What is the Military-entertainment Complex?

Eisenhower warned the public about the rise of the military-industrial complex back in his 1961 farewell address, and over the decades the public has become increasingly aware of the potential for corruption in the close relationship between the military and the private defense industry. But have you heard of the military-entertainment complex? It's the reason you see the US military in so many action films, and the reason Uncle Sam bankrolls video games. In this episode, the guys dive into the surprisingly close links between Hollywood and the Pentagon, exploring just how this relationship evolved -- and why it continues in the modern day.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
likes his code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Let's start in January
of nineteen sixty one, although this isn't really where our

(00:47):
story begins. On January sev sixty one, an outgoing US
president named Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke to the American nation
in his farewell addressed now as history bus. No. Eisenhower
was a military guy. He wasn't a diplomat. He wasn't
kind of, you know, like a lawyer or something. He

(01:07):
wasn't given to prevarication. He didn't guild the lily very well.
He was pretty blunt in his speech that day, and
he issued the following warning, and the councils of government,
we must car guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence
whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex. So

(01:30):
we've heard that phrase that phreeze has come up in
our show pretty often before, right, guys, the military industrial complex.
Oh yeah, it's a bit of a buzz phrase at
this point in history. I would say, yeah, and it
means a great number of things. And to have Dwight D. Eisenhower,
a man who knew his stuff, speaking about it in

(01:50):
that way, was certainly a warning. Yeah, a warning that
would go on to become infamous and tremendously impactful, especially
as more and more of the public became aware of
the truth behind the thirty fourth president's words. Because for
a long time, you know, the heads of business and

(02:12):
the heads of politics and the heads of the military
knew about this agglomeration of influence, but you know, like
the average person in Nebraska maybe wasn't so aware of
what went on in the halls of Washington. Especially fun
fact that speech is edited, and I don't know if
everybody knows that Eisenhower had kind of a shaky relationship
with Congress, and his original speech had the phrase as

(02:36):
military industrial congressional complex doesn't have the same ring to it.
We can just add a tiny bit to that, right,
just to discuss how the constituents of a senator or
a congressman may have an interest in that whole military
industrial complex side. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, because you're supposed

(02:57):
to serve your constituents of the problem is uh, defining
constituent gets kind of sticky, right. Do you think it
was removed as to not throw Congress under the bus?
Because I mean, is it said and as a negative
it's it's a negative, right, yeah, yeah, it's it's a negative. Well,
it has the potential to be a huge negative, and
it's it's removed for any number of speculated reasons. It

(03:23):
could have been removed to you know, be an olive
branch to Congress, or to avoid poking their particular legislative beehive.
But but either way, we're not here to talk about
the military industrial complex today. We have plenty of episodes
that mentioned aspects of it, please check them out. Instead,

(03:44):
we're talking about another similar phenomenon that you have definitely seen,
Even if you don't live in the US, you have
definitely been witnessed to this, and you may not have
known exactly what was going on because it's the stuff
they don't want you to know to these episode, folks,
is about something called the Military Entertainment Complex. Uh, here

(04:07):
are the facts. To answer that question, we first have
to say, well, what the what the hell is this?
Is it like a is it like a high rise
entertainment center where you can go and like get a
day pass and get an Abrams tank. Uh, there's there
is a place where you can write a tank for
fun here in Georgia. Maybe just an elaborate paintball course.
To me, it sounds like an arcade, like a dope arcade. Yeah,

(04:31):
Like you get all the you can also get some
uh simulators, right, Like you can get a virtual Apache
flying machine, you can do all the space camps stuff.
I'm still mad that I couldn't get the budget, uh
from from our bosses to ride in the tank. I
should have done a better job. I was just like,

(04:53):
let's get in the tank. And all the arcade machines
are manufactured by Lockheed Martin or Pratt Whitney. The ones
that blow up are made by Pratt Whitney. Yeah, but
but that's that Joe King aside. That is not what
we're talking about here, right, We're we're talking about the
relationship just just as with the military industrial complex. It

(05:14):
is the military, as you know, one large thing in
all the branches of that military, working together with the
industries that create the things that are necessary for that
military to function. Right. This is this is the military
again as a thing with the branches, but working with
the entertainment industry in some way, yes, in multiple ways.

(05:35):
We're talking feature films, we're talking VR and A are
virtual augment and reality. We're talking UH, multimedia, video games,
music videos, we're talking television. Here in the US, for
a long time, it's been common for the armed forces
to work directly with production companies in all areas of

(05:56):
the media to supply things like troops, gear, admit, logistics,
even some modeling, for instance, in the case of video games.
This is this is a symbiosis of a sort which
will be common to everybody from your high school biology.
There are five types of semiotic relationships, right, we all

(06:16):
remember mutualism, commencialism, predation, parasitism, and competition. This would be
um when when it works for every everyone involved, this
is mutualism. The uh, the production company saves a lot
on budget and the military gets a lot of good will.

(06:37):
So of course it makes sense, And this is not
a huge secret. A lot of people don't know about it,
but it's not a huge secret. What do I mean
when I say that the Department of Defense has a
statement about it on its website. They're excited. They think
this is a great idea. Yeah, that's right. Their official
position on this is that they've been working for nearly
a century to quote accurately depict military stories and make

(06:59):
sure sensitive and formation isn't disclosed. So it's kind of
a quid pro quos situation. Like, you know, let's say
a big production needs you know, some kind of military
you know set piece. Uh, that's does very expensive and
also would probably require some sign off from the military
in general. So this is sort of like a will

(07:19):
help you out, you help us out, We kind of
help guide the way you depict our brand, because let's
be honest, the military is a brand, especially in this context.
And you get free tanks or whatever for your you know,
tempole movie. Yes, so there. Let's take an example from
l A. So this happens a lot in Hollywood. There's

(07:40):
an Army lieutenant colonel who is the director of the
l A Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, his
name is Tim Hyde, and Hide says, we take both
of these roles very seriously, meaning accurate depictions and keeping
the secret stuff secret. His office isn't in charge of
the entire higher armed forces in Hollywood. His office just

(08:03):
focuses on the stuff for the army, and every other
branch of the armed services, including the Coast Guard, has
its own office in Hollywood just for this stuff. I mean,
we can talk I think we all were kind of
thinking about this as we're gearing up for this episode,
but we can talk pretty easily about feature films and

(08:25):
fiction that we've seen here, because I think feature films
are probably, um probably the stuff that people most easily
recognize this complex from. Well, one of the first things
I think about is just how cool big action movies
are when some tanks show up, like some actual tanks,
and you're looking at the screen, you could tell it's
an actual tank, especially movies from my childhood where computer

(08:48):
graphics weren't as sophisticated, where you you know, oh, that's
an actual Huey helicopter. That's oh, that's an actual you know,
if you're thinking about top gun, that's an actual I
think it was an F eight teen Tomcat. I don't know,
but I know the actor that was in Top Gun.
But yeah, but you when you know that it's a
real thing, it just makes it that much cooler. And

(09:09):
what I end up remembering are the times when the
military in some former fashion comes in and saves the day,
such as in Jurassic Park three. Do you guys remember
that movie at all? Nope, that's the one with the terodactyls. Yes,
all the pterodactyls in the in the avi area, and

(09:30):
and then they like walk like weirdly, like they're on
crutches or something. I remember that part and I looked
really awkward. Yes, but but I have a very vivid
memory of the end of that movie when they're on
I want to say, they like come back to the
beach area where they're just trying to get the heck
off the island. They're hoping they're going to be saved,

(09:51):
and then there's just some dude standing there on the
island in a suit. I think, maybe I'm wrong, I
think that's what happens, and then all of a sudden,
the military show is up. I'm assuming the Navy in
these uh these they look like a PC S but
they can. They're they function in water as well, and
they just roll up with a bunch of military personnel

(10:11):
and save the day and get everybody off the island.
That's a that's a common truth, you know. I remember
I remember watching Independence Day, the original Independence Day, saw
it in the theaters. Thought it was kick ass uh.
And you know, it's one of those things where we
don't worry too much about the plot holes, like how
did that guy from Jurassic Park also end up an

(10:33):
Independence Day? You know what I mean? Why is everybody
in that in those films acting except for Jeff Goldbloom
And what an interesting life he leads aliens and dinosaurs.
But the military plays a huge role in Independence Day,
And just like your point, Matt, there are at length
depictions of actual military craft. You know, we see the jets,

(10:56):
just like in Top Gun, we see uni formed individuals
carrying out their duties and operations. And you can still see,
of course, you can see this in blockbuster action films.
It's amazing and it's it's so expensive. Like if you
look at Okay, you can think of those obvious examples.
Top Gun is probably one of the most famous examples,

(11:17):
but there are a ton of the movies in the eighties,
nineties and the modern day that do this, Apollo thirteen,
Red Dawn, Black Hawk Down, of course. But then there's
other stuff you might not have thought of, like the
Transformers franchise. All of the films and the Transformers franchise
benefited from the military entertainment complex. Yeah. A great place
to see it is the types of disaster movies like

(11:39):
Towering Inferno or whatever that have been something like that,
something like that. It was about the fault. It's about
the fault. I don't remember. There's so many and it's
such a well worn trope. It's been around forever. But
there's always an opportunity for folks to get rescued from
a burning building by military personnel. And you're right, they
always look like the heroes. Uh. I gotta ask you
before we get into it. Do think movies like Apocalypse

(12:01):
Now had military uh co sign where it kind of
makes the military look bad and sort of shows the
flaws that can arise from leadership and people that go power. Matt,
I would think, maybe not excellent questions. So there are,
of course, uh you know, we have to ask about
the opposite of this practice. So there are of course
many films, uh many also in the United States that

(12:25):
put the military in less than a positive light to apocalypse. Now,
I was thinking of that one because I'm such a
huge fan of that um that story, but I was
also thinking of Full Metal Jacket, which itself is is
a somewhat damning uh condemnation of the the effects that
war can have on people. Those films were still we're

(12:47):
still made obviously too great acclaim, but did they have
that same level of help I was, We're going to
see um not not exactly, not exactly, because this practice
is sick lical. Uh. Funding for US productions of this
sort actually went down in the seventies because US audiences

(13:10):
were so very fatigued about the ongoing conflicts in Vietnam,
and of course the fact that the war in Vietnam
was one of the first times the American public saw
uncensored footage of what happens on the ground during a
hot conflict. So yes, uh, there there are caveats, and

(13:30):
they're they're really what today's episode hinges on the implications
of those caveats and the employment of those some some
version of this practice, how it's so old, some version
of it dates all the way back to nineteen seven.
A little bit of lore for the movie Buffs in
the Crowd. Uh. The first year of the Academy Awards,
the Army helped with the production of a silent film

(13:53):
you may have never heard of. It was called Wings.
It has nothing to do with the sitcom. It was
about World War One fighter pilots. Uh. This film went
on to win the very first Oscar for Best Picture.
So this is this is like a known thing. And
there's a guy named Tom Secker from not fit called

(14:13):
Spy Culture, which does great work. Uh. He was able
to compile a list. He set out to say, like
to say, let me make the most comprehensive possible list
of just feature films that have employed that have benefited
from this relationship. As of his list, which was current
as of contains more than four hundred different films that

(14:39):
were made with some form of cooperation or collusion with
the Department of Defense. Four hundred films. Now I want
to add in one extra little piece here, just that
I found Ben and just want to talk to you
guys about it. To my understanding, there was very much

(14:59):
a position of the various military, especially the army where
they didn't want to fund or work with films where
the bad guy was an extraterrestrial or a monster or
some big bad thing. For quite a long time, it
was they were generally looking at pieces that would highlight

(15:20):
the actual military operations or you know, possible military operations.
And then when, when, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and
then a little bit before that became so popular, they
were just noticing that, well, it doesn't matter what the
opposing forces, as long as the military itself and the

(15:41):
operations look legitimate and correct, and the the military is
placed in a good light. Yeah, that they are the
protagonists are aiding the protagonists in some way, shape or form.
Right there, the cavalry coming, you know what I mean?
And those I mean those are militaristic tones or intentions
that we see in things. It might not ostensibly be

(16:01):
war stories even or military stories, just stories that evolve
a conflict where you need the best of the best
to intervene. And who is that in the third act? Well,
if you play your cards right, it's the u S
Military And it saves you a ton of money on production. Uh,
But as as it saves you money as someone making
the film if you live in the US, very much

(16:23):
does not save you money. Spoiler earlier. But this, this
happens in other things that I think a lot of
people don't, We don't think about. So what happens in television,
It happens in talk and even game shows. Like there
are so many unscripted documentaries, right because those are very
inexpensive to make. You'll see them on History Channel, Discovery Channel,
or you know when History is going through its annual

(16:46):
Hitler phase. There's so many documentaries about this. Of course,
the d o D keeps an eye on some of
those documentaries, especially if they're about something more recent like
desert storm, and they have to because they have to
make sure that enough is being divulged. And I would say,
I would argue that is completely above board, and that
needs to happen because a lot of the people speaking

(17:08):
in those things have signed legal agreements that uh that
constrain what they can say, so of course they should
have final right or refusal there. Well, let's not forget too.
I mean, we've all been involved in podcast projects where
we had to license audio, you know of like archival footage,
and oftentimes various networks have very uh specific criteria for

(17:31):
how and when they will allow their footage to be used.
I can't imagine the military is any different, and they
obviously have a lot of archival stuff as well. So
I wonder if possibly, you know, if you know your
documentary is portraying the military and the right light, you
could save a whole lot of money on licensing costs
by getting that stuff gratis from the U. S. Military. Yeah,

(17:52):
quite possibly, Or just go to fed flicks on archive
dot org and use the public domain stuff that was
created with our tax dollars, actually our parents and grandparents
tax dollars. Well, you still have server costs, so where
we've got what corporate America called by And another thing
that happens would be the stute listeners you just heard

(18:12):
of say game shows. Yeah, it's true. I'm sorry if
you are, if you are very anti military for some
reason and you very much love Jeopardy, well Jeopardy is
also in this big, big bed with Uncle Sam Prices. Right.
Is there talk shows like Ellen if anybody still likes
or listens to Ellen Um or Steve Harvey those also

(18:33):
all all of those have military themed episodes. Surprisingly, one
thing here that could be an episode all its own.
It's been a whole hour on this military financed and
produced music videos. Music videos, Uh, they come out like
there's there's a bevy of them that comes out every day,

(18:55):
especially on YouTube. And there's a great piece by Vice
journalist Ate matthew Alt who says the following from China
to Russia to a rock to the good old US
of a military's love spending money to produce lavishly surreal
music videos. I'm going to tell you something. There is
some hardworking folks on production and on camera on mike

(19:16):
in these videos on the U S side. But for
my money, if you want to watch the really really elaborate,
weird ones, check out the ones from other countries Azerbaijan
for some reason, China, Russia, Uh, they all got really
into hip hop too. I'm not gonna say it's all good.
Maybe some is lost in translation, but um, but they're

(19:37):
not pinching pennies on it. These are certainly certainly a
good way to reach a different audience, you know that
might have a tempered view of the military. Um, and
it's essential. I mean, I don't know, it wouldn't go
so far as maybe to call it propaganda, but it's
it's approaching that, or it can approach that, right for sure.
I mean Katie Perry joins the Marines in one particular

(19:59):
music video, The Air Force, and I did not know
this has a punk cover of its official theme song.
The Air Force also has an official band. I think
their name is like Maximum Impact or something like that.
That's metal, right, And of course this is something I imagine, Uh,
the four of us are going to be returning back

(20:19):
to later in the show. But of course video games
that should be a less surprising outlet. I mean, it
is very difficult to look at some of the some
of the world's most famous video games and not imagine
the military taking interest here. Although I will say one
note this was this was an aspect of media where

(20:41):
the military really struggled at first. Yeah, but the military
has been interested in simulating anything that they could consider
like a war game or you know, training or to
you know, for pilots to fly an aircraft, to tank operators,
to all this stuff. They've been interested in making a

(21:01):
simulation version for a long time of their operations. And
you know, it should be no surprise that they wanted
to get in the game as soon as they possibly could.
And we just made a quick note here. You may
have heard of heard of it before, We've mentioned it
before on this show. But a little video game called
America's Army that made its first version debut I think

(21:25):
in two thousand two, and then there are several versions.
The latest one I'm aware of is called America's Army
Proving Ground and it went into beta and came out
and officially released in But it's an actual game, created,
developed and published by the U. S. Army, And this

(21:46):
is completely legal. There's nothing this is above board. Uh,
there's nothing wrong with this. And this is just one
example of other things. But what I like about this example, Matt,
is it's more overt and it's more apparent, because we
we get into the sticky stuff when we leave the
realm of transparency, and that's where we get to what

(22:06):
I in my mind is the bloody multibillion dollar question here.
What exactly is Uncle Sam and other global versions of
Uncle Sam getting in return for this? Are they investing?
Are they really investing billions and billions of dollars worth
of labor and manpower and equipment just to make sure

(22:28):
stories are accurate and to keep an eye out for
leaked information. The answer is absolutely not. They get much much,
much more than that, and we'll tell you exactly what
they're getting or hope to get after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. It is so much,

(22:52):
so much more, so much more dangerous than just like
accurate depictions. Like it's not someone going on set just
to say okay, that means we need to make sure
that's an Abrams tank. Uh, it's not just someone going
onto the set of you know, History Channel documentary about uh,

(23:12):
the Iranian Revolution and saying, okay, well, c I A
says we can't technically say this guy's name, so let's
call him Marty Finkelbean's or something like that. Those are key,
But that's not that's not near what it is. It's
it is um we dropped the P word just a
little bit earlier. It is a direct avenue to the hearts, minds,

(23:34):
and future decisions of millions of people. Well, after all,
if they just wanted an authenticity consultant, they could get
a retired military person that could just you know, keep
an eye on and make sure they got all the
beats right or like everything looked accurate. So this is
something more than that, isn't it very much? So I think, yeah, yeah,
that's a good point, because I think it would be

(23:55):
easy and in the long term a little less expensive
to just have retired military member or an historian on
on on the on the set or in the writer's
room of a World War two film to be able
to raise their hand and say, I hate to be
that I hate to be that guy. But Hitler was
the bad one. And then so one of the producers

(24:18):
is like, great point, great point. Herman, Um, all right,
we'll do We'll do some rewrites. We'll do some rewrites.
But this is coming out in March. Still, okay, So
everybody hustle. You're right, Uh, the military helps out with
these productions. With that one be with one or two
big caveats, and those are where the problems are found.

(24:40):
First caveat is the military helps out with these productions
so long as and only so long as the end
result makes the military look great, a powerful cavalry, world's savers,
America's police in a way. And this, uh, you know,
you can have problems with this, and you can you
can point out rightly that the US military has not

(25:03):
always been the good guy or has not always been
saving the world, you know, depending on who you ask.
But it does make sense, doesn't it. Why would you
why would you give all these people all this stuff?
If they were going to take all of your your individuals,
all your all your gadgets and your equipment and they

(25:25):
were and all your expertise of course, and then they
were just gonna make it look terrible. Right, how are
you gonna go to your superiors? How are you going
to end up being called into the joint chiefs or something,
and then you're the person who greenlit, uh, the Coastguard
sucks or whatever, and you gave them billions of dollars
worth of equipment, Like, of course you're not going to

(25:45):
do that. That makes sense to me. Yeah, And it's like,
you know, we've worked in spaces called like branded content
for example, where say you're working very closely with a
brand to make a show or a movie or something
and it's sort of an advertisement to sky as as
pop culture or as cinema or as a podcast or whatever.
When you work directly with those folks, they are very

(26:07):
protective of how that brand is portrayed. Um And and
this is no different. There's another thing here. It's not
like the military is getting a profit as in points
on the how well the film does right, like points
on whatever the film takes in right. It's not like

(26:28):
the military is getting that kind of deal, at least
I'm unaware of it. If they are getting some kind
of thing like that, and I don't know how you'd
handle that when it comes to what it would be
a donation to a branch of the military or something.
I don't know, but what what What they are getting
many times is something called like a final look or
um they get, you know, they get say on the

(26:49):
final cut essentially where like that's what we're talking about.
They'll be in the room with the editors and the
director and they'll be able to say, well, you know,
you cannot you cannot do that. You cannot make that
choice and show that because it would make us look bad.
It sounds like a devil's bargain. Though from a creative standpoint,
doesn't it like it would be a nightmare to be

(27:10):
that editor with that military las on over your shoulder saying,
I guess it's worth its weight in tanks. Though huh,
I mean, yes, there is definitely a trade off here
as there are in all sorts of mutual symbiotic relationships,
which again is what this is. But I think it
occurs in phases. So you've got the script writing idea, right,

(27:35):
you want military approval. How do you get military approval? Well,
first they want to know what the story is, So
is that a synopsis with someone they've worked with before?
Like I think a um a first time film in
a franchise or a first time director probably has more
scrutiny on them than say like Michael Bay coming in
and saying I want to make Transformers six. They love

(27:56):
Michael Bay. Yeah, then they'll be like, oh, it's Mike.
This is yeah, we know this guy. We know we
pretty much and this is not a ding on Transformers films,
but we pretty much know how the plots are going
to go, right, so we don't have to get a
lot of scrutiny. We also know he's gonna play ball.
You know, he's not gonna like die on the hill
of No, we must show this unflattering moment with the

(28:18):
commanding officer. It's not really on the table with the
Michael Bay picture, right, He's not gonna shamal on them
or anything, but this this all, there's another thing that
happens here and I think it's it's something that it
will something other critics have brought up, and it's something
that we have to take some time to unpack. This

(28:40):
provides a potential workaround two other um, other types of
recruitment that might be legally or ethically or morally sticky
when we when it comes to children. Right, So the
military in this country is with you in some aspect

(29:02):
for a lot of your life, especially if you are
a young man. Right. Uh, this this think of g
I Joe's right. I mean the days of lead soldiers
were famous. Like this happens in other militaries across the
world too. It's weird for it not to happen. It's
probably the best way to put it. And the films,

(29:23):
especially as we're such a media driven culture, the films
can function as recruitment ads. You know, anyone over in
anyone who is like thirteen or older can watch a
PG movie. Right. You can't go into the recruitment office
legally and sign up for the military, but they can

(29:47):
be sending messaging to you, perhaps even the kinds of
implications where they'll come up later about the benefits of
joining up, the responsibility and the nobility of it just
by you know, in a way that you don't consciously understand.
And that's that's where it gets dangerous. And also, of

(30:07):
course we need to say this, the Armed Services are
tremendously important. Uh, they do a lot of good work.
And this should not be taken as a ding on
the people or the groups involved here maybe as maybe
as a little bit of ding on a Hollywood They
got their own problems. This is this is functionally like like,

(30:30):
it's easy if you're a kid in the US. It's
easy for you to be nine years old, especially now
when so many children are growing up native to the
Internet and already inundated with information. It's easy to be
like nine years old see a straight up propaganda film
from World War Two and think, jeez, that's weird and
in no small ways it kind of uncomfortably racist. I'm

(30:52):
not on board with this. But then that same nine
year old might see, um, might see a film that
does some of the stuff we're describing, and to them
that's just super cool, right, Oh yeah, exactly. And And
like we mentioned at the top of the show, it
does start to enter into the realm of light. Propaganda,

(31:15):
which we know is a powerful thing. Uh. Griffith's Stephanie
Stockwell and Adam Muir had this to say about it, quote,
the military have always found a use for entertainment. Recruiting
songs and marching songs prepared the soldier's mind to override
the self preservation mechanism in the heat of battle. Propaganda
has always been best served as entertainment. Uh yeah, even right.

(31:38):
It's even things like marching songs, which which in the
early days of the military were a very functional thing
that allowed the military to communicate with different battalions and
different groups. But it also they were very patriotic and
they instilled people on the battlefield with this like something
greater than myself kind of vibe. And when they really
brought into it, it made them better soldiers and made them,

(32:00):
you know, borderline unstoppable. Well, I mean stoppable by like
bullets and stuff. But in their minds they were willing to,
you know, go over the top, right, because you're part
of something bigger than yourself. I mean, I don't know
if this happens to everybody, but in my past it
was it was normal for people to have instead of

(32:22):
lullabies that were sung to them, you were hearing marching songs,
you know, one, two, three, four and so on, which
I think there's a lot of people. But the lyrics
also have an age very well. So we're not gonna
we're not gonna put those out in the ether today.
But but you're right. So the question then, is is

(32:45):
this a viable and effective recruitment tool. The answer to
that is yes, probably, even if it's even if it's
a little difficult to measure the performance, we know it
works because it continues to be employed. However, the next
question is is it ethical? Is it propaganda? Is propaganda

(33:05):
always bad? The the thing is the from Griffith University,
Stockwell and you're the most important thing they say in
that quote. In my mind is that prop is what
you just said. No, propaganda has always been best served
as entertainment. People don't like to be lectured, right, People
often hate learning stuff. People want to be entertained. So

(33:27):
a preachy, stuffy lecture about the importance of military activity,
even if it's Dwight Eye is an hour coming back
and doing a whole one eight and saying we need
this stuff around it can come off as like this
boring political screed, but a movie with kick ass explosions
and fight scenes and like um model level attractive people,

(33:49):
or a gut busting comedy or an odd couple, will
they won't they? Romance with a human interest story that's
just like pull in at your heart strings left and right,
that impacts your mind in deep, abiding ways that you
are not fully conscious of. The association game is so
so strong. Well, and look what the military models. They're

(34:12):
actual proper ad campaigns after things like Army of One,
you know it very much, look like a video game,
look like you're playing a video game. They're like checking
these boxes of these pop culture depictions of the military
in cinema and television and video games and selling it
to you that way, selling you that image of military service.
Well and and then just put into it the psychology

(34:35):
that takes us to the theater in the first place,
or gets us to turn on Netflix or Prime or
whatever our desire to identify with some character. Right, and
if that character, the protagonist, whoever we're identifying with, is
you know, a military military personnel or thinking about joining
the military, or a veteran of some kind, like and

(34:57):
we place ourselves as the viewers, the list or whoever,
whatever medium it is, and we can we can see
ourselves in that role. That can also provide something for
the military. Oh sure, it's in everyman argument, right, that
thing I see on the screen I identify with. That's me,
aren't I? Heroic? Says the says the audience member. And

(35:20):
there's then then there's a cathartic aspect to watching that victory, right,
And it's something that you will recall later when you
are in the situation yourself. And then we see this
other pattern. So I mentioned this earlier, but I didn't
mention it as a question. I should phrase it as

(35:41):
a question, why does Hollywood seem to go through phases
of depicting certain enemies? And Hollywood even isn't that accurate?
We should say why does the zeitgeist go through these phases?
Because it happens in video games too, Like take like
the perennial bad guy in a Western war film is
going to be the Nazis. Also Indiana Jones in the

(36:02):
Last Crusade, another d D production. Uh, this this question
is easily answered with Nazis. First, they're easy to use
because everybody can agree they were monstrous and they did
monstrous things. But also second, they are extinct as a
state level organization. There is no way for them to

(36:23):
to like object to their characterization, even if that characterization
is like inaccurate. And when I say inaccurate, I'm not
being a Nazi apologist. I'm talking about like the schlocky
horror films where they say, you know, secretly the Nazis
were really using this ancient evil from this well and
Bavaria turning people into zombie beetles or whatever the plot

(36:46):
of those things might be. That's actually the plot of
several I think that just sort of smooshed together. Uh,
but you know the characters becomes a walrus for some reason,
right right, Well, that was an integral moment in the plot.
It's a a S. S. Walrus. It's also like one
of the only ones that still works and isn't like
a bad look. I mean, look at Disney military propaganda

(37:09):
cartoons that had like, you know, Asians depicted in really
really offensive, terrible ways. Those do not age well and
essentially disavowed by you know, the Disney Company unless you
go to the Disney Family Museum, which is run by
the Trust of of the Walt Disney family. But Nazis
are still kind of fair game. Yeah, you know. The

(37:29):
thing that's important to notice here is that we're saying
Western war films, like if you look at North Korean propaganda,
can you take a wild guess at who plays the
role of the Nazis there? Yeah, it's it's Uncle Sam.
It's it's very very weird. And the story of the
guys who acted as the troops in those films is

(37:49):
also very weird. Um, please do check it out if
you have an interest. We saw the Soviet army start
playing the US role in times of growing international tension
during the Cold War. Right now, now Nazis or old beings,
but the real antagonists are the Soviets. And you know

(38:12):
who's gonna save us in the third act, that's right,
the US military. So it's kind of or just capitalism
in general, or just capitalism general. Just the monopoly man
comes through and this time he's packing. Right. But but this, um,
what's interesting about this is, you know, Joseph Campbell would
argue that most stories are the same story, you know

(38:36):
what I mean, Like, the concept of story is kind
of like the concept of ordering pizza. You get different
toppings on it, but you're still eating pizza. Um. I
don't know, Joseph Campbell, I don't know a stance on pizza.
But but you's gonna makeup like a different ingredients in
a soup. There we no, no, yes. Soup makes more
sense that on so many levels, on like the timeline,

(39:00):
it makes sense, the nominative determinism. Yeah, you nailed it. Okay,
strike that pizza thing. Soup we're working live. Uh, it's
still soup. Is the point. So what you see when
you see a lot of these war films, and anybody
who's familiar with story structure, like a reader of Save
the Cat or he wrote A Thousand Faces, you know
this in film as well as uh. In many world traditions,

(39:23):
the story has a lot of the same beats. You
just have different people or entities slotted in. So it's
not hard. It's not difficult to slot, especially in work
of fiction, to slot in a different thing. That's why
you'll see in the days of the War on Terror,
various terrorist organizations filled this role. People are no longer

(39:45):
fighting uh Nazis in the Middle East. Now they are
fighting UM. Now they're fighting things like Isis right and
in again in these works of fiction. The argument here
this applies to real life, video game, music, other media.
But the argument here is are these productions following real

(40:09):
world events? Are they mirroring and responding to real world events?
Or are they in some way priming the pump? Are
they pushing these events? It's a questionable tackle. After a
word from our sponsor, we've returned. But before you jump in,

(40:32):
I just the last thing that you said before he
went to a break, applying it to video games and
all this other media, talking about the various enemies. I
was thinking about the Call of Duty franchise and how
it began with World War Two with the Nazis. Then
you can watch it jump forward to the Cold War,
you can watch it jump to terrorists. You could watch it.

(40:55):
It's so interesting the way it kind of goes. It
jumps around to like three enemies. Basically, it's either Russians
of some sort, Soviets of some sort, Nazis, and terrorists
of some sort of of a Middle Eastern country somewhere.
That's just how it always functions. Those are the three.

(41:15):
Those are the three. It's the Holy Trinity. Huh. I
forget about zombies. And zombie well, zombies like towards the
end right usually well, yeah, and some of them. I
think our nazis correct me if I'm wrong on that,
but I think they are. Well, this is this is uh.
This leads us to the next question, which is maybe

(41:35):
a sensitive topic for some of us in the audience.
Today we talked about the power of propaganda write a
clear motivator for this practice, But what about the problem
of recruitment, Because in a way, the military entertainment complex
is meant to solve this problem. Any experience commander is
going to tell you that a military force can only

(41:56):
be as good as the individuals in it all they
as good as its soldiers. And every military in the
world that does not have an active conscription kind of
policy or law spends a huge amount of time and
money figuring out how to recruit people, overwhelmingly historically young
men into their ranks, Like how do we how do

(42:17):
we convince you that it is your duty and indeed
your honor and your opportunity two possibly die for people
who in future generations may not appreciate your sacrifice, Like
this is this is a this is a rest of
your life kind of situation. This is a career, This

(42:39):
is a calling, this is a duty. I accidentally reinvented
the name call of duty, and I am so sorry,
but I didn't mean to. But but you know, it's
a question you have to have because you have to.
You have to be recruiting people. People are aging out
of militaries right, People are maybe experiencing injuries that make

(43:01):
it such that they can no longer serve, even if
they wish to. So you have to find new people.
And it turns out that a blockbuster film can be
a tremendously successful recruitment tool. Like imagine, Okay, this is
an example. We'll just make up. So you're a kid.
You're watching one of those World War two era films?
What are good World War two era films? There's a

(43:23):
thin red line, right, Um? Banda brothers? What's that other one?
There's another one? Band of brothers is like a special
right band of brothers has It's an HBO bunch of
different movies, is it not? Uh? So you see any

(43:44):
of these? And uh? Um, another example of a war
film would be done Kirk right. Uh. These these are
very high production, high value films, you know, and uh,
in many ways they are accurate and don't shy away
from the violence that people encountered. But let's say you're
a kid watching this. Maybe you're even a little young

(44:06):
for it. So this is serious, shocking stuff you're seeing,
and while you're watching it, you're imagining one of your
older relatives who had told you about his time fighting
with the Allies World War two. Again, people tend to
want to be part of something larger than themselves, So
this movie may have been more than a diverting hour

(44:28):
and a half to two and a half hours. This
this film may have just made that kid feel like
he is pursuing his destiny, that it is his fate
to become the next in a long line of people
fighting to make the world a better place. And I'm
not saying any of that is untrue. That very well
may be true. But the kid learned about it through

(44:50):
a blockbuster film. Yeah, I remembering that movie Pearl Harbor. Now, yeah,
been Michael Bay. I don't remember who directed it. I
just remember that iconic scene and you know when it's well,
I don't I honestly don't remember much about the movie. Besides,
there were nurses involved. Ben Athleck was there, and they

(45:14):
spent a lot of money on you know, the depicting
the attack on Pearl Harbor. It's a big flag waving
tent pole movie. You know, that got slammed critically because
of that very fact. It was almost like Colin Lee
that thing. Uh. And that's I think why Michael Bay
is such a popular choice for some of these situations,

(45:34):
because he you know, we know where we the military
know where we stand with Michael Bay. And without without
diving into the ideation in the genesis of that film, uh,
there's a fair question to ask, you know, was it
Michael Bay's original idea or was he asked to join
the team? Which is again again not insidious. That happens

(45:55):
all the time with directors a studio as a script
they really like and they have a director they really
they have a dream director they really want to work with,
and they want to see if they can get that
person on board. And they've got one more picture to
make with Affleck according to his deal. So I mean
right right, the Affleck deals. They just read havoc throughout
the industry. So studies show that there are numerous factors

(46:20):
leading to an increased likelihood of military recruitment. What we
mean by that is that if you look at like
if you look at a map of the US and
it's various territories, you will see there are a couple
of things that correlate with someone's likelihood to join the military. Uh.

(46:44):
Some of these things include, um include stuff like painful
socioeconomic backgrounds, right leading to a lack of a viable
long term economic future. The most apparent ex ample to
a lot of people nowadays would be something like, how

(47:04):
can I afford to go to college? You know what
I mean? How how on earth am I supposed to
compete with those families who have intergenerational wealth and started
a college fund for their kid when the kid was
like negative two years old? And now you know, now
I have to try to make my own way working
three jobs, right, uh? How And unfortunately that is very

(47:28):
common and again, not everybody has to go to college.
I think that's a myth that's been sold to the
American public in particular. But there are other like, there
are other factors like to have you do, come from
a military family, things of that nature. All of those things, however,
they exist with a number of their own caveats, right,

(47:49):
like not that what this means is that every recruitment
act you make or endeavor you you set upon is
going to have to target people in some way that
may exclude other people you wanted to target. Right. So
if you have, for instance, if you have uh, solely

(48:09):
English language ads, you're going to be missing part of
the demographic. Right. And that's what makes the media so powerful,
because the military is very much aware of the fact
that everybody watches something, right you can you can't yet
say everybody plays something, although I think you can in
the future, but right now you can say everybody watches something.

(48:31):
And that means that investing in media in this way
cuts across all those social, demographic financial boundaries. You are
speaking to everyone at this point. Uh. That is something
that is tremendously powerful. But it's also been used in sneaky,
sneaky ways. And there's there's an example, Matt that you found,

(48:55):
uh and we talked a little bit off air about
that I recall, but I really think we should explore this.
I think we owe it to everyone to talk about
this one. Yeah. I think this is the best example
at least that I was able to find when it
comes to sponsoring, at least or partnering maybe with an
i P an intellectual property and a big budget film

(49:17):
franchise for recruitment purposes. Maybe not specifically for that, but
dang finding a way to really utilize recruitment in the
promotion of a film. So we have to jump to
and look at the Yes, it is the sequel to
Independence Day, that movie that lives in all of our

(49:41):
hearts as as children of at least for me of
the eighties, Welcome to Earth as as I would say
to all of my friends for a long long time,
except I would do it as Will Smith. Um. The
first movie was just very very popular, right, I mean,
you guys loved Independence Day? Did my record in this

(50:01):
episode earlier? Okay, I just want to make sure we're
all there. You drop a swear after saying welcome to
Earth and then punches the thing in the face. Yeah, dude,
it's perfect. Um. So when they when they made a
sequel for this film, part of the marketing and the
trailers they would put out the teasers it one of

(50:21):
There are several of these, like one of them is
a look back, essentially a tribute to the quote war
of that happened in the first movie, right, and they create,
they do just such a good job world building. Um,
they've got all the characters looking back, reflecting, talking about
what happened, how they got so far. And one of

(50:42):
the main pieces of them reflecting back is this thing
called the Earth Space Defense Group. And in this trailer
they create essentially a recruitment video for the Earth Space
Defense and they implore you, essentially as the viewer, as
this person who's watching their message in this this fake reality,

(51:05):
in this world of the movie, to join this thing.
And if it tells you, go to a website. And
you go to this website and it's like join E
s D dot com. That's what it was. If you
went there, you could actually play a couple of really
interesting video games, some simulations based on the movie's world.
It's pretty cool. They're like testing you out. But in

(51:26):
order to get access to it, you have to give
the website access to your Facebook account. Now this is okay. Also,
keep in mind you're not signed into the movie franchises
website where you actually are online when you go to
that link, as you've been redirected to Go Army dot com,

(51:48):
which is the US Army's recruitment site. It's the official one.
So if you if you watch these trailers and they
got they got a ton of clicks, a ton of
you for all this this content they were creating for
Join E s D. It was actually the military capturing
intel on viewers. Um, it doesn't matter how old you are.

(52:11):
If you are old enough to have a Facebook account,
they could capture your data there and you'd go through
these simulations video game style, and they were lightly pushing
you to join the actual army using these skills. Because
they're testing your skills with these various simulations. It's brilliant,
and really it feels messed up. It feels very messed up,

(52:32):
and it's legal. Yeah. Yeah, that's the problem because the
way Facebook partnerships of that kind of of that ILK work. Uh.
You know, if you've ever been to a website and
it gives you a couple of options, it's really giving
you the option of where you want where you want
your data. Sauld right, So sign him with Google, sign

(52:53):
him with Facebook, or sign him with email. Takes a second.
But there's some great throwaway email service as you can
use for that too. If you if you prioritize this
so this happens, it's not illegal, but it is sneaky
and it's not a super great look. I think we
can all agree on that, especially consider like if you're

(53:15):
a parent and your kid is on that website and
then later you start getting these mailers about the army
addressed not to the household but to like your fourteen
year old, then you're a little freaked out if that
If that happens, we're saying that definitely did well. But
but think about fake really really think about it, guys.

(53:36):
It's if if they came right out and the director said,
or there was a big title screen like this trailer
is presented to you by the United States Army. Uh,
this is recruitment material, Like parents probably wouldn't ever allow
their kids to watch it. Well, then it seems less

(53:57):
like entertainment, right, it's more overt pop by Ganda. And
one thing you can one thing you can see in
these films is that, especially in feature films, in the
credits at the end of the film, you will see acknowledgement.
You're never not going to see that if the army
is involved, or if the military services are involved. But
here we go. So we've described things that are perfectly legal,

(54:19):
have some troubling potential. Uh. There have been times, just
like with the Independence Day sequel trailer, where these things
went a little wrong. Uh. But the thing that the
thing here that should bother you is that it's not
it's not necessarily the process or the existence of this phenomenon,

(54:42):
as Dennis Reynolds would say, because of the implication. We
did it. We finally thanks to codenamed dot holiday, we
finally squeezed an actual always studying Philadelphia quote. There don't
sue us, guys, they're wealthy now, they don't. They don't
need our money. We gave you our money already. Okay, jeez,
we did did Uh. But yeah, the implication, what do

(55:03):
we mean by that? Well, if all this is true,
and it very much is, is it really that much
of a problem. I mean, Hollywood has never been a
perfect place. Think of all the other things. Hollywood has
done things that are terrible, right, like aiding sexual assault
and sexual abuse for multiple generations and just covering it

(55:24):
up forever and ever and ever and ever. I mean,
in comparison, you could say this seems somewhat tame, but
there are serious, lasting issues with this arrangement. Like here's
the question We've used the phrase slippery slope before. I
know some people hate it. I know sometimes it feels cliche,
but you have to remember things are often only called

(55:46):
cliche because they are making true. So think about this,
there's a slippery slope. At what point does consulting on
or influencing the plot of a movie script, you know,
from checking for accuracy to co writing, Uh, at what
point does that slide into an attack on freedom of speech? Like?

(56:07):
At what point is uh, you know, some someone's creative voice,
whether director's, scriptwriter, etcetera? What what? At what point is
that silence? Does this count as the same thing? I
would say technically no, but troublingly close. What do you
guys think? This makes you worry about the bubble that
we're in, as you know, United States citizens, as Westerners,

(56:29):
like what we've We've seen things that are critical of
our country and our militaries right there. There's there's a
whole host of content that is critical in some way
of those institutions and those powers. But I wonder if
there are still holes in our knowledge just due to

(56:50):
where we live and what information we have access to,
or what is being prevented? What? What? What is being
shielded from us just by Maybe I don't think the
government would do that, but maybe they do. Maybe that's
that's something that occurs in the same way that other
countries shield content from their citizens. Oh yeah, that's a

(57:14):
excellent and very disturbing point, Matt. I mean, you're not
going to see the controversy about depleted uranium rounds popping
up in the next Transformers film, right most likely? Um? Yeah,
because then we're in a situation of the famous unknown unknown.
We don't know what we don't know? Uh, And this
can be this can be dangerous because a less informed

(57:38):
public is a less powerful public. And of course, of
course there are things that have to remain classified because
people's literal lives are on the line. But again, how
do we how do we navigate that? How do we
figure out? I don't know, like, has there ever been
I don't know if there's ever been in the history

(58:00):
of public declassification in this country. I don't think there's
ever been something released that made the entirety of the
US public go wow. I wish I never knew that.
Let's pretend it never happened. People want to know things,
even if they are ugly and disturbing, right. I tried.
I tried over the weekend to think about this. I
got I got bupkus. Can you think, can you guys

(58:23):
think of one human testing thing? But I think we
all I think you know when Tuskegee experiments came out,
when it when the knowledge of that came out. I
think that was exactly what you're saying, like, thank god
we know about it. But geez, I think that's usually
their action, just as you're saying, yeah, yeah, the ugly truth, right,

(58:44):
um will prepare us for the future. But second one,
I think we said this at the very beginning. Another
implication problem here. If you haven't wondered about this yet
over over the course of this episode, fellow cans spiracy realist,
who is paying for all this stuff? If you live
in the United States, congratulations, it is you. You are,

(59:09):
through your tax dollars, in a way, a contributing producer
to every single media product of this type. It doesn't
matter if you don't like Katy Perry, it does not
matter what you think of Michael Bay And if you,
for some ludicrous reason, do not understand the beauty of
the original Independence Day, well, no refunds. You already paid

(59:29):
for it for sure. Yeah. I have to say I
don't even remember the existence of Independence Day too. It's
like a Mandela effects situation for me. When when was
this like far removed from Independence Day one? Or was
it like how close on the heels of that? Today?
There were some other stuff going on in the news.
It was in um, the election like took over everything.

(59:52):
I don't know if you guys remember, Uh, it took
over everything. I don't remember anything else that happened in Oh,
it's got Prince Miner and I remember that part. He's
back pullman, hanging out. Uh huh, getting possessed like choke
possessed by aliens. Uh, that's right, You're right. So many

(01:00:14):
things have happened since. You know. I was just thinking
earlier this morning, we're recording this on March first. Just
hit me, it's March again. Weird anyway, I need to
favor my vehicles tags hook No, man, I need to
get on that right right, And I think we need to.
I think we might be close to wrapping today. But uh,

(01:00:35):
let's let's give us some words from back to You
mentioned them earlier in Old Stockwell and Murray Griffith University.
They say the following. The real danger for the entertainment business,
which has for so long enjoyed the benefits of free speech,
is that it is now in danger of becoming an
agent for the closure of debate. We depend on the
media to use their freedom of speech to allow a

(01:00:57):
variety of opinions to circulate, and of course that can
be that can be dangerous when those opinions are things
like hate speech or someone saying, you know, we're gonna
blow up the Smithsonian as uh, to rally the cause
for the Flat Earth Society of Northeastern District of Columbia

(01:01:20):
or whatever. Uh. That that's true. Again, there's there's a
slippery sloop here. But we have to ask ourselves what
the responsibility of these folks entertaining us. It's but either way,
make no mistake. This is a clear successor to the
complex that Eisenhower warned us about all those years ago.
And it is not going away. It is going to

(01:01:42):
continue evolving because it is successful. In fact, you know,
I was thinking about I can't remember what which show
this was, you guys, but remember when we talked about
the growth of a r advertising. I feel like the U. S.
Military and Uncle Sam is all already much further along

(01:02:02):
this path that a lot of corporations are gonna end
up take it. I'm sure you know what I mean
by that is, I think people might see a lot
of films which again might objectively be good, good films,
and then they might not realize that they are in
some way being served an ad. Does that make sense?

(01:02:23):
That's where we go. We're gonna I think we're going
to see more and more tacitly sponsored video game products,
and then again we'll see more war films that claim
to follow the pulse of the zeitgeist. So what story
are they telling you? Is the one the director wants
you to know? Or is it one the military wants
you to hear? I don't know. What do you I mean?
What do you think? How involved should the d O
D or any government agency of any country be in

(01:02:45):
the creation of mass media entertainment. We don't even talk
about the CIA film companies. CIA is in this too, man.
I swear to you we've covered some of this before,
just in talking about propaganda and the military, not not
in this stepth and and it is worth your time
to look deeper into this stuff, especially when you watch

(01:03:07):
anything where you play anything, or you listen to anything
where the military is involved, just keep keep your ears
and your eyes open to what story you're actually being
told outside of what the plot, you know, the baseline
plot is giving you, or what the protagonist is saying.
Battleship right, amazing film, and a lot of people were

(01:03:31):
surprised that the Navy produced it. Well, even the Tom
Hanks one that came out not long ago. I think
we named dropped this name dropped this one not that
long ago. What was it called Greyhound where where he's
on a battleship and he's fighting with a U boat.
I think he Tom Hanks just fighting with this U boat.

(01:03:53):
Uh No, but it's like an ahab white whale situation. Yeah.
Also has an appearance from lesser known Hanks son, Chet Hanks,
who is probably more known for his fake rasta Patois
gaffs than he is for his acting. But I follow
him on Instagram and he made a post about check

(01:04:14):
out my dad's new movie. You can see your boy
here as a sonar operator in one scene. There you go,
There you go. You can also just see the actual,
you know, actual Navy stuff. Another thing to put in
the context here. When you're making it an historical movie
like that, it is often the director's choice or the

(01:04:35):
studio's choice, of the writer's choice to be as authentic
as possible. So you know, working directly with whichever branch
of the military in this case the Navy, to get
the actual ship or the actual what the guns actually
looked like, even if it's all c G I, you know,
working directly with an institution like that, uh, to to

(01:04:55):
get those things right. I mean, that's that to me
is right, I guess the right thing to do. But
it's still it's still weird, and it it blurs the lines.
So maybe maybe we say, uh, the issue here is
not necessarily that it's happening, but the issue is that
there is potential, uh for there's potential for damaging effects

(01:05:21):
to come about as a result of this. There's potential
for this practice too in the future have consequences, uh,
And how would those consequences come to bear? They would
come to bear in the absence of transparency. So they're
like whenever the whenever there's a hidden hand, that's when
things start to get dicey. And in some cases there's

(01:05:42):
very much there's a hidden hand here. And it's not
a look, it's not necessarily that these offices of Public
Affairs or some kind of cloak and dagger outfit right now.
It's just that the public seems largely unaware of what's happening. Well,
and and and it's a it's a choice that the
film production companies and studios have to make. Like we said,

(01:06:02):
it's a it's a trade off. They can either you know,
with the bill for their own tanks or manufacture them,
fabricate them, you know, make their own version of this
stuff or C G I A. Or they can you know,
get a big break on their budget by working a
little more closely with these offices. Right, Yeah, they can
just sweet it. They can just sweet they get some

(01:06:23):
cardboard takes exactly exactly. Uh, who's that director of the Uh, Michelle,
That's that's what I always think about. Um. We're also
not saying that joining any branch of the military is wrong.
We're just saying it should be an educated, informed choice, Right,

(01:06:43):
That's all we're saying. Because I mean, there are varying
levels of danger to being enlisted in any arm of
the military, but it is it is much more dangerous
than a lot of other occupations. That's why I think
that's why some of this feels insidious, because the end user,

(01:07:05):
the the the kid that ends up signing up or enlisting,
needs to understand really what they're getting into. And it's
not a video game and it's not some war story
where you're the hero. To me, that's the whole point
of of being slightly against that stuff. Yeah, informed, consent,
nail on the head. I'd say, del chat, decora mest Uh.

(01:07:28):
That's our show, folks. We can't wait to hear what
you think. What should the role of the d D
be here? What was your experience? Do you feel like
the depiction of the military, whether in the US or
a different country, do you feel like it influenced maybe
your decision to join or not join. If you did join,
do you feel like, um, do do you feel like

(01:07:51):
it was the right decision? Do you feel like you
were maybe misled? Uh, there's no right or wrong answer.
We just want to hear from you, and we try
to be easy to find online. That's right. Can find
us on Facebook and Twitter where we're conspiracy Stuff Conspiracy
Stuff show on Instagram. Uh, and if you want to
circle back to to Facebook. You can join our Facebook
group Here's where it gets crazy, where you can join

(01:08:11):
in on the conversation. Yeah, this is a great topic
to discuss on. Here is where it gets crazy. So
we do highly recommend your head over there if you're
cool being on Facebook and you know, giving them all
your information. I thought you were just gonna say if
you're cool that, no, nerds, I can't get on the
Facebook anymore. Yeah, sorry, nerds, No, I would never say that. Orr. Yeah, okay, Um.

(01:08:39):
If you don't want to do that stuff, we recommend
you give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three st d w y t K. You got
three minutes. Those minutes belong to you. We want them
to use them as you will. It would be helpful
to us and perhaps helpful to you to try a

(01:09:00):
little bit of structure, if if it makes things easier. First,
tell us your name or your cool nickname that you
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it for the end, and then fourth and perhaps most importantly,

(01:09:23):
if you have an in depth topic. Topic suggestions for
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(01:09:43):
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(01:10:04):
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(01:10:28):
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