Soup Sandwich
Welcome to Soup Sandwich, a podcast that explores the complex and compelling world of veterans in the United States. Through interviews with veterans themselves, military experts, and advocates, we'll dive deep into the issues that matter most to this community, from mental health and employment, to the history of veterans in the US and the future of military service. This podcast is supported by the generous contribution of the members of VFW Post 3033.
Soup Sandwich
What Keeps The Veteran Community Together When Time Pulls It Apart?: Inside One VFW's Mission of Modernizing For The Next Generation
***Episode was recorded on 04/01/2025, and we forgot to upload it***
We trade war’s paradox for the daily reality of running a VFW post: elections, budgets, volunteers, curb appeal, and how to welcome younger veterans without scaring them off. Then we map out smarter fundraising, compliance, and training ideas that keep the lights on and the mission alive.
• leadership changes shaping post culture and direction
• auxiliary partnership to share the house and workload
• curb appeal and first impressions for younger members
• easing new members in through volunteering before roles
• electrical upgrades, Keno plan, and licensing steps
• fundraising mix: squares, darts, pull tabs, poker runs
• food safety, TIPS, bonding, and compliance basics
• CPR training as service, revenue, and community value
• revisiting hours, especially Sundays, to control costs
• why conferences and statewide ties matter for unity
Email Us with your comments and suggestions at vfwpost3033@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!
War is a paradox that has the power to bring nations together, to inspire heroism and sacrifice, and to forge bonds of camaraderie that will span a lifetime. But it also has the power to tear families apart, to shatter communities, and to leave scars that will never fully yield. And for those who have served, the transition back to civilian life can be one of the greatest challenges they will ever face. This is the typical life of military veterans, a world that is both familiar and foreign to most of us. It is a world that is shaped by unique experiences, values, and traditions of the military, and by the sacrifices and struggles of those who have served. But it's also a world that is constantly changing as new generations of veterans confront new challenges and new opportunities. Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich. Dig your foxhole, heat up your MRE, and spend some time with us. This podcast is designed solely for entertainment and occasionally informational purposes only, and is to be regarded strictly as satire comprising of veterans that delves into their thoughts and experiences in combat as well as their perspectives on various aspects of daily life that may be unsettling for certain listeners. This podcast is not suitable for individuals under the age of eighteen, and the views articulated in this podcast may not necessarily align with those of the national VFW or VFW Department of Michigan or VFW Host 3033.
SPEAKER_02:Life member of Post 3033, and I'm the state director for the writers' groups for the Department of Michigan.
SPEAKER_08:Bill Payne, life member, post thirty thirty-three, past district commander, past post commander. That's all I got.
SPEAKER_09:Red Wings fan. House committee chairman.
SPEAKER_08:House committee chairman.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, yeah. The wearer of many hats.
SPEAKER_12:Uh Roy Thomas, Post 3033 life member, uh, post quartermaster.
unknown:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_09:United States Marine. United States Marine. Jarheads. And I'm Brian Holbrook. Welcome back. I am the founder of this wonderful podcast. Life member of Post3033. And Navy Corpsman, Navy veteran. Go Navy. Alright, let's get this thing. Hey. Let's see. How do I? You know, I probably should have figured this out before I started.
SPEAKER_03:Flip the camera around the other way.
SPEAKER_09:It's a better view if we do it out of this camera. Squeeze that.
unknown:There we go.
SPEAKER_07:Always a goal. This is the hard part. And it works not that hard. That's what she said.
SPEAKER_09:That's what she said.
unknown:Oh.
SPEAKER_09:You can sit down. I'm just gonna make sure the view is right. Sorry guys, we had to do it the uh the old-fashioned way. Down. Down like so.
SPEAKER_06:Spin the whole stand, right? There you go now. That's all right. There we go.
SPEAKER_09:I don't know why that's doing that.
SPEAKER_11:Is it too high? Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:That's kind of cock eyed. That's good.
SPEAKER_09:Alright, there you go. Wanna move it back a little bit just to get a wider view? That's good.
SPEAKER_02:We need wide views around here.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Alright. We got brown. Hey. That's wide loads. Or heavy loads. Heavy loads. Heavy wide loads.
SPEAKER_09:Alright. Alright. I'm going to uh monitor on this as well. So what are we talking about, guys? I don't really have anything, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_02:I thought we were gonna get how to sell a house. That was the last episode. I thought no, we got how to get loans for houses. So we're gonna do how to what are we talking about, man?
SPEAKER_09:So we're gonna do how to.
SPEAKER_02:Why is it doing this? It'd be actually cool to put the camera up there so it's like yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Alright. Oh, and Jerry said it looks okay. Thanks, Jerry. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_10:Is that Pressman?
SPEAKER_09:So huh? Pressman? Oh shit. Jerry Fountain. Yeah, Pressman. Sorry. Awesome. Glad to see he's listening in. I don't I don't know his last name. I knew him by Pressman. Anyway. Yeah. So, um vote for Pedro.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, April's always uh VFW post-level uh elections. We elect the commander, senior vice, junior vice, secretary, quartermaster, which Roy already did the five-year quartermaster thing that we do, so he's there for the he's got four more years left. Yeah. So I'm struck. And then uh some house committees and suckered him into the job. He's doing just fine. I'm stuck. You're stuck forever. Okay, my the only way you're getting out of it is if you transfer. Think about it.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, that's not pretty well, but your fat ass head, I can't you can't see me in the camera.
SPEAKER_02:Just saying. Do the people really need to see you though?
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. I have a face for radio. I'll admit it, I'm just saying. So anyway, yeah, post-elections, I think. I don't know, I think that's the most exciting part every year. I mean, we do a lot of good shit around the year, but I think the start of a new year is always kind of exciting to see what you know what's gonna happen and outside of the norm, of course.
SPEAKER_02:I don't think there's any real surprises. We'll really the only race I really know of is would be the commander. That's true. Is it uh it's just Shem? Just Shem right now, but I mean if anybody else gets nominated, then I mean that's really the big the big one.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Kind of really, really matters. Yep. And you know, when you get a new get a new commander in there, you know, we went 10 passed, right? I already stepped up, that pulse went in a different direction because he just has different leadership, and if it changes this year and goes with Shem or goes with whoever, you know, there's gonna be another change in direction. Yep. See how that goes too. You know, so I mean that's it's that's always the exciting part for me.
SPEAKER_09:I mean, and we have obviously we have a shared mission and vision as a V as the VFW, right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, being able to put your own like personal spin on things and and all that is is what I was talking about. Is everybody's got their their way of doing stuff, so anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So that's exciting. Some of it's about unity, you know, not only in the post between post membership, but also the auxiliary membership, too, you know. I mean, you've got to have their president and our post commander have to be able to work together to accomplish goals together, right? Because it is a shared house, right? I mean, we'll use that as the best, right? Our side of the wall, their side of the wall. But we have to be able to do things together. Yeah. And um, you know, you can't have one side hating the other side.
SPEAKER_09:Right. You know, we gotta coexist. We gotta coexist because here's the other thing. Without us, there is no auxiliary. But without us supporting each other, there's no us. Right, there's no boss. So, you know. And then the other thing is, you know, our our auxiliary is fantastic. Um on many occasions, and I think almost an annual event. Doesn't the national president of the auxiliary come and usually have dinner with us?
SPEAKER_02:So I think she's been here two out of three years. The last she's been here twice in the last three years.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, so our auxiliary is on the map enough to attract the attention of their national president.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so yeah, so when their national comes in, she might spend four or five days, right? Six days in Michigan, and each, you know, maybe only two, maybe sometimes three nights, she'll pick, you know, some of the top posts, auxiliary posts, and and do a dinner. You know, so I mean that's they're not gonna do it every single night. They're only gonna be able to get one a night if they did, but so they're only around for, you know, five, six, seven days, so they're gonna they're gonna pick top three or four. So when you start talking, there's two hundred and you kind of just saw the number, two hundred and forty-four posts or something like that in the Department of Michigan. So, you know, if you're one of three, or maybe one of four selected, I mean that's you that's that's like the top half percent that their national president wants to come sit at. And our our post is nothing special, it's not like it's some grand Taj Mahal post. I mean it's wood panel sighting from the 70s and garbage everywhere. I mean, it's it's a classic VFW, you know what I mean? It's not that go down to DeWitt and look at those, or you go up the Cherry Land up in Travis City, look at that one. I mean, they're beautiful.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, that's you know, that's something that I'd like to do is is to to go around and visit some of these other posts because there are some awesome posts. Well, there are. Um you should get out and traveling this year. Yeah, it's just you know, one of those things, easier said than done. So not really. Roll it up on the Saturday. I mean that too, I guess, but it costs you a tank of gas. What would you say you guys have been around a lot riding bikes and whatnot? Like in your opinion.
SPEAKER_08:I have Billy don't ride, I don't ride much anymore.
SPEAKER_09:Gotcha. So, well, even in your past experience, what uh here in the state, what's what do you think is the best, most impressive, visually impressive post you've seen here in in Michigan?
SPEAKER_08:Charlie City'd be one of them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's tough because they've all got you know their own unique thing. So is it like overall the city they're in, plus the post? Is it strictly just the post?
SPEAKER_09:Is it just just the money's around it? I mean, I would say just the post.
SPEAKER_08:I mean, not to not to make it about the bells and the whistles and all of that, but just you know, I have to side with Charlie on that because there's a lot of things you have to take into consideration because there's like placement of the post. Because like the Traverse City post, there's not a lot right within the post.
SPEAKER_02:But you're in Traverse City, and if you want to go to the beach, you're you're a 15-minute drive. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, it's like on the it's on like the south end of Traverse City by Great Wolf Lodge. Right. But you go over the Holland Post. The Holland Post is is a nice post too. It's a little older. They've been painting and doing some stuff inside. It's huge. Got a basement, I mean, got a beautiful basement downstairs where uh Rincorps League and stuff does their stuff. They've got a room down there. They have two bars, they have like a weekend bar and a weekday bar. You know, I mean it's really, really pretty post, and it's it's in freaking Holland, you know, just outside, literally just a stone throw outside of downtown. Right. Which is beautiful downtown. So they you know that they got that going for them. But uh, you know, Bruce Post down in St. Clair Shores, that's an awesome post. I think it's like three stories. Massive. It's right on Lake Michigan. Back parking lot. You can s they actually own Lakefront. On whatever I don't know if it's I don't know if that's actually Lake Michigan or the river. It must be St. Claire or Lake St. Clair. Yeah, something like that. They're literally right there. They host weddings out there all the time. People that want to get married in front of the water. Post is huge. But it's not as nice as Travis City's post. That's a little bit older inside and stuff like that. But so you know, they all they all have their good good qualities and bad qualities, so it's tough to tell. But for around here, you know, Midland. Midland's got a nice little post.
SPEAKER_09:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Because we're updated inside, it's nice.
SPEAKER_08:And I think that brings the ball the malt the bar area is small in Midland. Yeah, it's yeah, it's not much. Yeah, right. It is, but canteen area just tiny.
SPEAKER_09:And that brings up another topic because I feel like you know, most of the posts, not just in Michigan, but probably nationwide, they're all older. And I think when I've had many conversations on social media with you know different people. Um the younger generation seems to be there's a curb appeal. There's a certain curb appeal. It's you know, it's gotta meet that that curb appeal before they're even interested. Same same concept with nowadays, like marketing and and owning a business. You have to have an online presence and it has to look decent. Like if you don't, they're not gonna trust you. They don't even they don't even touch you in today's technological same concept. So if we're trying to get the younger generations of veterans in, what are your thoughts? But well, but let me ask you a question, right?
SPEAKER_02:You you roll up to a mom and pop restaurant and it's dingy and it's dirty and it's outdated on the front, right? Are you walking through the door? Probably not, because you're gonna think the kitchen is dirty and grungy and not updated, and you're gonna just eat and dinner there or lunch there, probably not. Right, you know, so I I I agree. I think you know, when younger members, right, they they look at a post. Ours has zero windows, right? Doesn't look very inviting, it looks like a square box.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Sit on the side of the road. You know, now if it had windows and had stuff, you know, it would actually look not like a little mini prison or a strip club, because I always think it looks like a strip club. I mean, you ever drive by a strip club with windows? No, you don't. Right? So, but that's what it always reminded me of because they boarded those things up when the place got broken into in 1974. You know, so it's always just kind of been that way. But you know, I I I agree. I think you gotta have curb appeal because if you want to be a member somewhere, you want to take pride in ownership of that building, you know, as you do as members. So I don't know. It's it's it's a tough sell with younger members, anyways.
SPEAKER_12:But I think for the younger members though, it's still I mean they're still looking for you know, generally when they go out to the bars, they're looking for that social scene, you know, that that interaction, whether you know, they're trying to find, you know, a fling for the night or or whatever.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, they're looking for pussies.
SPEAKER_12:You know, they're they're on the prowl, man, and you're you don't get that at a post. You know, it's it's all of us, and you know, the women that are in there are generally married or with somebody, and at the same time, most likely they're slightly you know older. So I mean you're not gonna get you know a 22-year-old kid in there, right um, unless you know he's with one of us and we're drawing him in there or whatever. They're just at that age, they're looking for a whole different crowd. You know, we don't have loud music and disco lights and you know, club atmosphere where we're you know generally quiet, right? Sit down and have a few weirds and chit-chat atmosphere.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. Have you ever been to our post at 2 a.m.? No, they get pretty rowdy in there, buddy. No, because what we're the we're one of the only posts that I know of that stays open till 2 a.m. Most close at 10. And they're ushering you out the door. Ours are like, you got four or more? We roll till two, yeah? You know, which is the way it should be. You know, I mean that's posts are there to serve the veterans in their community. Right? And if your doors are closed, regardless if it's noon, 4 p.m., 6 p.m., or 10 p.m., right? Your doors are closed, you're not serving veterans. You're not open for veterans to have a place to go, to be around comrades. So, you know. But you're right, though, they're they're the old geriatric gin joint, right? They're not what the young kids want to go to. No. Right.
SPEAKER_12:No, but I think I think another another factor is too, though, is you know, especially if they weren't brought up in military families for an understanding, that very means, you know, these young people understand you know what the PFW Hall or the American Legion or, you know, these places really are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Got my pop out of the way. There it is.
SPEAKER_09:Well, the sound of freedom.
SPEAKER_02:So this is where the marketing comes in, right? And I think we all have to do a better job at it. Everywhere. Is that we have to let people know, and this isn't, you know, you're not gonna hear war stories from grandpa. You know what I mean? And that's what you know, I was that's what I was afraid of when I first walked to the door is I was thinking it was gonna be a bunch of old guys sitting around playing Euchre. I feel that's the stigma. Or spades that is the stigma.
SPEAKER_12:I feel that's the stigma of these places, is it's all the older veterans that want nothing to do with it, you know.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, but it's not. You gotta remember that you know the VFW is an organization that rolls with the times, you know, whether you want to or not, you still are gonna roll with the times, right? Nobody can escape time. So as wars continue to be fought and members and veterans continue to get out of the service, here we go. So the next and largest um by far population of veterans at this point is the post-9-11 generation because it's a 20-year-long war, literally a generational war.
SPEAKER_02:So, and I think it's those people that need to we're starting to see, we're starting to see some of the younger ones. We are, which would be like me in their mid-40s, just some of the younger ones in their late 20s, AJ Boyle and those kind of guys that are starting to come around. But it's tough when you have little kids and families. And nowadays, you know, we we talked about this before on podcasts where there's 24-7-365 sports for kids. Used to never be that way. You know, you used to have baseball in the summer. You maybe had like an all-star team that traveled around locally and played, you know, the cities near near you, and that was about it, and maybe a couple tournaments, and then you were into football, and then you were right, but you could play baseball all year round now. I mean, now they're blowing up these big domes for soccer all winter long, you know, so you could play soccer.
SPEAKER_09:My my nephew and my sister, you know, they he's on a lacrosse team, kind of like an all-star team, travels all the way down to Indiana. Because lacrosse is not big in Michigan, though. Big in Michigan, and so you gotta travel for it. And they're driving hours on the road, spending money at hotel rooms, doing these tournaments and everything else. And it's great, it gets them out there, but you know, yeah, like you're like you said, it was never like that back in the day.
SPEAKER_02:It was you know well, hockey. Hockey, same thing. I mean, I got a neighbor, uh, Noah, and Noah Perrin. Um, you'll you'll see him playing big time collegiate hockey. He's on the Big B team. They they're all over the place. I mean, his mom basically works remote because she's always at a rank somewhere. I mean, it's Georgia, it's Texas, it's Pennsylvania, it's Iowa, traveling with this team, you know, and he's senior in high school, basically doing online schooling because he's gone all the damn time with this team. So it's it's crazy. We we we never had that, and I think that's that's what's making it difficult for these younger members to come in. It's not that they don't want to come in, but they've got the young kids at home, so they have to do the dad thing, and they've got to be at all the games and all the practices and all the stuff. So they just don't have time to come in. It's not that they don't want it, I think generally they probably do want it because they miss it. You know, they they miss bullshitting with the brothers and the sisters, right?
SPEAKER_12:I think the other thing is they're they're getting, you know, just started in their careers. Yeah. So they're fully involved there too. Right. Family career.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and then one of the other things that we are terrible at, absolutely horrendous at. The second fresh meat walked through the door. I got a job for you to do. I got a job you need to do. Oh, you should be on the house committee. Oh, you should ought to be the quartermaster. Oh, you should be a trustee. Oh, you should be right? And then and then they then they half-assed do it for about six months or a year, and then they disappear. Because they know if they walk back through the door again, what's gonna happen? Hey, I got a job for you to do. Yeah, we're absolutely fucking horrendous at doing that to people. We wonder why they don't come back. We don't see people again, right? They're just gone. We run them off because the second they walk through the door, we're on them. It's terrible. Terrible.
SPEAKER_09:All right, it's just something that we gotta get used to trying not to do. But, you know, it comes from a good place, though. It's a it's a bad practice, but it comes from a good place because us on the inside know how awesome the post is. Those of us who have seen the events that we do and the money that we donate to where we donate, and just all the good, all the good shit that we do. But that requires administrative support, right? And anyway, so that just kind of goes into it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but I mean uh but on on the other end though, there's nothing wrong with letting someone get their feet wet and get acclimated to the post.
SPEAKER_10:Right.
SPEAKER_02:It's just being a damn post member. Get them to come in and volunteer cooking, or come in and volunteer for the Easter event or the Halloween event or something. Come in and help at bike night, right? So they can still be involved, but you don't got to freaking put them in a role of quartermaster or treasurer or something that they're gonna be regulated to having to do. Let them let them come in and just enjoy the post. And if they have the time to donate, let them come in and help with events.
SPEAKER_12:Let them decide their life if they got the weight on their shoulders to bring it to you. Right.
SPEAKER_02:So they can see the so they can still be. Well No, I didn't. Yeah, you did. No, I didn't. Yeah, you did. You literally turned on a position to take the quartermaster visit. I was at the meeting. You literally resigned from one to take the other one.
SPEAKER_12:All right. So let's let's re- I did. Okay, so there you go. Let's rewind. There you go. As I was junior vice, I got called out to the back TV bar by Arnie and Shem, and they're like, hey, we heard, you know, that you wanted or that you were interested in being a quartermaster. And I'm like, well, I don't know where you heard this from because I never expressed that once. And then they they just kept pressuring me. They're like, well, are you interested? And I'm like, and then that's why I'm like, listen, you were already stepped down, the post is in a dire need, we had our 30-day ordeal, and I was like, you know, if somebody's gonna step up, I'll step up and fill the void. It's not that I wanted this position. Somehow I got shoveled down up and six. So then yeah, I stepped down and he goes, I come out there and they were pressuring me. Somebody threw my name into that bucket and I had no idea.
SPEAKER_09:Isn't that funny how it works though?
SPEAKER_02:So once again, this is the reason why I like new guys coming out. New old guys cover, old new guys.
SPEAKER_09:I would I would like to use your own words against you. It was the last podcast episode where you said that I handed you the keys to a Ferrari. Oh yeah. So I did I made it much less painful. So you gotta go see the doctor tomorrow because you're gonna hurt your shoulder, pat yourself on the back. Yeah, I know. I gotta I'm trying to stretch it out so it doesn't hurt as much. You know, just like this. No. But fucking Tim did that shit to me too, man. Like, and I'll never forget the first district meeting I ever went to. He uh I can't remember who was speaking at the podium at the time, but he had taken a seat and it I think they were given like a membership update or something, and they had said something about you know this exact, you know, just handing somebody a position or uh and then the words that he used was um uh screwing you with the quartermaster's position, and I see Tim back behind them like giggling and laughing, and I'm sitting there like this motherfucker just did this shit to me two weeks ago, and he's back there laughing about it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like you know, it I actually honest to God, especially at our pulse, believe the quartermaster is the most important position. It is the most important position.
SPEAKER_09:Without them, money goes nowhere. Without them, that pulse goes nowhere, right?
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, that that is the most important position.
SPEAKER_09:If and you would you would think that the commander is the most important position because they are quote unquote the uh elected leader of it, but you know the they still own anything without what the membership wants, right? Right, so but I'm just saying in title only, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean but well boy, we're glad you uh you decided to step up, volunteer for it. And once again, hopefully your five years go smooth.
SPEAKER_12:One down, yeah. No, I I you know now now that I've been in here and and you know, I I have a routine set, like it's pretty good, you know. It'll get easier. Learning as I go, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The hardest part is keep probably keeping track of all the writers' group crap. I was I was I was looking at that table the other night going, holy shit after last meeting, yeah. Envelopes and envelopes and envelopes right after the officers' events meeting. It's like, oh my god, they had about 24 envelopes from all the different events and crap they'd done. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, well after our last post meeting last month when when you uh told Trent he needs to spend some money. Yeah, man, we just went off the hook.
SPEAKER_09:The worst thing you can do at a meeting is tell us to spend money because we will know.
SPEAKER_12:Volunteer this, pay for this, electrical, you know.
SPEAKER_02:But those are all the things that the post had to spend it on, anyways, right? He had to get electrical done because we can't we have to have it done in order to get Keno in. Yep. Right? So that so we have to pay for it regardless, so we're not gonna get it. But we we need to get it so many pay that. Is that on the agenda?
SPEAKER_12:Uh yeah, Shem was just talking about last night. He's trying to he was actually said he was gonna talk to Cappy, meaning Cappy did the electrical for the back kitchen. Back kitchen. Um he was gonna talk to Cappy about it and see if he was interested, but if not, he was gonna flex about himself.
SPEAKER_09:Gotcha, cool. It'd be nice to have that.
SPEAKER_02:It'll be just uh I thought we already spent this or we already okayed the seven hundred to get the kino in there. We did, but we gotta have that electrical. Oh, so now we just have now we just have to get the electrical pay for the electrical. 'Cause we have to have it updated before though we even come in and do it. Oh, gotcha. Yeah, because it's gotta be an zone breaker and a bunch of different shit, right? Yeah. So Right.
SPEAKER_09:And it's uh, you know We don't have the space to plug it in. We have to modernize because we've got uh you know power strips plugged into power strips, and none of them are up to code. And you know, so it's just like so.
SPEAKER_12:On that note, here soon, uh we have a insurance inspection. What what?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, how much insurance company comes through and they evaluate the building and the contents and that kind of stuff, and they tell you this is what we think your building's worth if you have to tear it down, rebuild it. Right? So they do it, they do it in this building every year.
SPEAKER_12:So I got a letter in the mail. Well, the post got a letter in the mail, and it was addressed to the quartermaster, but it was quartermaster Richard Clipper. So I wrote on it, you know, no longer, and I was just gonna stick it back in the mailbox, but then um I think I was actually talking to Coleman at the time. Because Coleman was wanting to see um the financial, you know, report how how how we get it here. Um so I was in there showing him and then I I got that and I showed him. And he actually said, go down to the place, don't just put it in the mailbox. I'm like, alright. So I went down there yesterday and uh, you know, addressed him and and told them and they're like, well, you can open it. We made, you know, we made the change to account. Um then they went through and they updated it because they still you know had Tim on there and um Clipper's email and phone number and everything. So we got all that updated, but uh in that envelope was um a request from the insurance company, our insurance West Bend, that uh uh they need to do an annual inspection. So uh they got my phone number and everything, and they said, you know, I'll hear or I'll get a call from the lady at some point. So I mean I would assume within this week I'll hear from her. I haven't heard from her yet, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Well anyway, they'll they'll figure it out, they'll get it taken care of. But yeah, I think um I think modernizing is going to help us support the uh the computer that needs to come in and all this other stuff, and um we'll we'll get that figured out.
SPEAKER_02:But well, when I I want to reiterate or make sure this was very clear. When I said he needs to spend money, that doesn't mean frivolously spend money. Yeah, no, I that means when we need the electrical upgrade, we spend that. If we need to buy the kino, we pay for that. We don't just go out and just buy shit just to spend money because we're gonna maybe start getting into the lean times again here, real quick, right? We need to make sure we got as much stockpiled as we can. Right. We are nerf season skills. Right, because we're gonna have two, three skinny months. Yeah, now we gotta float through the summer, right? So we can't just be out there spend, spend, spend.
SPEAKER_09:Hopefully, hopefully we have some summer events. We've got bike night, we've got some golf outings, we've got oh, speaking of golf outings, is there gonna be another golf outing? Oh no, I haven't heard yet. Okay. Well, anyway, um we'll we'll figure that out. So hopefully, but here's the other thing. We one thing we didn't do last year, and by we I mean the writers group, they didn't do any kind of fundraisers or anything. Because I know they fundraise during the I'm gonna call it school year. I know a school has nothing to do with the post, but it follows the weather, right? So that's why I just call it the school year. So roughly Labor Day to Memorial Day, you know, and that's also when Dart leagues are, and that's also, but anyway. Um I I think that's when they do most of their fundraising, but during the summer, nothing. Everybody's enjoying the weather, which is great. I understand that. But shit, man. You know, so and and I know Trey, I think he was already already talking about maybe doing poker runs once a month and and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02:And so we'll be lucky on a poker run if we made 500 bucks. So 500 bucks is 500 bucks. How much but they make$18,000 doing all their other fundraisers for six months, right? So, you know, do you really want to spend all the time and hassle to make 500 bucks when you can turn around and make 18,000 in six months? Or whatever, whatever the number is. I mean, I know it's pretty pretty astronomical. Man, they might even be touching 20 grand. I'll bet you. You know, you'd probably know best. I mean, we heard the last report, they were up over 12. Uh-huh. And you think of how many thousands and thousands and thousands they had spent before that. Right? So they make a shit ton of money. They spend a lot of money, they give a lot to the post. That's what they're there for. You know, I mean, I know it's all kind of one kiddie, but still at the end of the day. Right. You know, and I don't. That's that's a lot of man hours, a lot of volunteer time coming in there twice a week for two, three hours to man the kitchen on those nights, too. Now you want to try to have them do more?
SPEAKER_09:Probably could, but you know, they're I'm not I'm not trying to, you know, crack the whip like a slave driver or anything. I get you.
SPEAKER_02:I th I I think the honor guard is actually the one that we really need to lean on because if that's going to be a joint venture between the Legion and our post, those guys should go out and try to raise some money. Split it. You know, or whatever.
SPEAKER_09:But and then, you know, I I I guess the point I'm trying to make isn't the fact that you know, fundraising versus no fundraising, it's just fundraising to well, I guess it is fundraising to no fundraising. It's it's it's everything to nothing. And you're like, well shit. I mean, even even a little something. You know, like I said, 500 bucks is 500 bucks. Well, and you know, it doesn't have to be this big, huge grand poo-bah of a thing. Right, I understand. You know, but again, like I said, bike night is.
SPEAKER_02:We're not doing gun raffles.
SPEAKER_12:I started, I mean two, three games into the football season, I started squares. I was sitting down with another veteran and he brought it up, and we started. I remember we sat right there with Randy Gilray that night, us three. And um, you know, we're like, well, let's give it a shot. And uh It became a huge thing. It became a huge thing for us. And then, you know, halfway through the season, Trey jumped on and ended up, you know, Trey ended up being the funnel guy, you know, for other money, and then uh I think playoff game, um, we filled a board like that, and Trey's like, well, I'm starting another one. So we started another one, and then that folded. So we did one for the post, and he took the other one, you know, straight to the writers group, but that took off like crazy. That was a huge moneymaker for us, you know, during football season was these football squares. You know, and mind you, like ours were high, it was 10 bucks a square. Um, you know, and then half payout and half back to the post. You know, and I know Randy, he gave he's like, well, you know, a lot of people when they play those, you know, they want they want full kickback. And I'm like, yeah, well, a lot of them are for a VFW post dedicated veterans. Like, this is what this is about.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_12:And we never we never had anybody bad an eye, you know, 10 bucks a square. You know. So good. Yeah, that I mean that that turned out. I know I talked to Trey a little bit, um, you know, for March Madness here. Um, and it just it never materialized, you know, trying to put together a bracket fit, bracket pool. A brick bracket pool, you know, for the March Madness. We just we never got to it. So, you know, maybe next year we can we can be on top of it. But and it's gambling. People love gambling.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's why we're trying to put kino in the post because I can tell you, and I I don't know what the payouts are for those, but it'll you they have regular kino, they got cash bob, you can do your lottery tickets, they got fast cash, which is basically like uh you know a scratch off, but it's instant, so it just prints your ticket and then you you know you go down through the things and find right a bunch of different things. So I mean I it pretty much every every place like a post VFW will have Kino, you know.
SPEAKER_09:So and and the off chance that somebody hits, you know, we do get a commission off of that.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, so I mean it's really no different than when we do pull tabs, right? You know, which is actually one of the things I'd like to see the writers group try to find and maybe purchase is a bigger pull tab machine. So rather than just having four options, might be able to get six or eight, you know, like a newer one that you know, because people like playing it. I mean they play it all the time. So I think if they had more options, I might play more.
SPEAKER_09:Got a got a couple comments here, real quick. Tab said uh we were going back to us talking about curb appeal, talking about military flags out front and maybe a banner. And then she also says that we pulled in, you know, some good donations from the Dart tournament for Tim last weekend. So and we did. Um, and that's I guess that's what we were saying is now that the Dart leagues and stuff are over, during the summer we don't really have that option.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we do because Jason Lucha, I believe, still does a weekly summer tournament tournament out of the Eagles. So should we all? I think he called it. I think he called it luck of the draw. Something like that, because that's that's your partner. I I'm not on Facebook anymore, so I'd have to have Sean Beal or something like that try to find it and look into it.
SPEAKER_09:Gotcha.
SPEAKER_02:That's got it. But he does it all summer long.
SPEAKER_09:Right. Kelly says Keno. Yeah so we're we're in process with that. My question is um actually applying for that license and getting it all in process and and all that. Some of that some of that stuff is weird, like based on who holds the license and like all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:So well it'd be Terry, because he's the charitable games guy.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, but he's stepping down. If we can get keynote, he told me he's done. So why? He doesn't want to deal with it.
SPEAKER_10:So the computer.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:Well, I think and I love Terry, but I think even keeping up is becoming more and more of a struggle. Yeah. You know, I'm in there, he comes in, you know, seven mornings like when I'm in there, and there's times where he just sits at that computer and it's like he can't get his numbers to line up and match, and then all of a sudden he'll just go like that.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, well, I've helped him with that, and that freaking form that they make him use is something else. They need to, but anyway, I doesn't matter. Point is is he was saying, you know, it's just one more thing to, you know, he's head of our maintenance, he's head of charitable games. If we if we do keyno and whatnot, he's gonna have to be part of that. I we just what I I asked him the other day, I said if we get if we get this machine, we do the whole thing. He's like, Are you gonna do that? And he said, No.
SPEAKER_02:So, what I can tell you is if you get the Kino machine, when you get your pull tabs, you go to the machine and you type in the box number, and it activates every single one of those pull tabs. Okay? So that if somebody steals a box, they can't just rip it off and bring them in because they you when you scan them, it tells you if it's activated or not, right? And then it prints out a slip, either you win or you lose. So that computer system takes care of everything. He won't have to log in that paperwork. No, this is no, this is the actual keynote machine. You scan the tickets, all those pull tabs have like a barcode. When you scan it, it tells you if it's a winner or loser. And it prints out a slip and then it records it in the computer. So all that paperwork he's filling out for winners and losers and numbers and this, that, you don't have to do any of that. He types in that you know, box one, two, three, four, five has been loaded in the machine. It it takes every one of those and basically activates them. So then that way they'll scan. So that that way they know that it's been sold. So they scan it, and then the computer will take care of all that paperwork he's doing. I bet you don't have to do none of it. The computer system will do it all. Yep, because it it knows winner loser. So like we're crossing crap off and writing all this stuff down, you won't have to do any of it. Right. Yep. I almost guarantee you. Because there's no way that a place like the Green Spot or anywhere else has 24 pull tab machines, they're back in the back, writing down every little thing every week. There ain't no fucking way. No way. It's all done through their keynote machine, I bet.
SPEAKER_12:I was talking to somebody a while ago and they were saying like the pull tab machines at like they prefer playing on like the VFWs, VFW halls, and like Eagles and whatnot because they're like a better regulated, like a better odd pull tab than you go to like the green spot or something.
SPEAKER_02:Nope, we buy them all through the state lottery. They buy them from the same place we buy them from. Yep, they're all the same. The only option that you really get is what kind of game it is, right? Like triple cherries and five stars and lucky charms and whatever else, right? That's like the only thing you can really select is the denomination and then the whatever the little symbols are, right? The American flag one or whatever. That's pretty much it. But we all buy them from the same place. Okay. So maybe they're just playing games that because I I would maybe imagine there might be games that have better odds. Sure. But maybe not. Because it's supposed to have I think they're all supposed to have the same profit return for doing it, but I I don't know. Because we have to buy those boxes. Right. So if each one of those boxes cost us a thousand dollars, right? But there's only eight hundred dollars in winners in that box, that means we made two hundred dollars by buying that box, right? Or whatever. Whatever it is.
SPEAKER_12:Well, the box don't cost that much.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm just what I'm saying is I don't know what the I'm just using it as an example, right?
SPEAKER_12:Like when I buy boxes for Terry, it's only like$136 a box.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so then so then the rate of return is better than. Right. Right, but I'm just saying, so they're always supposed to have some profit for the person with the machine for the electric and all the work that goes into it. But yeah. I don't I don't know how much the So that must mean there's a lot more losers in there than winners. Always the always the case.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, they're only I mean, as I write these checks for Terry when he needs, you know, new boxes. Uh, you know, because I got I I write the checks out of the Cherry Boy Games checkbook and they're like 136 bucks a box. Yeah, ballpark.
SPEAKER_10:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_09:So you remember. And that's how it works. I mean, you buy the box and you know it's essentially, if I remember correctly, you buy the box for whatever it costs, say it's like a hundred bucks or whatever, and you know the money that you s that you collect in your machine based on the losers is what you keep. And then, you know, it's roughly like a 60-40 split or a 50-50 split, losers over winners, and all of the winners total up to you know X amount, whatever. So, you know, but yeah, anyway.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, Keno, I agree with Kelly. Keno is gonna be big. Yeah, it's gonna be huge. And Claire put it in, and Claire swears by it, you know. Well we we swore by the dart machines they've got five up there now. They started with one, went to two, like then from like two to five. So I mean they they came down here and and and understood how that they can help that post out with those dart leaks, right? And they've incorporated that and it's doing well, and that they love their kino machine, does them well, so we know it's gonna do us well. We just have to get our electrical done and then get them in there and figure out how to do it. We've got to get our poop in a group, made so and time's time's sticking. I hate hate putting the football. You know, we do that all too often at our post. We've been talking about we've been talking about kino for six months. We longer than that.
SPEAKER_12:Right. Because he brought it all up.
SPEAKER_02:So I heard we are still kicking a football on our own. Yep. And then complaining we're not making it.
SPEAKER_09:Well, and and that was the other thing. I wanted to have this approved just like we did at the last meeting last year. Just because you approved something doesn't mean you actually have to spend it right then. You know, and that's the point I tried to make last year, and it just it didn't get it got voted down. I was like, all right, cool, whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Well, what we need to do is just we just need to vote on a pass, say we're gonna spend a thousand dollars on electrical upgrades. Not not to exceed a thousand dollars. We get a quote in for 740 bucks, get it done. It's already been approved up to a thousand here, 740, start tomorrow. Get it done.
SPEAKER_12:We've we've already it's already been approved for like 700 bucks, right? Oh, I thought that was just for the for the electrical. Oh, that was enough.
SPEAKER_09:I thought that was the key. We approved the whole kit and computer. It's already been approved up to 1300. It's just getting it going, yeah. Up for the license and the machines and the installation and the electrical upgrade.
SPEAKER_02:So if we already got a quote for the electrical, who's doing it? That's what we're trying to find out. That's what Shem's working on right now. Well, then how do we get a quote for it?
SPEAKER_12:Because we went through Cappy and his back when he was QM and he got it all approved, he already had everything laid out before he brought it to the post. He's like, I have a quote here. It was like six, seven hundred.
SPEAKER_09:So it was six hundred bucks. Yeah. So he was Mr. Electric or something? No, he was with uh Cappy's guy. Cappy's guy, yeah.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, I don't know. Down St. Louis, I think. I remember you had it all laid out when you brought it to the and then it got approved. It just hasn't been done yet. And I don't think it got approved, though. That was the thing. Um 99 within the last two meetings. I'm 99% sure it got approved. What?
SPEAKER_09:Oh, no, yeah. Like I thought you were talking about last year. No. I was like, no, I didn't get approved last year, otherwise it would have been done already.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:No.
SPEAKER_12:Um no, because I will admit when I first took over, I wanted to table it just because we were dire in our finances. Yeah, we can't do any of this right now. We have to.
SPEAKER_09:And part of that was my fault because I was sick and tired of paying bills for certain people who wanted to take advantage of our post. And, you know, I don't want to throw out names, but uh, you know, there were I'm gonna say contractors, quote unquote, that were charging us monthly rental fees on some equipment that was ten years outside of you know efficiency and just being upgraded, and it was it was way outside of, and we were still just sitting there paying a monthly fee, and it was me being quartermaster for a year saying, Why the hell are we paying for this? And it's equipment that was from you know a decade ago, and so it saved us money because less uh you know consumables were being used for it, less you know, issues with the actual machinery. Anyway, but did we did we need to do that all right away? No, probably not, but you know, it is what it is. Yes, yeah, we all we all fuck up, all right. So no, it was Charlie that was giving me the shit about it.
SPEAKER_02:So it's well, you know, it was like, you know, okay. Last last summer was was tough, right? And then it was like, you know, we gotta figure out how to do something to cut costs in the summertime. I said, Yeah, well, we need to do stop spending money in the spring. Yeah. Right? What do you mean? I said, well, we bought$5,000 water softener, we bought a$3,000 ice machine. That's eight grand. Yeah. A grand. A grand could have got us a month and a half or two months. You know what I mean? Well, pretty, pretty, pretty safe. We survived that summer off$7,500, so yeah. That's what I'm saying, right? So we'd have been in good shape coming into the fall. Right. But those are purchases that needed to be made. Do they need to be made like that? No, probably not. But if you live and you learn, you know, once you're around the block for a while, you know how summers go. Because everybody's outside enjoying the weather. They're not stuck in a bar. No, they're camping, they're at the leech, lake, houses. I mean, they're gone.
SPEAKER_09:And they're motorcycles? Yeah, motorcycles. Um, Kelly says, Why don't we sell some of the extra items laying around outside? What are you talking about, Kelly? She might be talking about the grills and stuff out back, I'm assuming. You're talking about the grill and the smoker and stuff that's out back? Old tables.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I should talk about it. What's that?
SPEAKER_12:I I know Shim and I were talking about those smokers and stuff. We plan on trying to do like a couple big barbecues.
SPEAKER_02:Which so Dusty, Dusty and Pat Gillis gave us like a how that thing is like eight foot long, that grill. How back? That smoker. That was Terry's son made that. Well, maybe we're talking about two different ones. I know the Gillis has donated one a couple years ago. It does like a hundred fucking hot dogs on that thing.
SPEAKER_12:We we we've used it before. You mean the gas grill? Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Are you talking about uh barbecue, whatever kind of like how Knights of Columbus does their breakfasts and you know, we do fish people do fish fries. Are you talking about something up in the parking lot?
SPEAKER_12:And is that what you're saying? Uh possibly. I mean Shem and I were just briefly talking. Even if it's just I mean, you know, something for our post members or whatever, but we got all that stuff out there. Shem likes barbecue, I like the barbecue. You can throw some together.
SPEAKER_02:So I know, like, I think they use that big barbecue grill that the Gillises gave uh when they make all the hot dogs and stuff for Memorial Day parade afterwards. When everybody's done with the parade, they come back to the post. Right. I'm sure that's when they use that.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But I don't think it gets used really any other time. I mean, we used to do fish fries when uh Joe and uh Melody were around.
SPEAKER_12:So I was approached. So we had some suspicious activity on our Gordon's cards, so I went there, um talked to the managers, they couldn't figure it out, ended up setting me up um higher, and it got all figured out, um but I ended up working through with uh our post has an actual sales rep. And uh he was telling me years ago, like we used to have a truck come and deliver food, but we don't do as much anymore, so they they don't have that. But he was saying, like, you know, he's still our our our our sales rep and stuff, and he was asking, um, you know, why don't we do fish fries? He's like, fish fries are huge. He's like, you make a lot of money. He's like, I can tell you right down, you know, to the pennies of what you need, what you can sell. He's like, I have it all laid out. He's like, I do, you know, several other like posting, you know, churches and stuff that do fish fries. He's like, I can tell you what kind of fish to sell, this, this, and this. He's like, you just gotta want to put it on. And he's like, we can get you all set up and taken care of. And it was just coming into Lent, and he's like, now's the time to rock and roll. Or whatever. And I was like, well, I got I gotta talk to the post first, but um I talked to a few people and I brought up to what the ladies' auxiliary. I think I was in there as I've been helping with. You sent the ladies' auxiliary or the auxiliary. Um, but I was talking to them when I was in there helping with a burger night, and it it all resolved back to the same thing as volunteers. You know, to run a fish ride like that, you need quite a few people to help.
SPEAKER_02:So that was always the problem when you get help. It's it's hard to do a dinner every single week, you know, because it ends up being the same six or eight people.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_02:You try to rotate through, but schedules never match up.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_09:You know, or and then the other thing is tough, especially during Lent, you know. Competition. There's competition, sure. Every other church and whatnot's got a fish fry going on, and you know, and competition. And everybody's got, I think everybody's got uh, you know, good causes that they do those things for.
SPEAKER_02:I think doing like a big barbecue would go over good like chicken court chicken quarters and dogs and shit like that. I think that would be big. Just one big, one big blast it out there.
SPEAKER_12:Oh yeah, yeah. Get a bunch of macaroni salads, pasta salads, between ten and two.
SPEAKER_02:And then I mean, and and don't incorporate that with the tiki bash. Do it separate so that we have two events. Sure. Just have one big backyard barbecue and then have the tiki bar bash or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. So then that way you got two big events. Yeah, nobody's gonna want to try to consolidate it into one, but right. I think if you have two, then you're bringing people there twice rather than once.
SPEAKER_09:I I I would like that. I would like uh barbecue or whatnot.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we can tell you like a good barbecue.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, right here.
SPEAKER_12:We all know you like a good sausage.
SPEAKER_09:You can you can call me fat bastard. I'm skinny now.
SPEAKER_02:Er. Skinny err. What are you weighing nowadays? 215. There you go. Right on my side right now by me. I like it. Use a big one. You're like 270 back.
SPEAKER_09:274. There you go. See? I need to I need to lose some weight. I'm at 250. I know it don't look like it, but I promise I'm at 250. So I like to get down to about 200. I'm 206. And barbecue chicken is not gonna help me with that goal. Oh, chicken actually will.
SPEAKER_02:Chicken's good for you.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. Eat me some of that chicken.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Anyway, but back to what you were saying. I'd like to see a huge ass cooker taking up the parking spot in the in the parking lot there at the post. Do road some roadside, you know, get that thing smoking, let that smoke go across the road, get attention, have somebody out there spinning signs, you know. Maybe Roy out there flashing, you know.
SPEAKER_12:Would this have to be a coordinated event with the auxiliary though? Because they have they have the food license. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:It would be it would be it would be post-auxiliary event, yes. Yeah. Well, you didn't catch the flash joke, did you?
SPEAKER_02:They pay for the they pay for the they pay for the food license, but the food license is for the property, right? Well, yeah. Yeah, it's just like we have the liquid.
SPEAKER_09:But we do need to, I think we do need to get more post members, serve safe certified, and all this other stuff just to cover us. And it's it's not a huge deal to get it done.
SPEAKER_02:Well, we just need more post volunteers. Yeah, period. And I think you only gotta have one serve safe person. I don't think everybody's gotta be it. That's true. That's true. So you just gotta have one there. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's Vicky, right?
SPEAKER_12:I'm pretty sure it's Vicky.
SPEAKER_02:I bet you a lot of Denise. I bet you a lot of the girls have it, actually.
SPEAKER_12:They're all they're all certified, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So then that way it doesn't matter who's working with them. If there's only one of them show up, then they're always kind of covered. Yeah. So which makes sense.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. But I think uh even including with the uh with the canteen, I think a whole bunch of post members. If we're freaking working at the post as a bartender or not, I think a whole bunch of us should be um certified for what what's it called? TAM. TAMS. Yeah. Well, so that I think you I think everybody has to do that. If you're an employee, yes. But I'm saying if even if you're not an employee, I think you still gotta be certified to do it. You should be you should be certified.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I think that's that's a liquor license rule. Right. Right. If you're dealing with money, you've got to be damn certified, regardless if you're a volunteer or not.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_09:So um, and I think it just opens us up, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and then it was always the bonding question too, right? Bonding too. Because all the bar staff is bonded, so now you have volunteers in there working. They're gonna need to be bonded. Right. They're touching post funds, right?
SPEAKER_09:Kelly says yes, one needs to be in compliance for temperature and food safety practices. Yep, I thought it was just one for food, which is odd because it's well, and I'm just saying increasing. Are numbers just for availability? Like, God forbid, somebody's car breaks down that day and that morning and they can't come. Like, just the more the merrier. And it's just not a huge deal to get tip certified or food surf saves certified. What's it cost like 35 bucks? Yeah, something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:So you know. So I think it's it's not a huge deal to get it done and just get a bunch of people. Um I think you gotta redo that every year. Yeah, it's an annual thing. I don't know about tips for being bartender. I think there's a I think there is a renewal something or other.
SPEAKER_02:But is it good for a couple years? Or or what? I don't know. I mean, as it was like year years ago when I was president of the writers group, we took everybody that wanted to, and I think we had like 25 to 30 people in the writers group that got first aid CPR. So your first aid was good for two years, your CPR is only good for one year. And now we have we haven't done it again in three or four years. So everybody's stuff is lapsed unless like here at work we do it. Um I just put we put all of our foreman through it two weeks ago. Over here at the home builders, they all went down and because I gotta have one one guy on the job has to be first aid CPR, so they go through that every year.
SPEAKER_09:I um but I used to be uh CPR first aid instructor. Um Red Cross certified me when I was deployed. Um I'd love to I'd love to start teaching class again. I'd like to, I think that would be a really cool post event. Once a month I do a CPR class.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, you love CPR, don't you, Navy boy?
SPEAKER_09:I love that. I love that mouth to mouth. You could be the dummy. Mouth the peckers, you look you like.
SPEAKER_02:Mouth the pecker. Um I think it costs us like$65 a person, too. It does. We did that. I mean, it wasn't we spent a thousand bucks. But think about that.
SPEAKER_09:If I do if I do it's valuable, it's valuable.
SPEAKER_02:Well it was because literally, like we we did that, and then four months later, because we did it in the fall when it was slow, right? And everybody's looking for something to do, you know. I mean, it was crappy weather and all that, and then literally four months later, Tim got in his accident, we ended up using it that day, staying in the ditch, you know, and we had bikes at all the trauma kits and first aid kits, and I mean everybody was, you know, so I mean it it's something that we should be redoing again. Um I was actually gonna talk to Trey about it, get get but it's kind of late.
SPEAKER_09:Here's here's the thing, and I'm just gonna throw it out right now. I'm willing to go back and get certified, but it costs money.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:So if I can get the riders group and maybe one other person willing to go and get certified with me, you can get two instructors at the posts. We can certify the entire riders group, and then once a month, we can do just offer it out to the public and say, hey, we'll sit here and we'll certify everybody, you know, class of ten people, find out what it costs to get certified. I'll figure it out, I'll work on that and see what I can figure out.
SPEAKER_02:Because if you know, that's something that the riders group could pay for, because they're not gonna have to pay to take the class. So if we're gonna spend five, six hundred dollars anyways, or a thousand dollars to put everybody through the class, if we could get an instructor, pay pay for the instructor to do it, yeah. Then what's the difference? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, then you can then if we wanted to every three months you can have refreshers or whatever instead of once, you know, a year. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Keep everybody fresh and well, like I say, you put it out to the public and you can start charging the 65 bucks or whatever. Right. But I know you gotta buy all the dummies and you gotta buy them and it's not cheap. Right.
SPEAKER_09:I was looking at opening a company, opening an LLC, and doing just doing that. You know, EpiPen certifications and CPR and AED and all the other stuff. And uh the American Red Cross charged at the time charged roughly twelve hundred dollars for an instructor pack, included so many dummies and so many hand pamphlet handouts and like the whole thing.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Um I mean that'd be a good initial investment. Like I say, I mean, I think it was like 65. We did 20-something people.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And then for us, we could do it and just put it up to the other posts. Yeah. Hey, anybody want, you know, should be certified? Here you go. We're offering it, you know. So I think that'd be cool. I'll I'll Google it. I'll poke around and see, and but you will like poking.
SPEAKER_02:We bet you will. You'll poke around on the dummies. Uh-huh. Yep.
SPEAKER_09:Poke, poke, poke. So. He just opens the door. So gay. I am not. These assholes start it every single time. You're the one that said it. You're the one that took it that way. Well, well. Well, you're the one that fucking. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're in the Navy. The Marines started.
SPEAKER_12:When you leave the door wide open, you bet your ass coming through.
SPEAKER_02:Bastards. The problem is when he opens the door, he comes out ass first. That's the problem. May I ask? Fucking arrow. I wish Trick was here, don't you? No. Because we'd be picking out him rather picking. Like trying to get your ass up here. I can't take it.
SPEAKER_09:I can take it. I'm used to you guys. We bet you can take it.
SPEAKER_02:We bet you can take it. We've been taking it for a long time. We've been taking it since I was a semen recruit.
SPEAKER_09:Holy shit, McKenzie's watching. Hi, McKenzie. And for the record, I was BLS certified. Thank you. Nerd. That's what I was talking about. These idiots don't know what they're talking about, so I had to I had to break it down for them. BLS. Basic life support. Uh Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02:Jesus Christ. Hey! He's like, Jesus Christ. You rather fuck. Not my fault. These guys started it. Why are you looking at him licking your lips? That's what I want to know. I just seen that.
SPEAKER_12:He's like, uh Phillies over there salving. Yes.
SPEAKER_08:He heard Brent should take it. I'm jealous of all his homosexual activity.
SPEAKER_02:Uh sounds gay, count me in.
SPEAKER_10:Around you guys.
SPEAKER_12:So Billy, as a previous commander, how many dinners have you been to or invited to as a previous post and or district commander?
SPEAKER_08:You mean as of lately? I'd say in your career. In your career?
SPEAKER_12:Damn. As well, your after career as as VFW.
SPEAKER_08:You don't get invited to many after.
SPEAKER_12:Only while you're current?
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:Well, aren't they? I mean they and current commander dinners?
SPEAKER_08:They have some, I mean, that are previous previous.
SPEAKER_12:I know our post is looking to put together Margaret's working on one right now. FYI. It's past and current commanders.
SPEAKER_08:Well, I'll probably get them ready to that one.
SPEAKER_12:Well, sure. I'm just saying, have you been any before?
SPEAKER_06:A couple.
SPEAKER_12:Okay. Like local or elsewhere? Local. Okay.
SPEAKER_08:Because I had a I mean I was here for a little while and then it'd be something that would be hosted by our post only, usually.
SPEAKER_12:Okay. I've never seen one myself.
SPEAKER_08:Usually another post. Usually another post wouldn't invite me to their post as a past district commander.
SPEAKER_12:Well, as a district commander.
SPEAKER_08:Not a past district commander.
SPEAKER_12:I could see as like a past post commander, but as a district commander over several posts, like you know, I think you'd myself personally, I think you'd be eligible if any post invited you that were in that district. For what? What are we talking about? That's just my two sense of how I think it should work, obviously. If it doesn't, cool. Pass you know, pass and present commander dinners.
SPEAKER_08:They usually only invite the per the present.
SPEAKER_02:But you're talking at our post, right? Sure.
SPEAKER_12:Well, I was talking at our post, but then I just threw my other two cents out there as a as a previous district commander. You know, and I feel you know, any post within that district that had a commander dinner, he should be eligible. That's just how I feel with you.
SPEAKER_08:Usually it doesn't happen that way. Sure. Usually it's more ruled down to your post. Okay. But our post has got more district past district commanders in it. Than any other post in the in the district.
SPEAKER_09:This popcorn's really salty. Did you do something to this?
SPEAKER_08:Okay. Terry Coon.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Uh Jeff Hansum earlier said the same thing. Okay. Uh me. I emptied my coffee cup in it. There you go. Extra salt. Ralphie.
SPEAKER_11:Okay.
SPEAKER_08:Terry and Cinseal. Tim Ardeby. Dick Fish. Them are the ones I could think of right off the top of my head.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, I mean that's a handful for the past what, 25 years? Yeah, that long. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:I mean, that's not saying if we did it more than once.
SPEAKER_12:Sure. And that's I mean that's a solid group of guys, yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Well, a few of them are a little sketched, but well, I'm not saying I'm not saying they didn't do it more than once. Guilty conscience?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. No, yeah. Well, I mean, you look at when you look at Tim. Tim was Tim was command a couple times.
SPEAKER_08:I was twice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:I know Cohen was more than once. I'm sure Terry was too.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, I'm sure Terry was too.
SPEAKER_08:I think Terry was twice. Yeah. Now is there is there a cat? Terry's got a white hat. Nope. Nope.
SPEAKER_02:So the the way it even supposed to work at our post, you start out as junior. Next year you you automatically bump. Next month you ought, or next year you automatically bump to commander, and then you're supposed to recycle through the chairs. So if you wanted to run for commander again, you should actually be running for junior and then work your way up the chairs again, right? Not just stay at the top for X amount of years. X amount of years, right? You're supposed to cycle back through. And the reason for that is then that way, as people are getting experience, the rotations constantly getting new leadership, and people are used to doing the job and understand doing the job, so that if you do have an incident like with Tim. Right. You know, but unfortunately at some of the smaller posts, it you just don't have enough people, and it just goes back and forth, usually between a couple, like Claire, between John Waddington and Bill Scott. They'll go, one will be commander this year, the other one will be the quartermaster. And then nobody wants to run for anything, so those two will just switch. And Bill will be the you know quartermaster and John will be the commander, and then that'll switch. They just they've been doing that for years.
SPEAKER_08:I think this year it's switching though. I think they've got some younger. Do they? I think they got some younger kids coming in. Good, because they had, I mean, they were just constantly.
SPEAKER_02:They were at our thing on Saturday, I think. Uh John wasn't, but Bill Scott, Bill and Deb came in for the Dart tournament. Yeah, but there were some other people there from Clark.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, which I don't know if they're just Dart players or they're just I think they were the ones talking about being running for stuff? Yeah. Well good.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, when I praying on the young, you know, the the new blood, when I was in the UP and I joined the Military Order of the Heart chapter there. And that second year, I mean, they shot me right up the ladder, and you know, I was commander of the other chapter there, and then, you know, I went on to uh, you know, the department level. And I served there, you know, for many years until we um I was I was not a department commander, I was department inspector, still commander of our post and so on, but until I move back down here.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah, it's good stuff. I mean, those are the things that you need people to be able to do it. And if you're smart enough, yeah, you you accelerate through the ranks pretty quickly, but you you do what you want to do. You don't have to do some some of it always sounds like it's gonna be cool to do because it's nice to see. That's what I like when you know I always sit at our meetings and I talk about people going to these conventions and conferences and stuff like that. And I give points for the writer group presidents and vice presidents if they attend these things, right? So if each one of them shows up throughout the year to one, they don't have to come to the same one. If one comes to convention, the other one goes to fall conference, and they have another member come. So the P and the VP will get credit if they each go to separate ones or together, doesn't matter. And then if they have another member that comes to one, they get they get additional points for the honor award that I give for all the writers' groups. And the sole purpose of that is I want these guys to come to those to actually see how things run at the high level because you know these things get brought down to us, so raise money for this and donate for that and volunteer here, and you know, we got to get this be involved in these things. People have no idea what they really are, right? Then you go down to these conferences and conventions and you start to meet other people from different posts or districts or whatever, and you end up seeing them again, and they're your buddies, and then you have a couple beers upstairs in the hospitality room, and then you you know what I mean, you start building those connections and those friendships, and it's super important. Yeah, because we're not just Mount Pleasant, we're 244 throughout the state. So when you go to another post or they come to our post, you we're all one team, right? We should all feel welcome, just like we'd want to be at their post. So when you start meeting these people and you actually start seeing what kind of what goes on at an upper level, it really makes you understand why we do things at our post and why they're important that we do them. Rather than a lot of the guys will be like, oh, geez, they just want another 50 bucks. Oh, geez, they just want our money. Well, they don't understand because they don't go down there and listen to the reports and talk about the kids at Camp Trotter in the National Home, right? This is oh, we just gotta send more money to the national home. Oh, we just gotta do uh bitching and complaining rather than going down there and hearing the good shit that they actually do at those places for veterans and the kids, you know. So I mean it it it's it's important. But and I was really proud that uh AJ came down to midwinter. So he came down there and sat through the meeting with me.
SPEAKER_12:Well, I was supposed to ride with them, but my whole house got sick.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, which is all good.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Looks like we got a wintery. Wintery mix coming. Yeah, it's a grocery store.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, we're supposed to get uh another bad round tomorrow. Like they're saying it's worse than what comes through Sunday night. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I know uh Memorial Day parade's coming up, so we'll get through elections. Memorial Day coming up, and then we've got uh the end of May, we got the VFW convention. That's we're gonna elect all the department leadership.
SPEAKER_12:And then Is that back is that back in Kalamazoo?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's back down in Kalamazoo. Yeah, so they're gonna be doing the fall conference, they'll be up here. Um I guess they just signed the contract, so I'm not really a hundred percent sure on if it's this fall or it's next fall. But they've signed like a I don't know, it's two, three year contract with Comfort Inn, South End of town. So fall conference will be up here, which will be nice.
SPEAKER_12:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:It's kind of more center of the state because the guys from the UP, they're like, yeah, it was 16 hours for them to come down and go all the way down to Kalamazoo. 16 hours.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, that that was always a rip. Like I'd have to come from Calumet down to like Battle Creek, you know, when they have down there and gosh, yeah. It's a lot of driving. Yeah. I mean, mind you, if you don't mind driving, you you get paid mileage, but still, well, that's a rip.
SPEAKER_02:You did because you were a department level, right? Well, sure. Right. So like I have a stipend that I get to use for hotels and travel too, but you know, I mean, if you're the post commander or you're a regular member and they always complain that not very many people are showing up. Well, yeah, because guys in Travis City or Alpina or Glenny or Oscota or wherever, they're not gonna drive six hours. Right. You know, to get down to these things because you put them at the bottom of the state, put them in the middle of the state, make the people out of Detroit drive two and a half, and make the people from Traverse City and UP drive, you know, three to four. You know, at least then you're gonna get more people probably coming.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, but uh yeah, and then we got district first Sunday. Yeah. I think it's first Sunday of May. We got the district uh elections.
SPEAKER_08:You're runner? Me? Yeah. No. I thought you were running for junior party. No. It's a rumor I heard. But it's not a district. Are you?
SPEAKER_09:Don't look at me. You're running for quartermaster.
SPEAKER_12:Are you running for quartermaster of the district?
SPEAKER_09:I got vetoed by mama, huh? Well, no. I actually haven't really given him more thought, to be honest. So is Colin gonna rerun? I have no idea. Sorry, I'm missing. Um I don't know if she cares all that much. I don't think she would, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_08:I'll just go back to what Ray said when he was here last time. At district level, it's not that much. No.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_08:It's less than at the post by far. I mean, you gotta go to the district meetings. That's four. And then you'll have to go to a district uh training. Training. And then you'll have to do the district quarterly uh budget planning meeting. Am I right? That's all uh I should think of.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I don't know. I've never been commander, so I don't know what the budget meeting is, but I'd have to I'd have to give it some thought.
SPEAKER_09:I don't know. I just don't know how many pots I want my hand in.
SPEAKER_02:Like what what are the pots you got your hands in?
SPEAKER_09:I just want to be a boy's pants.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:Just his pants, usually. I said a boy's pants, not a man's pants. Yeah. Yeah. So you heard the story about Brent, right?
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_02:Him and him and his him and a pastor drive down the road. They get pulled over by the cops. Police officer come up to the window and says, hey, looking for two pedophiles. Brent looks over at the pastor and looks at the cop and says, Yep, we'll do it. Sick bastard.
SPEAKER_09:We know what kind of that is not where I saw that going. You got me.
SPEAKER_02:We're talking about hands-down pants. Oh no, honey pots. How many, how many, how many honey pots? We know it's no honey pots.
SPEAKER_09:Oh fuck. How do I do this to myself? I'm not coming anymore if Trey's not here. Yeah, see?
SPEAKER_02:Trey's scared to come here. He he uses the kids, he uses the wife, he uses all the excuses. He's probably sitting at the post right now.
SPEAKER_09:Probably. Do we know anybody at the post?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. All you gotta do is pick up the phone and call. Yeah, most of them those guys are there. That's what I'm saying. That's what I guarantee. They're probably sitting at the post right now. Somebody should call and say. Oh, Billy's gonna call. Why are you getting so much feedback? What's going on?
SPEAKER_09:I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Is the headphones right there? Is that the problem? Do you need to move them?
SPEAKER_09:No. I just turned them all down.
SPEAKER_02:So, anyways. Yeah. He's too scared to come out here.
SPEAKER_09:No, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_09:Hold on. If they are telling to get their asses down here.
SPEAKER_10:They're probably listening, so they're telling the bartier to run out of here.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's Tuesday. Plus is closed.
SPEAKER_12:Oh, that's true. Speaking of that, why was it open three Tuesdays ago?
SPEAKER_08:Because bingo was closed. Bingo was canceled.
SPEAKER_02:Alright. Yeah, then so bingo's canceled, then they did a bar or uh house committee meeting.
SPEAKER_12:Oh, that's right. We were I didn't know.
SPEAKER_02:When they did the changeover from Mert to Trish. Okay.
SPEAKER_12:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:That was Tuesdays and that was two two Tuesdays ago.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:From uh Memorial Day, it'll be open on Tuesdays because outdoor tiki bar will be open. Alright.
SPEAKER_12:Because I was just going through deposits and normally, you know, the the Tuesday bag is just the zippers open and nothing in there, and I grabbed a hold of it and I'm like, why is there something in here? There shouldn't be.
SPEAKER_08:I need to bring that up tomorrow. We gotta reopen the house.
SPEAKER_12:We gotta vote on it. Oh, yeah. We also need to talk about Sundays. You could put it in the bylaws.
SPEAKER_09:What about Sundays? Sundays are hurting us. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day. They're not hurting us, really.
SPEAKER_08:If you think about it, it's not really hurting us because the bar we're paying for a bartender, but we're not paying her out of the Sunday wages. We're paying her out of the weekly wages.
SPEAKER_12:There's no Sunday or weekly anymore. It's it's I mean at this point now it's the same rate all the way across. It's$8 an hour in tips.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, but we're not paying her, we're not paying them out of Sunday's till wages. We're paying them out of the weekly wages. Well what it's coming down to.
unknown:Sure.
SPEAKER_08:You see what I'm saying? No. We're not paying them on the side. We're not paying them out of what we make on Sunday. We're paying them out of what we make on a week. Right.
SPEAKER_02:So all he's saying, Bill Billy, okay, says you made$1,000 all week. And you spent$500 on labor.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Now if we took Sunday away, rather than only making$500, right? You're going to make$600 because now you only are paying labor$400.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's what he's saying. So we'd make more money by having Sundays closed.
SPEAKER_12:For the past couple months, we haven't made any more than$100 on a Sunday.
SPEAKER_02:Right, but what was our labor cost for a Sunday? Well, they're at least eight times six.
SPEAKER_12:They're at least they're five, six hours. I mean, generally they get to close down early on a Sunday unless their football season there was a game there.
SPEAKER_02:So 50, 60 bucks. Right. So we're still made 40. Maybe. I mean, I'm just putting it up there. Right. I'm not.
SPEAKER_12:Well, and I know I can count a couple. Like I like I was telling you the other night, it was uh within the last month. We didn't make any. It was zero. And we paid a bartender. Like we had a zero, zero intake.
SPEAKER_08:Zero till day. I know the pool team's coming in on Sunday. I know there's at least four of us, three or four of us that come in and play pool on Sunday. We might not be drinking, but sure. We're at least coming in the polls.
SPEAKER_12:Right. But I mean at that point, you guys don't need a bartender there. You can call one of us up, we open it up and let you in. If you're not drinking, I can get in by myself. Right. I'm just looking at as a financial standpoint. Like if we're not, especially coming through the summer, you know, where we get a little bit tighter on finances, if we're not completely clearing on a Sundays, I understand having, you know, we need the post open for, you know, members, but man, well then at some point.
SPEAKER_08:Then we're gonna get into the thing with the biker group, because if they go on a ride on a Sunday and then want to come back to the post and have a drink.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Usually always we usually always start in that at the post. Typically. Typically.
SPEAKER_12:I mean, I'm not gonna say it's always a short way, but I was just saying we need to have a talk because at a financial standpoint, like Sundays are well that's something we'll bring up at the floor level then. Sure. I mean Sundays are not good for us.
SPEAKER_02:Well, bring it up at the House Committee and let the House Committee vote on a recommendation, and then I can go to the floor of the post. Right?
SPEAKER_12:Just my two cents as a QM. I mean, Sundays are rough, but Sundays have always been rough, though.
SPEAKER_08:Yes. Unless it's football season.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, then you just limit the hours. You close at six. Sure. Yeah, soon to six. And if there's not more than four in there drinking, then shut down. Shut down.
SPEAKER_08:Isn't it six now?
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_12:Oh. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's only six now. Yeah, then do noon to four. Unless you have to do noon to four. You know, unless you have X Mont in there.
SPEAKER_02:If you get four or more. Four or more, then you stay open until six.
SPEAKER_08:Like last Sunday we did good because there was a dark team and two dark teams in there.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah. Yeah, but the Sunday before that we made like 20 bucks.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:And paid out. Paid out. Yeah. 50. So I get it.
SPEAKER_09:But so outside of that. What else? What else? I got nothing, man. Wow. This has been uh half the amount of time that we normally spout our bullshit. Yeah. Which is a lot to say because you guys are full of it. Only for you, buddy.
SPEAKER_08:You're usually full of it. No, I am not. Full of semen.
SPEAKER_02:Can always count on Billy to bring up the rear. He's in the back with the gear, don't think you sir. Well, I'm gonna have my barley pops and did your chest hair just grow a little bit.
SPEAKER_09:Mm-hmm. What'd you just drink? Moonshot. I'm on fire right now. Are you fucking insane?
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_02:Should have worn me up. Little white lightning. Do it. No. Do a second. I told you I'm not doing it.
SPEAKER_09:Come on. It's from the Bahamas. Thought you were a man, Charlie. Bahamian.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely not. Definitely not.
SPEAKER_09:How about you? Basically offer. Strictly. Alright, how about this one? This one's only 40-proof and it's watermelon. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Have it?
SPEAKER_09:Let me know how it is. You do it. That's okay. That one I need for you.
SPEAKER_02:I don't do peer pressure, but thanks. I appreciate the offer. You know. Brent does whatever he can. Usually drop to his knees. Yeah. You need to pray.
SPEAKER_08:Whether it be his knees or on all fours. Usually drop to something.
SPEAKER_09:I don't know what makes me want to put up with you guys all the time.
SPEAKER_02:You have no other friends. That's the problem.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I and I use the term friends loosely, like a butthole. Very loosely. Yeah, pretty much. It's okay. Man. I've been called worse by better.
SPEAKER_09:Alright. Well, I'm out. I'm out. What?
SPEAKER_02:I'm good too. Like I'm nothing else.
SPEAKER_12:I think that's that's a solid end.
SPEAKER_02:This will be a wrap.
SPEAKER_12:We're kind of dead ending here anyway. We're kind of deadheading, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Well normally we talk some politics and stuff, but we don't have our defender here. Yep. So maybe in the next couple weeks we'll have something more exciting. Maybe he'll just do a phone number. Call him. Call him. Alright, we're gonna stand by for a second.
SPEAKER_09:We're gonna see if we can get stand by or stand by. He made himself sound like he was busy, so I don't know. Of course he did. He's always busy. There's a guy.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Joe's not here. I think him and Joe are boning right now.
SPEAKER_02:There might be. Joe definitely is because he's talking POS systems and stuff. Like he's using his IT. He was installing a new one or whatever for him today. Yeah. He's been doing it. I guess he had to get on with tech, some tech guy to try to get things set up or something. I I don't know. Yeah, something he was remoting it from the house and talking to somebody. I don't think it's a call.
SPEAKER_12:Well, I had to call Joe today. Because he set up an account on the computer for me in the office.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:Because before I used to have to call Arnie or I'd call Merc, you know, because I didn't have access to that computer, so I had to get on, you know, somebody's account. So I told Joe, I'm like, send me an account.
SPEAKER_08:Hey. We need you. We need you. We're running out of things to talk about. So we need the debater of all debaters.
SPEAKER_04:How much time do you guys got?
SPEAKER_02:We got another hour and a half to two hours.
SPEAKER_04:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Are you on your way?
SPEAKER_04:I'm gonna be on my way, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Where are you coming from?
SPEAKER_04:From the house, baseline.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. We'll see you here in the middle 1520.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:We'll let an electric truck make it.
SPEAKER_12:You might want to bring Canada.
SPEAKER_02:You can you can you can plug it in when you get here and make it a generator? Go Canada. Yes. Oh, Brandon's like, thank the low. Thank the lord of elm start to get down. Well, it wouldn't have been his first time. Definitely not his first time on the street. So why would he think the Lordy would get out of his knees? Because Trey's coming.
SPEAKER_12:I just watched a documentary that just come out. It's on Amazon Prime. It's Levinsworth. Leavenworth.
SPEAKER_08:Leavenworth?
SPEAKER_12:It's a documentary on Clint Lawrence. The army lieutenant who got charged with murder for killing Iraqis in Afghanistan in 2013. 12. What's wrong with that? Are you aware of that?
SPEAKER_10:No. A huge breaking my rule. What's your rule? I've only break like one.
SPEAKER_12:No, he was army a week in the middle. He was army lieutenant. Whoa. Um breaking a rule. He started out enlisted. And then did uh army green to green to grad or green to gold. Um then he became a first lieutenant. Lame ones out there. And uh oh they do, yeah. Got attached to I watch it, 82nd. Check this out.
SPEAKER_08:And uh they went to Afghanistan chickens chickens. Sure.
SPEAKER_12:These are the CPUs. They went to Afghanistan. This was 2000. Um he was initially with uh headquarters, like logistics or or whatever. Yeah, I don't know. And then when the line squad uh infantry company, when their lieutenant went down with uh it was uh like an IED injury, they brought him in. Well, he was only there for like 48 hours. And they got sent out on a mission. And supposedly, you know, Iraqis or not Iraqis, Afghanis on motorcycles were like a no-go. Like they were immediately bomb makers or whatever. And as he went out and they were patrolling, and they saw these Afghanis on a motorcycle coming toward him, and he had a gun truck open up and you know, kill him. Well, like his platoon sergeant stuff and the rest of the platoon, they all went against him. They said it was a different story. They were like, no, that's not how it happened, and it was his story, and he got charged with murder and sentenced to 20 years in 11th year. Really? And then in I think 2019. Was it 2019? The end of Trump. Was this was this a seal? No, the army um infantry officer. Oh. Quint Lorraine. Um Trump ended up pardoned.
SPEAKER_08:Really?
SPEAKER_12:But he did like six and a half years or something in in Levinsburg.
SPEAKER_09:You know, this is this is always a thing. I mean And wait a minute. He pardoned him, but his unit went against him? Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, like all of his all of his you know, infantry guys. And they think that there obviously there's a lot of moving parts here, but just a couple months prior in Afghanistan was I think it was Robert Bales. Uh, he snuck out and killed like 16 Afghanis in a village. Yeah. You know, the night, one night, like he went out and he just murdered them all on his own. Yep. So a lot was leading into that, and they were thinking when this happened, it was essentially they just being Lawrence was the new guy there, he was only there for 48 hours. The army just trying to cover their ass. They're like, here, take him, charge for murder, like, throw shit under a rug and move on. Yeah. So a lot of it he feels that he was just a scapegoat for the army to you know move on and get past. No. Yeah. Never would have thought that would have happened. Quite a I mean, it's quite a documentary. It's very interesting. It's on Netflix? It's on Prime. Amazon Prime. It's good. It's Leavenworth.
SPEAKER_02:It's very interesting. So I watch sports, I watch documentaries.
SPEAKER_12:Same here.
SPEAKER_02:Or like mini-series, shit like that.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I don't eat uh I barely listen to music in my truck when I'm driving. Like if I gotta go to Saginaw or go wherever to go to a meeting on a job site or something. I got podcasts on.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna listen to a story. I want which I know music tells a story, but you know. Watch it.
SPEAKER_12:It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_02:That that's the shit that I I learned, right? Find someone else's experience. And all too often I think that happens where somebody in the military, especially in a combat zone, it's easier to have them thrown under the bus. And I think all too often if there's bad intel on something, and you go in and do an operation or whatever, and even though it goes okay, but it's not the correct person or people or whatever, then it falls back on, you know, they're they're gonna bury the bad intelligence. Right.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_02:Because they're not gonna go after the intelligence officer that gave you the bad intel or whatever, right? The S1s are not gonna go after them. They're gonna throw the boots on the ground under the bus as going in and killing a bunch of civilians and kids or whatever, you know, because they ambushed the wrong convoy or something, you know.
SPEAKER_12:Well, and when you start getting the company commanders and battalion commanders and regimental commanders, and you know, you go up that up that ladder, at that point, it's all you know, smoking mirrors for them to cover tracks and not get a black eye in their career. Yeah. So yeah, they're looking for a quick scapegoat so they can just quickly move on and well they got 20, 25 years in.
SPEAKER_02:Getting ready for getting ready for a pension. Last thing they want is that all that to be leave the command. I know it's easy to throw the corporal, the sergeant, the snap, the sergeant, the gunny, or whoever under the bus. Absolutely. It's shitty. Well, but but right, it happens. Right. I think I think it happens all too often. Right. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying, right, you know, you go out there and you commit a crime like mass murder in a small village or something like that. That's that's absolutely uncalled for. And that shouldn't be covered up.
SPEAKER_05:No.
SPEAKER_02:But it does because we don't want in the way the world works since the Gulf War with CNN live, live during the Iraq war. Now everybody carries around a camera, right? So everything is being recorded, so berry, bury, bury. You know, because you know, used to be able to Vietnam, they could go in there and wipe a village out. Nobody really ever knows who did it. Well, nowadays, that that shit's on Facebook or Twitter or X or whatever, right? Like within minutes.
SPEAKER_12:So there were several references. There's no way you can hide it. In this documentary, there are several references back to Vietnam, like the My Lai massacre. Yeah. You know, and how they again they shuffled down to this one lieutenant and um just quick scapegoats. Yep. So yeah. Very, very, very interesting documentary.
SPEAKER_02:Speaking of scapegoat, we should be here in a minute.
SPEAKER_09:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And just because we said goat, don't get all horny.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. I didn't go to a ridecraft game understanding you guys did.
SPEAKER_02:I know. We took all the goats off and put them on the ships so that you guys weren't lonely. Yeah, like no shark, man. Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember seeing any goats.
SPEAKER_08:And then the navy's a mascot.
SPEAKER_10:I actually pretty sure. It's a sheep or something like that. It's a sheep or something like that. Oh, it's a goat. It's a goat. Is it a goat? A ram, I think. Ram and goat. It's a fucking goat.
SPEAKER_02:It's a fucking goat. Hey, we got a pretty cool one bulldog. We got a jackass.
SPEAKER_12:Dude, that was some of the worst clone in boot camp, though.
SPEAKER_02:Bunch of fucking donkeys.
SPEAKER_12:Bulldog clone in boot camp? That you get at the PS.
SPEAKER_02:Bulldog clone. Bulldog clone? Cologne. No.
SPEAKER_12:Oh, wait a minute. Or the aftershave or whatever? Yeah, when you got to go to the PX.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they force you to buy it. They force you to buy all kinds of shit. They did. That you don't even need. No. It's like we got the store. With a lot of inventory. Here's the list of shit you're buying. If you're making like$80 a fucking month. Oh shit.
SPEAKER_12:And then you come back and they do a fucking mountain shibachi and everything's fucking mixed in one.
SPEAKER_02:So it's all fucked up.
SPEAKER_08:Dude, we were under fucking martial law when I was in boot camp. We couldn't buy fucking dick. Why? Because we had we had eight guys go to um what did we call it? Charlie's Chicken Farm. Which is what? Like a restaurant? Like a Bravo?
SPEAKER_02:Like a whorehouse?
SPEAKER_08:No, it was like a fucking jail.
SPEAKER_02:Oh.
SPEAKER_08:For fucking profiteering. They had well you probably. And boot camp? Fuck yeah. They were buying fucking candy bars and fucking selling them for like two or three dollars a piece.
SPEAKER_02:Well they are like they're like two or three dollars a piece.
SPEAKER_08:Not when I was fucking in boot camp, they weren't. I went to boot camp in 1985.
SPEAKER_02:And they got hit.
SPEAKER_08:No, we didn't.
SPEAKER_02:That's what he said.
SPEAKER_08:They only certain people got to go to boot or the PX, like the platoon leaders and the squad leader.
SPEAKER_02:That's what I okay.
SPEAKER_08:So they'd go and buy them, and they'd bring them back and they'd fucking sell them. But they were going back, they were buying them mass quantities. And they were profiteering on this shit. They were racketeering. How many did you buy?
SPEAKER_09:None. I mean, that thing that they do during when you guys go out to the field. Somebody always buys two, three, four rolls of dip.
SPEAKER_08:Not chew.
SPEAKER_02:Not what I did. Yeah. But that was when I was that was when I was on the fleet.
SPEAKER_11:When you were fleeting the club.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you went out, you you went out to the field for like a week. You bought like four rolls of chew. One roll for you, and the other three. You waited for about day three, day four, and everybody else just grabbed a couple cans, and then you break out your pad. Ten dollar can. Right? Sign. Can, sign, can, sign.
SPEAKER_08:Like a boot camp. Boot camp, we couldn't chew. We could have cigarettes, but we couldn't have we couldn't have anything to light them with. We couldn't have matches or lighters. We get any of that. The drill sergeant would throw a lit cigarette out the fucking window, and we'd all have to fucking hot box of cigarettes. To fucking light our cigarettes. Imagine that.
SPEAKER_09:Huh? I remember we same thing. We weren't allowed to have any kind of shit. No, I think nobody has.
SPEAKER_12:We even thought about that in their fucking point you to the quarter deck.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, you think about a smoking boy? Get up here. We had one drawer that we were able to padlock, and you know, nobody was allowed into it except for us. Except once a week, it would get searched by, you know, our RTs. Um and there was this one dude, I'll never forget. He had been taking peanut butter packets from the galley and been throwing it in his in his thing, and been eating that shit at night. He forgot that he left one in there. Oh. And yeah, he got railed on that one. Never failed. I thought it was fucking hilarious.
SPEAKER_12:What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this, Brad Pa?
SPEAKER_02:I think whatever you were going. A jelly donut? Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.
SPEAKER_09:We had another dude that was addicted to McDonald's. He went through fucking withdrawals. Our chief came in, freaking bag of McDonald's and a McFlurry, sat it on the middle of the table, and called him out. Had a big McMill in there.
SPEAKER_12:We didn't have fucking time to think about anything at boot camp. No. We didn't have time to think about food or cravings or anything like that.
SPEAKER_09:But we had called that guy out and was like, you better eat this. So as soon as he took his first bite, we all dropped and we sat there and we fucking worked out. Oh it was horrible.
SPEAKER_08:We had a guy get cocaine sent to the city. What? Jesus. It was from his mother. Yeah. The package came from his mother. But but we don't know who it came from, but got cocaine in the mail and boot camp.
SPEAKER_02:Worst thing I ever did was we went up to Pendleton for field one week. That's in range. So we had we went up there for our uh it's like maintenance week. I can't remember what they called it. Like you worked the chow hall, you clean the belly, you mow the grass, maintenance week or whatever, then we had rifle week after that, and then we um had the crucible. Yep. Uh field week with the crucible at the end. So up there, like I was, I mean, I was like 130 fucking pounds, man. Right. So figured out they gave a couple guys, said double rap for double rations, uh, the starches. I was right. So I took my name tag, flipped it over, stamped it with our stamper for like the back of our clothes, and did DBL R A T, stamped it so I could just flip my tag back and forth, so we'd be walking in line, because we had we didn't have name tapes. No, right? So you just had this little red tag because I was first battalion. So I'd flip it over and it would say double rat when I was walking through the line. So they give me double portions, I'd flip it back over. All the other time. So I I because you're starving up there, dude. You're you're you you you never stop moving. No, you never stop fucking moving. And the thing is doing all kinds of shit.
SPEAKER_12:It's crazy. So you were more of a benefit when you actually got to use that double rat. My problem is you know, as soon as that guidance sits down, your time is clicking. Oh, yeah. Well, here I am, Thomas. I'm one some of the you know, last in line. By the time I sat down, I'm just shoveling as fast as I can. By the time, you know, that five minutes or whatever ran out, I never got to finish anything.
SPEAKER_02:So I don't know.
SPEAKER_12:Even as a double rat.
SPEAKER_02:So we had we had you know four squads. And we were back then, you were doing all these weird marches where you kind of intermingle and you sidestep and you spin around and you're doing all kinds of weird shit, getting in line. So depending on if you were like toward the front of line or you got the fourth in line, right? By squad, then it goes by height. So all the tall guys used to stand in the front and it would go all the way back to the shorter guys. I was midway for height, so I'd have been about middle of the squad, right? So just depending on the order. Yeah, there was there were some times, yeah. You literally got about three minutes to eat.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah. I mean, you're just shoveling down and we still still eat that fast to this day. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_08:No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_12:I still catch myself when I sit down. I'm just I don't I don't look up, I just look at my plate and I'm just shoveling until it's done, and then I'll look up like it kills my gut.
SPEAKER_08:Just sticks. I fucking hated them dings.
SPEAKER_04:What's going on? She's only here. I've come to bring wisdom and insight. Do we get your chassis belt?
SPEAKER_08:Oh hated them fucking dings. You might need seats taken.
SPEAKER_03:You know what? Seats taken. I'm gonna sit right here.
SPEAKER_04:Can't sit here and Charlie because making me nervous. I know it's gonna be me and you doing most of the arguing.
SPEAKER_03:Arguing.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, Brent is glad that you read it because he's fucking tired of being the fucking boy.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, Brent's tired of being the fucking whipping boy. He won't train here. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But it's you're still gonna be the whipping boy. No, not now.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes, you are. Why is Brent the whipping boy?
SPEAKER_09:That's what I'm asking.
SPEAKER_04:Well, what are we talking about? What have we talked about? Sorry, I'm late. We're talking about boot camp right now. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And how Billy used to be able to go out and have smoke breaks.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Brent and used to get to eat McDonald's. What fucking year did you go in?
SPEAKER_08:No.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, 85.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, but we couldn't have lighters or matches.
SPEAKER_04:How the fuck do you light your cigarette?
SPEAKER_08:Joe Start would throw a lit cigarette out the window.
SPEAKER_04:Fucking insane.
SPEAKER_08:And we'd have to fucking use a lit cigarette to fucking light all our cigarettes.
SPEAKER_04:Fucking 1985. Jesus.
SPEAKER_09:That's what I said. I remember third grade. I just want to point out the fact that I wasn't even born yet. I was eight. Just throwing that out there. I was three.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Um.
SPEAKER_04:Are we talking about the state of the world today or what? No, we're talking about the world.
SPEAKER_02:We haven't had any politics talks.
SPEAKER_04:Are you ready for this?
SPEAKER_12:But I'll try.
SPEAKER_04:Because this concerns service members. Does it? Yeah. The signal group chat.
SPEAKER_09:Hmm.
SPEAKER_04:You guys are aware of this, right? No. So yeah.
SPEAKER_09:I'm aware of it, but I never read into it. The something about some reporter being accidentally added to the chat, but supposedly no classified material was shared. Fuck it. That's what I heard. That's all I okay.
SPEAKER_04:Was classified. Was classified information shared?
SPEAKER_02:There was not really op orders, but there was operational information shared, yes.
SPEAKER_04:Time on target. What the target is. When, where, blah, blah, blah. All of these things that are definitely classified. And our Secretary of Defense, the uh former uh Sunday news Fox News host. Um who else was on there? JD Vance was on there, the vice president, um the Tulsi Gabbard, Mike Walls, uh, and a few other people. The fucking Secretary of Treasury, why that fucking person was even on there. First of all, they should have never been talking about this kind of stuff on Signal. Right? Can we agree on that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't I don't I don't know the background of Signal.
SPEAKER_04:Signal is it's like WhatsApp or fucking Facebook Messenger. Okay, it's not a secure thing, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Okay. I I I don't know what's in the room either. So that's that's why I'm asking the question. I heard about it, I read a little bit about it, but I didn't dive into what signal sounded like it was some sort of a government type messaging system. You can download it right now, but just okay. So oh, so it's like a legit app.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's a it's an app. Oh and um they for whatever reason they think it's secure, it's not secure. Um one of the people that were on the group chat while they were talking about time on target, weapon systems that they're gonna be using, all this shit. One of the people that was on that group chat was in the Kremlin. In Russia, in the Kremlin. Do you think that they weren't monitoring his phone the second he landed in Russia? Hell yeah, they were. They had that information. I can guarantee you that. Russia had that information. I'm sure they don't give a shit about the Houthis in Yemen. Right?
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, because that's what it was about. It's bombing bombing the Houthis and shit, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um and first of all, they shouldn't have been on Signal talking about this. Secondly, they added a journalist to the group chat. Yeah, that's uh it it was on accident.
SPEAKER_12:There shouldn't be a fucking journalist with the. I think it was on accident. No.
SPEAKER_04:Anyways. I think it was on accident. It was Mike Walls that did it.
SPEAKER_09:Since we're talking politics and you know how touchy I get about it, I got ground news pulled up. They're not a sponsor, but if you want to sponsor us, please do. Um I just send your check. Tell them where to send their check to. Oh, just comment, just comment, you know. I'll give you my anyway. I'll give you my Venmo. Venmo. Um, and if you don't know about ground news, it is a news site that compares left-leaning versus right-leaning news sources, and then they kind of aggregate that data and they figure out where it's at. So you can just type in a topic and search it. Well, I just searched signal, it just came up. Bias distribution is listed as 52% center, which is good, right? Yeah, I mean it's not not leaning heavily one way or the other. It leans 29% leans left, 18% leans right, the rest is 52% center. And then it shows you this infographic. Just the reporting on that, and then it shows you the infographic of who's leaning where and all of that.
SPEAKER_12:So yeah, I think I I would concur though that any you know, Oxec or mission planning or anything shouldn't be on a fucking social media platform. No. Yeah, so what do you mean right?
SPEAKER_08:Didn't your boy Geraldo Herrera?
SPEAKER_04:Geraldo Rivera.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. Didn't he get in trouble for that during Iraq? The first one where he leaked out.
SPEAKER_04:He leaked out some fucking you're talking about Desert Storm. Yeah, Desert Storm. Fuck man. I was like 13 when that happened. Um if he did do it, uh kicked out of the country or something. I do remember something like that. Yep.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, here's a good one. Military Times. You guys know Marine Corps Times, Navy Times, Army Times. Yeah. Here's the thing though. Military Times has been listed as very high factuality. It is center, and it states, their headline, quote, obviously classified, end quote. Experts say Hegseth chat leaks invited danger.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:So which is actually kind of interesting. I I mean I like militar uh military times, Navy Times, so I should actually try and find that.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, Haraldo Rivera was expelled from Iraq for broadcasting details about future U.S. troop movements in the country.
SPEAKER_05:Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's your boy, isn't it?
SPEAKER_12:So how did he even know about it? I don't know. Haraldo Rivera? He was Fox News.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:How did he even know about it?
SPEAKER_04:He was there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I know, but he should know where they're they're going before they're going. Right.
SPEAKER_12:I mean, when you get it when you get into true movement and those, you know, mission planning orders, like do you guys remember as a journalist in any of that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. Well they know that shit before we do. Well, do you do you remember being overseas and talking to your loved ones back home and like, oh well, you know, you there's certain shit you just didn't say. Yeah, yeah. Just don't say. I'm not over unsecure lines. Uh, you know, and they're shit.
SPEAKER_12:We only got a call from the SAP phone. You barely fucking hear anything from that.
SPEAKER_04:So uh the Trump administration's uh um way of if they had been like, hey, we fucked up, that story would have been dead right then and there, right? But they double down on it. They don't you know they doubled down on it. They first they were lied, they lied about it.
SPEAKER_12:Oh yeah, it's not. But that's a classic move of every fucking administration. They'll never straight up admit.
SPEAKER_04:Well they try and fucking beat the Russian But I mean this was egregious. For sure. Very egregious. For sure. And then the lying was very egregious as well. Um Congress had Tulsi Gabbard and though the the the head of the CIA was in that group chat and was naming the CIA operative in Yemen by name. Uh that fucking CIA operative could never work again. That is a because the the the reporter did not reveal that guy's name. He still has not revealed the person's name, but this guy who's in the Kremlin for sure was having his phone tapped. And they for sure have this CIA operative's name. So his career is over. I mean in that regard, anyways. Uh, I'm sure they'll move him to have him do something else, but god damn.
SPEAKER_08:His life's probably over. Well, depending on what he's done.
SPEAKER_12:They'll probably move him to work at the Soring New Casino. Be a pit boss. So uh security.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the the Trump administration uh first lied. It wasn't Trump himself. Trump was like, I don't know nothing about that. What are you talking about? Um Pete Haig Seth, well, initially he started lying about it, and then the reporter um put the text messages out. You know, he I think he blacked out like that guy's name and stuff, but everything he said right there on the on the in the in the messages.
SPEAKER_02:So what are they gonna do about it?
SPEAKER_04:Nothing, yeah, nothing, nothing like Mike Walls was the one that put the guy in the group chat, right? And I don't know what Mike Walls' position is in the government, but he's you know, he's one of Trump's cabinet members. He's uh let's see, Mike Walls.
SPEAKER_09:He is while you're looking that up, I'm just kind of going around the Navy times.
SPEAKER_04:National Security Advisor. No NSA. Okay.
SPEAKER_09:So I just want to say something real quick. Joe Harris, believed to be the oldest surviving World War II paratrooper, has died.
SPEAKER_04:That's crazy. Hopefully I'll be that. Oldest paratrooper.
SPEAKER_09:You know a ranger? Any rangers, paratroopers, anything like that? So you know anybody? Do you know any rangers or paratroopers or yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:I mean Paratroopers. Is it hard to be a ranger anymore? Paratrooper is just somebody that jumps out of airplanes. I thought that was like a ranger ops brand. It's an elite school. It is schooling.
SPEAKER_04:Rangers fall up under special operations. Okay. They do.
SPEAKER_02:So when you look at the pecking order of special ops, you got rangers, then you got Marine Corps Infantry, and then you got Disney.
SPEAKER_04:Well you guys got your own special ops, don't you?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, well, two of them then. Yeah, so we have uh Recon, Reconnaissance Marines, and then we got Marsock. Uh or not Marsocks turned into uh the Raiders.
SPEAKER_12:Well they're the same thing.
SPEAKER_02:Well Italian is, but they're Marsok. Well, right, but they used to be Marsok originally and then they renamed them. So Raiders. Which is still Marsok, but it's just renamed.
SPEAKER_09:Oh. I've been completely ignoring Joe. Um Joe. Totally on accident, Joe. Uh is this Joe Gates?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_04:He should be here. Should be here. He's working for you apparently.
SPEAKER_09:So thanks, Joe. Oh, sorry. He he's been making comments, and I was completely on a different window. My bad, Joe. He said something about uh, let's see, comparing what they uh comparing it to what Killery did. Um classified information. We had a guy get grilled for leaving a damn SKL out in the open at NTC. I don't know what that is.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, me either. Let's see.
SPEAKER_02:Probably some well, he was in communications or something, right? So probably was some sort of communicator. So something, I don't know.
SPEAKER_12:The buddy I served with, he ended up, you know, he stayed in in oh what do you call like 25 years, but he ended up as a first sergeant in Marsock. And then he picked up Sergeant Major, he went to San Antonio, he was in charge of the recruiting command down there, and then he got a request to be brought back to Marsock, and he was Sergeant Major of Mars. Oh, that's cool.
SPEAKER_04:I um SKL is a simple key loader, it's a secure cryptographic device used in for safe distribution and storage of communications. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Well, this as soon as it was Joe, it's gotta be gotta be something with communications. Ridiculously important, I'm sure. So it's like leaving the Enigma machine laying out. Whoops.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, if if that had been any of us that leaked that kind of information, if found out, we would be fried. Fried.
SPEAKER_12:Well, and and you can go back to that double standard officer unenlisted.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And then you're talking about from officer to Echelon's above. Yeah. Way above.
SPEAKER_12:I mean, we go back to the county level when the sheriff left his pistol in Shepherd Elementary Gym.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely nothing happened to him. Now, if I would have left my handgun, you know, then he'd become unlock locker. He'd become sheriff. Unlock locker. Because he wasn't even the sheriff. And leave the handgun in a fucking school unsecured.
SPEAKER_12:And a student phoned it the next morning and turned it in. Holy fuck. Thankfully the student turned it in.
SPEAKER_02:Do you think he quit his job? Nope. He wrote an apology letter and nothing else happened. Right, but if that was him or me or you, shit, we'd been in prison for fucking five years.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, for less than a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02:Especially now because of the new and just have it on a property.
SPEAKER_09:Because you're not allowed to have it on property. But cops can. Especially now because of the new gun control laws in the state now. Because apparently they're doing this whole thing.
SPEAKER_02:You still can't just because you're a cop doesn't mean you can leave them unsecured. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, I know. Yeah, that. But he can't carry it on school property.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:As a police officer.
SPEAKER_02:But yeah. Just write an apology letter and everything. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean he's not still the sheriff, right?
SPEAKER_08:Yes, he is. He is the sheriff now. He wasn't elected. He wasn't the sheriff then, I don't think. Okay, he was. Wasn't he? He just got in.
SPEAKER_12:I thought he got elected after the other. Because he was previously the deputy and shepherd. Oh, he was Bella County, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay. Is he um I thought Isabella County police was kind of like no more.
SPEAKER_02:So the the County Sheriff's Department, no, still. So there's only like there's the sheriff, the under sheriff, and like maybe one or two other deputies, and that's like it. And then it's the correctional staff at the jail. Which is still under control of the sheriff.
SPEAKER_12:Which if I'm not mistaken, like each county has to have a sheriff deputy. Or like the jailer.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, so they have got the CEOs, right? So they're all. I don't know if they're they're considered deputies. I don't think so. They're corrections officers. Yeah. But I think there's like uh two or three deputies that maybe like work the desk or something at the jail. And then him and the undersheriff, the sheriff and under sheriff. That's like it. They had to get they had to let go like 25 other deputies when the millage didn't pass. Which I don't know why those positions were run off the millage to begin with. Right. Like the Raw Patrol? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:They got doged.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because people were tired of paying for that shit. You know, and it sucks.
SPEAKER_12:But yeah, people got tired of, you know, these city commissioners mismanaged money and kept trying to raise, you know, taxes. Well, but more millages, more millages, more millages.
SPEAKER_02:So this is what we're saying. This is what we're saying. The sheriff gets a budget.
SPEAKER_10:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right? So you can't tell me in Macosta County or Clare County every year in Midland County, pass a special millage to have police officers. They don't. It's just in the budget to have these officers. So is your budget so small in Isabella County that you can't have but five or six officers? That's it? In order to have 15 or 20 to actually out driving around. You know what I mean? Like I don't understand for the shit. Don't have a special millage. Well, but what they did was they had to have used the money somewhere else to pay for all the officers. Right? And there's, oh, you know, well, if we want to keep the community safe, we need to have this millage. Wait a minute, where's all the regular budget money at? Right. Why is there not that already there? Well, because when it comes to public safety, the county commissioners probably slashed the sheriff's department budget, use the fucking money on some stupid shit, and then said, well, but people want their community safe, so they'll just pay extra for it. Well, no, not anymore. People hold on to it. It ain't fucking happening.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Well so do you think it's going to make a slow comeback? I think the county well. The guys that left, I don't expect them to trust the county to they'll never come back.
SPEAKER_02:No. No. No, that'll be a void. A lot of them. It'll be 10 years before we get them back.
SPEAKER_12:It happened, or something like Macosta 10 years ago or something, and they're still not.
SPEAKER_04:Well, it's not like we don't believe fucking city cops, state cops.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's the thing. Central cops. That's the thing. If you notice, there's state boys everywhere now. They have to. They have to now, but they never were before. Yeah. No, because they've shifted to they've shifted one or two out of each other freaking post around here and brought them all to this post.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And here's the thing that pisses me off. And and none of us understand because we don't understand the implications of jurisdiction, but why can't Central's cops they're fucking certified? So just because their jurisdiction is the campus, don't mean shit in my opinion. So they if you need a police officer, so they fucking they all were.
SPEAKER_02:So the city and tribal and oh, and especially tribal.
SPEAKER_09:Because the north side of town, we're all on the fucking reservation.
SPEAKER_02:They were all deputized. So that if there was a big mass event, right, somewhere, they they were allowed to leave campus to go to it. But CMU pays for those officers, not the county. Right. So CM, so that'd be like, you know, Delta College going, well, we're all colleges, we're gonna have Brett come work for us for a couple days. Mid's gonna be like, uh, no, he's our employee. Right? So CMU doesn't want to pay you as a CMU cop to go out and fucking patrol fucking Denver Township up by Rosebush. No. You're paid by us, you're on our campus, right? Same thing with the city. City doesn't want their fucking cops out roaming the countryside. No, they want them in the city. So if something happens, they're here, right?
SPEAKER_09:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So that's that's the reason why. So, but if there's a mass event or something where they need, like a shooter, and they need to have more cops right there right now, they're able to leave to go do that stuff. Yeah, but then they're when it's done, right? They're it's not their scene, they leave and go go back to their normal jurisdictional areas. But yeah, they were all deputized for that purpose, but it's not their responsibility to go patrol Rosebush or Shepherd or whatever else, like county was.
SPEAKER_04:Or Wayman, yeah, yeah, or Blanchard, or Blanchard. Can you imagine it's about the counties from Blanchard all the way out to Loomis? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's so so that road patrol is basically like from what I understood, there was like four police officers that were on patrol, right? Within the county. So there was one in the northeast, northwest, you know, so they were positioned around, and that was kind of the area they patrolled. So if there was a domestic violence or a shooting or car accident or something, they had someone in that area kind of close, you know, but you know, you had two or three shifts of that, so that's 12 people, you know, at a minimum, plus the people that were off, you know, on their days off or whatever. So I mean, yeah, they needed they they go like 20, 25 officers.
SPEAKER_04:So you know what happens now when people get arrested? Isabella County Jail, right?
SPEAKER_02:Which is so that's what I'm trying to tell you, is right now you have employed, you'd have the sheriff, the under-sheriff, and I believe it's like two or three other deputies, sheriff deputies, and then you have all the jail staff, which are the corrections officers. So the sheriff is in charge of the county jail. So the jail is the jail. That's a separate budget from the officers that are driving around, right? Doing stuff. So the jail's still fully staffed, and that's no different than it was when it was downtown.
SPEAKER_04:It's out in the new facility now, so that has did they build that new facility?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, they moved in, they moved into it.
SPEAKER_09:There's 190 inmates over there really a couple three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_04:190.
SPEAKER_09:Well, so some of them not all of them are ours. I didn't know the inmates were in Macoma or Acosta County and a bunch of other counties pay us to house their inmates.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, we get a bunch shipped up from Detroit and all that too. They pay us to hold their inmates.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they they opened the facility about three weeks ago or so.
SPEAKER_12:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And Detroit, in one of their prisons or jails down there, they're doing a remodel. So what they'll do is they'll take, you know, they've already moved a bunch of inmates out, and then they'll move inmates around within the jail, and then they'll bring some back, and then they ship others out. And some of them have come here, right? Because we get paid$185 a day or whatever it is to house their inmates. So when they're shut a floor down, they move those inmates out of that spot over here, and then they take the inmates that were there and they move them into the new part that's done.
SPEAKER_09:So, yeah, so we they've they've kind of adopted a like an M doc like kind of approach. Not every county has its own jail. They've gotta gone regional. I know I know Kent County did. Kent County covers Ottawa, you know, freaking Alleghen. Everybody goes downtown Grand Rapids to the Kent County jail.
SPEAKER_02:I thought each each county, I think, has got a jail. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Maybe I'll Google it. Let's see.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, pretty sure they all gotta have one.
SPEAKER_04:Maybe not. How big is it though?
SPEAKER_02:What's that?
SPEAKER_04:They're jails. Each jail, you know. How big is say Ottawa County? Yeah. Or Allegheny County.
SPEAKER_08:Are you looking for future housing area?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:No, but they do not. Uh, in lieu of providing a jail, as required in section 16, each county may contract with other counties for the use of such counties' jails. There you go. So they do not have to have one. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_04:Seems like it'd get pretty packed. Kent County's probably pretty busy.
SPEAKER_09:It's it's they've got thousands of inmates. Kent County out.
SPEAKER_04:Grand Rabbit, Grant Rabbit's big business locking people up.
SPEAKER_02:Well, that's why a lot of your prisons. We're all innocent, too.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, that's why a lot of prisons went to um uh privatized.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:A lot of your prisons across the country are privatized.
SPEAKER_04:Well, here's here's the thing. And I've I've I have figured out this uh this uh immigration problem, right? Getting rid of all the cheap labor. I figured it out. I don't want to say it because I don't want to give you guys you're out, but I'm gonna say it. And you know, they're rounding up all these uh migrant workers and whatnot and shipping them off. Uh so why don't you replace those migrant workers with prison workforce?
SPEAKER_09:They do it, they do do that in some parts of the country, but yeah, uh the old-fashioned chain gangs, you damn right put them to work. So I actually just read an article about the H2A, which is I still think we should open up those visas so they can who fucking cares? Like, whatever. That's a whole different thing. That really does get into politics. But the chain gang is a is a good solution.
SPEAKER_02:When you bring migrant workers in for seasonal work, I didn't know, but the farmer has to pay it's about two thousand dollars, nineteen hundred or something dollars for the application fee for each worker to bring them in.
SPEAKER_04:Two thousand dollars? Yep.
SPEAKER_02:It's nineteen, it's like nineteen hundred and eighty-two or nineteen hundred and eighty-five dollars just for the application processing shit. Each person? Each person. Then they have to pay for their flights to fly in, and or if they get them like a bus ticket, they gotta pay for that. They gotta pay if they do bus, then they have to pay their hotels, they have to pay all their food, they have to pay everything. Then when they get them to the farm, they gotta house them, which has to be inspected to make sure it's livable, and they have to feed them every day. And they pay them, they gotta pay them like almost 18 bucks an hour. Damn, so yep, so now migrant workers? Yeah, so now they're making fucking bank here in comparison. And they have to and they have to take them to a laundry facility if they don't have it at their own, at the house they live in. They have to bust them or drive them once a week to a laundry facility and to a grocery store. So that's backdoor renders here. So basically the farmers are going, look, this is getting so damn expensive that we we can't do it anymore. Imagine so damn expensive, and the reason why those workers are getting removed from the country because they've overstayed their visas, right? They came here to work on a farm and they just they're supposed to leave in September and they just never did.
SPEAKER_04:A lot of them uh they they actually do just they don't even come out of visa, they just hop to the border and then come go to Alabama and go work strawberries.
SPEAKER_02:But I'm talking about the ones that came here legally, right? Right. Well, the visas, how much the farmers actually have to pay to get one person.
SPEAKER_04:That's that's a lot. Why would they I wouldn't even do that? Well, that's more than$18 an hour, right? But they're once you add all that shit together, well yeah, but they're the ones trying to do it the legal way, right?
SPEAKER_02:Right, and have the people here so they don't get deported, they don't get in trouble. But the problem is is they just take off at the end of the end of the season, and now the farmers are like, well, they're fucking gone. What do you want me to do? And then they get rounded up.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Now it's different. You're talking about the border jumpers, that's totally different. Well, that's I thought we solved that with the wall. So now that so border border crossing. Border crossings are down like 82% since Trump took over. What say the illegal border crossings are down like 82% since Trump's taken over.
SPEAKER_04:Are we sure about that? Google it. I mean, I believe you. I believe you. Um why the fuck would you go?
SPEAKER_09:Are you raping a barn, broy?
SPEAKER_04:Um but listen, you get those prisoners out there doing farm work. That's it.
SPEAKER_02:I would agree if if if the prisoner wants to do it, they should be forced to do it if they want to do it to make money.
SPEAKER_04:Right, yeah, you still gotta pay the prisoner like his big steal.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's fine.
SPEAKER_04:A dollar, two dollars an hour.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I yeah, I mean, I think most of them are making, yeah, look, something like a dollar a day, actually. No, it's an hour.
SPEAKER_04:Is it an hour? Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:And that's yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Speak about it under the kitchen a little bit. In 2020, right around the time that Biden took over, it was at about I would I'd roughly call that, it's not labeled at this level, but I know what it was in 2020. I'd roughly called it about 25,000, roughly maybe a day. Um apprehensions. What else are we talking about? We're talking about legal border crossings. Well, I'm talking about apprehensions. This is just apprehensions, okay. And then here, I'll just show it to you. 2020, when Biden took over, look what it did. Yeah. It went up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. Finally, when Trump took over, freaking plunged. It went right back down.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, because they know he's not fucking around. They know he's not fucking around. Well, and I I agree that something needs to be done. And most Democrats, I think, agree that something needs to be done about illegal immigration. Um what is done about it? I think the cruelty that's um that's everybody from Bill Clinton to fucking uh Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bush, everybody said gotta get illegals out of the country.
SPEAKER_02:They've all said it.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, yeah. They usually call Obama the deporter in chief because he deported so many people.
SPEAKER_12:We go back to you know the Clinton era, though.
SPEAKER_09:I mean, everybody's you know Democrats are hard line against illegal immigration.
SPEAKER_12:Everybody's up in arms right now, you know, over this essentially this doge, this government efficiency and laying off everybody. I kind of like Clinton did it back, he was like one of the first ones to start it.
SPEAKER_02:He laid off like 75,000.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah. He's the one that started this whole government efficiency and shutting down all these programs and all that. It needs to be done.
SPEAKER_09:I think it's done. And Obama continued it with sequestration.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I do remember that. I remember that word, yeah. Yep, I do remember that's a big word. It is. Obama was doing that sequestration. Um, but uh, you know, they were I think a little smarter about it instead of firing all the fucking nuclear scientists that they needed, sure, which is what they did, and then said, Oh shit, we fired a bunch of nuclear scientists, let's get them back. And they were they had to go and get those nuclear scientists back. People working on the uh bird flu uh pandemic, they fired a bunch of those people. They realized, oh shit, we need those people, get them back. So I think it needs to be done. I just think it needs to be done a little bit more intelligently.
SPEAKER_12:Well, and there's this constant tug of war between, you know, administrations. Pull them one way to this way and pull them one way to that way.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And Brent's not in here, so we can talk about it. You know, because outfits all we want.
SPEAKER_12:Because you go and you look, you know, all these people getting laid off from their jobs and stuff. Well, we can go right back to you know the Biden administration and COVID when they told everybody, well, sorry, tough, you're laid off.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_12:It's no different than now.
SPEAKER_04:Do they lay them off or do they tell them go work from home?
SPEAKER_12:Oh, they had a bunch off. They had a bunch work from home.
SPEAKER_02:They tell you my guys can't work from home. People working at McDonald's can't work from home. But they laid them, they laid them off. People at stores couldn't work from home.
SPEAKER_04:Nope.
SPEAKER_02:You know? I mean, fuck, it was it was dumb enough. Well, you go to Home Depot and they closed the paint fucking section down so you couldn't go get paint. Really? Yeah. Because people were like, well, I'm gonna be home for a month and a half, I might as well repaint the house. So everybody was going to the fucking Home Depot and shit. Buying paint, buying shit to do crafts and stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:They literally like, nope, you can't do that. They roped it all off, you weren't allowed to go buy it.
SPEAKER_04:What the fuck? Swear to God. I believe you. Uh but you know as dumb as that is. The thing about the thing about COVID and what happened was it was all the newness of it, right? Nobody knew. Nobody knew. The scientists didn't know. The doctors didn't know what how bad this could or would get. Um, and in my opinion, they were just doing the best they fucking could. You know, with with the information that they had.
SPEAKER_02:So then why did Fauci get a pardon?
SPEAKER_04:Um, why did everybody else get a pardon? They all got a pardon. Fauci got a pardon because because they knew that Trump was gonna maliciously prosecute them.
SPEAKER_02:For what? If they didn't do anything wrong.
SPEAKER_04:I see, here's my thing. I would have I would have not taken that pardon either. I've been like, come after me. Let's see where this goes.
SPEAKER_12:Pardon is essentially an omission of guilt.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you're right. Right. So all the January 6th riders are guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
SPEAKER_02:Guilty as charged. What are we talking about? Then all then all the Biden family. No, you have fucking pardons.
SPEAKER_09:You fucking fucking dog.
SPEAKER_02:I like I like the fact that that they're that fucking robot signer in the office going to town.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:What is the story about that? Oh, come on. I bet you no more signed all 1,500 of those fucking pardons for the January 6th writers?
SPEAKER_02:No, he hand signed them. He signed probably one for all of them. Guarantee you he did.
SPEAKER_04:Good luck arguing that in court.
SPEAKER_02:Did you fucking what? If you the if the president doesn't actually sign it?
SPEAKER_04:The robo sign? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I bet you. Bet you they'll get overturned.
SPEAKER_04:How much you want to bet?$100. 100 bucks.
SPEAKER_02:I'll see you in about a year and a half. Alright.
SPEAKER_04:100 bucks. And it's on video too. I want my$100.
SPEAKER_09:I think it's gonna get overturned too.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so it's not like that means anybody could have signed those pardons.
SPEAKER_09:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:If an auto signer is doing it, I can I can make a pardon up right now, throw it through the auto signer. Yeah, president signed it.
SPEAKER_04:It's not gonna get overturned. I can because the the president they auto signed so much shit. They do. They auto signed so much shit that it's just another thing that they're auto-signing. Trump auto signs shit. There was something he auto signed.
SPEAKER_02:Um I don't know if you ever seen the interviews where he's got the fucking stack of shit and he's sitting there.
SPEAKER_04:I've seen that, yeah. I've seen it, but I've also heard him talking about um I didn't actually sign that. God damn it, what was that? Um there was something. But I can't remember.
SPEAKER_09:I like the thing they also said in in Trump's first month in office, while he sat there in front of cameras and people and signed all those freaking things, he took money.
