Melissa, right, because she digs scars.
Speaker 7:She's giving you two great kids.
Speaker 3:You know life is good.
Speaker 7:Yeah, life is great, you're one of the lucky ones, you know, given my experience, I'm blessed, you know, and I'm lucky just to be alive, and each day, you know, I'm thankful that I'm still here because I shouldn't be. You know, and so I live. You know each and every day now, as a blessing that I'm still here and able to, you know, enjoy life still, because there's many others that aren't.
Speaker 3:You're one of our great members and I was telling a story about you earlier that I can remember, in the Morning Sun, which is our local newspaper, where you were brought up as kind of a featured story, where you filled in as a crossing guard at the schools, you know, as like the hometown hero of Shepherd. You know when they were short, either short or people were sick. It was a couple years ago, I think.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it was like a year and a half ago.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7:The elderly lady there. She got breast cancer, Is that?
Speaker 3:what it?
Speaker 7:was and as she was going through her treatment she wasn't able to you know, stand the post there. Luke Sawyer, you know the Shepherd Police Chief. He made a post out on Facebook. You know that there wasn't going to be a crossing guard there for a while due to, you know, her being sick. So I sent him a message like hey, man, if you guys need help.
Speaker 7:You know, let me know and I'll fill in and help. I go there to drop my kids off. I go there to pick my kids up. I'm there. You know what's an extra 15, 20 minutes, you know to help kids get across the road safely. Yeah, that's awesome yeah that's where I filled in. He calls me every now and then, like I just did last Thursday, that same lady. I don't know what was going on, but they needed me, you know, after school last thursday. So you know I did it last thursday.
Speaker 3:So just help out where I can and give back to your community, you know which is always awesome because you know for me, when I drive down the road and I see a crossing guard sitting there, I'm like, oh my god, I gotta wait in line oh my god, crossing sessions gonna take forever I mean come on I mean we all Like. We drive down the road and you see the school bus ahead of you. You're like how fast can I go to pass it before the lights come on?
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I have to stop behind it. I mean, we all do it right.
Speaker 7:I can't trust me, especially when they stop every other house.
Speaker 5:Please, please that's when it gets crazy.
Speaker 3:The third or fourth stop, you're like, okay, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 6:I just want to make sure I'm not the only one who thinks that, but to have.
Speaker 5:You're the only one to have the guy that takes selfish time right.
Speaker 3:Selfless time, not selfish time, selfless time to actually go do that stuff. And it was great to see that you were featured for stepping up and helping someone out and filling a void when it needed to be done, because there's a lot of people that would love to do it but can't do it.
Speaker 6:You're fortunate enough, right the situation you're in you're able to go do it you know what I mean.
Speaker 5:And you took the time to do it, because yeah, but a lot of people have the time or may have the time and say I'm not doing that they don't even think to do that they don't even think to do that. So to take it upon yourself to do that, that's awesome, that's commendable.
Speaker 3:And you should be recognized for doing that stuff. And you're right, luke Sawyer, which is the Shepherd Police Department chief, is a great guy. He's always been a huge supporter of our post and I know the Shepherd VFW which is literally just around the block, almost from where his office is. I think they do a lot with their VFW. They're in a different district than Mount Pleasant, is Nine and we're 11 or whatever it is. But last year our riders group and we're fortunate because we had uh lisa beal princess and, um, tammy meyer, little red, we call her at the riders group uh, little red works at walmart. I think she's a manager, yeah, some sort, I don't know. I mean I'm sure they have like 100 managers, right or whatever. I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 5:A manager at least.
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah and so she gets a big discount at Walmart. She'll actually go to their manager and say, hey look, we want to come purchase gifts for families or whatever, and they give her big discounts and all these different things. We've bought stuff for Camp trotter yeah, the the trampoline. This last summer we bought bikes a year ago. We've done stuff and last year we went and spent, I think, thousand dollars.
Speaker 3:The riders group did purchase gifts on behalf of the post. We gave some to shepherd, we gave some to the post up here for toys for tots, which was huge. So we put that on our Reyers Group Facebook page last year and Luke was great because he came in on his time off and my wife Jen, when she was a prosecutor's officer Isabel County, who I obviously work with Shepherd Police Department quite a bit. Luke actually came in. We went down 5, 6 o'clock at night, got pictures with the bags full of toys and all the stuff. You know what I mean and they're just so grateful to have those things. And when you get that small town right and I talked about small town earlier, it doesn't matter if it's Rosebush or Shepherd, I love that small town. You guys don't even have a blinking light, do you In?
Speaker 7:Shepherd. No, in Shepherd.
Speaker 3:Yeah right.
Speaker 7:So not even a blink of light in that town.
Speaker 3:It's that small right, but it's like six blocks long.
Speaker 5:Leah said no flashing light. Three four-way stops in Shepherd. That's where she grew up in Shepherd. My niece did.
Speaker 3:So what I'm saying is that small-town mentality where everybody shows up for Friday football.
Speaker 3:Everybody shows up for the spaghetti dinner for someone with cancer. People show up for all the things. You know what I mean? It's incredible the way the small town works. We come from Mount Pleasant. We're too small but yet too big where we struggle to do stuff. But you go 10 minutes north or 10 minutes south and it's a whole different animal. I mean, the local kid has leukemia they raise $100,000. A local kid up here has leukemia they barely can raise $100,000. A local kid up here has leukemia they barely can raise $10,000. We're too big even though they're small, those different things.
Speaker 3:So when we go down there and able to help and donate and be a part of that community is so big. You know what I mean. So for a guy like you, that's part of that community to step up. You know, as far as a veteran I mean I'm sure your picture I love. Veterans Day is coming up, so I go to the Mount Pleasant one which Luke Epple's kid Luke now does the Mount Pleasant one it's his second year does a phenomenal job here in Mount Pleasant for Veterans Day. I'll go up to Clare I do Clare's and I come down to Shepherd, do Shepherd's for Veterans Day. And I love those small towns because they'll take their local veterans and they'll have pictures of them up on a big display. You know where it's rotating. It might be their boot camp photo, it might be a photo of them in the military, whatever it is that the family submits. That's awesome. They don't do that here in Mount Pleasant. We're too big but yet too small.
Speaker 4:When I was coming home from my first deployment. Like I said earlier, I grew up in Coleman They'd actually done a thing to where they gave me an escort from the Flint Bishop Airport all the way to Coleman. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:That was probably the Patriot riders. Yeah, it was some of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So the Patriot Guard Riders and I get a blast from their state president whenever they're doing a flag line. They're doing a welcome home, they're doing different things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I get emails from them too.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I forward, I join their group too, so I get them all too.
Speaker 3:I forward all that stuff on to all the presidents throughout the state. So then that way, if they've got members that are available or want to do something and I know they've got something coming up here in about a month, a little bit less there's a group coming through MBS, so they're looking for three-hour shifts around the 15th, 16th, something like that. They'll have to go back through and see. But yeah, just welcome them and troops home For the holidays, thanksgiving Day is the one I seen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was somewhere toward the middle of the month, not quite sure. I think it was a day or two before, are you guys?
Speaker 7:aware of the. I think it's November 6th at the high school the Medal of Honor recipient coming to speak.
Speaker 3:No, where here?
Speaker 7:in Montpaisant High School.
Speaker 3:No, I haven't got any notification.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Send that to me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, send that to me as well. I'll get you guys?
Speaker 7:Yeah, november 6th, I can't remember his name, but he's coming to speak, it's open to the public or whatnot, but he's coming to speak at Montpaisant High School.
Speaker 3:Pretty sure. I'm pretty sure it's the 6th. Yeah, send that information to me. I'll be there for sure, because that's right around our national holiday of the best birthday ever, that's already passed.
Speaker 5:No, no, no.
Speaker 7:Everybody knows.
Speaker 3:Everybody knows, not everybody, everybody knows.
Speaker 4:The 6th at 150 at the high school.
Speaker 6:It's what.
Speaker 4:The 6th at 150 at the high school. It's what?
Speaker 3:The 6th at 150 at the high school. What website do you?
Speaker 4:want AARP, aarp, hit that.
Speaker 3:That's about to happen.
Speaker 6:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, send that to me. Number 6, 145 at Mount Pleasant, yeah, send that to me so you know, and here's the thing, Everybody likes. Joe, your phone's off oh shoot.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it died, yep.
Speaker 3:I was just seeing it. Might have just timed out it was scrolling oh it just died. It was scrolling.
Speaker 7:Can't keep up. I had it plugged in Can't keep up, can't keep up. I think we lost speed because it's scrolling.
Speaker 3:All right, now she's. I'm going to unplug it Earlier.
Speaker 7:Do you need to connect?
Speaker 4:another phone Say again Do you need?
Speaker 5:another phone, just slide it forward.
Speaker 3:Slide that other.
Speaker 5:Yeah, or move it back, do something, just slide the computer forward.
Speaker 3:Just move the other chair forward. Joe, yeah, put it right where you're standing, move the computer forward.
Speaker 5:There you go. I don't know if we're still live or not.
Speaker 4:No, it just dropped off.
Speaker 5:It says we're live, but I just noticed the phone was dark. Yeah, this thing started spinning. So oh no, it's not, it's dead. Yeah, started spinning, so oh no, it's not it's dead, yes, dead key. Why'd you? Unplug it so how'd you? How'd you hear about that?
Speaker 7:actually my wife work uh, one of her co-workers uh was telling her about it because there was also um. There was like some veterans run um last saturday at the uh high school football stadium football field? Yeah, there was. There was a run there, you know, and I'm a big runner, so my wife sent me that as well. Yeah, run for veterans at MPHS Saturday at 10 am. This live video has ended yeah providing a raising awareness and some money for the DAV disabled American, disabled American Veterans Association organization.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's already 8, but we should at least have a sign-off, yeah, which I don't know. Well, we got to get. Well, I can do it on here. I can hit the buttons, it'll record it. It just won't be on the live. Live's done, wives done.
Speaker 6:Jennifer Ann is watching.
Speaker 5:She just popped on just as it kicked off. It ended. Yeah, liz said it ended. Yeah, it froze, it froze.
Speaker 3:No, that's all right. We have two hours in the night, which is a good podcast for us, you know, yeah, and then I'll leave everything out. We just got to make sure that we get some technical difficulties squared away. So I guess you know one of the things I'm kind of disappointed in. I know Cadillac does it, I know Shepard's already done it, but they do veterans before the game, recognition stuff. I don't think Mount Pleasant doesn't do it. I'm assuming. Claire does it, but I know Mount Pleasant doesn't?
Speaker 5:they did not when I was going to Claire schools.
Speaker 6:we never had that that wasn't really a thing, so maybe Claire doesn't back then.
Speaker 5:I don't know so. I went down. But now I do know the Claire superintendent is a guy. I went to school with Jim Walter, so if they wanted it done. I could get a hold of them and say hey, man, when you guys have veterans in country, you should honor them at a football game if they show up.
Speaker 3:You do like your end of October game, especially like homecoming.
Speaker 7:Yeah, when it's packed, someone before the game doesn't you know, yeah, especially like homecoming doing veterans so yeah, when it's packed, yeah one of our something for the game doesn't have to take a lot of time yeah, one of our well, like that one that AJ went to at the baseball game the loons, oh loons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, something similar to that.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we had Terry and Sensio there a year ago so one of our local KAA back in 05, justin Ellsworth, his dad was the police chief down in Wolverine Lake. Well, they started a non-profit Military Family United. But they're big into helping, but down at Walled Lake, I think it's Walled.
Speaker 7:Lake and like Walled Lake Central when they play they have special jerseys for this game Down at Walled Lake. How do you get there? I think it's Walled Lake and, like Walled Lake Central, when they play it's got a charge. They have special jerseys for this game. It's Military Appreciation Night and what they do is, you know, through the year they get names, you know, of veterans currently serving. You know whatever you know of these military families and they put these names on the back of these jerseys, you know. And then they invite the families there and they do a pregame ceremony and then after the game, you know, they bring all these veterans. You know that names are on jerseys and the players take those jerseys off and they give them to that veteran.
Speaker 3:That's awesome yeah.
Speaker 7:I know I talked to. Well, it would have been last year. I talked to the superintendent in Shepherd, Terry Starr, about it.
Speaker 5:That's what my niece said. When you're finished, you read what she said.
Speaker 7:So I mean it's a really cool gesture and I mean obviously, I know there's, you know some financial, you know situations. They're obviously buying brand-new jerseys, you know each year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 7:You know, and having names put on them. But you know what a tradition, what a way to you know, honor your local veterans.
Speaker 3:I would actually love the fact that you've just separate jerseys. You don't ever have to give them away. Just keep that name rolling every year, man. I mean I get what it would cost to put 65 or 70 or 80 jerseys out, man, it's going to be thousands and thousands of dollars. But keep those as a special uniform for that day and just keep putting them on, because 30 years from now, that veteran that you were 30 years ago is still the same veteran today.
Speaker 7:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, maybe you might have to replace a few every 10 years. Sure Right.
Speaker 7:But you know, but you know, still cheating the upfront cost of buying new ones every year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, you're just yeah. So I mean even that.
Speaker 7:I think you know that would be a massive tradition and, you know, I think Mount Pleasant's a big enough school to do something like that.
Speaker 3:Well, they got good sports boosters just like Clare, just like Mount Shepherd, you know where they could easily do it. Yeah, I think that would be well worth it.
Speaker 7:I think it's just sitting down with their AD and you know, either putting pressure on them or asking Maybe they've never even been approached.
Speaker 3:Could very well be. I guarantee you they've never been approached. I bet you Mount Pleasant's never been approached for a veterans night.
Speaker 7:Maybe it's just going in and trying to sit down with them and bringing up the situation.
Speaker 5:Get with the athletic director and get with the school board.
Speaker 3:Take in front of the board and say hey, Even if you had a private fundraise for jerseys say, we need $2,000 for jerseys I guarantee you could walk three places in Mount Pleasant and get the money so the athletic director used to be the coach.
Speaker 5:He was the assistant coach when I went to school. I think he's now the new athletic director he was a. I don't know if he was CMU. I don't know if that was CMU or if he was. I don't know if that's still going. Is it still going? I don't know if he was CMU or Northwood, but anyway he would do something like that. He's big into veterans.
Speaker 3:So it's pretty cool. I just want to say this real quick so Bill's niece, her and her husband are active duty Air Force. Yeah, this is what she just commented on. She commented after our live dropped off. She had to get off. She's a somehow is working with the B-2 bombers out in Missouri. Her husband is some sort of mechanic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's an airplane mechanic If he's on those planes or whatever he's on. But she appreciated it tonight listening to the podcast and us just up here BSing she's going to share amongst her flight crews or whatever that she's got going on out there. That's cool.
Speaker 5:She's out in Missouri.
Speaker 3:That's cool. So you know, it's just good to hear, you know that there's people out there listening to us.
Speaker 5:Yeah she just happened to call me tonight because, her husband just had a cancer scare so he just got out of surgery and found out it's not cancer, it's benign or whatever you say, but it's not cancer so he's laid up for the next couple weeks, you know.
Speaker 7:Sure, but with everything going around and going on nowadays, I mean what a scare.
Speaker 5:yeah no, cancer is just popping up everywhere. Yeah, you know, and it was uh, so it was a testicular cancer, you know so he should have been in the marines.
Speaker 3:That means he's got big balls.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so he so they did like she was saying the surgery was like having a they call that elephantitis don't they. Yeah, so he's laid up for a couple weeks. But yeah, I'm good to hear that he's doing all right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not Pretty weird, All jokes aside.
Speaker 5:Nonetheless she called me tonight and I said oh yeah, I'm here. And then she jumped right on and I sent her the link and she jumped on tonight, awesome.
Speaker 3:So it actually contributed a little bit. Yeah, yeah, she was commenting, we were following her stuff. Yeah, we were talking about her stuff or his stuff, or whatever, and she was, yeah, commenting right along, which is cool.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's what we appreciate, man, I mean that's why we're on here for hours because we want to have the comments, ask us the questions, you know, give us stuff to talk about, rather than us just sitting up here for hours and talking about whatever Wasting oxygen. Well, you know we're not wasting oxygen, but you know we want. Well, you are.
Speaker 6:We want.
Speaker 3:Come on, man, you're not going to be invited up to the AJ Sky Lounge.
Speaker 6:No, you know what I mean, but we have to remember.
Speaker 3:There's just a lot of people out there that might not know Right or you know. That's why I had some of my friends that were active duty come on in the earlier episodes, because things have changed so much in the 20 years since I've been gone.
Speaker 5:Maybe I'll see if I can get a hold of Sean next time we have one, if I know a little bit of him.
Speaker 3:I'll call Sean my buddy from the Navy.
Speaker 5:You know Well, we had, we had. He lives out in.
Speaker 3:Wichita, we had your boy from Washington came in for an episode Bullshit. You know I mean it's what we do. You know I mean you know, let's have people come in and talk.
Speaker 7:And I brought an active duty recruiter online one time yeah, or two parts buddy, jimmy, or James, jimmy, jimmy, jimmy, two parts buddy.
Speaker 3:But yeah, you know, I had my friend that was an active duty Army recruiter. Still Come on and you know I mean, but things have changed so much. You know you talk Joe right, joe's out in 11?.
Speaker 4:Just under 10.
Speaker 3:2010?.
Speaker 4:Oh no, I got out in 2017.
Speaker 3:I'm a year 17?
Speaker 4:Oh no, I got out in 2017.
Speaker 3:I'm a year, just a week ago. You think about how much has changed since Dark Shit and Green. Since I got out in 02, you were 06. I was 05. 05, right, you were 75.
Speaker 5:93 to 95. Yeah sorry, 19, 60. Yo fucker 19. 18, 74.
Speaker 3:I remember them straight up drag Bell-bottom fucking dungarees, them motherfucking dungarees.
Speaker 5:God, I hated them fucking things, you know what I'm saying God, I hated dungarees. I wore coveralls. 90% of the time I was in, I wore coveralls. Yeah but you looked good in dungarees. I had bell-bottoms. I looked so good in them, bell-b Bell Bottom jeans. I bet you killed them 1970 was calling and baby, I rocked them.
Speaker 3:I bet you did, I'm shined up black boots.
Speaker 5:My fucking Dixie cup man. I wish I still had it. If I had a Dixie cup, I'd wear that fucker nowadays. You look good with it, just like Gilligan. That motherfucker pulled it down. That was a Dixie cup, sure we'll believe you motherfucker, pulled it down. That was a Dixie cup. Sure, we'll believe you, most people don't know that Gilligan wore a Dixie cup. He just pulled it down. It wasn't flipped up. The sun hats.
Speaker 3:The white hat. Gilligan's Island Jill's like. What are you talking?
Speaker 4:about. I remember watching Gilligan's Island with my grandmother.
Speaker 5:That would be awesome, sweet Well, we're already in. She's going to be on our next podcast. Oh shit, what do you call it? A Navy cover?
Speaker 3:It'll probably be a couple weeks till we're on again.
Speaker 6:Navy Dixie cover. We'll try to get a few more people up here.
Speaker 3:We'll try to make sure that the Facebook Live is off. Oh, okay.
Speaker 5:But how he wore it, how Gilligan. A few more people up here. We'll try to make sure that the Facebook live is off. Okay, but how he wore it, how Gilligan wore it.
Speaker 3:He pulled the outer brim down.
Speaker 5:He pulled it all the way, fucking down.
Speaker 3:But we'll try to make sure we get a couple other different people on here when the time comes, see.
Speaker 5:Same hat. Yeah, the outer brim is pulled down instead.
Speaker 6:And.
Speaker 4:Gilligan himself wore it.
Speaker 5:That's how Gilligan wore it.
Speaker 3:We spent a lot of time to make sure we had the lounge right, made sure we had bar stools and all the different things, because I think this is a better set up.
Speaker 5:I do too we had the tables and went down there so one thing we didn't talk about was the case for the bike. Is this shut off now?
Speaker 3:no, we're still rolling until that turns green, that record button goes green.
Speaker 5:We're still, we're still rolling two hours and ten minutes exactly. Is it going?
Speaker 4:it's not online it's not online because that's down.
Speaker 3:I gotta take him home soon but anybody that wants to log on to Spotify, iheartradio, they'll still hear this.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we didn't talk about the case, so we'll have to talk about that. Next time Brett gets it.
Speaker 4:I need to make sure I post that too, so that they know where to go listen to it at again. It's been a while.
Speaker 5:Time to be when it's finished, so we still got to get that top.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we got to make sure that all that stuff gets posted on Facebook pages and all the different things. Right, we have enough lead time so we can have a bunch of people come up to it from other groups.
Speaker 3:Well, we have to get. Uh, we gotta get, yeah, we gotta get. Uh, we're gonna actually bring. So for all those people out there listening uh, tim are to be former post commander, uh, rise group director for the state of michigan. Um, we repurchased his Harley Davidson that he bought from another VFW post member at 3033, gary Gass, beautiful paint job on it. I mean, it's a veteran's bike.
Speaker 4:It's.
Speaker 3:POWMA bike. I mean it's absolutely, 100%, beautiful. A bunch of us from the ridersiders Group, after Tim passed away, went back to the Harley shop after he traded in, purchased the bike. It actually sits downstairs here at the Sky Lounge. You can look through the window and see it down there. We got some great donations from some companies, which we'll throw their names out later on the next podcast. Donated materials thanks.
Speaker 3:Liz donated their time, donated their labor, all the different things.
Speaker 3:One of the companies actually does work for SpaceX and they're they're extremely high aerospace capable company.
Speaker 3:They've got contract work that came up, delayed this project a little bit, but through all their connections down in the Detroit area they were able to get materials donated, their labor donated. They have some veterans actually fabricating and working on this project for us and at our post we're going to take this motorcycle and actually encase it and turn it into a high-top bar. So there's not going to be any lost space at our post. Our post will be the only post I know of in national the United States will be the only post I know of in national the United States that actually has a veteran's motorcycle inside the post, our post here in Mount Pleasant. We don't have the room for an airplane, a tank, a Jeep or anything sitting out front, so this might be something that maybe brings people into our post to see being the only one in the country that has it, which is cool, yeah, and it was owned by two former members of our VFW post, so it's going to be cool.
Speaker 3:So as soon as this case gets fabricated, I'm going to bring it up, put it in my garage at the house. I have a heated garage, so we'll pre-build it, put the bike in it, make sure things fit, know what we have to do to get it inside the building and then, sometime toward the end of next month, which will be November, we'll set it up, probably for a Saturday. We've got to just clear it with the post and we'll do a grand, revealing.
Speaker 5:It might even be into December yet Okay. As soon as we know closer, we'll definitely put feelers on and let everybody know.
Speaker 3:When we do our PWMIA program every year, we should find a way to incorporate it into that oh yeah, well, you know, this bike last was owned by Tim, previously owned by Gary, which had it painted and all the things. So it's not another memorial to Tim, right? I mean, this is a veteran's bike, just in lieu of the paint job, in lieu of the two guys that were previous owners of the bike, as a owner of this bike, as well as amongst 16 of us probably that all bought into this bike.
Speaker 5:There's about 10 of us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is cool. I mean, that's where it should be. Our post needs to have something that sets us apart from Shepard.
Speaker 5:Three of the gentlemen sitting here at the table right now are, you know, part owners of the bike? Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's going to be something cool that hopefully brings people into our VFW and I was happy, as well as the other nine owners of the bike, uh, to be able to put some money down and actually purchase it back right, um, that's been sitting down here I it's only been ridden once. Uh, we had bike night at the post in july, right around the fourth of july I think it was on the second actually of july. I actually rode it out of here and took it up to the post and a bunch of people sat on it, cried on it, took pictures with it yeah I mean, it was the only the only other time it was rode before.
Speaker 5:That was when I wrote it off the trailer into your garage probably your shop, yeah, after tim's funeral, yeah, yeah I mean the day after.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had it up at his funeral, you know, which was a pretty cool sign. So if you go to Tim's, obituary.
Speaker 5:you know you can see the bike because I do believe that's a picture of it in the obituary.
Speaker 3:Might be, I think so, so, but yeah, I mean it's just you know, these are the things that we do for the Brotherhood.
Speaker 4:Before we went on tell them about his site.
Speaker 3:You got the details.
Speaker 4:On what? When you went out and the family came out for where the accident happened.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so. Oh yeah, we talked about that before the podcast.
Speaker 6:I think that's really cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I said this before we got on the podcast earlier tonight. About a week ago we're talking mid-October we had a beautiful day. I left the office early, went riding for the day. Tim's crash site is about 15, 20 miles from Mount Pleasant, down in the Elma area Road down to his cross that we have on the side of the road, and I'm sitting there having a beer with him Maybe a couple, but that was Monday.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I'm sitting there at the cross and all of a sudden I hear this golf cart pull up behind me and it was the family right. So it's the daughter of the property owner, her kids and niece's nephews. So I stand up and I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry to be here, blah, blah, blah. She's like no, she goes into this diatribe, basically of you know, this is my mom and dad's property. My brother and I have houses here on the property. They have like whatever 60 acres or something you know. So they all live together in an area. And she goes we love having this cross here and I said, well, thank you for allowing it. If you want us to move it, please let us know. And she goes no, my father, who, I'm going to guess she's my age, in her 40s maybe mid to younger 40s goes. My dad checks on this cross every week. He gets on the golf cart, drives around, always checks on this cross to make sure no one's messed with it, it's clean, no one's stolen anything off it. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:And then she goes in to tell me which I love our Harrison Riders group, which is about 20 miles or so north of us they made like a bookmark and it has Tim's VFW picture on it and then his obituary on it and it's double sided. So we glued two of those, one front facing and one back facing on his cross so that way anybody that ever sees it along with his birthday and day to death, all the things on it and our writers group from Mount Pleasant all signed it when we put it in the ground. Basically it said my dad loves this because he actually knows who this person is. So the first time he saw it I'm gonna imagine he was a little bit upset, right, because we're on his side of the ditch where Tim had crashed and all the things, right.
Speaker 3:Here's someone coming on their property and putting something in it. But he walked around the front and read it and he was like I actually know who this person is, not because he actually knew who Tim was, but because he was able to read it. And then he knows who Tim was and what he did and how good he was and all the things. You know what I'm saying. Now he checks on it once a week just to make sure no one's out there screwing with it. Yeah, and I just said hey, just so you know if it ever becomes a problem, right, she's like straight up, interrupts me it won't and I'm like they were honored.
Speaker 5:It was like he was honored.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and I just said, there's going to be a lot of people over the next years and years stopping by might be planting stuff. We'll take care of it. We'll make sure you know things are done. She's like you guys are good, trust me, and my dad's going to be so happy that we actually ran across somebody didn't know right, yeah so I was down there maybe half hour hour.
Speaker 3:I was down there for quite a few hours that day and and housey messages me hey, what are you doing? You know it's this beautiful day. I was like 80 degrees that day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was gorgeous which is crazy for october and I'm like, well, I'm heading down to see tim and he's like I'm on my my way. So I was down there a half hour 45 minutes and all of a sudden Halsey shows up, you know, and it was 15, 20 minutes after this lady leaves, right? Yeah, but they were honored to have Tim's Cross on their property and I thought it was cool that you know the dad which, like I say once again, I'm going to go off my dad's age right, late 70s, early 80s, probably right, probably a veteran himself, right?
Speaker 3:Was like honored to have Tim's Cross there as much as he didn't want to see it there, yeah, but I'm honored to the fact that the family is going to be checking on it all the time. That bell that we hung on is still there and she goes. My dad actually got upset because he thought someone stole the beer bottle. Tim loved McUltra. I got him in and drinking Miller Lights toward the end right, but we always put a beer bottle. It had fallen over in the weather. So he was like someone stole the beer bottle so he gets out of the golf cart and goes and stands it up All worried about a beer bottle, went.
Speaker 3:I actually stopped at the store and I of course I'm gonna go down and have a beer with my boy, right, so I stopped grab a six pack. So I'm like I cracked a new one and gave it to him and took the old one back with me, you know. But yeah, and it was all faded from the sun and the weather and stuff, you know. But I mean I mean it was really cool, like he was concerned that someone stole his beer bottle. Yeah, you know what I mean. Like I mean that's how much this guy cares about it, which is impressive, that's awesome, you know. So I mean it was a huge honor to be able to go down there and actually meet part of the family and hopefully she relayed that to her dad or brother.
Speaker 4:that, hey, these guys, you know, and I would, I'd like to do like a card or something like that for them, for the family, just to tell them thank you, yeah, but I actually tried to.
Speaker 3:I tried to find an address like they're back in the sticks man, there's not even a mailbox let me figure it out on the main road or yeah, I mean you might, you might, you might have to go to grassy county.
Speaker 3:You know maybe well what I figured out yeah yes, yeah, go to go to property texas yeah, you might have to do that and find out who they are, and I would love our riders group to send something to them. Thank you for allowing this. And we all sign a card and send it down to them as an appreciation, right, right, that's the least we can do because they don't have to allow that man that's got to be off their property.
Speaker 4:That's way above and beyond what I would ever expect anybody to do it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, most people are pretty. I mean they're pretty cool about it. I mean you see those all over, you know, so it's not unusual.
Speaker 4:To go out and check on it like that.
Speaker 5:But to do that and go above and beyond, it's one thing. To let it be there, it's a whole other to guard it and honor it.
Speaker 6:That's a whole other animal?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, for sure, that's way above and beyond. I love the fact that we put his obituary those cards from Harrison on it so that they actually looked at it, read it and realized it's got his picture on it.
Speaker 6:It makes it so much more personal.
Speaker 5:They can relate and understand and know who it is and what the whole story is. Yeah, which was awesome. You know what?
Speaker 3:I'm saying so, you know, I 100% agree.
Speaker 5:Hopefully if you want to spearhead that?
Speaker 3:I would love that, because I actually drove around the corners trying to find out, and I would love the fact that maybe we do some landscaping, plant a couple trees, do something to make it look a little bit better than what it is. It looks bad, but it shows them that we're down there and we care.
Speaker 5:Maybe something this spring. We set a date and just go clean that ditch, because when we were out there, the other day I was still finding plastic. There was all kinds of garbage and plastic in that ditch from previous wrecks and cars that slide off into that ditch and just clean that ditch up.
Speaker 3:I actually wonder if you could go online and you always see like the adopt a highway I was just thinking actually so. So I actually looked at doing that here at the company, but there was nothing remotely close to this place that I could get my people to. But I don't know if you could do that on that mile stretch because you have to do a mile at a time. If you could do that mile stretch, but even if we just clean- that little area up.
Speaker 5:Just clean that up. It wouldn't take nothing to take a wee whip out there and a couple big heavy-duty garbage sacks.
Speaker 3:That's the least we can do for that family. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5:And clean that whole eighth of a mile stretch, you know? Yeah, clean that up. I think that'd be a hell of a thing.
Speaker 3:But if you're gonna fetch gis or whatever, yeah, you find out what this guy owns.
Speaker 5:Right, we could do all his property yeah I mean even if yeah, but you know, yeah, just at least that from the corner back to where the curve starts.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that eighth of a mile or whatever it is I mean, maybe we can uh get them up for when we do the feeling of the bike.
Speaker 3:It's like a thank you for them there too yeah I have. I have no idea who they are. I mean, I was just sitting there and all of a sudden the golf cart pulls up right and I was like, oh shit, I'm on your property you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like I mean, it was weird for me.
Speaker 3:I was man, they were so appreciative. It was just cool. She was like my dad feels like he knows this guy.
Speaker 5:That's kind of like the deal when we went to Bill Cox's funeral in Saginaw. We were thanking them and they were like what are you talking? About.
Speaker 1:Thank you for doing what you're doing.
Speaker 5:When Joe ande and I and and liz and tabitha went and escorted that 100 year old yeah, do you hear about that?
Speaker 7:ah, vaguely yeah, so there was a.
Speaker 3:There was a veteran supposed to go to his birthday party that morning of his birthday, his hundred yeah, because we birthday.
Speaker 7:Yeah, because at the post-meeting we all signed the card.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, well, he passed that morning. Yeah, well then. So the daughter I was in contact because I set it up. Somebody put me in touch with him and I called and set it all up to where we could go as a writer's group there was like 15 of us was going to go and give him that card and wish him a happy birthday.
Speaker 5:Well, he passed that morning. So I think it was like a Tuesday or a Thursday or something, I can't remember. It was middle of the week. Well, nobody had availability to take that time off. Well, I was going, I didn't care. So Liz took the day off. She come up from detroit and, uh, joe and tabitha, we rode over and escorted the, the the casket, to his final resting place. And they were just, they couldn't believe that we did that they just so.
Speaker 5:So the two daughters came to the post later and sent us cards, sent them cards sent, sent us cards donated to our post. And then they came to the post and met me there and had a couple drinks with me and said, man, thank you so much for doing that. I'm like you don't understand. That was my honor. I should be thanking you for letting me do it Us as you know, like Military Code and the Brotherhood.
Speaker 7:Like you, you know it's our honor to be able to help, especially, you know, ones that paved the way for us to be able to do what we did. You know, that's right, um, but you know I get it on the other side of you know we're. You know, generally most of us man, we're pretty humble yeah we don't, hey, we want to do the right thing. We want to honor, you know, our brothers.
Speaker 7:You know before and after that's right, you know us um, but I mean you know that family, I'm sure you know just appreciative of you guys taking your time because, again, as we go back to this subject of giving your time, it's not a common thing anymore in today's society right you know, so for you guys to take time out of your schedule to ride an hour over there. You, you know, and escort you know their father, this World War II vet. I'm sure you know they were just oh yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean it was fun. I don't want to say it's fun, I mean that's not, it was just, it was a good thing, it just Well, it's an honor.
Speaker 7:Yeah, to be able to escort a world war ii veteran. I mean, those guys are our history, that's right, that's right, right, they're really far between you know, and it was just amazing, I mean, that's their american history, that's right yeah, you know, so that family was so appreciative it was just so awesome, as a proud military member, to be able to help with something like that, like it's an honor for us that's right.
Speaker 5:Yep, yep, it was just a cool event.
Speaker 6:It was a cool thing Kind of like that Medal of Honor recipient 100%. Get it All right, boys.
Speaker 5:We're at two and a half hours.
Speaker 3:It's time to shut her down. It's time to shut her down. We'll pick up, hopefully here in a couple weeks. Hopefully we get the live where he doesn't die on us and all that stuff.
Speaker 6:Yeah, hopefully we get the live where it doesn't die on us and all that stuff. Yeah, I think this one went better than some of the others. Yeah, for anybody out there listening.
Speaker 3:Make sure you follow Soup Sandwich Podcast on Facebook. It's going to be the Bordley Handle Post 3033. If you go to that Facebook page there will be a link or the last live that's posted. Follow us Then. That way, once we get to the 100 followers on the Soup Sandwich podcast Facebook page, we can go live there. We appreciate everybody listening tonight. Does anybody got any?
Speaker 5:final comments. Click that like icon.
Speaker 7:Click like tell your friends that's right.
Speaker 1:Get us going Do the stuff we appreciate everybody thanks yep, thanks, thanks this podcast is designed solely for entertainment and, occasionally, informational purposes only, and is to be regarded strictly as satire.
Speaker 1:Comprising of veterans, it delves into their thoughts and experiences in combat, as well as their perspectives on various aspects of daily life that may be unsettling for certain listeners. This podcast is not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. The views articulated in this podcast may not necessarily align with those of the National VFW, vfw Department of Michigan or VFW Post 3033. Additionally, we kindly request that listeners refrain from pursuing legal action against the creators or contributors of this podcast. In other words, please don't sue us. Military experts and advocates will dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment to the history of the US military, the future of military service and everything in between. Whether you're a veteran yourself, a spouse or family member of a veteran, or simply interested in learning more about this community, this podcast is for you. So come with us on a journey into the heart of the veteran experience and discover the stories, struggles and triumphs that have shaped our nation's brave after they've returned home.
