Havok Journal Update - Charles Faint

Charles Faint joins us for another interesting discussion of topics featured on the Havok Journal.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories. American Warrior
Radio is on the air.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hell, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to American Warrior Radio. This
is your host, Van Butler Garcia American Warrior Radio broadcast
from the Silencer Central Studios. If you're thinking of getting
a silencer for one or more of your weapons, there's
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(00:46):
a science or is legal in your state. They will
then complete the paperwork and ship right to your front door,
making silence simple. Silencercentral dot com. It's time for our
regular check in with Charles Faint. Charles is a twenty
seven year veteran of our United States Army. He had
seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various special
operations unit as an intelligence specialist. He's the owner of

(01:07):
Havoc Journal and the executive director of the Second Mission Foundation.
Charles welcome back to American Warrior Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Been thrilled to be back here with you and a
aw R. They trab me and the showgin.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Of course it's You're always a great guest. And the
Havoc Journal is my go to website. Folks, please please
visit Havoc Journal dot com havoc with a K. You'll
find lots of interesting stuff there. It's not just the
voice for the veteran community, but it's a great place
for civilians like me to get some very valuable insights.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
The Charles.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Today, I'd like to talk about a few articles that
were posted recently. And the first one makes me feel
like I'm an extra in that scene in Tombstone in
the bar where they kick into the Latin. So forgive
me if I mangle this nervous belli pecunium infinitam, which
translates loosely into the sinews of war infinite money. And

(01:55):
in this article you advanced an interesting proposition that humanity
an aid actually makes war worse or extends conflicts. It
expound on that a little bit for our listeners.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Absolutely right. So there's a body of work that I
studied many years ago when I was in graduate school
and looking at international relations. And there was an author
named Liupbak who wrote an article that was titled give
War a Chance, and that's a play on give piece
a chance. Now, that was very interesting because what he
outlined in his piece, which was one of the inspirations

(02:28):
for this one, was that sometimes by interviewing too early,
too often, we actually prolong war instead of letting the
blidgets thwart it out into being a clear winner. And
I certainly thought it was the case in the Gaza
Israel situation. And by continuing to pull the sides apart
when they get into it, and by continuing to fund

(02:49):
both sides that qunium infinotum, the infinite money, it makes
the war last in a way that it wouldn't have
if we just let him sort it out of the world.
So that's kind of the premise of this article.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Then now you cite a study by Professor Netta Barack
Cohen and doctor Jonathan Boxmann, and that these figures are astounding.
Charles Somalia, for example, they estimated that eighty five to
eighty seven and a half percent of that humanitarian aid
never reaches the people it was intended for.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
That's an extreme case, but I think that's pretty typical
of what happens in most AID situations. So in situations
like Samalia, like Gaza, going all the way back to
the Irish potato famine, famines and humanitarian disasters are rarely
an issue of supply. They're issues of distribution. And if
you don't control the distribution, someone else will. They'll find

(03:39):
a way to profit off of it, and they'll keep
it for their side, to use it as a tool
to control the population. That's exactly what's happening in Gaza
right now. There is AID coming in, but it's not
getting where it needs to go.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And to be clear, you're not advocating against humanitarian aid, no.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think it's super essential.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, but you're advocating that it needs the whole system
needs to be reformed. Because I've seen images where I
know it was just a movie, but you know there's
an exam black hop down in Somonia where the wheat
or rice truck whatever it was a rolls up and
you know, then the bad guys are beating people in
the scheties and you know, taking it for themselves. And
I don't know how long how far back this goes.

(04:16):
I don't know if we had this issue in Korea,
but it's problematic. So how we make Charles king forday,
what how do you reform something like this?

Speaker 3 (04:28):
So it's a very hard thing to do, and there
are no good choices. So I'm going to say some
things that are probably gonna gonna understandably upset some people,
but sometimes you got to let it sort out on
the ground. You have to have a clear winner. If
you keep the belligerents fighting forever, then they're going to
fight forever, and the money is what fuels the entire fight.

(04:49):
So for example, let's let's even set aside Gaza Israel.
Let's set a similar mythical example. So you have two
sides that keep fighting in every six months to cease fire,
and then all these billions of dollars roll in, and
instead of using it to reform their system and their people,
they use it to rearm and reattack. And that's going
to keep going at in phenomenon forever because well meaning

(05:13):
people are creating unattended consequences by fueling the fight. So
what I would say is let the warst situation sort
itself out, and then when one side clearly comes out
on top. That's when you go in and you rebuild everything,
you take care of everybody. Now, the a that's coming
in right now, it's well meaning, I'm not sure it's
being used very well, and it's being used to fuel

(05:35):
the conflict in Gaza, and I think that this is
something we need to take in mind when we want
to come to a final determination and there could be
peace between those two people's. So what I hear.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
You're saying, Charles, really is this. This creates an economic
incentive to keep fighting.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I mean, why.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you if you have the
if you have the means that comedit to fight, you
sub even your cause, why would you give it up
because you think you can still win. The most conflicts
come to conclusion because one side are both realized that
they can't win. Use Korea earlier, of course, we still
have an armistice technically there, but both sides came to

(06:15):
the determination after fighting for many years that hey, neither
one of us could win, So we're just going to
have an armistice, and that is held pretty well since then,
because both of them decided they didn't want to fight anymore.
Right now, you have at least one side that really
wants to keep fighting, maybe both sides in God that Israel,
until that changes. As long as you keep pouring those
billions of billions of dollars in there, you're gonna continue

(06:38):
to provide an economic ex center for them to keep fighting.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
I mean, on the face of it, Charles, you're obviously
a much brighter guy than I. But on the face
of it, I mean, this seems to be as painful
as it is to even discuss. It seems like a
reasonable I mean, something that should be pursued. Do you
think there is a political will to do that or
do we as as a country, just as the United States?

(07:02):
Somebody forget NATO and those other folks right now. But
I mean, is this sort of a way that we
sort of assuage our own guilt by just throwing money
at it and not really looking for a resolution, an
end so they can start rebuilding and get their lives back.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
I think there's some of that, there's some guilt associated
with it, But I think most people been most Americans
in particular, just care. They just care. They care about
other people. They don't want to see suffering. There's people
getting killed all over the world, and right now, especially
in God's is a big spotlight on it, and they
want to do something, but they're reacting from a place
of an emotion versus a place of logic and understanding

(07:40):
and creating conditions for a long term piece between two
historical enemies. Takes a lot of tough choices, and one
of those tough choices might end up being, hey, we
need to throttle back on what we're trying to do
there and certainly turning it over to organizations where it
could be pilfered and used to sustain the conflict. A

(08:02):
lot of the aid going to the Gaza never gets
to the people that need it. It gets hoarded and sold
versus distributed. So we need to take a hard look
at There are no easy choices. So I mentioned the
distribution problem, Well, we're going to solve that. Who's going
to distribute it? You're gonna have to put people on
the ground with guns who are going to become targets
for bombs and rockets and suicide attacks and everything else.
Do we have an appetite for that? I don't know.

(08:24):
So maybe right now this is the best we can do,
just kind of keep it limping along until we get
to a place where there is a winner and we
can find out where we can go from there.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
And your research, Charles, I mean, can you think of
what's the last example where it actually did work? I mean,
do we have to go all the way back to
the Berlin Airlift.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, So Berlin Airlift's an interesting example. That was very
short term and there wasn't any action actual fighting on there. Also,
even in post World War two Germany, the Germans were
pretty well organized culturally and everything else. And plus we
were there, if I wrote correctly, Germany was under Marshall law,
so it was very easy for us to get in

(09:07):
there and govern. Also, after what four years of the
biggest conflict in the world, people were dealt with fighting.
And I don't think people in the Gaza Israel war
are done with fighting quite yet.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Well back to your original point, I mean, clearly that
was an instance where the the you know, the Nazis
were clearly defeated. I mean they were done. There was
a clear victor, and so we could all agree to
move forward, Charles and join the conversation when we come back.
I want to touch on a subject that's sort of
definitely one of my hot buttons, and you wrote a
great article called It's Okay you Didn't go to War.

(09:39):
I want to talk on that a little bit more,
Ladies and gentlemen, your host Ben Dela Garciet. We're talking
with Charles Faint, the owner of the Habit Journal. Learned
more of his Havoc with thek journal dot com. Welcome

(10:12):
back to American Warrior Radio Laser Gentlemen, this is Ben
Buler Garcia. Always a pleasure to be chatting with Charles Faint.
Charles as the owner of the Havoc Journal and also
the executive director of the Second Mission Foundation. Charles, I
tell you this article that you published is probably lighting
up your email box from fellow veterans. But as a civilian,
stolen valor by someone who never served in uniform just

(10:34):
straight up makes me angry. Stolen valor by someone who
did honorably serve but inflates their service makes me sad.
And that was kind of the heart of this article.
I hope you're trying to reach out to your fellow veterans,
and I wanted to steal up kind of a quote
that you had at the beginning of the article. Now
I'm paraphrasing, and I'm also editing this because it's not

(10:56):
There are some parts of this quote. I think it's
from a Special Forces operator, so it wasn't FCC friendly.
So he said, an armed force cannot operate without everyone
pulling their weight, whatever that weight may be. Be proud
of that. Whatever you did, it was important. It helped
move the machine along. While you were going to basic training.
Most of your peer group was going to the mall.
Of course, it's okay you didn't go to war, just
don't lie about it.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, I'm glad you picked that one to talk about.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Ben.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
That's one of my favorite articles on the Havoc Journal.
And I wrote this one, I think a year ago,
and it was inspired by a conversation that I had
with a former cadet of mine. I taught at West
Point for about ten years and I'm back there now
as the managing editor of the Modern War Institute in
my Subviitlian capacity, and I got a message from a

(11:41):
former cadet and he wanted to He wanted to talk
and he felt bad about not getting a shot at war.
I mean I deployed seven times. I RACK in Afghanistan
many other people deployed many more times, and that many
tougher experiences than I did. And when I got to
west in twenty thirteen, I came here the first time

(12:02):
to teach. Everybody had a combat patch in multiple tours.
But now there are a lot of really good officers
and non commissioned officers coming to West Point who never deployed.
And it's not their fault. So if you tried to
go it didn't. You did your part, So do we
we Our part was to go to combat. Their part wasn't,
or at least not yet. And why'd you brought up
my friend who were referred to as a jaded SF guy,

(12:23):
a jaded Special Forces guy who wrote that comment about
it's okay, So here you have a noncommissioned officer in
Special Forces, so hardcore combat guy, saying the same thing
that I am. And I think that veterans need to
hear that if you did your part, if you did
your duty, we can't expect anything more of you. And
if your duty was to do your job back in

(12:44):
the continental the United States, then you're just so much
a veteran of be and the rest of us.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Coming to try and wrap my mind around this, Charles,
because you yourself longed for to go to combat for
a long time. Why is this sort of like the
for a warrior? Is this the ultimate internal confirmation?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Absolutely right. So I've heard a lot of people liking
it too. Practicing for a football game and then never
get to play in a big match. Right. So we
are trained from the very beginning, going all the way
back to my ROTC days, my Reserve Ulster training court
days in college at or University and Georgia Military College,
that we're trained for war. That's what we do. We

(13:22):
support in defending Constitution and we were the ground gaining
arm of the Department of War, and we're told that
that is kind of the ultimate test. There's special badges
for it. We in the Army on our combat uniforms,
we get to wear a patch in the right sleeve.
That's a very coveted thing. And then you'll call that
up to the global war and terror. The wars that

(13:42):
we had in my earlier life were Panama Granada. The
first goal for those are over super quick. And I
was in the Republic of Korea service, second inforty divisions,
coming to commander when nine to eleven happened. So I knew,
I knew, Ben, I knew that the wars are gonna
be over, to be the only kid on my block
without a combat patch. And then twenty four years later,
you know, after seven deployments in all that fighting, it

(14:06):
seems a little silly now. So I understand where my
former cadet is coming from on this. But that's that's
why I wrote that article and why I was glad
my friend JSF Guy chimed in on it, because we
need people to know that we still value you, whether
you went to combat or not. And as my friends said,
just don't lie about it.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Well, and part of the article too, and it's kind
of a laun read, but I encourage people to check
that out. You know, your your personal example, Charles, Yes,
seven deployments a rock Afghanistan, but you also clarify that
in all those deployments, you never once fired your weapon
another human being. And you came up with a term
I never heard before. You called yourself a fobbott.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah yeah, not just myself. That's a very common term,
so fob Ford operating base so fobbit is a term
for someone who mainly stays on the Ford operating base
play on the word hobbit. Of course it's meant as
a term of derision, but it can also be a
term of affection. So I'm a self described on it.
I don't need anybody else to remind me of that,

(15:07):
you know, my fellow veterans. But I was also the
I was the intel guy, one of the intel guys
in the National level Soft Task Force, Special Operations Force,
the Task Force. If I was going out and shooting
my weapon at people, it was a bad day for everybody.
That means the county network could come over the wall
and bogram or something like that. If I'm shooting anybody,
it's a bad day for everybody. So yeah, I never

(15:28):
fired my weapon. I never killed anyone directly. That wasn't
my job. If it would have been my job, I
like to think I would have done that to the
best of my ability, just like our friends who never deployed.
So yeah, seven seven deployments, never killed anyone directly, never
fired my weapon at anybody. The only time I ever
fired at Interaq or Afghanistan and all of my deployments
with Special Operations was to confirm my zero when I
got there, make sure my my my acog on top

(15:51):
of my rifle didn't get jarred and shippm'ent. So yeah,
that's that's funny, man. I am allowed and proud fob
it for sure.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Now you also touching this article I found very interesting
getting as an outsider looking in Charles you. You know,
you said you'd rather have a good soldier who never
went to war than a dozen dirt bags who did.
And you you highlight that by telling a story about
a particular dirt bag that was wearing a combat patch

(16:19):
on his uniform, and you had a real issue with that.
We've got a couple of minutes. We can come back
this after break, but start telling that story for us.
I think it's very a great insightful no.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Problem, Ben, Yeah, I'll start that one up and you
let me know when we need to go to go
to commercial. But yeah, So I was in a fifth
Special Forces group as the commander that might attachment, and
we had a young soldier who was not particularly good.
And the short version of the story is we let
him go forward to curry or some top secret material
for fifth Group, and we did that mainly so he

(16:53):
can read a list overseas tax free. It's a benefit
for especially for the less of guys. We sent him
o where he gets his lestment. Bull's tax free because
he's in combat. So he came back, and this was
before we deployed as a group, so we just said
he was there for a couple of days. Came back,
so he was there two days. He was there like
two days. Yeah, he was there. He got there, he

(17:13):
turned over the equipment, got back on the next plane, spoke,
and it came back to Fort Campbells where we were
to plant, and he got ready to leave the unit.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
And.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
We decided not to take him with us where we
deployed to our racket in two thousand and four, because
he was just he was just such a bad soldier,
Like I would rather go short and support a fifth
group than have this guy on the mission. We're leaving him.
So he left him behind. And then when he got
ready to where we call PCs permit change the station,
move on to his next unit, he started sporting what
we kind of referred to as the electric fudder Knight,
that's the Special Forces patch on his right sleeve. And

(17:47):
I was like, Okay, now we got something on this
guy because he's perpetrating having a combat patch. And I
brought this up to my detachment sergeant, Grizzlo master sergeant,
and he's like, Sir, that's that's completely legitimate thing for
that soldier to have. And I was sure he was wrong.
I should have known better. This guy, this guy had
a steel trap for regulations. And he said, hey, you
remember when you sent this guy forward to reenlist and

(18:08):
I told you not to. I was like, yeah, he
is it. Well guess what, because all you have to
do is be on the ground one day. So now
this guy has a combat patch the rest of his
military career. I'm sure he's out by now, and talks
about when I was with group in Iraq, both of
which were true, but grossly overexaggerated and still a val
valor like we were talking about earlier about over exaggeration. Ben.
So that's the short version of that story. Complete dirt

(18:30):
bag has a combat when we come back.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
I like to wrap up on that a little bit because, again,
as an outsider looking in this is it's a very
even as a civilian, it's it's kind of a sensitive
subject for me, so I can imagine what it's like
for combat veterans themselves, or any veteran out there. I mean,
if you're a cook. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your host,
Ben bieler Garci. We're talking with Charles faith and I
have a journal. We'll be right back. Welcome back to

(19:12):
American Warrior Radio. Labs and gentlemen, this is your host,
Ben Buler Garcia. We're coming to you from the Silencer
Central studio. Silencer Central is the largest silencer dealer in
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(19:32):
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thousand and five Silencercentral dot com. We're back with Charles.
Charles is the owner of the Havoc Journal, my go
to website for all things military and first responder. It's
Havoc Journal dot com Havoc.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
With a K. Charles.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Before we took the break, we were talking about the
stolen valor, and it's kind of interesting. There's a line
in your article says, you know, wars not the same
for everyone. Your experience may vary. Quick story. I think
I've probably shared this before, but my brother served. He
gave me his I don't know what you call it,
the big green coat, the bdu coat or whatever it is,
and it had you know, the name tag on it,

(20:13):
bueler Garcia. Well there's only three bueler Garcias that I'm
aware of in the world, so I thought that was
kind of cool. But I was wearing it. I went
to the grocery store. It was during the winter, and
I'm wearing this coat and they tried to give me
the military discount and I said, no, hold on, I didn't.
I'm just wearing this because I think it's cool. I
did not earn that, and Charles, after that experience, I

(20:36):
never wore that coat again because I wanted to make
it very clear that I did not earn that. Even
a little thing like whatever it was, you know, ten
percent disco off my groceries, you know. And I'll bet
that that dirt bag that you were talking about was
probably out there telling stories about you know, a super
secret Squirrel mission in Iraq or something like that. And
that's I just the quote. And what you say, you

(20:58):
tell your cadets is your duty. Do your job. It
doesn't matter if it's on the front lines or with
the front, customers at front, the customer service line, and
the finance office at home station. Everybody has a role,
and every role contributes to the overall effort.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
That's right. And I didn't come up with that on
my own. General Crystal and Emerald Raven when they were
in charge of JAYSCK. I was there for both of
their commands with it, they would both say something similar,
much more succinctly and general like than I did. And
I think General Crystal would say, don't judge your value
to the fight by your proximity the front lines. Okay,

(21:33):
So everybody has a role to fill. And I mentioned
I was a fobbit, That's why I was needed on
the flob. I would go out, especially when I was
in the one sixties. Then I'd go out with the
pilots on the missions just enough so they would make
sure that I that they knew I wasn't scared, But
it was hard for me to do my job and
support of the mission, exploiting captured material, interrogating, detainee, supervising,

(21:56):
and tell that for whatever I was doing if I'm
on the mission. So yeah, now that's sexy to be
in the junk seat of LAH forty seven when it's
going out on a mission in jol About or whatever.
But that's not my job. It's hard for me to
do my job when i'm when i'm boyuring someone else's job.
So I think everyone just needs to be okay with
what they did. I'm proud of what I did, and
I know that what I did was that what other

(22:17):
people did, But I did my job. I sleep well
at night for after it. And I'm proud of all
of our men and women in uniform, whether they deployed
or not, as long as they started honorably and did
their duty.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
And I want to go that as a civilian too, Cheril,
excuse me. You know, whatever you did, we're proud of
you and thank you for honorably wearing their uniform and
and for your service, except for maybe that one one
dirt bag. So Charles, this may surprise you, but you
know I always learned something from from our conversations and
from reading, you know, at the Havoc Journal and the
next starticle I'd like to touch on. Believe it or not,

(22:49):
I'm going to print this thing and I'm going to
tape it to the side of my monitor because it
was so good and it applies to all of us,
you know, whether you're a military member or not. And
the time the article was you're only six inches from
wherever you want to be.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's absolutely right, Ben. I get a lot of inspiration
from my articles from memes or things over here on podcasts,
and this was one of them. So for this particular article,
I saw a meme and all, let's say, it was
like a blue background with white text, and it said
you're only six inches from where.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
You want to be.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
And I had to scroll down the comments to see
what that meant, because there's all kind of ways you
can interpret that, some of which are are inappropriate to discuss.
But I was like, what does this mean? You're only
six inches? What does that mean? Is that like six
inches on the fourth down play in football? And what
is it? And the comments explained that's when the article
you mentioned relates. It's this six inches inside your head

(23:42):
at your brain. So too many people self limit they think, oh,
I can't do that, or they allow other distractions to
come into their mind and it affects their body and
their life's ability to perform. So we are all just
six inches where we want to be. We see it
in our mind, and we can make it happen if
we're to put in the work to get there.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Well, and you say it's I like this comparison. You say,
treat your mind like you treat your rifle. Clean it daily,
test it under pressure, know how it performs when the
plan breaks, and for the love of all this holy
don't let it jam when lives are on the line.
And you know, I think about that in the context
of what I'm trying to do with this radio show
and just in my daily life. And I've never seen

(24:24):
it put that way before, Charles. But we all are
close if we're willing to put in the work, and
it's mindset, right, A lot of it's mindset.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I agree, Ben. And I was thinking when you're talking
just now. We've been friends a long time. I've been
on your show a bunch for years, and I'm thinking
in this context about how the six inches inside your
head has expanded to this massive network. I remember when
you were much smaller, much much smaller than you are today.
And now look, I mean a better at very community
around the world get the benefit from all that. And

(24:57):
I was looking, you know, I listened to the show regularly.
I was looking on your your website before I signed
in to this call. You've had some bangers on the
show recently that the kids would say, Ben so you
you had the Horse Soldiers. You had Scott and Neil
on the show, who I only know by reputation. But
I want to show you this. I know you're our

(25:17):
listeners won't be able to see it, but this is uh,
this is a autographed bottle of Horse Soldier liquor that
is in our display case in the Modern War Institute.
I've never met Scott. I don't know him, but he
came here when I worked here. I missed his visit
and he gave us this this bottle. So shout out
to to Scott in Horse Soldier in fifth Group. And

(25:39):
also you had the guy from Taking Chance on recently.
That was yes and that was a major, extremely emotional movie.
Don't don't watch that when you're sad. And then you
also have my friend Diana on to talk about Surviving
Vietnlo and so that's all all great work and I
really appreciate it word episodes lately.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Wow, that was an unsolicited endorsement, but by and in fairness, Charles,
I have to say that for me, it's probably four
and a half inches maybe between my ears. I don't
I don't have a big brain like you. But it's
interesting you mentioned Lieutenant Colonel Strobel in that and I
watched Taking Chance every every Memorial Day and if folks

(26:22):
don't know, if you haven't seen that movie, you definitely
have to watch it, particularly for civilian And it was
Kevin Bacon start in the lead role, and it was
based on Colonel Strobel's experiences escorting the remains of a
private Chance Phelps from from Dover Air Force Base back
to his hometown in Wyoming. And it's interesting in the
context of our earlier conversation today, Charles, I'm pretty sure

(26:45):
he you know, he had a chance to deploy again
and he chose not to. And there's you know, seeing
the movie where he's talking to a think of like
a Vietnam veteran and they asked him about, you know,
did you see any action? He said, no, no, not
really I'm a you know, I'm a pen so pusher
now and you know, thinking in that context of you know,
it's okay if you you know, and he did. He

(27:07):
was with artillery and desert storm, so we did see
some more. But yeah, fascinating, fascinating conversation of that, I
I guess, and thank you for those. I mean, I
just I encourage people to go to have a journal
and read these articles because again I feel like I'm
literally I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna tape that article
up next to my monitor because I find myself, you know,

(27:30):
because I don't have I'm self employed, so I don't
have a structured environment like you do there. So sometimes,
you know, motivation and focus can be a challenge and
you'd think I'd be over that, and I try to
live without regrets, Charles, but I will say that one
of my regrets is never serving in the military, because
darn it, I sure could have used the discipline.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah. I think we talked about this before in the
show many times. There are many ways to serve even
outside the military. What what you're doing and so many
people like you are doing is important. Part of what
we're doing. We're all in this together, and we all
need the support, and there'll be people that listen to
your show, just like you mentioned earlier, and this might
be the spark that says I want to join the military,

(28:09):
or I want to go into special operations, or I
want to do my own podcast, and you never know
the impact that you have. And along those lines been
we mentioned my friend who was my former cadet now
friend who was the inspiration for it. It's okay you
never went to war. Literally today I got a message
from him saying that he's dropping his application to come

(28:30):
back and teach at what's point, And I can't think
of a better person to come back here and do that,
whether he's got a patch his Ryan's shoulder or not.
So yeah, we're all in this together, and I'm grateful
for the entire veteran community.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Outstanding, Charles, I'm enjoying our conversation. We do have to
take another break here and we come back. We'll chat more.
Lates in Gentlemen with Charles Fate, the owner of the
habit journalistick around. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Lasion

(29:15):
and gentlemen, there is your host Ben Bler. Garcia just
always a pleasure and insightful to talked with. Charles Faint.
He's the owner of the Havoc Journal. Check it out
Havoc Journal dot com, Havoc with the K. I was
kind of smiling before we move on to the next subject.
You were talking about another associate of yours, Mike Warnock.
You know, as far as when it's okay not to
serve and you you say, he volunteered for a hush

(29:38):
hush mission that involved overseas deployment and even a formal
nond disclosure agreement, and then he found out they're sending
him to Guam. Still a deployment, right.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
It's still a deployment, still deployment. And there's a lot
of argument in the veteran community about what constitutes the deployment.
I think a lot of people don't understand what that
term is, just like there's a lot of argument what
constitutes being a veteran. So crusty vets will say, Hey,
if you never deployed to combat, you're not a vetter,
and that's not true. Some will say if you didn't
do a career, not a better and that's not true,
you'll be a veteran. Get just charged out of basic training.

(30:09):
I mean, that's the definition of the same thing with deployments.
Their combat deployments was just specific type of deployment, but
there are other called kind of deployments. And that's the
one that my friend Mike got stuck on. Now he
did get in there, going to Iraq twice. But you
can imagine then if you got a mindset like mine,
I gotta get there. I gotta get there. Hey, I
got this super secret job, not disposure agreement, just to
find out what the job is and then Bro, you

(30:30):
going golong? Can you imagine? Can imagine the disappointment. And
that was back when Mike was in the Air Force.
So Ben, you know, Mike and I have been best
friends since eighth grade. He's now he runs the habagural
for me. Now ilann it he wants it. Shout out
to Mike. And his father and my father were both
in Jaysack at the same time. It's kind of woo
each other in the same high school with the same
boy scout, true players with dragons together, all the standard

(30:52):
nineteen eighties high school kit things. And then when I
went back to Jaysack as a major, his father, Mike
Senior was there and it was my deputy and the
new Joint Explotation Squad and I commanded to c I
hum A trupe and Mike Senior was my deputy. So
Mike and I have up this long history together. Mike's
written about this before, and I mentioned in the article
that you just talked about giving up his family going

(31:14):
on this deployment and then ended up in Wuoam. So yeah,
but he did his job. He did his job, and
he did it well. And that's all we can ask anybody.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Again for a knucklehead civilian like me, Charles. So, technically,
on paper, is a deployment when you leave the continental
of the United States? Or could you be deployed to Missouri?

Speaker 3 (31:34):
You know, Ben' that's a good question. I think the
latter part is the technical answer. So you're you're on orders,
you get deployed to Florida to help with the disaster. Really, now,
most veterans, most people in the military would not consider
that deployment per se because that's just like a TDY
tip wor a duty. But that is a deployment. You
are deployed to Florida to support that. So yeah, there's

(31:58):
all different flavors of deployments. Now, for me, I would
only normally consider deployment to be to it all received locations.
So like, I was deployed to the Philippines for two
lots towards my career, but that was not a combat assignment.
So yeah, I was deployed there. We deployed to Florida
lots of other places as well.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Well, let's tell you, let's abruptly back out of this
rabbit hole because we could be Let's let's talk about
something I do know a little bit about, Charles. I
was a criminal justice major, and some of the courses
were taught by an actual major in our local police force.
So we spent a lot of time on John Wilson's
theorem about the broken windows. And I got to tell you,

(32:39):
I'm still a I never served, I never went into
police work, but I'm I see examples literally daily in
my own community where that proved that very correct. For example, there's,
unfortunately in my hometown, there's been sort of an unwritten
situation where they ignore open drug use. They just they
don't won our police you know, they're severely understaffed, but

(33:02):
two it's just they just ignore it. Well, literally two
days ago father of three, loving father three, who was
out riding, is doing his weekly bicycle ride and one
of these drug addicts stamps him and kills him. And
that is just an unfortunate, perfect example of the broken
windows theory. And you wrote an article called Broken Windows

(33:23):
Leadership about how that also applies, or how that should
apply and leaders in the military should recognize this and
practice it on a daily basis.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Yeah, broken windows policing has gotten such a mixed reaction
from people like you. I'm a firm believer in it,
and I applied Wilson and Kelling's theory to leadership, and
basically broken windows of policing for our audience might not
be familiar, is if you let little things go, they'll
lead to worst things. So if you let people break windows,

(33:55):
brey graffiti in your neighborhood, that eventually that the area
is going to degrade and crimes to keep increasing. And
it's the same in leadership. And the example that I
used was when I headed up West Points authorship capstone
program called X four hundred, we studied a book called Blackhearts,
which was the story of an American unit in Iraq

(34:16):
and the war crime that they committed and you could
see over the progression of this book. The reason I
like it so much is you can see what happens
when officers and other leaders don't do their jobs. You
ignore unblasted boots, you ignore shaving, you ignore minor laps
as of discipline and subordination, and an extreme case, it
culminates in the rape of a fourteen year old girl

(34:40):
in a murder for an entire family. So that's an
example of broken windows leadership. You need to fix the
broken windows or they lead to catastrophe down the road.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
Now, you also touched on something I thought was very interesting.
You talk about a la carte leadership where you, as
a leader, you shouldn't pick and choose what regulations you
choose when forced. I mean, a standard has going to
be a standard, has got to be a standard, and
everybody has to comply with it.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Yeah. Some people also call that situational leadership or spotlight reindeering.
There's all kind of terms for it. So the all
the curt term I used is like you're going in
there pick which rules you're going to enforce. So for
me as a leader, I never want to have a
rule that I can't or won't enforce. For example, when
I was a COVET commander in Korea, I wanted to
have a rule in my company that you couldn't smoke cigarettes.

(35:26):
Right soldiers in Korea in two thousand and one two
thousand and two when I was there smoke like chimneys.
I watched my grandfather dive in the seema. No good
comes from smoking, so I wanted to outlaw that. What
I found out from the Jags was I couldn't. It
was it was not a lawful thing to do. So
I never had that rule. I couldn't enforce it. Now,
everybody there knew that I didn't like it, and from

(35:48):
time to time I would I would make that displeasure known,
like I wouldn't allow them to smoke around me. But
I could not have a rule I didn't enforce. That's
why when when there was a general number one in
Iraq and Afghanistan in the early days, included burbage prohibitions
on pornography, alcohol consumption, and sex, and I had no

(36:09):
problem avoiding all three of those when I was deployed.
But I thought it was grossly unrealistic to expect that
nineteen year olds would would not engage in those behaviors,
and it seemed silly that we would have policies like
that and expect them to be enforced. And if you
ignore those rules, which a lot of people did, it
becomes easier and easier to a la cart your way

(36:29):
into a disaster.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Charles, real quick, we're about out of time, but I've
got to run something by you, because I respect you
quite a bit. I had a situation recently, whether there
was a post on Twitter or x or whatever it's
called this week basically telling the story of Mike Day
and I'm sure you're family that the Navy seal who
was shot twenty seven times and survived, and it described
him a great warrior, blah blah blah. But then it

(36:52):
just said, you know, he died, and it had the
date I felt, knowing the story there and having had
Mike on the show, I felt compelled to, well, look,
it's more of a tragedy how he died, you know,
because he ended up taking his own life. And I
said something in the fact of you know, as civilians,
we send you know, our military men and women off

(37:13):
to war, so therefore it's our responsibility to take care
of them when they struggle with the repercussions of that war.
And I tell you what, it got about thirty one
thousand views, which is, you know, minor compared to having
journal standards. But I mean, the trolls came out like,
and I'm a cillian, I never sent anyone to war
or you know, politicians do that. But I was like,

(37:33):
you know what, you guys just kind of missed the point,
didn't you. So your advice, Charles is don't feed the trolls.
I'm not going to respond to any of those. I'm
just going to leave it out there. And if they
missed the point, they missed the point.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
I could agree more than the The comment section of
any online content is where a rational discourse goes to die, right,
we all know that. And my youngest daughter, she had
in not the one who's been on your show before, Emily,
She's she's off the college out, but Shannon is into
Taylor Swift, and Taylor Swift of course has the lyrics

(38:08):
in her song the Hater's gonna hate, got to shake
it off. So that's that's been my attitude as well.
But I was I didn't know what happened to Mike.
I didn't know until just now that the way that
he died, and that's the topic is you know, that's
so big on Havoc Journal. And I encourage any of
your listeners, our listeners who are considering that they should

(38:28):
go to have a journal and find an article called
the Day After I Killed Myself. Yes, and they should.
We've talked about that on the show. That was one
of the early things we talked about. Ben. They should
read that article because you're not just killing yourself. When
you pull that trigger or do whatever literal physical trigger
that are virtual trigger that results of your death, you're

(38:50):
not just killing yourself. And we need you in the fight.
We need you here with us, We need you to
carry it forward for the better community. So don't do that. Friends,
go go read the articles, get some help. The community
is here to help you out. And friends, don't pay
attention to the comments section.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, and if you think, if you think someone is struggling,
bring up, bring up the subject. We just had a
guest on last week to talk to about suicide.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Charles.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
It's always a pleasure to chat with you and hopefully
we can do it again sometime soon.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Thanks Ben, always down to come on the show. Thanks
for you doing for the venteror community. Look forward to
me back yourself.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
It's a privilege. Don't forget folks. Visit Havoc journal dot
com Havoc with a K journal dot com. Until next time,
all policies and procedures remain in place.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Take care. If you've been listening to American Warrior Radio,
archived episodes may be found at americanwarriorradio dot com or
your favorite podcast platform.