Fat Electrician Retells the Most Heartbreaking WWII Story You've Never Heard

Observe the North American dad. 50s. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, Dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval. No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. After he gets done with that New Georgia campaign, he gets a letter. So this is back in World War II. Sorry. He gets two letters. They're backdated 14 months. One letter's from mom and dad. One's from his fiance. First letter, mom and dad are getting divorced. Second letter, fiance is leaving him. Ah, Jesus. Then they come around and they're like, we're taking volunteers for a dangerous mission for guys. That have extensive jungle warfare training. And he's like, don't have anything else to go home to. Fuck it. Why not? So they're like, all right, get on the boat. Okay. So he gets on the boat. They're taking him to all these different islands. He goes, he winds up in Australia. He's like, where the fuck are we going? Next thing he knows, he's the weirdest Japanese ever. Yeah. Remember, dude grew up in a log cabin in Michigan. Like next thing he knows, he's in fucking India. Like what the fuck is going on? It's a culture shock. Yeah. They start training for more jungle warfare in India. And then he figures out like, oh, here's the mission. We got 3000 guys, including you. We're going to walk from India into Burma, into the jungles of Burma. And you're going to go fight the Chinese while they're in Burma. Full on guerrilla warfare tactics. Your whole mission, prevent the Japanese from taking out China. China's basically cut off. We need to establish a foothold in Burma so we can establish the Burma road to get supplies to the Chinese so they can defend against the Japanese. Because if China falls. Japan and the Nazis are going to have a direct like highway between them. And that's going to be awful for the war effort. So we're going to send you 3000 guys into the jungle. Just go fuck up the Japanese as much as possible. 3000 guys to stop the connection of the entire Eastern world. Now, the problem is they can't get supplies into China. Right. So how are you going to get supplies to 3000 guys that are trying to fight a war? Airdropping. That's all they do. They live in the jungle for seven months straight while they're getting airdrop supplies, conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the Japanese. 3000 guys against how many would you say? I don't whatever the fuck the Empire of Japan had and they were just in there wreaking havoc the entire fucking time. And I get into like the different major battles they had. But this unit's called Merrill's Marauders. General Merrill was a guy in charge. And this would later go on to become the 75th Ranger Regiment. So this is like the predecessor to the 75th Rangers. So these guys were functionally special forces at the time. And he was selected because of his experience. Inside of the dangerous mission, they asked for volunteers for another more dangerous mission inside the dangerous mission. Nobody volunteers. So he gets voluntold. You're the guy. He is the platoon leader for the I and R platoon for the whole element. I and R's intelligence and reconnaissance. So he's a scout platoon. So he's like 30 miles ahead of the rest of this element in the jungle, in the jungle, moving forward. He's the eyes and ears. Is that where they came up with long range? That's LERP. Long Range Reconnaissance Control. That's Vietnam. Okay. But yeah, this is basically where this all stems from and starts. Was he at the middle of that one too? What? Coming up with LERP in Vietnam. Oh yeah. Is that where this is going? He was the guy that invented that there too. He didn't, he, he didn't coin it, but I mean, he pioneered the shit. Right. So while they're in, he's in Merrill's Marauders. Fuck, lost my train of thought. My bad. So he was going ahead 30 miles. Oh, so he's ahead like 30 miles. So, and there, this is such a historic military. Unit. And they did so much shit while they were there. I had to like stop reading his books and doing research on him. And I had to go and read a book just on Merrill's Marauders. Okay. And Merrill's Marauders has a book. It's about, this is about 3000 dudes. This is all talking about, here's this entire element moving through and here's what happened. Like they're not really talking about individuals and he's just a platoon leader. Mm-hmm. Like he's not a big, he's not important. He's not a general. He's not a colonel. He's not an officer. He's not in charge of shit. He's in charge of 30 guys. In this book, he's named 14 times. And on multiple occasions, his platoon saved the entire element of 3000 guys. The official historian for Merrill's Marauders equated one of his actions to the battle of Thermopylae and goes on to explain King Leonidas fought on his own soil. This guy fought on enemy soil in the jungle. King Leonidas lost all his men. This guy didn't lose a single guy. Do we have tape of this guy talking, like being interviewed? He doesn't even have a fucking Wikipedia page. It's fucking crazy. Did you hear about him from that book? Is that how you found out about him? I got an email saying you should look into this guy. And then I looked into it. And every, anytime I get an email like that, I just Google it. I was like, there's no Wikipedia for this guy. What the fuck? But the nickname, the fighting preacher was so compelling that I just kept fucking digging deeper. He wrote memoirs later in his life. But they've been out of print forever. I finally tracked down a copy of his book and then like went back, pulled all the, all the stuff I could find from like national archives, his award citations and everything. And like I cross verified everything. And it's like everything he says he did in his book, he fucking did. And then he's in, I'm just doing math in my head. He was 31 when he went to Korea in 1950 or 51. So by the time Vietnam's popping off, he's in his mid forties. One of, if not the most common DMS I get. On Instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are? Well, today's your lucky day because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter, I'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now. Also, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show, you can do so via the discord link in my description below. And finally, you can join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the Patreon link in my description below. As always, please take one second to hit that subscribe button. If you haven't already, I really appreciate that. Also the like buttons, a big help. And you can join my newsletter via the link in the description below. So, yeah. So then he finishes up with Merrill's marauders, world war two ends. He goes, does the Korean stuff, gets pushed down the peninsula overseas, does the Korean overseas, the last bayonet charge. After that, he gets shipped home from here. He decides he's just going to finish out his career in the military. He's already been in long enough. So he goes, he basically helps rewrite the book on jungle warfare. He's working at the Pentagon for a while. And then he gets, uh, he's like, I hate this. I hate paper pushing stuff. I want to go back. So he goes out to brag and he's like, I think he's 44 at the time. And he's like, I'm sick of having to walk everywhere. Cause Merrill's marauders walked. He is his platoon scouted over 1250 miles of jungle. My kind of guy. So he's like, I'm, I'm tired of walking everywhere. I want to jump out of planes. So at 44, he becomes a paratrooper. And then they're like, Hey, you want to become a green beret? He's like, sure. So then he becomes a fucking green beret in his mid forties. And then Vietnam pops off and he doesn't talk much about what he did in Vietnam, but he was sent over to Laos as a green beret to be a technical advisor to the lay oceans on how to combat communism, which you ever heard of Mac V. Sog. I have heard of that. Remind me though. Yeah. So Mac V. Sog was the green berets that were basically operating in Laos and Cambodia, waging a shadow war against the Vietnamese. The entire time, like the most dangerous fucking combat you could imagine. Super insane attrition rate. Like I'm assuming he was doing that, but I can't verify it, but he was over there for, um, he was over there for his first 12 months. And then they're like, okay, you can go back home now, or you can extend for 36 months and we'll fly your family over here and they can live here too. So he flies his family over. He stays there for like the additional 36 months. And it's like, you know, you're bringing your family over. You're bringing your family to a war zone. Like what your videos, what do you do to make, what do you do to make it up to your daughters and your wife when you bring them to, you know, Vietnam during a war? Like, how do you make a kid happy? You buy him a pony, right? You get him a dog. They're in Southeast Asia. So he gets him a monkey. Oh my God. Spunky the monkey. Spunky the monkey. Spunky the monkey. Cause that's what the story needed. And, uh, yeah. Ends up, uh, finishes out, finishes out his career in Vietnam, brings his family and the monkey back home, keeps the monkey forever. And then, uh, goes on to be. Become, I forget the title, but basically the campus religious leader for Texas A&M for 13 years. After all that, still the chaplain. Still the chaplain. Oh my God. This is him. Logan Weston. Medal of honor, silver star, U.S. military, man of God. And, uh. Yeah. Badass motherfucker. Can you pull up my Instagram? There's a picture of him with all of his medals. So he got given the distinguished service cross. He was supposed to get the medal of honor for repelling that attack of 700. Yeah. But the commander that kept arguing back and forth. With him basically made sure he didn't get the, uh, that, that post next one over. No other one. Sorry. Right. There you go. That's all of his medals. The fucking shadow box. It's as tall as he is. He's got over 200, 200 awards and commendations. When did this guy pass away? Uh, he lived to be like 86, I think. So maybe like 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. That's an insane sack. What got you into telling these stories? They're so compelling. I mean, you do so many of them across military history. I started doing. um you know i mean the whole youtuber thing like i didn't do it on purpose it was an accident i told you i made a i made a video about a grocery store and i got 12 million views and then i was like oh i guess i should keep doing it so then i made like a couple more videos and then you know i'm just looking for any ideas to like crack jokes and be funny so i made a video about how the marine corps is the craziest branch of the military it's not even a branch of the military it's a cult and i did a little quick three minute video of all the little crazy shit they do and uh people loved it and they were like oh now do army infantry now do army mortars so then i started doing these little three minute videos on jobs and then that kind of turned into like five minute videos on equipment and then one day i just like covered one dude one dude's war memoirs and people loved it i didn't think people would want like a 40 minute video but it performed great and then uh i just i kept doing it and i mean over time i mean obviously you look for more purpose for doing something other than i enjoy getting views and likes and clicks right and uh i think the purpose has just kind of turned into you know we don't celebrate war heroes anymore like we used to have war heroes in world war ii like you'd earn the medal of honor you'd come home you'd go on a war bonds tour people knew who you are you were a celebrity yes we celebrated brave men for doing incredible things and being selfless and we did it a little bit in korea and then we kind of quit after vietnam i mean the fact that you know bass alone he's from jersey like you know what i mean but like there's no you know what i mean but like there's no g watt guys that have notoriety like that there's nobody from desert storm there's nobody in any of the wars that we like celebrate and hold up of like this is the example of what you should and could be and you know i think it's extremely impactful especially for kids growing up having war heroes to look at and be like i want to be like that fuck yeah dude no you're making an amazing point i forget who i had in here recently but this came up and i couldn't agree more it's like i don't have any problem like i i think it's great when you know there's a great athlete or stuff like that and you look up to him or you really like daniel day lewis is an actor and you look up to him that's awesome but like in society i think like people who make the ultimate sacrifice and understand how the world works because they go over and see the things that we're lucky enough to not have to see here because there's guys like them doing that i mean you're telling me that story from a guy from three generations ago across two generations doing wars i feel like i was fucking there like people should know what was his name logan weston logan weston yeah people should know that name like that's i i completely agree man you know it would be a great thing to look up to in society and everybody wonders why like oh none of these kids take pride in being an american half these kids think america's bad or evil or whatever and it's like yeah because you've never heard any stories of anything like yeah you know what i mean like america has so many heroes that have done so much incredible shit and nobody teaches you that yep yeah some of the some of the i saw you guys did this too i really admired that but you guys had in a world war ii veteran on on unsubscribed really really cool he just passed away right we had a couple in a couple summers ago one of them left like one of his purple heart like i guess mementos here is really cool but you know you're sitting there and you're like these guys are 100 years old and they were just thrown into a situation when they're 18 19 20 and they had to figure it the fuck out and i'm just i don't know it's a strange feeling that you understand but it's like the gratitude you feel that people were able to do that and pull that off no questions asked is pretty fucking immense yeah and i mean i don't know the cool part for me is like i mean i get tons of emails tons of comments but like some of the emails i get are crazy to me like i've had i've had wives reach out to me and say that she started watching these videos with her husband and she her husband served 15 years in the marine corps and she's like i understand my husband better wow after watching your videos wow or my favorite ones are hey my dad served in the military for a long time he's passed away now but he never talked about it he fought in vietnam or korea or world war ii and the unit that you talked about that this guy was in that was my dad's unit i had no idea he's i learned so much about my dad i had no idea what a badass my dad was thank you like that's cool it's it's cool being able to show somebody like oh you know to you don't you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know dad was just the guy mowing the lawn and new balances but your dad was a fucking badass at one point and they went their whole lives never knowing that and now they do that's really cool to me that's really special and i think you know you talk about how we stopped doing it as a society like propping these guys up and everything but like the u.s military to me never stopped having amazing people in it or amazing talent and being badasses and stuff like that karen because of money what do you mean i mean the u.s government switched over to fractional reserve banking and the government switched over to fractional reserve banking and the government switched over to just print more money to fund wars and they didn't need to anymore the reason the u.s government was promoting these people was to bring them back to sell war bonds because they needed money to go fight the fucking war and as soon as they said oh what we can just print more now fuck promoting these guys who cares i don't need but you know what i mean but that also before fractional reserve banking and they could just have an infinite money printer if you wanted to go fight a war it had to be a reasonably popular fucking endeavor because you had to sell war bonds to fund the motherfucker right like how many people would have bought war bonds for afghanistan guessing not a lot i'm getting iraq maybe iraq mostly because of 9 11 but like iraq they would have printed them i mean they were doing freedom fries and all that yeah like iraq they would have sold a bunch but afghanistan they wouldn't so it like i think that fucked up all the society it has ton of downsides because you know at least you had the population backing the war yeah and now we fought a lot of wars over the years that usually just through like over time and not really having a plan eventually like we have to leave and we lose or whatever but what i always say with that is it's not it's not because of the guys were there that aren't capable it's because a bunch of people in suits in dc who now have infinite infinite money to fucking vote and print print money for wars it's like you know they make bad decisions and they play war games that they don't have the balls to go out there they're not allowed to handle they're not allowed to win they're not allowed to win the marine corps could steamroll any country in the middle east in fucking a week if they wanted to like i i had a i had an apprentice that had actually served 20 years in the army and he came in got out of the military he was my apprentice for a while great guy and he would tell me stories about how like he was remembers being in a humvee on a 50 cal and they start taking enemy fire he's got a fucking 50 cal and somebody with an ak-47 shooting at him from up on the hill what do you think he did had to radio in to ask permission to fire back no he had to tell somebody in the humvee hand me my m4 because he wasn't allowed to return fire with the 50 cal because it wasn't fair fuck that shit blow the fucking hill up who fucking cares yeah i didn't do that but um shoot first apologize later um this is also why you don't know about norman swartzkopf because they probably fucking hated him because he won too quick yeah that's that's what he won too quick oh the guy did the first goal for it yeah like i my deployments were in this weird space um iraq as it was coming to an end as they were getting ready to shut down bases was much more urban everything else in afghanistan when i was there was literally the wild west um not long after i left they started having you know drones in the air these things called g boss towers they could see you and they give their interpretations of interactions and things like that like we had a bigger gap and like it i also want to say like i actually found the exact number of guys that we lost on my deployment to marjah and it was 10 guys that we lost um and i i don't i don't the only reason i don't say their names is because it's not my place i don't know who all will hear this i don't know where this will be where they'll be when this finds them and i don't want to say anything that could you know cause any type of thing but you know it's just i just took a moment to reflect on it and i don't want to say anything about it um you know we we lost a lot of guys and because of that so many other people had to step up too and that included my friend wendell archer and wilson other guys who um were put in these situations you can't imagine and i constantly think about it now because my children at the age to where you know i was and uh i've thought for a long time like you know did we win what it looked like who did i fight for i could have solved afghanistan in five minutes that's what i always say how would you have solved it i would have um so there's only one place in the world where you can actually uh grow and sell pharmaceutical grade pop uh poppy and that is new zealand the other place is afghanistan it's part of the golden triangle right so what i would have done is i would have paid uh pennies on the dollar more than the taliban was to basically cut off their funding resource and take that over and then harvest that and provide a legitimate economy for the people because they weren't doing it because they wanted to they were doing it because of death and the that would have forced the taliban out cut all their funding operations done and built the economy built the economy yeah like it's not that complicated now does that get you know the people at home thinking about this like well poppy can be turned into heroin a whole lot of shit can that get bastardized in a way that it turns into like ground zero for a black market like it did that's what it is now and that's what it was but like you could also wean them off of that like if the long-term goal is not have that obviously you can change that but if you're paying pennies on the dollar more than a war for 20 years like i remember like we were doing a buyback program and we would go up to them and this is this is like literally what i was ordered to do they're like go up and offer them basically 75 cents on the dollar and i was like i'm not doing that i'm not doing that i have a question what is winning then i know everybody says america's never hasn't won a war since world war ii or whatever blah blah blah like what is like i don't know what was the winning in world war ii what do you mean like what what did that what did it say what did that look like i mean there's two arguments one we showed up in their country with guns and they couldn't do shit two we forced their government to sign a treaty yeah okay well if the government doesn't fucking exist anymore because we overthrew it entirely or it just never had one what other options are there for winning other than we showed up walked around your countries with guns and did whatever the fuck we wanted the entire time we were there until we decided to leave right i think it's a matter of what happens when either we do leave or the shooting stops right so in afghanistan to look at the a modern day example it's like there's a badly executed pullout obviously not the fault of the guys there at all yeah and we left all the weapons behind the guys that were in charge 20 years ago became in charge again and it's and there are people that felt like wow it was just time is a flat circle whereas when you finish world war ii you took out the japanese emperor you took out the nazi command you made them start a new government you have a new problem with an old ally then now you have a cold war with afterwards but like effectively the moment of like the world's fastest growing gdp trying to start a forefront war and take over the world all at once with whatever his fucking ideas were that was stopped i would describe that as a win for sure but then the question is like so the hinging point is like can we teach this group of people to rebuild a society that can be productive again what do you do when you can't that's the question i'm asking that's hard we shouldn't have ever left afghanistan that's it yeah i was gonna i was gonna ask you what hard stop we should have never left um there's a precedent we didn't leave germany we're still there right we didn't leave a bunch of countries around it vietnam korea we're still there um japan we still have a marine base there um both of them have become world superpowers japan and germany alone in technology innovation society because we were there to stop a power vacuum right and we're still there and we're still there and we're still there and we're still there to being being created we should have kept a base in the north well one in kandahar and then one up in the north i think around bog room probably would have been a good spot off top of my head i don't really know that area that well but i mean tyler vargas andrews who was on sean ryan who's a very good friend of ours um amazing amazing tough as shit one of the best people out there um when you hear the way he was hemmed up and the way i was it like they had id they had intelligence they knew what was going to happen and they're like no no no no it's not that and like literally as he's i'm gonna steal this from him because i think about it all the time he said it was like if someone filled this room with sand that was what it was like the amount of people that were trying to get through to leave it's like it was unstoppable and you see that and you see the impact that it's had on that part of the world where things are you know it might look good for the influencers or the people who are in the room but it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not it's not a good place to go you know i don't care how much the taliban's cutting you a check for to go roll the blade and down the one road they have it's not a place you want to be um but we have created another power vacuum and a very dangerous part of the world again yeah it's an interesting argument with the bases and stuff and i could i could see a good argument there but when it did when they did decide to basically like get out and now your post-career veteran watching this who was there and fought battles and lost friends and lost friends after to suicide as well double over over double um since since i left the service 2011 the first suicide was in november of 2011 and again i don't want to not going to name names it's not my place um that and it just continues to happen since then um what's going through your mind when you watch them pull out in august 2021 i was in a much better place uh personally um you know because of a lot of things i'd done i had started you know when i got out in 2011 i realized no one was coming to help us and so i started working with non-profits i started trying to basically do what i do now but i wasn't making a living doing it i was just i was the only guy who knew how to do the gi bill i was the only guy i knew about benefits non-profits that'll send you to ride horses if you want or hyperbaric oxygen therapy or you can put magnets on your head whatever i was like doing all of it and i worked with a non-profit for about two years and i was six months and i started like basically auditing and using anything that i could to make my life better um and i wasn't like this will make me 100 better but what if i get like 15 to 20 percent you know what i mean like what if i can start chunking together patch working um a path towards healing and you know ultimately it's because my wife and my community and the people i was surrounded by that put me in a place to where i was um able to not have the impact uh really be detrimental to me and about a month later i went to mexico and and did psychedelics i believe it was that year maybe it was a year i can't remember is it 21 or 22 when i did and what did you do specifically the thing that uh that everyone talks about now i did ibogaine and dmt but back when you had to lie about it and not tell people we had to get medical exemptions on our passports all these different things through an organization called vets um which is a life-changing thing for me and it took obviously like it helped you tremendously yeah no it's it's one of the single greatest things i've ever done was it immediate or was it a gradual improvement afterwards immediate immediate what why do you think it was i mean so ibogaine is um it's outlawed in america it's because it's it has been shown to have 100 effectiveness in opioid cessation um it attacks all the addiction centers of the brain um can't have that can't have that um uh and it basically wipes you clean um and it is not a fun experience there's a documentary about it on netflix called in waves and war it's the same organization i went through um basically it shows you all the good bad and all the things you need to see and for like eight to ten hours you're swimming in deep water with weights on and you're blindfolded and i don't go too much into it just because it's very it takes a long time but like for me what i kept seeing was a photo of my wife and two daughters and it was like fuzzy and unclear and as it got closer to me like it would become a more clear and as i got closer these moments of trauma throughout my life would kind of appear like on your camera roll of your phone i would spend time with it and go back down in the medicine and come back up and purge um they say it's a physical manifestation of trauma that you're purging and i hadn't eaten in 12 hours and i don't know what came out of me but something came right and wake up the next day you're like trying to stand up and can't because like your brain's like literally brand new and then we took a day and then we did dmt 5meo dmt the next day what was that like they call it the god molecule for a reason um it takes you to the eternal whatever people want to call it that's that's where you go and um you know it helped me to put all the like ibogaine like gave me the pieces for the puzzle and dmt put them in place and um that's crazy that's that's probably the greatest thing i've ever done was it the kind of thing where when you're forced to i was just thinking this when you were describing the ibogaine part where you're forced to kind of see these traumas and live in them during that period is it like it's not just facing them but then also like having you get like some self-forgiveness out of it like it's it's in the past or yeah i mean i mean it was a combination of like my life growing up through having you know an alcoholic father who's abusive and all the different things that come with that and um and then like you know all the stuff that made me good as a marine made me bad as a person my ability to carry around trauma and compartmentalize it just put it away in the rucksack keep moving well eventually it gets heavy and i've been carrying stuff for too long and i've not put it where it belonged or spent time with it and understood it or losing my friends or what could i've done to be better could i've called this person texted this person how did how did i know you know anything stuff like that and i've been carrying stuff for too long and i've been carrying stuff for too long like that and so you know when i did that the ceremonies it was just it was unlike anything else i mean it's why i'm excited that the va's working with hhs to fast roll it i mean we just talked to the secretary of va about it they're literally laying out a plan um it's something something i think really needs to happen what he said about ibk was weird to hear what was that he had like uh he was kind of explaining it like he was he was also a chaplain forever so he was like very much like not bought into the idea but he was talking to like psychologists and the psychologists were telling him like i thought it was bullshit at first like i've done research they're like this is legit yeah and he had given you know this anecdotal example about how some people needed to actually have ib gain done multiple times because they had so many different issues that they had to work through that they didn't even know were like part of the problem so like one dude would go in and You know, hypothetically speaking, it wasn't just something that happened in his military service, but it's actually something that like happened in his childhood and that first session only got him through whatever the issues were in his childhood and then he had to do another session to get through the stuff after that and then it fixed him so that was interesting to hear it's it's it's interesting to hear him take like a very clinical approach to it in a way where he's like we can't just throw veterans to the wolves of this the reality of it is not everyone needs that much um that's kind of like the highest level it's it's bleach right um and there's other there's other psychedelics that have been shown to be just as effective mdma ketamine um psilocybin things like that that's what you're supposed to do i skipped those steps i don't recommend what i shout out to jared taylor from black rifle call me coffee he called me like the end of september he was like what are you doing i was like i'm mowing my yard i was literally mowing my yard and he's like he's i'll never forget this he goes do you have a past port like a grown man and i was like yeah i have a passport and he goes all right you're gonna go to mexico in a month and i was like how do i take off work and he goes you'll be fine because i was working with him at the time he's like you'll be okay he's like i own the company i was like yeah that was a dumb question i wish i hadn't said that out loud um but he sent me and a bunch of guys down and i was there with some dudes who'd done uh psychedelics before derek carver is a good friend of ours world champion power lifter has one leg he looks like from spy kids minus a digit so he's just a big fist and um we took the medicine it's weighed you you're hooked up to an ekg you have a they drug test you do all these things you're under care of a doctor and everything i'll never forget i look at him and he takes off his leg and he goes won't be needing this and i was like oh this is about to be gnarly and it just changed everything it just changed everything um and so instead of you know i'm i don't want to seem like i'm stumping or like grifting or shilling whatever for administration um i don't i don't like red or blue i do like doug collins a lot because i've seen them take input from the veteran community and be like you're right we were wrong we're like yeah we should do that i've never seen a va administration do anything like that prior like he's like yeah you're right we should look into this i'm partnering with health and human services to figure out how to do this that's great as opposed to like well we'll see because most people most people take that job as like whatever it's like a career thank you you served here you go run this thing you didn't quite make it to president yeah you didn't quite make it you're in the line of succession you know a bunch of people got to go but you're still up there but um you know he's a pastor he just retired uh from the uh from the military and like he just wants to help like he he went from having a really good life in north georgia to living in a condo in dc not exactly a good trade also didn't realize he was in the line of succession kind of threw me off trying to film a podcast for the first time with multiple secret service guys staring at me not laughing at any of my jokes even though they landed with everyone else in the room yeah i get to the point i was trying to make these guys laugh stone face the entire time couldn't be done service agents yeah nice and serious be done apparently we were all inside but the street was blocked off and everything like one of our friends was like i'm just going to see my friends wait what the street was blocked off yeah uh trout when he came in he was like there was just a dozen cars apparently a half dozen cars outside so like well they're not fucking around i guess since no no 2024 i mean they're yeah no they're they're serious and like protect this man at all costs but like it's just um i i don't know man it's you know ptsd people have a lot of meanings for it they call it ptsd ptsd whatever you want to call it i don't care um i think uh when you come to the realization that the memory of who you were before the trauma is better than the reality that you are it's almost impossible not to hate yourself because you can remember everything before the thing that happened whatever it is a car wreck you're you know something traumatic happens you lose someone close to you you go to whatever it is doesn't matter and that's that's where that thing comes up and you know for me i was just carrying it for such a long time and i was kind of patchworking myself together and trying to help people and that all led me to the veteran with the sign stuff because i was like what if i open source this shit what if what if i call myself warfighter and like i refer to myself in the third person what if i wear the same thing every day what if i wear the same thing every day what if how would he look oh he would wear this shirt he would write stuff on cardboard because that's what veterans do he's a homeless veteran okay what what if i partner with companies that will help this what if i get the word out what if i talk about how june is men's mental health what if i talk about you know this thing or this event whatever's happening and if i just keep doing this maybe maybe people will find out about stuff because everyone's always asking me zach how do you do this veteran thing how do i get my benefits how do i get counseling whatever why do i just lean into that right and that's literally what i did like there's that was what like seven eight years ago you started 2020 march the first the first one i ever made um it was like the last before the the two weeks you know there's the two we stopped the curve yeah we stopped the curve it was two weeks in iowa for real yeah so i hear yeah tennessee we had it was a long two weeks no it wasn't um so uh it was like the week before the young lady was cutting my hair at the time we were trying to like cut my hair and i was like oh my god i'm gonna cut my hair i'm gonna cut my hair i'm gonna like spend money in the local economy i went to her and i was talking to her about this idea and she was like that's a good idea and i was like will you take my photo and she's like yeah sure and so i went out went outside the barber shop she took my photo and it said drink water take motrin change your socks and the caption said covid remedy unironically it would have worked it would have worked you were early yeah i was a little early um but that's the most common thing people say to you in the military if you're hurt drink water take motrin change your socks right and so i did that and then i just kept making versions of that i was talking about tiger kings you know stuff that was like culturally relevant making like inside jokes about the military and you know for like the first 90 days some people got it some didn't my wife was like stop trying to make you know your friends laugh like 10 people laugh you're embarrassing me you're embarrassing me there's always the embarrassing curve right there's the they'll say it now like i always believed in him but there's there's a few text messages you go back i don't mind being embarrassed i don't mind being embarrassed in a new car but um i remember there was this guy who got relieved his name's captain crozier he was actually here on the in new york he had a vessel that responded uh when they had the the what are they called the the medical ships i can't remember what they're called but there was a bunch of them i know what you're talking about yeah they were stationed right outside here and he was trying to get help from the navy and they were actively suppressing his request for assistance he's like i don't know what you're talking about he's like i've got a ship full of six sailors we're trying to help with all these you know medical ships i need help and the navy's like no you don't he's like no no i i really need help blah blah blah they ignored every single time he eventually released it i believe to cbs he then got relieved of his command and as he's leaving the ship which is the equivalent of losing a base which is a big fucking deal um there's going captain crozier and the whole deck is shaking like as he's walking off and i have this one i saw this one video it was on like barstool sports and all this stuff they're like captain crozier and like i'm getting chills even thinking about it it's a great fucking video and i saw that and i was like i don't really do anything political that's not really political that's just a good leader and i looked at christy and i was like hey i have an idea and i like wrote it down real quick gotta take my photo and at that time i had turned off all notifications on everything and i was like i'll just you know have a ton of stuff to do i'll give this a day and um i waited 24 hours i got back on my phone and i refreshed it and i didn't know this until that moment but instagram will only cap out your notifications at 100 i refreshed it and it was 100 100 100 and i was like whoa that's crazy i hit it again add some zero yeah 100 100 100 and i did it again and every time i did it it kept doing that and then i went to my followers and i was like oh no we might have a problem here comments are through the roof things are going up and then i was just like okay what do i do with this and uh just keep moving forward just ran with it just ran with it and then you know eventually you like you know you like meet somebody dm them and you're like hey you do this thing i do this thing because you don't that's that's honestly the hardest part is finding people that do the thing you do is that how you guys met yeah we literally yeah that's cool it's it's it's literally like how much do you charge someone for an ad or like what's a company you should work with or is this even a company like there's like there's no one who's like oh i know this blah blah blah and so i'd met um donut operator and brandon and then they told me about the the podcast they had and it was coming up and they're like oh there's the fat electrician and his videos are being sent to me on the regular like all the time the marine videos they're like you should talk to this guy i was like who is this who's this guy yeah it's just and then it's youtuber now this this youtuber No, it's just a thing where, like, you become aware of certain people in your space and stuff because – you know, you are the company you keep, you know, and, um, we just all started hanging out and then like slowly, but surely, like I just started to realize like, you know, all my friends are kind of like, uh, you know, the verses are different, but the course is the same. You know what I mean? Yes. And like, we just started hanging out like one by one by one. And I had a podcast where I was interviewing people on my page called after action. I mean, they could hung out several times. We'd done a bunch of, you know, unsub adventures, different things. And he came in town and we just started talking for like four some odd hours. I don't know. We ordered tacos like halfway through it. Yeah. Yeah. Tacos gets the people going. Yeah. It was me, him and Blas, who's also part of a underwhelming. And then he's like, that's probably the best one we've ever done. It was just, it was just good. Like we just really hung out and then like, we both thought about it and then it's like, do you want to keep doing this? And he's like, yeah. And he's like, well, let's start a podcast. And he's like, what do you want to name it? And I was at his house and I was just like, underwhelming. I was like, well, you're taking on another pro. I mean, that's amazing. Oh, he's, he's fine. He's takes on 20 to 40 projects. Good for you, man. And then we just, you know, we just kept going. It's, it's fun. You know, it's like old dad, new dad or newer dad. Um, it's just kind of like us navigating life and trying to figure things out. And it's just, it's just fun. Well, I think it's two things. I think a, obviously it's, you know, you scratch in the edge of like things that you're familiar with the worlds, you know, and there's a lot of other people from those worlds who are looking for, you know, something they can relate to, but then be like, you guys are like, so representative of like the every man out there. You think, and say the things that people think and say, and they're like, ah, that guy speaks for me. That's really like, that's the vibe I always got from like unsubscribe, watching that from afar. Like it's you, like you said, it's guys hanging out and everything, but there's like an element, just like, this is just like me and my boys hanging out too. It's really fucking cool. For, for military people always say unsubscribes, like the smoke pit, the smoke pit, right? Like it's where everyone gets around, rips a butt and is like, the fuck was that about? You know? But, you know, cause it's just, it's just boys hanging out and, you know, they all have like Elaine, Nick's history, Brandon's guns, Cody's cops, Eli's streaming and everything. And it's, so it's just like, I don't know. And then it's kind of like wish version. Avengers. When you look at it, cause like they like made this universe and somehow like I wound up a part of it. Like, you know, like the Hawkeye, the Hawkeye, you're famous for the donkey story. I am famous for a donkey. Yeah. What's the donkey story. I can tell it. It's not quick though. Well, let's go then. We got time. All right. So first off, the first time I told this story, I've been talking shit to Nick for like a year. We're at SHOT Show one year and Nick's like, when you're on, come on. This is my Nick voice. When you're on, come on. That's my Nick voice. And I'm like, I've got the single best story. I'm only going to tell it to you and Joe Rogan. And you're like, okay. And he's kind of, he's so, and he's like, don't tell me now. And like, this is also like at two o'clock in the morning in the Venetian, like we're hammered. It was SHOT Show. So we're like, I got a, sorry. I'm, I don't want to drool, but like we're, we're exhausted. There's people everywhere. It's sweaty. It's a whole thing. All right. So when my first appointment, Tom called Garms are right. And, uh, we'd inserted and we were trying to establish like an area of operations and we're moving through like buildings and the buildings over there are like courtyard style. So like your kitchen is an individual building and your bedroom is individual building and so forth and so on. So like, we finally found like one good spot and we're set up and I'm doing post and like for anyone who doesn't know post is you're just looking at a whole rethinking your life and being like, holy shit. I really wanted to be funny in high school. Like what am I doing here? Like you're just sitting and we're all, all the Marines are in this one building. Cause the rest of them are like either blown up or we had blown them up or they had blown them up. And so we only had like one good structure. So there's like 30 guys in there, like laying on top of each other, trying to keep warm. And I'm looking at a hole. My friend, uh, Zachary groups looking at another hole. We're both on two forties down this main thoroughfare, like right in front of us, crossover fields of fire, intersecting fields of fire. We're ready machine guns. And like, we're saying like dumb shit. You're just trying to stay awake. You ever, you hit that spot. Oh yeah. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. Like, yeah, dude, when I get, and it sounds like old timing, like when I get back to the world, you know, things will be different. I'll see my gal. Like, you're just like, it's not like that dude. When I get back, I'm gonna get so drunk. I can't wait. I'm going to eat like fried chicken or whatever. You're just saying like, I'm going to start a business. I'm gonna do this. He's saying stuff. And you know, we had told the people not to move around at night. We're trying to stop movement, the Taliban, all these different things. And, um, we're trying to stop them from basically creating bombs and like, don't do it. We even put pamphlets out. Like I said, nobody knows how to read. So we just covered the area with paper. We just played it on the radio. We did everything we could. And so we're sitting there. It's late. It's really late. It's not that far. Um, we're very close to the road. It's like from here to a little bit further than that wall. And, uh, we see these two military age males and a donkey starting to walk down the road. And I call up to the post. I'm like, Hey, COG, COG, post one, Roger. Uh, we got two military males. I'm moving from east to west and moved down the road. What do you want us to do? I'm on my way over. And he like comes over from the other building. He's like looking out of the hole and he looks at the hole and he goes, listen, they do anything. They do anything at all. You fucking smoke them. I was like, Roger that. And I hit the two 40. I'm like, I'm about to go to college for free. Right. And I'm there. I'm there. We don't even need NVGs. It's there's, there's no noise or light pollution there. If there's, we also don't have it's a budgetary issue. Equipment makes you weak. Chesty puller said that equipment makes you weak move forward. Right. Um, so I'm on the two 40. He's not two 40 and the COG corporal, the guards like, uh, what's, what's going on. I'm like, nothing, nothing. And they get like right center. So like me and group, like we're locked on like ready. Cause what comments when they plant a bomb, this is very well known. It doesn't release anything. The way it works is like that. It's not a one person job. You basically get paid for what you're doing. There's one guy who gets paid to dig the hole. Another guy comes by, he puts the item in the hole, right? The third guy gets paid to cover it up basically. So they don't want to lose like one go. They have like, Oh, well we still have the holes out there. We still have the bombs out there and cover them up. So like we thought they would come by, just scoop some stuff or just drop some stuff off, whatever waiting. And they just stop. And then like looking at him and he's like, what's going on? I was like, I don't know. They're just kind of standing here and they're looking around. And then one guy goes to the front and then one guy goes to the back. And the one guy goes to the front, takes the donkey and he puts it like this, like he puts it headlocked and like a guillotine and he locks it up. And, and then the other guy takes his shirt and puts it in his mouth and he starts fucking this donkey. I swear to God, I swear to God, this is verifiable by every person I was with. I swear to you, I swear to you, this happens. And I, and I go, Oh my God. And group goes, Holy shit. And then people go, Oh my God. And I go, Oh my God. And then people start waking up. They're like, what's going on? I'm like, COG, COG. He's like, what? And I go, you got to get over here right now. I don't say it over the radio because this stuff's documented. And he like looks at her whole, he's like, Oh my God, he's fucking that donkey. By this point, every Marine in the room starts waking up and be like, what the fuck? What the fuck's going on? And so they start looking out of the glory hole, right? The first glory hole. And he's like, Oh, Oh my God. So all of them are like, they're moving around. I remember guys are moving around eventually called the lieutenant like, sir, sir, wake up, wake up, wake up. He's like, what's going on? I was like, they're fucking a donkey, sir. And he's like, no, they're not. And he's like, Oh my God, they're fucking a dog. This is a well-educated man. Right. And, uh, and I was like, sir, let's kill him. And he's like, can't kill him. There'll be blood and cum everywhere. This guy fucks his donkey for like a long time, arguably way too long to be fucking a donkey. Right. Cause you feel like if you're going to fuck a donkey, you're going to fuck a donkey. You're in and out. No, this dude, he was like slapping on the ass and his friends holding it. And then after finally it just stops, it just stops. And the COJ is like, what's going on? I was like, I stopped. He's like, all right, let me know if anything else happens. And then I was like, Roger that. And I look up, then they fucking swapped. Oh my God. So, and that was the moment that I knew we're not gonna be able to teach these guys democracy. So, so yeah. Um, so I told this story on unsub. It's one of their most popular episodes today. And so I tell this story on stage in Nashville and the crowd just explodes. And the, the, it was, it was the first time unsub also ever did two shows back to back. So we do that. And then Nick looks at me, he's half in the bag. He goes, you gotta tell it again. We're going to act out the donkey story next time. It was his idea. And I was like, what? Who plays the donkey? Our friend, rich, he hates it. He hates it. But rich was also half in the bag. And he's like, who's fucking the donkey? Both of us. And he's like, I'll be the donkey. And so now it's an integral part of the show where it's like a leading up point. Cause where Nick tells the story and then Nick leads into it and he's like, you guys want to hear a donkey story? So I traveled the country telling the story about two guys, fucking a donkey. And your sweet wife loves nothing more. than hearing 2000 people scream and lose their fucking minds. yeah when her husband has to go up there and tell a story about two dudes fucking a donkey yeah it's all right it puts up with a lot it'll be okay pays the bills it pay it does pay it does pay the bills it's just that's incredible no and she's it was funny because like for a while she was like searching my friends being like maybe one of them will tell me zach's lying and like they've all come to the house been like no it happened it was super fucking gross she keeps hoping it's the only time my wife has been like i hope my husband's stealing valor maybe this is all made up and maybe it's all a dream it's not made up it's not a dream sir get over here where are they i can't say sir you know well but yeah it's yeah i mean there's other stories they're not like that that's next level yeah i never heard anything like that before no it's yeah so that's when people are like oh you know what are the people like over there and i'm like i got a story fucking donkeys i got a story for you we heard about some other fucking over there it's not great either that's been well documented on this podcast yeah it's very well documented the guy who made a documentary about my um deployment uh to mars his name's ben anderson he used to work at vice news i don't know if he still does um but he also made a documentary called this is what winnings look like the trailer's probably the worst thing i've ever seen i don't even want to say it but basically it talks about the head afghan police chief at the time says i'm gonna be vulgar but it just is what he says he says this is the head of all afghan police this is the very intro to the documentary like um their uh rationalization and normalization of the behavior they do is beyond anything that i could even really understand um but yeah i don't know how you get that out of society because of how deep-rooted it is and like i don't i said they also don't like homosexuality they hate gay people that is a they've tortured killed goes back to i had to go through this you have to now too yeah yes but i think you i mean there has to be like all abuse a strong power dynamic and getting off on that power dynamic there beyond just like i went through this so you will too and you know it's not one or two guys who were in afghanistan coming in here and telling me this it's everybody dude they would try the a and a would try and like be like hey we got to go talk to people be like you're not fucking talking to anybody here stay over here stay right here you know you're like oh no no we need to talk to no you don't you don't i mean there's there's tons of stories um you know of it happening uh i mean army e6 that got like oh yeah there was a it was a like famous court case this is years ago but there was an army e6 that beat the shit out of his i and a yeah like equivalent commander and he got fired and i believe he got i believe he got separated from the military because the official stance of the us government was we need to respect their culture yeah he came in one uh he came in on them in a gang rape situation and he he actually stopped it and uh they punished him for it i've had people in here who went and stopped those situations and they didn't get punished but that's crazy that's fucking crazy yeah no we were they were never allowed to be out of my sight they were always around us um you know our afghan army counterparts at least counterparts at least the ones we worked with i didn't have any situations like that i wouldn't allow anything like that were you warned about that before you went there um no i mean the first appointment we didn't work with them but the second appointment they were like literally left seat right seat they were with us everywhere so how did you find out about that culture um they talked about it without going too specific into it we were working with some um intelligence uh assets internal to the marine corps that just gather intelligence and he would honestly teach us this gentleman would teach us some of the things about their culture to like he's like he would literally be like no shit this is what happens here and he would explain things to us because like you hear things and like you read things and the only real cultural training we had prior to that was there was this like professor from like unc wilmington or something she showed up at the marine corps showed the marine corps base theater at campus june and she was like this is how you tell this from that and she would like talk to our whole battalion and she like played aladdin and said like how none of it applied to like the middle east and i was like yeah we know like she was like she's like this isn't real and i'm like no shit genies aren't real holy fuck that's robin williams isn't over there i was just like damn they really make anybody a professor these days they literally cut her speech short because it was just like insane um but there is some cultural training stuff that goes into it but like honestly like the majority of the things that we would like my thing was like i was always worried about the kids in particular the the young girls because like one of them there was one i took a photo with my first appointment just reminded me of my daughter and um i gave her some skittles once when we were walking by i just gave her some skittles and her little brother came up to her and like started hitting her with a stick and so i walked over there and i was like hey what's up bud and i cracked him in the head and i was like come here john there's our interpreter i was like you tell him that if he ever touches his sister again we'll come back and we'll talk to him and we'll talk to him and we'll talk to him and he'll regret it for the rest of his life and john's like don't worry and he's like bang bang bang bang bang boom and he's like cracking his knuckles and he's like i told him and the kids started crying and so i gave the girl a bottle of water and stuff because there's all sorts of things societally about them like if you interact with females past a certain age they're outcasts all those different things um they're used as like property that's how women are treated once uh girls become women it's just it's rough and so um you know and then you hear people talk about like things over here in america and i always feel like i'm just putting on my grizzled veteran hat like people have no idea the things to which the rest of the world is societally um talk about equality and stuff newsflash no one's working as fucking hard as we are at it like we are winning in every nothing's perfect i'm not saying that i've never been that fucking stupid but everyone's like speak of the devil um everyone's um like you know you have no idea blah blah blah i didn't get this i didn't get that it's so hard and i'm like oh man you ever seen a young child get beat because she had skittles by her family members who treat her like she was less than you ever seen all the different things that happen over there and you know that's that's what's tough is i think i that's what i think about when i think about you know people that are still there i think about the ones that uh they don't really have a chance at a life because we're not there anymore that's why we shouldn't have left we created a massive power vacuum just a safe haven for terrorism and narco drugs and so many people got killed too people who helped out i mean that's one thing to explain it is people like ask how bad afghanistan is i'm like this is how bad it is we're withdrawing from a country we're leaving it people are literally holding on to a fucking airplane that deep down inside they know they can't hold on to but they're still gonna fucking try as it takes off that's how bad it is yeah i remember that video like that's that if you ever if anyone ever needs anything be like is it that bad that's how they're willing to be maybe i can hold on to it maybe it'll land when we get out of here who the fuck knows but i'm gonna try i'm gonna try to hold on to this c-130 as long as i can because it's better than what's back there yeah yeah it still gets me yeah but i mean guys we just did like three and a half hours oh we have to do this again sometime yeah you guys are fucking awesome it's telling me he's doing an iowa run we'll take him out cpu view that would be cool yeah you're saying no i've never been out to iowa dude's crazy he can he can in a good way he can throw his wedding ring in the air and shoot a nine millimeter round through it while it's falling do we have a video of this he has it he has it in super slow-mo high speed yeah the first the first time i'm born with something for that the first time i met him i didn't know what to expect i thought it was gonna be like a dude perfect situation like you sit out here for six hours get an incredible shot done i'm staying he's like pull your pistol i pull my pistol out he's like shoot at a target i go okay ding i shoot at the target he's standing right here next to me he goes okay shoot at the same target in the same spot i'm like all right that's weird what are you doing i shoot at the same target the same spot he just wanted to see where my brass was ejecting on the second shot he steps back kicks my brass into the air pulls his gun out from concealed and shoots my brass on the first try and that's how i met him dog go to this go to his shorts yeah go to his shorts yeah go to his shorts shout out to the boy popular should we do popular hit popular on shorts yeah yeah the problem is there's so many uh do one with a pistol dude hit your brass do that one yeah that one's at the washer classic wait it just went off it i think yeah what happened go to oh it might do that yeah hit it and then it might yeah no yep no that's one bad white anywhere's sunglasses doing it yeah bro all right so they're gonna eject the washer out from behind him yeah his cameraman's gonna throw it out from behind him yeah bro all right so they're gonna eject the washer out from behind him yeah yeah bro all right so they're gonna eject the washer out from behind him yeah that's some spider also that's some spider also that's some spider also while filming shout out dalton for throwing while filming shout out dalton for throwing while filming shout out dalton for throwing it and filming all at the same time it and filming all at the same time it and filming all at the same time that's spider-man shit that's spider-man shit that's spider-man shit no no fucking way yeah bro is that ai no i've seen him do it i've seen him in person several times i didn't even fucking touch it yeah nick didn't he buy the slow motion camera just to counter all the comments just to do this shit yeah because people didn't believe it oh my god yeah all right yeah i would love to come see that me and him outdid mythbusters in an afternoon like i mean this is this is jesus of guns right here show and show another pistol war where he's just fucking tearing it up do that one uh far far left that one how do you slide oh yeah slide move so early okay what it's it's a lot better with sound with sound it's oh wait we gotta take it off because yeah you have to take the sound out yeah let's mark that because it's copyrighted but i i mean i can see it with this that's just like that looks like some dude some kid in his basement who's played call of duty non-stop for 11 years except this is real thank you guys for checking out this clip if you haven't already subscribed please subscribe and hit the like button on this video it is a huge huge help and if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode that link is in the description below or right here and finally you can follow me on instagram and x by using the links in my description below