Navigating Naval Narratives: Aboard the USS America with Bill House

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
War is a paradox.
It has the power to bringnations together, to inspire
heroism and sacrifice and toforge bonds of camaraderie that
will span a lifetime, but italso has the power to tear
families apart, to shattercommunities and to leave scars
that will never fully heal.
And, for those who have served,the transition back to civilian

(00:26):
life can be one of the greatestchallenges they will ever face.
This is the typical life ofmilitary veterans, a world that
is both familiar and foreign tomost of us.
It is a world that is shaped byunique experiences, values and
traditions of the military andby the sacrifices and struggles
of those who have served, butit's also a world that is

(00:46):
constantly changing, as newgenerations of veterans confront
new challenges and newopportunities.
Thank you for joining us atSoup Sandwich.
Dig your foxhole, heat up yourMRE and spend some time with us.
This podcast is designed solelyfor entertainment and,
occasionally, informationalpurposes only, and is to be
regarded strictly as satire.

(01:07):
Comprising of veterans, itdelves into their thoughts and
experiences in combat, as wellas their perspectives on various
aspects of daily life that maybe unsettling for certain
listeners.
This podcast is not suitablefor individuals under the age of
18.
The views articulated in thispodcast may not necessarily
align with those of the NationalVFW VFW Department of Michigan

(01:29):
or VFW Post 3033.
Additionally, we kindly requestthat listeners refrain from
pursuing legal action againstthe creators or contributors of
this podcast.
In other words, please don'tsue us.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
And here we are back for another episode of Soup
Sandwich.
Please don't sue us.
You know, with the good weatherwe've got the riders group out
doing their rides all the time.
We've got you know horseshoesWe've got.
You know this is Michigan.
There's not a whole lot of timeto enjoy nice weather outside.
Take it when we can get itExactly, exactly.

(02:16):
So yeah, welcome back.
I am Brent Holbrook.
I am the founder of the SoupSandwich Podcast and the
incoming junior vice commanderfor VFW Post 3033.
Tonight we got a new guest withus.
He'll introduce himself here injust a minute, and then we got
two familiar faces.

(02:37):
So let's go this way We'll letHouse introduce himself last to
give him some time.

Charlie Cline (02:45):
WE'LL LET HOUSE INTRODUCE HIMSELF LAST TO GIVE
HIM SOME TIME.
My NAME IS CHARLIE KLEIN, lifeMEMBER, post 3033 AND DEPARTMENT
OF MICHIGAN WRITERS GROUP.

Tre Porter (02:52):
DIRECTOR TREY PORTER , also LIFE MEMBER OF POST 3033.
Also IN CHARGE OF THE HOUSECOMMITTEE, now Also in charge of
the House Committee now, andthen the president of the Post
3033, riders.

Bill House (03:11):
Group and, last but not least, bill House, a life
member also, and vice presidentof the Riders Group, sweet.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
So typically when we have a brand-new person come on,
we give them a chance you knowa few minutes to just kind of
tell about their background andyou know where you served and
what you did, any interestingdeployments and a little bit
about your background in general.
So what do you got for?

Bill House (03:37):
us.
1993 to 95, I was in the Navyon a aircraft carrier USS
America Was repair division,worked in the CHT shop.
Those of you Familiar with theNavy know what that is.
The rest of you, I'll spare youthe details.

(03:57):
One of the deployments thatmade me eligible for being a
post member was a deployment toHaiti.
We called it the Haitianvacation at the voodoo station,
and so we spent about eightweeks floating around Haiti.

(04:18):
We had about 5,000 Army guys onboard and all they did was ate
all our food and worked out andwe got them there.

Tre Porter (04:29):
How many Army guys?

Bill House (04:30):
5,000?
About 5,000.
Dang so ship's company istypically about 5,000.
When you add the aviation wing,just general ship's company is
about 2,000.
Just general ship's company isabout 2,000, so total with

(04:56):
aviation engineering and so firedivision and then the deck
department, the whole crew isabout 5,000.
So we flew the air, theaviation off and brought on the
Army guys, so there was probablyabout 5,000.
They took up the whole hangardeck 5,000 total, Total guys.
No, no, total Army plus our2,000.
So there was 7,000?
.
Yes.

Tre Porter (05:15):
Does that mean, you're over capacity?

Bill House (05:19):
No, that just means they took up the whole hangar
deck Because the aviation wasn'tthere, we didn't have any
airplanes on, and they put alltheir rucksacks they sleep on
cots down there and cots yep,and he's probably stunk probably
had to do damage control drillsand spray that shit down with

(05:41):
the fire hose after they leftthe only time they were on board
was the two weeks there and thetwo weeks back roughly so the
other times they were actuallyout on the island taking care of
what they were taking care of.

Tre Porter (05:55):
I remember my cousin who is Army Aviation sent me a
picture.
She was on an aircraft carrierout in the Persian Gulf
somewhere.
I don't know what the hell shewas doing out there, but she did
go.
She did spend some time on aaircraft carrier for a little
bit Before we get too in-depth,right.

We got the newbie Newbie's.
Got to sign the sign.
It's Johnny Hancock.
I think I went to college.
We got newbie movies.
Gotta sign the sign, johnnyHancock.
Think I went to college withhim, johnny Johnny Hancock.
Was that stepbrothers and my amor was that was?
That the one where they weredoing yeah, they were doing the
interviews or something he'slike.
I went to school with SloanKettering and Johnny Hancock, or

(06:44):
something to school with uhsloan kettering and johnny
hancock or something I think yousaid.
So gotcha uh.
As you can see everybody else'ssignature up there all right,
I'll see you go up there andsign however you want, I'll go
do it you see everybody else.

Tre Porter (06:55):
Some of us put our our service and uh time as well.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah, glad we flip it around and if you're watching
us live on our Facebook page,you should be able to see the
banner right now.
But it's tradition here at SoupSandwich that we got a banner
here with our logo on it and wehave everybody sign it.

Might have to just hit it on the wall real
quick, just to get it?

Bill House (07:23):
Oh, I probably didn't get it.
Oh, I probably didn't get it,yeah it's gotta get it Now.

we got bird.
Now you got a dripping drip.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Leave it to the Navy guy to leave white dripping shit
Right.

Bill House (07:36):
This is the hazing you guys were talking about.
Big spear mark.
Oh, now I messed it all up.

Tre Porter (07:42):
It gets worse house.

It gets worse.

Bill House (07:48):
It's not supposed to be.

It's been sitting here most of the winter, so
we'll see what are you doing.
Look at all those othersignatures.
Not one person had a problem.
It gets from you, yeah, but themarket was brand new back then,
not when Jimmy was here.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh, that's true, it was brand new back then.

Not when Jimmy was here.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh, that's true.
It was pretty new, though,speaking of Jimmy.
Hi, jimmy, I don't know ifyou're listening.
He's probably still workingright now.

All right, but here's a service branch road
name.
Anything but your condom size,that we don't need to know
because extra small is if hewears a kid size condoms?

Tre Porter (08:29):
what?

Speaker 2 (08:30):
all right back in business yeah leave the right
back in business we'll have toget a.
We have to get an extra longcord and maybe go landscape view
so we can do a wide shot.

Anyway, it's a little crooked, but it'll get by
.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
It'll get by.

I think you sabotaged me.

Bill House (08:55):
I think you sabotaged me.
I think everybody else issaying there's on the flat and
you got me on the vertical.

Tre Porter (09:00):
No, we're going to have to get a new pen.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
We'll get a new pen next time you come up.

Tre Porter (09:05):
Matter of fact, where is that pen at?
How is it sitting sideways lays?

Speaker 2 (09:09):
on that table and maybe house can fix it later
that looks horrible this kind oflooks like smudges there so we
were talking about being on theship.
I also am a Navy veteran.
I was not assigned to a ship asa normal duty station.

(09:32):
I was on a ship during mydeployment and just before we
started recording, we werecoming up with some ideas of you
know, things to talk about.
One of the things we came upwith is a Navy tradition that
that we do.
It's always called somethingdifferent.
So well, I've heard it.

Bill House (09:53):
Yeah, we called it walk day long day, so it was.
It's basically what happenswhen you cross the equator, so
okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
So I've heard it as walk day, I've heard it as just
a crossing ceremony it's yeah,that's kind of the so there's a
couple different ones.

Bill House (10:09):
So so across the equator they call it Wog Day.
At least that's what they didon our.
You know what we heard.
We were close to that, but wenever got a chance to actually
cross the equator.
And what it does is, when youcross the equator, you go
through a Pretty intensivehazing ceremony.
It's all for fun, you know,it's a big celebration, and what

(10:32):
they do is you turn from apollywog into what's called a
shellback.
And so we do have one of thegentlemen in our riders group
that actually has a shellbackpatch on his vest.
Nice in our riders group thatactually has a shellback patch
on his uh, on his vest nice, soI had talked to him the other
day about it.
That kind of brought the wholediscussion up earlier.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Well, let me tell you what I am jealous as fuck
because I was close to getting,uh, wog day.
Uh, we were out floating offthe coast of africa somewhere I
don't really know, but there wasa rumor that we were going to
go sail down to the Seychelles,which would have had us cross
the equator, but at the lastminute ship's captains got

(11:12):
orders to go somewhere else andwe didn't get the chance to do
it.
But talking about Wog Day, it'sa really fun tradition, like
Bill was saying, or house wejust call them house um, they
set up all kinds of differentobstacles.
It's kind of like just a giantobstacle course and nowadays

(11:36):
it's still kind of a hazingritual, but it's it's very, very
much died down from what itused to be.
I mean, I I remember talking tomy dad.
I was going through some of hisstuff and I found his
certificate and asked him aboutit and he was telling me all
these stories about how backthen that was mid 70s, late 70s,

(11:58):
right of passage and it was arite of passage and back then,
just in general let me startthere in general uh, kind of the
pomp and circumstances.
You know, king, neptune and hisroyal court, who's typically,
you know, one of the chiefs onthe boat, comes, quote unquote,
on board the ship and witnessesall these ceremonies and

(12:20):
everything.
And yeah, make the make thepolywogs do ungodly things.
My dad was telling me that theymade him crawl through rotten
milk and just fucking thenastiest shit they could find,
you know, rotten food, rottenmilk, whatever.
Did they bring the sheeps?

Tre Porter (12:39):
out.
No, no sheeps that I recall.

They saved those for the after party.
They don't want those thingsruined.

Bill House (12:47):
So those that have previously enjoyed this
experience, the shellbacks,actually are the ones that do
the hazing to the new recruits,so to speak.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
It's something they look forward to.
They always look forward tothat next opportunity to pass
along the pain and misery.
The paybacks, yes.

Sometimes, though , that's part of that
brotherhood and sisterhood right, I mean it's like you say, it's
a rite of passage, and in themarine corps we have the same
thing.
Sure, right, and you're justwaiting for your day to be able
to do what was done to you as abrother or sister.
Now you're part of us, right?

Speaker 1 (13:22):
like I mean, that's that I I get.

Sometimes things can get taken out of out of hand
and out of control, right, butif they're done appropriately,
right there's a lot of fun to behad.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
It's a lot of tradition and I think tradition
is important, especially in themilitary and I think, to a
certain degree, I think, uh,recruit training or boot camp is
kind of like that too.
All your drill instructors, youknow they, they're thinking,
you know, six, ten years ago,holy shit, I was in these guys'
shoes, you know, and you knowtheir primary objective is to

(13:54):
train you and mold you to be agood soldier or a good airman or
a good sailor or a good Marine.
Right, that's the primaryobjective.
But you can't tell me in themeantime, especially with some
of these YouTube videos thatI've seen about Marine Corps,
mcrd, some of those guys arerunning in with their campaign

(14:14):
covers and they've got the mostsadistic fucking smiles on their
faces.
They run in about to do afucking tornado, so they have a
lot of fun.

Tre Porter (14:22):
I was a drill sergeant for Jackson?
No shit, I didn't know that anduh, I used to think these poor
bastards, these poor bastardsbut you know it's the same shit,
I went through.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's the same shit.

Tre Porter (14:37):
The people before me went through.
You know what I mean.
It's a rite of passage, that'sfor sure.

Past the gauntlet well, what they do too, though,
right, is they're always thereto push you to your limit, to
your extreme, because and thensome right, and it's to it's to
get you to realize that, whenyour body and your mind want to
give up, that you can continueto push past that point, right.
So it's put you under stress,it's to put you in abnormal
situations.
You know what I mean and to dothe most craziest things that

(15:03):
you think are the stupidestthing in the world and it hurts
but to get you to overcome it,because in combat or anything
right, I mean if you guys are onthe ship or you know you're in
the hospital and you got to pulla 48 hour shift.
They want you sleep deprivedand be able to know that I can
push myself to a point where thepain doesn't hurt anymore, the

(15:23):
tiredness doesn't hurt anymore.
The tiredness doesn't get to meanymore the mission is to do
what the mission is and get tothat point.
You go on to a sort ofautopilot Right, so they call it
hazing right, and I get.
There's things out there thatcan go beyond that, but
generally speaking, most of thethings right.
Crawling through spoiledknuckles is not killing anybody.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
No, it's just things right crawling through spoiled
knuckles, not killing anybody,no, it's just gross right.
So who cares?

Right, you're going to wash it off in a half
hour anyways.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, I believe my dad said something about fire
hoses after the end of it all.

Bill House (15:55):
Oh yeah, they get the old inch of fire, so come on
.

Nothing out there is going to kill you, right?

Bill House (16:00):
Well, I don't know that.
Well, I don't know that firemancould do some damage.
It's kind of like you've seenthe movie Rambo where they're
cleaning.
John Rambo, get them behind theears.
Yeah, they definitely get youbehind the ears.
Absolutely 150 PSI.
Inch and a half fireman, itputs out some water quick.
Yeah, it does, as long as theydon't get the three-inch ones
off the hanging back out.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Sound of freedom, sound of freedom, sound of
freedom there it is so, uh oneof the uh.
One of the things that came tomy mind when you were talking,
charlie, was uh just showed apicture of uh of trey oh, yeah,
yeah I'll get it up closer yeah,so this is a picture of uh

(16:41):
young, of young Trav Drill.

Sergeant Travius Porter Yep, look at him Sexy 20,
2004, 25.

Tre Porter (16:54):
He didn't look that tough did he 2004, 2005.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah.
I was just starting high school.
Yeah, and you 93.

Bill House (17:03):
Yeah, I was like three years old, yeah, 93.
Yeah, the funny thing is when,uh, so I flew out, uh, I flew
all the way to, uh siganella,sicily, and then, uh, uh, I met
the ship on a med cruise.
So they uh put me on ahelicopter to fly me out to this
boat, right, and I'm lookingout the little window and I'm
looking at this ship.
I said well, well, heck thatisn't very big.

(17:25):
Got on board, nah, still reallynot that big.
Yeah, it was huge.
It took me three months to findthe ship stored by myself, so
I'll just give you an idea.

Well, I can tell you this.
So when I was at Fast Companywe did a lot of training on
boats, no-transcript.
So you have like the deck andthen you have decks below that.

(17:57):
So it's like you know, 1 to 12,and then bulkheads.
So if you had to get to hatch34, you might have to go down
three decks over four bulkheads.
So if you had to get to hatch34, you might have to go down
three decks over four bulkheads,up another two decks over four
bulkheads to get down more decks.
And then over to the bulkhead,to the door you have to get to.
It's not like it's a straightline, like a hallway in a hotel.

(18:19):
No, it's not it is absolutelycrazy, insane and for us to have
to learn that stuff, because wewould get basically the ship
that we were going to go take.
We would get the layout of theship so we could memorize where
we had to be, because each oneof our little fire teams that
were moving around the boat allhad a specific area to clear and

(18:39):
check.
So we had to learn and everyboat is different.
Sure, I mean it's insane, right?
So you'd get on a frigate or adestroyer.
It's going to be totallydifferent than your aircraft
carrier.
You get on some like ours wereoil tankers, which are going to
be different than dry bulk shipsand stuff.
So it was weird, one of thecraziest.
So I could see how it took youthree months to find the ship

(19:01):
store because it's a freakingmaze in those boats.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, it is.
It's definitely a maze.
And one of the craziest thingswas my first duty station I was
assigned to.
At the time it was calledNational Naval Medical Center.
Now it's Walter Reed NationalMilitary Medical Center.
I was there during the namechange, but my original orders
to National Naval Medical Centerput me on an emergency medical

(19:25):
force assigned to the hospitalship Comfort, and so back then
what they would do is they wouldbasically send everybody who's
kind of new to the command to goand look at the ship.
And you know, just know that,hey, by the way, you might end
up here one day, you know, itjust depends, you know, because,

(19:45):
um, if you don't know about thehospital ships, uh, we have two
of them that I can think of.
Comfort is on the east coast,mercy is on the west coast.
Um, we might have more, I don'tknow.
I think it's just the two, butanyway, they're converted oil
tankers and the the fuckers arehuge.
Oh yeah, and that threw me fora loop because you know, I'm

(20:09):
shortly fresh out of boot camp,right?
I remember how to read thebullseyes, what you were just
talking about, the decks and thebulkheads and shit, and I knew
how to do that, but it wasentirely different on the
comfort, so it was aninteresting thing.

Bill House (20:28):
So to go just a little step further what Charlie
was saying and to reiteratewhat you were saying a little
bit, so every hatch, basicallyeverything on the boat, has what
they call a tack number.
So you start with the ribs ofthe boat.
So from the front of the boatto the back, each rib has a
number, and so that number tellsyou your placement from the

(20:48):
front of the ship to the back ofthe ship.
Then the next number is your,your deck level, and I may have
these mixed up a little bit here, but gives you an idea it's
just been a few minutes yeah soso you've got decks below.
So let's say, ground floorwould be would be deck one, so
deck it goes from one down totwo to three to four, and then
up is levels.

(21:09):
So then you go O1, o2, o3 aboveyour base of ground floor.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
And for ships?
Isn't that typically waterline,isn't it Typically?

Bill House (21:18):
yeah, so I think on the carrier the hangar deck was
your deck.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, that made sense because you got the
superstructure above.

Bill House (21:29):
And I think there was six decks below and 12 above
the superstructure all the wayup.
But if you go to any passagewayit'll have that tag number on
it so you can tell exactly whereyou were at, whether you on the
poorest port or starboard sideof the boat, uh, how far from
the front you were, or in theback, depending on, and then, uh

(21:51):
, what deck, what level you wereright.
so so you can pretty muchnavigate the ship that way and
every door, every passageway,every you know, has that what
they call tag numbers, right?
So those navy guys are probablylaughing going hell yeah, hell
yeah.

I remember that shit, Even the Marines.
We're more lost on a ship thanwe are lost in general.
So I mean, we were getting allspun around and turned around
and everything else, you know.
And I was only on an LST.
Oh yeah, I was on a Frederickfor a couple weeks going from
Thailand to the Philippines andthat was bad enough.
I mean that ship was small.

(22:25):
I mean it was probably onlywhat, 600, 700 feet probably,
yeah, probably.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
And they were just.
You want to see some crazy shit, and I don't know if they did
any of these drills while youwere on board the ship.
But you know, thinking aboutbeing just a brand-new sailor,
right, you just learned the shit.
You're finally on the ship andyou go through your first
general quarters drill.
Can you imagine?
I can, because I've lived itExactly.

(22:52):
So now I've only witnessed acouple.
Again, I was never assigned toa ship as a duty station, so my
experience is way different.
But yeah, I mean, it's anorganized chaos.
Oh sure, for those that don'tknow, it's an organized chaos.
Oh sure, for those that don'tknow, it's an organized chaos
when they call General Quarters.
You know the?
Bells go off, you run.
The bells go off, you run, andwhen they come on the 1MC and

(23:15):
they're announcing GeneralQuarters, general Quarters, man,
your battle stations, you know,they give you the instructions.
You know what is it?
I think it's up and forward,starboard side, aft, and
downward at a port side of theship, and so, essentially, it's
it's making.
It's making whatever directionyou've got to go, from your

(23:36):
birthing or from the gym orwherever the hell you are when
it happens to where yourworkstation is.
However, However, you got to dothat.
They're making everybody doorganized chaos and everybody is
moving the same direction.

Tre Porter (23:49):
So that not everybody is running into each
other.
Yeah, so you have peoplerunning into each other, right
exactly?

Bill House (23:56):
So I was part of the fire party and we had what we
called 4 and 5 forward and 4 and5 aft, depending on if there
was the fire, depending on whereit was in the front of the ship
or the back, depending who wasprimary and who was secondary.
And so we would.
We would run when they wouldcall general quarters and I
remember one time one of mybuddies was in front of me from

(24:19):
my, from my shop, and uh, dax,would actually stepped out into
the P way and he said make ahole.
And he plowed him, knocked himover.
I jumped over him, said sorry,sir, and kept running so we end
up in the Chiefs mess and wasdown on our fire equipment.
He walked in, brushing himselfoff, says who was that guy?

Speaker 1 (24:40):
that was that knocked me down and I'm going oh crap,
we're going to captain's massand he says that was me down and
I'm going.
Oh crap, oh fuck, we're goingto.

Bill House (24:46):
Captain's Mass and he says that was me, sir.
He goes, I'm really sorry.
And the XO says no, no, no, no.
I apologize to you.
I got in your way.
That was so.
When it's general quarters, itdoes not matter who you are.
Right.
He did.
He knocked him right over, hestepped out right in front of

(25:07):
him, he plowed him and I jumpedright over him.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
said sorry sir and kept on running.
I mean it's, it's a legitemergency drill or not a drill,
it doesn't matter.
You know you're, you're you'repracticing, or it's a real life
event and it's.
The ship is in danger.
None of the other ship makes adifference at that point in time
.
You know it's you, just you gotto do job.

Well, that's what they always say, right?
You practice like you play,right.
So your practices need to be asreal world, time-wise,
situation-wise, and everythingis possible to make sure that
you know it's good.
Yeah.

Bill House (25:39):
We had another incident where we actually had a
man overboard it was a real,you know and so they called
general quarters and manoverboard, man overboard.
I looked up, we're sittingthere in the chow hall and I
looked at a buddy of minesitting there eating lunch and I
says holy shit, that's the realdeal.
He goes no way, I goes.
Yeah, that's a real deal.
We mustered that whole shit5,000 people in four and a half

(26:01):
minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
That's the organized chaos.
Is that trying to?

figure out who it is?
Is that where you're mustering,so you can head count?

Bill House (26:09):
They knew exactly who it was in four and a half
minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yep Crazy.

Bill House (26:13):
Out of 5,000 people on an aircraft carrier.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Isn't that fucking insane.

Bill House (26:16):
Did you ever find out how?
They don't remember?
Yeah, it was DAC department.
He got caught in a jet wash orsomething got blew overboard,
not sure.

Dang Defined him.

Bill House (26:27):
I don't know.
We knew who he was.

I mean, well, we heard that they knew who he was.
We didn't, which you don't knowif they ever got to him.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
No, the power of Google.

I don't know, you might be able to find that Well
, I tell you by the time you'recoming off a flight deck, deck,
you're falling about 25 storiesto the water, so the chances
that you survive in.
It are probably slim Now therewas just a person I read today
icon of the seas, that new hugeship.
There was a guy that jumped offthe top deck of that died.
They actually found his bodyand shit and brought him back on

(26:58):
board, but he was dead.
They think he jumped on purpose.

Bill House (27:02):
It seems like my memory tells me that they found
him and he survived.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
But you know even if they would have said a name,
there would be.

Bill House (27:11):
There was three other people with the last name
House and I only met one of them.
The other two I could neverfind them.
And I tried for like six months, I never did find them, but I
did find one of them.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
That's crazy, considering you're on a boat and
in boot camp.
You know we learn, believe itor not.
I'll say this before I get intoit.

This is part one of two.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Oh, shut up.
Two parts is back.
I'm back with a vengeance.
Now legit the people in mydivision in boot camp there was
probably two dozen who joinedthe Navy and didn't know how to
swim.

Bill House (27:51):
Oh yeah.
It amazes me In boot camp Iactually got yelled at for
swimming in the pool.
They were supposed to jump in,swim to the side and be done.
I was enjoying the hell out ofit, so I was swimming around.
They were going to make me aSARS.
Well, they threatened to makeme a SARS.
Those that don't know, that'ssearch and rescue swimmer.

Tre Porter (28:10):
Oh shit.

Bill House (28:11):
Yeah, so I would have been.
Yeah, I was like, yeah, okay,I'll swim to the side now.

Tre Porter (28:17):
I saw that movie with a.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Technical difficulties if you're watching
the Facebook live.
I don't even know if it's evenon it.

If you're watching the Facebook live, I
don't even know if it's even on.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
It says it's live, but it's saying that we've got a
slow connection.

So if it's not working, hopefully they can hear
us anyways.
If not, oh well, you'll catchit on Spotify, we'll figure it
out.

Tre Porter (28:39):
I watched that movie .

They can hear us.

Tre Porter (28:40):
Speaking of search and rescue swimmers.
It was Ashley Kutcher and KevinConnery.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
That's the Guardian and the Coast Guard and we don't
talk about that.
Why not Just kidding?
It's actually a pretty goodmovie.
I don't know, and I do give itrespect, because Ashton Kutcher
and all those guys, before theylet them pretend to be a rescue
swimmer, they put them through afucking boot camp for a week,
wow, and made them do all theshit that the rescue swimmers do

(29:05):
.
There's video.
I don't.
I think it was Ashton, maybe itwasn't.
Anyway, but in some of thespecial features there's a
montage and dude's just fuckingpuking his guts out.
They made him run, they madehim do whatever.
He's on the side of the field,just fucking hurling.

(29:25):
It was great.
I think it was Ashton, but Icould be wrong.
That was a pretty badass movie.

Well, I can tell you this Everybody always thinks
of the elite units of themilitary right, it's the Delta
guys, it's you know.
Nobody, ever, nobody everthinks of like pararescue, oh
god, yeah, or the rescueswimmers are those guys, the air
force pjs yeah, the pjs rightpararescue guys those guys are

(29:57):
just absolutely insane.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Oh yeah, you know special forces mixed with emts.

Yeah, they just never they just never get looked
at as elite, because mostpeople don't even really know
they exist.
Right, the average persondoesn't Sure.
Yeah, I mean, the shit thatthey got to do is insane.

Bill House (30:12):
Yeah, and they're jumping in the water when
there's hurricanes and stormsand everything.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Coast.

Guard guys, I mean, or the damn pilots you
know, the helos that take themout there in those kind of
storms too.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
The Coast Guard, I mean the Guardian right, they're
up there in the freaking BeringSea man rescuing people.
They've got like 25-foot swellsand shit up there.
That's insane.
Or in Miami they're doing druginterdiction, they're doing all
kinds of crazy shit down there,and it's insane Rescuing Cubans.

Tre Porter (30:41):
Yeah, well, you know those pilots that fly into
hurricanes.
Yeah, God damn, that's nuts tome.
I don't even know how thehelicopter flies.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
The pucker factor on that flight.
It's going to be so big andheavy I'm surprised the
helicopter could take off.

Tre Porter (30:59):
You got some cojones .
Yeah, man, I mean, I knew somehelicopter pilots when I was at
Bragg and they were specialoperations guys.
There was this one guy inparticular.
His name was Dave Cooper andhe's famous.
He got the flying cross orwhatever the hell that is that
pilots can earn, and he was justfamous in the aviation world.

(31:24):
And I'm really curious to askhim like you know, he's been
under heavy fire, everythinglike that.
I'm just curious to ask himlike how would you feel about
flying into a fucking hurricane?
Probably say I wouldn't do thatshit.

Hey, do you got any popcorn?

Bill House (31:46):
Probably stale from a month ago, Three weeks
probably.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Well, that stinks, what the hell.
What kind of host are you?
Yeah, no, kidding Up here atthe AJ Sky Lounge he might have
some crayons laying around.

Bill House (32:01):
You know he might, but I'm not really into it.
He most definitely has somecrayons here.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
I'm not really interested in the crayons but up
here in AJ Sky Lounge we've got, we've got a popcorn machine
and the sound of freedom thatyou hear every so often.
You know, we're totallydrinking non-alcoholic Diet
Pepsi.

Bill House (32:18):
Diet Pepsis yeah yeah.

Tre Porter (32:21):
I got a coffee in my mug.
Yeah right, Coffee.
There you go Coffee.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah, totally, doesn't have any you know,
Kahlua or anything in there.

Tre Porter (32:30):
No, not at all, not at all.
And you, brent, what have youbeen doing, man?
What happened to the?
We've been gone for like sixweeks, something like that I
know.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I know Everybody's been busy, been busy as hell man
.
The post is wrapping up, justall kinds of craziness.
I have decided to step down asquartermaster and was able Well,

(33:06):
not for you, you, it'sunfortunate for us was able to
find Con.

Con Roy Thomas.
He's probably going to listento this.
I don't know if he's on rightnow.
He's at his kids baseball gamebut he got conned into it.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
He didn't get conned.
I gave him proper warningwarning that I didn't get conned
.
I gave him proper warningWarning that I didn't get.
No, but you know, in allhonesty, when I first took over,
I got like a two-hour trainingsession and then thrown to the
Sharks.
You know.

Tre Porter (33:38):
It's like a full, damn near a full-time fucking
job.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
At our post.
It is, yeah, not at every post,right, you know, especially the
super rural posts that don'treally do much, that's not a big
deal.
But for us, we're in a prettydecent-sized city, we're in a
college town, we got a lot ofshit going on, we got pretty
active post membership with ourwriters group and with just

(34:03):
different things, and so, uh,with that comes a lot of
accounting that needs to be done, and so that's where.
That's where the quartermastercomes in, reminds me I need to
get you a receipt too.
Oh okay, well, let's not talkshop here, all right?

Tre Porter (34:20):
we're relaxing, all we're doing is talking.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
We're relaxing right now.
No, but I've been staying busywith all that stuff.
Like I said, I stepped down andsought out.

Bill House (34:33):
You stepped sideways .

Speaker 2 (34:34):
I stepped sideways, I guess Tell them what you really
are now.
Yeah, so this upcoming.
Don't tell them that, but tellthem what you're pulling.
No.
For this upcoming fiscal year.
I have the honor of being votedin as the junior vice commander
of the post, so yeah, it's nota sideways step, something like

(34:57):
that.

It's a lot less you'd have to do.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, that too.

Because as junior vice I really don't do much but
sit back and kind of learn yeahbe prepared for the next step
right, exactly.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
But you know, in all honesty, that's what I wanted to
do anyway.
You know, I, I didn't want tojust be in one position, I do
want to move up, you know, andyou know, get involved at
district level, and you know,maybe in 20 years time, you know
, maybe even department, whoknows, like I don't, I don't
know.
Um, just kind of let it go.

(35:29):
But, um, yeah, just justgetting involved and whatnot.
But uh, most recently, the lastfew days, um, every day since
thursday, I've been at themichigan vietnam memorial which
is here in Mount Pleasant, and Ihave it on good authority that

(35:50):
it is the OG Vietnam Memorial inthe state of Michigan.
It is, there's a few, but it isthe first.

And so yeah, yep, it's been down there 20 years A
little better, closer to 30, Ithink, yeah, I was going to say
20 years or better.
As a townie, I remember, yeah,that probably would have been in
high school, my high school era, which would have been about
when Bill was finishing up inhis enlistment.
Yeah, you're the old guytonight.

(36:20):
No, but I mean I think it was.
Yeah, it probably was.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Early to mid-90s.
So if you're listening andyou're in Michigan or you are
visiting Michigan, come to MountPleasant, Take a look it's.
All of our war memorials werejust recently moved, with the
exception of Vietnam.
That's been the same spot thiswhole time.
But we had World War I, WorldWar II and a Korea memorial all
moved down to the Vietnammemorial to consolidate all of

(36:47):
them.
Put them in a nice place inIsland Park.

Beautiful location, Awesome location, yeah
we had talked about that in aprevious podcast.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
It was in.

December, when the city of Mount Pleasant
currently is doing somereconstruction to their town
center area.
That's where the Korea Memorialis at, and down the street on
Broadway.
I believe it's Arnold Streetwas World War I and II.
Part of that downtown project.
They asked us, along with theLegion, if it was okay to move

(37:20):
that.
Our stipulation was we wantedthem all down in the central
area.
That our stipulation was wewanted them all down in the
central area.
So the city paid part of theirreconstruction project paid to
have those memorials moved,which now makes a lot of sense
because now you can go to one,you can go to all of them.
So we have one two Korea,Vietnam, and then Global War on

(37:42):
Terror.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
just passed it, so you'll be able to hit them all.
The only memorial that's notthere is the Civil War Memorial,
and that's because that's atRiverside isn't it?
Yeah, that's actually in thecemetery At Riverside Cemetery,
and that's just becauseRiverside Cemetery is where all
of our local Civil War veteransare laid to rest Really.

(38:05):
Yeah.
Really yeah.

Tre Porter (38:07):
Really, which one is that?

So it's the one right behind Elliott's Green
Shop.
Okay, yeah, or Floral Shop.

Bill House (38:14):
The first one we went to Right by Nelson Park,
yep, so, yeah, it was great.
So, working with the City ofMount Pleasant, which isn't too
far from where these are reallyif you go the back path.
Yeah, yeah, it was great.
So, working with the City ofMount Pleasant, which isn't too
far from where these are reallyif you go the back path.

Yeah, yeah, I mean they're walkable through
bridges and stuff.
The city's got great.
City of Mount Pleasant's gotgreat parks and their parks
director, along with the citycommission and or the city
manager, worked well asking us,and the riders group was a big
part of that.
I was still the president atthe time.
Bill was on that ride.
We escorted all those memorialsfrom where they were all the

(38:47):
way down to when they got set.
They actually got pulled offtheir pads and they got set on
the new pads.
We escorted them in Decemberall the way from where they were
at all the way down there.

Bill House (38:57):
Yeah, it actually snowed on us that day.
It did I saw those pictures ofyou guys riding.

Tre Porter (39:03):
Yeah, yeah, there was, tim was there.
There was, and then.

Rich Young, who was the post commander for the
American Legion here in town.
He was there, that's right.

Bill House (39:13):
A couple of their members drove, so you and I were
on bikes that day, but it seemslike there was someone else on
a bike too, tim me, you I wantto say Marcus was there.
I'd have to go back throughsome pictures and take a look to
see who was all there.

I know you and I were at the end there was four
or five of us from our postthere and a few Legion members
as well.
So it was always a combinedeffort here at Mount Pleasant
between the two entities onstuff that we do.
So it was great and I'm gladbecause you guys just did the
Memorial Day parade.
Yeah, trey.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, let's talk about that.
Yeah, trey had the writersgroup, so I was just going to
say, though, I've been theresince Thursday.
You know, power washing,getting it ready, parade was
great.
I think, yeah, I think it wentwell too.

Tre Porter (39:59):
There was a lot of people, a lot of participants in
the parade as well, and I justwant to give a real big shout
out to the Infidels MC, red RumMC and Leathernecks MC.
They showed up, they rode withus, but what they did is so that
the VFW members couldparticipate in the parade itself

(40:21):
.
They blocked traffic, so Iguess no barricades were put up,
so they blocked traffic for usduring the parade, for the
people on the parade.
They also blocked traffic whenwe were going to the different
cemeteries after the parade.
Awesome, that's awesome.

(40:42):
Big shout-out to them.
I told them if you guys everneed anything from us, we'll be
there for you, right?

Well, that's where it always gets kind of a
gray area, right.
I mean, you've got ours is ariders group, and then you start
participating with the localmotorcycle clubs right, which
predominantly have tons ofveterans in them, tons of
veterans and or just they'rehuge supporters of.
So you know, we live in theirplayground when we're on the two

(41:13):
wheels.
But we have such a good rapportwith all of them.
I mean we go to some of theirevents, they come to some of our
events.
We work really well together.
When we need help, they'reright there to help.
I mean that's a great testamentto all of them.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
When I saw them at the post, which is great.
I saw them at the post, I sawtheir vests and I just thanked
them for being there.
I mean they're doing us a solid.

Tre Porter (41:39):
Well, you know the thing is they all work together
well.
A lot of times in the MC worldthese different MCs don't get
along, but everybody in thisarea gets along pretty well
together and work well togetherfor things like this, and that's
the way it should be.

There was a bunch of them that showed up.
Forgotten Eagles they do theirram ride right around Michigan
and I think they put a guy likein a bamboo cage and they took
him down to the vietnam memorialand that stuff.
You know it was for the pows,right, that's how they got
treated during vietnam and stuff.
And a bunch of them came out todo that ride with forgotten

(42:20):
eagles, which is another ridersgroup.
So, yeah, we participate intheir ride in August.
So we actually ride up towardHolton Lake, join them, and then
they shut the whole freewaydown from Holton Lake all the
way to Mount Pleasant.
The cops state police sheriffsand all that.
They literally block all theentrance we get.

(42:41):
They literally stop traffic on127 South at holton lake.
We get on and then we have twopolice cars blocking both lanes
all the way down to mountpleasant and they have police
officers at all the entrancesonto the freeway all the way
down.
So yeah yeah and then we goright down park it's awesome to
the, to the memorial, so it's,it's cool, it's good to see.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
But so this year's memorial we had great turnout
from the writers' groups andfrom our local MC friends.
We had a couple of things thatwere different.
We had a live singer, I believeher name was.
I want to say Alicia.

Tre Porter (43:21):
Is it Olivia, olivia , olivia?

Speaker 4 (43:24):
yeah, I think this is Susan.
She knows Susan's name.
It's Olivia, olivia, yeah, Ithink it's.

Susan, she knows Susan's name.
It's Susan's stepdaughter.
Yeah, tom.

Tre Porter (43:28):
Tom.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Kachoffer's daughter, so she did a great job singing
America the Beautiful, and wehad the Shepherd High School and
Mount Pleasant High Schoolbands combine together and they
played the Armed Forces Medleyand the National national anthem
for us.
They did phenomenal um.
A couple of their buglers, uh,played echo taps for us, um, and

(43:54):
that was amazing as well.
Um, and it was.

It was a great program and I saw we got a nice
little ride up in the morningsun.
Yeah, we did we did, which wascool.
That's kind of the, I meanthey've, they've done the parade
.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Actually the picture on the paper was me when I was
speaking me and joe or joe.
Yeah, I saw joe because I sawyou standing there, but when we
were, uh, going through thesection of our program naming
off the different conflicts thatwe had been in, um, and when I
joe and I were going back andforth naming them off and how

(44:29):
many were killed and wounded andeverything, and yeah, so that
must have been when they tookthat picture, yep, so that was
pretty cool to see.

Bill House (44:37):
Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
I don't think I've ever been in the newspaper until
now, there you go.

Tre Porter (44:42):
Well, when you were up there, I was like you know
what, and I was thinking aboutthis, and don't get um.
You were thinking I was prettysexy.
Don't now, no, but don't gettoo excited when I say this one.
I was like damn, brent lookslike he's 50 years old up there.
And then number two I'm givingyou your two parts.
Number two I was like I thinkBrent could be the post

(45:04):
commander one day.

Bill House (45:06):
I appreciate that Maybe one day I'll never vote
for you the step up you'retalking about.
He will.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
So I had a good time.

Bill House (45:18):
That was a great program, I bet Charlie would
vote for you, though he's justbullshitting you.
I think he really would.
I don't know, you'll never know.

Tre Porter (45:23):
I think deep down he has a man crush on you he might
he might.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I uh, there's a thing with Marines and Corpsmen, so
yeah well, you know, as long asyou bring that silver bullet.

Bill House (45:33):
I'll vote for you every time and a blue crayon and
a blue crayon, that's SureTastes like blue raspberry.

Tre Porter (45:42):
One thing we did at the Riders group is we do this
every year we went out to CampTrotter.
Yeah, may, good time.
What day was that.
Come on, I don't even remember.
It was a couple weeks ago.
17th through the 19th, thereyou go.
17th through the 19th.
We went out there.

Jesus, you act like Tim now I know you act like
Tim now Amnesia every time.

Tre Porter (46:06):
I knew it was a man.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Call me 50 years old.
You're the one with salt andpepper hair.
I'm almost 50.

Tre Porter (46:11):
I'm actually almost 50.
It's usually the kickoff to ourriding season.
Went out to Camp Trotter.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Can you tell everybody what Camp Trotter is,
in case they don't know?

Tre Porter (46:22):
Camp Trotter is a VFW camp for kids and they're
trying to get participation outthere, from what I understand.

Yeah, so it's a summer camp.

Tre Porter (46:31):
Summer camp for kids .

Bill House (46:33):
And it's not just for VFW, no, it's anybody
actually right.

So if you're listening, you got kids.
If you go Facebook, you canjust type in VFW Camp Trotter
Pulls up all the information,but it's kids from, I believe, 6
to 12 or 13.
It's just a week long.
It's $385 for the week, so it'sprobably the most affordable in

(46:58):
the state by far Beautiful camp.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
It's on Bill's Lake.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
They do all kinds of fun shit.

Bill's Lake down by Nuego, so from the Mount
Pleasant area it's only an hourand a half to get there.

Tre Porter (47:11):
So the kids aren't all over the state, you know, or
very far Beautiful camp Yep.
Yes, it is, it is so we go outthere and usually help.
We do that every year go outthere and help.
It's just a kickoff for ourseason, and then we go up to the
blessing of the bike thatweekend as well.
So we had a great weekend.
The weather was amazing,beautiful, yeah, perfect.

It was so hot.
So part of what we do and weactually had as the director.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
We had, because you guys get the camp ready right.
Yeah, you put the dock in thewater, you get everything set up
.

So basically, what happens is there's a
director for, there's twodirectors for the camp.
There's one that's the all-timedirector and then there's one
that just does a summer programdirector for when the kids are
there.
Which one is that?
That's Orville.

Tre Porter (47:56):
Okay.

And then Ricky Young is the director of the
camp.
So throughout the winter andearly spring they have some
cleanup days and certain stuffwhere volunteers come and they
help do stuff and then at theend, because camp starts in June
, runs through July.
Basically what happens isthey'll they'll put together a
list of stuff that they needcompleted and the writers groups

(48:20):
take care of that.
So this year we hadHarrisonrison uh ryers group
1075 come down for their members, help do cleanup on, put the
dock in and stuff on saturdaywith us they came friday, but
this year they must have had alot of volunteers because our
list was very small.
Bill put in some flooring andthe each cabin has a counselor

(48:40):
that stays with the kids in aseparate bedroom and the kids
are bunk style right throughoutthroughout the?
Uh throughout the cabin.
And bill put some flooring infor two of the cabins right in
the counselor's room.
Um, and the writers groups putin the?
Uh the dock and that was prettymuch all they had well, and
then there was a couple otherthings that, oh, they did some

(49:02):
power wash some of the some ofthe cabins, because because
there was some moss on some ofthem.
Yeah, that mildewy stuff Acouple of them took care of that
.
Yeah, some of the girls tookcare of that, so, yeah, other
than that, we just enjoyed somegood time.
Yeah, we really didn't have ahuge list.
There's been years when weraked and sticks and blew off
roofs.

Tre Porter (49:27):
And roofs, and I mean all that stuff was pretty
much done when we got there, sothere really wasn't a big list.
Well we're, which is great.

Hope is for the future is that we can get all
the riders groups.
We have nine and Wyandotte'sactually looking at standing up
a group.
So, oh, I'm waiting on a callfrom somebody from Wyandotte to
send them down the package tostand up a group that'll make
ten throughout the state, whichwould be great.
That'd, that'd be cool.
Do we have any in the UP?
We do not, so Ross Common isthe most farthest north.

Tre Porter (49:50):
We have than Harrison, than us, so we're on
the north, if we could get everyriders group participating and
to come to Camp Trotter.
Next year that is my goal, andthen we can do a whole lot more
for Camp Trotter, includingraking everything we bring down

(50:12):
20 to 30 members.

Harrison brought down 4.
If we could get 10 from eachone, you're talking 100 people
obviously we can sleep 100people, we can sleep 300 there,
so we have plenty.
But I mean, if we get all theseriders groups to participate
and do stuff for the camp one,that's just less budget that
they've got to spend for Haydenand Sky or anybody else.

(50:36):
And that's the least that we cando as a riders group is to
support the VFW and, obviously,help support the kids.
So the Department of Michiganalways is going to extend the
big thank you for the riders'groups coming down, harrison and
Mount Pleasant for coming downthere to help out, do the things
, and good kudos to the MountPleasant VFW riders' group.

(50:57):
That group has a large budget.
They do a lot of fundraisingthroughout the year.
They have darts and stuff thatgo on 50-50 sales and all this
different breakfast and all thisstuff going on.
The camp actually had a watertrampoline and it went bad last
year and they never replaced it.
So what happened was when wewere there at the camp Orville

(51:21):
was talking he's the summerdirector when the kids are there
and the kids were bummed thatthey didn't have this trampoline
.
So literally the Monday after wegot back we got back on Sunday,
monday we had a writer's groupmeeting and Big Papa here
brought it up, as the P broughtit up hey, let's buy a new
trampoline for the camp.

(51:41):
Yeah, I think we had like threepeople suggested it.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, for sure, we had like four people second it.

Bill House (51:50):
I mean, everybody was going yeah, let's do it,
yeah, so now the riders group isgoing to spend about $500.

Did you guys purchase that yet?

Tre Porter (51:59):
I just got the message from.

Lord Red today.
Oh, okay.

Tre Porter (52:02):
And said hey, we're good to go.
I think Walmart is donating $50for sweet yeah, so so.
I just told her what do youneed for me?
My car number, whatever.

Yep, perfect, so yeah, so that's gonna get
purchased, it'll get shipped orit'll be a store pickup for
Orville, because he goes to thecamp quite a bit, so you can
just pick it up at his localWalmart, take it there and then
it'll be ready for the kids thissummer.
So they'll be happy that thatwater trampoline is back this
year because he was like man, wecouldn't keep the kids off it.
The kids that come back everyyear.
They were disappointed theydidn't have it.

(52:35):
So that's just another way thatthese riders groups can help
out the department, help outthat camp, even if it's just
giving stuff.
And last year this mountpleasant riders group, along
with their auxiliary, put 14brand new bikes down at the camp
for the kids to use, because wewould do the maintenance on the
bikes.
We didn't have to domaintenance at all.
There was a group that came inin march and they kind of

(52:57):
separated the bikes and didrepairs to others.
But yeah, we, we had 14 brandnew bikes down there for the
kids, about $1,000 worth ofbikes or something.
Because we do have Little Redin our group.
Tammy Meyer works for Walmart.
She's a manager at the MountPleasant Walmart and Walmart's
always been a huge supporter.
I mean just like you said,right, they gave us $50 to buy

(53:20):
the trampoline and they hookedus up with, I think, 20% off on
the bikes, so we were able tobuy extra bikes with the savings
because we said, hey, we'regoing to spend $1,000.
So we got like $1,200 worth ofbikes for $1,000, you know what
I mean, so they actually yeah,with that discount.
We didn't just short it and say,okay, we'll only spend $800.
No, we bought extra bikes withthe savings you know what I mean

(53:41):
.

Bill House (53:41):
Yeah, we put it right in there.

Yeah, so they had more.
We were planning on spendingthat money anyways, right, which
is great.

Bill House (53:46):
Right, and that's the stuff that we do for this
camp.

Tre Porter (53:51):
You know, it's just that that's an ongoing, yearly
thing, that we always talk aboutdifferent things we can do.
I mean and that's kind of theway I see this the riders group
is yeah, we like to get outthere and we like to have fun,
but we have a mission and that'sto help our community in any

(54:12):
way we can.
It's an obligation, yeah right,it's not a mission.

It's an obligation we owe the community
that supported us while we weregone that we're still here.
Right.
And it's our obligation touphold those things and show
them that we appreciate theirsupport by helping them, just
like they help us.
It's like you scratch our back,we scratch your back Right.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Another big one is VFW National Home.
That we help out every yearpretty heavily.
I think most recently theyneeded a sidewalk plow and salt
trunk or something.
What exactly?

Tre Porter (54:46):
was that.
Can you tell the people whatthe National Home is?

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Sure, and I will admit I haven't had an
opportunity to go myself.
You're going to go this year,but I will go this year because
you can ride on the back of mybike.

Speaker 7 (55:04):
Only if I can put my arms around you.
If you can squeeze between meand Lady Jen, you can ride on
the back of my bike.
Only if I can put my armsaround you, if you can squeeze
between me and Lady Jen, you canride triple.

You will not ride on my bike.

Tre Porter (55:18):
Thought you Navy boys stuck together.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
Yeah, not like that.

Tre Porter (55:24):
They plug in.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
It's a plug and play they plug in, play they plug it.
But yeah so VFW National Homeis in Eaton Rapids, michigan.
It's a organization thatsupports military families and
children.
I couldn't really get into itall, but they do so much stuff
for the kids they have.
What do they call that?

(55:57):
What did we donate to?

It was.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Cash for.

Kiddos, I think, is what it was called.
Yeah, so the National Homeactual complex is like 400 acres
.
It's huge.
There's 40 buildings out there,50 buildings out there, and if
you're a displaced veteran andor say you're deceased with no
other kin, your kids can go liveat the national home.

(56:22):
They go to school at the EatonRapids School District, lansing
School District, whatever it is,and get their education and get
all the way through everything.
Or struggling veterans andtheir families, right, they can
come live on the campus.
Each state, some states, share ahouse and the houses they're
all kind of a little bitdifferent, but it's like four

(56:44):
apartments in a building kind ofa thing.
Beautiful campus, been aroundforever.
It's the only one in thecountry, um, but they've got
some different programs so it'sall funded through the vfw or
post memberships, all that kindof stuff, right, um, and what
they the cash for kiddo programis.

(57:05):
There's enough money to run andupdate the houses and take care
of the grounds and do that kindof stuff, just a general
operation, the programming stuff, yeah, for the kids, but
they're always looking for extramoney to take the kids to
McDonald's or out to the moviesor pot pot or whatever it is.
So there's a separate fund lineitem that they have.
It's called Cash for Kiddos andour riders group always donated

(57:29):
like $500 and it comes from allover the place just to give
those kids something to dooutside of the campus.
That's there, but yeah, it'sbeautiful.
I can't wait for you to comedown because it's one of those
places.
It's like going to Camp Trotter.
Once you go there you'll fallin love with it and what the
mission is that they do, andthen you're going to want to
help out and the National Homein love with it and what the

(57:55):
mission is that they do, andthen you're going to want to
help out and the national homeis the same thing.
So they have a lot of differentfundraisers.
They just did one or they'redoing a couple for bricks.
Um, so the writers group here inmount pleasant purchased a
brick.
So it'll say you know, uh, vfw,post 3033, writers group, mount
pleasant, michigan.
On it it was like a hundreddollars.
It's going to go on thesidewalk and I don't know.
50 bucks of the money goes tothe brick and 50 or whatever it
is right goes to, goes to thenational home.
And I purchased one with mygrandfather's, mine and my son's

(58:18):
name as marines, um, for abrick separately.
So I don't know when thatfundraiser is going to end.
And they just came out with anew one.
They're going to do somethingaround the flagpole and it's,
it's a larger brick, fivehundred dollars, that goes.
It's like a I don't know ifit's a one by one type brick,
you know patio paver kind ofthing um, but it's, but it's,

(58:39):
it's.
It's a cool place.
You, you gotta go, yeah I'veseen.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
I've seen pictures, and I didn't get the chance to
go last year and I was beatingmyself up about that.
So I did have a chance to checkout Camp Trotter, so that's
beat yourself a lot, brett.

I cannot confirm nor deny.
So the beauty of Camp Trotteris you don't when we go, you
don't have to have a motorcycle.
If you're out there listeningand you're a VFW member and you
want to come down to that campthat weekend, all my contact
information is on the departmentpage.
Reach out to me, I'll get youthe information for your
post-membership.
Whatever.
Drive your car, drive yourtruck, we'll put you up

(59:23):
somewhere.
Come down and volunteer, checkout the camp.
You can drive behind us thatare riding motorcycles and do
the things that we do.
Or you can just enjoy a weekendand see the area if you've
never really been there.
Whatever, you don't have to bea part of the riders group to
come down that weekend.
Right, you can stay for freeit's it's camp style in a

(59:44):
bunkhouse.
You know you got to bring someof your own stuff.
We can go through that stuff,but you kind of nostalgic, not
gonna lie, because if you'vebeen to bring some of your own
stuff.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
We can go through that stuff Kind of nostalgic,
not going to lie, because ifyou've been to a summer camp as
a kid you come there If you'vebeen to a boot camp it's almost
the same way.

Tre Porter (59:59):
But it's just a good time to hang out and meet
people.
You don't have anybody yellingat you.
The lake is beautiful.

Charlie Cline (01:00:06):
We had just, I mean, it was 80, 85 degrees, it
was absolutely phenomenal solast year we went down.
We woke up in the morning andour department commander was
down there, ray Lopez, and Timwas the director at the time,
and I said, hey, tim, I'm notputting people in the water,
it's like 54 degrees at 11o'clock in the morning and I'm
like we're just not doing it.

(01:00:26):
We'll come back another weekthe morning and I'm like we're
just not doing it, we'll comeback another week.
The commander was a little bit.
Oh my god, we gotta get thishas to get them.
I'm not having people gethypothermia, you know what?
I mean Because the water wascold as shit.
So we came back the followingweek and it was 80 and we got
the dock in three weeks beforecamp opened.
I mean, it was no big deal thisyear, we just got blessed.
We were able to do it.

(01:00:47):
Yeah, it was gorgeous.
We've only had one out of thethree or four times we put the
dock in.
We've only had that one weekendwhere it was just gruddy and
crappy.
Other than that, we've beenblessed with that 70 80 degree
weather.
That's cool where the water'sstill a little chilly, but after
about you know, 20 minuteseverything goes numb and you're
okay because upper body is hot.

Bill House (01:01:07):
So yeah, we were able to we were able to yeah,
that's debatable.

If you like pudgy white guys, I guess.
Jimmy you listening?
No, but I'm just saying so.
We were really blessed and,like I said, I know the camp
appreciates it, the departmentloves it.
Yeah, because that's we're hereto do those things, you know,
we're here to do those things,we're blessed that they allow it

(01:01:34):
, because at any one time, thenext person that takes over,
which will be Kimberly Napoleon,this year she becomes
department commander here inabout a week, july 1st.

She was there.

She was there with us, yeah, but I mean, if
she decides we're not going tohave any more groups, she could
just pull the pin and it is whatit is.

And apparently she must have had a good time
because she stayed pretty muchthe whole weekend.
Yeah, she did Well, she had totake off Sunday for a district
meeting.

She was a rep for a district meeting.

Tre Porter (01:01:59):
She had a district meeting and she did not know.
She had a district meeting inMecosta, which is not far from
there yeah.
And so when she came thereFriday night, we were like you
know, macass is like 25 minutessouth of here or north of here.
You could have just stayed thewhole weekend.
She was like I did not knowthat.

(01:02:21):
Yeah, she said I didn't eventhink to even look.
Yeah, so she went home back toSaginaw and then came back and
stayed Saturday night.
Yeah.
So she must have been having agood time.
Yeah, definitely.

Well, I think it's important that the
higher-ups they only hear thebad things about writer's groups
, just like they hear the badthings about the Post.
There's a lot of good andthere's some bad.
I mean, that's just the wayeven in business?

Yeah, exactly.

There's good and there's bad.
Nobody remembers the 100 goodthings, they just remember the
one fuck-up right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
It's the only.
That's just the way it is.
The news cycles are always thenegative shit that everybody
loves to.
It's the clickbait.
They love to follow it.
Same thing.

But it was great to have her there.
It was great to have Ray Lopezthere.
They've always been hugesupporters and when they see
what the good things can happen,it's just getting everybody on
board to do it.
So I'm glad that the MountPleasant group and the Harrison
group worked well together.
Their post commander up there,scott Taylor, is a great dude,
and then Aaron's their president.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Any time I had an issue these last few months
trying to figure out a problem,these last few months trying to
figure out a problem, you know,quartermaster related.
Anytime I call Barry, anytime Icall Scott first ring.
Hey, what's going on?
Never, never fails.
Super supportive, and that'sthe kind of people we have here.

But that's that brother-sisterhood, and that's
what we all miss about themilitary right.
And did we squabble?
We squabbled, we didn't alwayslike everybody, but at the end
of the day we either all betterget on the same page because if
not, there's going to berepercussions coming down the
pipeline.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
And we're all going to have to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
And when daddy's got to step into the shoes.

Didn't got to step into the shoes, didn't
matter if it was your chief,didn't matter if it was your
staff sergeant, didn't matter ifit was your gunny, didn't
matter if it was your lieutenantcaptain, whatever.
When daddy put a halt to thebullshit, the bullshit's going
to end.
You don't have to like it, butyou're going to do it, or
there's even more repercussionsif you don't do it Right you
know what I'm saying.
So tread Tread lightly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
They say and honestly , I got involved, rewinding time
here about a year and a half totwo years.
I got involved or, excuse me,decided to get involved with the
VFW because three years ago Imoved here from Grand Rapids.

(01:04:47):
I was born and raised in GrandRapids.
I'm sorry I moved here.
It's not too bad.
I actually like Grand Rapids.
Born and raised in Grand Rapids, I'm sorry I moved here.
It's not too bad I actuallylike.
Grand Rapids.
Anyway Carry on, moved up toMount Pleasant from Grand Rapids
, bought a house up here and forthe first year and a half that
I was here I was not in a verygood mental space.

(01:05:10):
I didn't know anybody here Atthe time I worked remotely at
home, um.
So I was sound of freedom, uh,just reclusive, you know.
Uh, and talking to my fianceone day and she's like you just
got to get out of the house, youjust got to go get involved.

(01:05:32):
And it was her idea.
She was like what about the VFW, the American Legion?
Like go, you know.

And so I did, I got involved and you know, one
thing led to another, and here Iam Now she regrets that
decision.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Yeah, probably, especially since thursday.
Uh been, like I said, beenthere all day, almost all day,
every day, since then.
But now we can't get rid of you.

Yeah, yeah, but not so bad, it's a love hate
relationship that comes from theguy that just invited you on
the back of his bike yeah, yeahyeah, he.
Yeah, he'll keep me warm.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
He's just a little lonely, yeah right.

I am.
My wife is coming.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
I think he's hoping for a reach around.
I'm not going to do that.

My wife is coming back next month.
She's coming back for good, forgood, for good, yep Woo woo,
she's done with her residencyYep Done with her residency Yep,
and that means it was niceknowing you guys.
It really was Play time's over.

(01:06:40):
She really.
I mean, I'm coming back on June13th with just the two kids,
two little ones, one and fouryears old.
Oh boy, yep.
And my daughter is going to beon my 15-year-old.
She'll be in El Paso with hermother, Her mother's, stationed
out at Fort Bliss.
Oh, she's coming back from Iraq.

(01:07:00):
She just came back a coupledays ago.
Awesome, five days ago.
She came back, sweet good, yeah, where are we still at in Iraq?
No, she was in Kuwait.
Oh Kuwait, yep.

Speaker 7 (01:07:14):
I was going to say I thought we were I don't know, it
doesn't matter.

I think we are still in Iraq, though, but I digress,
and so she's going to be mewith those two kids.
I'm like God damn, I need toget my June ride in at some
point.
But I'm leaving on May 31st,come back June 13th with the two
kids and I got to figure outhow to get some June riding time

(01:07:39):
in there and I know we're doingthe sun up, the sun down.
I told my wife End of June.
I told my wife.

Bitch.

No, you didn't say that.
I didn't say that.
I said, you better be back hereby June 28th, that's right so
we can go on the, but you knowwhat I said?

I said bitch, I didn't hear anything.

I didn't really say that.
I said honey, honey Dear.
I said please.

I said please, please, do you have that button,
that cough button, on there?

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
I don't have a cough button, I have a record
scratcher, there you go.
Sneeze button.

Sneeze button.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
I did have a what's a ?

two-second delay.
Can we rewind first?
I did have a.
What's a two-second delay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Can we rewind first, I did have a sensor button.
I forgot to redial no sensorbutton.
I don't know.
The beep yeah.

But anyway, yeah, that's the big coming up ride,
sunrise to Sunset.

Speaker 2 (01:08:41):
Yeah, yeah, 28 to the 30th, talking about another
upcoming sooner than Sunrise toSunset Flag Day.
It's Flag Day ceremony.

I knew what you were coming up with.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Yep.
So for those of you who don'tknow, at least locally, I don't
know what other posts do, butyear-round here at Post 3033,
right in our entrance, there isan old post office box that was
repurposed, that they gave to us.
It's repainted.

(01:09:13):
It looks like an american flagthat was an eagle scout project.

Oh, was by a local kid.
Yeah, oh, okay, painted that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
That's awesome so it sits in our vestibule and in the
post year round.
In that post office box wecollect flags, us flags that
need to be retired, faded, worn,ripped, whatever you can give
them to us.
And every year at the Flag Dayceremony, we go through the

(01:09:40):
ceremony, we properly retirethem and take care of them.
That ceremony is coming up.
Have we decided on the dateJune 14th?
Have we decided on the dateJune 14th?
We do it on the date.
We do it on the day.

Is that a?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Saturday this year I don't know I can't remember I'm
coming on June 13th, which Ithink is a Friday.

No, it's a Thursday, June 13th, I think, is a
Thursday.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
It is a Thursday, so are we doing we might do the
ceremony on Saturday.
Yeah, friday, so we might dothe ceremony on that Saturday.

We'll have to figure it out.
Well, so Susan Payne and I willbe on the radio typically like
three or four days before.
Okay, we do two of the localradio stations here in Mount
Pleasant get on live talk aboutFlag Day, why it's important I
always am the guy that mentionsthe address and that we have
that drop box so that if wedon't want people just throwing

(01:10:42):
them in the trash, we want themretired properly and all that
kind of stuff and what Flag Daysymbolizes.
And she goes into her wholespiel and I do my spiel and
we've been doing that, for thiswill probably be our fourth year
doing that that's good, youknow.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
so a brainchild that I've had about these flag
retirements and everything, andmaybe this is something that we
as a post membership could talkabout at our next meeting.
But but coming up with aprogram where you know you come
and give us a retired flag andyou know we'll give you a
replacement kind of a thing,Maybe in exchange for a donation

(01:11:20):
to the post or something tothat degree, Well, we do.

It sounds expensive, we do have some flags
at the post and typically whatI've done is I'll grab a couple,
jump on the bike and I ridearound our local area and if I
see a flag someone's flyingthat's torn and tattered, I'll
stop at the house, knock on thedoor and if somebody's home,

(01:11:47):
I'll replace the flag.
If not, I'll replace it myselfand then leave a note on the
door.
And it's somebody's home, I'llreplace the flag.
If not, I'll replace it myselfand then leave a note on the
door that says I'm from thelocal VFW, who I am?
Here's my number.
Your flag was tattered, torn.
Whatever, I've replaced yourflag, damn, no cost kind of
thing.
Just leave them a note and thentake their flag, bring it back

(01:12:08):
to the post and in the box.
And I've gotten a few callbacks where people oh, we've
been meaning to do that.
Thank you so much.
That was great.
You know, blah, blah, blah.
And I've had a couple calls ofhow dare you touch my flagpole
too, you know yeah, but I mean,but 95 of them have always been
a good thing, but yeah, I mean,flags are flags aren't cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Yeah we don't cheap.
We don't want to shame anybody,no no, no, most people
appreciate it.

When they find out you're from the VFW, they do
Like I said it was just abrainchild, but I thought it
would be just a cool littleprogram, not on this grand scale
.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
We're not going to replace every city residence
flag.
I'm just saying you know howmany flags we burn a year.

This is grand scale.
We're not going to replaceevery city resident's flag.
I'm just saying you know howmany flags we burn a year.
Hundreds, about 300.
Yeah.
Right At $35 a piece.
Do the math Right, take it, I'mnot leaving Two at a time.
What?
That's what Tim always saidBring me two at a time, or else
it's a wasted trip.

(01:13:11):
$10,500.
Yeah.
So good news at the post Comingup here next weekend my son
graduates high school on the 2nd.
He leaves on the 14th forMarine Corps Boot Camp.
But we also have some other bignews coming up at the post on
the 2nd Parking lot.
Yeah, Parking lot yeah.
Parking lot's getting shut downon that Sunday.

(01:13:34):
They're going to seal, coat,crack, seal re-stripe.

Speaker 2 (01:13:38):
Nice Things go out to .

Zenneberg, ashfall.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Zenneberg, ashfall.

Yeah, they gave us an absolute great price.
Anybody that's in the Isabella,claire, gratiot, midland,
mecosta, I'm assuming area theyall service that stuff.
They do a great job.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
They do a great job, in fact.
My better half I had noticed Idid a coffee delivery this
morning to her office and pulledinto the parking lot and it
looked brand spanking new.
And I look over and it's aZenneberg asphalt sign and I'm
like damn.
So they do a good job.

I'll tell you what they actually hooked us up,
because they came over while wedid some discussion on how we
want to lay the parking lot outwith the striping and we want to
do like arrows coming in andout as a directional kind of
thing for each end and a bunchof different stuff, and they
were like hey, just get thedumpster moved.
That needs to be a call toGranger, get that dumpster moved

(01:14:35):
over into the grass.
Already done Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
I put in.
As soon as this came out thatday, I called Granger and I said
hey, this is the date.
So she already put in a serviceorder.
The only thing we've got toworry about is if it's a rain
issue.
And they got to move to thenext week.

Just leave it in the grass.

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Just leave it in the grass.
Yeah, Leave it in the grass.

Yeah, these guys gave us an absolutely incredible
discount and it was an alreadyincredible competitive price
that they gave us Right.
So it's hugely, hugely thankfulto them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Yeah, Please support them.
They helped us out and we'dlove to help them out.

Yep.
Anybody ask me.
It's the only name I'm throwingout Yep.
So we have some big thingsbecause we got.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
We got bike night coming up after that July 2nd
July 2nd.
July 2nd Bike 2nd.
July 2nd bike night.

Last year we had 165 bikes.
The weather wasn't great itrained in the morning and it was
kind of cool at night.
We only had like 165.
The year before we had like 205.
Oh wow.

It was full last year.
I don't know how you could fitany more in there.

They were stacked in like cordwood.
So how you could fit any morein there, they were stacked in
like cordwood.
So this year is going to be alittle bit different and I'll go
over some stuff with you as thetime gets closer.
But yeah, I mean, it's always agood night.
Auxiliary does well with thefood.
Yep, they make good money.
The canteen does well.
We got our open license already.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
Yeah, that event is open to the public, Typically
speaking.
You know, the VFW is a clublicensee as far as Michigan
Liquor is concerned, which meansyou've got to be a member.
But for Bike Night, that is afundraising event for us, and so
we are open to the public thatday.

We get a special license just for the public and,
yeah, it's a good moneygenerating.
And you know it's crazy becausewe also use it as a recruiting
event every year.
Yeah.
And I bet you, every year weusually typically get one or two
into the VFW yeah.
As well as the auxiliaryusually grabs three or four out

(01:16:51):
of that event Because somebody'sgot a dad, a brother, a grandpa
, grandma, mom, sister that'sserved and typically veterans
like to ride, so we usually graba few out of that event.
So it's always just an easy oneand you don't have to have a

(01:17:11):
bike to come.

I mean just show up.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Yeah, just come and have a drink and a burger and
whatever, I think they're makingburgers.

We usually do burgers and fries and stuff.
Check out a whole bunch ofbikes and you know Come hang out
, come say hi to everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
In fact, I was just at the casino the other day and
I'm sitting there at theroulette wheel and a guy walks
up and we get to talking andcome to find out he's just
retired from the Air Force.
Really, I said, no shit, niceto talk to you.
I went through who I was andbackground and everything and I
said, hey, by chance, in your 20years did you deploy?

(01:17:50):
Where'd you go?
What ribbons do you got?
You got the GWAT Expeditionary.
He goes, yep, I got that one.
I got a couple other ones,specifically ones that qualify
him for VFW membership, and Iwas like, hey, just so you know,
come on down to the VFW youqualify, come on down and hang
out with us and get involved.
I believe he was.

Yeah, he obviously hadn't lived here in a while
I've ran into two people, oneguy I was sitting out in front
of my daughter's school on mymotorcycle getting ready to pick
her up and I've got my airborneit says US Army on my vest and
this guy pulls up up and he waslike nice motorcycle.
And he was like are you abrother?

(01:18:35):
A brother.
I was like yeah, so he Abrother.
He saw my military on my vest,so he was military.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
Oh, okay, I thought we were going down like the
raceway You're raciallyambiguous.

He was a white guy, okay, alright.
So he jumped out, brother inarms, yeah, and he was really
like I can tell he was like heneeded some brotherhood.

I told him.

Look man, come to the VFW, Come and join.
There's plenty of people thatare going through what you're
going through and worse probably, and people that understand.
Come and just hang out with us.
And I haven't seen that guysince.

Yeah, but you planted the seed, but you gave
him an opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
You gave him an opportunity and you planted a
seed, and I've had so manyconversations.

Sometimes it takes a while for them to grow.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
It does, it does.

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
I've had so many conversations on social media,
specifically Reddit.
I'm part of the Veteranssubreddit and the Veterans
Benefits subreddit and every sooften you'll get somebody on
there that's bitching andcomplaining about the Legion or
the VFW.
So often you'll get somebody onthere that's bitching and
complaining about the Legion orthe VFW.
And I remember about six monthsago there was this guy I

(01:19:55):
started a thread with and itwent into private messaging and
he was telling me I told him thebasics you know, get in the VFW
, so on and so forth, and he waslike I will never join.
And he said the VFW killed myfather.
And I said what?
Drinking?
Yes, yep.

(01:20:15):
There is this misconception.

I think I've met this guy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
There is this misconception that every VFW is
filled with crotchety oldassholes and it's smoky and it's
nasty and the environment'sjust horrible.
And it's not.
That may be true for some posts, but it's not true for every
single one, nope, nor ours, andespecially not ours Right.

(01:20:40):
And I told him.
I said I don't know whereyou're located, but I said if
your local VFW is like that, goto the next town over Yep, go
find you know, if you reallywant the brotherhood and you
really want to get out there,then get out there.
You know, and so I travel forwork.

I go to a lot of conferences so I visit a lot of
other posts and some Dwayne, whois our national
commander-in-chief and he wasthe junior at national, came in.
He was like the old geriatricgin joint stare Door opens up

(01:21:23):
and you get all these.
You know you get to stare atthe door to see who the hell are
you and why are you here.
You know he even calls it outand it's true because we do the
same even at our post.
Right, that door wiggles.
Right Now we have that screenso we can see who's coming in
and stuff.
But everybody stops to look.
You know, and I have not beenalways welcomed at other posts,

(01:21:45):
right, but I'm the mindset guythat goes I carry the same card
you do.
Maybe it's got a differentnumber on it, but I've got every
right to be in this place,period unless I act like an
asshole and get thrown out.

Speaker 2 (01:21:58):
That's a completely different situation.

But I go up to Traverse City and usually it's
for a conference and it usuallytakes about the third day of me
being up there and going inthere and I'm buying chips for
the old people sitting at theend of the bar.
About the third day they'llcome down and be like hey, how
are you?
But it takes a while.

Because, I'm the stranger, I'm the outside guy.

That's very unfortunate because our pulse is
so much different than that.
Somebody new comes in, man.
Hey, how's it going, man?
What are you up to?
Who are that?
Yeah, somebody new comes in,man.
Hey, how's it going, man, whatare you up to?
Who are you?
You know, this is who I amtrying to make them feel welcome
and I don't know if it'sbecause our pulse now has done
the shift where the 70, 80,maybe 90 year olds are kind of

(01:22:44):
gone and now it's back to the30s, the 40s and the early 50s
at the post all the time.
So it's that younger crowdagain and maybe that makes the
difference.

I'm not really sure.
We even got the kid now 21.
He's up there all the time.
Aj Boyle, aj Boyle.

Yeah, he just joined the Raiders group too,
that's right.

Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
I think he's our youngest member now.

Probably I got a guy that I just joined the gym over
here.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Well, that is until Charlie's boy deploys somewhere.

We'll see Evolution Fitness and there's a kid in
there.
He's probably 25, 26.
He's going to Central but aveteran Army veteran Been to
Iraq and Syria and he's like ohwell, you know, I wasn't there
during all the.
He was like I wasn't thereduring all the action, I didn't

(01:23:38):
see it.
So I feel like I was like thatdoesn't matter, we got.

We got the guys in the Navy that just sat on a
boat.
Yeah, we got Navy guys there.
Yeah, like me.
Yeah, you know.

We got Bill House and Brent Holbrook, yeah, so I'm
going to get that kid to join.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
You know you bring up something interesting.
I hate these fuckingdefinitions that everybody uses.
I hate the definition of combatveteran as far as it's
concerned with the VA, the waythe VA defines, quote unquote
combat veteran VA or VFW VA, theway the.

VA defines combat veteran VA or VFW VA Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
The way that they define combat veteran is
entirely different.
All of my paperwork says combatveteran.
I have not once spent in actualphysical combat.
Now I've been shot at.
We were on the ship and somedumb fucks decided to start
shooting at a Navy warship.
That's part Beyond me, whatever, we dealt with that pretty

(01:24:35):
quick.

But but other than that, they were on another ship,
on a boat.

Speaker 2 (01:24:42):
Yeah, I think they were probably Somali pirates.

Something like that we were off the coast of Africa.

Speaker 2 (01:24:47):
You could hear ping, ping, ping, ping ping coming out
the side of the hole.

You dumb fucks.
What are you doing?
That's when you hear the 50Kall wind up, anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
But yeah, I never had been in combat, I was not in
Iraq or Afghanistan, but mydeployment to Africa was around
the time that Boko Haram waspretty active.
There was at one point theywere rocketing the base that I
was at.
So during that deployment I gotimminent danger, hostile fire,

(01:25:22):
pay.
Yeah, that's what I got.
Which is a qualifier for the VFW, by the way, and I got the
Expeditionary Global War onTerrorism medal, which is
another qualifier for the VA.
So, VFW, excuse me.
So that's how I got in.
But, like I said, the VAdefinition of combat veteran,

(01:25:43):
it's all over my paperwork and Iwas like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa
, whoa, you know.
And they explained it.
They were like that's just ourpolicy and I was like all right.

Whatever the unfortunate part is, Trey hit
the nail on the head All toooften.
I feel that veterans out therethat qualify to be in the VFW
don't feel they're worthy ofbeing in the VFW because I
wasn't downrange pulling thetrigger.

Shooting at people too, right.

They just feel like I'm going to be less than
everybody else that's there.
That's not the case.
Nobody gives a shit.
We don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:26:26):
Did you serve your country.

Were you in the theater?
Did you support us?
I've said it a million times onhere dude guy back here or the
woman back here making sure mypaycheck was right or my
supplies were getting over to meall your orders were more
important.
Yeah, 11 typewriters were moreimportant, right, sorry, tim.

(01:26:48):
Sorry Tim's not here as I gottasay no, but I mean, they're
just as important to the missionas the guy pulling the trigger.
Sorry, I'll be the guy thatsays it.
I really don't care.

But they are.
I thought that for years All Idid was float around on a boat.

But that aircraft carrier's not there Putting the
fear of God into anybody elsethat's out there going
airstrikes are coming if westart fucking around.

That's why we floated around Haiti for eight
weeks.
They're going to go, yeah.

They're going to F around.

Speaker 1 (01:27:23):
I've got to deal with it.

But if you're sitting off there and you've got
your planes and you've got allthat stuff, they're going to
probably think twice about whatthey're doing.
You guys were just asinstrumental as the guys on the
ground.
We all play a role.
If you're out there, don't feeland don't let somebody tell you
that you're less than.
That's not cool at all.

(01:27:46):
I really don't care.
That goes back to what thatpisses me off.

Yeah, yeah, really that's it.
That's what it like I need.
I and I tried to impress uponthe kid like that, it doesn't
matter, yeah, it doesn't matter.
You were there, you did a job.

There's a reason there's a reason why those
campaign medals or ribbons thatyou've earned qualify you?
Yeah, yeah, you know, but theyjust feel like they're less than
, and that's cool.
So how, those campaign medalsor ribbons that you've earned
qualify you?
You know what I mean, but theyjust feel like they're less than
, and that's cool.
So you met him at the gym?
Yeah, so you just go in and payyour dues and don't work out.
That's what I do.
I'm just wondering.
I'm just wondering.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
The camera's not on.

You ain't lifted a weight in 30 years.

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
I think, Trey and.
I, we got the dad bods here,but I'm not far behind.

I'm going to have the grandpa bod pretty soon, I
hope.
Not yet right.
Nothing in the pipe.
No, nothing in the.
They're a couple years away.
I'm close.

I'm going to wait as long as possible.
I got my fifth fucking grandkidon the way.
Oh man Number five on the way,congrats.
You're a grandfather, yourgenetics are potent Four times
over buddy Bam.
Five on the way.
I got grand, I got grand.
Uh-oh, did we lose it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
There we go, no.

Speaker 7 (01:29:07):
Charlie's just fucking around with the
technology I plugged a cord.

I have grandkids that are older than my two
youngest kids, so they gottacall them uncle.
Yeah, I got some Jerry Springershit going on.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
Wait, whoa Never mind I don't wanna hear it.

I have grandkids, my kids had kids and then I had
more kids.
So my two oldest, 28 and 25,they each have two kids each and
my daughter has god damn it.

(01:29:49):
I don't know how old they are,Doesn't matter.

So his kids have to call his His youngest kids
have to call his grandkids auntsor uncles.

No, they call the two oldest.
No, the two oldest have to callthe youngest.
That's what I was wondering mygrandkids have to call my two
youngest, so could you imaginebeing?

like 12 years old and having to call a
four-year-old aunt or uncle yeah, Isn't that crazy It'd be a
little weird yeah.
Yeah so.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
Let me guess you're from the Mecosta area.

That ain't some Jerry Remus?

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
That's how that makes sense that ain't some Jerry
Springer shit, that's some DrPhil shit, right there.

It's fine, it's all love there it is A lot of love
going on.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):
Make love, not war, right?
How old's your uncle?
About six years younger than me.
Seriously, in a few years, canyou imagine those conversations
that those kids are going to,poor kids, are going to have to
have?

What do you mean?
You got to miss gonna poor kidsare gonna have to have right.
Well, my uncle just graduatedkindergarten.

I gotta go to the graduation, my uncle's second
wife was younger than his oldestdaughter that's what I'm.

My second wife is crazy younger, younger than my
son.

There was a there was a Saturday Night Live
episode Maybe I'm not.
There was a Saturday Night Liveepisode where they were like
these husbands who were marriedto these women and they were
meeting their future wives Right, their future wives.

(01:31:28):
I saw this.
Yeah, great, skitit man.
First of all, they would comein.
It was they.
These little girls would comein, be like this is gonna be
your wife in 20 years.
And the guys are like yeah, ohshit and then and then this what
?
the last one that came on.
This woman came in.

(01:31:49):
She was pregnant and the guywas like oh, oh, that's not so
bad.
They were like it's the baby inthe belly, that's who you're
going to marry.

She's going to be born in three months.

Oh, that's a bunch.

I think one of them was like what do you like
to do?
I like to kayak, or whatever.
The wife was like.
I like to kayak.
Well, that's how you're goingto die in a kayak accident or
something.
Oh no, yeah, it was a greatskit yeah.
Because all the guys' wivesthat were on the game show wives
were in the audience.

Speaker 7 (01:32:20):
Oh, Jesus man, right, so they were finding out who
their husband's second wives aregoing to be.
Yeah, and.

And they're all like whatever still in the belly
, to like 12 years old.

Yeah, I remember they brought that little girl
out.
They were holding her hand andI was like oh my God, yeah.

But you know.

Yeah, that skit was hilarious.
Yeah, it was.
There was one not too long ago,a Beavis and Butthead skit.
Oh, I didn't see that.

Oh my god, my favorite one is still the Sarah
Palin, oh where she actuallycame out no no it had Tina Fey
with Sarah Palin.
This is way back with like shedid Sarah Palin so good too, it
was Chaney and Romney wererunning or whatever, and then
they cut to her and she was likeshe had the flute up.

(01:33:16):
She's like, oh, is this not thetalent portion, like playing?
The flute.
That shit was absolutelyhilarious.

Well, they did one where Sarah Palin actually came
out.
Oh really, yeah.
So Tina Fey was out there andsomebody came.
She was at a podium speakingTina Fey as Sarah Palin, and
somebody came in and theywhispered in her ear.
She was like she's here now.
She whispered like here rightnow and she looked up.

(01:33:50):
She was like okay, bye.
She walked off and then herecomes the real Sarah Palin.

I just remember that skit.

It was like absolutely hilarious because it
had, I think, joe Biden andSarah Palin were, because that
was Obama and I think it wasMitt Romney or maybe it was Dick
Cheney, and you kept saying Icome from Scranton, Pennsylvania
, the biggest shithole on theplanet.
And I barely made it out alive.
And she was like is this thetelephone?

She had like the flute, like it was the beauty
queen thing, right, you know,like it was just absolutely, was
she a beauty queen?
She was a hockey mom becausethey were just pit bulls with
lipstick or something.

Yeah, that was her saying you know Soccer mom,
it was hilarious.
That was hockey mom, becauseshe's from Alaska.
Oh, yeah, it was hockey mom.
Yeah, you ever seen it?
There's like pit bulls withlipstick or something.
They said yeah, but anyways,yeah, she was hilarious.
Snl does some good shit and Ilike that.
Colin and Che they do theweekend update.
Oh my God, when they rate eachother's jokes, when they switch

(01:34:54):
jokes.
Yeah, they rate each other'sjokes.

Oh yeah, yeah, man, that is hilarious.
Oh man, Because Michael Che isa black guy and Colin Jost is a
white guy.
He's married to ScarlettJohansson, oh wow.
Yeah.
So just the jokes that.

Michael makes, oh yeah.

They make him sound like super racist and then also
talking shit about his wife.

Oh yeah, he goes.
Yeah, my wife's little art filmBlack Panther.
I like to call it a littleartsy film or something.
We called it Black Panther.

That popcorn's from like two years ago, by the way.

It's probably three weeks old you didn't tell
me you wanted popcorn.
I would have made some freshpopcorn.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
I'm about to make some fresh popcorn.
I know how to work that thing.

You don't touch my machine.
Oh, I'll touch it.
You ain't touching nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
You ain't touching nothing, I'm going to touch it.
You don't touch my buttons.
Well then, get your ass inthere.

Next podcast you'll have fresh popcorn.

Oh man.
So back to this kid at the gym.
We're going to get his ass intothe VFW.

Speaker 2 (01:36:12):
No good, no, he's right, he's three weeks old.
Yeah, we went down that road.
We can get his ass into the VFW.

No, good, no, he's right, he's three weeks old
.
Yeah, at least Maybe he'lllisten next time.
You're like a little kid, daddytells you.

There's probably a lot of botulism in it right now.
He's probably going to diePopcorn with oil.
He ain't going to die.
He's probably going to die.
Just probably Just stop it, youcan take a handful of it, it
doesn't crunch anymore.
It's like, yeah, it's soft.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
Don't worry, we'll remember you.
How long are we going to behere?
I mean, it doesn't take thatlong to make some popcorn, man.

Oh, you got to clean out the machine.
Yeah, you got to get all theold.
Okay, go ahead, go make some.
Don't touch the buttons.
Go ahead, go make some.
Don't touch his buttons.
I'm giving you permission.

It's going to take a long time.
You got permission to touch hisbutton.
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
It's going to take a long time.
No, I'm not going to do it now.
I'm fucking sitting in here andI'm too damn lazy to go and do
it now.

Okay, all right.
Well, maybe you should joinRevolution Fitness Evolution.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Evolution Fitness.

Oh, fuck that place.
Do you know how many?

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
guys just.

Do you know how many guys just want to tan?

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
No, does it fucking look like I tan?
Well, maybe you just started.

I am the whitest motherfucker.

They have a massage bed.
That he probably Water bed.
Yeah, it's a water bed.
I do Water bed.

Speaker 2 (01:37:29):
Yeah, I do.

That's worth it alone, right there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
No lie, seriously, all seriousness.
It really is very good BecauseI deal with fucking back issues
and shit and every once in awhile it helps.

Why don't you see?

a chiropractor.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
I do, I don't do shit .
What do you see him?
Well, I take that back.
Maybe he doesn't want to sayanything?
No, I take that.
Well, we could talk offline.
But no, I see a chiropractorand every so often I'll go in
and like get a massage and whatit.
It just it keeps the pain at atolerable level.
If I go without either of thosefor more than a couple weeks to

(01:38:07):
a month, I am just in a wholebunch of pain, like I don't know
what it is in my back when Ifell and I hit my head and I did
all this other shit.
That explains a lot.
It does, it does there we go.
I got a TBI man.
I got moderate TBI.
Anyway, is that why you were inthe Navy?
Yeah, oh, okay, yeah, when Iwas on deployment I fell down a

(01:38:28):
ladder.
Well, oh, yeah, yeah, he knows.
Yeah, I've done that.

So but anyway, lytlewell went right to the
captains.

Speaker 2 (01:38:43):
That went so quick, didn't it?

It always does around here.
Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
Welcome.
I'm surprised they haven't madeany digs at you.
It's probably just becauseyou're new.

We're not going to fire up the first night on
him.

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
Yeah, no, but it's common though.
But yeah, over the years I'vehad x-rays, I've had fucking
MRIs and shit.
They found some stuff.
I've got degenerative arthritisin the spine.
I've got displaced SI joint,damn.

(01:39:17):
Yeah, I've got all kinds ofshit.
I think we can just kick offthe thing.
My battery's going to die.
I thought it was plugged in.
I've only got 9% left.
It's not charging, just kick it.

Take it off, it's not charging Take it off.
It's not a charging port, no,it just plays through the thing.
So if you're listening toFacebook Live.
Sorry, we're out, yep myphone's going to die Next time
we're going to have him have afull charge when he comes.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
So, if you're listening, listen to the rest of
this on the Spotify.

When we get that, if you had listening, listen to
the rest of this on the Spotifywhen we get that.
If you had an iPhone, you could.
I don't think it charges.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
It doesn't charge.
It didn't charge mine either.
It don't charge.
This is not a charging port,it's just data.
Oh, so yeah, so that kills thelive feed.

It just doesn't kill the main.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
No, no we're still recording.
They've heard everything upuntil this point, but from an
hour and 40 minutes on howeverlong it ends up being, they'll
be able to kick on and pick upwhere they left off.
All right, yep, if you'relistening, take it easy, we'll
talk to you later.

Bye.
Sound like you were on afreaking telephone call Kind of
am, kind of am Not going to lie.

So now we're not live.
We can talk all kinds ofbullshit now, right, yeah, but
it's not going to be on Spotifythough Can I say big.

No, no, I got you .

You just get big.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
Perfect timing, anywho.
So what?
What was I saying?
Oh yeah, over the years, youknow, I've done MRIs and shit
and I've got scar tissue in myback.
It's mostly soft tissue injurybut it just Is it from falling
yeah, fall, mm-hmm.

Goddamn.

Speaker 2 (01:41:10):
So when I fell I started falling forward down,
but I grabbed myself at the laston the rail, that's probably
why I did it right there.
So when I did that, I hadenough momentum that I basically
spun my back out of place.
That's where the SI jointdisplacement came in.
And then, when I landed on myback, I hit my head on the
bulkhead and landed on the deck.

(01:41:33):
Oh, and that banged you evenmore.
Yeah, and it wasn't an openladder.
Well, where it just went downand you went down the P-way, it
was next to just a steelbulkhead.
So I fucking hit my head,fucked up my back, fucked up my
neck a whole nine years my neckand my back, my neck and my back

(01:41:54):
.

That was another good skit.
That was a good one.
What movie was that from?
Friday Yep, my neck and my back.

It's my neck, and then there's a song my neck and
my back, oh shit.
Where were we Sorry?

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):
that was the first thing Bill's like what the
hell's going on.
Oh, I seen Friday.

I just don't remember that part all I
remember is the crackhead felldown in the store you ain't got
a job yeah every time.

I come in the kitchen, you in the kitchen.

I like pig feet.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
I like hog balls but, anyway, so yeah, so knock the
when I, when I landed ratherkind of midway through the fall,
like as soon as I twerk my back, like kind of like that, I felt

(01:42:51):
shooting pain, really like Igot zapped by a line.
It went straight down to my toe.
Oh yeah, couldn't feel my feetfor a couple of days, but I was
deployed.
I couldn't see it.
I mean, I was with an emergencyroom physician but he was like
you can't fucking do anythingfor you.
So sorry we're in the middle ofthe Persian Gulf.

(01:43:11):
What do you expect me to doanything for you?
So sorry we're in the middle ofthe Persian Gulf.
Like what do you expect me todo?
So you were a light dutywarrior.
No, I didn't go on light duty,oh really, they.
Let me lay down for about anhour.

Did you appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
Thank you, I was like yeah, thanks, appreciate that.
I got a major fucking headachenow because, everything is
echoing in my head now.
But yeah, I laid down for a bitbut eventually when I got back
to Pearl Harbor they had donethe x-rays and everything.
When I got back and in thatshort four months they had

(01:43:46):
already told me I haddegenerative arthritis going Wow
.

God damn, yeah, so we were at.
I don't know if I should tellthis story.
You're starting it, you've gotto finish it.

If it gets real bad, I'll edit it out.

It was during Memorial Day and these very,
very old gentlemen came and theyobviously wanted to get in line
in front of me and I was likeyes, please go ahead.
And they were, they they're,and I'm wondering if your back's
going to be.
They were, they were both ofthem bent over, like you know,

(01:44:26):
like this literally, and theywere making their food plates
and shit.
And I was like God damn manChiropractor.

Yeah, Keep that shit stretched out in place,
damn man.
Chiropractor.
Yeah, keep that shit stretchedout in place.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
No, speaking of chiropractor.
I hope that's not you in 15years.
Fuck, I hope not in 15 yearsStay on top of it.
Yeah, no, like I said, I youknow, between just regular
massage therapy and massagetherapy and chiropractor.
Making sure I kind of alternatebetween the two Keeps things

(01:44:59):
tolerable.
My standard pain level is abouta four.
Four out of five out of tenAlways.

Always Constant On your back.
Go to Thailand.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
How about we don't go to Thailand?

Best massages you'll ever get, I'm sure.
No, seriously, I'm not talkingabout the greasy ones, I'm
talking about the legit.
They put you in the bed andthey'll do the traction thing
where they pull you apart, theycrack your hips, they crack your
knees, they crack each toe,like I mean, it's the most legit

(01:45:37):
massage, right?
They'll loosen you all up andthen they give you like a
chiropractic adjustment at thesame time, and it's a girl
that'll give you like themassage you know.
She'll walk on your back withthe bar thing above, stretch you
all out.
It's like an hour long, justthat.
And then the chiropractor guycomes in and cracks every

(01:45:57):
goddamn thing in your body.
I swear to God.
And when I was in Bahrain, theydid the same thing.
You got a haircut and theythrow a hot towel on your head
and they kind of massage yourshoulders and your back and
stuff, and then they crack yourneck.
I mean it's like a Turkishhaircut.
Have you ever like YouTube?
A Turkish haircut?
Yeah, where they crack your?
Yeah, they crack your neck,they crack your ears, they do

(01:46:18):
this whole weird thing.
It's like that, I swear to God.

Speaker 2 (01:46:23):
I've wanted to do it.

It's so amazing.
If you've never had like yourshoulder cracked, your elbows
cracked, like it feels amazing,nobody around here will do that
shit.

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
No, no.
It feels amazing.
Nobody around here will do thatshit, no, no, well, because our
laws are different.
But you know, for the longesttime you know.
I for haircuts and shit.
I go to sport clips mainlybecause they kind of do that
same shit.
They do a little bit of massage, like they use one of those
little vibrating massage gunthings and whatever, but it's
mostly just a haircut and youknow I usually go to them just

(01:46:55):
because they support the VFW.
You know they do the Help.
A Hero scholarship.

They do that.
Yeah, they do.
Is there a sport clips here?
Yeah, right there where Pay forLess?
No, it's owned by.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
Walmart.
Yep, it's down by Walmart Los.

Aztecas.

Speaker 2 (01:47:09):
Bluegrass Road, Yep.
So I go down there and they'rebusy as fuck all the time.

Yeah, so you got to go to the app, get on the app
and you can actually book atime.

They have hot chicks cutting here.
Yeah, yeah, all right, yeah,duly noted.
What do they fetch for a?

haircut there.

Speaker 2 (01:47:30):
If you want the whole legit.
If you want the whole legitthing, it's like $35, but it's
your haircut, I think I pay.
It's like an extra $5 or $7 fora beard trim as well if you
want your beard lined up orwhatever.
But yeah, the whole treatmentis the haircut.

(01:47:51):
They'll take you back, shampooyou and condition you or
whatever.
And then is the haircut.
They'll take you back, shampooyou and condition you or
whatever.
And then during that they dothe scalp massage, you know, and
bring you back.
They do a shoulder massage.
Not sure that part of themassage.
So I highly recommend them.
But in all honesty, though,I've been looking for a legit

(01:48:14):
barber, like an old-fashionedbarber, in the barber's chairs
they tip you back.
They do the shave with thestraight razor the whole nine
broadway and adams.

There's an old barber shop there.
I'm pretty sure there are oldguys that work in that place
because it's been there forever.
It's on adams and broadway.
I know which one you're talkingabout.
Uh, gainyard elementary, yeahwell, west west side, west side,
yeah, yeah, yeah so that's uh.

I went to actually high school with him.
His name is todd.
I think he now has a partner inthere.
He bought this old guy, bill,or bob bill, I think Bill
something was the guy thatoriginally owned it and Todd
took it over probably 10 yearsago, but I don't know what they
do.
My father-in-law, I think,still goes there.

They definitely don't give you a massage.
No, you want the old schoolbarbers for you.

I go to one of Jen's friends and she's my
friend, but does the?
Hair washes, she does the headwashes.
She, you know, does the thehead thing and then cut your
hair.
That pays 30.
That's what the tip Amanda doesa good job and I'm the guy
because of work I'll like texther.
Got any openings this week andshe's like Tuesday at 10.

(01:49:30):
I'll be there, that's it youknow, because that's the last.

I can't book out four weeks, six weeks whatever
right.
I don't cut my hair.
We noticed.

Surprise those earphones fit on your head.

Right, that's just lately.
I'm kind of getting tired of it.
We'll see how I feel.

I don't know how your head hits the pillow, those
curls in your hair.
It's like an extra pillow.
Extra pillow Things like afreaking spring mattress yeah,
an extra pillow.
That's not me calling younappy-headed, so don't go down
that road.

I didn't say that you did.
I didn't say that you werethinking it.
No.

Curls.
It's not nappy.
That's what I said.
It looks like a Serta springmattress.
It's beautiful, sealy.

I think that's a sealy Sealy poppy.
It kind of looked like araggedy hand, doll, yeah, kind
of.

Speaker 2 (01:50:26):
Anyway.

I'm good with.

It'm quite gray, makes you look established yeah.

It kind of reminds me of Lamont.

Oh Lamont from Sanford and.
Sons, Fred Sanford's son.
I was looking at my hair today.
I was like shit, my hair'sgetting long.
I love that show.
I need to do something with myhair.
It's just getting long.
That was a good show.
I love that show.
Do something with it.
I need to do something with myhair.
It's just getting long.
That was a good show.

Speaker 2 (01:50:57):
I love that show.
I have no idea what the fuckhe's saying.
Fred Sanford, fred Sanford.

They come right out after Three's.

Company Red Fox man.
What?

Red Fox, go home and Google or YouTube.
Sanford and Son, I've heard ofit, I've never seen it.

Speaker 2 (01:51:10):
It's pretty funny.
I've heard of Cheers.
I've heard of Freeze Company.
I'm coming to see you.

I'm coming to see you.
What's the other?

Speaker 2 (01:51:14):
one Happy Days.
I remember Happy Days.
He was born like 20 minutes ago.
Oh, that's true, so how?

old, are you?

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
Because I'm with you, crotchety old fuckers.

Yeah, how old are you?

Speaker 2 (01:51:27):
33.

Are you serious?

Speaker 2 (01:51:30):
God damn, you just turned 33 this month.
Such a baby.

You're like 49.

Speaker 2 (01:51:36):
I was born in 91.

I'll be 48, this year 48.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
51 right now.

Yeah, I'm right behind Bill.
I'll be 46.

Speaker 2 (01:51:45):
Where were you in 91?
91?
.

Middle school, I was in high school.
Okay, there you go.
Yeah, there you go.
You were born in 91?
Oh, you were.
My wife is 33.

Shit yeah.
Graduated in high school.

She's a doctor.
Give me my props.
She's a doctor, an MD doctor,yeah, 33, 15 years younger than
me.
16, 15, whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
And cradle 16, 15, whatever.
Cradle robber.

Yeah, you could have been on that SNL skit yeah.
I don't watch SNL.
Your next future wife could befour years old right now.

I sent that to you guys.
That skit, I want to see it.
Yeah, I sent it to you guys.

I've seen it, it's great.

Actually, one of those guys looks like Brent, one
of the guys that's sitting onthe game show.
He kind of looks like you blackguy no yeah.

I'm not racially ambiguous like this guy over
here, well, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:52:47):
Al.
Qaeda.
Al Qaeda.
Is that what you?

just said we put him on a burqa.
He'd look like Al Qaeda.
I'm whatever you want me to be,El Caida.
Is that what you just said?
We put him on a burka.
I'm whatever you want me to beWell.

In that case, I'll give you my address tonight
, All right?

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
But I'm always on top Just remember that that's not
what you said.
Oh shit, it's not what you said.
You used to open that up.

I walked right into that.
Oh man, Perfect timing.
We need some of that.

Oh man so hopefully we have a good summer
at the post.
Hopefully there's a lot ofthings going on.

Speaker 2 (01:53:29):
And just a forewarning to the listeners.
I mean, like I said, it's theslow season, so you know people
are out and about enjoying theweather.
And just a forewarning to thelisteners.
I mean, like I said, it's theslow season, so you know people
are out and about enjoying theduring the weather, so we might
not be posting as much as wehave.

I mean, if the last six weeks isn't, you know,
warning enough, you know we weget busy during the summer and
we don't really post as much,but um, well, this time of year
too, that end of spring kind ofstart of summer, is busy at the
Pulse because we have elections,we have a lot of changeover
stuff going on, so it's justtough to you know.

Speaker 2 (01:54:01):
But once that stuff is all settled and handled, I
think the latter part of thesummer is kind of where
everything just kind of getssettled in and you know, we're
just kind of relaxing.

Yeah, I mean we'll still have stuff going on
and it depends on who we have uphere.
There's always stories andstuff that we talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:54:20):
You know, something I thought about earlier we really
should try and get a commanderin here.
We should really try and getArnie.
Well, yeah, arnie, but I meantyou know Scott Taylor, get our
district and our departmentcommander in here.
You know, I know Ray Lopezwould probably stop by.
Yeah, yeah, ray was theoutgoing right.

So his term was done here on Saturday.
His term was done.
Kimberly will be taken over.

Speaker 2 (01:54:52):
And Kimberly.
If she lives in, where is she?
Saginaw.
She's not that far away, so shemight come out and hang out.

I'm sure she'll be busy, but Ray is the past
state commander.

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):
Are you going to the department convention this week?

Well, I have a report to do on Friday to the
CFA.
Are you coming down with me,kalamazoo?
I'm just going down for the day, coming back, I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:55:20):
I've got to take my dad over to the VA Get him an
Uber Trayworks for himself.

He'll drive.

I'll be in Florida.

I'm just kidding.
Since you're not going, I mightactually Ray offered up a bed
for me on Thursday night, sothat way I don't have to get up
at 4 in the morning and drivedown.
There you go.
So I might hit him up tonight,now that I know what you're up
to.

Speaker 2 (01:55:48):
But I do want to start going to some of these
conventions.
I mean, if you're in the VFWand you want to get involved to
a higher degree, to a higherlevel, you need to go to these
conventions.
You know, in fact, I think itwas you, charlie, that stood up
and we were talking about Voiceof Democracy and Patriots Penn.

(01:56:08):
I do it every year.
Yeah, that's something we gotta.
We gotta really push, but butanyway, yeah, if you're wanting
to get involved, you've got toget involved and you've got to
go to these conventions.

Well, you can do as much or as little as you want
.
You're not required to doanything.
But the more that you know andyou see what happens, you
understand what theorganization's about, you
understand the things that theydo and all the different things
that they do.
So you know there'sdirectorships through department
, through the state.

(01:56:41):
There's 30 of them, right?
You guys probably only know ahandful of the directorships
that are actually out there.
Some of you might not even knowa handful the directorships
that are actually out there.
Some of you might not even knowa handful there's so much that
goes on that people don't knowabout.
When you start to go to theseand you hear all these things,
you're like, oh, that's whatthat means, oh, that's what

(01:57:03):
that's who that is, oh, that'swhat that's about.
Yeah, right, you have no idea.
It's like people that have noidea what camp trotter is.
They hear camp trotter but theyhave no idea.
You start going to these thingsand you find out about it, what
it actually does.
Or the national home oranything else, all state
programs, all american programs,you know there's just all sorts
of things that are out there.

(01:57:23):
You start to kind of understandand then you can pick and
choose.
If you decide to things thatyou want entities, right, that
you want to get involved in atyour local post or local
community level.
Or and you can go all the wayright to the state level, right,
as you get more versed in it,more knowledge in it, you know

(01:57:45):
and you get to shake some handsand meet some people.
And if you're a go-getter andyou want to learn and you want
to know, you know you can easilywork your way through the
system right to get to a levelto be where things can go in the
direction that you want to goin Right At the direction of
your commander, your statecommander, right?

(01:58:05):
So I can't?
As the writers group director,I can't just hey, this is what
we're going to do.
No, I've got to get permission.
Right, so I've got to bring sometangible assets and ideas
thought out and drawn out to getapproval from him or her Right.
Yep, that's great, let's dothat and then I can push forward

(01:58:27):
with it.
But there's, you know.
So you can make change.
So if there's something thatyou don't like, come up with
great ideas and things to makethings better or up to date.
Because I have said this at ourpost forever when I first got
in and started getting involvedat the post, my best analogy to

(01:58:49):
the old timers love them todeath because they got us where
we're at Right.
Now it's our turn to push us tothe next level and then my time
is going to come where it's thenext generation or two behind
us that pushes us past wherewe're at.
But I always use the analogy ofwe all answer the phone.
I don't walk to the kitchen andpull the phone off the wall

(01:59:13):
with a little curly cue toanswer my phone.
I do it from my pocket.
He doesn't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
You know what I'm saying.
I know what a landline is youdick?
We still answer the phone.

The phone's not wrong, we just do things
differently.
Right.
Right, but they're in the oldschool, right.
We sit around the meeting andthey're like well, what's our
liability?
Can we get sued?
What's the liability of doing?
this what's the liability?
Well, if we have kids here andthey're on a trampoline and they
break their arm, what's theliability?
On the post, it's like you knowthey're just so worried about
being sued all the time thatthey discredit younger members

(01:59:45):
that have kids that want to comeup there.
And it's like you know this issupposed to be a family place.
Yeah, we have a canteen, butthat doesn't mean kids can't be
here.
It's the parents'responsibility to take care of
the kids, it's not the person.

Speaker 2 (02:00:02):
And, at the end of the day, if they really wanted
to push it, it's like a freakingwaiver Right.

But what I'm saying is it's so old school,
the way that they think, rightLike answering the phone is not
wrong.
We just like answering thephone's not wrong, we just do it
differently, right.
Right, so what your mission waswasn't wrong, but technology
and things.
We just have to do thingsdifferently to keep moving
forward and a lot of them willbuy in once.
They kind of get the analogyand understand what you're doing
and we're not, because they get.

(02:00:27):
They'll get a little bit upsetor butthurt that, oh, these guys
just want to come in and changeeverything.
Well, well, no, we're nottrying to change anything, just
adjusting slightly.
We're just trying to movethings forward in the technology
and the way things are nowadaysthat they don't understand.

Speaker 2 (02:00:42):
Yeah, and the podcast is a great example, back in the
day it was just talk radio andwhen the podcast was still an
idea in our heads and we weretalking about it on the floor,
we had to explain it to some ofthe old-timers of it's basically
a recorded talk radio, you know?
And finally they understoodwhat it was and you know.

(02:01:05):
And then they were fine.

But most of them have no idea what a podcast is.
Right, right, and it's just away for us to express ourselves,
our experiences, things thatare coming up and try to draw
younger members or newer membersto join the VFWs or even join
the American Legions.
I don't care, I'm a Legionmember too and all I care about
is veterans finding a place forveterans to go, and I hate the

(02:01:28):
fact that my grandfather was amember of the VFW and a life
member of the Legion.
He was also the commandant forthe state of Michigan for the
Marine Corps League and he gotbutthurt because he thought he
was a World War II guy.
He always thought if you served, you should be able to be a
member of anything other thanMarine Corps League, because
it's only Marines right, justlike if you had a Navy League or

(02:01:48):
an Army League, right, you gotto serve in that branch.
But he was so butthurt hedropped his membership from the
VFW because he was pissed off.
Same mindset I have.
I don't care if you're theclerk you're the pay guy.
You're the supply guy, you'rethe medical guy.
Your job is just as importantas mine.
That was his mindset.
So I get it and I understand it.

(02:02:08):
Do you think that's going tochange anytime?

soon.

I don't think so think that's going to change
anytime soon.
I don't?

I don't think so.
But membership rules right, sothey've gotten way more relaxed
over the years.
Because the membership in thevfw and american legions are
dropping.
Right, because we don't havethe draft years.
You know where, no matter whatyou had to go, it's still
voluntary.
So even though we had 20 yearsof iraq and afghanistan, it's
still voluntary.
So, even though we had 20 yearsof Iraq and Afghanistan.

it was still voluntary to go, yeah, but we've
got a lot of veterans thataren't eligible because they're
not foreign war veterans Becausethey were peacetime guys, right
, Exactly.

So that's why I will always push go to Legion,
yeah Right, You're still aveteran.
Legion will take anybody.
Amvets will take anybody right,Go to those organizations,
Become a member, get involved,understand what you earn, what
you're entitled to and all thatstuff.
Be around the brothers andsisters.
Unfortunately, you can't be amember of ours, which sucks,

(02:03:05):
right, Because they come inthinking that they can be and
then we have to tell them sorryman or sorry lady, you don't
qualify, and that just is ashitty thing to tell somebody
that serves our country and Ihate doing that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
But here's the other thing in two parts Strikes again
, and I'm only guessing.
Obviously, just like ourdisclaimer says, I can't speak
for the VFW, but I'm going toguess and say that within the
next 10, 20 years, membershipeligibility could be as wide as

(02:03:43):
as long as you've gone, oconusand been stationed there you're
in.
That's where I see it goingeventually.
You know how many people haveapplied and they were stationed
in Germany and they were likewhy the fuck?
Do I not?

It's like Bob Lackey .
Bob Lackey, who's a very activemember, he's in the auxiliary,
I believe.

He's in the Legion.

But I mean he is, he is an auxiliary member of our
post.

Yeah, he was a World War II veteran.

And I just think that a guy like that you know
you got Marcus Joker.

Yeah, you know he was in Germany, but he was
never you know Well and this isthe reason why, if you got the
GWAT or you got the Armed ForcesExpeditionary or you got a
couple of these others, youserved in that theater.
So you know, if you got a GWATand you were in Turkey, right
it's still going to beconsidered the theater.

(02:04:46):
So if you earn that, ribbonyou're not necessarily floating
on a boat in the Persian Gulfduring the war, right, but you
were somewhere in that, whateverthat radius happens to be, and
you were in that, you know youqualify, or you get the hazard

(02:05:08):
pay, imminent danger pay, allthose kind of things you know
you still qualify.

Yeah, we were in shooting range.
That's why we got hazardousduty pay.

Speaker 1 (02:05:16):
Back in the day, back in the day you know, if you
weren't boots on the ground, youweren't getting it.

But they had these mass drafts.
You know where they had amillion people, you know.
So the restriction was wayharder.
Now the membership drops, youstart loosening things up.
And how far can you go toloosen things up?
And maybe at some point, ifthere's not another conflict
coming up, you know, maybethat's what's going to happen,

(02:05:45):
or else, unfortunately, theorganizations go away.

Right, I mean, can you imagine seeing?

the VFW going away?
No, because they'll keeploosening those restrictions to
try to keep the memberships up.
Yeah.
But I have no idea what thatextent is going to be.
I mean, that's for the nationalRight right right.
But you know, I just hateseeing the guy come in or a girl
come in and they got to turnthem away.
You know, because they servedtheir country for eight years,

(02:06:13):
but they didn't go anywhere, ordo anything which isn't their
fault, right, they just didn'thave a good campaign.

It's always needs of the service.
Yeah, you know, it's like myniece right now.
I mean if it wasn't for herhusband having a campaign ribbon
.
She's been in the Air Force forsix years now.
You know, well-decorated but,no campaign ribbon, nothing that
would allow her other thanshe's married to her husband and

(02:06:41):
she could join auxiliary atthis point exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:06:47):
I'm just you know, hindsight's 20-20.
I'm just glad that Ivolunteered for that deployment,
because my unit didn't deploythat was an individual augmentee
deployment, so I volunteeredfor that, I'm glad I did.
I'm glad you did too.
Had I not, I would not besitting here.

Yeah, we definitely needed a
quartermaster.
Now you can go away Whatever.
Whatever, now we appreciate you, brett.

Whatever.
Whatever.
Now, we appreciate you, brent.
You do a lot for the VFW.
I'm not going to lie.

You do a lot, I'll try.

Well, everybody sitting at the table has done
something for our post.
Except for Charlie he's allabout himself.

That's it.
That's all I care about.
No, charlie, I put a toilet in.

Does that count?

Speaker 2 (02:07:37):
it does count.
You put in floors too.

Charlie, put in a water heater well, I did the
trim around the office.

I put a fence in.
I'm trying to stick up for you,charlie, yeah you did put a
fence in floors.

That was from Trotter, that was, that's not so
much for the post, it doesn'tmatter, it's the FW in general,
the FW, the FW In a roundaboutway it is, and that's always the
thing.
People get too wrapped up intowhat's going on in their own
post.
They lose sight of what theactual goal or missions are.
Yep, you know, you forget.
This post only exists becausethe Department of National

(02:08:14):
authorized this post to exist,right?
So that's the reason why wehave the All-State, all-american
programs, and I'm introducingsomething similar for the
writers' groups.
It's going to take effect inJune when Kimberly's year takes
over, and if you want to be inessentially All-State,
all-american writers' group,there's a lot of things that

(02:08:34):
you've got to do to earn enoughpoints to earn that status and
you'll get a pin for your vestfor each member, that'll say
year 2024, 2025,.
Your group was honored becausethey did all these requirements,
and all the requirements areobtainable.
Nothing is like you've got togo and spend a million dollars.

(02:08:54):
But you've got to be willing togo and do it, but you have to be
a post riders group or districtwhatever riders group that does
the things to support themission of the department.
Right, and do the things tohelp out the VFW, help out the
kids, help out the national.
Do stuff for your post or yourcommunity in order to get it,

(02:09:15):
and shame on you if you're notdoing those things.
Because, honestly, then what'syour writers group about?
Just a bunch of guys wanting toride around and women ride
around and just do your ownthing.

Speaker 2 (02:09:25):
Yeah, you can do that without being a member?

No, because our post membership right.
We're an activity of our post.
If our post membership decides,or even our post commander
decides tomorrow, getting rid ofthe writers group gone, yes,
department of Michigan decides Iwant to get rid of the writers
group.
You're gone.
You better do the things you'resupposed to be doing.

Don't lose sight of what, why you're there and what
you're department again, is thedepartment director again.

I'm the department director.
That's right.
The department commander is whoI follow.

But if you were like , fuck it.

I would go to the commander who's appointed me to
that position and say, look,these are the issues I have and
this is what I'm thinking it'stheir ultimate say.
It's no different than BillHouse, as a VP, comes to you and
says, hey, this is what I thinkwe need to do.
It's ultimately your decisionand what actually happens now,

(02:10:21):
depending on what that is, if Icatch wind of it or whatever
happens, I can always step inand say, look, this is the way
it's going to actually be nodifferent than I could get a
command come down to me and saythis is what's going to happen.
I don't have a choice, you know.
So, at the end of the day, thechain of command you know that's
right, always the way it works,you know if you want to be the

(02:10:43):
guy, be the guy you want to bethe girl be the girl.
That's right.
But at the end of the day,we're here to serve the vfw.
We're here to serve ourcommunities, because our
communities support us.
Our VFW supports us.
We have to do the same in turn.
We show respect to everybody,do the things we have to do.

(02:11:03):
We get it back twice over thatwas something that Tim pushed as
the director.
He started turning thingsaround and I'm going to keep on
with what Tim started Missed thehooker.
But I'm not going to let himdown because he was hardest on
me over everybody, because I waspart of our group and he made

(02:11:27):
sure that we were on thestraight and narrow and the
straight and narrow is the wayit's going to stay, so Yep.
So what do?
You guys the way it's going tostay, mm-hmm, so Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:11:34):
Good, but so what?
Do you guys think we're goingto segue into another direction,
or do you think you want tocall it for today?

How many hours are we in?

Speaker 2 (02:11:44):
We're about two and a quarter, I'd say we call it Yep
.
Okay, well, we got Flag Daycoming up.
Yep, I would say the next.
Let's shoot for another episodeshortly after that.
Three weeks, four weeks yeah,something like that.

Yeah, because it's kind of slow.
Really, the Riders group is theonly ones out there doing
anything, right, I think so,yeah, so maybe do one before we
head on our sunrise to sunset.
Sounds good to me.
Then we'll do another one rightbefore we go to National Home,
yeah, which will be aroundmid-August.

Yeah, 17th, I think, is it not?

I believe that one is the 11th.
17th is the National Ride forNational Home.
So that's where everybody comesfrom all around the country Yep
, mm-hmm That'll be a fun one.

Speaker 2 (02:12:32):
Yeah, but that'll be a fun one.
But during the bad weatherseason don't we average?
Every other week, usually comeabout November on we kick the
heaters on here in AJ's SkyLounge.

That's right still tented in because the
weather's cold today we almosttook them down, so let's leave
them up.
We got a podcast tonight thesidewalls and stuff.
We left them up so I could havethat heater on over there.

Speaker 2 (02:13:06):
That's nice on the air, alright.
Well, can't nail down an exactdate right now, but but probably
the week following Flag Day orsomething Shoot around that area
.
Let me take a look.
Do you want to nail one down?

No, we don't need to nail one down, but it'll
probably be the week of the 17thor the 21st of June, okay.
So yeah, you got about three,four weeks.
Okay, because there's just nota lot going on to talk about, so
it depends on who's all goingto join.

Speaker 2 (02:13:40):
Yeah, well, if we nail down a date this early, we
can send it out and be like heythis is it.
You know we'll plan on it, sobut awesome.

Well, thanks guys for letting me join.

Yeah, no problem you're always welcome, but I'm
just glad you didn't talk a lotnah, not like Charlie don't
steal Charlie's right.
Well, I kind of sit there onyour phone the entire night,
kind of stole a little of thefun in the beginning, but you
know no, you didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:14:13):
No, that's what everybody does.
We like everybody to say theirpiece.

Because on the back end, when I go and put this up,
You're going to delete all thestuff that I said in the
beginning.

Speaker 2 (02:14:28):
No, we'll leave it on there.
Pull all that out, but thesystem is actually kind of fancy
.
It's able to tell whose voiceis whose and it will ask me your
name so that when I upload thisit will put a transcript.
It's AI.

So it knows who to delete.

That's what you're trying to say no, no, no,
it'll actually put it in theintro.

That's awesome, that's cool.

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):
It's pretty cool, you'll see it.
Signing out.

Yeah, we're signing out.
Peace out, america, peace out.

Speaker 1 (02:15:06):
Thank you for joining us at Soup Sandwich, a podcast
that explores the complex andcompelling world of veterans in
the United States.
Through interviews withveterans themselves, military
experts and advocates, we'lldive deep into the issues that
matter most to this community,from mental health and
employment to the history of theUS military, the future of
military service and everythingin between.

(02:15:28):
Whether you're a veteranyourself, a spouse or family
member of a veteran, or simplyinterested in learning more
about this community, thispodcast is for you.
So come with us on a journeyinto the heart of the veteran
experience and discover thestories, struggles and triumphs
that have shaped our nation'sbrave after they've returned
home.

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