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

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 two. Sorry. Um, he gets a, he gets two letters. They're back dated 14 months. One letters from mom and dad, once from his fiance. First letter, mom and dad are getting divorced. Second letter, fiance is leaving him. Uh, 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 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 a member of this 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 called a shot. 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, fall 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 are trying to fight a war? Air drop. That's all they do. They live in the jungle for seven months straight while they're getting air drop supplies conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the Japanese. 3000 guys against how many would you say whatever the fuck the empire of Japan had. And they were just in their 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 ask for volunteers for another more dangerous mission inside the dangerous mission. Nobody volunteers. So he gets violent told you're the guy. He is the platoon leader for the iron are platoon for the whole element iron ours. 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. So they came up with a long range. That's a lurp long range reconnaissance control. That's Vietnam. Okay. But yeah, this is basically where this all stems from starts. We get the middle of that one too. What coming up with lurp in Vietnam. Oh yeah, is that where this is going. He was the guy that invented that there too. He didn't he didn't coin it, but I'm he would 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 they're. 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 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. 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 Thermopoly 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. So 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 I? I got an email saying you should look into this guy. And then I looked into it. And every any time 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 at a print forever. I finally tracked down a copy of his book and then like went back, pulled all the stuff I could find from my national archives has award citations and everything. Cross verified everything and it's like everything he says he didn't his book. He fucking dead. 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 40s. 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 Marl'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 he's like, I hate this. I hate paper push and 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 because Marl's Marauders walked. He's his platoon scouted over 1,250 miles at jungle. My kind of guy. So he's like, 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 40s. Oh my God. 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 McVease. I have heard of that remind me that. Yeah, some McVase. McVase 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 can 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. 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 to a war zone. Like what? 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 because that's what the story needed. And yeah, ends up finishes out it finishes out his career in Vietnam, brings his family and the monkey back home, keeps the monkey forever. And then goes on to 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 chapel. Oh my god. This is him Logan Weston. Metal of honor Silver Star US military man of God and yeah. 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 metal of honor for repelling that attack a 700. But the commander that kept arguing back and forth with him basically made sure he didn't get the 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 or 200 awards and commendations. When did this guy pass away? He lived to be like 86 I think maybe like 20 years ago. Yeah. That's insane. 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 you know, I mean the whole YouTuber thing like I didn't do it on purpose as an accident. 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 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 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 and I think the purpose is 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 earned the Medal of Honor You'd come home you'd go on a war bonds tour or people knew who you are you were a celebrity Yes, we celebrated brave man 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 Barcelona World War II like you know what I mean, but like there's no G-Wat 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. 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 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 gain a day loses an actor 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 tell 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 who should know that name like that's I completely agree man, you know, it's it would be a great thing to look up to in society 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, I mean like America has so many heroes that have done so much incredible shit and nobody teaches you that yep Yes, 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 two veteran On on unsubscribed really really cool. You just passed away, right? Well, we had a couple and a couple summers ago one of them left like one of his Purple heart like I guess Momento's here is really cool, but you know you're sitting there and you're like these guys are a hundred 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 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 career or World War II and The unit that you talked about 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 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 stop doing it as a society like propping these guys up and everything But like the US military to me never stopped having amazing people in it or amazing town and being bad asses and stuff like that Karen because of money What do you mean? I mean the US government switched over to fractional reserve banking And they could just print more money to fund wars and they didn't need to anymore The reason the US 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 probably 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 Guess and not a lot I'm get Iraq maybe Iraq most 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 assault a bunch But I have Afghanistan they wouldn't so it like I think that Fucked up all the society 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 the guys were there that aren't capable It's because a bunch of people in suits and 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 get. They're not allowed to handle They're not allowed to win. They're not allowed to win. The marine quirk is steamroll any country in the Middle East and fucking a week if they wanted to Like I had a I had a 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 cowl and they start taking enemy fire He's got a fucking 50 cowl and somebody with an AK-47s 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 cowl 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 what you don't know about Norman Swartzkov because they probably fucking hated him because he wanted to quick Yeah, that's that's a 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 that 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 margin It was 10 guys that we lost Um, and I I don't I don't 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 You know cause any type of thing, but you know, it's just I just took a moment to reflect on it um You know We we lost a lot of guys and because of that so many other people had to step up to and that included my friend Wendell Archer and Wilson other guys who um we're putting 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. I like you solved I would have um, so there's only one place in the world where you can actually uh Grow and sell pharmaceutical great 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 Then 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 the threat of death and then that would of course 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 and a whole lot of shit Connected bastard eyes 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 the war for 20 years Like I remember like we were doing a buyback program and we would like go up to them And this is it 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 that says America has never hasn't won a war since World War two or whatever blah blah blah like What is like I don't what was the winning in World War two? What do you mean like what what did that 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 to we force 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 country's 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 modern day example, it's like there's a badly executed pull out obviously not the fault of the guys there at all. Yep. 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's 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 that 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 hard. We shouldn't have ever left Afghanistan. That's it. Yeah, I was going to, I was going to ask you hard stop. We should have never left. There's a precedent. We didn't leave Germany. We're still there. Right. We didn't leave a bunch of countries around it via non-Korea. We're still there. Japan. We still have a marine base there. Both of them have become world superpowers, Japan and Germany alone in technology, innovation, society, because we were there to stop a power vacuum to being being created. We should have kept a base in the North. Well, one in Kandahar and then one in the North, I think around Bogrum probably would have been a good spot on 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. Amazing. Amazing. Tough as shit. One of the best people out there. When you hear the way he was hemmed up, and the way I wasn't 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, 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 are paying to fly out there, but it's not a good place to go. You know, I don't care how much the Taliban is cutting a check forward to go roll the blatant down the one road they have. It's not a place you want to be. 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, since, since I left the service 2011, the first suicide was in November of 2011. And again, I don't want to, I'm not going to name names. It's not my place. That, and it just continues to happen since then. What's going through your mind when you watch and pull out in August 2021? I was in a much better place, personally. 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 nonprofits. 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 who knew about benefits, nonprofits that will 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 nonprofit for about six months. And I started like basically auditing and using anything that I could to make my life better. And I wasn't like this will make me 100% better, but what if I get like 15 to 20%. You know what I mean? Like what if I can start chunking together, patch working, a path towards healing. And you know, ultimately it's because of my wife and my community and the people I was surrounded by that put me in a place to where I was able to not have the impact 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. It's 21 or 22 when I did. And what did you do specifically? The thing that I that everyone talks about now, I did, I've gained a DMT, but back when you had to lie about it and not tell people we had to get medical exemptions on our passport. So all these different things through an organization called Vets, which is a life changing thing for me. And it 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? I mean, immediate immediate. What why do you think it was I mean, so I began is it's outlawed in America. It's because it's it has been shown to have 100% effectiveness in opioid cessation. It attacks all the addiction centers of the brain. Can't have that. Can't have that. And it basically wipes you clean. And it is not a fun experience. There's a documentary about it on Netflix called in waves and wards. It's the same organization I went through. Basically, it shows you all the good bad and all the things you need to see. And for like eight to 10 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 more clear. And as it got closer, these moments of trauma throughout my life would kind of appear like on camera roll of your phone. I would spend time with it and go back down in the medicine and come back up and purge. 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 five M E O DMT the next day. What was that? I need to call it the God molecule for a reason. It takes you to the eternal. Whatever people want to call it, that's that's where you go. And you know, it helped me to put all the like, I began like, gave me the pieces for the puzzle and DMT put them in place. And that's crazy. That's that's probably the craziest thing we've ever done. Was it the kind of thing where when you're forced to, I was just taking this when you were describing the eye of a game 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 in the past. 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, 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. Eventually it gets heavy. And I'd been carrying stuff for too long. And I'd not put it where it belonged or spend time with it and understood it or losing my friends or what could I've done to be better? Could I have called this person texted this person? How did I know? You know, anything stuff 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 is 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. It's something, something I think really needs to happen. What he said about I began was weird to hear. He had like, 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 I 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, I began 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 was 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. that's kind of like the highest level, it's bleach, right? And there's other psychedelics that have been shown to be just as effective in DMA, ketamine, psilocybin, things like that. That's what you're supposed to do. I skip 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. And I 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 passport, like a grown man? And I was like, yeah, I have a passport. And he goes, all right, you're going to go to Mexico in a month. And I was like, how do I take off work? And he goes, you'll be fine. 'Cause I was working with him at the time. And he's like, you'll be okay. He's like, I own the company. And I was like, yeah, that was a dumb question. I wish I hadn't said that out loud. But he sent me in a bunch of guys down. And I was there with some dudes who done psychedelics with Ford, Derek Carver's a good friend of ours. World champion power lifter has one leg. He looks like the thumb thumb things from spy kids, minus a digit. So he's just a big fist. And we took the medicine. It's weighed, you 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 don't know if we got to look at him and he takes off his leg and he goes, won't be needing this. And I was like, oh shit, this is about to be gnarly. And it just changed everything. It just changed everything. And so instead of, you know, I don't want to seem like I'm stumping or like grifting or shilling whatever for administration, 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. Or like, yeah, we should do that. I've never seen a V8 administration do anything like that. That's 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. The end. That's great. As opposed to like, well, I will 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. He didn't quite make it to president. Yeah. He 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, you know, he's a pastor, he just retired from the, from the military and like, he just wants to help. 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 did it at the point. I was trying to make these guys laugh. Stoneface. The entire time. Couldn't be done. Secret service agents. Yeah. Nice and serious. Couldn't be done. No, it was, it was funny. The parent, 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. Trout. He when he came in, he's, 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, 24. I mean, they're, yeah, no, they're, they're serious and like protect this man at all costs. But like, it's just, I don't know, man, it's, you know, PTSD, people have a lot of meanings for it, they call it PTSD, whatever you want to call it, I don't care. I think 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. Hmm. As 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 and the third person? 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 mother? 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 don't 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, it was like the last, before the, the two weeks, right? The two weeks stopped the curve. Yeah. We stopped the curve. It was two weeks and Iowa for real. Yeah. Right here. Yeah. Tennessee. We had, it was long two weeks. No, it wasn't. So it was like the week before the young lady was cutting my hair at the time. We were trying to, 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, we take my photo and she's like, yeah, sure. And so I went out, went outside the barbershops, took my photo and I said, drink water, take motion, change your socks and the caption said, COVID remedy. On ironically, it would have worked. It would have worked. Wurly. Yeah. I was little early. But that's the most common thing people say to you in the military if you heard drink water, take motion, 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 relatively low, 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 friend's laugh like 10 people laugh. 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 new car. But I remember there was this guy who got relieved. His name's Captain Crozier. He was actually here on the New York. He had a vessel that responded when they had the, the, what do they call 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. There were station 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'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, they don't, he's like, no, no, I really need help. But they ignored every single time he eventually released it. I believe the 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. 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 like bar still sports and all this stuff. They're like, Captain Crozier. And I'm like, I'm going to chill something 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 Christine. I was like, hey, I have an idea. And I wrote it down real quick, got to 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 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. It was 100 to 100. And I was like, whoa, that's crazy. I hit it again. 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 then just keep moving forward and 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. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. 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, don't operate or brand in 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 are like, you should talk to this guy. I was like, who is this? Who's this guy? Yeah. It was just. And then it's a YouTuber. No, it's, 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 saw sort of hanging out and then like slowly but surely, like, I just started to realize like, you know, all my friends are kind of like, you know, the verses are different, but the course is the same. 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 and they could hung out several times. We'd done a bunch of, you know, unsub-adventures, different things. He came in town and we just started talking for like, for some odd hours. I don't know. We ordered tacos. Like halfway through. - So it was good. - Yeah. - Taco's good for people going. - Yeah, it was me, him and Blas, who's also part of Underwhelming. And then he's like, that's probably the best one we've ever done. 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. (laughing) - So you're taking on another pro. I mean, that's amazing. - Oh, he's fine. He takes on 20 to 40 pro. - I get a lot of projects. - Yeah, good for you, man. - And then we just, you know, we just kept going. It's fun. You know, it's like old dad, new dad, or newer dad. 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. The thing 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 B, 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, yeah, that guy speaks for me. That's really, like that's the vibe I've always got from like unsubscribe, watching that from afar. Like it's, like you said, it's guys hanging out and everything. But there's like an element of just like, this is just like me and my boys hanging out too. - Yeah. - It's really fucking cool. - For military people, I always say unsubscribe is like the smoke pit. - The smoke pit. - Right? Like it's where everyone gets around rips a butt and it's like, the fuck was that about, you know? (laughing) But, you know, 'cause it's just, it's just boys hanging out. And, you know, they all have like Elaine Nick's history brand and scones, Cody's cops. - Right. - 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 of 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. - You're the Hawkeye. - You're famous for the Donkey story. - I am famous for a Donkey story. - Yeah, what's the Donkey story? - I can tell it. - No. - Let's tell it real quick. - It's not quick though. - Well, let's go then. We got time. - All right. 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 Shacho one year and Nick's like, when you're not come on, this is my Nick voice. When you're not come on, I subscribe. And I'm like, I've got the single best story. I'm only gonna tell it to you and Joe Rogan. 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, oh, hammer your bag of shit. - In a shot show. So we're like, I gotta, sorry, I don't wanna drool. But like we're exhausted. There's people everywhere. It's sweaty. It's a whole thing. All right. So when we were first deployment, Tom Colt Garms were right. And 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. We're set up and I'm doing post. And like, friend, what 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 there. 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 out a hole. My friend Zachary Group is looking out 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 were ready. Machine guns. And like we're saying like dumb shit. You're just trying to stay awake. You never, you hit that spot. Oh yeah. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. You're like, yeah, dude. 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 gonna eat like fried chicken or whatever. You're just saying like, I'm gonna 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 we're trying to stop them from basically creating bombs. And we're like, don't do it, 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 saying there it's late. It's really late. It's not that far. We're very close to the road. It's like from here to a little bit further than that wall. And 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 is post one, Roger. We got two military males out moving from east to west and we're down the road. What do you want to do? I'm on my way over. And he comes over from the other building. He's like looking out of the hole and he looks at the hole. He's like, listen, they do anything. They do anything at all. You fucking smoke him. 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 in there. We don't even need NVGs. It's there's there's no noise or light pollution there. If there is, we also don't have NVGs. Right. It's a budgetary issue. Equipment makes you weak. Chester puller said that. Move forward. Right. So I'm on the 240. He's on the 240. And the COG corporate, the guard's like, 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. We're like ready. Because what comments, when they plan a bomb, this is very well known as isn't releasing anything, the way it works is like that it's not a one person job. You basically get paid up 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, we still have the holes out there. We still have the bombs out there to cover them up. So like we thought they would come by and 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 a headlock and like a guillotine and he locks it up. 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. Like every person I was with, I swear to you, I swear to you, this happens. And I go, oh my God. And group goes, holy shit. And then people start waking up. They're like, what's going on? I'm like, see you, see you, see you. He's like, what? And I go, gotta get over here right now. I don't say it over the radio because this stuff's documented. And he like looks at the hole and he's like, oh my God, he's fucking that donkey. By this point, every marine in the room starts waking up. 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 my God. So all of them are like, they're moving around, I mean, guys are moving around machine gun barrels but holy shit, holy shit. Eventually called to the internet, like, sir, sir, wake up, wake up, wake up, he's like, what's going on? I was like, they're fucking a donkey. They're fucking a donkey, sir. And it's like, no, they're not. And he's like, oh my God, they're fucking a donkey. This is a well-educated man, too. Fucking a donkey, right? And I was like, sir, listen to him. And he's like, can't kill him. They'll be blood and come everywhere. (laughing) 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 gonna fuck a donkey, you're ending out. No, this dude, he was like slapping on the ass and his friends holding it. And then after, finally, it stops, it just stops. And see if he's like, what's going on? I was like, he 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 swaps. (laughing) Oh my God. So, and that was the moment that I knew we're not gonna be able to teach these guys democracy. (laughing) So yeah. So I told this story on Onsum. It's one of their most popular episodes today. And so I tell this story onstage in Nashville and the crowd just explodes. And the, it was the first time Onsum 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 gonna act out the donkey story next time. It was his idea. And I was like, what? Who plays the donkey? Our friend Rich. (laughing) He hates it. He hates it. But Rich was also half in the bag. And he's like, he'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 we're Nick tells the story and then Nick leads into it. And he's like, you guys want to hear a donkey story? So I travel the country telling the story about two guys, fucking the donkey and I. You're a sweet wife. Love's nothing more than hearing 2,000 people scream and lose their fucking minds. When her husband has to go up there and tell a story about two dudes, fucking the donkey. Yeah. It's all right, puts up with a lot. It'll be okay. Pays the bills. It does pay, it does pay the bills. It's just incredible. No, and she's, it was funny 'cause for a while she was searching my friends and being like, maybe one of them will tell me he's an ex-align and they've all come to the house and like, no, it happened. It was super fucking gross. We're traumatized. She gives hope and 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. - They're gonna get over here. - I can't say. - It's her, you know? - Well. - But yeah, it's-- - Yeah, I mean, there's other stories there. They're not like that. - That's nice, well, well, yeah. - I've never heard anything like that before. - No, it's, yeah. So that's when people were like, "Oh, you know, where the people like go over there?" And I'm like, "I got a story." - I've got a fucking donkey's. - 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 deployment to Marsha's name's Ben Anderson. He used to work at Vice News. I don't know if he still does. But he also made a documentary called, "This is what winnings look like." The trailers, probably the worst thing I've ever seen. I don't even want to say it. But basically, he 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, they're rationalization and normalization of the behavior they do is beyond anything that I could even really understand. But yeah. I don't know how you get that out of society because of how deep rooted it is. Also, don't like homosexuality. They hate gay people. That is if they've tortured, killed. - It goes back to, "I had to go through this. You'd have to now too." - Yes. But I think there has to be like all abuse and strong power dynamic and getting off on that power dynamic there beyond just like I went through this so you will too. It's not one or two guys who were in Afghanistan coming in here and telling me this. It's everybody. - They would try. The A&A would try and be like, "Hey, we gotta go talk to people." You're not fucking talking to anybody. Stay over here. Stay right here. You're like, "No, we need talks." No, you don't. I mean, there's tons of stories of it happening. - There's an Army E6 that got-- - Oh, yeah. - It was a famous court case, those years ago. But there was an Army E6 that beat the shit out of his A&A equivalent commander. 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 on them in a gang rape situation and he actually stopped it and 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, they were never allowed to be out on my side. They were always around us. Our Afghan Army 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? - No. I mean, the first deployment, we didn't work with them, but the second deployment, they were literally left seat, right seat. They were with us everywhere. - So how did you find out about that culture? - They talked about it. - Without going too specific into it, we were working with some intelligence assets internal to the Marine Corps that just gathered intelligence and he would honestly teach us this gentleman would teach us some of the things about their culture. He would literally be like, "No, shit, this is what happens here." He would explain things to us because he'd hear things and he'd read things. The only real cultural training we had prior to that was this professor from UNC Wilmington or something. She showed up at the Marine Corps base theater at Camp was June and she was like, "This is how you tell this from that." She would talk to our whole Italian and she played a Latin and said how none of it applied to the Middle East and I was like, "Yeah, we know." She was like, "This isn't real." I'm like, "No shit, Jeannie's aren't real?" Holy fuck, that's Robin Williams' number there. I was just like, damn, never let me get anybody a professor these days. I literally cut her speech short because it was just insane. But there are some cultural training stuff that goes into it, but honestly, the majority of the things that we would do would, my thing was, I was always worried about the kids. In particular, the young girls, because one of them, I took a photo with in my first appointment just reminded me of my daughter and 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 started hitting her with a stick. I walked over there and I was like, "Hey, what's up, butt?" I cracked him in the head and I was like, "Come here, John." It was our interpreter. I was like, "He tell him that if he ever touches his sister again, we'll come back 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, boom. And he's like, cracking his knuckles and he's like, "I told him the kids started crying and so I gave the girl a bottle of water and stuff because there's also such a thing societally about them. Like if you interact with females past a certain age, they're outcast, all those different things. They're used as like property. That's how women are treated once girls become women. It's just, it's rough." And so, you know, and then you hear people talk about 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. Talk about equality and stuff. I mean, news flash. 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 would never be that fucking stupid. But everyone's like, speak of the devil. Everyone's 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, I don't know, man, have ever seen a young child get beat because she had skittles by her family members who treated her like she was less than. He 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 so 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 why they'd 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 going to fucking try as it takes off. That's how bad it is. Yeah. I don't 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 going to try. I'm going to 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. I was telling me to do an Iowa run. We'll take him out to CPU view. That would be cool. Yeah. You're some dude. Yeah. Yeah. I've never been out to Iowa. Dude, it's crazy. He can throw his wedding ring in the air and shoot a nine millimeter round through it while it's falling. He has it. He has it in super slummo high speed. Yeah. The first, the first time I born with something for that, the first time I met him, I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was going to be like a dude. Perfect situation. Like you said, I heard for six hours. Good and incredibly 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 in 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 shorts. Yeah. Go to shorts. Shout out to the boy. Do popular. Should we do popular? Hit popular on shorts. Yeah. The problem is there's so many. I do one with a pistol. Do 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 it. Oh, it might do that. Yeah, hit it. And then it might. Yeah. No. Yep. No. That's one bad. Why? Anywhere's fucking sunglasses doing it. Yeah. Bro. All right. So they're going to eject the washer out from behind him. Yeah. His camera man's going to throw it. Yo, that's some spider. Also why filming shout out Dalton for throwing it and filming all at the same time. 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. Then 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 conversation? 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 out did myth busters in an afternoon This is this is Jesus of guns right here Show and show another pistol warrior. He's just fucking tearing it up. Do that one far far left that one Okay It's it's a lot better with sound with sound. It's Oh, wait, we got to get off cuz yeah, you have to take this sound out Yeah, let's mark that cuz it's copy ready, but 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 clips 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