The Erosion of Military Standards with | Dr. Chase Spears S.O.S. #278

Watching someone turn the uniform into a prop for clicks hits different when you’ve worn it, deployed in it, and watched friends stake their lives on what it represents. That’s why we sit down with Dr. Chase Spears, former Army public affairs officer and combat veteran, for a blunt conversation about the erosion of military standards and what happens when influencer culture collides with good order and discipline.

We dig into the real mechanics of accountability: why leaders often won’t enforce existing military social media rules, how IG complaints and administrative pressure can become “the process is the punishment,” and why policy changes at the top don’t automatically become culture change at the unit level. We also connect the standards debate to bigger policy battles, including DEI, transgender service, and the constant tension between politics and readiness. Whether you agree with every conclusion or not, the central question stays the same: does this make the force more lethal, more cohesive, and more prepared to fight?

We also talk about side hustles and where the line should be drawn. Owning property, working extra jobs, and building a business can be fine, but commercial endorsements and provocative content paired with the uniform damage public trust and the profession of arms. From Mill Twitter to politicized media narratives about sailors and deployments, we unpack how the information environment shapes what the public thinks the military is becoming.

If you care about military professionalism, leadership, readiness, and veteran advocacy, listen, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people join the conversation. Where do you think the line should be on uniform use online?

Transcript

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Social Media And Eroding Standards

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Well, good evening, everyone, or wherever you are, good morning, good afternoon. I am so happy to be with you here today and talk about something that is very near and dear to my heart, and that is the erosion of military standards. You may have seen that in the past three weeks or so, I've really hit it hard, a campaign that is really exposing the unprofessional behavior of active duty service members while on social media. They're either posing in their uniform in an unprofessional manner, or they're using uniform photos as part of their content strategy, side by side with selling a product, side by side with posing in a risque manner, or side by side with doing something that is not keeping in with good order and discipline and the professional standards of the United States military. And you have no idea the feedback that I've received. I've received a mix of hate, but mostly people who are grateful that finally this is being exposed. And the only way that I knew to do this is to show the videos. And that's what I've been doing. And I've been providing legal and professional commentary on those videos. And it really inspired me to bring back a good, good friend of mine, and that is former Army PAO, Dr. Chase Spears. Chase, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Teresa, I'm awesome. It's always great to spend time with you. So uh I'm great anytime I'm seeing your face.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Well, thank you. It is so great to see you too, my friend. Welcome, everyone, to the Stories of Service Podcast, ordinary people who do extraordinary work. I am the host of Stories of Service, Teresa Carpenter. And as we always do to get this podcast started, an intro from my father, Charlie Pickard.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

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.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

And I should also add that not only are we going to talk about this social media campaign, we're going to be talking about where we think the Department of War is with all the things that they wanted to come in and change and do on behalf of our war fighters, whether that be to eliminate some of the DEI programs, whether that be to address the service member and transgender issues, where are they in some of these things with the IG process? And so we're going to talk about that in terms of standards. And we're going to talk about what happens when the military standards collide with social media, political pressure, and rapidly changing ideas about what military service should look like. And we're going to talk about professionalism, accountability, and the role veterans play in challenging the institution they once served. And I do believe that we veterans have a duty to speak up and speak out. Chase is a combat veteran and former U.S. Army public affairs officer who has become an outstanding voice, an outspoken voice on military culture and civil military issues. Both of us have separately been calling attention to active duty service members whose public social media conduct raises serious questions about professionalism, good order, and discipline, and where the line should be drawn between personal expression and representing the uniform. So we're going to talk about these larger battles about military standards, the rise of influencer culture among active duty troops, whether military service, military social media rules are being consistently enforced, the push to eliminate DEI programs from the force, the debate surrounding transgender service and readiness standard, where politics ends and legitimate scrutiny of military policy begins, and why veterans, as I said, should be the ones who are speaking up after taking off the uniform. So welcome again, Chase.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Thanks so much, Teresa. Great to be with you and I'm excited about this. We're gonna have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

We are gonna have a lot

Why Chase Left Public Affairs

SPEAKER_01 4:03

of fun. This is gonna be a little spicy discussion. But first off, I do I want to talk to you a little bit about your transition from the military service, from being a public affairs officer to being such an outspoken advocate. How did that how did that happen for you and why?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Well, that's that's kind of a broad question. I'll try to be as succinct as I can. I I have always been someone who has strong opinions. I've always been someone who is interested in policy. I've always been someone who observes things around me about how institutions work. And during my time in the Army, actually, when I was a senior captain going into my major years, I started actually doing study onto institutions, how do they work, how do they communicate, what constitutes professionalism, unprofessionalism, because I wanted to help the craft of public affairs to be viewed on par as with all the other special staff sections, like like the judge advocate general, uh, like the chaplain, like the IG, et cetera, et cetera. Because in regulation, we are still at that level, but culturally, you and I both know that we're not. And so I started doing some writing on these things while I was at Georgetown on an Army funded fellowship, just because I I wanted to experiment with it. And this was an opportunity that I had to have what theoretically a little bit of academic cover for uh for writing and thinking through things. And my school was very supportive and a lot of my colleagues were supportive, but I found out the branch and the army were not too thrilled with me at all about this because their perspective was as a public affairs officer, you're only supposed to speak things that represent the the interests of the institution and the official viewpoints of the institution, because I was told that's what you signed up for. And and you and I both know that tension well, we've talked about it a lot, but that it wasn't it was that was the beginning of me realizing I'm probably not going to be a 30-year PAO like I thought I was. 2020 hit. I knew I knew that I wasn't going to be. And so as I transitioned out, most military officers, most military public affairs officers who do 20 plus years, uh, they're one of two things that they do next. Uh, they usually either go into government civil service, oftentimes at the exact same command they retired from. Usually they have those jobs lined up for themselves before they even retire. Or two, or two, uh, they go into government contracting communication. Uh and that's just the traditional career path. And for me, I felt like part of why a big part of why I'm leaving the army is I feel handcuffed because I am a thinker. It's not that I'm special, it's not like I, it's not that I'm some great figure, but I am a thinker and I observe things. And I try to wrestle with them and I put them in writing and I try to try to get other people in the field to wrestle with it because I want to enhance the profession, because I love the profession. That's how we get better. And I realized if I follow the traditional career path, I'm going to just change once one color handcuff, green handcuffs, to uh to gray handcuffs, if you will, if I go into the traditional post-military government communication realm. And I knew that I have a talent in rhetoric. I do have a talent in being able to think through and see things over the horizon that other people don't see. And so I've made the very deliberate choice to strike out on my own as a communicator. And there are trade-offs. I I could make a heck of a lot more money if I take in the traditional career path. And I'd probably own a beachfront lot somewhere. But but the freedom to do what I'm doing and to be able to have these kind of conversations without having wondering how big a piece of my back are they going to try to take out of me at the office tomorrow. And the freedom to be able to have conversations like we're having right now, even on my podcast, and to write. That's that's what I feel I'm called to do in this season of life. And it's it's I I I did leave the army with a lot of frustration, but my hope today is that the work that I do will hopefully inspire someone somewhere who maybe someday will achieve the achieve the level of rank to say, hey, there's this an idea, this argument that I heard 15 years ago. We should take a closer look at that.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Absolutely. I agree. I mean, that's why I do the work I do too. I it's anytime I get a thank you note. I mean, I'm getting my my my colleague and I for the latest campaign that we're doing on professional use of social media in on online for active duty in the on their personal platforms. We're we're getting bombarded by people who are reaching out to us and thanking us and saying, gosh, we've seen this for years. Finally, somebody's saying something. And you really paved that path for me when it comes to exposure, Chase, because you did it long before me and this gentleman with the anonymous count

Political Posts And Real Consequences

SPEAKER_01 8:59

did it. You were doing it when Charlie Kirk tragically passed away, and you were seeing how military members were going completely political about that assassination, and they were saying that he deserved to die.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Wasn't that insane? And and I'll never forget that day because you and I were together that day.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Yes, we were found out.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

For those watching right now, this was this was this was something Teresa and I shared. We were in studio. Teresa had very kindly flown into Kansas City, and we were recording the first of two episodes that we did together on on my show, the Finding Your Spine podcast. And and I'd been so looking forward to it. We've been talking about it for months and thinking through how do we want to organize it. And it was we it was the first time we were actually hanging out in person. And right, first time we met, I think, in person, yeah. Yeah, and and so we knock it out, and uh and and Noah, the producer, comes into the room. We're taking about a 15-20-minute break to just reset, recog, get some water, clear our minds and think about the next topic because we had two very distinct episodes we wanted to do. And Noah walks in and says, Charlie Kirk's been shot. Of course, you and me immediately pull out our phones and are trying to figure out what's going on. And uh, I mean, and and going into that second episode, knowing we didn't know he had died at that point in time, but you but we knew he'd been shot in the neck, and and I'd put up the I'd not put up the close-up video, but I'd put up a video where you could hear it was a rifle. I mean, you and me being military veterans, we know immediately the difference between the sound of a handgun and a rifle. And so you and I both we know how this is gonna play out, and we're trying to go he's a fellow tooth truth teller.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Like, I want to also and say that that's why it was so meaningful to us because here we know that you know it doesn't matter if you're on the left or on the right, whatever, you know that he's a guy who speaks up and speaks out, and and they're gonna kill him. It was just it blew my mind.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

I mean, and that and I remember you saying that to me when we were sitting there on set before we started cameras going the second time around, you said Chase, like he did what we're doing right now, and I mean that just boy, that landed on me like a palette bricks.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

It put chills through me, even right now while we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

And and I mean that just totally changed the tone of our whole day. And and we got through I I don't know how I don't know how you got through it, Teresa. It was it was a struggle for me to get through that second episode. I'm glad you were here with me to do it. And I I don't think most people watching would would realize that. But I mean, and but then the very next day, the very next day, I have a friend of mine reach out to me privately and send me a a colonel, an 06, working in the office of the chief of public affairs cheering that assassination. And I was like, I have no choice, I have to put this out. Like, this has to be exposed. I thought, okay, there's one Looney Tune, and and I had known who this particular officer was during my time in service. It did not surprise me. She she is she's not a good person. And then once I put that one out, it was like flies to honey. Another one, another one, another one, another one. And it turned into a full month worth of work, and it was exhausting. And I don't know what the final count was. I saw a news story that said there were 300 investigations across the Department of War into military members for that. And and that's something that I'm curious about is we're now heading into almost a year ago that happened. I want to know what actually happened because every one of those military members who cheered Charlie Kirk's death, that was not a First Amendment expression. That was a violation of anti-terrorism regulation. That was a clear violation of regulation.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, and the thing that makes me upset, Chase, is that it's it goes back to what I'm doing right now on social media.

Readiness Promises Versus Reality

SPEAKER_01 12:53

If these people had any kind of professionalism or conduct training or consequences for poor social media conduct in their personal use, they wouldn't be doing this. I can tell you, like, I've I've been to NATO, and these other nations are not struggling with this issue and not seeing the level of insubordination and violation of you know commercial endorsements or the risque content to the level that we're experiencing. And it smacks in the face, in my view, of what everything Hague Seth said he was standing for when he went when he took office. He said he's gonna go back to readiness and standards and lethality and all these things. And then I'm showing the world these videos of people twerking in uniform or people posing in their uniform and in a suggestive fashion. And I'm like, how is this squaring away with what you're putting out publicly to the to everyone about what you say that how the military is doing? And I'll tell you, like, one of my one of my biggest pet peeves is this whole messaging and rhetoric about recruiting. Recruiting's never been better. We hit our goals, blah, blah, blah. I feel it's all a bunch of bull crap because we lowered the standards. We took, and I know for a fact that in the Navy and maybe the other branches have something similar. We said no high school diploma, no GED, you can come in. That might still be the case now. I don't know, but that's just one example. So you can say all you want about how recruiting's never been better. But if you lowered the standards, then you're not getting the best of the best. And I think that on the outside, aesthetically, everyone's like, we love Hague Sats. He's people want to serve now, blah, blah, blah. I don't sense that when I talk to the rank and file and when I talk to the active duty. I still sense that a lot of people are getting crucified by IG complaints. I still get the sense that people are incredibly unhappy with some of the unprofessional behavior and conduct that goes on in uniform. Like I'm not sensing the things that the Department of War is saying is getting fixed. What about you, Chase?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

I I do believe that Secretary Hegseth is a man who truly believes what he says. I I don't think I don't think by any means he is is saying one thing just for the cameras and that he doesn't care.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

No, I believe he believes this all along.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I think he believes it. And and the the challenge that I think he faces, and and again, it's been quite a while since I've had any conversations with anyone inside the office there, but I sense that this is one of those classic cases of the Empire strikes back. When even before Hexeth was nominated, when I found out Trump was elected, and boy, I was glad for that day. I I started saying aloud, whoever becomes the next Secretary of Defense needs to bring in like a division worth of people. And division, we're talking men like 10,000 plus of people who are aligned with the with the moral and policy objectives of the administration, who are willing to fight hard, who are willing to take scalps, and who are willing to be crucified by CNN and the New York Times and call it every name and every you know cry baby piece that runs because that's their constitutional moral duty to the nation. And those people were not brought in. I I look around at some of the people who are who are running the really running the Department of War. I mean, it all at the end of the day, the buck does stop with hex us. But the the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of War, as it's now again called, it should not have to be this in the weeds to get things fixed. He he is signing the memorandums, and that is the role of that is the role to establish the policy. But the policy has to be enforced. And where the weakness is, is the people below are not enforcing that policy and they're not being removed. And until you start proving to people that this matters, like when the whole transgenderism cult was thrust upon the military, it was made abundantly clear. All the generals were called in and they were told this is the way it's going to be. You have two choices you get on board or you get out.

unknown 17:13

Right?

SPEAKER_02 17:14

There is there's no third or fourth or

Transgender Service And Unit Cohesion

SPEAKER_02 17:16

fifth option.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

And and and and to put a point on the transgender issue, because I've never really had a very deep or intellectual conversation about transgender in the military and why people like you and me, and we're not hating on them, we're not being transphobic, but we don't believe that transgender service, someone who has undergone a transgender operation is compatible with military service. And and that is, I do not believe it's good for readiness. I do not believe it, I do not believe it's scientifically a thing. And I just don't believe that that is something we want in our military service. But you can't say that because if you do, then you're accused of being a racist. Or you're, you know, the same, the same kind of thing. You're not racist, but you're transphobic. And I want to know from your perspective why you don't feel that people who are transgender belong in our US military.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah, it really comes down to the basics of ontology. What is it to be a human being, male and female, created he them? In order to be in the military, we we are charged to carry out national policy through the force of arms. That means we need to have a moral center. We need to know what's right and wrong, we need to know who the friendlies are, who the enemies are. We need to have, and we need to know ourselves in order to know those things. Throughout the history of humanity, there has never been a category of people labeled as transgender. And let's be clear, there is no such thing. It is a made-up term, just like all these is and phobic terms are completely made up. They're Marxist terms meant to shame and coerce people into certain ways of thinking and to silence if they don't think those ways. These are people who are leaving reality behind. And it's not just enough that they're leaving reality behind, they're demanding that you and I come along. You will call me ma'am, even though I'm 6'3, 280 pounds, and have a voice that is many options. Right, and you will call me ma'am, or or or the reverse. These are people. So, one one, there's a moral issue. You have departed reality, and you are coercively demanding that I come along with, and you're coercively demanding that women will shower with you, will live with you, and and I'll never forget. I got to hear Riley Gaines in person one time, and and she was talking, she was talking about how she had to swim against the guy, the the man who called himself Leah Thomas, and she tried to go along for a long time because she wanted to feel kind. She won didn't want to feel like she was excluding anyone. She disagreed, she knew something was wrong, but she didn't want anyone to feel like she was, as they would say, transphobic. And she was she was telling us the story one day. She said, you know what? When I what really made me catch myself was I was talking about Leah, and I said, Yeah, her penis. And I realized those two things just cannot go together. But that was the lie. So you have so one, you have the moral thing. And even if you disagree with me morally, you'd be wrong, but let's we'll set that to the side for a moment. If you disagree with me morally, let's go into just the basic science of it. In order to continue the so-called transgender lifestyle, there are medications you have to take, there are ongoing procedures you have to endure, there's ongoing therapeutical regimens you have to undergo that are not compatible with combat environments. The military is not a place for everybody. The military is a place for people who are capable and willing of living difficult, sacrificial lives in order to protect other people. And when you come and you bring a major issue where the military has to divert time and energy to your desires, to your demands, that is a that is a distraction to fighting readiness. And it's a it's a total misappropriation of taxpayer funds. If that's the lifestyle you want to lead, then you need to not saddle the military with it.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

I agree. I agree. And I 100% felt like it was rammed down our throats. We had to accept it. I'll never forget the day when I was in London and we were at the embassy and we did a tour, and there was a person who identified as a female, but was clearly very muscular, man, stubble, you know, everything, but just was playing dress up like a woman. And I remember we were all just normalizing it and treating it like it was okay. And I remember thinking about. Myself, you know, for some people, not everybody, this is like a cake for them to do this. And I'm here having to accept this and say, you're now a woman to me. And I don't really care what consenting adults do in their personal lives. I'm not here to legislate that or or or apply morality on it. But when that's forced upon me, like Kathy Remington said in my personal restroom spaces, when that's forced upon me while I'm dressing and undressing, that I've now got to undress and undress in front of a biological male. No, no, not not not. That is unsafe. That does not make me feel comfortable. And it should have never been forced upon the military. And it is unfortunate that we got to this point where this is even a discussion. And it's about time that somebody stands up and says, No, not my military.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Well, and and let me jump in on that. Hold that, hold that thought while I hear the rest of it. But I also want to share you because you you got on something that's important the conversation. If you'll remember when this was thrust upon us, there was never any kind of metric of lethality or readiness or force enhancement that came with it. Every justification was it's equitable, it's fair. Never, never did they even attempt to make us a corollary effect of readiness.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

It was like this is gonna make us a better fighting force. This is gonna make us no. And it doesn't, it absolutely doesn't, it divides us. Well, just like all the identity politics divide us, in my view, when we hyperfocus on the fact that I'm a woman or the fact that someone else is a different color or a different nationality, or we hyper and we and we make that the core reason why we are considering them in selection or we're considering their participation because we want to be inclusive. When we go out of our way to overly include someone, to be inclusive, we are negating the very purpose of making them feel included and the cohesion that we desire. We're actually working against it. And it's why the standards have to be the standards. I feel the same way about women in combat. You need one standard. If the job requires a certain amount of physical prowess and a man can do that physical prowess more so than a woman can, so be it. That's just the requirement of that particular job. And that's what we need in our military. And we need someone to stand up and say, cut the bullshit. This is what we're gonna do. And unfortunately, as you said, I do believe that the Department of War has the right intentions, they have the right policies in some cases, but they may not have the right service secretaries, or they may not have the right people underneath the service secretaries. I don't know. They don't have the right people at the tactical units who are on board with some of this. I

One Standard And Fearless Leadership

SPEAKER_01 24:59

don't know. But I do know that when I started talking about standards in good order and discipline on social media, on Instagram, I was very, very enlightened and very encouraged that there is a lot of people in the younger generation that are the silent majority that don't like what they're seeing these social media stars doing. And they don't like all of this hyper focus on DEI. Like they don't want to see it. That's probably why when Hag Sath went around and did all those PT sessions, he saw the same thing. He saw that people wanted this good order and discipline. People want to be led, they want standards, they want to be held accountable. Everybody wants that. You know, it's painful in the moment, but it you want to be called out when you do something wrong and you're going down a path, which we all do, and we make a mistake. We want those friends in our corner. And I just had one recently that did it who says, No, that that wasn't, you shouldn't have put out a video like that. Or no, you you said it wrong. You want that. And isn't that what we want from our leaders?

SPEAKER_02 26:03

I wanted to be sharpened, and being sharpened in the moment is not always fun. I and I I I often tell this story about one of my favorite commanders. I don't know if he'd want me to use his name or not, so so I'll just I won't just in case. Um, but us lieutenants called him dad behind his back, and there's a reason we called him dad behind his back because we knew he loved us and he demonstrated that love for us by the way that he held us accountable. Uh, he he he could he could literally arm around the shoulder and make you feel feel like one of his kids, and then he can put his boot up your you know what when needed to be done, and and and you rightly felt the correction. And I've had leaders along the way who corrected me, who sharpened me. There's still people in my life who correct me, who sharpened me. Everyone should want that. You should want to be well led. If you're in a situation and you're and you're not well led, you feel it. Like you drop to the lowest common denominator.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

And you feel like nobody cares about you. You feel like they don't care.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Absolutely. Absolutely. And we need leaders who are would be willing to step up. But we have had this culture for the last several years where leaders are afraid to enforce standards, particularly on people who are who are not my complexion and who are not my sex. Because then because then you go into IG and EO hell, and it is a hell, and I speak from purgatory.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

It's legal purgatory.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

It really is. And and people are afraid to lead because, well, my career, my career, and I get it. I get it. I've been there. All right. I had those two, I had those moments of weakness that I am very much regretting now. And then there are many moments where I wasn't weak, and I and I stood up. And guess what? The administrative process came for me and I survived it. But let me tell you, it the but the process is the punishment, and they know it.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

They do. That's I mean, I got written up for holding my deputy accountable on my my department head tour. I held her accountable and the rest of the team with a spreadsheet of required products that had to be out every single day, a certain amount of week, a certain amount a day. And the pushback that I got was just absolutely incredible. And no one could do it, and or said that they could do it or had the bandwidth to do it. And they wound up finding a way to get around me and go to somebody who later proved himself to be a very weak leader at another very hope high profile command. And unfortunately, I had to back down and lower my standards and to survive that particular tour. I would never have survived that tour. And that was a consequential tour that I needed to have because that was what the standard was. It was if you are too hard on these people, they will go crying to somebody else. And it really hampered me from being able to, I feel, sharpen their swords and make them better. Because I felt like if you get those sets and reps in your in your content creation, you get better and you keep getting feedback and you keep doing better. But because the ship wanted to pull these people in every other direction, like other things that I felt like were not at all about their duties, like DEI meetings or chief petty officer association initiations or whatever you want to have them, they were all kinds of other distractions that were not about the mission or doing the ops of the day-to-day grind of content creation and media products. And so I know firsthand how hard it is to lead in the military effectively when you feel like your hands are tied by a particular IG complaint that can come bearing down on you and take away anything that you've ever earned or anything that you've worked towards your whole life. So unfortunately, we we were told that this kinds of this kind of nonsense would end. But I can tell you from talking to the rank and file, especially right now, because I'm doing this whole campaign, I'm getting a lot more of the per people who are currently serving popping up in my uh IG DMs. In fact, I talked to somebody today who's struggling through an issue. And it's it's really sad. I don't see the change that I was hoping to see. And so I can just stay hopeful because I know it's not over and I know I do believe they have the right intentions, and I do believe that they're doing the best that

Why Culture Change Fails

SPEAKER_01 30:30

they can. But this kind of transitions and segues into we're veterans, we're advocates. What are we seeing out there in terms of other veterans, especially you, Chase, because you have a show and it's called Finding Your Spine. It's a great podcast. And you interview not just military, but you interview a lot of people who have served. And what are you hearing on your end on the things that they're able to do to try to push some of these issues along?

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Well, the the reality is cultural change is a really, really, really hard thing to do. It's one thing to sign the memorandum, it's another thing to anchor changes in culture. And and I'll tell you, Teresa, uh those who operate on behalf of left-wing ideologies, they they commit to cultural transformation. They understand how to do it well. They've been doing it well for over a century. Us conservatives, we come in and and we think, hey, we signed a memorandum and we put a stamp on a thing, we told people this is the new way to go out, and they'll be obedient and they'll do it. And uh that's not how it works. It requires enforcement. Yeah, I've had a lot of people on the show who've who've talked about the trials they went through previous to the current administration. And unfortunately, I've found that several of them are still finding some of the same trials because even though the policies have officially changed at the higher levels, done at the lower level, local commanders still want to hold to their way of business. And I think there are probably a couple of reasons for that. One, I think a lot of current commanders are ideologically aligned with the way things used to be and they're committed to it. And two, I think there's no accountability. If they if they if let and and I I've seen this several times, I think David Jones could probably speak to this as well based on some of the cases that they have announced.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

So he's a lawyer that I've had on the show.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

That's awesome. Oh, he's just an amazing man. Everyone needs to go follow him on X right now if you don't already. David Johns. David Jones, Y-O-U-N T S. But I look at a lot of these situations, even where the k where a commander will continue violating the regulation and still continue punishing a soldier under the old ways of doing business, and then they get forced through outside legal entity to actually follow the new regulation, the new rules. And guess what? That commander may have to officially finally comply and stop persecuting said service member, but that commander never gets fired. That commander never gets relieved, that commander never gets invited to retire. So they know that there are no consequences. They know at worst case scenario, they will get overruled, but they lose nothing for their continued violations of the law and their continued violations of the Constitution. And this is my major contention, and I say this, you know, with with open hands and uh and I and the best I can, a spirit of love towards Secretary Hegstaff and other brothers in the Lord on his team. You've got to enforce these things. Fire and forget is not a is not a technique. You have to enforce these things. You have to get disciplinarians on the team. You're wasting time, you're burning daylight. Until you get people who will who are willing to take scalps, nothing is going to change. No matter how many memos you sign, no matter how many cool guys spinning around the chair videos that you do for X, no matter how many great posts you have some members of your office make, right? Nothing truly changes until you start enforcing it and showing commanders who continue to break the law that they will have hell to pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 34:03

Absolutely.

Enforcing Uniform Conduct Online

SPEAKER_01 34:04

I feel the same way about these service members. You know, they play whack-a-mole. Like if it gets really bad and it gets back to their chain of command, you'll see that they'll somebody will take a post down or something. But they're not fixing the root cause issue, which is the fact that there's nobody out there who's setting the example on professional social media conduct and is saying, cut this out. You will not pose in a risque outfit and then in your uniform. You will not sell any products or affiliate links if you've got a social media account that prominently displays your uniform. You will have no links to anything that you are selling. Period. If you want to have a social media account that's shit that you sell, then your uniform will not be part of that social media account. If you want to have a social media account where you dress around in risque outfits, if that's okay. I mean, if it's not only fans, I get it. If you want to, you know, wear risque outfits, there's not much we can we can say say about that, but you're not going to pair that with the uniform. I mean, to me, those are just very basic things that I even feel existing policy could cover. And and you know what it is? And I say this, Chase. They're terrified, terrified of a congressional or they're terrified of a lawsuit. And I say, and I said this on my show with Asad, Khan uh Centennial, I said, bring it on. Yeah, this is the way we're gonna resolve this issue. Where what's it gonna take? It's gonna take one commander, just one. That's all we need 105, 106 commander who puts puts the left, you know, puts the smack down on someone doing this, and that's someone going crying to Congress, goes crying to the courts or crying to a lawyer, and then we have a case. That's what it's gonna take. And it would just take one commander to do that. And and the sad part is we don't have one commander, one leader who's watching their people closely enough that will sound the alarm like that and say, you know what, I'm an 05, I've got my retirement, I've got my pension, I know I'm in the right, I've read the regs, Jag. I'm never, I'm I'm telling them they got to take the content down or they're not, and and we've got nobody that's willing to do that. It just blows our minds.

The Mill Twitter Case Study

SPEAKER_02 36:12

You know, it's really sad, Teresa. There's a really good case study that comes to mind. Former now retired Major General Pat Donahoe, and you and I have talked at length a lot about Mill Twitter. Uh, for anyone who's not familiar with that term, that that that term describes kind of an online confederacy from about 2017 to about 2021, a primarily left-wing, mostly Army personnel who generated these big fan accounts and used it to really change military policy in a progressive way. And there were a handful of senior leaders, uh, General Donahue being one of them, they provided top cover for that. And what finally killed off Mill Twitter, because I remember in 2018, 2019, I mean, they seemed unassailable. They could get away with anything. I watched them flagrantly violate regulations. I watched them flagrantly all all but all but go out and literally campaign for certain political candidates. I mean, they they I mean, some of them were right up to the line, but a lot of them were way over the line, and they were being propped up by generals to do it. And you know what killed it? One bold, one, one takedown, Josiah Lippincott getting pointing out the the absolute wrong reasoning of Joan Donahoe, General Dunhoe being dumb enough to take the bait and and and try to get a tiff with him, and going to Fox News and becoming a national story going viral. And Biden's Secretary of the Army, Christine Warmouth, who was an abysmal failure in just about every everything that she touched, but I'll give her credit for this. She could recognize a problem when there was one. And again, Mill Twitter was a left-wing thing. Jerome Donahoe's sympathies were helping to cover left-wing agendas. Christine Warmouth is a leftist, appointed by a left-wing president, and she was a very left-wing progressive figure in the army. But to her credit, she recognized this is a problem. This is a bad look for the army. And she sent that man out to pasture. And you know what? Little Twitter disappeared overnight. The same could be done, same thing could be done right now. Where is a leader bold enough to come out and publicly say this is over the line and I'm taking this scout publicly? I'm guaranteed.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

I know, I know. And the thing is, is like I really do feel like 105, 106, who even like took it public and and stood by their decision to order said service member, said service member with their beauty pageant links, let's say. I mean, I'm gonna use that as an example. There's lots and lots and lots of creators on Instagram who do beauty pageants, and beauty pageants are, let's just face it, they they I um some people say they're a money grab. I don't think they completely are. I mean, I've been to one of my friends one and I I see the the good in what they can do, but man, they're product endorsed all over the place because everything from the makeup, from the dresses, from everything. And so here's what these beauty pageant people are doing they are using their military uniform in one post, and then they're hawking the products from their beauty pageant in another. And they're high visibility, and some of them have you know tens of thousands, sometimes more than a hundred thousand followers. All it would take is one commander to go, no, wait a minute, this is product endorsement. You are endorsing these products, and now you're using your uniform as a prop for these products. No, no, we're not gonna sell your makeup line. We're we're not gonna we're not gonna sell your fitness wear on on your personal social media platform with your paid affiliate links. No, no, that's that's not right. That doesn't represent the uniform. That you know, the uniform is not a brand. The uniform is what our service members died in in many cases. In Afghanistan, they died wearing that uniform. In Vietnam, they died wearing that uniform. In Iraq, they died wearing that uniform. It just infuriates me to see people abuse the uniform the way that they're doing. And, you know, I I just can't, I can't stand it anymore.

Side Hustles Without Exploiting The Uniform

SPEAKER_01 40:13

And I had a podcast with a very dear friend of mine who's a very outspoken veteran advocate, Bill Brown, and he said, good ideas trump bad ideas, and I agree with him. And this was something I had in my heart for many, many years. I had tried to write policy op-eds about it in very respected places like the Public Relations Society of America. It went nowhere. I tried to bring it up when we had the Navy ambassador program, and we were having people who are drag queens in the Navy as Navy ambassadors and who are non-binary, and saying, well, wait a minute, why is that the example that we want to push as the person? Not to say there's anything wrong with him personally. It's just that I would think that we'd want someone who is focused on being a war fighter and a leader and a and that, not not somebody who's performing and in a theater show. I I just I love theater and I love and I and I have nothing against drag queens. I really don't. We we go on cruise ships and there's always a drag queen on the virgin cruise ship and we love it. It's entertainment. But that's not what I want to see in a somebody who's being trained to go to war and perhaps die for our country. And it just infuriates me that this is what the standard is. And I think there's other people out there who agree with us.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

Yeah, the the uniform is there as a something that we wear because we have been given a special trust, right? It's the profession of arms and it's honorable, and it goes back in our nation to the days of George Washington, and it goes back throughout human history that there have been military forces. Some of them did very good things, some of them did very bad things, but but historically it's been recognized that to serve your nation under arms for your national defense is an honorable and good thing. And that's what that uniform represents. I was keenly aware when I put that uniform on, it had my name on it, you know, spears, along with US Army and the flag and my my unit patch and and my wings and all that stuff. My my name, my name was the smallest thing on it, right? And there's a reason for that. I I am I am where I'm putting on history, I'm putting on a reputation that I did not earn. I'm putting on a reputation that people have earned for hundreds and thousands of years before. And I'm not against military members having a side hustle. As a matter of fact, I wish I would have started my LLC much sooner. I think that would be a good thing. I mean, I've known I've known military members. Hey, they've got a snow plowing business on Saturday mornings, they're clearing driveways, or they they'll they'll go mow lawns at in the evening after duty.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

I'm the most common one, they own property, many own property.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Oh yeah, own property, right? I've got nothing against a side hustle, right? But you're not put you're not wrapping your lawnmower in in your uniform, and you're not wrapping your snow plow in your uniform. And and and I doubt on on your uh wherever you list your properties, Teresa, that you're wrapping it in the navy colors. That's it's a very different thing than those who are deliberately in militar in the military, active duty, and there's some nuances between active duty and reserve and national guard. I I will grant there's some nuance there, and we could do a whole other episode on that. But let's kind of keep it to the mind of mainly active duty right now.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

But I would still argue that even for the guard and the reservist, they still shouldn't be pairing their community accounts. Oh, I agree. Their off-duty pursuits like that.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

I do I agree, I agree. Like I've got nothing against I I've heard a story, and I I don't remember what state now, I don't remember the young lady, but there was National Guardsman and she and she won a beauty pageant, and it was just in the news. Hey, you know, national, you know, specialist or sergeant so and so won, you know, Miss Iowa. I I don't remember what state it was. I'm making that up. But and I thought, well, good. Good for her, you know. That's what she did in her civilian capacity. And she wasn't leading with her uniform. It was just, hey, she also happens to be in the National Guard, and someone wrote a little story about, hey, you know, she's a big Queen Anne's. Hey, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

There's an art to that. There's an art to just and and again, that's why I was so upset that I got so hammered when I did the Hag Seth confirmation hearing. All I did was, I mean the confirmation press conference, all I did was say I qualified my remarks by saying who I was. I was not, there was no illusion and there was no intention to say that I was speaking on behalf of the Department of Defense and that I was speaking in my capacity as a public affairs officer. They knew that. They knew that. And I think that that's the thing is like this is where the good work of people with proper judgment and the courage to say what their judgment is, needs to step forth and lead. They need to say, because it's just like we know it, we know it when we see it. We we know when someone's abusing the uniform, and we know when someone's saying, no, this is my job, this is what I do, and this is what I believe. And or this is my job and this is what I do in the military. But then in my off-duty life, I'm also up, you know, I also compete in pageants. That that that I have no problems with. It's when you are consistently using the uniform as a way to push your personal brand. And people do it all over the internet, and it just goes completely unabated because it does everybody wants to step up and police it.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

And and and what you just mentioned about what you went through at the Hexeth confirmation hearing. And uh, for those who are listening and really want to know more, Teresa and I, she she's not talking about yet, but but I'll pitch it. We actually co-wrote a book chapter that will be out next year, and and we did and we dive deep into that. And I share some of the similar stories with me. There is a double standard. There absolutely is a double standard because I began my writing career while I was still on active duty and I used all the disclaimers, and I and my my headshot whenever one was used was not in uniform. I I played by all the rules, and I was still told, well, you really shouldn't be doing that. And my response was, hey, I I met every rule. I followed every policy. I mean, I mean, I went to the extra mile. Well, you're still not supposed to be doing that. It's it's the difference between the actual policy and then the the actual expectations, the institutional norms. And yet, we have military members, and some of these videos that that you have shared with me recently are shocking. I mean, that's the stuff that I had not even seen. So I'm I'm not nearly as as deep into Instagram seeing Twit Twitter and X are really kind of kind of my jam. And some of the stuff that I've seen of uh, and I don't know if you have any of them that you're gonna be any clips you're gonna be showing here, but uh of people quite literally, you know, uh photo montages of uniform one one moment to a fade into G string the next. And it's like, whoa, dude, whoa, like we are way the heck over a line right now. Like that this is this is that uniform does not go with that lifestyle. Like if you want to do all that stuff on your own time, your own dime, that's one thing. But to bring that's you pulling your uniform into it, and they're doing it deliberately because that's they want to be seen, because they know the uniform has an aura about it and it has a reputation about it and their expectations about it. Right. We we all I mean, we all know that we as you know, as military members, yes, we we're still human beings and you know, we still have you know, uh I have sex with my wife, right? And uh that's a shocking one, but I don't I don't show that in the grand scheme of things. Like that's just what life is. But these influencers who are pulling their uniform into that, that that is the abuse of the uniform right there, because they know they're pulling it in for the shock value, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:48

They're pulling it in because they know the uniform is what grabs their likes and their clicks and their views, and then they want to show that other stuff to like bring people in more. And it is just it is shocking.

Hate Campaigns And The Arena Mindset

SPEAKER_01 48:00

And and you know, it's so funny too, because as I've been doing this campaign, you know, invariably somebody will pull up something of mine. And today it happened on LinkedIn. You know, somebody found a photo of me from four years ago where I was wearing like a low-cut bikini and you could see my cleavage. And and looking back, it was just I was sharing about how I was sitting on the pool. And people think like, oh, my life is so great because I can sit on the pool overseas on a on a trip. And and really, I just I took the picture in a very bad framing. Like I should have just cropped out probably some of it looking back. But the fact is, is that even when you do try to point out something that's wrong or something that you really feel convicted about, people will often shoot the messenger. They'll they'll go ahead and they'll start a character exasiation on you because you're pointing out something that's wrong. And I've told people all along that you can dig into my social media and you're and you know what? You're you're gonna find a post that's probably not that great. You're gonna find something I said, you know, maybe some years ago, maybe a month ago, who knows? You're gonna, in fact, when I started this campaign, I I definitely took an approach to it that I think was a little bit too far. And I got called out on it by somebody I trust. And that's good. And I'm not perfect. I think, and I said this on LinkedIn today. I said, I think that our sometimes our most powerful messengers, and I'm not trying to say I'm super powerful or anything, but some of our most powerful messengers are some of our most flawed people. And I think that's just because we're willing to stumble, we're willing to take risks and do things with whatever it is we're doing that other people are afraid to do. And so, yeah, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna fall on our face, and we're gonna fail. And that's just what you got to do when you're willing to dare greatly. And when you're willing to stick yourself out there and you're willing to get into the arena, guess what? You're gonna get your ass handed to you sometimes. And I would rather be the person that takes those risks and tries and take and you know, shoots my shot than that person that just fucking sits on the sidelines and doesn't participate, doesn't participate in patriotism, and doesn't participate in the things that make our country great. So I'm just gonna keep on keeping on, and I know you'll do the same thing, Jace, because our nation is worth this. It's worth people having these debates and having these discussions.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

I I love that you're referencing the man in the arena speech. And and there, there's I mean, it brings to mind a another poem, which I don't remember the exact wording of it, but to do something means that you're choosing not to be nothing. And that's what that's what folks like us do. And it and it doesn't, I think nothing of myself in terms of being special about it. This is just who I am, this is my calling. There, there's some people who are outstanding at building homes. You don't want me to build your house, that's not going to pass code inspection.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Right, right. My husband's outstanding at building.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

Fair warning. Yeah, I God bless him. Like my dad built houses. I I I can't. Everyone is uniquely gifted and talented in certain realms and try and trying to help institutions and writing about the disconnect between what they say the X the standards are and what they're actually enforcing. That's that's a unique talent that we have. And and we take it for granted, but not a lot of people have that. And yes, you're going to make mistakes along the way. I'll look back at some things I've written. I'm like, oh, I could have done that better. Now I stand behind the philosophy of them all. Who knows? 10 years from now, I might look back and be like, ooh, I got that one wrong. I I had a I had a debate on X with a couple very, very admirable guys this weekend on public education. And we are having what coming to wildly different conclusions, and they were not pleased with me, and I wasn't particularly amused with them either. That, but you have the conversations, and most people are afraid to have the conversations because they're worried about well, how am I going to look? How am I going to look? Well, you're probably going to look goofy sometimes. And I accept I'm probably going to look goofy sometimes. And that just comes with the territory. But you know what? The more you do it, the better you get at it.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Yeah, that's a great point, Chase, because you know, the first time like I took on like cases and I started getting hate. I can remember I used to go back and forth with people and I used to like, you know, really care that somebody was being mean to me online. And then it like I stopped replying to the comments. And then like I started getting used to like getting hate. Like, you know, today someone made a nasty blog about me, like a Substack blog about my opinion about the Lincoln issue. And I I said, yes, my heart and my thoughts and my prayers go out to these people who are obviously suffering with what sounds like a very hard deployment. But I also think there is a component of maybe they're not being led to face tough conditions and to have resilience. And I'm not saying that that's entirely their their fault. I mean, I can tell you, you know, from being raised by a mother who really wasn't present or wanted to be a mother, and then a father who entitled me. I mean, and he did. He let me get away with things that I probably shouldn't have gotten away with, and he just wasn't a leader. And my mother just wasn't present and didn't really want to be a mother. And so I didn't get sometimes the best guidance growing up. And so I sometimes make mistakes and I sometimes don't do things entirely the right way because I didn't have that guidance and that mentorship. And so I think that a lot of these kids who join the military are sometimes in the same circumstances when they come from their family homes, they just don't have that good order and discipline and that good leader in their lives. And then they get into the military and it's just an extension of what happened when they were growing up. And so they're just not getting that good guidance and that really good, strong moral compass and that that toughness that needs to happen. And that's the thing, like I loved serving in some capacities. Like I was always like good command, bad command, good command, bad command, good people, bad people. And I had like a lot of really good leaders, like Admiral Brad Cooper, he's one of them, and he's at CENTCOM right now. I mean, I had Admiral Joe Cahill, I had Bill Byrne, I mean, I've had some amazing, amazing leaders who got me where I am today and who inspired me. But just as many of those bad good leaders as I had bad leaders who were lazy, who didn't want to write their own speeches or not even write them. They didn't want to give me any guidance about them. They just PAO, you do everything, you know, and I I don't respond to that. Like if you're not going to put in the work and you just want to sit in meetings all day and run a you know two-hour PowerPoint briefing, I'm just not, I I can't get, I can't respect you. And that was what my frustration was. And I just think it that's what we need to get back to. We just need to get back to all the good leaders and and really, really hone in on those people.

Media Narratives And The Lincoln Story

SPEAKER_02 54:36

Well, and we we need that, and we also need a national media that's not complicit in what appears to me to be a a CCP foil here to try to take advantage of a tough deployment. Deployments are tough. You've been on tough deployments, I've been on tough deployments. And so the the easy thing for me to do is almost kind of pull out like a boomer card and be like, well, back in my day, you know, in Afghanistan. And and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that, right? Because deployments are tough. My son just came back from Middle East deployment, and he's got some stories to tell because he was over there when everything was going off about Iran, and there were some tough times. And I empathize. And guess what? Soldiers for generations after generations after generations after generations have had tough deployments. I I strongly suspect you've probably got no more than a just a handful of sailors on that boat who are dumb enough to pull out their phones and and and do some really dumb stuff, and they probably need to get grabbed by the nape of the neck and remind of what it is to be a sailor. And but deployments have always been tough. Ships have ships have always been hard to some extent. They are. And and I I think the majority of sailors on that ship understand. Guess what? As we said in the army, embrace the suck. I don't know what you guys said in the Navy.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

I was telling them the the my my audience that I was actually on Lincoln. That's what's so funny. I was really historical deployment from 2002 to 2003, where we had an admiral from the air wing tell everyone during an unrep when we got extended to just get over it. And I'll never forget it. Like we were all just kind of sitting there, like, you know, passing the boxes. And he comes on the inner intercom and he's telling everyone that that's his attitude. Like, you guys just need to move on, you need to get over it. And we all was like, oh my God, we can't believe you just said that. We thought it was funny. And we made t-shirts that said get over it, and like, I mean, what can you do? You know, and I mean, I think it was just his way of trying to give us a little bit of tough love and say, Yeah, that that's that's the reality of of serving uh during war. And that's what we were we were doing. We were getting turned around and going back into the Gulf. We had left, we're coming back home, and we had to turn around, go to Australia, redo the non-skid on the flight deck, and then go back to Fifth Fleet so that we could do OIF, Operation in Iraqi Freedom. And yeah, it sucked. I can remember like the first few days back up on the flight deck after we thought we were going home, and everyone is just like sad, swallow, you know, like nobody wanted to be on the flight deck. And we were all sitting there with our float coats and our cranials, and we're just like, oh my fucking god, this sucks, you know. You know, I mean, it's just it's such a miserable life sometimes. And I work nights, and I thank God I work nights because I didn't want to work days. Days was like where all the, you know, all the political stuff happened, all the all the super important people were around. I've always been a person that always kind of wanted to be, if I wasn't in charge and I wasn't the leader, I wanted to be in the background as a worker bee. And so I felt like if I was on night check, you know what? I can do my job, I can fix the airplane. I would, I would, I would find the the aircraft discrepancies that I knew how to fix and I could fix quickly. And I'd always be the first to be like, yep, I got this, I got the ANCU, I got whatever it was. I I got the flight deck controller, I got, I got this canon plug, you know, and every everyone else would just kind of like, you know, scurry around and try to figure out what they're being told to go fix. And I just never like that. I always because I'm kind of a control freak. So I always wanted to know, like, I'm gonna work on this discrepancy tonight. I'm gonna, you know, work on these equipment, I'm gonna need this thing to do, you know. So, but yeah, I mean, it's just that's just the reality of carrier life. I mean, it's it's hard. And and being deployed sucks as in the Navy. It does. I mean, it's it's Groundhog Day, and there's a really good documentary. It's called from PBS. It's it's old, but it's called Carrier, and it's a really good realistic depiction of life at sea. And and it really is just all this drama, and your work relationships become like family relationships, and and you know, you obsess over things that probably aren't that important, but you don't have another life to go home to. So I mean, it's just it's a different life out there, and I and I feel for those guys, I really do. And so for someone like this guy, Tony Carr, today to like write a whole blog about basically me abusing my platform, it was just like Tony Carr wrote it.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

Oh, that guy.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Yes, oh, I gotta send you the link afterwards. It was I'll I'll link it in the comments on the on the podcast too. It was maybe he'll take it down. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 58:56

I mean, you you and I had both been you and I have both been trolled by him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Yeah. I mean, it was just I I couldn't believe he wrote an entire Substack blog about one, you know, post that I made and he took out of context everything I said. And so I responded to it, and then he accused me of using AI, and I was like, damn right I use AI. I just took an AI politics class and it taught me how to use like AI, you know, custom chat GPTs. I do claw projects now. I mean, I've been I've been loving using AI and I train it and I refine it and I I I love it. It's like my it's my own little like art project toy now. And yeah, so it wasn't like he was, you know, insulting me any by saying, Oh, you wrote that response back with AI. Well, yeah, I did. I use I use the tools that I'm learning to use at my disposal to make my writing better, and I have no shame on that.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

So anyway, you know, when people are willing to stop and actually invest the time to to take you on like that. I mean, uh I tone Tony's just easy to dismiss like a box of fruit loops. But but there there are there are times I I look at some of my critics, I'm like, you know what? Clearly, I struck a nerve, and clearly you think my ideas influential enough to be worth your time. Because because if you didn't, if you thought that no one was paying attention to what I was saying, you wouldn't you wouldn't even look at it. You wouldn't even go in second thought. So so thank you. You've you've inadvertently complimented me, and I take it. And if you want to keep it up, I'll charge you a rent for being in your head so much. But it's just yeah, I mean that that that is the reality of the business we're in. And and it's unfortunate. Like I I don't like I don't like caring about service members having to do having to be in tough situations because I'm a human being on one hand, right? But on the other hand, we're veterans and we were warriors, and that just sometimes that comes with the business, right? We do hard things and hard conditions, and think of all the times when there have been legitimate things the media should be upset about. Red Hill and Hawaii. There's another ship.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

There are action suicides on on George Washington. We're raps and suicides on George Washington. The fire on you. I mean, I'm just doing Navy examples, the fire on USS Boxer or the what is it, the Fat Leonard case, or Eddie Gallagher. I mean, you can you you name it. We we've had the controversy of the chip collisions, and and and the media just always takes a politicized stance on every single one of those issues. And it is unfortunate. And that's why I do believe it falls to us veterans advocates. I mean, you don't know, also since I've been doing the social media campaign, you do not know how many people in the in the in the mainstream media have been like looking and peeking at my LinkedIn profile. I'm like, don't peek at my profile. Why don't you write a story about the same thing that I'm talking about? Yeah if you if you want to, if you if you are peeking because I'm exposing service members, why don't you expose service members and do the same thing I'm doing, military.com, task and purpose, ABC, CBS, CNN. You do those things because I shouldn't be the one that has to do it. You have the disposal at your disposal these professional journalistic tools. I'm not showing anything that they couldn't be researching, but like you said, they turn a blind eye to those things. They turn a blind eye to the broken IG process or the Red Hill issue disaster that has poisoned so you know hundreds of thousands of family members. They they decide that they don't want to, or the men who have been falsely accused of sex crimes and are paying the dearly with a you know sex uh uh what do you what do you call it, offender status for life, or or or having gone to a you know the hell of a court martial and now serving time in the brig. No, we don't want to talk about those issues, you know. And it just blows my mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Because that doesn't set their narrative. Like at the end of the day, here's here's the ground truth. And this is gonna sound really harsh, but it's the truth. So civilians love soldiers most when we're dead. That's just the way it is. That's the way it's always been. Remember, Teresa, it wasn't it wasn't just three or four months ago. There was a controversy about military members getting to eat steak and lobster on Friday night. Oh, that's right. And the press went absolute back crazy about that. And they use that to attack Heg Seth. And we're like, um, that's been tradition for like 30 years. Yeah, that's what I was in. And we're not and we're and we're not talking about like outback steakhouse here. We're talking like we're talking about like a thing of meat that we're told to steak and we're just going to trust. That's what it really is. It it kind of has a consistency of rubber. And you know what? We're darn glad to get it. We're darn glad to get it. We pretend it's real steak, and we pretend it's real shrimp, and we pretend that little dried out husk that they call lobster tail is it, and we eat it with a smile on our face around the table with our battle buddies because it's one thing we can look forward to and for a moment feel a little bit normal, right? Right. And they they twisted that into a controversy, and now it's oh, the sailors are in the aren't getting fed enough on the Lincoln. It's like, okay, well, what is it? Should we starve or should we be fed? Which is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:00

Well, and every time I read their articles, I just see them as as a tax on the administration. That's what it is. They're not really trying to help the sailors, and they're not trying to fix the problems. They're trying to attack Hag Seth or Trump. They're trying to go after Trump, and so they're using Hag Seth as their proxy. And and that's all this is. And so when you read those articles, you're you're not reading a true depiction of what the problem is. You're reading a politicized narrative that's out there to smear the current administration and has nothing to do with what's right or what the sailor or what sailors are struggling with. And that's the sad part. I mean, I remember my my very dear friend, Mandy, Mandy Feint, who told me that like she intentionally has to use leftist media to talk about Red Hill because it's a family issue. And a lot of times the right, you know, right wing media won't touch military-family issues unless it's about like gold star families or something that's more warfighter-driven. And I thought, that's so sad. And I mean, I have a I have a good friend Jennifer Barnhill, who is very active in the military-family advocacy space, and it's the same thing. Why is it that we have media that have taken a side, a political side? Shouldn't the media be on, I mean, shouldn't they try to be on the side of the of the service member and of what is best for the service member and not take a side on the political aisle? But they do. And and all the media does it. Fox does it on the right, CNN does it on the left. And it's just that's why nobody trusts the mainstream media anymore because we know the lens that they're going to tell the story. And they're telling the story to slam the other side. And so, again, this is where it goes back to, and I'll just bring it full circle because I know that you know we're kind of winding down because we're even over time over the hour that I normally do. But I I really do believe it falls on people like yourself and me, and Asad Khan and Bill Brown and other. Others to be the veteran advocates that the mainstream media has has decided not to be and not to talk about because who, if not us, then who?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Did I ever tell you the story, Teresa? This was years ago. I was at Command and General Staff College, and they used to have a media day where they'd bring in three or four tier one national level reporters to brief the class. And it wasn't the usual thing of, oh, it's good to work with media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I looked forward to it because I'm a PAO and I truly believed, yes, we do want to work with media. And I loved being a conduit to the media. And I had great working relationships at all at local levels at all places that I went. And even when I was deployed, I developed good working relationships with some national levels. And I'd just been in Alaska for six years before that tour. And I had just hit nothing but dry holes trying to get national media to come out and cover any of the stuff we were doing in Alaska. And we were doing some gnarly stuff going toe-to-toe with the Russian Ministry of Defense. And I couldn't get any interest, just not once. And so I was talking to one of these guys. And if I said the name, you would know the name before the session. And I said, hey man, I'm just kind of curious, like, what's it take to get y'all's attention? Like here for years and years and years I tried and I couldn't get any attention. But man, I wrote a piece for the Baltimore Sun criticizing how the army handled Bergdahl. And I had like all these people knocking my door on me to do interviews. And that to me was just a little op-ed. Here was something that was way more major that I'd actually put hard work into. And he said to me, Well, Chase, maybe if you would have staged an orgy, we would have been interested in coming up and cover it. And that it just it was such this flippant, dismissive, casual attitude of we just look for whatever is extravagant and whatever we can get to find some partisan lens through. As you you've listed off numerous issues that affect the troops on a daily, daily basis. And what does the press do? The press ignores and the public says, you knew what you signed up for. But they find these things that they can try to make a partisan hit job on four or five months ago with you know dried steaks and crusty lobster tails. Today it's the Abraham Lincoln. Give it 72 hours, and they'll forgotten all about it, and they won't touch any military story that actually affects service members on a long-term basis. And they'll move on to the next thing. And that's my issue. I don't mind the press coming in and shining a light on the military. As a matter of fact, I welcome it. It's what I worked for for 20 years of my life. It's what I still work for. But I have no patience at all for the fly by night fake journalists who come by and just use the troops to take a partisan hit and then move on to the next thing. And then when you call them up, say, hey, I've got this real thing we need help with, and they don't take the call when they could actually make a difference. And that I have no patience for. And in this case, those sailors are being abused, and those sailors are going to be the ones who end up paying a price for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

Yeah. It's it's really sad. I mean, when we think about all the people who got screwed because of the COVID, you know, issue, for example, and the COVID mandate. I mean, where was the media covering their stories and really shining a light on the abuse that they were going through? Where was the media when Keith Berry, unfortunately, went through his ordeal with a Brig and what have you? I mean, even Eddie Gallagher, at first, he wasn't getting any traction on his story. It was really his wife and and the advocacy that they that the family did that got that pulled the media to them. And even then, they had to politicize the issue. They had to make it a right, right-leaning issue in order for anyone to care or step up and do anything from the from the media perspective. And I and I just that's why I do think like I'm so grateful for people like yourself and a couple of my other friends who I believe are really on the on the leading edge of advocacy in the veteran space. And there's so few of us who do it. I mean, unfortunately, there's a lot of posers out there, like the ones who do the military influencer conference, and they say they're influencing, but what they really are doing is pushing a left-wing progressive agenda. Yeah. As as they kicked me out of the conference over a lie that was made up about my advocacy. And they push their products and their services. And it's not about service and sacrifice.

Carrying The Watch As Veterans

SPEAKER_01 1:10:31

In fact, it's nothing at all like what I just witnessed with this adventure therapy experience here in Jersey City, where I am now, for the New York City SEAL swim. That is patriotism and that is service and sacrifice. The entire, you know, two-day, three-day event, because there were some tours that were also a part of it, were all about honoring those who perished in 9-11, honoring first responders, honoring the children from the Ronald McDonald House, people who have endured hardships and people who have sacrificed on behalf of others. And where are the conferences that are pushing to the veteran community those ideals? Where are the guest speakers like the one I saw from the, I want to say the fire, the the New York City fire department, who gave just a moving, moving firsthand experience about his being in the tower when the towers fell and what happened to him and his colleagues during that time and some of the things that he saw. And that's the kind of thing that we need as patriots to hear more about that those stories. Or we need to hear the stories of the war fighters who were in Iraq and Afghanistan, or we've got this plethora of Vietnam veterans who, thank God, are still alive and we could be hearing their stories. And unfortunately, all that gets drowned out for social media clout clicks and product placement. And, you know, I was just thinking even before this call, and then I'll stop because I know we got to get off. But we need to have like an uninfluencer conference where it's like not about influencers or clout or products, and it's just a bunch of guest speakers who have served and sacrificed on behalf of others. And we need to invite the veteran community and active duty to this conference and remind everybody about what service and sacrifice is about. And I mean, that's why I do love like this whole idea of going out and doing something physical and then putting into that patriotism and values. And I think there's just nothing better than than doing things that honor those kinds of sacrifices. Because when people do things that are hard, they're proud of themselves, they feel good about themselves, they feel accomplished, and they feel like they have a purpose. And I think that's what that's why we're here. That's what that's that's that's that's what life should be. That's what life should be all about. So I appreciate you, Chase.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:50

Call it the vast, the veteran advocacy summit.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

Right. I mean, and there really should be like something that pushes veterans to advocate on behalf of the causes that they find dear and to not be afraid and to find their spine and to understand that it is going to take people who are not afraid to speak up and speak out in order to impact and and have push change. But before we wrap up, is there anything else that you wanted to address on the podcast that you feel like? Look at your notes real quick as I'm as I'm kind of speaking and rambling. But I think we we covered a lot today.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:25

We covered so much ground, Teresa. I I think it's so important, and and I'll I'll kind of just hammer home this point that you've been making really well throughout. Is it really does fall on us, people like you and me, peep other veterans, other thinking veterans. I mean, we're we speak, but we're not the only people who think on these things. We it really is incumbent on the veteran community to remember our watch is it's still ongoing. Like we've taken the uniform off, but when you raise your right hand, you really shouldn't ever abandon that oath. And there are a lot of people who do abandon that oath. Don't get me started on what Mark Kelly's up to lately. But we we are still important to the nation in terms of being the watchdogs and trying to help hold the military institution accountable to what it should be doing and calling out these false flag operations like we're seeing right now with the media, so misusing these sailors to try to score political points. And a lot of veterans, I understand they're they they they just want to disconnect from this because hey, I did my time, I want to move on. Or there's really I don't want to be that guy at my current job, or I just I'm afraid of how I'll come across. But I was I was watching Young Washington with my sons last week. Oh, what a phenomenal movie. It's great. With my my oldest son having just come back from deployment, and my younger son, we all got together, saw the movie Had Pizza. Now it's just reflecting on what an amazing character George Washington was, what a magnificent man he was, and the sacrifice he was willing to endure and how hard he was willing to push. And he never gave up the dream of serving. And even when that meant that he had to switch loyalties because he knew what was right, his ultimate loyalty was to what was right. And he was willing to follow that loyalty above all others. And we need to challenge ourselves daily to do the same thing because America is still a great country. It is still a country that needs people willing to serve it. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Sometimes I see some of the people around the nation, and I'm like, I I I'm not putting myself at risk for you, but the nation, right? The nation, because I have sons and I have daughters, and I hope they do the same. And the flame was passed to us, and we need to be willing to preserve it and pass it down. And it's going to require hard work for the rest of our lives. Retirement is not a biblical concept. You know, no one, no one has written of honorably in the history books who gave it all up at 62, sat on the couch, and stopped contributing. We all have important jobs to do, and I would call our fellow veterans to get involved, get engaged, and help us carry the watch forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Absolutely. Well, that is a wonderful way to end the show. Thank you so much, Chase. I am going to go full screen, say goodbye to my audience. But your presence on the Stories of Service podcast is very, very much appreciated. These are very important conversations to have. And I can only hope that they inspire others to step up and to speak up and speak out. Because I can promise you, the hate that you get, it's worth it. It is absolutely worth it. And I will continue to be doing this because if we don't practice speaking up and speaking out, then our democracy dies. And I don't want democracy to die. I'm I'm a very, very proud and very loyal patriot. And I want to see this nation continue to grow and to continue to thrive. So thank you so much, Chase, and uh appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

Always a joy to be with you, Teresa. Thanks so much. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:56

All right, guys, that is a wrap. Thank you so much uh for taking time to come on and watch us or listen or whatever you are on the Stories of Service podcast. This will be my only show this week. So I will get some reels out there. I know sometimes people just want that little snippet and get get the blog going. But as I always do, please to close out these calls, I always encourage you all to please take care of yourselves. Please put take care of each other and enjoy the rest of your Sunday. I think this is Sunday when we're going live, and enjoy the rest of your week. Bye bye now.