Episode 37 (Bourbon, Travel, USMC life)

Welcome back to the Hot Ashes Podcast, recorded live at George’s Cigar Shop in Swansboro, North Carolina. In this episode we fire up George’s house cigars, crack a rare bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 12 Year (Lot B), and get into everything from Tesla road trips and insane tolls to the new Carolina Museum of the Marine, AI, and life in and after the United States Marine Corps.

If you’re into cigars, bourbon, Marines, road trips, and real talk – you’re in the right place.

⏱️ Chapters

• 0:00 – Cold open, false start, getting settled
• 1:13 – Intro at George’s Cigar Shop; cigars & drinks roll call
• 2:25 – Non‑alcoholic beers & TK’s Lowe’s NA beer story
• 5:51 – Internet “experts,” gun debate trolls, missing context on shorts
• 6:56 – Four‑day cruise recap & gambling strategy
• 8:51 – 650‑mile Tesla road trip, charging time, and delays
• 10:25 – Self‑driving, lane assist, and future automated tickets
• 13:11 – Tolls vs. flying; cost of driving to New England; airport hacks
• 15:17 – Plane speeds, takeoff/landing, small planes vs. jets
• 17:16 – Weed‑smelling passenger kicked off flight & attention‑seekers
• 18:23 – Negativity, “The Secret,” energy, and Bruce Lee on self‑talk
• 19:24 – Bruce Lee ping‑pong clip & early fake videos
• 19:55 – How we use AI for podcast transcripts & design
• 21:49 – Customer service vs. chatbots and automation
• 22:38 – Automated golf ball picker and fewer human jobs
• 23:50 – Flower business, order‑gatherer websites, and SEO dominance
• 26:37 – Carolina Museum of the Marine tour overview
• 30:09 – Memorials, pricing, field trips, and events at the museum
• 33:06 – Funeral of a retired Master Guns & Marine brotherhood
• 34:34 – Future guests & Marine friends coming on the show
• 36:01 – Dakota arrives; maple bottle fake‑out; Pappy Van Winkle 12 reveal
• 40:55 – First sips of Pappy; taste reactions & Pappy background
• 46:23 – Bourbon vs. beer; late‑night drinking stories
• 52:37 – 80s movies: Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, Kim Cattrall
• 54:32 – Surfing, Paddle Out Project, Cape Hatteras, and aging bodies
• 56:44 – Memorial Day kayaking & boat wake problems
• 58:05 – Cognac, Hennessy days, and sipping vs. slamming liquor
• 1:02:01 – Carlos Perez intro: Colombian‑born infantry Marine & career path
• 1:03:49 – SgtMaj Zek Fews as a mentor & battalion legend
• 1:06:08 – Choosing First Sergeant over Master Sergeant; staying with Marines
• 1:09:40 – Retirement timing, family, and son joining 1/6 Alpha
• 1:14:47 – Artie intro: retired Sergeant Major, now teacher & football coach
• 1:20:56 – AMOI, OCS, university duty & “don’t make stuff up”
• 1:23:35 – SDAs (recruiting, drill field) & being treated like a LCpl again

#HotAshesPodcast #Cigars #Bourbon #PappyVanWinkle #GeorgeesCigarShop #Tesla #ElectricVehicles #MarineCorps #USMC #Veterans #CarolinaMuseumoftheMarine #CampLejeune #CigarLounge #Podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Way better that time.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

You're still gonna use the other one, aren't you? I don't. Welcome back to the Hot Ashes Podcast. I'm Lee. TK in the building. Ooh, and this microphone's gonna be a problem throughout the show, I can tell. Alright, we got another one for you. We're here at George's Cigar Shop in Swansboro, North Carolina. Got a couple of guests with us. And we'll get to them right after we get to our cigars. Get that cutter. Yes, sir. And we're gonna start out with what we're smoking and what we're drinking. And today I chose to smoke a Lancero by George George's Cigars. It's one of his uh family stogies. Uh and it's very good. It's it's he has a uh short story, which is a Maduro and the smoke. It's it's just a really good smoke. Well, this is all that this is just that, but it's stretched out and thinner, so it's about the same thing, and I love it. Did I not fill that up? Randy, can you get us the fuel? Thanks, buddy. Or just a lighter, that would be good. Thanks, buddy. It's cool. It's like when you have somebody on the set, uh, Joe, can we pull that up? You know what I mean? Uh so I'm smoking this Lancero and I'm drinking a Pernie Hayes. Nice CK.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Oh, here you go, Randy. I'm drinking a excuse me, cold brew coffee, just straight up black. And George's box pressed. Nice. As usual. Well, not really, not as usual as you, but yeah. Yeah. But it's a good smoke, man. What are you gonna do? Goes good with coffee as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

It's a good smoke. What are you gonna do? And let's see, who do we got on mic three?

SPEAKER_05 2:53

I'm I'm Ed here. I am not smoking. I'm on a little smoking hiatus right this minute, uh, but I am drinking a coarse light.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

So you oversmoked, huh?

SPEAKER_05 3:02

No, no, just uh kind of the first week of real training. Uh needed to give my lungs a break. So no worries was back at it today. Uh so we'll get into that. This the this Iron Man thing is kind of blossomed to something even more. My daughter's home from school. She graduated there last weekend, which was really cool. All right. Um, but she is going to do the uh half marathon with me on Camp Lejeune in September. So she is so excited. We trained today with her for the first time. So nice.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

That was my first half marathon. Yep. It's a good, it's a good time. And it's it's good when you're done, you'll be glad you did it. It's it's really fun. Right.

SPEAKER_05 3:40

Yeah, looking forward to it. That's good. Uh Evan's gonna do it with us if he's not deployed, so it'll be kind of a family affair. There you go. So maybe I can be guilt my wife into doing it with us, but for now, she'll just be the cheerleader.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Well, now she's just gonna be the odd man out.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

Well, we can guilt her into it.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

And who do we got on mic for?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Hey, it's Chris. I am smoking one of George's Maduros out of the box there and uh drinking a sober carpenter. Sober carpenter. Hazy IPA Jesus. Yeah, good non-alcoholic pint there. Nice. Oh, it's an IPA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty good. It's decent.

SPEAKER_04 4:14

I've dude I've tried non-alcoholic.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Me too. One the one that I think is like the best is um the Heineken Zeros. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like what? Yeah, I love Banks.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Did they wait till we pushed record and then started doing woodwork out there? Athletics got a good IPA, which non-alcoholic, which is good. I think that's the one I tried. I don't know. I mean, that's just my taste. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 4:35

They're only good for maybe one or two. After that, it's what's the point? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

You uh I was at Lowe's one time drinking, and it was during January. So they uh yeah, Lady Lowe's. This is Lowe's. They because you know people do dry January or whatever, so one of the options they had was a non-alcoholic beer, but it was on like tap number three, so I wasn't paying attention. And every time I usually go there, I go like either three or four because those are like the lagers and like lighter beers. Yeah. And I was just like, let me get a number three. And I was like drinking it, didn't even look. And I'm like halfway through it. I'm like, this doesn't even really like hit. Like this, and then I like looked up and I was like, oh, that's why. Yeah. I finished it though. Well, you got to. I was like, some this tastes flat, it doesn't taste like beer.

SPEAKER_05 5:22

Did that count against your or towards your I think you can only drink two there, right? Yes. Yeah, did that count to the two?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

I was like, dude, this is some bullshit. It's not even it's yeah, it's not alcoholic. But I don't know why I told that story, but we're talking about an A beer, so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

Yeah, but why would that count towards your limit? Because it's a beer.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

It's still at the register, they still gotta come over and do the over 21 thing. For sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

Uh later on, you gotta remind me we gotta we gotta talk about some of the comments we're getting on our on our round in the chamber debate uh short.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

I'm uh setting in a timer right now because uh an hour.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

It's so funny how everybody's an expert on the internet. I'm not no no no like we're we're actually humble enough to say, yeah, I don't know this and I don't know that, and you know, but these people look, oh you're such a dumbass. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Well, yeah, like also if they watched the whole episode, they heard me preface what that whole topic was about by me saying I don't know a lot.

SPEAKER_04 6:22

Yeah. Well, if they also there's context missing because it's a short, but it's it's funny how they're they're trying to call you dumb, but that their their spelling and grammar are all terrible. I almost had a stroke trying to, I wrote that. I was like, I almost had a stroke trying to read that comment, but thank you for your input. You know, because we appreciate the input, but it's like, dude, you know, not everybody's dirty hairy. Stop trying to be so freaking cool. We you know, I've known so many much cooler guys that can shoot way better than you throughout my Marine Corps career, but yeah, the comments are pretty funny. But before we get to that, I wanted to ask how your uh how your trip was.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Trip was good. Yeah. Um we uh it was quick, four days, just the right time. Four-day cruise is is the right amount of time. Yeah, looks like a good time. I um I'm convinced that if you uh because I like to gamble, and I'm convinced if you only gamble the first night and the last night, you'll leave a winner. It's the second and the third night that seem to suck in.

SPEAKER_04 7:18

So you think there's like something to that, huh?

SPEAKER_05 7:20

Oh, it just seems it's amazing how the machines loosen up the last night. But by that time, it's a little too late.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

Like, don't leave.

SPEAKER_05 7:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Well, I imagine they have settings on how they don't want you leaving. Of course I do. Yeah, because I mean I when we worked up there, uh, we had settings for how often you're allowed to win, you know.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, it's like we can't leave him, let him leave out of here sad face. He'll never book another cruise. We got to put some money in his pocket so that way he's coming back.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yeah, except he gets these freaking awesome discounts on his cruises now.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

That too. That's just another part of the Psyop. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

The weather was great. We had really good weather. Um, didn't do a ton. We we just did the Bahamas and then their private island. We didn't even get off the boat in Bahamas.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Um I wouldn't either, probably, at this point.

SPEAKER_05 8:01

Oh, the pool's way better. There was quieter, and um, I mean, and the service was fantastic. Like you couldn't, you didn't go, you know, there was constant servers. Yeah, there's no reason to have the only time you had to get out of the pool is to go to the restroom. Other than that, you basically have the shift to your stuff. You don't even have to get out of the pool for that reason.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

Oh, if you're just kidding. Tyler said that one time. He died. I was like, no, and he tried to like go back on it and was like, no, just joking, like no. Disgusting.

SPEAKER_05 8:28

Watching a guy that he hasn't been out of the pool and he's been drinking left and right for like two hours, right? What's he doing over there?

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, nobody's around him, swimming away from everyone for like 10 seconds at a time, and then sitting and then it's being real still.

SPEAKER_05 8:42

But I will tell you a um so it's kind of on the topic of my trip, but it was our first trip in our electric car long distance. Oh yeah. So um I'd like to hear some comments about what you think. Like they're great around town, but boy, let me tell you, it was an eye-opening experience.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

We can say what it is. It's a Tesla.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Tesla, yeah. We have a Tesla and uh, you know, I wanted to try the trip, you know, try the it was uh 650 miles or something like that, right? And um, you know, driving down wasn't bad. We're we were not in a hurry, and we stopped in Florence at Bucky's, and then we stopped again in Georgia. Do they have a charging station at Bucky's? Yeah, yeah, they got like 20 of them. Um, but the charging station takes about 40 minutes to fully charge. Yeah, but it's not you know, you get 150 miles and it's 22 to 27 dollars, so it's not like a huge break as far as like you know, there's cars out out there that get three, you know, 30 miles to the gallon. I'm looking at like, wait a minute, I'm trying to do the math in my head and I'm 40 minutes waiting. But we stopped at dinner while it was charging. That wasn't great, that wasn't bad. And then we stopped one more time in Daytona and charged, and then that was it. The way home, though, you know, you've had to you've been on a cruise for four days, you're tired, you're probably hung old. You just want to get there. You just want to get home. Well, the eight-hour trip turned into 12 and a half, almost 13 between the stops and everything. Because of the charging and charging, yep. Damn.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

Damn. I'd always heard mixed reviews on that. Some people are like, no, it's not that bad, but here's a real life. It's a personal preference, at least.

SPEAKER_05 10:15

Well, I mean, maybe maybe it'll get better that you know it's I get past the first initial time. I mean, you you definitely have to slow down. You're not in you can't be in a hurry to get somewhere because and you gotta know where the good station is. Well, the car is really good at telling you where to go. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

It pops it up like plus it drives you itself. Yeah, it's like it doesn't need is it self-driving?

SPEAKER_05 10:35

It self-drives, but it doesn't um you have to pay attention because when you know if you didn't know you've been on the highway, you see there's lots of like pieces of 18-wheel tires and stuff. It does, it's not smart enough to see that in the road, and it will just drive right over a tire remnant or something.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

So I don't think I would absolutely be just staring out the front window, but if you're not doing anything, wouldn't that make you fall asleep easier?

SPEAKER_05 10:56

No, I mean it it really you're relaxed more, you're not you don't have the eye strain and like pick up a book. No, no. Uh uh you can't even pick your cell phone up. The thing will I know it'll start getting you know, hey, warning one, morning two, and then morning three that turns it off.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Yeah, that's well that's too much control, man. Too much control. Because if they want to stop you, we were talking about this the other day with all these the intelligent vehicles. Uh Frank can't stand his the uh what is it called, the something driving a lane assist or something like that? It's like something with a W in it. It's it's it's something it's lane assist, but like the whole package, D D A W, whatever that means. Um not the way we're thinking, D A W, like like this this stuff. But it he it bitches at him no matter what. Like if he's on the road on a long trip, it's constantly get your hands on, you know, look make sure you would you like to pull over? Are you tired for? And he's like, what the how do I turn this off? And there's no way to turn it off.

SPEAKER_05 11:52

Oh, hell no. Well, there's gotta be a camera, and you could probably there's cameras, but he's not doing anything wrong.

SPEAKER_04 11:56

And then he tried to he went on a back road, tried to do stuff wrong, and it wouldn't do anything. Of course. And then when he's on this regular road just driving normal, it it every five minutes the lights are going off and there's warnings and all that stuff. So he can't stand that. And I we've talked about technology that's that they're putting in vehicles that we don't really ask for. You know, in the future, I already know this is gonna happen. Your car knows the speed limit of where you're at, your car knows how fast you're going. We're gonna get automatic tickets in our car, and it's just gonna pop up on the screen. You just exceeded the speed limit for such and such amount of seconds. You know, you you don't have to go into court, but you can otherwise put in your credit card right here or type something in and pay it.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

That would be or we'll turn your car off.

SPEAKER_04 12:37

Or we'll turn your car off.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

That would suck.

SPEAKER_04 12:39

That's what I'm saying, but that's where we're going, dude. That sounds like a has anybody ever watched an 80s movie about the future? Yeah, we're doing exactly like they told us what they were gonna do, and now we're doing it. Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Doing it right now with traffic cams. I was driving back from Maryland and that's it. You just you just get a you get a ticket in the mail. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Same thing with no arguing that the toll stations, too. Same thing.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

Yeah, you get a ticket in the mail for driving past, you know.

SPEAKER_04 13:05

Well, I've gotten so used to that at toll stations that I kind of like that that I don't have to stop and pay somebody or whatever I can tell you. It can't be cost effective to mail it or have to mail you. No, you're fine, you're fine. Yeah, that's what this is all about. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 13:19

All right, um, but yeah, the toll thing is insane. When we came back from New York last year, we had probably raked up like four hundred dollars in toll fees.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

What? You notice there's all these tolls on all these roads that have been there since I was started driving. Like we'll talk about Virginia Beach, since I'm 16 years old. I'm 47 now, and the roads still look crappy. What? And the roads still look crappy and it's like what is actually going on. Where's the money going?

SPEAKER_02 13:49

There's still like a big ass pothole right there in front of the toll booth.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

But I like the but I like the uh I like the uh the app, like ways it'll take, you know, you can put on there no toll roads. It might take a little bit longer, but you're saving it's free. Yeah, you're saving some money.

SPEAKER_05 14:04

You've definitely gotten a little greedy with the tolls. If you drive to New England, like because I'm driving um I'm flying up next week to to bring my parents' car back, so we have to drive back. Um but it's about eighty-five to ninety dollars in tolls from here to New England. Damn.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

So I'm like So you're in hundreds hundreds of dollars in gas already.

SPEAKER_05 14:26

Right, right. You know, so it's I mean you if you compare Why don't they want us to travel, man?

SPEAKER_04 14:31

Why don't they want us to travel?

SPEAKER_05 14:32

If you compare the the fuel and the tolls and weigh it out to flying, it's comparable. It's comparable. You know, flying you there in a few hours, driving you there tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 14:43

Oh yeah, like we were talking about a flight to I I think it was uh Montreal, Canada, it's about six hundred dollars. And if you fly into Birmingham or something, Vermont, it's three hundred dollars and that's an hour drive. So pay the or maybe it's two fifty. I was like cheap, significantly cheaper. And so you he's basically gonna go there, rent a car, drive up to Montreal, which is an hour and a half away. So I mean that's the way to do it. Why would you pay? Is it because it's Canada and it's I mean, I don't know. It's it's crazy to find it. You can't cost that much more double the goal. Why would it cost that when you're an hour and a half away by by car?

SPEAKER_05 15:23

And by airplane, you're probably what 15, 20 minutes in a jump. Not even this one.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

Sure, yeah, not even that. Because 15 minutes you're talking. I flew from Newburn to Oker Coke in 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_05 15:33

And that's in a prop plane.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

That's a little four-seater sesame. You know what I mean? That's not going very fast. But it now, how now, how long does it take in a car though, from here? Like three, three and a half hours. Yeah. Because you got the ferry. Yeah. Which is kind of cool. Taking the ferry, it's like an experience if you've never done it.

SPEAKER_05 15:51

Have you ever used uh have I don't know if you have uh I have a speedometer uh app on my phone so it like tells you how fast you're going when you're in either a car or a boat or um I have a little Japanese van that everything's in kilometers, so I downloaded it for that. But um have you used it in an airplane, like a jetliner to see how fast you're growing when you land and you're taking off?

SPEAKER_04 16:13

No, no, no, I have four flight like on my knee pad that tells me all my stuff, but it also tells me all the traffic in the area and what they're you know what they're doing. So that's pretty neat. How fast is it?

SPEAKER_05 16:22

We're going like 180 miles an hour when you land in a jet in a commercial jet liner. Because I I always turn it on when I'm taking off and landing just to see, you know, the novelty part of it.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

Whereas I'm landing it at right about 60, 70. Yeah. Like so much. Landing your car. Yeah, it's like do you know these guys are like and then they put on the reverse thrusters after they land, and they're like dangling like a crash test dummy.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Dude, taking off. I love flying, dude.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

Even on a even on a commercial plane, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

I like taking off, and my favorite part's landing.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

Yeah, landing is always my favorite part. My favorite part is the sight. I love sitting by the window because I love looking at everything.

SPEAKER_05 17:04

But you know what's the worst you ever do when you fly alone and you you know you've got somebody seating, you know, and you start watching the people coming, and you're like, please, please sit here. Oh no, no, no, don't sit here, don't sit here, please, please sit here.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Ooh, Hottie, what do you and then it's like there's only a couple people left at the end of the show? Maybe I'm gonna have to sprawl out.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Like, we had yeah, we had a girl sitting in front of me that reeked of uh weed, got kicked off the flight and then arrested. She is she was causing all kinds of shit, and we're like, ma'am, can you just shut the f up so we can so we can yeah, we were trying to leave shut the f up so we can you know depart. We're trying to depart. And she and then she started back up as we're out on the tarmac, and then we they stopped, sheriff comes on, grabs her, takes her, you're arrested. There's a whole lot more to that story, but she was definitely in the wrong.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Dude, like I don't understand some people though, because it's like, why don't why don't you just sit down? Just sit down and shut up.

SPEAKER_04 17:56

People don't want to hear your drama. You ever meet the people who who talk loud just because they want you to comment on what they're saying? They'll be on their phone, they're like, Oh, I'm not even dealing with that right now.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

Like, or how about the Facebook post that somebody will make a Facebook post that's open-ended, like just for the attention, like looking for the comments? Yeah, I've had such a bad day. I might, you know, and you're like, Well, tell us, or they just leave you hanging. I don't need a you know, a cliffhanger on Facebook. Come on, just come clean. I'm just like scroll, dear diary, not following. Looking for attention.

SPEAKER_04 18:28

Yeah. Oh, there's so many virtue signalers out there, or the woe, the woe is me.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

We've talked about this before. Like the Eeyores, man. The Eeyores, they drag it out. Like, and I'm not even gonna go super far into it because we've talked about it on the show before, but that stuff to me, like the negativity, that it just invites more bad stuff. It does. It's it's like manifests other bad stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, it go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

What are you gonna say? No, no, it's like the secret, you know, like attracts like. If you're negative, you're gonna attract negative things. I'm not some hippie that believes, you know, far out all that kind of stuff. Positive energy. No, but it's true, man. Like it, it's it's it's just your your your brain is powerful, it's super powerful. So if you that's why Bruce Lee said words, don't ever talk bad about yourself. Words are spells, that's why it's called spelling. You talk bad about yourself and you're just bringing negativity, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

And look at him, he was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Bee water.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

Bewater. Did you ever see that ping pong thing with the nunchucks?

SPEAKER_02 19:24

No.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Ooh, I have to find it and send it to you. It looks fake. There's no way it's real. I just brutal. And he's playing ping pong, but he's only using nunchucks and and hitting it back. I don't think it's real. I think it's when the internet first started getting to the point where people were able to make fake videos like that. But it's still cool looking. You know, it's like these stupid AI videos.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

I still will watch them when I find out.

SPEAKER_04 19:45

Yeah, I'll watch it when it's like, yeah, all right. But it's not that cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

It's everywhere now.

SPEAKER_04 19:52

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Well, yeah, you you can't, you can't well, and again, we've talked about this. I've used AI for a million things. I use it for we use it for getting the transcript of this of our episodes. Because I'm not gonna sit there and type up every you know, nobody's gonna do that. That's a lot. Uh and man, hats off to the guys that and girls that were doing it way back before AI, and just by hand typing out an entire transcript or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 20:21

The uh jobs that go to the wayside, graphic designers, you know. I mean, you can just like AI, you hey, generate a logo for my new business. Yeah, two minutes later you get six or eight different shoot, you know, choices. Right. You know, and then you can modify it to your liking. I mean, it just must stink for these people that are, you know.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

Or went and got a marketing degree, and now you can just be like, hey, make me a commercial about this. And you know, maybe it's not as good as the marketing degree, but everybody's using, I don't know. It's it's it's scary how many industries are.

SPEAKER_05 20:53

You know, maybe it'll there'll be some pushback when everybody's commercials or marketing is kind of the same. You know, when people be, you know, go back to the roots.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Were well you kind of see that already with like people making flyers for stuff, and they're all are like weirdly similar. You can tell.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

Yeah, but we all do that. We do it for our thumbnails, you know, we do it for our stuff like that. And and I liked I like the humor of it, so I like to like we did the 10 foil hats the one time, and I just like the the the funniness, but man, they never get our faces right. So I keep having to like go on your Facebook. I'm like, here's what he looks like, dude. Or me, same thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:31

There's gonna be like a time, I feel like, where people realize that you know the human touch on something is something that you can't recreate, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 21:39

Yeah, like the true art, you know what I mean. Because it really does look very similar, all the AI stuff.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

I agree. Even just customer service, dude.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

Yeah I mean I have Yeah, I mean, if you have wildly awesome customer service, people are still gonna they're gonna want to go seek that out rather than go to an automated robot for their stuff. Whereas employee Employers, you know, they they don't want their employees to suck anymore, so they're like, you know what, if if you don't want to do the job, then I'm gonna replace you. You know?

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Um well it's crazy, like how long that's been going on anyway, because like this like at least 10 years old. Like when you go on a website, hey, talk to our automated chat bot to get your problem somewhat solved and started. Yeah, like you know, like the spectrum website, the first thing that you do when you have a problem, you don't get to you don't get to talk to a human.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

And we thought it was bad before when you had to like call in, you know, and and you couldn't get to a human. Representative. Yeah, representative human. Anyway, uh the place I used to work, the entertainment place up there with the driving range. Um we used to have employees like that just sucked at it, like couldn't drive the the picker, or they'd run into things because they're not paying attention. That's hilarious, or they didn't do it all the way, or they didn't wash the balls correctly, or they didn't do this. Well, they've got an automated machine. They didn't wash their balls correctly. They got an automated machine now, like a big ass thing.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

Sorry, that's my childhood.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

No, I mean, I exactly you should have caught it. But uh that automatically goes out, picks them all up, puts them in a machine that automatically cleans them all, and then it's it's all good. No employees needed, no more human waste, no more having to tell them, hey, why didn't you do that? Why weren't you here on time? Why were you you know no? The machine did it just fine. I don't need humans anymore.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

We're not going backwards now, and that's what I'm saying, man.

SPEAKER_04 23:25

I I I wholeheartedly believe that managers need to start focusing way more on freaking customer service. Yes, you can do eit either way. Yeah, either either door. Yeah, they gotta actually test their portal in which are working. You're the newly retired the newly retired. Yeah, I'm sorry, what happened?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Oh no, I mean, with even with these fully automated sites. I mean, I had a thing where I bought somebody some flowers up north, everything was automated, they had to change their hotel, so I'm trying to change the address. All got jacked up. I even told the hotel where the flowers were delivered, left them a note, tried talking to customer service. Here's the new address. Driver shows up and says, Well, it's not my job to drive to the place. I'm like, okay, thanks, customer service. Yeah, funny how you say flowers.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

We we own a flower business. And I don't think people realize that if you if you like, I don't care where you're at in the country and you wanted to have flowers, like you got say you have somebody that lives in Minnesota, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you want to so there's companies online that mimic a brick and mortar business, but they are not. They're they're an internet, they're they're an order gathering company overseas. Like 1-800 flowers. Yeah. Um, I won't name any names specifically, but we have two or three um that we that we deal with, and it is an absolute nightmare because these people call in and order flowers, and they'll say like Ava's, uh, and uh, you know, and they they mimic like a brick and mortar business local. Right. So you order the flowers and then they farm it out, they call us us local flower shops. And to fulfill the action, we don't fulfill the order, they'll tell us what they're willing to pay us to do the flowers, and we'll go back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Haggling, basically.

SPEAKER_05 25:22

Oh, yeah. Like hacking. Yeah, you have to haggle with them. You know, you can't because they they're low balling. But think to the to that you need me because you don't have a flower shop, like and then they're like, Well, you need us because you don't have enough business. They're the middleman, they're like the middleman. And they're overseas, and these people are calling you up, they barely speak English, and they're mimicking. But the problem comes down to like the the customer. Like, when we deliver the flowers, it's coming from our flower business. They called, they called that flower business that they thought was brick and mortar, and then these you know, and we don't know what they charged that customer. So these customers sometimes are expecting a lot more for their money, but we've been haggled down to pennies on the dollar on our end.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

So it's almost better to go into a brick and mortar place if you live near.

SPEAKER_05 26:12

100%. I mean, where do we do we are we this automated where we can't, you know, interact? But the problem being is when you Google search on on the internet, they are their job is to be dominant and pop up first.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Right, as anytime search engine optimization.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

So sorry I die when you mention flowers, it's a little personal.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

That's exactly what happened to me.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

And that's Bloom in Swansboro. Yes, and that's uh what's the address? It's uh 640 West Corbett Avenue. 640 West Corbett Avenue, Swansboro, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

I'll tell you where you are gonna get outstanding customer service, and that's the Carolina Museum of the Marine. Oh, you're gonna be able to do that. Yeah, very exciting. Yeah, so the 5th of June ribbon cutting. Nice, uh, 8th of June, 100, those doors open, and yeah, it's fantastic. Uh all those docents did a little bit of training here over the past month or so.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

I still haven't been over to the museum, but I have wanted to go over there and just kind of check it out and see what's see what it's all about. Um, but I I love that big evil luminanchor you always post a picture of. That thing's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, it's awesome, especially if you get it at sunrise or sunset and you get the reflection. But yeah, it's uh it's great. The Great Hall's beautiful, it's got sur uh campaign ribbons from World War II to present. Uh, then you walk in through the uh tunnel of World Warriors, it's got all the stories from World War II up. Then uh first galleries from the sea. So it talks about Camp Lejeune, history of Camp Lejeune, history of General Lejeune. Uh, I won't go into crazy detail on this. Gotta come to the museum.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

Do they do they say, like, does somebody did they say Lejeune or Legend?

SPEAKER_00 27:55

So that was one segment of the family. So the way we talk about it there is when you're talking about General Lejeune, you say General Lejeune. If you're talking about Camp Lejeune, you say Camp Lejeune.

SPEAKER_04 28:06

That's kind of what Yeah, because like we all grew up calling it Lejeune. Yeah, and and I I know the family says Lejeune or whatever, but we didn't, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

I never called it that after that.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

I met an old retired sergeant major when I was on recruiting duty, and he's the one that told me or he would kept saying lejeune, and I was like, I finally asked him, like, Sergeant Major, why do you say like that? He's like, that's how the that's how they pronounce it. Yeah, I'm never doing that.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yeah, respect for the family. We're saying Lejeune, and then so then in Gallery One from the Sea, you'll talk about boot camp a little bit. We talk about your phone's ringing. Oh, we talk about the Monfort Point Marines, women marines, we get into World War II, Guile Canal. Second gallery is coming home. Uh, so we have uh Chief Warren Officer Guy Hunter, who was shot down in OV-10, which is an observation aircraft during Desert Storm. We have some of his uh uniform there, and then there's seven people that are featured uh from the community, and then uh of course Beirut into Vietnam, and then we get into the innovation section, so then we start talking about the innovations from Korea, Beyonce, the helicopter, body armor, cold weather gear, and then of course we get into Grenada, Desert Storm, uh, Iraq, Afghanistan, and uh it really finishes out nicely with a beautiful video. And then you've got all the other exterior things. We got three trees for that were brought from uh Bellowwood that are growing out there. We have a I'm gonna say it wrong, it is not an eternal flame. We call it something else because it's not burning 24 hours. It just burns while the museum's open. It's open, so it'll be a good signal to know that the museum's open. And then you of course have the entire Lejeum Memorial Gardens there. You got the Beirut Memorial, Girder from 9-11, uh, a clear Vietnam veterans memorial, it's all in glass, uh, Montfort Point Marines Memorial, Corman Memorial, and I think I hit them all there. But yeah, so does it like uh guided tours? Yes. Okay, yeah. So the guide tour, what I just did in about two minutes or three minutes, the guide tour goes an hour and it goes into more detail on those key things. Uh, and then there's of course videos all over the place. There's uh recreation of the Iojima landing, uh, some actions at Guild Canal. There's a lot, there's a lot to see in there. And you know, for an old guy like me, I had this debate with some other people. I mean, I've been studying the Marine Corps for 40 years, been serving the Marine Corps for 36, and I still learn new stuff going in there, so it's gonna be awesome. That's legit. Yeah, it's gonna be a good idea. I definitely want to check that out.

SPEAKER_04 30:47

I look forward to going. Oh, yeah. And then there's like a discount for veterans, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

So let me pull it up on my phone.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

There should be a bigger one for Marines specifically.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

No, let me give you y'all keep talking, and so I can get the uh now.

SPEAKER_04 31:01

Yeah, you so he's been talking about this, and you guys probably know Chris because he was on the show talking about uh the Irreverent Warriors before, where they try to use humor and camaraderie to combat veteran suicide and reduce the number of 22 as much as possible.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Yep. And we actually have an event for that going on the 20th of June uh for the Jacksonville Ospreys. Well, it's gonna be hot. Yeah, it's gonna be the once no, no, no, it's just uh once Marine Always Marine Night. We're gonna come out there, just have a good time. Uh you can wear your silky shorts if you want to. Uh it's gonna be June. You might as well. Yeah. And I know I need to know these prices off the top of my head, but I'll get there. Uh okay. So for active duty military, it's six bucks. Uh for veterans, it's eight bucks, age 55 and up, 14, uh adults 16, uh 54 is 14 bucks, and then school groups uh six bucks per student or uh group of 10, 12 bucks. Yeah, you guys are probably gonna have like a good deal of field trips there. Oh my god, yeah. And the Great Hall, I mean, you're they've already had retirement ceremonies there. I think they've had a couple other May events. Uh, I'm sure they already have balls booked. I know the Honor Foundation is having their graduation there in November, so yeah, that hall is gonna get a lot of use. And there's two classrooms there too.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Uh, and they have frosted glass on the side.

SPEAKER_04 32:29

Oh, so you can like rent the space and for functions and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yes, you can rent the uh grade hall or the classrooms. The classrooms can hold up the 90s, that'd be a cool place to do PME.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

It it is, you know, and get this like staff and COs to get our officers together or something like that. Yeah, or NCO, like who whatever group, and bring them there and like okay, now we're done with our PME. Let's walk around this place a little bit, talk about Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

I'm working the logistics because I'm an expeditionary uh warfare school instructor. I'm trying to work out the uh logistics of being able to teach the Beirut class in front of the Beirut exhibit. No, I could have always done it at the Beirut Memorial, but yeah, do it at the exhibition.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

I was at the uh the cemetery today. That was my buddy's funeral from I told you the last show. So it was a man, there was a ton of people there. This man was beloved. They had biker units or was he a retired Marine? Retired master gunnery sergeant, 24 years. Uh just just an awesome guy, black belt and jujitsu. But I we had our whole jujitsu team there. We had freaking just everybody you can imagine. The Marines were there, they did full military honors and 21 gun salute, and I mean that's a tearjerker already. Absolutely. Taps is a tearjerker, you know. It's like when then they're doing the 21 gun salute while the flag bearers they take the flag off the casket and hold it like that.

SPEAKER_05 33:50

You know what always chokes me up is bagpipes. Yeah, I have a soft spot for bagpipes.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Thank you. Yeah, I'm uh but it was a it was a good service, and and uh yeah, man, I'm I'm glad to caught up with a whole bunch of them. I hate the circumstances that we had to meet up again, but a lot of people came in into town for that, and that's that's what Marines do, you know. And not just Marines, like just family of all kinds that aren't blood family, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Yeah, it cemetery does a good job.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Yeah, there's chairs all over the place, guys. So just we can move that cover and carry on. He said, I got it. The GM is back.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

The GM.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

Yeah, well, so that's cool. I can't wait to see that.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

Yep. Yeah, I want to check that out for sure. Yeah, looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

I do want to say a buddy of mine just texted me. I I don't know if I told somebody, but he's a we were first artist together, and uh, he's retired sergeant major, and he lives down in uh Beaufort, South Carolina, and he's coming here right now, so I'd love to get him on at some point because I've never seen I haven't seen this guy in like nine years since I retired. So where's he coming from? Buford, South Carolina. Oh, so he's like I said, well, I mean, I didn't know if you close by? No, no, I'm just kidding with the man. Just the way that hit and the way you asked me is like perfect. I have to answer this way.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

More like what's his ETA is he came in at Jacksonville yesterday. Okay, so he's coming from Jacksonville, asshole.

SPEAKER_04 35:16

No, no, no. Actually, he came in. No, I think he came in today. Today's Friday, yeah. And I told him I had a full day because I had that before this and then this. So I was like, well, come be on the pod. You know, he's like, uh, we'll see if we got time, blah blah blah. And then he just texts me on his way. So sweet. We'll get him on at some point. Um, and then I know that you guys want to get on at some point too, right? Dakota?

SPEAKER_05 35:35

Dakota.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

Dakota.

SPEAKER_05 35:37

I gotta use it. Dakota.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

Oh, you want to so you two are trying to get on too, right?

unknown 35:42

No.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

He's gonna get on. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about because uh my buddy's gonna get on too. So um, this is gonna be a uh musical chairs type show.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

It's gonna be action packed.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Action packed. This thing is like bending more and more.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

And this dude's got like the whole kit.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Oh, snap.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Look at that.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

He's got like the whole showing up with he's bringing the heat. This dude's got the shit. Dakota's bringing the heat. That's okay. We don't mind it.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Holy bring it.

SPEAKER_04 36:13

Holy there we go. See, I'm starting to know where the buttons are now, man.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Muscle memory.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Only we're only 37 episodes in, and it got now, I know where the buttons are.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

So, real quick, while he's getting settled and everything, I'll tell you about the trolls on on it. Really, it's Instagram this time. Cool. Do you remember how mad everybody was for you?

SPEAKER_02 36:35

I'm gonna look at it right now as you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

Do it as I'm talking. Do you remember how mad everybody was at you on TikTok for the uh the Yeti comment?

SPEAKER_02 36:42

They were mad at me.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

They were blasting you, dude. They were blasting you. But uh it's but again, the the troll comments are few and far between until we have a divisive topic like Oh my god. Because what happened was TK was talking about carrying around in the chamber, and I said, Absolutely, what you have to carry around in the chamber. Absolutely. Why would you not? But the whole because the whole context was he just went through the course, he's not comfortable yet. Get comfortable, get around in the chamber, learn your gun safeties. And then we talked about a 45. And at first, I would not do that with a 45 just because I'm my 1911 45. No, I just don't like that.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

For a starter carry, you definitely don't want a 1911. I don't even recommend I wasn't saying that at all. Well, I'm saying like for your concealed carry when you first start out.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

When you first carry it, no matter how you carry it, whether you put it around in the chamber. Obviously, I'm gonna put it around in the chamber now because I'm I'm comfortable with my handguns. Right. But that's not my everyday carry. I carry a Hellcat Pro. It's a you know slender gun that I got 32 rounds on me. Like Hellcat. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Hellcat? All right. Yeah, gross. You don't like Hellcat?

SPEAKER_03 37:55

I just don't know. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

You can shoot. We can we'll go shooting. I got an XD40 too. But my 1911's badass. If if I did open carry, which I don't, that's what I would carry, is the 1911. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's Springfield Operator. Nice. Olive drab grab. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, they're so these guys are just like, Oh, you always have to have a round in the chamber. What a bunch of sissies. And it's like, dude, did you hear the context where we were just talking about it's a class where you're brand new to carrying? Yeah. So you gotta get used to it. You gotta get comfortable.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Do the course, carry it, you carry it around. You know, you just gotta do it.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

None of these tools will ever have to use their gun, ha ha ha ha. Well, hopefully not. That's all shit. Nice, dude.

SPEAKER_04 38:38

Nice. So, like at the range, man, try everything you can to get the thing to shoot if you're not if you're not doing it. Like, you know, you have to have there on some, and then you have to have the the triggers like that on some. And you just have to do it right. It's not gonna fire, it's not just gonna go off spontaneously. No, but you gain that confidence over time.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Right.

SPEAKER_04 38:57

I'd say when I first started carrying, it was like, oh shit, well, it was around in the chamber. But then after a while, it's like, oh, I got a gun on. You don't even remember, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I walked into a bad place one, not a place where you are not allowed to have guns, and I had an ankle holster. I had an ankle gun on it, had no freaking eye. I was like, I did the Homer Simpson in the bushes. Yeah, yeah. And I went back back out to my truck, took it off, locked it up. I was like, Oh no. If you're I mean, it was one of the things that I'm gonna do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's offline.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Yeah, okay. One of those, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:32

But like that's from carrying so much, you just you just have it on you all the time and you just go places.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

All right, right.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

So what's going on here?

SPEAKER_03 39:41

What's going on here? So was it episode 37? Yeah. Is right now? Yes. All right, so would that have been 34?

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Four was the first time you were on when you got back.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

Yeah, yeah. All right. So 34 made some pretty big promises about you know, a good bottle and a smoke, but uh, I got here late, as you see. Uh, so we won't do the smokes, we won't unveil the smokes. Wait till Roger gets back for that one. But what we will do is we will have a good drink. So my buddy Carlos here. Uh-oh, I can't see that. Shout out to Carlos. Carlos here. He's in uh he's doing some work uh, you know, at a house here, and uh he stayed with me the whole week. So I've been kind of spooling him with the bougie drinks and uh and the cigars. So we've we burnt uh the Davidoff, the brand new Dominican Puro we burnt uh last night uh was Opus X. Uh I love Opus X. A whole slew of it.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

But uh the truth comes out, and there's no cigars here because they smoked them all on me. And George doesn't he hadn't ever had an Opus X here?

SPEAKER_03 40:43

Uh no, no. Too high end, I guess. Yeah. So that that famous bottle here, I'm gonna here you guys go. Let me see here. Pull it out there. All right. Not bad, huh? Little little cheers. Cheers. This bottle is awesome. You guys are gonna love it. All right, don't make fun of me.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

Maple.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

I don't uh Vermont maple liquor. Oh, good. It's pretty cool, huh? Is it cool? No, it's not cool. It doesn't sound cool. I was like, I don't know about it.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

It looks like wine.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

Maple liquor. Get that out of here.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

This is what we're drinking right here, boys. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Oh my god. This isn't the fake way where you have to mix the two together, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:37

This is it. This is the real deal right here. Oh my god. So that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 41:44

Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Pappy Van Winkle.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

I'll take a picture of that.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

So check that out. Yeah, so now that you're looking this way, check that bottle out. Yeah. Oh man. Boy, oh boy. So that's are you taking a picture of it? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

There it is, right there, boys.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

Wowser saying, is this your all-time favorite bourbon?

SPEAKER_03 42:08

It's no. Uh same one. Uh Pappy23. When I had Pappy 23 in uh South Carolina, that took the cake right there, man. That's the one that you had to give away. Yeah. No, that's oh, that's not the one you had to give away to that dude. No, no, the Pappy 23. We uh took that. But uh yeah, so give me a second here, I'm gonna get this all poured out for you guys. You drink it?

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Disclose if you if you want, or not if you want. So, what does one of those things run somebody?

SPEAKER_03 42:34

All right, so if you wanted to buy retail, it's like uh maybe 150 bucks. I got you. But if if you find one of these guys that'll sell to you on secondary or something like that, you're you're paying primo money. Yeah. Um, but I happen to find me a good deal on it.

SPEAKER_04 42:48

So you would think that they would uh make more of it. No, I'm just kidding. I know.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

What is the uh supply and what is the most expensive one?

SPEAKER_03 42:56

Don't they have like an astronomically priced one? Happy 23 on the second secondary is gonna be pretty uh five figures. Uh no, like ten thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

No, and I don't know where Randy went, but he just spent like sixteen hundred bucks on cigars on his on his Florida trip. When he just like stocked up or something, yeah. But I mean, you know, he went to a bunch of places and got a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Well that's what like uh me and my dad would do whenever we went down to the NASCAR race in Charlotte. We'd go straight over to the State Line uh liquor store, and you can find a bunch of stuff that you can't find in ABC at that place. Yeah. Nice if you're looking for some rare happy.

SPEAKER_03 43:48

Alright, here you go, Carlos. Come get you a little sippy of that. Alright.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

I can smell quite quite pungent. It stings the nostrils.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

Smells great. So Pappy Van Winkle is like one of the is one of the more coveted bourbons that everyone goes and hunts for. Man, it's super rare. They only come out uh like on uh Christmas time frame. You like the liquor stores will pop them out there. Uh but it's not, yeah, it's well, I mean, uh some of their stuff is super uh super rare. The 23 years, you know, you only get four gallons uh of liquor out of the bottle or out of the barrel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:37

Um, after 50 something, right? Yeah, yeah. 50 something down to four.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

Right. So this right here, you know, it it it rarely hits the shelf, man. Like if it hits the ABCs, like it's usually like it's stowed away for you know, people like friends and stuff like that. But you know, that's an awful lot. It's it's pretty good. So you have just like watering here.

SPEAKER_04 45:26

Well, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 45:34

Yeah. So uh just going into the the history, so Lot B was uh originated in ninety one when uh Van Winkle managed it. Uh but it used to label significantly larger batch barrels, lot A. And then this is also when they were in uh Stitzel, Stitzel Weller distillery. Uh but so we go small batch release, uh, use the same legendary uh weeded mash bill, corn wheat, malted barley, you know, the Buffalo Trace line. So it's one of the weeded ones there. But man, this one right here is one of my favorites right here. I'm liking the after like that. Yeah, that's dangerous.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

I could sip on that for a while, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 46:15

Yeah, really good, man. But I uh I had to I had to locate that bottle and I was like, all right, I know I know who who we can share that with today. Thank you for bringing it and blessing us. This is good.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

So it's I've never even thought I would hit some uh Pappy have.

SPEAKER_04 46:33

I know. Yeah, dude, just hang out at this shop long enough, you're gonna try some good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

You know, because we had all the the Wellers and the McCallan from when on John's thing, and then we had it another time. Yeah. Uh and now Pappy Van Winkle we can add to the list.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

It's pretty legendary. Man, I got a bottle of it's cool having rich friends. Yeah, it really is. I wasn't I wasn't gonna say that, but I was definitely thinking it. Um I got gifted a bottle of bourbon uh from my wedding um Willet, I think it was called. Ever heard of that? Is that pretty good? Never had it. Yeah, I don't know. You can tell, I don't know. It's a funky looking bottle too. It's like uh like a super long neck and then it's like a real wide circle at the bottom. So that's the the Willet pot stilled.

SPEAKER_04 47:20

Dude, the best way to build a collection is get married or retire. And you'll be given liquor from all your friends. This is true, you know? What is that? Did you get a little bit of a collection like from the wedding?

SPEAKER_02 47:32

I got probably like six or seven bottles. Yeah, same with Cody for his retirement. It's kind of crazy because like the they're like, what do y'all know that I don't know? Why are you giving me all these bottles? Am I gonna need to become drunk all the time now? Yeah, because you're married. Yeah, dude, you're gonna have to deal with life now. Yeah, drink up.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

Okay. Absolutely. I don't I don't I'm not even gonna light up a cigar yet. Uh I just I gotta I gotta enjoy this. Yeah, you gotta enjoy it. You don't want to taint the palate. It is. I like combo. But it's not every day that Pappy 12, you know, lands in your table. So they are. And then it's funny because I was kind of you know waiting to see Roger come in town, but nope. Nope. We'll see if it's a little bit more.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

So he missed out. He had to go to town for something. He did miss out.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Yeah. Where did he go?

SPEAKER_04 48:26

I don't know. He just said he was gonna be out of town for it. Gotcha. Because I was talking to him about that shade so that we don't look like we're in heaven, which we will in about an hour.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

But in an hour we'll be close to being done.

SPEAKER_04 48:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's not gonna take that long to make us look like we're in heaven, but you see, you see where it's yeah, you see where it's at, right? Yeah, yeah, it's good in there. It's gonna encompass you first. It's gonna swallow you whole, then it's gonna come.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Then I'm gonna start sweating.

SPEAKER_04 48:52

I love that aftertaste.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Dude, isn't that great? All around.

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Dude, it's good on the nose, palette, the finished, it's good all around the floor.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

It's crazy when you opened it, I could smell it like already. Like I was like, damn, that smells good.

SPEAKER_04 49:03

Yeah. Distilled aged bottled all ripped. Oh, you already read that.

SPEAKER_03 49:07

Yeah, well, I read a little bit of the history there, but uh yeah, this uh it's Buffalo Trace distillery. Yeah. Uh owned by Sazerac.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

Now you you did that same tour, right? Yeah. Yeah, the same one Roger did. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

It's crazy too because it's just like strictly business on the label. It isn't like no like hyped up fancy label.

SPEAKER_04 49:25

Yeah, yeah. They don't have to, they don't have to use a label to sell their shit. Just the essentials.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

The juice is like it's I mean, it speaks for itself. You know, you don't need a fancy label. Yeah, worth the squeeze. Yeah. There you go. Telling you that's good stuff right there. Yeah. So that was worth the wait. But uh, you know, the next time we do another another big reveal, uh, I have them with me, but uh it it just I don't know. After smoking another cigar before this one, I don't know if it'll hit right. Right.

SPEAKER_04 49:54

I don't know. Your palate's not cleansed.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Your palette's not clean. Uh Pappy would pair well with the cigar that I got for you guys, but uh yeah, I don't know. We'll wait. We'll wait till the time's right. Yeah, it's gonna be good. Then we'll see, you know, Roger if he's listening, watching, whatever else. So see if he shows up for this one.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Yeah. So well, he's pretty good about showing up. He's pretty good about it. Yeah. Especially when uh when you talk about we're gonna have to lick. No, he brings some stuff too. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Yeah. He always comes bearing gifts.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Roger always comes bearing gifts, you know.

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Yeah, but we're just gonna keep talking, talking smack about it.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

Talking smack about him because he decided not to be here for the for the papy. You know, you can be out of town for papy, bro. Who's your papy? Yeah. I bet he doesn't have any papy Van Winkle. You think? Nah, he might.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Roger out here catching stray bullets. He does, yeah. I think he does have a call. I think uh if I remember correctly, he has gonna sip some of the old uh old Rip Van Winkle, tenure. That's another great bottle, too. I'm pretty sure that's what he's got. Oh, nice. But uh if he has another one, I'm not real sure. But I mean, I know this right here is like my favorite papy that you can actually get, like you have a chance of getting right uh most of the time there's a lot of raffles and whatnot. Um but papy23, man, that takes a cake. Yeah, that is just uh what is it? Just even more smooth. Yeah, oh it's so smooth, creamy, like the I don't know. It's just something that you have to do. It's so creamy that it just lays on your tongue. And it's just so smooth, man. I'm telling you, it is a beautiful hug in your taste, but that's exactly that's the best way to do it. Yeah, yeah, it is amazing.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

No, that's that's some good stuff. I miss I I I feel like I don't like drink a lot of bourbon enough anymore. Like I do, but I haven't in a while, and it's like, what am I doing? I guess because I drink beer.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Yeah, well, you gotta quit that. Yeah, you gotta quit that.

SPEAKER_04 51:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

Especially when you got Happy Van Winkle in your presence.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

It's like that that's true. Or when we stay out till four in the morning because of how many beers we drank. Yeah. That's usually bad too. Yeah, I've done that a lot. We didn't stay out till four in the morning, we went to bed at four in the morning. Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

So it wasn't too bad. That's what they call self-justification right there. Yeah. It's all good, man. If you want to drink 16 beers, drink another one beers. I'm not trying to take your whole bottle, man.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

The bottle was bought for this podcast, boys. Well then absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 52:24

Or duck. Game on. Yeah. Get over here.

SPEAKER_04 52:30

I just watched some uh Mortal Kombat, no big deal. Oh man, you know what movie? Thank you, sir. That stuff just movie I just watched because I ran out of TV shows? Nobody at this freaking table is gonna know it. Chris, you might. Big trouble in Little China. Oh my god. Yeah. Classic. Kurt Russell. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

It's been forever since I've seen that. Nope.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

Uh what's the girl's name that's in it that's from Sex in the City, Kim Cottrell or something like that? Yeah, Kim Cottrell. Yeah, from Mannequin. Ooh, I loved her in Mannequin. Ooh, she was hot in Mannequin.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Another one I haven't seen.

SPEAKER_04 53:07

Uh well, that's they're 80s movies. I wouldn't expect it. But it's it's kind of a cult classic, ridiculous, like I feel like I've heard the title. Yeah, I mean, you could tell from the title that it's a a ridiculous premise for a movie, Big Trouble in Little China. But it's a very good movie for for us who grew up in the 80s and 70s and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Yeah, that's what I think. They have on the internet now, they have like the top ten or top 40 movies of 1986 and you know from you know 40 years ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:39

And I don't always agree with those lists, but it's like, oh, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it, seen it. Sucked. Suck, suck, good, good, good. You know, it's when you go down the list.

SPEAKER_02 53:47

Or then you find those lists that are like what movie was number one in the box office the month that you were born or whatever. Yeah. It's pretty interesting to look at.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

I wonder.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

I can't remember mine.

SPEAKER_04 53:57

Mine had to been Superman because it came out in December of 1978 when I was born.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Damn.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

So that'll be kind of cool.

SPEAKER_07 54:04

Damn. Damn. Hey.

SPEAKER_04 54:07

There's somebody at this table much older than me. I mean, I didn't mean to say much older. Wow. Meant to say older. That was me.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

You're older than me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, one movie failed me this week. You know, I've watched Point Break like 10,000 times. I tried surfing for the first time on Monday, and it did nothing for me. I got washboarded so bad.

SPEAKER_04 54:32

Wait, did you know how to surf first? Absolutely not. You just watched the movie Point Break Break and you thought, I can do that.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

It's the whole 10,000 thing, right? You do something 10,000 hours. 10,000 hours. Yeah, you should be able to do it. Yeah, it didn't work for me. No, it was with the uh paddle out project. So nonprofit for veterans out there in uh Emerald Isle. They brought out a ton of surfboards. I mean, it was pretty rough out there, but that's no excuse. I just sucked. Um probably was wearing the I was wearing the wrong shorts, so people got to see a lot more of me than they probably wanted to see. And they signed up for it. Yeah, yeah, and then I was just wearing the see-through ones. No, they weren't well, yeah. The waves took care of that, but no, Palau project's really good. Uh guy uh JT that put it together former marine, just another great nonprofit helping veterans out.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

That's cool. Yeah, nice. I used to surf a lot. I used to be big into surfing. Yeah, like when from the time I was in like sixth grade to the time I was like probably like 22. Where do you go to get big uh waves? Cape Hatteras. Really? Yeah. I did not know that. There's people that travel from all over the place to surf Cape Hatteras when the swell is on. Yeah, kidding. For sure.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

I've surfed like maybe once in my life. I got up and on the board and I was like, this is tough, but I can do it.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

I was really in it because it was I was because of the lifeguard stuff, I was like really confident swimmer, like so it was like, yeah, no, that that's a good one. Last time I went out, I was out of shape and I was like, I'm why am I I'm nervous? And I was like, I shouldn't. I was like, if I feel I should go back in. If I feel like if you're nervous, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:07

Well the older you get, the less you want to do the kid stuff that you used to do when you're when your bones are made of rubber. You know what I mean? No, you ain't lying, man. Really, man. You don't bounce back anymore like you used to. No. No. I I woke up wrong and I was out for like a week because of my neck.

SPEAKER_00 56:24

There's no balance anymore, just splat, and that's it.

SPEAKER_04 56:28

That's it. Face plant.

unknown 56:30

Man.

SPEAKER_00 56:31

In time though. Yeah, the weather was completely wrong for Memorial Day for the beaches. The beaches were beautiful all weekend long, so that was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 56:44

Yeah, uh, we were out on kayaks, and uh the boats were out, but so was the Coast Guard, you know. And the boats don't care about the kayaks, they went flying by us and created all this kind of like that's crazy, man.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

If I see them in time, I 100%. We stayed way out of the way.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

We weren't like trying to get in anybody. I don't want to be the dickhead kayak that's like in the channel. Yeah. We get across as quick as we can as a group. You know what I mean? And then we travel as a group everywhere we go. Oh, I gotta go say hi to this guy. This guy.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Give out your bro.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

That's what's up. Yeah. So what's up? Have you ever had this? No. Never. What a treat that is, huh? It is. I'm telling you, I can't get over it.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

I've heard stories, I've heard lots of conversations, seen lots of pictures. I'm like, damn. I'm telling you, man. I sent a picture of it to my dad, and he was like, I guess Pops isn't good enough for some papy. I'm like, bro, it's not mine. It's not mine.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

Hey, tell him like what what's our timer at right now? We're at like a maybe an hour? An hour. There you go. He's got an hour to get down here. Yeah, hurry your ass up. Yeah, come on down. Yeah. So how's uh how's Pappy compared to Louie? King Louie? Yeah. I've I've honestly never had King Louie. I've never no. I I mean what is that? Is that considered is that cognac? Yeah, I think that's cognac, right? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. So I've never I've never really dabbled in cognac. I've only had it maybe once or twice. But I traditionally stay right there to the bourbon and it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

Yeah. Cognac's kind of rough if you're not used to it.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Oh, it's super smooth. There's there's no there's no rough to Louis.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

No, not Louie, I'm just saying cognac in general, but I'm only speaking on the only cognac I've ever had, which is Hennessy, so it's like there was a time when I drank the shit out of that.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

Your credit score got better though, like so you got you got rid of it, you don't touch it. I guess. Oh yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_02 58:41

I just was like, I'm tired of being blacked out off of straight cognac. Yeah. Because I like if I start to drink obviously not like this, but you know, I like Crown Royal, like stuff like like just bottom level benchmark bottles for cheap stuff. But I drink it at the same speed that I drink beer, so it's like everything happens a lot quicker that way. So it's like a five-pound five drinks. I'm like, Yeah, that's that's a problem.

SPEAKER_04 59:07

Yeah, you gotta slow it down. Yeah, so I've never had a sipping.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

I've never had King Louis. Uh the obviously the most expensive like uh you know, bourbon that I had was the Pappy 23. I I honestly like I kind of glance at the menu whenever I saw it on there. But honestly, when I go to a restaurant, bar, uh wherever it is, my first thing is like I'll I'll peep the uh the bar, do a scan, and when I see so the Pappy Van Winkle, the label was very, very distinct. Like sure. If you if if you're a good fan of bourbon and everything, you're gonna know what it is.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

You'll see it immediately.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

Absolutely. And then the 23-year is the only one that'll have like a little ribbon at the at the neck right there. So when I saw that when we walked into uh Hall's chop house, which we talked about on that last episode, I looked in there, I saw that, I was like, all right, that's what I want. So when he came there to the uh the table and he asked what to drink, I said Pappy 23 knee. And after that, we got free appetizers, everything else. I was like, oh man, this this bill, this bill, I was like, this is easily gonna be $500. If something's free, yeah, it ain't free. I like that. You know, yeah, you know Alex.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

Can I get the papy 23? Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:20

So then uh, you know, when you uh when you get that and you get started getting the free stuff, man, you know that bill's gonna be high. Yeah, you're gonna be high. It was high. We're not gonna say how high.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

It's like when they come up here at a strip club. Or I mean uh uh bar. What?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

I want to get which what club is that? I want to get comped.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

A peep club. It's like, bro, you've been here too many times. We're gonna give you your own back uh back back area.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Go back to the back room for 10 minutes. You're good. You've earned it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

Chastity's waiting on you. So we got a whole hour. I want to get him on. We're gonna get him on, right? Oh, we're gonna try.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

We're gonna try. But uh yeah, I'm gonna step off. Yeah, he's a little bit scared. What when you hear when you hear his lineage and what he's come up through. Oh, that's cool. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:09

Well, I finally feel like we outrank, we uh we outrank everybody. Not outrank, but like we outnumber everybody now because there's there's uh uh three 8999s here right now. So that's pretty dupe.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Yeah. Yeah, I'll he can come on in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

All right, so it's funny because you you were air wing and you retired out of the infantry. Yeah, he's been infantry for god forever. And retired out of the airway uh out of out of uh Hawaii. Yeah, so yeah, it was but yeah, he's he's been hanging out here for the week doing some work, man. But uh I've kind of I've kind of spoiled him on some some good drinks and smoke. Nice. Well, we're gonna pop one of them on, so who's it gonna be?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

You gotta come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Come on. Sit down there. You gotta tell your story. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:56

Tell us your social security number.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:58

Bring that glass I'm gonna see. Bring the glass on the case.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

So we got we got a few we got a couple retired, a couple other retired Marines here. Uh we got a retired first sergeant's gonna get on and tell us uh his story. And my buddy back there, Artie, retired sergeant major. First, first, first male uh first sergeant at uh 4th battalion, by the way. I was so happy when he told me that, bro. He was like, You're never gonna believe what I got. I was like, I hope you got 4th battalion, just as a joke. He sent me them pictures of 4th battalion. I was like, get the 4th battalion's the female battalion, if you guys don't know. Not anymore, not anymore. They've disbanded, but uh but the man made history, so that was kind of cool. Nice, nice. All right, welcome. Who do we got on Mike 4?

SPEAKER_07 1:02:44

Hey uh Carlos Perez here on Mike 4. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

Welcome, welcome. Yes, her. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your story, where you come from, your social security number, bank account, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:56

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:57

All right, well, I was born and raised in Columbia and I came to the US when I was 14, lived in New York, couldn't get me out of there fast enough, so I joined the Marine Corps. And um ended up uh ended up in Lejeune after graduating uh boot camp SY and uh 14 years later I was still in Lejeune. Geez, you spent all 14 on Lejeune. Yes, sir. Damn. Uh so it was kind of balancing between um 2-6 was my parent command, that's what I grew up, and then I went to 1-2 back to 2-6. SOIEs as a combat instructor at uh Marine Combat Training Battalion. Uh and then from there I went to 1-6 and spent the majority of time in 1-6. From there I went to 1-0. 1-6, that's where y'all were. Yeah, spent five years in 1-6 and uh I didn't want to leave.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

Yeah, he was a grand old man in one-six, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Was he like your platoon sergeant or something?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:53

No, so I was a corporal, he was a very senior sergeant. And then he became uh the platoon sergeant of third platoon. I got it. I was squad leader in first or second platoon.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:02

Yeah, I was stuck in the sergeant limb for a long time, and like during that time, I mean, it was it's not a lot of easy promotions during well, not that it was easy promotions, but it was just very uh stagnant to try to be a promoter in that field.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

So But then you went first, Sergeant, the clearly better of the two options of uh PA. So Lee has an obvious bias about Master Sergeant, yeah. I think it's a great idea to go first. Well, when you when you went to 10% selection rate compared to about 55%, I I think that I think we know which one's harder. Well Yeah, that is that is a fact. Sorry, Mass Sergeants. We love you too. We love you too.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:41

Yeah, so I had a really great role model growing up, and uh from PFC parets, checking into the battalion, and uh checking in the company office, and then you have this action figure of a dude just walking into company office, and you're like, who is that? I want to be that guy. He's coming in, campaign all over his face, just got out of the field, and that's your company first arm. But we had already kind of given a brief history of who this guy was and what he did in Desert Short World, and and uh ever since then it's uh the one person I wanted to be when I grew up in the Marine Corps. And um so as I progressed through my experience in life in the core, that's what I my goal was. Like I want to be that guy, and I I just stayed true all the way to the end. Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:32

So when were you on the drill field?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:34

I wasn't. I was just guessing. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

People asked me that too. They assume just because you're a first sergeant you're on the drill field. That is true. What'd you do?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:42

No, I was a coming instructor.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:44

So yeah, no, I I wanted to stay within the infantry related jobs and uh so you never even stepped outside your comfort zone.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:52

Uh well, I think stayed right up in that thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:54

I think I did when I got sent to Quantico, that was uh that was definitely way outside of. Of my comfort zone when I came there. I came uh came in as a staff serent and it was different. Yeah, it was a different, whole different environment up there.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

Yeah, well shit you're used to here, you know. Yeah, no, I don't know. Monica is like a bunch of shiny stuff walking around everywhere, too.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:16

Whack whack. Whack.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:19

No. But hold on.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

I don't I don't think we should skip over. But y'all deployed good. I don't think we should skip over who the first art was in his company. Uh if if anyone is from Division listening, the dude is a walking legend. Yes. Or was before he retired, man. Yeah. Oh, I know him. Yeah. See what I mean? Yeah, we were uh Zika cycle guys together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

He is a legend. He is a legend. Zikafoos.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:47

Legend. Look him up. Look him up.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

Look up, look up Sergeant Major Zika Foos. You don't even have to just ask a Marine around.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:52

But you I mean you were with him for a while though. For a while. All the way PFC Perez, Sergeant Perez. Yeah. He was in the battalion for a long time. He came in in battalion staff sergeant, scout sniper platoon, and pick up Gunny, stayed as a company gunny, then uh company first sergeant picked up sergeant major and then he was it's very rare where you see that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:15

But I met him when uh when we were doing the motorcycle club stuff and we were doing a big ride and he you know addressed us all and came around and talked to everybody. Yeah, really, really cool guy. Really, really cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:25

Yeah, Carlos locked it on, man. We did a uh was it was a mess night, wasn't it? Or mess night, and he was the guest of honor, man. What a treat. Yeah, good dude. Good dude. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:36

Yeah, he was a best sergeant major. SouthCon Sergeant Major, Division Sergeant Major. He didn't want anything to do with Serge Major, Rancor.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:52

Yeah, one of my mentors was climbing the ranks so quick, made it to Mar4Con, and I'm like, you're gonna retire? What are you doing? I thought he was going, you know, Sergeant Major Ring Corps. But that's all politics by the time you get to that point. You know what I mean? It's really not uh what it's what we all thought when we were Lance Corporals and stuff. That is true, you know. And that that's not to take away from what they do. I just it's highly political and politicized. Right.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:15

Yeah. And going back to the whole picking the first iron right out, that's just I was saying earlier over there, like that's what's gonna put me back in front of the Marines. Right. And uh as an infantry marine, being in a master iron is great. You stay within your MOS, but you're slowly kind of going away further and further from the Marines. Yeah, because you're gonna be the ops chief, and you're not I don't want I don't want to be stuck in an S3 somewhere with two Lens Corpals, a lieutenant.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Yeah, and in my old job, I was air wing. Uh so in my old job, I'd move over a desk and have less responsibility and not be with the Marines anymore because the gunnies run the shop, you know what I mean? So I was like, no, not for me, not for me. So it was it was a no-brainer for me. Actually, I knew that since I was a young and it when I first re-enlisted, I was like, okay, that's the route I'm going.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:07

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:07

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_07 1:09:08

Yeah, that was that was always the goal for me, man. I try I did try uh the whole MSAP Marine Enlisted Commission education program. Yeah. But uh the whole purpose behind it is I was already too senior of a sergeant to try to go to MarSOC. So I was like, hey, if I go to MSAP, I'll try to do Mars Acc as a lieutenant. And that didn't work out. My English was no bueno. My English was no bueno. That's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:37

That's good. Well then that's cool, man. So when did you retire?

SPEAKER_07 1:09:40

Uh September 2000 uh 2024. September 2024. Congrats, congrats.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:45

Thank you. We got all kinds of retirements on the on the show, man. Cody just a couple.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:51

Cody just our buddy uh retired Master Guns. He retired on May 15th. That's great. Uh 27 years. Congratulations, man. Yeah, so it's always it's always real cool. And then that bald guy back there, he retired way back in the day, too. Yeah. Um, but nah, I mean, I uh 20 was it for me. Did you do over 20?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:09

I I did 22, yes, sir. I that was uh but that was always it for me as well. Yeah, yeah. Uh strategically work that way because I wanted to be home right before my oldest graduated high school. Yeah. So it would give me that buffer time to be home before he punched out to boot camp, which he ended up doing anyway. Oh, yeah. So he's a Marine. Yeah, he is. Nice. He's in 1-6. I'm telling you, man. Oh, that's gotta be cool. When you hear company too, Alpha Company. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:38

When he breaks this down, like how he came to 1-6 and everything else, and then his son like comes there. Uh oh, yeah, you gotta line that out for him, man. That's cool. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. He's like a four-brother. Yeah, dude. He's awesome. Yeah. I agree. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:07

All right, you guys, you're right. Thanks, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:10

Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, everybody was it. You're talking about Zucca Poos. Yeah. I couldn't hear it because I thought the cans were on. But yeah, dude. Uh so your son got to the same unit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:21

Yeah. It's cool. It's great, man, because he knew he was like, hey dad, send me the pictures of when we were in your promotion when we were kids, and you had the Indian head in the back and everything. And we had to obviously the check-in day, we had to recreate that picture as a family. Yeah, full circle. Man, how proud are you? That's that's freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:40

I'll try to get my kids to join. Freaking turds. They don't listen to the shows, they don't care.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:43

Yeah, my my my other two, they're like, I don't want anything to do with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:47

Be like, fine. Um, I'm not saying I have a favorite, but he knows who he is.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:51

You're not in my profile picture.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

And we don't even have the MySpace top five anymore, man. That's how we do it. That's how we set it up there. The other two would have made it. Yeah. They were like number seven. Now, did you all deploy together? No, no, man. I broke my leg before uh the deployment there because I left one nine, uh, checked in with one six. Afghan and uh Afghan and the Mew. I thought you were in Iraq with uh Shane. Uh no, Afghan. Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:21

He and I uh we were in the middle and long enough to cause some damage. Yeah, you ain't lying.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:27

You ain't lying, boy. I'm telling you. Carlos and I, we we go back though. I you know, I was uh I was I was telling Amy, I was like, man, when I checked into 1.6, whenever you change units, like sometimes it takes a little bit to like assimilate, and I was just telling her, I was like, man, one six goes like their lineage is pretty dope, man. Like it's a hard ass battalion, no pun intended.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:47

I mean, not as cool as one eight, but that's cool. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:49

I mean, yeah, if you're into that kind of stuff. Go ahead. But uh, but anyway, so like 16, I mean, I and Carlos like correct me, but uh, it was Sangin, Marja, Garmsmure.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:00

It was the other way around. It was like Gamsure, Marja, Sangin. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:05

You're catching all this. I'm listening to it. Okay, just sitting there.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

Continue. Onward. Uh, but no, it it was taking me a minute to like uh, you know, kind of assimilate into the battalion because like when I checked in, no one was there. These guys were on uh post-deployment leave, and it wasn't until we did like some kind of uniform inspection for fill-in reason that you know obviously my my ribbons showed that I was not some just new guy. Yeah, uh so then like I was telling, I was like, one of the guys was like, Oh shit, once you what the fuck? Like, I was like, What happened? I was like, and he goes, We thought you were security forces. Like, I was like, Yeah, you're like dude, yeah. I was like, so that's that's why, and they're like, Yeah, dude, we thought you were security forces, man. They were giving the cold shoulder and everything, like, oh, what's up, dude? Like, hey, whatever. Yeah, like, no, man, like, I didn't go with that, yeah, freaking pogue. Chuck's Fridays, man. Yeah, dude, bro, Chuck's Friday. That'll humble some people.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:13

Yeah, that's what I liked about it, because you know, you get the big shit talkers, and it's like what?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:20

You ain't done shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:23

Like, I'm a pogue. You got a national defense ribbon. You know what I'm saying? But it's fun, yeah. I mean, uh, with with that retirement, with Cody's retirement, I thought we were gonna be wearing chucks or deltas or something like that. Because I said I was like, I'll shave, I'll cut my hair, I'll get back in uniform. And then he was like, but then I would have had to redo my ribbon rack. But then he was like, Cammies, and I was like, easy.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

That's easy as shit. So you you retired out of Hawaii. I did. All right, and then you were in Hawaii at one point. Yeah, where were you at in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_07 1:14:54

ML says 174.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:56

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:57

It was M L E S D and then forced the sign to turn it into a squadron.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:03

So I gotcha. I was at uh 363 in Hawaii. But man, how cool is it working in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:10

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:10

Just when you first get there and look out at the flight line or anything. When you see the mountains in the background, you do the bay, and like do I get to work here? Like for real, are they gonna pay me to work here? Yes. I'll do it.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:22

Every day every day. There was no, I don't care what I go through today, just this walk to and from the office, it just makes it all worth it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:30

Yeah, like I gotta do, I gotta go do first order things, but then also I get to I get to also live here. So that balances it out.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:38

When did you retire?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:39

2017. Okay, yeah. Nine years most of nine years. Yeah. Uh but it feels like only yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

No, but uh Yeah, what what do you usually say that uh pogue stands for?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

Prosecutor of grunts. This guy. This guy. What's up?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:58

Enemy with enemy within the gates.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

Enemy within the gates. What's up? Yeah, but then the better you are at your job as a first sergeant, the better you treat your Marines. Later on in deployments, they start saying, You're not a pogue anymore, and then you gotta really fight. No, yes, I am. I really, really am.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

So he and I, we had a first sergeant. I won't put his name out there, but uh he was he was straight up admin. I'm not gonna put his name out there, but he was admin. Admin. And he was he was a frocked first sergeant, and his first time out of his MOS was a good one. Everybody's a frocked first sergeant.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:28

Oh, really? Like when they first get it, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:30

All right, so he yeah, he was frocked, and his first unit outside of admin and admin schoolhouse was 16 Alpha. Uh man, that guy right there, dude, he he had uh quite the uh the strong mentality because he's like, Yeah, I'm poke, I don't care. Like, I'll do whatever. So he challenged one of our machine gun, he was section leader. Yeah, one of our machine gun section leaders, he challenged him to a gun drill. Uh, we were in Yuma, Arizona, WTI. Uh, we had some time off, you know, for the company to do squad and and squad ranges and stuff. So he challenges him. He goes, he goes, he tells him, he goes, I think I can beat you. I think I can beat you. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna pick my machine gun team and we're gonna run it. And the the sergeant was like, All right, that's that's cool. I'm down for it. And man, it was pretty cool. The whole company got on like behind the line, the firing line. You know, they went through the safety brief, they did a couple dry runs and everything else, and man, they kicked it live. And you got this this tall first art, man. He's lanky dude, and then you got the machine gunner, built like machine gunners, short, stocky dude, just massive dudes. Just meters, dude. Yeah, just they eat small children for breakfast, right? Yeah, yeah. Dude, they run up there and and like the the guys hold the tripods just do the superman, throw out the tripods, and then you know, first star jumps up there with the gun and just starts rocking away, man. It was it was pretty cool. Obviously, everything's done safe. Yeah, there were targets, they were shifting targets and everything else. Nice. They ran they ran a pretty good drill, man. It was it was pretty fun. That is cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:55

Who who won? I don't quite know that's kind of cool though that that you don't remember because that meant they both did so well.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:04

Yeah, no, they both did pretty good. It was kind of funny seeing him like run with the machine guy. Well, that is.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:09

Man, I talked so much crap when I was there because I was a pogue from the air wing and recruiter and not a drill instructor.

SPEAKER_07 1:18:14

That's how this guy was, man. Like he was humble enough to be like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna talk shit anyway. Yeah, in a fun way, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:21

Like I'm I you know, I encourage make fun of me too. And and we actually had a pretty good uh group of first sergeants. We had the best fucking group of first sergeants uh at at 1-8, and the only the senior dudes right there behind you, yeah, but the rest of us got promoted on the same board. Yeah, one of our buddies, little Mikey, he's uh he was he was the boot and the shortest one, and like we'd always just pick on him for his height, like Peter Dad, or even though he he could ball me up because he's a freaking brown belt in jujitsu. But uh, and we'd be like, man, shut up. The ink ain't even dry on your freaking promotion warrant yet. You don't you don't rate to talk yet? But uh yeah, we had a good group, man. But everybody could take it except like I don't think Thomas could take it. Everybody else could take it. We'll we'll get we'll get we'll get already on here in a minute. But yeah, it was a great group of people. It was a great group of people.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:15

So it's gonna be a full marine chat. No, you're good. Good catch. Reflexes like a cat.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:23

But uh no, but I mean it it because we had we had drill instructors. Well, actually, yeah, two journal instructors, me, the recruiter, SOI instructors, you know, so it was a good mix. A good mix of where you came from, what your job was. Um, and now it kind of doesn't matter what your jobs were because we're all in the same mentality and stuff, but we helped each other out like crazy. I would go up to his office all the time and get advice, and you know, go down to my brother, my buddy Jason's office, get advice. Just we'd always like feed off each other and talk to each other and and and kind of like, hey, I don't know this. You know, what do you know that I don't know? Tell me, and whatever. You know, and that's and it wasn't like it wasn't like competitive shit. It was like we're family, we're brothers, so we're gonna help each other out.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:14

Yeah, there's no purpose of like one upping each other. And uh I was blessed to have the same relationship in Hawaii with the group of first signs that I had.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:22

Scooting just a little bit.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:24

Yeah, the group of first signs that I had, I was blessed to have the same mindset. It's just it was it was four of us, and then it was okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:32

It's not a bunch of egos, it's not a bunch of freaking we would jokingly be egos. You know, you know, you'd peacock to each other as jokes, but it was like just jokes. Alright, and then pull that thing down to where it feels good, giggity. There it is. Right there, a little close though, real close, real close. Like let me hear you go test or something. Test, test, test. A little closer, a little closer.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:54

Test, test, test. All right.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:56

All right, we got Artie on the line. I mean, on chair two. So uh tell us about yourself.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:02

All right. Um retired star major. I had to think about that first.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:08

We've been saying first sergeant so many times.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

God dog, man, I'm the lowest ranking every time, bro. Every time.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:18

Oh shit. So, and I retired in my retired life. I'm a school, high school history teacher, and uh, I coach football on the side.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:25

Yeah, I was gonna say, and you do something else too. Yeah, on the side. On the side, you know, you act like that's the full-time part. It is a full-time gig for sure. Yeah, it should be the other way around. So did I was I accurate in my description of how we were at 1-8? Oh yeah. The boys.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:40

Oh yeah, it was it was comedy hour every single time.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:43

And s and Scott too, our SAR major at the time. He was he was with us too, but he would play the grumpy old man, even though he would laugh too, like he knew we were just fucking around most of the time. But uh yeah, we had a good time, a good crew. And then you retired out of Buford.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:58

Yeah, out of Beaufort, I went to the I went to the air station, and uh once I got a taste of the air wing life, I wrote a Dear John letter to Division that let him know to whom it may concern. Hold on, so where did where did you start out from? Like the first in the Marine Corps? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I went to Camp LeJune here uh at uh Meth Headquarters group, it was Shrig at the time, so it was like a surveillance recallant reconnaissance intelligence group. And like uh MLE, which is now Anglico. So started out there as an as administrator. Okay, I typed on the typewriter when I first got there.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:37

Clickety-clack, clickity-clack, and I was like, hey, and then you went when did you when did you retire?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:47

2022. So I had I had I had um like uh Taylor or not Taylor like the The Crap Storm that is COVID Marine Corps where people got like off one week and then was on one week, and I was in transition from a uh a Hornet Squadron into a mouth aviation logistics.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:08

But you must have been at twenty-four, twenty-five years or something like that. Yeah, twenty-four. Yeah, I got out. Yeah, I was gonna say, 'cause you I we all got there in 2015. So you picked up 14, 13.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:20

I felt like I was just a first sergeant forever. I was just like, man, when is it my turn?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:24

Yeah. But as a first sergeant, it's cool because it's not like being a staff sergeant. When you're a staff sergeant, you're like the but you're the lowest of the staff NCOs, and like you get all the bitch work and all the stupid jobs, and all the, you know, hey, you're gonna be planning the ball, you're gonna be doing all this.

SPEAKER_07 1:23:39

Yeah, planning the ball.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:40

But it's almost like yeah, now now you're a first sergeant, so you gotta do the stuff Sergeant Major doesn't want to do. Exactly. That's some rocker problems, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:47

I never had that. Yeah, but it's never saw that.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:49

But it's it's similar to when you pick up corporal. Yeah, you're an NCO, but you're the junior NCO. So you might be making the duty roster or you know, or whatever that that the sergeant doesn't feel like doing, you know anymore.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:01

I did that while you're standing duty. Yeah, while you're on duty.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:04

And you better be paying attention to what's going on on what you'd be doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:08

I've got a PFDS07 tomorrow. Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:11

No, I I did do that, like even as a junior sergeant. Um it was a star major, like um the switches for 8th Reg. I can't remember their names right now. They are pretty good, like the the sergeant majors, man. They're they're good dudes. I can't remember their names now, but uh I was the adjunct for that. I had never done any kind of did you sound adjunct call? Oh, yeah, of course. All the thing. That's all you gotta do, right? Oh dude, marks on the collars, you know, report, all the thing, man. Yeah, that's review. It was it was it was pretty cool. Yeah, I liked it. I mean, it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:47

It is cool because you're getting out of your comfort zone. I swear to god, they're building a house next to us. Uh you get out of your comfort zone when you do those things. You know, he was a drill instructor. I wasn't a drill instructor, but as a gunny, I kept being the COT. As a staff sergeant, I was a COT. See, George. Love you, buddy. So if you're if you take interest in what you do and you're good at it, then you're they're chosen because your peers are doing what? They're freaking scamming out and scooting out and skating out and not not doing it because they don't feel like it, because they want to go to Wendy's instead. So that drove me crazy because as a gunny, I was like tired of doing it. I was like, dude, I like doing it because you get to do all, you get to, you know, get that experience and the you know the experience you didn't have before. But then uh when I was I was messing around and they had the narrator's microphone and I walked over to ladies and gentlemen, now entering his place with the breeding. So when I did that, the sergeant major was like, your narrator next time. I was like, Yeah, narrator for the ball. I got out of all that stuff. I didn't have to do like the ceremony, nothing. But you were on the drill field two times, and were you an AMY too? Ooh, dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:56

I was an AMOY at University of Washington, and then I also spent time at OTS and Quantico. Damn. So and then I was voluntole to come come back down to Paris Island. That's where you had kind of alluded to the story. The fourth dimension.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:11

The AMOI is a hidden gem, though. Like, never did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:16

Did you like that?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:17

What's that? The AMY is like a second officer instructor. Yeah, yeah. It was good. It was like you're I could see why people get in trouble out there, but it was like you just you become faculty at a at a major university. So if you have a bachelor's degree, you pretty much become like an assistant, like a DA. Uh you also teach classes there under the university umbrella. So it's good. You make your own schedule as long as as long as you're uh OIC there, as long as you're taking care of everything. And it's it's kind of like a leadership lab, yeah, where you are you are the senior enlisted advisor to like a Navy captain or a Marine Colonel. So like you can't the best advice. And then the actual the naval just uh professor that's at the naval science department, which is normally like a 06.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:01

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:02

So the best advice that I got while I was out there was was like, hey, don't make up stuff. It's okay to say you don't know. And that's probably the best advice that I got because I took that with me, and when we're advising these commanders, sometimes you just don't know the answer. Yeah, dude, the worst thing you could ever do is make some shit. You lose face if you sit there in front of a commander and say, like, you just make up some stuff. Well, I th I have heard of that before. No, no, no. Go look it up, you know, find it in a manual somewhere to give that commander a left and right lateral limit. So that's where you that's where I think a lot of uh those ones that go out there to to that to that specific duty kind of use it as a leadership lab, and some just party their faces off.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:40

Well, I but I mean, as far as like when you're training the officer candidates, how is that? Because you hate recruits when you're a drill instructor. You hate recruits, you just hate them.

unknown 1:27:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

You have to because you well, you have to. You put yourself in that mentality. I'm not telling you you, I'm just telling you what you've told me before. Oh, yeah, yeah. But like, so when you when you're gonna at them like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:58

No, I mean. He's not a huggle.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:01

He's the only drone strucker I know. But like we've talked a lot of times about this stuff. But what I mean, like, is like, so you hate them, but when you're up there with that, they gotta feel like recruits to you.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:11

Yeah, they do. And then at the end, it's like Yeah, the to the token thing is the mentor and make sure like these are the ones. So like the coin phrase is like a hmm. Did you ever get so you so you want to lead me?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:25

Oh yeah. Nice. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:28

Superman not looking so super right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:32

They're cock, they're pretty cocky. And they're increasing.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:34

And that's what I was gonna say too. You probably get a lot of arrogant ones, too.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:37

Yeah, you do get some. You get some that you know that are there for like, you know, personal reasons or individual reasons, but not not for the core itself. So you try to weed those out and try to make life as stressful as possible in many different ways. So I went through uh I was there as a sergeant instructor for a few times and I kind of seen like the evolution of things kind of change and then go back to the way they were. And what I mean by that is is that uh like some commanders are like, hey, let the dogs loose. Like I want to see strength, I want to see stress and pain face on these candidates. And then others were like, you know, like hey, let's let's calm it down.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:16

Um which would you which would you prefer? Like would you will not prefer which do you have fonder memories of?

SPEAKER_06 1:29:24

I think like the medium. We had some commanders that let us let us loose at certain times.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:28

No, I mean, I mean the recruits. Yeah, OCS or Paris Island or wherever you were at Paris Island, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:36

So I love my time uh as a as a senior listed senior listed guy. Okay, we're all good. Back on the depot rather than drill instructor time. Oh yeah, like as a first hard when you went back. SDAs just suck no matter what.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

They do. And they're supposed they're not supposed to suck, but they do. They take you out of your comfort zone. I mean, we we we compared notes because I was like, I was so freaking miserable on recruiting duty. I was so miserable on drill instructor duty. It's like, what? That would seem like a beef. No, because there's so many terrible things. Like you just you're treated like a recruit. You're treated on both duties, you're treated like a fucking Lance Corporal. Oh, yeah. And you're a staff sergeant or a gunny, like where I started as a sergeant, but I was a staff sergeant most of my time on recruiting, but it's like you're treated like a piece of shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:20

It's it's like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:21

And you and you drink yourself to sleep at night, you know what I mean? Like it's like Apple juice though. Warm milk, that's what I mean. We had PHAs that we gotta fill out every now and then, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:32

You can't uh I don't gotta fill out shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:35

I'm retired. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, so you pref but what did you say?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:40

Did you preferred I preferred going back as a senior? As a okay, yeah, because then I was like, hey, look.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:46

Now you're running shit.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:47

Yeah, you're like, hey, this is the right way to do things. This is how you can increase uh you know effectiveness and get what your goal is, rather than sit there and just run around and do inefficient stuff. Yeah. So you kind of look back on what you did and you're like, hey, that was dumb. And then and then some of some of the some of the journal searchers started applying things that you know other senior listeners was was given advice for, like, hey, leading into the leading into the training schedule, like a platoon star and stuff. And it made stuff very effective for and you've seen the scores go up. Like we we take uh the journal services that were there, um, and this wasn't anything that I did. This is things that they kind of came up with, and you just created an environment for them to flourish and make those decisions. And you seen like a female, a female company like go to where they have only one drop on the range, which was like unheard of many times. That is unheard of. And then you have like a actual female platoon like take second and final drill. Like, you know, just you create an environment where they can flourish and and make make decisions, and it it worked out. I really enjoyed that time, and and there was uh a lot of a hell of a good Marines that that were that were doing great things down there.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:59

Yeah. And I know I made the joke and stuff when you got down there because that was funny. That's a story. It's before it's before we it's before everything was integrated. And uh you were telling us that you because we had a we had a we uh a 89-99 group chat that we'd all you know text each other and stuff, and he's like, I got orders. And I was like, Oh, please let it be fourth battalion or something. It was just a joke because that was impossible. Motherfucker sent pictures of his new shirts, his new P T shirts, and they were all fourth battalion. I was like, Got him, get out of here. I was so happy.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:34

Lee was like, so in the text chat, he was he was uh, so does that mean you have to wear a sports rod dot dot?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:42

It was so good, but I really do like after talking to him after a while, after him being down there, because of the challenges. You gotta think about the challenges when you first go down there. It's never been done. So how do we okay, mail on deck, like what you know, what do you do and all that stuff? It's gotta be difficult. Yeah, uh transition into the this before we were integrated and all that, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:00

So so think of it like this. When when I first got orders, yeah, it was it was comical. The story went like this. So I guess they were you know, had a lot of turnover on the depot for whatever reason because of maybe allegations or whatever. I'm not sure what happened, but a lot of us got orders during that time frame. A lot of 8999 got orders during that time frame. And and uh when I call down there, like we do, check on our units, like hey, look, you're not you're going to fourth recruit training battalion. And you you thought I was a joke. I was like, oh, that's good. So where where am I going? Oh, you're going to fourth. Yeah, so you thought they were just mats on the fifth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:36

So was that the start of the interversion?

SPEAKER_06 1:33:38

That was that was the beginning. Yeah. So so I guess you know, uh, I wasn't at the top level to figure out those things, but I was part of the test bed to say, hey, look, can it happen?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:48

Um that's what happens when you go to 1-8, man. That's what happens. Uh look, we don't make the rules. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:54

Oh, they they turned you into fourth or tiny. Is that what that's a good thing? I did it. Now is that is that the only place you were down there for the second time you went?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:05

Yeah, I I stayed there and uh by the way, sorry about all the stalling. I don't know who's building a park right now, but so the so the way the way it went, I came in there and and what I got told was you know, they had they had males that were on the company level beforehand, but that was before it was actually 4th battalion when the sip when it became another battalion. So 4th group training battalion didn't have males at the company level. Um so they so I had to take everything with a grain of salt, and it was all new territory. I went from 1.8 where it was all wee we've all the time. Oh yeah, to 4th battalion was all TTs all the time, you know what I'm saying? Hell yeah. Give them one, give them one. So you don't want to say those recruits. It was it was uh I I went into it with a mindset like, hey, this is inside in the fleet, we have female Marines, and it's no different, right? And all walks of life. You're like, okay, well, we go to 20 ounce bombs, right? Hey, this is the time, it's the female shower, you designate certain things and you go allotted, no big deal. Um, so it was so it was so like segregated because it was just all females there. Yeah. Uh and there was another female drone instructor that went to uh Leticia Franklin that went to Alpha Company. So she went to she went to that that male company, I went to the female company, Oscar Company, which has three different series going at three different types.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:28

Oh, so that was their first time too having a female. As a female do you remember being a recruit? How scary female journal instructors were? Terrifying. They're freaking scary, dude. Like you don't I got a story for that. You don't think about you don't think about that. Like what people don't think about that. They're scary, dude. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:44

So at the same time, when I was a recruit, I was like, man, she's scary, but she's she could get it.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:49

She could get both inches for both minutes. I was like, I'm in love with her.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:53

I don't know who she is, but I love her.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:55

I love her so much. I don't want to write. You love every female you see though when you're in recruiting training.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:00

So I was I I went to 4th Battalion uh for I think it was like Marine Week, that one week. Of course you did, you know. Yeah, of course you did. So I went there as a you were confused back then. No, it was don't ask, don't tell. Oh, I gotcha. Real deal. You know? Uh no, so I went down there, you know, you do the week of working parties and all this other stuff. So I'm in 4th battalion. We're in the in the back area, we're we're putting together like tables and stuff like that. They're having some like, I don't know, they were having some kind of event. And this like female drone instructor blasted. And for for the viewers, it's if you see a Marine Corps drone instructor, male or female, they're the best. They're the best. The cover sets the tone. And my like in this in this drone instructor, she was a little bit taller too. And she just pops in and like just like hands on the hip, and like we all pop to and everything else, and then she's like, get out of the way. So like I'm trying to scramble out of the way, and there's a there's a stack of these white tables, long tables, but yay high. And I was like, I couldn't go nowhere, I couldn't go towards her, all right? Because you're gonna get stiff on her. One arms, one arms distance freak show. All right, I couldn't go that way. My buddies were behind me, couldn't go that way. My only thought was to go over the tables. So I leap over the tables and I hit my knee and I got stuck halfway on the tables. She flops up there to me. She goes, Are you kidding me right now? And I was like, No, no, ma'am. She's like, What are you doing right now? Uh just trying to get out of your way, ma'am. And uh she's like, You're an idiot. I mean thank you. Thank you, ma'am. May I have another? Oh, it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing. Thank you, man. May I have another? To be 18 again. I know, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:37:44

I'm telling you, mate, it was it was similar to what you're saying. I think you want my. As a sergeant, I went to the Carlos, Carlos, already.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:51

We didn't, we didn't.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:52

As a sergeant going to a SOI, I was like, I was thinking, oh, ITB, ITB, you know, infantry training down. That's all I was thinking. And then I was like, you're going to MCT. I was like, well in the world. Oh, you went to MCT? I did. Oh, that's quite the culture shock, but I am thankful for it.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:15

Because I wasn't just another grunt in the same pod with all the other grunts, and it's just like everybody's just us feeding of each other. Yeah. But instead, uh I think I had a more professional and then uh and uh developmental uh career because I went to MCT. It helped me mature more and in my mindset that you know it was just not it. Yeah, I was still very proud of Grunt, but it wasn't like infantry, infantry, infantry. Yeah, he made me uh professionally better in my career and personally, and I'm thankful for that opportunity, even though I was never allowed to have a platoon with females on it, because I was a little bit too intense for that.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:55

But wait, so they so they wouldn't let you have just so because they were integrated.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:01

They were integrated when you went, when you did it. Okay, but it was uh sorry it was an alpha side and a Bravo side. And alpha side had two platoons, and it was one was all males, and no one's allowed to call them split tails anymore. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:14

That's how my that's how my old old crusty marine friends that have been out for 20 some odd years are like you got split tail WMs working there. I'm like, we don't call in any of that anymore. Like, please don't say that again. That's disgusting.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:32

Yeah, yeah. So I so it was a one platoon of males and one platoon of integrated, and that's how it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:39

But uh see now that would suck at the same time at M MCT, you got a platoon of males, platoon of integrated. What do you think this one's gonna say to that one?

SPEAKER_07 1:39:48

Like a hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:50

You know what I'm saying? It's gonna be this chess puffing, like, you know, at least you got chicks in your platoon. And that's exactly how it was, man.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:57

Yeah, so you had to learn how to find a happy median to make sure you maintain professionalism between yourself and the students and that to avoid all of that, because it was naturally there. You have a bunch of 18, 19 year olds, they're all puffing their chest, you know, and then you have an integrated platoon, and you know, but try the best to make sausage, you know. No pun intended, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:21

You know, sometimes sometimes so so as 8999s, what advice would you give gunnery sergeants who are trying to make the choice between F and M, First Sergeant and Master Sergeant?

SPEAKER_07 1:40:35

I let Sorge Major go first. So pull that closer a little bit. I'll piggyback all of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:41

Yeah, what I would say for anybody is is when I ask, hey, well, what's the reason you don't want to go to First Army? Because like I want to stay in my MOS or uh I want to make the influence in my community, or I want to guard my Marines, like I think and have you have the you have the commanding officer's ear, so you have the most influence in that company level, all right, and then beyond. As you grow, as you grow your leadership, you have an avenue to protect the Marines and right the wrongs that you've done before. So what you've seen as toxic leaders, uh leadership that you just don't agree with, and things that are not being done up to standard or the right way, you have an opportunity to fix those things and guard the Marines and generations behind you by making standards, you know, set standards and then making sure that they have an environment to grow themselves and take your place one day. So I would say it's more impactful. Not that you can't do that as a mass art, but you're just in the MOS and you're mentoring that MOS, you know, why can't you do that from a bigger platform? Because it's not like all the mass arts that are not cap capable. Absolutely. Tons of tons of Marine Lead E8s out there that are capable of doing all kinds of things and and great stuff, but you actually have the commander's ear and can actually make make or break the company or the battalion or the squadron. So that would be my advice. Like, hey, look, if you really want to stick around and make a make a big impact, then that would be where you would do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:09

All right, Carlos. That's a great man. Hold on, I got a question, man. He he's saying he's got the commander's here. Why are we always getting off at like 1700, man? Because we're in the air wing, dude.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:20

Yeah, we're in the air wing, that's early. Oh shit, you're gonna have a lot of Fridays. Yeah. Well, whatever, dude. Uh, when we got when I got over to 1-8 and people were freaking out because it was 1400 and we were off weren't off already. I was like, wait, what? You guys are freaking out over that. I was like, I want to swap some of my people with some airwingers and just to just so they can experience the hours, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:42:42

You and I together were both like, well, what do we do? Yeah. What do we do?

SPEAKER_04 1:42:46

I seriously said that. I came up to him. I'm like, so what do we like when everything's done, like what do you do?

SPEAKER_07 1:42:54

So as a company gunny, so as a company gunny, I will go up to the first iron and be like, hey, first iron CO wants to hold a formation of 1300, and then I will go up to the company commander and be like, hey sir, sir, first iron wants to hold a commitment formation of 1300.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:10

So everybody would just show up and be like, Well, you call a formation. Nope, but the company's here already, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:16

Oh yeah. But you know who's not saying when the formation is right.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:20

The Master Sergeant. Sorry. That is true. I love masters. My buddy just retired as Master Guns. It's just the reason. Go. Was that we what's your reason though that you chose?

SPEAKER_07 1:43:31

Well, it's a it's a it's a usual question. It's a great question because I don't get asked that all the time. But I can only offer my personal opinion as to why I chose the route I chose. Uh, because both offer a great opportunity, and and it I was just given the both the pros and cons for both opportunities. And if they want to stay with an MOS, you know, that's that's great. If you want to be technically, tactically proficient in your MOS, then you just which you should be, everybody.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:59

You should be correct. You should be fully qualified for both before making a a choice.

SPEAKER_07 1:44:04

That is correct, in my opinion. Yes. And then but to me personally, I chose the first iron route because I want to be in front of the Marines. What's gonna be put me in front of the Marines? I didn't want to the further you go within my voice as a as a master iron, it I just I didn't want to get stuck out of history, and so that's that was the biggest thing for me. What's going to put me in front of the Marines or what the change I can affect? What are the things that I didn't like growing up that I can make or influence that change now and and have more impact on Marines directly, and that's why I chose that. So that would that would be my answer every time I get asked that question.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:47

I'll I will say that there's a similarity between how Marines always remember their journal instructor, they don't remember the recruiter. 100%. So I was a recruiter, I wasn't a journal instructor, but they remember because you had a much bigger. Yeah, so that's just it's it's natural.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:02

Well, I remember my recruiter. Well, but but yeah, in that way. In that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:09

But there's also well you could, like on a on a just a league somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:14

No, he told you he was like born and raised in Columbia. I was looking for that. So you know he's got to be on the team. No, you're gonna be messy, you're gonna be Renato, dude. You got it. Just go there, pick up the M1682, and just go to work. Like you'll get to the team. I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:37

I lied, he lied, it's okay, we're good. Yeah, but you remember your drill instructor. And that's because it's such a like the culminating thing of your Marine Corps, whether it's four years, nine years, ten years, uh 20 years, 40 years, it's your drill instructor. Like that's that's the first Marine that really has an impact on you. Because you're not a Marine yet. You're not even a recruit yet. When you meet the recruiter, he's basically got to talk you into joining because you never were gonna join in the first fucking place, right? So they don't really remember, and I and I get that because I'm the same way. I remember all my I know my recruiter were friends and stuff, but I my drill instructors made a big impact on me, and that's who I remember. I I think as a as a first sergeant, you can very easily fuck that up and be the first sergeant they remember for the wrong reason. Yes, and a lot of our peers did that, and so it gives you a bad name, just like any MOS gives you a bad name. I've known master sergeants that piss their rack while they're you know too drunk to fucking you know do anything, and we're like, well, what are you doing, dude? You're just pissing all over the place. Oh yeah. Uh while you're the adult in the room.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:37

But don't act like you know exactly what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:43

But anyway, my my point is that uh for me, when I when I and I told you already, like it was always gonna be first sergeant for me, just like what you said, if I went master sergeant, which I had all my qualms in my MOS, so I could have easily went Master Sergeant, but I would have moved over one desk and and and led 54 Marines, which is a lot of Marines to lead. Right. But when I went first sergeant, the very first company I had weapons company 18, 215 Marines. So like I'd rather have more of an influence over more Marines, and then when you become the sergeant major, you're over the entire battalion, you're over the whole squadron. You know, the master guns is too in in in a maintenance way or in a you know in another way, which is great. We need them. Like we absolutely need, I'm not shitting on them. I I jokingly shit on them all the time because we're friends and we we do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:32

This is natural or you can have a lot of master guns that are extremely influential. Yeah, even outside there, I'm gonna be able to do that. Or gunners, yeah, because I'll do that are great.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:41

Yeah, but like we would at 1-8, we would have like 89, 99 times, but we would always invite the mass arms and master guns.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:48

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:48

And like we're not doing we're not doing just it's E8 and above, whatever. We're just doing a a whole group thing. We're not treating them like anything different. But of course we're gonna joke them, like yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:58

Great. It it is that natural uh oh, I wouldn't say animosity, but it's that jokingly is the whole you know, it's the brothers, it's the brothers that uh you know but it's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:09

Mom likes me that's a good dynamic.

SPEAKER_07 1:48:11

Yeah, it's a when it's a good dynamic work relationship between the master guns, the first the star majors, or the you know, the master arms and the first iron, it just makes a unit that much.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:21

If you get the master and first sergeant working together in a company, the master guns and the sergeant major working together in a battalion or a squadron, you're golden, dude. Like you don't yeah, you have control over all the rest of the staff and COs. Right, you know, because you're on the same page.

SPEAKER_07 1:48:36

And I tell you, man, I went to MWSS when I picked up first serent, straight out the the infantry battalion. I went there and trying to figure out what an NWSS was. So I had to Google it because I'm gonna go. You know, all I knew is I was going to Hawaii, you know, so I get there and sure. You're the only first sermon here, there's no sergeant major. I was like, oh my god. And then I'm gonna work with all these masters that have never worked with a first sergeant, yeah. Or work with infantry guys, we with infantry guys, but yeah, for that matter. So, but I was I was blessed, man. Like it it was it was great because these guys are very open-minded, very, you know, it was a great dynamic and great working relationship, and we we make things happen. And all all those masterns that I worked with over there, it that relationship was tight, and he's just beneficial, not just for us in a working relationship, but for the Marines. They're the ones that really benefited out of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:34

Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you, man, I didn't have any as a first sergeant, I didn't have much beef with any mass aren't ever. Like we got along great, but in the air wing, I had a few mass arms that I just couldn't freaking stand because it's like all they care about is maintenance. They don't care about the Marine Corps. They were either fat, you know, disgusting in their uniform, just didn't give a crap. And they didn't get and they would cover up for the fat guys that had. And I'm only saying this because you standards in the military in the Marine Corps, sorry. And uh boom. Boom. Sorry, sorry. Look at Amy over there. Sorry, because you're retired Air Force. But you have standards. Like you have to, dude, it doesn't say United States, it doesn't say United States avionicsmen on your freaking on your on your br blouse. It says United States Marine. So you need to be a Marine first. I don't give a shit what your rank is, where you come from, what your MOS is, Marine first. Know yourself, you know, be good at your job. Oh yeah. Like if you're good at your job, then you're gonna be good at being a Marine. But anyway, so I had a couple that were just turds and I looked up and I was like never not me. But you don't have first sergeants in the air wing except for like MWS's and stuff. MWSS is what I meant to say. But yeah like and that's why when I went to Cody's retirement they were like first sergeant right there. I'm like dude there's a master gun's right in front of me and a major behind me. Like what do you the sergeant major used to be a first sergeant? You know what I mean? But they just they don't ever see the diamond so it's it's just weird for them.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:03

What was your biggest like culture shock going from your primary MOS to first sergeant and going to 1-8 I I don't know if I had like a a culture shock pretty pretty fluid yeah like going going from one place to another because I had that I think the AMY time helped me like adapt to the command deck life where I was like all right this is this is platoon star and stuff let's get this and then having the ebb and flow of Marine Corps training and mission cycles understanding like hey this has to be we have to start planning here and understanding how everybody works.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:39

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:51:40

So it was pretty easy and then transition from um being an enable enabler type at MarSock and then going to the aviation unit where everybody's special. I had just come from a place where everybody's special. Oh yeah like like you have your calls don't touch the guy the calls avion dude has a has this this Marsock operator has a secret clearance so we gotta be careful how we adjudicate and then also even at the even at the squadron level is the same thing. You may have a a QAR like a quality a guy that has like all the calls quality representative and safer flight he's the one that says the the the aircraft yeah air airborne operations are good and um so if he gets in trouble or she gets in trouble then you may be out you know that quality peace guy and if you're out you can't make your flight hours or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:37

So that that weighs heavily on the decision whether to discipline this Marine just like you would discipline the Marine without the quaals. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:52:47

I think you have to be like consistent across the board absolutely so and if and if it comes down to it and you gotta drop the hammer because that's what it is and sometimes Marine Corps uh administrativia like you have to do a certain thing. Like if uh if somebody has during that time if they had like a drug bob then you have to start the process. You know so so it was it was it was pretty easy for me to to understand and then also to look at the Marines and say hey look you're not special we're all Marines and we're gonna work towards this mission set. And then to being pretty immersive and Lee was this way too being immersive and having the Marines like respect who you are by by learning what they do. So like I ended up going to the aviation unit and I had never been there before I'm not aviation I am a jump master so I had time in the aircraft you know but didn't really understand the whole maintenance cycle stuff. But to actually get a brake rider qual I know it may not be big because it's not a big qual but for me to do that process and actually show the Marines that hey look did you get your brake rider? I did hell yeah dude on a hornet nice if you see if you see uh see the picture of it I'm scared out of my mind making sure that I don't touch the wrong thing. Yeah he doesn't uh but it was it was a good and then they got it they got a kick out of it they made me like a little brake rider patch oh that's cool and it was like it was like all right you got your joke I think the Marines like to see that when you actually do the syllabus like when you do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:17

Because we had like a sergeant major that was going through the air crew syllabus and like got pushed along and stuff and we're like what are you even doing when you actually do it though that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:26

So it was it was hard to understand but once you understood like how the process is for how they learn it and then how they apply it and how they get tested on it it was like okay I understand this now.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:35

And it helps you lead them better.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:37

Yeah it's not as simple as yeah you think of it one way.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:41

Yeah it's like I and like you said like when I checked into one eight hey I don't know your job gents we didn't have any ladies then gentlemen I don't know your job I I really hope you teach me not so I can micromanage you but so I can understand what you do what your thoughts are like what your and they after a while they started actually showing me stuff and it was pretty cool and and I I think it's important that you understand like why we get off at 1300 on a Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:04

Yeah one time I asked my company I asked my company gunny where what are the Marines doing?

SPEAKER_04 1:55:11

Well they're normally in training well normally but they're not right so what are they doing? Well sometimes they'll be like in like the they'll form it they'll do like this. Yeah but if they're not doing that like right now at at noon what are they doing? Well they're in the rooms awaiting word no so they're in their rooms playing video games oh yeah while the air wingers are working until 1800.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:33

We're just trying to like double up that prestige you know let it go that's you don't mess that up A Ron Yeah you don't mess up listen you you gotta have some kind of a training plan like I mean I would take my guys on Friday we would do I would find the after actions uh so like we were we were heading into Marsha uh after like guys like you know 1-6 2-8 uh fill in the blank 3-6 and everything else that went through there I was pulling after action reports from guys and then it's a beautiful day so we're gonna have some motorcycles here in Swansboro. Swansboro is beautiful. Yeah no but I would I would pull after actions reports man we would we would try to like we try to sketch it out as best as possible from the paper to a whiteboard uh we would do the like a tactical decision game so we would read it like uh and then we wouldn't do like their actions on like we would just read what happened what the situation was where uh enemy uh disposition and composition we'd write all that up you remember and stuff so we we would write all that up man and then I would just let the junior marines just go like hey what do you think we should do what does our SOP say so like I mean what what have we done here recently that would apply to this we'd do that for Friday I mean we would knock out a couple hours like easy day and then we're ready to start the weekend man so Dakota here uh he nine years right yep he's a combat vet he was in one nine one six I don't know and somewhere else yeah I went to division uh I went to uh I know one nine's the walking dead because that's where in you and Shane were yeah yeah and then after that I went to uh division combat skills center so it's east coast division skills uh division division schools uh west coast has division schools so we were uh we were tasked with propping the schoolhouse back up for East Coast West Coast I don't think they ever got rid of theirs I mean they they kept the funding and they kept it going man doing great things so we we got the the go ahead to go ahead and start that up and man we were good man it was it was a good time we had uh have many different sections training guys uh and advanced stuff and just uh some of the stuff that was just polishing up old skills it was really fun but I was in charge of the uh urban skills section so we do a week in the classroom and then a week in the field with sim rounds artisan oh yeah man so it was great and then you know I I I took what you guys are talking about when you see toxic leaders and toxic training uh new new terms like oh your buddy got shot like he's he's completely dead like okay yeah I get that but also like people have survived more than one shot right so just because you get tagged in the arm one time doesn't mean you're down no like keep going fight through the problem fight through the problem because when you're going through an urban setting you're gonna have these things that happen oh so they were trying to train that way like if they get shot they're down so let's train that way you can't train yeah no so it's like I and I would tell my instructors like listen you're not gonna just hide in some stairway and just be a coward while yes we do encounter that you know in the real world you're not gonna do that you're gonna be in a fundamental area and then you're gonna apply that to what they learned. If they don't clear a corner they don't clear a stairway tag them up tag them up find that find that knuckle all right make that pain you know enforce a lesson and then we we'd have a good time because I would bring out the uh the scout snipers they started a uh scout sniper uh screener course there or pre-sniper and I'd bring them out there man we'd have fun we'd have fun but uh all good feedback but that's good yeah that was that's what I did after I left 16 yeah and now you're a contractor that goes over to Iraq and embassy security and you got extended because you're in Baghdad yeah he was there during all the the shit recently so every day we're like is Dakota okay and I was like man I've been getting funny memes from him all day he's fine but like embassy's under attack morale chow he's he's still in Iraq ice cream at the child uh no that's good good stuff well we're coming up on our two hours so Artie let me get your final thoughts final things you want to say so we can get TK back on so we can close the show.

SPEAKER_06 1:59:36

I just want to say thanks for having me I appreciate it. Man thanks for being here's great to see you again I'm a big fan of the show I go on long trips I just kind of just plug it in and next thing I know it's like hey I'm at my destination but I still got like 20 minutes left yeah and you're like leaving block.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:52

So you guys keep me laughing uh it's just regular jargon and it feels like we pick up where we left I know dude I'm telling you we haven't seen each other in freaking years and I'm so glad you came here buddy and I yeah that's we're we're gonna talk after this in a anyway but uh let's get TK back on so we can do our final thoughts and end the show TK be giving up that seat a lot man he's like here you just get on come on over I'm gonna go over and smoke a doobie no I'm just kidding I'm not oh right are are you is everybody ready for some final thoughts let's do it TK did you want to talk about everything that you witness first or or did you have anything to say before we do it?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:34

No because we're just at two all right well thanks for having me that that can't that's not your thing yet all right here we go all right final thoughts TK all right now thanks for having me it was a good show relaxing I didn't drink any alcohol on the show except for the Pappy dude that's the only one you need to all you need that's all you need and the cigar was good coffee was good chilling was good good to listen to you guys talk about your careers and stuff. We used a lot of acronyms I think it's just cool to hear you know especially like having your friend here that you haven't seen in a while reconnect go back talk about old times meeting you you know and bridging those stories together you know it's crazy big one big spider web of basically knowing each other or at least being one person removed.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:25

Yeah man so shout out to y'all hell yeah and you thank you for being here to final thoughts man that was uh that was a really good bourbon man I'm glad I could share it with my brother I haven't seen him in man quite a while but uh we've had a we've had a good week man great uh great bourbon scotch great cigars but nice always always good to be on the show nice nice next show is gonna be great next show is gonna be great I look forward to every show I gotta say this is a first for me but I'm very thankful for the opportunity to be here meeting all of y'all sharing this good bourbon good cigar and in and in this beautiful environment so I'd really appreciate it and uh yeah just just not out here.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:05

Hey man thanks for being on my final thoughts it's uh how long has it been since you guys saw each other? 2014 15 yeah it's probably 2017 so like look two reunions happening the same day that's awesome and uh from the best MOS in the Marine Corps 8999. So I will say uh it's been a fun time thank you so much for the Pappy Van Winkle because uh I'm gonna be looking for that stuff now that that I might get back I might get back into bourbon that's pretty good but uh no that was great uh if you don't know we're at Georgia Cigars in Swansburg North Carolina come on down next time we'll try to put something out anybody is welcome to be on what we'll try to do is like 30 minutes at a time for guests or something so we can get everybody on. Yeah sometimes we don't have enough people here so it's just everybody's on the same time but this has been the Hot Ashes Podcast. I'm Lee. Peace out TK baby we'll see you next time