Here we are about four and a half months from our next presidential election. I think we all know that. What’s interesting to me is that this time around, we seem to have a lot of candidates, not just presidential, but many other offices, talking about veterans and the veteran vote. It seems to be a new trend, at least in my opinion. And so I thought today that I would focus the discussion around that. So stick with us. Don’t go away. We start now. Hey, everybody, and welcome here to the next episode of the Richard Leonard Show. I want to thank you, as usual, for joining us.

It’s always very humbling, as usual. I think I say this most weeks, it’s very humbling to see the turnout and to see the show grow. Everybody here at, at the studio and everybody that’s part of the show at the network, we all really appreciate not just you joining us here for the Richard Leonard show, but any of the others that you may watch and participate in. So we’d like to all thank you for that. We really do appreciate it. Before we get started on today’s discussion, of course, I know that you won’t mind me telling you about how the show is made possible, and that is Cortes wealth management.

Get yourselves on over to americafirstretirementplan.com and sign yourselves up for a webinar. That happened on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 07:00 p.m. eastern Standard Time. Let Carlos Cortez and his staff help you to plan, put together and execute a tax free retirement plan. Once you have gathered all this information, get a hold of them. If you have any comments, questions or concerns or for any reason, any reason at all, they’ll be glad to help you out, answer any questions that you have. Again, that’s americafirstretirementplan.com. get on over there and check them out. Okay. So I think that, as I said in the intro, I’m kind of miffed.

I’m kind of miffed at why all the sudden this election cycle, we hear a lot from our candidates about the veteran vote and what could be sparking that. I think that every election cycle we hear, we hear something right. There’s always something to do with veterans. There’s certainly stuff talked about as it pertains to the military in general, but as it, as it relates to veteran care, veteran benefits, and just, I struggle with what to call this. But I heard one person say, awareness about veterans issues is something that we need to strive for in order to prove that we are a grateful nation.

And okay, if that’s the way some see it, that we need to prove as a society, as a community, that we need to prove to the veterans of this, of this country, to the soldiers, the military service members, that we are a grateful nation. I suppose I can get down with that. And I agree with that. Like, we, we owe it to these men and women to support them, to show them that we’re thankful for the sacrifice that they make. But I think that this year, more than any that I can remember, we’re starting to hear about how candidates are going to ensure that veterans care at the VA is put out.

And we’re going to ensure that the names of veterans are not lost, that we’re going to remember always, and we’re going to do all these great things to honor the sacrifice of and to a certain respect. I don’t know. I don’t know that I buy it. That I buy all of it from, from politicians, from politicians that are up for reelection or from politicians that are looking to take out an incumbent and take over said office, whichever one they’re running for, because it’s my opinion that we should be doing these things anyway. My question is, why would, why would support of the men and women who have sacrificed their life if need be? Why would we have to talk about the idea that we need to be a grateful nation? Why is that even a discussion? And furthermore, why is that something that any one person thinks that they should campaign on? Is it because, is it because our country is in chaos currently? Already? Have we as a country forgotten that we should be grateful for the freedom that we have? Do the people who, do the people who stand tall and talk about how much they hate this country and how, and how our flag is a symbol of hate, but yet they’re Americans.

And they, and they, and they stomp it in the mud and they piss on it and they set it on fire and they do all these things to the symbol of our freedom? Do we really need to talk about that and campaign on the idea that that’s wrong and we’re not going to do that anymore and we’re not going to support those, those efforts. We’re not going to support those views? Because if you ask me, that’s asinine. It’s absolutely ridiculous that, that any one person, and it doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you sit on, this has nothing to do with, with Joe Biden or Donald Trump or whoever your local, your local politicians may be, has nothing to do with who the person is.

It has everything to do with that? Anybody thinks that this is something that’s going to get you votes, I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. Wasn’t this country built. Wasn’t this country built on the idea that we support the men and women who. Who helped. Who helped make it what it was? Not just. Not. Not just soldiers, not just veterans, but farmers, teachers who were teaching our children good, to use a good moral compass, farmers who were working their asses off to ensure that our country was fed. Police officers that kept order in our community so that we didn’t have to be scared about our children going two blocks down the street with the neighborhood, with the neighborhood group of friends to play.

We didn’t have to worry about them getting snatched up and sold to some pedophile somewhere or put in some child labor camp or whatever it is that they do with these kids. It’s just. It’s just asinine to me. All of those people, firefighters, the industrial workers that worked hard all day in sweltering heat and factories to build amazing vehicles, cars and trucks. There was a lot of. There was a lot of things, folks, that people did in this country that contributed to what made it amazing in the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, all the way up to now.

But we don’t talk about those things now. We talk about. What are the hot topics now? The border, the border, the border, the border. Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Hamas, Iran. All stuff that is. And there’s much more. There’s much more. I’m sure this. This. These LGBTQ rs elemental pissed people that can’t seem to just live your life. Live your life. Why do you need all this attention? So here’s a. Here’s a. Here’s a goat trail to go down for a second, because this one kind of grinds my gears, right? Like all these. These trannies and all this other shit.

Why do you demand attention? Why can’t you get up in the morning, go to work like everyone else, or do whatever it is you do, try to make it through the day without having some kind of meltdown or some kind of anxiety filled screaming match with somebody, go to whatever job it is you have, if you have one, work through the day and go home and do what you’re gonna do. Why. Why do you require attention? Why do you require this visibility? Just go do what you’re gonna do and shut the hell up. These are all the things that we’re talking about now.

And then every once in a while, you’ll hear a candidate say, and we got to make sure that we take care of our veterans. We got to make sure we take care. We got to make sure that they’re getting the best healthcare possible. We got to make sure that we get them into stable housing. The homeless veteran issue is long overdue to be fixed. The veteran suicide rate is long overdue to be fixed. It’s been way too high for way too long. Veterans shouldn’t have to wait for healthcare. They shouldn’t have to wait for benefits. They shouldn’t have to suffer through these diseases they got from burn pits or from Agent Orange or whatever it is.

There’s always a hot topic, there’s always a hot item with buzzwords, and it’s always, you know, now it’s getting to be more than just a minute or two or 30 seconds to a minute or whatever, but it’s a lot more frequent. And so I don’t know how many weeks ago it was, but Jason and I talked on this show about the idea that veterans make up about eleven to 13% of our nation’s population. And as we know, many elections on many different levels of government are won by small margins. One, two, five, 7%, something like that.

Not, not big margins. So if veterans make up 13% of the country’s population, if we’re speaking about the presidential campaign, the presidential vote, when all veterans have not only just a voice, but the ability to potentially sway an election one way or the other, and I’m not here to say that. That. That our group. That our group is going to be the, uh, the ace in the hole, if you will, and when it’s all said and done and all, and the smoke clears, that the veterans of this country are going to be the ones that decide a presidential election.

That’s not what I’m saying. But if a candidate, especially running for president, can secure it, I don’t know, 6% of the veteran vote, and that thing comes down the wire, it may, it may be the last few percent that they need. It may be exactly what they need. So I’m not sure. I’m not sure if. If that’s the reason why, but I really have no other. No other idea why all of a sudden, I. This has become way more important than it ever has for political candidates. Sure. Sure. President Trump, in, in his time in office, past choice, did some.

Did some other pretty cool things with veterans. We got a pretty good Cola. We also got a pretty good Cola under, under Biden, but so did Social Security. It’s all. It’s all due to inflation. If you ask me. President Biden signed the PAC DAC in the PAC tact into law, but I’m not, I’m not certain that that was even his doing. I think the Pack DAC just came to his desk and he just happened to be president. I don’t think it mattered who was in the office at that point. It was time for it to be signed.

And they talk about how many, how many hundreds of thousands or thousands and thousands of veterans are being helped by the Pact act, which is, which is good to hear. But my question is, who’s tabulating the data and who’s putting that data out? Now, if it’s true that, that many veterans are getting this kind of help, then great, then the system is working for once. But it’s been my experience with the pact act that there’s many veterans still waiting for answers. They’re still waiting for answers on their claims, and maybe it’s an issue of staffing. They weren’t able to get all these claims processed in time, and these, and these folks are still waiting.

And it’s frustrating, right, because they put out this stuff and they talk about how great it’s going to be and how much it’s going to help these men and women, but I don’t think that they, they have a gauge on how long it’s going to actually take. I don’t know that they hire, they hire, or did hire enough staff, enough people to process this influx of claims, because the biggest travesty is that we got men and women all worked up, got them all excited about the passing of this, of this legislation, that they’re going to get help, they’re going to get benefits, they can get disability compensation, they can get pharmacy help, they can get healthcare, they can get these issues treated, and everything should be good, but there’s many that are still waiting, and some of them who are still waiting, unfortunately, are dying while they wait.

And I, and I, and I don’t know that that necessarily falls on any one person’s shoulders, but it’s, it’s hard to not be frustrated by it. Maybe, maybe these veterans are just victims of circumstance. Maybe their, their ailments progressed far enough that they just, they just weren’t going to live long enough for the PAC to act to kick in and help them. Had that came one or two years earlier, maybe it would have. But honestly, that’s probably a woulda, coulda, shoulda type situation. But it’s still frustrating because we’re losing people. Not only are we losing veterans to their own hands, but we’re losing veterans to ailments that they incurred during their service.

We’re losing people to ailments incurred during their sacrifice. And so my question is, is it unreasonable? Is it unreasonable of us, whoever us is? Me, let’s just say, is it unreasonable of me to be frustrated by this type of thing when it’s out of. Out of my control? Is it something that I should even be talking about on my podcast when 40, 50, 60, 70,000 people watch it? Am I wasting your time by talking about this? And I don’t. I don’t think. I don’t think that I am. I think that it’s important for people to hear this stuff, because some of it is just.

Quite honestly, some of it is just bullshit. Some of it is just a big, steaming, stinking pile of bullshit. Now, as I said about some of the pack that guys, you know, maybe some of them are victims of circumstance. They just. They just. They just didn’t make it. But it’s a hard pill to swallow because these men and women, many of them that are suffering through some of these conditions, that are conditions that are granted due to the pact act, are aggressive. They’re aggressive. They’re certainly not fun. They’re painful. Some of these folks are dying miserable deaths.

But also, also, is this something I should be talking about or something that’s worthwhile to have a discussion about? Because we knew. We knew when we signed up, we knew what the risk was. We knew what the cost may be. And if you are a person that served and you can honestly say that you didn’t think that there was ever a chance that there was a risk to your life at some point in time, possibly you’re ignorant as hell. Unless. Unless you were. Unless you’re some kind of officer or something and found yourself in some job and at the Pentagon or in DC somewhere, and.

And you stayed in some. Some career track that didn’t let you leave DC or the Pentagon or whatever, but I think that those are. Those are small, small group of people. But guys like me and Jason, Ben, who’s been on this show before, and many others, Mike walnuts, who’s been on the show before, we were all aware. We were all aware what the cost may be, and we were down for it. I use Mike as a good example. Mike Walnuts, who’s been on this show two or three times now, him and I were in the same.

On the same team, not even the same platoon, but the same team when we. When we were deployed to Iraq. Mike walnuts and I put on a lot of miles up and down the highways of Iraq together. We didn’t sit in the same truck together, but we were on the same missions over and over and over and over again. And we used to talk about it as a group, never very seriously, I might add. We used to talk about it. We used to, as a team, we used to make jokes about whose turn it was to who’s coming.

Who’s coming back tomorrow. Who’s coming back tomorrow with bouncy legs. You know, there was the guy that ran in the. In the Olympics with the prosthetics he shot. His girlfriend. Said he thought she was a deer or something while he was sitting on the john. I think he was from South Africa. I forget what the guy’s name was, but we used to reference his bouncy legs and talk about who was. Who’s gonna get bouncy legs tonight. And although it’s kind of maybe a sick, twisted joke or sick and twisted sense of humor, you kind of have to do that or you’ll go nuts.

But deep down, and I’d say even before we deployed to Iraq, you see, that group I deployed with, we all went to infantry school together. We all learned to be grunts together. Our platoon sergeant at the time, his first name is Hector, he told us, because we all went to school to be air defenders, we all went to school to shoot shoulder fired Stinger missiles at aircraft, and that was our job. But they did away with the air defense artillery in the reserve components, and so we had to pick a new job, and our platoon sergeant Hector, came to us and was like, listen, man, we are getting deployed.

We are going to Iraq. Now. You all have to reclass. You all have to pick a new job, because air defense artillery is no more, and you cannot deploy as an air defender. Just not a thing anymore. He said, now, feel free. Feel free to pick whatever job you want. He said, but if you all want to deploy together, fight together, and most importantly, all come home together, you all go to infantry school. And he said, we will all go together. Excuse me. And so, with the exception of two of us, one guy decided he was a conscientious objector.

Yeah. Well, get out of here. See you later. The other guy, Nate, decided he wanted to be a chaplain’s assistant, which was fine. He went to chaplain assistant school, but he stayed in the unit. So we still got. He still got to be part of the. Part of the crew. We just didn’t. We didn’t work together. When we’d leave the. When we leave the fob. But we got to see him all the time, so that was all right. But the rest of us all went to infantry school together. We all deployed together. We all came home together.

But at no time, at no time were we ever confused about what the cost might be. We already knew. And as we got deeper and deeper into our tour and guys started dying, nobody from our company died. The dudes in our battalion died. People we knew. It just got more real. And so then it gives you a whole different frame of reference, a whole different frame of mind. But you know what? We wake up every morning, you grab your shit and get out to that truck. You go to the staging area. You mount your weapons. You go draw more ammo.

You do your functions, check. You do your pccs and pcis. You load your radios. You make sure there’s fuel in the truck. You make sure the tires are good. You make sure that you can talk to higher on the radio. You make sure you got food, water, Red Bull monsters, and peach tea in our truck. Evan had to make sure he had candy or he’d be grumpy. Make sure you have your smokes. Make sure you have flares. You make sure you have chemline. I mean, there’s just. There’s a mental checklist. I could probably go through it now and tell you everything that I needed for mission.

Then you go do it. And many nights there. There was nothing. No ids, no small arms fire, no RPG’s, no trouble. But some nights there was. And so in those instances when the fight was on and there’s rounds flying everywhere and there’s RPG’s skipping across the road and if you. If we were escorting fuel tankers and they’re leaking. They’re leaking fuel out of their. Out of their tankers. And one of our guys grabbed a piece of. A piece of twizzlers that had been in the windshield of the Humvee for three months. And it’s rock hard trying to shove it in bullet holes in these gas tankers so they wouldn’t be leaking.

So we could get fuel to where it was supposed to go. Because those guys need fuel. Oh, why the bullets are flying, man. It got intense. And then it’s over. And then you get to wherever it is you’re going. You get into some base, into a safe area and you can. You can take off your body armor, take your helmet off, clear your weapon, but be careful because it’s red hot. You just put 2000 rounds through it, or a thousand or five, depending on where you’re at and what happened, but it’s hot and your heart’s beating, and you’re sweating like a.

Sweating like a hostage. And you sit back and you take a deep breath, and then this smile, and then the smile comes over your face, and you can’t believe. You just can’t effing believe what happened. And you know what? You know what your next thought is? When can we do it again? Folks, I’m telling you, anybody out there who has been actively engaged in combat a firefight, is probably hands down the biggest, most intense adrenaline rush you will ever feel. There’s nothing like it. It sounds silly. It sounds silly to people who haven’t been there, who haven’t experienced it.

But I’ll tell you what. You enter one, you participate, and you, and you, most of the time, dominate. It’s like you don’t even remember it all happening. When people say, don’t think. Don’t think, and just let your training take over, they’re a thousand percent, right, a thousand percent, because there are many aspects of that event you just don’t remember. You can see them, but you don’t remember how you got there. Like, if you had to change the barrel on your weapon, you don’t really remember thinking, oh, my God, I better change my barrel. Maybe you just bent down, picked it up because it’s.

It’s second nature, or somebody in your truck just handed it up to you because they knew it was time. You hit the button, slide it out, throw it down, try not to burn your leg or anybody else. Throw the new one in, pull that bolt back, and rockin. You’re back to rockin. I mean, I’m getting goosebumps now, man. It’s an amazing feeling. Okay? And so I go. I went all the way around four blocks to go across the street to just say that we knew, that we knew. We knew the cost, the potential cost. And so is this a waste of time talking about this? And I think, no, I think it’s not clearly, or I wouldn’t be, or I wouldn’t be talking to you about it.

But I think to a certain, to a certain point, it’s a waste of their time. It’s a waste of these, of these candidates time to all of a sudden be talking about how we’re going to better help veterans, how we’re going to better treat veterans because we’re not dumb, we’re not blind, and we’re not stupid. We can tell. We can tell that there’s an influx talking about our community. Is it nice to hear more about what veterans may need and how they’re going to help us and what they’re going to do for us? And maybe. Maybe talk about some mistakes that were made in the past? Yeah, maybe that’s nice.

It’d be a little nicer if when they talk about mistakes made in the past, they were talking about their mistakes, not the other guy’s mistakes, because, you know, nobody ever takes ownership. And I think the reason why veterans are so disgruntled about this thing sometimes is that nobody takes ownership. And here we have sick, dying, or dead veterans, and we want to know who’s responsible. These guys did what they said they were going to do. Well, when the fuck is our country going to do what they said they’re going to do? I think that’s how they feel.

So now some greasy politician shows up on tv or some campaign event or some town hall or comes knocking on your door, and they’re going to talk to you about how they’re going to. Things are going to be better for you as a veteran. But we remember. Remember when our buddy Johnny died of waiting for care, and there was no explanation, there was no help for his family? Yeah, there was a few guys to do a salute, 21 gun salute, at his funeral, which is pretty impressive, by the way, but it’s usually done by some 75 year old dudes from the legion, which is fantastic.

And I’m grateful that they do that, but it’s still not. It’s nothing. I don’t know. We’ll get back to it. I got to take a break, though. I’m severely over time. We’ll be right back. Stick with us. There’s a whole bunch of stories that have to be dug into, rethought, reconsidered, and in some cases, completely discarded. As modern Americans, we’ve been spoon fed this dumbed down, cartoonish, simplified version of history. It’s all fake. It’s all bull. Everything that we have been taught is part of a self serving narrative written by the people who will say and do anything to keep us on a leash.

Now, this version of history, some big name corrupt families like the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds and their many associates, are credited over and over and over again with propelling human development. Throughout the late 18 and early 19, hundreds, almost every major american city, was burnt to the ground. What if we really are quite literally living atop the ashes of an advanced civilization that’s been hidden from us for our entire lives? Hey, folks, welcome back here to the last segment of the show. Sorry, before, before the break, I feel like I had a little Joe Biden moment when I just went, I don’t know.

I don’t know. That’s just because I get frustrated and I do get lost in my words and in my thoughts. It just. It seems. It just seems so blatantly obvious to me sometimes that the powers that be just spew nonsense about our community. And I would rather. To be quite honest, I would rather let the government just tell us that we don’t get anything. To be quite honest, I would just rather them tell us, hey, man, you signed up for a job. You did your job, you got paid. Thanks for your time. Here’s a flag. And if you’re in long enough to retire, here’s a pension.

If you got hurt, here’s some, here’s some compensation. And then send us on our way. But then they got to throw in education benefits, and they got to throw in VA home loans, and they got to throw in volk rehab, and, you know, all the, all these other programs, housing assistance, you know, clothing allow. I mean, there’s just, there’s. There’s a lot of programs out there that the VA offers, but the trouble is that nobody knows about them. And that I. Maybe that’s our doing. Maybe that’s our doing because we don’t inquire about what. What else is available.

We don’t ask, we don’t search it out, but also understand that that kind of thing goes against the nature of the United States veteran, for the most part, because we’re taught you’re raised in the military to not question. Don’t question authority. Life will be so much easier if you just do what you’re told. When it’s time to eat, go eat. When it’s time to sleep, you sleep. And in between, do your job as assigned. When you have downtime to do, to do with what you please, then you do with what you please, you do do whatever it is you want.

Just don’t get arrested, and for God’s sakes, don’t make a bunch of babies. But we instead have all this. All this stuff. We have all this stuff available to us. And I’m not gonna lie to you, some of this stuff is pretty cool. But as, as it pertains to our candidates publicly talking about how they’re going to help us, I question how genuine that is. And I also wonder, and I just thought of this right this second. Is it for our benefit, for the benefit of the veteran or the military person? Or are they saying that for the benefit of the civilian or both.

And what I mean by that is, are these guys talking about how great they’re going to be for veterans so that they can try to win votes for staunch military and veteran supporters who may not have served because they don’t know the difference? Many, many people. Many people in this country have no idea, especially young people, even young people who may have a family member who has or is serving. They don’t quite know what’s. What. You see, our society is not set up to be engaged, engaging in that way. Our society is set up to be all about what’s on this thing, on your cellular telephonic device.

That’s what our society is all set up for. Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and this and that and the other thing, which is fine, because that’s where. That’s where we’re at, right? We’re like, we’re watching this on social media. But I also think that there’s a. There’s. There’s healthy doses of these things because, of course, we live in an age now where that’s kind of how the World turns, right? Like, there’s a lot of information. There’s a lot of information that gets put out in many different platforms. But you got to be somewhat knowledgeable of where to look and what to look for, what’s a credible source and what is just a person spewing some shit to get a bunch of.

A bunch of watches and a bunch of views to make some money, or do these people really want to help? And so that’s the beautiful thing I think about. About the Stu Peters network, where you’re finding this show is that there isn’t anybody on here that I know of. There is anybody in our network that I know of that is on here solely for the purpose of making a ton of money, because we don’t make a ton of money. I don’t. I know I make some. But if I had an idea that my show over the last 119 weeks was not helpful to anybody, it didn’t bring insight to anybody.

Nobody could relate. Nobody found any purpose in it at all, well, then I’d move on to the next thing. But I don’t think that that’s true. And so that’s why we’re here. That’s why I’m here. I do genuinely give a shit about the state of other veterans in this country and what they got going on because I believe we get a lot of lip service. We get a lot of lip service. From the powers that be. And so I think that it’s only right. And I’m pretty sure I’ve said this a few times already the last few months on this show.

Question these people. If they start spouting off about veterans and military issues, question them. Ask them why they think it’s important. And my guess is that for a lot of them, you’re gonna get some cookie cutter answer. Well, because these are the people that ensure America’s freedom, and, and we owe it to them to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And maybe that’s true, but see, if they have something else, something creative to say, maybe they do. I don’t know. I would like to think. I would like to think that we have. We have people running who find the value, authentically find the value in the sacrifice made into this country, into its people, into moving our, our country and everything in it to the next level.

And furthermore, using. Using the skills of the men and women who have sacrificed and fought and served this country. We’ve talked about it before on the show, for example, using veterans to secure our schools. Veterans need mission. They need a mission. That’s where they thrive, even if it’s a small mission or a huge mission. Everybody has a different capacity for these types of things. If we can give veterans mission and keep them mission driven, I think we will see a lot different, a lot different type, and maybe that’s not the right word, but a lot different type of veteran walking around our communities, somebody who’s more confident, somebody who’s a lot more proud, who they are and the service that they provided.

I hate to say it, but I. I hope that we’re not getting back to this era like we were in Vietnam, where it wasn’t. It wasn’t really acceptable. It wasn’t really acceptable to be in the military, wasn’t acceptable to be a veteran, where these, these guys didn’t. They didn’t advertise it or they didn’t talk about it, they didn’t admit to it. We need to hold our elected officials at every level of government accountable for the words that come out of their mouths and in some cases, the words that don’t come out of their mouths. And when they start getting up on stages on the radio, on tv, on the Internet, wherever they’re at, and they start talking about subjects like veterans and military issues, and we.

Well, I won’t say we because maybe you don’t feel that way. If you feel like it’s lip service, I implore you to call them out. I’m not saying you have to be rude to them and be put on this whole big show, but call them out. Ask them what they mean. Ask them to tell you more. Ask them for more information. And I’d be willing to bet that there are many of them that don’t have any more information. But we must, we must hold their feet to the fire. Way too much work has been done. Way too much work has been done.

Way too many lives have been altered and lost for these folks to talk about this community like they know exactly what’s going on and then do nothing about it. And then we just sit back and assume that they’re telling the truth. You may be comfortable with it, you just might be, but I’m not. And I’ll tell you what I’m anxiously awaiting. The day some person running for Congress comes knocking on my door. Because we’re going to have one hell of a conversation. Anyway, folks, with that, that’s all the time that we have. I’d like to thank you again for joining us.

As usual, please take care of yourselves. Have a wonderful, wonderful week ahead. Have an even better evening. We will see you next week. Take care of yourselves. Good night.
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