To Kill for Silence or Die for Mercy | S.O.S. #275

Patriotism looks easy from the stands. It looks clean on a jumbotron, polished in a flyover, and settled in a two-minute tribute. But when we turn service into a performance, we lose the only thing that can keep us honest: responsibility. Teresa sits down with retired U.S. Army Major and Afghanistan combat veteran Michael P. Hart to talk about the price of war that modern culture keeps editing out, and how that distortion harms the very people we claim to honor.

We move from the real mechanics of deployment and coalition operations to the ethical stress fractures that show up in information operations and rules of engagement. Michael shares why “multiple things can be true” is the only adult way to talk about sacrifice, trauma, and accountability at the same time. We also explore how Hollywood storytelling and national mythology, from Vietnam’s aftermath to today’s forever war, can preserve national will while blocking hard lessons about leadership, strategy, and moral injury.

Along the way, we unpack the tension behind simplified hero narratives like Lone Survivor, and we ask what happens when the public gets a clean story instead of a usable truth. We close with a challenge that goes beyond hashtags: show up, get involved locally, and treat civic engagement like a duty, not a vibe. If this conversation hits you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people hear the honest side of military service.

Stories of Service presents guests’ stories and opinions in their own words, reflecting their personal experiences and perspectives. While shared respectfully and authentically, the podcast does not independently verify all statements. Views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the host, producers, government agencies, or podcast affiliates.

Transcript

The Price Of War We Miss

SPEAKER_02 0:01

We live in a society where information is so fast moving, and none of us can keep up with everything that is being pushed out to us, whether that be in the form of advertising, whether that be in the news that we consume through all these different sources. And one of the things that I believe is so misunderstood is the price of war and the prices and the sacrifices that our service members endure to be in a combat zone or to serve in wartime. And I really appreciate the people like my next guest who take the time to study some of these ethical issues and really look firsthand about the disconnect between what we see in modern culture, what we see in our movies, what we see that gets played out in Congress, and then what really is happening to the men and women who serve day to day in uniform, on our staffs, on deployment, in shoreside locations, wherever they're serving, and often their experiences are not matching the myth or the stories that we are being told.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

And so we're going to dive into that today. And I just absolutely cannot wait to have Michael Hart on the show. Michael, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Doing really great this evening. I really want to say thank you for having me. It's a privilege to be able to share and to uh talk about some of these very delicate but um very impactful uh uh topics here that are applicable in our our uh current events.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Absolutely. Well, welcome to the Stories of Service podcast. Ordinary people would do extraordinary work, and I'm the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carter, and to get us started, as we always do, and we're gonna play an intro from my father, Charlie Pickard.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents, we are inspiring others. By showing up as a vessel of service, we not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS Stories of Service, hosted by Teresa Carpenter, here from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.

Meet Michael Hart And The Thesis

SPEAKER_01 2:16

And today we're going to break down what happens when patriotism becomes a performance rather than a responsibility. Retired U.S. Army major, combat veteran, entrepreneur, and philanthropist and author, author Michael P. Hart, will talk today of a candid conversation about war, heroism, leadership, and the stories America tells about itself. Michael served in the Illinois Army National Guard from 2004 to 2019. During his 2010-2011 deployment to Afghanistan, he served in Ghazi province along the Polish 17th mechanicized infantry brigade as part of Task Force White Eagle and Bilateral Embed Team Alpha 7. As a task force and engineering, he oversaw 54 infrastructure and engineering projects valued at more than 20 million while coordinating U.S., Polish, and coalition operations in one of the regional commands East's most active environments.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

His assignments included company commander, platoon leader, battalion training officer, information ops officer, force integration, readiness analyst, and strategic level staff officer. And his awards include two Meritorious Service Medals, two Army Commendation Medals, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Combat Action Badge, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with two campaign stars, and the German Armed Forces Proficiency Badge in gold. But today we're really going to be talking about some of these, some of these more delicate issues, like the relationship between professional sports, military symbolism, and manufactured patriotism. We're going to talk about the tributes that we see, the NFL and NASCAR tributes, and whether they're not that's really considered meaningful civic engagement, or do they actually leave room for us to really reflect on what we're doing when we're serving in a combat zone? And whether the mythology that surrounds the greatest generation, what got lost there in that complicated history when we just reduced it to a small, heroic national story.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And how do we reconcile the celebration of lone survivor with the counts of civilians killed near North Korea because their survival could expose a military operation? And today we're going to talk about that moral tension as a choice to kill for silence or die for mercy. Welcome again, Michael.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Again, thank you so much, Teresa, for having me. And what a welcome. We've got quite a bit to unload and talk about. Really excited. And I'd like to just take a moment to pause and kind of give our listeners here a moment to understand that we're going to be talking about some really delicate things. And family members, husbands, soldiers, sailors that were members, a part of these missions and some of these talks. We're not here to take them down, to talk them them down or their families, or take away from their sacrifice, nor get into some of the politics behind it. Multiple things can be true. So I think I just wanted to make sure again to preface that that um it is delicate, but I do appreciate our opportunity here to talk about some of those.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Absolutely. And I appreciate the beautiful way that you frame that. And I couldn't agree more with your sentiment regarding that. So I always ask my guests as we get these podcasts started,

National Guard Service And Poland Partnership

SPEAKER_02 5:25

where were you born and raised? And what made you decide to join the service to begin with? Yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

I was born a Hoosier. My family brought my sister and I early into Illinois when I was young and grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Attended Western Illinois University, was a law enforcement and justice administration graduate there, ROTC, distinguished military graduate. So while both learning to become and understand how law enforcement works in our country and also become a leader of soldiers, I had the opportunity to join and become a full-time member in the Illinois Army National Guard. And in a time during the global war on terror, where almost, I believe the number was 50% Iraq, the forces were a guard or reservists. So serving in the the Guard in the Reserve in a full-time capacity was such a gift. And it allowed the opportunity to work with soldiers with the traditional one week in a month, two weeks in the summer, while also supporting that Monday through Friday job that ensures that when soldiers do show up, that the commander's intent has been trained, that the facilities, the mission, the training, everything occurs. So that's really kind of a gift to have had service in the National Guard full-time with some of our nation's finest through the global war on terror. And mentioning I started in the field as a training officer, and that was a treat. And one of the things I had the ability there to be a servant leader was growing up, but also coming back to the flagpole, the division headquarters, so to speak, for the state, and working as a forced integration readiness analyst really provided an opportunity to understand from that division strategic level what we are purchasing, training, and doing with our soldiers. And that is from and soldiers and airmen. That's 10,000 soldiers, 10,300 roughly for the Illinois Army National Guard, and 3,000 airmen covering that uh joint force headquarters. And so that was quite a gift to work at that senior level, understanding that there are institutional impacts that affect your soldiers that show up in Monday. Sorry, you're you're two weeks in the summer, one week in the month. Sure. It allows us for a great juxtaposition for my career. And being, and I'll just briefly touch before we talk later about Afghanistan, the state partnership programs with the National Guards across the country. Illinois is partnered with Poland. And as recently, congratulations to Illinois, we have picked up Portugal, a second country. And so with that partnership, many people don't realize during the Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Poles, the Polish government sent the Polish Army contingent to serve with that group in Iraq, and then that transitioned to Afghanistan, where Illinois members such as myself were inserted as part of the Polish 17th mechanized staff in beds, not actually working directly in the chain of command. So it created a unique opportunity where, again, a younger officer such as myself found myself as a deputy task force engineer going out as a contract office representative once a week, but also into the field, but also having to talk to RC East's commander, who was then back briefing General Petraeus and the co-comp commander to the president. So that had a very unique, you know, here is here I was as a first lieutenant experiencing things in the field throughout the week, but then all of a sudden trying to relay that information, you know, to to where there's traditionally two or three more layers of insulation for that information kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Well, I don't want yeah, I always find in the heat of the battle when the proverbial shit hits the fan, people start to fall into a different routine or a different rhythm. I noticed that early on in my career, 2002, 2003, in the lead up to the war in Iraq, we were the first aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, who went in for combat operations. And the pace of the maintenance on the aircraft work was radically different from what it was during peacetime in terms of what we would call an up aircraft, what we would call a down aircraft, how many layers of contingency maintenance that needed to be in the ready to properly get an aircraft safe to fly.

SPEAKER_04 10:44

People don't realize how many enablers, logisticians, ammunition specialists, the amount of for every quote unquote trigger puller or Hollywood person we see, there are literally scores of people from you know there on the carrier to all the way back at fleet headquarters contract staff supporting that.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's one of those things where I really did think at the time that there was just a plethora of things that just kind of went out the window when we were flying during combat operations that I knew would have never passed during peacetime. For an example, if we needed to have this backup system ready, well, that backup system just wasn't gonna have to be ready because we needed to get planes fueled in flight, and we were gonna fly things that normally my maintenance teams would have never said were safe to fly without. And it was different than anything I had ever experienced.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

We would we had, for example, if a vehicle didn't have air conditioning, it would redline that vehicle would be deadline because uh again, our our armored vehicles, if that AC doesn't work, it's an iron box with the windows shut, armored part of that. So stateside CONUS or an environment, your commanders aren't going to take that risk, you know, and vehicles not used. But uh unfortunately in a combat zone, if that is the MRAP armored vehicle that you have and it no air conditioning, then you cooked. And uh I can say that from personal experience.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Right,

Moral Injury Starts With Hard Choices

SPEAKER_02 12:46

right. So tell me a little bit about as you were serving downrange, where did you start to get sort of the idea of the thesis for this book, National Treasure or Trash? Like, where did it come to you that they that there might be a disconnect between what you were told about how serving would look like, then what you experienced while you were on the ground?

SPEAKER_04 13:11

You know, that there are a couple different opportunities to to look at that. One, I I thought I knew so much about what war might look like or Afghanistan. By the time that I had deployed in 2011, you the war had been going on now for over five years in both theaters. And uh truly thought I I had an understanding of what I'd be kind of getting myself into. And I actually, as a signal officer initially, and then a logistician officer, had trained to do information operations in Ghazni. And so that would have, and part of that training involved understanding the targeting cycle, so kinetic operations as well as non-kinetic information. So, where does that play out in the question of violence, so to speak? Being an information operator, you may go into a local shore or meet with the district center at the district center in Afghanistan and talk about, hey, we've had a trend of IEDs in this area. We understand that these are being dug predominantly at X time of the day, and we have uh ISR, intelligent assets looking at that, and we're able to see a IED being in place, andor I should say, a hole being prepared. And that question starts to go, well, how was that hole being prepared? And it was being prepared by a child who was being paid $20 to go dig a hole, and then you know, the next day it would be somebody dig something else. And so you start to have that conversation, and it worked out very effectively in Iraq, where VIOs were getting out there and talking with people and understanding that hey, look, if we see people out on the road andor in an area that looks like it could be construed as planting a IED or a device, uh EFP, then they're subject to be killed, be that a sniper, a roving drone, or or a helicopter. And all of a sudden, yeah, I did just say that. I'm talking about going and meeting with a local leader to say, hey, we're gonna kill your kids if they're out there and it looks like they're digging an IED hole. And that comes down to you know, you you start taking out enough kids, and the price of digging uh IEDs goes up in theory. And that was one of those early just stateside understanding the uh non-kinetic operations could be just as influential. And also conversely, you know, everything that can go wrong in between in those discussions. So that was a really great opportunity where I first was going, okay, there are some real uh conundrums here, so to speak, that we're experiencing. And I think to transition to how some of this went from my experiences in the military to becoming an author occurred in my return from Afghanistan and coming back to Illinois and taking a company command once I was emotionally ready. I actually I passed on my first offered command, which is a faux pot. Don't ever turn down a command. It's like it wasn't, you know, so being able to then bring some of that dialogue forth to the soldiers back there and understand and start to piece where did some of this violence kind of come from? Because there's a couple different avenues here that you know we can talk about with my experiences and how did that present or manifest. But I do think the initial understanding shifted when it was okay, yeah, we're we are talking about the unfortunate uh part of war that is combatants come in all shapes, sizes, and ages, unfortunately, and that's not by their own choice.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah, and and the enemy doesn't play fair. Like there's rules of engagement, there's Geneva conventions, there's these treaties that sometimes we have with other count nations when we go into war. But a lot of those things you find they go out the window when we're actually really faced with situations on the ground. And they do the reality.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

And I I I wonder in before transitioning to maybe talking about you know Lone Survivor and and and the Kunar Province incident there in the Red Wings, I kind of wanted to talk just you know briefly, how did we kind of get to get blurred into that, you know, line? One of the things for me, coming back to that first question, my grandfather was an infantryman on Okinawa in World War II, and his experiences were pretty, they were pretty violent. And I didn't necessarily understand what I was hearing or processing until later. And when when we start to to kind of ask ourselves what are the questions of violence, that's when we kind of get back to the root of our mission. And as army officers, as officers, leaders, you know, the most important thing is to control that violence on the battlefield, to understand, as mentioned, there are the Geneva Convention, we have our rules of engagement, and we're we are very good at talking about those in the military. Not all engagements plans change immediately on contact, but we do do a very good job relatively in preparing our soldiers before they go into these environments so that there isn't a question when these moments come up. And I think that's where we start to transition.

Sports Tributes And Performative Patriotism

SPEAKER_04 19:57

I talk a little bit about Vietnam and how you know we've gotten more uh again ceremonial in our in our our promotion of the military. And you know, one of these things, if we go back in time a little bit, like General Eisenhower and Bradley, you know, go back all the way to the Army Carlisle game in 1913, and the United States at that time with sports was already looking at football as our and the Olympics as well as a platform for developing the future generals and leaders of the military. And one of the things that you know the army has struggled with, especially the National Guard, is you know, providing soldiers a mission and understanding what they're they're joining for. And so we supported millions of dollars to NASCAR, and we haven't quite figured out with more millions of dollars what that sponsorship provided, or what it did for us, and I agree, Michael.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

I mean, you're bringing up something, and I don't know if you're frozen or you're coming back, but I'm just gonna talk about this. I hear you, yeah, yeah. Oh, perfect. There you are. I have a hard time, I've been talking about it this week, with some of the people that we're propping up as influencers within the military. Some of these people that are now enjoying massive followings on these social media platforms, they're junior officers or they're junior enlisted, which I have no problems with that. But many of them have never been to combat, they've never served in a war zone, they have never experienced the price of war.

SPEAKER_04 21:56

I would like to ask why anybody in the Chain of command at the 101sts in Kentucky thought it was a great idea to take Apaches and fly them through a civilian residential area when at any given time one of those Apaches could have had an engine burn out and crashed into somebody's backyard. So yeah, our politics, which I won't get into further, but that's kind of that, you know, where was the protection of the our citizens? Where did those dollars in that training mission, which we can make a training plan that works for it, but what was the actual gain?

SPEAKER_02 22:41

It became what was the gain with an American people that are so disconnected from what it is that we do. And when all they're seeing is the patriotic slogans, when all they're seeing is somebody who looks shiny and polished at the Super Bowl, yeah, are they really getting an accurate depiction of what the day-to-day grind is like in a war zone?

SPEAKER_04 23:03

They're not, they're not, and and I think that I I really, I really respect Patrick Tillman and his his late wife and what they've done, and representing and talking about what he has done, and not publicizing or making that a a message by the NFL or or or for service. And that's something that uh again applaud the community for circling around this Tillman and that organization. And I hope the NFL actually reverses its course and and stops and doesn't utilize the Tillmans quite in the way they have in the past, and respect that um they haven't wanted to be a part of celebrations that don't tell an honest truth about what Patrick Tillman believed. And and that isn't the NFL or the military's quote-unquote lines specifically, if I'm saying that respectfully.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

You are, you are, and I think that that's that's like I say, that that is what's missing is is the gravity and the sacred duty of service. There are people that we are seeing in our in our culture who've almost made it a spectacle. And I sometimes wonder, it's is it because the trauma of war is so difficult to process? And so it's just easier to make it symbolic and then turn it into a slogan. Because if you were to actually talk about, like you said, these hard things with seeing children involved or seeing some of the predatory behavior, let's say, of some of the people that some of our service members were forced to work with.

SPEAKER_03 25:07

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And I don't want to go into too great a detail there, but I know there's just things that people had to see ethically that they still suffer from grave moral injury from because they had to see those things. And that's that's the conversation that I just don't see us having when we talk about the cultural price of war. Instead, we we see a flyover.

Hollywood Myths And Vietnam’s Afterlife

SPEAKER_04 25:31

Yeah, you know, uh, we do, we do, and I think Tom Hanks is one of our great Americans here in kind of helping us understand a little bit more about what's going on here. And I talk about Forrest Gump in my book, Tom Hanks' leading role in introducing us to the military in Vietnam. And I think one of the things that I've really appreciated, and we can see even more recently, Tom Hanks has uh since you know, Force Gump, uh Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, the Pacific, and more recently Masters of the Air, as well as Greyhound, and now he he's working on this unprecedented and been rolling out this World War II uh series. And I think one of the things that's important here to understand is, and I'm not gonna speak for Tom Hanks, but I'm gonna speak a little bit for Tom Hanks. He has continued to show us a little bit more complicated and in depth a story about World War II and and about military service in this country, with Forrest Gump, a very basic. However, there is so much, and I hope we have some time.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

There's so layered nuances in that in that movie that if you just I mean, a great example is, and this one just sticks with me, you know, the whole Lieutenant Dan thing, and then bringing Forrest into that situation with the two prostitutes and that sort of just juxtapositioned with this guy's like a war hero, and he's got right all these, you know, this big chest of metals, but he's really just this broken man who who doesn't have legs and just can't really seem to get it right. And that's that's the thing. Like we glorify some of these people and we say, Oh, they're war heroes, they're this or they're that, but they're really just broken people who've been traumatized. They may have had a traumatic upbringing, and then their traumatic upbringing was exasperated by what they saw while serving.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

I think that's been some. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Oh, you go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

I I think that's been some of the hardest things. When I was researching National Treasurer, I ran across an article about a soldier named Rory Bailey who was 18 and 10 days in Vietnam when a rocket came in, and it left him permanently blind, disfigured, and he he came back to Heinz VA Hospital here in Chicago, went through scores of uh surgeries, but truly left a man in a mask. And he had when I read about him, it was from a 1974 article, and then I went, well, what happened to him? And when I went back, I it was August 29th, and I believe he had passed away on August 19th. And the thing that was so incredible about him is at 18, this young man was drafted, sent to a country that he didn't want to go to, was disfigured permanently altered, and and you know, he knit, he went to church, he supported the local boys' clubs. He, by all the counts, had this such amazing life where something so uh horrific and altering, it he he it didn't allow him to be broken by it. And I I think that is some of the amazing parts uh about trying to talk and trying to start to bridge things, but bridge those in an honest way. Because that is I I would have loved to talk with Rory and someday I look forward to doing that, but I think part so much came from uh you know this transition into authorship. So the military was my passion and my profession, and I loved it, and I'm still in a way serving. My immune system did not get the safety brief. So I don't know whether that is burn pits, you know. We had them, and I was as the engineer overseeing that we had them. So my immune system's decided to to change and and alter my course. And I've been very blessed with the care I've received from the VA. So I'm gonna give them a prop out real quick because I've seen them do some things over the last 10 years to provide coverage to care in the community coverage to doctors that they don't have, that they didn't have in the past. So again, I want to give them an applaud to the VA, but also, yeah, that allowed me to kind of transition, you know, take some of these experiences, good, bad, traumatic, having shared them with soldiers, but then start to share them with people at the VFW and in other places. And hear frankly, so many people say I didn't I didn't see that part of it, or that makes sense. Again, it started to becoming very much a obligation, and then the same for my other book I wrote too at the same time, Discipleship, Faith and Finance. And so, yeah, so one of the things there, which was a joy, was I'm not trying to talk about Jesus as a spiritual figure, I'm talking about him as a religious, uh a human figure. And one of the things is Jesus also lived with money and everybody around him, but the schools can't really touch Jesus due to the religious aspect, and churches typically would like you to tithe. So I've kind of brought together in that stewardship fashion the opportunity for people to look at Jesus of Nazareth and how do some of the lessons there come over to our generation in time, millennia, 2,000 years later, through characters such as uh Warren Buffett, Ramsey, Kiyosaki, Bogwill, and really let them kind of be a part of it. So that's been a joy and a part of you know the stewardship part where how can I continue service, both sharing my unique experiences, but also you know, work on kind of my two mountains that in my life that I will defend. And yeah, it's kind of where these two have come from, if that gives us a little bit of it.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

It does. It gives me a great insight on on what made you decide to take on such a heavy issue. I think that a lot of the veteran spaces that I see that get popular, that get this large reach, they they're they're kind of feeding into this sort of exploitive or sensationalized aspect of service. And it's got to be this major news headline grabbing particular story, like the story of Osama bin Laden, or something along those lines, or or just something that's in the national narrative that everyone knows about.

SPEAKER_04 33:19

But that was a wild morning.

The Forever War And Ghazni Reality

SPEAKER_04 33:22

I was in Afghanistan. It was May 2nd in Afghanistan, but it was the night of May 1st when President Barack Obama came out and said, uh, my fellow Americans, I am pleased to announce that the United States has carried out operations to uh eliminate Osama bin Laden. So that was a my birthday that morning about 2 a.m. in the chew, we got words that Sharana was buzzing that we might have gotten in a high value target, and decided to actually get my breakfast in the D Fac and watch that on the AFN. Um so that was quite a moment.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Yeah, I I I I can I can relate. It's it's very similar to when we went into combat operations in 2002, late September, I want to say October, we we started ramping up for that, and then it got real busy around, I'd say, like the February-March timeframe of 2003, and all and wrapped up all the way to about, I believe it was May 2003, when we decided prematurely that it was mission accomplished in Iraq. And President Bush, and in all the PR wisdom that the people had at the time, said, let's get this big giant banner and let's put it on an aircraft carrier that says mission accomplished. That's not a bad idea. That that that'll that'll stand the test of time. And he ended up flying in on an S3B Viking uh aircraft 700. I was on VS-35 at the time. I was not there because I did fly off the couple days before because I was back seat qualified so I could actually ride in the aircraft. But I did see him board Air Force One the next day, and I just remember thinking, man, this is nothing like anything I'd ever experienced as a maintainer or doing anything up until that point. And I just wondered like what life was going to be like after that point. But little did I know that this was gonna drag on and it was gonna go from being about Iraq, I mean, being about Afghanistan initially, then of course it became about Iraq. And then it just dragged and dragged and dragged and became this forever war that our troops up until just a few years ago were still a part of. I mean, that that to me is just it blows my mind that so much of my military career was in this sort of Iraq-Afghanistan war that was never fully finished.

SPEAKER_05 36:05

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

And it's a it is an interesting in in Ghazni province in RC East, you mentioned it.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

We were second to Hellman province in RC South for SIGAX. So SIGAX being a significant action that involves enemy engagement, traditionally a tech, troops in contact. And at that point, Marge was in the news, and 2010 was the the the primary action, and 2011 the shaping action for for Ghazni, and Ghani would be the primary action uh the following year. But to your point, it it was we we could feel there was a sense of this is this is a house of cards, and and I I felt that, and it was very challenging.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Yeah, I can imagine doing those operations because you just don't feel like you're really accomplishing very much, or you're probably not moving the needle. I can tell you that even God, this is just bringing out a lot of things that I haven't thought about in a while. I can even remember going to the southern Philippines and doing this, what we called a buy with and through mission for the armed forces of the Philippines to help with their problems with terrorism in terms of Abu Sayaf. And it really just felt like we were just dumping money into this country that was getting dependent upon our resources, our training, our people.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

And and in so many ways, here is an interesting part of Ghazni. The United States Navy in Ghazni, since it was the Polish owning Ghazni, that was a massive thing for them to be battle space owners for Poland. And and again, my heart to them. They are they are fought valiantly, brothers and sisters of blood died, and um I'm very proud to have been with them serving in uh RC East. But you know, it fell apart. Ghazni was lost in 2017, it fell to the Taliban slash Takani network, and that was well before we even were talking about Abbey Gate and what would occur years later up at Bagram Air Force Base. But for those that are kind of unaware, you have Kabul and Bagram up north and Kandahar down south. Ghazni was an RC East on Highway One directly in between. And Ghazni was the third largest city historical and antiquities capital of Afghanistan. It also was the crossroads of the Ghazni Gardez Highway, which ran east-west from Highway One over to Kunar. Sorry, Kunar, Sharana, and much more of our border with Pakistan, which was the uh what is the word uh that I'm looking for? A permeable border, you know, where so much was coming across. But it was interesting because we had the Navy augmenting the PRT. So they were working with the provincial reconstruction team working with, you know, the department of the Greater Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's department of yeah, I had friends that worked with PRTs, so I know. Funny PRT story later for you, but on on how that one worked out. But we had the Navy working, the PRT, we had Texas ADT, the agricultural development teams working there on Ghazni. We had a Air Force, the only Air Force first uh field surgical trauma team in Ghazni. So we had quite a bit there occurring, and and yet there was so much going on where it was this was the writing on the wall. Again, unfortunately, sustaining the a country at that distance, uh its current level wasn't sustainable. Not not in the timeline that we were talking, not that our politicians have told Americans what this was for. Right. Um and I just one little side note, and then I'll let you kind of pull me back on Patricia. That war is is ongoing still for our soldiers. And I say that in a way that Rory was killed by the Vietnam Rory Bailey was killed by the Vietnamese in 2025, if you get what I'm saying. He was hit in 1968, uh you know, scores of surgeries, but he he passed. And he fought every day. And I have friends, we all have friends that I love them and I look, they're they're my heroes, but we have para parapolit, para-athletes, Olympians. We have friends that are are are their bodies are are broken in ways that the Taliban someday will have won that. And that is where it's kind of hard sometimes to uh again look at just even the service of not what occurred, but what is continuing every day.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Right, and what's not talked about. And I I think that's what we really one of the things that like really drew me to the New York City seal swim was the fact that it does touch on the cost of war. There's a big part where Gold Star families are invited, and they're a big part of the event, and their sacrifice and what they've been through is is honored. It's a very solemn event, it's very sacred. And there are many events for veterans that don't take into consideration the seriousness and the sacrifices that veterans have been through. And I think that it's incumbent upon any organization, any nonprofit that wants to work with the veteran community, that we keep front and center those veterans who who do understand the cost of war and who have served in those particular combat zones. Because let's face it, I mean, we're we're we're very, I would say emotionally and physically distant from what this entails, especially in the information age where it's so easy to lie to the public or use misinformation, or we're so divided that everybody just goes into their echo chamber of whatever news feedia, talking head, podcaster that feeds them some information and can just alter the information just so that the actual cost is is is not well known. I mean, I think I was just reading recently that even the current deaths in Iran are not the same, or the or due to the the ongoing conflict in Iran, there's a disconnect between the the injuries and the ways that they are being reported, and then the ways that are actually available in the people who are on the who who have been impacted. And that's just one example. And that's but it it just goes to show you that in this information age when the gatekeepers can still use the platforms and the algorithms and certain particular tech companies to to to to manipulate them the the mass the the mass the masses oftentimes these stories don't get told. And I mean that was what that was the bottom line of why I I started the Stories of Service podcast is that I didn't see there being a podcast that was willing to take on what I saw personally. And I'm not even talking about war. I'm just talking about interpersonal stuff with IG and toxic bosses and things like that. But then on a larger level even with combat operations there's just such a disconnect between what is being publicized and then what people actually see.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

There absolutely is and and I I'm glad that you also brought the against the port enabler staff that helps you know the ancillary programs are chaplains our our EOs our staff that are trying to effectively help our soldiers in all of these very challenging environments to do that. And I think if I want to kind of hit that question a little bit kind of moving forward was you know how how are soldiers needing to to look at complicated situations but also have a moral bearing from their commanders and understanding of what's going on in those situations. If I was made sure I answered your question and yeah no I agree.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

I I think that we have a crisis of leadership. I've said that before unfortunately because we haven't yet come up in my opinion with a good system by which to by which to qualify the most competent operational commanders competent in emotional intelligence and then competent in job knowledge yeah unfortunately we've got some people running around that are damaging to the force as a whole absolutely and it and it's it's tough because every new administration prioritizes something different. So whether one one administration may prioritize promoting people who may have been marginally excluded in the past another ignor administration prioritizes or tries to go back to oh no it's just about the warfighter and about operations and tactics and so it's just tough because in the in the mix of all that you've got people who unfortunately shouldn't ever have been in the positions that they they found themselves in and those people can cause a massive amount of damage to the rest of the force and they they forced good people out I mean quite frankly they have when when I was looking at writing this book and and the central thesis of you know violence and how is you know and violence is the United States army you know our the primary mission to control land.

SPEAKER_04 47:28

And you look at I needed to to figure a way to to to to box this in and I really looked at 100 years for the most part. So my grandfather's experiences living that he was able to share to me and that we all have of our of that generation to the Vietnam to ours being anybody in the professional military from 1973 to 2025 I on purpose felt the need to look at it like a hundred years because I and I think even General Cotraeus and some of our our senior leaders have acknowledged the unique emotional and drive that came out of the global war on terror service members. Both our leadership that was there and had experienced Desert Storm and the leading up as you have and then those like me that watched the the towers fly into the buildings when I was a a sophomore in high school and and I knew although I'd already wanted to go to the military that this would be the defining moment in in in what would become my career. Sure and I think and I think kind of going there as I bring us kind of forward is and again I alluded to it Tom Hanks has tried to continue to tell more complicated stories and dialogues so that more people understand which is great he's complimenting Ken Burns but then we kind of get to you know what have we done to ourselves and with the Hollywood getting more and more in line for good and bad for promotion of movies and and PR Top Gun was a huge boom for the United States Navy and you can't say bad things about that.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

No it I mean and it has its place and and that is I think that it's it's a balance I mean the the Super Bowl has its place the ceremonial aspects I mean there is nothing I can tell you that would ever take away the the solemn and and most beautiful aspects of my time serving in Pearl Harbor and being a part of the USS Oklahoma dedication going to some of the ceremonial events associated with the USS Arizona.

SPEAKER_04 50:05

The most undervisited part of Fort Island is is the Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

Oh I I I was I was a part of the the staff that did the dedication that's one how I kind of cut my teeth as a PAO I worked under Admiral Sylvanic. I think he's still around he was a former undersecretary of the Navy and he and I were like putting you know tent cards on on chairs and going to planning meetings and it was it was just an incredible event and to be a part of that and to be around the World War II survivors and understand their sacrifices and what they experienced I found it to be quite profound. And there was so much history in Hawaii and just the the juxtaposition of living in a place where it almost feels like a different country in time at times. It does especially if you go to like Waianai and some of these other areas.

SPEAKER_04 51:00

Absolutely and and then the military history of of Hawaii is fascinating in and of itself just the whole thing with the Queen and the it is it's incredible how it all it all went down and it's also incredible you know how how fortunate we were for the the Japanese uh targeting decisions that morning they could not have left um the United States in a a better operational strategic position to to to bounce back after the fleet had been moved there for its headquarters via San Diego just a few years prior.

Lone Survivor And Narrative Control

SPEAKER_02 51:41

For sure for sure but yeah shall we maybe delve a little bit into Lone Survivor and into yes yeah so tell me a little bit about like why that particular story was something you wanted to bring out within the book.

SPEAKER_04 51:56

Yeah so one of the things that I I've struggled with was in in my own I'm a big movie guy I love movies but I struggled in my own reintegration with watching movies that were contemporary and and understanding how much of that is not necessarily what occurred there and how much of a message is being given to the American public that that's not the truth. A quick example we were resupplying yeah we were resupplying Wali Karzai's own property in jogatu Afghanistan and as soon as Wally Karzai was dead we immediately turned around and stopped resupplying jogatu so for those kind of combat operations logistics assets there was an immediate political tie to an action of what was going on where you had politics one of the things that I I struggled with understanding and again part of that story was what American the public gets told and and the PAO and our our military does an absolute phenomenal job barred on to what it had in the past it was a rude awakening in Vietnam which broke a lot of molds and the I guess setting up that the incredible amount of violence in Vietnam that occurred from our greatest generation is something that we're still kind of starting to acknowledge. And I think a central part of the book National Treasure Trash is understanding how our world war two generation did experience trauma and the world did it was the most violent period in in the world's history and there was so much that we kind of couldn't even deal with it. You know in America we did Disneyland we got the GI Bill going people went to college and families first started. But for Vietnam for those that had gone and experienced it it just broke that mold the winter soldier investigations that came out where John Kerry's known for introducing reading the Winter Soldier articles which were a series of hundreds of Vietnam veterans coming together that had vetted military records and access proper that experienced atrocities more or less or or SOPs that were not in line with our week convention and and the army did investigate and substantiated the majority of of those and I I think that sets us up for a little bit of what occurs as we move away from and just kind of distance ourselves from Vietnam and I want to bring up a term PDS post-Vietnam syndrome was a the first iteration of PTSD and what it it did was saying people experience trauma post Vietnam because they were trying to then understand with how I got back home how did it work over there. And that was the first time we were really showing that there was a disconnect between our society and our veterans and and that creates a unique and I'll come back to that a little bit with my experiences here after we segue on on what does an ROE look like for say me in my experience. But we ran into an issue with Lone Survivor which everybody's familiar with Marcus Lattrell our SEAL team in 2005 was compromised in Kunar province and three service members lost their lives in the initial part of the action and a ready reaction force was sent into that and that that helicopter was shot down resulting in the loss of additional lives and ultimately I do believe Air Force PJs and Rangers were able to secure that site and Marcus Luttrell about a week later what occurs is a series of the backlog going in here and and and I don't I won't get into the very specifics and but the Navy in the circumstances of the way it unfolded and the three members lost their lives and and honestly the intelligence information around the operation it was easier for the Navy to come up with a cover story story so to speak and ghost write and at that point again in 2005 to to continue to carry the the message that that we went into both Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of the 9-11 attacks and continued risk of WMDs in Iraq and so with that the Navy made that choice and and and we have the moving on survivor and the gist of it is that in in the story that we're told there was the team was compromised on infill a boy go curter uh there's a decision you know if this boy we let go they're compromised if they were to subdue the boy then the you know this put them in an ethical position. So so that's the story that we're told the soldiers the the the sorry the SEALs that the the these men are incredible Michael Murphy Lieutenant Michael Murphy Danny Dice Matthew Axelson and their families all of them support that their their their sons did amazing things in a in a very challenging environment and you know history shows us that those they were set up into a situation where they were gonna be set to fail. Ultimately there's been discussion on some of those details but the answer was we the Navy at this point in time 2005 is creating narratives to try to share with America to keep the to keep the national will and and to continue to to to support us moving forward. And and I'll kind of pause there Teresa if you kind of wanted to ask any questions before I shift into the next kind of part of that because there's a lot there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

There is there is unfortunately I mean my biggest takeaway from these incidences and as they happen is that because we don't have an accurate portrayal of what really happens we can't really absorb the lessons and move forward and do better by the people because we're so focused as you said on preserving the national will and keeping the machine going. And that's at the expense of the people who have been now forever harmed by the incident. And so I get concerned when things like this happen is that what is really preventing us from moving forward. Now I am heartened to see and learn as we as we kind of go down the road of the Vietnam War to the Gulf to the GWA is the fact that we did go from during the the Vietnam War these mass casualties and mass violations of ROE. I mean pretty much winners and losers were determined by body count. If you had a huge body count it didn't matter how that was achieved that was considered the mark of success and then it felt like after the success of the Gulf War that we got sort of ahead of our skis and thought okay everything's gonna be easy like the Gulf War it wasn't and then now we're going to have such restrictive ROE because we know that the enemy has a vote and they they can skew the narrative to not be in our favor. And so we're gonna make it into a place where it's so confusing and it's so convoluted that people aren't going to know what to do and sometimes they're just quite frankly not going to act.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:00

Yeah and and that can be a challenge unto itself because I think the next part here in talking about is what was our next event here in the ROE. And then we can kind of dance into my experiences in Afghanistan I think perfectly all right so what was yeah I'm turning it back to you.

North Korea Ethics And Who Bears Risk

SPEAKER_04 1:02:21

Yeah so if we move to 2019 we have and again I'm gonna be the United States hasn't come out with all of the details but what we do know I believe we know it's been confirmed multiple resources personnel that were involved and around it that one of our tier tier tier one tier two SEAL teams was spotted doing an infiltration mission into North Korea and the team took the action of instead of being compromised and the mission being compromised with the resulting loss of them they reduced the enemy fishing vessel and the mission is all of our our our service member come members come home however civilians did not and that contrast is kind of going you know where do we have our our so to speak I don't want to use Jack Nicholson you know I called the code red but at what point do we need to understand violence is something that comes with unfortunately war and that our our country we vote and participate in that that these these actions these military actions are direct extensions of our own uh desires geopolitical requirements and also politics and it it can be very dirty in some ways and and I think part of that disconnect is again how we have streamlined the professional force since 1973 into the all professional military where we continue to have the least amount of people experiencing the most amount of of our violence in in those those events.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

You know it makes me wonder going forward and I've talked about this quite a bit when I've been looking at the issue of women in combat because I I remain I think the only woman who will entertain the discussion that there just might be certain combat arms positions that while we won't say that they're not open to women we will make the physical standards so high for those particular jobs that there will not be a woman that is able to qualify. And I'm of the mindset that there might be some jobs that fall under that yeah you know there might not be many and and with the and this is where the modern battlefield comes in so this is where we have to say and look at what Ukraine is doing. We have to look at what Israel is doing and we have to say have they made decisions to not only when it comes to gender but just in general the the battlefield and the way in which we fight wars in this day and age what what are the what are the what are the considerations that we have to have that are different than the considerations that we had 15, 20 years ago? And I don't feel like on a national level We've quite had that conversation. I know when it comes to gender, we can't have it at all without people losing their minds. But we should be able to have it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:09

And it's sad because and I have seen women in combat do incredible things.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:16

I have seen women receive fire, driving through kill zones, being attacked left and right. And you know what? There's there's no difference between who who was that US soldier, a man or a woman. And I was personally blown away by the amount of performance I have seen. And so I'm with you. I also think, though, for some of those specific roles, I think technology is also coming around where we're going to be able to augment some of those things. You know, it's not going to be every soldier needing to carry 150 pounds where we're able to start getting some exoskeletons that may bridge a little bit of the physical differences.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:06

Sure. Sure. And I and I think that's going to be an interesting conversation to have. And I hope that when it does happen, that people have come around enough to understand that it has to be a nonpartisan discussion. And I think that, and I think that's what is a shame in our particular lack of leadership Congress is the fact that we unfortunately don't know how to be nonpartisan anymore. We and and and I fell into that trap as well, Michael. I I went kind of left, I was left of center most of my upbringing and most of my early military career. And then I took a little bit of a pivot over to the right, and I was kind of right of center. And then I somehow just sort of landed as a as a you know a centrist. And that's that's that is that is where I've I've parked my car.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

That's a good place to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

And that's where I've stayed because I don't want to take either side. So I'm now not truly a friend to either. But at the same time, I just want to see us sit down at the table and and and display unity and be Americans and not be left or right. And so I'm very happy with what where I've where I've decided to land.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:20

That's a good place to be.

Afghanistan Stories Under Tight ROE

SPEAKER_04 1:08:23

And honestly, I think that if I'll I'll segue here to a couple of an experience I had in Afghanistan that I mentioned in the book. Um and it's actually a short little group of events, but the lynch convoy in Iraq set a stage where we had soft target transportation companies, various companies working in um units in a coin environment where they were able to be targeted. And the army came out with basic officer leadership too, which was a six and a half week abridged infantry course for all branches of officers. It didn't matter whether you were a transportation officer, infantry officer, medical services officer. You got an extra couple weeks kicking indoors at Fort Benning and Fort Sill to help, you know, in that surge time frame for our leaders. And, you know, when it kinds that comes to that ROE, there were a couple times again, I mentioned in the book, war doesn't care again who you are. I have had the privilege to to know service members that you know, females that again not in combat position, arms branch, but found themselves clearing a house in Iraq. And you open a bathroom door, and and there was a child with an AK-47 pointed at her, and and she pulled the trigger first.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:08

Who the the officer did or the the child?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:11

Our our enlisted, she did, our enlisted soldier, and you know, took that soldier, that that that child's life. And and at that moment, you know, you just have to think, did this kid honestly have any hate? Did he have any knowledge again by the obviously not?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

That's what they had to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:31

It and it was very hard. One of the things in Vietnam, soldiers were being rotated in, and so there wasn't a unified team. Officers and NCOs didn't have control and know their people. Soldiers would be one group of guys is heading home in a week, the others were here six months, see guys or other just brand new. But one of the chapters I bring in is the child's conundrum, and that is, you know, it it you know, you have to clear a cachet, for example, and the first time a soldier in Vietnam walked up to a hut and didn't throw a grenade into it and walked away, that was good. But the first time a soldier didn't walk away from it would be the last time a grenade more or less wasn't thrown in the hut first.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:32

And that became a hallmark of the Vietnam War, and some of the brutality of it, it was just so self-preservation. When we deployed to Afghanistan and we all sudden started sending units in whole with leaders, we all sudden were accountable to each other at all times. And we had our rules of engagement based on absolutely if we get screwed up in our our our escalation of force in the roE, you know, then we become specifically liable. So ensuring as leaders that our soldiers both know how to engage to protect themselves and around them was critical. And, you know, in one instance as an engineer, I went to a construction site. I was a COR, we evaluated it. I was with the Poles, we're in the village of Voguez. And as soon as we were done with my engineer site, which was a hardened position for the Afghan army that we were building, we immediately transitioned to uh a coordinate search and dismount patrol of the village. We had heard there was a cache site, and so all of a sudden I went from being task force engineer to walking point next to uh the Polish soldier with the metal detector as we were walking with the Polish Rosamac, which is a version of Polish version of a striker, and we went through this village, and at the time, every single mission to Voguez, we were shot at on the way in, or we were shot at on the way out, and we have the ROE, you know, and we clear this south side of the village and we come up, and I pie up on a corner, and there's a bunch of people, and all of a sudden down this this uh alley, and all of a sudden it just goes quiet, and it's just that moment. Everything the hair goes up on your neck, and as I'm pie up, there was about 15 feet in front of me, a window, and then a door in this kalat, which is a mud brick home in Afghanistan or Iraq, and all of a sudden, with it going quiet, this door started opening, and I immediately raised my rifle and rotated my safety selector switch from safe to fire and was prepared to see an AK-47 or a PKM pop out. And about a maybe five-year-old kid boy popped out and didn't realize I was there and looked at me, and his just jaw just dropped. And I immediately rotated that that from fire to safe, dropped the barrel down, and and all of a sudden I, you know, my heart started going in and and waved this kid in. But the reality is that you know it it was it was almost I want to make sure I say this right. You put yourself into a situation where you know there's a risk here. If I don't fire, I may not be coming home. If I fire wrong, I might be going to jail when I get home.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

That's just tragic.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:39

And for soldiers in Vietnam, well, they could throw a grenade in the thing, and they would get home and be called a baby killer one way or the other, but they're happy to be home. For our generation, and and and that's wrong, all of that. This is very it's disturbing. But for us, we went over there going if we screw this up, we're just gonna go to jail. Um and it it put us in a situation where it's like I'm willing to lose my life more so almost than pull the trigger.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:19

And and that was very difficult and and played some roles in in the uniqueness of of Afghanistan. And I can I can transition to another one really short. In Balabaluk, Hra, in 2009, there was uh engagement where uh US post-air support engaged, and there were an untold number of civilian casualties. And what resulted then was additional rules of engagement for post air support where you you had to have a positive that there were not women and children in the village in or an orbital in order to engage. In Giro, in an operation we had along the Sharana and our border, I had sprung a trap and we had um a major operation called Gilligan's Island. Yep, you can't make that up. And I I had 20 foreign engineer contractor trucks, jingle trucks, going in with a RCP that we borrowed from Sharana because ours were beat so bad, and we pulled elements from my security detail, and then our Polish elements to drive into the back side of Ghazni province to Giro for the first time since anybody had driven in there in three years, and it did not go to plan. I was at the outpost, we were doing the the communications, and as soon as my my guys and gals cleared the mountain trail and and went in front of the the village of Moolabula, uh hell just broke loose. And our our our engineers got stopped, they got stopped, ran out of fuel, we lost. We had 15 wounded cap coalition. I lost every single one of my contractors, between 22 and 30 of them, plus the rigs, and I had no idea what happened to them. But in that, in the village of Mulabula, while they were shooting at all of our people, literally watching about 120 to 150 women and children leave this village. And not just me, I had the full rest of our staff say, hey, we we're watching non-combatants leave this village, and our convoys are getting shredded right now. And we had fast movers, 16s, 15s, 80s, nothing. Could do nothing. So we pulled in our Heinz that the Polish had, we pulled in Apaches from Sharana, and they were able to thread the needle, so to speak, and take some shots, as well as us working mortars, and after about three days, we were able to get them back in. But understanding that the army had civilian casualties and bad assessment until 2009 set us up for so many then later ish issues there. Like and I was trying to get those fast movers to drop, and and no, I was just denied, denied, denied. And I think at the end of the day, I I'm thankful because I I didn't really know. I I did see and we did see men and women leaving, we did engage the positions that were stopping, and and you know, we had a strategic win in that we were able to do everything the Polish were able needed to do to withdraw from that part of the province. And but it really was one of those things where you know they killed some of us, we killed some of them, and at the end of the day, we just waited each other out. And and it was one of those things where, you know, again, we couldn't engage.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:06

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's it's a powerless feeling for the people on the ground because they're not the ones in control of what they can do with their own resources and how they can execute them most effectively.

Civic Engagement As A Duty

SPEAKER_02 1:21:22

And as we're winding down the call, because I know we've we're getting sort of close to when I when I want to quote unquote, as I always say, land the plane, but yeah, there's there really isn't great answers for everything that we talk about today. And a lot of the conversations that I have on the Stories of Pod Stories of Service podcast, there isn't a simple solution that will satisfy people and and provide a way to tidy this up and say, how do you how do you move forward? And the only thing that I can say is well, two things. Number one, you've got to start treating your brothers and sisters in your community as though you're one family. Doesn't matter what your political affiliation is, doesn't matter what your beliefs are, doesn't matter what color your skin is, what gender you are, doesn't matter. Everybody is valued, everybody can bring something to the table, and we've got to start treating each other better. The other thing that we've got to start doing is we've got to start participating in civic engagement. We've got to go to our chamber meetings, we have to go to our legislative meetings, we have to speak up about the causes and the things that matter to us. We have to raise children who are civic minded and who want to be involved in civic advocacy. And civic advocacy is more than putting an emoji on a post. It is more, you know, it is more than just putting a comment on a social media Instagram reel. It means so much more. And if we can get people involved, get them to show up, get them to speak about the things that they are passionate about and that they have struggled with, we're just gonna be better off and we're gonna make better decisions.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:11

We absolutely will. And I think that that is the gift of being able to have some of these hard discussions, is understand that, like you said, there there is not gonna be an answer that fits all one size. There aren't great answers for all of the violence and the chaos out there. And I think that that's one thing for me wrapping national treasure is I don't think it's good enough that I wrote a book asking about what do we need to teach our children about violence so that they can be, uh, as you said, responsible in civics, make decisions, ultimately become politicians and make decisions for people.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

Ultimately become leaders in whatever industry that they're in, and leaders in terms of not, hey, I'm in I'm the boss and I'm in charge, but people who are actually involving themselves in a leadership position as a contact sport, understanding that in order to be a leader, you've got to get dirty, you've got to get in the weeds, and you've got to do the hard things when nobody's looking. And if we can get more people that are willing to step up and be leaders, we're we're we're going to have better decisions and we're going to prevent some of the problems that we've talked about today. I I have come to that thesis in my mind that many of the problems that we suffered in the military was due to poor political leadership. And it and on either side of the aisle. And until we learn how to properly have an election system that's fair and that isn't rigged by political parties and packs and gerrymandering and ranked choice voting and all these other things that aren't, I mean, there hopefully one day will be ranked choice voting, in my opinion. But until we create a system of democracy that is actually fair, we're going to continue to churn out people who are not qualified to lead. And unfortunately, that bleeds down to these poor decisions that we're seeing on the battlefield. And that's what's unfortunate. It's directly impacting and hurting people and costing lives. And so that's also the reason why I think it's so, so darn important to have these conversations and to have forums where people will speak about these things because when we get better leaders, we get better decisions and we save lives. Bottom line.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:44

Absolutely. A hundred percent you said it. And this has been a joy to be here and to talk about just those engagements and hope that we can continue to hold ourselves to asking those questions and accountable to ourselves and our friends and our family, because ultimately it's for the next generation. It's for our kids and those that are currently serving that that really need the most support.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:11

Absolutely. It's for those people that come after us and their world and the world we want to see them live with. So thank you so much, Michael. I will go full screen, say goodbye to my audience, but I will meet you backstage to say goodbye.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:27

Thanks so much. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:30

All right, guys, that is a wrap. Hope you're enjoying this beautiful July 23rd day. I believe I do have a series of shows for the next few weeks. I don't think I'm taking any breaks, but as I always do, I hope you enjoyed the show. I know we went a little over time. I try to keep it to an hour, but sometimes the conversation's just going to go that way. And this was one of them. So enjoy the rest of your evening. Please take care of yourselves. Please take care of each other. Tell your friends about the podcast and have a great rest of your night. Bye bye now.