[SPEAKER_00]: There's countries that we can introduce in countries that we can't. [SPEAKER_00]: And the ones that we can are typically ones that at least to some degree share our value set, you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_00]: Like the idea of the individual matters to them and you can't go into a culture and make that matter to everybody because it took our culture a thousand years. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go!
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Citizen, we got a special guest today, Colonel Curtis Lee, how are you? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing well, Dan, in yourself. [SPEAKER_00]: Doing great. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not raining anymore in Texas so far today, so that's always good news. [SPEAKER_00]: You are a retired Marine Corps Colonel. [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into all of that, let's talk about your upbringing a little bit. [SPEAKER_00]: Where did you grow up?
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in the southwestern Pennsylvania on a farm about five miles from the pain animal of West Virginia. [SPEAKER_01]: Washington, PA was kind of the, you know, closest deep inside city. [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it was a great upbringing. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, growing up on a farm or in those values really important. [SPEAKER_00]: When you say those values, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think, you know, the work ethic, you know, the fact that when you're raising a bunch of animals, you got responsibilities, you can't sleep in, you know, every day. [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, hard work, seeing, you know, at the end of the day, you know, being physically tired and sitting on that porch and looking across the field and seeing the work that you'd done.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think those are the sort of things that made America great and continued to make America great. [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like those values are a little antiquated for a lot of people these days. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody wants to win the lottery. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think, you know, social media certainly doesn't help with that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody, you know, kind of sees all these stream stories out there and think somehow, you know, they're going to win the water. [SPEAKER_01]: I just like you said, but you know, I still have a lot of faith. [SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, working with some of the brains that I know out there. [SPEAKER_01]: I work with some kids who are trying to get into the naval academy and you know, they're just like you and me. [SPEAKER_01]: We're growing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've got those values. [SPEAKER_01]: They've got the drive. [SPEAKER_01]: They understand that you got to put the work in to get to where you want to be. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's still a bunch of good people out there. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we see them pop up every now and again. [SPEAKER_00]: Even in the younger generation, people, I don't know they have this idea that it's all over, you know, but [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still see print plenty of good dudes out there doing stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: So what made you decide to join the military? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'd always wanted to be in the military. [SPEAKER_01]: It was always kind of interested when I was younger. [SPEAKER_01]: My father actually was in the Marine Reserves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I was too young when he was in the Reserves to really understand the Marine Corps, but just the reading that I did about it and just the whole [SPEAKER_01]: concept of you know being the best intrigued me and so in eighth grade I pretty much decided that I wanted to join the Marine Corps and then it was just a question of what's the best path to get there and for you what was the best path to get there
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, growing up in Southwestern, the pretty rural area. [SPEAKER_01]: My dad understood how hard it would be to get into some really competitive colleges. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm identifying a little bit of research and I kind of decided the Naval Academy would be an interesting place to go to school. [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, very professionally oriented toward naval officers, which includes both Navy and Marine Corps officers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the best part was it was free, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Full right scholarship. [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so he approached me. [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was before my sophomore year in college. [SPEAKER_01]: He was in high school. [SPEAKER_01]: And he had some brochures. [SPEAKER_01]: And he laid them out in front of me. [SPEAKER_01]: And one was like Valley Forge, Military Academy. [SPEAKER_01]: And one was like, you know, New Mexico, Military Institute.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he put another one out there, which was this place called Marine Military Academy in Harlan, St. [SPEAKER_01]: Texas. [SPEAKER_01]: So out in your state. [SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as I saw the picture of, you know, always there weren't marine uniforms and understood that the staff were, you know, these retired marine veterans. [SPEAKER_01]: I was pretty much sold. [SPEAKER_01]: So I went to high school there from my junior and senior year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I got into the Naval Academy from there and was commissioned a second lieutenant in May of, [SPEAKER_00]: May of nineteen eighty seven we had a little bit of stuff going on then mostly small stuff I guess yeah yeah the Marines had gone into Grenado a couple of years before that I think it was eighty three I don't know what they were doing in eighty seven what was when you got to your first unit what was the Marine Corps up to then
[SPEAKER_01]: Right so back then the big thing with the Marine Corps were the Marine Expeditionary unit which are kind of built around an infantry battalion with with a bunch of other extras around it and they are component which is just component and everything. [SPEAKER_01]: So they were kind of the tip of the spirit to your point. [SPEAKER_01]: The Marine Expedition of Units were the ones that went into Granada. [SPEAKER_01]: They spent a lot of time in Bray Route.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, when I was actually in my plebier at the Academy, was when the Barrack Marine Barracks got hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of funny, you know, you think about history was like, you know, we just bombed Iran, you know, and [SPEAKER_01]: that can go all the way back to nineteen eighty three you know for me you know and and kind of understanding you know how Iran was involved in so much of all the fighting we've had since then and some pretty bad stuff [SPEAKER_01]: But yes, so the Marine Corps was mostly doing that expeditionary stuff and they were the tip of the spear.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when I joined the fleet, Nadey eight, you know, after going through the basic school in artillery school, my first unit, hotel battery, third battalion, tenth Marines, had a bunch of veterans that had that were in both Granada and also in Bay Route, you know, sling some shells at Bay Route. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was, you know, a combat tested unit at the time when I joined.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to the Iran point, not just Iran as a country, but Soleimani specifically was involved in those eighty-three Bay Route bombing. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, this all came up in twenty-twenty when Trump shoved the knife up his ass, but, you know, it's that that was [SPEAKER_00]: not just an isolated event, right, dealing with him, not just about the merger of Al Qaeda and ISIS forces later on, or even the merger of Sunni and Shia forces later on, with Soleimani oversaw.
[SPEAKER_00]: That went back forty some years, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was [SPEAKER_00]: it was a long time coming to kill that guy when I'm glad he's dead so yeah there was a lot of stuff going on back then and then in the nineties obviously uh... we have the golf situation um... what was your we were you still in artillery then and so what was your involvement during that period yes that was an interesting one always looked on the story um... [SPEAKER_01]: Just a couple of days after the Marine Expeditionary Unit was born.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I was part of Italian landing team two eight. [SPEAKER_01]: My battery hotel battery was attached to that battalion, which was part of the Marine Expeditionary Unit. [SPEAKER_01]: So we had just formally officially formed and then Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So here we are as young Lieutenant as thinking like we are the tip of the sphere, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the the muesox, you know, those were the units that always went in and did everything. [SPEAKER_01]: So we're we're pretty pretty charged up ready for war. [SPEAKER_01]: If you remember back then it was going to be a pretty bloody fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the Iraq [SPEAKER_01]: army was actually one of the largest armies in the world at that time we didn't know how good or bad the Russian equipment was but you know if you you looked at on face value you thought that they had some pretty decent equipment so we're ready for pretty bloody flight [SPEAKER_01]: What actually happened though was they decided that it was more important for our mute talk to protect the Mediterranean. [SPEAKER_01]: Make that safe for democracy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then to be in kind of the lead units going into the war. [SPEAKER_01]: So we did all of our work up. [SPEAKER_01]: We watched people flow through campus noon, go overseas, get ready for the big war. [SPEAKER_01]: And then we headed to the Mediterranean.
[SPEAKER_01]: interestingly enough when we got to the Mediterranean we had this admiral you know it was in charge of the fleet we were attached to the came in and he gave us what he thought was a very motivating speech and told us that he was going to make darn sure that we didn't get dragged into the that ugly thing that Iraq that we would be safe there in the Mediterranean to keep the Mediterranean safe [SPEAKER_01]: Which of course was exactly in the wrong thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's so much a young Marine, secondly, tenets and then firstly tenets. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, was he aware that he was speaking to Marines? [SPEAKER_00]: That's not really what you say to Marines. [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_01]: And so was funny because our mute commander, you know, as soon as the admiral left, you know, he passed all the officers to stay in the war group.
[SPEAKER_01]: And basically just told us like, you know, that's a bunch of BS, you know, we're going to do everything we can to get you in the fight if we're needed. [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, again, our thought was that it was going to be pretty bloody and they would need us to come in at least as a second wave. [SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, you had a nine year six hour war, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like it started. [SPEAKER_01]: It was over.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had kind of figured that, you know, hey, the show was over for us. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we were all convinced that we would never get promoted because we were the only [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we've done some Marine Corps that weren't involved in our mind, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And we were a sure training, and they did what they call emergency backload, like literally radios, people calling up, they get back to the ship immediately, and we're like, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_01]: We get on the ship. [SPEAKER_01]: We steam over to Turkey and we offload in Turkey and drive. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was over three hundred miles inland and we go right into northern Iraq. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was Operation Provide Comfort. [SPEAKER_01]: So after the war, the Kurds decided that they were going to raise a rise up against Saddam Hussein.
[SPEAKER_01]: and sit on that other plans for them so he started repressing the heck out of them and they got pushed all the way into Turkey up in the mountains and they were freezing the death and that wasn't a good look for us so we went in there our marine expedition unit we've created the the safe zone up in the northern part of Iraq and a lot of the courage to come back so it was actually
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, a pretty interesting operation if you look at it historically, I mean it was a humanitarian operation, but it was really more east-making than teeth keeping. [SPEAKER_00]: That might have been, I don't actually don't remember, but that might have been the last dock, not really a dock fight, but the last air to air take down the US military's done air, like air force was, because it weren't two bombers shot down trying to approach into Turkey.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that was the last one, but that's the last one that I can recall. [SPEAKER_00]: I know there were two. [SPEAKER_00]: to, uh, I think they were rushing as you twenty two bombers that got shot down trying to come into Turkey to gas the Kurds that were fleeing, uh, and I think it was, um, uh, strike eagles that took them down for f-teens if I'm not mistaken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I actually don't remember that, specifically, you know, we were the guys on the ground, um, [SPEAKER_01]: It was interesting though, because we moved into northern Iraq over the evening. [SPEAKER_01]: And we settled in, our battery was outside of one of the towns up there in the north. [SPEAKER_01]: And the first night we were there. [SPEAKER_01]: the Kurds came out of the mountains and they killed like the chief of police in the town and one of their key intel guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean they were they didn't mess around and then a few days later they started coming down out of the mountains and we had these tents [SPEAKER_01]: You know, set up for them, you know, pretty humanitarian reasons right to go in and relax and we'd make them stack their arms right because they weren't supposed to have weapons in there and they would rest up and then they would go into the town at night and tear things up.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were an interesting group, the Kurds were. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, they've, it's funny. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I guess you spent some time in Iraq as well after, and to be honest, the vast majority of Iraqi Army employees that I worked with were just incompetent and completely incompetent. [SPEAKER_00]: And for some reason, the Kurdish dudes were always very buttoned up. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it was because they had to be, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: They were kind of out of place down there in the mainly end of Iraq if you want to call it that. [SPEAKER_00]: I always notice that those guys were quite a bit more skilled than the general Iraqi population. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would agree with that assessment completely. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I was now lying bar in in two thousand and seven. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, one of the other wars later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we work pretty closely with the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police there. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, as you mentioned, really kind of mixed a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: There were, you know, some good folks that were good units and there were a lot that weren't quite so good. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you went on to deploy to OIF. [SPEAKER_00]: I think you were there during the surge, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Two thousand seven. [SPEAKER_00]: That's when I was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, where are you? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was there. [SPEAKER_00]: I was with the eight second airborne in Bader Shop, Sotter City area for about a year, three months, fifteen months total. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Sutter City was tough. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure exactly what we're going on in Sutter City at that time, but I'm sure you were feeling a lot of action.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was mostly J.H.O. [SPEAKER_00]: Mody, obviously, Jam, the Mody Army, Motado Sotters, guys. [SPEAKER_00]: And they were up to all sorts of no good. [SPEAKER_00]: That was kind of the first part of the EFP push. [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of Iranian weapons were coming in. [SPEAKER_00]: And we were trying to, like we were doing Intel and trying to find a lot of [SPEAKER_00]: of those weapons, caches and stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every time we would go into Sato City, it was a gunfight from the time we went into the time we got out. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I never, unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to be a machine, I look at turret gunner during any of those operations.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was on the radio as a dismount and we didn't do a whole lot of dismount of stuff until, you know, towards the end and I never got to [SPEAKER_00]: During, at least during those, I never even got to fire my weapon, but it was, for sure, as soon as we crossed that imaginary border into Sotter City, it was on every single time. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I don't think there had been a couple of American units in, but not much since, I think, two thousand five, maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it had been about eighteen months until real presence was there. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, it was tough, definitely tough. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course, I'll handbar was as you know, pretty tough area too. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was interesting because two thousand and six was was really, really tough. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we were losing a lot of Marines. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the head intel officer of the the metaphor at that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of declared that you know we we lost that land bar um you know so there there was a lot of kind of bad stuff but you know I was part of a unit in quannico that trained the battle staff that we're going in so I was attached to them and [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we were seeing some signs that maybe there there was some hope there there was some engagement with some of the shakes from Jordan. [SPEAKER_01]: So there were things that were happening kind of behind the scenes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you mentioned, I just got lucky enough that, you know, I showed up in January, two thousand seven. [SPEAKER_01]: And the outland bar awakening just really become a begun in in white December. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I got to see us go from, you know, losing like three or four Marines a day to like maybe one or two a week, you know, at most, you know, in like a four month period. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it was just incredible how quickly it changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, you had [SPEAKER_01]: you know, these fighters that were one day, you know, planting ideas and shooting at our Marines and the next day they're fighting al Qaeda. [SPEAKER_01]: So they switched sides pretty quickly. [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty pretty amazing opportunity to be there during that time frame. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then you went to a couple years later, you went to Afghanistan, and that period, two thousand nine to ten, there's a lot of blue on blue going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's green on blue, technically. [SPEAKER_00]: That was a that was a difficult time. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's two thousand nine is when the coast bombing happened, lost a couple of agency personnel, and then you know, it was that was just a rough period. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the [SPEAKER_00]: One of the valleys there got lit up pretty good. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, those are tough days over there. [SPEAKER_00]: What were you doing during that period?
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you in, I know you, I know you went from artillery over to C.A. [SPEAKER_00]: at some point, but what point did that happen? [SPEAKER_01]: Right, right. [SPEAKER_01]: Actually, the civil first thing happened when I was part of that group that was training up the battle staff that was going to go into Iraq. [SPEAKER_01]: It was funny because I was an activator reserve. [SPEAKER_01]: I was military planner.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always trained as military planner and one day they kind of said hey we need somebody to be our you know civil affairs soul military operations expert and your civilian so get what you're at your act. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh that was my introduction to civil affairs so of course I studied up on it. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I hadn't had again an incredible opportunity to be there to witness the Palambar awakening and, you know, all that sort of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then going to Afghanistan again, I was in the Civil Affairs position with the Force Civil Affairs group. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was actually the planer for our gag when we got the mission to form this, what we call an extremist Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
[SPEAKER_01]: that was part of the obama sir if you remember obama was like okay can't stand good war erected or right yeah i think they devoted uh... patrious back down to four to handle that actually if i recall correctly [SPEAKER_01]: Well, eventually he did, because, you know, he would cycle through so many generals. [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, so the focus is back in Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_01]: He announced a surge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were two units that were going to go into Southern Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_01]: One was the Army Striker Brigade. [SPEAKER_01]: The other was my brigade, which is second map, or we call that Marine Expedition Brigade Afghanistan.
[SPEAKER_01]: to a general Larry Nicholson was our CG a very dynamic guy very aggressive we went in there with over ten thousand you know Marines and we did what Marines did I mean we've cleared I think it was seven or eight districts you know in one year it was [SPEAKER_01]: Again, another very, very fortunate experience just happened to be the right guy at the right time. [SPEAKER_01]: It is a civil affairs guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get to travel the battle space, you know, go visit your teams, they're working with battalions, you're up there working at the provincial reconstruction team, you know, with our allied partners and all. [SPEAKER_01]: So you get kind of like a very broad view of everything that's going on in the battle space. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, for sure. [SPEAKER_00]: You had an on the ground in a thirty thousand foot view as a planner.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I wonder how you feel about that whole operation. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, certainly the strategic goal set out were met, but it's a, it's always temporary. [SPEAKER_00]: Anytime in the mid east, it's, we'll see or for now, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the two phrases. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, excuse me. [SPEAKER_00]: It's always been my position that
[SPEAKER_00]: a bunch of Westerners aren't going into a Muslim country and making permanent change unless the Muslims there decide to change the way they do business we can't really do anything now you as a soldier or marine excuse me uh... you don't have that option that that's not your job is to determine whether or not it's going to work or not your job is to execute but I'm sure as somebody who saw it from those angles you have an opinion on it now
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the obviously would have liked both the Rack and Afghanistan to have ended differently than they did. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel very proud from the standpoint of the times that I was there in the units that I was there in both the Rack and Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_01]: We actually saw progress. [SPEAKER_01]: I have a lot of friends and fellow veterans who, you know, went to tours and they didn't have that opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that drives a lot of how you feel about things. [SPEAKER_01]: So we saw that we could basically create conditions that would give the Iraq Iraqis and the Afghans the opportunity. [SPEAKER_01]: If they were willing to do it, of making their country's better. [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, as you said, if they, if they don't take advantage of those opportunities, there's not much you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: so I do feel that a big reason why we weren't successful in Iraq and Afghanistan and I agree with a lot of criticism of us trying to impose our way of doing things on them and not understanding culture and everything [SPEAKER_01]: But I think ultimately came down to, you know, we created an opportunity for them and they weren't able to capitalize on it in a way where they kind of had a better ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing that I will say and I think a lot of better and share of this is I don't think [SPEAKER_01]: we could have done a worse job of how we left both Iraq and Afghanistan. [SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of echoes even what you saw in Vietnam. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you talked to some folks that were involved in Vietnam, like we just totally pulled the rug out from under on the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we had continued to give them a little bit of support, you know, it might have at least been a better [SPEAKER_01]: transition, but both in Iraq and Afghanistan, I felt like what we did was not helpful at all. [SPEAKER_01]: The precipitous withdrawal, especially Afghanistan, hit me because you know, it's been a year there. [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I just think it could have been done better. [SPEAKER_01]: That's my opinion. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of lessons there. [SPEAKER_00]: One is don't, don't telegraph your movements. [SPEAKER_00]: That's probably not a great idea. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's never really been part of war before. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why it became part of it now, but I think it's just political pressure and weakness. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's a good lesson to learn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's countries that we can introduce in countries that we can't. [SPEAKER_00]: And the ones that we can are typically ones that at least to some degree share our value set. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the idea of [SPEAKER_00]: the individual matters to them and you can't make some what you can't go into a culture and make that matter to everybody because it took our culture a thousand years to figure that out right so you know on that note you do a lot of work with recedling Ukrainians both probably temporarily and permanently I guess because it's a it's a fluid situation right now tell me about this organization you work with
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the organization's name is Carolinas for Ukraine and it was with it's a grassroots organization that we created here in Hartzville and really was based on the fact that Ukraine is first showing up at our doorstep and you know based on my experience of trying to help people get out of Afghanistan after you know that precipitous withdrawal
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that we always talked about was, okay, getting them out of the country is one thing, but actually finding them at home and getting them re-cettled into a completely different country. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a whole different problem set, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And that in our feeling is the long-ball in the tent. [SPEAKER_01]: And so as I mentioned, in February of [SPEAKER_01]: You know, twenty twenty two, you know, Russia invading Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had parents of someone who is Ukrainian that actually looser and harmful showed up a couple weeks later. [SPEAKER_01]: And then probably a month or so after that, we had our first family showed up under this new program that President Biden had created called the United for Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is kind of an interesting program because it's sponsored based, which means [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody in the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: has to actually fill out a bunch of paperwork and say that we're going to vouch for these people. [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to bring them over and we're going to take care of them and help them settle. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's very similar to the old Canadian immigration situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So before this latest bunch of local heads, they had Canada required you to have a sponsor and that sponsor had the sign of documenting. [SPEAKER_00]: They were financial responsible for you for ten years for you to be able to enter their country. [SPEAKER_00]: And not obviously not anymore, right? [SPEAKER_00]: But they used to be the case. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, and it's not a ten year obligation, but I said, the idea is brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in my mind, you know, because if we step back and talk about immigration as a whole, we do need immigration in the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I mean, we do. [SPEAKER_01]: We're not regenerating at the rate that we should, you know, if we want to continue growing our economy, we need workers, blah, blah, blah, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of reasons. [SPEAKER_01]: The question is, how to do it legally and how to do it in a smaller way, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the smartest way is to target people who actually share our culture, not people from China and not people from India and not people from the Middle East. [SPEAKER_00]: That seems like it would be a very easy thing to deterrent. [SPEAKER_00]: Do these people share the same cultural values as us? [SPEAKER_00]: Good, then they're probably going to be able to assimilate. [SPEAKER_00]: That's just how it works, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's no no look China behaved the way you want. [SPEAKER_00]: That's your right to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: India do the same thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Middle East do this. [SPEAKER_00]: You can do whatever you want. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_00]: This is this you have autonomy, but you know the idea that we're going to bring in people that have no intent to assimilate nor any real understanding of our culture and it's going to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's insane to me. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and you hit the mail on the head there, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's they have to be willing to assimilate. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm even willing to say, like, okay, maybe we could bring like our Afghan allies to follow this. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm okay with bringing them over, but you have to have an intentional resettlement program to really help them to adjust to the culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're just going to have them flying to an airport, [SPEAKER_01]: just figured out on the room. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a lot tougher. [SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a lot tougher. [SPEAKER_00]: Not just tougher, but they're basically just going to set up their country back here, right, which is not going to work. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just like even from the social and economic levels, it won't work. [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's two things don't interface well. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so you bring up another same point is when we think of immigration a lot of times immigrants will want to, you know, they'll want to relocate in a place with other people like now, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then you create these little villages, you know, like you see in the big cities, okay, there's kind of town, there's, you know, little Italy, whatever, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... well we're trying to do a care lines for you crying is we're trying to say look we're gonna bring you in our community um... but we don't have you know several hundred Ukrainians here you know we've got a few of them so you're gonna have to actually become part of the community which is what they've done so that model of uh... bringing people in but making sure they're actually in a community that wants them number one right uh... and one that they kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: they're forced to actually become part of the community. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's an important part of what we need to look at for immigration because if you look at this huge immigration flow that we had the last several years, I mean, a lot of them have piled into the big cities, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it gets to exactly what you're talking about. [SPEAKER_01]: They they form their own little groups. [SPEAKER_01]: They don't assimilate.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're heavily reliant on whatever social safety net provided to them. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not the way to do it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We've done this with this specific group of people before with Brighton Beach back in the nineteen sixties. [SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of the containment phase of cold war when things started to get a little bit more [SPEAKER_00]: I guess you could say kinetic. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're past Korea and we've got advisors in Vietnam trying to fight communism. [SPEAKER_00]: And there were a lot of stupid shit going on that wasn't really effective.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the time, a lot of people from what was then rushing Ukraine moved here to Brighton Beach, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And it basically became little Odessa.
[SPEAKER_00]: tens of thousands of people moved over here and it was like it worked out fine obviously for everybody So there's there's an example of that like I know there are a lot of people have a lot of strong feelings about us funding wars in Ukraine and Russia and all this shit and it's starting to ramp up again now and Personally, I think that's Europe's issue to deal with frankly and and good on Trump forgetting them to commit five percent for the first time in history since this organization has existed NATO
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that's your up to problem. [SPEAKER_00]: They should be dealing with that. [SPEAKER_00]: But as far as, you know, as far as legal immigration goes and getting people to come into this country who actually know and respect our way of life and want to come here to use it to their benefit and then, you know, and return, use it to our benefit. [SPEAKER_00]: There really isn't a better group of people than the Polish and Ukrainian immigrants that have come over over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like Chicago's got a bunch, New Jersey's got a bunch, Pennsylvania's got a bunch, obviously New York City, the Upper East Side and what do you call it? [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry excuse me, the East Side and Brighton Beach, Eastville and Brighton Beach, both have huge Ukrainian populations and they've been there for decades, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So it's very easy for them to go into a place like that. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe they've got family members there already.
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes a lot more sense to me than a bunch of H one B Indian people coming here and bringing culture that's completely foreign to our own. [SPEAKER_00]: I just like not that we should discriminate against people for their cultures or anything, but clearly one is better. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't disagree with you. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, growing up around Pittsburgh, you know, Pittsburgh's a big melting. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there are a court to a lot of poll.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there are a lot of Eastern European Central Europeans, so yeah, I'm very comfortable with that. [SPEAKER_01]: Which, you know, again, you're, you're, you're getting in the heart of it, which is, you know, you've got these great people Ukrainians that [SPEAKER_01]: It's similar pretty well into our culture. [SPEAKER_01]: We had a program that was a legal program where they did get background checks.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had sponsors who were picking up some of the bill and why the effort, you know, to support them until they got on their feet, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And so now we have two hundred and forty thousand of these folks here in the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I understand the administration's position on things. [SPEAKER_01]: I think they should.
[SPEAKER_01]: look at each of these programs and decide whether we want to continue doing them but you know all I'm asking at this point is that let's for the two hundred forty thousand are here that are paying taxes are working their kids are going to school with our kids in our case here of many of these Ukrainians are actually volunteering
[SPEAKER_01]: for charitable organizations right here in our own town right so we're given back let's just give them the ability to stay a little bit longer because the Ukraine war is not over and these are good people they're important employees for us give them a chance to stay here a little bit longer till we figure out what's going to happen [SPEAKER_01]: And the other side of this is that there is going to be a huge rebuilding effort when this war is over in Ukraine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think having some Ukrainians that are familiar with the US, but also come from the Ukraine, it's going to be a huge benefit for us as well. [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think there's a potential strong partnership between Ukraine and the US going forward. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we'll see. [SPEAKER_00]: Their leadership is dodgy, but that's the way it is in that part of the world. [SPEAKER_00]: You get one that's good for a while and then it goes away.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's so different here to be honest. [SPEAKER_00]: The difference is usually ours aren't puppets in the way that they are in Eastern Europe, but I'm really curious about this program. [SPEAKER_00]: What is the [SPEAKER_00]: the sponsorship and tail aside from them having to do a background check and all that stuff and then getting a two-year parole. [SPEAKER_00]: What's the responsibility of the sponsor exactly?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so the sponsor does find it basically files some paperwork. [SPEAKER_01]: They have to be very specific on who their sponsoring, who like the individual level. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're sponsoring a family, you're filling out a forum for every family member, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You have to provide some financial information for yourself. [SPEAKER_01]: so that they know that you actually have the financial means to support them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They ask you like what level of support you're willing to do. [SPEAKER_01]: Be quite honest with you. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's a hundred percent legally binding document but you know at least you know in good faith you're saying that you're going to be helping them. [SPEAKER_01]: And of course they do a background check on you because they want to make sure you're not a human trafficker right. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's really important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they go out to the Ukrainians and they ask Ukrainians for a bunch of information from them too. [SPEAKER_01]: And they do a background check for them. [SPEAKER_01]: And when all that is done, they issue something called a travel authorization to the Ukrainians.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what that baseball is is kind of like a visa, you know, it's a slip that says that [SPEAKER_01]: You legally can travel to the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: So either you crayons or the sponsor buys their online tickets, they fly into an airport and basically they're there. [SPEAKER_01]: You put them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I was so insistent that we actually create an organization to do this because as greatest sponsors are a lot of these sponsors don't actually have any experience [SPEAKER_01]: You know, dealing with people from the foreign, you know, culture and going through the whole resettlement process.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when they start showing up in Harksville, I was like, this is great, but there's also a lot of risk here, and there's an opportunity for us to kind of do this in a more organized fashion that would really benefit everyone. [SPEAKER_01]: So we all together the folks that we thought could be helpful. [SPEAKER_01]: You got to look at things like healthcare, you know, all of the them signing up for benefits if they're either eligible for benefits, getting their kids in the schools.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there's just so many things. [SPEAKER_01]: Think about the checklist when you relocated from one place in America to another, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And then think about if you were actually not moving to another state, but moving to another country where you may not even speak the language very well. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why we form the organization. [SPEAKER_01]: And we've been very successful. [SPEAKER_01]: We brought in thirty Ukrainians that have resettled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Twenty-seven of them are still here in Hartso, a family of three is moved to Chicago. [SPEAKER_01]: And we're now even getting folks that are interested in relocating from within the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: to Hart'sville because they're hearing that, you know, we've got a good program here. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's interesting the way that it all kind of lines up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, certainly down to the micro level, integrating people in the communities is important, but when I think about the needs of the United States,
[SPEAKER_00]: about forty percent of Ukrainians are either farmers or factory workers forty percent that is a massive number of people and for the most part those are probably a large percentage and even larger percentage rather the people who have been displaced because of the factory work in farming that happens in the eastern side of the Ukrainian state
[SPEAKER_00]: So now look at America, you know, we're experiencing a farming crisis right now, and we're making huge huge investments, even with foreign countries investing into our factories, right, to chip production and all sorts of other stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And I gotta tell you, as an employer myself, it's not easy to just find people to work for you right now. [SPEAKER_00]: I know that people will say that that's not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have years now of first-hand experience of finding it very, like, having a very difficult time finding hard workers, people that will work hard, right, and show up every day, and not that aren't just looking for the next big thing to come around or whatever happens. [SPEAKER_00]: We've lost employees over the years because of that. [SPEAKER_00]: This seems like, and we talked about the same thing with South African farmers, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: The US should absolutely be trying to help those people come here and help with our farming. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no question about that. [SPEAKER_00]: It should be part of a larger program to identify transitioning workers or veterans who want to start farms or any of this stuff to make it one more resilient, but also more decentralized. [SPEAKER_00]: Because right now, factory farming is kind of the standard here. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a mistake as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't put all your eggs in one basket, especially when it comes. [SPEAKER_00]: You worked in logistics. [SPEAKER_00]: The most famous quote of all time, I think from Pershing, is that soldiers went battles, logistics went wars. [SPEAKER_00]: That is an absolute fact. [SPEAKER_00]: Energy, food, water, those things are national security items. [SPEAKER_00]: And we should be working way harder than we are right now to address those specific issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the ways we can do it is by fielding the domestic talent, given land grants, giving [SPEAKER_00]: low or no interest loans to vets who are coming out to start these businesses or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: And then of course, instead of bringing over tech support, we should be bringing over people that make the shit that we actually need. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and that's, you know, you look at these Ukrainians.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're two hundred and forty thousand of them here in the US, you know, getting resettled and they bring great technical skills. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you talk to these folks and keep, I mean, you know, you would think they're from New York City. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're very tech savvy, rent off of things. [SPEAKER_01]: Mechanically inclined every single Ukrainian family that we brought over by some old beat up youth car and they fix it up on their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're they just they know how to do that stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: The stuff again, you know, you probably did when you were growing up or I did on the farm. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you had to be your own mechanic, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You had to fix your own stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are the kind of people and there's ones we want to keep, but the problem we have, Dan, is that because they stopped renewing their extensions and, you know, they put all these programs on hold, some of them are, you know, their parole, their humanitarian parole, they came under, is expiring or their work authorization, which allowed them to legally have a job in the US are expiring.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they're not renewed, we're putting them in the position because they're law-abiding people that they're they're being forced to leave. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's really my big ask for for the audience is just, you know, let's get the word out. [SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I agree with a lot of what the administration is doing. [SPEAKER_01]: And I know this may not be their top priority. [SPEAKER_01]: They may not fully realize what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, we've got these folks who fled from war torn, you know, country that are great. [SPEAKER_01]: addition to the US and they want to stay but we may be putting them in a position where they have to make the decision to leave and I think if we had some way of just allowing them to have that option to stay a little bit longer at least that would be a good thing it would be a good thing for America
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's the priority that the president has put out, which is, you know, the folks that need to leave are the ones that are not working, the ones that are criminals, you know, etc. [SPEAKER_01]: If the ones that aren't assimilating, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, the vast majority of the immigrants that have been led into this country are not people from cultures that are similar to ours. [SPEAKER_00]: And they are the ones causing issues.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think this would even be an issue. [SPEAKER_00]: had that not happened in the first place, frankly. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I also think a lot of people are conflating, participating in the Ukraine Russia war, which I think most people agree is not shouldn't be a priority for us. [SPEAKER_00]: It should not that it shouldn't happen, but Europe should be handling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think Trump's taking a better approach to it now, where we're going to sell weapons to NATO countries with the understanding that they're going to be the ones that help [SPEAKER_00]: Ukraine which is what we should have been doing this whole time. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps say what you want about the military industrial complex but it helps American companies make money which is not a bad thing and it also keeps us distant from that and makes NATO actually do their job. [SPEAKER_00]: NATO and Europe actually do their job. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a smart move.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people are conflating all of that with just taking care of the people and then as a result as well what benefit that we can get from having that kind of immigrant come into our country versus [SPEAKER_00]: You know, people from Central America who are just going to come here and start cutting chickens heads off and shit like that. [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_00]: Or geese in the park?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry, Ukrainian people that living here are not going to come over here and start murdering geese in the park for food. [SPEAKER_00]: Now they're going to go to the store because they have stores where you grew up, you know what I mean? [SPEAKER_00]: And if something makes sense, it makes sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's true that the Biden administration abused this. [SPEAKER_00]: They abuse it greatly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's a very similar parallel to the Iran situation where we bomb their nuclear facilities. [SPEAKER_00]: The Bush administration lied so much to get us into some of these conflicts in the early two thousands that people have PTSD from it. [SPEAKER_00]: They can't make rational decisions anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, yeah, all that was bad. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not sending boots on the ground to Iran. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not what this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: We still have to be able to [SPEAKER_00]: flex our power from time to time to keep bad actors from being able to do a dumb shit. [SPEAKER_00]: And the same vein we have to be able to flex American soft power and our empathy a little bit to be able to help people that help us. [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what a country is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I agree with you, and you know, to be queer for the Ukrainian program, I have not heard of any complaints about fraud, human trafficking, all the other stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: What happened was they started the Ukrainian program, and that was about a year later. [SPEAKER_01]: They started extending it to the Cubans, Asians, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelans. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think there were some allegations in that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, even stopped that program for a while and they started it back up. [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I'm here really to talk about the Ukrainians because of everything that you mentioned. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's two hundred and forty thousand people. [SPEAKER_01]: Their country is a war, so it's not like they can just go back to where they came from very easily.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, ultimately, I think they're good for the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: going forward if some of them want to stay. [SPEAKER_01]: I could see where that would be really helpful for us. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, the difference is they're the kind of people that expect to have to come here and earn their citizenship, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: That may seem like a banal distinction, maybe in the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you know any Ukrainian or Polish people, you know, like you know that this is true, right? [SPEAKER_00]: They expect to have to come work for stuff, just like our ancestors from Ireland and Italy and everywhere else felt when they came here. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in fact, one of the things we struggle with the most is when a new family comes in, they want to go to work right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're kind of like, wait a sec, you know, you got to get some of this admin done, we got to make sure you got a driver's license, you know, you got to make sure you got a place to put your money, you know, bank or whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: So there's like a ministry of things that you need to do for the first couple of weeks because you're right. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're like, work and I work. [SPEAKER_01]: What can I do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I think it's a good idea for us not to throw the baby out with the bath water, which we do have a tendency to do. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody kind of flips from one extreme to another these days instead of just being a calm and rational individual. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what. [SPEAKER_00]: When people are calm, rational individuals, we get the best possible outcomes, typically. [SPEAKER_00]: And I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would ask people to set aside their feelings about the Ukraine Russia conflict and our involvement in it specifically. [SPEAKER_00]: And think about what's best for the United States, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, seriously. [SPEAKER_00]: Certainly, it's best for us to be the kind of country that [SPEAKER_00]: is attractive to people like Ukrainians to come here and not attractive to people like Venezuelans and Venezuelans gangs, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like what?
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't want to have an open border such that MS-Third teen and Trinidad or Rago can come into our country and take advantage of people. [SPEAKER_00]: We want the kind of country that people come to because they know they can work hard and make a life for themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: because that's the rising tide in some regards it lifts all boats and that's been the entire history of the United States the entire history has always been that next [SPEAKER_00]: immigrant class that comes in and does the crap that people don't want to do. [SPEAKER_00]: And it has the effect of getting the work done, keeping the cost relatively low, but also assimilating people into our culture that bolster our culture specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the type of food we eat or any of that stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: We all love that stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: But the type of culture that says you're an individual and you're responsible for your behavior. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you behave in this certain way, you've got the best chance to succeed in this country versus anywhere else. [SPEAKER_00]: and the more of the types of immigration we get, the less of the bad types we get. [SPEAKER_00]: That's how it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: So these are good people. [SPEAKER_01]: This is good immigration policy. [SPEAKER_01]: All I'm asking for is let's allow these Ukrainians to stay. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's start processing their requests for extensions or whatever status they want to be able to stay. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you believe in that message, I would just ask that you reach out to your Senator and Congressman, just let them know.
[SPEAKER_01]: to take a group of immigrants or ones that we would like America to do the right thing by. [SPEAKER_01]: My group again is Carolinas for Ukraine. [SPEAKER_01]: We're a local group for the other thing I would say is if you have immigrants, people like the Ukrainians coming into your community and you feel like they're in a better way that you could assimilate them into the community feel free to reach out to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'd be free to chair all of the learnings that we've had. [SPEAKER_01]: The process as you mentioned Dan, like, you know, if you want to bring someone over, if they turn the program back on, you know, if you want to bring some Ukrainians in your community, we'll walk you through that. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, because this is this is good for America. [SPEAKER_01]: This is like the right thing for us to do, and I don't think it's real hard. [SPEAKER_00]: No, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the program at the government level is you for you. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're going to reach out and talk about that. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're going to, I would recommend [SPEAKER_00]: making the point to your elected official that we want the right kind of people coming here, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We want people to share our cultural values that are hard workers because that's what we do. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really that simple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for coming on today. [SPEAKER_00]: Tell everybody where they can find you and your organization, everything if they want to get involved in this stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've got a Facebook site, Carolina's for Ukraine. [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, please feel free to go take a look there. [SPEAKER_01]: You'll kind of see, again, what program we've done for our particular community.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we really focused on kind of rural communities that need growth, need population. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, Dan, as you mentioned, there's employers out there that are looking for people who want to work in factories. [SPEAKER_01]: Farmers are always looking for good people out there, especially ones that are mechanics and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, I'll just re-emphasize if this resonated with you, reach out to your congressman, reach out to your senators, and let them know that you want the Ukrainians to have the option to stay at least a little bit longer until we figure out what's going to happen in Ukraine down the road. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks for coming on today and sharing the message. [SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you, Dan. [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a real pleasure. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir. [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you all for listening.