April 14, 2023 • 35 mins
Ben Maller & Danny G. kick off your Friday with an interview! J-Scoop is a proud former Marine and dedicated member of the Maller Militia. As a super fan of the show, he's traveled around the United States to chat with some of the legendary callers on the show. Recently he traveled from Northern California to the Ukraine to help out the cause in the battle against Russia. J-Scoop walks us through his journey to Ukraine, what life is like, his day-to-day activities and why you can't use a smart phone in a battle field.
...Subscribe, rate & review "The Fifth Hour!" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fifth-hour-with-ben-maller/id1478163837
#BenMaller
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Come boom. If you thought four hours a day, twelve
hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the
last remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as
the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow. The clearing
House of Hot takes break free for something special. The
(00:23):
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the
air everywhere. Welcome into the podcast dojo as we are
back at it, a brand new weekend of podcast ready
to go. We pop the podcast bubble as it is
(00:46):
the fifth Hour. We thank you for subscribing, for downloading
the podcast, for giving us a nice review, and we
are back up to our old tricks yet again. On
the Friday edition the podcast, myself and Danny Gray. We
welcome in now someone who has been a big part
of this show for many, many years. We've had him
(01:07):
in studio. He has traveled the entire United States to
meet other listeners of the show, and now he is
spending some time with us on the international line, which
sounds pretty impressive. But the magic of WiFi, the magic
of the Internet. I can look at this man right
(01:28):
now we have a video connection. You can't see it
because we're on the podcast and it's audio only on
the fifth hour, but we welcome in a man who
has been a big part of a many many things
that we've done, a platinum winning member of the Mallard Militia,
the Great Jays Scoop. Now Jay Scoop is joining us
(01:50):
from a secret location in the Ukraine. You're saying, hey, Mallard,
isn't that country at war with Russia. Yes? Yes, Jay Scoop,
who lives in northern California, has made the trek across
oceans to get to Europe. He's had to cross into
(02:12):
the border several plane flights will walk you through all that,
and I wanted to have him on to go in depth,
find out what it's been like, what his experience has
been like as he's traveled around in a country that
is actively at war against Russia. An amazing thing to experience. Now,
(02:33):
a little backstory. Jay Scoop did spend four years in
the military, and he's a proud former Marine and so
he has that background. He also has some Ukrainian bloodlines,
so that's also a factor. But let's welcome in now
without further Ado Live on the Fifth Hour with Ben
(02:54):
Maller and Danny j from Ukraine. We welcome in a
Jay Scoop. Jay, why why don't we start with this?
Jay Scoop? Tell me how many hoops? You look great,
by the way, but tell me how many hoops you
had to jump through to get to where you are
right now? Oh man? And isn't it crazy right now?
(03:15):
Like you're literally in La and I'm in Ukraine talking
to you right now, Like this is mind boggling. Well,
and you look like you're like next door. The wife
is pretty good. I can I kind of can tell
whatever room you're in, it looks Ukrainian a little bit.
It doesn't look like American broom. There's there's not a
lot of advertising on the walls or anything behind you.
(03:36):
So I got that. Yeah, well, from from what I'm told,
this is a revamped old communist like Hoteller or something.
But wow, only the best, Jay Scoop, Only the best.
But yeah, originally, um, you know, and I told some
other people this, but when this swar first kicked off
(03:58):
over a year ago, I was like, oh man, you know,
I really feel for these people. I'm also a quarter
of Ukrainian, like, I really want to go over there,
But at the time I was in a relationship with
my girlfriends. So that's usually always been the kicker for me,
whether I was gonna try to jump in on a
conflict or not. If somebody I loved was like there,
(04:22):
I usually would refrain. But obviously my girlfriend and I
broke up in the summer last summer, and that kind
of opened the door for me coming over here. So
I decided to pull the trigger once I once I
saw that it was possible. So you see that it's possible.
But I would have no idea if I woke up
(04:44):
tomorrow and said, you know, I want to go to
the Ukraine, I have no militarch anybod I want to go, like,
I wouldn't. I wouldn't know how to get there. You
can't just fly into the Ukraine. You you would mentioned
that you had a lot of different stops on the way. Hey,
obviously it's a long fight. You live in California now,
so you had to fly from northern California to Europe,
(05:06):
And did someone walk you through it? Did you know
because you were in the military, did you kind of
have an idea of how to get into the Ukraine
or how complicated was it? Yeah, so it was kind
of interesting because I had good intel and bad intel
and I had to go through the stages there. But
you know, I did have a couple of people that
(05:28):
I already knew in Ukraine, a girl that I liked
those over here, an artist that worked on some of
my music graphics stuff, a couple other people. So I
was asking, you know, like, Okay, how do I get
over there? I already knew it was a no fly zone,
and quite frankly, if it was still a fly zone,
would you really want to take your chances? You know, exactly? Yeah.
(05:56):
So basically I was like, okay, how do I get
in there? And I knew, you know, okay, I got
to go to a boarding bordering country and get in,
so Poland seemed like the most likely one to do.
So then I had to find out how to get
a cheap flight to get me to Poland. And then
from that spot, it was like, okay, how do I
get in? How hard is it to get in? What
(06:17):
do I need to cross that border? You know, it
would suck to go all the way to the border.
And then they're like, yeah, no, what what the hell
are you doing if you can go home now, surprise
you're not getting in. So how much paperwork did you
have to bring with you? Like? Yeah, how complicated was
that part of it? So? You know, I went out
(06:39):
I think it was visit Ukraine Calm or or something
like that, and it had all the all the hoops right.
It was just like you know, your standard okay passport.
Being an American, I didn't have to worry about like
a visa or whatever. But then it was like, okay,
you gotta have your COVID stuff ready. Your COVID stuff
has to be within you know, reasonable amount of times
(07:01):
since your last shot. You have to buy Ukraine COVID
insurance in case you get COVID over here. You won't
be like bogging them down in the hospital as somebody
who didn't have any money. Um, now that sounds worse
than it is. You had like a lower tier version
and a higher tier version. The higher tier version, I
(07:22):
can't remember. It was like the eight bucks or something.
It was like a Burks. It was like, oh crap,
and then I looked at the price, was like oh whatever,
just like rattle off the few dollars like stripper money.
At them. And then so you're saying, you're saying, Jay Jesse,
you're saying that the American dollar goes a long way
(07:44):
in the Ukraine. Is that? Is that what you're saying?
The difference in in the money you can stretch a
little bit. Yes, it definitely does. Um right now, it's
hovering around thirty seven revenreveniez to the dollar. And so
like a good example, when my last Uber ride was
(08:05):
sixty herevniaz, so that can tell you that's under two
dollars that it took me for that ride. So okay,
So yeah, okay, so you have your I can't believe
this COVID insurance is still a thing, but whatever, I
find that they have their rules. So you have your COVID,
you have your COVID insurance, and then what else did
(08:26):
you need? And so then there's a couple of things
like they want to make sure you have enough money
for your stay, so that in conjunction with this standard one, right,
why are you here? Where are you going? And why
are you why are you coming here? And so of
course I'm like, oh, I'm coming to visit the mic
at this hotel. And honestly that's all you had to
(08:47):
really do is say, okay, I have this reservation at
this hotel and here's my bank account. I show that
I can meet them, and they have this little algorithm,
this little formula that says, okay, this is how much
money if you're there this many days, is how much
you have to prove you have. And I had enough
for that, So so I had all this stuff. Ben
(09:10):
when I got to that border, they just looked at
my passport. They didn't I did all that shit and
I didn't need any of it. So it was mostly
outdated stuff. So they ran you around and then I
took one look and then I go ahead, do it,
do what you want. So when you get when you
get to the border, like you know, you're you're tougher
(09:32):
than me, you're in the military and all that. But
when you get to the border and you cross over,
and you know you're going to a place where there's
like Russian bombs coming in, Like, do you know right
away did you see stuff when you cross the border.
Did you have to go further into the Ukraine before
you you saw some of the stuff that you've you've
witnessed her since you've gotten over there. Sure, well, although
(09:52):
everywhere in Ukraine is in range. Ukraine is a very
big country, and so when you enter on the west
west side, it's so far from the front that you
know you're you're pretty safe. So Leviv is the name
of the biggest, you know, city out on the west side.
(10:13):
You kind of cross and then go through there, So
it takes quite a while to get over into the
more dangerous areas. So when you're crossing the border, you're
not really worried about the Russians. You're worried about the
border gardens from getting in, worried about the politics of
the Ukraine possibly maybe, And then the other part of it.
I was curious, I mean, this is you're an American,
(10:34):
you're in the Ukraine. Did you have to deal with
the embassy? Are they even open in the Ukraine because
of what's going on there? Like that part of it?
What kind of what kind of stuff? Did you have
to deal with that? From what I understand, there's still
representation there. But honestly, I just ignored them. I really
(10:56):
only was going to involve them if it turned out
I needed them to volunteer for the Ukraine military, and
I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing that.
So so my first foray over here was really more
of a reconmission at first to decide, okay, you know,
what is it like over here, and then maybe I
can make a decision, and then if I needed help,
(11:18):
I was gonna try to go through the embassy things.
But it very clearly says on any website you go to,
the US is telling you not to come here, like everywhere.
So if you get smoked over here, they're basically gonna
say I told you so. Yeah, and so they have
no it's liability, right, it's always the lawyers, right, yeah, yeah,
(11:39):
yeah about lawyers and lawsuits and things like that. Let's
rewind for a minute though, because before I got to
that border man, he was a ditch my freaking flight.
So my flight was from San Francisco to London, which
was cool. I'd never been there before, so I can
technically say I got to be there, and then from
London to v in Austria. Well, you could see on
(12:03):
my ticket there was thirty five minutes from when I
was supposedly gonna land to when that next flight to
go to crack All, Poland was going to take off,
and everybody on that plane along with me that had this.
We kept asking, hey, are we good? Are we good?
Like this is a small window, are we good? Yeah, yeah,
you're good, You're good. What happens We get and we
(12:25):
run through and they make you go through the screening
all over again, like it. I can understand if it
was like a different flight, but this was Austrian Airlines
to an Austrian Airlines thing, so it wasn't like we
anything where we should have had to go out and
then back in, so that slowed us down. We get
up to the thing and they're like, yeah, no, sorry,
(12:46):
it's too late. And by the way, the next flight's
like I don't know, like a day away and all
this stuff. And that killed me because remember I have
a lot more stuff ahead of me, I have a
trained catch a bus to catch all these things, are
already paid for set up, and the stupid thirty five
(13:07):
minute turnaround ended up literally derailing all my all my
travel plans, so I had to call audibles at that point.
Did they give you refunds on the trains and the
planes and the part of the automobiles the rest of
the trip, or did you have to buy pay pay
for that again? They were like, Okay, here's a hotel
in Austria, will pay for that, take a cab, here's
(13:31):
a card. When you end up paying for that, we're
going to reimburse you. And here's this flight like the
next day. And so you know, I'm sitting there just raging, raging,
right because like I was supposed to. And so I
just basically got online and I started seeing if there
were any other options. I even checked to see if
(13:52):
there was like an uber that could take imagine how
much that would have cost. Well, maybe not much, but
my god, that would be a long uber ride. Yeah,
because I was like, well, it's an our flight, like
it was a short trip by plane, but you know plane,
I mean, it could be going over mountains, who knows.
So ultimately I found a there's this a bus company
(14:17):
that's pretty international. It's called flix Flix and they cover
a lot of different areas. And there was a bus
route that went from Austria through Oh I'm gonna I'm
gonna mess this up. It's either Slovakia or Slovenia. I
think it's Slovakia going to Slovakia. We'll go We're going
with Slovakia. Nobody looking don't look at a map. Nobody
(14:38):
look at a map. All right, we're just gonna go
with this exactly. So Vienna Austria into Slovakia, you traverse
Slovakia and then you pop out through the border to Ukraine. There.
So instead of crossing from Poland into Ukraine, which is
a little bit more easier route in I was crossing
in from Slovakia. And let me tell you, that bus
(14:59):
ride wasn't too bad because it was comfortable. But when
I got to that border, it was like you know
when you go through customs, is the one guy and
you go through and you're like, ah, shoot, okay, that
was good, no problem. There was four moments of that,
every time I handed my passport and then and then
we would inch forward a little bit, and then there'd
be another guy, and then there was another guy. And
(15:20):
they even stopped one guy and pulled them off the bus.
I'm like, oh, they're coming for me. This must be
what it was like in World War Two, Like what's
happening here and there? And these guys and they're like
checking you out there like mad I and you're mad
dogging and all that, right, like what are you doing?
And you're American? So did you say probably Were you
the only American doing this? Yes? Yeah, yeah, I had.
(15:45):
To the left of me, I had this girl who
had dual citizenship for Great Britain and Ukraine, and so
she was helping me out with some of the you know,
translations and things like that. But yeah, I had very
very limited speech to be able to If these guys
engaged with me, I knew I was screwed because they'd
(16:06):
be like, oh, he doesn't know the language and get
off the bus, let me see what you're about. But
they didn't do it. I was under the radar. It
was awesome. Have you seen any Americans since you've been there?
You've been there a while now, is there have you
seen anyone who's from the States there or is it
just all people from the Ukraine and maybe Great Britain
or some other places. It's funny that you mentioned that,
(16:27):
because just last night I heard my first two English
sneaking people. When I got back in town, I got
grabbed some stuff at the market and these two black
guys were walking by me and I'm like, wow, that's
those are the first black guys I've seen since I've
been here. And I listened, I'm like, I wonder if
they're sure enough. They were speaking English, and I like
(16:48):
kind of like did the old way, like hey, what's up?
But that was crazy. That was the first first people.
There's a lot of people here that speak at least
some English, but I mean as far as just like
flat out American, those are the only ones. I wondered
why those guys were here? Did you ask him? Did
you say what? Nah? I was? They were heading out
the door and I was ordering my Uber. It's called
(17:10):
bolts over here. They don't call it Uber, it's bolts.
They do have Uber here, but it really sucks because
there's not that many people using it. There's a bolt
and something called Uklon. Yeah, uk lo o n. How
much of the native tongue have you learned? You said
your bloodlines from the Ukraine? Do you know enough? As
(17:32):
it a pig Ukrainian buy a little bit sloppy Ukrainian.
I have decent enough and according to the ladies the
accents working for me too so. But yeah, I downloaded
an app probably about a month out from me coming here,
and I've been taking my lessons on there and so
(17:54):
far I've been getting getting decent reviews. Give you a
sample Chennio tlebab p is even know you? So I said,
wouldn't you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? Oh?
So you've learned the pickup lines. Yes, that's good, Yes
you've learned. It's very smooth of you. The priorities, uh,
(18:19):
I would learn like where's the toilet or something like
you were going to pick up the ladies here in
the in the Ukraine. Well, and then I'll tell you, though,
the best part about though here not knowing the language
is our technology. I literally, anytime I run into trouble,
I just break out my phone, go to Google Translate,
and they're doing the same thing like they clearly they're
(18:41):
used to it, and so if they can't speak it enough,
they're doing it right back. And so we're just sitting
there typing on our phones. That's awesome, that is See.
It breaks down all the barriers and all the walls
and all that stuff of communication. Imagine traveling back in
the day before before the phones and stuff like you
to have like what books out with the language and
(19:03):
try to figure it all out, right, you got to
do body language like a motho on that one. Not
good at that. I would not do well in that
world if I would not do so, Like day to day,
paint the picture here, like we know what we see
on the news here, and that it's obviously an active
war zone in Russia's bombing in the Ukraine's fighting back
(19:24):
and all that. So like in the city or are
people is it just normals? It feel normal? Can you
tell there's some weird stuff going on? Like and where
you've been, you traveled all over, So paint the picture here, jascha.
What's it like day to day there? Sure? So for
most of the most of the people here, they kind
of go like as if on the outside they're showing
(19:48):
like as if nothing is happening, right, nothing is different,
And I think, you know, that's more of kind of
like us keeping your sanity thing right, Like like the
girl I was talking to you before I came over here,
she said, you know, it would it would drive us
crazy if we thought about the war too much. So basically,
we just live our life like it is and if
we you know, if we get killed, we just hope
(20:10):
it happens fast. And I was like, wow, that's very
cold to say, you know, Like I'm used to military
people saying that, but not civilians. And but you know,
Eastern Europeans also have a kind of a reputation for
being a little bit you know, more sterne. I don't
know what's the right word, but you know, they're stoic.
I don't know if that's the right word. They're able
(20:32):
to come year mentalize. Yeah, they have a very tough
that does not happen, um, you know in America very
I mean people freak out over the right now, we
freak out over all kinds of bullshit that's going on here.
So I can if something terrible like this happened here,
what would would take place? But yeah, what a way
(20:52):
to live your life, though, Chase Cooper right an, you're
like something, you know, I guess it's got to be
the way you do it, right, I mean, diagnose the situation.
You're like, what else? What else can you really do? Yeah,
it's it's crazy, And but I found that the bigger
city you're in pretty much the more safer you're going
to be, unless you're like all the way out in
(21:14):
the east where the Russians are, you know, have been
taken over and so and then of the big cities,
the one that's going to take the most fire is
the obvious one. Kiv is the capital, right, so you
take the capital, you cut off the heads. So obviously
they're constantly trying to mess with Kiv. And the town
(21:36):
that I go to when I'm not traversing other places
is one of the closest, bigger towns to Kiv, so
it kind of benefits from that, right, if if rockets
are coming, they're gonna go the other the other direction,
because it's like, well, why why I hit this town.
There's not really much reason to hit this one. Yeah,
(22:01):
And then like, but all the restaurants are open and
people are out, you know, just living their lives like
you know, so no, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Like they
have curfews everywhere and it can change depending on your region.
But even while I've been here, the curfew let up
a little bit. Like I want to say, the curfew
was between nine pm and five am. You were not
(22:21):
supposed to be out on the streets, and I want
to say, right now it's like midnight to four. It
just switched to so um. But yeah, all the places
I just I did some karaoke, like last time I
was I was in town. I was like what and
then they were like, Wow, this American. This guy's like
(22:42):
she's singing like he's really American. I'm like, because I am.
You're like wow, You're like you're like the greatest actor
of all time. Dude, you like seem like a US guy. Wow,
that's why. And you're like a professional musician Jay School.
So you must have absolutely dominated the karaoke machine. What's what, Karrie?
What's your go to karaoke song? Well? I killed it
(23:03):
because not only my good singer, but I remember part
of my past I had to do some cover band music,
so I just like dial up those songs that I've
done like a million times. So I was doing like
the Killers, Mister bright Side, Plush by Stone, Temple Pilot,
It's you know, oh yeah, I just I was slaying.
(23:25):
They're like, oh my god. Well, you know the famous
Elvis Presley's story, right, I think this is true. I
heard this years ago that Elvis went It wasn't a
karaoke thing, but he went to like an Elvis impersonator
contest and he didn't win. He finished in like third
or days because they didn't believe it was him. He
(23:48):
didn't announce who he was. But but they people and
like you're a real singer, and people are like, wait
a minute, what's going that's that's that's wild. As far
as your timeline, ye, where are you at Jasco? As
far as you're how long have you been there at
the time we're talking right now, you've been there, it
feels like for several weeks. Am I right on that?
(24:09):
Am I wrong on that? Yeah? So I left San
Francisco on the twenty fifth. I was supposed to get
here on the twenty seventh. Because of that stupid Vienna fiasco.
I got here a day and a half later, so
instead of two and a half of days, it took
me four days to get here. So so yeah, I
(24:29):
got here on the twenty eighth. So you've been there
about as we're talking. You've been there a couple of weeks,
and and you're you're enjoying the experience. I mean, you're
obviously you're going there. Just you said this was a
recon mission. You're trying to figure out the next step
and all that, and and where you at in that
journey right now after a couple of weeks into this. Sure,
(24:52):
So the main thing was, Okay, where on the scale
am I going to be from fall on the left
side of the scale as humanitarian and all the way
on the right side is I'm just gonna volunteer Ukraine
Army and just boom, I'm in and under their control.
And obviously I wanted to lean more towards humanitarian UM
(25:15):
and some of my loved ones were really pushing for
me to not do the military route. So I was like, well, okay,
how how's the best way for me to go around this?
And then I decided, you know, I think a combination
of financially and and trying to get some goods to
the right people UM was the route I wanted to go.
(25:39):
And I knew that I with my background, I'm willing
to traverse into the areas that you would you would
not want to go to UM and so I have
brought a lot of supplies and stuff to the civilians
in the areas that you normally will see that are
(25:59):
read the map in Ukraine right now, UM and UH,
and the soldiers. So I've I've gone, I've gotten to
mingle with soldiers where I normally would not be able
to go. But because they were able to verify that
I was legit with my background, they've let me into
(26:20):
their kind of inner circle, if you will. So I've
gotten to go in where where troops are and that's
pretty cool. Unfortunately I can't bring my phone there. Uh.
I believe it when they say if the drone is
flying around and it detects the cellular signal, it's going
(26:42):
to launch something at that direction. I don't even know
if that's true. Is that what they tell you? That's
why I wonder is do they you think they have?
The technology is crazy? Right? I know, right? But am
I going to test it? I know? I know how
long ago you were in the military for what four years? Right?
I think you told me so. How long ago did
(27:02):
you get out? You've been out of the military for
for a number of years, right, Yeah, it's been quite
some time. Now. Imagine the technology now and you were not.
I mean it's been been a few years. But think
about where they're at right now with the bells and whistles,
with the stuff they because every year, right, they come
up with the new the new technology, and and they're
always at the forefront the military. I know, Russia's different
(27:22):
and the Ukraine's using a lot of US stuff though, right,
they have a lot of a lot of the money
from the US has gone to the mission for sure.
Well fortunately for me and maybe not fortunately for the
infantry people. A lot of that stuff doesn't go too
fast in terms of the advancements and the technology for
(27:44):
like a normal infantryman. So even like say the rifles
that they're using right now are just like kind of
like a brother or sister to what I was using.
A lot of the gear is adjusted slightly, but it's
basically the same, Like I could easily just jump into
it and do whatever. And then obviously aiming and shooting
(28:05):
is that's like riding a bike. So it's really more
on the more support side, right, Your types of rockets,
your drones, all that, these are things that weren't weren't
there and prevalent with So it's like, okay, I gotta
be careful getting detected and stuff. Yeah, no, for sure
for sure. And so when you when you go around,
(28:27):
you've been there a couple of weeks, now, is there
is there anything that some of the locals in the Ukraine,
some of the people you've met in the different cities
you've traveled to, they have anything they wanted to pass
on to the people who might be hearing this, and
like just curious about just the general the sense of
what's going on. I'm trying to think of the right
word here, but there messaging they have, or any kind
(28:49):
of theme you've heard from the people there. Definitely, yo,
I was very I was very curious because again with
how tough people are here, you know, you're not sure
if somebody's gonna open up and tell you. And then
much like how I know, you know, being back in
the States, you know, you ask somebody like, oh, were
you in the war or you know, you have to
(29:09):
be careful when you ask them these things because it could,
you know, be insensitive to that person. So you got
to know when and when not to ask things. But
but yeah, one of the people here, um that I
became good friends with, I just say, hey, you know,
I'm curious, like what if you could tell America what
you know, what you're what you're feeling about, what's going on?
(29:30):
You know what, what would you say? And this is
what they told quote Honestly, I don't want to say anything.
I know that people abroad or tired of the war,
and many are angry that everywhere they are burning with war,
and I understand them. But the fact is that they
only hear about it and we live in it, and
(29:50):
they can't even imagine how tired we are. We are
very tired. We left our home, many families were destroyed,
how many young guys, including my acquaintances, died. I'm generally
silent about our Psyoche and after the war we will
be mentally destroyed because we live one day but we
do not know where and when something will fall and
(30:12):
whether we will wake up. But from the outside, we
don't care about it because we're just tired. Yes, we
hold on giving ourselves hope every day that we need
to suffer a little more. But we were promised that
it would be a little more than a month, and
it turned out already four hundred and twelve days. It
makes it to where you don't even want to convey
(30:32):
to anybody how you feel. How I feel, So that's
kind of crazy. And the shocker for me was the
month thing. I was like months from the United States side.
I remember thinking, oh Russia's attacking. That sucks. I guess
Ukraine's are about to be wiped out. Like I don't know,
I don't know how everybody else thought, but I just thought,
oh Russia's army must be so big they're not going
(30:54):
to be able to stop this. And then I remember
everybody was surprised how good Ukraine was was doing out
the beginning. So I don't know when that month thing
came in, but maybe just after that start was good
for Ukraine. Maybe then they assessed it as a month.
I don't know. Well. The other thing I've learned, and
I think this goes for any any country, is do
(31:15):
not believe when they say it's only going to be
a certain amount of time. I mean, remember when COVID
started here in the un two weeks, A couple of
weeks will be good, everything will be all right, will
identify the problem, pinpoint the issue, everything will be fine,
and you know, two and a half years later, it's
like it's like the old the old Bruce willis thing
(31:36):
him die hard. Right, We'll have a couple of views
and a couple of ye what's the worst thing that
can happen? Man? All right, Well, we've kept you long
enough jascause I know you got stuff to do, and
I thank it. Boy, the connection has been great, though.
I gotta tell you I'm connection here, so stay safe.
Any idea how long you're gonna be there, just kind
(31:58):
of taking it day by day. Do you have a
rough outline and when you'll be heading back to the
United States. April thirtieth is the date I've kind of
set for myself that possibly come back. I would stay longer,
but you know, without without a visa, residency or whatever,
you're allowed ninety days within a six month period, So
(32:20):
so I want to be strategic how long I stay.
So so there's a decent chance on April thirtieth I'll
start heading back and then at some point I'll probably
come back over to Ukraine. So yeah, all right, Well,
if you find your way to Minnesota, Jay School, Big Mallard,
meet and great. I know that's high on your priority list.
Jay scoop is to any you've been interacting, I know
(32:43):
during the show you've been we see. The time difference
is what time is the show on our shows on
what time in the Ukraine? Is it in the morning
or afternoon like when we're doing the show live. So
for you guys on the Pacific Coast, you would flip
the AMPM and then you would take two hours away.
For me, I do the opposite. I flip it and
(33:04):
I add too. Oh so it starts at nine nine am.
Is that am I rent on it? Right? Your your show?
H for me, it's one a am here. Oh so
it goes all because a day and then a couple
it's ten hours. Ten hours difference is basically what it is,
(33:27):
all right, I got e saite. I thought it was
a daytime thing, but it's kind of it is for us.
It is so at one pm your show it starts here. Yeah,
we're doing mid days. There you go, and all right,
Jay Scop, thanks stay safe man. I appreciate you doing this.
And you want to say anything to the fans of
(33:47):
the show. I know you've been interacting with them on
Twitter and all that. So any Justin and Cincinnati, your
your buddy Josh, just Josh, your musical comrade there in
in Cincinnati, and I know, I know bunch I got
reached out to me. They want to They've been trying
to get ahold of Terry in England and some of
the other guys are like, we gotta get all the
Jay scope and so they're all following along with your
(34:10):
journey here for sure. For sure, I miss everybody. I
missed my musical brother Terry in England. I tried to
text him. I don't know if he's got a rotary
phone or what's going on there. So Terry, just so
you know, I tried, man, But yeah, Terry's actually got
one of the first phones ever when they invented the phone.
He's no use. It's a tin cannon string. It's fascinating.
(34:36):
There you go, there you go. But other than that, uh,
I still also tried to interact with our podcast kind
of company um to the show, So just do my
due diligence. You can find me on the Mallartown podcast
on all streaming format ATS and it's also now on
YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at Mallartown. And I
(34:59):
gotta say, Ozzie Guy works very hard on this on
this show, and uh and especially lately because some of
the content. It fell off content wise, but we're revamping it.
We're gonna have fresh and new fund parallels to the
Ben Mallar Show, just as the name mallard Town suggests.
I'm excited about that. And we don't do shoutouts, as
(35:20):
you know, but this week we did not do a
shout out for Ozzie Guy, who may or may not
have crossed over into the may have crossed over into
his forty so, but we did not give him a
shout out because, as you know, we're not a morning
Zu show, but on the podcast we can. We could
do that if we wanted to, but we could. I
don't think we should though. Yeah, that's overrated, exactly exactly
(35:43):
all right, Jay Scoop, thank you by man, and we'll
have you on again down the line. And I can't
wait for you to get back and come visit us
in the studio sometime. All right, Love me off, Peace,
Come boom. If you thought four hours a day, twelve
hundred minutes a week was enough, think again. He's the
last remnants of the old Republic, a sole fashion of fairness.
He treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as
the rich pill poppers in the penthouse. Wow. The clearing
House of Hot takes break free for something special. The
(00:23):
Fifth Hour with Ben Maller starts right now in the
air everywhere. Welcome into the podcast dojo as we are
back at it, a brand new weekend of podcast ready
to go. We pop the podcast bubble as it is
(00:46):
the fifth Hour. We thank you for subscribing, for downloading
the podcast, for giving us a nice review, and we
are back up to our old tricks yet again. On
the Friday edition the podcast, myself and Danny Gray. We
welcome in now someone who has been a big part
of this show for many, many years. We've had him
(01:07):
in studio. He has traveled the entire United States to
meet other listeners of the show, and now he is
spending some time with us on the international line, which
sounds pretty impressive. But the magic of WiFi, the magic
of the Internet. I can look at this man right
(01:28):
now we have a video connection. You can't see it
because we're on the podcast and it's audio only on
the fifth hour, but we welcome in a man who
has been a big part of a many many things
that we've done, a platinum winning member of the Mallard Militia,
the Great Jays Scoop. Now Jay Scoop is joining us
(01:50):
from a secret location in the Ukraine. You're saying, hey, Mallard,
isn't that country at war with Russia. Yes? Yes, Jay Scoop,
who lives in northern California, has made the trek across
oceans to get to Europe. He's had to cross into
(02:12):
the border several plane flights will walk you through all that,
and I wanted to have him on to go in depth,
find out what it's been like, what his experience has
been like as he's traveled around in a country that
is actively at war against Russia. An amazing thing to experience. Now,
(02:33):
a little backstory. Jay Scoop did spend four years in
the military, and he's a proud former Marine and so
he has that background. He also has some Ukrainian bloodlines,
so that's also a factor. But let's welcome in now
without further Ado Live on the Fifth Hour with Ben
(02:54):
Maller and Danny j from Ukraine. We welcome in a
Jay Scoop. Jay, why why don't we start with this?
Jay Scoop? Tell me how many hoops? You look great,
by the way, but tell me how many hoops you
had to jump through to get to where you are
right now? Oh man? And isn't it crazy right now?
(03:15):
Like you're literally in La and I'm in Ukraine talking
to you right now, Like this is mind boggling. Well,
and you look like you're like next door. The wife
is pretty good. I can I kind of can tell
whatever room you're in, it looks Ukrainian a little bit.
It doesn't look like American broom. There's there's not a
lot of advertising on the walls or anything behind you.
(03:36):
So I got that. Yeah, well, from from what I'm told,
this is a revamped old communist like Hoteller or something.
But wow, only the best, Jay Scoop, Only the best.
But yeah, originally, um, you know, and I told some
other people this, but when this swar first kicked off
(03:58):
over a year ago, I was like, oh man, you know,
I really feel for these people. I'm also a quarter
of Ukrainian, like, I really want to go over there,
But at the time I was in a relationship with
my girlfriends. So that's usually always been the kicker for me,
whether I was gonna try to jump in on a
conflict or not. If somebody I loved was like there,
(04:22):
I usually would refrain. But obviously my girlfriend and I
broke up in the summer last summer, and that kind
of opened the door for me coming over here. So
I decided to pull the trigger once I once I
saw that it was possible. So you see that it's possible.
But I would have no idea if I woke up
(04:44):
tomorrow and said, you know, I want to go to
the Ukraine, I have no militarch anybod I want to go, like,
I wouldn't. I wouldn't know how to get there. You
can't just fly into the Ukraine. You you would mentioned
that you had a lot of different stops on the way. Hey,
obviously it's a long fight. You live in California now,
so you had to fly from northern California to Europe,
(05:06):
And did someone walk you through it? Did you know
because you were in the military, did you kind of
have an idea of how to get into the Ukraine
or how complicated was it? Yeah, so it was kind
of interesting because I had good intel and bad intel
and I had to go through the stages there. But
you know, I did have a couple of people that
(05:28):
I already knew in Ukraine, a girl that I liked
those over here, an artist that worked on some of
my music graphics stuff, a couple other people. So I
was asking, you know, like, Okay, how do I get
over there? I already knew it was a no fly zone,
and quite frankly, if it was still a fly zone,
would you really want to take your chances? You know, exactly? Yeah.
(05:56):
So basically I was like, okay, how do I get
in there? And I knew, you know, okay, I got
to go to a boarding bordering country and get in,
so Poland seemed like the most likely one to do.
So then I had to find out how to get
a cheap flight to get me to Poland. And then
from that spot, it was like, okay, how do I
get in? How hard is it to get in? What
(06:17):
do I need to cross that border? You know, it
would suck to go all the way to the border.
And then they're like, yeah, no, what what the hell
are you doing if you can go home now, surprise
you're not getting in. So how much paperwork did you
have to bring with you? Like? Yeah, how complicated was
that part of it? So? You know, I went out
(06:39):
I think it was visit Ukraine Calm or or something
like that, and it had all the all the hoops right.
It was just like you know, your standard okay passport.
Being an American, I didn't have to worry about like
a visa or whatever. But then it was like, okay,
you gotta have your COVID stuff ready. Your COVID stuff
has to be within you know, reasonable amount of times
(07:01):
since your last shot. You have to buy Ukraine COVID
insurance in case you get COVID over here. You won't
be like bogging them down in the hospital as somebody
who didn't have any money. Um, now that sounds worse
than it is. You had like a lower tier version
and a higher tier version. The higher tier version, I
(07:22):
can't remember. It was like the eight bucks or something.
It was like a Burks. It was like, oh crap,
and then I looked at the price, was like oh whatever,
just like rattle off the few dollars like stripper money.
At them. And then so you're saying, you're saying, Jay Jesse,
you're saying that the American dollar goes a long way
(07:44):
in the Ukraine. Is that? Is that what you're saying?
The difference in in the money you can stretch a
little bit. Yes, it definitely does. Um right now, it's
hovering around thirty seven revenreveniez to the dollar. And so
like a good example, when my last Uber ride was
(08:05):
sixty herevniaz, so that can tell you that's under two
dollars that it took me for that ride. So okay,
So yeah, okay, so you have your I can't believe
this COVID insurance is still a thing, but whatever, I
find that they have their rules. So you have your COVID,
you have your COVID insurance, and then what else did
(08:26):
you need? And so then there's a couple of things
like they want to make sure you have enough money
for your stay, so that in conjunction with this standard one, right,
why are you here? Where are you going? And why
are you why are you coming here? And so of
course I'm like, oh, I'm coming to visit the mic
at this hotel. And honestly that's all you had to
(08:47):
really do is say, okay, I have this reservation at
this hotel and here's my bank account. I show that
I can meet them, and they have this little algorithm,
this little formula that says, okay, this is how much
money if you're there this many days, is how much
you have to prove you have. And I had enough
for that, So so I had all this stuff. Ben
(09:10):
when I got to that border, they just looked at
my passport. They didn't I did all that shit and
I didn't need any of it. So it was mostly
outdated stuff. So they ran you around and then I
took one look and then I go ahead, do it,
do what you want. So when you get when you
get to the border, like you know, you're you're tougher
(09:32):
than me, you're in the military and all that. But
when you get to the border and you cross over,
and you know you're going to a place where there's
like Russian bombs coming in, Like, do you know right
away did you see stuff when you cross the border.
Did you have to go further into the Ukraine before
you you saw some of the stuff that you've you've
witnessed her since you've gotten over there. Sure, well, although
(09:52):
everywhere in Ukraine is in range. Ukraine is a very
big country, and so when you enter on the west
west side, it's so far from the front that you
know you're you're pretty safe. So Leviv is the name
of the biggest, you know, city out on the west side.
(10:13):
You kind of cross and then go through there, So
it takes quite a while to get over into the
more dangerous areas. So when you're crossing the border, you're
not really worried about the Russians. You're worried about the
border gardens from getting in, worried about the politics of
the Ukraine possibly maybe, And then the other part of it.
I was curious, I mean, this is you're an American,
(10:34):
you're in the Ukraine. Did you have to deal with
the embassy? Are they even open in the Ukraine because
of what's going on there? Like that part of it?
What kind of what kind of stuff? Did you have
to deal with that? From what I understand, there's still
representation there. But honestly, I just ignored them. I really
(10:56):
only was going to involve them if it turned out
I needed them to volunteer for the Ukraine military, and
I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing that.
So so my first foray over here was really more
of a reconmission at first to decide, okay, you know,
what is it like over here, and then maybe I
can make a decision, and then if I needed help,
(11:18):
I was gonna try to go through the embassy things.
But it very clearly says on any website you go to,
the US is telling you not to come here, like everywhere.
So if you get smoked over here, they're basically gonna
say I told you so. Yeah, and so they have
no it's liability, right, it's always the lawyers, right, yeah, yeah,
(11:39):
yeah about lawyers and lawsuits and things like that. Let's
rewind for a minute though, because before I got to
that border man, he was a ditch my freaking flight.
So my flight was from San Francisco to London, which
was cool. I'd never been there before, so I can
technically say I got to be there, and then from
London to v in Austria. Well, you could see on
(12:03):
my ticket there was thirty five minutes from when I
was supposedly gonna land to when that next flight to
go to crack All, Poland was going to take off,
and everybody on that plane along with me that had this.
We kept asking, hey, are we good? Are we good?
Like this is a small window, are we good? Yeah, yeah,
you're good, You're good. What happens We get and we
(12:25):
run through and they make you go through the screening
all over again, like it. I can understand if it
was like a different flight, but this was Austrian Airlines
to an Austrian Airlines thing, so it wasn't like we
anything where we should have had to go out and
then back in, so that slowed us down. We get
up to the thing and they're like, yeah, no, sorry,
(12:46):
it's too late. And by the way, the next flight's
like I don't know, like a day away and all
this stuff. And that killed me because remember I have
a lot more stuff ahead of me, I have a
trained catch a bus to catch all these things, are
already paid for set up, and the stupid thirty five
(13:07):
minute turnaround ended up literally derailing all my all my
travel plans, so I had to call audibles at that point.
Did they give you refunds on the trains and the
planes and the part of the automobiles the rest of
the trip, or did you have to buy pay pay
for that again? They were like, Okay, here's a hotel
in Austria, will pay for that, take a cab, here's
(13:31):
a card. When you end up paying for that, we're
going to reimburse you. And here's this flight like the
next day. And so you know, I'm sitting there just raging, raging,
right because like I was supposed to. And so I
just basically got online and I started seeing if there
were any other options. I even checked to see if
(13:52):
there was like an uber that could take imagine how
much that would have cost. Well, maybe not much, but
my god, that would be a long uber ride. Yeah,
because I was like, well, it's an our flight, like
it was a short trip by plane, but you know plane,
I mean, it could be going over mountains, who knows.
So ultimately I found a there's this a bus company
(14:17):
that's pretty international. It's called flix Flix and they cover
a lot of different areas. And there was a bus
route that went from Austria through Oh I'm gonna I'm
gonna mess this up. It's either Slovakia or Slovenia. I
think it's Slovakia going to Slovakia. We'll go We're going
with Slovakia. Nobody looking don't look at a map. Nobody
(14:38):
look at a map. All right, we're just gonna go
with this exactly. So Vienna Austria into Slovakia, you traverse
Slovakia and then you pop out through the border to Ukraine. There.
So instead of crossing from Poland into Ukraine, which is
a little bit more easier route in I was crossing
in from Slovakia. And let me tell you, that bus
(14:59):
ride wasn't too bad because it was comfortable. But when
I got to that border, it was like you know
when you go through customs, is the one guy and
you go through and you're like, ah, shoot, okay, that
was good, no problem. There was four moments of that,
every time I handed my passport and then and then
we would inch forward a little bit, and then there'd
be another guy, and then there was another guy. And
(15:20):
they even stopped one guy and pulled them off the bus.
I'm like, oh, they're coming for me. This must be
what it was like in World War Two, Like what's
happening here and there? And these guys and they're like
checking you out there like mad I and you're mad
dogging and all that, right, like what are you doing?
And you're American? So did you say probably Were you
the only American doing this? Yes? Yeah, yeah, I had.
(15:45):
To the left of me, I had this girl who
had dual citizenship for Great Britain and Ukraine, and so
she was helping me out with some of the you know,
translations and things like that. But yeah, I had very
very limited speech to be able to If these guys
engaged with me, I knew I was screwed because they'd
(16:06):
be like, oh, he doesn't know the language and get
off the bus, let me see what you're about. But
they didn't do it. I was under the radar. It
was awesome. Have you seen any Americans since you've been there?
You've been there a while now, is there have you
seen anyone who's from the States there or is it
just all people from the Ukraine and maybe Great Britain
or some other places. It's funny that you mentioned that,
(16:27):
because just last night I heard my first two English
sneaking people. When I got back in town, I got
grabbed some stuff at the market and these two black
guys were walking by me and I'm like, wow, that's
those are the first black guys I've seen since I've
been here. And I listened, I'm like, I wonder if
they're sure enough. They were speaking English, and I like
(16:48):
kind of like did the old way, like hey, what's up?
But that was crazy. That was the first first people.
There's a lot of people here that speak at least
some English, but I mean as far as just like
flat out American, those are the only ones. I wondered
why those guys were here? Did you ask him? Did
you say what? Nah? I was? They were heading out
the door and I was ordering my Uber. It's called
(17:10):
bolts over here. They don't call it Uber, it's bolts.
They do have Uber here, but it really sucks because
there's not that many people using it. There's a bolt
and something called Uklon. Yeah, uk lo o n. How
much of the native tongue have you learned? You said
your bloodlines from the Ukraine? Do you know enough? As
(17:32):
it a pig Ukrainian buy a little bit sloppy Ukrainian.
I have decent enough and according to the ladies the
accents working for me too so. But yeah, I downloaded
an app probably about a month out from me coming here,
and I've been taking my lessons on there and so
(17:54):
far I've been getting getting decent reviews. Give you a
sample Chennio tlebab p is even know you? So I said,
wouldn't you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? Oh?
So you've learned the pickup lines. Yes, that's good, Yes
you've learned. It's very smooth of you. The priorities, uh,
(18:19):
I would learn like where's the toilet or something like
you were going to pick up the ladies here in
the in the Ukraine. Well, and then I'll tell you, though,
the best part about though here not knowing the language
is our technology. I literally, anytime I run into trouble,
I just break out my phone, go to Google Translate,
and they're doing the same thing like they clearly they're
(18:41):
used to it, and so if they can't speak it enough,
they're doing it right back. And so we're just sitting
there typing on our phones. That's awesome, that is See.
It breaks down all the barriers and all the walls
and all that stuff of communication. Imagine traveling back in
the day before before the phones and stuff like you
to have like what books out with the language and
(19:03):
try to figure it all out, right, you got to
do body language like a motho on that one. Not
good at that. I would not do well in that
world if I would not do so, Like day to day,
paint the picture here, like we know what we see
on the news here, and that it's obviously an active
war zone in Russia's bombing in the Ukraine's fighting back
(19:24):
and all that. So like in the city or are
people is it just normals? It feel normal? Can you
tell there's some weird stuff going on? Like and where
you've been, you traveled all over, So paint the picture here, jascha.
What's it like day to day there? Sure? So for
most of the most of the people here, they kind
of go like as if on the outside they're showing
(19:48):
like as if nothing is happening, right, nothing is different,
And I think, you know, that's more of kind of
like us keeping your sanity thing right, Like like the
girl I was talking to you before I came over here,
she said, you know, it would it would drive us
crazy if we thought about the war too much. So basically,
we just live our life like it is and if
we you know, if we get killed, we just hope
(20:10):
it happens fast. And I was like, wow, that's very
cold to say, you know, Like I'm used to military
people saying that, but not civilians. And but you know,
Eastern Europeans also have a kind of a reputation for
being a little bit you know, more sterne. I don't
know what's the right word, but you know, they're stoic.
I don't know if that's the right word. They're able
(20:32):
to come year mentalize. Yeah, they have a very tough
that does not happen, um, you know in America very
I mean people freak out over the right now, we
freak out over all kinds of bullshit that's going on here.
So I can if something terrible like this happened here,
what would would take place? But yeah, what a way
(20:52):
to live your life, though, Chase Cooper right an, you're
like something, you know, I guess it's got to be
the way you do it, right, I mean, diagnose the situation.
You're like, what else? What else can you really do? Yeah,
it's it's crazy, And but I found that the bigger
city you're in pretty much the more safer you're going
to be, unless you're like all the way out in
(21:14):
the east where the Russians are, you know, have been
taken over and so and then of the big cities,
the one that's going to take the most fire is
the obvious one. Kiv is the capital, right, so you
take the capital, you cut off the heads. So obviously
they're constantly trying to mess with Kiv. And the town
(21:36):
that I go to when I'm not traversing other places
is one of the closest, bigger towns to Kiv, so
it kind of benefits from that, right, if if rockets
are coming, they're gonna go the other the other direction,
because it's like, well, why why I hit this town.
There's not really much reason to hit this one. Yeah,
(22:01):
And then like, but all the restaurants are open and
people are out, you know, just living their lives like
you know, so no, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. Like they
have curfews everywhere and it can change depending on your region.
But even while I've been here, the curfew let up
a little bit. Like I want to say, the curfew
was between nine pm and five am. You were not
(22:21):
supposed to be out on the streets, and I want
to say, right now it's like midnight to four. It
just switched to so um. But yeah, all the places
I just I did some karaoke, like last time I
was I was in town. I was like what and
then they were like, Wow, this American. This guy's like
(22:42):
she's singing like he's really American. I'm like, because I am.
You're like wow, You're like you're like the greatest actor
of all time. Dude, you like seem like a US guy. Wow,
that's why. And you're like a professional musician Jay School.
So you must have absolutely dominated the karaoke machine. What's what, Karrie?
What's your go to karaoke song? Well? I killed it
(23:03):
because not only my good singer, but I remember part
of my past I had to do some cover band music,
so I just like dial up those songs that I've
done like a million times. So I was doing like
the Killers, Mister bright Side, Plush by Stone, Temple Pilot,
It's you know, oh yeah, I just I was slaying.
(23:25):
They're like, oh my god. Well, you know the famous
Elvis Presley's story, right, I think this is true. I
heard this years ago that Elvis went It wasn't a
karaoke thing, but he went to like an Elvis impersonator
contest and he didn't win. He finished in like third
or days because they didn't believe it was him. He
(23:48):
didn't announce who he was. But but they people and
like you're a real singer, and people are like, wait
a minute, what's going that's that's that's wild. As far
as your timeline, ye, where are you at Jasco? As
far as you're how long have you been there at
the time we're talking right now, you've been there, it
feels like for several weeks. Am I right on that?
(24:09):
Am I wrong on that? Yeah? So I left San
Francisco on the twenty fifth. I was supposed to get
here on the twenty seventh. Because of that stupid Vienna fiasco.
I got here a day and a half later, so
instead of two and a half of days, it took
me four days to get here. So so yeah, I
(24:29):
got here on the twenty eighth. So you've been there
about as we're talking. You've been there a couple of weeks,
and and you're you're enjoying the experience. I mean, you're
obviously you're going there. Just you said this was a
recon mission. You're trying to figure out the next step
and all that, and and where you at in that
journey right now after a couple of weeks into this. Sure,
(24:52):
So the main thing was, Okay, where on the scale
am I going to be from fall on the left
side of the scale as humanitarian and all the way
on the right side is I'm just gonna volunteer Ukraine
Army and just boom, I'm in and under their control.
And obviously I wanted to lean more towards humanitarian UM
(25:15):
and some of my loved ones were really pushing for
me to not do the military route. So I was like, well, okay,
how how's the best way for me to go around this?
And then I decided, you know, I think a combination
of financially and and trying to get some goods to
the right people UM was the route I wanted to go.
(25:39):
And I knew that I with my background, I'm willing
to traverse into the areas that you would you would
not want to go to UM and so I have
brought a lot of supplies and stuff to the civilians
in the areas that you normally will see that are
(25:59):
read the map in Ukraine right now, UM and UH,
and the soldiers. So I've I've gone, I've gotten to
mingle with soldiers where I normally would not be able
to go. But because they were able to verify that
I was legit with my background, they've let me into
(26:20):
their kind of inner circle, if you will. So I've
gotten to go in where where troops are and that's
pretty cool. Unfortunately I can't bring my phone there. Uh.
I believe it when they say if the drone is
flying around and it detects the cellular signal, it's going
(26:42):
to launch something at that direction. I don't even know
if that's true. Is that what they tell you? That's
why I wonder is do they you think they have?
The technology is crazy? Right? I know, right? But am
I going to test it? I know? I know how
long ago you were in the military for what four years? Right?
I think you told me so. How long ago did
(27:02):
you get out? You've been out of the military for
for a number of years, right, Yeah, it's been quite
some time. Now. Imagine the technology now and you were not.
I mean it's been been a few years. But think
about where they're at right now with the bells and whistles,
with the stuff they because every year, right, they come
up with the new the new technology, and and they're
always at the forefront the military. I know, Russia's different
(27:22):
and the Ukraine's using a lot of US stuff though, right,
they have a lot of a lot of the money
from the US has gone to the mission for sure.
Well fortunately for me and maybe not fortunately for the
infantry people. A lot of that stuff doesn't go too
fast in terms of the advancements and the technology for
(27:44):
like a normal infantryman. So even like say the rifles
that they're using right now are just like kind of
like a brother or sister to what I was using.
A lot of the gear is adjusted slightly, but it's
basically the same, Like I could easily just jump into
it and do whatever. And then obviously aiming and shooting
(28:05):
is that's like riding a bike. So it's really more
on the more support side, right, Your types of rockets,
your drones, all that, these are things that weren't weren't
there and prevalent with So it's like, okay, I gotta
be careful getting detected and stuff. Yeah, no, for sure
for sure. And so when you when you go around,
(28:27):
you've been there a couple of weeks, now, is there
is there anything that some of the locals in the Ukraine,
some of the people you've met in the different cities
you've traveled to, they have anything they wanted to pass
on to the people who might be hearing this, and
like just curious about just the general the sense of
what's going on. I'm trying to think of the right
word here, but there messaging they have, or any kind
(28:49):
of theme you've heard from the people there. Definitely, yo,
I was very I was very curious because again with
how tough people are here, you know, you're not sure
if somebody's gonna open up and tell you. And then
much like how I know, you know, being back in
the States, you know, you ask somebody like, oh, were
you in the war or you know, you have to
(29:09):
be careful when you ask them these things because it could,
you know, be insensitive to that person. So you got
to know when and when not to ask things. But
but yeah, one of the people here, um that I
became good friends with, I just say, hey, you know,
I'm curious, like what if you could tell America what
you know, what you're what you're feeling about, what's going on?
(29:30):
You know what, what would you say? And this is
what they told quote Honestly, I don't want to say anything.
I know that people abroad or tired of the war,
and many are angry that everywhere they are burning with war,
and I understand them. But the fact is that they
only hear about it and we live in it, and
(29:50):
they can't even imagine how tired we are. We are
very tired. We left our home, many families were destroyed,
how many young guys, including my acquaintances, died. I'm generally
silent about our Psyoche and after the war we will
be mentally destroyed because we live one day but we
do not know where and when something will fall and
(30:12):
whether we will wake up. But from the outside, we
don't care about it because we're just tired. Yes, we
hold on giving ourselves hope every day that we need
to suffer a little more. But we were promised that
it would be a little more than a month, and
it turned out already four hundred and twelve days. It
makes it to where you don't even want to convey
(30:32):
to anybody how you feel. How I feel, So that's
kind of crazy. And the shocker for me was the
month thing. I was like months from the United States side.
I remember thinking, oh Russia's attacking. That sucks. I guess
Ukraine's are about to be wiped out. Like I don't know,
I don't know how everybody else thought, but I just thought,
oh Russia's army must be so big they're not going
(30:54):
to be able to stop this. And then I remember
everybody was surprised how good Ukraine was was doing out
the beginning. So I don't know when that month thing
came in, but maybe just after that start was good
for Ukraine. Maybe then they assessed it as a month.
I don't know. Well. The other thing I've learned, and
I think this goes for any any country, is do
(31:15):
not believe when they say it's only going to be
a certain amount of time. I mean, remember when COVID
started here in the un two weeks, A couple of
weeks will be good, everything will be all right, will
identify the problem, pinpoint the issue, everything will be fine,
and you know, two and a half years later, it's
like it's like the old the old Bruce willis thing
(31:36):
him die hard. Right, We'll have a couple of views
and a couple of ye what's the worst thing that
can happen? Man? All right, Well, we've kept you long
enough jascause I know you got stuff to do, and
I thank it. Boy, the connection has been great, though.
I gotta tell you I'm connection here, so stay safe.
Any idea how long you're gonna be there, just kind
(31:58):
of taking it day by day. Do you have a
rough outline and when you'll be heading back to the
United States. April thirtieth is the date I've kind of
set for myself that possibly come back. I would stay longer,
but you know, without without a visa, residency or whatever,
you're allowed ninety days within a six month period, So
(32:20):
so I want to be strategic how long I stay.
So so there's a decent chance on April thirtieth I'll
start heading back and then at some point I'll probably
come back over to Ukraine. So yeah, all right, Well,
if you find your way to Minnesota, Jay School, Big Mallard,
meet and great. I know that's high on your priority list.
Jay scoop is to any you've been interacting, I know
(32:43):
during the show you've been we see. The time difference
is what time is the show on our shows on
what time in the Ukraine? Is it in the morning
or afternoon like when we're doing the show live. So
for you guys on the Pacific Coast, you would flip
the AMPM and then you would take two hours away.
For me, I do the opposite. I flip it and
(33:04):
I add too. Oh so it starts at nine nine am.
Is that am I rent on it? Right? Your your show?
H for me, it's one a am here. Oh so
it goes all because a day and then a couple
it's ten hours. Ten hours difference is basically what it is,
(33:27):
all right, I got e saite. I thought it was
a daytime thing, but it's kind of it is for us.
It is so at one pm your show it starts here. Yeah,
we're doing mid days. There you go, and all right,
Jay Scop, thanks stay safe man. I appreciate you doing this.
And you want to say anything to the fans of
(33:47):
the show. I know you've been interacting with them on
Twitter and all that. So any Justin and Cincinnati, your
your buddy Josh, just Josh, your musical comrade there in
in Cincinnati, and I know, I know bunch I got
reached out to me. They want to They've been trying
to get ahold of Terry in England and some of
the other guys are like, we gotta get all the
Jay scope and so they're all following along with your
(34:10):
journey here for sure. For sure, I miss everybody. I
missed my musical brother Terry in England. I tried to
text him. I don't know if he's got a rotary
phone or what's going on there. So Terry, just so
you know, I tried, man, But yeah, Terry's actually got
one of the first phones ever when they invented the phone.
He's no use. It's a tin cannon string. It's fascinating.
(34:36):
There you go, there you go. But other than that, uh,
I still also tried to interact with our podcast kind
of company um to the show, So just do my
due diligence. You can find me on the Mallartown podcast
on all streaming format ATS and it's also now on
YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at Mallartown. And I
(34:59):
gotta say, Ozzie Guy works very hard on this on
this show, and uh and especially lately because some of
the content. It fell off content wise, but we're revamping it.
We're gonna have fresh and new fund parallels to the
Ben Mallar Show, just as the name mallard Town suggests.
I'm excited about that. And we don't do shoutouts, as
(35:20):
you know, but this week we did not do a
shout out for Ozzie Guy, who may or may not
have crossed over into the may have crossed over into
his forty so, but we did not give him a
shout out because, as you know, we're not a morning
Zu show, but on the podcast we can. We could
do that if we wanted to, but we could. I
don't think we should though. Yeah, that's overrated, exactly exactly
(35:43):
all right, Jay Scoop, thank you by man, and we'll
have you on again down the line. And I can't
wait for you to get back and come visit us
in the studio sometime. All right, Love me off, Peace,
Host
Ben Maller
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.