September 9, 2024 • 52 mins
Douglas Ernest, author of The Spirit of a True Patriot: The Inspiring Story of Ret. Captain Douglas J. Ernest, is a U.S. Army war veteran and entrepreneur. He owns a very successful Corvette car dealership in Dallas, Texas. After serving our country on the frontline of Operation Desert Storm as a US Army Infantryman and graduating from Texas Christian University with a Bachelor's degree in Finance & Real Estate, Douglas Ernest knew that he had developed the skillset and temperament necessary to build a thriving business. In between military duties, traveling and training he enjoyed the feeling of riding in a two-seater Corvette with the top down on the freeway as he traveled the US serving at different units. He felt that everyone should get this experience from their vehicle and because of this, he contemplated owning and running a car dealership of his own. After getting the necessary training by working at a car dealership, he would work as a salesman for the dealership and within a few months, decided that he was ready to take it to the next level. Working 18 hour days, 7 days a week, Douglas Ernest used his savings to begin renting a indoor showroom to house Corvettes and purchased 3 Corvettes using a credit card at 18 percent interest. It was there and then that Corvette Warehouse was born.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
It's time for that little podcast down in Texas, the
Tea Party Power Hour with Mark Galar.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Tea Party Power Hour. I am your host,
Mark Glar. We have a very special guest today, mister
Douglas Ernest. He is the author of the Spirit of
a True Patriot, The Inspiring Story of Retired Captain Douglas
j Ernest. Doug. Welcome the show.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Good morning, Mark, thanks for having me this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I just read a little bit about you. In addition
to being the author of this book, you join the
military to have college funds, ended up being part of
Operation Desert Storm as well as the post nine eleven
time period. You went to TCU University just a little
(01:15):
north of where I am right now. I'm a few
blocks from well, a few miles from Texas A and
M University. You own your own corvette dealership which is
called the Corvette Warehouse up in Dallas, and you have
a rather extraordinary story or real pull yourself up by
your own bootstraps story. So we're looking forward to hearing
(01:35):
more about that as the interview progresses.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, thank you, Mark, you made me sound so exciting
and like a superhero. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
See now, you originally from when I read the book,
you originally joined the military simply to get funds to
go to college. And even though your dad and your
grandpa were both against it, your mom and your two
aunts were for it, but your grandpa kind of relaxed
because he said that, well, the Americans aren't going to
stand for another war, so you should be okay. So
(02:12):
you joined the military or a few weeks into basic
and what happens.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Man's that's a great way to put it. And Mark,
let me just give you a little context. I'm fifty
two years old. Grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a
manufacturing town about thirty minutes north of Chicago. And when
I grew up as a kid, I was surrounded by
Vietnam veterans. It was just you know, that age in
that era. And when I was a kid, you know,
(02:37):
I didn't have any money. My family didn't have any money.
So I had this great idea I was going to
join the military and get some money something called the
Army College Fund, which back in that time was around
eighteen thousand dollars. I'd get saved up so I can
go to college. My grandpa was a veteran and my uncle.
I had two uncles that were veterans, and my grandpa
was very against it because he had been hurt in
(02:59):
the world, weren't injured, and he was not forward at
all and actually had made some pretty disparage and comments
to me when I was a child, sixteen seventeen years old,
when I was considering service, and of course my dad
didn't want me to leave. He had a brother that
went to Vietnam, and he always told me when his
brother left, him and his brother never were the same.
They never reconnected, they were never close. Into the contrary,
(03:21):
they were they didn't really talk much after he came
back from Vietnam. So they were both these people that were,
you know, powerpoints in my life. They just never wanted
me to join the military. I, you know, kind of
convinced my dad I would do it. Then I convinced
my grandpa. And when I was sitting down at dinner
a few weeks before I deployed, excuse me, before I
left to go to the military, my grandpa had said
(03:41):
to me, you know, there's been a bunch of wars.
There was Korea War where he was in, then there
was Vietnam and the American public is not going to
stand for any more war because of what happened in Vietnam.
And I joined the military on June thirtieth, nineteen ninety
and August second Saddam invaded Kuwait and Kum and those
atrocities against humans that weren't seen since World War Two.
(04:04):
After that, six months later, I was in Saudi Arabia
for Operation Does Your Son.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Something I should have said when I was introducing you
is that all the proceeds from this book, all the prophets,
are going to be going to veterans groups. You're not
keeping a penny of this. It's all going to go
to help veterans. So I think that's an important thing
that we want to get out there at the front
of this interview. So you know, if you remember one thing,
buying this book is going to help veterans because this
(04:34):
very generous man is giving all the proceeds from the
book to it. Now back to the book again. It
is a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps story,
and I imagine it's true to a lot of people
that they joined the military to get the benefits and
then it's like, holy cow, I'm being deployed. So my
(04:58):
dad actually joined the military when he was eighteen and
immediately went off to Korea. And I think in his case,
he was joining the military to get away from his
very disciplinarian father and he is getting away from working
on the farm, and that's why that's why he joined,
(05:20):
that was his reason. So now again this is a
great story. I mean, we hear people that you know,
are their own man that pulled themselves up by their
own bootstraps. But you you actually did it, You actually
did it. You were you were you know, you fell
in love with the military, I think once you got in,
but at the same time you still wanted that education.
(05:41):
You have what three degrees now.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I'm actually working on my fifth masters right now.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And yeah, my masters and Management science and then I
have my undergrad and PCU at finance. And just a
quick note on that. I had met this wonderful woman
when I was in the military Grand Prairie, Texas Captain Brown,
and she was this I've gotten to a unit reserve
training unit after I was I was an armor officer,
(06:07):
and this woman had told me about how black was
continue education to thrive to drive the something she always
said it was a way to continuously ingest information and
learn new things into your body. And I got that
from her. She was going to college all the time
and she already had degrees, and I kind of picked
that up for her. And I've been just going to
(06:29):
school since I was, you know, got out of a military.
I started going back to school and it's something I
enjoy and I like to learn, and I want to
set the example for my kids. So that's why I've
been going back to school.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah. Well, that's great, though, and I want to say
that's certainly reflected in the book. It is extremely well written,
extremely well written. I mean it's you know, it is
this your first book.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yes, sir. It is from the encouragement of my wife
and my kids, who told me I should write the story.
And I didn't actually believe myself that anybody would want
to hear the story. And then between several friends of
mine that are veterans, they said, people would love that
story that rags their riches, you know, the comeback story.
And I started working on it, and you know, it
took me a couple of years of just putting notes together,
(07:14):
and then the editor helped me compile it and make
it beautiful and perfect and put the you know, the
dates when they go back, because I was bouncing all
over the place and they helped me make it and
actually read it now and I'm like, wow, I can't
believe I did it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Well, I'm glad you. I'm glad you did. Now you
can share that story and veterans groups are going to benefit.
I want to go back in time just a little bit, though.
Tell me about basic training and Sergeant Reynolds and what.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Do you mean Sergeant Reynolds? Me man saying just gives
me goosebumps that you said that Sargiant Reynolds had made
an impact on my life beyond anybody ever, probably one
of the most impactful persons of my life that helped
me in my transformation. When I was a kid, I
was kind of husky. I was about fifteen twenty pounds overweighth.
My whole my whole license like ten years old, is
sixteen seventeen years old. And right before I joined the military,
(08:05):
I lost a little bit of weighting s ort to
learn how to do push ups and sit ups and runs.
I could pass his physical training test to get in.
And when I got the basic training, the first day
I was there, I met Jill Southern Rails, and he
was an African American guy from I think Chicago, and
very fit in trim. He was just ripped. He had
things popped out of his body everywhere, and he was
just so clean cut, concise, just perfect and someone that
(08:29):
you would look at and say, that's a soldier. He
kind of took me under his wing and he just
kind of kept an eye on me, and he helped me.
He would push me harder than he pushed other people.
He would go writ in the book, he took away
my food and shared my food with other people so
that I could be slim and trim. And in the
course of eight weeks, I went from like two hundred
(08:50):
pounds down to one hundred and eighty pounds. And I
went in that basic training a little bit husky, and
I came out of that thing and just tip top shape.
And I came out of there with ams, and I
was like this new person, like you took me and
dropped me off at the terminator factory. And I came
(09:11):
out of there and I was just on a I
was I was on a rampage. I was like I
had this massive momentum and this this drive within myself,
and he instilled values in me and being a patriot.
He would talk about being a man and being strong
and being respectful and respecting the flag, and how you
got to love that flag. He would go kiss the
flag and the and the battalion and show us these
(09:34):
examples of passion for your country and how great we
have it in this land. And he would tell us
stories about when you travel the world, you will understand
how great we have it in the United States. And
I learned those lessons from him, and when I travel later,
I would say, that's what he was talking about. You
go travel this audio ramby, You go travel in the
Middle East, you go travel in Perces. Travel to Europe
(09:56):
where things are challenging and people they struggle to make
ends meet beyond anything we comprehend. In Mexico, probably one
of the most impoverished countries I've ever been to. And
I got to see that, and those are reflections that
always came back to me because of the things I
saw on him and this man. Unfortunately I looked up
a few years ago he had passed away, and I
believe in his early sixties, mid sixties. I think it
(10:20):
said he died of cancer. I think natural cancer. But
this person, this man installed into my own being, these
these these thoughts and these perceptions and these understanding, these
frameworks that just allowed me to become a patriot that
stuck with me my whole life. And before I met him,
I didn't understand any of that. I didn't understand what
it was to be an American and how privileged I
(10:42):
was to grow up in this country, what contributions I
could make with the things I do in my life.
And I just adore this man, and I've reached out
to him, you know, ten years after basic training, just
to say thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Wow, that's a great story. And I think we all
have those people in our lives where we look back
and say, man, they really made a difference, And you know,
more of us should go back and thank those people
the way you did. That's great. Now. I know at
one point when you were in the military, you were
thinking about quitting and you talked to some lady who
kind of gave you an ultimatum type question about whether
(11:17):
or not you wanted to stay in or not. And
is that the same person you were talking about who
was studying all the time or in college.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
All I know that the lady that was studying all
the time Captain Brown was someone that was in my
life when I was a captain. That was maybe fifteen
years later. That you read read the book, because you're
telling me all the different stories of the book. You
really digged into that thing. I tried.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I didn't get fished. I'm gonna be honest. I never
lied to my guests. I got about one hundred pages
in and was hooked.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But that's cool. Thank you. Thank you for taking the
effort to read it and look for and understand it.
The lady I'm talking to was in basic training and
she was an E five, a sergeant in the airborne school.
I was. That was only a probably about four and
five months into my military training. I was in airborne
school and I signed up for this three weeks school.
And at airborne school, a lot of people get hurt.
(12:10):
It's just normal to see people walking around on crutches
and wheelchairs. People sprain their ankles, break their legs, break
their arm. Because you're jumping out of airplanes, you know,
and you're using these combat parachutes that push you to
the ground really fast. You drop, you know, one hundred
feet a second, you're bam, bam bamd. Within you jump
out of the plane, and forty five seconds later on
the ground. Well, a lot of people in our group
(12:32):
had gotten hurt. Several people that I was in basic
training were with me and they got hurt, and I
just thought it wasn't for me. I didn't want to
get hurt. So I went to this lady. I believe
it was my second week of basic training, and she
was an airborne trainer and I had went into her
office where she keeps all her paperwork. You just parachutes
all these different things in there. And I walked in
there and I had said, you know, I just like
(12:53):
to talk about getting now. Because it was normal for
people to drop, people would say, you know, it just
isn't for me. I don't want to be an airborne person.
I don't want to go to the airborne ringer. I
don't want to go do this. I don't want to
be Airborne's dangerous and get hurt. And normal people can't
jump out of an airplane. So I went to her
and told it. I went to her and I told her, hey,
(13:14):
you know, I just want to drop, you know, And
she said, well, I'll drop you if you like, Ernest.
But let me tell you one thing. When I was
your age, I had the same thought that you did,
and I did the exact same thing that you did.
I came into an office in this airborne station and
I told my director that I wanted to get out
to and I'm going to tell you what they told me.
You can drop, and you can get out, and you
(13:36):
can live a life of mediocrity and know that you
didn't achieve your goal and you didn't finish what you started,
or you can try it, go for it, do it,
and then feel good about yourself. And I thought there,
and I just immediately my switch turned to my mind
and I finished, and I went the next day, and
I did my jumps the next week, and I graduated.
(13:57):
Stared out of my Bagigi's I did jump five times
army and two times in the civilian world. And I
did it. And to me, you know, millions of people
have graduated from airborne school. To me, it was so hard.
It gave me a chance to overcome my fears and
face fear and look at it in the eye and
(14:17):
do something I was not normally do. And I learned
that from that class from that three week course. To me,
it was transformation and it just put my you know,
gave me some more points on my belt to hold
myself up and make me stronger and give me more momentum.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well that's how it ended. But when it was started,
they had to push you out of the plane, right.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Absolutely, when I got to the door, the door, I
remember the man with his goggles on looking at me
and saying go. And I stood there, and about a
second later he pushed me out and I jumped out.
And after that I did, I did jump. After that
they didn't have to push me anymore. But great experiences,
(14:59):
and I do I appreciate your bringing that back. It
brings back great memories and you know, maybe help me
build some of my intents of the fortitude today, help
some of the challenges going on in life as we
know it today.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well, if you can make yourself jump out of a plane,
you can probably make yourself do just about anything. And
I thought that was a great story. And I remember
how you talked about you know, it just got easier
with every jump.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, it's a law familiarity. If you're reading textbooks and stuff,
you'll you'll see that when once you do something, you
gain the confidence to know you can do it again.
And that's something I talk about in the book. The
book is to raise money to help veterans, my federal
sisters and brothers that are struggling out there because the
government doesn't have the resources to take care of everybody,
you know, And I just want to be able to
(15:41):
do my part and make my contribution to give something back.
But my book, you know, I hope and I pray,
and I just beg to warrant that you'll give me
the strength to in fire people to do certain things.
And that is I quit drinking, you know, fifteen years ago.
I quit smoking. Fifteen years ago. I smoked for thirty years.
I was running around smoking, working out, lifting weights, going
(16:04):
travel the world, doing army training four hours a day, running,
you know, forty thirty miles a week, and smoking, so
countering two of the logic, you know. And that was
just the way it was back when I was younger.
Was everybody smoked in the military. So I did all
these things that weren't healthy for you, But yet I
was doing so many things that were so good for you.
(16:26):
And I had this paradox. This just struggle this tension
within myself, and I wasn't healthy. I wasn't being all
I could be. Is the logo was when I went
into the military and I slowly just divested myself of
all these bad things that was doing to my body.
I was able to get off the alcohol. I was
able to get off the smoke, and I was able
to eat healthy not just once, but twice and three times,
(16:48):
and then all the time. And then I eat healthy
all the time. I was able to transform my mind
from being a pissed off and frustrated individual to being
a positive minded person that embraced change, and person that
people could come to and talk to, and I could
mentor people. And I did that over the course of
fifteen twenty years. And I give you strategies in the
(17:09):
book how to do the same Now. I believe, and
I firmly, honestly believe this is true. If you read
that book and you make one change in your life,
it's worth it. If someone can say, damn, I gotta
quit smoking, and you quit smoking, or hey, I'm drinking
six drinks five days a week and I'm getting a
buzz every day I come home from work. But I'm
going to lay it down and maybe not drink as much,
(17:31):
or I'm going to start eating healthy. I'm gonna start
taking care of my health and work out. I believe
it's worth the fifteen bucks in book or four bucks
on kindle so that you can make these changes. I
did it other people that taught me how to do it.
I learned these strategies from other soldiers when I was
in the military. I read this stuff in books and
learn how to do it. And if I did it
(17:51):
just a kid from Milwaukee that didn't have a pot
to piss in, my parents didn't have fifty cents to
send me to college. If I was able to do
it and make these changes in life, anybody can do it,
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
In your defense, I remember a magazine cover with Arnold
Schwarzenegger smoking a cigar.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I had.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I had grown up, and I'd been in the weightlifting
thing for a long time. I'll be honest, I'm not anymore.
But it was watching Pumping Iron with Arnold Schwarzenegger that
got me interested in that. And so here's this guy
that was kind of my hero. And then I look
up and he's smoking a cigar on the cover of
a magazine. I was like, Arnold, what the hell are
(18:33):
you doing? Mean, so you do see these situations, And
I actually went on at one point in what seems
like another life, I got involved in health club management
right out of college because one day I originally thought
I wanted to do him own club until I worked
for a few of them and I decided I didn't
want to. But we had we had guys that would,
(18:54):
you know, go outside and smoke in the middle of
their workouts. So uh, not recommended, but certainly not that unique.
It does it does happen. So all right, you're a
super super positive guy, and so I don't want to
bring this down too much. But in the book you
said that you know the media tends to focus on
(19:16):
the bad. So I'm gonna I'm going to inject politics
in here for just a second and say that there's
an old joke that if you want to get rid
of poverty for four years, elected Democrat president and the
media won't mention it for four years. I think the
media is very negative. I mean, there's no question about that.
They don't focus on positive stories. But the same time,
(19:39):
I think it's kind of a cycle. I think it's
a lot worse whenever there's a Republican in office. But
the point of you know, what you mentioned in the
book is that you know, you really, you really should
look at it. And you talked about this earlier. How
you know, when you look at other countries, and I'm
sure when you were uh, you know, overseas and also
when you went to Mexico, you notice how bad things
(20:00):
word that. The point is we really should appreciate what
we have here in America. And I think that's another
great message that comes out of the book.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Thank you, And I absolutely correctly, you know, I learned
from the UTO. I didn't understand what was going on
in the news until about six or seven years ago.
I had this professor at University of Texas at Dallas
when I was getting my MPa. There's this doctor, Jeff Hicks.
He's an OBI guru there, organizational behavior guru. And he wrote,
he wrote in his book, he wrote on his blog,
(20:29):
and he talked about media polarization. And I didn't understand this,
and now I completely get it and I barely watch
mainstream media. And what he talked about was back in
the fifties and sixties and seventies, we had community newspapers.
If you remember when you were a kid, you would
get your local paper every morning. That's how you got
your news, or you'd get the local news. When the
(20:50):
TV came out when I was in my seven the seventies,
you'd watch news about what's going on in your town.
It gave you a sense of camaraderaderie for your community,
and you would learn what's going on screen shop, what's
going on to school, what's going on the volunteers. As
there was crime, it was very minuscule compared to today,
But I wasn't as violent and shocking as the things
we see today. Like we saw in these schools, happened yesterday.
(21:12):
We rarely heard of stories like that back when I
was a kid. Well, the media gets paid for clicks
now from you know, clicking on the internet, when you
click on your smartphone device, or you click on your
computer and look at something, and they are built to
shock you. So right now, if you need any type
of shocking, you can go anywhere in the world there's
these nine billion people and find some crazy story that's
(21:35):
going on and then import it to your local town
and community and fam. You're shocked. You think the whole
world's coming to an end, the world's going to the hell,
going to hell in a handbasket, as as my grandpa
used to say. And you're just shocked by this stuff
going on. And I used to watch the news. I
used to watch Fox, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, all the goodies,
(21:58):
and I would just be tormented. I would run around
all day thinking the whole world's coming to an end?
Was I informed? Absolutely? I knew what was going on
in every part of the globe. I had every perspective.
I had the left and the right perspective. But I
was just I felt tormented. And then I one day
I said, you know what, I'm just not going to
(22:19):
watch the news every day for a couple of days.
And I put it down where I stopped watching it
two three, four hours a day, and where I used
to work out and watch the darn news. It was
so ridiculous. And now I really watch the news. I
picked my channels where I want to get my news.
I get it from, you know, stuff like you know,
the tea pointy Hour, the you know, National TV, stuff
like that. Something I know that I can trust, something
(22:42):
I can trust that not the shot or given some
some some bologney that I know is not true, and
that has transformed our country to go into this shock movement.
It's it's designed to now shock you. It's designed to
make these large conglomerate news organizations make money. And they
make money with the clicks. And now there's nothing wrong
with that. They're just doing their jobs. They're they're they're
(23:05):
they're paying, they're paying back their shareholders, they're paying their
people that work there. They're doing what they're supposed to do.
But it's shocking and it's not healthy. It's not good
for your mind. So I ask and I argue to
people that they should pick their news channel. Take it
ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes a day. You know,
I personally read the Wall Street Journal. I like the
(23:25):
Wall Street Journal because I think it's balanced. They give
you both sides of the story. They give space to
the both parties, that Democrats and the Republicans, and they
let senators write editorials in there. They let people on
the far right and on the far left right their
you know, right, their arguments and right their theoretical arguments,
(23:45):
and they're what they believe is going on in the
country and what could be done to make it better,
And I want to know what other people are thinking.
Some people, you know, and say that people on the
other side of what we believe are our enemy. They're
not off our fellow brothers and citizens. There are there are,
There are fellow people that belong in this country. They
pay taxes, they contribute to the nation's good. They may
(24:07):
be misinformed, you know, their parents might have told them
something that's not true and said, hey, this is the
way it should be. You should you know, take away
from the reach and give to the poor, because these
awful rich people are ruining our country and they're not
sharing everything yet alone they pay half the taxes with
the entire country and support the people that are struggling
on the lower part of the total pole. So once
(24:28):
you understand that, and you can embrace that, and you
can make some changes, your life will make much better.
But you're not looking at the news all the time
and being shocked by the things you see on mainstream media.
As I started to do that. Now I can look
at the mainstream media and I can look at one
channel and say here's the story. I'll look at the
other channel. They take the whole story and spin it
it's not even a spin mark. It's a freaking digestive
(24:53):
of a completely different analysis of what just happened. And
it'll be like, it's not smoke screen and the change
is not a spend anymore. It's a lie. You'll read
something that you can watch the video and they'll tell
you something completely different to make up their narrative and
to go with their story of what they believe. And
it's no longer news, it's, you know, a political movement,
(25:16):
if you will. And I don't agree with that. The
news is supposed to inform you and give you the
truth and then give you an analysis and allow you
to make your opinion, not give you information that allows
you to have their opinion. So what influences you? All right?
And that I hope that down the road you can,
you know, use some of these analogies I use with
you to tell your listeners. And that. And the next
(25:39):
thing you touched on was the traveling and singing other countries.
I was never ever out of this country when I
was a kid. My parents didn't have much money. We
barely traveled. I went to like one trip to Tennessee
my whole seventeen years of my life was the only
time I ever traveled out of the area of Milwaukee
in Wisconsin. And when I go and joined the military,
I started traveling the globe. Like I was in thirteen
(26:02):
countries I was in just every day I was going somewhere.
If I wasn't going somewhere, something was wrong. I was
in different states. I was all over the world and
it was it was awesome. It was hard, you know,
it was challenging, but I was able to see different
parts of the world and I would I would tell
you that there is no place on this planet that
(26:23):
is as beautiful as our country. And for those that
have traveled the globe, they can understand that. They can
see that. You might say, and you might look on
the news and they'll tell you that Europe is so great. Oh,
Europe is beautiful. Oh they treat everybody so fair. They're boloney.
When you go to Europe, everybody live in an apartment.
Unless you have a lot of money, you live in
an apartment. You live in a twenty story tall, small apartment,
(26:47):
seven hundred square feet with your five kids, And that's
just the way things are. You drive a car that's
the size of a matchbox car, that's just the world
we live in and the only people that live these
lives that you did see in the news, with the
people that have immense way off. You travel the countries
like Mexico. I traveled to Czechoslovakia. Some of these countries
the people live on peanuts. Through I mentioned in the book,
(27:10):
if you do a simple Internet search, there's people all
over the world living on one hundred dollars a month.
If you can imagine that one hundred dollars a month
people live on. I went to Mexico in two thousand
and three with the person that another person that made
an impact in my life, Sargant Garcia. He was an
airborne ranger from Panama, a two time war veter, highly decorated,
(27:30):
how they respected, very opinionated, and this man made a
huge impact in my life. And before that I had
never understood the sense of contribution. But this person was,
you know, on his off time, on the weekends we
were down there on border duty. He was taking old
goods from our country and traveling to Mexico and people
(27:51):
would repurpose it and then re use it. Clothing, washing machines,
kitchen utensils, the basic necessities of life that we take
for granted that we throw away, we throw it in
the garbage, and he would take it and people in
that country would absolutely think they got it was Christmas.
(28:12):
They would bring them a broken washing machine and they
think it's just Christmas. This is the greatest thing ever.
You give them a T shirt somebody else, you know,
wore a hundred times with Mickey Mussin, and the kid's
got the biggest smile you'd ever see. And you don't
understand that unless you see that and can understand it. Now.
I'll see on the news the celebrity will say, if
everything goes the head on the hand basket and my
(28:32):
person doesn't get a lectorate or some bell gets passed,
I'm moving to Mexico. Okay, I don't know where, what
what kind of pancakes you're eating for breakfast. But that's
just not a real analogy. And you can see they
never really do move to Mexico because we do listen
to this country on the planet. There's no country US.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Let's let's bring a more recent example. When Trump was
running back in twenty sixteen, there were all these Hollywood
types saying, if Trump wins, I'm moving on the country.
They didn't do it, and now some of the same
people are going, this time, I'm gonna do it. I
mean it, this time I'm gonna do And my thought is,
first of all, I have two takes on that. One. No,
(29:11):
you're not because you didn't you lied last time, you're
gonna lie again. But secondly, there's the vanity of that
particular celebrity who thinks that somewhere there's an individual who's
going to go, you know, talking to his wife, we
we better vote for Kamala Harris because if we don't,
Share is going to move out of the country. Yeah,
(29:32):
I mean, like anybody gives a damn if Share or
Rosi o'donald or anyone else moves out of the country.
I mean, it's just it's absolutely insane. Hey, we need
to take one quick break to do a little business
with America and then we will be right back. Welcome
(30:05):
back to the Tea Party Power Hour. I am Mark Glaur,
your host, and along with Douglas Ernest, the author of
the Spirit of a True Patriot, we are splaining. Actually
Doug is doing most of the splaining. But there's been
a lot of good stuff coming out of this book.
And again the full title The Spirit of a True Patriot,
The Inspiring story of Retired Captain Douglas j Ernest And
(30:27):
I do not want to forget that the proceeds from
the book go to benefit military groups. Can you tell
us a little bit about some of the groups that
you're going to help with the proceeds of this book.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
The first one I'd like to mention and one that's
true to my heart because several of my friends sit
on the board of this charity, and that's Cowtown Warriors
and Fort Worth. It's an organization that was started by
someone years and years ago. And what they do is
they just plug the holes when the veteran is having
a challenge, if the veteran is short on this house payment,
can't make the car payment, struggling with mental health issues,
(31:00):
help them with little things in life. Number one to
get them some help, and number two to get them
buy so that they can sustain themselves and get through life,
not lose their home, not lose their their their their
standard of living where they're at. And it's a very
small charity, you know, I believe they you know from
the last looking they bring in around a quarter million
dollars a year. But they make a huge impact in
(31:20):
my area at Dallas Fort Worth. A good friend of mine,
matthew sits on the board for that organization and he
actually does the deployment of the money for these for
these veterans. He's the one that when the veterans call
and say, Hey, I'm short of my house payment, I'm struggling,
I lost my job, I can't get along with my life.
All these things are going wrong. He vets the veteran,
if you will make sure it's that they really need
(31:41):
the money, and then makes arrangements with the vendor to
get them paid. The next one that I would like
to serve, which I have not had the opportunity in
my lifetime to ever give this something back. This is
my way of doing it was hiring our heroes, and
that's a service that helps transition military veterans that need
(32:02):
employment and put them in the workforce. Now you always
hear that story that you hear from your parents. You know,
you can leave a horse to water, but you can't
force them to drink. This gives the veteran a chance
to get the training they need to get a job.
Some veterans just can't do it. You can't put two
and two together. Veterans have one of the highest homeless rates,
and we have one of the most highest mental illness rates,
(32:23):
and they have one of the most highest drug and
alcohol use rates, and we also have one of the
highest suicide rates, sadly, and that's because they get out
and you're left with this void in your life, like
you when I got out, the reason I went back
in was to fill that void. I got out and said,
I'm done. I'm never going back. I'm never going back.
(32:44):
I don't want to go to war. I don't want
people yelling and screaming at me. I don't want to
travel the world anymore. And six months later I was
back in. And it's because you have this void, you know.
But people on the streets aren't like you. They're completely different.
And this gives you a chance to make a connection
with these veterans. And when you can get them a
job and help them transition, maybe get them a little
(33:04):
mental health to help, it can sincerely put them back
on a road to success. The next one I really
like and I adore, and I look up all the time.
I always keep an eye on what they're doing. It's
a national Coalition for Homeless Veterans. That's something that's close
to my heart. I have several friends that I've served
with over the years, and I've talked to people that
I've been listening to the military over the world, and
(33:25):
I'll talk to some and some of them have achieved
tremendous success, like beyond what I could ever imagine I
could do. Some of them are struggling, some are homeless,
some are on drugs, some are gone from this earth
because of alcohol abuse. And you just don't know what
path the Lord's going to lead you on when you
get done. And when they go on that path, sometimes
(33:46):
they can't get out. And some of these people that
I've talked to, I can never get in touch with them,
And then I'll hear from them years later and I'll say, Oh,
I'm just struggling. I'm living out of my car, and
I'm like, how can this person that was a leader
in the military, who people look at to later in
life when they get out not be able to, you know,
sustain their standard of living. And the National Coalition for
(34:07):
Homeless Veterans, who looks for those people on the street
and trying to give them a chance to put them
out so that they can get their life back on tract.
And finally, the Four Black Foundation is the nonprofit organization
that helps veterans transition from military to their civilian vision.
Whatever they're going to do in the civilian world. They
help kind of find some ways to put them in
(34:28):
a job that would be good for their skill sets.
You know, if you were, you know, an artillery guy
in the military or like you know, and even now
we have women in the infantry. If you're an infantry
woman and to get out of the military and you're
all you do is shoot guns for women, what in
the world can you do for a career. It's hard.
How do you put that on a resume. You got
(34:48):
to find a way to say, okay, well I did
train Weson, but yeah, I trained twenty other people how
to do it, so yeah, I'd be a good manager,
I'd be a good director, I'd be a good leader.
And they don't understand this. They have these skills sets
that you can't get off the street, you can't get
in college, and they find a way to put this
on paper, develop resumes, help them grow their career, help
(35:10):
them grow themselves as people, and be able to improve
their lives post military. Those are the four that I've
chosen to share the proceeds of my book with. And
I hope that these listeners that are on here today
can take a chance buy the book, listen to it,
leave a review, buy it, listen to it whatever, leave
a review, help spread some of the word and help
(35:31):
some of the veterans out there that need our help,
because there's a lot of these bets are struggling after
they've given so much of themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, and you know, I think with the homelessness issue,
it's become so common in America that sometimes we just
look the other way and pretend it's not there. I
had a gentleman on a couple of months ago who
lived on the street for ten years and he finally
broke his addiction to drugs and pulled himself out of
(36:00):
it and wrote a book about it. And his book
went into extreme detail about what it means to be homeless.
And this guy saw so many stabbings he didn't he
couldn't keep track of how many he had seen on
the street. Everybody on the street was doing drugs. On
a bad day, you might have to eat out of
a trash can. It's it's it's every everything that's cracked
(36:23):
up to be Homelessness is, and sometimes we forget about that.
But no one should be homeless, let alone people that
have protected this country and preserved our freedoms. So it
sounds like you've got a great group of charities lined
up to give to Is there anything else you want
to say about the book that we might have missed?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I would say that, you know, the number one message
I want to get out to the listeners is that
the book can help you make some changes in your
life if you're you know, I mentioned quitting smoking, I
mentioned drinking. I mentioned getting on with your family, you know,
and taking care of your health. These some of the
strategies and frameworks in this book are things that people
taught me when I was in the military. I didn't
just wake up one day and say, hey, I'm fifty two,
(37:03):
I'm going to go work out seven hours this week.
It's things that you've learned, you know, and things that
I do and right now, you know, I eat crazy stuff.
I drink spinach smoothies all day, and I try to
eat healthy and lower my meat incake, just things like
that so I can stay healthy. I can stay vibrant.
I can stay motivated if you will and be able to,
you know, make an impact and do what I need
(37:25):
to do to take care of my family and all
my kids and the people that I mentor and the
people that need me in life that their income depends
on me. So I hope that people can get this book,
and I tell them, please, if you just read one
thing and it makes one change in your life, that's positive.
It would have been worth it. If you sign up
to go to the gym, and you made one day
(37:45):
to the gym and the next day you went for
fifteen minutes for five days a week, that's a tremendous
impact in your life that will later trickle down to
other parts of your life and give you some momentum.
And I believe the strategies that providing this book can
give people back.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It takes a lot to do that, uh first step.
And as far as the coincidence goes, I used to
sell gym memberships when I was into the whole weightlifting
and bodybuilding thing. And you know, we used to always
tell people how long you've been thinking about joining in gym, oh, gosh,
four or five years? How much weight have you gained
(38:22):
in that time. Do you want to do you want
to get Yeah, and they'd go, well, do you want
to do you want to go another five years before
you join and gain that much more weight on top
of it, you know, And it's the same thing. No,
I have to tell you reading the book, I felt motivated.
Now I'm gonna be honest, I don't know to do what,
(38:43):
but I felt motivated, you know. And it's kind of like, uh,
you know what with this podcast for example, I mean,
you're doing these podcasts aren't easy. I mean, there's not
a lot of money in it at first, and you, uh,
you've really got to work hard at it. And there
are times when you you know, I'll be honest, there
(39:03):
are times when I've thought about just saying I've had
enough of this. But you know, reading a book like
this and reading about how you were buying corvettes on
your credit card at eighteen percent interesting it tells me that,
you know, hey, don't don't give up. Don't give up.
This guy didn't give up. So but great, great book.
And I mean it's sincerely when I say, you've got
a real talent for writing, and I hope this isn't
(39:25):
your last book, because well, thank.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You Mark and stuff you made you you made a
statement about you know, sometimes you don't feel like you're
you know, why am I going to do this something
making the money? But if you just look on the horizon,
what's out there. Think of the impact that you make
on people's lives by bringing these stories to them, by
giving them news and information that we believe is vetted
and it's true and it's not some smoke screen for
(39:49):
some political alignment strategy that you have behind the scenes.
So you make an impact if you don't even see
and you'll meet people like me that saidn't know. I
heard about your show a couple of years ago, and
I don't watch it every day, but I get on
there from time to time and just check and see
what's going on and kind of follow and see what
you're doing. But it makes an impact because I can
go there. I know that it's there, it's available, there's
(40:10):
a person, there's another fellow patriot that wants to help
this community. You don't, you don't. I don't see you
bashing the other side if you will, and we all
know that you're you know, you lean to one side,
but I don't see you bashing the people out there.
I see you aligned with them. You might not agree
with them, but you believe that you're a fellow citizens
and that they have to say in this world, and
(40:32):
you want you maybe not don't believe what they say,
but you want them to come to your side. You
try to convince them that the things that are going
on in our country are not correct or good for
the future of our country. And for that, I believe
you should be commended.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Thank you, You're welcome. And to that end, I actually
had Hunter Biden's baby mama on a few weeks ago,
and she's a Democrat, and we spent the whole show,
not one of us saying one thing negative about the
other party. Now there which was which was really good?
(41:07):
I mean that was really good. I mean, yeah, I've
got a lot of criticisms of the way the current
administration has done a few things, but here was a girl.
Now you talk about the media line, when you hear
when you thought of the the Hunter Biden baby issue.
The story on the street was he went into a
(41:27):
strip club. You know, he's probably high on drugs. He
met the stripper, they had a one night stand, he
got her pregnant, and you know, the rest is history.
As they say. No, no, she wasn't a stripper when
he met her. It wasn't a one night stand. They
dated on and off for over a year. Uh. And
there's so many things about that story I didn't know,
(41:47):
and I really felt sorry for her because both sides
were kind of abusing, or the left and the right.
The right was doing it to make Hunter Biden look bad.
The left was doing it in a way to kind
of try to protect Hunter Biden. He made a mistake,
he slept with some girl he met a strip bar,
and now she's being a gold digger and trying to
get her a clause into him. No, she comes from
a wealthy family. She didn't need Biden's money. She was
(42:10):
just a rebellious kid in her mid twenties or early twenties,
whatever it was at the time. So it does I
will say this money aside, it does feel good to
help someone like London Roberts get her story out. And
the other thing is too This interview today has been
a great example to people of how the military can
(42:31):
change your life. You know, I mean a lot of
people don't consider how it's not just about going in
and getting a VA home loan or college money. This
is something that changes who you are. It changes your character,
and that ring loud and clear in your book, Doug.
I mean, it really really did. So. I think a
(42:52):
lot of people who were kind of maybe against people
joining the military, I mean, your dad and your grandpa
for two might look at your success and say, you
know what, maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe maybe
the experience can change your life, change your person for
the better. Your character. You talked a lot about character
(43:12):
in the book, so I really enjoyed it, and like
I said, I immediately was reading it, I was going,
is this this guy's first book? Man, it can't be
this is this is too well written, This is too
you know. I mean, I'm serious, I'm not trying to
flatter you. I really really looked at it and said,
this guy seems like maybe all he does for a
living is right.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
So thank you very much for those polite comments. Man,
thank you there.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, I'm they are polite comments, but they're also very
accurate comments. And I think if people will get a
copy of the book and read it, they will see
what I'm talking about. And another thing, because we are
in Texas. I'm a few blocks from A and M
or a few miles from Texas A and M University.
Don't forget you people in the Dallas area. There's the
Corvette Warehouse now, is it still located on Walnut Ridge?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yes, sir, We're on thirty five and Walnut Ridge in
North Dallas. It's a corvette dealership with about one hundred
and fifty corvettes there. So if anybody's out looking for
their their dream two seater sports car or midlife crisis country,
you're welcome to come.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Check us out.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, And to think you started how many cars did
you say you have on lot?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Now we have one hundred and fifty corvettes and we're
the largest corvette dealer in the Southwest and the surrounding
five or six states were the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
And you started it all out with three corvettes that
you bought at eighteen percent interest on a credit card.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Absolutely, and it took me twenty years to even mount
the catafalult that business to any form of what you
would define as success. And you talk about, you know,
having setbacks and not being able to think you're making
an impact or it's going to work and doubting yourself.
I had that business when I was twenty got, twenty three,
(44:53):
twenty four, twenty five. I started it and I'm fifty
two and I had been deployed on the military, mobilized
by the reserve, and I have to close for a
month or two and pay rent and pay bills and
pay the landscapers to cut the grass, and then come
back and put it back together. And that built some
fricking fortitude in my body that just when I got
(45:13):
down with the military and I was out in o
eight oh nine, I just took off run it and
I got about one hundred and fifty corvettes right now.
That's my passion, you know. It's something I do every day,
day in day out. I stay up till two o'clock
in the morning looking at cars. Every night. My wife
has to come get me and tell me to come
to bed, and I'm busy looking at cars. That's my passion.
And I found it, you know, I got out of
(45:34):
the military. I found something to focus on to maybe
heal some of those wounds and let me, you know,
have my camarderaderie with people. I found another industry that
I was I was able to connect with people and
that that's you know, that that was my saving grace
was that was that that Corvette, that product line that
allowed me to you know, use my skill sets to
(45:55):
develop to help others make a living and to you know,
I don't want to say sell the dream, but it is.
You know, only one percent of one percent of the
country people buy a Corvette, whether it's a ten thousand
or fifty thousand dollars car, because it's not an everyday
driver for your family. It's a toy. It's it's a
token of your success, something to set your goal to get.
And that's about ninety percent of my customers are buying
(46:17):
is a second car a toy. I set my goal
when I was twenty and now I'm forty. When I'm forty,
I was going to buy a Corvette. And that's what
I hear every day being in day out on our
clients about buying these cars. And thank you for mentioning
my business. We talk a little bit about it in
the book, I think more towards the end about how
you know, I use the skill sets in the military
(46:37):
to open that business. And if it wasn't for the military,
there's no way in God's green earth that that business
would be alive today.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Wow. Well, you know, they say the secret to life
is to find something you love and then figure out
how to make a living at it, and that's, you know,
the definition of success. And with that being the definition,
you're definitely successful. Large amounts of money aside doing something
you love and you can make a living at it,
and that alone makes you a success. Although I know
you've had incredible financial success with this as well. The
(47:08):
whole idea that getting up and going to work in
the morning isn't a pain in the butt for you,
you actually look.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
I love it. I absolutely love work. And it's funny
you say that about the money, because the money comes
and leaps and bounds. There's there's years that I lose
more money than you can never imagine, and then there's
years that I have great years. It goes up and down.
But when the panal I've learned this from a professor
years ago at school, that is, the pendulum swings both ways,
and the pendulum usually goes back to the medium. The
(47:37):
means somewhere in the middle. So you might have a
year that you you know, being self employed back based
on macroeconomic variables. We end up losing money making money,
losing money making money, especially in a business where it's
it's a toy, it's not required. Interest rates crush us,
you know, and then growing. I'm trying to grow my
(47:58):
business in the middle of that, always hungry for more,
you know. My wife said, well, you need one hundred
and fifty cars. I said, I don't know. I just
feel I just feel like I just have to do this.
I can't stop. I want to keep growing. I don't
want to just say Okay, I have one hundred and fifty,
let's stop. My mind says, oh, my goal is three
hundred by the time I'm sixty. I want to have
three hundred Corvettes and not mine. But for me that
(48:18):
I follow money from the bank to put on display
and sell to people that want to buy their dream car,
and bring more people, spread the message, help more people
get their dream car. It's just something that you feel.
You feel good when you're making progress. If I had
one hundred and fifty and ten years, I wouldn't feel
like that made progress. So if I can just preset
by ten cars a year, I'll feel good about myself
and feel like I'm making an impact and stand behind
(48:40):
some of the stuff I say and set the example
for my kids that I want to teach them how
to be successful and not just give them a bunch
of money. When I'm gone, Well, I tell you what.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Like I said, I think you're the definition of success.
I love the book at least Alex. I'm one hundred
pages in and i think it's extremely well written. I'm
going to encourage everyone to go out and get a copy.
It's called the Spirit of a True Patriot, The Inspiring
Story of Retired Captain Douglas. Jay Ernest Doug thanks for
being here today. I've really enjoyed your visit.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Mark, thank you, and I'd like to just say one thing,
if you will. Sure I had said it earlier and
I touched on it, that your message makes a tremendous,
tremendous impact on your viewers. You don't see it because
you're not down the line listening. You're not seeing the
things that you say online or in these interviews will
change people's lives. But if you put one message out there,
(49:30):
and you put it out in a positive tone like
you mentioned with miss Roberts and not bashing her when
she came on because she doesn't believe in your political views.
It says tremendous about your inter being and allows me
to put that message out. Your voice makes a tremendous impact,
and you don't understand it because you don't have a
chance to talk to all your listeners. You don't have
(49:53):
a chance to talk to people. A lot of people
don't reach out to you and say, oh, you're just great.
I love listening to you. It was awesome that you
put this message out. The people that reach out to
you probably reach out and bash you because they don't
want you making this message. So you don't see that part.
But me, I heard a bunch of years ago, and
I checked you out once in a while, and I
don't ever get off your site and feel like crap.
(50:14):
I feel like wow, I feel pretty good. Things are
going to be okay. That's how I feel when I
read when I check out your stuff. So I want
you to You're welcome. So you do make an impact,
and I hope you continue to do it for the
good of our country and continue to be a patriot
and help our younger generation understand and embrace what being
a patriot is, and we can create more of them
(50:35):
that can lead our country to prosperity and happiness, and
that you know that golden dream all Americans have to
have the utopia that we already have. But to keep
it entails that we can keep that utopia that we
don't even understand we have and keep it for the
next fifty two hundred and fifty years. If this great
nation has already had.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it, and be
sure to stop by once in a while. Don't be
a stranger. Do you have anything.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
If I'm down south driving the Corvette, I'm going to
come in and see you. Lastly, people can check out
the book. I didn't mention that the plug for the
website Douglas Ernest dot com d O U G L
A S E R N E S T. If you
just Internet search Douglas Ernest, you'll pull up the website.
You can get on there. You can go to Amazon,
which is the biggest seller of the book. I'd appreciate
(51:22):
anybody can buy the book, spread the message, leave a comment,
leave a review anywhere good or bad, an any any critique.
I would appreciate it so I can always make myself better,
and that it would help support the veterans that need
that need help right now. I appreciate you today, Mark,
and thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Thank you so much as well, Doug, and have a
great day and I hope we talk again.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Thank you, Mark, take care, So bye bye.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
You've been listening to the T Party Power Hour with
Mark Glar.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Y'all come back now you're here.
It's time for that little podcast down in Texas, the
Tea Party Power Hour with Mark Galar.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Welcome to the Tea Party Power Hour. I am your host,
Mark Glar. We have a very special guest today, mister
Douglas Ernest. He is the author of the Spirit of
a True Patriot, The Inspiring Story of Retired Captain Douglas
j Ernest. Doug. Welcome the show.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Good morning, Mark, thanks for having me this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
I just read a little bit about you. In addition
to being the author of this book, you join the
military to have college funds, ended up being part of
Operation Desert Storm as well as the post nine eleven
time period. You went to TCU University just a little
(01:15):
north of where I am right now. I'm a few
blocks from well, a few miles from Texas A and
M University. You own your own corvette dealership which is
called the Corvette Warehouse up in Dallas, and you have
a rather extraordinary story or real pull yourself up by
your own bootstraps story. So we're looking forward to hearing
(01:35):
more about that as the interview progresses.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Well, thank you, Mark, you made me sound so exciting
and like a superhero. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
See now, you originally from when I read the book,
you originally joined the military simply to get funds to
go to college. And even though your dad and your
grandpa were both against it, your mom and your two
aunts were for it, but your grandpa kind of relaxed
because he said that, well, the Americans aren't going to
stand for another war, so you should be okay. So
(02:12):
you joined the military or a few weeks into basic
and what happens.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Man's that's a great way to put it. And Mark,
let me just give you a little context. I'm fifty
two years old. Grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a
manufacturing town about thirty minutes north of Chicago. And when
I grew up as a kid, I was surrounded by
Vietnam veterans. It was just you know, that age in
that era. And when I was a kid, you know,
(02:37):
I didn't have any money. My family didn't have any money.
So I had this great idea I was going to
join the military and get some money something called the
Army College Fund, which back in that time was around
eighteen thousand dollars. I'd get saved up so I can
go to college. My grandpa was a veteran and my uncle.
I had two uncles that were veterans, and my grandpa
was very against it because he had been hurt in
(02:59):
the world, weren't injured, and he was not forward at
all and actually had made some pretty disparage and comments
to me when I was a child, sixteen seventeen years old,
when I was considering service, and of course my dad
didn't want me to leave. He had a brother that
went to Vietnam, and he always told me when his
brother left, him and his brother never were the same.
They never reconnected, they were never close. Into the contrary,
(03:21):
they were they didn't really talk much after he came
back from Vietnam. So they were both these people that were,
you know, powerpoints in my life. They just never wanted
me to join the military. I, you know, kind of
convinced my dad I would do it. Then I convinced
my grandpa. And when I was sitting down at dinner
a few weeks before I deployed, excuse me, before I
left to go to the military, my grandpa had said
(03:41):
to me, you know, there's been a bunch of wars.
There was Korea War where he was in, then there
was Vietnam and the American public is not going to
stand for any more war because of what happened in Vietnam.
And I joined the military on June thirtieth, nineteen ninety
and August second Saddam invaded Kuwait and Kum and those
atrocities against humans that weren't seen since World War Two.
(04:04):
After that, six months later, I was in Saudi Arabia
for Operation Does Your Son.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Something I should have said when I was introducing you
is that all the proceeds from this book, all the prophets,
are going to be going to veterans groups. You're not
keeping a penny of this. It's all going to go
to help veterans. So I think that's an important thing
that we want to get out there at the front
of this interview. So you know, if you remember one thing,
buying this book is going to help veterans because this
(04:34):
very generous man is giving all the proceeds from the
book to it. Now back to the book again. It
is a pull yourself up by your own bootstraps story,
and I imagine it's true to a lot of people
that they joined the military to get the benefits and
then it's like, holy cow, I'm being deployed. So my
(04:58):
dad actually joined the military when he was eighteen and
immediately went off to Korea. And I think in his case,
he was joining the military to get away from his
very disciplinarian father and he is getting away from working
on the farm, and that's why that's why he joined,
(05:20):
that was his reason. So now again this is a
great story. I mean, we hear people that you know,
are their own man that pulled themselves up by their
own bootstraps. But you you actually did it, You actually
did it. You were you were you know, you fell
in love with the military, I think once you got in,
but at the same time you still wanted that education.
(05:41):
You have what three degrees now.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
I'm actually working on my fifth masters right now.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
And yeah, my masters and Management science and then I
have my undergrad and PCU at finance. And just a
quick note on that. I had met this wonderful woman
when I was in the military Grand Prairie, Texas Captain Brown,
and she was this I've gotten to a unit reserve
training unit after I was I was an armor officer,
(06:07):
and this woman had told me about how black was
continue education to thrive to drive the something she always
said it was a way to continuously ingest information and
learn new things into your body. And I got that
from her. She was going to college all the time
and she already had degrees, and I kind of picked
that up for her. And I've been just going to
(06:29):
school since I was, you know, got out of a military.
I started going back to school and it's something I
enjoy and I like to learn, and I want to
set the example for my kids. So that's why I've
been going back to school.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah. Well, that's great, though, and I want to say
that's certainly reflected in the book. It is extremely well written,
extremely well written. I mean it's you know, it is
this your first book.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yes, sir. It is from the encouragement of my wife
and my kids, who told me I should write the story.
And I didn't actually believe myself that anybody would want
to hear the story. And then between several friends of
mine that are veterans, they said, people would love that
story that rags their riches, you know, the comeback story.
And I started working on it, and you know, it
took me a couple of years of just putting notes together,
(07:14):
and then the editor helped me compile it and make
it beautiful and perfect and put the you know, the
dates when they go back, because I was bouncing all
over the place and they helped me make it and
actually read it now and I'm like, wow, I can't
believe I did it.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Well, I'm glad you. I'm glad you did. Now you
can share that story and veterans groups are going to benefit.
I want to go back in time just a little bit, though.
Tell me about basic training and Sergeant Reynolds and what.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Do you mean Sergeant Reynolds? Me man saying just gives
me goosebumps that you said that Sargiant Reynolds had made
an impact on my life beyond anybody ever, probably one
of the most impactful persons of my life that helped
me in my transformation. When I was a kid, I
was kind of husky. I was about fifteen twenty pounds overweighth.
My whole my whole license like ten years old, is
sixteen seventeen years old. And right before I joined the military,
(08:05):
I lost a little bit of weighting s ort to
learn how to do push ups and sit ups and runs.
I could pass his physical training test to get in.
And when I got the basic training, the first day
I was there, I met Jill Southern Rails, and he
was an African American guy from I think Chicago, and
very fit in trim. He was just ripped. He had
things popped out of his body everywhere, and he was
just so clean cut, concise, just perfect and someone that
(08:29):
you would look at and say, that's a soldier. He
kind of took me under his wing and he just
kind of kept an eye on me, and he helped me.
He would push me harder than he pushed other people.
He would go writ in the book, he took away
my food and shared my food with other people so
that I could be slim and trim. And in the
course of eight weeks, I went from like two hundred
(08:50):
pounds down to one hundred and eighty pounds. And I
went in that basic training a little bit husky, and
I came out of that thing and just tip top shape.
And I came out of there with ams, and I
was like this new person, like you took me and
dropped me off at the terminator factory. And I came
(09:11):
out of there and I was just on a I
was I was on a rampage. I was like I
had this massive momentum and this this drive within myself,
and he instilled values in me and being a patriot.
He would talk about being a man and being strong
and being respectful and respecting the flag, and how you
got to love that flag. He would go kiss the
flag and the and the battalion and show us these
(09:34):
examples of passion for your country and how great we
have it in this land. And he would tell us
stories about when you travel the world, you will understand
how great we have it in the United States. And
I learned those lessons from him, and when I travel later,
I would say, that's what he was talking about. You
go travel this audio ramby, You go travel in the
Middle East, you go travel in Perces. Travel to Europe
(09:56):
where things are challenging and people they struggle to make
ends meet beyond anything we comprehend. In Mexico, probably one
of the most impoverished countries I've ever been to. And
I got to see that, and those are reflections that
always came back to me because of the things I
saw on him and this man. Unfortunately I looked up
a few years ago he had passed away, and I
believe in his early sixties, mid sixties. I think it
(10:20):
said he died of cancer. I think natural cancer. But
this person, this man installed into my own being, these
these these thoughts and these perceptions and these understanding, these
frameworks that just allowed me to become a patriot that
stuck with me my whole life. And before I met him,
I didn't understand any of that. I didn't understand what
it was to be an American and how privileged I
(10:42):
was to grow up in this country, what contributions I
could make with the things I do in my life.
And I just adore this man, and I've reached out
to him, you know, ten years after basic training, just
to say thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Wow, that's a great story. And I think we all
have those people in our lives where we look back
and say, man, they really made a difference, And you know,
more of us should go back and thank those people
the way you did. That's great. Now. I know at
one point when you were in the military, you were
thinking about quitting and you talked to some lady who
kind of gave you an ultimatum type question about whether
(11:17):
or not you wanted to stay in or not. And
is that the same person you were talking about who
was studying all the time or in college.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
All I know that the lady that was studying all
the time Captain Brown was someone that was in my
life when I was a captain. That was maybe fifteen
years later. That you read read the book, because you're
telling me all the different stories of the book. You
really digged into that thing. I tried.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I didn't get fished. I'm gonna be honest. I never
lied to my guests. I got about one hundred pages
in and was hooked.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
But that's cool. Thank you. Thank you for taking the
effort to read it and look for and understand it.
The lady I'm talking to was in basic training and
she was an E five, a sergeant in the airborne school.
I was. That was only a probably about four and
five months into my military training. I was in airborne
school and I signed up for this three weeks school.
And at airborne school, a lot of people get hurt.
(12:10):
It's just normal to see people walking around on crutches
and wheelchairs. People sprain their ankles, break their legs, break
their arm. Because you're jumping out of airplanes, you know,
and you're using these combat parachutes that push you to
the ground really fast. You drop, you know, one hundred
feet a second, you're bam, bam bamd. Within you jump
out of the plane, and forty five seconds later on
the ground. Well, a lot of people in our group
(12:32):
had gotten hurt. Several people that I was in basic
training were with me and they got hurt, and I
just thought it wasn't for me. I didn't want to
get hurt. So I went to this lady. I believe
it was my second week of basic training, and she
was an airborne trainer and I had went into her
office where she keeps all her paperwork. You just parachutes
all these different things in there. And I walked in
there and I had said, you know, I just like
(12:53):
to talk about getting now. Because it was normal for
people to drop, people would say, you know, it just
isn't for me. I don't want to be an airborne person.
I don't want to go to the airborne ringer. I
don't want to go do this. I don't want to
be Airborne's dangerous and get hurt. And normal people can't
jump out of an airplane. So I went to her
and told it. I went to her and I told her, hey,
(13:14):
you know, I just want to drop, you know, And
she said, well, I'll drop you if you like, Ernest.
But let me tell you one thing. When I was
your age, I had the same thought that you did,
and I did the exact same thing that you did.
I came into an office in this airborne station and
I told my director that I wanted to get out
to and I'm going to tell you what they told me.
You can drop, and you can get out, and you
(13:36):
can live a life of mediocrity and know that you
didn't achieve your goal and you didn't finish what you started,
or you can try it, go for it, do it,
and then feel good about yourself. And I thought there,
and I just immediately my switch turned to my mind
and I finished, and I went the next day, and
I did my jumps the next week, and I graduated.
(13:57):
Stared out of my Bagigi's I did jump five times
army and two times in the civilian world. And I
did it. And to me, you know, millions of people
have graduated from airborne school. To me, it was so hard.
It gave me a chance to overcome my fears and
face fear and look at it in the eye and
(14:17):
do something I was not normally do. And I learned
that from that class from that three week course. To me,
it was transformation and it just put my you know,
gave me some more points on my belt to hold
myself up and make me stronger and give me more momentum.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well that's how it ended. But when it was started,
they had to push you out of the plane, right.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Absolutely, when I got to the door, the door, I
remember the man with his goggles on looking at me
and saying go. And I stood there, and about a
second later he pushed me out and I jumped out.
And after that I did, I did jump. After that
they didn't have to push me anymore. But great experiences,
(14:59):
and I do I appreciate your bringing that back. It
brings back great memories and you know, maybe help me
build some of my intents of the fortitude today, help
some of the challenges going on in life as we
know it today.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Well, if you can make yourself jump out of a plane,
you can probably make yourself do just about anything. And
I thought that was a great story. And I remember
how you talked about you know, it just got easier
with every jump.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Yeah, it's a law familiarity. If you're reading textbooks and stuff,
you'll you'll see that when once you do something, you
gain the confidence to know you can do it again.
And that's something I talk about in the book. The
book is to raise money to help veterans, my federal
sisters and brothers that are struggling out there because the
government doesn't have the resources to take care of everybody,
you know, And I just want to be able to
(15:41):
do my part and make my contribution to give something back.
But my book, you know, I hope and I pray,
and I just beg to warrant that you'll give me
the strength to in fire people to do certain things.
And that is I quit drinking, you know, fifteen years ago.
I quit smoking. Fifteen years ago. I smoked for thirty years.
I was running around smoking, working out, lifting weights, going
(16:04):
travel the world, doing army training four hours a day, running,
you know, forty thirty miles a week, and smoking, so
countering two of the logic, you know. And that was
just the way it was back when I was younger.
Was everybody smoked in the military. So I did all
these things that weren't healthy for you, But yet I
was doing so many things that were so good for you.
(16:26):
And I had this paradox. This just struggle this tension
within myself, and I wasn't healthy. I wasn't being all
I could be. Is the logo was when I went
into the military and I slowly just divested myself of
all these bad things that was doing to my body.
I was able to get off the alcohol. I was
able to get off the smoke, and I was able
to eat healthy not just once, but twice and three times,
(16:48):
and then all the time. And then I eat healthy
all the time. I was able to transform my mind
from being a pissed off and frustrated individual to being
a positive minded person that embraced change, and person that
people could come to and talk to, and I could
mentor people. And I did that over the course of
fifteen twenty years. And I give you strategies in the
(17:09):
book how to do the same Now. I believe, and
I firmly, honestly believe this is true. If you read
that book and you make one change in your life,
it's worth it. If someone can say, damn, I gotta
quit smoking, and you quit smoking, or hey, I'm drinking
six drinks five days a week and I'm getting a
buzz every day I come home from work. But I'm
going to lay it down and maybe not drink as much,
(17:31):
or I'm going to start eating healthy. I'm gonna start
taking care of my health and work out. I believe
it's worth the fifteen bucks in book or four bucks
on kindle so that you can make these changes. I
did it other people that taught me how to do it.
I learned these strategies from other soldiers when I was
in the military. I read this stuff in books and
learn how to do it. And if I did it
(17:51):
just a kid from Milwaukee that didn't have a pot
to piss in, my parents didn't have fifty cents to
send me to college. If I was able to do
it and make these changes in life, anybody can do it,
you know.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
In your defense, I remember a magazine cover with Arnold
Schwarzenegger smoking a cigar.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I had.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
I had grown up, and I'd been in the weightlifting
thing for a long time. I'll be honest, I'm not anymore.
But it was watching Pumping Iron with Arnold Schwarzenegger that
got me interested in that. And so here's this guy
that was kind of my hero. And then I look
up and he's smoking a cigar on the cover of
a magazine. I was like, Arnold, what the hell are
(18:33):
you doing? Mean, so you do see these situations, And
I actually went on at one point in what seems
like another life, I got involved in health club management
right out of college because one day I originally thought
I wanted to do him own club until I worked
for a few of them and I decided I didn't
want to. But we had we had guys that would,
(18:54):
you know, go outside and smoke in the middle of
their workouts. So uh, not recommended, but certainly not that unique.
It does it does happen. So all right, you're a
super super positive guy, and so I don't want to
bring this down too much. But in the book you
said that you know the media tends to focus on
(19:16):
the bad. So I'm gonna I'm going to inject politics
in here for just a second and say that there's
an old joke that if you want to get rid
of poverty for four years, elected Democrat president and the
media won't mention it for four years. I think the
media is very negative. I mean, there's no question about that.
They don't focus on positive stories. But the same time,
(19:39):
I think it's kind of a cycle. I think it's
a lot worse whenever there's a Republican in office. But
the point of you know, what you mentioned in the
book is that you know, you really, you really should
look at it. And you talked about this earlier. How
you know, when you look at other countries, and I'm
sure when you were uh, you know, overseas and also
when you went to Mexico, you notice how bad things
(20:00):
word that. The point is we really should appreciate what
we have here in America. And I think that's another
great message that comes out of the book.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Thank you, And I absolutely correctly, you know, I learned
from the UTO. I didn't understand what was going on
in the news until about six or seven years ago.
I had this professor at University of Texas at Dallas
when I was getting my MPa. There's this doctor, Jeff Hicks.
He's an OBI guru there, organizational behavior guru. And he wrote,
he wrote in his book, he wrote on his blog,
(20:29):
and he talked about media polarization. And I didn't understand this,
and now I completely get it and I barely watch
mainstream media. And what he talked about was back in
the fifties and sixties and seventies, we had community newspapers.
If you remember when you were a kid, you would
get your local paper every morning. That's how you got
your news, or you'd get the local news. When the
(20:50):
TV came out when I was in my seven the seventies,
you'd watch news about what's going on in your town.
It gave you a sense of camaraderaderie for your community,
and you would learn what's going on screen shop, what's
going on to school, what's going on the volunteers. As
there was crime, it was very minuscule compared to today,
But I wasn't as violent and shocking as the things
we see today. Like we saw in these schools, happened yesterday.
(21:12):
We rarely heard of stories like that back when I
was a kid. Well, the media gets paid for clicks
now from you know, clicking on the internet, when you
click on your smartphone device, or you click on your
computer and look at something, and they are built to
shock you. So right now, if you need any type
of shocking, you can go anywhere in the world there's
these nine billion people and find some crazy story that's
(21:35):
going on and then import it to your local town
and community and fam. You're shocked. You think the whole
world's coming to an end, the world's going to the hell,
going to hell in a handbasket, as as my grandpa
used to say. And you're just shocked by this stuff
going on. And I used to watch the news. I
used to watch Fox, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, all the goodies,
(21:58):
and I would just be tormented. I would run around
all day thinking the whole world's coming to an end?
Was I informed? Absolutely? I knew what was going on
in every part of the globe. I had every perspective.
I had the left and the right perspective. But I
was just I felt tormented. And then I one day
I said, you know what, I'm just not going to
(22:19):
watch the news every day for a couple of days.
And I put it down where I stopped watching it
two three, four hours a day, and where I used
to work out and watch the darn news. It was
so ridiculous. And now I really watch the news. I
picked my channels where I want to get my news.
I get it from, you know, stuff like you know,
the tea pointy Hour, the you know, National TV, stuff
like that. Something I know that I can trust, something
(22:42):
I can trust that not the shot or given some
some some bologney that I know is not true, and
that has transformed our country to go into this shock movement.
It's it's designed to now shock you. It's designed to
make these large conglomerate news organizations make money. And they
make money with the clicks. And now there's nothing wrong
with that. They're just doing their jobs. They're they're they're
(23:05):
they're paying, they're paying back their shareholders, they're paying their
people that work there. They're doing what they're supposed to do.
But it's shocking and it's not healthy. It's not good
for your mind. So I ask and I argue to
people that they should pick their news channel. Take it
ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes a day. You know,
I personally read the Wall Street Journal. I like the
(23:25):
Wall Street Journal because I think it's balanced. They give
you both sides of the story. They give space to
the both parties, that Democrats and the Republicans, and they
let senators write editorials in there. They let people on
the far right and on the far left right their
you know, right, their arguments and right their theoretical arguments,
(23:45):
and they're what they believe is going on in the
country and what could be done to make it better,
And I want to know what other people are thinking.
Some people, you know, and say that people on the
other side of what we believe are our enemy. They're
not off our fellow brothers and citizens. There are there are,
There are fellow people that belong in this country. They
pay taxes, they contribute to the nation's good. They may
(24:07):
be misinformed, you know, their parents might have told them
something that's not true and said, hey, this is the
way it should be. You should you know, take away
from the reach and give to the poor, because these
awful rich people are ruining our country and they're not
sharing everything yet alone they pay half the taxes with
the entire country and support the people that are struggling
on the lower part of the total pole. So once
(24:28):
you understand that, and you can embrace that, and you
can make some changes, your life will make much better.
But you're not looking at the news all the time
and being shocked by the things you see on mainstream media.
As I started to do that. Now I can look
at the mainstream media and I can look at one
channel and say here's the story. I'll look at the
other channel. They take the whole story and spin it
it's not even a spin mark. It's a freaking digestive
(24:53):
of a completely different analysis of what just happened. And
it'll be like, it's not smoke screen and the change
is not a spend anymore. It's a lie. You'll read
something that you can watch the video and they'll tell
you something completely different to make up their narrative and
to go with their story of what they believe. And
it's no longer news, it's, you know, a political movement,
(25:16):
if you will. And I don't agree with that. The
news is supposed to inform you and give you the
truth and then give you an analysis and allow you
to make your opinion, not give you information that allows
you to have their opinion. So what influences you? All right?
And that I hope that down the road you can,
you know, use some of these analogies I use with
you to tell your listeners. And that. And the next
(25:39):
thing you touched on was the traveling and singing other countries.
I was never ever out of this country when I
was a kid. My parents didn't have much money. We
barely traveled. I went to like one trip to Tennessee
my whole seventeen years of my life was the only
time I ever traveled out of the area of Milwaukee
in Wisconsin. And when I go and joined the military,
I started traveling the globe. Like I was in thirteen
(26:02):
countries I was in just every day I was going somewhere.
If I wasn't going somewhere, something was wrong. I was
in different states. I was all over the world and
it was it was awesome. It was hard, you know,
it was challenging, but I was able to see different
parts of the world and I would I would tell
you that there is no place on this planet that
(26:23):
is as beautiful as our country. And for those that
have traveled the globe, they can understand that. They can
see that. You might say, and you might look on
the news and they'll tell you that Europe is so great. Oh,
Europe is beautiful. Oh they treat everybody so fair. They're boloney.
When you go to Europe, everybody live in an apartment.
Unless you have a lot of money, you live in
an apartment. You live in a twenty story tall, small apartment,
(26:47):
seven hundred square feet with your five kids, And that's
just the way things are. You drive a car that's
the size of a matchbox car, that's just the world
we live in and the only people that live these
lives that you did see in the news, with the
people that have immense way off. You travel the countries
like Mexico. I traveled to Czechoslovakia. Some of these countries
the people live on peanuts. Through I mentioned in the book,
(27:10):
if you do a simple Internet search, there's people all
over the world living on one hundred dollars a month.
If you can imagine that one hundred dollars a month
people live on. I went to Mexico in two thousand
and three with the person that another person that made
an impact in my life, Sargant Garcia. He was an
airborne ranger from Panama, a two time war veter, highly decorated,
(27:30):
how they respected, very opinionated, and this man made a
huge impact in my life. And before that I had
never understood the sense of contribution. But this person was,
you know, on his off time, on the weekends we
were down there on border duty. He was taking old
goods from our country and traveling to Mexico and people
(27:51):
would repurpose it and then re use it. Clothing, washing machines,
kitchen utensils, the basic necessities of life that we take
for granted that we throw away, we throw it in
the garbage, and he would take it and people in
that country would absolutely think they got it was Christmas.
(28:12):
They would bring them a broken washing machine and they
think it's just Christmas. This is the greatest thing ever.
You give them a T shirt somebody else, you know,
wore a hundred times with Mickey Mussin, and the kid's
got the biggest smile you'd ever see. And you don't
understand that unless you see that and can understand it. Now.
I'll see on the news the celebrity will say, if
everything goes the head on the hand basket and my
(28:32):
person doesn't get a lectorate or some bell gets passed,
I'm moving to Mexico. Okay, I don't know where, what
what kind of pancakes you're eating for breakfast. But that's
just not a real analogy. And you can see they
never really do move to Mexico because we do listen
to this country on the planet. There's no country US.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Let's let's bring a more recent example. When Trump was
running back in twenty sixteen, there were all these Hollywood
types saying, if Trump wins, I'm moving on the country.
They didn't do it, and now some of the same
people are going, this time, I'm gonna do it. I
mean it, this time I'm gonna do And my thought is,
first of all, I have two takes on that. One. No,
(29:11):
you're not because you didn't you lied last time, you're
gonna lie again. But secondly, there's the vanity of that
particular celebrity who thinks that somewhere there's an individual who's
going to go, you know, talking to his wife, we
we better vote for Kamala Harris because if we don't,
Share is going to move out of the country. Yeah,
(29:32):
I mean, like anybody gives a damn if Share or
Rosi o'donald or anyone else moves out of the country.
I mean, it's just it's absolutely insane. Hey, we need
to take one quick break to do a little business
with America and then we will be right back. Welcome
(30:05):
back to the Tea Party Power Hour. I am Mark Glaur,
your host, and along with Douglas Ernest, the author of
the Spirit of a True Patriot, we are splaining. Actually
Doug is doing most of the splaining. But there's been
a lot of good stuff coming out of this book.
And again the full title The Spirit of a True Patriot,
The Inspiring story of Retired Captain Douglas j Ernest And
(30:27):
I do not want to forget that the proceeds from
the book go to benefit military groups. Can you tell
us a little bit about some of the groups that
you're going to help with the proceeds of this book.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
The first one I'd like to mention and one that's
true to my heart because several of my friends sit
on the board of this charity, and that's Cowtown Warriors
and Fort Worth. It's an organization that was started by
someone years and years ago. And what they do is
they just plug the holes when the veteran is having
a challenge, if the veteran is short on this house payment,
can't make the car payment, struggling with mental health issues,
(31:00):
help them with little things in life. Number one to
get them some help, and number two to get them
buy so that they can sustain themselves and get through life,
not lose their home, not lose their their their their
standard of living where they're at. And it's a very
small charity, you know, I believe they you know from
the last looking they bring in around a quarter million
dollars a year. But they make a huge impact in
(31:20):
my area at Dallas Fort Worth. A good friend of mine,
matthew sits on the board for that organization and he
actually does the deployment of the money for these for
these veterans. He's the one that when the veterans call
and say, Hey, I'm short of my house payment, I'm struggling,
I lost my job, I can't get along with my life.
All these things are going wrong. He vets the veteran,
if you will make sure it's that they really need
(31:41):
the money, and then makes arrangements with the vendor to
get them paid. The next one that I would like
to serve, which I have not had the opportunity in
my lifetime to ever give this something back. This is
my way of doing it was hiring our heroes, and
that's a service that helps transition military veterans that need
(32:02):
employment and put them in the workforce. Now you always
hear that story that you hear from your parents. You know,
you can leave a horse to water, but you can't
force them to drink. This gives the veteran a chance
to get the training they need to get a job.
Some veterans just can't do it. You can't put two
and two together. Veterans have one of the highest homeless rates,
and we have one of the most highest mental illness rates,
(32:23):
and they have one of the most highest drug and
alcohol use rates, and we also have one of the
highest suicide rates, sadly, and that's because they get out
and you're left with this void in your life, like
you when I got out, the reason I went back
in was to fill that void. I got out and said,
I'm done. I'm never going back. I'm never going back.
(32:44):
I don't want to go to war. I don't want
people yelling and screaming at me. I don't want to
travel the world anymore. And six months later I was
back in. And it's because you have this void, you know.
But people on the streets aren't like you. They're completely different.
And this gives you a chance to make a connection
with these veterans. And when you can get them a
job and help them transition, maybe get them a little
(33:04):
mental health to help, it can sincerely put them back
on a road to success. The next one I really
like and I adore, and I look up all the time.
I always keep an eye on what they're doing. It's
a national Coalition for Homeless Veterans. That's something that's close
to my heart. I have several friends that I've served
with over the years, and I've talked to people that
I've been listening to the military over the world, and
(33:25):
I'll talk to some and some of them have achieved
tremendous success, like beyond what I could ever imagine I
could do. Some of them are struggling, some are homeless,
some are on drugs, some are gone from this earth
because of alcohol abuse. And you just don't know what
path the Lord's going to lead you on when you
get done. And when they go on that path, sometimes
(33:46):
they can't get out. And some of these people that
I've talked to, I can never get in touch with them,
And then I'll hear from them years later and I'll say, Oh,
I'm just struggling. I'm living out of my car, and
I'm like, how can this person that was a leader
in the military, who people look at to later in
life when they get out not be able to, you know,
sustain their standard of living. And the National Coalition for
(34:07):
Homeless Veterans, who looks for those people on the street
and trying to give them a chance to put them
out so that they can get their life back on tract.
And finally, the Four Black Foundation is the nonprofit organization
that helps veterans transition from military to their civilian vision.
Whatever they're going to do in the civilian world. They
help kind of find some ways to put them in
(34:28):
a job that would be good for their skill sets.
You know, if you were, you know, an artillery guy
in the military or like you know, and even now
we have women in the infantry. If you're an infantry
woman and to get out of the military and you're
all you do is shoot guns for women, what in
the world can you do for a career. It's hard.
How do you put that on a resume. You got
(34:48):
to find a way to say, okay, well I did
train Weson, but yeah, I trained twenty other people how
to do it, so yeah, I'd be a good manager,
I'd be a good director, I'd be a good leader.
And they don't understand this. They have these skills sets
that you can't get off the street, you can't get
in college, and they find a way to put this
on paper, develop resumes, help them grow their career, help
(35:10):
them grow themselves as people, and be able to improve
their lives post military. Those are the four that I've
chosen to share the proceeds of my book with. And
I hope that these listeners that are on here today
can take a chance buy the book, listen to it,
leave a review, buy it, listen to it whatever, leave
a review, help spread some of the word and help
(35:31):
some of the veterans out there that need our help,
because there's a lot of these bets are struggling after
they've given so much of themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, and you know, I think with the homelessness issue,
it's become so common in America that sometimes we just
look the other way and pretend it's not there. I
had a gentleman on a couple of months ago who
lived on the street for ten years and he finally
broke his addiction to drugs and pulled himself out of
(36:00):
it and wrote a book about it. And his book
went into extreme detail about what it means to be homeless.
And this guy saw so many stabbings he didn't he
couldn't keep track of how many he had seen on
the street. Everybody on the street was doing drugs. On
a bad day, you might have to eat out of
a trash can. It's it's it's every everything that's cracked
(36:23):
up to be Homelessness is, and sometimes we forget about that.
But no one should be homeless, let alone people that
have protected this country and preserved our freedoms. So it
sounds like you've got a great group of charities lined
up to give to Is there anything else you want
to say about the book that we might have missed?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
I would say that, you know, the number one message
I want to get out to the listeners is that
the book can help you make some changes in your
life if you're you know, I mentioned quitting smoking, I
mentioned drinking. I mentioned getting on with your family, you know,
and taking care of your health. These some of the
strategies and frameworks in this book are things that people
taught me when I was in the military. I didn't
just wake up one day and say, hey, I'm fifty two,
(37:03):
I'm going to go work out seven hours this week.
It's things that you've learned, you know, and things that
I do and right now, you know, I eat crazy stuff.
I drink spinach smoothies all day, and I try to
eat healthy and lower my meat incake, just things like
that so I can stay healthy. I can stay vibrant.
I can stay motivated if you will and be able to,
you know, make an impact and do what I need
(37:25):
to do to take care of my family and all
my kids and the people that I mentor and the
people that need me in life that their income depends
on me. So I hope that people can get this book,
and I tell them, please, if you just read one
thing and it makes one change in your life, that's positive.
It would have been worth it. If you sign up
to go to the gym, and you made one day
(37:45):
to the gym and the next day you went for
fifteen minutes for five days a week, that's a tremendous
impact in your life that will later trickle down to
other parts of your life and give you some momentum.
And I believe the strategies that providing this book can
give people back.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It takes a lot to do that, uh first step.
And as far as the coincidence goes, I used to
sell gym memberships when I was into the whole weightlifting
and bodybuilding thing. And you know, we used to always
tell people how long you've been thinking about joining in gym, oh, gosh,
four or five years? How much weight have you gained
(38:22):
in that time. Do you want to do you want
to get Yeah, and they'd go, well, do you want
to do you want to go another five years before
you join and gain that much more weight on top
of it, you know, And it's the same thing. No,
I have to tell you reading the book, I felt motivated.
Now I'm gonna be honest, I don't know to do what,
(38:43):
but I felt motivated, you know. And it's kind of like, uh,
you know what with this podcast for example, I mean,
you're doing these podcasts aren't easy. I mean, there's not
a lot of money in it at first, and you, uh,
you've really got to work hard at it. And there
are times when you you know, I'll be honest, there
(39:03):
are times when I've thought about just saying I've had
enough of this. But you know, reading a book like
this and reading about how you were buying corvettes on
your credit card at eighteen percent interesting it tells me that,
you know, hey, don't don't give up. Don't give up.
This guy didn't give up. So but great, great book.
And I mean it's sincerely when I say, you've got
a real talent for writing, and I hope this isn't
(39:25):
your last book, because well, thank.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You Mark and stuff you made you you made a
statement about you know, sometimes you don't feel like you're
you know, why am I going to do this something
making the money? But if you just look on the horizon,
what's out there. Think of the impact that you make
on people's lives by bringing these stories to them, by
giving them news and information that we believe is vetted
and it's true and it's not some smoke screen for
(39:49):
some political alignment strategy that you have behind the scenes.
So you make an impact if you don't even see
and you'll meet people like me that saidn't know. I
heard about your show a couple of years ago, and
I don't watch it every day, but I get on
there from time to time and just check and see
what's going on and kind of follow and see what
you're doing. But it makes an impact because I can
go there. I know that it's there, it's available, there's
(40:10):
a person, there's another fellow patriot that wants to help
this community. You don't, you don't. I don't see you
bashing the other side if you will, and we all
know that you're you know, you lean to one side,
but I don't see you bashing the people out there.
I see you aligned with them. You might not agree
with them, but you believe that you're a fellow citizens
and that they have to say in this world, and
(40:32):
you want you maybe not don't believe what they say,
but you want them to come to your side. You
try to convince them that the things that are going
on in our country are not correct or good for
the future of our country. And for that, I believe
you should be commended.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Thank you, You're welcome. And to that end, I actually
had Hunter Biden's baby mama on a few weeks ago,
and she's a Democrat, and we spent the whole show,
not one of us saying one thing negative about the
other party. Now there which was which was really good?
(41:07):
I mean that was really good. I mean, yeah, I've
got a lot of criticisms of the way the current
administration has done a few things, but here was a girl.
Now you talk about the media line, when you hear
when you thought of the the Hunter Biden baby issue.
The story on the street was he went into a
(41:27):
strip club. You know, he's probably high on drugs. He
met the stripper, they had a one night stand, he
got her pregnant, and you know, the rest is history.
As they say. No, no, she wasn't a stripper when
he met her. It wasn't a one night stand. They
dated on and off for over a year. Uh. And
there's so many things about that story I didn't know,
(41:47):
and I really felt sorry for her because both sides
were kind of abusing, or the left and the right.
The right was doing it to make Hunter Biden look bad.
The left was doing it in a way to kind
of try to protect Hunter Biden. He made a mistake,
he slept with some girl he met a strip bar,
and now she's being a gold digger and trying to
get her a clause into him. No, she comes from
a wealthy family. She didn't need Biden's money. She was
(42:10):
just a rebellious kid in her mid twenties or early twenties,
whatever it was at the time. So it does I
will say this money aside, it does feel good to
help someone like London Roberts get her story out. And
the other thing is too This interview today has been
a great example to people of how the military can
(42:31):
change your life. You know, I mean a lot of
people don't consider how it's not just about going in
and getting a VA home loan or college money. This
is something that changes who you are. It changes your character,
and that ring loud and clear in your book, Doug.
I mean, it really really did. So. I think a
(42:52):
lot of people who were kind of maybe against people
joining the military, I mean, your dad and your grandpa
for two might look at your success and say, you
know what, maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe maybe
the experience can change your life, change your person for
the better. Your character. You talked a lot about character
(43:12):
in the book, so I really enjoyed it, and like
I said, I immediately was reading it, I was going,
is this this guy's first book? Man, it can't be
this is this is too well written, This is too
you know. I mean, I'm serious, I'm not trying to
flatter you. I really really looked at it and said,
this guy seems like maybe all he does for a
living is right.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
So thank you very much for those polite comments. Man,
thank you there.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, I'm they are polite comments, but they're also very
accurate comments. And I think if people will get a
copy of the book and read it, they will see
what I'm talking about. And another thing, because we are
in Texas. I'm a few blocks from A and M
or a few miles from Texas A and M University.
Don't forget you people in the Dallas area. There's the
Corvette Warehouse now, is it still located on Walnut Ridge?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yes, sir, We're on thirty five and Walnut Ridge in
North Dallas. It's a corvette dealership with about one hundred
and fifty corvettes there. So if anybody's out looking for
their their dream two seater sports car or midlife crisis country,
you're welcome to come.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Check us out.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, And to think you started how many cars did
you say you have on lot?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Now we have one hundred and fifty corvettes and we're
the largest corvette dealer in the Southwest and the surrounding
five or six states were the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
And you started it all out with three corvettes that
you bought at eighteen percent interest on a credit card.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Absolutely, and it took me twenty years to even mount
the catafalult that business to any form of what you
would define as success. And you talk about, you know,
having setbacks and not being able to think you're making
an impact or it's going to work and doubting yourself.
I had that business when I was twenty got, twenty three,
(44:53):
twenty four, twenty five. I started it and I'm fifty
two and I had been deployed on the military, mobilized
by the reserve, and I have to close for a
month or two and pay rent and pay bills and
pay the landscapers to cut the grass, and then come
back and put it back together. And that built some
fricking fortitude in my body that just when I got
(45:13):
down with the military and I was out in o
eight oh nine, I just took off run it and
I got about one hundred and fifty corvettes right now.
That's my passion, you know. It's something I do every day,
day in day out. I stay up till two o'clock
in the morning looking at cars. Every night. My wife
has to come get me and tell me to come
to bed, and I'm busy looking at cars. That's my passion.
And I found it, you know, I got out of
(45:34):
the military. I found something to focus on to maybe
heal some of those wounds and let me, you know,
have my camarderaderie with people. I found another industry that
I was I was able to connect with people and
that that's you know, that that was my saving grace
was that was that that Corvette, that product line that
allowed me to you know, use my skill sets to
(45:55):
develop to help others make a living and to you know,
I don't want to say sell the dream, but it is.
You know, only one percent of one percent of the
country people buy a Corvette, whether it's a ten thousand
or fifty thousand dollars car, because it's not an everyday
driver for your family. It's a toy. It's it's a
token of your success, something to set your goal to get.
And that's about ninety percent of my customers are buying
(46:17):
is a second car a toy. I set my goal
when I was twenty and now I'm forty. When I'm forty,
I was going to buy a Corvette. And that's what
I hear every day being in day out on our
clients about buying these cars. And thank you for mentioning
my business. We talk a little bit about it in
the book, I think more towards the end about how
you know, I use the skill sets in the military
(46:37):
to open that business. And if it wasn't for the military,
there's no way in God's green earth that that business
would be alive today.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Wow. Well, you know, they say the secret to life
is to find something you love and then figure out
how to make a living at it, and that's, you know,
the definition of success. And with that being the definition,
you're definitely successful. Large amounts of money aside doing something
you love and you can make a living at it,
and that alone makes you a success. Although I know
you've had incredible financial success with this as well. The
(47:08):
whole idea that getting up and going to work in
the morning isn't a pain in the butt for you,
you actually look.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
I love it. I absolutely love work. And it's funny
you say that about the money, because the money comes
and leaps and bounds. There's there's years that I lose
more money than you can never imagine, and then there's
years that I have great years. It goes up and down.
But when the panal I've learned this from a professor
years ago at school, that is, the pendulum swings both ways,
and the pendulum usually goes back to the medium. The
(47:37):
means somewhere in the middle. So you might have a
year that you you know, being self employed back based
on macroeconomic variables. We end up losing money making money,
losing money making money, especially in a business where it's
it's a toy, it's not required. Interest rates crush us,
you know, and then growing. I'm trying to grow my
(47:58):
business in the middle of that, always hungry for more,
you know. My wife said, well, you need one hundred
and fifty cars. I said, I don't know. I just
feel I just feel like I just have to do this.
I can't stop. I want to keep growing. I don't
want to just say Okay, I have one hundred and fifty,
let's stop. My mind says, oh, my goal is three
hundred by the time I'm sixty. I want to have
three hundred Corvettes and not mine. But for me that
(48:18):
I follow money from the bank to put on display
and sell to people that want to buy their dream car,
and bring more people, spread the message, help more people
get their dream car. It's just something that you feel.
You feel good when you're making progress. If I had
one hundred and fifty and ten years, I wouldn't feel
like that made progress. So if I can just preset
by ten cars a year, I'll feel good about myself
and feel like I'm making an impact and stand behind
(48:40):
some of the stuff I say and set the example
for my kids that I want to teach them how
to be successful and not just give them a bunch
of money. When I'm gone, Well, I tell you what.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Like I said, I think you're the definition of success.
I love the book at least Alex. I'm one hundred
pages in and i think it's extremely well written. I'm
going to encourage everyone to go out and get a copy.
It's called the Spirit of a True Patriot, The Inspiring
Story of Retired Captain Douglas. Jay Ernest Doug thanks for
being here today. I've really enjoyed your visit.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Mark, thank you, and I'd like to just say one thing,
if you will. Sure I had said it earlier and
I touched on it, that your message makes a tremendous,
tremendous impact on your viewers. You don't see it because
you're not down the line listening. You're not seeing the
things that you say online or in these interviews will
change people's lives. But if you put one message out there,
(49:30):
and you put it out in a positive tone like
you mentioned with miss Roberts and not bashing her when
she came on because she doesn't believe in your political views.
It says tremendous about your inter being and allows me
to put that message out. Your voice makes a tremendous impact,
and you don't understand it because you don't have a
chance to talk to all your listeners. You don't have
(49:53):
a chance to talk to people. A lot of people
don't reach out to you and say, oh, you're just great.
I love listening to you. It was awesome that you
put this message out. The people that reach out to
you probably reach out and bash you because they don't
want you making this message. So you don't see that part.
But me, I heard a bunch of years ago, and
I checked you out once in a while, and I
don't ever get off your site and feel like crap.
(50:14):
I feel like wow, I feel pretty good. Things are
going to be okay. That's how I feel when I
read when I check out your stuff. So I want
you to You're welcome. So you do make an impact,
and I hope you continue to do it for the
good of our country and continue to be a patriot
and help our younger generation understand and embrace what being
a patriot is, and we can create more of them
(50:35):
that can lead our country to prosperity and happiness, and
that you know that golden dream all Americans have to
have the utopia that we already have. But to keep
it entails that we can keep that utopia that we
don't even understand we have and keep it for the
next fifty two hundred and fifty years. If this great
nation has already had.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it, and be
sure to stop by once in a while. Don't be
a stranger. Do you have anything.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
If I'm down south driving the Corvette, I'm going to
come in and see you. Lastly, people can check out
the book. I didn't mention that the plug for the
website Douglas Ernest dot com d O U G L
A S E R N E S T. If you
just Internet search Douglas Ernest, you'll pull up the website.
You can get on there. You can go to Amazon,
which is the biggest seller of the book. I'd appreciate
(51:22):
anybody can buy the book, spread the message, leave a comment,
leave a review anywhere good or bad, an any any critique.
I would appreciate it so I can always make myself better,
and that it would help support the veterans that need
that need help right now. I appreciate you today, Mark,
and thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Thank you so much as well, Doug, and have a
great day and I hope we talk again.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Thank you, Mark, take care, So bye bye.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
You've been listening to the T Party Power Hour with
Mark Glar.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Y'all come back now you're here.
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