Well, good day, friends, and welcome to Pitbull 214 Podcast. I am Rick Perales, Air Force vet, and your host for this program. This program, as I said many times, is to provide the veterans and their families information on organizations, resources, services, operations, people, events that are out there. And there are thousands, literally thousands, that are out there that are intended solely for our vets and their families. Problem I've seen, and many other agree with me, is that the vets don't know about these programs. And these programs can be truly life-changing if we could connect the two. My purpose is to try to do some of that connection, bring the subject matter experts onto my program to talk about what they have for vets and how it works, if the vet qualifies, and all the details, or at least preliminary details, so then they can go to the website and see more about it. If you look at the programs I have, I've already put some that are very valuable and had made have made a world of difference in the veteran's life. So that's my primary purpose. My secondary purpose is to try to connect the veteran community by having veterans tell their war stories to other veterans. That's been very enjoyable as well. And I'm looking for uh unique, um, heroic, interesting, informative stories for vets. So if you know of one such vet that has a story like that, I'd appreciate it if you throw them my way and I'll contact them and see if it's something that matches up nicely with Pitbull 214. So that's the purpose. Uh today's program is going to be the second part of that, an experience of someone I admire greatly. But before I get to that, a couple more things. Tomorrow, or excuse me, Monday is Memorial Day. By the time you see this, it would have already passed. Um, so I hope that you are uh in some form or fashion doing something to honor our vets, our past vets. This isn't Veterans Day, it's Memorial Day. We're we're honoring our vets that have passed. And um I think it's very important to also get your children involved so they start understanding what it means to be American. I'll tell you, there's a great program, and I'm going to get them on my show. It's it started at the Dayton Um National Cemetery, and it and uh very briefly it started because a kid at the University of Dayton was uh working at the cemetery part-time, maybe an internship, and he saw uh a soldier or two being buried, and there was no one there. And he went home, told his mom, hey, this isn't right. Uh the two of them came up with this, the final salute. Now they have um email lists, and they actually say um Sergeant So-and-so, United States Army is getting buried. And these these people, these uh veterans that have passed that have no family or friends, they put an alert out. And I'll tell you, I've been to about 10 of them, and they all have at least 50 people from the community, and most of them have much more than that. It's really heartwarming to see. And it started from something simple. And and and this kid saying, something's not right here. So, um, anyways, I hope that we can all raise a generation of children that understand just what those veterans did and just what it means for our country. Um, I will be celebrating by giving a couple speeches at Memorial Day events. Uh, my speeches will be for the Sons of Union veterans of the Civil War. Um, one at 10, I think, and the next one would be about 12. Um, and I really truly enjoy that. I enjoy seeing the people out there honoring our vets. And if there's any little thing I can do to help that, I'm happy to do so. Um the war still going on, uh, a good transition. Uh we've lost uh a number of military members. Uh we will likely lose more. Uh I don't know. Nobody knows when this war is going to end and how it's going to end. Um if we have to start engaging again. Uh of course, that's going to be more people, more uh service members that we lose and get injured. So I just ask my friends out there to please uh pray for and keep in mind all those young men and women that are out there doing what they think is necessary to maintain our way of life. Now, I wanted to share with you an event that went on just this past Wednesday, and I have several pictures of it. Colonel slash Dr. Cassie Barlow was my guest a couple weeks ago, talked about veterans moving forward, a one-stop uh program for vets and their families. Everything that they could possibly need as a veteran was there. And it was a job fair as well, which veterans need jobs as well. So, anyways, I'm going to share some pictures just to show you the kind of event it was. It was the ninth event. It was very successful, although I will say the weather, we had a bad storm here. And so I think that kept some folks home. But it was a great program. Cassie Barlow does a wonderful job. I got to connect with a lot of people, and I hope you enjoy the pictures that you see there about this event. So now let me give you a soft introduction of our next guests. Colonel retired Daryl Whitcomb flew in Vietnam. He flew for a group of pilots called the Ravens. The Ravens were a quandescent CIA-sponsored flying organization that flew on the wrong side of the DMZ. You might expect, and you would be right, that it was a very dangerous mission. They had to give up anything that identified them whatsoever, their ID card, they had to fly in civilian clothes, and they had to fly a plane that their allies flew. It was very dangerous, but a select group wanted to do that because they saw how important it was. Now let me tell you, if you think the F4 pilots, the A7 pilots were badasses, and they were, they've got nothing on the Ravens. I recently went to a Raven reunion here locally, not knowing much about them, I got to meet them. And I'll tell you, they're real and they are badasses. The Ravens' main focus was to identify targets for our fighter bombers and also to help our men and allies on the ground, and especially to identify and help the rescue of down pilots or other Americans. The account of one such rescue uh was penned in this book by Darrell about the rescue of Bat 21. I think you'll find that that situation is similar to the F-35 rescue that happened recently in Iran. Difference is uh technology was older, um, they didn't have the intelligence that we had for this uh recent rescue. So the rescue in Iran was pretty clean, involved many agencies, uh several three three-letter agencies, uh, and we got them out cleanly, like I said. Uh the rescue in Bat 21 and back in Vietnam was not as clean. People died and we lost aircraft. Uh, but it is a demonstration of our country, how we are different, that we believe no man, our person, should be left behind. So I think you're really gonna enjoy Daryl's story uh about Vietnam and flying on the other side of the DMZ. We'll be right back with Daryl to understand a little bit more about what he did in Vietnam. Pitbull out. Well, good day and welcome back to Pitbull 214 Podcast. I am your host for this show, Rick Perales, retired United States Air Force veteran, and I'm very proud to be with you today. I am so excited about our guests today. I will I will explain to you that um as knowledgeable as I am, relatively speaking, about military matters, I never knew about this group. Uh they're called the Ravens. I'm sure many of you out there do. Um didn't know about it. And as a county commissioner, I was invited to uh a reunion. And anything that's military reunion, I tried to make. That was what my strength was. And and I went to this reunion and they were ravens. And I will tell you, these guys were raising some hell. Uh they they uh enjoyed being together and they enjoyed what they enjoyed, and they had some stories, and I was just fascinated. I'm not gonna steal any of the thunder. Uh, with us today is Daryl Whitcomb. Um, he was a raven, and he's gonna explain what that means and how he came about being one and what they did. It's just fascinating, and uh this whole program was classified for so many years. Part of the reason many people don't know about it, uh, but now he can share with us what they did and how they did it. And I'm telling you, folks, these are some brave men, and I am just uh humbled to to be with Daryl today. Daryl, welcome. Thank you for being with us today.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh Daryl, why don't you um uh start with your beginning, where you grew up, your parents, uh, and how you got interested in flying.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm a child certainly of the World War II generation. Uh grew up uh in Southern California in the 50s and the 60s, and back in those days, our life uh uh centered around uh spending our summers at the beach without shoes. Uh we all became surfer punks. We grew up to the music of Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys and all that hoorah stuff. And as I was uh in my teenage years, I started kind of thinking, you know, forward where I want to do. I I certainly want to go to college and do those kind of things. And then we started hearing about this someplace there called Vietnam. Something's going on over there. And uh so with all that in the back of my mind, when I looked around, I I realized that my interest was really in aviation. I again in Southern California, we had Lockheed Martin plant there, Douglas. Airplanes were around us all the time. We had military, navy, air force, and so I said, gosh, I want to be a pilot. I want to be a military pilot. So I looked around at the options to doing that, and I discovered that there was this new school up in Colorado called the Air Force Academy. Wow. So I went through the nomination and application process, uh, received a congressional appointment, and off in the summer of 1965, I head up to Colorado Springs, where I discovered there's not as much air up there as there is at sea level.
SPEAKER_00Let me interrupt you, sir, if I can. Uh to be completely frank, as I understand it, the Air Force Academy wasn't your top choice, was it?
SPEAKER_01Actually, I wanted to go to the Naval Academy. This is true. Uh, because again, Long Beach, which was my hometown, was a Navy town. And so I uh but when I looked at everything, I decided that the the place that made the most sense was the Air Force Academy. So I applied to that. And my congressman notified me that uh he thought I had a competitive record, and he was short on nominees for the Naval Academy. So he also nominated me for the Naval Academy. And so in April of '65, when the appointments came out, I got a package of information saying that I'd been accepted to the Air Force Academy, and I got a nice letter from the Naval Academy saying I was second alternate for the position. Okay, so not being any fool, I accepted what was in hand, and I'm going off to the Air Force Academy, except that about a week later, I get a package from the Naval Academy saying you have been accepted for the class of 1969 at Annapolis. Wow. So for the first and only time in my life, I went down and I sent this thing we called a telegram. Remember that back in those days? Way before the internet and everything, and it cost me like five bucks to do this, which was a lot of money back in those days. So I sent a telegram to my congressman uh and I said, uh, sir, I've already accepted Air Force, but now I've been accepted at the Naval Academy. I would prefer to go to the Naval Academy. And the next day I got a telegram back from him saying, No, uh, you're going to the Air Force, it's a done deal, you got the better of it. Okay? So off to Colorado Springs that I've got.
SPEAKER_00I love that story.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and uh I arrived there on the 28th of June 65 with a thousand and fifty-four other bewildered young men that looked a lot like me, and we started our training, and that that interspersed almost exactly with uh our initial involvement with in Vietnam, because it was in 65 when our nation really got heavily involved over there. So, even through my experience at the academy up to my graduation uh in 69, we were immersed in what was going on in this war over there. And from the airmen's perspective, our perspective was very different because yes, we were serving in the country of Vietnam, but we also had a huge contingent of airmen that were over in the country of Thailand. What was that all about? Well, that was because of those aerial Air Force units that we had over there were flying throughout the entire theater of war over there. And that made me realize that this war that we were calling the Vietnam War was really much bigger than that. It was a theater war, and the enemy that we were fighting was fighting us in all of these countries Laos, Cambodia. However, we had tried to deal with those other countries more diplomatically than with military force. And so that really shaped our involvement over there. So people asked me, what did you do in the Vietnam War? I say, well, when I was in Southeast Asia, I served in Vietnam flying C-7 cargo airplanes for a year after I graduated from the Academy, went to pilot training, flew 2-38s and did all that. Uh, and I spent that uh year 7071 as a cargo pilot in South Vietnam, and then I re-upped for a second combat tour, qualified in the OV-10 aircraft as a forward air controller, went back to the war, and I was then assigned in Thailand, and I was flying missions primarily in Laos, and then ultimately some back in South Vietnam and in Cambodia, fighting all those other wars over there. And uh when I'd been flying OV-10s for about six months, uh we got briefed on this program called the Ravens. And I kind of knew about them already through through the grapevine. But this was a uh group of young airmen very much like myself who chose to go into the country of Laos covertly at the time, because again, we had signed a treaty saying that Laos was neutral and we were trying to handle all that diplomatically, but in reality, the North Vietnamese army that we were also fighting in South Vietnam was in Laos, uh fighting against our allies in Laos, and so we had to fight them, but we had to do it covertly, and that was the Raven program. So when I went over to the Ravens, uh I reported to an airbase, uh Udorn Air Base in northern Thailand, turned in all my military clothes, put on some in clothes, and went into the Raven program in Laos.
SPEAKER_00Let me interrupt you there. Um what a great story. So um as I understand it, they didn't tell you a whole lot about what you were gonna do, but you knew that the chances of getting killed in the ravens was greater than the high chances of getting killed when you were flying the OV-10. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01It was a different uh part of the war. When I was flying the OV-10, uh I would be at higher altitudes and I would be out over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, I would be over around the demilitarized area between North and South Vietnam. And there the threat we had to worry about primarily were the larger caliber uh guns. 23 millimeter, 37, 57 millimeter guns, and sometimes surface-to-air missiles. Uh but when we went into the Ravens, uh again, that was a covert program at the time. So we had to fly the airplanes that were indigenous to the Laotian Air Force. And for us, that would be the little O-1s. And when we were flying the O-1s there, uh they had Laotian markings on them, is as you can see in that photograph there. And and you can see the camouflage type of clothes that we would wear. But it was basically blue jeans, camo shirt, uh, and then we were armed to the teeth while we were flying our missions because we never knew what was going to happen. And we there, working with our indigenous allies in northern Laos, fighting the same North Vietnamese people that we were fighting in the country of Vietnam, uh, we flew at a much lower altitude. So there I was within rifle range of every soldier down there on the ground. And many was the time when I came home with bullet holes in my airplane. In fact, the time that when I was shot down, I was flying one of the Raven 01s, and a guy put several bullets into the bottom of my engine, and my engine quit. And fortunately, I was able to put the airplane down in friendly territory, so I was okay. But uh, so I have one more takeoff than I have landings in my logbook.
SPEAKER_00You had a few close calls, did you not?
SPEAKER_01Well, there were many. Again, out there, uh, we we were working with indigenous Laotian forces as the Ravens, and so it became very personal. I really got to know these guys that I was working with uh and understood their cause. Uh the conditions were very austere. We were flying very, very far forward into northern Laos, called the Plain of Jars. We were fighting basically North Vietnamese conventional forces. I mean, uh there were Patet Lao guerrilla forces in the area, but we were fighting the North Vietnamese army regiments, brigades, battalions, artillery, armor. This was real big-time war. Okay. And we were doing it with our little O1s, and and so I was doing essentially the same mission as a forward air controller. I was the link between ground power and air power. And I would talk to the ground commanders and the teams that were down there, they would tell me and point out for me where the enemy targets were. The fighters would come in, the F-4s, the A7s, whatever we had. I would mark the targets for them and then clear them in to release the ordinance and work very hard to try to get these guys exactly on target. And and I say that because you always have to remember just the other day you saw in the news where some of our airplanes were shot down by friendly fire, right? There's no such thing as friendly fire. Everything that we shoot, everything that the enemy shoots is unfriendly. The trick is to make sure that we're putting the ordinance where it needs to go, so we, through our efforts, are killing the bad guys and not the good guys, okay? It's none of it is friendly. And and this was one of the things that we as Ford Air Controllers did, especially as the Ravens, when we were working with our indigenous forces on the ground and bringing in the the strike flights to lay down their ordinance, we had to really work very hard to control the fighters to get them or to get their ordinance on the correct targets. This is a big deal. That was one of the things we did as Ravens.
SPEAKER_00So um my dad actually was a uh F war mechanic in Thailand uh for tours. Um and I understand the separation of families. Uh uh, you don't see the kids walk, the birthdays, about um you weren't married at this time, were you not? Not yet.
SPEAKER_01No, I was I was single at the time, you bet.
SPEAKER_00So you did three consecutive tours. Uh it was easier to do that without someone back home and kids back home, I imagine. This is true.
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, and that's part of part of why I did that too.
SPEAKER_00So uh talk a little bit. What I um really appreciate in the books I've read and your um the videos that I've uh watched uh was a camaraderie between you and the other guys and even between the locals. Um and I and I take it that it was just you guys were all somewhere on borrowed time. I mean, you guys were living a dangerous life, so there was a lot in common there. So I guess it was easy to get close with each other.
SPEAKER_01Well, it it certainly was, and and any Good combat unit like that, you will have a bond that really grows amongst you. When I was flying the OV-10 in my base in Thailand, I was there with about a hundred other guys. And so I was with a very, very large group, and of course we all bonded. We flew missions together, we shared common threats. We shared each other's uh joys and heartbreaks. We lost some guys, we had some guys wounded, we experienced all of those things, and it's a huge, huge bonding uh force that that remains to this day. I just before uh you contacted me this morning, I was on the phone with a guy that I flew OV-10s with in Thailand in 1972. And you know, when we get together, it's like the friendship has never ended, the conversation has never ended. These bonds that you uh generate with other individuals when you go through the unbelievable experience of combat, they're lifetime bonds. Uh and then when I went into the Ravens now, I was in a much smaller group. I was about with about five other ravens. And so again, uh we flew together on a daily basis, we lived together, we ate together, we knew each other stink. I mean, it was that close, you know. We were truly brothers in arms, and those friendships uh endure to this day. Uh the picture that I provided to you of the raven next to the 001, that is not I, that is a good dear friend of mine by the name of H. Owenby, who unfortunately has passed away. And I can assure you that when we put him into the ground, he had a raven honor guard right there with him. So these these bonds are very deep and very enduring. And and of course, too, working with the same ground forces, you get to know these people, you know their voices. You can tell when they're excited, when they're scared, when they're fearful and everything. And and up there, the the primarily the Hmong tribes with whom we worked, they were fighting for their lives. The North Vietnamese were trying to annihilate them. I mean, there was no bones about what was going on here. And so when we were out there, we would break the conventional rules that normally direct how Air Force planes fly and everything. We broke those rules all the time because our priority loyalty was to those forces we were supporting. I can remember one day I went out to fly and the weather was real, real bad. The the the clouds were right down, covering the tops of the mountains, uh, and we couldn't get any fighters in in weather like that. And so instead of carrying smoke rockets on my airplane, I put in uh high explosive rounds, eight, I had eight rocket tubes there, and I took off and I went up and I flew my own close air support, and I never got 500 feet off of the ground. And of course, when you're down there and you're that low, and you've got the windows open on little oh one there, you're putting around at 90 knots, the whole experience becomes extremely sensual because you you feel the airplane, you you're hearing things over the radio, of course, your eyes are telling you what's going on, but in many cases you could see it, smell it, and sometimes even taste it, because you were down there right in the middle of the fight. And sometimes it was extremely personal.
SPEAKER_00I'll bet. Um, you know, Darryl, you talked about the uh aggressive part and leading the fighters in uh on targets. Um the search and rescue uh uh when uh say one of our uh people went down or our troops were lost or something. That was a big part of your job as well, right?
SPEAKER_01Everybody did. Everybody was trained to do search and rescue. Uh and that was because you have to remember where we were in the war. Uh our nation was getting out of the war. Our leaders were bringing us home. So nobody wanted to be the last guy shot down, the last POW, the last guy killed in the war. So when one of our guys would get shot down, search and rescue would become the priority mission. And so all of us, number one, were prepared ourselves to be that smart survivor on the ground, but we also knew how to contact our rescue forces, what we needed to do to get in, to make contact with a survivor, to locate him as precisely as possible, to show the rescue forces where to come and get them, because we knew that the enemy knew we put high priority on bringing our guys home. And so when somebody would get shot down, they would know it pretty quickly, and they would do everything we could they could to try to capture that guy or those guys if it's a larger aircraft. And so many of these rescues became battles uh in themselves. I mean, some of them huge. Uh uh we had one big rescue that took place uh in in South Vietnam called uh the Bat 2-1 rescue, which was a very long and involved rescue. It played out over 18 days. Uh, and in that process, we had several other airplanes shot down so that at one time we weren't looking for just one or two guys, we were looking for five or six. And and uh the good news is we got several of those guys out. The bad news is uh in the process of doing that, we had several several other guys killed and lost, and that to include one complete rescue helicopter, Jolly Green 67, that went down with a crew of six. None of those guys came home until later when we went into the site fifteen or so years later and we excavated and found their remains and brought them home for decent burials. But so some of these very rescues themselves were turned into to huge battles. And some of the most epic stories to come out of the the Vietnam War, uh from at least from the Air Force side, have to do with uh uh our rescues. And of course, uh we wouldn't do that just for our airmen, we would do that for any of our Americans that were struck out. We we did these for uh we had special forces teams going into along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and they would get uh discovered and attacked by enemy forces. We would use the same tactics and techniques uh to do them. Uh out in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Navy had their helicopters. They had even submarines that they would use. If our guys were down in the water, they'd try to rescue them. So rescue was a big deal in the war, uh, like I see, not just in Vietnam, but in Southeast Asia. In fact, if you read one of the classic books about rescue in that war, it's the title of it, Search and Rescue in Southeast Asia. Because it's we we lost all kinds of planes all over South Vietnam, Gulf of Tonkin, North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. And our rescue forces could go to any of those places as necessary to recover our young men. And it didn't make any difference if they were Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine, or in many cases, many cases our Allied forces. We did this for them too, you bet. That's that's one of the things that we can do, and I guarantee you, right now, you don't hear much about it on the news, but all this fighting that's going on over in Iran right now, we have rescue forces in theater. They are ready to respond, and they will respond finest kind and as violently as they need to be to bring our young men and women home if necessary.
SPEAKER_00Hey, talk a little bit about the philosophy between of how responsible all you just talked about. Our troops know we're gonna go in there and we're gonna try to get them out, right? That's a big deal. Uh no other country does that or has that same philosophy as as I understand.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's part of the American way of war, uh, and and and it is pragmatic in this sense that we we have to be careful with our military forces because there are only a finite number of them. And it takes a long time in terms of assets and energy and training to take some young man or woman out of American society and train them to be a B-2 pilot. Okay? There aren't a bunch of those folks out there. So when we are committing those young men and women into combat, we can't afford to lose them. Uh we certainly expect that we're going to take losses. We always take losses in war. But the same thing with our F-15 kids, uh, F-22s, the F-16s, and again, not just the United States Air Force, but all of our services. We want to minimize our losses as much as possible because, again, there's only so many of these folks. And so it's when we send our young men and women into a war, especially a war of limited objectives, like this war in Iran is, we only expect to lose a certain number of them. We will take losses, but we want to limit those losses as much as possible. Uh and and again, we have to remember that some of these communities of individuals that we have are so small that we have to limit the losses. We saw this. Let me give you a historical vignette here. In 1940, when England was fighting the Battle of Britain, at that time, during that battle, it was really only a few hundred fighter pilots that were standing between England and the mass uh attack of the Lufthoff, the German Air Force. And every single day, Churchill wanted to know how many pilots do we have available today? They were literally, that small number of pilots was literally a center of gravity for what was going on at that time. And one of the things that he did quietly behind the scenes, but he massively expanded his rescue forces at that time, so that if a British pilot went down, even deep out into the North Sea, they would be able to get out there and rescue them and bring them home. Conversely, when the German pilots were shot down over England then and bailed out, they were immediately captured and no longer available to the Luftwaffe. So you can see the dynamic there. We're doing everything we could to protect that small group of pilots who were the point of the spear of the British defense at that time. In fact, there was one moment when Churchill went into the command center and he's watching the battle take place, and he turns to his air commander and he said, What are our reserves at this time? And he said, Sir, we have no reserves. Everything we have is airborne. And so that small number of pilots was so critical that that was a great motivator to make sure that we develop good rescue and recovery forces, and that and that holds forth to this very day.
SPEAKER_00That is amazing. That is so um let me tell you what I'm gonna do, Daryl. I am going to scroll your information for my viewers out there. Daryl's written books, um, he's on social media uh interviews. Uh, he has so much more to share. Unfortunately, I don't have the time for, and we've touched on a few things, but I'm gonna share that with my viewers. So I encourage you to order his book uh and to look him up because I'll tell you, last night I was up until late watching his videos. It was just it was uh better than Hollywood. How about that? How about that for a compliment, Daryl?
SPEAKER_01Um Well, uh all I can say is that as a uh young man, my nation gave me a great opportunity to go off and uh study and learn at the Air Force Academy, which led me into a life of aviation, uh which I have enjoyed and still enjoy to this very day, although I'm no longer actively flying. I it gave me the opportunity to serve actually in two wars. I also flew some in Iraq later on. Uh, and then I also had the the opportunity to do an airline career, uh, which is uh the airlines are are a classic and a critical part of our whole national identity. I mean, they're part of who we are. And then again, uh I might point out too that uh when on my third tour when I was at Nikom Phenom, Thailand, there, uh we had a uh young lieutenant come on board as one of our new intelligence officers, young gal by the name of Christine. Uh she and I eventually married. We've been married now for over 51 years. We uh she's given me three beautiful young men and women who are now giving us lots of grandbabies, and uh and they're all off doing wonderful, great things, and and life is good.
SPEAKER_00You know, Daryl, um you're hero. You don't like that when nobody likes being called that, but you are, and we can't thank you enough. You're blessed too. A lovely, beautiful family. Um, and your your your story is just amazing. Um, I'm gonna ask you one more question, and and we're gonna have to get off. We're in a critical time now in our country. As you mentioned before, our troops are are are fighting a war. What advice, our country is just kind of it's just in a bad spot. What advice would you give all the folks out there? You've been on the front line, uh, you know what it was like in Vietnam to not get much support. Um a different war, different time, but uh there wasn't a whole lot of appreciation there. Now there is for Vietnam vets, uh much more. What would you uh what advice would you give to the folks out there about uh supporting our troops?
SPEAKER_01Well, something you have to remember is this whole thing starts with Iran. Our nation is divided on this, and that's not a good thing. But we you want to remember always all wars are all always ultimately about politics. Uh, and that is certainly what's driving it here, and and and certainly on our domestic front, too. The the president has the authority under the constitution to send us into battle. Okay, he can do that for lots of reasons, and all of our more recent presidents have done that at one point or another. However, to go to war, he needs to engage the nation because uh armies fight battles, military fights battles, nations fight wars, okay. And at some point, the president is gonna have to come to the nation and make it very clear to us why we need to fight this war, how he anticipates it's gonna turn out, and it will never turn out the way he anticipates. There are always gonna be twists and turns, but he has to make the case to the American people through our Congress so that they will support taking our nation to war. Because, again, it's gonna take great resources from or it could take great resources on the part of our nation to fight this war. Uh, I don't think the president's made the case quite yet. I I certainly support him in understanding what he's doing because over the years I have looked and watched and I have seen how Iran has made it clear since the revolution in 79 that they want death to America, they want death to Israel, and they have carried that out. So many of our soldiers that were wounded and maimed and so horribly hurt in Iraq and Afghanistan were hurt using Iranian weapons. They've been killing and harming our young men and women ever ever since that their initial declaration of war against us back in the early 1980s. And we've just tried it kind of ignored and think, well, they'll just go away. Well, they're not going away. We have to accept the fact that in this world there are some people who do not like us. They do not want us to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_00Well, never, ever like us. That's right.
SPEAKER_01And they never will. And the only thing that they understand is peace through strength. And so now is a time, in my opinion, where we need to use this strength to take care of this threat. And and I I think we're certainly blessed at the military leadership that we have. General Kane, he's as good as they come. He is a tremendous officer. I've seen him speak. Uh I I trust him, and I think that he's going to lead us through this. So again, that's my opinion. Uh based on my lifetime experiences and everything. Sometimes you have to fight.
SPEAKER_00It's been such a pleasure to be with you today. And again, I'm gonna give information to my viewers so they can look at more, hear more about what you say. Um, the Ravens, what an amazing, amazing story. And uh for my viewers, before we got on the air, I asked the Colonel if he would uh sign uh Bat 21 book for me and send it to me. And he agreed to do that. So I look forward to reading that book. Colonel, again, thank you so much, sir. Thank you for his service.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. God bless you all.
SPEAKER_00You as well. And we'll be right back with Pitbull 214. Well, I hope you enjoyed that uh that episode with Daryl. Um, like I told you, they're badasses, the Ravens, and that's a story um that was untold told for many years, and it's good to get that out and see what um what those folks were up against and what they did and how they did it. So thank you, Daryl, for sharing that with us. Now, as we close the show, I'd like to talk about a couple of things. I recently started an audio version of my podcast. Uh I just felt like there are people that can't just sit at a computer for 45 minutes and listen to a story. For them, they can listen to this while they're cutting the grass, driving on long trips. So I think it'll make it um much more convenient for a certain segment. And I really want to get this out to as many vets and people associate it with the veterans as possible. I'd also like to call out um my good friend James Baker, um, recently retired, who has supported me throughout my political career. And he is also supporting me now in my second career, if you will, podcaster. So if any of my viewers out there are inclined to donate, just know that anything you donate is greatly appreciated and will be well used in helping me get the word out to the veterans and help our vets. You'll find the QR code throughout my podcasts and on my uh website and anywhere that I have information. Again, greatly appreciated. Lastly, what I usually do is talk a little bit about next episode's guests. Um excited about this one too. Uh Charlinda Scales, Lieutenant Colonel, just pinned on. She is amazing. I know I use that word a lot, but she is amazing. She is a mother, she is a um lieutenant colonel in Intel, she is a uh recognized author and public speaker, and this is the place that I really love her. She is an entrepreneur, and she created a barbecue sauce called Mutt Sauce, and I absolutely love it. I put it on all my barbecue stuff, and she got that from her grandfather. She has so much more to her, and and perhaps maybe she's taken on a little bit too much. And so she'll talk a little bit about who she is, what she's accomplished, but also right-sizing her endeavors, what she throws herself into, and maybe not saying yes to everything, um, but she'll explain it much better. And I look forward to having all of you back and her back. And remember, pass this podcast on to vets and vet family and vet friends. And if we can help two, three, four, a hundred, a thousand, doesn't matter. We gotta try. With that, God bless you all. Happy Memorial Day and Pip Bull out.
SPEAKER_02The world's always coming to an end. Don't let it scare you out of living. Look at me, mom, I get so large. Escape property, dead, hit a lottery, dead, dead. I let all these boys do the rap in me. I'm a man and my word, I live it. Every day say thank you. Every day I give thanks, every day thanksgiving. Giving this, giving it to this card to a new course. So winning, every day, every minute. Every hour, every day, every year. Live your life like price, and not to go away and no fear.