General David "Jester" Smith

Hosts Justin Reno and Bart Avery sit down with General David "Jester" Smith to discuss his early days before joining the Air Force, all the way to retirement as a civilian.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Oh my gosh. Welcome to the inaugural podcast of deep diving in the speakeasy. It's the pilot episode. It's with Justin and Barrett's pilot episode. And you know what? We spent, I think we spent two or three weeks trying to decide who in the Annual Valley that we know of would be the best fricking possible person to deep dive into their lives on.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

And to even kick this thing off with.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Exactly. You know, and I've known this gentleman for a long time. And he is just absolutely amazing. And the stories we're going to hear, I'm sure, in this podcast are going to blow some people's minds. Great, great guy. Totally one of my favorite persons I've ever met in my life. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm not BNS BSing you here, Jester. And he's got multiple names. He loves to be called Jester. That's his call sign. We're going to find out about that in a minute. But he's also Dr. David Smith. And that's pretty impressive because I'll never have the word doctor in front of my name. I might have I have Jackass in front of my name, and you got some names too, right? Justin. Hey you. Yeah, whatever. Please stop that. So so tonight we're well, I should say this afternoon, or whatever time it is. We're here in the speakeasy. That's the special part about this whole thing. It's a top secret place. We can't tell you where it is. The hint is it's somewhere in Southern California, but deep diving in the speakeasy is the name of our podcast, and we're so proud to have Jester, Dr. David Smith, say hi.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, I'd love to say hi, but first I have to ask a question.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Uh uh.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Oh, we're in time already.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

That's not how this works.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

How did it possibly take you two to three weeks to come up with this conclusion?

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Okay. Actually, we flipped the coiners between you and uh that other guy that we can't that got just got arrested and shit. Sorry, but oh, I'm already cussing. No, you're it's our show we can do what we want. You were the first one, man.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

So we love you, brother. Nah, I'm uh I'm humbled and honored to be here. Happy to share a little bit uh from my past and hopefully talk a little about our collective futures.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

I I have a lot of questions about top secret stuff, so I hope you can answer those.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Absolutely. Although I gotta tell you that when I left my prior job at Plant 42, they waved this black wand in front of my eyes.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

And I had a little trouble remembering where I lived. You got men in black? I I think so. Okay. Oh my god. That's wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:56

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I didn't know that was a thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

It's a real thing. Oh, okay. It's a real thing. I don't remember. Okay. Well, it's okay. We'll work on it.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Anyway, welcome to the uh inaugural podcast. Hopefully, this thing lasts for you know 20, 30 years and people.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I don't have that much time.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Oh, God. Okay. So uh we start off with kind of you telling us a little bit. We're gonna get into your whole life here, including I know your favorite person in the whole world sitting here in the background. Um, but we but before we start our podcast, we have two questions for you. Okay. First of all, um, you know, in the Speakeasy, we have it where we can smoke cigars. Would you like a cigar?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

You know, I think that would be advisable. It it it kind of frees up the larynx and allows effective communication. I'm I'm only doing this because I'm a servant leader.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

But you're not a medical doctor saying this that smoking cigars is good.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Oh, uh I would not say that, but I will tell you my beautiful bride tells me that you might be a doctor, you're just not the kind that helps anybody.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Okay. So cigar?

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Cigar. Absolutely. Let's get some cigars. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And then we uh and then the other question is you know, we you you can have an adult beverage, you know, we're all adults here. Would you like to have an adult beverage?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

So I I think that would be appropriate, but let's let's keep it within the the spectrum of normalcy. So no more than seven.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Okay. That's a fair number. Well, what what is your uh drink of choice? I think I'm gonna start off with uh a little cocktail myself here with a little bit of bourbon. That's a good one. Justin.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

Uh I'm I'm going to have a uh a bravery beer uh because you know it's my favorite brewery.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Aren't they one of our sponsors too? Oh my god, you're right. Okay, bravery. Weird. Uh Jester, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Do you have a little still water, maybe something from Lake Palmdale?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Uh we could we could arrange that. I mean, we have we have we have all these producers here in the room that can run over to Lake Palmdale and grab you something, but you know, I think I know what you like. I think it's a uh uh gin well a martini excuse me, a martini. And I've been lectured before by this gentleman about questioning what a martini is. Can you can you can you expand on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

So yeah yeah, it gets me on the journey of talking about my father. Oh good. Yeah. Uh he uh bartended for a long time at a couple of places that I guess are a little bit popular before he was drafted during the Second World War. So uh he bartended at a place in San Francisco, uh some you might have heard of, called the St. Francis. Oh yeah. And then he was offered a job while he was bartending there by a customer to uh come on down south to Los Angeles and run the bars and restaurants at a little place that today is called the Beverly Wilshire. So, Dad's philosophy There are two allowable martinis. Okay. A martini, which is made with gin and driver mouth. Yes. There are no dirty martinis, there are no right uh and then he said the one exception to that is you could have a vodka martini, replacing the gin with vodka. But he said, other than that, put a period at the end of that sentence because there are no chocolate martinis, there are no frappuccino martinis, there are no strawberries.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

That's total BS when you get into all these freaking fruity, crappy whatever. Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

I I I appreciate that you agree, Bart.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

No, it's it's it's it's gin and then okay, maybe vodka. There it is. So you want a gin martini. You want a you want a martini. That's right. And you want it, and no, obviously no dirty and dry, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I I don't do dirty.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

Everybody does dirty. You get in you're in a safe space here, and you can admit things. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Okay, so we're so we have uh uh it's kind of cool. We have a uh part of the show here, part of the podcast is, and he's he's uh right over there, he's kind of hiding behind the bar. Hey, Buzz. And uh we call him we call him double lefty, and the reason we call him double lefty is he's got two left hands. Buzz, hold yep, see that? He's got two left hands. So uh can you get me a uh what'd you want? You wanted a just a just a bravy beer. Can you get me like a little uh just a shot of uh bourbon on the there you go. And for our wonderful guest here, we would like to have an actual dry martini. That's right, yeah. It's gin. Did you hear what he just said? Gin. Okay. So he's gonna have that for you here in a second. Okay, so now we've got and you got your cigar, right? You just lit up your cigar. And he's good to go.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

As a matter of fact, I tried to set fire to myself just a minute ago.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Oh my god, did yeah, I see he's nobody watched. Nobody looked it up. He's literally Oh, okay. I'm not gonna say what he's doing with his left hand. Well, he I think he spilled spilled some ashes already on.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

By the way, ashes do not go into the martini.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

I hope not. That would really kind of suck. So, this is the way we start our podcast here here in the deep diving in the speakeasy, where we ask our guests if they would like to have a drink, which uh apparently we're all we're all getting them. Buzz is working on it right now. We'll have our drinks here in a sec. And the cigar. So now we can kind of get started. And I'm gonna toss it over to my uh partner in crime here. Are are we call what are we calling ourselves like the dive experts or the dive masters or something? We have you know, we're it's the first podcast.

SPEAKER_04 9:07

I think we're still working on that. I think we're still trying to figure out what we're calling ourselves. We know that we're gonna call the people that listen to this show the deep the deep divers. Yeah. We're gonna call them the deep divers, even though we technically are doing all the even though they don't know how deep we're gonna get into their lives and stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

We're still working on our on our monikers, but um So the Deep Diver, by the way, ordered a Bravery beer.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

And I'm not a beer drinker, but I must admit, being active in the community here, I understand this brand name of Bravery Beer is sort of like the best in the Western United States.

SPEAKER_04 9:43

Yeah, some a lot of people would say that. Ah, okay, okay. I just it's very well known. It's very, very well known. Um so we are going to start uh kind of well deep diving into your life.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

By the way, Buzz Thanks, but yeah, here's your drink.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

There it is. All right. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Have a see what you think. Thank you. Is it good? Did Buzz? Give me a second. All right, give me a second. Let's make sure Buzz didn't screw this thing up. By the way, my whiskey's thanks, Buzz. I had to cleanse the palate. I had to cleanse a frickin' pallet.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Do you feel your your larynx is now ready for the I I think questions? I think we're good to go. Okay, good. So uh the way we do this is we're going to basically uh deep dive into your life uh and what what got you to uh you know where you are at today. Um so what we would like you to at least start out doing is introduce yourself, uh, you know, give a quick uh breakdown of what you do, and then we are going to we're gonna Tarantino it and we're gonna go all the way back. Okay, so go ahead, introduce yourself, tell it tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get going.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Okay, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 11:01

That's a good question, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Okay. Okay, was that it?

SPEAKER_04 11:08

And that's the end of the show. Okay, that's the end of the show. That was great. Electric interview.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

So uh Dave Smith, I go by Jester. I'm very comfortable with my call sign gesture. Feel free to use that or use whatever the heck you want. Uh currently, and hopefully for a long time in the future, I'm the CEO of the Mojave Urine Spaceport. I'm really humbled to be in that role. Uh my job as the CEO of Mojave Uran Spaceport is to take the crap out of the way of a group of true professionals that do the work every day. So I do shooter cover for a lot of good people so that uh the Aaron Spaceport can successfully provide living wage jobs for through 60 mission partners, about 3,000 personnel in East Kern. So uh where that grew from is I came into the Air Force uh way back in 1982. Came in, went through officers training school, got commissioned, got my butter bar on the shoulder, and uh went through and uh uh got into B-52 training. Uh flew B-52s kinda all over the world, but in the B-52 world, the world is the central part of the United States of America.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Because we had a thing going on back then called the PSYOP. PSYOP stood for single integrated operational plan.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

A nice way of the big war. Right. Uh the nuclear exchange. So if we were to pick a country at random, absolutely at random, let's say Russia.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

Sure, that's very random. Random. Very random.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Uh if we uh were attacked by that country, we would strike back and and wreak devastation across that country. By the way, I need to caveat this. In all those bases with B-52s, we can't confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

So uh they may or may not have been there. I'm not sure what we would have been attacking with if they're not there.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

But uh but yeah. Yeah leaflets. Sure. Uh yeah. Yeah. Uh so had the rare opportunity to do that for a while. Got in the uh test flight universe or after three years on an exchange tour with our remarkable soldiers in the United States Army at a little uh austere location called the National Training Center, Fort Irwin. And uh came over to Edwards, needed some test pilot crud on me, so they sent me to Mojave to National Test Pilot School, got that test pilot crud, ran the B-52 Avionics Midlife Improvement Program, eventually became the most hated person at Edwards Air Force Base.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Okay, good congratulations on that.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Thank you. Yeah, I was the uh inspector general. So it's kind of nice as the inspector general. If I took my family, say, to a little movie on base, how people would get up and move away from you in the theater. So it it was always wonderful. That meant extra room for the kids, yeah, popcorn, you know.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Pop your feet up on the side if you wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Yeah, it was special.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Uh did retire and uh move into civil service. And in civil service, I became the installation director of at Edwards. Uh sort of the guy who uh ran the air base side of that installation as a senior civilian. And then I had the very rare opportunity to go over and take over a little place called Plant 42.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

So let me let me just stop you for a second here because we are gonna really deep dive in, I believe, our second and quasi-third segments here, but I wanna I want to take you back because this is this is the point of this podcast, is to is to find out how somebody that has your street creds and everything you've done in your life, how you got there. So let's just go way back.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Where were you born? Kamsama, Japan. Wow. Army family stationed overseas in Japan post-Korea and uh two military parents, well uh started as two military parents. Mom and dad were both lieutenants in the United States Army. Mom was a registered army nurse, a battlefield nurse in the Second World War.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Wait, wait, your mom was in the military in the Second World War. Yes. Wow, that's that's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Matter of fact, I have stories about her that maybe we'll get into later. Sure. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I'd love to.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

But uh yeah, mom was a battlefield nurse in the European theater. And uh by a quirk of fate shortly after the end of hostilities in the Second World War outside of Nuremberg, my father came down with diphtheria. Now, let me tell you, dad hates doctors. And the idea of him going to a field hospital was just abhorrent. But he felt as bad as he could feel and he couldn't get his boots on or off. So he showed up at this field hospital ER and the doctor looked at him and yelled over as he tells the story to a Corman and said, Corman, lock those doors. This soldier has diphtheria. We're in quarantine. And his attending nurse was a young lady named Teresa Selyuzicki. And apparently she was a really good attending nurse because they got married. Now the world was different. I think we've improved a lot, but we're far from perfect. Uh at that time when they got married, she was called in by her commander and informed that she's no longer an army nurse and she's no longer a lieutenant. She is now an officer's wife. That's her job. Her job is to be a wife.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Is there a W-2 you have to fill out for that?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Or Yeah, I don't know. But I gotta tell you, mom did not cotton to that very well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Um, you know, she's highly trained and how do you get the word cotton in your vocabulary growing up in uh Hawaii, which we'll get to in a sec.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Well, uh prior to coming into the Air Force, I had this job for a con company that's largely rooted in the south. It's it's the the corporate offices are in a place you might have heard of called Nashville, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_04 18:16

I've heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

But the actual company is rooted in a little town called Lynchburg, Tennessee. Okay. Never heard of it.

unknown 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

So uh the company's called Jack Daniels Distillery. Uh some of you heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Never heard of that.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I have. Hey, Buzz, have we got any Jack Daniels over there? Just asking. Oh, yeah, he said he's nodding his head. So you how did you get to frickin' Hawaii again?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Like you're Well, I was born in Japan. Yes. Dad was stationed at Fort Shafter after that assignment. Which is where? On Oahu. Oh, this is on Oahu, okay. So uh we hopped on to an executive mission, an LST transport military, and uh the ship took us over to Pearl Harbor and dropped us off and uh Airbnb. Here we are in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

So how long were you living in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

I lived in Hawaii until 1982 when I joined the Air Force.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

So how many years was that? So you're how many years were you in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_00 19:25

About 30. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

Okay, wow. Round numbers. So are you a good surfer?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

I am a remarkable surfer. There you go. I am also a coward.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

What does that mean? What does that mean? Like if the waves are higher than one feet, you're like out of there?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Look. Uh now don't let my beautiful bride hear this, but you can either struggle with large waves, reef formations, and sharks, or you can understand the fact that there's a lot of beautiful girls wearing small bathing suits on the beach. Sure. Now, now that's a decision that everybody has to make. And and militarily, I will tell you, that's a tactical decision, not a strategic decision.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Okay. That's great. So do you speak a little Hawaiian? Because I know, I know, I know I I go to Hawaii personally.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

He's Japanese, man. He speaks Japanese.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah, I don't think he's do you speak Kune? Konichiwa. See? Okay, that's okay. What does that mean? How easy that was? What does that mean? What does that mean? I've heard that before. What does that mean? Kunichiwa. Hello? How are you doing? Okay. How do you how do you order a beer, like one more beer in Japanese?

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Uh the way I do it.

unknown 20:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I'd like another beer place. You just assume they all speak English, I guess. Okay, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So my favorite little Japanese statement is uh simply Ichini Sanchi Goroku Ichi achi kuju.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Does that mean I just poop my pants? I need a new pair of underwear? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

It actually means one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

SPEAKER_04 21:12

That's great. Well, now I know how to say the first ten numbers in Japanese. Yeah, we just learned something. Yeah, I'll go back and listen to this like a bunch of times so I can pick that up. That's great. So 30 years in Hawaii then?

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Round numbers, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Round number.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

You had a hell of a tan back then, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Sorta. And I pay the sins for that today, uh, but it makes my dermatologist wealthy, so that's good. Love it.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Was was uh being in the Air Force kind of always your thing like from like a young early age, was that always the goal, or was there something else that might have popped up and then going to the Air Force was just the next thing?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

So I've got to admit, um, and okay, you know, this could be a character flaw. Uh

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Wait, you have a you have a character flaw?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Well, several of them. Okay. So I was offered a college ROTC commission when I w just started school. And to the chagrin of my parents, I turned it down.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

And I turned it down principally because although I was raised in a military family, and if you look at the and we don't have it here, I wish we did, but the little fifth grade, what do you want to do when you grow up picture that I drew of myself, it was of a soldier. So I I envisioned myself doing what dad did.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Um in college, the Vietnam War was just ending. Uh the military was extremely unpopular. And although I will tell you, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, even at that time, I thought the way our returning veterans was treated was disgusting. I will also tell you the military was not popular. And I wanted to be popular. And I decided that the right vector was industry. And I got that job with that little organization out of uh corporate office Nashville actual location, Lynchburg, Tennessee, and I worked for Jack Daniels. And uh one day got a phone call. Jack Daniels Distillery was bought out by a major liquor conglomerate called Brown Foreman. And I got a call from my bosses back at the distillery saying, Hey, we love you, you're a great employee. But the fact is with the Brown Foreman buyout, we're going through a corporate restructuring, a corporate right sizing. And oh, by the way, if you get that call and you're being involved in a right size, maybe it's not as right as you think. So, anyhow, uh they basically said at the end of the fiscal year, your position's being dissolved. And we don't have a place to move you to. So uh we're gonna pull all your quotas so you can do whatever you want. We're gonna let you make more or less money, do what you need. We're gonna build a nice severance package for you. We really like you. We'll give you great recommendations as you look for other positions. But the fact is, Jack Daniels and David Smith are gonna part ways. That day, and and and I'm careful not to proselytize, but I I do believe in certain things in my life. I walked out to the mailbox and there was a brochure that simply said aim high on it. And I thought, you know, maybe a higher body is speaking to me and uh maybe I should listen. So that day I joined the United States Air Force. Wow. Uh yeah, God bless you. He has, and thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah. Wow, that that would that was literally the turning point in your life that changed your life like 180 degrees.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

And it was a 180. But uh but I should mention that uh Jack Daniels is a great organization and a great organization to work for. But if you think working for a major conglomerate like Jack Daniels i is a big party, you're mistaken. Jack Daniels sends a fine sipping Tennessee whiskey. And if you are intoxicated, if you get a DUI, if you do something like that, you'll find yourself unemployed overnight. As a fine sipping Tennessee whiskey, they have remarkably high standards. And uh what's really clever about them with that severus package and everything, here they've got me still marketing for them, but they don't pay me anymore.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And no more free Jack Daniels?

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Well, never got any of that. They're very careful about the product.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

That's incredible. That's incredible. Did you ever did you did you ever like see Jack? Uh or or sorry, Mr. Daniels. Was there actually a Jack Daniels? I assume it's a good idea. There was. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

And he is long since passed. Of course. You know, he made the uh mistake of having problems opening a safe that had the old number seven recipe in it. And as the lore goes, he kicked the safe, injured his foot, got an infection that killed him.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

Wow. Well, it's the way that he wanted to go. Yes. I'm pretty sure. Fairly certain. That's how I would want to go, is kicking the shit out of a safe and then getting an infection in my foot and dying.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

And then drinking a lot of Jack Daniels to kill the pain.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Yeah, why not? It's not that big of a deal. All right. Tell you what. We've got more with you. Um we're gonna take a quick segment break. We're gonna come back and we're gonna deep even dive. We're gonna dive even deeper. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

But I wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

I've only had one beer. What?

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I wasn't done yet.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

No, finish your story, please.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

I'm just messing with you.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

I know you are, and I love it. Alright, guys, we will be right back and we'll uh we'll continue on. Alright, welcome back, deep divers to deep diving in the speakeasy buzz. Um, we're a little low on alcohol. Uh David, David, you want you want another drink?

SPEAKER_00 27:57

So I'm I'm very careful about that. So I think I'll have a glass of wine.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

You don't want okay, uh buzz one wine uh part.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

I'll take another uh whiskey there. Thank you, sir.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

I'm good right now. I'm I've been milking my my my beer this time. I'm listening.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

I'm like enjoying the you know exceptional bravery brewery beer.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

But I like to I like to take my time with it.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

By the way, aren't they one of our sponsors on the show here? They are one of our sponsors. That's nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

That's good, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Very, very lovely booty.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I have yet to get a free drink there. Jesus. Uh we can tell somebody about that. I think after this podcast, you're gonna be a celebrity more than more so than you are, and people are gonna literally come up to you at bravery and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

I said, David, I know the owner. Uh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

By the way, not a celebrity, Justin Airman.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

And and and FY FY Justin uh is my co-host. I'm gonna I'm gonna from here on out, I've kind of got the flick. He likes to be called Jester.

SPEAKER_04 28:58

All right.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

I you know, let me know.

SPEAKER_04 29:01

I've only known him for 17 minutes, alright? Give me some slack here.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

I'm just saying Bart uh people call me Bart the fart, but I like Bart better, so just saying.

SPEAKER_04 29:08

No, I don't I don't call I don't call you that at all. No, you have. No, I haven't. I call you hey. Hey! Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Hey, that's somebody else. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Alright, Jester. So uh we were uh getting into your uh very long and substantial career in the Air Force. Um let's go. So you left you left Hawaii after 30 years. Was that was you were in the Air Force at that time, or were you going into where were you at in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_00 29:47

I was in a town called Kailua. Kailua.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Kailua.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Uh dad and mom had a house out there. Matter of fact, on the beach. It was tough living. Somebody had to do it, right? You know, living on the beach in Hawaii. Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Bus, can you get your violin out or and start playing like uh so you know I'm I want to take you back just a step.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Something I probably should have clarified.

SPEAKER_04 30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Uh mom passed several years ago. And uh she was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. Wow. Oh wow, full military honors, because at that point in her life, prior to getting asked to move on into a civilian life as a good officer's wife, the fact is she was a lieutenant in the United States Army. Right. And uh so she was interred in World War II battlefield nurse. Wow. So I uh and I will tell you, mom never talked about the horrors of combat. All she would say, and if I can get through this without crying, it'll be different. Uh all she would say is that the tough toughest job of an army nurse is to hold a soldier's hand on his last mission. Wow. Damn.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Not that that's man. That's deep.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

That's very deep.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Well, there are a lot of people that make very rural sacrifices for this wonderful country, and there's a lot of people who try to help them along the way.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah, no, of course.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

What's your mom's name?

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Teresa. God bless Teresa, man. Thank you. That's that just warms my heart to hear that. That's I mean, it's sad, but the sacrifices she made serving our country, and uh and there's you know, every time I there's hardly any World War II vets even on this walking this earth anymore. And when I when I run across one, I'm just like, I just want to like give him a big hug and thank him. It's like crazy.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Yeah, people realize that. So can I give you a mom story? Yeah, absolutely. And this is allegedly true. Uh, you know, I mean, in military parlance, when we sit around over an adult beverage, we require 10% truth. There's a lot more than 10% here.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Uh uh mom was just wrapping up her RN Nurse anesthetist training at Walter Reed. And there was in Baltimore, where she lived, a contest going on that I think today the closest we get is like America's Got Talent. And she loved to sing and dance, and she was a very, very lovely woman. And uh she entered the contest, and the first prize was a screen test in Hollywood, California. And she won.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

And she was awarded a screen test in Hollywood, and when they presented her with the screen test, she said, Oh, I can't do that. I'm I'm I'm a soldier, I'm deploying to Europe, and I'm gonna take care of soldiers in combat. And so she turned down that potential different vector in her life because her lexicon was one of service. And an interesting part of her service at the end of the Second World War is she was the nurse assigned to the Nuremberg trials.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

So she cared for the prisoners at that point. Now, something she would say is no, she did not help Goring get his pill. But the reality was before we hung these guys, we had to take care of them.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Wow, your mom was involved with that.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

That's wild. Wow. That's wild. Dang, dude. That's that's mind-blowing. So transition that to humor. Well, transition that to your I uh in then I can't let's let's hear it because you know me, I you and I have been friends for a while, and it's like my favorite fricking airplane in the history of the world is a B-52 bomber.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Well, because it is the best airplane in the world, and it was built in 1952. Yeah, the first uh flight of the B-52 has nothing to do with its moniker, but the first experimental test flight, 1952. And it's amazing to think that we built a bomber in the late 40s, early 50s.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

It's still flying.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

Still flying, and it's gonna fly projected for another 40 years. Forty years? And I'm taking book right now for going at least 10 years further.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Does that mean I have to keep driving my Fort Penno for 40 more years? Yeah, just don't get hit from behind. Yeah, the gas tape. How in the hell did you get Jester as a call sign and get into the B-52 bomber? That is what this segment's about. Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

So, Jester as a call sign, Bart, I love you like a brother, but you don't have enough alcohol in the speakeasy to get my call sign story out of me.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

Is it a top secret thing? Because remember, I told you I wanted top secret stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

It's sort of top secret. Actually, call signs are are not uh it's not like you walk in and say, Hey, I want to be called. Don't your compadres basically it's earned, yeah. They do it, and there's a naming ceremony, and of course that's all cla highly classified too. But uh basically your peers determine what you should be called. And and and there's a lot of importance in that call sign operationally. So if you're on the jet and things are going wrong, and we start calling each other Jester and whatever the other call signs are in the airplane, uh we know that we really need to listen.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

And we're gonna work through this thing, and and it's it's remarkable how well the crew concept works.

SPEAKER_04 36:32

And your and your your compatriots were not fans of like Top Gun or anything, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

That damn movie came out quite a bit after I got my call sign.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

I'm just making sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

A pox on those people who stole my call sign.

SPEAKER_04 36:49

Okay. All right. Do you well you get royalties?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

I wish.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

So you had to have a college degree to become an officer in the Air Force.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

And you went where?

SPEAKER_00 37:04

For college? Yeah. Oh, to Shamanade University in Hawaii. And I was dual enrolled at UH, University of Hawaii. Uh tough job again, but somebody had to do it. Uh Shamanad, by the way, has a bit of a reputation as a giant killer in the basketball world.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

So back when Ralph Sampson played for Virginia and they were number one in the nation and undefeated, they came out and played Shamanade for a warm-up game and got beat. So you know, it's just a little D3 school, but they're good people. I enjoyed Shamanad.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

So I I have had I have had questions because I I don't know anything about the ranking system in any military, really. Um can you for someone like me who does not know in what order some of this stuff goes or what is of importance, can you at least break down a little bit of what the ranking is in within the Air Force?

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Yes. So uh through officers training school, the goal is the gold bars, often referred to as the butter bars.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Butterbar, okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Right. Uh and that is the second lieutenant grade. And after two years as a second lieutenant, if you've kept your nose clean, you become a first lieutenant. After two years, you become a captain, and then you compete for the grade of major. After that, you compete for lieutenant colonel, and then you compete for colonel, and if you're remarkably fortunate, you compete for general officer.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

Okay. A lot of those sounded like they should be like reversed. It almost sounded like some of them like I thought always major was like up here. I thought that was like the the tippy top. And that's not.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Yeah, so interestingly, in military lexicon, the term lieutenant means preparatory or getting ready for. So if you look at the general officer grades, you start as a general as a brigadier general, and in tradition, you're a general who ran a brigade. So you were a brigadier general. And uh then you become a major general. After that, you become a lieutenant general. It seems odd that you're stepping back. Again, it's that preparatory term. Right, okay. Because you're a lieutenant general, because you're being prepared to become a full general, a four-star general.

SPEAKER_04 40:01

Okay. Is in four-star is like the maxed out that you can be, or under current guidance, yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Okay. During the Second World War and shortly thereafter, we had a five-star general position called General of the Army or Admiral of the Fleet. Okay. Uh those grades are not used any longer.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Um, probably because of the pay grade. No, I I I don't know. Yeah, uh by the way, something to understand about the military in general is there's a remarkable amount of dedication among senior officers because if you think of it, a general officer probably hits the federal pay cap when they are a lieutenant general. And they stay in service and get promoted and get more work and more responsibility and more things to do, sure, but no more money because we've run out of that money, and uh uh you know, Congress sets the rates for all these things. And a general officer, a full four-star general, makes probably about what a uh junior VP at uh Ford Motor Company makes. So uh the reality is uh there are fiscal challenges out there, but the you know the country doesn't have unlimited proceeds, and I understand it. I I only say that not to compete for more salary for general officers, I say that to say at the end of the day, we have remarkably dedicated men and women serving this country and they don't do it for money.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Yeah. So anyway, so we kind of skipped over this, but you you join the Air Force and then you work your way up as an officer, as uh you start off as a lieutenant. Second lieutenant. Second lieutenant, first lieutenant, uh eventually. And then Captain. Captain, and then Major. Major. And then when you retired in the Air Force after how many years?

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Twenty-eight years.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Twenty-eight years. God bless you, man. Thank you for your service to our country, man. That's that's you got out as I believe you told me a lieutenant colonel. That's correct. Which is pretty badass. I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

Now that I know the ranking system, yeah, it's pretty badass.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

And then you retired from the Air Force, and then you went into what to get to the be being called General Davis Smith. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

So um I had a rare opportunity. I was offered a commission with the uh California Guard, the State Guard, and uh a command billet associated with them. Uh but it's a part of the California Military Department. There are three legs of the California Military Department the Army National Guard, the Air National Guard, and the State Guard. So I sit in the State Guard and I was humbled to be promoted in command to full colonel, and then a few years later was picked up as a general officer.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

I'm gonna pay uh Jester a a huge compliment, I think, his wife will agree who's in the audience here tonight. I have seen you at events here in the Antelope Valley where you are you are a rock star. We already said this. You still fit into your general uniform pretty nicely. You're damn right. You know what you're not like sucking it up or anything. You're like, what the hell? 'Cause I know a lot of guys that get out of the military and they can't they could not to save their life put their uniform back on.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Well, it's because my beautiful bride Denise makes sure I stay lean. I I think she'll pick me right to the curb.

SPEAKER_01 43:59

Or does she Does she constantly have to take your uniform to the tailor and have it like Oh no? She's laughing.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

No, that is not.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

God bless you, man. But um okay, so that's badass. Now, let's go back in time and tell me about the B-52 thing because, like I said, my favorite movie of all time is Doctor Strangelove.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

That's a documentary, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Okay, it's a it is it's a quasi-documentary. I think the B-52 bomber is the baddest ass airplane ever built by the United States military. And like you said, it's still flying and it's gonna fly for 40 frickin' more years.

SPEAKER_04 44:38

Also the most baddest assed uh group, musical group, the B-52s.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. How did you forget about the B-52s? I don't know, man. Should we play some B-52 music right now?

SPEAKER_04 44:48

Go ahead. Sing some B-52s right now.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

I yeah, no. Is it a Love Shack? Was that what Yes? The Love Shack. Rock Lobster? Yeah, we do Love Shack. No, anyway, so how did you get into the B and by the way? I you've told me I want to I still get on a B-52 and just walk around and see if it's the same thing with negative function, sir.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

So uh I don't know how you walk around a B-52. There's no place to walk around and crawl. It's a very, very compressed aircraft. There's there's very little room to win. Yeah, talk about that for a minute. So um I met with my recruiter at uh Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, uh setting up for this quote officer program. Uh because at that time, uh, other than going and enlisted, and by the way, I have nothing but respect for the enlisted force, uh, they are remarkable at what they do, those men and women who do the hard work, the wrench mending, the the backbone of all of our militaries. But I I went into the Air Force uh and my recruiter, and and by the way, there's an interesting thing about recruiters there's a way you can figure out when a recruiter is lying to you, and that's that his or her lips are moving. So uh uh the recruiter said to me, uh, because I had said that I was concerned about leaving Hawaii and wanted to come back to Hawaii and I'll join the Air Force, but I want to be in Hawaii. I was very rooted in Hawaii and the family, the Ohana was in Hawaii. And uh the recruiter said, no problem. We can guarantee you'll be back in Hawaii very quickly because uh you're gonna fly C-130s right here doing what we call satellite recovery out of hickam. And it makes sense for the Air Force to bring you back here because if you separate and you're in Hawaii, then the Air Force doesn't have to pay to move you back to Hawaii. You're here. And I thought that's a good plausible lie. Uh that works. And then when I finished flight school at Mayher Air Force Base, I was assigned to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota as a bombardier navigator on B-52s.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

And I loved it. There there was sticker shock. I I I really thought I was getting something else, but I've got to tell you, once I learned the mission, once I met my crew, once I saw the combat effectiveness we did for the United States of America, I was all in.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Yeah. That kind of changed like air warfare, that plane, did it not? Like it kind of like because it got into like like radar systems and like more advanced radar systems, I should say. Like that kind of like changed the whole air war air warfare a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

So to some extent, but at the end of the day, the B-52 is about combat effectiveness. The the B-52 has morphed and changed in what it did. Uh the days I was originally flying the B-52, it was a nuclear platform. Again, I can't confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons. But it is now a conventional workforce. And uh what we do in B-52s today in combat is pretty darn remarkable with what we do for that young eighteen-year-old soldier on the ground who maybe needs some close air support from way up high. And my respect for the fighter workforce is huge, but an F-16 runs out of gas over a target very, very quickly. A B-52 can only loiter until, you know, Thursday at three o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:02

Well, um I I'm gonna I have a question. Yes. So, because I like to uh I like to check people's humble meters.

SPEAKER_05 49:11

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 49:11

Yeah, it's one of my favorite things to do. Um you have obviously had a very illustrious career in the Air Force, and you also have a very long list of accomplished accomplishments and awards uh that you have uh accrued over your time. Do you have a acknowledgement or a medal or award that meant something to you or was important to you? A lot of people, you know, I've asked, and they're like, oh no, I'm not doing it for the medals. But that's not what I'm asking. It's just was there something that you received or any type of acknowledgement that meant something to you that holds dear to you?

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_04 49:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Uh so good question, Justin.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

So not me. The crew I was a part of.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

So it's not me. It's a crew. Okay. It's six people on the jet getting stuff done.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

And uh the salient point I'm getting to is we had the rare opportunity to compete out of uh compete, excuse me, on a Fairchild Air Force base in a thing called Strategic Air Command's bombing and navigation competition.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

And in the history of bomb comp, uh no wing had ever won more than three of the eleven different awards that are presented. Okay. And we had the rare opportunity at a Fairchild with a remarkable crew that surrounded me and somehow kept me out of trouble. We uh we kind of swept the table at BombComp and we won nine of eleven of the awards. Okay. With the capstone being what's called the Fairchild Trophy, which is the best in the command.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And uh that that particular event was recognized by our commander-in-chief at the time, it was Ronald Reagan. And in a speech in Spokane, he uh took the time to say in special congratulations to that crew from Fairchild Air Force Base that won bomb com.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

That was your crew. Our crew. Yes, amazing. When the President of the United States says something like that, wow.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

Yeah, very humbling experience. I was surrounded by five other guys that that did amazing work, and I got to be one of the six on the airplane. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

That's incredible. So I like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Uh we're getting kind of close to the end of this segment, but um so how did your career in the Air Force kind of come to a winding kind of finish?

SPEAKER_00 52:10

So uh I was out there on that exchange tour with the Army as what's called an ALO an air liaison officer. So my job is to provide close air support for our amazing dynamic soldiers on the ground so that they would have uh airborne artillery, basically, available with great precision so that we don't have soldiers die in combat. We can take out enemy assets. Uh but I was in the capacity as an instructor there teaching the army how to use close air support effectively. So that was pretty remarkable. And I did uh 30 rotations in the desert with those amazing soldiers at the National Training Center at Ford Owen outside of Barstow. And uh i it it's tough work, yeah. It's tough duty. But it was very uh eye-opening. And uh note for me is the last time you come out of the range on your last rotation, you are given an opportunity to get on our radio channel and talk to all the other observer controllers, and you're an observer controller, and uh request what's called a call sign change. So your call sign will go, my call sign at the time was Raven Zero Two, and your call sign will be changed to Raven Zero Two Ancient. So you're always part of the Brotherhood Sisterhood family of the National Training Center, but you're no longer actively on the range. So I had prepared my little speech. And when I was ready crossing what we call the light line, when you're on the range, your lights are all off. When you go back into garrison, you turn your lights on when you cross the quote light line. And uh I keyed my mic proudly with my speech in front of me and I broke into tears and I couldn't read it because I realized that these soldiers worked so hard for this remarkable country that and in a small way I was a tiny part of that. And maybe we made our collective force better. It was hard.

SPEAKER_02 54:38

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

I'm literally looking at you right in your face right now and just seeing the the love you have for um No, yeah, you can all you know, and it's like I I I'll just say this real quick like the the the soldiers, the sailors, the Marines, they they they give each other crap, they they jokingly, but when when when when sorry, when the shit hits a fan, it's like no, we're we're we're a team, we're we're we're all together, and you know so I see it a bit like a family, and and I grew up in a family with with three brothers, and uh we squabbled constantly, but you pick on one of my brothers, you're picking up the same thing with the military. It doesn't matter what the branch is, right? Exactly. But yeah, you you get in a bar with uh some Marines and you're gonna you probably like you know make fun of them and stuff with their crayons and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Oh no, they made fun of me. Well, they're gonna make it fun.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

So the the last day tell us about the last day of your career in the Air Force and how that felt to you and and how that how that even worked out. Like you just it's your last day, and you're just like, oh, see you later. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yeah, yeah, so it was hard. Um I I was fortunate to get a Finny flight on an F-16. And uh so this was my send-o, and uh it it was kind of humorous because my beautiful wife was in the tower with my dad. And my dad was about ninety at the time, and my dad was having a little problem with the big tower binoculars. And if you've ever been in air traffic control tower, these binoculars are huge, right? They they these aren't the little handheld in the field guys, you know? And and here the uh tower controller is saying, Well, father's name is Gene. Hey, hey, hey hey, Gene, he's right over there. And my my father would look at a spot in the space, and then here he goes by, and he'd still be looking there, and he'd thought, no, no, no, no. You need to you need to turn your head, and and uh we were doing what's called a tower flyby, which frankly is a lot of fun. It's close to the ground and real fast. Yeah, and yeah, we we had the opportunity to go supersonic, which B-52 will not do.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Uh maybe it'll do it once as it's impacting the ground. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

About eight, um you know me, I'm a pilot in air traffic. About eight four? What how fast are the point eight four Mach is limiting on a B-52? Okay, that's pretty fast, though. Okay. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

So your last day?

SPEAKER_00 57:26

Yeah, so uh uh that wrapped up and uh getting off the airplane, having my bride and my dad douse me in cheap champagne and water and uh that sucks.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

Cheap champagne? They couldn't even like shell out for like some high-end.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

It was that cheap stuff. They're dumping it on the ground mostly.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

You're gonna get like dump hair and own to dump on the ground? He's getting cooks? Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

I think it was Andre.

SPEAKER_04 58:00

Oh my god, that's all right.

SPEAKER_01 58:02

So you finish off your career with getting dumped with Andre on the tarmac?

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

And then what did it feel in your heart? Like, my God, how many years have I dedicated my life to this this country, and this is my last day? Crazy, right?

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Yeah, it was a challenge. And uh we uh we relaxed at the club thereafter, and I I might have had an adult beverage that night. I'm not quite entirely certain. I uh uh there there was a very large reception prior to the flight that I I was so humbled to see that my teammates, uh even some of those guys from Fort Irwin came out and it was standing room only. It was just very, very humbling and uh also misplaced because never once in that bomber did I do anything without a crew. Never once.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

No.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Well did you ever have the guy in the back say negative function, sir?

SPEAKER_00 59:09

No, you're going back to that documentary, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

If anybody's ever watched that movie. Oh man. Why do you call it a documentary?

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Uh it's just I I think what Peter Sellers and that crew did uh was pretty remarkable.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Yeah. Well, Slim Pickens mostly on the plane.

SPEAKER_00 59:28

Yeah, yeah. The aircraft commander from hell. Uh who rode the bomb down. Yes. Somebody that blew up.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

Which I don't think really happened, but yeah. Yeah, smoothies and shit.

SPEAKER_04 59:42

All right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take one more segment break and we're gonna come back. We're gonna finish up with Jester. Uh, we got some fun things planned for you. Um I know this was all boring. Um, but we got stuff planned now.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Why do I feel very afraid?

SPEAKER_04 59:58

You should be. Alright, uh, we will be right back, Deep Divers, after this. Hey, Deep Divers. For 14 years, Bravery Brewing Company has been a cornerstone of the Antelope Valley, serving up award-winning beer alongside some seriously craveworthy eats. From handcrafted pizzas to chicken wings and giant soft pretzels paired with irresistible dipping sauces. There's something for everyone. Kickback and enjoy the laid-back atmosphere. Whether you're hosting a company party, celebrating a birthday, or gathering with fellow baseball fans to catch a Dodgers game on the brand new big screen TVs out on the back patio. Bravery Brewing Company isn't just a brewery, it's the place to be. For more information, visit Braverybrewing.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

Hey, welcome back to the uh this is so exciting. This is the best part of our show. Uh and uh I should say our podcast. We're podcasting here. In the speakeasy. In the speakeasy. In the seeker speakeasy. Deep diving. Deep diving into Jester. Jester, Dr. David Smith. I'm sorry. General Dr. David Smith. You have too many freaking titles. Have you ever thought about that?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

Yeah, so my daughter has a plan. My daughter has the plan that I should get a divinity degree so I could be the Reverend Dr. General.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

Oh. That's cool. That's one more. Well, like that. I'll tell you what. It's got a good ring to it. When that happens, we'll we'll invite you back, right? Yeah. Awesome. So our our the last segment of our podcast, which uh this is our first one, but yeah, it's it's the funnest one. So if you guys are still listening out there and nobody's fallen asleep yet. Yeah, yeah, probably. For the two or three of you that are still listening to this podcast, it's uh the my favorite part, I think. Although this is our first time doing this. Yeah. Anyway, so we are gonna um transition into the most I would say the most interesting part of uh my friend Jester's life as uh civilian, which this guy um when I first met him was like, I can't believe I'm meeting this gentleman. He's like, he's a freaking general, he's a freaking doctor, he's like one of the most famous people in the Antelope Valley, and so we're gonna hear that part of the story. And then we have this like quick QA thing at the end, it's kind of interesting. So, but what we want to do, uh by the way, um before we get into this, uh our friend Buzz was delivering drinks and spilled wine all over all of us. And uh are you Define all of us I think it just I think it was just one of us. Mostly you.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Yeah. I am my own Cabernet Savignon right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Don't don't don't try driving home tonight with well, I think your wife. Yeah, I'm gonna sit in the back seat for sure. Yeah, you're you're gonna get a instant DUI if you get pulled over and you got like wine all over.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:04

It's my first and only show.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

Yeah, but Buzz, you know, but he's got well God bless you, Buzz. You got two left hands. I get it, man. He was trying to do his thing, and it's like kind of got weird, and yeah, he flipped a glass of wine all over us and stuff. But anyway, Buzz is a very good year.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:21

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

Yeah. So what the crowd didn't hear was Buzz said, Sir, I've never quite done this before.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

Anyway, we're back. We're back for the last segment of the podcast here. And we are, I mean, if if if we are lucky enough to have people like you on our on our podcast, we're gonna be a big hit. I mean, it's gonna be right up there with uh who's that guy, what's his face? The guy that's really famous and stuff. Um, you know, whatever. Never mind. We'll we'll be more we'll be better than that. So anyway, the way we want to finish this off is we we we want to really finish up the last part of your civilian thing when I met you, and which is amazing. And go for it, man. You got out of the Air Force, and then what happened?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:16

Life began, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

Yeah, life began. I was uh senior civilian for the Department of the Air Force, and I was humbled to do that. I mean, it was awesome, right? Uh I loved it, and then uh the rare opportunity came up to uh potentially go to Mojave Air and Spaceport and be the CEO of the Air and Spaceport. And uh it was a period of time in my life when there were some challenges going on with the Department of Defense at the time, now the Department of War, that frankly boiled down to a lot of bureaucracy on programs we were working on. And and and these are great people doing great things. I don't impugn them, but the bureaucracy sometimes gets in our own way. And uh I had the opportunity to go to Mojave and take that over as a civilian, and uh to live in that environment where things work very, very fast, very, very efficiently with companies like scaled composite, Strato Launch, BAE Systems, Northrop, uh National Test Pilot School doing things that DOD could DOW today could learn a lot from because if you look at scaled composites, they occasionally go from a blank sheet of paper to first flight in under a year. Whereas the old uh military lexicon is that maybe a ten to twenty year program.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:54

You know, I mean when I came over to the flight test world, uh I learned very quickly in my In brief, uh, the guy that actually brought me in said, Jester, you gotta get used to this because uh programs that used to be turned in years, we're now doing in mere decades. And and it's true, yeah you know, we are slow, we're cumbersome. Uh we are getting better. Uh many of our new programs are making it better. But the opportunity to go to Mojave and literally run fast with scissors was exciting.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:32

It's always fun to run with scissors.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:36

I've been telling myself that for a very long time.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

I think Buzz was holding some scissors when he tried to drop off my tried to drown me in wine.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

Drown you. Buzz. Um so civilian life, life started, but so did maybe golf. How's your golf? How's your retired golf game? Wait, golf? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:00

You play golf. I I don't know that you could say I play golf. Uh so I figured out a long time ago that the fun in golf was swinging the club and hitting the ball. That's the fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

This ridiculous pro-philosophy that hitting it less than anybody else, in other words, having less fun than anybody else, is stupid. Right? You know? So I enjoy the fact that I get to hit the ball a hundred times in 18 holes. On a good day with a tailwind.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:35

Do you see somebody's face in the ball and then you just negative. I feel like that's a lie. No, no, no. Everyone does it, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

Everyone's got a little face that they'll put on there and they just I have enough trouble figuring out how to get the club face against the ball.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:55

Safe answer. I like to.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:56

Actually, have we ever played golf?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:58

We have.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Did he beat you?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:03

No, we were at a tournament at the Antelope Valley Country Club together. Uh I believe sponsored uh by Lockheed Martin.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

God bless Lockheed Martin.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

Okay. It was so memorable I don't even remember it. But no.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:24

That's why I'm saying he probably beat you and you don't want to remember it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Okay, uh, whatever, man. Golf, golf is golf, man. Golf is golf. Golf is golf. So that's the end of your career, like no, that that's up to date. Because you also were at plant 42, too. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

2-2. No, 42.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

You were at plant 42, too. That my God. You were at plant 42 also. Yes. Yes. And that was another big part of your life, too. Because I was actually at the going away ceremony that they did for you. And uh, you know, you're you're so beloved in this community. It's like you're being so humble. You're such a humble guy, but you're you're like a rock star in this community, and you know everybody, and it's like, wow. So you also did Plan 42, so don't gloss over that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

Yeah, if Plan 42 was a remarkable experience. The problem was coming home from work and having my beautiful wife look at me and say, How was work today? And I'd say, Fine. And she'd say, What did you do? And I'd say, I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:35

Oh, okay. That's why okay, all right. We'll skip over the plant 42 stuff. Which for people listening to this podcast, plant 42, and I know this is uh air traffic controller. Oh my god. Hold on, whose phone is that? Oh, it's mine. Hold on a second.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

Bart Annabeth Avery, I swear to God.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

Hey, if you need to take the call, go ahead. Yeah, you gotta step aside, man. You're you're you're busy. You're a busy man. Big important man.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

No, it literally, my phone starts ringing and says, like, oh, um, no, I can't even say it. It's classified. Yeah, I'm gonna just like you, it's classified. Anyway, so so yeah, no, Plant 40s used to. I uh I get it. But anyway, so you you had an amazing frickin' career, and now what we're gonna do, uh did we cover everything? If we didn't, you're gonna have the chance at the end to throw some other stuff in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:35

Yeah, you'll get a little segment. We got a little thing in there. We got a little fun thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

Uh we have we have some fun things.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

So this is the this is the five interesting things um about you that maybe not a lot of people know. Maybe even your closest people don't know. And you pre gave them to us. Pre-gave them to us? That might be a that might be a sentence that people say at some point in their life.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:01

So the first one is um this is weird. Stripper show at uh da da da da. Oh no, that's the that's the next guest.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

And I'm sorry, that's classified.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:14

There's more of that top secret shit that I'm just not gonna get any answers with.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

Okay, so we ask, I'm sorry, uh the stripper show, that was a joke. Sorry. Yeah, you know. Really, really funny. You know my simple. I know you can't stop. Actually, uh uh for those listening to the podcast, we have actually have an audience. We have an audience they're being very quiet. Uh, of course, uh our buzzer over there who buzz is like is he besides having two left hands, is he is can he what's the word we can't talk? You're deaf done. Is it mute? Is he mute? He is a mute. I think he's mute. Yeah, he never talks. We we always ask him a question, and he's like he nods at us. He just nods his head, and that's fine. Yeah. By the way, I need hey, don't spill wine, but I need another okay, he's yeah, some more wine. Okay, there you go. Anyways, so anyway, I got the thing here, and it's like, okay, so five questions. So we asked uh Jester before he came in here to send us some really interesting uh facts in his life that nobody knows, including his wife. She's she's glaring at me right now. Okay, uh they're all they're all they're all like uh nothing really crazy. So you were all Hawaii. This blows my mind. You were all Hawaii third place color belt, which I don't know what that means. And karate.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Yeah, so uh again, uh remarkable experience to uh uh learn a unique art and science of physical combat. And uh I had the opportunity to be well coached and well trained, and uh in tournament in Hawaii got up to third place. Uh I think the judge on the last match might have missed a couple of my strikes that I did very effectively, but yeah, wound up in third place and uh and uh you know very humbling experience once again uh because great people doing great things, and I I was uh had the opportunity to do well.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:32

So if if if the three of us were to get in uh into a little like skirmish with you, you would just totally kick her ass.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:39

Yeah, I don't need to do that, but I will.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:42

Yeah, yeah, that's good to know, man. I mean, honestly, yeah. I'm terrified. I'm not gonna I'm I me too, man. I'm not gonna.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:48

Yeah, careful of the questions. Yeah, question number two shouldn't be that bad. Well, question Well is not even a question. This is a this is just a factual thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:56

It's a factual statement. So, and you touched on this before, but actually I don't think you covered it enough where Justin and I can really kind of go after it a little bit. So you said that you were you worked as a marketing agent, marketing agent, which means you never drank actually the product, but you were a marketing agent for Jack Daniels in Hawaii. And uh go back into that a little bit. I mean, I think you kind of glossed over it a little bit. Like to me, it's like you're working for freaking Jack Daniels. If I was working for Jack Daniels, and how old were you? You were like in your twenties.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:35

About 25 at the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:37

Okay, so were you like getting the free samples and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:43

Uh yeah, no. Uh yeah, no. But uh it they are actually a very remarkable company to work for, remarkably ethical, remarkably hard high demands on their employees, uh, remarkably high standards. Again, as I touched on earlier, they they revel on the fact that they're a fine sipping Tennessee whiskey. And if if you choose to be someone who uh wants to be a slithering drunk, you'll find yourself unemployed very, very quickly. Yeah, they have very, very high standards, and uh they're a remarkable company. I will tell you this about Jack Daniels. As I alluded to earlier, they said, hey, we're gonna do a uh severance package. They did. But kind of a cool thing is about a week before my commissioning in officers training school, before I earned that gold bar, that quote butter bar, uh So wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:52

The what the frickin' heck is the butterball?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:56

Okay, not butterball, that's a turkey. Bart, that's a turkey, a butterbar, Lieutenant Car Colonel, uh Lieutenant. Oh, I'm sorry, butterball.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Okay, I I yeah I okay, my bad. Butter. I uh so Sandra and I, my wife, my beautiful wife, was also in the audience. We just did a while back, we had uh a butterball turkey turkey, so when you said that, I'm sorry. It's it's butter, it's butterball or butterbar?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:25

What is butter bar, a loot uh a gold bar, a lieutenant's bar. By the way, totally respectable. Uh no, they're I apologize.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

I I I think we are gonna have to cut this out of the program. I I I'm so embarrassed. What did I say? Butterball? Yeah, you did. Butterball.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:43

What's the freaking difference between a butter ball and a butter bar? Well, well, the butterball you put in front of you on a Thanksgiving table, the butter bar you pin on your shoulder. Uh I will never make that mistake again.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

I swear to you, I am so embarrassed. What did I say? Butterball. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:04

Anyhow, you you talked about Jack Daniels. Uh it it's an interesting thing. About a week before I commissioned, I got a handwritten letter at Officers Training School from the distillery. And and it was this is way before computer generation or AI, so it was actually handwritten. And in this letter is a handwritten note from the distillery that basically says we're we're here to congratulate you on becoming an officer in the United States Air Force. And here's a little something to just help you out as you get started. And there was a handwritten check from the distillery for $500. You know, they just uh it i it it's special. It's special for anyone to say thank you to you. And uh now here they are, dumb as a fox. They got me still marketing for Jack Daniels, and they're not paying me anything. By the way, they also gave me a one square inch piece of land in Lichburg, Tennessee. Oh, that's nice. How much is that worth? Oh, uh i I gotta tell you, I'm not gonna sell it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:19

Uh-uh, I'll give you 50 bucks. Ain't gonna happen. Okay, so number three. Number number three. Number three. We have a music for this thing. So you now this one I think is gonna pique somebody's interest more than the butterball or butterball thing, whatever the LOS. Butterbar. I'll never make that mistake again, I swear to you, sir. You were a licensed pyrotechnician. Pyrotechnician in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:58

Yeah, so I was involved in the.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:00

What the hell is that all about?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:01

I was involved in an organization called the JC's, which is a remarkable organization. I mean, great leadership, learning, development thing for people getting into business. The paradigm back then is it was the quote junior chamber of commerce that was called the JC's. And uh one of our big events every year was a fireworks show done off of Flat Island in Kailua Bay as a donation to the community. So we would do a pretty cool fireworks show. Uh the problem was is we needed a pyrotechnician. I didn't even know what the heck that was, but we needed a pyrotechnician to sign for all the explosives because at the end of the day, these these fireworks are explosives. And so I had to go get licensed by the state so I could be the guy to sign for the pyro that we would then go out on Flat Island. Uh by the way, they don't do it on Flat Island anymore. It's now a bird sanctuary. Uh but somebody had to sign for those explosives so we could do this remarkable show for the community, and I became the guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:26

That's pretty that's pretty fucking cool to me. I don't know. That's I need to work with with fireworks legally.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:33

Uh i i i these things are basically mortar rounds.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:38

I mean, they this is a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:41

Yeah. I mean.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:44

You could you can operate them today, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:46

Uh absolutely. There you go. I'm the I'm your guy. You want to do some here tonight?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:51

Yeah, we can go up front and we can pop some off. I'm sure the neighborhood won't mind. We didn't put out any memos or anything, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:56

Absolutely, but Buzz can Buzz could take care of that for us. No, he cannot explore faces off.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:04

My God.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

Buzz! The hell's up with us, spill in the water.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

Number four.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:10

Number four. You skip okay, this this tells me you are a frickin' smart guy. You skipped your senior year of high school. You skipped your senior hill uh year of high school. And you it's funny, he uh for for a guy to ski It's funny I'm reading this off the tax medicine. He said we spelled wind instead of went. So I'm not sure about a spell checker thing. You wind, you went direct to college and you study chemistry at age 16. What kind of chemistry? What w tell talk did you not go to your senior year? You were so smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:57

Well, I didn't go to my senior year, and um I was like, you were dating dating some girl or something, or what I wish uh but if I had to relook at various areas of my life that maybe I would have wanted to do differently, this is maybe one of them. So I I went into college at 16. I didn't fit in at college. Wait, you went to college at 16 or you graduated high school at 16?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:23

No, I went into college at 16.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:25

That's correct. I'm sorry, I gotta stop. Isn't that like unbelievable? Oh no, a lot of guys do it a lot younger than me. There's a whole bunch of Nobel laureates coming in at age 12. All right, all right. All right, general. But but the reality was uh there was a challenge there with maturity. So I didn't quite fit in in the college group. I no longer fit in with my high school group because I was now a high school student. Uh sorry, a college student, and my high school guys were having all these great parties and fun, and I was out there studying exams and doing lab work and a chemistry degree. Um I don't know, you know, history's history. Yeah. Um it just put me in an awkward place in my life. But the reality was uh I was given this opportunity and I decided the right thing to do is let's put the throttles against the firewall and let's move forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

Unbelievable, man. I'm telling you, like I grew I think when I graduated high school uh high school, I was like 20 or 21. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:41

On that point, number five.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:43

Number five! Okay, this is this goes hand in hand. You were an adjunct professor at Cal State University. Bakersfield.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:57

I know it's a big word, Bart. It's kind of hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:00

Well, it could have been it could have been it could have been Berk it could have been it it it it just says C USB. I'm assuming it's Bakerfield, not Berkeley. Because I don't know if you're that much of a freaking smart guy. Uh yeah, okay. Let's just say uh C S U B. Uh you're an MB you're teaching MBA classes at Cal State University Bakersfield.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:24

I mean, that's wow. So I enjoy it. Uh the only reason I teach as an adjunct, I I basically am an academic prostitute. Uh if you pay me, I'll teach.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:38

So uh, you know, but uh I've never heard that terminology before until right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:44

But I will tell you in all seriousness, I've I've actually offered to uh teach for them pro bono, but rules in California is you can't do that, so I need to be compensated. It i i it it's pennies on the hour, but I love the opportunity to share, mentor, grow people in our society as a total. And if I can help people work towards their MBA degree, uh I'm just honored and humbled to do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:13

There you go. I like it. All right, Jester. This is this is this is the last call. Okay. The last call. The last call.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:21

Yeah, because we we've I I got another 45 minutes. No, no, but but but well the reason we call it last call is because Buzz leaves now. Yeah, he's off the clock now. He if you need one more drink, he it's last call. Do you need do you need are you good?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:36

I I'm totally fine. I'm a little worried if Buzz starts leaving, which is what he's gonna knock over next. I know freaking Buzz.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:45

I'm terrified to be quite honest with you. Um so in this segment, really quick, these are gonna be uh lightning fast responses here. Uh yes, exactly. Well, not so much. Um gonna we're gonna go through these lists of questions here, um, and then our final part is gonna be just for you to uh kind of if there's anything that you want to spill your guts on, you got a couple minutes to do that, but we'll get we'll get to that in a second. Um so first question on this list what's your go-to cocktail?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:12

I think we've already heard that, but well, I uh my wife, my beautiful bride Denise, makes the best beef eater martinis on the face of the earth.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:25

There it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:26

And when she greets kidney Bait Buzz, can you hang out for a second? I'm gonna have one of those. When she greets me coming home from a long day with the martini, it's very comforting.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:38

That's good. That's great. Uh question number two. What's your favorite sport to watch on TV?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

I like football, and I'm uh a bit of a fan of the uh remarkably unsuccessful Dallas Cowboys. Uh you know, as a matter of fact, I like the old joke about the Dallas Cowboys of the guy who passes away and he tells his wife, please, please, please, I want my pall bearers to all be Dallas Cowboys players so they can let me down just one more time.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:13

And as a Philadelphia Eagles fan, I appreciate that. Yeah. Um, if you could have a drink with any historical figure, alive or dead, doesn't matter, who would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:25

That's an interesting question. I need to think about it for a second, but let me let me go with this. I I think General Patton from the Second World War won dad served in Patton's Third Army.

unknown 1:27:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:42

And probably had something to do with the relief of some little city in Belgium called Baston at the end of the war. Uh but I I liked Patton's overall military philosophy of uh How do we effectively grow combat capability? And his mentality is soldiers do two things. They fight and they train. And I like that. If you're not fighting, you're training. Yeah. And that extends to anything we do.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:17

That's true. Good point. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:21

Next question. Who's your favorite musical artist?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:25

Oh, it's gotta be the Beach Boys. I mean, I mean, gotta be the Beach Boys. I I mean they were so charismatic in everything we did. And living in Hawaii at the time and that beach mentality and that that whole attitude of uh let's let's enjoy life.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

Wouldn't it be nice?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:51

Wouldn't it be nice? Oh my god. Yeah, I'm with you on that, brother. And frankly, that relates to my military background because if you do things well as a military, our public gets to surf, relax, and enjoy. And that's wonderful. That's what we're about.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:11

I like it. All right. Uh what's your favorite place to travel for a weekend getaway?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:16

So uh I'm not allowed to pick this. My wife picks this.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:20

That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:21

So uh she has told me that my favorite place to go to, and by the way, she's right, it was wonderful, is Bruges, Belgium. It is just a very, very special place. And uh when you think of this town in Belgium, and you think that even Hitler during the horrors of the Second World War did not raise Bruges because he thought it was simply too beautiful, is very special.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:53

Bruges. I love that one, man. If you were to host a speakeasy like this, where it's very top secret, and by the way, you're sworn to secrecy where we are tonight. What would be the secret password to get into the speakeasy?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:14

Oh, jester. Oh, yeah, of course it was. Next.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:20

You kinda you kind of fucked up there because now you just gave everybody the password.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:25

It's gonna be actually gonna be something like jester one or just exclamation point.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:30

Somebody just says it randomly outside the speakeasy. Oh, have you met Jester? Yeah, come on in. Um next question. If you can instantly master any skill, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

Oh my goodness. I I I think I'd love to be better at people skills. I think I'm good at people skills, but I think people skills always have room for improvement. How I can grow and develop people in or outside of the military is my J O B. So I need to grow people every day. And any tools I can get to do that better, faster, more economically, is wonderful for the entire enterprise, whatever that enterprise is.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:13

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:15

Uh, we're almost done here. Hanging in there, brother. Thank you. What is something on your bucket list that you are determined to just cross off?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:28

Cross off.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

You mean a remote like I think the last one on your bucket list to do. Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:37

That's tough.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:38

Not like your hit list, like it's like a thing that you want to do. Not somebody that you want to.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

So uh it's simple, it's mundane, it's easy. Uh, due to some medical concerns of time, right now, my uh flight clearance from the FAA is in abeyance on a medical. And I've got an appeal working with the FAA. What I'd like to be able to do is is get in front of that forward facing window again with my hands on the throttle and push that jet into the air and and do that on my own. I'm I prior cleared to do that. By the way, total respect for the FAA and their rules. Uh I'm not complaining, but as we move on in life, I like the idea of looking out of that forward window of the aircraft versus being sitting in the back side of the aircraft looking out of the side-facing window.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:45

I like it. All right. Did I pass? Yeah, with flying colors. That's beautiful, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

I love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:51

Um what is the best concert you've ever been to?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:55

So there have been several. Uh, but I gotta tell you, a long time ago, I went to a Janice Joplin concert in Hawaii.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:06

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:06

And that thing was amazing. Uh, that woman was a entertainer uh beyond the spectrum of understanding what entertainers are. She worked for that crowd.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:23

Wow, man. I mean.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:26

Janice.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:27

No, I I grew up in that era too, man. It's like you saw Janice Chaplin.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:31

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:33

There it is. You got the last one, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:36

I got the last one.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:37

You get the last one. You're the honor of the last one.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:40

And then we're gonna we're gonna give Jester uh about 30 seconds or whatever we have last to finish off. Uh whatever you want to say, brother. But this is the hardest question I think we ask. And it's like, what's the best piece of advice you've ever ever received in your life, whether it's from your parents or friends or whatever?

SPEAKER_00 1:34:04

So uh I'm I'm gonna take this two ways. Uh when I was about a week short of commissioning to get that butterball, I I'm sorry, butter barb.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:16

Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:17

I apologize for the butterball thing. Um I'm a knucklehead. Yeah. So uh I'm an officer's training school, and I called my father back in Hawaii, who was a World War II battlefield commissioner, probably never saw anywhere inside of a college. I don't think he graduated from high school, but in the field he was commissioned based on his ability to lead, and he wound up making the United States Army an entire career instead of going back to the Beverly Wilshire or the St. Francis. He loved what he did, and he loved working with soldiers. And I asked my father, what do I have to do to be a success as an officer in the United States Air Force? Now, now you have to understand my dad a little bit. He's a very pensive man. You ask him a question, you might want to have a copy of War and Peace with you to read it while he thinks about his answer. Because he was a very pensive man. He fired back instantly. He said, You surround yourself with outstanding NCOs and you let them take care of you. And I I just believe that's absolutely right. I I believe he hit it. And uh I I will take they said it was a two-part thing. I will steal something from Michael Jordan in an interview where he was asked uh, you know, what what he does to be great on the court. And he said, It's not my job to be great on the court. My job is to make four other people great on the court. And in all seriousness, those methodologies have helped me to be a good teammate to great people around me that that have somehow humbly put me in the position I'm at at Mojave.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:26

I love it. That's great. I love it. Alright, man. This is it. This is your this is your moment to shine, even though you've been shining the whole entire uh show here. Uh so this is your moment to if there's something you want to plug, there's somebody you want to thank, or just something you want to say to the masses, this is your time. Uh you get let's give you a minute. However, whatever you want to say, whatever you want to do, this is your time. Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:52

Okay, honey. My my wife Denise is in the background. Can you bring out the 45 slides we have right now? No. Uh I I I think what capitalizes this all in a mentality, and and it it's humbling to me because I've been dealt with a great civilian workforce at Mojave, and my job there is again to do the same thing, create a great team, create opportunities for them to excel. But there was a day uh that I was flying, I was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, and what we would often do is go to Minot Air Force Base, where the B-52 simulators were. And uh we would do a lot of simulator training because apparently the United States doesn't want you to scatter nukes across the Midwest, you know, and and but we could do that in a training environment. And uh I I would often go there as a senior evaluator, what we call Stanaval, what civilians would call a Czech airman, and make certain people had the proficiencies to do their job. And I was leaving there in civilian clothes, and I'm on an airliner, commercial airliner, leaving my North Dakota, and a young man got on the airplane next to me. And and let me tell you, this young guy was some kind of excited. I mean, he'd come through a door in somebody else's push. He was fired up. And uh I happened to have the window seat in the front row, and he came over and he's gonna sit next to me, and he's looking out the window, and I said, Look, buddy, uh, i if you want the window seat, you can have it. I've seen my share of takeoffs and landings. And he said, Oh no, no, no. I'm just really excited. Uh you see, I'm going to Los Angeles for the Great Peace March. We're going to walk from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. for world peace and nuclear disarmament. What do you do for a living? And I said, I'm a bombardier on B-52. And uh we didn't talk for the rest of the day. But but I will tell you, and as I mentioned earlier, I'm K careful. I try not to proselytize, but I choose to lead my life one way. And and I actually, on my own, prayed for an opportunity to maybe touch this guy at some point. And when we landed at our intermediate destination, he reached out to me as a very nice young gentleman, and he said, Sir, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, but it's obvious we have very different values. And that was the opportunity. The opportunity to shake his hand and say, You haven't offended me, but I need to correct you. You see, our values are identical. We both want world peace and nuclear disarmament. What's different is our commitment. You're willing to walk across the country for it, and the men and women of the armed forces are willing to die for it. So it's about commitment. It's not about the mission. And uh if I had to offer to this austere group here, humbled to be here with y'all, it's that if if there's a lexicon I take, it's that we have remarkably young people that do remarkably huge sacrifice for this country every day. And to be somebody that is somehow called a leader in that, I'm just humble.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:59

Wow. I like it. You know what? I I just want to say this, uh, Jester. It's like it's such an honor to have you as our first guest here on the podcast. And uh man, you're a good friend, and uh everyone in this community that knows you who's listening to this podcast is gonna like say, like, wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:21

It's a hell of an opening show.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:23

It's a hell of an opening show.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:25

I like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:25

Well, hopefully it's not the closing show. I mean, uh let's let's hope not. No, it's I think we'll be fine. All right, so how do we end the show? I don't even know how we do this, man. It's like you end it. We end it. Okay, so we end it. You you be the last one to speak. No, I want Jester to be the last one to speak. Say, like, please listen in and something like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:51

Okay. Do what he says, man, or else he's gonna get pissed. Do your disc jockey voice era.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:56

I'll do my best disjockey voice, which I don't have. Uh Bravery Brewery. Thank you for hosting the news.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:04

No, it's not Bravery Brewery. We try to keep we try to keep this the bravery brewing parts out of it. It's it's just two guys interviewing you, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:14

Well, these two guys have humbled me. I I will tell you, yeah, we have very real sacrifices done by men and women every day, and we need to humble ourselves to that. Uh, how much time do I have? Can I do like 20 minutes? 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:34

No, the the well, Buzz is already like passed down the floor, I think.

unknown 1:42:39

Two minutes?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:40

Yeah, well. You were just given two minutes. Take it. It's a lot show. Excuse me, it's a first show. Don't say that segment of the first show. Take it. Good over to the board.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:51

So let's talk about a kid from Southern California. Here we go. You know what? Uh second generation Hispanic immigrant who joined our United States Marine Corps as an avenue towards citizenship for himself and his family. His name's Raphael Peralta. And my beautiful bride and I had the very rare opportunity to uh stand in for the Adjutant General of California at the commissioning of the early Birch uh destroyer Peralta. Raphael, as a young man, grew quickly in our Marine Corps and did great things. Uh he was horribly wounded in Fallujah, but when the grenade came into his battle position, he would not visit death on his marines and he huddled that grenade to his chest and he lost his life for this country. He is simply one example of thousands of examples, hundreds of thousands of examples of brave Americans that deserve so much more credit than I, who have who have paid remarkable sacrifice for this country. Uh Raphael, just a young guy who simply wouldn't let other Marines die that day. And okay, we named a ship after him. So uh I I I think I cannot give more credit than anyone to the methodology of where do we get such men and women? Where do we get them in this remarkable country? But they keep showing up every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:49

You know what, Jester, thank you so much for your passion in life and your passion for uh your service to our country, and I I can't thank you enough for being our first guest here on our podcast, and I think it's a big freaking deal to have you here.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:11

Oh yeah. No, yeah, I think that was I think that was a a beautiful way to end the first episode. Yeah, absolutely, man. Absolutely. Alright, man. Well Jester, thank you for for taking your time out of your uh very busy schedule for civilian life, right? To be here with us. Uh man, great first episode, guys. I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:35

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:36

Thank you. Alright, guys. Join us again. We'll uh we'll have information out on our socials. Follow us on Instagram, deep diving on the speakeasy. Uh we'll let you know weekly uh when um our new guest is gonna be on uh and when shows are going to be releasing. Uh give us a follow, give us a like, and we will see you guys on the next.