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Speaker 1: Mute forms. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to soft Web Radio Special Operations, Military Models

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Speaker 1: on straight Talk with the guys in the community.

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Speaker 2: Hey, what's going on. It's me rad and you are

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Speaker 2: listening to another awesome episode of soft Rep Radio. But

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Speaker 2: before I get into my next guest today, who you

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Speaker 2: can already see on the screen if you're watching on

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Speaker 2: the youtubes, is I want to talk to you about

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Speaker 2: my merch store. Okay, we have a merch store for

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Speaker 2: soft Rep. It helps keep the lights on. A little

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Speaker 2: bit goes a long way for us. I love doing

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Speaker 2: this show, and I really appreciate Brandon and everybody you

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Speaker 2: know keeping the merch store open, So go support that.

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Speaker 2: And then also, we have a book club. It's soft

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Speaker 2: rep dot Com Forward Slash Book hyphen Club. Go check

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Speaker 2: it out, get involved. If you want to learn about

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Speaker 2: some books that we talked about to the authors, you

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Speaker 2: can get into the book club. Brandon Webb's books are

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Speaker 2: in there, John David Mann. Hopefully we can get my

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Speaker 2: next guest, Robert Spangle of a one thousand Yard Style

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Speaker 2: and his book into our book club, and let's welcome

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Speaker 2: him to our show. Welcome.

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Speaker 3: Robert, Well, very great, happy to be here, and reh honored,

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Speaker 3: so thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: Red Well. You know today's special guest kids is Robert

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Speaker 2: Spangle and he's a photographer and he's a veteran of

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Speaker 2: the United States Marine Corps. Can you tell us a

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Speaker 2: little bit about the Marine Corps and what you How

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Speaker 2: old were you when you enlisted? Kind of the timeline

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Speaker 2: of I went through boot camp and I got into

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Speaker 2: this other thing and then I went huge, Oh boy,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be that big though, you can

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Speaker 2: see it right to it.

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Speaker 3: So I joined in twenty seventeen, got out in twenty eleven.

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Speaker 3: I actually I signed up when I was seventeen and

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Speaker 3: a half. My parents like signed off on me, so

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Speaker 3: I left right after high school. Basically, this is still

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Speaker 3: kind of like the pre Internet military. You know, the

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Speaker 3: Internet existed, but social media and all that stuff wasn't

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Speaker 3: really there, and the whole structure of the military wasn't

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Speaker 3: online transparent. I wanted to go infantry. I was told

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Speaker 3: that I should go recon because I was good at swimming.

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Speaker 2: I want ricon.

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Speaker 3: That was like after boot camp and infantry school. That

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Speaker 3: was like a six month five six months training cycle.

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Speaker 3: It was pretty pretty arduous and familiar to many people.

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Speaker 3: I wound up getting second sent to second Recon Battalion,

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Speaker 3: and this is an interesting period in the battalion's history

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Speaker 3: and also in Force Recon history. Force Ricon had essentially

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Speaker 3: been dissolved I think about three years before you had

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Speaker 3: Debt one guys who had kind of like gone away

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Speaker 3: and then set up like MSAB right, So Forced Ricon

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Speaker 3: hadn't functionally existed for a few years, and they were

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Speaker 3: looking at standing back up to have it as a

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Speaker 3: new asset, as an asset that was deployable to battle

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Speaker 3: space of those days, which was Iraq and Afghanistan, and.

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Speaker 2: Me is that a marine expeditionary unit and it was

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Speaker 2: you just wrapped, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Which is a nice a sitting on a boat waiting

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Speaker 3: for something bad to happen. So I got really lucky

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Speaker 3: in that I got roped into a very very senior

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Speaker 3: position which was Force Ricon literally getting off the bus

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Speaker 3: when I got to Campbell June. Basically everyone else at

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Speaker 3: that platoon and it was just a platoon when we started.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't really a fully fledged company for I think

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Speaker 3: a full year afterwards. Was guys who had you know,

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Speaker 3: two three combat employments either recon guys or recon guys

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Speaker 3: and scout snipers, super experienced dudes. And I got really

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Speaker 3: lucky that I got kind of thrown into the ring

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Speaker 3: with them because they just they needed the numbers. You know,

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Speaker 3: this is the time where we had Iraq and Afghanistan

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Speaker 3: going on full tilt.

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Speaker 4: There was casualties and there's a lot.

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Speaker 3: Of demand for senior guys getting pulled into MSABMSK that

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Speaker 3: kind of thing. So I got the best round you

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Speaker 3: could ever have in the military, which was going into

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Speaker 3: an extremely senior unit as an extremely junior Marine. I

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Speaker 3: was the youngest lowest ranking guy when I got in.

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Speaker 3: I was the youngest lowest ranking guy when I got

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Speaker 3: out at the time in between is pretty good.

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Speaker 4: So that was my That was my military experience.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell me what MSOV is out.

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Speaker 3: Your reference There's MSO and then there's msob SO Marine

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Speaker 3: Special Operations Battalion. That was I'm not going to get

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Speaker 3: the exact years, right, I don't want someone who's in

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Speaker 3: the unit to like tear my ears off, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: you know, the Marine Corps historically has been very anti

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Speaker 3: special forces, right and very kind of like anti special

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Speaker 3: Force Ricon had historically been the Marine Corps equivalent of

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Speaker 3: the Special Forces. When the special Forces were stood up

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Speaker 3: by Kennedy, it was Marine Force Ricon primarily and then.

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Speaker 4: UDTs which became Seals secondarily.

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Speaker 3: And the Marine Corps took a path of not wanting

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Speaker 3: to centralize with special forces, and the rest of the

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Speaker 3: armed forces went through went for like SOCOM centralization and

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Speaker 3: a kind of an independent structure from their own from

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Speaker 3: their own branch, and I think most people would say

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Speaker 3: that the Marine are really suffered from that. So a

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Speaker 3: two thousand, let's see, like two thousand and one, two

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Speaker 3: thousand and two, two thousand and three, you had DEBT one,

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Speaker 3: which is essentially Force Ricon was the Marine Corps Direct

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Speaker 3: Action and Reconnaissance Deep reconnaissance asset. They were functioning as

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Speaker 3: like true special forces, right and getting tasked out. But

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Speaker 3: Marine Corps is like really missing out on the action

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Speaker 3: because they weren't part of SOCOM. As I remember it,

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Speaker 3: Debt one ones up getting dissolved and basically a lot

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Speaker 3: of those guys get pulled into other branches of the

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Speaker 3: Special forces agencies things like that, right, and Force Riecon

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Speaker 3: really never comes back in full strength. The Marine Corps

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Speaker 3: eventually kind of throws in the talent and says, we

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Speaker 3: want to be part of the special forces, and they

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Speaker 3: stand up them solving MSOK right, which becomes a streamlined

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Speaker 3: special hoses that's part of an answerable to socom SO.

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Speaker 2: Now they're attached to a So Calm mothership. Even though

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Speaker 2: they're MARSK, they still can get the support they need

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Speaker 2: through so Calm right. They probably want that well, any

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Speaker 2: asset from some.

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Speaker 3: Right and as I understand it, like you know, their

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Speaker 3: their support was much better, right, but also their tasking

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Speaker 3: was wider so in the past.

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Speaker 4: One of the reasons that the Marine Corps never wanted

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Speaker 4: to go for special.

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Speaker 3: Horses was they didn't want their best men being pulled

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Speaker 3: away from the Marine Corps right answering to Army Air

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Speaker 3: Force even like larger scale national needs. And that's kind

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Speaker 3: of the trade off with going into socom SO. That

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Speaker 3: was kind of like the change of rules that occurred,

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Speaker 3: and I got I got very lucky in landing in

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Speaker 3: this weird transitory period where horse frequan was getting stood

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Speaker 3: back up and wasn't really redefined yet, and then MSAB

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Speaker 3: was like more or less like getting its feet and

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Speaker 3: kind of like already operating. By the time I was

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Speaker 3: on my first deployment in Afghanistan, those guys had already

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Speaker 3: been on the ground. They're doing their thing exceptionally well

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Speaker 3: for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: Now, are you as hardcore as donning face paint when

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Speaker 2: you would go on your mission?

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Speaker 3: I think different, you know, different different themes with like

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Speaker 3: different debates about that. We take camouflage very very seriously.

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Speaker 3: I think, like the reconnaissance role, if you're really into it,

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Speaker 3: you have to be extremely humble about it. And these

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Speaker 3: illusions that like six or seven guys are going to

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Speaker 3: hold off several hundred, Yeah, is that's the worst case

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Speaker 3: scenario that you do everything within your power to mitigate

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Speaker 3: and avoid. So we took camouflage like very very seriously.

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Speaker 3: Everyone would like came up before missions. Some people would

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Speaker 3: take this like more seriously than others. You know, all

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Speaker 3: our personal equipment is going to be like camouflaged. Guys

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Speaker 3: would like really pay attention to like what they were eating,

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Speaker 3: like dipping, smoking, like days and weeks prior before a mission,

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Speaker 3: just to try to camouflage.

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Speaker 4: The way we smelled from locals. Right, So it's taken.

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Speaker 3: That part was taken like really really seriously from lessons learned,

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Speaker 3: and you know, now going back into like dog history,

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Speaker 3: you understand where these lessons started. And in Afghanistan I

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Speaker 3: deployed twice there with Puerto Rican. You saw that a

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Speaker 3: lot of almost all these lessons are still valid and

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Speaker 3: we had opportunities to kind of improve on these things. Right,

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Speaker 3: like the smell thing that might not have been a

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Speaker 3: that was something that was relevant in Vietnam, right because

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Speaker 3: the North Vietnamese would use.

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Speaker 4: Dog teams to track teams occasionally.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: We never had that in Afghanistan in terms of dogs.

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Speaker 3: But what we did have a huge problem with was shepherds.

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Speaker 3: And it was our theory that like you know, goats, sheep, whatever,

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Speaker 3: like they were just kind of.

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Speaker 4: You know, grazing around or whatever.

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Speaker 3: But if they smell something weird, they're going to migrate

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Speaker 3: towards it, right, especially if it you know, sounds like

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Speaker 3: it smells like American laundry detergent and food.

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Speaker 4: So, yeah, a little history lesson there.

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Speaker 2: The reason why I bring that up is because you

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Speaker 2: have some style I want to just mention and your

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Speaker 2: Instagram is that goal with your thousand yards style. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's a blue check mark for those of you that

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Speaker 2: really need to know, right, it's legit and it's got

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Speaker 2: a lot of cool photography. And Robert's also a fashion

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Speaker 2: designer from his experience in the military, he's just brought

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Speaker 2: to him. He's brought to his unique style to his bags.

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Speaker 2: Those sea bags that you make that you've invested your

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Speaker 2: energy into that have like the ability to put like

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Speaker 2: a sleeping bag or a mat on the bottom of

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Speaker 2: it when you want to tote it, and you know

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Speaker 2: how you have it to blend in. That's why I

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Speaker 2: brought up your camouflage on your face, because you're basically

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Speaker 2: doing that with that bag. You got all these guys

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Speaker 2: out there that are like, we're this gray man, right okay,

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Speaker 2: and I can still spot that right of Like I

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Speaker 2: just A'm gonna wear camiflage, bro. But honestly, you're going

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Speaker 2: to like places where it's not friendly towards you sometimes

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Speaker 2: you just I believe got back from Ukraine, right, You've

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Speaker 2: been over there for a minute doing some yeah, and

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Speaker 2: you got to blend in? Did you have to blend in?

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Speaker 2: That's why I was wondering, you know, you got to

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Speaker 2: just kind of like I.

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Speaker 3: Mean, I think the you know, the idea of camouflage

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Speaker 3: is as important as it is like misunderstood.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: It's interesting for me that I've ended up in other

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Speaker 3: careers post military where camouflage was still still relevant and

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Speaker 3: still important. I spent about like half the year and

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Speaker 3: out working as a as a photo journalist. And you know,

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Speaker 3: to your point about the whole sort of gray Man thing,

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Speaker 3: the gray Man doctrine was kind of what we were

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Speaker 3: taught going through the schoolhouse and was really like kind

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Speaker 3: of beaten into us in the reconnaissance community, this idea

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Speaker 3: that you know, don't be first, don't be last, don't

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Speaker 3: ever let them know your name, right, like to blend in,

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Speaker 3: to be a part of the crowd, not to stick out,

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Speaker 3: but not to kind of like profile it yourself. But

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Speaker 3: that in and of itself has become a uniform that

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Speaker 3: anyone who was in that arena be it, you know,

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Speaker 3: military or intelligence can pick up on instantly. Right, So

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Speaker 3: now it's not really that's not really effective, chemo.

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Speaker 2: It's not really grey right to your question.

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Speaker 3: Since my military, you know, spent time a considerable amount

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Speaker 3: of time in Afghanistan, even more time in Ukraine a

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Speaker 3: little bit in Iraq a lot of time, just like

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Speaker 3: in kind of places that were a little bit tense

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Speaker 3: to received hostile, some hostile, some not, like Lebanon's. Lebanon's

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Speaker 3: a good example, right, Like I went to Lebanon in

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Speaker 3: I think twenty sixteen with a wonderful French woe when

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Speaker 3: I was dating at the time, and for her it

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Speaker 3: was very much a vacation and for me, I'm like,

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Speaker 3: this is has blood territory, and you come to understand

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Speaker 3: the world has made up a lot of these places

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Speaker 3: where like little neighborhood borders can go from a place

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Speaker 3: where everything is kind of normal and tactile understood you

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Speaker 3: to being extremely foreign and potentially dangerous.

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Speaker 4: But camouflage being a part of that.

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Speaker 3: Like as a journalist or you know whatever, traveling abroad,

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Speaker 3: you have to pay attention and kind of like do

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Speaker 3: what you can to mitigate your signature and kind of

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Speaker 3: communicate as little as possible to you know, the people

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Speaker 3: around you. Right, information is always very easily weaponized. And

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Speaker 3: there's a flip side to that too, which is like

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Speaker 3: the more that you pay attention to culture and the

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Speaker 3: white people address, it's also easier for you to understand

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Speaker 3: the people around you, right, you know, I remember seeing

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Speaker 3: you at Shoat Show with like the non boots and

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Speaker 3: the tiger strait pants, right and like obviously in shot

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Speaker 3: show that's not the craziest thing, right, But to me,

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Speaker 3: I was like right away, I was like, oh, like,

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Speaker 3: this guy's got some Vietnam vibes, right, Like I can

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Speaker 3: go to him and we can talk about you know, X,

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Speaker 3: Y and Z.

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Speaker 2: Oh, yeah we did, and everywhere.

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Speaker 3: Else I've been in the world, some kind of that

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Speaker 3: like local specialized knowledge has paid off so many times

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Speaker 3: in Ukraine because like I'm a little bit I'm a

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Speaker 3: little bit of a gear career, right, Like I know

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Speaker 3: all the not like as into it as I used

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Speaker 3: to be, but like I can talk about the different

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Speaker 3: tactical brands and I can recognize them, right, sort of

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Speaker 3: like a little bit of tuned lingo that makes it

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Speaker 3: really easy to talk to like the higher tier in

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Speaker 3: like the younger Ukrainians holds that are out there. The

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Speaker 3: older set of guys who are kind of from the

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Speaker 3: very Soviet style military, right, like guys whose career started

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Speaker 3: before the mid On Revolution. They're not really like they're

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Speaker 3: part of a different system. The younger guys, like you

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Speaker 3: can see them with their their pry stuff or Roman stuff, right,

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Speaker 3: and you can go to them and talk to them

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Speaker 3: about it, right, And that establishes like a level of

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Speaker 3: trust that like they understand that you understand, and maybe

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Speaker 3: they're a little bit less suspicious of you being a

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Speaker 3: journalist who's there to like throw them underneath the bus,

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Speaker 3: right because like you talked to Lingo. That's an easy

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Speaker 3: comparison and like a kind of more difficult one would

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Speaker 3: be like Afghanistan, huge language prayer. You're trying to kind

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Speaker 3: of make poor people who are totally from a different

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Speaker 3: culture and don't have a shared language. But even with that,

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Speaker 3: like there's a kind of universal respect for style, right,

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Speaker 3: and it is like it's not language based, Like you

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Speaker 3: don't need to have any shared language to be able

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Speaker 3: to communicate that.

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Speaker 4: Like, oh dude, you've got style, right, Like I like your.

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Speaker 2: Glass yeah exactly, Like yeah, yeah, so dude, you're like,

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Speaker 2: oh your glasses those are cool?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I spent a little little time

282
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Speaker 3: there and you kind of come to understand that before

283
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,240
Speaker 3: the Taliman took over the country, right, Amachel Msud, it

284
00:14:15,400 --> 00:14:18,920
Speaker 3: was a mujadine leader right, was sort of the style

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Speaker 3: icon of everyone who was not in support of the

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Speaker 3: Taligan right, And if you could like look at him,

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00:14:25,720 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 3: you'd see it reflected in the way like military guy's dressed,

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Speaker 3: older guys have been.

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Speaker 4: And if you started to kind of like emulate that

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Speaker 4: a little bit, you know.

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Speaker 3: Like look at the way this guy'sdress, look at the

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Speaker 3: colors he wore, right, look at the way he like

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Speaker 3: wore his peckle hat and his field jacket, and you

294
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Speaker 3: can do that thing yourself. People would sort of intuitively

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Speaker 3: pick up that, like, Okay, this guy knows his history

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Speaker 3: a little bit. You knows what's going on culturally a

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Speaker 3: little bit, right, and you're just kind of you you're

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Speaker 3: going to have more familiar and friendly ground with someone automatically.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the cool hat is a cool story, bro,

300
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Speaker 2: It's a pretty cool Yeah you got there, bro, I

301
00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:02,960
Speaker 2: love I love it. And it's got also multiple like

302
00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:05,680
Speaker 2: you could put grain in it to feed the horses,

303
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Speaker 2: and it could be like a carrier and it also

304
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Speaker 2: can roll up and go on to their head. Oh yeah,

305
00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:12,800
Speaker 2: you know, there's just multiple purposes. Yeah, And if you

306
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Speaker 2: go over there, if you knew that that would probably go, Oh, well,

307
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Speaker 2: if you understand.

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Speaker 3: The history of it, right, and you go to the

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Speaker 3: different regions where it's more or less predominant, right, you

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Speaker 3: can read so much into that. So the peckle had

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Speaker 3: originally came in like the thirteenth century, and it was

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Speaker 3: brought by the Greeks. Wow, so this is what Alexander

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00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,000
Speaker 3: the Great's men were like wearing. It wasn't even Greek,

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Speaker 3: it was Italian.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 4: They make can from Florence, right.

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Speaker 3: And if you go to Florence and you see like

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Speaker 3: they're kind of historically inactive today you can see a

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00:15:44,880 --> 00:15:48,000
Speaker 3: similar thing, just done in a slightly different way. And

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Speaker 3: when this hat arrived in Afghanistan, it was really only

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Speaker 3: in a province called Nourista. Nouristan is super remote. It's

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Speaker 3: known for being like wild and inconquerable. They only converted

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Speaker 3: to Islam about one hundred and ten years ago. And

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Speaker 3: it is tangentially directly next to Panda Share right. So

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Speaker 3: it makes sense since Pandashar was kind of a concentration

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Speaker 3: of the misinin right, and Neurastan would be their kind

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Speaker 3: of ratline corridor to Pakistan for arms or X Y

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Speaker 3: and Z that the Pandashiris would start wearing the pekeel

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Speaker 3: hat right. As such, the pekel hat became a symbol

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Speaker 3: bit of like the normal alliance of the anti Taliban

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Speaker 3: resistance in the country.

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Speaker 4: Though up until the Democratic government came to being, the

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00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:39,960
Speaker 4: peckel hat was worn by like very few people.

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Speaker 3: It was a very kind of it was very limited

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00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,800
Speaker 3: to those kinds of districts, right, and it was like

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00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 3: very political. And with the Democratic government and their kind

337
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,400
Speaker 3: of twenty year existence, right, it became more and more popular.

338
00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:56,840
Speaker 3: More provinces start putting their spin on it, right, and

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00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:00,200
Speaker 3: it stays that way until the Taliban takes over the country, right.

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Speaker 3: And the interesting thing is the Taliban who are very

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Speaker 3: controlling over what people wear. Obviously they didn't ban the

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00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:10,560
Speaker 3: peckle hat, but they wear a very specific style, so

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Speaker 3: like they put their spin on it rather than its.

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Speaker 2: Rolled so tight on the top of their head and

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00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:22,760
Speaker 2: then there's like brain yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's

346
00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:23,320
Speaker 2: super tight.

347
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Speaker 3: That's that is much more of like northern right style.

348
00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:34,359
Speaker 3: What the Taliban guys that I photographed and saw on

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00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,879
Speaker 3: that like, what they wear is larger. It's like almost

350
00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:40,760
Speaker 3: like Rastafarian like it's larger pof ear.

351
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Speaker 4: They have like more hair. I guess, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: It's just like it's like a larger, like bigger thing, right,

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Speaker 3: And some of these guys put their like shadada pins

354
00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:53,040
Speaker 3: on there, but it's like a much larger, bigger things

355
00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 3: that embroidery on the top. It's a totally different thing.

356
00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,280
Speaker 3: But that's something that you didn't really see the fast

357
00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:04,000
Speaker 3: that you've see now. And for me, it's one of

358
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 3: the reasons that like, fashion is an interesting way to analyze.

359
00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:12,080
Speaker 4: Conflicts, like the cultural aspect of conflict.

360
00:18:12,240 --> 00:18:14,360
Speaker 3: Right, It's easier for us to be like, oh, your

361
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,760
Speaker 3: dal is like super sick, and I love tiger stripe,

362
00:18:16,920 --> 00:18:22,360
Speaker 3: but the psychology decisions and how they come into prominence, right,

363
00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 3: that to me is like fascinating.

364
00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:29,280
Speaker 2: Right, Like where did tiger stripe? Why was it even created?

365
00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:31,680
Speaker 2: Why was the South Vietnamese advisor was wearing it? Why

366
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,080
Speaker 2: did the US start to adopt one? How did he

367
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:35,160
Speaker 2: go and run?

368
00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:38,080
Speaker 4: How did it become like a punk rock staple?

369
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:38,480
Speaker 3: Right?

370
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:40,480
Speaker 4: That wasn't just like it was.

371
00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:45,360
Speaker 2: Well because the seventies, sixties and seventy surplus, Yeah, surplus.

372
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:46,840
Speaker 3: It was well, it was surplus, but it was also

373
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Speaker 3: Joe Strummer, right, So like I couldn't tell you which

374
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:52,960
Speaker 3: one became which one came first, right, But like punk

375
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:55,240
Speaker 3: guys are all wearing surplus, right, and they love like

376
00:18:55,720 --> 00:18:59,480
Speaker 3: they love subverting uniforms and things like that. But Joe

377
00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:03,280
Speaker 3: Strummer is obsessed with Vietnam, right, And he's obsessed with

378
00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:04,720
Speaker 3: Vietnam photographers.

379
00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:07,480
Speaker 4: He wrote, you know, he wrote.

380
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:11,280
Speaker 3: At least one song about Sean Flynn, and it was

381
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:12,919
Speaker 3: something he researched quite a lot, and I think like

382
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,399
Speaker 3: became part of his psychology. So like I don't know

383
00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:19,359
Speaker 3: if he started wearing stuff and available and then that

384
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 3: made him research things, or he was like researching things

385
00:19:22,600 --> 00:19:24,239
Speaker 3: and then he got into the worms. I don't know,

386
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,439
Speaker 3: but the psychology of that is crazy, right, Like we

387
00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 3: go from something that is very much a part of

388
00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:33,320
Speaker 3: like the state uniform doing things that are you know,

389
00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 3: porderline illegal and deniable in other countries, right to what

390
00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:41,480
Speaker 3: punk rockers are making iconic stages around the world.

391
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,080
Speaker 2: It's and Joel Strmer, he's the clash and big audio dynamite,

392
00:19:45,119 --> 00:19:46,879
Speaker 2: right for those of us that are listening that may.

393
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:49,399
Speaker 3: Not know, Yeah, right, but we could just say, we

394
00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:50,760
Speaker 3: could just say the clash, right.

395
00:19:50,680 --> 00:19:53,240
Speaker 2: The clash. Yeah, well I had to say big Audio dynamite.

396
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,320
Speaker 2: I had to give him his credit. I had that cassette.

397
00:19:58,840 --> 00:20:00,280
Speaker 2: You know, when you say that it's a it's like

398
00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:03,919
Speaker 2: yeah again, you know the whole thing about tiger stripe

399
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:06,679
Speaker 2: having gold or having different types of green, you know,

400
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 2: and just like all these different I love tiger stripe.

401
00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:12,840
Speaker 2: I love tiger like the orange and black stripes. Yeah. Well,

402
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:15,920
Speaker 2: and like all the subdued versions.

403
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:17,959
Speaker 3: This is a you know, this is a it's an

404
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,160
Speaker 3: imitation of nature, right, that came from, Yes, this specific

405
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:24,720
Speaker 3: place that we were thinking about, right, And you know,

406
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 3: most tiger stripe was made in well, quite a lot

407
00:20:27,359 --> 00:20:28,960
Speaker 3: of it was like made in Japan, right, and that

408
00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:31,640
Speaker 3: was because of their post war economy. It's like all

409
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:33,920
Speaker 3: these things are tied together and it's a single thread

410
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:37,800
Speaker 3: that you can kind of pick up and really trace

411
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,240
Speaker 3: the social and cultural influence on a lot of different

412
00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:43,720
Speaker 3: sides of any you know, of any conflicts. So I

413
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,359
Speaker 3: think that's to me, like that's something my mind just

414
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:47,760
Speaker 3: preoccupied with way too much.

415
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:51,160
Speaker 2: Probably very hard for me six foot five, two eighty

416
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:57,040
Speaker 2: to find. That fits me, bro, where's that big brain

417
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:59,200
Speaker 2: that was swinging around the tree. Where's head? I need

418
00:20:59,200 --> 00:20:59,920
Speaker 2: his used gear?

419
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:03,200
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I don't think I don't think he lasted very long, right.

420
00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 2: No, No, you just swung that tree a few times.

421
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:09,040
Speaker 3: They're probably like, you know, a you big high profile guy.

422
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 3: We're going to have to carry the radio and the

423
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:11,080
Speaker 3: machine gun.

424
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:16,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right, and go in the tunnel. You're going

425
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:19,320
Speaker 2: to the tunnel rad get in there, take a flashlight.

426
00:21:19,960 --> 00:21:21,880
Speaker 2: Oh man, Yeah, I'm a big boy.

427
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:23,800
Speaker 3: It's good for me because like I'm on the smaller side,

428
00:21:23,800 --> 00:21:27,639
Speaker 3: so basically everything fits me. But there is that surplus economy,

429
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:30,160
Speaker 3: and it does tend to be that like American dudes

430
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 3: are always like really big and like bulked out right,

431
00:21:32,760 --> 00:21:35,800
Speaker 3: and like the locals are not so much. The two

432
00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 3: trips I did is a journalist afghanistans is twenty sah

433
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:45,199
Speaker 3: it's a photojournalist or photographer. In twenty twenty one and

434
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 3: the end of twenty twenty two, I actually went through

435
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:50,720
Speaker 3: Kabul in a couple other places looking for military vnted

436
00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 3: just because I'm interested in and I want to see,

437
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 3: like what, you know, what is this shaking out?

438
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 2: As they got some acus in there.

439
00:21:57,480 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 3: Like tons of tons of acus also interesting that you

440
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,639
Speaker 3: would see like there were so many nations involved in

441
00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:10,119
Speaker 3: ice aff. You were seeing you know, luctarn Acus marine stuff,

442
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:14,359
Speaker 3: tons of British stuff, French stuff, and Australian stuff, and

443
00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:16,840
Speaker 3: it's all just kind of it's all just kind of there,

444
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:19,680
Speaker 3: and like you could kind of tell a lot of

445
00:22:19,680 --> 00:22:22,360
Speaker 3: this stuff had been left behind our trader, given away

446
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:26,119
Speaker 3: or stolen like who knows. But I'd frequently find blouses

447
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 3: that were like larges or exl's right, and had been

448
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 3: extremely tailored to become like a size small. And it

449
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 3: was kind of interesting because like you know that like

450
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 3: it tends to be the Special Forces guys, right, who

451
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 3: were working with indigenous forces as like force multiplayers. Right,

452
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 3: these dudes like they're all cycled out, they're in great shape, right,

453
00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:47,840
Speaker 3: They're really at like the top.

454
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 4: All these dudes are like heavy eights.

455
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 3: And and then the local guys, like you know they're Afghans.

456
00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,480
Speaker 4: They were like one hundred and fifteen hundred and twenty pounds.

457
00:22:57,240 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 3: Right, So you could see kind of this whole there's

458
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:02,680
Speaker 3: this like very worn out Special Forces uniform and it's

459
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 3: obviously been tailored down like two or three sizes smaller

460
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 3: than it was meant to be. I'm like, what was

461
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,880
Speaker 3: the story there? Right, Like, was this did this come from?

462
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 3: You know, one of the team leaders who had really

463
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 3: like one admiration and respect with the platoona company that

464
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 3: he was training up, and he like left uniforms behind

465
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,920
Speaker 3: for them and they continue to wear that and then

466
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 3: now it's been you know, cast off because these guys

467
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 3: are in hiding. That's highly imaginative narrative. But going through

468
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 3: these piles.

469
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 2: Of I would imagine Iraq has a very big thrift

470
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:34,680
Speaker 2: store too. Right when you know, we went over there

471
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 2: and said that the Bath Party were a terrorist organization

472
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 2: and the military was fired, they dropped their uniforms and

473
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 2: took their guns. Yeah, they got a pink slip. Yeah,

474
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 2: here's your universe. They took off all their gears, said okay, fine,

475
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:51,159
Speaker 2: keep my ak though, and where's all that gear? You know,

476
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 2: I've got an Iraqi helmet at my store. And I'm like,

477
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:59,280
Speaker 2: this is what they put on their head in their minds.

478
00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 2: It's just like fro It's like, yeah, it's almost like yellow,

479
00:24:03,880 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 2: like a yellow faded. It's like the color of my

480
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 2: mug right here, this yellow and it's just like it

481
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 2: sits domed on top of my man. Yeah, it's like

482
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 2: fiber black. Thank you, that's the word.

483
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,359
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, some of because some of the old

484
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,239
Speaker 4: what else is like that old airborne helmet liners from

485
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:22,879
Speaker 4: World War Two and a little bit after we're like

486
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 4: that they had their steel helmets and they had like

487
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 4: fiberglass helmet liners on the inside that was like to

488
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 4: reduce concussions that yeah.

489
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,360
Speaker 2: On the head from the metal. But it is that's

490
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: basically Yeah.

491
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 3: It's pretty crazy to see, like what happens when you

492
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:42,080
Speaker 3: have a very very modern, proven military encounter something that

493
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:45,120
Speaker 3: has not you know, a military force that has not

494
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:47,479
Speaker 3: not really been in a in a conflict or been

495
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,360
Speaker 3: able to modernize in a long time. There was quite

496
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 3: a lot of that in like the first trip I

497
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 3: did to Ukraine during the renewed invasion. I was there

498
00:24:56,840 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 3: for like three months kind of the onset of the invasion,

499
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 3: and you were looking around and like really seeing, Okay,

500
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 3: what does it look like when a society suddenly has

501
00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 3: a certainly has basically an unrestricted war sprung upon it,

502
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 3: and you're having to see you're seeing, you know, like

503
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 3: a vast majority of the population arm themselves and dig

504
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 3: in and prepared defenses when they have no real comprehension

505
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 3: of this and no real military experience. And then on

506
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 3: the side of the guys who've been in the military

507
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 3: already for a while and do have experience, they mostly

508
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 3: have like a kind of inherited Soviet way of doing

509
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 3: things via equipment and tactics. And that's really I mean,

510
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 3: it really made me appreciate like the training had got

511
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 3: in the Marines, the equipment we had, because some of

512
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 3: it was just like shocking. I was seeing, you know,

513
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 3: guys training on weapons systems that were from like nineteen

514
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 3: twenty six, right like.

515
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 4: Top drum loaded. I don't remember the designator.

516
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 2: For this weapon. Let's be clear. The guys training on

517
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 2: it are like an old boy band that's now turned

518
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 2: combat unit because their life where they were in theater

519
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 2: and singing on records, has been uprooted in Ukraine and

520
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 2: now they're going from the stage to the trenches training

521
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 2: on some nineteen thirties device to try to defend their

522
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 2: right to sing. Yeah, this is these guys had. I

523
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 2: was watching these guys do that, no, and this.

524
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 3: Is that's actually that's really accurate. You had and this

525
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 3: was like the first you know, two weeks of the war, especially,

526
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 3: like you had really old guys who were like in

527
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 3: their fifties or sixties, and it had some kind of

528
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 3: you know, been conscripted at some point, right, training really

529
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 3: really really young people, you know, eighteen nineteen twenty whose

530
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 3: you know, comprehension of conflict was like playing call of

531
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 3: duty probably and trying to train them like so in

532
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 3: two or three days they could be dug in somewhere,

533
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 3: you know, hopefully establishing the base of fire.

534
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 4: And that was pretty That was pretty well.

535
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 3: Because in one hand you have like the guys of

536
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 3: the experience, have experience from another war, another time, and

537
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 3: you're also seeing that same the same mindset and strategy

538
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 3: and training absolutely failed the Russians in modern conflicts.

539
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,080
Speaker 4: So you're like, oh, this doesn't really doesn't work out

540
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 4: so well.

541
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,640
Speaker 3: And the other side you're seeing you know, kids, very

542
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 3: very young people who are enthusiastic and upbeat but don't

543
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,719
Speaker 3: really know what they're getting into and don't have any

544
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 3: prior experience.

545
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 2: Right.

546
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 3: That was pretty eye opening, And I think it was

547
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:21,959
Speaker 3: one of those things where I take a few steps

548
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 3: back and it's like, you know, for all the complaints

549
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 3: I had in the marinek call. We actually had it.

550
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 3: We had it pretty good. We're very well trained, very

551
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 3: well equipped. We just needed a little bit of perspective.

552
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 2: Are you saying thank you, drill sergeant? Yeah?

553
00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 3: And I mean also like the American taxpayer, right, Like

554
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,879
Speaker 3: if you look at the amount of logistical support anyone

555
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 3: on the ground got in Afghanist in our Iraq, it's

556
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 3: really impressive, right, Like the amount of aircraft you had

557
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 3: on call overhead, the hundreds of hours of training you had,

558
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 3: the research that went into all the equipment you had,

559
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 3: you know, your units in parallel that could come in

560
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 3: a moment said you're almost always under some kind of

561
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 3: supporting fire versus what Ukraine looks like now.

562
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 4: A totally different thing, totally different thing.

563
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were there for how many months from Like

564
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:12,199
Speaker 2: so February twenty fourth of twenty twenty two is the

565
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: day of infamy for that situation, is how I look

566
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 2: at it. It's a very I feel that day is

567
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: powerful like nine to eleven was, and we have not

568
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,639
Speaker 2: fully grasped that as a world yet where we've lost

569
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 2: so many lives due to that invasion and the atrocities

570
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 2: that are happening in Ukraine from February's unprovoked attack is

571
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 2: no different than the way that we felt on nine

572
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 2: to eleven. We should have that same vibe to I

573
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 2: don't know, that's just me, you know.

574
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things has been that first trip,

575
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 3: which was I was there I think March third. I

576
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 3: got there there for a little bit over three months

577
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 3: that first trip, and to be honest, I didn't know

578
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 3: a lot about Ukraine or Ukrainians prior to that trip.

579
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 3: I'd been there once for a fashion week in twenty seventeen.

580
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:00,320
Speaker 3: I think that I hadn't really learned anything that trip.

581
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 3: I was just doing a job and that was it.

582
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 2: That was normal, right, normal day, t normal and it was.

583
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 3: In the middle of winter, and I just like, you know,

584
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 3: you were just kind of following your stories and getting

585
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 3: on with it. But talking to Ukrainians like I kind

586
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 3: of expected this post nine to eleven, feeling like the

587
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 3: way America was where everyone got super patriotic and really

588
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 3: resolved against you know, enemy, and like a lot of

589
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 3: that was there.

590
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 4: The country was extremely resolved, extremely patriotic.

591
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 3: People were actually in very very high spirits even though

592
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 3: they were facing you know, an imminent, ongoing invasion. But

593
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 3: the difference was you didn't really feel like there was

594
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 3: a deep seated animosity against.

595
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,400
Speaker 4: Russians as a whole. Right.

596
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 3: People constantly told me in those first three months, so

597
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,880
Speaker 3: like you know, I would say like, oh, like, you know,

598
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 3: where does this war end for you? Do you guys,

599
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 3: do you guys go to the carts Bridge? Do you

600
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 3: guys go across Crimea? Do you go to all of

601
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 3: the border Russia? Do you go to Moscow? Right, like,

602
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 3: trying to find out how this plays out in people's heads,

603
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 3: and they'd say like, no, we want all of Ukraine

604
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 3: back and free. But the Russians until the twenty fourth

605
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 3: were our brothers and we welcomed them into Ukraine.

606
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 4: You know, we have a lot of shared history.

607
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 3: There wasn't this deep seated hatred against Russians even as

608
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 3: the even as the war progress, which really kind of

609
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 3: that surprised me, and that was a difference.

610
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 4: Another difference would be like, yes, this is.

611
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 3: Very much a nine to eleven event, where like the

612
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 3: rippuls are going to be felt for generations across history.

613
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 3: But the difference is what if nine to eleven was

614
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 3: carried out by Canada, It's much more like it would

615
00:30:38,280 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 3: be much more immediate, right, immediate kind of like ongoing.

616
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of a difference there.

617
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 3: That was my first sort of three months I think

618
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:50,120
Speaker 3: it was a little bit every three months in Ukraine.

619
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 3: I went back or December to do a Christmas embed

620
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 3: this past Christmas, and then I went back again in.

621
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 2: It was may name a little bit of twenty twenty three,

622
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: just recently.

623
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, did that it looked like the offensive was kicking

624
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 3: off then, so it went back and words on another story,

625
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 3: And I will probably go back here in a few weeks.

626
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 4: I'd like to be back there a little bit before.

627
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 3: September, because now now the counter offensive really isn't ful sling,

628
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 3: and I would like to be able to tell some

629
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 3: of those stories.

630
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, how do you feel about them trying

631
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 2: to telegraph that counter offensive or any offensive from you know,

632
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 2: everybody's trying to like say today's day.

633
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 4: I mean I got to say like that.

634
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: You know it works because I say it worked because

635
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 3: I totally miscalculated when it was going to happen. One

636
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 3: of the things that I've really come to admire about

637
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,479
Speaker 3: the Ukrainians, especially in opposition of the Russians, is they

638
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 3: are exceptionally applied and really really intelligent and like crafty.

639
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 3: They I guess we're at a good point in the

640
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:51,719
Speaker 3: war if we have to remind people of this. But

641
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 3: like they are the underdogs, they're outnumbered and outgunned in

642
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 3: all ways, and what they've really leaned into is this

643
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: kind of Ukrainian entrepreneurial spirit and this craftiness.

644
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 4: So anything that comes out of the Ukrainian government and all.

645
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 3: Of the military actions are like very highly orchestrated and

646
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 3: kind of thought out. I couldn't I honestly couldn't tell

647
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 3: you or even offer an opinion whether this offensive was

648
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 3: meant to be a small ismeal very kind of orchestrated

649
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 3: and offensive, right, and the idea that this was going

650
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 3: to be like a massive blitz that occurred in the spring,

651
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 3: because they kept calling it the Spring offensive, the Spring offensive,

652
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 3: the Spring offensive, right.

653
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 4: I couldn't tell you whether that was tactics that were.

654
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:44,479
Speaker 3: There deliberately to distract and disinform or just sort of

655
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 3: how things have played out.

656
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 4: Do you know that the Ukrainians.

657
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 3: Are they place a high premium on human life and

658
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 3: they will not commit to tactics where they're losing tons

659
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 3: and tons of guys every single day. They can't afford it.

660
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 3: And also I think it's a it's a moral departure

661
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 3: for them from the Russians. They're highly adaptable as well,

662
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 3: so I think if the bulletz thing wasn't working out,

663
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 3: they would realize that in a day or two and

664
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 3: really reconsider what they were doing. Sure, but it was

665
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 3: my impression in May when I was there that the

666
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 3: groundwork for the offensive have was not completely late yet.

667
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 4: Kept saying spring offensive, spring offensive, spring offensive.

668
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 3: But looking at troop movements, talking to troops who were

669
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 3: coming in and out of the east, especially and towards Saparizia,

670
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 3: it did not seem like the everything had been positioned

671
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 3: yet for that offensive. And towards the last few days

672
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 3: I was there, you could really pick up a sort

673
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: of ground swell of ground movement. You were hearing about

674
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 3: kind of troops gathering in sort of strategic places that

675
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,720
Speaker 3: are outside of large cities. So I sort of got

676
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 3: the feeling that like the idea of a spring offensive

677
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 3: was that was a little bit of disinformation, right, and

678
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 3: they had to have known for at least like one

679
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 3: month that the invasion was not going to be happening

680
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 3: or the counter offensive was not going to be happening

681
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 3: any kind of any anytime in spring. But you know

682
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 3: that's me my impression on the ground. I do not

683
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 3: have like the fifty thousand foot view on this. And

684
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 3: I'm also one guy out there generally working with a

685
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,799
Speaker 3: fixer and nobody else. They don't have like the resources

686
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 3: or essay of someone working at like the New York

687
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 3: Times or the Washington Post.

688
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 2: No, You're just you're in it, and you're doing it,

689
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 2: and it's a passion that you hold within you to

690
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 2: do these stories and and you know your your travels

691
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 2: have created you to what I mean, like, when did

692
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 2: you when you fell in love with camouflage to be

693
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,200
Speaker 2: this designer you you are in love. I fell in

694
00:34:43,200 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 2: love with camouflage at a very young age, probably like four. Yeah.

695
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah they're still a little jacket. Yeah oh yeah, yeah.

696
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 2: I had a jacket and my dad gave me like

697
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 2: a good conduct ribbon on it, and it was camouflage.

698
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 2: And I started to earn a little rad awards around

699
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 2: the house. My dad would you know, hey, here's yeah,

700
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 2: here you go eron. You know, here's a jump wings.

701
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 2: I jump off picnic tables with them and stuff as

702
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 2: they'd get ready, and I always want to go in

703
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 2: their rucksacks. So I'd say around four or five is

704
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 2: when camouflage became my favorite.

705
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, that's as it sounds right there.

706
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:21,719
Speaker 4: It's you know, that's interesting because like I didn't.

707
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 3: I didn't come from a military family, and all my

708
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 3: parents were horrified I do in the military. I had

709
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 3: one grandfather who's in the Navy Molgar II. Just like

710
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 3: basically everyone else, didn't grow up really liking camouflage.

711
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 2: You know.

712
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:34,920
Speaker 3: I was interested in the military a little bit, but

713
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 3: I didn't really play video gmes or any other stuff.

714
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 4: Getting out of the military.

715
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 3: I was also not interested in camouflage because I was like,

716
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 3: I just came from that, and like I thought multi

717
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 3: cam was cool. I really thought multi came was cool

718
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 3: because I'd had to fight really hard to get that

719
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 3: kid for our unit. I was like personally attached to it.

720
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:57,239
Speaker 3: But the rest of it, like I gave away, you know,

721
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 3: all my deserts and all my winter I gave years later,

722
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I really wish.

723
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 4: I would have kept that stuff, But I wasn't.

724
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 2: Really acause they had the ego globe and anchor and

725
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 2: this is stuff.

726
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 4: It was like all nice and broken in and anyway.

727
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 2: And recon touched as well. So there's a little bit

728
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 2: of that. I mean, there is some baseball card you know.

729
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was cool.

730
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, some pair cord here, you know.

731
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like a lot.

732
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 3: Of like you know, like sewing down, sewing down pockets

733
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 3: and stuff like that. You know, bel crow instead of

734
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 3: belro instead of buttons because buttons can fall off, right, well.

735
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 2: You don't want iron buttons over your uniform anyways, and

736
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 2: like have those buttons marks well, and you can.

737
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 3: Do like the Snipers were like really big on debating

738
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 3: whether you wanted belcro because then your buttons wouldn't fall off.

739
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 4: And make some noise.

740
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 3: I borrowed from the British and what I did was

741
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 3: I took their buttons. Sometimes I would take like a

742
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 3: hot metal and kind of knock out the knock out

743
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 3: the holes in our buttons and just sew them with

744
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 3: five fifty.

745
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 4: Because it was stronger, right.

746
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 3: But I went in to studying fashion design after I

747
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 3: got to the military. My new to go into something

748
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 3: with art.

749
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 4: I love drawing.

750
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 3: I was really interested in just doing something creative when

751
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 3: I'm going into fashion design. I studied that for two

752
00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,200
Speaker 3: years in California or this College of Art and Design.

753
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 4: It got more into the men's rerounteinlering side of things,

754
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 4: which I moved.

755
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 3: To London about a year and a half and I

756
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 3: studied the spoketailing, which is like making suits specific to

757
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 3: one client and you're making it by hand. You know,

758
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 3: it's hundreds of hours of labor pursuit and it takes,

759
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 3: if I'm on, it's probably longer than a year and

760
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 3: a half to learn how to do properly.

761
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 2: You're going down with chop lines. You're like taking that,

762
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 2: like marking.

763
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:41,040
Speaker 3: It exactly so you you know, you a customer customer

764
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 3: comes in, you take like twenty different measurements of them.

765
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 4: You also look at like how do they stand right?

766
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 4: How do they stand?

767
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 2: You know?

768
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 4: What do they do for a living? How are they

769
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 4: spending their days? Right?

770
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 3: How are they commuting? You look at you know, their

771
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 3: figuration right? Do they have wide said feet? Do they

772
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 3: have like a sort of hunchback or a dropped shoulder?

773
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 3: Soldiers would typically have a very drop shoulder because they've

774
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 3: been carrying a rifle for such a long time, right.

775
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 2: Up straight, and.

776
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 3: Then you know, you make my hand a pattern for them.

777
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 3: You cut out basically a rough draft of the garment

778
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 3: that takes probably thirty hours. You put the garment on them,

779
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 3: then you completely disassemble the garment, make make the corrections,

780
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 3: make the first version of the finished garment, make additional corrections,

781
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 3: and another fitting, and then you make kind of the

782
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:28,479
Speaker 3: final thing that's about ninety percent of the way there,

783
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 3: and then you do another fitting generally, and then you

784
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 3: finish out the garment. All in you're talking about an

785
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 3: access of three hundred hours on a single garment, right.

786
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 3: So I did that for a year and a half,

787
00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 3: came back. I switched into industrial design kind of my

788
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 3: final years of university in that, and then I got

789
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 3: into design. And it wasn't until even a little bit

790
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 3: after that that I started to get interested in camouflage.

791
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 4: It wasn't something I wore. It was really interested in when.

792
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 3: I was in fashion because I was very I was

793
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:03,240
Speaker 3: working for you know, GQ magazine for Beers British GQU.

794
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 3: I kind of wanted to get away from the military

795
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 3: and sort of see my life and personality would be

796
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 3: like without that.

797
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 4: That was part of it.

798
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,319
Speaker 3: I also felt like, you know a lot of settings,

799
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 3: camouflage is not camouflage, right, if you're wearing camouflage in

800
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 3: a foreign country, that puts you on you know, like

801
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,960
Speaker 3: a certain kind of radar and you don't know exactly

802
00:39:23,719 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 3: what that is or what that interaction might be. America

803
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 3: has a super positive, you know, relationship with that military.

804
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,640
Speaker 3: Almost every other country on Earth does not, Right, A

805
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 3: lot of them have like an outright native.

806
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 2: It's illegal to wear in Bermuda, it's legal to wear.

807
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 2: It's illegal to work. Camouflage.

808
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:40,320
Speaker 4: It's legal to wear in Bermuda.

809
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 3: It's also legal to wear it in many parts of

810
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 3: India because they have a history of they have a

811
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 3: history of armed revolution there, right, the same thing you

812
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 3: know in South America, right, Like it has distinct ongoing

813
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 3: connotations of armed conflict. Right, So it's going to get

814
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,399
Speaker 3: you a lot of local attention you don't want. It's

815
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 3: also going to get you maybe attention to the authorities

816
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 3: that you don't want. I've gotten kind of taken down

817
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: in eastern Eastern India before for like wearing kind of

818
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 3: not even camouflage stuff, just sort of like safari colors.

819
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 2: Right, I was going to ask that just.

820
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 3: Sort of you know, talk my way out of But

821
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 3: the history of camouflage kind of grew on me, like

822
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 3: a little bit more and more. I became kind of

823
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 3: nostalgic for it a little bit and mostly just started

824
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 3: popping up in the in the proofhery.

825
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:27,399
Speaker 2: Right.

826
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 4: So I remember Rhodesian brushstroke was a thing, probably like

827
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 4: five years ago.

828
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 3: It was a big thing, and I remember like, oh,

829
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 3: like I've seen this before, but where? And I was like, oh,

830
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 3: it was it when I was in Jooty or like

831
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:42,800
Speaker 3: hanging out around Somalia.

832
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 4: I was like, is that when I was seeing it?

833
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 3: No, I had to kind of you know, I had

834
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:48,960
Speaker 3: to like dig into the recesses of my mind. And

835
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 3: I realized that my unit had done a combat man

836
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 3: tracking course with some guys who were was a Rhodesian

837
00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 3: former Rhodesian operation, right, and all the trainers there had

838
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 3: been trained by like Rhodesian guys and they.

839
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:03,720
Speaker 4: Were wearing some of the stuff.

840
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 3: And that was like the first camouflage that I had

841
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 3: like a kind of emotional connection to because I was like,

842
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 3: this was one training cycle in the Marines that like

843
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 3: I just had fun. You weren't on a base you

844
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,919
Speaker 3: weren't being you know, you weren't being trained by your

845
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 3: peers who were being trained by these guys who were

846
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 3: kind of like kind of granola guys.

847
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 2: Right.

848
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:26,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was hard because you were doing a lot

849
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 3: of movements. You're doing a lot of movements, and they

850
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 3: were really trying to run your ragged. But it was

851
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 3: also fun. It kind of went back to like airsofting

852
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 3: as a kid. You're out in the forest about your buddies.

853
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 3: It's not so serious, it's not so controlled. Someone's getting hunted,

854
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,360
Speaker 3: someone's hunting. It reminded me of like the movie Hunted,

855
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 3: and it was just it was a really good memory

856
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:46,879
Speaker 3: that I had from the military because like.

857
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,320
Speaker 4: You were doing something that was cool, we were learning,

858
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 4: it wasn't so stressful, and you were kind of with

859
00:41:53,440 --> 00:41:55,879
Speaker 4: all your military buddies, but you were not in this

860
00:41:56,000 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 4: super serious demand for it.

861
00:41:59,600 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like you know,

862
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 3: like pre dive or something like that, or doing like

863
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 3: an in doc where every single thing you do is

864
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:10,320
Speaker 3: being watched and if you fuck up, you're in the

865
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 3: right attitude just over your voice.

866
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 4: It wasn't like that. It was much more relaxed because

867
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 4: there were civilians that open in another course.

868
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 3: I remember I found these guys actually at shot Ship.

869
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 3: You had like thurplus Rhodesian brushstroke fire was it fire

870
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 3: Force Ventures or something like that. I think they've since

871
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 3: the US, And I was like, dude, I got to

872
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:30,960
Speaker 3: get a pair of.

873
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 4: These pants started wearing them.

874
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 3: That was the first piece of camouflage I really started

875
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:36,240
Speaker 3: wearing like posting military life.

876
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:38,359
Speaker 4: And it was good because like there was environments where

877
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 4: it made sense.

878
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,520
Speaker 3: I think I did wind up wearing that to India

879
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 3: and like camping and stuff. But there was also one

880
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 3: interaction I had that kind of reminded me like, oh,

881
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 3: like these things have deep personal connotations to other people,

882
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 3: and they're not always going to be positive. Right with

883
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 3: Rhodesian brushstroke, you got to be really aware of that, right.

884
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 4: I wore it going to Washington, DC to do a

885
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 4: shoot for a fashion brand out there and waiting for

886
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 4: a cab basab or whatever, and there was this older guy,

887
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 4: distinguished guy. He's like he's like he's dressed up a

888
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 4: little bit and it looks down at me, like keeps

889
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 4: looking at my pants, and I kind of had a

890
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 4: bad flight and I was like this guy looking at

891
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 4: my pants. I don't want to get in a fight

892
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:21,800
Speaker 4: at the airport.

893
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 2: Man.

894
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 5: I'm like, you know, just like you don't like my

895
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 5: so I just kind of I got a little arrogant

896
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 5: and I was like, I was like, so you like

897
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 5: my pants, you know, And he was kind of a

898
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 5: little bit.

899
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:35,320
Speaker 3: Taken aback, and he responded with a little bit of

900
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,919
Speaker 3: an accent. There was a little strange and he said,

901
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 3: you know, I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that

902
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 3: in about forty years. And I said, oh, when it

903
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 3: was the last time he saw this? And he says, well,

904
00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:47,319
Speaker 3: I was dropping off like ten boys into the bush.

905
00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 3: I never saw them again. And I was like and

906
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 3: he got kind of choked up, and I was like,

907
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 3: whoa what, like, what do you mean? And he's like, oh,

908
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 3: I was, you know, I was a pilot Rhodesia and

909
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 3: like when things started to go when things started to

910
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,319
Speaker 3: go bad there, he basically he left. He did some

911
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 3: other things in South America. I won't ask what he

912
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:06,520
Speaker 3: was doing in Washington, d C. I did ask him

913
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 3: if he was still flying and.

914
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 4: He said yes.

915
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 3: But that was one of those interactions where I was like, okay,

916
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 3: like you do have to remember it's Colon's interesting and

917
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 3: I have my personal take on this, but it also

918
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 3: has really serious emotional connotations.

919
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 4: To other people.

920
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 3: Right, But that emotion, that emotion positive or negative. I

921
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 3: think that, and this is true of like all military clothing, right,

922
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 3: that emotion is also kind of my interest, right, Like

923
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:36,080
Speaker 3: it could be positive, it could be negative. But because

924
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 3: it's tied to history, and it's tied to service, and

925
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 3: it's tied to sacrifice, and it's tied to victory and

926
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 3: it's tied right, there's such a strong emotional vein there

927
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 3: as a designer that you can bind, right, And I

928
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 3: don't see really anything in fashion today, like capital f

929
00:44:54,800 --> 00:45:02,879
Speaker 3: fashion industry that has that, right, It's you know, it's

930
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 3: kind of it's like trends and it's invented and it's

931
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:09,879
Speaker 3: like the Barbie movie and it's like nineties Nirvana stuff

932
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 3: or whatever. Are you few of those things ring with

933
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,399
Speaker 3: like real nostalgia, real emotional content the camouflage does.

934
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's crazy.

935
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 2: I love it. I do love talking about camouflage period.

936
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 2: It's it's just fascinating because I've got a pair of

937
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 2: size forty inch waist DPM, Oh British DPM on their

938
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 2: way over to me right now, you know. And I

939
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 2: was in my shop the other day and the same

940
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 2: night I was looking at shorts, right, I was like, Oh,

941
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 2: no one around here has any you know, British DPM

942
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 2: issued shorts. Can I find some of my size? I

943
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: go walking into my airsoft shop and my buddy Xander,

944
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,839
Speaker 2: who you the ski masks?

945
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 4: Yeah?

946
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:55,080
Speaker 2: Bro, he has them on already. I'm like, Xander, what

947
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 2: are you wearing? And he's got like the hiking boots

948
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 2: going on, he's got the shorts, he's got his gun

949
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 2: on his hip all in the shop. I was like,

950
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 2: I was just looking at those last night and you

951
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 2: already have them. That's not fair. So we kind of

952
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 2: have this thing going back and forth. So I got

953
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: like French and finished pants that turn white or camouflage.

954
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,439
Speaker 2: Oh well yeah.

955
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 3: The short thing is the short thing is interesting, right,

956
00:46:17,040 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 3: Like American the American military, in terms of something that's

957
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 3: been issued, has never done shorts in camouflage. Right, You've

958
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 3: got the Vietnam stuff that was like, you know, you

959
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 3: can have like a mama son kind.

960
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 4: Of whip you up a pair of shorts, or cut

961
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 4: your trousers into shorts.

962
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 2: Or you got ranger panties as they call them, that

963
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 2: they run around and do their.

964
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 4: Pops black silkies.

965
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 3: It's like there's there's this like mythos about this thing,

966
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 3: but it's always kind of like on the dark side

967
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 3: because it's never it's never been official issued, right.

968
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 4: I think that's why people are so attached to it.

969
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 3: So you have like custom made stuff in Vietnam you had,

970
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 3: you've got like the ranger panties, black silkies, whatever. There's

971
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 3: been huge internal wars within the Marine Corps about those

972
00:46:58,760 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 3: and their regulations. Right, everyone's attracted to them. Everyone loves them.

973
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:05,080
Speaker 3: They look terrible and they terrify women, but that's fine.

974
00:47:05,120 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 4: Be low them anyway.

975
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,359
Speaker 2: There's you got legs. If you could wear those, you're

976
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:12,120
Speaker 2: in shit. Let's just be clear, athletes, did you Guys

977
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:15,879
Speaker 2: are just like run It's like, you know, okay, don't

978
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 2: strict you.

979
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 3: Right, So, like t shorts are not comfortable, they're not

980
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:23,839
Speaker 3: the you know, it's not the best range of motion

981
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:26,240
Speaker 3: you could ever have. Certainly no one's wearing them outside

982
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 3: of like a training environment. But guys are incredibly attached

983
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:32,920
Speaker 3: to those, right. But we've never actually been issued like

984
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 3: duty shorts.

985
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 2: Right.

986
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,120
Speaker 3: But like the Brits, the Australians, basically every other military

987
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 3: has some kind of version of this. And I remember

988
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan on my first deployment there, like trading basically

989
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 3: every excess piece of kit I had to get these

990
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,319
Speaker 3: British shorts. Guys would cut theirs off and make them

991
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,920
Speaker 3: make them into shorts, right, but also they were issued

992
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 3: with ones and I just thought that was the coolest thing.

993
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 4: It came in the British version of multi Cam, which

994
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 4: is like all.

995
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 2: Terrain MTP Multiicam training path. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Multicam trading.

996
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 4: It was so close to multi camp you could wear

997
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:09,280
Speaker 4: the two together.

998
00:48:09,719 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 2: But they have the DPM brushstrokes right, it has.

999
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:14,719
Speaker 4: Yes, breaststroke like pixlation too.

1000
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:15,439
Speaker 2: Yes.

1001
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:18,399
Speaker 3: And the fabric was amazing, and they had like they

1002
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 3: were real you know, cargo shorts.

1003
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 4: They had that kind of rope on the inside for

1004
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 4: trying them off.

1005
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 2: Really great around the waist and everything's and they had

1006
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:25,879
Speaker 2: like the.

1007
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 4: Taba was really great shorts.

1008
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 3: I still have a couple of pairs those in my archive,

1009
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,479
Speaker 3: but the other place that I've seen them recently because

1010
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:35,319
Speaker 3: like American military never happened guys, at least in the

1011
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 3: Marines would make a big deal of when theees cutting off,

1012
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 3: you know, their duty trousers right their field trousers into shorts.

1013
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 4: But like it never really doesn't look good.

1014
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 3: But guys were stoked to do that because I mean,

1015
00:48:48,040 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 3: you're kind of like a free man.

1016
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 4: You can go hang out on the beach or whatever.

1017
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 4: But I'm now singeing.

1018
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:56,680
Speaker 3: Like the last the last trip I did to Ukraine,

1019
00:48:56,800 --> 00:49:00,080
Speaker 3: I did a story for Esquire out there, and one

1020
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,280
Speaker 3: of the things I noticed is, like these younger guys

1021
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 3: they saw at the beginning of the war eighteen nineteen,

1022
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 3: in or early twenties, we didn't really have a lot

1023
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 3: of experience. Some of them, quite a lot of them

1024
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 3: have gotten really into the fight and what they're doing

1025
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 3: and have become really really self studied, right, and like

1026
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 3: in the space of a little bit over a year now,

1027
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 3: they've really really progressed, right, Like you see these younger guys,

1028
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:28,839
Speaker 3: you'll see groups like one of them called Gonar. It's

1029
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 3: all young guys. They have developed their own initiative based tactics.

1030
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 3: They train a lot, there's a lot of kind of

1031
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 3: simulation and reading from the book of like American Special

1032
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 3: Forces and like the whole kind of culture that rowthates

1033
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 3: around that. And these guys are all wearing cry shorts.

1034
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 3: Not all of them, but quite a lot of them

1035
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,240
Speaker 3: are wearing like the cry like the G series combat shorts.

1036
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 3: How much it is actual cry precision, how much of

1037
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 3: it is like local knockoffs. I'd probably put that at

1038
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 3: like probably ten percent of real thing, the knockoffs. But

1039
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 3: right these guys are probably the ones that bring combat

1040
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,919
Speaker 3: shorts into the mainstream because like they're kind of they're

1041
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 3: writing their own book. Their conflict is being so well documented.

1042
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 3: I think they're going to kind of they're going to

1043
00:50:14,239 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 3: kind of push uniforms in that, you know, in that direction.

1044
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 3: And that was like a big shift. Like you know,

1045
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 3: obviously it's seasonal as well, because in Ukraine, like the

1046
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 3: winter is deadly serious cold, and I've never actually been

1047
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 3: there in the summer, but I know, especially in the south,

1048
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 3: and it's super hot. Right you're talking about Mediterraneans by all,

1049
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 3: you know, temperatures and environments.

1050
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 4: So we'll kind of see, we'll see what happens with that.

1051
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 4: The Ukrainians are also not they're not so concerned.

1052
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 3: They're not really concerned at all with like uniform regulations

1053
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:45,439
Speaker 3: as well, so like.

1054
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 2: Just color identification.

1055
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, well they I mean their's stuff is they.

1056
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 2: Just look like a bunch of air softers with red

1057
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 2: red blue on their arms.

1058
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 4: I got there, and I expected.

1059
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:56,799
Speaker 2: And I love that because they have their gear right

1060
00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:59,399
Speaker 2: right from playing. Someone was like, way, is this for real?

1061
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,839
Speaker 3: Well, and I expected that. I expected that they would

1062
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 3: be less of that with time. From the beginning of

1063
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 3: the war, there was huge problems with blue on blue

1064
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 3: and civilians getting egressed or aggressed sorry early fire. Yeah, accidentally,

1065
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 3: because like there was a huge problem with internal espionage

1066
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 3: and spies like Russian kind of horses that have been

1067
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 3: embedded there for a long time. But people have actually

1068
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 3: gotten kind of more marked up, not less with time.

1069
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:27,920
Speaker 4: That's interesting.

1070
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, you would expect training gets better,

1071
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,640
Speaker 3: pid gets better, blue and blue should be reduced, right,

1072
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:34,919
Speaker 3: Maybe that's not the case, or maybe they're just being

1073
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,839
Speaker 3: very proactive about it. But it's also the fact that

1074
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 3: like everyone just kind of wears not whatever they want,

1075
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:43,840
Speaker 3: but in a lot of units.

1076
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:45,120
Speaker 4: You can kind of get away with like whatever kind

1077
00:51:45,160 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 4: of camouflage you want.

1078
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:48,520
Speaker 3: Part of that is, you know, necessity they have to

1079
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,879
Speaker 3: outfit all of these guys, and bad camouflage is still

1080
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 3: better than well to a degree, better than no camouflage, right,

1081
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 3: But you're still seeing guys out there with like that

1082
00:51:57,800 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 3: weird Russian orange reddit cryptech, tons of old yeah, like

1083
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 3: knock off American camouflage, a lot of excess ACU staff.

1084
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,799
Speaker 3: Some interesting pieces too, like I've seen, I've seen and

1085
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 3: found some tiger strape out there.

1086
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 4: It's pretty wild.

1087
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 3: But I also I think like the irregularity of the

1088
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 3: uniforms is another reason that these guys like have to

1089
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 3: do the color coded stuff so much. Yes, yes, they're

1090
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 3: mixing in their their standard uniform as it is that

1091
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 3: they look that different from Russian.

1092
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 4: They're using a lot of Russian equipment as is, and

1093
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 4: then everything.

1094
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,879
Speaker 2: Maybe their comms aren't all dialed into each other's units,

1095
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:39,879
Speaker 2: and there's these scattered people who are training together from

1096
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:42,840
Speaker 2: other villages, and then they only can identify with yellow

1097
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 2: and blue, so they're like, you know, uh, are you

1098
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 2: a lost patrol? Well yeah, we are here too, we're yellow,

1099
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 2: and you're yeah.

1100
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 3: No, they do like the you know, they do the

1101
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 3: World War two style, you know, passwords and colors and

1102
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 3: things like that, and there's a good reason for it.

1103
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 3: You know, like communication with lateral units is something that

1104
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 3: the Ukrainians have gotten only a little bit better at

1105
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 3: with war. They're definitely better out of than Russians. But

1106
00:53:06,040 --> 00:53:08,279
Speaker 3: that's a problem, and you don't because there's so many

1107
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:11,560
Speaker 3: layers in military. There's you know, territory defense that's guarding

1108
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 3: villages and it's kind of like the that always backed

1109
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,240
Speaker 3: up against the front line. And then you've got whatever

1110
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 3: line units are responsible for that area. And then you've

1111
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:22,799
Speaker 3: got you know, kind of like random artillery and aero

1112
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 3: reconnaissance units operating in that area.

1113
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 4: And then you might also have reconnaissance or sort of

1114
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 4: skirmishing units coming in with like very little orchestration. So

1115
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 4: that's like that's a problem.

1116
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 3: Could very easily and I've seen this happen at least twice,

1117
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:40,239
Speaker 3: very easily. Like being a AO, think you know the

1118
00:53:40,239 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 3: battle space, think you know what artilleries in support of you,

1119
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 3: and then some unit rolls up and goes and hits

1120
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 3: something and you're like, who are these fucking dudes in

1121
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 3: this you know, passenger vand like what and you just

1122
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 3: kind of kind of look like, yeah, these guys, these

1123
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:58,319
Speaker 3: guys the business are they are guys, are they someone else?

1124
00:53:58,320 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 4: Those guys.

1125
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 3: There's also quite a lot and I think this is

1126
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 3: on both sides of the book. There's quite a lot

1127
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 3: of action that goes across the front line that's playing clothes.

1128
00:54:07,280 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 3: So that's a whole nother you know, that's a whole

1129
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 3: other aspect of this. But because of that, like lack

1130
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 3: of not so great communication acrossing, it's not the best

1131
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:18,879
Speaker 3: integration and situational awareness.

1132
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 4: I think the color coding thing is like it's really important.

1133
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I yeah, I chuckle about it, but I understand

1134
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,240
Speaker 2: it one hundred percent, you know, And it's it.

1135
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:33,440
Speaker 4: Is for guys to airsoft, right Well, it's.

1136
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:35,879
Speaker 2: Looking at the photos from like you know, yeah, did

1137
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 2: our games. It's like, well, how far off is Airsoft

1138
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 2: war games versus you know, the real death. We don't

1139
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 2: want that. We don't deal with the real death. And

1140
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,879
Speaker 2: and that's sad, you know, and the warst hell, and

1141
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:48,520
Speaker 2: you've seen it firsthand, so well, you know, I'm not

1142
00:54:48,600 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 2: trying to there there is.

1143
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,400
Speaker 3: Something there is something interesting in that, Like not so

1144
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,239
Speaker 3: much now because people are really caught up, But I

1145
00:54:55,360 --> 00:54:58,680
Speaker 3: was noticing the first three months of the invasion, you'd

1146
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 3: run into like the younger of guys who didn't seem

1147
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 3: to have a military background, but like they knew their shit.

1148
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,040
Speaker 3: It's like the way the gear was set up, whether

1149
00:55:07,160 --> 00:55:10,520
Speaker 3: holding their weapons, with the manipulating their weapons was like

1150
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 3: spot on, and it was like very westernized. It was

1151
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 3: not what the older generation who had stopped doing. And

1152
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 3: there might be some things that they were a little

1153
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 3: bit unfamiliar with, like you know, communications and artibrity and

1154
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 3: stuff like that.

1155
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 4: You can see they were quick corners. I remember seeing

1156
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 4: one of these kids.

1157
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 3: He looked like he was like twenty at best, very

1158
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 3: like you know, like very baby faced, and he was

1159
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 3: with essentially like a irregular voluntary unit, and he'd just

1160
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 3: come back from the most insane rate I've ever heard

1161
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 3: of in my life, which was him.

1162
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 2: Here.

1163
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 3: The guys total, they pushed about two or three kilometers

1164
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 3: into the Russian held village located the headquarters dispersed on

1165
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 3: two sides of it, had you know, outward and inward

1166
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 3: facing cover, and were going to put grenades to the

1167
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:58,880
Speaker 3: windows right a some kind of armored vehicle. They couldn't

1168
00:55:58,880 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 3: tell me what with, you know, A twenty five millimeter

1169
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:04,120
Speaker 3: gun opened up on them and literally opened up on

1170
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 3: their own the Russian self headquarters, right, they think they

1171
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 3: popped on thermals.

1172
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,760
Speaker 4: The guys held their fire, held their grenades.

1173
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 3: And bounded back out of the village right and made

1174
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:16,719
Speaker 3: it out with zero casualties. And I just looked at

1175
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 3: this kid, and I was like, a, You're insane for

1176
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 3: ever doing that. Like that's like no idea an American military,

1177
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 3: it would never task someone to doing that. Secondly, you

1178
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 3: guys were incredibly disiparent because you held your fire. If

1179
00:56:30,480 --> 00:56:32,200
Speaker 3: they had opened up right, if they had hit the

1180
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 3: headquarters or they had you know, tried to put down

1181
00:56:34,760 --> 00:56:37,479
Speaker 3: suppressing fire and whatever this armored vehicle was, they would

1182
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:39,319
Speaker 3: have gotten smoked and it would have brought every single

1183
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 3: Russian in that village out because they would have heard

1184
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 3: the counterfire right and known that this was people lighting

1185
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 3: something up, but something you know, more serious and actual

1186
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 3: and actual counter attack, right, Especially because the armored vehicle

1187
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 3: opening up on the headquarters, I think was probably interpreted

1188
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 3: as someone you don't know how to work thermals initiating

1189
00:56:58,120 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 3: like a blue on blue they.

1190
00:57:00,120 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 2: That was them blue on blue themselves. They they baited

1191
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:04,359
Speaker 2: him basically to shoot the.

1192
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:07,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, which wasn't which wasn't planned, but it like I

1193
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:10,399
Speaker 3: think the whole thing just led his confusion. And when

1194
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 3: they egressed from this town, they weren't dealing with small

1195
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 3: arms fire, right, They didn't take any cauties.

1196
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,680
Speaker 2: They were just like, dude, they just killed themselves. Yeah,

1197
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 2: talked like they just kicked their own ass.

1198
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 4: I talked to him. He was you know, he was

1199
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 4: obviously a team leader.

1200
00:57:23,640 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 3: And I was like, so you have me military experience

1201
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,000
Speaker 3: and he's like no, you know, like I was doing

1202
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 3: some military studies in college.

1203
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 4: And like that's it. I was never in unit. And

1204
00:57:33,040 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 4: I was like, no, nof this kid knows something.

1205
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,040
Speaker 3: There's no week he got this trained, especially in this

1206
00:57:37,160 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 3: unit because they were not that well trained at the time.

1207
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 4: There's like no way.

1208
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:44,080
Speaker 3: I was like new airsoft and he's like yeah, And

1209
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 3: I was like, how many years have you been airsofting?

1210
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 2: Right?

1211
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 3: And like, you know, I got his social details and

1212
00:57:48,440 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 3: like it as an airsoft team, he's been doing it

1213
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 3: since he was fourteen, and like, okay, that you know

1214
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 3: might terrify.

1215
00:57:56,120 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 2: Then those cries are probably twenty five percent legit, right, and.

1216
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 3: And you know, like he knew, he knew the gear,

1217
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,840
Speaker 3: he knew all this stuff, and I don't know, you know,

1218
00:58:08,080 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 3: how seriously took training when he's airsofting or whatever, But

1219
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,400
Speaker 3: even just learning from dumb mistakes airsofting, he was capable

1220
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 3: of leading a squad, carrying in a mission and doing

1221
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 3: some really really intelligent in the moment decision making. So

1222
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 3: you know, we might laugh when a joke about it,

1223
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 3: but I would say the same thing about video games

1224
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:28,400
Speaker 3: like Call of Duty.

1225
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 4: There was tons of guys who like that was their

1226
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 4: based on experience, but.

1227
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 3: They learned how to communicate and learned how to work

1228
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 3: in the team, and that team became a real fire team.

1229
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:37,440
Speaker 4: So they might laugh and joke about it.

1230
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:41,800
Speaker 3: But like conflicts from this point on the baseline, and

1231
00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 3: the kind of leaders of those conflicts, at least in

1232
00:58:43,800 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 3: the ground, are going to be, especially outside of the

1233
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 3: US guys who come from airsofting and video games. A

1234
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:53,640
Speaker 3: lot of the WRECKI kids that I menage were like

1235
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,000
Speaker 3: aero reconnaissance. They do drones, throne strikes. They're really good

1236
00:58:57,040 --> 00:59:00,440
Speaker 3: at what they do. They're like really into kind of

1237
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 3: like hacking their drones and making them more lethal, and

1238
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 3: they're really good at what they do. Right, Like they've

1239
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 3: rewritten the book on drones tucked to all those kids

1240
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 3: and I'm like, so, like, how do you know, how

1241
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 3: did you get into this?

1242
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:13,000
Speaker 4: Like what ld do this?

1243
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 3: And there they all said exactly the same thing. They're like,

1244
00:59:15,280 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 3: I used to play ARMA, video games, Call of Duty whatever.

1245
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:19,800
Speaker 3: I knew I was good at video games. I didn't

1246
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 3: think I was gonna be a good infantry guy.

1247
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 2: So like, I want to an ARMA dude, for sure. Yeah.

1248
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 2: So if you're playing ARMA, your squad based tactics, you're

1249
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 2: like Roger that moving out, going over there, and they like.

1250
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 3: They got you know, the kind of it's it's a

1251
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 3: crazy thing to say, but like video games and airsofts

1252
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 3: have become like that's the baseline for the next generations

1253
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:39,640
Speaker 3: of war and it's kind.

1254
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 2: Of well, Robert, it's happening right now. I mean, my

1255
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 2: best friend, that's work Xander, who you took a photo.

1256
00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 2: He just became a National guardsmenaner today, like just just

1257
00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:53,280
Speaker 2: got he's going to drill. Yeah, so that's twenty five

1258
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 2: years old.

1259
00:59:54,200 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 4: It's uh.

1260
00:59:55,080 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 2: But his drill sergeant said, how come you know all

1261
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 2: about this help yet in boot cane He's like, oh,

1262
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:04,280
Speaker 2: you mean, because I have one. He's like he's like rad.

1263
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,080
Speaker 2: The funniest thing was when my drill sergeant was like

1264
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 2: bragging about his gear and I'm thinking, oh, he had context.

1265
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, I got these thirteen hundred dollars context

1266
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:14,400
Speaker 2: his drill sergeant, and Xander's like, bro, I've got like

1267
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 2: two sets at home under my pillow. Yeah. You know,

1268
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 2: like already, h these kids, these young men and women

1269
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,840
Speaker 2: going in have been kind of disciplined a little uh

1270
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:27,080
Speaker 2: left right left, holding it proper. Yeah.

1271
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 4: Well then, and you know, there's there's all that.

1272
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,280
Speaker 3: There's like the language right, there's also the kind of

1273
01:00:32,720 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 3: there's there's sort of like a militia mindset to it

1274
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:35,200
Speaker 3: as well.

1275
01:00:35,240 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 4: Like Ukraine, very.

1276
01:00:37,480 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 3: Much unlike the United States, access to firearms is civilian

1277
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 3: is almost zero. You really have to be in the

1278
01:00:44,520 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 3: good graces of every local police officer, which means brivory

1279
01:00:48,440 --> 01:00:51,080
Speaker 3: essentially you have, you know, any kind of rifle or

1280
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 3: something like that. There are very, very very few military

1281
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 3: pattern weapons available in Ukraine. It's mostly the hunting stuff

1282
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 3: and because there's no local interest in it prior to

1283
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 3: the war, then if it was really imported pistols like

1284
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:06,000
Speaker 3: forget about it.

1285
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 4: It's like you can't have one.

1286
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:08,360
Speaker 3: I think you have to be on like the Olympic

1287
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 3: shooting team and has to be kept in arrange and

1288
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 3: it's like it's not going to happen.

1289
01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 4: But the beginning of the war, yeah, it's it's.

1290
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 3: Really like it's really strict, and most people, you know,

1291
01:01:18,920 --> 01:01:20,920
Speaker 3: most people I'll talk to you, they would say like, no,

1292
01:01:20,960 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 3: I would never, I would never. Like now, we really

1293
01:01:23,600 --> 01:01:26,920
Speaker 3: wish we had American gun laws, right, but in the past,

1294
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:30,200
Speaker 3: we never considered it because basically it made you really

1295
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 3: it made you really susceptible to like bribery and you

1296
01:01:32,680 --> 01:01:34,200
Speaker 3: would have to deal with the police all the time.

1297
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:37,439
Speaker 3: But it just wasn't like it wasn't something that made

1298
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 3: sense to most people because it wasn't really a very

1299
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 3: much like a waivable privilege.

1300
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 2: Right.

1301
01:01:42,600 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 3: But there were these guys at the beginning of the war,

1302
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 3: and there was like one in almost every single unit

1303
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 3: who had, you know, been into video games whatever, was

1304
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 3: really into guns and had like gone through all the

1305
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:55,400
Speaker 3: loopholes and procedures and X, Y and Z and like

1306
01:01:55,440 --> 01:01:57,760
Speaker 3: gotten the kit and knew how to make their own

1307
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:00,400
Speaker 3: ammunition and knew how to set up weapons. And these

1308
01:02:00,400 --> 01:02:04,480
Speaker 3: guys wound up you know, kitting out basically entireful tunes

1309
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 3: and also taking on training and working as like armors

1310
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 3: and setting people up. I saw quite a lot of

1311
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:11,720
Speaker 3: like there was there was every year there was like

1312
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 3: one guy like that, and it really like it really

1313
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 3: made a difference because on the other side of that

1314
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 3: a percent you were going around these villages and you

1315
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:21,760
Speaker 3: were seeing kids, you know, some old enough to join,

1316
01:02:21,840 --> 01:02:25,280
Speaker 3: some not going from like post to post trying to

1317
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 3: join and talking to sera show defense guys and being

1318
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 3: like can you fight, can you fight? Like, can you

1319
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 3: give us a rifle? I would do something, and there

1320
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 3: just wasn't enough resources to go around. And even I

1321
01:02:36,760 --> 01:02:39,040
Speaker 3: think more important than the lack of the lack of

1322
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:41,200
Speaker 3: arms that could be distributed, and you know, anyone in

1323
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:43,600
Speaker 3: the experience knows this, the more important thing than the

1324
01:02:43,640 --> 01:02:45,960
Speaker 3: weapon is the training. It's not a good thing to

1325
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:48,440
Speaker 3: hand out tons of weapons that people who don't know

1326
01:02:48,480 --> 01:02:50,200
Speaker 3: what they're doing right, and Ukraine.

1327
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:51,400
Speaker 4: Was pretty restricted with that.

1328
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 3: But the weapons you do have, if those are in

1329
01:02:54,320 --> 01:02:55,920
Speaker 3: the hands of people who don't know how to utilize

1330
01:02:55,960 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 3: them right, don't know how to maintain them, don't know

1331
01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:01,000
Speaker 3: how to effectively employ them, don't know how they function,

1332
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:04,200
Speaker 3: you know, tactically on like a platoon level or something

1333
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 3: like that. You're not really doing yourself in new favors.

1334
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 3: So there's there's some lessons that we learned, not just

1335
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:11,720
Speaker 3: in like the next generation kind of writing on you know,

1336
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:15,000
Speaker 3: airsoft and video games, but also the value of having

1337
01:03:15,000 --> 01:03:17,240
Speaker 3: a few guys who have like real wooden.

1338
01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 4: Steel skills, right, some talent.

1339
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And if you're my listener and you're listening

1340
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 2: and you're thinking about joining the military in the US

1341
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:28,280
Speaker 2: or wherever, give it a shot. You know, we could. Look,

1342
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 2: we're looking for good talented individuals to take the slots,

1343
01:03:31,080 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 2: to hold down the fore and to keep America under

1344
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,840
Speaker 2: its freedom flag that we live under. So I'm not

1345
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:40,560
Speaker 2: paid by any major army company or anybody like that

1346
01:03:40,600 --> 01:03:50,560
Speaker 2: to say this just mention. No, no, no. In fact,

1347
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 2: at Airsoft games, I just want to be clear, I

1348
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 2: have a strict policy of no recruiting allowed. So if

1349
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:57,640
Speaker 2: a recruiter wants to like dive in and come in

1350
01:03:57,680 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 2: and get to my games, it's like, can't unless you

1351
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 2: fight alongside that individual. Come out and play, come out

1352
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 2: and get into the trenches and let them rub your

1353
01:04:05,000 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 2: shoulder and then they'll be like, wow, you're in the army, dude,

1354
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:09,240
Speaker 2: or you're in the Marine Corps, dude. Be like yeah,

1355
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:10,840
Speaker 2: talk to me about it later. Right now, let's get

1356
01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 2: the satellite that's down. You know, if you can move forward,

1357
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 2: it's gonna work out in your best interest. Other then

1358
01:04:16,040 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 2: like sign this card, give me your phone numbering maybe you.

1359
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:22,360
Speaker 3: Know, maybe you also get whooped by these kids, Like yeah,

1360
01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 3: I did a little bit of ari zot from when

1361
01:04:23,760 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 3: I was a kid. And then during lockdown, I cloned

1362
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:29,920
Speaker 3: my rifles and pistols that I have at home in

1363
01:04:30,160 --> 01:04:31,360
Speaker 3: gas blowback.

1364
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,439
Speaker 4: Possible because I was like, rangers are shut.

1365
01:04:35,600 --> 01:04:37,680
Speaker 3: I want to be training every single day again. I

1366
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:39,440
Speaker 3: got the time, like let's do it.

1367
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 2: Hey.

1368
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:42,320
Speaker 3: I was blown away, like the weapons and everything have

1369
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,040
Speaker 3: gotten so much better. B It was like just super

1370
01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:46,760
Speaker 3: fun to be able to like set up the range

1371
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:49,960
Speaker 3: in five minutes and be shooting every day. But eventually,

1372
01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 3: when I was getting ready to go back to Afghanistan,

1373
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:54,880
Speaker 3: I went and did a couple of games just because

1374
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:55,880
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I want to get

1375
01:04:55,920 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 3: used to kind.

1376
01:04:56,440 --> 01:04:59,160
Speaker 4: Of like being in a kinetic environment again and like

1377
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:00,480
Speaker 4: loud noises and stuff.

1378
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 3: Like I just kind of want to jumpstart things, and

1379
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:05,040
Speaker 3: like you know, I had made some clothing to go

1380
01:05:05,080 --> 01:05:06,360
Speaker 3: out there and stuff, and I'm like, I really want

1381
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:07,880
Speaker 3: to test this and see if this stuff works.

1382
01:05:07,960 --> 01:05:10,120
Speaker 4: Right, Man, I got spanks.

1383
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:12,080
Speaker 3: I went in there and I was like, I'm the

1384
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 3: first three con badass I've done for X, Y and

1385
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:17,920
Speaker 3: V hour sure to smoke all these kids.

1386
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:20,160
Speaker 4: Sorry, boys, now I got spanked.

1387
01:05:20,200 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 2: Dude, he's eleven. He's a killer in the arena. Dude,

1388
01:05:27,760 --> 01:05:31,479
Speaker 2: he has got it. He is so fast you would

1389
01:05:31,520 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 2: never suspect him. He's that kid that would be walking

1390
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 2: along with the basket. Yeah in Ukraine. He's eleven and

1391
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 2: he's going to take you out.

1392
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 4: Bro.

1393
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 2: These kids are like you said, give him five more

1394
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 2: years of doing what he's doing right now. When he

1395
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 2: steps inside of a CQB house at some military they're

1396
01:05:47,600 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 2: gonna be like, how do you know all of this?

1397
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:50,000
Speaker 4: Yeah?

1398
01:05:50,040 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 3: Well, and I think you know my experience to that

1399
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 3: because like I was shooting for months just airsoft gas

1400
01:05:55,800 --> 01:05:58,040
Speaker 3: stuff off of my porch, and then I think it's

1401
01:05:58,040 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 3: going to open up a little bit, and once the

1402
01:05:59,280 --> 01:06:03,160
Speaker 3: actual range like my groups and shooting with a rifle

1403
01:06:03,240 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 3: was actually like was probably the best that had been

1404
01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 3: in a decade.

1405
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:09,680
Speaker 4: My work at the Pistol was garbage. My transitions were fine, that.

1406
01:06:09,560 --> 01:06:11,960
Speaker 3: Was all good, but man, that they kick on an

1407
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:14,640
Speaker 3: actual forty five versus an.

1408
01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 2: Airsoft aft different, but it was.

1409
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 4: It was legitimate.

1410
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:21,320
Speaker 3: Like my rifflard got better. You get you know, you're

1411
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:24,200
Speaker 3: practicing your footwork and your manipulations.

1412
01:06:23,640 --> 01:06:24,520
Speaker 4: And all that stuff.

1413
01:06:24,680 --> 01:06:27,560
Speaker 2: Nothing gets rid of the smell and the fire and

1414
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 2: the loudness of that, you know what I mean. There's

1415
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,200
Speaker 2: nothing ever going to replace the the death you're wielding

1416
01:06:32,240 --> 01:06:34,200
Speaker 2: out of a barrel of a real gun. Yeah that

1417
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 2: oh that recoil correct and you're a little desensitized, just

1418
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:40,040
Speaker 2: a little bit.

1419
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:42,400
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you're you know, you're That's kind of why

1420
01:06:42,920 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 3: I went into these games. It's like, I don't want

1421
01:06:44,640 --> 01:06:46,800
Speaker 3: to I want to get past that that that that

1422
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:49,480
Speaker 3: moment of initial shot. If I'm going to Afghanistan again

1423
01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:52,040
Speaker 3: and something does happen and I'm going to an environment

1424
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:53,840
Speaker 3: where like, hey, there's a couple of car bombings every

1425
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:57,240
Speaker 3: day and there's just shootings in the streets, sometimes I

1426
01:06:57,280 --> 01:06:59,520
Speaker 3: don't want to. I don't want to have like a

1427
01:06:59,600 --> 01:07:03,440
Speaker 3: hiccup righting these games a little bit and getting getting

1428
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:05,400
Speaker 3: back in the mindset of like, okay, we're not freezing

1429
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:07,560
Speaker 3: and reacting to things, and you're like, yeah, there might

1430
01:07:07,600 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 3: be a loud noises and stuff that really helps.

1431
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 4: And it was also, this sounds really strange, but.

1432
01:07:12,040 --> 01:07:15,439
Speaker 3: It was a really great way to take out gear

1433
01:07:15,440 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 3: and equipment. So I made some like my versions of

1434
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:22,080
Speaker 3: kind of local Afghan clothing to go back and it

1435
01:07:22,160 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 3: was good to like throw that on and throw on

1436
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 3: some other things I've designed, and like twelve hours of

1437
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 3: gaming it and be like oh yeah, like this, you

1438
01:07:29,920 --> 01:07:32,840
Speaker 3: know this isn't comfortable, this snag's here, or like this

1439
01:07:32,880 --> 01:07:36,920
Speaker 3: doesn't actually exactly this doesn't integrate the way exactly what

1440
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:39,280
Speaker 3: it did right, And that saved me like so many

1441
01:07:39,280 --> 01:07:42,439
Speaker 3: pain points when I was actually, you know, out doing

1442
01:07:42,480 --> 01:07:42,880
Speaker 3: the job.

1443
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. Yeah, I mean, trial and error

1444
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 2: happens all the time in air soft to you know,

1445
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 2: you get to redo it and like walk the same

1446
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:52,760
Speaker 2: steps or walk a different step and try it again

1447
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:55,440
Speaker 2: a different way, whereas the other the other way got

1448
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:57,760
Speaker 2: you shot. In the real world, you get shot, you're

1449
01:07:57,800 --> 01:08:00,200
Speaker 2: done most of the time, and air soft and gives

1450
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:03,080
Speaker 2: you a chance to go back, regroup your brain, suck

1451
01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 2: up your pride, and go back at it again. Yeah

1452
01:08:06,160 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 2: and again, just like in a gym, like in a

1453
01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 2: boxing ring, you know, but that fighter coming at you

1454
01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 2: is we're looking to throw a blow, so you got

1455
01:08:13,200 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 2: to be ready well.

1456
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:16,600
Speaker 3: And this I think one of the most valuable aspects

1457
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:21,800
Speaker 3: of that was it's so different working against an actual

1458
01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 3: adversary than steal you know what I mean, steel or

1459
01:08:24,560 --> 01:08:27,400
Speaker 3: paper targets like whatever you're shooting, what's it doing? Yeah,

1460
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:30,280
Speaker 3: just like like wow, this this person is like moving thinking,

1461
01:08:30,400 --> 01:08:31,960
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, and you're doing the same.

1462
01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 2: But you're calling out targets at one o'clock, moving up

1463
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 2: a hill three hundred feet away, and you got another

1464
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:37,720
Speaker 2: target out at the left and you're like, hey he's

1465
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:39,640
Speaker 2: out to the west six hundred feet out, you know.

1466
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 2: And you got multiple targets and you're getting engaged. You're

1467
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:42,840
Speaker 2: just calling yeah.

1468
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:45,760
Speaker 4: Just it makes it in that way. I think it

1469
01:08:45,800 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 4: makes it more realistic than some of the life our

1470
01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:50,200
Speaker 4: stuff you do in the military, because.

1471
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:54,280
Speaker 3: You're what I've seen in real life, like no one

1472
01:08:54,360 --> 01:08:58,160
Speaker 3: is ever firing from a traditional firing position, right. Things

1473
01:08:58,160 --> 01:09:00,560
Speaker 3: are always at like the extreme. Women more often not

1474
01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:03,439
Speaker 3: the spreme limit of engagement. Things are not happening in

1475
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:10,360
Speaker 3: like a clean, flat, squad based style environment. There's always ambiguities, right,

1476
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 3: you're you know, your squad or team or whatever that's moving,

1477
01:09:14,240 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 3: like it's rare that they're going to be in the

1478
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:20,799
Speaker 3: perfect formation that you've planned because of train and airsoft

1479
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:22,839
Speaker 3: for all the things about it, they can't be made realistic.

1480
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:27,000
Speaker 3: All of those factors are pretty accurately represented, right.

1481
01:09:26,920 --> 01:09:28,639
Speaker 4: So like there's I think there's some real I think

1482
01:09:28,640 --> 01:09:30,639
Speaker 4: there's some real value in there, and I wouldn't.

1483
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:34,439
Speaker 2: I think my team's communication skills are top notch. You know,

1484
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:36,639
Speaker 2: all my guys and gals on the team, there's about

1485
01:09:36,640 --> 01:09:38,640
Speaker 2: twenty of them. They all got radios and we can

1486
01:09:38,680 --> 01:09:42,080
Speaker 2: all just break down into squad based elements and move

1487
01:09:42,120 --> 01:09:44,840
Speaker 2: off into the grid and they can use their hand

1488
01:09:45,040 --> 01:09:49,080
Speaker 2: to identify mountains and valleys and saddles and you know,

1489
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:52,040
Speaker 2: just the littlest simple yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's

1490
01:09:52,080 --> 01:09:54,320
Speaker 2: all just aerosot because what are we doing. We're out

1491
01:09:54,320 --> 01:09:56,280
Speaker 2: in the mountains, we're out in the saddles, we're out

1492
01:09:56,280 --> 01:09:59,160
Speaker 2: in the valleys. We're fighting hilltop to hilltop. So it's

1493
01:09:59,160 --> 01:10:01,360
Speaker 2: best to know what you're calling out so you don't

1494
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:04,040
Speaker 2: call out the wrong stuff. It's just little things, you know,

1495
01:10:04,400 --> 01:10:07,200
Speaker 2: twenty years of doing it. It's my dad before he

1496
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:09,280
Speaker 2: passed away, being a Green Beret, he was just like,

1497
01:10:09,640 --> 01:10:12,559
Speaker 2: you know, Aaron, he said, we would do these stress

1498
01:10:12,640 --> 01:10:14,840
Speaker 2: tests for like seventy two hours out of Camp Williams,

1499
01:10:14,880 --> 01:10:16,400
Speaker 2: where they would send us with a map and a

1500
01:10:16,400 --> 01:10:17,760
Speaker 2: grid and say you got to go from point A

1501
01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:21,680
Speaker 2: to point B and expect contact. And so here they

1502
01:10:21,680 --> 01:10:24,479
Speaker 2: are doing what they signed up to do, get into contact.

1503
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:26,679
Speaker 2: They're like, we want to go get into contact. Okay.

1504
01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:28,320
Speaker 2: So they're going on the stress test and he's like

1505
01:10:28,360 --> 01:10:29,960
Speaker 2: at the end of it, all we do is get

1506
01:10:29,960 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 2: to a fire and some other dude in a beanie's

1507
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:33,559
Speaker 2: stoking the fire saying you're good.

1508
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:35,320
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

1509
01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:37,920
Speaker 2: He's like, where's the contact. He's like Airsoft. This was

1510
01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 2: back in like four h five. He's like, I see

1511
01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 2: this being, you know, an actual tangible thing where I

1512
01:10:44,800 --> 01:10:48,559
Speaker 2: could get him and it can be used. And now today, Dad,

1513
01:10:48,560 --> 01:10:50,280
Speaker 2: I love you. I know you're in heaven or wherever

1514
01:10:50,280 --> 01:10:54,200
Speaker 2: you're at. I have used airsoft in military settings against

1515
01:10:54,200 --> 01:10:57,200
Speaker 2: the military in this exact thing at camp Willis.

1516
01:10:57,320 --> 01:11:00,599
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to say, yeah, it's.

1517
01:11:00,479 --> 01:11:02,400
Speaker 3: A you know, it's a better I think there's a

1518
01:11:02,400 --> 01:11:04,639
Speaker 3: lot of practicality there. It's also like you can take

1519
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:07,200
Speaker 3: it up and train with it anywhere.

1520
01:11:07,200 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 2: You did then, like SIS did that. Yeah.

1521
01:11:11,120 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we did sea munitions that like blue paint stuff,

1522
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:18,040
Speaker 3: and you know it's not okay, you get a little

1523
01:11:18,040 --> 01:11:20,840
Speaker 3: bit more blowback or whatever. There's some safety things whatever.

1524
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:22,960
Speaker 3: Having to switch out the barrels and all this stuff.

1525
01:11:23,040 --> 01:11:25,559
Speaker 3: That was a huge hassle. I remember like the first

1526
01:11:25,560 --> 01:11:29,000
Speaker 3: time we used that stuff. We did some we had

1527
01:11:29,040 --> 01:11:31,400
Speaker 3: some raids scenario and the whole thing up sucked up

1528
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 3: just because everyone's masks bogged, right, and like people hadn't

1529
01:11:35,120 --> 01:11:37,280
Speaker 3: like we hadn't quite figured out like how to set

1530
01:11:37,360 --> 01:11:38,800
Speaker 3: up our optics to like.

1531
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:40,920
Speaker 4: Clear the mask we were wearing. And it was like.

1532
01:11:41,240 --> 01:11:43,200
Speaker 2: Okay, you needed like a risermunt on it so you

1533
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:43,639
Speaker 2: can see.

1534
01:11:45,120 --> 01:11:47,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like yeah, you know, the the mask wasn't

1535
01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:50,600
Speaker 3: something we planned around and like okay, it was realistic

1536
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:53,840
Speaker 3: sort of in kick or whatever. But at the end

1537
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:56,360
Speaker 3: of the day, it had made it realistic and other

1538
01:11:56,439 --> 01:11:59,679
Speaker 3: scenarios that didn't really yeah, like it didn't really.

1539
01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 2: So now today you can just wear a pair of

1540
01:12:02,120 --> 01:12:04,519
Speaker 2: like let's just say these are safety glasses, and there's

1541
01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:06,640
Speaker 2: a mesh mask that covers your teeth so you can

1542
01:12:06,680 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 2: still breathe, and so the whole breatheability prevents the fogging

1543
01:12:10,320 --> 01:12:12,160
Speaker 2: of your lenses. So you don't want to shoar your

1544
01:12:12,200 --> 01:12:14,479
Speaker 2: teeth out, you don't want shot your eyes out. So

1545
01:12:14,479 --> 01:12:16,760
Speaker 2: what do I do? Instead of wearing the full headgear,

1546
01:12:17,200 --> 01:12:19,160
Speaker 2: you just wear a lower mesh mask and then some

1547
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:22,000
Speaker 2: iepro and you do have the nose area, and like

1548
01:12:22,040 --> 01:12:23,960
Speaker 2: your orbital is susceptible to being shot, but I mean,

1549
01:12:24,000 --> 01:12:30,240
Speaker 2: come on, you get you deserve it. Yeah, but yeah, exactly,

1550
01:12:30,320 --> 01:12:32,479
Speaker 2: like your throat gets shot. But I mean, honestly, it's

1551
01:12:32,479 --> 01:12:34,680
Speaker 2: your teeth. That's the number one injury is teeth shot out.

1552
01:12:34,680 --> 01:12:38,840
Speaker 2: And air soft people not taking precautions to wear their mask.

1553
01:12:39,080 --> 01:12:41,720
Speaker 2: Or my one airman up here at hill, he's like

1554
01:12:41,760 --> 01:12:43,760
Speaker 2: he comes up, he's like, ugh. I was like, oh,

1555
01:12:43,880 --> 01:12:46,000
Speaker 2: did you get your tooth shot out? Dude? He's like

1556
01:12:46,080 --> 01:12:47,760
Speaker 2: uh huh. And I was like, don't drink no water,

1557
01:12:48,520 --> 01:12:50,800
Speaker 2: and he wanted to immediately drink water when I said that,

1558
01:12:51,360 --> 01:12:53,920
Speaker 2: and it just yeah, and I said, where's your mask.

1559
01:12:53,920 --> 01:12:55,599
Speaker 2: You'd be wearing it all day. He's like, I took

1560
01:12:55,640 --> 01:12:56,639
Speaker 2: it off for the last game.

1561
01:12:56,840 --> 01:13:00,639
Speaker 3: It's like, bro, dude, Yeah, well even things like that,

1562
01:13:00,680 --> 01:13:03,360
Speaker 3: you also, I think you realize what the more likely

1563
01:13:03,880 --> 01:13:07,519
Speaker 3: mechanisms of injury are, right, like the amount of times Yeah,

1564
01:13:08,640 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 3: when I was airs something I would get jot and

1565
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:13,680
Speaker 3: you realize like, oh, like close range, like yeah, like

1566
01:13:13,720 --> 01:13:15,640
Speaker 3: people you know aim center mouse or weapons in our

1567
01:13:15,640 --> 01:13:17,519
Speaker 3: mouse you get to hit in the hands, you know,

1568
01:13:17,600 --> 01:13:19,920
Speaker 3: ricochets too, Like that was something that we were told

1569
01:13:20,000 --> 01:13:23,519
Speaker 3: quite a lot about for our like cover shoot drills

1570
01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 3: and recon like a big thing for counter ambush stuff

1571
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:29,839
Speaker 3: and to effectively counter ambushes when you get in them.

1572
01:13:29,960 --> 01:13:34,439
Speaker 3: This is something that came from like Parisian cell scouts thing,

1573
01:13:34,880 --> 01:13:36,920
Speaker 3: and we were told about it, and we tested it

1574
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:39,519
Speaker 3: a few times live fire, and we're like, okay, yeah,

1575
01:13:39,600 --> 01:13:42,640
Speaker 3: like cool, this works. But is this maybe in the

1576
01:13:42,680 --> 01:13:46,439
Speaker 3: realm of like seventies cop videos where this is some

1577
01:13:46,560 --> 01:13:49,080
Speaker 3: crazy theory and it has no practicality in real life.

1578
01:13:49,880 --> 01:13:52,479
Speaker 3: And the few times they did airsoft, I was like, oh, dude,

1579
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:55,040
Speaker 3: I'm getting stuff bouncing around and bouncing off things all

1580
01:13:55,080 --> 01:13:58,160
Speaker 3: the time, and I'm sure this is plastic or whatever,

1581
01:13:58,200 --> 01:14:00,880
Speaker 3: but bullets ball and it's the same thing.

1582
01:14:00,960 --> 01:14:03,920
Speaker 4: So maybe I need to reconsider all his.

1583
01:14:04,040 --> 01:14:06,600
Speaker 2: Count and we call that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we

1584
01:14:06,640 --> 01:14:08,600
Speaker 2: say all his count here, so that you don't have this,

1585
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:10,960
Speaker 2: Oh I got shot in the ash cheek. I'm alive, No, man,

1586
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 2: Just get rid of any if you get shot, you

1587
01:14:12,479 --> 01:14:15,519
Speaker 2: think he got shot, you die, just die. Just call

1588
01:14:15,560 --> 01:14:17,920
Speaker 2: it and start over. And then if you have a

1589
01:14:18,000 --> 01:14:23,160
Speaker 2: question about ricochets, just ask Ronald Reagan if they're really okay,

1590
01:14:23,479 --> 01:14:26,840
Speaker 2: because that's how he got shot. My friend, his limousine

1591
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:30,080
Speaker 2: window was what ricochet their bullet when they were fighting

1592
01:14:30,080 --> 01:14:32,160
Speaker 2: over the UZI the guy had or whatever and it

1593
01:14:32,280 --> 01:14:33,240
Speaker 2: shot into Reagan.

1594
01:14:33,720 --> 01:14:34,439
Speaker 4: I didn't know that.

1595
01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:37,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a ricochet off his limousine's window. It

1596
01:14:37,960 --> 01:14:40,200
Speaker 2: wasn't even like a direct shot at Raagan. Yeah.

1597
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 4: And no doubt though, no doubt, Like the window was bulletproof, right.

1598
01:14:43,160 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 2: Wow, exactly on his limo, on his own limo, his

1599
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:51,639
Speaker 2: own limos bulletproof window ricochet into the president's gut. Yeah,

1600
01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:53,640
Speaker 2: if they're tackling him when he was coming at him

1601
01:14:53,640 --> 01:14:56,679
Speaker 2: with the gun. Yeah, So that's why I say ricochet's count.

1602
01:14:57,880 --> 01:15:02,400
Speaker 4: I mean for sure they do. Like that's you know.

1603
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 2: For sure they do.

1604
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:05,400
Speaker 4: For sure they do.

1605
01:15:05,520 --> 01:15:08,960
Speaker 2: And now listen, Robert, listen, I have had you do.

1606
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:11,920
Speaker 2: We've been talking. I love it. And you have a book, right,

1607
01:15:12,200 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 2: I do. Tell me the name of your book. Let's

1608
01:15:13,920 --> 01:15:15,880
Speaker 2: get that on this behavior your books.

1609
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:17,960
Speaker 4: So the name of the book is my first book.

1610
01:15:18,400 --> 01:15:22,040
Speaker 4: It's a photo book. It's Afghan Style, big book. Don't

1611
01:15:22,040 --> 01:15:25,200
Speaker 4: get intimidated. There are chapters, but there are very few words.

1612
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:26,559
Speaker 4: So Afghan Style.

1613
01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:30,360
Speaker 3: I started working on with my first trip as a

1614
01:15:30,360 --> 01:15:34,000
Speaker 3: photographer in Afghanistan in twenty twenty sorry, twenty twenty one

1615
01:15:34,720 --> 01:15:39,519
Speaker 3: Esquire magazine. I went back in twenty twenty two, was

1616
01:15:39,560 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 3: obviously after Taliban and taking over the country, and worked

1617
01:15:42,479 --> 01:15:46,120
Speaker 3: some more on that project. Post military, I spent a

1618
01:15:46,160 --> 01:15:48,280
Speaker 3: decade now more than a decade now I'm working as

1619
01:15:48,280 --> 01:15:52,520
Speaker 3: a fashion photographer right and most specifically covering fashion.

1620
01:15:52,280 --> 01:15:53,040
Speaker 4: Nets around the world.

1621
01:15:53,280 --> 01:15:56,000
Speaker 3: I think at the peak of that pre twenty twenty,

1622
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:58,879
Speaker 3: I was doing like twenty five fashion weeks a year.

1623
01:15:58,720 --> 01:16:01,719
Speaker 4: And traveling thirty five weeks out of the year, really paying.

1624
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:06,120
Speaker 3: Attention to personal style, cultural style around the world, kind

1625
01:16:06,160 --> 01:16:08,960
Speaker 3: of what's going on culturally with that, but really like

1626
01:16:09,000 --> 01:16:12,800
Speaker 3: living in the minutia of just obsessing and examining what

1627
01:16:12,840 --> 01:16:17,760
Speaker 3: people are wearing and what it says. Right in twenty eighteen, no,

1628
01:16:17,800 --> 01:16:21,400
Speaker 3: I think it's twenty seventeen, I started doing conflict recording,

1629
01:16:21,560 --> 01:16:26,560
Speaker 3: so I went to Kurdistan and Northern Iraq when ISIS

1630
01:16:26,680 --> 01:16:29,840
Speaker 3: was getting pushed out of Mosul, like closing several.

1631
01:16:29,520 --> 01:16:30,559
Speaker 4: Months of that conflict.

1632
01:16:31,080 --> 01:16:31,920
Speaker 2: So that kind of led me.

1633
01:16:31,920 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 3: To an intersection of these two interests, which is the

1634
01:16:34,960 --> 01:16:38,479
Speaker 3: book Afghan Style for me, you know, personally instance, this

1635
01:16:38,520 --> 01:16:41,960
Speaker 3: is in the context of kind of a military environment.

1636
01:16:42,160 --> 01:16:44,800
Speaker 3: Afghanistan was the place that I thought about every single

1637
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:47,960
Speaker 3: day since the first time I went there. I really expected,

1638
01:16:48,520 --> 01:16:49,840
Speaker 3: kind of like an old lover, like one day you

1639
01:16:49,840 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 3: would just get over it and you'd stop thinking about it, right,

1640
01:16:52,000 --> 01:16:55,280
Speaker 3: especially my final deployment ended with bin Laden being killed.

1641
01:16:55,439 --> 01:16:57,439
Speaker 3: To me like I was like, really, I think this

1642
01:16:57,520 --> 01:16:59,479
Speaker 3: chapter of my life is over now, but you know,

1643
01:16:59,520 --> 01:17:01,320
Speaker 3: a decade and I'm still thinking about this place every

1644
01:17:01,360 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 3: single days. The same with my teammates, like he's still

1645
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:06,880
Speaker 3: selling to still talk about when something comes up in

1646
01:17:06,920 --> 01:17:09,200
Speaker 3: the news, And I just kind of felt on an

1647
01:17:09,240 --> 01:17:12,000
Speaker 3: instinctive emotional level, like I want to go back to

1648
01:17:12,040 --> 01:17:14,479
Speaker 3: this place, and I don't know what I expect to

1649
01:17:14,479 --> 01:17:16,639
Speaker 3: find or what I expect to learn, but I feel

1650
01:17:16,640 --> 01:17:19,679
Speaker 3: like if I confront this with an experience, I'll find

1651
01:17:19,680 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 3: some kind of resolution.

1652
01:17:21,120 --> 01:17:21,599
Speaker 4: Which I did.

1653
01:17:21,680 --> 01:17:23,920
Speaker 3: I spent about a month and a half there on

1654
01:17:23,920 --> 01:17:26,479
Speaker 3: this first trip. I studied a bit of darry I

1655
01:17:26,520 --> 01:17:28,360
Speaker 3: was living in Kabul, I wasn't living in a hotel,

1656
01:17:28,400 --> 01:17:30,800
Speaker 3: I wasn't living on a base somewhere, and I spent

1657
01:17:31,280 --> 01:17:33,160
Speaker 3: almost every single day of that month and a half

1658
01:17:33,760 --> 01:17:38,679
Speaker 3: just on the street, interacting with people, taking photos, biking around,

1659
01:17:39,600 --> 01:17:42,599
Speaker 3: making friends, and kind of like getting into and learning.

1660
01:17:42,800 --> 01:17:46,479
Speaker 3: And when I came away, I had way more photos

1661
01:17:46,479 --> 01:17:49,760
Speaker 3: than I needed for this or I did dressquire. I'd

1662
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:53,600
Speaker 3: come to really understand Afghan culture, and also in a

1663
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:56,120
Speaker 3: way that the military experience that I had there never had.

1664
01:17:56,160 --> 01:17:58,080
Speaker 3: I didn't feel like, in two deployments, had ever come

1665
01:17:58,120 --> 01:18:00,680
Speaker 3: to understand Afghans at all. They were a mystery when

1666
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:02,559
Speaker 3: I arrived, they were a mystery when I left. And

1667
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:05,720
Speaker 3: I think anyone, even just in a military context, who

1668
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:09,120
Speaker 3: studies military Saturday knows it's an extreme error not to

1669
01:18:09,200 --> 01:18:13,240
Speaker 3: understand both your allies and your adversaries, right, in this case,

1670
01:18:13,760 --> 01:18:16,840
Speaker 3: Afghanistan could be Afghans could be either. And I didn't

1671
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:18,720
Speaker 3: understand them stop this month and after trip, I really

1672
01:18:18,760 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 3: felt like I understood them a little bit. And also

1673
01:18:20,960 --> 01:18:22,639
Speaker 3: I had a lot of respect for them. They were

1674
01:18:23,360 --> 01:18:26,479
Speaker 3: the most prideful people I'd ever met in my entire life.

1675
01:18:26,600 --> 01:18:29,080
Speaker 3: Like pride, what pride means to an Afghan Man is

1676
01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:34,160
Speaker 3: has no equivalent in Western society. It's everything to people

1677
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:36,000
Speaker 3: who have nothing. It's like him to respect them a

1678
01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:39,439
Speaker 3: lot for that and my own kind of personal obsession

1679
01:18:39,479 --> 01:18:42,240
Speaker 3: with style, these guys were kind of like the quintessence

1680
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:45,639
Speaker 3: of it, right. They have nothing, they're starving, their a literate,

1681
01:18:45,680 --> 01:18:48,640
Speaker 3: Their life expectancy is like fifty if they're lucky. If

1682
01:18:48,640 --> 01:18:51,400
Speaker 3: they're fifty years old, they spent forty of those years

1683
01:18:51,600 --> 01:18:54,240
Speaker 3: inside of some kind of war. And war if anyone

1684
01:18:54,280 --> 01:18:56,519
Speaker 3: has an excuse, just like dressed like shit and not

1685
01:18:56,560 --> 01:18:57,640
Speaker 3: worry about it.

1686
01:18:57,640 --> 01:19:02,000
Speaker 4: It's these guys, right. And yet almost every single Afghan

1687
01:19:02,080 --> 01:19:06,240
Speaker 4: that I met really put such attention and care and

1688
01:19:06,360 --> 01:19:10,439
Speaker 4: what they were wearing, right, like old fishine.

1689
01:19:09,960 --> 01:19:13,120
Speaker 3: Commanders who've like lost legs, they're only much going for

1690
01:19:13,120 --> 01:19:15,479
Speaker 3: them in life and probably only have two sets of clothing,

1691
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:18,120
Speaker 3: and they're still ironing out in tant.

1692
01:19:17,640 --> 01:19:19,880
Speaker 4: And like looking presentable each day.

1693
01:19:20,760 --> 01:19:23,200
Speaker 3: It's the attention and care that they put into like grooming,

1694
01:19:23,200 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 3: an etiquette, all that stuff.

1695
01:19:25,200 --> 01:19:27,519
Speaker 4: Really it just impressed me and blew me away, and.

1696
01:19:27,439 --> 01:19:29,880
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I want to create

1697
01:19:29,880 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 3: a volume that is a study of their style.

1698
01:19:32,439 --> 01:19:34,880
Speaker 4: I didn't know exactly what was going to happen to

1699
01:19:34,880 --> 01:19:37,600
Speaker 4: Afghanistan in twenty twenty one.

1700
01:19:37,840 --> 01:19:39,840
Speaker 3: I think everyone had the sense that the government was

1701
01:19:39,840 --> 01:19:41,680
Speaker 3: going to collapse, but we didn't think it was going

1702
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:44,360
Speaker 3: to happen as Susan did. So this kind of became

1703
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,160
Speaker 3: a historical document for me. Like the Afghanistan that I've

1704
01:19:47,240 --> 01:19:50,000
Speaker 3: had the privilege of photographing that I've been.

1705
01:19:50,520 --> 01:19:52,320
Speaker 4: Entangled with for more than a decade now in my

1706
01:19:52,360 --> 01:19:56,400
Speaker 4: own life almost two decades, actually will probably not exist

1707
01:19:56,479 --> 01:19:57,760
Speaker 4: a decade from now right.

1708
01:19:58,200 --> 01:20:03,240
Speaker 3: The country's isolated economically geographically. When those gates eventually opened

1709
01:20:03,520 --> 01:20:06,439
Speaker 3: because the Taliban dissolves or they modernize or whatever, the

1710
01:20:06,520 --> 01:20:09,120
Speaker 3: clothing and the culture will disappear and receipt I had

1711
01:20:09,160 --> 01:20:09,760
Speaker 3: committed to.

1712
01:20:09,720 --> 01:20:13,240
Speaker 4: A book doing a book when the Taliban.

1713
01:20:12,840 --> 01:20:15,240
Speaker 3: Swept across the country in August, and I was meant

1714
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:16,679
Speaker 3: to go back that summer.

1715
01:20:16,920 --> 01:20:19,439
Speaker 4: I remember like getting my visa, like I had three

1716
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:20,840
Speaker 4: visas for the country.

1717
01:20:20,840 --> 01:20:23,320
Speaker 3: Trying to go back. The wheels really came off. There

1718
01:20:23,360 --> 01:20:24,760
Speaker 3: was no way to get back in the country. My

1719
01:20:24,800 --> 01:20:27,200
Speaker 3: friends there were freaking out and trying to get out.

1720
01:20:27,320 --> 01:20:30,080
Speaker 3: And at that point I realized, Okay, like the story's changed.

1721
01:20:30,640 --> 01:20:33,640
Speaker 4: I can't publish this book anymore because this things have

1722
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:37,560
Speaker 4: changed historically in the creative six months to a reproble degree.

1723
01:20:37,720 --> 01:20:41,360
Speaker 4: The Taliban is now control. This isn't a complete document anymore.

1724
01:20:41,920 --> 01:20:44,439
Speaker 3: So about a year went by and still working on

1725
01:20:44,479 --> 01:20:47,400
Speaker 3: the book with a publisher, but we mutually decided that

1726
01:20:47,600 --> 01:20:50,280
Speaker 3: I was going to go back to Afghanistan under Taliban

1727
01:20:50,360 --> 01:20:54,600
Speaker 3: rule and attempt to add more to the project to

1728
01:20:54,720 --> 01:20:56,080
Speaker 3: talk about what.

1729
01:20:56,160 --> 01:20:58,880
Speaker 4: Has historically changed since they've taken power.

1730
01:20:59,160 --> 01:21:02,000
Speaker 3: I was meant to go in spring. Obviously Ukraine happened,

1731
01:21:02,040 --> 01:21:03,960
Speaker 3: I got pushed back. I wound up going in August,

1732
01:21:04,520 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 3: which was, you know, unmercifully hot. It meant integrating base

1733
01:21:08,200 --> 01:21:11,360
Speaker 3: to face and with the full acknowledgment of the Taliban.

1734
01:21:11,640 --> 01:21:13,840
Speaker 3: They run the government there. They're not doing anything including

1735
01:21:13,920 --> 01:21:15,479
Speaker 3: leaving the airport without their permission.

1736
01:21:16,160 --> 01:21:20,920
Speaker 4: It was extremely fained to be sitting in multiple rooms.

1737
01:21:20,720 --> 01:21:25,080
Speaker 3: Of Taliban armed with American weapons, using American equipment, and

1738
01:21:25,200 --> 01:21:27,759
Speaker 3: kind of getting their permission to go around the country

1739
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:31,080
Speaker 3: and take these photos photographing Taliban inside of you know,

1740
01:21:31,160 --> 01:21:34,840
Speaker 3: former American compounds. A lot of the guys that I

1741
01:21:34,880 --> 01:21:39,000
Speaker 3: met had been fighting against Americans. One that I met

1742
01:21:39,040 --> 01:21:42,480
Speaker 3: had been in an American military president.

1743
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:43,080
Speaker 4: For like two years.

1744
01:21:43,320 --> 01:21:48,200
Speaker 3: That was pretty like it was very gut wrenching and weird, like,

1745
01:21:48,400 --> 01:21:49,400
Speaker 3: surely they've got.

1746
01:21:49,280 --> 01:21:51,360
Speaker 4: Google and they know who I am and whom you know,

1747
01:21:51,400 --> 01:21:52,400
Speaker 4: what my background is.

1748
01:21:52,720 --> 01:21:57,320
Speaker 3: In the end, you know, the conclusion wasn't positive, Right

1749
01:21:58,120 --> 01:22:00,880
Speaker 3: you have to look back on a twenty year endeavor

1750
01:22:00,960 --> 01:22:05,600
Speaker 3: that didn't really accomplish anything, especially for Afghans. Yeah, you

1751
01:22:05,640 --> 01:22:08,240
Speaker 3: can quite clearly, especially if you spent time there and

1752
01:22:08,360 --> 01:22:09,160
Speaker 3: understand the culture.

1753
01:22:09,400 --> 01:22:10,800
Speaker 4: That's one of the reasons I want to make the book.

1754
01:22:10,840 --> 01:22:13,599
Speaker 4: You can really clearly see the obvious mistakes that were made.

1755
01:22:13,760 --> 01:22:15,920
Speaker 2: But there was resolution for.

1756
01:22:15,880 --> 01:22:18,000
Speaker 4: Me because like, Okay, the outcome is not positive here,

1757
01:22:18,080 --> 01:22:20,479
Speaker 4: but I've seen the thing, and I've been a part

1758
01:22:20,520 --> 01:22:21,720
Speaker 4: of the thing, and I've confronted it.

1759
01:22:21,880 --> 01:22:25,559
Speaker 3: And I understand and understanding what went wrong and why

1760
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:29,360
Speaker 3: it went wrong. That's given me personally some kind of

1761
01:22:29,400 --> 01:22:32,360
Speaker 3: piece where I'm much more okay with it than a

1762
01:22:32,400 --> 01:22:35,960
Speaker 3: lot of other veterans I know who served in Afghanistan.

1763
01:22:36,560 --> 01:22:38,280
Speaker 4: And that's kind of that's been worth it.

1764
01:22:38,680 --> 01:22:41,120
Speaker 3: I also hope that, like the book's been very well

1765
01:22:41,160 --> 01:22:43,400
Speaker 3: received by Afghans and just but you know, by the

1766
01:22:43,400 --> 01:22:45,040
Speaker 3: Pelican General. We've done a little bit of a book

1767
01:22:45,040 --> 01:22:46,559
Speaker 3: tour in Europe and I'm seeing one.

1768
01:22:46,840 --> 01:22:49,080
Speaker 2: I'm sure you would like you want that blessings from them,

1769
01:22:49,120 --> 01:22:51,679
Speaker 2: you know you you you really want to showcase them

1770
01:22:51,720 --> 01:22:52,519
Speaker 2: and show off the.

1771
01:22:52,880 --> 01:22:56,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's it's like not expected, like I didn't.

1772
01:22:56,400 --> 01:22:59,000
Speaker 3: This wasn't a book for Afghans, because you're from Afghanistan,

1773
01:22:59,160 --> 01:23:01,759
Speaker 3: you'll know these things already. That wasn't really a design

1774
01:23:01,800 --> 01:23:03,320
Speaker 3: The designer was really like, I want to make a

1775
01:23:03,400 --> 01:23:04,120
Speaker 3: document that's.

1776
01:23:03,960 --> 01:23:08,360
Speaker 4: Approachable, it's non political and non religious.

1777
01:23:07,040 --> 01:23:11,519
Speaker 3: And presents the side of Afghanistan that we never bothered

1778
01:23:11,600 --> 01:23:15,200
Speaker 3: to understand and that we also led to massive miscalculations

1779
01:23:15,920 --> 01:23:18,439
Speaker 3: on the Western world side, which was understanding their culture

1780
01:23:18,439 --> 01:23:21,160
Speaker 3: of the right right. This is really a document designed

1781
01:23:21,240 --> 01:23:25,000
Speaker 3: to present to the West and the Western Basin. But

1782
01:23:25,040 --> 01:23:27,240
Speaker 3: I did find that there was a huge XBAC community

1783
01:23:27,280 --> 01:23:30,920
Speaker 3: of Afghanist who found out about the book, like there's

1784
01:23:30,960 --> 01:23:33,120
Speaker 3: super well network and were into it and we're like

1785
01:23:33,160 --> 01:23:35,520
Speaker 3: buying copies and coming to signings.

1786
01:23:35,960 --> 01:23:39,000
Speaker 4: And that wasn't the goal. That wasn't the expected outcome,

1787
01:23:39,040 --> 01:23:39,639
Speaker 4: but it was.

1788
01:23:40,600 --> 01:23:43,360
Speaker 3: It was really enjoyable because I was like, Okay, sure,

1789
01:23:43,600 --> 01:23:46,160
Speaker 3: this is actually something that the communities wanted for a

1790
01:23:46,160 --> 01:23:48,600
Speaker 3: long time to be presented outside of the context of

1791
01:23:48,760 --> 01:23:55,400
Speaker 3: just like poverty, homelessness, civil war, destitution, religious conflict.

1792
01:23:55,560 --> 01:23:58,280
Speaker 4: Right, Like I didn't realize how much that weighed on them,

1793
01:23:58,400 --> 01:23:59,000
Speaker 4: but you know.

1794
01:23:59,000 --> 01:24:00,479
Speaker 2: Everywhere anti women rights.

1795
01:24:00,640 --> 01:24:03,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, like just someone to speak about there, to speak

1796
01:24:03,520 --> 01:24:09,080
Speaker 3: about their culture outside of the right. That was really gratifying.

1797
01:24:09,840 --> 01:24:12,719
Speaker 3: That's been a good part of it. And I'm working

1798
01:24:12,720 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 3: on like the little US tour with the books. We've

1799
01:24:14,560 --> 01:24:17,320
Speaker 3: done Europe now, so I'm looking forward to like doing

1800
01:24:17,400 --> 01:24:21,360
Speaker 3: something in La San Francisco, definitely New York, and I

1801
01:24:21,360 --> 01:24:22,599
Speaker 3: hope very cool.

1802
01:24:22,680 --> 01:24:24,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's kind of the that's the plans for the book.

1803
01:24:25,680 --> 01:24:27,960
Speaker 2: Is there where can they can we put a link

1804
01:24:28,040 --> 01:24:30,400
Speaker 2: in down on the in the bio here for it

1805
01:24:30,439 --> 01:24:32,280
Speaker 2: is there some place we can find Afghan style.

1806
01:24:32,840 --> 01:24:38,280
Speaker 4: Yea. So my publisher, which is in the English French

1807
01:24:38,320 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 4: chase because the French would be Editions Odyssey, but it's

1808
01:24:42,280 --> 01:24:46,000
Speaker 4: Edisians odyssee. Their website has the book. I'm sold out

1809
01:24:46,000 --> 01:24:46,439
Speaker 4: of books.

1810
01:24:47,760 --> 01:24:48,120
Speaker 2: I have some.

1811
01:24:48,320 --> 01:24:52,280
Speaker 4: I have a few special editions with each come with

1812
01:24:52,320 --> 01:24:54,840
Speaker 4: a print from the book, and also come from a

1813
01:24:55,120 --> 01:24:57,519
Speaker 4: come with an artifact from the trips, like a passport

1814
01:24:57,600 --> 01:25:00,680
Speaker 4: page or a film negative or or one of my.

1815
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:04,800
Speaker 3: Field minte pages. So if you want a special edition,

1816
01:25:04,840 --> 01:25:07,800
Speaker 3: you can still get it for me. Does ship free.

1817
01:25:08,080 --> 01:25:12,080
Speaker 3: My publisher has the standard copies as well as a

1818
01:25:12,120 --> 01:25:15,559
Speaker 3: few of the special editions, and I will have more

1819
01:25:15,600 --> 01:25:17,040
Speaker 3: of my own copies, and I do have a little

1820
01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:18,479
Speaker 3: reserve that I'm going to take with me when I

1821
01:25:18,520 --> 01:25:20,479
Speaker 3: travel around the country doing the book tour.

1822
01:25:20,600 --> 01:25:24,240
Speaker 4: So chances are, if you're interested, I'm coming to your

1823
01:25:24,280 --> 01:25:25,920
Speaker 4: town and I will try not to burn it down.

1824
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:31,679
Speaker 2: Come down, Come to Salt Lake City, bro, I really.

1825
01:25:31,479 --> 01:25:33,679
Speaker 4: Want to do. I really want to do Salt Lake City.

1826
01:25:33,720 --> 01:25:36,360
Speaker 3: You know a good like if anyone's out there and

1827
01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:38,080
Speaker 3: you've got you know, a bookshop or a connection you

1828
01:25:38,120 --> 01:25:40,320
Speaker 3: want and you want to do, like, oh.

1829
01:25:40,280 --> 01:25:43,360
Speaker 2: A bookshop like Sam Weller's. Let me give him a plug.

1830
01:25:43,439 --> 01:25:45,479
Speaker 2: Kay Weller's is a mom and pop shop in Salt

1831
01:25:45,560 --> 01:25:48,480
Speaker 2: Lake City.

1832
01:25:47,200 --> 01:25:49,120
Speaker 3: Like, that's the kind of thing I'm looking for because

1833
01:25:49,439 --> 01:25:51,840
Speaker 3: the you know, you guys, I've already described sort of

1834
01:25:51,880 --> 01:25:54,960
Speaker 3: my personal goal of the book, but my outward goal

1835
01:25:55,200 --> 01:25:57,720
Speaker 3: is I'm want to bring this book to as many

1836
01:25:57,760 --> 01:25:59,040
Speaker 3: Americans as I possibly can.

1837
01:25:59,240 --> 01:26:00,519
Speaker 4: That's really who it's designed for.

1838
01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:04,120
Speaker 3: And I find like the person of person interaction of

1839
01:26:04,200 --> 01:26:06,479
Speaker 3: being there with the book, to be able to explain

1840
01:26:06,520 --> 01:26:09,920
Speaker 3: it to people and talk about each image, that's super gratifying.

1841
01:26:11,240 --> 01:26:13,240
Speaker 4: Lake City like basically any city.

1842
01:26:13,360 --> 01:26:16,080
Speaker 3: Yes, you've got a bookstore that is interested in hosting

1843
01:26:16,080 --> 01:26:17,640
Speaker 3: something like this, like, I'm all about it.

1844
01:26:17,680 --> 01:26:19,919
Speaker 4: I'd love to do it. That's the that is the

1845
01:26:19,960 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 4: final goal of the book.

1846
01:26:21,080 --> 01:26:23,519
Speaker 2: Well, that's awesome, And I think that we can wind

1847
01:26:23,520 --> 01:26:25,360
Speaker 2: this down. We've been going at it and I can

1848
01:26:25,479 --> 01:26:30,040
Speaker 2: keep talking and I really really could, We really could.

1849
01:26:30,439 --> 01:26:33,400
Speaker 2: But I think the commander at the five oh fifth

1850
01:26:33,479 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 2: Airborne eighty second Infantry Division might have to go home

1851
01:26:37,000 --> 01:26:39,400
Speaker 2: right now. Who listens. He wrote me a letter saying,

1852
01:26:39,479 --> 01:26:42,320
Speaker 2: rad I listened every single week to your show. I

1853
01:26:42,360 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 2: want to thank you something like that, and I want

1854
01:26:44,360 --> 01:26:46,040
Speaker 2: to say, what's up? Shout out to the I think

1855
01:26:46,040 --> 01:26:48,719
Speaker 2: it's a five oh fifth. What's up, bro, Parachute Restaurant

1856
01:26:49,160 --> 01:26:50,160
Speaker 2: honorary Colonel.

1857
01:26:50,520 --> 01:26:53,559
Speaker 3: I'm one of theirs, so I'm in favor of living

1858
01:26:53,600 --> 01:26:53,880
Speaker 3: this guy.

1859
01:26:53,920 --> 01:26:56,960
Speaker 2: Go home, and you got your gold wings or do

1860
01:26:57,000 --> 01:26:57,960
Speaker 2: you have just silver wings?

1861
01:26:58,000 --> 01:26:58,800
Speaker 4: I got gold wings?

1862
01:27:00,360 --> 01:27:01,919
Speaker 2: Oh she did all the different jumps.

1863
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:02,400
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1864
01:27:02,439 --> 01:27:05,920
Speaker 3: So my team within Puerto Rican was the We were

1865
01:27:05,960 --> 01:27:07,840
Speaker 3: the static line jump team because we're the junior guys.

1866
01:27:08,200 --> 01:27:11,880
Speaker 3: We're all qualified. And then I actually went out with

1867
01:27:11,880 --> 01:27:14,759
Speaker 3: an outfit as a civilian called World War two ADT

1868
01:27:15,080 --> 01:27:18,120
Speaker 3: World War two Airborne Demonstration Team and they jump out

1869
01:27:18,160 --> 01:27:20,000
Speaker 3: of World War two forty sevens.

1870
01:27:20,160 --> 01:27:23,840
Speaker 4: So I jumped with them. Got my Army actual like

1871
01:27:23,960 --> 01:27:25,280
Speaker 4: Army issue games from them.

1872
01:27:25,360 --> 01:27:28,599
Speaker 2: So yeah, so we jumping is cool?

1873
01:27:28,720 --> 01:27:28,960
Speaker 4: Cool?

1874
01:27:29,200 --> 01:27:35,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, well airborne that's the thing. My dad wid always say.

1875
01:27:35,920 --> 01:27:38,120
Speaker 2: He say you're a leg but you're my leg son.

1876
01:27:38,240 --> 01:27:41,800
Speaker 2: And I was like, all right, Dad, thanks And with

1877
01:27:41,920 --> 01:27:44,439
Speaker 2: that said, given Dad a shout out, and Mom, I

1878
01:27:44,479 --> 01:27:46,559
Speaker 2: just want to say thanks again Robert for taking the

1879
01:27:46,600 --> 01:27:48,400
Speaker 2: time out of your busy day and your and your

1880
01:27:48,400 --> 01:27:50,600
Speaker 2: book and everything that you're doing with designing to be

1881
01:27:50,640 --> 01:27:52,760
Speaker 2: on the show with soft Rep. And thanks to my

1882
01:27:52,880 --> 01:27:55,280
Speaker 2: listener for taking the time to listen to the show.

1883
01:27:55,320 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 2: And I hope that something hits you in the fields,

1884
01:27:58,040 --> 01:28:00,559
Speaker 2: you know. And we should be supporting good, good and

1885
01:28:00,640 --> 01:28:02,559
Speaker 2: not evil in this world, and we should be able

1886
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:06,360
Speaker 2: to have conversations with one another without I hope you

1887
01:28:06,400 --> 01:28:08,599
Speaker 2: just saw what We just had a conversation with one another.

1888
01:28:08,840 --> 01:28:11,439
Speaker 4: Yeah, so about it.

1889
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:13,840
Speaker 2: All about it? And uh, Robert, I hope to see

1890
01:28:13,880 --> 01:28:19,160
Speaker 2: you soon, If not at shot show or someplace, I'll

1891
01:28:19,200 --> 01:28:21,040
Speaker 2: be there this I'll be there the next time as well,

1892
01:28:21,080 --> 01:28:23,360
Speaker 2: covering for soft Rep. So we'll link up for sure.

1893
01:28:23,479 --> 01:28:25,800
Speaker 2: And my man, I'm gonna wind it down and say

1894
01:28:25,800 --> 01:28:28,040
Speaker 2: on behalf of everybody here at soft Rep. My guest

1895
01:28:28,120 --> 01:28:31,720
Speaker 2: Robert Spangle thousand yard Style on Instagram. My name is

1896
01:28:31,800 --> 01:28:34,120
Speaker 2: Rad I'm your host. Go check out the merch shot

1897
01:28:34,400 --> 01:28:37,439
Speaker 2: the book club and thanks again Brandon and everybody's software.

1898
01:28:41,040 --> 01:28:43,560
Speaker 1: You've been listening to self Recordia