Cognitive Diversity and Constitutional Values in Today's Military: A Conversation with Navy Veterans from the Calvert Task Group

STARRS & Stripes host Commander Al Palmer, USN ret, leads a thought-provoking discussion that challenges current narrative views on military diversity and readiness, featuring key insights from three retired Navy veterans LCDR Bruce Davey (a Blue Angel), Capt. Guy Higgins, and Capt. Brent Ramsey. All are members of the Calvert Task Group, an organization concerned with restoring the US Naval Academy, Navy and Marines.

Is the U.S. military's core mission being overshadowed by societal and political influences? Our guests address this pressing question, offering a critique of the current landscape shaped by diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and the potential impact on military preparedness. Brent Ramsey shares compelling observations from Calvert Task Group's new book, "Don't Give Up the Ship: Woke Politics Are Endangering Our Military and Our Nation," emphasizing the urgency to refocus on fundamental military principles in light of global threats, particularly from nations like China.

As the conversation unfolds, we highlight the power of cognitive diversity in fostering innovative military leadership. Beyond superficial measures, cognitive diversity provides a wide array of problem-solving approaches and perspectives that enhance decision-making. This episode underscores the critical need for diversity initiatives to be firmly rooted within the framework of the Constitution and personal beliefs. We explore how constitutional fidelity serves as a guiding light for military officers, promoting unity and effectiveness in service.

In a deep dive into the intersection of political influence and constitutional values, we explore the repercussions faced by a Naval Academy midshipman supporting law enforcement during Black Lives Matter advocacy. This episode examines the broader implications of societal debates on military readiness and recruitment, while also reflecting on the foundational stability provided by the U.S. Constitution. Join us as we advocate for preserving the Constitution's intended purpose and discuss the challenges of maintaining high standards and accountability within military and government institutions.

https://calverttaskgroup.org/
Book: https://a.co/d/26Y4dx9

_______________________________________

For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which works to eliminate the divisive Marxist-based CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Department of Defense and to promote the return to a warfighter ethos of meritocracy, lethality, readiness, accountability, standards and excellence in the military.

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Episode Transcript

Al Palmer (00:11):
Well, hello, America and welcome back to another
episode of STARRS and Stripesand I am your host, commander Al
Palmer, US Navy retired, andalso a little bit of Air Force
thrown in there too.
But we're here today to discussa little bit about our military
and diversity, equity andinclusion and some of the other

(00:34):
issues of isms that areaffecting the military today.
To do that, I've got a seasonedpanel with me today of three of
us other than myself who arepart of both STARRS and the
Calvert Task Group, and we'regoing to talk about their
history and about what we'redoing to kind of save the
military today.
But first just a couple ofwords I want to say about where

(00:58):
we are today following theelections we've just had.
Things seem to have changedfairly substantially since then,
and today we find ourselves notin troubled waters, swimming
towards shore, hoping we canmake some difference.
We're still afloat, we got ourlife rafts inflated and we can
see land in the distance, and sofor us in the Navy particularly

(01:22):
, that's a good sign, and sowe're going to talk about that
at some length here today, and alot of it is going to focus on
solutions rather than problems.
We're going to focus on thingsthat are good and things about
our country and about ourservice in the military that
make things work every day, workevery day.

(01:48):
So to do that, I've got a panelof three guys with me here today
, starting with Bruce Davey, ourBlue Angel Lieutenant Commander
, great guy, and he's part ofthe Calvert Task G roup.
His dad also was in themilitary and so he was also a
graduate of the Naval Academy.
So we share that and in factwe've got a family that's been

(02:10):
in the military before andthat's probably what's distorted
us.
Is that right, Bruce Right.
And then Captain Guy Higgins.
Guy is a Naval Academy graduateas well.
He's been a Navy fighter pilotand he's had over 30 years in
the military, and his dad wasalso in the Navy, and we'll talk

(02:35):
a little bit more about him.
And then Brent Ramsey.
He's really the brains, I think, behind the Calvert Tasks Group
and what you're doing withDon't Give Up the Ship, and it's
good to have all of you with ushere today.
So welcome.
And guys, I'm going to give thefloor first of all to Brent,

(02:57):
because I'd like to have himtalk a little bit about your
book and about where it is now,having been released, and I
would note to our audience thatit was released before the
elections and maybe our view ofthings was a little dimmer then.
So I'm interested to hear,brent, what you're thinking now
that the book's been out for awhile and how that's been
received.

Brent Ramsey (03:18):
Brent O'.
Thanks, al.
I'll hold it up so you can see,or I actually I think Cindy
might put up a graphic of it.
Our book came out on the 17thof September.
It's available at Amazon, andwhat it is a collection of
essays written by 17 of ourmembers and some other partners

(03:45):
with us.
Several of the authors areSTARS members, and it's a
collection of essays thatexpressed our concerns about
what was happening to the Navyand the military at large.
So it's very readable.
It's been endorsed by somefairly important people, like

(04:09):
Secretary of Defense designatePete Hegseth is one of the
endorsers, speaker Newt Gingrichis an endorser, former speaker
Governor Mike Huckabee, a numberof flag officers, some of them
affiliated with STARRS, GeneralArbuckle and Vice Admiral Lee.

(04:29):
So it's gotten good press sawoccurring in the Navy and in the
military at large associatedwith a political agenda that had

(04:50):
gotten into the military andbeing promoted by certain
elements of our society.
They're certainly entitled totheir opinions about social
issues and that sort of thing,but the political influences
that had entered into the Navyand the military as a whole are

(05:12):
seriously detracting fromreadiness and performance of our
military, our Navy especially,and so the purpose of the book
is to focus attention on thatand to show why that's bad for
the Navy, that's bad for themilitary.
If you focus on individuals,it's exactly the opposite of the

(05:34):
concepts that we train asmilitary members.
As Navy members, we work underthe concept of shipmate and
everybody's in the same ship.
If the ship goes down,everybody goes down, so it can't
be focused on individuality andsocial justice issues and all
sorts of distractions.

(05:56):
Our view is that the Navy andthe other services need to get
back to basics, to readiness, topreparing for the fight.
We know we have enemiesscattered all over the world.
China intends to rule the world.
That's their goal.
They're on a 100-year plan andthey're well on the way to
achieving that goal.

(06:16):
The world's largest militarytheir Navy is much larger now
than the United States Navy is,and that should concern us is
much larger now than the UnitedStates Navy is, and that should
concern us.
In the Pacific they can arrayover 300 ships.
We have approximately 40 shipsin the Pacific, more than a 10
to 1 ratio.
Actually, it's not a goodscenario.

(06:37):
We have Pacific allies that arethreatened.
Taiwan is not a formal ally,but we have a longstanding
relationship with them.
We do have treaty allies inJapan, the Philippines, south
Korea and so on.
So our focus is not tocriticize what's commonly known
as DEI and some of these othersocial issues, but it's to point

(07:01):
out that those kinds of thingshave no place in the military,
and then they actually detractfrom the military and the
military's ability to do itsmission, and we will rue the day
that we allow our military tobe weakened because our enemies
are poised to cause trouble, andthey are In fact.

(07:24):
It's not news to anybody who'slistening to this.
We have a very active warscenario that's going on in two
theaters and we have China outin the Pacific causing trouble
to their neighbors.
So it's important that we getback to basics and get rid of
politics and the military.

Al Palmer (07:51):
And I think in the book you point out the fact that
the general public doesn'tperceive the military the way
that we do.
Sometimes, you know, I thinkthey think that military just
like regular civilian life.
You know, you go to work atAmazon or you go to Morgan
Stanley, there's no real problemin your day.
Your day is not going to beruined by someone running over
you or you crashing intosomething or someone shooting at
you.
And maybe, if you work atAmazon, that's true.

(08:13):
But the larger issue here, Ithink, is you know, the military
, being in the military isexceptional.
It's not the ordinary and it'snot for everybody.
The military is exceptional,it's not the ordinary and it's
not for everybody.
Is a guy?
Uh, you know, we don't.
We don't solve problems by justputting somebody in the job,
hoping that they'll learn it onthe job training.
There's specific issues thatinvolve physicality and

(08:37):
lethality and, I'd argue, acommitment to doing something
bigger than yourself.
Right?

Guy Higgins (08:43):
right.
Yep, I think you got thatexactly right, Al.
After I retired from the Navy,I spent 12 years with the Boeing
company and I was astounded athow poorly they developed
leaders.
Leadership is just as importantin industry as it is in the
military, but they would waituntil a guy was selected to be

(09:06):
in a leadership position beforethey did any kind of training or
educating him or her to be aleader.
And in the military, as soon assomebody's out of boot camp,
they start experiencingleadership.
So you know, you have pettyofficer petty officer third
class in the Navy.
He's liable to be working withtwo or three guys that are

(09:27):
working for him and he's got toexhibit leadership and he's got
to know how to take that stuffover, and it's really important
to be able to know how to dothat and to be able to work
together as a team while you'redoing that.
So, yeah, I agree with you.

Al Palmer (09:45):
So in the civilian world, I mean, you've got unions
and that supposedly takes careof people and all their problems
, but we know that it's thatband of brothers feeling and
that bonding that occurs.
That's the long-lasting part ofthat.
And we do take care of ourpeople.
You have to.
If you don't, you're not goingto have the team that you're
going to have to depend on whenit comes to it right, especially
on a ship, do you think, bruce?

(10:08):
Or, in our case, as aviators inthe air, if you don't have your
wingman there to help you out?
Look out, you're in trouble.

Bruce Davey (10:17):
Yeah, I'd agree with that completely.
I think the parallels therewith civilian industry.
There are some profound aspectsof union versus management
there.
And I was an airline pilot andpart of the Airline Pilots
Association, which is a union,and growing up in a military

(10:41):
family, that was kind of ananathema to us and I discovered
that there was a reason that wehad a union and you looked after
the other members of the union.
Now, obviously, union leadershipcan be any sort of thing, but
the idea was that we weredealing with each other as part

(11:03):
of a team and I think that's animportant part in civilian world
, just like in the military.
But the military theconsequences are a lot greater.
Of course, you're not going totake a bullet through the brain
if you screw things up as anairline pilot and the Union
isn't going to suffer.

(11:24):
So I think the military is kindof sets itself apart from the
civilian world from thatstandpoint.
And one other thing that isimportant I think and Guy is
really dialed in on this andthat's we are not against
diversity, we welcome diversityand everybody all of us, I'm

(11:49):
sure would recognize that thereare people who bring things to
the table from their background,their educational background,
their emotional background,everything that we may be blind
to Heck, you can see that inyour marriage.
That we may be blind to Heck,you can see that in your
marriage.
None of us, I'm sure, havemarriages that our wives say, oh

(12:13):
yeah, well, I just agree witheverything that you think about.
My wife comes from a differentbackground.
She comes from a differenteducational process and a
different emotional background,and so when she critiques my
performance in some scenario, Itake it to the bank, because it
may very well be that herdiversity of her thought is

(12:37):
worthwhile, and so we don'tquestion the need for diversity.
We just don't think that thatshould be the driving force
behind selection and movementwithin the armed forces.

Al Palmer (12:50):
Yeah, and I saw that myself.
A big career, going from an AirForce aviator into the Navy.
You know I thought, well, thoseguys aren't going to want to
listen to anything about the AirForce.
But they did and we bothlistened to each other over some
time and you do learn.
You're right that diversitycounts, but I would say
diversity tempered withmeritocracy.

Bruce Davey (13:12):
Absolutely.

Guy Higgins (13:15):
So let me weigh in here, al, and I agree with you,
but I think the first thing thatwe have to do is decide what we
mean when we say diversity.
Okay, if I walk downtown herein Lafayette and stop somebody
and say, what does diversitymean?
They're going to say, well, youneed to have an
African-American, and you needto have a Asian, and you need to
have a Native American.

(13:35):
And okay, yeah, that isdiversity.
But is that what builds power?
One of the big problems with DEI, or critical race theory, is
that they want to segregatepeople into these silos.
You're in the African-Americansilo, you're in the Native

(13:56):
American silo, and those silosare mutually exclusive.
And when was the last time thatworked out well?
Did that work out well in theBalkans?
No, how about in Rwanda?
Don't think so.
It doesn't do anything.
Our national motto is apluribus unum From many one, and

(14:18):
diversity builds strength.
When you work together as one,we're all Americans.
Well, I was never anall-american, I wasn't even on
the varsity, but but uh there'shope for all of us we're all
american citizens and to be ableto take advantage of that and

(14:39):
work together.
Just like bruce said, takeadvantage of the different ways
that we think about things, theway we see the world, the way we
solve problems, the way weanticipate the outcomes of those
solutions.
We hear all the time about ohwell, that's an unintended
consequence.
Well, maybe it's an unintendedconsequence because nobody on

(14:59):
the team that built the solutionthought differently about it
than anybody else on the team.
The CEO of intel one timefamously told his executive team
if you guys all think the sameway, I only need one of you.

Al Palmer (15:12):
Now go think about it we've got to apply that to
government in general so, guy, Ithink it may have been guy may
have been you who said, though,that that ethnicity and skin
color are no different than yourshoe size, your height and you
know where you go to church.

(15:33):
When it comes to war fighting,those are all extraneous
external things that just don'tmatter.

Guy Higgins (15:41):
Yeah, yes, yes, and no Big, yes, little, no, okay,
we can't just pick peoplebecause they have a different
skin color or different genderor different ethnicity and
expect that to all work out wellabout things differently.
Okay, so my ancestry is ScotsIrish, which means the Scots

(16:11):
have disowned me and the Irishhate me, but that's my ancestry.
My wife's ancestry is Czech,german and French, and my
grandchildren have thrown in alittle bit of English and some
native American and who knowswhat else, but we all tend to
think a little bit alike.
But if you take somebody whocame here from, say, um, jamaica

(16:35):
two generations ago, they stillhave a very different way of
seeing the world and solvingproblems.
That is that are there.
Those are the things, theperceptions and the problem
solving that we can leverage toget much better performance,
much improved solutions,approaches, ways of interacting
with one another.

(16:55):
But if we just bring together abunch of people who look
differently, there's noguarantee whatsoever that
they're going to thinkdifferently, particularly in
today's America, where they'veheard for so long that unless
you're a white male, you're in aminority and you ought to think
this way, and it's not clearthat all thinking that way I
think that's what we used tocall group thing, and so we need

(17:18):
to be careful about that stuff.
And it requires leadership tolead a team, that whose members
think differently, because thepurpose of the team is to
generate the best possiblesolution, not for me to fight
for my solution as opposed toyour solution.
So we need to understand how tolead those teams too.

Al Palmer (17:40):
And that's something special about the military, and
that's something special aboutthe military Al.

Bruce Davey (17:43):
May I add something there, within the diversity
conjunction, if you will, thething that we have to overlay it
with is the Constitution, andas a Christian, as a believer, I
have an overlay that sayswhatever choices of action that

(18:05):
I have, it has to measure up tothe, this particular requirement
, and that is the over theoverriding aspect of of the
development of the course ofaction.
And and beneath my, myChristian beliefs, I have the
Constitution and it has to lineup with the Constitution.
Then, once we have those thatoverlay that says this is the

(18:30):
within these boundaries, what dowe do then?
I think that's where thediversity, of cognitive
diversity is the term that thatguy has introduced me to and and
I think is a really soft soundone background, uh, historical,
um, leadership and so on, goesinto it.
That's where we start applyingthose things, after we put in

(18:52):
the, the, the imprint of yourspiritual beliefs and your and
the constitution, and then you,then you can move under those
words, just like we say underGod in our Pledge of Allegiance.

Guy Higgins (19:11):
Well, I think Bruce is exactly right that we do
have to start with that commonbasis, that common foundation.

Al Palmer (19:18):
Well, let's stick with the idea of the
Constitution for a moment,because you go into that in your
book pretty extensively and Ithink Brent in particular has a
really good essay or two inthere about how we do that when
we take our oath and we all takean oath and we say it and we
mean it.
But sometimes I'm not sure thatwhen you take the oath to

(19:39):
defend the Constitution, whatexactly are you defending it
against Constitution?
What exactly are you defendingit against and how do you go
about doing that?

Brent Ramsey (19:52):
Often, I think, young people joining today may
not really understand that.
You want to speak a little bitto that, brent.
Well, fidelity is to theConstitution.
The officer's oath is subtlydifferent than the oath that

(20:15):
everybody else takes, and wetake an oath to the Constitution
, and so it's not that we'reinsurrectionists and we're not
going to obey the orders ofthose in the executive, the
powers, the president and thecommander, who's called the
commander in chief, but it'sjust fundamentally officers.

(20:38):
First, fidelity is to theConstitution, to the
Constitution, and we make thatclear in any number of essays,
and so things that are notconsistent with the Constitution
or things that violate the law,even we have some soul

(20:59):
searching to do about that.
A lot of people have left theservice in recent years because
retention and recruiting andthat kind of stuff is very
strained, because people haveseen these political influences

(21:20):
being introduced that werereally straying away from the
Constitution and underminingvalues that our country was
founded on.
So you know we formed as aresult of what we saw were
abuses, constitutional abuses,freedom of speech.

(21:42):
Abuse occurred at the NavalAcademy.
A midshipman was being thrownout for exercising his free
speech in a Facebook posting,and it was also tied into what
we thought was unseemly advocacyby the management at the Naval

(22:04):
Academy for the Black LivesMatter organization.
This was after Mr Floyd'sunfortunate death and there were
riots in LA and Mitch Chippinin question.
His parents were policeofficers in the LA Police
Department and their lives wereput in jeopardy by these riots.

(22:24):
He spoke out in favor of thepolice and, I guess, technically
critical of Black Lives Matter.
I don't think he even overtlysaid anything even remotely
close to that.
But the Naval Academy startedprocessing him for discharge and

(22:46):
they were going to throw himout of the Navy and make him pay
back the expenses.
And he's a top student, nohonor code violations, just a
perfect midshipman.
And in a private setting in hisFacebook he was making these
comments and so we came to hisaid.

(23:07):
Fortunately, after a lawsuitwhich he won, he was allowed to
continue his commission on time,had actually already gotten
some advanced education andrecently that young man has
graduated flight school, had hiswings pinned on him and he's on

(23:28):
his way for advanced training.
I believe in F-18.
And correct me if I'm wrong,bruce I think that's where he's
going to.
But that's why Calvert Groupformed.
We saw problems in the Navychain of command that didn't
look right.
Why is someone in the Navyadvocating for Black Lives

(23:52):
Matter?
Why are people's rights toexpress themselves being
attacked, and not just attackedbut punished?
So we got involved, formedourselves and the more we looked
into it, the more problems wesaw with political influences
affecting operational things andaffecting things, like I said,

(24:17):
recruiting, retention,promotions and that sort of
thing, promotions and that sortof thing.
The typical demographic ofyoung Americans who want to
serve and unfortunately it's avery small percentage that these
days who do want to serve, butit's white, southern Christian
males.
Well, who was being attacked bythe political influences in our

(24:42):
nation, white Christianconservative males, that's who's
been attacked.
So we got involved and said youknow, this is wrong
fundamentally wrong, but alsothe main issue is if you're
distracted by gay pride monthand pronouns and DEI nonsense

(25:10):
and climate change and on and onand on and on.
We saw all this evidence of allthis stuff.
You can take classes at theNaval Academy in critical race
theory.
What's that got to do withoperation of a ship or an
aircraft?
Race theory what's that got todo with operation of a ship or
an aircraft?
So we got involved and westarted writing articles.
We've written I mean this bookonly consists of about 60 essays

(25:33):
We've written several hundredessays and published in a lot of
different places to get themessage out that the Navy, the
military in general, is no placefor politics.
These discussions should betaking place in our society.
We're fine with that.
People have freedom of speech.
But we need to get back toconstitutional values and we

(25:54):
need to get back to focus on theNavy's needs and to focus on
having a Navy that's prepared tofight and defend our country
against our enemies.
Having a navy that's preparedto fight and defend our country
against our enemies that's muchmore important than these social
uh experiments so.

Al Palmer (26:11):
So what happens, though, when someone starts
moving the goalposts around alittle bit, uh, and they talk
about the constitution not inits terms, as it was a set
document by our founders, but,all of a sudden, this notion
that it's a living document?
And they don't a lot of peoplethey don't know history very
well to know that Woodrow Wilsonattempted that years ago in

(26:34):
World War I, and he tried toprovide a living document that
they could change when theyneeded to, and then Obama, later
on, when he introduced DEI, didsome of the same kind of thing.
It's, we can change theConstitution.
We don't even need aconstitutional convention to do
it, we can do it by executiveorder, and so that's all come

(26:56):
about now, and the last thingI'll say about that is it seems
to be coming back a little bit.
People want to change thestructure of government, and
they can just do it ad hoc.
What are your thoughts on that?

Guy Higgins (27:12):
So let me weigh in here, Al.
I happen to think that 248years ago we had the 13,.
At that time, 13 Britishcolonies in North America had
the confluence of some of themost brilliant and educated

(27:32):
political minds the world's everseen, and I think that's just
astounding that we werefortunate to have those people.

Al Palmer (27:40):
And, by the way, they were cognitively diverse.

Guy Higgins (27:42):
They did not agree with one another across the
board on things.
The development of theConstitution was truly a
remarkable event, and a lot ofit did not occur during the day
in the hall, but occurred in thepubs and the cafes afterwards,
when they could sit down thereand beat some of these ideas

(28:06):
about without having to be tooformal about it.
It's just remarkable.
And that constitution a veryshort document.
When you look at otherconstitutions around the world,
they're incredibly long anddetailed and they try to control
everything.
Our constitution merely sets upthe way the government's going
to operate.

(28:26):
That's what it is.
It's the blueprint, the specfor the us government and we do
have a way to change it and it'shard and it should be hard this
idea of having a living.
A living constitution, a livingdocument, means you don't have
anything.
You just, if you want to changethe, want to chang time that
something comes doing it.

(28:47):
That's what hap constitutionalamendments in California and
here in do that and change thedo.
We have hundreds of amendconstitution here, so we we just
have a series of what thepublic thought was a good idea

(29:07):
and that's not a terribly goodway to do that.
The founding fathers recognizedwhat's today called the cost of
information we talk about.
We need an informed voter.
But for me or you or anyone tobe an informed voter, we have to
spend time reading andlistening and understanding and

(29:31):
debating the issues and if wedon't do that, we're not an
informed voter.
The founding fathers recognizedthat and what they wanted us to
do was to hire, to vote forpeople who would be dedicated to
understanding the issues and beable to vote on them
intelligently and rationally.
And that is just a remarkableidea.

(29:52):
And we, the American people,invented an entirely new form of
government in 1787.
And it's just remarkable howsuccessful that's been.
So the idea that you can justchange it because you want to or
because you need to is trulyastounding.
This woman in Pennsylvania whojust said well, people break the

(30:16):
laws all the time, so why don'twe just break it now that we
want to count these ballots,even though that's against our
law?
That's an astounding absolutelyastounding statement.

Al Palmer (30:27):
Well, that's about as astounding as over at the
military academy West Point,they abandoned duty, honor and
country and substituted armyvalues for it, which is like
having a great big bucket.
You can put anything you wantinto it.
That's flexibility that theywere talking about, I think.
With a living constitution, youknow you can change it ad hoc

(30:51):
whenever you want to.
You don't have any rulesanymore, you just make it to
whatever comes up today.

Bruce Davey (30:59):
There's a peripheral point to that too,
that when you have a solidsystem that is going to remain
solid, then you can forecastfrom a business standpoint and
from a military standpoint, forthat matter, an administrative
standpoint, you can forecastwhat is going to happen.

(31:20):
If you're dealing withuncertainty, constant
uncertainty, where executiveorders can change things, then
the stability of the wholesystem starts becoming fractured
, and that's what's dangerousfrom either side.
If either side is capable ofissuing an executive order that

(31:40):
basically changes the way we dobusiness in America, then the
next group that comes in canissue a new one and change that
one, and so the stability is theproblem, and we are the end
products of a remarkable streamof stability in America.

(32:00):
And people would say well, waita minute.
What about the 68 riots?
No, no, no, no.
We've been under theconstitution the whole time and,
in fact, everybody that wantsto change things has to reach
back and touch the constitutionand say it meets the standards
of the constitution and, as aresult, we are the longest

(32:21):
lasting government in the world.
America is, which is astounding.
We always think about the newworld, whatever.
No, we're the longest lastinggovernment, and why?
Because we have this touchstonethat we're constantly.
Everybody has to.
They can come up with any ideathey want to, but they have to
be then referenced theConstitution of the United
States of America and say doesit meet the standards of the

(32:44):
Constitution?
And that stability is a keypoint in our success.

Al Palmer (32:50):
Well, that's a stability is reinforced by the
notion that if you think itthrough and you have a problem,
you identify it and you come upwith solutions.
Those are going to be probablythe most workable things you can
do.
If it's an executive order,you're trusting that somebody
just came up with the answer andit's going to work.
I think we saw that recentlywith the border, did we not?

Bruce Davey (33:11):
Yeah, no question about it.
And you know, I was looking atthose pictures you had up on the
screen a little bit ago and oneof them was a catapult, the
catapult officer and his a uhassistant there, um, signaling
the, the departure of anaircraft from, from the flight

(33:32):
deck of an aircraft carrier, andit immediately flashed to me
that the team aspect of thewhole thing you know I'm the guy
sitting in the cockpit, but allof the stuff that is gone on
underneath the, in the bowels ofthe ship, in order for those
two guys to be pointing down thecat stroke, for me it's, it's

(33:52):
astounding.
And the, the guys that loadedthe weapons, the guys that that
uh, greased the catapult stroke,uh itself that and and uh the
work that went on before inorder for me to be sitting in
the cockpit of that airplane,and it makes you think about
that's what that represents ourcountry.

(34:12):
We've got a lot of people mostof us at a kind of a low level
in our country, pushing alongthe ideas of good things that
our country does, and up on thetop you've got somebody that is
riding on the work that all ofthose people have done, and we
don't want that guy sitting inthe cockpit to say no.

(34:33):
I think the way we should runthe catapult is this no, he
should get on there and ride it.

Al Palmer (34:39):
That's the constitution in effect should
get on there and write it.
That's the Constitution ineffect.
Well, and the other part ofthat is those yellow shirts.
You know, you can't tell whatrace they are, what their
ethnicity is.
You probably can't even tell ifthey're male or female, can you
Right?
And they probably can't seethat you in the cockpit or me in
the cockpit the same way.

(34:59):
But we all work as a teamtogether and the other thing is
somebody gets shot down incombat.
No one's going to stop and askthem about that either.
We go after them, risk ourlives to do it, and it's all
part of that team that has tofunction that way yeah, yeah.

Guy Higgins (35:16):
So and when bruce is sitting there in the cockpit
ready to get the cat stroke, theuh, the yellow shirt that's
doing the final check on theairplane is how old bruce?

Al Palmer (35:27):
probably 17, 19, maybe between 17 and 21.
Yeah, yeah and and you knowit's it's.
It's an absolute thrill to havewatched a carrier come alive
that way, from our initialworkups before we go on a cruise
, until everybody finally getstrained and is operating every
day.
It's like watching a.

Bruce Davey (35:48):
It's like watching a ballet yeah, and the and the,
and the funny thing is that atevery level, it's that it's that
sort of thing.
When you're, when you first getback aboard the ship,
everything is kind of strangeand you're and you're worried
about this, and you're worriedabout that, and you're and, uh,
you know what's?
What is the briefing?
Heck, how to get from yourbriefing room, your ready room,

(36:11):
up to the flight deck.
You know that there, yeah, thereare all these things that you
have to learn and the same thing, with the guy shooting you and
the guy operating the heck, theguy steering the ship, and and
uh, then, after a period of time, you coalesce into a team that
you're not worried about.
Some guy shooting you off withthe deck, moving 25 feet up and
down in the weather, down on the, on the, on the ocean, and uh,

(36:34):
and knowing that they're goingto get you back aboard, the
ship's going to be there, thelso is going to be on the
platform, everything's going towork just the way it's supposed
to.
And when you touch down, thatsame guy is going to be on the
platform.
Everything's going to work justthe way it's supposed to.
And when you touch down, thatsame guy is going to be rolling
you back, getting the wire outof your hook and telling you to
fold your wings, and all of thatstuff is a team operation, and

(36:55):
I see that as part of the wayAmerica is supposed to work.
We're supposed to be a big team.

Al Palmer (37:00):
And so you know, and as we know, when there's a
problem on the ship, whetherit's a fire or an accident or
somebody's man overboard, youknow it's general quarters, all
hands on deck, right, right, andI see that as where we are
today.
You know we've just had anincident here, with elections
and a change in leadershipthat's occurring and it's got to

(37:22):
be all hands on deck now.
Everybody's got to get involved.

Bruce Davey (37:25):
Right, right, and if you're the guy that is
normally testing the water goinginto the boilers, it doesn't
make any difference.
Now your job is to fight thefire and put the fire out and
save the ship, and then you cango back to doing your duties and
you may think your job asfighter pilot.

(37:48):
Your job is to save the shipwhen things go bad.
And luckily, I think we'vecrossed the Rubicon here.
We're in a place where thepotential is that we're probably
going to save the ship, butwe've got to pull on the same
end of the rope.

Al Palmer (38:05):
Well, as Brent said, we're all shipmates and that's
being in it together.
The old Billy Joel song goodnight Saigon.
We're all gonna go downtogether and that happens on the
ship, right?
Yes?

Brent Ramsey (38:20):
when there's a fire at sea, that will
definitely focus your attention.
Every person on the ship wantsto rally to the fire point.
I was sound asleep on a tin can.
I was on in the middle of thenight and I heard the GQ sounded
fire, fire, fire in compartmentsuch and such.
I got out of my rack and myskivvies and went right straight

(38:41):
to after communications.
Now it turned out to be a minorelectrical fire, but it's
definitely something that willfocus your attention, because if
the ship goes down and you'rein the middle of the Atlantic,
everybody dies.
Okay, so just reinforcing what Isaid earlier on the concept of
shipmate is critical to ourperformance in the Navy, and I'm

(39:05):
sure the other services havesimilar sorts of things.
But whether it's a shipmate, orwhether it's your woman, or
whether it's your whole flightcrew on a P-3, well, I guess we
don't fly P-3s anymore.
I'm dating myself.
I was stationed at a P-3 basethe Aleutians.
We had P-3s back in those days.

(39:25):
It's now what?
The P-8.
P-8.
It's a modified 737, I believethat the Navy introduced a few
years ago, but it didn't matter.

Guy Higgins (39:44):
Everybody has to pull on the same end of the rope
or people die.

Al Palmer (39:46):
So the question I'm sorry.

Guy Higgins (39:50):
Let me just segue off that a bit, al, the election
that is now whatever.
14 days ago was a watershedevent, I think, for the United
States, but it is way too earlyfor people to be spiking the
ball.
President Trump's going to comein and he's going to sign an

(40:10):
executive order with respect tocritical race theory and DEI,
but the Congress needs to actalso because, as Bruce pointed
out, an executive order can beundone by an executive order and
uh, and that's not true whenthere's a law passed.
So congress needs to step up totheir responsibility of being

(40:35):
the governors.
The congress governs, theexecutive just executes, and
we've gotten away from that.
But president, president Trump'sgoing to sign an EO, but that
doesn't end it.
All of his political appointees, whether it's Secretary of
State Designee Rubio or whetherit's Secretary of Defense
Designee Hegseth, have got topush that down to their people,

(40:57):
who have got to push it down allthe way to the deck plates.
It's getting rid of thisattitude is not something that's
going to be done with deckplates.
It's getting rid of thisattitude is not something that's
going to be done with a memo.
It's going to be done withleadership throughout the entire
organization, the entirehierarchy, and it's not going to
be an easy thing to do.
It's going to be a really hardthing to do to pull that team
together and it will take a lotof work and we need to recognize

(41:21):
that.
End of rant.

Al Palmer (41:24):
Well, I think.
But I think you guys talkrather eloquently about that in
your book, about the senior SESs, the three and four stars in
elevated positions and peoplewho are pure career bureaucrats
in whichever branch of thegovernment in and I've seen that
up close after I retired.
You know you get people therethat have been there for a long

(41:47):
time, think they own it.
They're just waiting for theadmiral or the general to leave
so they can continue to do whatthey do.
So how do we handle that in themilitary, do you think?

Guy Higgins (41:59):
I think that's a really good question.
Al and I was in Washington whenSecretary Rumsfeld showed up
for his second tour as SecDefand I was terribly disappointed
because Don Rumsfeld seriouslysmart guy, okay, ncaa wrestler
for people who didn't know thatand naval aviators too.

(42:38):
Everything went back to the wayit was, and so to solve this
problem, it's gonna takeidentifying people who are
absolutely resistant to thepresident's agenda.
The president was the guy thatgot elected by the American
people.
His agenda is what counts, notmine, not the career civil
servants, not the three stars.
It's his agenda that counts,and the people who actively

(43:01):
resist him need to be encouragedto find another line of
business.
And the people who are on thefence or are not part of that
resistance need to be brought onboard.
We need to go get them andbring them on board, and that's
leadership that isn'tdictatorial dictate Go do this.

(43:23):
That is bringing them on boardand helping them to understand
why things like DEI and CRT aredestructive and why individual
merit and teamwork are thethings that build this country
and make it great.
It's going to be a hard.
It's going to be a long, hardslog, and I think that we, the

(43:43):
people who believe that need tobe working to maintain the kind
of position we have in thegovernment today, in two years,
in four years, in eight years,because it's going to take time.
This didn't happen to usovernight.
We're not going to fix itovernight and we have to win in

(44:06):
the courts.
So SFFA, the suit against theNaval Academy, that's in the
courts.
We have to win in Congress andthe executive, that will be the
EOs and the laws, and we have towin in the court of public
opinion which, al, is whatyou're doing with the podcasts
here, and what we're doing withthe book and the podcast and

(44:27):
interviews is we're trying tohelp people understand where we
are.
We're not telling them thatthey're wrong.
We're helping them to go findout what the truth is.

Al Palmer (44:37):
Well, guys, I'd argue that we're probably making some
progress there, because, justas a casual observer, I've
noticed that these issues arenow showing up in the mainstream
media more than they ever didbefore, and there's talk
everywhere about.
Everybody I talk to is awfullyaware now what those initials
mean CRT, dei and what theystand for.

(45:00):
But it's not just that, it'salso the intrusion of the isms
into the government,particularly the military.
There's now an awareness thatwasn't there a month ago.

Bruce Davey (45:12):
Well, to tag onto what Guy said, I think that
what's the saying?
There's nothing that focuses amind like a public hanging, and,
um, I think that there thereneeds to be a few of those.
And and uh, the other one thatcomes to mind, but and one of
you may remember who it was thebritish general that was in some

(45:37):
part of the world and they saidthey were getting ready to
sacrifice in some part of theworld.
And they said they were gettingready to sacrifice a young
woman, as I recall, on theiraltar.
And he said to the leader ofthe crowd that was sacrificing
him why are you doing this?
And he said well, that's how weoperate here.

(45:57):
And the British general saidthat's good, go ahead and
operate the way you operate.
And the British general saidthat's good, go ahead and
operate the way you operate.
In my world, someone that killssomeone like that, gets hung,
and that's what's going tohappen to you is after you get
done your act.
And that that sort ofconsequence, action, consequence
thing is something it doesfocus your mind.

(46:17):
Um, you can, you can have allthese bright ideas, but if a guy
that has the axe in his hand,um, is standing next to you,
you'll change your bright ideas,and that's what needs to happen
in a lot of our governmentagencies right now yeah, I, I

(46:38):
made a statement.

Guy Higgins (46:38):
I made a statement, I don't know a month or two ago
, that we need to not go on apurge because people are going
to see that very negatively.
But we ought never pass up theopportunity to um, have one of
those public hangings, bruce,you know, pour encourager
d'autres.
And we need to do that becauseit does clarify the mind.

(47:03):
You know, you do that andpeople say, well, they're
serious about this and we needto be serious about it.

Al Palmer (47:13):
I'm not looking to get pressy.

Guy Higgins (47:14):
I'm not looking to fire them, but if you give me
the chance, I will.

Al Palmer (47:20):
Wasn't there some precedent for that?
I think it wasn't.
A Mark general Marshall had theplunking committee.

Guy Higgins (47:27):
Yes.

Al Palmer (47:28):
And they, they, they picked out, they picked out a
few flag officers after the warand said you know, you guys did
not stand up and we're going toreplace you.
Thanks very much.
You're getting to retire.

Brent Ramsey (47:41):
Yeah, but I'd like to piggyback on what Guy said.
The other important thing rightnow, our military and the Navy
and the other services areoperating under what's called a
continuing resolution.
The Congress didn't do its joband didn't pass an actual what's
called NDAA National DefenseAuthorization Act, and that's

(48:05):
followed by the actualappropriations bills for all the
departments.
So this happens too often.
Our government is veryinefficient at getting the bills
passed that fund the operationsof the government.
So there's going to be a lameduck session next month to

(48:28):
reconcile the two versions ofthe notional 2025 NDAA National
Defense Authorization Act.
The Senate version and theHouse version are slightly
different, but they're going toget together and they're going
to come up with a single bill,try to pass it and have
President Biden sign that beforehe leaves office.
So it's critical right now forthe services, for the bad things

(48:54):
that are still in those twobills is they're still in
because there's inertia in thegovernment and then the current
administration is still anadvocate for things like DEI and
all the other things we'vetalked about that are political
agendas that have gotten intothe military.
There's still a lot of thatkind of stuff in the actual

(49:16):
defense bills funding for DEIpositions, funding for
mitigating climate change,funding for paying for abortions
for service members, ourstation and a duty station where
the state doesn't allow it, sothey have to be.
To get an abortion, a personhas to go to, a woman has to go

(49:38):
to another state to do it.
The DOD is by executive decree.
The Secretary of Defensedecided on his own authority to
pay for that.
There's no appropriation forthat.
He did it anyway, and so on andso forth.
There's all sorts of politicalstuff still in the NDAA.
So one of the messages we'retrying to get out to our in fact

(50:00):
we have an all hands emailgoing out to our entire
membership on the topic of the25 NDAA, urging our members to
get a hold of the peopleresponsible in the Congress.
Primarily it's the majority andminority leaders of the House
and Senate Armed ServicesCommittee.
They're going to decide thefinal form of this bill that's

(50:23):
going to get passed, it'll besigned into law and that'll take
us for another nine monthsthrough September, because
government operates on a fiscalyear, so it's not the calendar
year, so September it's Octoberto September and so on.
So time is of the essence.
If some things that are thesepolitical influences stay in the

(50:45):
NDAA.
That's just delaying the changeand the progress that
President-elect Trump wants tomake in all his administration,
because it'll be in the law forthat period of time.
So we urge, I urge ourlisteners if you have a mind and
think that's the wrong approach, contact the leaders in

(51:08):
Congress and say knock thatstuff off.
We need to get back to basicsof military readiness and focus
on what it takes to fight andwin our wars.
And you should see thehandwriting on the wall.
The public spoke.
75 million people voted forPresident-elect Trump and he's

(51:28):
going to clean house when hecomes in.
Let's go ahead and start thattransition now and not drag our
heels and delay it for anothernine months.
So that's an issue that we'repursuing actively right now in
Calvert Group is waking thepublic to the knowledge that
there's a lot of bad stuff stillinstitutionalized that we need

(51:49):
to get rid of.

Al Palmer (51:52):
And meanwhile we still have to put up with
retention.
That's sagging, recruiting,which is still a problem in all
the services although I thinkmaybe not quite so much in the
Navy as it is in the Army andthe Air Force these days.
And then standards.
You know we're looseningstandards up so we can bring
people in, but that goes back tothe issue again of ability and

(52:15):
performance and meritocracy.
So this is still somethingthat's kind of a moving mass of
sorts.
How do we stabilize that?
Any thoughts on that, bruce?
Because part of that is I waswatching something recently from
Tailhook that they're havingtrouble hanging on to aviators.
Now they're trying to pay thembig bonuses and even there's now

(52:39):
command money and then there'smoney for the surface warfare
guys.
They're all turning down at$20,000, $40,000 a year.
What's wrong?

Bruce Davey (52:49):
Yeah, that bonus stuff is.
It's amazing how much moneythey're waving in front of these
guys.
My son is a navy fighter pilotand uh, the incredible, uh
bonuses that they're offering inorder to keep people in the
service from a from an aviationstandpoint.

(53:10):
Unfortunately for the Navy andthe Air Force, those dollars
don't measure up to what can beobtained in civil aviation, and
so the only thing that will keepyou in is if you are attracted
by the service, by what you'redoing and seeing the importance

(53:34):
of it.
I was just back at the end ofseason festivities for the last
air show of the season for theBlue Angels, and there I came
across a bunch of naval aviatorswho were still in the armed
forces and we're approaching, orwere admirals now, and you have

(54:01):
to just admire these guys.
The up and coming ones that arestill there after with all the
things that have gone on, arepeople who are dedicated,
dedicated men, dedicatedAmericans, dedicated naval
officers, officers.
I think that they're people whohave survived despite the

(54:23):
political end of things.
But I think there needs to be areal house cleaning in the in
the upper reaches of the armedforces, to the point where we
where young people and mid-rangepeople, lieutenant commanders,
commanders are saying tothemselves I want to be like
that guy up on top, I want tooperate that way, and that's

(54:46):
operating, once again, accordingto the Constitution and
according to the mandates of ofhow the military is supposed to
operate.
Those things are attractive toa certain sect of people and we
need those people in the armedforces.
The only thing that will keepthem in there is the feeling

(55:06):
that they're part of anexceptional team that is
protecting that which we love.

Guy Higgins (55:13):
You know, it's interesting because the Marine
Corps.

Al Palmer (55:17):
The Marine Corps, of all the services, has had the
least losses in retention andthey had the most successes,
probably in recruiting.
Why?
Because you know, once you're aMarine, you're always a Marine.
But more than that, they taketheir pride in being different
and being exceptional and beingaccomplished.
And I'd offer maybe there's alesson in that for the rest of

(55:38):
us well, I agree with you.

Bruce Davey (55:41):
There, there, there , um, my son-in-law's was marine
company commander and and uh I,I swell with pride whenever I
mention uh shane he thatmentioned Shane.
He, that's the sort of personthat every, every young man
should want to be like is, isfocused, have a, have a mission

(56:05):
in front of them and, and youknow, in the Marine Corps even,
there's the.
There's this charming end ofthings where they say, yeah,
that sounds like a good idea,but that's not the Marine way.
And and that's and you know, tofocus back to our previous
conversation, a little bit ofthat would go a long way in

(56:25):
America If we said, yeah, thatsounds like a good idea, but
that's not the constitution way.
We're going to hang with theconstitution.
We're going to do it the waywe've always done it, and you
know there's a pride in that, aswell as the obvious evidence
from the historical background,but it may make more sense to

(56:47):
try to appeal to that.

Al Palmer (56:49):
you know the magnificence of being a part of
something bigger than you evenimagined you could be, versus
getting paid a bunch of moneyand then wondering if you're
going to go work for United orwhether you're going to go to
Southwest.

Guy Higgins (57:04):
You know, when Tom Burbage and Bruce and I were at
the Academy and met with thesuperintendent one of the
statements that was made by herstaff was that, you know, young
people in America today aredifferent than when we went to
the academy, and that'sundeniably true.
They're different, but theimplication was that the academy

(57:26):
had to change their standards,change the way they operated,
because these kids weredifferent.
No, the Marines don't do that.
You go to boot camp.
You are torn down and builtback.
People will perform to th thatare laid on them An lay some

(57:47):
serious expectat and say this isthe way t and if you can't do
that, be someplace else.

Al Palmer (57:57):
Well and that goes, I think, to the honor code issues
that have been brought up inboth Annapolis and also the Air
Force Academy lately Is theywant to sort of change the
structure of the honor code sothat there's a redemption factor
in it, and maybe it's okay tocheat a little bit.
You didn't cheat a lot, sowe'll, we'll, we'll make up for

(58:18):
it by retraining you orsomething.
Didn't used to be that way, didit?

Guy Higgins (58:22):
no, you know, you build a thousand bridges and
nobody calls you a bridgebuilder, but you sell your body
on a street corner.
One time dot dot.

Bruce Davey (58:46):
You know.
In line with that, al, I thinkthat we do a disservice to the
young men and women that aregoing to the service academies
if we say, well, you can't holdto the standard that previously
we held Mitchipman to, and sowe're going to have to change
the standard.
I think you diminish thestandard not the standard, but
the institution that way, andthe esprit de corps is

(59:08):
diminished somewhat too.
That, oh, yeah, a little bit ofthat, you know.
We can work with it and we'llretrain you.
Yeah, a little bit of that, youknow, we can work with it and
we'll retrain you.
My belief is that when you walkin, if you're told right away

(59:28):
okay, here's the deal, if youstep on the commanding officer's
rug, he will have you takenoutside and beaten.
Okay, you don't have to haveremediation or anything else.
You know right from the startdon't step on the commanding
officer's rug.
End of story.
That that's a simple one.
And if at the academies, if yousay, hey, there are two things

(59:50):
that you have to worry aboutconduct and honor.
And if you do, if you violatesomething in the conduct world,
that means you know you got to,your brass isn't shined or you
go over the wall and go onunauthorized liberty.
Okay, you're going to getcaught and you're going to pay a

(01:00:12):
price.
You're going to wind upmarching tours or being
restricted to base or whatever.
And there's the other one,which is honor.
There isn't anything other thanyou're gone if you commit an
honor violation.
You're gone and so right out ofthe shoot.
If you're told that it's likestepping on the commanding

(01:00:33):
officer's rug, you say okay,okay, I'll do.
I may be a wise guy, I may notmake my bed well or whatever,
but I'm going to be very carefulabout honor.
And I'm going to be carefulabout honor from now on.
And I think that's what we saywhen a person walks in the doors
and say, hey, there's a newscore here.
This is the way it works, andbe right on board with it.

(01:00:55):
Bet you the dallas cowboys feelthat way.
I'll bet you that the whateverthe name of the team is in
atlanta these days, um is orwashington dc.
I'll bet they have that writtenon their wall somewhere.

Al Palmer (01:01:07):
You are now a cowboy and this is how we walk through
this hall and you're now a partof the team, right.

Bruce Davey (01:01:15):
Exactly.
And when you walk up the stepsof Brancroft Hall and you're
looking at don't give up theship in Memorial Hall, just up
the ladder above you, you shouldbe saying to yourself okay,
this is a new deal here.
Regardless of how I was when Istarted, it just changed.

Al Palmer (01:01:36):
That's always been kind of the case.
I remember when I was buildingthe Aviation Museum at Pearl
Harbor, one of the hangars wehad big hangar there.
They used to have the bigseaplanes in.
On the steps you could stillsee written words.
You know, honor, fidelity, hardwork, shipmate those are all
things that the sailors sawgoing up the stairs every day,

(01:02:00):
and somehow we may have lostsome of that, I guess.
But the other thing is we puttrust in people.
As you guys were at the academyor in ROTC or as I was in OTS,
we all got the same message wetrust you and we're going to
make sure that you're a goodleader.
But if you violate that trust,you know once you do it's gone

(01:02:23):
right.
You really can't get it back.
And so, with that thought inmind, when we, those same people
we've trained and educated andexperienced the leadership, when
they get into the upper levelsin the Pentagon, they seem to
forget that.
Do we not apply the samestandard to them as a four-star

(01:02:44):
as we do an ensign?

Guy Higgins (01:02:48):
Well, we certainly should.
Yeah, you know those amazingmen those amazing men who wrote
the Declaration of Independenceand the Constitution.
When they signed it, theypledged their lives, their
fortunes and their sacred honor.

Al Palmer (01:03:07):
And a lot of them lost their lives and fortunes,
and the other thought about thesigners was, as I recall, there
were about 43 of them who wereactually first generation
immigrants from England.
They were not sons anddaughters of people who've been
raised there yet they still feltthe same way about the country

(01:03:29):
and forming it, and they signedthe Declaration of Independence
as immigrants, I guess.

Brent Ramsey (01:03:40):
Yeah Well, they were still considered under the
British crown, so they werecolonists, not immigrants.
That was the term used backthen.
At the time, yes, but, yeah,they put their lives on the line
.
And, going back to somethingthat was said earlier about our

(01:04:01):
constitution, not only is it thelongest lasting one, the people
who formed the constitutionwere highly educated people.
They had studied human history.
They had studied every form ofgovernment that had ever been

(01:04:22):
tried anywhere on the planet,going back 10,000 years.
They were not neophytes, theywere not country bumpkins.
They were highly educated,disciplined minds, people who
had studied and studied andstudied, and when they crafted

(01:04:45):
both the Declaration and theConstitution, it was a
remarkable accomplishmentBecause, just as I think Bruce
said, it's lasted longer thanany other nation and it's
because it was crafted socarefully.
So it's complicated, with thethree parts and each balancing

(01:05:06):
the other and all that Federalwere constitutional.
The other party, the party onthe left, likes to talk about
democracy, democracy, democracy.
That's all you heard aboutduring a campaign.
We are not a democracy.
We are a constitutionalrepublic.
A constitutional republic, weare not a democracy.

(01:05:30):
Democracy is the rule of the51% over the 49%.
That is not how our systemworks, and so we need to reject
that notion out of hand.
We are a constitutionalrepublic and the foundation upon
which our nation stands is thatconstitution and the fidelity
of our officer corps is to thatfounding document and we need to

(01:05:55):
hold fast to that and rectifythe wrongs that have been done,
to take liberty with even thelanguage that's used to describe
our country.
We're not a democracy, we're aconstitutional republic.

Al Palmer (01:06:13):
Yeah, because democracy is basically two
wolves and a sheep discussingwhat they're going to have for
dinner.

Brent Ramsey (01:06:19):
Exactly.

Guy Higgins (01:06:23):
I find it interesting that there are a
number of prominent Democraticelected officials who have
suddenly discovered the value ofthings like the filibuster and
the rights of the minority ohyeah, they're great it.
It all depends on whose Ox itis that's getting Gorg.

Bruce Davey (01:06:44):
Yes, and, and so the other thing too let me, let
me ask something about what,what we uh, what we were talking
about, about the beauty ofexpecting the right thing from
people.
That isn't solely the purviewof the service academies.

(01:07:07):
That's part of our nation andthat has historically been part
of our nation.
That when you came from EllisIsland, you were expected to
operate differently from the wayyou had arrived and you were
now approaching US citizenship.
And you know, it reminds me ofwhen Paul was brought before

(01:07:33):
Festus and he said you know, I'ma Roman citizen.
And suddenly the whole gamechanged.
You're a Roman citizen?
Okay, then we're.
We have to deal with youdifferently, when we should be
looking at our young people andnot saying, oh well, you know,
we gotta do this or that or theother thing.
No, you're now a US citizen.

(01:07:54):
You, you are part of us.
And with that comes theexpectation that you will
operate in a particular way andjust like we've said a half
dozen times already today, fromin their performance.
Hey, you know, you're part ofthis team.
We don't do it that way.
We do completed staff work, wedo completed sidewalk work, we

(01:08:24):
do completed whatever sort ofwork it is.
That's the way we operate herein America, and I think if we
start feeling like we're a team,the American team and
everybody's part of it, thenwe've turned the corner.
The American team andeverybody's part of it, then
we've turned the corner, andthat's what.
And if the leadership can't geton board with that, fire the
leadership, change theleadership.
Don't tell them, don't allowpeople to be in leadership that

(01:08:47):
say, oh, you're a special case,you aren't expected to operate
this way or anything like that.
No, get rid of that leader andtell the person you're a part of
us now and this is the way weoperate, in excellent fashion.

Al Palmer (01:09:02):
Well said, bruce.
I couldn't do it better Well so.
So just that kind of brings usto the point now where the
question is where do we go STARSand Calvary Group in the days
and months ahead?

Brent Ramsey (01:09:22):
Well, we're concentrating on continuing to
get the message out of the partsof the military that are
misguided, and it's going totake both executive action on
the part of President Trump whenhe gets in office to reverse

(01:09:43):
some of those things, and it'salso going to take congressional
action to modify theappropriations and the
authorization bills so that itdoesn't continue to fund things
that are not conducive toreadiness.
That's our whole.
Focus is readiness.
We need to have a ready Navy inorder to fight our nation's

(01:10:06):
wars and win them, and the Navyis an extremist in a lot of ways
.
I've written a lot of articlesabout DEI and that kind of stuff
, but I've also written a lot ofarticles about the needs of the
Navy in terms of capacity andreadiness issues and the ability
to fight and win our war.
So we really need to get afocus on, you know, having

(01:10:32):
enough ships, having enoughaircraft, having enough missiles
, having enough manpower andovercome some of the leadership
failures of the last 20 years.
I mean, there's whole classesof ships that are utterly
useless.
The LCS, the Zumwalt class ofships, are basically huge

(01:10:56):
boondoggles.
Those ships are being phasedout.
Well, they're not being phasedout, but they really are ships
that don't have the LCS is beingphased out.
But you know we got to get backto building more ships and
being ready to fight and win ournation's wars.
Building up the merchant marineLike I said, there's a host of

(01:11:20):
issues to get back to basics andstrengthen the armed forces so
that they can defend our nation.

Bruce Davey (01:11:28):
And I would offer that the things that Starz and
Calvert Group and MacArthurshould be thinking about is the
first skirmish has beenaccomplished.
We're starting to get theattention focused on things that

(01:11:48):
are certainly important.
I think education of theelected representatives of the
people is a critical element,and how that is accomplished is
a huge problem.
But that's the first step is weneed to educate those people.
The second thing is thoseleaders in the armed forces who

(01:12:13):
insist on continuing business asusual.
That's a good place to startwith the public hanging and get
rid of those people ASAP.
And I think the nominee forSecretary of Defense has laid
that out pretty clearly and Ihope that that follows through.

(01:12:35):
And if we wind up with thenumber of flag officers in the
various branches of the armedforces that we had 40, 50, 60
years ago, that would be a goodthing if we reduce those numbers
down.
And then we should be goingthrough the civilian staffs and

(01:12:57):
saying are you ready to stepacross the line and join this
team of changing the way thingsare done?
That's the next step.
If they aren't, another publichanging.
And then the third thing isbusinesses that are doing
business with this, with thedefense department need to
understand that there is a newgame in town and the new game is

(01:13:21):
we're going to operate the wayin general and and guy could
speak to this better than I, butin general the way I operate
with someone that I'mcontracting with to do work, and
that is you agree to do thisand I'll pay you this and any.
If you think you can add onbecause you bid it low, because

(01:13:45):
you know you can add on, and I'mvery familiar with how this,
how this operates in theaviation world then you're wrong
.
That isn't how it's going towork anymore and if we have to
change some of that, we need tochange it.
Those are the things, that thesteps that need to take place
and, from our personalstandpoint, we should be talking
to people around us andinfluencing them to understand

(01:14:08):
what has gone on.
And the numbers that Brent justmentioned about ships is
astounding.
Just mentioned about ships isastounding how our military, our
Navy, is woeful in our surfacecombatants and a little bit in

(01:14:30):
the subsurface.

Al Palmer (01:14:33):
I think last time I checked we were down to about
220, 230 ships in the Navy.
Or was all of them workable?

Brent Ramsey (01:14:36):
No, as of today it's 295, only 40 deployed ships
.
Think about that.
There's only 40 deployed.
The United States NavalInstitute has a weekly.
It's called the Fleet Trackerand I look at it and yeah, when
Reagan was president, we wereall in during that time I
believe we had a goal of 600ship Navy.

(01:14:56):
We were all in during that time.
I believe we had a goal of600-ship Navy.
We've got to 500.

Al Palmer (01:15:00):
I remember that well.

Brent Ramsey (01:15:01):
We didn't quite get 600 ships, but that's what
helped cause the fall of theSoviet Union.
And think of it.
We have more problems now.
We had one enemy then, theSoviet Union.
Now we've got enemies all overthe world and we've got only 295
ships.
And I just read this thismorning too 40% of our

(01:15:23):
submarines are in long-termmaintenance, 40% of our subs the
ships that we have and or buildthe new ships.
So we've got.
We've got the real, realproblems with the industrial
base in the America in Americahaving eroded such that to build

(01:15:45):
the armed forces that we needis now.
A guy was in acquisition.
He could speak to this muchmore than I, but you know some
of the big aircraftmanufacturers.
Boeing is on its lips for avariety of reasons which I don't
understand.
But we would.
Even if Congress appropriatedall the money that we needed for

(01:16:07):
all the services, theindustrial community would have
a very hard time quicklybuilding us back up, and that's
a real problem.
May.

Al Palmer (01:16:16):
I add one thing here.

Brent Ramsey (01:16:19):
May I add one thing?

Bruce Davey (01:16:20):
here.
I'm sorry, go ahead.

Al Palmer (01:16:24):
I was going to say.
The National Defense Surveythat just came out a few months
ago talked about the defenseindustrial base being the lowest
since World War II, meaning wedon't have the capacity to build
aircraft, ships and tanks theway we used to.

Bruce Davey (01:16:39):
Right.
One additional point that Ithink is important, and that is
we can't, we don't.
It's clear that we don't havethe capability to fight two
major wars at one time.
We just don't have it.
We don't have what's necessaryto do that.
But one thing we do have thecapability to do is we can step

(01:17:03):
on things that small bugs thatare a problem, and a perfect
example of me is the Houthithing, where we can silence the
missiles that are coming at ourships and at all the ships going
through the straits there.
We can silence that.
We could stop that, and I thinkthat would be a good beginning.

(01:17:26):
I think you know like they sayabout if you bury 200 warriors
up to their neck, what is it?
It's a good beginning, it's agood beginning.
Yeah, what is it?
It's a good beginning.
But but uh, if you, if yousilence the hooties, then you
have done something thatbenefits the world.
It benefits us.

(01:17:47):
It also discourages people whowant to ally themselves with
iran.
That's an iran sycophant.
And and if we polish them off,then the other nations that are
sitting around there that are nolonger saying, well, we're good
friends with America, they'rejust wondering whether they
should line up with somebodyelse, they would suddenly say

(01:18:08):
you know, I'm not sure I want tobe part of that smoking hole
that once was Yemen, and I knowI'm not and I'm not in the
policymaking decision here, sothank goodness for that.
But I do know that it doesn'tmake any sense to try and shoot
bullets out of the sky.
It's better to shoot the guythat's pulling the trigger, and

(01:18:30):
that's what we should be doingthere.
And when we do that, weaccomplish a couple of things.
We stop those ships beingattacked.
We stop it before one of ourcombatants gets hit by one of
those.
And you've read the same thingsthat I've read that they have
15 seconds from the time theysee that missile coming to do

(01:18:50):
something to stop it 15 seconds.
Well, those of us that havebeen in the navy know that there
are times when 15 seconds isnot enough time to get things
rolling.
And uh, so we're gonna have aone of our us navy ships hit by
one of those missiles and we'regonna have a bunch of young
people killed.
So it will stop that it'll.

(01:19:11):
It'll stop the missiles gettingshot by by theouthis, it'll
stop one of our combatantsgetting hit and hurt and the
last thing it'll do.
It will change the focus of thepeople in that area of the
world, saying who do we want toally ourselves with?
Do we want to ally ourselveswith the troublemakers in Iran,
or would we rather allyourselves with somebody that can

(01:19:34):
, if they want to flatten us,but are happy not to?

Al Palmer (01:19:38):
I think, as admiral halsey said so famously years
ago, hit them hard, hit themfast, hit them often well guys
listen, been great talking toyou.
Uh, I think we've got a lot ofwork ahead of us.
Calvert Task Group isinstrumental in making that

(01:19:59):
happen, and thanks for yourbeing here today.
And thanks to STARS for puttingthis podcast on and letting me
host it here, and for you guys,thanks so much for your service.
Your career is keeping thecountry safe and we will depend
on you to keep it safer goingforward.
Thanks for being with us.

Guy Higgins (01:20:21):
Thank you, al, and to our audience.