1
00:00:08,920 --> 00:00:13,280
Speaker 1: This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,

2
00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:17,680
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast.

3
00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:19,320
Speaker 2: You can't predict anything.

4
00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:22,800
Speaker 1: The meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by first Light.

5
00:00:22,960 --> 00:00:26,040
Speaker 1: Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting

6
00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:29,520
Speaker 1: for ELK, First Light has performance apparel to support every

7
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:32,400
Speaker 1: hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light

8
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:35,640
Speaker 1: dot com. F I R S T l I t

9
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:42,520
Speaker 1: e dot com. Joined today by US Senator Tim Sheehe

10
00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:44,320
Speaker 1: represents the state of Montana.

11
00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:44,639
Speaker 3: UH.

12
00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:49,640
Speaker 1: Senator she He joined the US Special or no not

13
00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:53,600
Speaker 1: US Special Forces, former Navy seal, came out of the

14
00:00:53,640 --> 00:00:56,560
Speaker 1: service and went into wild land firefighting from with an

15
00:00:56,640 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 1: aviation from an aviation angle as hills plane. Came out

16
00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:04,560
Speaker 1: of that business and was just elected to the US Senate.

17
00:01:04,560 --> 00:01:08,240
Speaker 1: You got they call you guys freshmen. Yeah, freshman senator

18
00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:11,759
Speaker 1: from Montana. We're going to talk about background, we're gonna

19
00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,720
Speaker 1: talk about wildfires, we're gonna talk about public lands, and

20
00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:16,440
Speaker 1: we'll talk about a couple of other things that come

21
00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:21,200
Speaker 1: up along the way. But uh, for starters, you from Minnesota.

22
00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:24,440
Speaker 1: One of our colleagues, Maggie said, you're from her hometown

23
00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:26,160
Speaker 1: of Minnesota. Yeah, yeah, I.

24
00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:27,920
Speaker 2: Greright up across the street there that there was this

25
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,680
Speaker 2: old army base that used to build It was a

26
00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:34,400
Speaker 2: main fifty caliber ammunition plant there and that closed down

27
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,039
Speaker 2: like after Vietnam. So we grew up on a five

28
00:01:37,080 --> 00:01:40,520
Speaker 2: acre plot around a lot of other folks, and then

29
00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:42,560
Speaker 2: right across the street was the barber or fence, this

30
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,600
Speaker 2: old army base that was thousands of acres of basically

31
00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:49,240
Speaker 2: just like abandoned land. And uh, yeah, it was pretty

32
00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:50,840
Speaker 2: cool place to grow up because could you go running

33
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:52,680
Speaker 2: around in there. Well we weren't supposed to, but of course,

34
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:53,520
Speaker 2: you know, of course you do.

35
00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:56,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit. The kids can do it.

36
00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:57,480
Speaker 1: They that's exactly right.

37
00:01:57,600 --> 00:01:59,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like they'd see us sometimes and come, you know,

38
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 2: yell at some like you know, it's an abandoned basis

39
00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:03,480
Speaker 2: and I think, see what going on there? It's and

40
00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,040
Speaker 2: we go in the old factories. It's huge. One building

41
00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:09,640
Speaker 2: was fourteen acres on the inside. And when they like

42
00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:11,960
Speaker 2: shut the doors and left, I mean it's like, I

43
00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,320
Speaker 2: mean everything was there. You go to the filing cabinets,

44
00:02:14,360 --> 00:02:17,320
Speaker 2: all the orders were there, really, the keys, the bathroom

45
00:02:17,320 --> 00:02:18,840
Speaker 2: had toilet I mean that this play's been banned for

46
00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:20,800
Speaker 2: thirty years and they had toilet paper rolls. I mean

47
00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,760
Speaker 2: they literally shut the gates and walked away. And for

48
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:25,840
Speaker 2: you know, of course that thing's like asbesos everywhere and

49
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:27,800
Speaker 2: there's like you know, holes in the ceiling. So it

50
00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:30,880
Speaker 2: was not a safe OCEHA approved environment for kids to

51
00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:32,520
Speaker 2: be playing. But that's what we did.

52
00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:34,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, but at that age, if somebody comes and yells

53
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:37,440
Speaker 3: at you, it just becomes a game, not an actual toilet.

54
00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:38,200
Speaker 2: That's exactly right.

55
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:40,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's hilarious about that, with the age

56
00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:42,919
Speaker 1: at which you can just go around and not get

57
00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:44,519
Speaker 1: in big trouble, and then you hit another age and

58
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,160
Speaker 1: you can't. There's this hill. I don't I don't want

59
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:48,480
Speaker 1: to say to me, I don't want to like call

60
00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:50,320
Speaker 1: out a neighbor, but there's a hill by our house,

61
00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:54,079
Speaker 1: and our little kids sled there all the time, never

62
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,280
Speaker 1: a word. But our fourteen year old, his body's go

63
00:02:57,280 --> 00:03:01,799
Speaker 1: over there, sled immediately he has to leave exactly totally.

64
00:03:02,000 --> 00:03:03,680
Speaker 1: But our ten year old could slid there all day

65
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:05,600
Speaker 1: and no one says anything to them. You know, he's like, yeah,

66
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:07,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. There was the age when they're gonna

67
00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:07,959
Speaker 1: do something dumb.

68
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:10,880
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there's there's that. There's that phase where like,

69
00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:14,360
Speaker 2: you know, self awareness is assumed to be present, you know,

70
00:03:14,639 --> 00:03:17,360
Speaker 2: like you know you were aware enough of yourself that

71
00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be doing this. Then there's that age wonder

72
00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:20,240
Speaker 2: it's like whatever, we don't care.

73
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:24,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that kid probably knows, yes, he's not actually

74
00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:25,240
Speaker 1: supposed to be on this.

75
00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:27,240
Speaker 2: Hill, right, but yeah, we go in there. And then

76
00:03:27,560 --> 00:03:29,040
Speaker 2: once I was in the military, I came home one

77
00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:31,639
Speaker 2: time on leave and went in. I was like, I

78
00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:33,320
Speaker 2: went to the base at this point, hey can I go?

79
00:03:33,440 --> 00:03:36,520
Speaker 2: Like they're like sure, Like hand me the keys, and

80
00:03:36,560 --> 00:03:38,080
Speaker 2: I walked around like ten, I said, this is boring,

81
00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:39,840
Speaker 2: Like it was so much more fun when like we

82
00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:41,640
Speaker 2: knew we weren't supposed to be there. Then it was

83
00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:44,040
Speaker 2: like we spent hours running around playing games, and now

84
00:03:44,080 --> 00:03:45,280
Speaker 2: I could be there. I was like, there's a bunch

85
00:03:45,280 --> 00:03:47,360
Speaker 2: of abandoned buildings and I'm leaving. That's great.

86
00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:50,880
Speaker 1: What was your uh, how did you decide to join military?

87
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:53,480
Speaker 1: Like and not only that, but not only joined the military,

88
00:03:53,480 --> 00:03:56,640
Speaker 1: but going into the into the Navy seals, Like, uh,

89
00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:58,040
Speaker 1: what was that process for you?

90
00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:00,000
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's as you guys probably know, I mean,

91
00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:04,360
Speaker 2: And it's like I just turned thirty nine a few

92
00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:06,440
Speaker 2: months ago, and it's like, and I was telling someone

93
00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:08,080
Speaker 2: the other day. I was talking to a young man

94
00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:10,520
Speaker 2: at wanting to go to the Nail Academy, and and

95
00:04:10,760 --> 00:04:12,920
Speaker 2: you know, he had his whole life planned out. He's

96
00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:14,640
Speaker 2: nineteen years old and knows, you know, I gotta do

97
00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:17,200
Speaker 2: this and then that and that. I said, listen, you

98
00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:21,279
Speaker 2: know if you'd asked me when I was sixteen, twenty four,

99
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,000
Speaker 2: twenty eight, thirty six where I was going to be

100
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:27,239
Speaker 2: in five years, I would have been wrong every single time,

101
00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:30,400
Speaker 2: like every single time. So you know, I knew I

102
00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,839
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the military. I just did. I

103
00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:36,000
Speaker 2: have no idea why. My Mom's like, yeah, from the

104
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,479
Speaker 2: time you could like run, you had a stick in

105
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,640
Speaker 2: your hand and run around the woods, you know, shooting

106
00:04:40,680 --> 00:04:42,920
Speaker 2: things pretending you were you know, whatever.

107
00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:44,039
Speaker 1: What war did you guys do?

108
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:44,520
Speaker 2: We did?

109
00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:45,960
Speaker 1: We did World War.

110
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:47,560
Speaker 2: Two always, yeah, of course, I mean all them war

111
00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 2: movies as kids, you know, and cowboys and yeah we did.

112
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 1: Like Americans and the Germans, yes.

113
00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:54,800
Speaker 2: And never the jet Japanese like it was never the

114
00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:55,680
Speaker 2: Pacific things we did.

115
00:04:55,960 --> 00:04:57,919
Speaker 1: We didn't fight the jet. It was always European.

116
00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:00,360
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, you know. I grew up Dirty dozen Kelly's

117
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:02,239
Speaker 2: heroes all that stuff. So yeah, I was always running

118
00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,560
Speaker 2: around the woods, yeah, pretending, you know, Normandy whatever. So anyways,

119
00:05:06,600 --> 00:05:07,880
Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to go on the military. And

120
00:05:07,920 --> 00:05:10,560
Speaker 2: my neighbor growing up was a Korean War Navy pilot.

121
00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:14,440
Speaker 2: And I didn't have really much relations on my grandparents.

122
00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:16,479
Speaker 2: My mother's side that they died off when I was

123
00:05:16,480 --> 00:05:18,599
Speaker 2: really young, or one before I was born, the one

124
00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:20,640
Speaker 2: when I was young, and then my dad's side just

125
00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:23,120
Speaker 2: we didn't have much relationship there. There was some you know,

126
00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:26,000
Speaker 2: just old school familial strife. So he kind of became

127
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,880
Speaker 2: my grandfather figure. And he is Harry Tebow's name, and

128
00:05:29,920 --> 00:05:31,960
Speaker 2: his son Steve Tebow and their whole family great folks.

129
00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:34,920
Speaker 2: So he I knew I was interested in the military,

130
00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:37,000
Speaker 2: and he took me up flying in his cub when

131
00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:40,080
Speaker 2: I was like eight or nine years old, and right

132
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:42,600
Speaker 2: away I was like, I love aviation, Like this is amazing.

133
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:44,760
Speaker 2: And as soon as I could reach the rudder pedals

134
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,200
Speaker 2: my feet when I was like eleven, he started teaching

135
00:05:47,240 --> 00:05:47,640
Speaker 2: me how to fly.

136
00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:48,320
Speaker 1: So really.

137
00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:48,680
Speaker 3: Yeah.

138
00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:50,560
Speaker 2: So at that point I decided I was going to

139
00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:52,479
Speaker 2: go on the military and be as we were just

140
00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:54,400
Speaker 2: talking before he started about Top Gun. You know, I'm

141
00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:56,400
Speaker 2: a child of the eighties. Of course we all watched

142
00:05:56,560 --> 00:05:59,080
Speaker 2: Top Gun on VHS, so you know, we watched so

143
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:00,919
Speaker 2: many times. The tape was wearing out, you know, and

144
00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:03,320
Speaker 2: of course the dog fighting scenes were wined and watched

145
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:04,880
Speaker 2: so many times, you know, like you could see the

146
00:06:04,920 --> 00:06:08,159
Speaker 2: tape had been uh, you know, degraded over time. But

147
00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:09,720
Speaker 2: so I was like, I'm gonna go naval cando be

148
00:06:09,720 --> 00:06:12,040
Speaker 2: a fire pile. And so I was flying planes for

149
00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:14,560
Speaker 2: as drabbing cars, got my soul at the plane before

150
00:06:14,600 --> 00:06:17,040
Speaker 2: I had my driver's license, got my pile's license in

151
00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:19,320
Speaker 2: high school, no kid, and then yeah, I went to

152
00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:22,560
Speaker 2: the academy to be be a fighter pile. So yeah,

153
00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:24,880
Speaker 2: and then got there and you know, I was in

154
00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,240
Speaker 2: high school on nine to eleven. Happened as probably all

155
00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:28,880
Speaker 2: we were seeming all rough of the same age, so

156
00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:30,800
Speaker 2: you know, it was was was that that was a

157
00:06:30,839 --> 00:06:33,440
Speaker 2: defining factor of all of our young lives. And then

158
00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:34,760
Speaker 2: I got a huge jump on you. I was in

159
00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:37,320
Speaker 2: graduate school. Yeah really, well your age, well you look great,

160
00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:42,960
Speaker 2: you know, fine one, you know, but yes, but I was,

161
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 2: uh so got to the academy. This is fall of four,

162
00:06:46,760 --> 00:06:51,240
Speaker 2: summer of four, and you know, I I you know,

163
00:06:51,320 --> 00:06:54,240
Speaker 2: there's always perception of organization from the outside. You perceive

164
00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:56,320
Speaker 2: something from the outside, and when you're inside, you know,

165
00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:59,359
Speaker 2: your perceptions normally clash with the reality and things changed.

166
00:06:59,400 --> 00:07:01,640
Speaker 2: So I knew I wanted to be a fighter pilot

167
00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:05,080
Speaker 2: and going in and when I got there, you know,

168
00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:07,520
Speaker 2: I was immersed in the military for the first time really,

169
00:07:07,839 --> 00:07:11,360
Speaker 2: and you know, we had Iraq was going full swing,

170
00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:13,680
Speaker 2: Afghanistan was going full swinging for the first time, and

171
00:07:13,800 --> 00:07:17,440
Speaker 2: you know, forty years America was seeing couch that these

172
00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:19,760
Speaker 2: come home. And we were you know that we had

173
00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 2: our first academy grad killed in action in a long time.

174
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,880
Speaker 2: So being at the Naval Academy was very you know,

175
00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,120
Speaker 2: it was a wartime feel. And I think something's unique

176
00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:30,400
Speaker 2: about the Gwatt Glo War and terror, of course, was

177
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:33,920
Speaker 2: people in the military, like the two percent of people

178
00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:35,720
Speaker 2: in America that served, like we were all at war

179
00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:37,920
Speaker 2: for twenty years. You know. Yeah, like my wife, she

180
00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:39,520
Speaker 2: was a marine. We met the academy, like her brother

181
00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:42,040
Speaker 2: served like everyone we knew, all of our best friends,

182
00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:44,440
Speaker 2: all of our families were living the war. Yet most

183
00:07:44,480 --> 00:07:46,480
Speaker 2: of America wasn't. They just went on with life as normal.

184
00:07:46,520 --> 00:07:48,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't like World War Two, where everybody was pitching

185
00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:52,520
Speaker 2: in and rationing food and rationing rubber, and everyone had

186
00:07:52,560 --> 00:07:54,960
Speaker 2: a brother or a son deployed for us. It was

187
00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:58,360
Speaker 2: like a super small sector of America deployed again and

188
00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:00,920
Speaker 2: again and again and again and again, felt the pain

189
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,040
Speaker 2: and carried the load. So anyways, where I'm going with

190
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:06,000
Speaker 2: that is I get to the Academy and pretty quickly

191
00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:09,040
Speaker 2: realized that, you know, this is a ground war. I

192
00:08:09,080 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 2: wanted to fly planes, but you know the war is

193
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:14,920
Speaker 2: being fought door to door, you know, in Solder City

194
00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:16,800
Speaker 2: and you know, rock the rock in the valleys of

195
00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:20,160
Speaker 2: Afghanistan and flying up above ahead. I mean, you were

196
00:08:20,200 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 2: a supporting act, like the real action was on the ground.

197
00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:28,440
Speaker 2: So I actually quit the academy. My my fall my

198
00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:29,880
Speaker 2: freshman year. I was like, hey, I got to go

199
00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:32,800
Speaker 2: fight the war, Like I've got to go typical eighteen

200
00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:35,440
Speaker 2: nae gienal Kid Filipiss and Vigor. I'm like, I've got

201
00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:37,440
Speaker 2: to go fight because the war will be over by

202
00:08:37,480 --> 00:08:38,959
Speaker 2: the time I graduated, I got to do my part.

203
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:42,839
Speaker 2: So I went to resign from the academy, and you know,

204
00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:45,680
Speaker 2: I was I was at the top of my class

205
00:08:45,679 --> 00:08:47,679
Speaker 2: at that point, very highly ranked that that that at

206
00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:49,719
Speaker 2: that point in time, and they were like, hey, why

207
00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,600
Speaker 2: are you like the top guy? What are you leaving?

208
00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:53,760
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, I got to go fight, you know,

209
00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:56,000
Speaker 2: like I can't sit here and take calculus while there's

210
00:08:56,080 --> 00:08:58,240
Speaker 2: guys on the ground fighting. So I got to do

211
00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:02,199
Speaker 2: my part. And my commanding officer from my company was like,

212
00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:04,280
Speaker 2: all right, well, you know, bind you do what you

213
00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:05,600
Speaker 2: want to do, but you got to talk to guy

214
00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:07,440
Speaker 2: before you leave. Here's a name. He's going to meet

215
00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:09,839
Speaker 2: you down at the at the kind of restaurant on

216
00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:11,839
Speaker 2: campus tonight, which we weren't allowed in as pleeb So

217
00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 2: it's kind of like, well, I'm not allowed to go,

218
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:14,480
Speaker 2: and there's like, no, you can go tonight. I'll give

219
00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:15,040
Speaker 2: you permission.

220
00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:17,480
Speaker 3: Is it kind of like this is going to help

221
00:09:17,520 --> 00:09:18,079
Speaker 3: you or hurt you?

222
00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:21,240
Speaker 2: No context at all, no context like hey, cool, all right,

223
00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:22,439
Speaker 2: you want to leave, I'm not going to stop you,

224
00:09:22,480 --> 00:09:23,839
Speaker 2: but you need to talk to this guy. But you know,

225
00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:25,640
Speaker 2: that's why I have a conversation with this guy. So

226
00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,080
Speaker 2: I'm a plebe, you know, which is the lowest possible.

227
00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:29,280
Speaker 1: You know, you're what's that stand for?

228
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,959
Speaker 2: So plebe is is what you call it. That's what

229
00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:38,320
Speaker 2: your freshman. It's not an acronym no, like ancient Rome

230
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,040
Speaker 2: plebeans like T L E B E. Yah. So plebe like,

231
00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:44,360
Speaker 2: which basically means the most common commoner. Like it's like

232
00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:47,000
Speaker 2: a like a pawn in the game of chess. So

233
00:09:48,400 --> 00:09:50,640
Speaker 2: you are the lowest ranking person in the military basically

234
00:09:50,720 --> 00:09:53,400
Speaker 2: is a pleap. So instead of freshmen, we call them

235
00:09:53,440 --> 00:09:55,640
Speaker 2: plebes at the service academy. So anyways, I go down

236
00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:57,440
Speaker 2: to meet with this guy and it's a full bird

237
00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:00,800
Speaker 2: Army colonel special Forces guy, which for a pleave is

238
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:02,760
Speaker 2: basically like, you know, get any higher than that. So

239
00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:04,520
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh wow, Like I sir, He's like, oh,

240
00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,000
Speaker 2: you must be timp I'm like yeah, So I hear

241
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:08,679
Speaker 2: you're gonna quit and leave the academy. I said, yeah,

242
00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:10,240
Speaker 2: you know, I gotta go fight the war. I can't

243
00:10:10,280 --> 00:10:12,040
Speaker 2: sit here and go to school while the war's going on.

244
00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:14,439
Speaker 2: And he said, well, I just got back from my

245
00:10:14,480 --> 00:10:16,000
Speaker 2: third deployment during the war, and I can tell you

246
00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:17,439
Speaker 2: you're not going to miss it. We're going to be

247
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 2: fighting this war for another twenty years. And what I

248
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:22,160
Speaker 2: need is smart young leaders and officers.

249
00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:25,840
Speaker 1: Oh, he should have taken that message to the Yeah,

250
00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:28,240
Speaker 1: he had to take that message to DC.

251
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:28,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

252
00:10:29,640 --> 00:10:32,000
Speaker 2: So anyways, that he convinced me to stick around and

253
00:10:32,520 --> 00:10:35,360
Speaker 2: stay and finish my education of the process. You know,

254
00:10:35,920 --> 00:10:38,880
Speaker 2: he long other stories for the front of the time,

255
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:40,720
Speaker 2: but I got to go in this exchange program where

256
00:10:41,080 --> 00:10:43,839
Speaker 2: starting that next year, I went through Army Range of Training,

257
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,720
Speaker 2: Range of Regiment Exchange, Special Forces Group, Airborne Recoon School,

258
00:10:47,800 --> 00:10:49,720
Speaker 2: so kind of the I went to the Army Commando

259
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:53,679
Speaker 2: Special Ops Training Pipeline, which was a great experience, met

260
00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:57,320
Speaker 2: some amazing folks, learned a ton and because really our

261
00:10:57,360 --> 00:11:00,120
Speaker 2: Special Operations Command jay sox so com, it's really an

262
00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:03,560
Speaker 2: Army organization. I mean, the vast majority of our special

263
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,000
Speaker 2: ops organization in America is Army, like eighty five percent

264
00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:09,680
Speaker 2: of it. And you know then you got basically Air Force,

265
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:13,160
Speaker 2: Marines and Navy makeup very small percentages. So the Seals

266
00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:15,760
Speaker 2: are a very small part of our of our global

267
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:18,959
Speaker 2: special operations footprint. So it's important to understand how the

268
00:11:19,080 --> 00:11:20,839
Speaker 2: Army works and that that was the reasoning there. So

269
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:23,160
Speaker 2: kind of by accident ended up going to the seal teams.

270
00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,760
Speaker 2: And you know, once you're at the academy, you know,

271
00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:28,240
Speaker 2: you start to figure out what culturally you fit best

272
00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:31,080
Speaker 2: in and pilot naval aviation is is the best avay

273
00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:33,839
Speaker 2: screen in the military. But at the same time, my

274
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,800
Speaker 2: personality fit pretty quickly I realized, you know, was with

275
00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:38,680
Speaker 2: the with the seal teams, and you.

276
00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:42,000
Speaker 1: Still have to do all the cold water stuff just

277
00:11:42,240 --> 00:11:45,000
Speaker 1: like the seals. The but you still had to do that.

278
00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:46,839
Speaker 1: I don't know if you did, if you did.

279
00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:52,360
Speaker 2: The validation and seal training, and so yeah, that's the

280
00:11:52,440 --> 00:11:56,559
Speaker 2: thing man, Like, yeah, the the my specialty is walking,

281
00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:00,240
Speaker 2: like I could do like I could do an elimination.

282
00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:02,160
Speaker 1: Worse about walking, but sitting in cold water.

283
00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:06,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just yeah, well that's that's one of one

284
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,880
Speaker 2: of the great attriting factors. And training is just the suck,

285
00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:13,319
Speaker 2: you know. So you know everyone wants the videos and

286
00:12:13,360 --> 00:12:15,480
Speaker 2: thinks it's, oh, this really tough physical evolution. You got

287
00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 2: to jump, you got to do this crazy obstacle course,

288
00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:20,400
Speaker 2: you got to do this insanely you know, whatever, what

289
00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,400
Speaker 2: gets guys isn't isn't the test gates, whether it's you know,

290
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,120
Speaker 2: assembling weapons, jumping on the planes. What gets guys just

291
00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:30,920
Speaker 2: the suck, just the continued suck of like not just

292
00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:32,880
Speaker 2: that it sucks, but then the knowledge that it's going

293
00:12:32,920 --> 00:12:34,640
Speaker 2: to continue to suck for a very long time.

294
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it's not like a hunt.

295
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:38,839
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, well, you know we'll be out

296
00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:40,319
Speaker 2: of here today or tomorrow, the next day, we're to

297
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,160
Speaker 2: get the truck running, like this is going to go

298
00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:45,040
Speaker 2: on for and then you don't know, it's not like

299
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:47,880
Speaker 2: all right, it's sixty two more days to go, or

300
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:52,200
Speaker 2: it's like this will just continue to suck until it doesn't.

301
00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:55,439
Speaker 2: And then that that unknown is what causes people to quit.

302
00:12:55,559 --> 00:12:59,199
Speaker 2: That's really it's the unknown of how bad the pain

303
00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:01,439
Speaker 2: will be and how long it will go for. When

304
00:13:01,480 --> 00:13:02,839
Speaker 2: folks decide, all right, this isn't for me.

305
00:13:03,280 --> 00:13:05,880
Speaker 1: When you got deployed, what kind of like where did

306
00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:07,840
Speaker 1: you go and what were you working on? How did

307
00:13:07,840 --> 00:13:09,199
Speaker 1: they spend your time?

308
00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:11,599
Speaker 2: It was a crazy period of time. I mean a

309
00:13:11,679 --> 00:13:13,679
Speaker 2: lot of times in life, you know, when you're in

310
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:16,320
Speaker 2: when you're in the soccer, when you're in that those

311
00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,200
Speaker 2: Kadok periods of life. You know, they don't feel katok,

312
00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:21,560
Speaker 2: You're just you're just doing it. And as you're normally

313
00:13:21,640 --> 00:13:23,240
Speaker 2: years later, you look back, whether you have a whole

314
00:13:23,240 --> 00:13:25,959
Speaker 2: bunch of kids close together, you know, whether it was

315
00:13:25,960 --> 00:13:28,280
Speaker 2: a crazy time in your business, you know, or whether

316
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:30,480
Speaker 2: it was like during the war years. At the time,

317
00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:32,880
Speaker 2: you just feel like you're doing your job and then

318
00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:34,680
Speaker 2: kind of years later you look back, like, oh my god,

319
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,320
Speaker 2: like that was a crazy time. How much we were

320
00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:39,560
Speaker 2: doing so, like I mean during my time and my wife,

321
00:13:39,720 --> 00:13:41,640
Speaker 2: she had just commissioned into a Marine Corps officer, so

322
00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:45,240
Speaker 2: we were a married couple that was doing you know,

323
00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:47,800
Speaker 2: we were both deploying to the war zone separately. You

324
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:48,680
Speaker 2: don't like deploy together.

325
00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:50,840
Speaker 1: It's not even not based out of the same area.

326
00:13:50,920 --> 00:13:53,240
Speaker 2: No, no, like you know, like it's not a couple's

327
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:55,920
Speaker 2: golf trip, like I mean the Marine center where they

328
00:13:55,960 --> 00:13:57,640
Speaker 2: need to go, and the Seals sent me where they

329
00:13:57,679 --> 00:13:59,679
Speaker 2: need me to go. So like we're not like we

330
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:01,480
Speaker 2: got married to the mail like I'm a mail order

331
00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:04,599
Speaker 2: husband literally. So she was in Afghanistan deployed. I was

332
00:14:04,640 --> 00:14:07,360
Speaker 2: deployed somewhere else, and we kept trying to actually constantly

333
00:14:07,480 --> 00:14:10,360
Speaker 2: get the marriage done, and we were like, we're not

334
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,040
Speaker 2: going to be together for like two and a half years.

335
00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:14,000
Speaker 2: When are we actually going to be physically co located.

336
00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:16,400
Speaker 4: Were you guys even able to communicate with each other

337
00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:17,000
Speaker 4: in regularly?

338
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:19,160
Speaker 2: You know, it was just a pre skype and FaceTime

339
00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:22,880
Speaker 2: and all that. So yes, but not like it is now,

340
00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:24,520
Speaker 2: not when it's like open a tablet and like have

341
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:27,920
Speaker 2: a meeting. It was like everything was landline phone still

342
00:14:27,960 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 2: at the bases, and snail mail and email when you

343
00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:33,760
Speaker 2: could get access to an internet connection, and at most

344
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:35,800
Speaker 2: times in the you know, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, like

345
00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:38,840
Speaker 2: it was still landline phones and landline internet. So yeah,

346
00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:41,440
Speaker 2: I mean we'd communicate when we could, but it's not

347
00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:43,880
Speaker 2: at all. It's vastly improved today. Our service members today

348
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:46,280
Speaker 2: as they should have a far better you know, you

349
00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:48,080
Speaker 2: can connect to a Wi Fi connection and still see

350
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:48,560
Speaker 2: your family.

351
00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:51,240
Speaker 1: So in Montana you can get married by proxy.

352
00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:51,960
Speaker 3: That's what we did.

353
00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:54,840
Speaker 2: We were married via double proxy and Montana double bridze,

354
00:14:54,840 --> 00:14:56,040
Speaker 2: so neither neither of us were there.

355
00:14:56,080 --> 00:14:56,560
Speaker 1: We're the only.

356
00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:58,560
Speaker 2: State's legal where you can get married via double proxy.

357
00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:01,560
Speaker 2: So Carmen figured that out out. She was in Afghanistan.

358
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:02,960
Speaker 2: She's like, hey, I figured how we can get married.

359
00:15:02,960 --> 00:15:06,000
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, how send it? It's like we

360
00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:09,400
Speaker 2: can get married through the mail. I'm like, really, I

361
00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:11,040
Speaker 2: didn't know that was legal. She's like, well, it's only

362
00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:14,640
Speaker 2: legal in one state, Montana. Like wow, she's like, yeah.

363
00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:18,320
Speaker 2: We notarize a form and mail it in and basically

364
00:15:18,320 --> 00:15:20,320
Speaker 2: they take it to the courthouse and Calispell and two

365
00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:21,920
Speaker 2: people we have I still have no idea who they

366
00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 2: are stand in and you pay them the proxy fee

367
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,680
Speaker 2: and they get married for you. And then you know,

368
00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:29,440
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks later, we get our forums mailed

369
00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:31,280
Speaker 2: back to us like, oh we were married. We were

370
00:15:31,320 --> 00:15:36,840
Speaker 2: married on February eleventh. Cool, happy anniversary. Yeah. So so

371
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:38,800
Speaker 2: so that's how we did it. It's cool law, though,

372
00:15:38,920 --> 00:15:41,880
Speaker 2: you know, because it's got to be for the military. No, no, actually,

373
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:44,000
Speaker 2: well I mean it is now now their whole business

374
00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:47,560
Speaker 2: models they target military couples, say exactly the situation my

375
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:49,840
Speaker 2: wife and I dealing with it. But where the law

376
00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:53,280
Speaker 2: came from is the homestead days. So you know, only

377
00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:55,720
Speaker 2: like half a homestead claims were actually awarded. You know,

378
00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:58,360
Speaker 2: the whole perception, you know, from what was that stupid

379
00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:00,720
Speaker 2: Tom Cruise movie where terrible Irish accent, you know where

380
00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:01,640
Speaker 2: they're front there.

381
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:03,560
Speaker 3: But also the fighting scenes were away.

382
00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:06,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like Jesus left.

383
00:16:09,080 --> 00:16:09,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, oh my god.

384
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:11,400
Speaker 2: But anyway, so you know, like run out there and

385
00:16:11,480 --> 00:16:13,160
Speaker 2: jam their stake on the ground of boom, here's your land,

386
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:16,560
Speaker 2: like actually surprising. The process is more formal and death,

387
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,880
Speaker 2: and the government didn't want random speculators grabbing homestead claims.

388
00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:21,840
Speaker 2: Obviously that happened, but that's not what they wanted. They

389
00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:25,280
Speaker 2: wanted families to settle on the land, build a home,

390
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 2: build a ranch, harvest crops. So homestead claims one of

391
00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:31,200
Speaker 2: the first criteria that they would award them was based

392
00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:33,280
Speaker 2: on if you were married with a family and living

393
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:37,560
Speaker 2: on the land. And during those territory days before states

394
00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,120
Speaker 2: were states, they were kind of competing for people because

395
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:42,840
Speaker 2: the sooner you had more people and land homesteaded, the

396
00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:45,120
Speaker 2: sooner you're going to get statehood. I mean that wasn't

397
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,080
Speaker 2: like a technical threshold, but that was basically once you

398
00:16:48,200 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 2: had more people and more constituency of state, you had

399
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:53,560
Speaker 2: a better chance of being or in your territory, you

400
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:55,320
Speaker 2: had better chance of being a state. So anyways, want

401
00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,800
Speaker 2: male to female threshold that was set up, so it

402
00:16:58,920 --> 00:16:59,760
Speaker 2: was like ninety six.

403
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:00,680
Speaker 1: It was crazy.

404
00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:03,840
Speaker 2: So Montana Territory Rifle is like, hey, we can make

405
00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:07,320
Speaker 2: it legal to basically come out here and then mail

406
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,800
Speaker 2: order a wife, show your piece of paper. Look, I'm married.

407
00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:12,920
Speaker 2: This is my homestead. I go out here and helped

408
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:14,960
Speaker 2: helped the process, homestack claims. So anyway, it's kind of

409
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:17,400
Speaker 2: an interesting sure. Yeah, so you were in and out

410
00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:20,639
Speaker 2: of I have to imagine Afghanistan. How many times did

411
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,000
Speaker 2: you get so, I mean all the times, you know,

412
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:25,080
Speaker 2: every time I was ever sent. I mean basically mine,

413
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:28,280
Speaker 2: I really did four deployments, you know, but ultimately, you know,

414
00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 2: I was I was sent overseas, you know, several times,

415
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 2: you know, more than that, but ultimately in Iraq, Afghanistan,

416
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:38,000
Speaker 2: a couple of times, UH to South America for counter

417
00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:42,240
Speaker 2: narcotics and and host nation partnership there, and then a

418
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:44,840
Speaker 2: couple other trips around you know, different type of different

419
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:47,359
Speaker 2: types of missions. So yeah, I had a great, you know,

420
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:51,520
Speaker 2: great experience all over the world, and you know, loved leading, leading,

421
00:17:51,880 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 2: leading our teams everywhere. It's a huge honor when when

422
00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:56,199
Speaker 2: you look at the responsibility. Again, you look back at

423
00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:59,280
Speaker 2: the responsibility you're given. I mean a twenty five, twenty

424
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:01,159
Speaker 2: six year old guy. You know, one point between the

425
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:04,840
Speaker 2: Afghan Army troops, I had my seals, my army assignment

426
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,440
Speaker 2: that i'd get get an army platoon assigned to me,

427
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:10,560
Speaker 2: and you know, I had like two hundred people under

428
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:14,920
Speaker 2: my command and daily combat operations, you know, you know, gunfights,

429
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:17,719
Speaker 2: every day, air strikes, and it's like I was the commander,

430
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:19,159
Speaker 2: like I was in charge. You think about that in

431
00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:22,840
Speaker 2: the business world, you know, that amount of responsibilit given

432
00:18:22,880 --> 00:18:24,320
Speaker 2: to a twenty five, twenty six year old, and now

433
00:18:24,359 --> 00:18:27,160
Speaker 2: that's true across the military. I mean, you take twenty

434
00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:28,680
Speaker 2: five year old pilot in the Air Force. He's flying

435
00:18:28,680 --> 00:18:33,320
Speaker 2: one hundred million dollars aircraft. I mean, so the responsibility

436
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:34,639
Speaker 2: and then he goes home and his dad won't let

437
00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,160
Speaker 2: them use that's run exactly. It's a total it's where

438
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:39,760
Speaker 2: you come home. And that's that's part of the reason

439
00:18:39,760 --> 00:18:41,800
Speaker 2: the veteran transition. You know, I've spoke at a veteran's

440
00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 2: banquet last night here in town, and I actually worked

441
00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:46,560
Speaker 2: out with our Air Force with our RTC kids. So

442
00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:48,240
Speaker 2: I got this patch of my jacket here. You know,

443
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 2: we worked out with their art see kids yesterday at

444
00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:52,639
Speaker 2: MSU and kind of impart of that upon them. Like

445
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:55,640
Speaker 2: you know, you get home, it's a totally different. You'll

446
00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:57,920
Speaker 2: work at a small business while you know you can't

447
00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:00,159
Speaker 2: you can't drive the forklift yet you don't have the

448
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,240
Speaker 2: OSHA approval. It's like, dude, I just I used to, like,

449
00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:05,119
Speaker 2: you know, drive helicopters. You know, I used to drive tanks.

450
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:08,359
Speaker 2: You know, twenty a nineteen year old kid'll be at

451
00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:10,720
Speaker 2: the helm of a of a three billion dollar summer

452
00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:11,880
Speaker 2: and you know driving those things.

453
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:13,120
Speaker 1: So it's a yeah.

454
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:15,080
Speaker 2: And then so that's sometimes hard for bets to come

455
00:19:15,119 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 2: home and have like that reduction and scope all of

456
00:19:18,000 --> 00:19:19,280
Speaker 2: a sudden. It's like, you know, I used to have

457
00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:19,919
Speaker 2: have to.

458
00:19:19,960 --> 00:19:22,399
Speaker 3: Prove yourself again, right yeah, Yeah, that's crazy.

459
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:24,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a tough transition for everybody.

460
00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 1: So, uh, when you came out of that, how did

461
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:30,600
Speaker 1: you decide to get into wild land? Yeah, it's wild

462
00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:33,359
Speaker 1: wild land firefighting, like like we ended up in the seals.

463
00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:34,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I make no bones about it.

464
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,320
Speaker 2: I never like almost everything I've done, if to include politics,

465
00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:40,159
Speaker 2: which I true, we'll talk about was an accident, like,

466
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:42,040
Speaker 2: it was never a plan. So I basically I didn't

467
00:19:42,080 --> 00:19:44,639
Speaker 2: plan to get out steal teams. When I did, you know,

468
00:19:44,720 --> 00:19:47,199
Speaker 2: I got injured and for the time being, it was like, hey,

469
00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:49,320
Speaker 2: you know you have to go off the duty rolls

470
00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:50,840
Speaker 2: of the teams. You can't be an active sealing anymore.

471
00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:53,159
Speaker 2: We got to do meta evaluation. I'm like, well, you know,

472
00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:55,320
Speaker 2: if I can't be a seal, I can't lead a team,

473
00:19:55,400 --> 00:19:57,360
Speaker 2: Like why don't I do push paper? And basically like, yeah,

474
00:19:57,400 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 2: but that's okay, you push paper for a while, and

475
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:01,879
Speaker 2: I was like, listen that that's not like if I

476
00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 2: can't leave my guys on missions and you're gonna send

477
00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:05,560
Speaker 2: me in a headquarters for two or three years, like

478
00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:07,240
Speaker 2: you know, all move on with life.

479
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:09,679
Speaker 1: So so did you not get your twenty year retirement then?

480
00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:12,399
Speaker 2: No, no, I got out. You know, i'd only been

481
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:15,280
Speaker 2: in all in eleven years between active and reserve time

482
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,600
Speaker 2: when I when I when I was done, so oh no, yeah,

483
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:18,880
Speaker 2: you have to you have to be in for twenty

484
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 2: years active duty to retire at twenty. So yeah, so

485
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 2: basically we got out and I decided at that point

486
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 2: there was a technology we used in the Special Operations community.

487
00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,240
Speaker 2: We were we were really the innovators behind the tact

488
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:39,280
Speaker 2: limits put the implementation of this and that is airborne surveillance.

489
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:42,399
Speaker 2: So basically, you know, if you ever watched these Special

490
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:44,639
Speaker 2: Ops Seal CIA movies, you'll always see, you know, the

491
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,200
Speaker 2: aircraft overhead with an INFRED sensor, with an electro optics sensor,

492
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,399
Speaker 2: whatever it is, basically watching the whole mission take place

493
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:56,639
Speaker 2: and providing a really critical array of situational awareness for

494
00:20:56,760 --> 00:20:59,320
Speaker 2: us on the ground. You know, we could see where

495
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,480
Speaker 2: enemy fire was coming from, we could locate enemy positions,

496
00:21:02,560 --> 00:21:04,239
Speaker 2: We could know where our own people were. So if

497
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 2: we're calling in an air strike, we make sure we

498
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:07,680
Speaker 2: knew where all the friendly forces were before we started

499
00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 2: dropping bombs, which has been a any You guys know

500
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:12,800
Speaker 2: what the largest killer of US troops in the First

501
00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 2: Golf War was not aviation, friendly fire. Yeah, our own people. Now,

502
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 2: if we had good data, which we don't, but I

503
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:22,760
Speaker 2: promise you, if you had good data, you'd see the

504
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:26,159
Speaker 2: same in Vietnam, Korea, probably World War two. You think

505
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:31,000
Speaker 2: so absolutely. I mean, it's just a reality of conflict.

506
00:21:31,160 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 2: Is friendly fire is sometimes just as if not more

507
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 2: dangerous than any fire. I mean, the fog of war

508
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 2: is real. I mean, you watch these movies and you know,

509
00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 2: every time you see a gunfight, it's like, you know,

510
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:43,600
Speaker 2: the one guy's looking the other guy in the eye

511
00:21:43,680 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 2: and like the cun comes out and he's like you

512
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,920
Speaker 2: know they all you know, this isn't mel Gibson a

513
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,160
Speaker 2: leath of weapon. As much as you know, like bolts

514
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 2: are flying a lot of you know, you don't know

515
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:52,760
Speaker 2: where the hell they're coming from. You don't even know

516
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,440
Speaker 2: who's shooting at you, especially in places like Afghanistan and

517
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,919
Speaker 2: an urban warfare in Iraq. It's like sometimes the biggest

518
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 2: challenge is figure out where you getting shot at from.

519
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:02,919
Speaker 2: And then once you figure that out, all right, now

520
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 2: we can deal with it. But a lot of times,

521
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 2: you know you're taking fire inbound, you don't know where

522
00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:09,399
Speaker 2: it's coming from. Uh, And that's something the movies never

523
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,280
Speaker 2: really capture. It's like, you know, someone gets shot all

524
00:22:12,320 --> 00:22:13,639
Speaker 2: of a sudden that like they see the guy in

525
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 2: the bell tower a mile away. There it is, you know,

526
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 2: blow it up. It's like it could be minutes, hours

527
00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 2: while you're taking fire before you figure out what's going on.

528
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: So when we're little kids. We don't. Like I'd asked

529
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:25,480
Speaker 1: my dad, like, how many people did you shoot? You know,

530
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:27,360
Speaker 1: he'd be like, you can't tell what's going.

531
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 2: On exactly one hundred percent, right, I mean, you know

532
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:31,479
Speaker 2: one hundred percent right.

533
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: Is it's like, you know, you just don't just shooting

534
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 1: in the way you would say, you're shooting in the windows.

535
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,639
Speaker 2: Love, Yeah, that the fog of war is an absolutely

536
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 2: real thing, one hundred percent. And and but anyways, so

537
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 2: it was we had a capability that we exploited UH

538
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 2: very effectively throughout the warriors, which was that airborne surveillance.

539
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:51,439
Speaker 2: And it came in many ways. You know, you had

540
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,359
Speaker 2: light area and hyperspective, we had electroptic infrared, you had

541
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 2: uh communications detectors to identify walky doggs and cell phones.

542
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 2: And really that became a huge, usually important advantage for us.

543
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 2: And about the time so I'd seen that technology, said, man,

544
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 2: if we could take that, give them my pilot background,

545
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 2: if they could take that and apply it to public

546
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 2: safety tasks in America, law enforcement, border security, fire like,

547
00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 2: you know, we could probably save a lot of lives

548
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 2: and do a lot of good here. And right about

549
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 2: the time I was getting out that the debris for

550
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,040
Speaker 2: a terrible tragedy kind of became public as they finished

551
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 2: the investigation. I was the Arnel Mountain fire down on Arizona,

552
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 2: and if you're not familiar with that, that was they

553
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:29,600
Speaker 2: made a movie about it called Only the Brave. Happened

554
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 2: to twenty thirteen and the ground I remember, Yeah, So

555
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 2: the Grand Mountain hotshots were heading up on this fire

556
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 2: and it was one of those dangerous, real dangerous desert

557
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 2: sage brush fires because when those you know, zephyr winds,

558
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,399
Speaker 2: when those winds hit down there and the high deserts

559
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,479
Speaker 2: in the southwest like that, those fires rip. I mean

560
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 2: they'll move eighty ninety miles an hour, and I mean

561
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 2: they could be deadly like. And it's not the timber

562
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,360
Speaker 2: fires up here in northwest Montana, which are their own

563
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 2: set of challenges, which is a really thick, heavy fuel.

564
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 2: It's hard to put out, but they don't move as

565
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,720
Speaker 2: fast as these ones. So as the team got up

566
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,800
Speaker 2: there on the ridge line pretty quickly realized this thing's ripping.

567
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 2: We can't fight this thing. We got it. We got

568
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 2: to break contact. Let's get out of here. And the

569
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 2: team leader made the right decision to take his team

570
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,199
Speaker 2: out of the way. Unfortunately, he made the right decision

571
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 2: with the wrong information, and you know, the fire he

572
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 2: didn't understand the fire had shifted directions and burned his

573
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 2: whole team alive, killed online. He didn't right there on

574
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 2: the side of the mountain.

575
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: You know what I remember about that is when they

576
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: finally started releasing details, I remember looking down that list

577
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: and it was like the kids, Yep, he's got a

578
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 1: two year old, four year old, six year old, next guy,

579
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 1: one year old, two year old, next guy.

580
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: It's like yeah, because they're all like in that yep.

581
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:39,200
Speaker 1: Kind of like not all of them, but I just

582
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: remember being overwhelmed by how many were in that like

583
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: early stage, little kids, and they were at that they

584
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:48,399
Speaker 1: were at that age you know whatever the hell.

585
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 2: Like yeap, mid yeah or whatever, where I was like, damn, man,

586
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:55,639
Speaker 2: and that's that And that's why so I felt I

587
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 2: felt myself in the shoes of that team leader. You know,

588
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 2: I'd been on the side of a desert mounta, into

589
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 2: the middle of gun fights with guys blown legs blown off,

590
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: guys bleeding out, making those tough decisions, and I'm like, man,

591
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 2: you know, his whole team got wiped out, and then

592
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 2: the seals we'd had a few of those incidents helicopters

593
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 2: go down exactly what you said. It's like, we're all

594
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 2: in that age range where I mean one of my

595
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,400
Speaker 2: seal potones. We had nine seals, all have babies within

596
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 2: on the same team within two months, you know, all

597
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 2: the wives were like breaking at the same time. And

598
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 2: so to your point, it's like, man, I'm like that

599
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 2: hit home for me. I felt that like that, that

600
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,800
Speaker 2: that was an event that definitely I was like wow.

601
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 2: And what I realized was I felt myself in that

602
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 2: guy's boots. You know, I'd been there. I've been on

603
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 2: the side of a desert mountain, one hundred plus degree heat,

604
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 2: full gear, sweating, chaos happening, worried about bringing my guys

605
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 2: home alive. And I realized if he'd had the same

606
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 2: tools I'd had in Afghanistan, his team probably would have

607
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 2: been alive. So that led to me starting Bridge Aerospace

608
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 2: and we ended up you know, several other companies spun

609
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 2: out of that as well along the way. But the

610
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: point was to bring that airborne intelligence capability that's that

611
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:03,400
Speaker 2: supported ground guys to industry and to public safety tasks.

612
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 2: Other than the military.

613
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 4: Why did you come to Montana though?

614
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, we.

615
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,880
Speaker 2: We'd come here to train before we go to Afghanistan,

616
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 2: so our seal teams would come out here. Actually, Butte

617
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 2: was our home base. Gun named Rod Allen out there,

618
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 2: and Butte has a group called the Peak and he's

619
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 2: a former Air Force Special Ops guy, so he would

620
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,160
Speaker 2: host high out to do training events for UH teams

621
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 2: getting ready to go to Afghanistan. So you know, everything

622
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 2: from heil to do pair of shooting tilt to high

623
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 2: angle shooting. You know, most shooting ranges are level. The

624
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 2: raality is in Afghanistan you're never shooting level. You're always

625
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 2: shooting down and most of the time you're shooting up,

626
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 2: you know, and those people are shooting down. Yeah, I mean,

627
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 2: you know the peaks over there are twenty two, twenty

628
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 2: three thousand feet high. You know, these aren't eight thousand

629
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 2: foot peaks. I mean, you're you're fighting in the foothills

630
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 2: of the Himalayas. The Hindu kush is the most rugged

631
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 2: basically training in the world. So you're not just shooting

632
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 2: up a few hundred feet, you're shooting up. So, you know,

633
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 2: horseback riding, packing in high angele rope rescue health through medicine. Basically,

634
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 2: we go out there and he assembled these fantastic training

635
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 2: modules for us, and we bring seals out here and train.

636
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:08,600
Speaker 2: So during a couple of those trips, Carmen to come

637
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 2: out and visited, and we kind of decided, hey, this

638
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 2: is this is a great spot, and you think, well,

639
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,199
Speaker 2: if we ever get out of the military, if that ever,

640
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 2: you know, maybe we'll come here and raise our family.

641
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 2: And you know, Lord works in mysterious ways. You know,

642
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 2: things happened. I got hurt, you know, timing lined up,

643
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: so we decided to start a company here. So me

644
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 2: and my co founder, who was also a military officer,

645
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 2: started our company, and you know, we hoped maybe one

646
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 2: day we'd have like eight or ten employees, but had

647
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 2: no idea. You know, we scaled through Ascent Vision Technology

648
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 2: was spun out of Bridge, which is another great success story,

649
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 2: and a couple of other companies. You know, about five

650
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 2: hundred jobs worldwide we created. We had bases in Australia

651
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 2: and Spain and Italy and elsewhere. So we kind of

652
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: created an international company and all based right here.

653
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: So maybe I misunderstood it. Yeah, as I've become familiar

654
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: with you through the race, the Senate race. But you

655
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: guys have a heavy focus on wildfire totally.

656
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, So Bridger Aerospace basically, you know, seventy percent

657
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 2: of that company is all aero wildland firefighting. You know,

658
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 2: we got a base in Spain.

659
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of the other applications.

660
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that sensor technology I had mentioned, we spun

661
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 2: into a separate product based company called Ascent Vision. So

662
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 2: basically Bridger Aerospace was our aerial firefighting arm and basically

663
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 2: the mission there was to bring military style closer support

664
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 2: from our lessons from the war, cut paste that bring

665
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,280
Speaker 2: those lessons to wildland fire. And as we've seen in

666
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 2: recent months and as most people live out West, c

667
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 2: like these fires are nasty, and like we have not

668
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 2: been winning the battle. You know, we've just lost America's

669
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 2: biggest city just got you know, burned over by this.

670
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 2: You know, Lahaina a couple of years ago, you know,

671
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 2: in almost every Western stake in point to just a

672
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 2: massive disaster that's happened, and it's like, you know, we

673
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 2: can do better than we're doing.

674
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: How would you sorry, how would you.

675
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 4: How would Bridge your Aerospace get involved with a specific fire,

676
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 4: like would you get a call from the government and

677
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 4: they're like, hey, we need you guys, or how Yeah.

678
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 2: So I mean all of aircraft not in at all.

679
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 2: Ninety nine percent of aircraft flying over wildfires in America

680
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 2: come from a private company. So basically, the government decided

681
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties, we're not going to operate firefighting

682
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 2: planes for a while, the government did it themselves kind

683
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: of in the actually wrote a book about this called Mudslingers,

684
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 2: about the history of aero firefighting, and all the profits

685
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 2: go to benefit fall and wildline firefighters, but it was

686
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 2: more of a history you wrote the book, Yeah, okay,

687
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 2: so it was something I was interesting because as I

688
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 2: was learning about aero firefighting because I got into thedustry

689
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 2: really by accident, knew nothing about it. And then as

690
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 2: I'm sitting at firebases as a pilot, because I flew

691
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 2: all our planes, I'd be sitting at the firebase. It's

692
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 2: like being a fireman, except your fire engine flies instead

693
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: of drive. So you're hanging out the firebase shooting the shit,

694
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 2: talking to folks all day, and you start talking to

695
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 2: somebody's old timers and they're telling you old stories from

696
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies, and you start to figure out, Man,

697
00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 2: the history of this is amazing, flying in, flying through smoke,

698
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 2: dropping slowry, dropping water on wild Like a lot of

699
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: these guys were like World War two heroes Vietnam. I mean,

700
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 2: they'd already flowing the toughest stuff in the world and

701
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 2: the toughest conditions and they can basically needed that adrenaline

702
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: fixed still and now they start flying wildfire as you

703
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 2: start to see the history of that. But basically most

704
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 2: almost every single aircraft that flies a wildfire is contract

705
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 2: owned and to operated because the government pretty much decided

706
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 2: in the sixties, you know what, We're not going to

707
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 2: own an operator on aircraft. It's too expensive as too

708
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 2: technically complex for us to just manage the way our

709
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 2: budget cycle works. We're going to just hire contractors to

710
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 2: fight fire from the air. We'll do it on the ground.

711
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 4: So I fire breaks out, you guys are just waiting

712
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 4: for the phone to ring.

713
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 2: Basically, so we'll get pre staged around and again we

714
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 2: could talk for hours and it's actually the Shahn Ryan podcast,

715
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 2: you know, a couple months ago and basically spent three

716
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 2: hours talking just about wildfire. But yeah, we talked about

717
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 2: how that all works, and again I could talk for

718
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 2: hours about it. But basically, you know, we are prepositioned

719
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 2: as aircrews and basically they will call something to what

720
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 2: fire to go to? Basically go to this fire today,

721
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 2: and sometimes mid area gets sent to a different fire.

722
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: So you could take off. I've taken off sometimes, you know,

723
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 2: late morning, and I'll fight three or four different fires,

724
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 2: you know, go water bomb one, boom, shift to this one,

725
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 2: shift to that one, and you'll fight multiple fires on

726
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 2: the same tank of fuel in the air and then

727
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 2: come back and recharge.

728
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: God, your insurance premium has got to be a bit

729
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: in that business man it is, so you know, and actually,

730
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: so what are you gonna do again?

731
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 2: Yeah?

732
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 3: Well, and it's not how expensive is the plane? Yeah?

733
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well you bring that up because I

734
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 2: mean that's really I mean, after LA, you know, those

735
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: of us who lived in Western states, you know, we

736
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 2: all know wildfire is an issue, We're all familiar with it.

737
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 2: But you know, the average New Yorker, average person in Chicago,

738
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 2: average person that lands like wildfire Like the hell.

739
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: I grew up Michigan, we never talked about.

740
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not doesn't does My.

741
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: Neighbor one time had his leaf fire get out of

742
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: control for a minute, you know, but it made into

743
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: the edge of his yard, sat up.

744
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 3: The neighborhood for a few minutes. Yeah.

745
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 2: But these million acre fires where it's like a whole

746
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 2: like you have thousands of guys in the ground, water

747
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,479
Speaker 2: bombers come in, that's just doesn't For most of America,

748
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 2: that doesn't really they don't get it. But after LA

749
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 2: everyone's like, oh wow, like this is this is a thing.

750
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, but the big impact the word

751
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 2: you says, insurance. So the the LA wildfire is the

752
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 2: most expensive disaster in American history ever period, quarter of

753
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 2: a trillion dollars, more than any hurricane, any earthquake.

754
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: Is that right?

755
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: Huge, massive, and where And that's just the cost to recover.

756
00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 2: That doesn't even start to discuss what that does to

757
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 2: insurance premiums. Because when the insurance agency and I'm sorry

758
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,719
Speaker 2: of the insurance industry absorbs the impacts of the LA

759
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: wildfires on a comprehensive manner, like when all these underwriters

760
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 2: and the reinsurance because insurance all flows down to a

761
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 2: pool of very consolidated reinsurance companies, I don't care whether

762
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: you're talking about iPhone insurance, whether you're talking about car insurance,

763
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,719
Speaker 2: but especially homeowners insurance or airplane insurance. All that flows

764
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 2: back down to a handful of reinsurers and the amount

765
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 2: of which insurance affects people's lives. I don't think they

766
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 2: really appreciate, Like, for instance, you know, I don't want

767
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 2: to go on too much of a tangent, but this

768
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 2: is just a good example of how insurance can affect

769
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 2: something that appears to be totally unaffiliated. So Ukraine was

770
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: the biggest impact in the history of aviation insurance. The

771
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 2: war in Ukraine, there massive amounts of aircraft destroyed on

772
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: the ground, like whole airlines repossessed. Like that shook the

773
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 2: aviation insurance industry to its core. And then when Israel,

774
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: the attack on Israel happened, you know, there's still isn't

775
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: like common, There still isn't full airline service back in

776
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 2: Israel now, like basically Hamas has been obliterated, like the

777
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 2: active daily threat. Yes, so we'll always be there, but like,

778
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 2: but very few airlines have resumed service into Israel because

779
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: insurance and a lot of airlines, a lot of airlines

780
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 2: getting attacked at LG know, why aren't you flying your

781
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 2: You're discriminating against the Jews, and they're like no, Like

782
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 2: our insurance companies will not underwrite an aircraft flying into

783
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 2: a war zone because that changes.

784
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: As well, because like the Ukraine War, I mean they've

785
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: they've shot down I think right two passenger.

786
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 2: Planes in relation to the combatants, and thousands of other

787
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 2: aircraft beens right on the ground. So basically insurance won't

788
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 2: underwrite an air airliner flying into Tel Aviv. So therefore

789
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 2: the airlines like, we can't fly in without insurance, like

790
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 2: that's not legal. So when that insurance impact is absorbed

791
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,760
Speaker 2: by the housing industry, I mean right now, some people's

792
00:34:25,120 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 2: homeowner's insurance is more than their mortgage if you can

793
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: get it. I mean they've seen nine hundred one thousand,

794
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 2: two thousand percent increases in wildfire premiums for people's homeowns

795
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,959
Speaker 2: insurance if they can get insurance. A lot of people

796
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 2: can't get insurance at all. And it's not even a

797
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 2: wildfare prone areas. It's sometimes it's flood prone or hurricane prone.

798
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 2: Because this fire specifically really was like the straw that

799
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 2: broke the camel's back. For home WOS insurance. Now, if

800
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 2: you can't get insurance on your home, what else can't

801
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 2: you get for that home?

802
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 1: A mortgage?

803
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 2: Exactly yeah, exactly right. And imagine if ten to twenty

804
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 2: percent of American homes become illiquid as a result of

805
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,399
Speaker 2: unaveal ability of homeown insurance. I mean, how many people

806
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 2: need a mortgage of refive their home. They use that

807
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 2: money to invest in a business. How many people depend

808
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 2: on a second home, you know, that's their investment, rental income,

809
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 2: they have attached dwelling it, the airbnb whatever. I mean,

810
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 2: how many people depend on the liquidity of their home

811
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 2: to live? I mean most most Americas have at moorage.

812
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 2: And then that home becomes liquid. You can't sell it

813
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 2: because then the buyer pool goes from anybody who needs

814
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 2: a mortgage. If they find out they can't ensure the home,

815
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 2: they can't get a mortage for it. Your home is unsellable.

816
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 2: So you think about that when that starts to affect,

817
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: which it will now here it's only been three months.

818
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 2: Is that is digested into the homeowner's market and everyone

819
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 2: comes up for renewals. I mean, it could be a

820
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,719
Speaker 2: bigger impact on the homeowner's market than like the Owait

821
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 2: financial crisis. So like this wildfire thing is not just

822
00:35:46,239 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 2: a boutique Western issue. It's not a boutique forest management thing.

823
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 2: Don't log this log that it really is like an

824
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 2: existential economic one, because I mean, how do you put

825
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 2: it value on human life? But like the impact directly

826
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 2: of LA is a quarter of a trillion dollars, So

827
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 2: printing a quarter of a trillion dollars right now is

828
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 2: inflationary like that that's just on its own, But that

829
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 2: doesn't even talk about the impact it's going to have

830
00:36:08,200 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 2: when that whole episode is absorbed by the insurance market.

831
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:16,240
Speaker 1: Do you think that wildfires like me not the cost

832
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: associated with them because the insurance industry, or the costs

833
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: associated with them because of housing or whatever, but do

834
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: you think they're actually worse now? I mean, like our

835
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 1: fires are there like higher intensity, less predictable fires now

836
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: than there were twenty years ago. I mean that's the

837
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: impression you get, But I mean does it really felt

838
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: that way by people involved in that industry?

839
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:41,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think ultimately short answer is yes.

840
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,919
Speaker 2: With the caveat that are our sample set is very thin.

841
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 2: And also the whether the fires themselves are worse. They

842
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 2: are exacerbated by the fact that our wildland urban interface

843
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 2: is exponentially bigger than it's ever been before.

844
00:36:59,160 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 1: Yeah.

845
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: You know, a great example is the Marshall Fire in Colorado,

846
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 2: like three years ago, now maybe four years ago. It

847
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 2: burned the Denver suburb orn like a thousand homes down.

848
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 2: Had that exact same fire happened in the exact same

849
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 2: spot like five years prior, no one would have known

850
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: or cared because it was basically a cow pastor, I

851
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 2: got you. So, but when the fire starts burning down

852
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 2: thousands of homes like so, this fire that happened in

853
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 2: La in January, terrible tragedy. Obviously, that almost exact same

854
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 2: fire happened in nineteen sixty one called the Ballet Bell

855
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 2: Air Fire, and it was bad. But you know, it's

856
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 2: not talked about much because we didn't have the massive

857
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 2: sprawl in La yet.

858
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 1: Yep.

859
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:44,879
Speaker 2: And take a big sky for example. You know, people

860
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 2: can go back and forth as the terrible that big

861
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 2: sky grew, as big sky good, is big sky bad? Okay, whatever,

862
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 2: But it's there all right, whether you like it's there.

863
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 2: We now have thousands of people living there, massive economic

864
00:37:55,680 --> 00:38:00,440
Speaker 2: investment around it fifty years ago before chet Hunt rode

865
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,440
Speaker 2: his horse up there. I mean, if that area had burned,

866
00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 2: probably nobody would have noticed. I mean maybe the local

867
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 2: paper would have written a aricle about it, but honestly,

868
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 2: it would have been Okay, Mountain Valley burns, a couple

869
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: of cabins, a couple of ranches, and.

870
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 3: A bunch of people being like, and the hunting's going

871
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,280
Speaker 3: to be great up there today.

872
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got billions of dollars of investment out

873
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 2: there that area burns. Not only a thou we got

874
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 2: one road in, one road out, Not only are thousand

875
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:22,000
Speaker 2: people are going to die because they can't get out

876
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 2: of there in time. There's going to be massive economic

877
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 2: impact and lost it there.

878
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 3: So to go back to that insurance footprints right exactly so.

879
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 2: And couple that with we are coming off really a

880
00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 2: forty year period of a huge shift in our forest

881
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 2: management mindset where you know, again it's I don't want

882
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 2: to be political about this because it's just not a

883
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:48,040
Speaker 2: political issue. This affects people. It will burn down your house,

884
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:50,759
Speaker 2: whether it's red or blue, doesn't matter. But it's just

885
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 2: a fact our forest management policies have have radically changed

886
00:38:54,360 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 2: in the past thirty years. And the impact is you

887
00:38:56,680 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 2: you guys know better than not. I mean, you know,

888
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 2: I'll be up on our Force Service ly cav right

889
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 2: now at the ranch. I'll be up there today. But

890
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, you walk off the trail and

891
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 2: Forest Service land basically you've got dead beetle killed dead

892
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 2: falls six feet high like you basically have a very

893
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 2: hard time getting off a trail now. And you know,

894
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 2: forest treatment logging projects have basically been injuncted to the

895
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 2: point where they almost don't happen anymore. So I think

896
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 2: a combination of factors of are a change in mindset

897
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 2: of forestry are wildland airban interface has grown massively. I

898
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: mean tens of millions of people have moved into wildfire

899
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 2: prone areas that didn't used to live there. Sure, therefore,

900
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: people cause fires, tire chains, cigarette butts, fireworks, gender reveal parties,

901
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,760
Speaker 2: whatever the hell you want to know. People cause fires,

902
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 2: and then when fires happen near people, the the the

903
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 2: impetus to fight them and put it out. As far more,

904
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 2: when you have a thousand homes instead of just one

905
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 2: thousand acres of sage brush and cheat grass.

906
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, which means less stuff getting burnt into a mosaic

907
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:00,920
Speaker 1: pattern and you create more areas that are ready for

908
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: massive Yeah.

909
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 3: So I don't I don't want to make you crystal

910
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 3: ball this, but I mean we've the on the political level,

911
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 3: like we've been talking about like active management, active forest

912
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 3: management for you know, very publicly for close to a

913
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 3: decade now, right and talking about you know, the southeast

914
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 3: burns so much and look how healthy there for uts

915
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 3: are and getting that mindset like re established back out

916
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 3: here in the West, like like what's the next chapter?

917
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 2: Yep. So we're basically writing it right now. I think

918
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 2: you know, LA was a terrible disaster, a lot of

919
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 2: people killed, you know, economic fourteen thousand structures, well, I

920
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 2: mean fourteenth. I mean that's basically all of the number. Yeah,

921
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:51,240
Speaker 2: it's like all of the Gallatin Valley. So we're writing

922
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 2: that book right now, and it's all by Parceling. I'm

923
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 2: on my fourteenth bill right now. I mean, this is

924
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 2: my life. So I showed up and I'm not you know,

925
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 2: co chair of the wild Fireclock US in the Senate,

926
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 2: cool Alex Padia from California's CoA chair. And we are

927
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 2: moving at breakneck pace because this woke people up, people

928
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 2: that typically wouldn't have cared about wildfire. Andy came from

929
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: New Jersey, great example, he's a New Jersey senator. Our

930
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 2: first like two weeks after we did our orientation, New

931
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 2: Jersey's burning and he calls me because he knows my

932
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,760
Speaker 2: Background's like, Tim, like, how come there's nobody. There's no helicop,

933
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 2: there's no planes putting this fire out, Like what's going on?

934
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 2: Like all right, well, let's let me give you a

935
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 2: quick lesson how this works. Like, not only is it

936
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 2: nobody fighting your fire from the air, but there's nobody

937
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 2: going to be coming to fight your fire from the air.

938
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:36,920
Speaker 2: He's like, how is that the case? Like if I

939
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 2: doll a lam on one, a fire engine shows up

940
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:40,759
Speaker 2: in my house right away. I had to explain to

941
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 2: him that wildfire and structure fire are treated completely differently

942
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 2: in America. They just are structure fire red fire engines.

943
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 2: I mean, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,

944
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five days year. That fire in

945
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 2: that firehouse just over there is manned, and there's bright

946
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 2: red fire trucks and trained firefighters in there ready to

947
00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 2: go all the time, and every American knows that accepts

948
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: that and expects that we deal on one right now

949
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:06,840
Speaker 2: and say there's a fire going on, within five minutes

950
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 2: and twenty seconds, a big red fire engine will show

951
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 2: up here and they'll start fighting that fire. And that's

952
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: national code, the NFPA four nine seventy ten, National Fire

953
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 2: Protection Association.

954
00:42:15,719 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 3: And it's a big line item on your mortgage application.

955
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 3: Yeah fire away, are you?

956
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, And all of Americans have the expectation

957
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 2: that that's what's going to happen. And NFPA didn't just

958
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 2: happen like National Fire Protects Association, these standards didn't just occur.

959
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,800
Speaker 2: They were forged out of the nineteenth century when basically

960
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,319
Speaker 2: like every city had their Great Fire, the Great Boston Fire,

961
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 2: Great Chicago Fire, Kansas City, every city essentially burned to

962
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 2: the ground in the eighteen hundreds, and it's because they

963
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 2: were all built out of wood. There was no zoning,

964
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 2: there was no building codes, and basically a fire would start,

965
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 2: they had no way to fight it because there was

966
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:56,919
Speaker 2: no fire department. They didn't have fire hydrants, so they'd

967
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 2: run out with buckets of sand and basically what they

968
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 2: would do is they would they would fight fire with fire.

969
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 2: They'd like start a backfire to burn down a line

970
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 2: of buildings to stop the fire from spreading to the

971
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 2: whole city. And it was pretty common. Actually they'd use

972
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 2: beer to fight fires because they didn't have pressurized water.

973
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 2: But they go to a brewery and get a keg

974
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 2: of beer and it would foam just like firefighting foam

975
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 2: like fire, and they spread on the fires. So in

976
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 2: the wake of all these fires, finally, in like eighteen

977
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 2: ninety six, a lot of folks came to us said,

978
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,320
Speaker 2: this is crazy, like our cities literally keep burning to

979
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:33,320
Speaker 2: the ground, Like this is ridiculous. We need to figure

980
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 2: out how to make And actually, at the time it

981
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 2: was the electrical contracting companies gene Electric, Edison Westinghouse came

982
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 2: together and said, we're the only organizations that really are

983
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 2: cross cutting across America, like we're in every city running

984
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:48,360
Speaker 2: electricity to the communities. Let's figure out a way to

985
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 2: stop these fires. So they formed the National Fire Protection Association,

986
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:56,959
Speaker 2: and they started creating standards that said, listen, every block,

987
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 2: there'll be a fire hydrant, and every city will have

988
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 2: a fire brigade. And they would standardize and of course

989
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: these lessons weren't all learned right away, then happened one

990
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 2: at a time. So then they standardized fire brigades, and

991
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 2: then the fire brigades realized, well, our hoses have to

992
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 2: match because if Manhattan calls a Brooklyn fire department over

993
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 2: and they show up to help and they have different

994
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 2: size hoses, which this happened many times, our hoses don't

995
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 2: plug into your hoses. Your fire horns don't fit our hoses.

996
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 2: We're basically useless now. So they started, Okay, we'll standardize

997
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,719
Speaker 2: fire hoses, these sprinklers inside, you know, fire sprinklers, how

998
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 2: we put our eclectrical outlets sixteen inches off the ground,

999
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:37,720
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. These standards became embedded across our country.

1000
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:40,160
Speaker 2: And one of those standards of standards of cover in

1001
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 2: response time where every city, the way especially Dan Serbans

1002
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,880
Speaker 2: lay it out, is every address is covered by at

1003
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 2: least two, sometimes three different fire stations. That way, when

1004
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 2: you down nine one one, dispatch immediately dispatches assets from

1005
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:54,879
Speaker 2: three of those stations. That way, if there's a traffic jam,

1006
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 2: or a bridge is out, or a tree gets blown

1007
00:44:57,200 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 2: over by a storm blocks the road, someone's going to

1008
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 2: get to your house time in just a few minutes.

1009
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,399
Speaker 2: And the whole idea is get a fire while it's small.

1010
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 2: You know, when the fire starts in your kitchen. You know,

1011
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 2: when you call a fire department say I got a

1012
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: house fire, they don't say, okay, where is in your house?

1013
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 2: In the kitchen? Okay, Well, you know, call us back

1014
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 2: when it's in the living room and then maybe we'll

1015
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 2: come or could sometimes even worse. All right, well cool,

1016
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 2: we just get out of your house, and just if

1017
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,120
Speaker 2: it spreads to your neighbor's house, then call us and

1018
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 2: maybe will come help out. You're like really like, yeah,

1019
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 2: we're just not going to fight that one, okay. And

1020
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 2: or imagine, you know, if the mayor said, you know what,

1021
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 2: our current policy for this city block is to let

1022
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:36,479
Speaker 2: it burn. We're just going to let this block burn,

1023
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:39,399
Speaker 2: and if it spreads to the next block, then maybe

1024
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 2: we'll fight it. And I think you know, that mindset

1025
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 2: has largely been you know, bifurcated between structure fire and

1026
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 2: wildland fire for good reason, because fire is a part

1027
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 2: of our natural landscape, no question, like we want fires

1028
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 2: to burn, we need fire is extremely healthy for the landscape.

1029
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 2: It has to happen. But we also have to recognize

1030
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 2: that we now have a lot of people values infrastructure

1031
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 2: interspersed with our forest, with our urban wildland interface.

1032
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 3: I just say houses in stupid places. But that's not

1033
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 3: putting words in your mind.

1034
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 2: Nope, that's that's any any which way you want to

1035
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 2: say it. You know, houses, stupid place, whatever it is.

1036
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 2: But they're there.

1037
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: And that looks like that stings, you know, Yeah, you

1038
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: could call whatever you can't get he's finding the insurance

1039
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: problem right now. He's bought his own fire truck.

1040
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 2: Do but you know, but then you know, so stupid.

1041
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:38,439
Speaker 2: But but also like, so take the Smokehous Creek fire

1042
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 2: last year in Texas. So it's about almost exactly or

1043
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 2: goes March last year. That fire burned one point six

1044
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 2: million acres, that burned Panhandle, that burned like heart of

1045
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:50,839
Speaker 2: ranch country. That those are the houses to places there,

1046
00:46:50,840 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 2: that those are ranchers, tens of thousands of head of

1047
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 2: cattle burn. I mean structural impact on the cattle industry

1048
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 2: because you know, they couldn't get air support on the

1049
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:01,200
Speaker 2: fire quick enough. And that fire, when it was spreading

1050
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 2: at peak speed, was burning two football fields a second

1051
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 2: I think how fast that is. I mean just in

1052
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 2: the binklemin and I and uh, you know about a

1053
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,280
Speaker 2: month ago the Hampton's Long Island was burning a wildfire

1054
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 2: starta there and was burning. You know. Actually in the

1055
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 2: worst was about a month ago, about three weeks ago.

1056
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 2: The same communities in Appalachia that got wiped out by that,

1057
00:47:19,440 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 2: they were burning in a wildfire. So you know, it's

1058
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 2: the point is not just a national forest western lands issue.

1059
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,400
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is a fifty state issue. You know, Lahina, Hawaii.

1060
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 2: Let's not forget about that. The deadliest fire in recent

1061
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,480
Speaker 2: history was in Hawaii, you know, Lahina. That fire started

1062
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:36,400
Speaker 2: on the mountain side. When pushed it through it literally

1063
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 2: wiped that city off the map, killed one hundred people,

1064
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 2: and it happened.

1065
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 1: Fast, burned to the shoreline, exactly right. And so like

1066
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: I get I like, I get the point, yeah about

1067
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: houses in stupid places. But at the same time, like

1068
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: you said, like it or don't like it. I mean,

1069
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,759
Speaker 1: if someone builds a house, yeah, people are gonna be out.

1070
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: There's there's going to wind up being the obligation to Yeah,

1071
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: like you can't draw a line, you know and be

1072
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: like these are the ones we put out, and these

1073
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:04,879
Speaker 1: are the ones that don't put out.

1074
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 2: It's like driving down the interstate saying, hey, you know

1075
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 2: you're driving a nine to ninety between you know, Bozeman

1076
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 2: and Butte, and you roll your car and pipestone pass. Well,

1077
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 2: I every s built an estate there. Now it was

1078
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:16,719
Speaker 2: a stupid spot forre in near estate.

1079
00:48:16,760 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: You know.

1080
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:20,120
Speaker 2: It's like, well, my car rolled over, I'm pinned underneath.

1081
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 2: I would appreciate if the highway patrol rescued me, like, well,

1082
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 2: you shouldn't be there, you know. So I think at

1083
00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:28,239
Speaker 2: a point totally taken. But you know, the American people

1084
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 2: are there, and when you look at how other countries

1085
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 2: deal with it, you know, no one's perfect, but they

1086
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 2: do take more of that structural firefighting mindset, which is

1087
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 2: our first and primary obligation is public safety. So yes,

1088
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 2: nature management, Yes, there's a time for the force to burn,

1089
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 2: prescribe burns, all that, but like our first party needs

1090
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,360
Speaker 2: to be protecting the lives and homes of people like

1091
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 2: number one. And I think that's why the LA fire

1092
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 2: really cracked open a lot of frustration bipartisan and again

1093
00:48:56,880 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 2: all add every single bill. I was the first Senator

1094
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 2: excuse me, a freshman to pass a bill this this Congress,

1095
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 2: and it was around wildfire. And again it was all

1096
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 2: by Parson. I mean, every single wildfire bill is not

1097
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 2: one party the other. We're all saying we owe the

1098
00:49:10,920 --> 00:49:13,640
Speaker 2: American people better, like we just owe them a better

1099
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 2: solution than they're getting. What's the theme, Like, what's the

1100
00:49:20,000 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 2: theme of what you're driving towards for wildfires? So the

1101
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 2: challenge is the reason why there's so many different bills.

1102
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 2: And you hit the nail on the head when you said,

1103
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 2: I've been hearing about this forestry crap for years, nothing's changing,

1104
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 2: and you're out exactly right, it's largely you have such

1105
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:40,840
Speaker 2: a complicated interconnection of issues, organizations, and interests. So you

1106
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 2: guys know better than I do about our public lands

1107
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 2: and how many different organizations have a hand in that pot.

1108
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 2: You know, you got the Forest Service, which you know,

1109
00:49:50,360 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 2: we can talk about USDA, which owns the Forest Service.

1110
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:54,800
Speaker 2: A lot of people assume the Forest Services and Department

1111
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:56,680
Speaker 2: of Materier and it's not. That's just or they think

1112
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 2: it's its own agency. The Forest Service is part of

1113
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 2: the Department of Agriculture. That's very important. We can talk

1114
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 2: about that later. But the policies of USDA and how

1115
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 2: they operate dictate the Forest Service. Then you have a

1116
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 2: Department of Materior. Within that, of course, you have National

1117
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:10,680
Speaker 2: Park Service, you got Bureau of Land Management, You've got

1118
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 2: Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is also a massive landowner.

1119
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 2: Then you've got Fish Wildlife Service. Then you've got state organizations.

1120
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:21,320
Speaker 2: Of course state land, which as we know, especially in Montana,

1121
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 2: checker boarded in you'll have state land shoved in there.

1122
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 2: Then you might have county land or city land of course,

1123
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 2: private land, and then not so much in our city.

1124
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 2: Go out of the states, you can have a lot

1125
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 2: of land that's Department of Energy or DoD.

1126
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: So you have a big one you see is Corp

1127
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: of Engineers, Yeah, exactly.

1128
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 3: And all those.

1129
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 2: Organizations have completely different policies around acquisition, land management, funding.

1130
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 2: And some of them are considering themselves just passive land owners.

1131
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 2: They don't want to manage the land, they just don't

1132
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,720
Speaker 2: even look at it. Some of them consider themselves conservationists,

1133
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 2: like our job is not to manage the land, is

1134
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 2: to conserve the land. Some of them view themselves as stewards.

1135
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 2: Each agency has a completely different mindset over and then

1136
00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 2: of course that's the agency. Then you get to the

1137
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,279
Speaker 2: local level. You know, the state forester in one state

1138
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:10,879
Speaker 2: may have a completely different outlook on logging the state

1139
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 2: forester in the next state, or the director of the

1140
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 2: BAA in that state or BLM may have a completely

1141
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 2: different outlook than the neighboring state. And then when you

1142
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:21,240
Speaker 2: put especially when you go depending on who's in charge

1143
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:22,920
Speaker 2: in the presidency at the time, if it's a red

1144
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 2: or blue white house compared to a red or blue state,

1145
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 2: those policies. When you have state land, which is you know,

1146
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:30,919
Speaker 2: is very common, butted up against BLM or Forest Service land,

1147
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 2: now you have different policies, you know, around that. So

1148
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 2: the reason it's so hard to solve this problem is

1149
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 2: because you have so many different stakeholders with completely different

1150
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 2: policies and sometimes different world views coming at the issue.

1151
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,040
Speaker 2: And that's just talking about landowners. That doesn't even begin

1152
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 2: to scratch the service of environmental advocacy groups, legal advacy

1153
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 2: groups who are quite frankly, there are a lot of

1154
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 2: people that make a living off of suing the government

1155
00:51:58,280 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 2: over land issues. I mean, that's just that's how they

1156
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 2: make their money. So they want lawsuits to happen.

1157
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 3: But even if you just took three right like federal, State, Private,

1158
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 3: very realistic that all three of those overlap in an area,

1159
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 3: and they all have different land management plans in place

1160
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 3: for their own objectives.

1161
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 2: And that's why this legislation again LA was a terrible event.

1162
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:24,919
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, usually it takes a terrible event to cause

1163
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: structural change to bureaucracy.

1164
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:27,960
Speaker 3: So you got a little momentum.

1165
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 2: As I've told folks, you know, the greatest force in

1166
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 2: government and history. Government, it's not good or bad, it's

1167
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 2: not love or hate. It's inertia. It's just the inertia

1168
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 2: of a massive bureaucracy. To make it change direction is

1169
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:46,239
Speaker 2: incredibly hard, incredibly hard, and unfortunately it takes a big,

1170
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,960
Speaker 2: terrible event to cause it change in direction. To take

1171
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 2: the Navy totally on affiliate from this, but a great

1172
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 2: example of the Navy. Prior to World War Two, the

1173
00:52:53,680 --> 00:52:57,799
Speaker 2: Navy believed battleships were the capital ship. Battleships were big

1174
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 2: ships with big, giant guns on them, and the concept

1175
00:53:02,640 --> 00:53:05,160
Speaker 2: of a capital ship was We're going to line up

1176
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:06,800
Speaker 2: ships and they're going to shoot at each other with

1177
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 2: cannons till they sink. That's how navies thought, and a

1178
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:13,239
Speaker 2: number of guys in the thirties said, hey, you know

1179
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 2: what these things called airplanes, Actually you are pretty effective,

1180
00:53:17,160 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 2: and an airplane can sink a ship, So why don't

1181
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 2: we invest in these things called aircraft carriers where we

1182
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 2: basically cut the top off the ship, put a piece

1183
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 2: of pavement down, and we fly planes and we killed

1184
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 2: the other ship before their guns can hit us. The

1185
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:31,800
Speaker 2: Navy said, that's a stupid idea, that's idiotic, and the

1186
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 2: guy that thought of it, they had him kicked out

1187
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,919
Speaker 2: of the military, had him kicked out, literally discharge gone.

1188
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 2: And guess what happened Pearl Pearl Harbor. All the battleships

1189
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 2: got sunk. I used to live when I was stationed

1190
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 2: in Hawaii. I looked out my front window and for me,

1191
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:47,480
Speaker 2: I could throw a baseball and hit the wreck of

1192
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 2: the USS Utah that was still sunk, the hulls still

1193
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,320
Speaker 2: sitting there in Pearl Harbor, and all the battleships basically

1194
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 2: were wiped out. So the Navy had no choice. And

1195
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:59,800
Speaker 2: guess what did all that damage? Airplanes? The Navy quickly

1196
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 2: all right, not only are our battleship's gone, we need

1197
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,759
Speaker 2: aircraft carriers. But also we just saw what a bunch

1198
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 2: of cheap airplanes can do to a bunch of expensive ships.

1199
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 2: So you know, I hate to say it, but I

1200
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 2: think LA may be our Pearl Harbor moment for fire

1201
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 2: where we realize it's time for a fundamental reset of

1202
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 2: how we're dealing with this, and it's giving us the

1203
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 2: momentum bipartisan to go across these agencies and say, listen,

1204
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 2: for service, you want to have a forest treatment plan

1205
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 2: that's X and partner here, you want to do that. Great,

1206
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 2: But guess what if we can identify an area as

1207
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:33,479
Speaker 2: a critical fire shed, all that other crap goes away.

1208
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 2: We are going to cut through the bureaucracy, the red tape,

1209
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,919
Speaker 2: and all the litigation, and we're going to prioritize public

1210
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 2: safety and we're going to identify critical fire sheds all

1211
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 2: throughout the US and say if you're within a fire shed.

1212
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 2: We're going to cut through all these different environmental impact

1213
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:51,520
Speaker 2: of views, all these different lawsuits, all these different acts,

1214
00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 2: and we're something going to say the priority for this

1215
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 2: valley is we're going to do force treatment. We're going

1216
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 2: to build roads where we have to to get firefighters there,

1217
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 2: and we're going to we're going to bolster the fire

1218
00:55:00,719 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 2: fighting capability here in an inner agency cross cutting manner.

1219
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,080
Speaker 4: This is a critical fire shed. Want a place where

1220
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:09,719
Speaker 4: that has like a certain density of human population.

1221
00:55:09,840 --> 00:55:12,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, So that's so the fixed our Forest Acts

1222
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:17,960
Speaker 2: was that was we just introduced last week. Yeah, so Westerman, Curtis, Padilla,

1223
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 2: Hick and Looper, we all came together based all Western

1224
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 2: states guys saying, hey, you know, we need to find

1225
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 2: we need to fix our forests and and and one

1226
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 2: of the key aspects of that is identify fire sheds.

1227
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 2: And you know, part of the problem too is here

1228
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 2: of course, you know, we're in a very political, polarized

1229
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,840
Speaker 2: political environment, and everyone wants to grab every issue and

1230
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 2: just you know, crank up the volume and get everyone

1231
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,319
Speaker 2: pissed at each other. And unfortunately that makes it hard

1232
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,919
Speaker 2: to have a common sense conversation. Sometimes nobody's talking about

1233
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:47,240
Speaker 2: clear cutting forests like we did in the late eighteen hours.

1234
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,640
Speaker 2: No one's talking about going in and like you know,

1235
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 2: lorax here and just like wiping off the whole. What

1236
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 2: we're talking about is forest thinning and prescribe burns. And

1237
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 2: you know, no one seems to have a problem. Some

1238
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 2: of these environmental letting the forest burn to the ground.

1239
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 2: Yet they don't want us to use that timber to

1240
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 2: create jobs and economic activity in towns that Franklin. You know,

1241
00:56:08,000 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 2: they could go to Libby, go to Columbia Falls, some

1242
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 2: of these towns. You know, pelt grants payment lieu of

1243
00:56:11,680 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 2: taxes have replaced timber revenue. And the Force Service used

1244
00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 2: to be the most profitable agency in the United States government.

1245
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 2: It made money every single year, literally contributed to the

1246
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:23,320
Speaker 2: National Treasury. And now like every other agency, it's a

1247
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,920
Speaker 2: cost center because they no longer the East harvest in

1248
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:28,359
Speaker 2: the eighties thirteen million board fitt a year. Now it's

1249
00:56:28,560 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 2: they struggle to hit three. So we've got to figure

1250
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 2: out how to bring that common sense in a narraor

1251
00:56:34,560 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: when we had it. We've had a housing boom and

1252
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 2: houding shortage. You'd think we'd want more timber. Instead, we're

1253
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,080
Speaker 2: buying timber from Canada when we should be getting it

1254
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:44,839
Speaker 2: from here in America. So that that critical fire shed

1255
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 2: will be basically a negotiating processing around say all right,

1256
00:56:47,719 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 2: this area that this this as you know, a fireshed

1257
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:54,040
Speaker 2: normally follows a drainage. It's like, all right, this drainage

1258
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 2: here is a critical fire shed for this town. You know,

1259
00:56:57,239 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 2: we're going to identify this as a fire critical area.

1260
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: Only ask on that is that you let me come

1261
00:57:01,560 --> 00:57:04,279
Speaker 1: in and double check the work, because what I would

1262
00:57:04,280 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 1: be afraid of here is that people would take that

1263
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 1: ability and manipulate it and wind up being that they're

1264
00:57:10,840 --> 00:57:15,279
Speaker 1: they're pursuing other objectives when they draw those lines. I mean,

1265
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope that follows like that it really

1266
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: is a critical fire shed and not where someone says,

1267
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: can we extend it way over that way too?

1268
00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:27,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, listen, I mean that that's where So that's

1269
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 2: where local control comes into the picture. And you know,

1270
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 2: for me and I think most people feel like they

1271
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 2: want more of a local voice and how the lands

1272
00:57:38,080 --> 00:57:41,120
Speaker 2: around them are managed. And it's funny the public lands issue,

1273
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:45,560
Speaker 2: obviously Montana, it's a very unique issue where in Montana

1274
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 2: public lands, you know, public lands and public hands is

1275
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 2: the motto, as it should be, public belongs to the public.

1276
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 2: But then it's the the public lands belong to the

1277
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 2: public though, and what's happened a lot is the public

1278
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 2: lands now belong to the government. That's different. You know,

1279
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:03,960
Speaker 2: the public lands belong to the people, and I think

1280
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 2: there is a separate and distinct definition between the government

1281
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 2: owning the land and the people owning the land.

1282
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:13,640
Speaker 1: The steward of the land. Right like wildlife belongs to

1283
00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: the people, but people don't do vigilanting enforcement of wildlife laws.

1284
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 2: The state does exactly. But the state, whether it's a county,

1285
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 2: whether it's a state, or it's a federal agency, has

1286
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 2: to have the trust of the people who live around

1287
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 2: it to say, you know, your input matters. You know,

1288
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,800
Speaker 2: whether it's in danser grizzies, whether it's sage grouse habitat,

1289
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:37,480
Speaker 2: whether it's you know, grazing rights. You know, every state

1290
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:39,320
Speaker 2: is different. Some states are more about grazing. Some states,

1291
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 2: you know that sage browse habitat has been used to

1292
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:45,360
Speaker 2: conserve massive tracts of land. To say you can't graze

1293
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,880
Speaker 2: us anymore, it's sage gross habitat. It's like, oh wow, well, like,

1294
00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 2: our family depends on that land has for one hundred years.

1295
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 2: Now you're just going to take it away and we

1296
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 2: can't use it anymore. So I think that there's been

1297
00:58:55,720 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 2: a big disconnect, especially you know in the Western States

1298
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 2: between mean how locals feel about how the federal governments

1299
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 2: managing land and also saying, well we want to say

1300
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 2: in that okay, like we want to say and what's

1301
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 2: going to happen here? Because you know, I share a

1302
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:12,800
Speaker 2: fence line with this forest service and I see the

1303
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 2: fuel load in that forest and if a fire comes

1304
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:16,880
Speaker 2: through there, like it's going to barrow through like a

1305
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 2: freight train. And they're like, yeah, well, you know, we're

1306
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 2: on a ten year forest management plan and currently you

1307
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 2: know it's being injuncted by a judge who says we

1308
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,520
Speaker 2: can't cut a tree down, so you know, we'll get

1309
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 2: back to it in a few years. Like okay, well

1310
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:30,400
Speaker 2: if here is great, but what happens when the fire

1311
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 2: comes through next fall?

1312
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 1: I understand that frustration.

1313
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 2: Well, like when the Gold family and a golf family,

1314
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:36,200
Speaker 2: you know, ranks up near us. You know, we're in

1315
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 2: Martins Deel Road with hill there in White Over Springs,

1316
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 2: and you know they were that they were you know,

1317
00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 2: indicted for fighting a fire that was on their fence line.

1318
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:45,920
Speaker 2: On their leaks, it was on federal land. But they're like,

1319
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 2: we have to protect our ranch as our livelihood, and

1320
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:50,439
Speaker 2: that they were basically government took them to the court saying,

1321
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 2: you know, you are not allowed to do that destruction

1322
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 2: of government property. And you know, obviously we've seen a

1323
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 2: lot of these Western lands issues come to heads, you know,

1324
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:01,720
Speaker 2: between a ranch between local Like there's that sheriff that

1325
01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:03,720
Speaker 2: arrested the fire manager from the Forest Service a couple

1326
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 2: years ago out in Washington State who they were doing

1327
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 2: a prescribe burned that got out of control and was

1328
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 2: burning private property. And the sheriff showed up and said, listen,

1329
01:00:11,120 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 2: like you had a prescribe it. You can burn your

1330
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:14,960
Speaker 2: federal and all you want, but now you're burning private land.

1331
01:00:15,000 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 2: And there had been years of tensions building here, and

1332
01:00:17,440 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 2: the sheriff arrested them, said you're a force of employe.

1333
01:00:19,320 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 2: I don't care that it does not give you the

1334
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:23,520
Speaker 2: right to burn down private property, you know, and put

1335
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 2: them out of rest. Obviously that that case is still

1336
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:27,960
Speaker 2: working its way through the system, but so you know,

1337
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,080
Speaker 2: and then you look in California and obviously the impacts

1338
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 2: of that were folks said, you know, decades of public

1339
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 2: lands management decisions impact the fire resilience of a community,

1340
01:00:39,880 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 2: and the folks saying, well, you know, if I had

1341
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:45,880
Speaker 2: known that what you were doing was going to create

1342
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:48,560
Speaker 2: my was going to create a less safe fire environment

1343
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:50,200
Speaker 2: for my community, I never would have let you do it.

1344
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:53,440
Speaker 2: So I think, I think what we're seeing is a

1345
01:00:53,480 --> 01:00:55,720
Speaker 2: recon de pendulum always swings. You know, we had a

1346
01:00:55,880 --> 01:00:59,040
Speaker 2: huge conservation push in the back half of the twenty century,

1347
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 2: especially his last forty, which is obviously a good thing

1348
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 2: in many respects. But as you know, in any movement,

1349
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes we make mistakes on the way. And

1350
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 2: you know, I would I would submit that the Endangered

1351
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:14,680
Speaker 2: Species Act has been has been greatly abused, and the

1352
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:16,840
Speaker 2: Clean Waters Act Waters the United States Act, has been

1353
01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 2: taken by a lot of advocacy groups and they've said,

1354
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:20,600
Speaker 2: you know what, this is a way to shut down

1355
01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:23,120
Speaker 2: development here. This is a way to shut down ranchers

1356
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:25,200
Speaker 2: using this irrigation water because it connects. I mean that

1357
01:01:25,560 --> 01:01:28,440
Speaker 2: case in Idaho where the irrigation ditch was fourteen miles

1358
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:31,600
Speaker 2: from Priest Lake, yet they called it a navigable body

1359
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 2: of water. Yeah, I understand, right, So I think, you know,

1360
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 2: both sides have to come to the table and say, listen,

1361
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 2: the land belongs to the people, not to the government,

1362
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 2: and we need to make sure that people who live

1363
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:45,200
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, you talk to folks in Libby,

1364
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:47,560
Speaker 2: they come out like, we have been desperate to get

1365
01:01:47,640 --> 01:01:51,520
Speaker 2: these timber projects going for ten, fifteen, twenty years, and

1366
01:01:51,600 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 2: all we get is lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit, and

1367
01:01:54,640 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 2: we want our town back, We want our timber industry

1368
01:01:57,080 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 2: back in our town. And you know, we have lawyers

1369
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 2: from five states away, parachute in and well healed lawyers

1370
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 2: with millions of dollars of funding from who knows where

1371
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 2: it comes from, and they pop in and every time

1372
01:02:07,680 --> 01:02:10,320
Speaker 2: we're about to get our timb release, boom, it's no

1373
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:12,480
Speaker 2: they judge shop, they sue it. They stop in the

1374
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:15,400
Speaker 2: town's like, this is our forest, we live here. How

1375
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 2: do these people come in from where they're coming from

1376
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 2: and tell us we can't have an economy in our town.

1377
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 2: You know, go to Blackbeart Copper Company and White Sulfur.

1378
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 2: That town wants that mine. It's on private land, and

1379
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 2: yet you know they get they get, you know, and

1380
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 2: junked it. Every time they're about to stick a shovel

1381
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 2: on the ground, the mine gets shut down. So I

1382
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 2: think you know that there's some common sense application that

1383
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:40,520
Speaker 2: needs to happen, and I think this fire in LA

1384
01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 2: is wagging people up to the fact that we have

1385
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 2: an obligation to be good stewards of our land. We

1386
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 2: have an obligation to be good stewards for clean air,

1387
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 2: clean water, and to take care of whether the species

1388
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 2: are endangered or not. We have an obligation there. But

1389
01:02:54,600 --> 01:02:56,480
Speaker 2: at the same time, we also have an obligation to

1390
01:02:56,520 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 2: protect our communities. And two things can be true. We

1391
01:02:59,040 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 2: can care about the environment and want clean water and

1392
01:03:02,600 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 2: healthy for us, and we can also say we can

1393
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 2: do that and protect our communities in a common sense

1394
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 2: way from wildfire.

1395
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 3: In the fix our for I haven't read it since

1396
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:19,000
Speaker 3: last session, but I know there was like financial provisions

1397
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 3: for non marketable timber, which is you know there's the

1398
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:25,560
Speaker 3: slash that you talk about off trail right, It's like

1399
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 3: you got to pay to take that stuff out of there.

1400
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 3: You know, we don't have the secondary tertiary markets for wood,

1401
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 3: pellets and stuff nearby to be profitable, et cetera. Is

1402
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 3: do you see that happening, Like are we going to

1403
01:03:39,640 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 3: see some funding to do that type of management? You know,

1404
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:49,800
Speaker 3: like the not dimensional board foot lumber side of things.

1405
01:03:49,960 --> 01:03:52,640
Speaker 2: So short answer is yes. And I think this also

1406
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,480
Speaker 2: takes into account where I think we have to have

1407
01:03:55,840 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 2: a little more of an organic relationship between small business

1408
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,200
Speaker 2: and local communities and those for treatment projects, where you

1409
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 2: can say, we're going to give this section of forest

1410
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:09,640
Speaker 2: the lease to a company to come in and they're

1411
01:04:09,640 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 2: going to have the timber lease, but at the same

1412
01:04:11,160 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 2: time their obligation is to deal with the non dimensional timber,

1413
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 2: to deal with the off take, and create this kind

1414
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:22,360
Speaker 2: of it's more of a symbiotic relationship between industry, the

1415
01:04:22,440 --> 01:04:26,400
Speaker 2: forest products industry, and the public landowner. To say again

1416
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:28,840
Speaker 2: whether and there are examples of this working very well.

1417
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 2: Go to Washington State, not exactly a bastion of conservatism,

1418
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 2: but Washington State really undertook their public lands commissioner, lady

1419
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:40,520
Speaker 2: named Hillary France, who's a great lady, super sharp thought

1420
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 2: leader in this regard many many years ago. I think

1421
01:04:42,840 --> 01:04:46,520
Speaker 2: starting twenty sixteen, she started taking a pretty aggressive approach

1422
01:04:46,600 --> 01:04:49,920
Speaker 2: to active forest management of the state and really leveraged

1423
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,040
Speaker 2: the very vibrant forest products industry in the Pacific Northwest

1424
01:04:53,040 --> 01:04:55,520
Speaker 2: to say, listen, I want to fireproof for our communities

1425
01:04:56,360 --> 01:04:58,320
Speaker 2: and I also want to reinvigorate especially a lot of

1426
01:04:58,360 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 2: these tribal communities that are on Colville, who you know,

1427
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:04,880
Speaker 2: are always struggling for good economic growth, and they used

1428
01:05:05,440 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 2: kind of this forestry model around both traditional timber products

1429
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,440
Speaker 2: but also non standard uh forestry products. And you know,

1430
01:05:12,520 --> 01:05:14,600
Speaker 2: the free mark is a beautiful thing. The free market

1431
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:19,000
Speaker 2: will adapt, you know, with amazing speed. And if you

1432
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:22,480
Speaker 2: give them an economic outlet for any product, whether even

1433
01:05:22,480 --> 01:05:25,000
Speaker 2: if it's just slash, they'll find a way to use

1434
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 2: it and they'll find a way to make it processable

1435
01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 2: into something useful. And if not, then they'll bake into

1436
01:05:31,360 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 2: their proposal to do a broader forest treatment project. You

1437
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:36,840
Speaker 2: know what it's going to take to get that out

1438
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:38,440
Speaker 2: of So so I think the paradigm of worgun the

1439
01:05:38,480 --> 01:05:40,560
Speaker 2: government's going to write a check and say you here, boom,

1440
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:42,520
Speaker 2: here's cash. We're going to pay you to go clean

1441
01:05:42,640 --> 01:05:46,200
Speaker 2: up that forest. H That's that's not the way we're

1442
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:47,240
Speaker 2: generally going to try to approach.

1443
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:49,960
Speaker 1: It comes as a chore list tied to a cut, right,

1444
01:05:50,440 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 1: a financial cut. Yeah, so you uh, I know we're

1445
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:56,080
Speaker 1: gonna lose you because you have other obligations. So I

1446
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: try to move quick on a couple of things. You

1447
01:05:58,400 --> 01:06:01,840
Speaker 1: campaigned really hard on public lands and public hands. Yep,

1448
01:06:03,120 --> 01:06:05,840
Speaker 1: how are you gonna, like, how can you as an

1449
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:10,080
Speaker 1: incoming Republican senator like maybe buck a trend that's coming

1450
01:06:10,120 --> 01:06:13,160
Speaker 1: from your broader party about divestiture from public lands or

1451
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:16,000
Speaker 1: allowed to talk about getting rid of public lands access

1452
01:06:16,040 --> 01:06:17,960
Speaker 1: public lands. What kind of position does that put you in?

1453
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, so there was a bill that

1454
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:21,560
Speaker 2: came out a couple weeks ago that both Dane Senator

1455
01:06:21,600 --> 01:06:23,800
Speaker 2: Danes and I voted, voted in favor of.

1456
01:06:23,920 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you you the only two in your party,

1457
01:06:26,560 --> 01:06:28,560
Speaker 1: but a huge thank you man. Yeah, true, no question,

1458
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 1: I'd like to give you credit for that because I

1459
01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 1: was pleased to see it.

1460
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. So there's no question in our minds

1461
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 2: public lands, blowing public hands. Again, that's not just a slogan,

1462
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 2: it's the fact that's a way of life. But there's

1463
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,920
Speaker 2: a butt and I'm not gonna we'll say government assets,

1464
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:48,040
Speaker 2: government owned assets. What happens when you have a defunct

1465
01:06:48,080 --> 01:06:51,959
Speaker 2: military base in a that's been abandoned, that's shut down,

1466
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 2: that's inside those are your personal playground. Yeah, a semi

1467
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:57,800
Speaker 2: urban area, you know, El Tora Airbase in La Is

1468
01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 2: a great example like el as La grew Eltro air

1469
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 2: bases in like the middle of the growth of La yep.

1470
01:07:05,640 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 2: That was public land, right and the decision was, we're

1471
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:12,600
Speaker 2: going to transfer that to the city of La and

1472
01:07:12,720 --> 01:07:14,600
Speaker 2: they will do with it what they deem best. Because

1473
01:07:14,840 --> 01:07:17,440
Speaker 2: this no longer makes sense based the entire San Francisco base,

1474
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 2: same thing, bunch of military bases, publicly owned lands that

1475
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:25,160
Speaker 2: were transferred in a common sense way to say, mainly

1476
01:07:25,200 --> 01:07:27,360
Speaker 2: pushed by Democrats that hey, we want these to be

1477
01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:29,520
Speaker 2: pushed in the private market. You will get no resistance

1478
01:07:29,560 --> 01:07:31,600
Speaker 2: from me on these issues. True. So, but where I'm

1479
01:07:31,600 --> 01:07:35,640
Speaker 2: going is, unfortunately it's the same legal framework. And I think,

1480
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:39,320
Speaker 2: you know, politics of politics, everyone's got to you know,

1481
01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:41,960
Speaker 2: run their game. I get it. But you know, in

1482
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:46,560
Speaker 2: Montana specifically, there's been this effective narrative created that you know,

1483
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:48,840
Speaker 2: the Republican Party wants to sell off Yelosto a national

1484
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:50,560
Speaker 2: park and I want to you know, turn Glacier. And

1485
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:52,959
Speaker 2: I heard that, but I mean I could picture someone

1486
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:55,560
Speaker 2: saying that, Oh, I literally that people in my office

1487
01:07:55,680 --> 01:07:57,400
Speaker 2: like I heard you're going to sell a Yellowstone, Like

1488
01:07:57,480 --> 01:08:01,760
Speaker 2: I'm like, what are you talking about? But that same framework,

1489
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:04,760
Speaker 2: though extends. So take Nevada, and it's interesting how public

1490
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:07,960
Speaker 2: the mindseter on public lands changes on where you're at. Like,

1491
01:08:08,040 --> 01:08:12,360
Speaker 2: there are people in Nevada that view the federal government

1492
01:08:12,440 --> 01:08:15,680
Speaker 2: owning land. It's almost the inverse of heory. It's like occupation.

1493
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:18,320
Speaker 2: Ninety seven percent of Nevada's owned by the federal government,

1494
01:08:18,479 --> 01:08:20,720
Speaker 2: and a lot of Nevadas resent that deeply. They're like,

1495
01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:23,680
Speaker 2: because the government owns our whole state, we can't develop it.

1496
01:08:24,000 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 2: We can't you know, have economic A lot of the

1497
01:08:26,880 --> 01:08:30,040
Speaker 2: Native tribes in Hawaii hate the fact that the US

1498
01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:32,160
Speaker 2: federal government owns so much land in Hawaii. They view

1499
01:08:32,200 --> 01:08:38,439
Speaker 2: that it's foreign occupation. So in Alaska, people in Alaska

1500
01:08:38,560 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 2: are very supportive of saying we want energy development on

1501
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:45,000
Speaker 2: our public lands. In some cases that may mean leasing

1502
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:49,120
Speaker 2: or selling chunks, because we want jobs, we want economic growth.

1503
01:08:49,840 --> 01:08:53,200
Speaker 2: So it's it's not selling national parks, not selling BLM,

1504
01:08:53,320 --> 01:08:55,680
Speaker 2: not selling forest service, of course, but it is to say,

1505
01:08:55,760 --> 01:08:57,800
Speaker 2: if we have a military base in the middle of

1506
01:08:57,880 --> 01:09:01,519
Speaker 2: a city thousands of acres, is that just going to

1507
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:05,559
Speaker 2: stay fenced off and empty forever? And I think when

1508
01:09:05,600 --> 01:09:07,680
Speaker 2: you hear Doug Bergham talking about we need to use

1509
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 2: our public lands more efficiently, and he starts talking about

1510
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:14,599
Speaker 2: we're going to consider affordable housing projects on public lands.

1511
01:09:14,840 --> 01:09:16,680
Speaker 2: He's not going to build an apartment building, you know

1512
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 2: next to you, old Faithful. What he's saying is there's

1513
01:09:19,840 --> 01:09:23,960
Speaker 2: a lot of Department of Interior own land, or Department

1514
01:09:24,000 --> 01:09:26,200
Speaker 2: of Energy own land or DoD owned land that is

1515
01:09:26,280 --> 01:09:29,240
Speaker 2: owned by the public that most people would say this

1516
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:30,320
Speaker 2: could be used better than it is.

1517
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:32,960
Speaker 1: Okay, But if they come in and say, if Burgham

1518
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:35,960
Speaker 1: or anybody comes in and says, we're limiting this to

1519
01:09:36,560 --> 01:09:40,360
Speaker 1: pre developed properties, We're limiting this to things that are

1520
01:09:40,600 --> 01:09:43,000
Speaker 1: that are not you know, I know these are fudgy

1521
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 1: words or fuzzy words. We're limiting these actions to things

1522
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 1: that are not undeveloped. Yeah, wildlife habitat. I think you'd

1523
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 1: have a huge segment of the conservation community in hunters

1524
01:09:54,520 --> 01:09:56,680
Speaker 1: and angers be like, well, doesn't it not like my fight? Yeah?

1525
01:09:56,720 --> 01:09:59,920
Speaker 2: Well, and that's exactly Frankly, that's exactly where it's going. Obviously, again,

1526
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,839
Speaker 2: we have to remember we're in a politics of politics,

1527
01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:04,360
Speaker 2: and of course, you know I've been dealing with it

1528
01:10:04,400 --> 01:10:07,599
Speaker 2: with them everything I'm doing at fire is bipartisan. Yet

1529
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:10,400
Speaker 2: there's people pulling out people who don't like my agenda,

1530
01:10:10,800 --> 01:10:13,880
Speaker 2: are pulling out snippets of bills are working on saying oh,

1531
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:16,880
Speaker 2: look he's trying to do this with fire, and it's like, yeah,

1532
01:10:16,960 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 2: but put in the full context of what we're talking about.

1533
01:10:19,439 --> 01:10:20,840
Speaker 2: And then when you look at the full document, oh,

1534
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,439
Speaker 2: that makes total sense. But when you pull out of context,

1535
01:10:23,520 --> 01:10:25,800
Speaker 2: it doesn't. So you know, some folks are using this

1536
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:28,519
Speaker 2: to attack. You're probably Gonann saying, oh, they're talking about

1537
01:10:28,520 --> 01:10:32,320
Speaker 2: selling government owned land. Yeah, like military bases that haven't

1538
01:10:32,320 --> 01:10:34,519
Speaker 2: been used in fifty years, you know, Or you know

1539
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:38,800
Speaker 2: there's an old warehouse in downtown Gary, Indiana, Like, okay,

1540
01:10:38,920 --> 01:10:40,800
Speaker 2: why does the federal government still own that piece of

1541
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,760
Speaker 2: land for the Defense Logistics Agency DLA doesn't need that

1542
01:10:43,880 --> 01:10:46,160
Speaker 2: land anymore. The factory that used to make those ships

1543
01:10:46,200 --> 01:10:48,880
Speaker 2: there has been shut down for seventy years. Why don't

1544
01:10:48,880 --> 01:10:51,479
Speaker 2: we sell that and pay down the debt? So to

1545
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:53,640
Speaker 2: your point, I think, you know, we have to, and

1546
01:10:53,760 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 2: that's on us too. We got a message better, but

1547
01:10:55,320 --> 01:10:58,560
Speaker 2: also the opposition messaging. You know, I never once in

1548
01:10:58,640 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 2: my life said anything closest. Let's sell our public lands

1549
01:11:01,080 --> 01:11:03,479
Speaker 2: yet that became an issue in my campaign because you know,

1550
01:11:03,640 --> 01:11:06,719
Speaker 2: it was an issue that could easily be be created

1551
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:08,880
Speaker 2: by my political opposition, and both sides do it.

1552
01:11:09,760 --> 01:11:11,880
Speaker 1: I would never in a million years sit here and

1553
01:11:12,000 --> 01:11:16,559
Speaker 1: ask you questions about like like attack ads that came

1554
01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:17,519
Speaker 1: at you during a campaign.

1555
01:11:17,560 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 2: No, I get it.

1556
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:20,160
Speaker 1: But but I guess I'm I just go, I'm interested

1557
01:11:20,200 --> 01:11:22,200
Speaker 1: in what you do and I and I want to

1558
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:22,720
Speaker 1: hear what you think.

1559
01:11:22,800 --> 01:11:24,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, but I guess where I'm going is the

1560
01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:27,320
Speaker 2: narrative that's been developed kind of nationally is that, you know,

1561
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:29,400
Speaker 2: the Republicans are trying to sell off our public lands.

1562
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:31,920
Speaker 2: And I just that's not an accurate narrative, but there

1563
01:11:32,000 --> 01:11:34,120
Speaker 2: is it. I will definitely say there is a divergence

1564
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:36,960
Speaker 2: where some people are more interested in saying, all right,

1565
01:11:37,000 --> 01:11:41,360
Speaker 2: can we can we have a you know, uh, can

1566
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 2: we sell off a piece of BLM land? Uh to

1567
01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:47,680
Speaker 2: you know a mining company? For me, I'm like, no, Like,

1568
01:11:48,200 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 2: it's public land.

1569
01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: Now.

1570
01:11:49,400 --> 01:11:52,640
Speaker 2: We could arrange a lease deal, of course, we did

1571
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:54,559
Speaker 2: all the time with coal leases and mine of course,

1572
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:56,280
Speaker 2: But like, I don't want to see the land sold

1573
01:11:56,680 --> 01:11:58,479
Speaker 2: because I think one of the greatest inventions in the

1574
01:11:58,560 --> 01:12:00,680
Speaker 2: history of our nation was the constant to public land,

1575
01:12:00,720 --> 01:12:02,960
Speaker 2: and that's that's something so special to America. They don't

1576
01:12:03,000 --> 01:12:05,200
Speaker 2: have in Europe. Sure, I mean, you know that land

1577
01:12:05,320 --> 01:12:08,240
Speaker 2: was was, you know, private, thousands of years ago. They don't.

1578
01:12:08,600 --> 01:12:11,400
Speaker 2: Canada has crown land that's literally owned by the crown.

1579
01:12:12,439 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 2: But like, we're the only country in the world really

1580
01:12:14,400 --> 01:12:16,760
Speaker 2: to ever have the concept of the people will own

1581
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:20,800
Speaker 2: massive tracts of land, and that's just so special. We

1582
01:12:20,880 --> 01:12:22,640
Speaker 2: can never you know, we can't chip away at that,

1583
01:12:23,000 --> 01:12:25,559
Speaker 2: and if we do, it's a dangerous precedent. We start

1584
01:12:25,640 --> 01:12:27,920
Speaker 2: so and especially here in Montana, in our western states,

1585
01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:29,600
Speaker 2: and we know what a magical thing it is to

1586
01:12:29,680 --> 01:12:32,720
Speaker 2: have that, and you know, we just have to fight

1587
01:12:32,800 --> 01:12:34,160
Speaker 2: to protect it. That's a red line for all of us.

1588
01:12:34,160 --> 01:12:36,000
Speaker 2: I know our whole Montane delegation is aligned on that.

1589
01:12:36,120 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 2: That you know, that's just that's a non starter.

1590
01:12:38,280 --> 01:12:41,599
Speaker 3: I get a little nervous, honestly when I hear national

1591
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:45,479
Speaker 3: parks brought up, because like all we do every single

1592
01:12:45,560 --> 01:12:48,080
Speaker 3: day is interact with people from all across the country

1593
01:12:48,120 --> 01:12:52,200
Speaker 3: who love public lands and they own dogs that they

1594
01:12:52,240 --> 01:12:55,400
Speaker 3: want to have off leash, and they own guns. National

1595
01:12:55,479 --> 01:12:58,720
Speaker 3: parks are not the place to have dogs off own guns. Right,

1596
01:12:58,800 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 3: So when we say public land, it's like the example

1597
01:13:02,479 --> 01:13:04,519
Speaker 3: of a national park is pretty far down the list.

1598
01:13:05,080 --> 01:13:07,360
Speaker 3: But man, when you're paying attention to this, it's like

1599
01:13:07,600 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 3: that is the example that's being used over and wait

1600
01:13:10,200 --> 01:13:12,120
Speaker 3: wait wait, wait wait. I always be represented.

1601
01:13:12,160 --> 01:13:14,160
Speaker 2: I always have to explain that to people like like

1602
01:13:14,240 --> 01:13:17,160
Speaker 2: as like for Native Montana, like people live in Montana.

1603
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:20,160
Speaker 2: Like parks are actually like almost partially for the tourists.

1604
01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:22,640
Speaker 2: We're worried about our for service, land, about our b

1605
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:23,559
Speaker 2: Do we really like.

1606
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:24,160
Speaker 3: Having them for that?

1607
01:13:24,479 --> 01:13:25,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.

1608
01:13:25,400 --> 01:13:27,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to spill over a mechanism.

1609
01:13:28,320 --> 01:13:28,840
Speaker 2: Let's match it.

1610
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:30,720
Speaker 1: You got to run. I don't want to keep you late.

1611
01:13:30,920 --> 01:13:31,040
Speaker 2: Uh.

1612
01:13:31,840 --> 01:13:33,680
Speaker 1: In all honesty, I would love to have you come

1613
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:36,680
Speaker 1: back sometime. I don't know if we ever get done it,

1614
01:13:36,680 --> 01:13:38,280
Speaker 1: so we don't get much free time. I would love

1615
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:40,640
Speaker 1: to have you come back for a couple hours. Uh.

1616
01:13:41,600 --> 01:13:43,599
Speaker 1: I wanted our listeners to meet you. You know, most

1617
01:13:44,080 --> 01:13:47,040
Speaker 1: like you know, most of our listeners are not in Montana.

1618
01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:50,880
Speaker 1: I wanted them to meet you. We got some background covered,

1619
01:13:50,880 --> 01:13:53,880
Speaker 1: which I think is important. I respect the service you did.

1620
01:13:54,000 --> 01:13:55,800
Speaker 1: I think that you know doing what you did with

1621
01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:59,080
Speaker 1: such a high risk of injury cost your family like

1622
01:13:59,200 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 1: earns you a seat at the table, right, deserves respect.

1623
01:14:03,320 --> 01:14:04,760
Speaker 1: We got that out of the way. I would love

1624
01:14:04,800 --> 01:14:06,800
Speaker 1: it to come back and talk more about fires and

1625
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:08,040
Speaker 1: more about public lands.

1626
01:14:08,200 --> 01:14:12,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to. Yeah, And as the fire legislation moves,

1627
01:14:12,880 --> 01:14:15,240
Speaker 2: you know, I think, you know, probably the summer I'll

1628
01:14:15,240 --> 01:14:17,320
Speaker 2: swing back around because in the next few months, obviously

1629
01:14:17,360 --> 01:14:19,639
Speaker 2: it's already late April, you know, some of these bills

1630
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:22,000
Speaker 2: will be in place, and I think we'll see a

1631
01:14:22,040 --> 01:14:23,960
Speaker 2: lot of that, the bipartisan action on the fire like

1632
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:25,559
Speaker 2: taking place. So i'd love to come back as sp

1633
01:14:25,560 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 2: been two hours of summer, and especially in the fire

1634
01:14:27,200 --> 01:14:28,680
Speaker 2: season when probably a lot of people are going to

1635
01:14:28,720 --> 01:14:30,800
Speaker 2: be what's going on, we can talk through it and

1636
01:14:30,920 --> 01:14:33,120
Speaker 2: just talk through some of the tactics and what's going on. Why.

1637
01:14:33,240 --> 01:14:35,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, my brain has been trained in two hour. We

1638
01:14:35,840 --> 01:14:38,960
Speaker 1: do a two hour show's trained in. I can't get

1639
01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:41,240
Speaker 1: there in an hour at apologies, but I know you

1640
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:41,720
Speaker 1: got to run.

1641
01:14:42,120 --> 01:14:44,599
Speaker 3: Love to have you back, man, I mean big thank

1642
01:14:44,640 --> 01:14:47,559
Speaker 3: you too for for standing up for public lands. They're

1643
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:50,800
Speaker 3: both on the reconciliation bill on that or the Amendment there,

1644
01:14:50,840 --> 01:14:55,160
Speaker 3: and then Zinkey's Public Lands and Public Hands Bill that's huge.

1645
01:14:55,240 --> 01:14:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely proud to do it.

1646
01:14:57,080 --> 01:14:58,680
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me going back and I appreciate it.