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C.J. Grisham: Hey, everybody to You Serve Radio Show and Podcast. I can’t help but laughing because over that intro, all I could hear was Troy breathing into the microphone.
Troy Steward: Really? I’m sorry, man.
C.J.: I just getting slightly aroused.
Troy: I’m sorry. Is that better? Let me know if you hear it. I can’t tell.
I always hear it after the show if I happen to listen to it and then I go, oh my lord was that me?
[laughter]
Troy: Like Darth Vader.
C.J.: Oh, that was just classic. I was just having fun listening to it. I don’t know if anyone else caught it as well as I did. Anyway, welcome everybody to You Served radio show and podcast. We got a great show for you tonight.
Tonight we’re going to speak with Jessie Loren. She’s one of the editors of a book called “Bombshells: War Stories and Poems by Woman on the Homefront.”
We’re also going to speak hopefully although I don’t have confirmation with Missy Martin. She wrote one of the stories in the book, along with her brother who just returned from Iraq. One of the reasons we’re going to do that is because, as many people know, it is Women’s History Month.
Troy: Well, it that the one in the background questioned whether it was.
C.J.: [laughs] Yeah, my seven-year-old was confounded by that.
Troy: Ah. Well, this is Troy and welcome to the VA MortgageCenter.com You Serve radio show. I’m one of your co-hosts, along with C.J.
We both write several blogs. We not only write on VA mortgagecenter.com by C.J. and on mine and his and many other bloggers news site, militarypundits.com, which is really turning out to be a very fascinating and time consuming blog.
But also I write on my main blog at blog.boohammer.com and welcome you all to You Served radio show.
C.J.: And I just realized that I skipped an entire portion of my script, didn’t I?
Troy: Yes, you did.
C.J.: Yeah, yeah. So I’ll be the co-host, C.J. Grisham and I also write at the VAmortgagecenter.com or youserve.com website, who is the sponsor of this program and you can check my main site. It’s soldiersperspective.US and like Troy, Troy and I created the militarypundits.com, which is where you can go to get all kinds of great political opinions from military and military related people.
Troy: Some are not even political opinions. They are just opinions of many of our coalition partners and allies in the world.
C.J.: There you go. Absolutely. Now I also understand that you have a big announcement tonight from Scott Kesterson about the At War movies. Is that correct?
Troy: Yeah. You want to talk about the other guests we have on, about Clint, first before we get into that?
C.J.: Am I skipping all over the place?
Troy: Yeah, you are. That’s OK. We’ve all on the celebrity note, we’re also talking tonight to Clint Van Winkle. He’s the author of “Soft Spots, a Marine’s Memoir of Combat and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Soft Spots moves effortlessly back and forth across time and continues more seasoned reality are intermixed with was ravages remembered. Van Winkle desperately sought help from the veteran’s administration but each trip to the VA facility would be another maddening adventure into the bureaucratic red tape and ineptitude of the whole bureaucracy itself.
He discovered the indifference that gives lip service about the concern for veterans but in reality seems to abandon him. So Clint’s our second guest on this evening.
And yes, C.J. I do have a big announcement. I’ve been working with Scott pretty closely over the last several weeks of course. And I’m so happy to announce… Of course many people who know me that are on FaceBook probably already know this for sure, but we are going to be doing a screening next Monday evening and open to the public. Originally it wasn’t going to be but we decided to. My site Boomhammer.com is sponsoring it.
Co-sponsoring it is the University of Buffalo, Department of Media Study. We are going to be showing this at the University of Buffalo campus. They have a theater set up there, a screening room.
It’s going to be Monday evening, the 9th at 7:30 PM. Doors open at 7:00. And we are going to be screening the movie in its entirety, including a trailer from his upcoming project which is pretty phenomenal. He has a trailer for that already produced, which is what he is working on now.
Then we are going to be going right into the movie and then afterward we’ll have Q&A session with Scott. He’s going to take questions. There will be media there. Of course it’s really the big focus of it is the media and press. But also many members of the New York National Guard or any member of the military, but of course the New York National Guard just returned from Afghanistan and were there when Scott was last there in October through December.
So they’re all invited and we’re trying to get the word out. That is coming right on the tails of that day on Monday, me and Scott are going to be up in Toronto. Actually we are, believe it or, we are linking up with our very own Michael Darwin and Sandy Darwin.
C.J.: Sweet.
Troy: We are going to go see them on Monday afternoon. We’re going to stop at their house and visit and then Michael is going to take us up to the studio where Scott is going to be on the CVC show called “The Hour.” It’s a live studio audience show. He’s going to be on there for a half hour.
Michael knows where it’s at. So, rather than me trying to navigate my big truck in downtown Toronto, we’re just going to ride up with him and do the show and then come back for the show, visit him and Sandy a little bit more. Then shoot back to Buffalo to get ready to do the screening Monday night.
So Scott will be here for a couple days. I’m pretty excited about that and of course excited to be able to see Michael and Sandy, which is a big deal. And then show the movie itself.
Yeah. A lot of stuff happening.
C.J.: Awesome! Yeah. Now when are they coming to Huntsville?
Troy: I don’t know. Who Michael and Sandy? I don’t know. You’re going to have to talk to them about that.
[laughs]
Troy: Scott, I’ll tell you what. You find them a theater and you find them anyone from Operation Anaconda, because that’s the current project he’s working on that. That’s why he happens to be here.
He is bouncing all over. In fact, tonight right now he’s in Fort Irwin, California and tomorrow he is going to be in New York. So he is all over the country doing interviews of veterans of Operation Anaconda.
His first interview was … he’s going to be our guest next week. Brandon Freeman who I think you know Brandon quite well.
C.J.: Yes.
Troy: So next week Brandon who is our guest on here is the first person Scott set up an interview just a couple days ago in Texas. So, if you give him someone who’s been in Anaconda down in Huntsville in the next week or so, I bet you could get him down there and he would definitely show you the movie.
C.J.: I don’t know. My Anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hon. [laughs]
Troy: Oh, my lord. [laughs] All right we got to load that song up one time. We got to work with the AMC to get us some new intro song anyways. I think…
C.J.: I created that. I just need time to make a new one.
Troy: There you go.
C.J.: So I’ll sit down one of these days. I got leave coming up soon and I’ll have a little bit of extra time on my hands to tweak our music.
Troy: that’s what you think. Emily is back there going no, the screen door needs fixed.
C.J.: Oh, no, she’s looking at me like: home chicken, I don’t know what you are talking about, home slice.
Troy: The leaky faucet needs fixed. You get outside fix the lawnmower.
C.J.: I don’t think what most people realize is that I don’t earn any leave. Emily earns leave. And so when I take that that’s her time. That’s actually not really leave, it’s called a work release program.
Troy: Is that what it is?
C.J.: Yeah.
Troy: Well, we got to work on that work release to get her up to DC for the mil bloggers conference, just in case we didn’t happen to mention it, it is April 25th and 26th for those listening.
C.J.: That’s right and we will both be there, correct?
Troy: We will both be there and we are going to be doing interviews and live blogging and video interviews.
C.J.: We’re going to do the You Serve Podcast live from the show.
Troy: On Thursday night?
C.J.: Yes.
Troy: OK, you are. I’m going to be at home. I don’t fly out until Friday. But you’re going to be doing it down from your hotel because the show won’t even be going on Thursday night.
C.J.: Yeah, but I’ll find somebody.
Troy: Yeah, I think we have a couple of our friends that are going to be trying to come in early there. Maybe our buddies who are Black five, maybe a couple of them will be coming in early, and maybe you can have them sit right there with you in doing the show.
C.J.: Not me. I’m going to the White House and get me a interview.
Troy: Are you?
C.J.: Oh, yeah.
Troy: Yeah, I think you might want to play down MilitaryPundits.com, then, because it’s getting a lot of attention from the .gov .mil side of the house. [laughs] They might not let you in, if they know you write for there.
C.J.: Nice.
Troy: Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on the stats. We’re getting a lot of European hits, and we’re getting a lot of stuff from .mil. I think four or five percent of our traffic is coming from military addresses.
C.J.: That’s because of our friend there, Mr. Gibori, our Swedish, Arabic-American.
Troy: Our Swedish fish.
C.J.: Yeah, our Swedish fish, as you like to call him. You know, last week, as everyone knows, I wasn’t able to be on the show. One of the reasons for that is because I was at the AUSA Conference, the Winter Symposium. AUSA holds these things twice a year.
Troy: One’s in the winter, I guess, and one’s in the summer, maybe?
C.J.: One’s in the winter, and one is around the October time frame.
Troy: Oh, OK.
C.J.: Something like that. That’s the big one that’s in DC. A really awesome conference. Obviously, I was there to work, so it wasn’t a lot of fun. I think I walked – I kid you not – 40 to 50 miles, last week. Walking the floor the whole time, and talking to people, and doing what I do.
I wore out… You ever heard of Merrell shoes?
Troy: Yep.
C.J.: Yeah, the nice loafers. They’re dressy shoes, but with a casual feel to them. I completely wore out the sole on my shoes from walking so much. I guess they weren’t meant to walk that much.
Anyway, it was really neat, and if you go to YouServe.com, I’ve got my first of many posts. I’ve got five ideas and some drafts that I’ve got started on things from there. Just the technology, itself…
One of the things that I wanted to talk about, that I won’t get to, as far as my coolest technology, because I never got a chance to really sit down and talk to these guys… Anyone that watches the History Channel or Discovery Channel has probably seen these new exoskeletons that are geared toward military soldiers.
It’s sort of an exoskeleton that you put on. It basically holds the soldier’s weight, as well as an additional up to 300 pounds, and a soldier doesn’t feel it. It was really interesting.
They had a guy there who had this exoskeleton on. It’s not very cumbersome. He was showing how he can still kick, run, climb, and all that kind of stuff. Really interesting.
Then he took this big, giant rucksack, a really heavy thing. I could barely lift it, but, because he put it on this exoskeleton, he was lifting it, walking around, leaning back, leaning forward, and no strain whatsoever on the soldier. Because most of the weight is transferred to this exoskeleton, which is run by pistons and joints, and all that kind of stuff.
Really cool. Really interesting.
Troy: It’s like very pre-Star Wars stuff.
C.J.: Exactly, and that’s exactly what I was thinking of. He almost looked like C-3P0, except without the shell. There weren’t a lot of wires, or anything. It almost looked like an outside femur bone. A pipe ran up the side of the leg, and then a backpack-type thing. Really cool, really cool technology.
I can see where it would come in handy in a place like Afghanistan. Not necessarily in a place like Iraq, unless you’re in northern Iraq, but especially in a place like Afghanistan, where these guys have to hump up into the hills.
Troy: [laughs] I’m sorry, man. I just looked at the chat, and LL’s wanting to know if the man seemed taller.
C.J.: Oh, my gosh, that’s it.
Troy: [laughing] I couldn’t help my…
C.J.: No, it doesn’t have platform shoe attachments. But can you imagine the applications? If you’ve got this exoskeleton, you could carry an extra 200 to 300 pounds, and not break a sweat, not even feel it.
Troy: Yeah, but it sucks when that thing breaks.
C.J.: Well, yeah, that’s true, but just think of all the food and water you can take up there with you.
Troy: Not to get too much involved here. I saw them at the Army Birthday Ball back in June. The mule: the unmanned truck-carrying vehicle.
C.J.: Oh, yeah. They had a couple of those. They had a couple of different versions of that. They did have the mule there, and that was pretty awesome. They didn’t have the actual mules inside the conference center, but they had a video showing everything it could do. This thing’s scaling walls, mountains, rocks, and all that stuff. Really cool technology.
One of the things I got, and this is one of the things I will write about. I guess you guys are getting a preview to this. There’s a company called Peltor. Everyone’s heard of Wiley X and the glasses that they make and stuff like that. This is a competitor to Wiley X and Oakley. They’re trying to join into the market for…
C.J.: Exactly, but their main thing is they create hearing protection. They actually gave me a sample of these $120 headphones. It’s meant for using…
Troy: That’s some good swag right there.
C.J.: That’s some good swag. They’re used for ranges. You can use them in combat or whatever. But what it does is it’s got two built-in microphones that are facing towards the front. So when you’re shooting, you don’t hear the pop so much. You hear the gun going off, but you can still hear people talking to you.
It’s really weird because I went to the local range here and tried them out with my 40 cal. I’m sitting there shooting. It’s great. I’m just popping off rounds. While I’m popping off rounds, I can literally still hear people two and three stalls down the range from me. You’re able to hear…
Troy: Does it momentarily deaden the sound when it detects a loud noise?
C.J.: It does. It’s weird because you can clap. And you know how you hear the loud clap? Then you put the headphones on, and you can still yourself clap. It just dampens it. It’s not like the old headphones where you momentarily hear that loudness, and then it would adjust. It does it all built in.
But hey! If you’ve got something that you can talk on, Emily’s got an emergency I need to respond to real quick.
Troy: OK. I just wonder if those headphones, if I had my mic too close to it, would block my breathing.
C.J. [laughs] I’ll be right back.
Troy: All right. No problem. While we’re sitting here, I’m going bring on my good friend, the hero maker, who’s on. Hello there, Clayton. How are you doing?
[Troy's voice echoes]
Troy: -oh. I can hear myself in the background.
[Troy's voice echoes]
Troy: I guess he doesn’t want to chat. I see he called in. All right. We’ll go ahead and turn that off there.
[Troy's voice echoes]
Troy: I thought I did. All right. That should be better. OK. Well, I thought Clayton wanted to chat. I think he was down. He probably didn’t need for me to put him on the spot. I thought maybe he had an update on the hero maker.
Just so you guys know, and if anyone remembers from a couple weeks ago, we had Clayton on. We were talking about the graphic novel that he is creating to benefit troops. He is on C. J. and I both. We both owe him stories, and I’m close on mine. Clayton, I know you’re listening. You keep asking me. I’m close on getting it to you. Hopefully, we’ll get it to you soon.
While we’re waiting for C. J. to come back, again, I’ve talked about this stuff with At War. Let me also cover another good thing. If you go to my blog at blog.boomhammer.com, you will see where there’s this company out of California that was created by some marine reservists. They are called Vision-Strike-Wear. They’ve created a shirt for a good friend of mine. We call him Vampire6.
He writes a blog called Afghanistanshrugged.com. He’s created them a shirt for their team. You can get to it on my blog if you get to the link. If you order a shirt, for every shirt sold what would normally be $5 in profit goes back to the team in Bermel, Afghanistan, which by the way is about 14K from the Pak border. We’re talking within eyesight.
I’ve been there, and I’ve looked right at Pakistan when I’ve been there. $5 for every shirt goes to Soldiers’ Angels. This company, Vision-Strike-Wear out of Portland, Oregon has made an awesome shirt. The money’s going towards Soldiers’ Angels.
Again, it’s not much different than last week when I talked about when I talked about News Clothing and the stuff that they’re doing for donating money and stuff like that to the Wounded Warrior Project and the USO and all that.
Another company, just another good example of another company, happens to be in the clothing line, that are doing great things to try to benefit and support our soldiers which is a phenomenal thing.
With that, another thing I want to hit on real quick. Let me see who we got, we have someone on a call on the line here. Hello 530, go ahead.
Jesse Loren: Hi, this is Jesse Loren.
Troy: Hey, Jesse. How you doing? This is Troy Steward. How’s it going?
Jesse: I’m great. How are you Troy?
Troy: Good, good. We haven’t had a chance to talk. I know you’ve been talking to C.J. and he just had to step away for a second. His wife, Emily, hit the 911 button so he had to step out for a second. But why don’t we go ahead and get to chat about your book and what’s going on.
Jessie: OK.
Troy: Was Missy going to be able to join us tonight, do you know?
Jessie: Yeah, I think Missy will be on also.
C.J.: OK, sorry about that.
Troy: Hey, C.J. I just got Jessie on.
C.J.: OK, good.
Jesse: Hi.
Troy: I’m going to go ahead and hand it off to you, C.J., and let you start.
C.J.: OK. Thanks a lot. Hey, Jesse, how you doing?
Jessie: I’m great. Sun’s out in California.
C.J.: Excellent. We’re speaking, everybody, with Jessie Lauren. She is one of the editors. And I did get your email. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to change the show description yet to reflect that you were a co-editor with Missy. Now is Missy going to be able to call in today?
Jessie: I think so.
C.J.: OK. I’ll wait until she answers. Anyway, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you on, Jessie, first of all I’d like to talk about your book again. I know it’s been out for a little while. Tell us a little bit about Bombshells.
Jessie: Bombshells is a collection of 38 different writers, different voices about war. It’s all women’s voices from the Homefront. And it spans World War II to the present.
C.J.: It’s stories, poetry, journal entries, things like that right? It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but…
Jessie: Yeah, it’s a lot of stories, a lot of first person stories. There’s poetry. It’s just an amazing collection. Part of the money for Bombshells goes to the Fisher House which, as you know, helps families. Yeah.
C.J.: Yeah. One of the reasons I wanted to bring you on was, one, to kind of bring attention to this book because, as you know, March is Women’s History Month. In the Military we celebrate that, and the book which all the stories are written by women, right?
Jesse: Yep.
C.J.: Yep. So not only do you get to learn a little bit about women in the military, military styles…
Jesse: Right. It’s an amazing collection of… It’s kind of like a huge archive of writing by women on the Homefront. It’s their experience of maybe waiting. It’s kind of a classic tale, at least in the [Inaudible 22:18].
If you think about Homer writing about the Odyssey, Penelope is there waiting for the whole 20 years, 10 years of his return and 10 years of war. It’s a real ancient part of our culture, to wait and to have loss or return in all these various war situations. [silence] Are you there, C.J.? [silence] Hello? [silence]
C.J.: OK. Hello. We’re back. Can anyone hear me? Hello? Let me work through this again. Here we go. Jessie are you there? Hello? Jessie?
Jessie: Yeah.
C.J.: Hey, sorry about that. That was very odd. We just got booted off.
Jessie: Yeah, I don’t know [Inaudible 23:57]. But we’re back.
C.J.: Yes, we’re back. And I keep on un-muting. There we go. Troy are you there? All right. Jessie, I greatly apologize. This is what happens when you mess with Internet radio. And we’re too cheap to actually purchase guaranteed air time.
Troy: I’m back on, C.J.
C.J.: OK, good. Anyway, Jessie, I didn’t quite hear your answer. Last I’d asked you, and I don’t know if anybody in the chat room heard it or anybody listening online, because I didn’t get your answer. But basically what caused you to want to write this book and start collecting these stories?
Jessie: I have a big answer. First, Missy’s probably the best one to answer that particular question because she is the one that came up with the idea, and I kind of came into the project later. But I do definitely want to speak to the importance in Women’s History Month.
C.J.: Absolutely.
Jessie: Of having this collection… I want to go back in time for a second to Homer. When Homer wrote the Odyssey, Homer wrote not just of the adventures of Odysseus, but of Penelope waiting. It’s a very classic tale. The story of loss and waiting and the suffering that happens in families.
It’s also the story of Telemachus, the boy being raised with is father gone to war and not coming back, and having to deal with all the unknowns. In a sense, our collection is a modern tale, but it actually speaks to this history that we have in poetry of looking at war, soldiers, families, and loss. It goes back at least to Homer.
Bombshells is a collection of 38 different voices. It’s mothers, it’s wives, daughters, sisters, it’s fiances. It’s stories of reuniting, it’s stories of great loss. It’s really a tale that needs to be told. I think it needs to be read. Because we get the male story, the story of the hero.
It’s very important in our culture. I think it’s also very important to know what the family experiences when somebody decides to serve their country and go off to war.
C.J.: Right. Now what do you think… The country is obviously very cautious about women in combat. It’s still something that isn’t completely accepted. There’s obviously no question about the role of women in combat and the contributions they make. What difference do you think women have made since more jobs have been opened up to them in the military?
Jessie: That’s a really good question. I think if you go back to women during the time of World War II with Rosy the Riveter, women were called to fulfill the jobs of men but they weren’t really allowed to keep those jobs. Once the men came back they were booted out, they didn’t get equal pay. So they were part of the war effort and they helped the country, but they really didn’t get a foothold in the door of getting a job.
Today, I think that women are recruited in the military and are in a variety of positions. I think that when you thing about serving on a frontline, you kind of have to do away with that concept in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan because there is no battle line. It’s anywhere. It’s civil. It’s on any street.
So women are in combat situations all the time without the combat label. They’re not infantry men, but if they’re like a military police officer, they can be a gunner and they can suffer brutal injuries. They’re not safe at home in an office like World War II. It’s a different time period.
C.J.: What do you think about women being authorized to go into more combat related roles like infantry and tanks?
Jessie: I think that they really are in tanks, and they really are gunners, and they really are serving as MPs, but they’re in those positions. However, serving with a unit and being deployed a year or 18 months with 200 men, it seems to me with my experience of knowing infantry soldiers they’re generally uncomfortable with the idea.
They have many-and this is like stereotypical, but they have feelings of protection and also longing, so they have kind of mixed feelings. I think it’s successful in other countries. It’s successful in Israel. Women serve in infantry positions. I don’t think it is something we’re quite ready for yet, although I would support it.
C.J.: I guess-go ahead, I’m sorry.
Jessie No, I just think that generally people don’t support the idea, like they think that if women are drafted and put into those positions that somehow it would be very wrong. I think what we’re dealing with isn’t maybe factual, it’s more psychological and historical and emotional. I think for those reasons people are uncomfortable with the idea.
Troy: Jessie, this is Troy. I can tell you the as a 22 year instrument myself, you hit a big part of the issue right there. A lot of it is psychological and I’ve been seeing this for awhile. Some of it is physical. I mean quite honestly it’s tough for a grown man who’s physically built with more upper body strength to charge a 240 in the prone; it’s tough for a lot of guys.
A big piece of it is psychological in the fact that it’s our culture. It’s like you said, it’s to protect the female, that’ just the way we’ve been raised. It’s not just the infantrymen culture, it’s our entire society. You’re right, Israel the British, there’s a lot of other countries that embrace women in the infantry, but also a lot of other cultures that treat women a lot worse then we do, and I think a lot of it is that.
We would naturally on the battlefield when you’re behind a Humvee taking fire; I think some men subconsciously or in actually would risk the situation or the team to protect the one individual that was a female. I think that you would see that happen.
Jessie: I fully agree, and I think that there’s also kind of a psychological cost also. I think that because men are pre-wired to protect, that when there’s loss like a woman getting blown-up and not being able to be saved, there’s a psychological damage there that somehow that man.
It’s not just his band of brothers, but somebody that he should have never allowed to be there at another psychological level. I think it’s more damaging for them.
Troy: Yeah, and it would be a distraction, in all honesty. I mean it’s an entry in a man’s world, and man jokes. Like last week we had Amy Banano on, who is a Lieutenant i9n Afghanistan]. She talked about her advice to females on not to get so wound up and wound so tight when guys make their jokes and innuendos and stuff, they’re just being guys.
I think there would be an undue pressure and people would be distracted when they were away from home for a long time if they had females…for lack of a better term, females in the foxhole with them.
C.J.: I think Clint Eastwood said it best too recently where he talks about “We’ve become to politically correct in our society.”
Jessie: Yeah, I think he’s probably right. Going back to just the physical traits, men do have stronger upper body strength. They are built that way. If it’s operating a machine gun, I think that the machine does a lot of the work also.
So I think that a woman can do it. I think women are doing it even if they’re not…I mean come on, you know there’s women that have served and died in pretty gruesome ways in combat. I guess, it’s just something that maybe we’re not ready for psychologically.
C.J.: Let me-Oh, did you have more Troy? I’m sorry. Just jump right in there.
Troy: No, go ahead. No, it’s you, go ahead.
C.J.: If I can Jessie, let me play devil’s advocate and I’ll just qualify it by saying I fully support and have worked with many (no it turns the other way) women in the military. So this is truly a devil’s advocate question. Is it fair to say that… obviously, I’ve got my wife here so I’ve got to tread lightly.
Jesse: So you better watch it.
Troy: I don’t and I’ll be glad to tread heavily.
[laughter]
C.J.: Having been married for about 14 years and with the same woman for 16 years, I realize that women are very emotional. Their mentalities tend to kind of shift with the wind.
Jessie: You are really treading.
C.J.: As my wife just told me, can’t be controlled so how do we mitigate that on a battle field?
Jessie: Well, first, I just have to disagree with you. I think that men are just as emotional.
[laughter]
Jessie: I think that maybe the exterior of men allows some to be more emotional than others. I mean some people are wired to be engineers and to be calm, cool, collected at all times. Some people aren’t. It is just a matter of being people not gender.
With that being said, I think that if a man is trained in boot camp to do a job, he gets training. I think if a woman is trained in boot camp to have a job, they are going to serve and do their best regardless of gender.
I think it is unfair to stereotype them as women are hysterical. I’m pretty sure that idea when out in the 1800s, maybe.
[laughter]
Troy: To come to C.J.’s defense, I don’t think he is said they were hysterical.
Jesse: Well…
Troy: But I’ve got to say, I’ve walked the infantry line my entire career and not all men can handle it. I’ve seen it. There are those who are strong mentally and those who are weak mentally. I’ve seen women that are strong mentally. I’ve seen men that have taken their first shots when they are in the turret and they drop, curl up in a ball. You just have to pull them off the line. They are done. They just cannot handle it. No doubt.
But personally, I think there is a physiological difference. What the military does train us to do and trains us extremely well. However, it is what causes problems like PTSD later and that is to turn off emotion.
So we look at people as targets of opportunity; to look at them as an object and not as a human being. I think men are very adept. That our training infantry and cultured infantry over years to do that on a moment’s notice.
Now, it doesn’t mean we don’t deal with it later because trust me, we do. When you pull us out of that battle field and we let down our guard and we have to digest it all, then it comes back and haunts us.
But I think that C.J. has somewhat of a point in the fact that while we are there, I think men, on an average, have a higher percentage of being better at turning off any emotion, at looking at human beings that were placed o this earth as nothing but targets and eliminating them with zero issues and zero problem. It doesn’t mean they won’t deal with it later. But that is just my opinion.
C.J.: It is hard to say, as a male.
Jessie: I think you could find; I think you could do a really quick Internet search and find that women have served as sharpshooters. They have done a great job. They are just as…I think any woman can be just as cold and calculated in any position as long as that is what she wants to do.
C.J.: Oh, I can tell you all kinds of women.
Jesse: [laughs] Yeah.
Troy: I’m sure Emily could be cold and calculated.
C.J.: Oh, yeah!
Jesse: I want to go back to what you said about training. That the men who are trained for infantry positions have training. They have boot camp to learn to go forward like you are already dead; not to worry about your life. Worry about your job and then they serve.
They do their 12 months or 18 months and see what they see. Then, maybe they take a little intake survey. What is your experience? How are you feeling? Do you feel sad? Do you have thoughts of killing yourself? And then, “No, no, no. Let me just get home.”
I think we do a great job preparing people for war but we don’t prepare them for return.
Troy: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You are dead on.
Jesse: All you have to do is look outside. They are really everywhere right now. I think it is the place that we need to put our focus on as a nation on helping people reintegrate into society and to see a future with where they belong here.
Troy: Well part of the problem is for 200 years we have gotten very good at that training, and developing, and being able to desensitize our soldiers. We’re doing that great, and we’ve got to master, an art.
However, this is really the first time, even in Desert Storm, when I was there, we didn’t deal with it. This is really the first time in the last seven, eight years that we have dealt with the aftereffects.
Everywhere else you just came back it was shell shock, it was thousand-mile stare, it was this, it was that. That’s why we’re dealing with what we’re having to today. It’s always been there it’s just we’ve never dealt with it before, we just ignored it.
Jessie: Well I think that we have more going on in this war, in the sense that when you have great equipment you can survive a vehicle borne device, you could survive these things, these IEDs.
But it doesn’t mean that you don’t have traumatic brain injuries, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have long term effect to your system, and these things are not usually measured and the long terms effects aren’t really…. I mean we’re just starting to figure that out.
I think there’s a lot of unknowns in the effect of this kind of work, and I think that a lot of the infantry men that serve are given a dual mission that does not fit them psychologically very well. They are asked to be positive, and supportive, and try to understand Iraqi people by day, and then fight.
Their friends are killed, and they have to deal with that dual position of they’re there to support the Iraqi people, and they’re also there to kill. That doesn’t go very well together.
Troy: Yeah, you’re right, and that’s the basis of FM-324 counter insurgent operations and why things happened the way they did, especially in Iraq right after we got in and the first few weeks we took over. Then it was a “oh crap, what do we do now?”
Those same guys that were on the fore line of advancement and pushing through, all of a sudden found themselves being approached by what could have been the enemy asking for water and telling them their kid’s foot’s blown off, and please take care of us.
You’re right, that transition is tough for soldiers in the special operations team who are specially trained and honed to do that. It’s tough for them to do, much less you take entire divisions of soldiers, who most of them are under the age of 19, 20 years old and all they knew is get on the line and let’s kill everything in our way. That has been definitely a big issue, especially from the onset of the war from the beginning.
The guys going in now, they know what they’re getting into. Those have been going into Afghanistan, and Iraq for the last several years knew that they were going to play the counter insurgency/ war fighter mission at the same time. I think they’re probably better from the standpoint, maybe not doing it well, but they’re better prepared for it. Go ahead.
C.J.: Am I on? Oh, OK, I didn’t know if my mic… anyway I was muted a little while ago, I was sitting there talking, I was like “why is everyone talking over me?”
I can tell you from experience, I was there for the ground assault into Iraq. We fought bloody fights for four weeks straight. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t get shot at or have to shoot. Then suddenly come April 9th, April 11th, I’ve got to suddenly start liking these people that were just trying to kill me.
It is a huge difference, or a huge transition that you have to make. But one of the things that the military’s doing, I know we’re probably shooting all over the place this time. If you haven’t read it, the military just came out with a new FM 7-0, which is full spectrum operations.
It is now a military mission, it’s being trained at all the CRCs, the Combat Range Centers, that full spectrums operations from full combat mode to nation building to civil affairs, all that kind of stuff.
Hopefully that’s going to help troops, because one of the things that leads to things such at PTSD, stress, suicide, all that, is the unknown. As long as soldiers are stressed out and required to do things that they’re not trained to do, that raises the stress level and causes these other things to arise.
One more thing I wanted to bring up real quick, getting back to women in the military, and again…
Jessie: Yay!
C.J.: Let me play devil’s advocate, and before I say this, because I really want to make clear, I had a female soldier who was an interrogator, she comes on my website frequently and is just the bomb.
I will say she was probably my best interrogator. She was able to stick it in there just like any of the guys could. She didn’t let anything get to her. I could not tell any difference between her and any other of my interrogators, except she was better, other than physical differences.
So with that said, that I understand the contribution and definitely appreciate everything women do, and I personally, although I’m not an infantry guy, wouldn’t have any issue with them coming into combat arms and stuff.
What I do want to say is there is a physiological difference between men and women, and granted there are weak womanly men, girly men, and there are very strong women. So I understand that there are some of both, but across the spectrum, men typically are able to carry more of a load, which is what those infantry and combat systems-
If you’re in a tank, although we’re getting to more automated systems, but having to pick up a big giant shell to load into the main breach is a very difficult task. When I used to get SigIn guy, Signal Intelligence guy, the antennas that we carried when we dismounted, low level intercept teams, we upwards of 100 pounds.
So my question, I guess, is should we allow women into these roles if they can meet the exact same standards that infantry guys and other MOSs require now? Or should they have different standards for getting into these MOSs? Jobs, excuse me, I’m speaking army now.
Jessie: Yeah, you’re fluent army on here. Well I guess I kind of have a counter question, in that I’m not so interested in the role as much as what’s really happening on the ground. If you don’t have a front line, and you land anywhere, you’re in a convoy, you’re just carrying supplies, but you’re under attack, the name tag of what you signed up to do no longer matters under fire.
The fact that you might be in a green zone part of the time, and then you’re not in a green zone anymore, and you’re in harm’s way. That’s what’s real, in this situation, in this war. It doesn’t matter where you are. So the idea- should we lessen the…
C.J.: In a sense it does actually, because if you think about it, and I’ll use Afghanistan as a perfect example. These guys are humping hundreds of pounds of stuff up and down mountains for sometimes days at a time. So we are talking about the physical aspect of it. I understand what you’re talking about with the current conflict in Iraq for example, or even in Afghanistan where you’re just on a convoy.
But I’m talking full spectrum operations here about everything that a person’s supposed to do, because they are climbing mountains in Afghanistan. And they are hiking for miles on end, kilometers, we call it in army speak, on the streets carrying heavy radios, and heavy loads, and things like that.
So, I’m more concerned about the physical aspect, again don’t get me wrong, I’m just trying to get a full understanding because I’m not a female yet. I haven’t done that mentally.
Jessie: You’re not a female yet? Well good for you.
C.J.: I’m just waiting for-
Jessie: I don’t think I can answer, I just don’t think I can answer it because there are women that would probably want that job. It’s not something I’d ever wanted to do, it’s not something I could- I did five or six years of martial arts, and I really enjoyed it.
But that isn’t exactly doing the infantry. I just don’t think it’s something I would be attracted to, but I will say that women are serving. There are psychologists and every job out there that women are doing in the military and doing a great job on.
I happen to work at for Travis districts, but there’s Travis Air Base. I work with the kids, the kids are my students whose moms are deployed or the dads are deployed and sometimes both are deployed.
It’s just, to me, the amazing strength of the family is so tested when someone’s deployed that we have to honor all the jobs. I think we honor the parents that leave, but we definitely must honor the parents that stay and keep it all together and the children that come to school and they say, “Yeah, my mom got deployed, ” or, “My dad’s TDY and I don’t know where he is but I can hardly wait for him to come back but it probably won’t be six months, ” or whatever it is.
These families are really under stress. They go through a lot and I think, for Women’s History Month, I think it’s a good idea to take a minute and realize when we talk of combat, that we’re really talking about the sacrifice of whole families, of mothers and fathers, wives and children.
And they’re all sacrificing to support that one person that’s serving. I think it’s an amazing sacrifice that we should deeply honor.
C.J.: Absolutely. And I’ll tell you, we cannot do and accomplish what we have accomplished and done without those women in the military. For those of you listening, we’re speaking to Jessie Loren, about to close things up here.
She’s one of the editors of the book “Bombshells: War Stories and Poems of Women On the Homefront.” I think Troy’s got another question for you and then we’ll go ahead and…
Jessie: I know you want to wrap this up but if I get a chance to do this, I’d really like to do this. There’s a poem – and I don’t know how many people like poetry like I like poetry – but it’s by Edna St. Vincent Millay and it is called an Ancient Gesture and she’s kind of writing about Penelope from the Odyssey and waiting. I think it really serves to give one voice of the many voices out there of women who support while their husband goes away to war.
C.J.: OK, go ahead.
Jesse: If I get a chance to read it before we go, that would be great. If not, don’t worry, another time.
C.J.: I’ll tell you what, Troy go ahead and ask your question real quick and then when we’re done, we’ll use that poem as a wrap up.
Troy: Jessie, I was curious. I guess the book itself, is it primarily made up of the blog entries and the stories from your blogspot website at BombshellandShelter at blogspot.com?
Jesse: Actually, no. These are… They’re all different writers. There are well known published writers. There’s first time authors. It’s poems and stories by women on the Homefront. There are Korean War, World War II, the Desert Storm, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are young voices and old voices in there. I think it’s an amazing collection. The website and the blogsite, basically, Missy and I just kind of putting information out there.
Troy: OK.
Jesse: The book is the book. The book’s different. It’s definitely… If there’s a woman’s history class, or you’re just interested in what people experience on the Homefront, that’s the book. It’s Bombshells: War Stories and Poems by Women On The Homefront.
Troy: All right, cool. Thanks, I just wanted to understand exactly if the book was made up from that or if there was a connection.
Jessie: Yeah. You can just Google it. You can get it on Amazon, or the Omni Arts site, or Borders, or any of the websites where you order books.
Troy: OK, go ahead if you want to read that poem, that would be awesome. Then we’ll wrap up after that.
Jesse: All right. It’s called “an Ancient Gesture.”
“An Ancient Gesture. I thought as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron, Penelope did this too. And more than once. You can’t keep weaving all day and undoing it all through the night.”
“Your arms get tired and the back of your neck gets tight and along towards morning when you think it will never be light and your husband’s been gone and you don’t know where, for years. And suddenly you burst into tears. There is simply nothing else to do.”
“And I thought as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron, this is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique, in the very best tradition, classic, Greek. Ulysses did this too. But only as a gesture, a gesture which implied to the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak. He learned it from Penelope, Penelope, who really cried.”
Thank You.
C.J.: Awesome. Thank you, Jesse. It’s been a pleasure to have you on, a pleasure talking to you again. Anytime.
Jessie: Please add our blog to your blog roll and if anybody has any questions, or they want to look for the book they can go to the site.
C.J.: That’s right. We’ve been putting the link up in the chat room so everyone can see it. Again, this was Jesse Loren, one of the editors of Bombshells. Again, we appreciate you coming on. If you haven’t read the book, it is a great book of women’s stories from the war as well as poetry and just a great book to read. It’s a nice small, compact, quick. If you’re looking for something over a weekend or a plane ride please pick it up. It’s been out for a little while, but definitely worth it.
And check out the website. Jesse, again, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the women’s role in combat and for helping us celebrate women’s history month.
Jessie: All right, thank you.
C.J.: Take care, we’ll talk to you later.
Jessie: Thank you Troy, bye bye.
Troy: Thank you, bye bye.
C.J.: All right, with Women’s History Month coming up – well, actually we’re in Women’s History Month. [[Cross talk] . We’re a couple of days into it now. What’s that?
Troy: Are you being distracted?
C.J.: I’m being distracted. Anyway, it is a really good book. I’ve got a copy of it. Actually, I keep it in my office. I don’t know why. I guess so Emily doesn’t see it, I don’t know. But also so people, when they come in, they can see that I’ve got a feminine side to me.
Troy: I’m sure they know that already. [laughs]
C.J.: Wait a second.
Troy: Sorry, I couldn’t help it.
C.J.: Yeah, when Wendy comes down, I’ll even give it to you. You can have it.
Troy: Yeah, Wendi would want to right volume two. She just IM’d me a couple of good ideas about what to write about. I think our next guest is a little bit late, I’m not sure if…
C.J.: Yeah, I guess so.
Troy: We have Clayton on if you want to bring Clint Van on real quick to give us an update on the graphic novelties.
C.J.: Absolutely, let’s do that.
Troy: Do you want to play a song as we get ready to transition from hour one to hour two.
C.J.: Well, Clint Van, you’re un-muted. How much time do you need, buddy?
Clayton: Oh I won’t need much time.
C.J.: OK, tell us what’s going on..
Troy: He came on to harass me and you for our stories on air. I know he did.
C.J.: Yeah, I’ve definitely not been doing that much. Anyway, what’s going on with the project? What do you have for us?
Clayton: OK, just to bring you up to date, I need your stories. But other than that I’ve got a fundraiser going on June 13th in Broadway, Virginia. That’s to help raise money for the printing cost of the book.
It’s called “Heroes Fallen Fundraiser.” We’re going to be having comic book artists that are working on the book coming down for the fundraiser. I’ve invited you and Troy as well to come down and speak if you would like. I think Troy is confirmed, I’m still waiting to hear from you.
Troy: Yep, I sure am.
C.J.: What’s the date again?
Clayton: June 13th. I think you said you had a family vacation or something around that time. But if you could make it I’d love to have you.
C.J.: Oh, yeah. June 15th ….
Clayton: I’ve also contacted Bob Goodlatte[sp], our congressman, to speak as well. I’m waiting for his response back. Bobby Crow, he is an artist that’s done a pen up for the book. He is an ex-Vietnam Veteran. He has donated his piece for the pinup, the original art.
We are going to be doing that as a raffle. We’re going to be selling that at a dollar a pop to make as much money for the…
All the money and proceeds that we make from the fundraiser will go to the printing costs of the book. Anything over the printing cost will go into….I’ve opened up a fund, called Untold Stories From Iraq Fund, with BB and T. Anything over the printing costs will go into that fund.
Once the book goes on sale in November, we will be transitioning that money out of the fund into the IAVA, the Wounded Warriors Project, and the USO.
I’m still awaiting confirmation on… I’ve got three actors that are planning on showing up. I’ve got two confirmed. I’m still waiting on one. He’s a Hollywood actor. Whether or not he’ll be able to make it… I’m still waiting to hear back from him. Hopefully, he will be able to show up. If he does, he’ll be a huge draw for the fundraisers to help the troops.
Since I did your podcast, quite a bit of people contacted me and added me to their emails. I’ve also opened up a new site on MySpace for the fundraiser. Mostly, the people that have joined are military. The website is www.MySpace.com/heromaker2009. That’s on MySpace, and I’ll type it in to the chat room.
That is, basically, to let people know what’s going on with the fundraiser, when it is, who’s involved in it. I’m going to be updating that on a regular basis.
C.J.: It’s good that you came on. One of the guys that just came into the chat room, M. I. Hooligan – I used to work with him at the NCC, and I’ve been talking with him a lot through Facebook. He goes by “Cookie.”
That dude’s got some stories. I need to link you two up, because I bet he’d like to participate in that, as well. He could tell you some whoppers. He’s been injured a couple times, been… Numerous deployments over there – Iraq and Afghanistan, I believe.
Clayton: OK. That would be great.
Troy: Yeah, definitely link them up.
Clayton: All right, hook me up with Mr. M.I.H. Hooligani. That sounds good.
And put the word out that we’re still accepting stories. Like I said, I want to turn this thing into an ongoing process. I’m seriously considering turning it into a 501(c)(3) organization, a non-profit organization, basically, called “A Hero’s Fallen Comics, ” to help continue to support the troops, and stuff like that.
I’ve got to research that a little bit more, but I want this thing to continue on to help the soldiers as much as I can.
Believe it, or not, I did get a little bit of a negative response from a soldier. I found it a little off-taking. He, basically, said, “If you’re not in the military, why are you asking these men and women to talk to you?”
I’m like, well, I’m not asking them to talk to me, per se, to exploit them. I’m asking them, if they feel comfortable doing such, to speak with me and share stories so that I can do something to help them in some way.
He couldn’t get over the fact – and I can understand it, to a degree. Some guys just can’t deal with it, coming back from the war. I’ve never been in the war, and I can never truly, truly understand that. I tried to be as non-confrontational with him as I could be, but he was extremely adamant that he did not think what I was doing was right.
It kind of put a little bummer on me. I thought I was trying to do something good. But you’re going to get that with anything. I am trying to help.
Troy: You can’t make everybody happy.
C.J.: You can’t please 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time. Let me tell you something, Clayton. What you’re doing is, one, it’s cathartic for those people who are going to contribute to your stories. Two, these are stories straight from the horse’s mouth.
We hear about what soldiers are doing and not doing, through the media. Those aren’t the stories.
Then we get stuff like what we’re going to talk about a little later, from the “Washington Post,” about soldiers partying, when that’s not the truth. And we get guys like… Oh, crap. It starts with an “m.” Meo, Meow.
Troy: Vic Mao.
C.J.: Vic Mao. Guys like him, who distort. Here you are, trying to tell true stories from Afghanistan and Iraq. Listen, there are some guys that really should not be in the military.
I tell people all the time, because I get emails… “Hey, you sent me out an address for a soldier that’s deployed to support. I sent them a care package and a couple of letters, and I don’t know if they’re getting it. Can you contact him and make sure he’s getting my stuff?”
I’m like, you know what – and I’m going to tell everybody out there. If you’re supporting a soldier, and you’ve been supporting them for months at a time, and that soldier has not responded to you, has not sent a thank-you letter, even if it’s just two words, “I got your package,” or just “thank you, ” stop.
Stop sending letters. Stop sending cards. Stop wasting your time on those people. There are some soldiers who are so selfish, who are just in the military for the wrong reason, it’s just not worth wasting your time and your energy on.
Clayton, don’t worry about that guy. There are some people who think, if you’re not in the military or you haven’t served, just shut up, and I just don’t believe that.
There are some things that you shouldn’t get involved in. Supporting the troops is definitely not one of them.
Clayton: Yeah, it just took me aback. Most of the response I’ve gotten for what I’m trying to do is a good response, and this, that, and the other. Apparently, he had a really bad situation, from what I understand, and I guess he just felt like I was trying to live my life, vicariously, through you guys.
I did try to go in the military when I was younger, but they wouldn’t accept me because I didn’t have a thyroid gland, and because I needed medication for all that.
C.J.: Well, really, is there anything wrong with that? You could be trying to live your life vicariously through a drug dealer, but you choose a soldier.
[Clayton laughs]
C.J.: Really, what’s wrong with that?
Troy: And it’s not that you’re trying to tell soldiers’ stories from your point of view, or represent yourself with that. You’re taking their stories and putting it in a format that is unique, and is appealing to a much wider audience than people just wanting to read books, or read blogs. And, primarily, probably a younger audience, which is good.
As C. J. said, you’ve got nothing… Some people, they just have opinions. As two first sergeants, C.J. and I can tell you, even in being in charge of 100 soldiers, not everyone’s going to like every decision you make. They all have their own opinion.
Clayton: Yeah. Well, I just wanted to bring you guys up to date on how the book was coming along. The fundraiser’s going to be on the 13th of June. Hopefully, everything is falling into place.
I’ve got stories coming in. I’ve got artists working on artwork. I’ve got – oh, oh, oh. Also, in North Carolina, we’re doing a fund… One of the artists, John Parker…
He owns Post Mortem Comic Studios, and Southern Writers Horror Association. He’s a horror comic book artist, but he’s real in touch with helping out with the military, and he submitted a couple of pin-ups for the book, as well.
He’s also heading up a fundraiser in North Carolina, called Heroes Fallen, a Heroes Fallen con. He’s got the fairgrounds there, which is a massive, massive place. He’s looking around about 10,000 people to show up.
All the money and proceeds that he makes from the sell of that, as well, he is going to donate to the Untold Stories From Iraq, as funds to go into the account to be put out through the IAVA, the USO, and the Wounded Warriors Project.
He is on my MySpace thing, as well. He’s also mentioned on the website, www.freewebs.com/herosfallen. You can find out information about him there, and support that. If you want to get people to check it out, he’s on MySpace. I’ll send you some email links and you can put it out.
So, I’ve got one in North Carolina, and one here in Virginia. I’m trying to make this thing as big as I can for you guys, and support you. Wish me luck. [laughs]
C.J.: Yeah, good luck. We appreciate what you’re doing.
Troy: We’ll do more than that. We owe you some stories.
Clayton: [laughing] Yeah, I need them stories, guys. Come on, let’s get it together.
Troy: I’ve got a couple coming your way, and I know C. J., indeed, is working on one. And, Clayton, I am confirmed with you. I’m going to be there on June 13th right now, Lord willing and the river don’t rise.
[Over talk]
Troy: Right.
Clayton: All right. I appreciate that Troy, and CJ if you can make it, I would to love to have you as well, Sir.
C.J.: If I can be there, I will be there.
Clayton: OK. All right well I am not going to hold up the rest of your time, so thank you for having me on to update you guys with everything. God bless you and thank you so much for your service.
Troy: Thank you. Thank you for what you are doing. Clay Murwin – I don’t even want to mess with your last name, I always get it wrong.
Clayton: Murwin.
C.J.: Murwin.
Clayton: Murwin.
Troy: Murwin, OK, gotcha. Well, we are going to take a quick break now. We are going to do the American Story Teller, and on the other side we hopefully will have our second guest, who is Clint Van Winkle, the author of Soft Spots and former Marine Sergeant.
Actually, are they former Marine Sergeants? What do they call themselves? We should have Marcus on.
C.J.: It’s once a Marine always Marine, thing. I don’t know. He’s a Marine.
Troy: Yeah, once a Marine. So we will have Marine Corp Sergeant, Clint Van Winkle, to talk about his book, “Soft Spots, which is a Marine’s memoir of combat post-traumatic stress disorder,” right on the other side of the American Story Teller. We will see you then.
Announcer: You Served is proud to feature the American Story Teller. This break in our show is made possible by the contributions of the employees of vamortgagecenter.com. And now, “The American Story Teller.”
[background music]
The American Story Teller: Before I tell you about these old grey-haired grandpas, I’ll tell you the things that have been said about them. Lamebrain, foolish, pigheaded, blockheaded, mule headed, stubborn, and crazy. But the best description I have heard, American heroes.
About 30 old grey-haired veterans, most in their 70′s, they had served on amphibious ships such as the LST’s, Landing Ship Tanks.
These are the men who put tanks ashore in places like Normandy, stopping monsters like Hitler and Mussolini. In an attempt to preserve history, they went looking for an old LST to turn into a floating museum. What they were about to find was the proverbial fountain of youth.
Their search would take them around the world, finally discovering the LST-325, waiting to be scrapped in a shipyard in Greece. The 325 foot, 3,400 ton, rusting hull was decommissioned by the United States in 1946, and given to the Greek Navy, and now the Greeks would be happy to give it to anyone who was foolish enough to take it off their hands and deal with the red-tape.
But how to get it to America. That is where all those names like, foolish and blockheaded, will come back into the story. It was suggested that the ship could be towed but that hardly seemed adventurous.
And then one of them had a ridiculous idea. How about we get it all ship shape and then us old guys sail her back to America ourselves? It was delusional.
The crew met in Greece and lived aboard ship, working for months to get the old girl seaworthy again. When the Coast Guard heard about the plan, a written communiqué was delivered. It basically said – You guys are nuts. You’re going to die.
They laughed and kept right on working. British Petroleum figured if these old codgers were crazy enough to try to take this monstrous ship across the stormy Atlantic, the least they could do is donate the 50,000 gallons of fuel it would take.
Some of them had undergone open-heart surgery. Many knew the trouble of an aging prostate. One man had only one lung. Another fellow who had been receiving insulin twice a day, now only needed it once every 10 days. These old men were becoming young again.
On December 12, 2000, ignoring all warnings, the grey-haireds took off into the Mediterranean Sea, considered a picnic when compared to the great ocean. I can only imagine, old men cheering as they navigated the Straits of Gibraltar, now respectfully eye to eye with the unforgiving Atlantic.
Seasickness would return. It was a challenge to regain their sea legs. Everything would need repaired over and again. Planes would check on them, sure that they would have to rescue the old coots at any moment. But no matter what happened, the crew of the LST-325 kept the course for America. Weeks would pass in rough seas.
Finally, after almost 500,000 miles, off in the distance were the crashing waves upon the Land of Liberty. These old men, now young again, went ashore to a heroes welcome in the port city of Mobile, Alabama, met dockside as they were more then 50 years ago, by the girls who loved them.
If you would like to make a donation, visit theamericanstoryteller.com and click the link for LST-325.
Broadcasting from the Juniata Valley, I am the American Story Teller.
[pause]
[Song 3:77 minutes]
Troy: You there CJ? CJ? Hello?
C.J.: Sorry, had my mute on again. Can you hear me?
Troy: Yeah.
C.J.: All right. [laughs] Welcome back everybody. We are back, right?
Troy: We’re supposed to be.
C.J.: OK. Welcome back everybody. Welcome to the You Served radio show and podcast with C.J. and Troy. That was Winger.
And one of the things that – I love Winger, I’m a big Winger fan. I have been since he came out with 17 and Hungry. I was a Winger fan back when he used to be the bass player for Alex Cooper. It’s because of that man that I even started playing bass guitar. The dude’s just awesome.
Anyway. We don’t have our next guest on. Maybe it was the 12th that he was supposed to come on. But I know I confirmed him, so we’ll just wait until he comes on. Are you muted? Did I mute him? There we go. Now you’re un-muted.
Troy: Am I? Can you hear me?
C.J.: Yeah, I hear you.
Troy: Oh, it’s showing to me that it’s still muted.
C.J.: Hang on. Maybe I just hear you because we’re talking on the Skype.
Troy: We’re not talking on Skype, are we?
C.J.: Oh. I don’t know. You know, I hate this more and more every time. No one hears me? Yoo-hoo, can anyone hear me? Can you hear me? Can anybody hear me?
Troy: OK, I can. Can you hear me?
C.J.: I can hear you.
Troy: All right. I’m in now. I don’t know what happened. I tried to un-mute myself on the switchboard and I can’t hear you. Can you guys hear us in the room?
C.J.: Troy, it’s almost not worth the trouble.
Troy: You know what? [Inaudible 1:17:29] I hear you. All right, I think they can hear us.
C.J.: All right. Let’s go ahead and talk about the other thing here real quick because that’s going to sort of lead into the main thing that I want to get to which is the Army suicides.
Troy: OK. You want to talk about what I just sent you about the gun permits?
C.J.: Yeah, absolutely.
Troy: Oh yeah. This is awesome stuff. I just picked up on this today. This guy, Tim McChandley, he was a marine, fought in the Battle of Fulugia, received the combat medal of V for valor, taught marines how to fire a 50 caliber machine gun, worked with weapons, of course, he’s a marine, right, probably Grunt, 00 Bravo.
C.J., he came back from – he got out of the service, applied for a pistol permit in Omaha, Nebraska. You still there?
C.J.: Yep, I’m here.
Troy: I heard a click or something. All right. Applied for a pistol permit in Omaha, Nebraska. And when they asked him, in the one question, whether he was being treated for a mental disorder, he was honest and put yes because he was being counseled for PTSD from the service in Iraq.
Because he put that, they denied his pistol permit application. And was told because it was of that answer.
So when he went to talk to the police about it, to find out how this happened, they actually told him that he was being too truthful on the application.
[laughs] He researched it, found out that Omaha’s gun permit application was very vague on its mental disorder questions. It was actually… If he was actually mentally, you know, had an issue, they would have found it on his background check when he put in for a hunting rifle.
They literally told him that he was too truthful and probably shouldn’t have put that because he was being treated in the PTSD. I just don’t know what to think of it. I guarantee you, the guy has less than eight years of service and is in the IRR, it would not cause the military, the DoD, from calling him up and sending him back over.
And when you think about the guys who got three, four, or five tours and they no doubt part of the PTSD at least after two tours, if not after one, they’re still going back over. This is crazy. This is getting to be a little too much. This is Omaha, Nebraska.
C.J.: Here’s the thing. I’ve got some advice for Tim. This is from C.J., here. You don’t need a stupid piece of paper from your government to tell you that you can hold a gun. Let me just bring that out right now. It’s sad that he can’t get this thing, but here’s my philosophy here.
I’m not giving out any legal advice and I’m not encouraging anyone to break the law. If you’re a law abiding citizen and you need a weapon for personal protection which I think these days all of us do, especially with all these economic problems – people are trying to make up their losses somewhere – then you need to carry a gun.
If they’re not going to issue it to you “legally” then by golly just put the dang gun on anyway. Who’s going to know unless you do something wrong? Now, if you’re defending yourself, the Second Amendment is there. It says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.
By setting qualifications on who can and can not hold a gun, they are infringing on a right to keep and bear arms. Therefore, he’s perfectly legal to do it. So Tim I tell you to go out there. Don’t even worry about your permit. Although you probably can’t buy a gun legally.
Troy: He actually took it to… He appealed it and it took the appeals board fewer than 10 minutes to grant him a permit, voting five to zero.
C.J.: OK, then, for the rest of you out there… For the rest of you out there, we’re in the military here, why don’t one of – well not one – my main purpose for serving in the military is to protect that document called the Constitution of the United States of America.
I don’t believe in protecting just this amendment, or just this article but not that article, and picking and choosing. I protect that entire document.
I have no problem with anyone out there, and you know what, if you’re mentally disabled and you’ve got a gun and you use it the way you’re not supposed to be using it, well then, then another guy who has a gun and is allowed to carry it will just take care of you right then and there. It’s called cleansing the gene pool.
The more people that carry guns… There were some great things about the wild west. You screwed up in the Wild West, you sit out in the middle of the street, you both had guns, a good gun and a bad guy, and one of you didn’t walk away from it. Maybe we need to go back to that.
Troy: In a state like Alaska that allows anyone to carry a gun anywhere the want pretty much, and it’s very common to go fishing up there and see – up and down the banks – see hundreds of people with their sidearm, you don’t have a lot of a-holes talking smack or trying to carjack somebody or doing anything else.
C.J.: Yeah.
Troy: Pretty much everyone’s packing.
C.J.: [Indistinct]
Troy: Yeah, exactly. Everyone’s packing and you don’t know who isn’t packing.
C.J.: Let me tell you, around here in northern Alabama, I don’t take it lightly either because every time I go to the gun shop – every single time I go to the gun shop – that place is packed.
And finding ammo for my specific weapon type is very difficult. Let me qualify that, finding hollow point personal protection rounds for my type of weapon is very difficult. I can find all kinds of range ammo.
Troy: We need to get Springfield to sponsor this show because we’re both big supporters of them. Yeah, that’s why whenever I’m down to Fort Bragg and I would go to Jim’s Cons and Guns right there off of Braggs Boulevard.
It is probably the biggest gun store I’ve ever been to. That place has got everything you could probably want. That’s an awesome place.
That’s what’s nice about down south versus up here in New York. C.J., I’ve got a lot of family in Alabama and I can tell you, you don’t want to start nothing with someone who’s driving down the road because I think almost everyone of them has got something in their truck. It’s not something hanging in their rifle rack, either.
C.J.: [laughs] I’m not worried. I walk around very confident myself, too. What was it Clint Eastwood…? Just give me a reason? Oh no, it was make my day. That’s it. “Go ahead and make my day.”
Troy: Anyways, I wanted to bring that up. That was pretty… He did read over it but it still should not have been denied him for the first thing. You teach people to lie or be honest or whatever, and then, you know… It’s pretty sad that they automatically disapprove for that.
C.J.: The problem with our…
Troy: That’s part of that stigma. That’s what we’re trying to get rid of in the military. That’s part of that holding it in when we’re trying to break down, and to say that it’s good to admit and all this stuff. This kind of stuff doesn’t help that. It doesn’t facilitate it.
C.J.: It doesn’t at all. So now you’ve got a guy who believes in keeping a weapon for personal protection and now he knows, well hell, I can probably keep my security clearance but I can’t carry a weapon if I go get treatment.
And if you’re a Texan, I think you lose your citizenship if you don’t have a weapon.
Troy: I think so, I think you’re right there.
[laughter]
C.J.: But PTSD is a big issue and so that leads right into the next topic which is military suicides. You guys are getting hammered on that in National Guard, too, aren’t you?
Troy: On suicides?
C.J.: On suicide prevention.
Troy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, definitely. I don’t think it’s heavy right now because so many guard units are deploying, there’re getting it a lot at Mobe and De-Mobe. We still have to do it yearly and all that kind of stuff with our yearly briefings [Indistinct].
C.J.: I had a round table I guess you would call it. Now I’m starting to sound like Obama, “Uh…and…” I need a teleprompter when I’m speaking.
Troy: I’m glad you said that about yourself and I wasn’t the one to tell it to you.
C.J.: [laughs] Anyway, I had a bloggers round table with General Carelli today and he is the army’s vice Chief of Staff and we were talking about this problem of suicide. As you know, suicide in the military has become a big issue. In January we lost 16 soldiers I believe. Where’s my numbers here? It might have been 22.
Anyway, it was the largest number ever for one month that committed suicide. Let me tell you right up front, one is too many. Our soldiers do so much to protect our country and for these guys to survive combat – 12, that’s what it was. 2009, 12 soldiers suicide and 12 pending, so that’s 24 total.
Just in February we’ve already got 18, two confirmed and 16 pending from last month, of suicides. One of the things General Carelli said, “This is not business as usual.” And what the army is doing, and we’re doing it across the board, maybe you guys haven’t seen it yet, Troy, but he did mention it’s getting to the National Guard and the Reserves as well.
The Army is doing what’s called a “stand down.” There’s multi-layered training that needs to go on, the first of which is between now and March 15th. They’ve created a great video called…Oh gosh, I just watched the darn thing. It’ll come to me in a second.
Troy: That’s the problem. We only have one drill a month. Between now and March 15th we have a drill and for them they have a hard time pushing the information out to us on such short notice. You won’t have it; your drill is in a couple of days.
C.J.: You’ll probably have it. Tell us next week if you had to take suicide training.
Troy: I’m sitting on a State of New York Army National Guard Solider of the Year board and I’ll be sitting on that all weekend so I don’t know if they even have it, if I’ll know about it. [laughs]
C.J.: Here’s some interesting statistics. We heard a lot in the mainstream media about how suicide affects – the deployments and PTSD are affecting the troops to the point of suicide and it’s a big problem.
Right now the suicide rate in the military is about 20.5 per 100, 000 in the military. 20.5. The civilian rate per 100, 000 is 19.5. Now keep in mind, the 20.5 is a 2008 military rate. The 19.5 is a 2005 civilian rate.
The difference between the two is that in the military we report these statistics every year so they’re very current. The civilian rate, they are three years delayed. The bureaucracy of the federal government requires three years to get out simple statistics.
So right now we’ve got 2008 numbers competing with 2005 numbers. And I say competing very lightly because I don’t mean to compare what our soldiers are doing with what the civilians are doing. Suicide is suicide, it’s bad for everyone.
Let me just also say also that anyone out there contemplating or even thinking about suicide, there is nothing, nothing on this planet that is worth your life. Nothing. Not homelessness, not moneylessness, not your wife or your girlfriend leaving you, nothing is worth losing your life and it creates more problems for those you leave behind.
I don’t mean to compound that on top of someone who is contemplating suicide, compound that on top of their psyche that “Oh crap, if I kill myself it’s going to be worse for people.”
But really if you’re going to…
Troy: That’s the reality. They’re still going to have to deal with the issues that were supposedly so bad and then deal with the loss of that person.
C.J.: Exactly. Now one of the things they brought up is some of these statistics. I mean they’ve been aggressively investigating each and every suicide and suspected suicide and 60% of the cases of suicide were all related to, a preponderance, with related to relationship failures.
A girlfriend leaving you, a wife leaving you, a boyfriend leaving you, a husband leaving you. Some breakdown in an intimate relationship. 60% of suicides in the military are related to that.
One of the things that we really value in the military are our relationships because I’ll tell you what. Coming home after the kind of stuff that I have to deal with everyday and the stuff that I see and do on a daily basis – if I came home and one, didn’t have that family support, maybe I if I had a difficult marriage and didn’t have as loving a wife as I do. I’m very lucky. That can be very stressful.
You’re coming home. You expect to have someone that you can lean on for support. And if a solider doesn’t have that, it’s very difficult to decompress. And so a lot of soldiers will turn to alcohol which is the second cause of suicide. 17% of these cases of suicide had a diagnosis of substance abuse in the past.
So substance abuse, relationships…and again, there’s clusters here, it’s not just relationships but relationships, legal problems, financial problems, drug problems and other stuff.
Now here’s what really surprised me. They just released a five year study – and remember, the military used to release these statistics on an annual basis but because of what’s been going on in the last few months they now release these on a monthly basis.
In the last five years the number of completed suicides in the military, of those 5.4% of accomplished suicides, where by people diagnosed with PTSD only 5.4%. Now you wouldn’t have though that, looking at the media, would you?
Troy: No, absolutely not.
C.J.: That was very surprising to me. 17% were substance abuse. General Carelli also talked about what’s dubbed as the one third rule here. It appears that only one third of suicides are people who have deployed from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another third has never been deployed anywhere.
Another third has been deployed previously: Desert Storm, Bosnia, all these other types of deployments.
So what you’re looking at here is the media and our leftist pals out there want to try to blame the war – here’s another one for you. The more deployments a soldier has, the less likely they were to commit suicide. More soldiers committed suicide who had only one deployment over soldiers who had two or three deployments. And soldiers who had three deployments had fewer suicides than those who had two deployments.
It seems like they’re able to steel themselves up. A lot of good stuff came out of this and the military is really aggressively charging after this problem. We at the company level, I sent a lot of my soldiers out today for training. They’ve got training all day today, they’ve got training all day tomorrow as well as next week. It’s a two-hour training block of people talking.
But Troy, what it really comes down to is guys like you and me and those guys at the company level sitting down face-to-face looking our guys and gals in the eye and really caring about them.
And I want to explain to them, “I’m here for you”. One of the things I want to say is, if you’re a soldier, an NCO or a junior officer who can’t look your soldier in the eye and say, look, PFC, Private, Sergeant so-and-so, I care about you and I want to help you if you’re having any issues.
I want to help you financially. I want you to call me at 3:00 in the morning, and I won’t be pissed off at you. I want you to call me in the middle of my leave when I’m four States away, I don’t care. If you’re having trouble, I want you to call me.
If you’re an NCO or a young officer out there that can’t do that, get out of the army. Get away! We don’t need you here. We need people here who truly care, especially NCO’s, because soldier issues, morale, welfare, is an NCO business.
It’s the year NCO act like NCO’s, care about their soldiers and put a stop to these … We’re not going to be able to put a stop to all of them, because soldiers obviously have to seek help.
But here’s another thing Troy, of the suicides, slightly more than 50% of all suicides are from people who actually sought help anyway. So 50% sought help, and 50% didn’t. So you can’t rely on soldiers to tell you, “Hey, Sergeant.”
Troy: Well, you’ve got to have authorization.
C.J.: You do.
Troy: That’s why I love doing it. People ask me why I haven’t taken sergeant major and why I didn’t want to get promoted, and it’s why I love the job so much. I’ve been doing it as a die hard first sergeant since 2002, and I did it for three years before that as a lieutenant.
This is what it’s all about. It’s not just being able to be the hard ass and put your boot up their butt and make them do things and yell and scream, with a cup of coffee in your hand. That’s part of the job– granted, but part of it is knowing your soldiers in and out.
On the flip of a switch, being able to be the one standing out by the formation yelling and screaming, and a minute later having a young soldier in your office weeping, a grown man over an issue and being able to deal with that.
You’ve got to be able to have the maturity, and psychic, and a little bit of psychiatry and psychology skills, whether they’re self- generated, or experience, or school trained to be able to deal with that. To do that, your soldiers have to have trust and respect for you and feel like they can come to you, right? As a first sergeant, C.J., we are the mama, the daddy; we are everything of the company.
C.J.: Oh, yeah. We are the financial manager.
Troy: Yep, and I’m telling you, I have soldiers still, I’ve been a First Sergeant so long, I’ve had soldiers come to me with their issues and I would tell them directly, “You can’t throw nothing at me I haven’t seen.” I have seen a ton of things, and this is all in the National Guards. Maybe it’s more so in the Guards, because it’s full time civilian influences.
I have seen some of the wildest and craziest, personal, humiliating issues that my soldiers have brought to me looking for guidance and help. Every time they do, even though I help them and it takes time out of my day and takes time away from my soldiers, I feel so much better when they walk out. I go Wow! I know they trusted me enough to bring that to me, and that speaks volumes to me that I’m doing the right thing.
For a solider guy, if you’re an E7 looking to be a first sergeant and you think you’re ready to be a First Sergeant if you’ve got a couple years in E7, the same litmus step. If you’re not ready to do that, if you’re not ready to wake up at 3:00 in the morning and go get your soldier out of the jail on base at the MP’s,
Or run over to a soldier’s house at any time because his wife called and said he’s thinking about committing suicide, or anything else, if you’re not ready to do that, then you don’t need to be a top. It doesn’t mean you can’t get promoted, it doesn’t mean you can’t be an E8. But you’re not ready to be a first sergeant if you’re not ready to have that level of governance, it is definitely unique.
C.J.: Absolutely.
Troy: I’ll tell you one more thing C.J., I’ve seen it a hundred times over. There is a level of respect for First Sergeant in this Army that exceeds anything I have ever seen, more so than Sergeant Majors. I can’t explain it. First I thought when I first got promoted, I thought it was just that, but I’ve seen myself side-by-side with Sergeant Majors, both Command Sergeant Majors and Staff Sergeant Majors.
A lot of the soldiers though, they don’t deal with sergeant majors that much. They deal with first sergeants, and to them that’s the crème de la crème. I have seen them pay me more respect and more honors in just their actions and words then they ever have next to an E9 standing right next to me or a Field Grade Officer.
It’s not just enlisted; it’s officers and captains that have had a good first sergeant. When they see a first sergeant they go out of their way to give you a greeting, to talk to you. You can just see it in their face; it’s something about that diamond that goes a long way with them.
C.J.: Yeah, remember when we were at the Mil-Blog conference last year and we were talking with one of the generals up there? I had mentioned I’m a First Sergeant in the military and asked some question about the uniforms. He says, “There is one thing I’ve learned. You listen to your first sergeant.”
You will be hard pressed to find a general officer out there who doesn’t respect what the first sergeants put up with. That’s what they do. That is where the rubber meets the road. When I was a younger soldier, I gave my first sergeant a lot of hard times. I didn’t think they did that much. But there is a lot you don’t see. If you are a good soldier and you are not a super needy soldier, you don’t get to see all that.
It is the best job in the army, I’ll definitely admit.
Troy: That is why I’m retired at that. It’s all I am going to be.
[laughter]
Troy: And you know, at the same time, as an NCO, one time when I was active duty, right before I got out, we had a first sergeant that we ended up getting relieved. I was instrumental in getting him pulled off a jump master staff. He was a jump master. He had a lot of actions in the aircraft.
Then, myself-it was really a mutiny or coup e’stat. Myself and all the other E-6s and E-7s and some of the E-5s in the company bonded together and we went to the battalion commander on this guy. He threatened to have all of us thrown out of the battalion, because he had to. But they ended up relieving him. The guy was a piece of crap as first sergeant.
But at the same time we had such respect for that position that our younger soldiers were seeing and what we knew they were seeing of him, it was disgusting. We could only shield so much from our soldiers. As you know as an NCO, you are not dare going to talk bad about a commander, a platoon leader, the first sergeant, in front of your soldiers.
But they were sitting there right next to us and seeing the things that we saw. There was only so much we could take and we took it on ourselves to do whatever we could to get him thrown out. He did it to himself. But one of our soldiers recorded a phone call that the guy said some very illegal and bad stuff and that is what did it. But we knew he was bound to hang himself and he ended up doing it.
C.J.: Yeah.
Troy: But, it was an E-6, I put my entire active duty military career on the line when I and two E-7s actually were the ones that lead the group and went to the sergeant major and said, “We want to see the Old Man.” We went in there and presented our case.
I’m sure it was a real issue. He was not going to see all these NCOs risk everything. But we literally went in there and put it on the line and said, “We don’t care what you do but he’s got to go.”
C.J.: You know, this is what I’ve been talking about on my blog. It is that kind of stuff that you were talking about. That intestinal fortitude, that personal courage to see something that is not going right; to recognize it as wrong. To try and fix it and when it doesn’t get fixed, to start climbing that ladder.
I think if more soldiers did that, you know Abu Ghraib would not have happened. Stuff at Gitmo wouldn’t have happened. That is why it drives me nuts when guys like Neely go out that smattering and smearing the name of good soldiers because he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up and do what is right and report that kind of stuff.
So, kudos on you. I want to say, too, for the family members out there. There are a lot of people out there who are probably saying, what can I do? I’m just a mom; I’m a dad; I’m a sister; I’m a brother; I’m a neighbor.
If you see a soldier suffering. If you see a marine suffering and you can tell they are having issues and things aren’t just going the way they should. There are things you can do.
The first one, the military set up a great website called Military One Source. Go to militaryonesource.com and you can help refer that soldier. You can get help for them. Never stop at the first level. If you call up a command leadership chain and you feel like you are getting blown off, keep going. Keep talking. Don’t just stop.
If you call Military One Source and you don’t feel like you are getting anywhere. You call some crisis line and all you are getting is, push two for this. Push three for that. And you are on there forever and you are not getting anywhere, try something different.
But remember, the lives of our soldiers are so important and so valuable that it is worth going above and beyond for. One of the things I do as a first sergeant.; that I try to do. I’ve always done this as a squad leader and platoon sergeant as well, to the best of my ability. Is I used to call up when I get a new soldier, I would call up their parents and say, Hey look.
This is my name. I am sergeant So and So. I’m first sergeant So and So. I’m in charge of your soldier; your son; your daughter. If you every need anything; if you feel like your son or daughter is getting the support that they need, call me. Here is my home phone number. Here is my work phone number.
That is what we really need to do. This is the year of the NCO and I really hope that NCOs are able to focus and not turn this into a “what’s in it for me” year.
Troy: Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, there are some other things that you wanted to hit on too. You had some other stuff. Did you want to talk a little bit the ASA Conference at all? Anymore stuff on that? Or you want to talk about these soldiers in Iraq who need a swimming pool?
C.J.: Yeah, let’s… [laughs] Let’s talk about the soldiers in Iraq who are just yearning to use that pool.
Troy: Yeah, it’s a… Well, we’ll talk about that, then why don’t we go into this article in the “Washington Post” or whatever about these party-ers.
C.J.: OK.
Troy: Yeah, so… So, there’s these soldiers in Iraq, and C.J. you may have heard about this too, I think we talked about it. But for everyone else they’ve got one of Saddam’s places, I think, and there’s this an empty swimming pool there. And they’re just complaining, I guess. I don’t know if they are or not.
It’s in “Stars and Stripes.” It’s in today’s issue. That they just have this small, sad, empty pool and there’s no working pump, no chlorine to treat the water. It’s just a vacant concrete hole. And they’re complaining that if they could get a pump for it or whatever they could just, you know, have this nice swimming pool in the middle of a combat zone. You know, is it still a combat zone? I don’t know. The soldiers die in here.
C.J.: Let me tell you, soldiers are asking about a pool. If they’re complaining about chlorine and water and pumps, it’s not a combat zone anymore.
Troy: You know, my opinion, when you got a swimming pool you start paying taxes again. You quit getting hazard pay. [laughs]
C.J.: Thank you very much. [laughs]
Troy: You know?
C.J.: If these guys want to swim in water they can, you know, go buy one of those little kiddie pools and just lay down in it.
Troy: Yeah, I mean, granted you know the first sergeant is quoted in the article and he would like them to have a place for his soldiers to relax. That’s good, he’s a good TOP, trying to make for, I mean…
When I was in Afghanistan, one of the…. Not my FOB but another FOB higher headquarters one, but not the big ones down in Kabul. They had, the soldiers had, the medics in the aid station had bought one of those inflatable pools. You know, it’s like maybe a foot and half, two foot high on the side, maybe eight foot across. They had someone send it to them and they filled it with water, and they sat in it, you know?
In the summertime, in the heat, you know, they had their day off. Hey, sick call was over, whatever. They had a little deck they built. And they sat in it. It was a pool. Everyone though it was the hottest thing since sliced bread.
At least they had a pool, you know, I guess when they needed to change their water they just tipped it over, dumped it out and filled it up again. I don’t know, but [laughter]. I just can’t believe that there’s soldiers complaining about it, and maybe it’s just an over anxious reporter that just jumped onto something, but it really makes the soldiers look pretty bad, I think, If you ask me.
C.J.: Yeah, I mean, and really we’re spending billions of dollars a month in Iraq, and it just doesn’t look good for this to be kind of plastered all over the place that soldiers don’t have a pool to… I’m telling you because the mentality of the American people, as it should be, is why are you sending these guys over there again?
Troy: Yeah.
C.J.: What exactly were you spending all this money on? Our economy’s in danger and we’re worried about a pool? And again, I understand you’ve got to decompress and stuff, but…
Troy: They should be busy as crap running missions and doing all that stuff. But you know what they shouldn’t be doing? And that’s partying in a nightclub, C.J.
C.J.: Oh, yeah!
Troy: And that is apparently what a reporter from the “Washington Post,” and I guess what I’m hearing is that the “Stars and Stripes” picked up on the story. Why don’t you… You want to talk about that a little bit?
C.J.: Yeah, I haven’t found the story in the “Stars and Stripes”. I did find the “Washington Post” story. I just posted it, posted a link to the story on there. Apparently…
Troy: Yeah this came out the other day from Matt over at Black Bot, he put up a piece on it… Or someone did at Black Bot, I don’t know who wrote it. And, a new blogger on my site, goes by the name of the Dude put it up because he’s now a contractor in Kuwait, and he saw it in the “Stars and Stripes” there. And he wrote about this article.
I guess it was repeated in the “Stars and Stripes,” and he said that it was originally in the “Washington Post.” And it’s saying that soldiers are partying, and drinking, and dancing with Iraqi prostitutes and Iraqi guys in these nightclubs. I don’t know what to… What do you think then?
C.J.: You know, well I find this story… First of all, you know, I remember walking through the [Inaudible 1:47:48], or the al-Kendi neighborhood in Baghdad and going into a few of these places as well when I was on patrols.
You know, the point of the thing is to make soldiers human, as human as possible. And, you know, these guys are going in there. You look at the pictures, there’s only two of them, of soldiers. You look at them, they’re having a good time, their dressed in their full kit. They’re obviously just walking in off the street.
Here’s what gets me, they’ve got these pictures of soldiers that are dancing, but they talk about that the American soldier stepped out of the Baghdad nightclub and in one hand he clutched his weapon, in the other a green can of [Inaudible 1:48:25] beer. He took a sip and walked over to his two comrades dressed as he was in camouflage and combat gear. OK, no pictures of a soldier anywhere holding a beer. What’s up?
Then they talk about inside the club Thursday night. US soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division ogled young Iraqi women who appeared to be prostitutes gyrating to Arabic pop music. Hmmm. No pictures of soldiers ogling young Iraqi women. So it seems to me that we’ve got yet another of these meow issues.
Troy: Yeah, it’s another belt issue or something, right. It’s ten pictures or so showing soldiers. Here’s my assumption – and I’m not there – but looking at it and from my experience, I’m almost as sure of what happened. These guys were on patrol, they walk through, there’s this nightclub. They’re coming in checking on things.
In one picture you see a soldier sitting down talking to a gentleman, probably the club owner or something like that. While he’s talking with him, which is no different than you’ve done, I’ve done, and tens of thousands of soldiers have done, you meet with the locals, you sit down take your helmet off and talk to them, see how security is, see if you feel safe, all those same questions we ask.
While he’s doing that, people are dancing on the dance floor. They probably walked in – I can see it now – the news probably stopped, everyone probably looked, they probably said, “No, no, keep dancing, party, have a good time, we’re not going to start it.” So people are like, “Cool, they aren’t going to stop us.”
So they’re dancing. So what does one soldier do, in his full battle rattle goes up and gets in the middle of them and kicks his leg out, or something like that, and the cameraman takes a picture. Full battle rattle. If he’s there partying and all that stuff, that battle rattle’s on the floor. He’s not wearing full battle rattle.
To me, that’s no different than when I was walking through and some kids were playing soccer. I would get off my truck, and I’d kick the soccer ball around for them a little bit, in my full battle rattle with my M-4 strapped on, with my helmet still on, and I’d kick the soccer ball back with them a little bit just to kind of get in with the populace.
To show them that I’m not a big ugly American in all this gear that looks like a robocop or something. That I can ham it up with him. That’s what this guy is doing. The WaPo writes this, and what’s worse, the “Stars and Stripes” carries it and makes the “Stars and Stripes” look nothing more than a “Weekly World News” or “National Enquirer.” They might as well be.
C.J.: The whole point is – I don’t even know what the point is. A US Military spokesman that was responding to this query, he was like, “Just so I understand this clearly, ” and I’m quoting here, “Just so I understand this clearly you saw US soldiers at a nightclub in downtown Baghdad, outside the green zone, in uniform drinking and dancing.” It’s crazy.
But what this shows is – let’s just assume this is all true, all of this is true. This is great. This is actually good news because soldiers are now being accepted as the liberators that we are. We’re not occupiers. We’re not there to kill and maim and terrorize women and children in the dark of night. We’re not cold-blooded murderers. And of course I’m using a bunch of quotes here from some notable liberals.
We’ve gotten to a point – and I’m not going to say finally because even when I was there we were at this point but probably to a different degree. We’re finally to the point where soldiers can let down their high and tights, their hair – that just didn’t sound right – and actually enjoy Iraqi company.
Iraqis are good people. They’re great people and now we can sit and party together. So even if this was true, this is actually really good news. Although, I find it very hard to believe.
Troy: Let me tell you what is good news if it is and isn’t true. If it is true, probably was that they were having this nightclub. If it is true that the soldiers came through and talked to them, if it is true that they were fine with a soldier coming up and dancing a little bit, all this stuff that I think really happened, that’s also a good sign.
A good sign that, one, they now have the liberty to do that. That they’re just at a nightclub. That they’re not in fear of a suicide bomber coming and splattering across the walls. That they’re not so intimidated by the American soldiers, or scared of them, that they just cower in the corner. So all the stuff that I think how it really carried out, every bit of that’s good news, too, every bit of it.
C.J.: It is. It’s great news.
Troy: You wouldn’t find me in downtown Afghanistan, in downtown Kabul, dancing at no nightclub. I guarantee you that, buddy. No way. If we can do it in Baghdad, we’re coming a long way and the war is all but won there, for sure.
C.J.: I want to do something real quick. I know we’ve only got about seven minutes left. And it’s very important. I’m going to make a phone call here.
Troy: Really?
C.J.: Yes.
[Phone rings]
Troy: President Obama?
C.J.: No, I’m calling a very important person here. And it’s a special guest today. It’s kind of a last minute addition to the show, you might say.
Troy: OK.
C.J.: Maybe not. Sounds like an answer.
[Phone ringing]
Chris: Hello.
C.J.: Chris!
Chris: Hello.
C.J.: Hey welcome to the You Served podcast and radio show. How are you doing?
Chris: Good.
C.J.: This is my son everybody.
Troy: Oh, OK. [laughs]
C.J.: Now Chris there’s got to be a reason that I’m calling you on our radio show. What could that possibly be?
Chris: To warn me about my eleven year old shots tomorrow?
C.J.: No, no, no. Not eleven year old shots tomorrow. No. Although let me warn you that you’ve got eleven year old shots tomorrow.
What else?
Chris: Birthday spankings?
C.J.: Birthday spankings?
Chris: And not coming back upstairs.
C.J.: So for the first time ever, ladies and gentlemen, we are giving birthday spankings live on the air.
Troy: On You Serve radio.
C.J.: On You Serve radio.
Troy: Start calling Human Services now.
[laughter]
Chris: Yeah. I’m not calling back upstairs.
C.J.: Well, Chris you need to come up here.
Chris: No!
C.J.: We’re going to start taking dimes away from your allowance cup up here.
Chris: OK, I’m coming.
Troy: Oh, man. Taking dimes away.
C.J.: Here’s the funny thing. I just had my birthday a few days ago. Chris and I, our birthdays are three days apart. And I got 140 birthday spankings. Chris only has to worry about 44.
Troy: By the way happy birthday, C.J.
C.J.: Happy Birthday, Chris.
Chris: Thank you.
C.J.: What we’re going to do is we’re going to kind of cover Chris’ spankings live here, his birthday spankings. All right, come on, Chris.
He’s hiding in the bathroom. Oh, there we go. And you out there in the chat room world you can spank along virtually if you want. That didn’t sound quite right.
[Indistinct]
C.J.: You guys can spank each other out there. Come on, Chris! This is live radio. We can’t have dead air.
Troy: Oh, we’ve got reverb and echo all over the place.
C.J.: All right, hang on here. I’m going to move my laptop into where he’s at instead. See I’m on a laptop. I can move anywhere. Here we go!
Where is he? Oh. [Children's voices]
C.J.: All right. Let’s bring him in here and strap him down. All right, for those of you who are…
Troy: This is live radio. So…
C.J.: You might not want to listen.
[Indistinct]
Troy: This is live radio. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
C.J.: OK. We might have to do spankings later.
Troy: [Indistinct]
C.J.: When it’s not live.
Troy: Hey, C.J. can you hear me?
C.J.: I can hear you.
Troy: The chat room is coming telling Chris to run.
[laughter]
C.J.: OK, let’s start the spankings. Hannah you’re first. [Background voices]
Chris: Oh, no!
C.J.: OK, all right. Let’s cut. Cut.
Troy: All right.
C.J.: Go ahead and pick up the phone, Chris.
Troy: that was the first and the last live spankings on air.
C.J.: You’re safe. Go ahead and get the phone, Chris.
Chris: OK, I [inaudible]. What happened to the spankings?
C.J.: All right.
Chris: How come we’re not doing the spankings?
C.J.: Well, because …
Chris: How come we’re not? What?
C.J.: [Cross talk]
Troy: We’re down to two minutes, C.J.
C.J.: All right, Chris. Well, Happy Birthday.
Chris: Thank you.
Troy: Happy Birthday, Chris.
Chris: Eleven.
C.J.: Can you hear Troy?
Chris: Yeah.
Troy: Happy Birthday, Chris.
Chris: Thank you, Mr. Troy.
Troy: Good kid.
C.J.: OK, go ahead and hang up.
Chris: OK.
C.J.: All right. Chris just turned 11 and not only that but just yesterday, at the last possible minute, the day before his birthday he earned his arrow of light.
Troy: Awesome, awesome.
C.J.: So as of today, he is officially a Boy Scout.
Troy: Moving into the big time. Did he do the crossing of the bridge?
C.J.: Not yet, we’re doing that later. Unfortunately I’m not going to be – I wasn’t around, and I won’t be around for a while, so they’re postponing it.
Troy: The Blue and Gold Ceremony?
C.J.: Yeah, I’ve got more trips coming up so… All right. Well, we’re going to play a great song to send us out, again we thank our guest Jessie Loren for coming for coming in, talking about – don’t forget to pick up her book. You can pick it up pretty much anywhere, Amazon.
It’s Bombshells, and it’s Jessie Loren, and great story about women in the military. You got a bunch of stories in there. Unfortunately we didn’t get to talk to Clint Van Winkle, who wrote Soft Spots. We’ll try and get him on another time when we’re able to.
We can’t now. Now Chris is upset because he didn’t do the spanking spot. But we want to let you go with a song, right Troy?
Troy: That’s right. I’ll go ahead and cue it up C.J. This is from good friend, our good friend Michael Douglan. It’s called I Believe in America. I’ll be linking up with Michael on Monday night. C.J., I’ll be passing him all the best to him because I know if you could be there you would.
C.J.: I would. Hey, guys, take care. We’ll see you next week.
Troy: Thank you. Goodnight everyone.
C.J.: Goodnight.
[Song]
“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
I believe in America. I believe in it, I believe in it, I believe in it. I believe in America. I believe in America. I believe in it, I believe in it, I believe in America. I believe in America, I believe in it.
Don’t go quitting on America, baby. I believe in America, never going to quit on America.
I have a dream. I believe in America. I have a dream. I believe in America. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream, I have a dream, I have a dream.
I believe in America. I believe in America. I believe in America. I believe in America, never going to quit on America. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
Some folks say if you want to be tied down, America that’s wouldn’t be behind her. The economy’s bad and the war’s raging on. [Inaudible 2:01:15] no longer strong.
Well I’ve got some news for you my friend, America’s down, but this isn’t the end. We’re standing up together for the strong and true. Sing a little song about the red, white, and blue.
Oh say can you see… My favorite song.
America. I believe in America. America. I believe in America. I believe in America. America. Never going to quit on America. [Inaudible 2:02:04]. Hey. Hey. Hey.
I believe in America. I believe in America. The rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
