➡ The article discusses the current issues with military recruitment in the United States, highlighting that the number of active duty soldiers is at its lowest since World War II. The author criticizes high-ranking officials for focusing on their own careers rather than the needs of the soldiers. The article also emphasizes that increasing pay and benefits alone won’t solve the recruitment problem, suggesting that a sense of duty and love for the country should be the main motivators for joining the military. The author concludes by sharing his own experience of joining the military, not for the benefits, but to serve his country and gain a sense of purpose.

➡ The speaker shares his personal journey of joining the Minnesota Army National Guard after his father took his car away for failing to pay insurance. Initially, he was unsure about his decision, but after attending drills and basic training, he found a sense of purpose and belonging. He also expresses his connection with the new Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll, and Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, due to their shared military experiences. The speaker ends by asking for viewer support for the Stu Peters Network, which has lost sponsorships, and offers membership benefits.

➡ The Stew Peters Locals page is offering a giveaway basket to one of their Stu Crew members. You can join the Stu Crew or make a one-time donation to be entered into the drawing. The article also discusses the importance of soldiers’ commitment to their mission and the challenges the army faces in recruiting. It suggests that telling the compelling story of America’s military could be a powerful recruitment tool.

➡ The text discusses the importance of telling the story of the United States Army, emphasizing that it’s not just about the institution, but also about the soldiers, their families, and their experiences. It suggests that sharing both the triumphs and trials of the army, including stories from young soldiers and old veterans, can inspire others to serve. The text also highlights the importance of supportive leadership and the challenges faced by soldiers and their families. Lastly, it expresses strong opinions about the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

And a whole bunch of confirmation hearings down. Also we saw RFK Jr fight it out with members of the Senate. We saw Tulsi Gabbard fight it out with members of the Senate. We also saw Cash Patel fight it out with members of the Senate. And they did much of the same as they did the week prior to people like Pete Hegseth trying to, especially the blue side of the committees, just try to play games of Gotcha. It seems to be a pattern and I don’t really know, I don’t really know what the, what the real game is.

You know, maybe I’m not that smart, but at the end of the day it’s my opinion that all these confirmation hearings and the questions that are being asked are really to, to get an understanding of how these people are going to better further the lives of American citizens, of Americans. And it seemed, I didn’t watch all of them. It’s the hours and hours on end to watch all of it. But it seems like a lot of wasted time for things, some things that weren’t relevant or things that were way in the past and maybe didn’t really, didn’t really matter to the position in question.

Of course people do all kinds of other things before they end up in the job that they’re currently interviewing for. And of course being on the President’s cabinet is probably more serious than a whole lot of other jobs any of us have ever interviewed for. But I don’t know, the games of Gotcha just got old. The one confirmation hearing I think that we are going to examine a little bit further today was that of Mr. Daniel Driscoll. Mr. Daniel Driscoll is a 39ish year old guy who served a few years in the, in the United States army who was Trump’s nominee to be the new Secretary of the Army.

And I did watch most of his confirmation hearing and I gotta say he’s a, he’s a pretty impressive guy for the most part. The one thing I did appreciate about him is he didn’t seem to take the bait on a lot of things. He did want to seem to go back when accusatory statements or things of that nature were thrown out in his direction and he wasn’t really given the chance to respond. He did try to take some of his time to go back and address those things and of course he was cut off. The Senators would say things like, well, this is my time now and so you can respond in writing.

Feel free. So they weren’t really there to have a conversation. But understanding that they only have five minutes and of course, they go over when allowed. But they talked about a lot of things. They talked about, you know, ammunition stockpiles and equipment and drones and all kinds of stuff, vehicles, all, you name it. And all of it was pretty good conversation for, for somebody like me who’s interested in those things. But today, let’s get through the intro, right? Today we’re going to talk about Daniel Driscoll’s confirmation hearing and how that went and we will dissect a little bit of it.

I found a really good article about the topic in his hearing that I’d like to discuss. So stick with us. Don’t go away. We start. Hey, everybody. And welcome here to the Richard Leonard Show. Again, another episode. As always, if you’re a returning viewer, thank you. We really appreciate you being here. All of us here, if you’re new to the program, thanks for, thanks for stopping by. We hope you come back. And then of course, before we get started down the path, which we already did for about four minutes in the intro, I know that you won’t mind me telling you about how the show is made possible.

And of course, that is Cortez Wealth Management. Get yourselves on over to AmericaFirstRetirementPlan.com Sign up for the webinars. They happen on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. And just to be clear, it’s not webinars, it is a webinar. You can do one or the other Tuesday or Thursdays at 7pm Eastern Standard Time. Carlos Cortez and his staff want to help you plan and execute a tax free retirement plan. So get on over there, get the information, ask the questions, go through, find the documents, do the thing and check it out. You deserve it.

It’s for you. They want to help you out. You deserve to be able to do all of this. So America first retirement plan. Get on over there and check it out. So of course, the, we’re going to talk about Daniel Driscoll and his hearing today. And I think that one important thing to point out first, and there’s been quite a few picks that President Trump has made for many different positions. And he’s picked some, some very young people like Daniel Driscoll, for example, is 39. And I think that, I think it’s a, it’s a pretty slick move, right? I think that having younger people in some of these, like for example, the, his press secretary, that lady, I watched the, the, the first, the media, the media day, the very first press conference and she kicked their asses.

She did an amazing job, much like Kayleigh McEnany used to do. And of course, we’ll see because I’m sure the pressure is going to mount. Things around the world are going to happen, things in the country are going to happen, and the media is going to go after her and ask her a bunch of questions, much like Mr. Doocy did to what’s her name, the dummy that Biden had, Jean Pierre, whatever her first name is. Some days she was up there flopping like a flounder. And it was pretty interesting to watch at times. But Daniel Driscoll’s a young dude, served a few years in the Army.

He was an Army Ranger. He deployed to a combat zone. But having young blood in some of these leadership roles, especially in when we’re talking about military stuff, I think it’s very important because the same with Pete Hegseth, these guys have put on the uniform. And here’s how I kind of will lay this out for you. The United States army, for example, when I first got in in the very early 2000s, we were wearing BDUs, like the dark OD green, brown and tan camouflage uniforms, the ones you had to press with starch, make them as tightly ironed and pressed, make your creases like razor blade edges, shine your boots to look like mirrors.

It was a whole different kind of army. And that was what was going on when I went through basic training up until probably my second year in the military. And then we went to the acu, the army combat uniform. But we also had, for soldiers who were deployed to the Middle east, we had the DCU’s like the desert colored camouflage uniforms. And then it wasn’t long after that that we got the current army uniform. I think they’re ocp, they call them now, whatever that acronym is. And so there’s been three or four uniforms that have been fielded in just what, 23, 24 years since I joined.

And there’s a lot that’s happened. The longest war in our country’s history seen three or four different army uniforms. And for some people that’s not significant. But for people that served, that’s pretty significant because we can talk about equipment, right? Equipment is a huge deal to soldiers. When we went away from BDU’s, for example, to the ACUs and we went from, from button pockets to Velcro pockets and zippers, well, everyone in the army hated them. The Velcro’s loud noise discipline is going to be a thing. The zippers are loud noise discipline again is going to be a thing.

But we figured it out. And then later iterations of the uniform went back to buttons. Soldiers were taking the velcro off their uniforms and having the soul shops and seamstresses put buttons on. There we go. Now we fixed the noise discipline thing. So soldiers are always being innovative with their equipment to make it better. And so one of the things that Mr. Driscoll talked about when it came to equipment was, you know, we had all this. We had all this cool equipment. You know, like, he talked specifically about the MRAP trucks. These mraps were huge, tall, long, super heavy vehicles, weren’t very good for many missions in the Middle east, especially in Afghanistan, where it’s mountainous.

In Iraq, they became a problem because in the rainy season, when the sand and the dust and the dirt in that desert gets wet, it turns into, like, concrete and this mud that you can never get off of anything. So these big super heavy vehicles would get stuck. They’re almost impossible sometimes to recover. And so when you’re, when you’re conducting recovery operations outside the wire in a combat zone, these big, huge, heavy vehicles are now something that soldiers don’t want to use, because now it puts our ass in the wind. It makes it difficult for us to do our jobs safely, to go home to our families, and to make sure that the soldier to the left and or right of us also goes home to their families.

Because we are a team. We fight together. I don’t know that very many past secretaries of the army, I don’t know that very many past defense secretaries ever thought about those things. Lloyd Austin wasn’t thinking about MRAPs and how shitty they could have been for soldiers, how it would have put their lives at risk and left their ass in the wind. No, no, no. These folks are at such high positions that they’re worried about their next job, a bonus, maybe their next salary, how they’re going to gain more power or how they’re going to. To change the narrative or the what’s going on of the United States military, or in this case, the United States army to best fit their needs to gain power, control, popularity, whatever it is.

Or maybe they just don’t know. They don’t know because they didn’t live it. Pete Hegseth, Daniel Driscoll. They lived it. And so when we’re talking about, well, what is the best. What’s the best thing that we can do for the warfighter? Well, I’ll tell you, one of those biggest conversations to have is going to be equipment. So I Appreciated that part of the conversation. But the biggest thing, the biggest thing that he talked about that I found the most interesting was his take on recruiting. Now, we’ve had many conversations on this show about the recruiting issue, the problem, and it was, it’s been dismal.

The recruiting climate of the United States military in the past four to five years has been dismal. It’s, it’s at a place where we now have less active duty soldiers than we did for World War II. Less active duty soldiers than we did leading into Vietnam before the draft was issued. The whole reason why we had to have a draft, we have less now. That’s a problem. So I found an article, I also found his testimony that matches up with this article. We’ll watch that video. It’s about two minutes long. Watch that in the second half of the show.

But I’d like to just go through this article quickly because his take on this recruiting thing I think is something that not a lot of people have talked about. I think that there are circle of soldiers and maybe even, and veterans and just people who are interested in the military in this country that have probably talked about in the not so recent past, the last few years. I mean, everyone is having discussions about. Not everyone, but anybody interested in this is having discussions about our recruiting, the problems. Why is nobody joining? Why are people getting, were people getting kicked out? We all know about the COVID and the vaccine and how they were kicking folks out.

Yeah, yeah, we know all that. But there’s also a problem with gaining interest, gaining the interest of young people in this country to put on a uniform and defend this country from its enemies both inside and outside our borders. And there’s always, there’s a lot of people out there that are saying, you know, well, it’s, it’s not a, it’s, it’s the, the military is doing the dirty work for the United States government and, and yada, yada. And okay, well, maybe so, maybe, maybe, maybe that is part of the deal. But there are millions of Americans that have signed up to serve in our military and that are currently serving in this military because they genuinely love this country.

And so if, if anybody’s narrative is that they’ve been lied to and that they’re stupid or they, they’re, they’re innocently ignorant about the, the things that the military is directing its soldiers to do, okay, maybe there’s some truth to that. But there are also people that love this country. They love their home, and they want to defend their home. And so we can get wrapped around the axle about whether or not the government’s right about what they do and what they don’t do. And maybe some of those things are undisputable. And if that’s the case, then they won’t be disputed.

But I also think that it’s undisputed that there are genuinely people that join the military for, for straight up love for their home and they want to defend it. Maybe they bought into this big lie. Okay, maybe so. But who are we to tell them that they’re, they’re fucking stupid? Um, believe what you want. Um, so let’s go through this here. Here we go. Army Secretary Pick says pay boost isn’t enough to fix recruiting woes. This is what caught me, right? This was the, this was the headline that caught me. Because the, the narrative, the narrative a lot of times is, well, let’s just give them more money.

Let’s give them a better benefit, which usually equates into something of monetary value or some massive discount or something like that. You know, like, the VA Home Loan is a great, amazing thing. It’s a great benefit for veterans. I use it, Used it a few times. But nowadays it isn’t enough to get people enticed. Young people aren’t concerned about buying homes. Not like, not like my generation was or the generation before me. Home ownership isn’t at the top of their list for whatever reason. Okay, let’s go through this here. So Army Secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll said he’ll push service leaders for more non monetary incentives to boost soldier service, soldier recruiting and retention.

He said that he believes better pay and benefits alone won’t solve personal. The personnel problems. We have the fewest number of active soldiers that we’ve had since World War II, even as conflict is erupting around the world. Driscoll told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on Thursday. We need to fix that. When, when’s the last time we’ve heard anybody in any of the halls in Washington, D.C. just say, we need to fix it. You always hear, well, okay, it’s a problem. And so we should be doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes having somebody say it’s broke, we need to fix it, and then just stop, to me, is more powerful because it invites conversation, it invites ideas. I believe that when people say it’s broken and we should be doing A, B, C, D and E, you’ve already made up your mind the opportunity for good conversation and compromise. Because we both know, we both, we all know we all know that for both sides of the aisle to come together, it’s gonna take some. Some compromise. Even though that some of these issues should be the most nonpartisan issues in the halls of our government.

In my opinion, we need to fix it. I actually don’t think the answer is throwing more money at the problem. I think it’s nice to get things like the GI Bill benefit, but I didn’t join for that. I enlisted to serve the country. The comments came just a few weeks after lawmakers approved a major pay boost for junior enlisted troops. Set to go into effect in April. The 10% boost was designed in part to ease the financial pressures of young military families. Let’s see. Financial pressure, young military families. And make the service more attractive to potential recruits.

Driscoll, who was 38, spent nearly four years in the army as a Cavalry Scout platoon leader, including a deployment to Iraq in 2009. At the hearing, he described his time in the service as transformational to his life, opening the way for opportunities I could scarcely have imagined when I enlisted. So let’s talk about this for a second. The 10% pay increase, I think is great, is nice, but at the end of the day, a 10% boost is not all that attractive to young men and women in this country who don’t have serving in the military as like one of their top two choices of what to do with their life, not when they can go do just about any other job for the same or similar pay.

But I agree with him that it shouldn’t be all about the pay. When people join the military, there should be some kind of. Some kind of feeling of a sense of duty, a sense of excitement to be one of the people that puts that name tape that says US army across your heart. In my opinion, there should be. But I will say this, that for some people, that doesn’t happen when they enlist. For some people, it happens after they enlist. That’s what happened to me. I joined the military because, number one, I wanted to finish college.

I was effing around in school. I was, I really enjoyed my college experience and I took advantage of everything college had to offer to me. The only thing that I forgot to do was go to class. So it didn’t last long for me. I didn’t apply myself. And so when I found myself in a situation where I was on academic suspension from the school I was going to and I was working, I was working these, you know, like, low level jobs. I was working at car dealerships and detail shops, cleaning cars and, you know, being the gopher at a car dealership, which I like those jobs.

I had fun. I met some cool people, made some good friends, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t really setting myself up for future success. I was just being. And then my father. My father took my car from me. And it’s interesting. It’s an interesting conversation, if you’re interested and you go over to YouTube and go to 3Kliks Media. I interviewed my father. I interviewed my father not long ago, and we talked about this particular instance when he took my car from me because I failed to pay the car insurance, which is what I agreed to do.

Well. And then I found myself in a real tough spot. I couldn’t go to work, I didn’t have any transportation, and I was living in a spot where none of my people were around me. I was about 35 minutes away from any of my friends. And so I was kind of stuck. And the family that was allowing me to hide out in their basement, the guy was. Was in the Air Force, was in the Air Force Reserve or the Air Guard. And finally one day he told me, he’s like, look, you haven’t left the basement in like four days other than to eat and shower and use the bathroom.

What are you gonna do? Well, I suppose I’ll go talk to a recruiter. And so in a week and a half, later, week and a half’s time, I was in a recruiting office, you know, and no, I was at Maps, raising my right hand, taking the oath of enlistment, enlisting in the Minnesota Army National Guard. And just like that, I was a member of the United States army in the Minnesota National Guard. It was. I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I had done. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the path that I wanted to travel down.

And so I had to wait, I think it was like five months before I could go off to basic training. Because at that time in our country, it wasn’t long after 9 11, you weren’t going to enlist and ship off to basic training in a week. You were going to enlist and then you had to wait your turn. And so there was a lot of people joining at the time. And I can’t even say that 911 had like, sparked this sense of service in me either. I was simply at a spot where I was stuck. And while I was waiting to go to basic training, I had to start going to my one weekend a month drills.

So I showed up there and I was in civilian clothes, of course. I Didn’t have a uniform yet. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anybody. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know that I even. If I even wanted to be there. And by the end of that first weekend, I think it was weapons qual weekend. And so we went up to Camp Ripley in northern Minnesota, and I. And I rode the bus with the rest of the unit and met a bunch of people and did a bunch of cool stuff.

They even let me go up on the line and shoot a rifle with guidance, of course, with a babysitter, which was 1,000% necessary at that point in my life. When I went home after that first drill, I realized that I think I might like this. And after the next couple months, well, shit, this is going to be sweet. And by the time I went to basic training, I was all in. It was then when I got to basic training, the first day that I had my oh, shit moment. Oh, boy. What in God’s name did I do? When the drill sergeants come on the bus and they start yelling at you and carrying on and this and that, well, that’s when it got real.

So I went all the way around the block to just go across the street to say that not everybody has this initial call to service. Some people find that calling after they join. And once they’ve dipped a toe in, some people, they got to just jump in both feet. And there are some people that they dip their toe in, they dive in, they jump in, they wallow in it, and they just don’t like it. It’s not their thing. And maybe that’s okay, too, as long as you know it and you get out or put yourself in a spot where you’re not going to get in anybody’s way and affect progress.

But when he says transformational, when Mr. Driscoll said that the military was transformational, well, I can. I can relate to that. Because there were many things in my military career that were transformational in my life. But the first one was before I even went on, stepped on a plane, before I even put on a uniform that said United States army over my heart, before I ever touched any black boot polish to shine any boots or ever had my first bullshit meal in the chow hall, I had a transformational moment. So already I can relate to the new Secretary of the army even just a little bit, which is way more than I can say about anybody who’s been there before.

I could say that I have a whole lot more in common as a United States army infantryman, a trigger puller with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, than I did Lloyd Austin. I mean, Pete Hegseth is from around here. Him and I played softball against each other many years ago. I don’t remember him being very friendly, but again, we were on different teams and they were very competitive. If I remember right. They probably. I think they whooped our ass, to be honest with you. Maybe not, but. But I have more in common with him than I do any of his predecessor predecessors.

I have more in common with Daniel Driscoll, the new Secretary of the army, than I have with any of his predecessors. So if I was a guy who was still putting on a United States army uniform, I feel good about the people that are in these positions. And that’s refreshing for soldiers because it’s been a long time. And I can never remember in all the years I served in a uniform, I can never remember a politician saying, nope, we are going to focus on the war fighter. We are going to focus on soldiers, their, their health, their well being, their readiness.

And then we’re also going to. We’re also going to focus on their families. The other thing Daniel Driscoll said in his hearing was that the National Guard, they need, they need more assistance. The strain on their families when they deploy is astronomical. The stress on spouses and kids and civilian jobs are astronomical. And they need more support when these National Guard units have this insane operational tempo. He said it with his own mouth instantly. I can relate to that because I live that. My son lived that more than once, for more than one deployment. My son lived that.

My ex wife lived that. Not that I care about that anymore, but she did. She had to. Some extra support would have been nice, especially for my boy. It affects him. It did. I think it still does. So I’ve instantly. I can relate. I love that. Anyway, we gotta take. We gotta take a break. We’ll be right back. Don’t go away. Hey folks, real quick. Before we get back to the show, it’s no secret that we have been experiencing a loss of sponsorships. Sponsors have been leaving the network or the network leaving sponsors due to our convictions.

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We really do appreciate your support and as I said, you are the lifeblood of this network. We can’t do this work without you. We can’t continue to bring you all of this amazing content without your support. So thank you once again for, for being here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for supporting us. We really do appreciate it. We really do love you. Thank you. Hey folks, welcome back here. Let’s continue. Before we went on the break, I was talking about how easily it is for me to relate to, relate to People like Daniel Driscoll, even to people like Pete Hegseth.

And I think that it’s important to recognize that for soldiers, for the people that are going to be under the charge of these men, I mean, and keep in mind that these guys are in charge of men at the highest level, right? So they’re in charge of, of the whole shooting match. Pete Hegseth, of course, in charge of a lot more than just the army. But Daniel Driscoll, for example, is the Secretary of the Army. So as it, as it pertains to where the army is, what they’re doing, where they’re going, equipment they’re being fielded, how much ammo they have in storage and this and that equipment, all those things, those are all under his guidance, all under his purview.

But, but I think that a really important thing to remember is that when we, when we don’t have buy in from the soldiers, a lot of that other stuff, although still important, doesn’t matter as much. The men and women that wear the uniform, they’re the catalyst for the success. Of course they need the right tools, the right equipment and the support to carry out the mission. They got to have that or it’s not going to be successful. I think we all know that. But having the bodies, the people in place that are committed to the mission, that are committed to the goal for the right reasons, makes our fighting force even that much better.

Because when you have, say, a BCT, a brigade combat team, it’s about 3,500 soldiers, when you have a brigade size element and you got buy in from majority, if not all of that brigade, and you send them on a mission to destroy an enemy with extreme prejudice and do it with all the tools of war that they have at their disposal and let them use the full capabilities of all of those tools and the people that are pulling the triggers, that are pressing the buttons, that are operating the equipment that are driving the vehicles are all committed and they have bought into the plan, there isn’t a military on this planet that will beat us.

The problem is that we don’t have that. And so we didn’t, we didn’t get through the article because my soapbox was pretty tall today. But one of the things that I wanted to outline before we get on the next thing involving the recruiting was the numbers. Want to talk about the numbers? And then we’ll get to the, to the video, the testimony to the Senate that matches up with this article. But the article says this army officials met their recruiting goal of 55,000 new enlistees in fiscal year 2024 after bringing in fewer than 51,000 recruits each of the previous two years.

But Daniel Driscoll downplayed the success after meeting that mark, or downplayed the success of meeting that mark, saying he believes the recruiting target was picked because it was an achievable goal and not the number needed to properly staff the service. He promised to review future recruiting goals and end strength needs in background material provided the committee ahead of the hearing. He also suggested a review of the Army’s recruiting strategy to ensure it effectively conveys a strong value proposition to young people across America. So here we are again, another person being drilled by the Senate. And he is also talking about values, American values, the American dream, in this instance, the Army.

Core values. Honor, duty, loyalty, personal courage, integrity, respect. All those things, all value based. And why? Because those are the people that are going to buy into the mission. The people that believe that a strong military equates to a safe homeland. I seem to think that that’s a good idea. But let’s talk about these numbers. In 2024, 55,000 new enlistees into the United States Army. Two years prior, we fell short of 51,000. Now, what is the reason for that? I don’t know. That is yet to be determined. If you ask me. I think a lot of it has to do with the idea that people believed that Donald Trump was going to win the election and they were going to join the service.

Then I don’t know of any other incentive that people may have seen. Could it be that they saw that the country was, was at a breaking point and, and they thought, oh, well, we need soldiers, so I better go and enlist. Doesn’t seem, doesn’t seem plausible to me, but who knows, who knows what the real reason is? But I believe a value based system could be helpful. Uh, but let’s take a look at his, at his. It’s about a minute maybe of his testimony here to Senator Fisher of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Here we go.

Okay. Recruiting. We see tremendous challenges with recruiting in the army across all services. What is your current assessment right now of the Army’s recruiting challenges and how would you address them? My sense is for the last three or four years, we have missed our goals. I believe even the goals we hit from the outside. It seems as if the army lowered their goals. The best analogy that I heard is the army threw the dart at the dartboard and then drew the bullseye around where the dart landed. That’s not a great way to Staff an Army. We have the fewest number of active duty soldiers that we have had since World War II.

Right now, conflict is erupting around the world. I think there is a story to tell of the United States army that young people want to hear. And I think we have complicated that story a bit over the last couple of years. I actually don’t think it is throwing more money at the problem. I think it’s nice to get things like the GI Bill. I got to use the GI Bill. But I didn’t. I didn’t enlist for that. I enlisted because I wanted to go serve my country. And I think young people stand by ready for us to tell that story again in a compelling way.

And if confirmed, I look forward to working with you to tell that story. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, Huge. Tell. Tell the effing story. Tell the story. That’s what’s missing, folks. That’s what’s missing from this recruiting issue. I think he’s. I think he’s absolutely right. Aside from shit that just makes sense, the story of America is missing. The story of America’s military is missing. He had said somewhere else in his testimony that we’re coming up on 250 years, next year’s 250 year anniversary of our country and of the United States Army. I think that this could be a perfect opportunity for the United States government to tell the story of the United States army and all it has done in 250 years.

The sheer power of story, in my opinion, is magical. It may sound cliche, it may sound stupid, but it truly is magical. I mean, think about it. Our whole lives, we will pay money to go sit down, stuff our faces with popcorn and bon bons and Coke and whatever else they serve at the cinema, to sit there and be engrossed in story as a way to escape. And I don’t know, it hasn’t been very many years, however many years, since people have been making documentaries and true stories, movies that are true stories. And millions and millions of people watch them.

Oh, is this. Is this a true story? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it’s a true story. Oh, yeah, I’m gonna. I’m gonna watch that one for sure. I’ve always wondered the power of a story. It does amazing things. And I think in this day and age we’ve lost that because our society is so engrossed in these things and computers and video games and TV and all this other shit that keeps us numb. It keeps us numb to what’s going on around us. And of course, you got to sit in front of a TV to watch a true story or go to the movie theater.

But there’s just so many distractions. Sometimes I feel like people in this country are kind of just riding in a car and, and they’re, they’re driving down the highway and they’re driving past all this amazing, this beautiful scenery or like these modern marvels that are just out there to be seen. All kinds of cool stuff, even crazy stuff, funny stuff, whatever. There’s all kinds of stuff to see. But we’re doing this and we’re looking at our phones. We’re not paying attention to the world that’s passing us by. I think that’s what he’s getting at here. Put down, put down our distractions and let’s spin a story.

Not even, we don’t need to spin a story. Let’s tell a story of the United States Army. And it’s 250 years. Maybe not all, maybe not all of the story is sunshine and rainbows. In fact, I am sure it is not all sunshine and rainbows, but it is our story. Maybe the positive part of it is that after 250 years, we are still here. Are there places in this world that are older than us? Sure, but who gives a shit? We’ve been here for 250 years, a lot longer than many others. The question is, will the young people listen? Will they listen to the story? And I believe that if it’s told right, that yeah, they will listen to the story.

But I believe that telling the 250 year story of the United States army isn’t just an army produced story. It’s not a government produced story. If I was Daniel Driscoll and I was serious about telling the story of the United States Army, I would start getting United States army soldiers stories and learn, learn from soldiers their trials, their tribulations, but also their successes, their high points, their triumphs. Because there’s a lot of them. I think that you’ll find a lot of stories of men and women who never thought in a million years they’d be able to accomplish things that they’ve accomplished while wearing that uniform.

You’ll hear from people that never thought that they could be a successful part of a team or even be on a successful team that have done some pretty cool things. You’re also going to hear some stories from people who lost everybody, whether it was in combat or to suicide or to an accident, health issues, who knows? But all of those micro stories, if you will make up the army story, the story of The United States army isn’t just the United States Army. It’s the soldiers, it’s the families. It’s the stories of the places that we’ve been, the things that we’ve done, good, bad and indifferent.

But we need to recognize all of it, pick out the things that are most worthy to tell. And maybe it is okay. Maybe it is okay to share a story or two about the things that we did, the United States army, that were not so great, things that we learned from and did better the second time around. Maybe that is okay. But if we are talking about telling a story for recruitment purposes, you need to gather the stories of young soldiers. You need to gather the stories of old, grisly veterans of as many eras as you can put a camera and a microphone in front of.

Those are the stories that are going to get people to take a second look. When you can. When you can listen to a person talk about where they’ve come from, where they grew up, what their life was like, why they joined the military, what their service was like, and how it affects them now, then I think people will listen. But the most important part of any individual account of their service, whether they’re still serving or prior, is would you, in my opinion, is would you do it again? If you could rewind time and do it all over again, knowing what you know now, would you do it? And I think that you would find that a lot of people, I think a lot of people would say yes.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think a lot of people would say yes. I think that quite a few of those that say yes would have. I think they would say yes, but with conditions. I would say that I would 10,000% do it again. And my main motivation for saying yes, I would do it again is because I wouldn’t want to be where I’m at today and live out the rest of my days without the relationships that I have or had while I wore that uniform. Those are extremely important to me. The injuries, the ailments, feeling like shit, being in pain, not sleeping, all of those things that veterans go through.

I think that most of us would love to give all of that back. In fact, I would say I’d go on a limb and say there’d be a pretty large number of veterans that would prefer to not have the ailments and give back every dime of their disability payments that they count on to help them live and pay bills and things like that. They’d give all of that back if they could keep their relationships. I think Those are the most important things to many people. But if somebody told me, you can go back, you can do it all again, of course you can take a different path with your career, but if you want to go back to your day of enlistment and do it all over again the same or a different way, you can do that.

I don’t know, man. I’d want to know that all my guys, all my brothers, my sisters are still going to be my brothers and sisters when I get back to this day. And I think those are parts of the ways that we can get young people fired up to put on a uniform and to serve this country and do it with honor and integrity and be proud. The fact that we are putting leaders in place that have. That have thought about the war fighter, that have fought, about the soldier, that have thought about the families of the soldiers, I think that’s a great step forward.

There’s a lot of work to do, but what an exciting step forward. Now, there’s a lot of people that are not going to agree with Daniel Driscoll or Pete Hegseth or. Or even Donald Trump. Of course there’s going to be people that don’t agree. But if you’re a person in uniform or a person that used to wear a uniform, even if you don’t like any of these people, I think that we can all agree that having leadership that is concerned about the betterment of the soldiers and their families is 1000% an asset that we have not had that will make military life better for anybody who joins it.

10% pay raise. That’s nice. Got to tell you, that’s pretty cool. But that. That 10% pay raise is only helpful for so long because we’re still going to send soldiers to foreign lands to do whatever their job is there, and their families are still going to need support. Cars are going to break down, and wives or husbands or whoever aren’t going to. Are going to know exactly what to do. And they’re going to need assistance. They’re going to need support. And the person that they rely on for support and teamwork is gone. So who cares that I got a 10% pay raise? My wife needs help, and I’m 50,000 miles away.

I can’t help her. And that’s a horrible feeling for a soldier. So, Mr. Daniel Driscoll, if you ever see this, I was very impressed by your confirmation, hearing the things that you had to say. I think you did an excellent job. I look forward to seeing what you do next. Please don’t. Please don’t make me look like a dipshit, but I have confidence that you won’t. Charge on, man. Charge on. All right, folks, that’s all the time we have for this week. We will be back next week for sure, just like every other week for. Let’s see what this will be.

Next week will be our 145th show in a row. So we will see you next week for 145. You guys have a great rest of your weekend. Take care of yourselves. Good night. As Christians in a Christian country, we have a right to be, at minimum, agnostic about the leadership being all Jewishly occupied. We literally should be at war with Israel a hundred times over, and instead we’re just sending them money and. And it’s fucking craziness. Look at the state of Israel, look at the state of Tel Aviv and look at the state of Philadelphia. You tell me where this money’s going.

You tell me who’s benefiting from this. I am prepared to die in the battle fighting this monstrosity that would wish to enslave me and my family and steal away any rights to my property and to take away my God. Go fuck yourself. Will I submit to that? And if you’ve got a foreign state, you’ve got dual citizens in your government, who do you think they’re supporting? God, right now? Would you protect the nation of Israel and protect those of us, not just our church, but every church in the world and in this nation that’s willing to put their neck on the line and say, we stand with them? You go to Trump’s Cabinet, you go to Biden’s cabinet, it’s full of Jews.

I have a black friend in school. I have nothing against blacks. She has nothing against me. She understands where I’m coming from. Excuse me. I’m a Jew. And I just like to say that, you know, in our Bible, it says that you’re. You’re like animals. The Jews crucified our God.
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