Episode 726: Pre-July 4th Free For All

ahead and head over and find the chat room. You can roll right in there if you have some observations you would like to show during the course of the show, are some questions that you wanted to throw Mark or my way, please do. This is a free for all format, so we have the things that we want to chat about today, but obviously if there's something that's tickling your rib you would like for us to chat about, that's the perfect place to do it. And as always, I'll

just put the altocol out there. If you are with us Live and you aren't already subscribed to the podcast, you can head over to iTunes, Spotify, Spreaker, wherever you get your podcasts, find us subscribe that way, we will be waiting for you can't beat the price. And on that note, Mark, Hey, happy Sunday to you.

log on like ten seconds before the those starts, even when we have a guest and you had a little trouble having to do a Chrome update, shaking a chicken, make a sacrifice the ball, and everything else, but you did get your computer up and running in time for us to do a little bit of appreciative Yeah.

post an x what do you call him tweet? I don't know what to call him now, tweet tweet, Yeah, by a guy by a guy who goes by the name of Infantry Dort and uh he he was, you know, talking about he didn't want to slide into Islamophobia, I don't think, but he talked about some culture shock issues facing our forces who were involved in Afghanistan Iraq, and uh, you know that that caused me to think about, Uh, Samuel Huntington's the clash of civilizations, which has been critiqued

by a number of people has not been exactly right, but a lot of other people are looking at and gone, yeah,

we see these these new boundaries. With the end of the Cold War, the nation state and the and the advance of globalization, the nate state, nation state becomes less important, and then people are falling where their countries, you know, I have have have kind of gone by the wayside or are not as important to them as there as other things that a lot of times, religion and some of the other aspects of life have taken over their

their center spot in their lives. So, you know, it's a pretty He makes a pretty good point somewhere along the way that that he's unaware of people. You know, you could be a French Canadian, you can be a a Algerian French person, but he's never heard of anybody being a half half Catholic, half Muslim. And you know, there there are certain cultural things and we're seeing a lot of this stuff come out coming into play these days.

But the Glastonbury event, a lot of other places where we're seeing people who are not assimilating into the culture of the of the nations they're currently living in, but are hanging on to their their center, which is, you know, their religion, not necessarily their race, not anything else or where they came from, but the religion that they that they belong to.

I'll just use as a data point the Irish and the Italians, because those big waves are you know, those people that were third or fourth generation in But when those individuals showed up in the first generation and the second generation, one thing that characterized them more than anything else were how much they loved this country and why

they came to this country. Especially on the Union side and World War Two, you had a lot of Irish that had barely been off the boat and they filled out some civil War autist, I'm sure will correct me, but it was a couple of regiments of Irish that fought on the Union. There's actually some smaller units around Charleston area mostly that fought for the Confederacy as well.

Very patriotic, very self sacrificing for their country. The big wave of of Italians, it came over here in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, especially right after World War One. We had no shortage of Italian translators. During World War Two, they were great Americans. You look at even the way they were treated after December seventh of forty one. Japanese Americans, a lot of them at

that point were second generation. Even though they were put in camps, they enlisted in tremendous numbers and produced the most decorated unit in the US Army in World War Two, or one of the Japanese Americans units. So you have that data point. And the Japanese came here that was mostly Buddhist culture, though a lot of them became Christians when they came over here. And of course you had a lot of the Christians from Nagasaki who came over as well. But that is a different flavor of people

that have come here. And I'll use one example that covers two different parts of the country and I'll name names because she's been out there and been quite advocate advocating her position. You look at Representative il Han Omar, and there's also I can't recall her name off the top of my head, but she's a state representative for

Maine from around Lewiston. They're both from Somalia. And when you look at ill hand Omar specifically, her father was a colonel in the communist government of Somalia that got overthrown in a revolution, was in a refugee camp, came to the US, I'm believe when she was nine years old, and she got elected to Congress, and she's got a lot of her family over here in the best country in the world, and yet you will find somebody who at every turn has the worst things to say about

her adopted nation that she represents in one of our highest bodies an official can be elected to. And very similar that's been echoed in Maine with that Somali community that.

things in the world. Though I don't think it bites as much as it used to. But we need to look clearly at it because it's a different challenge when you have people immigrate to this country who do not want to not only don't want to assimilate, but are actively hostile to it. And it's founding neath us.

I mean, it's although sometimes hard to tell the difference, but you know, what he reports is not much different than what I saw when I lived in an Islamic country back in the late nineteen sixties. So some of the the activities are apparently timeless. Uh And and if you have any doubt, you could watch lorens of Arabia

and see some of those activities continued there too. I mean, it is is the question really is, is there is it possible for people who are so wrapped up in their culture to assimilate or even want to assimilate into a culture they view as being totally counter to their belief systems, And it is, you know, I find that I don't I don't know. I'm not proposing that we we intern anybody and and do all the stuff we did to the Italians and and the Japanese in World

War two. I'm just curious as to where we're going to go with this and how how long you know, the classic line from Abraham Lincoln, you know, kind of country divided against itself survive and how you know? Right now, it's a fairly small group of people, but there are also a lot of We've seen a lot more return to religious religious behavior. Secularization seems to be kind of fading. We're getting more young people involved in religion, in Christianity

and other religions. A lot of people are seeking something to give them a basis because the society as a whole seems to be a little bit of drift right now, as whereas the shared values we had if we you know, sixty eighty years ago, you know there was some we've been all unite against the communist menace. We could well not all of us. Some of us just became elected representatives and centator from New Hampshire where he's from Vermont anyway, So you know, it's a question, and I think that

is a national security issue. You can you have people who were in this country who are acting against the best interests of of the society they live in.

had a German last name or Scottish last name. They just their redneck accent was worse than mind. Their families had been for so long, and there was very little cultural difference, no more than there is between somebody at English Extraction and somebody of Irish Extraction or the Italian American Club on the other side of town. So there wasn't much problem there. But you look at places like Dearborn.

Now are some of the other places where you now have people who come over there are still wearing the outfits they wore in Pakistan or you see in the fundamentalist neighborhoods in Damascus. That's that's not assimilating, and that is dangerous. So I think it dovetails with another trend going back to Glastonbury is I think I mentioned it here before, but I've written about it a few times. I know part of it was the way I was raised.

Anti Semitism and jew hate was foreign to me because I just had so many Jewish people I grew up with here, no different than Methodists. I did not think that we would have seen in our nation the level of red and tooth and clawed jew hate that we've seen in the last two years. And it's not realized, not just here but another places. And you saw this as a young adult. I was either still in diapers or running around in early grade school. But you go

back to the Summer of Love. You look back at a lot of the anti war protests against Vietnam, and after that you had the anti nuclear Saint Freeze of the late seventies and the nineteen eighties, and you've got had green peace, the environmental movement. Yeah, they had some fellow travelers on the edge, Students for a Democratic Society, the IRA, various People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine

National Command. You know, they were on the fringes. They weren't in the center and their call for violence and killing or on the fringes at the center of it.

It was a relatively peaceful movement. But that's not true where you have a very popular group of singers at a music festival that are calling for the murder of members of parliament that they disagree with them politically, and they call for death to the IDF because it rhymes. But we all know that they're more than just the idea.

If they're interested in and they get away with it, it's a different vibe that I don't see what type of positive direction that goes to if there isn't an honest conversation about that type of violence that is coming from that particular part of the political spectrum. Those folks have got to police themselves, but we've got to police them as well. It's just it, it spirals in a direction nobody wants to go to if you allow that type of stuff to go without being challenged.

opinions and to be able to talk about them. But the other side of it is the minute you take on some of these issues, then you can be accused of all kinds of of anti you know, you're you're anti Islamic, you're anti whatever, and it is it is

uh where where you know where? Why can you not have a conversation about this that doesn't end up in being resulting in it in a death threat or you know we're going to I mean, it has just gotten to the point where the people who need to stand up and say this, this is not right, what you're what you know, are not being there. They're being accused of being a phobic of whatever thing that you're standing

up against, and that that is a problem. I mean that happened a lot when when just take an example of parents who were complaining about the some of the materials their kids were being exposed to at school. You know,

that should have been a nice topic for debate. Why you know, why the kids should see it when a kid shouldn't see it, But it got to immediately got to these parents are you know, accused of all kinds of a criminal activity necessarily but opinion, you know, bad think if you will, from nineteen eighty four, so wrong think,

and it's that that cannot stand in this country. We you know, we need to defend the right for people to be say what they want and to be right or wrong and be judged on the merits of what they say, rather than just attacking them blindly and incorrect.

is an art. Writing is also an art. And if you write and tell people go out and kill MPs, and you're in a society where other people have been jailed who simply write something even more benign than that, you are throwing kindling on a fire. And we have similar challenges over here where you have to have equality before the law and either you cannot incite violence or

you can incite violence. You can't have a situation where one side of the political spectrum, or one side on a socio cultural political view is allowed to do whatever they want, but on the other side disagrees in any way, then the full power of the law is going to come down on these people. That is not only contrary to a free society, it is throwing kindling on a fire because that pressure will build up in a society.

Societies will take it, there's others won't. And it's something that you're seeing in spades in the UK, and you're seeing it a little bit here though. I think it's gotten a little bit better now because there's a Department Adjustice that's kind of let what had been abused previously. Go And again I'm trying really hard not to be political, but freedom speech should not be a political issue. That

should be bipartisan. You can say somebody is rude, that was a little uncalled for, or I think that's a bad faith argument. I think that's fine. But saying you've said this, I disagree with it. So I'm going to destroy your family, your name, your business, and I'm going to dox your house. Those swat agents come over your house at two o'clock in the morning and shoot your dog that barks at him as a kick in the door.

That's a totally different matter. And I think the director of the FBI, Cash Bettel, I think three or four

weeks ago his house was his house was docked. And there have been other people who are living remotely from their families. So it's we're reaching that stage with violence. And I wish everybody from the right, the left, in the center has a level of intolerance towards calls for violence, because we should. We should encourage and allow everybody to have the US debate. You can call people's ideas stupid, wrongheaded, et cetera, and so forth, but what we can't do

is say will you use the wrong pronoun. That's the violence is the same as somebody is saying go out and kill your member of parliament or some other political person because you disagree with them on a policy issue. That uh, that's a different, different kettle fish altogether. And unfortunately, and I hope that this will change, I have not seen a full spectrum response to people in society saying we will not accept that, just the opposite, and it's said.

to people saying this isn't right. You've got to enforce the the the law, which is that they you know, it is discrimination not to let your Jewish students participate in the in the benefits of the university. And where you know, when did the university has become places where it's not just that you're you're you made a bad argument. You know, if you disagree with someone, then you're evil and and and they don't you know that if you're evil,

it's it's that justifies all their actions against you. And that, you know, that is a deeply troubling, uh part of our current society where people won't listen anymore, there is no debate. You're you know, it's a it's become black and white. You know, if you don't agree with me on this, I will no longer communicate with you. And because you're evil, and that that is that is a very sad thing to have happen.

a witch. If she sinks, she's been embraced by the by the water and she's not a witch. Either way, she dies. But in more recent history, Uh, one thing I forced my kids to watch is and I think it's one of the best films ever made is The Killing Fields about what happened at Cambodia, and they're the

plenty of stuff. There's not really an equivalent that I can think of, except for maybe the opening episode of I think it's on Netflix three Body Problem that went through the cultural what happened during the Cultural Revolution in China, where this logically leads. When you have a culture of denouncing people in that type of political environment, it doesn't have a good history. And again it's everybody should call it out red life. I don't like when people do

it from the right. I don't like when people do it to the left, because it has a history, it has a track record, and it's something everybody should be conscious of. And it is national security related because when that feeds people to pick up a gun and shoot at members of Congress who are playing baseball, are a presidential candidate who's making a speech or tries to ambush them,

or leaves pipe bombs lying around. There's a connection. You call for violence clear enough, or if you do not hold people accountable properly who are planning or supporting violence, then you're going to get more of it. And I was born years after it took place, but the last time we had a major political assassination in this country

it still resonates. That of course, was Kennedy's. You don't want that in a society like ours, especially if it is easily assigned to a group of people who, eitherby political standing, ethnicity, race, or anything else type of advocates a crazy person. People can deal with, because mental stability has no flavor. But when it's done under a banner of some sectarian organization or cause that has been encouraged by people who are charted with being responsible, Uh, then

it definitely is a national security issue. And I'm glad we talked about it.

sent troops down there. I mean, that's the whole reason the pass Poss Comitantis Act got passed by Congress was to stop the federal government coming in and assuming the the law enforcement role because the Southern states didn't necessarily like it. Well you know that, but a lot of groups, I mean, the Mormons, they got discriminated against. They when they their people were murdered, their temple was burned in

uh in Navu, Illinois. I mean, you could go through a litany of almost every group in the country and religious and otherwise that has been discriminated against. And that's

why we have all these laws that forbid it. But you know, if you're not enforcing the laws, if you're allowing these activities to to prosper, then you are you are We're going back to those uncivilized times where certain groups who had strongly held UH beliefs that were you know, illegal, because that you can't discriminate on the basis of various things, then that is that is that is contrary to the

American way. What we'd like to think of as the American way when we've certainly had you know, discrimination against this. We talked about the Italians, the Irish, the the you know, the Hispanics, the America can Indians or Native Americans, the I mean, you know, it is it is something we have to strive to keep overcoming. And and it's the to to foster the kind of resemblance that leads to

violence is simply wrong.

old as human history. We could literally entire library shelves are full of examples of that. It's it's in the dark part of every human heart to join in a crowd like that, but it's it's to be called out avoided. I think in our nation too, it's problematic because we are as our founders said, we're an experiment, and self government can a polyglot republic polyglot as defined throughout human history.

It does not share a race, creed, color with everybody else can be united under a certain idea and a concept of ambition, checking ambition, representative government, appeals, justice, all those things that people used to be taught in civic class.

That would be nice if they brought that back so people don' understand what's going on when you have people who, whether they are the KKK or ibermex KINDI are the no nothings or anything that when they take a wedge and they try to find a crack, because there's always going to be cracks, and they pound and pound and open up that wedge, I think it's incumbent on the rest of civil society, which we saw to our great credit in the nineteen sixties and in the Civil rights era.

Did other people's society come in and say, no, it's like, we're going to spot, well the cracks, we're going to heal the crap cracks, We're going to pull it back together, and we're going to make this strong and together again. I think that's kind of the point that we're at right now. We need to have civil society to come in and call these people out and to try to pull folks together, as opposed to going, yeah, let's throw some more wedges in there, and if we have a

problem with people who are here. This is where I had a little back and forth with a few folks about deporting. I don't know, we want to go to the step that we did one hundred years ago, like we did with Emma Goldberg and some of the more ridiculous anarchists about denaturalizing people. But people are guests in this country, whether they're on a student visa or they're on a visiting visa, tourist visa, whatever they're calling it,

at HR work visa, whatever. You and I, as citizens of the US, you know it's our birthright to be difficult with each other. That's fine. So if you're a guest in this country, are to no obligation to let you create discord in our street. If you want to create discord in a society, go back to the one

that your passport belongs to. So that's one thing that the Secretary Rubo I think, has been very strong about and I support is a lot of these people who are promoting division and are on the edge of civil disobedience and violence, they're not holding a US passport. They can go home and they can do that where they're from. That's the type of steps you have to make the point point. If you don't stop a line and make

an example, it's only going to get worse. And it'll be interesting to see how much longer this path will go. But if we want to halt the advancing tide of whether it's people calling for violence in the street over things that are happening overseas, are people accepting the fact that we have people whose loyalty is not here in the US, you're just going to get more. You get more of what you encourage, you get less of what

you discourage. And I think we can do that inside the lifelines of the liberty and freedom that we as citizens have as a nature having a US passport. But if you have a passport from country X, and you're over here talking about my neighbor to my left or my right, whether or not I agree with them, and you're trying to promote people to create negative outcomes for them, now you can take the first plane back. I will not shed a tear for you are people in your family, we don't need you here.

group that we don't like. But it is, uh, it is a question of having the groups conform to a certain expected standard, that that this country requires to to be able to function properly, and that that that standard is. I mean, maybe it's civil discourse. Maybe it's if you're going to engage in civil disobedience as the as certainly a lot of people in the sixties did with the with the during the civil rights movement. You know, that's fine,

that is that you're certainly entitled to that. But that was, as you may remember, you might have been I don't know two or three, Uh, you know, that was non violent and that's what made that really helped make the point when when the the TV in those days covered the like the march in Selma, Alabama, or some of the other activities that went on, you know, the violence that was that was being inflicted on these on these marchers and and people who were not engaged in the

activity which was violent enough to have anything happened to him. That that really helped change a lot of minds about about what civil rights meant in this country and what it would how how things should work, rather than how

they were working. And I think that kind of consciousness raising was important, is important, and uh, we're but we're seeing that as you said, you know, the human mind tends to revert to certain prejudices, and you know, so now we're but to encourage it at the especially at the university level. I'm appalled by the administration of those schools, who are you know, allowed the stuff to happen without

calling in the police. And because in the in the days when there was resistance to integration of the universities in the South the UH we certainly had National Guard, state Police, all kinds of folks coming in to help

enforce the the integration of those schools. Now, it may not have been pleasant for the for the first students who came into one of those one of those schools and faced all that prejudice, but you know, you you would not know what today, uh, that that that had been an issue, that it was as big as it was back in the sixties.

They have to know their history. When you look at how other nations have self corrected and then how our nation has self corrected, we've done so with less bloodshed outside of the US Civil War than almost anybody else has. Because you look at especially Martin Luther King's early marches. They were done and this is very smart on their part, but also I think it was legitimate. A lot of affection for their nation and what was the common rephrase,

you know, live up to its own ideals. That's very different than what we have seen in other places where it is we'll use the George Floyd riots in especially Minnesota, where these people consciously let the worst players burn their city down for mostly political reasons. And you can have civil protests without violence, which is why it's supposed to

be perfect example for those that aren't tracking. In the Free State of Florida, were setting up what we call the Alligator Alcatraz for illegal foreign nationals who are found in Florida waiting deportation, where out in the middle of the Everglades. They're going to be building a detention facility for five thousand people. And they had some protesters out there during the construction, and it's because things happen pretty

fast in Florida. It'll be built here by August. However, all the protesters were by the side of the road. They weren't blocking the road, because one in Florida, if you block a road, the police will grab a collar and pull you off. Plus the governor has come out and said that somebody is blocking your road and you perceive them to be a threat you can run through them.

So the protesters are doing peaceful protests by the side of the road, letting their opinion know, but they're not interfering with the lawful commerce of the state in the process, where as you see in other places where that is where these protests are taking place, and that's where you get with your reward. You get less of what you punish that peaceful protest. Redress agrievances. That's as important as

freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and everything else. But it needs to be done within those proper, proper guidelines and you'll get more of the right type of redress agrievances. Which if you don't think having five thousand people surrounded by alligators and pythons is what we should do with people in the nation illegally, then that gives you an opportunity to say you don't agree with it and maybe

come up with other options in the process. So we can have this radical thing called civil discourse as opposed to what we've seen in other places where cars are burned, people are run over, given wood shampoos all the nine yards. So by having the right contacts, the right structure, and the rights civil leadership, people can do their constitutional right to protest and redraft the agrievances. It can be done, but it has to be encouraged, so to speak.

Kennedy got shot, jfk got shot. Uh. You know, the history of of moving that process forward, it was not as gentle and genteel as we sometimes would like to think we got there. It was a hard grow The people who who brave that the threats, I think, uh deserve special recognition for the courage they showed and and the fortitude it took to to to move it forward.

It's it's a shame that they just might At the time, the the theory was they wanted to be treated just like everybody else, and that you know, how hard is that a concept? And having grown up in the as a military brat during that era. You know, we the military had been integrated a long time before the rest

of the country got there. And you know it, I never I never really thought about it because I you know, had we had a wide variety of people that we lived with, we we played with, we you know, coaches on your sports teams, the other kids on the teams. I mean, it was, it was, it was just the way it was. I was quite shocked when I first got back to States from being overseas that there were

still places. Of course it wasn't it was it was in the in the late sixties, but there were still a lot of and still is probably a lot of bigotry that is totally uncalled for.

trouble getting my head around five. We allow circumstances at arguably, though, I think this is going to change our best schools. We're talking about Cornell Harvard, Columbia, where our fellow citizens who just happen to be Jewish are prevented from walking

around campus, they have to hide their identity. They have their Hellll Center, and they're predominantly Jewish sororities, fraternities having rocks thrown at them, having protests outside that should not be happening and would not be tolerated if that was being done towards predominantly African American fraternities are cultural centers by the general student population and being permitted by administrators,

and it doesn't have to be I think. I don't think we've talked about it here, but I'm really proud

of the University of Florida. There are more Jewish students at the University of Florida than any other campus in the US, And right after the events of the seventh of October of twenty three, Chancellor former Senator Ben Sas made it very well known that whatever is happening in Columbia and elsewhere, it's not happening here in Gainesville, and that created a culture where people that wanted to protest

one side or the other could do it. But besides a couple of individual cases, there is no organized and systemic threat to anybody who just happened to be Jewish on that campus, and it isn't to this day when you talk to the people who are there. So again it goes back to leadership, expectations and enforcements. That creates an atmosphere where people can exercise right A without impinging on right B and definitely with out making people feel

like they're in physical danger. And that is something in twenty twenty five that more parts of our civil society need to hit the pause button and ask why we have allowed this to take place, and why are we giving a pass to people politicians in office and running for office who have been part of that. That is a conversation I want to see more of because I was told we weren't going to allow this to happen again in civil society, but we are. It just happens to be at somebody else's time.

just threats. I remember we at one time at in college, we were doing on our ow GC can remember it was a Memorial Day march or some it was something that we were marching through campus and a bunch of protesters that came up and tried to tried to interfere with that, and they were not they were not peaceful protesters. And one of our senior midshipmen at the time got bopped by one of them, and he countered and just

late laid this guy out. But I mean, the point is that a lot of these I wonder how many of these people, especially since when you see all these older people at these protests, various protests, uh, you know, how many of them are reliving as we've talked about before, we lived in their glory days when they were anti anti Vietnam War protesters and and and the kind of violence that that as you said, the the SDS there was, I mean, who were the ones who blew themselves up

in a basement in New York City? I can't remember who they were.

a armored car something to get money to fund some of their operations. I mean, that's just that's just thuggery.

country to go be the cell. I'm reminded that over in my hometown some of those imported guys tried to get involved in one of our protests, but the local sheriffs after day one and all these people disappeared because they're either in jail, the hospital, or they got they got out of town because they didn't want to wind up in the jail or the hospital. But yeah, that

that's that's part of the sixties. I think you're right that sometimes we forget that they the Summer of Love had some bookends on either end that we were quite bloody from a different direction, whether you're on the receiving end and the bull Connors fire hose, which is why, unlike Europe we don't use fire hoses for crowd control anymore, or on on the other end, you were a cop in a restaurant somewhere that got blown to bits by

a bomb placed by the SDS. So yeah, that that we haven't reached that level, thank goodness, and hopefully hopefully we won't, but we will see. I do think though, victories have a way of calming a lot of seas. And when you look on the national security front, where we've we've done what a lot of people said you couldn't do, which was to go in and punch our rent in the face real hard and go back without

leaving any boots on the ground. Israel has held create the conditions where Lebanon might be able to exert a little more influence over its southern part, where has Blah has been able to do as one to two for a long time, there might be an ability to moderate what's his name, Jo Nani Jolani, whoever's in charge of Syria now. Egypt is not having anything to do with Hamas and hasn't for a long time. Israel will find

some solution to Gaza at some way. I think we're about to see phase two of the Abraham A. Gord's breakout and one of the other things that have happened recently. We've got the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda has signed a treaty. There are millions of people have died there. So there's a chance where if you continue to have some successes, maybe that will not encourage people to be the water in which the bad players swim.

you know, the vital equipment we need. I hope that that comes to pass and that we're getting back on stable, stable ground.

every time we go out. That we don't do nine months eleven months deployments, we don't short cycle our DDGs, and we can concentrate on reconstituting and rebuilding to get rather for larger challenges as opposed to being held down by a thousand little putins pulling us down. One thing that I'm wondering about, though, is on the Navy side

of the house. We'll probably know more by the fall, but how we get ready for the Pacific fight if, as rumors are playing out, the FA xx is defunded, if we don't build the FFG sixty two, the Constellation class, if we're not going to do that, I don't know. I don't know how you build the navy that we need for the Pacific when we're canceling the programs that can maybe imperfect, but they need to be displacing water

and making shadows on the ramp. I don't know how you get from A to B. But you've heard me say before. You know we're predominantly a maritime and aerospace power. In the maritime, we keep slipping and falling down. I haven't really gotten our grip, but I'll tap a hat to our aerospace friends, the boys in Blue. They're having a pretty good year so far. Right out of the bat, they said we're going to build the F forty seven, which still cracks me up. There it the forty seven, but it is.

we do have some more coming online. That they've caught the moment right, and how we're postured right now to not be involved in all these little battles all over the place. The Air Force has been able to say, hey, here's what we're being, here's what we're doing in the new strategic environment. Help fund all of our stuff that

is going to enable that. Now I look over the Navy side of the house and uh, it's like looking at a VW this uh disassembled into his constituent parts that five or six mechanics are running around trying to put together all of a sudden. So I will I will tip my hat to the boys in blue that they've caught the moment right, I think, to to get the funding that they need for the programs that they believe is the best answer to the Pacific fight. So

you know, here's the you boys in blue. You better to be lucky than good.

they kind of stole the march on him. And here we are again. You know that the Navy's doing all this stuff and a lot of the the hard work and being there all the time. The Air Force flies in typical Air force, I mean my dad for the Air Force officer, typical Air Force. They fly in, they do their thing, and they go home. You know it's that when right now we've got what five destroyers out there on the med carry a couple of carriers. I mean, it's still you know, we had we're a presence that is.

I don't like the presence mission, but exactly what it is is a presence and that that is the job. And we need to have enough ships so that that job and people so that the job doesn't become harder than it has to be. And that's you know, that's where the Navy needs to to push for with these programs.

might cut you some slack. But since you can't even decide what you want on your ship while you're building it, that you know that that can't last.

name correctly. If not, somebody correct me in the uh in the in the chat room, who's due to be the next cn O. He's a submariner, and he's got a heck of a lot of experience of command at sea, and he hasn't been a professional staff weenie or anything like that.

And one thing about nukes and submariners, uh, they uh, they like their like facts and they like math, and they're they're able to look you straight in the eye about performance because there's a very little room for error. So I think it would be interesting to see what his priorities are and what type of moves we see. Again, we're not really going to see anything until the fall.

Goodness knows when the Senate is going to approve his nomination, and then it takes a few months before you actually start to seize the movement one way or another.

he's uh, you know, he's had Fleet Forces Command. He understands a lot of the issues.

wearing the Navy's little camouflage uniform one or another. I will give one thing that I've enjoyed because occasionally I make fashion comments because I like to be petty. I've gotten a kick out of Chairman of Joint Chiefs General Kine wearing his Air Force uniform because whereas the Navy's been bouncing around uniforms all day long, the Army's gone

back to World War two's pinks and greens. The the Air Force, blessed their heart, they have stuck with their old Cold War Air Force uniform that they've kept it so long as it's kind of making me think that like the Marine Corps, it's not archaic, it's kind of retro and self identifying. It's not look as it's an outdated fashion statement. It's just tradition. So you know, the Air Force probably is at the point now kind of

like the Marine Corps. They shouldn't change their uniforms now because it used to be the Air Force uniform just the blue version of the Army green one. Now it's kind of unique and it kind of looks professional, and maybe it has to do with the fact that he was in the civilian world for a while. But I've also noticed that General Caine, what do the Air Force call their equivalent of our service stress blue, their their

blue uniform with the tie that's been tailored. He did not buy that off the shelf, which are our senior any field grade officer or above, though I did it even as as a as a lieutenant. Get your unit if you have. If you can't wear stuff off the rack, that because very few people can go get them properly tailored to fit right. So there's the fashion observation of the day from.

to be proud of. There's always things that could be improved, and there have been times that we we could have done better at the time, but we didn't, but we self corrected. So be part of the self correction and not part of the destruction, and be proud of the those that help us improve through the generation. So there there's a there that's another reason why. I'm glad we covered the topic because July fourth is more about more than the hot dogs and warm beer.

have a great July fourth and a great Navy Day. Cheers.