Bedford Forrest Medals of Honor

[00:00:00] Speaker A: No president has the right to use the uniform military in a way that violates the U.S. constitution. Our founders designed the system so that, you know, we had posse comitatus that we weren't going to use active duty military inside the United States and make American citizens potentially scared of their own military. We went through our own experience with that with the British. As the Secretary of Defense, you will be the one man standing in the breach should President Trump give an illegal order. Do you agree that there are some orders that can be given by the commander in chief that would violate the U.S. constitution? [00:00:36] Speaker B: Senator, thank you for your service, but. [00:00:38] Speaker C: I reject the premise that President Trump. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Is going to be giving illegal orders. [00:00:42] Speaker A: No, I'm not saying he will, but do you believe there is such a thing as an illegal order? Is there anything that a commander in chief could ask you to do with the uniform military that would be in violation of the US Constitution? [00:00:53] Speaker B: Senate, Anybody of any party could give. [00:00:56] Speaker C: An order that is against the Constitution or against the law. [00:00:59] Speaker A: Right. So are you saying that you would stand in the breach and push back if you were given an illegal order? [00:01:04] Speaker B: I start by saying I reject the premise that President. I understand giving done your genders at all. [00:01:29] Speaker C: Welcome to outside issues with Audrey and Patrick. So, Audrey, you guys were like fast friends in rehab. [00:01:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:38] Speaker C: What was it like just to huddle there? [00:01:39] Speaker D: We had our family groups, and that was especially daunting for me because my mother can be my mother. I don't want to say too much on the air, but. [00:01:52] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's funny, I was going to say, so Rich, Richard's met your mom. So when you met her mom, were you like, oh, it all makes sense now. [00:01:59] Speaker B: You can see, like, the intensity. Our family members were upset and they had like, that gave them, like, a forum to air their grievances to a third party. And it was like, you're. We were in a room. It wasn't just me and Audrey. It was like we had, like, five other people there, too, with their family members. And so, like, I remember the first two weekends, my family members didn't even show up. I felt depressed because they wouldn't even come to family life. And then finally they came, but I was just like, okay. And I didn't know how it was going to go. But I remember your mom. She had an intense personality, to say the least. [00:02:37] Speaker D: Yes. And it's kind of the opposite. I. I suppose with, like, family showing up. My. She would. I mean, she would force my dad to go. I know. Because my dad only shows emotion When Michig Megan wins or loses, it was really nice having Richard and Richard's mom, who was so super sweet. She was such a. She's such a sweet woman. I remember, like, talking to her and feeling supported, because I. I do remember this one comment that my mother made. She, like, I don't know, sometimes I get teared up thinking about it. But she said she made a comment of, I think my daughter is the only alcoholic in the whole South Bay. [00:03:24] Speaker C: That's the best joke I've heard all day, actually. I remember when I first started going to AA in the South Bay, and this was like, before I had really decided if I was for real about sobriety. But I went to a meeting at the South Bay Alano Club, and I'd never seen that building before. I'd never been to a meeting before. And there was like, a line outside the door, like, they're like, they were waiting to get into Star wars or something. And I was just like, wow, a lot of people will drink excessively, I guess, here, because, you know, it's. I can't find a seat. [00:03:56] Speaker D: Things like that, that were so heavy. Like, Richard was saying that brought us together and had, like, we had a bond, you know, And I think that. And Patrick, we've been talking about this, about keeping in touch with people from rehab and in treatment, and I'm really fortunate enough to keep in touch with a lot of folks that met, and Richard being one of them, like, being such a calm and sunshiny presence, honestly, in. In my life, and inspiring, of course. But of course, you know, we went through Thelma McMillan together, and it was hard, and it was difficult, and it was. It was hard to sort of recount what we had done in our addictions. Like, I had done some. Some things that my. My family doesn't know about, that not many people know about that. It's just, like, you know, horrendous. And I. And I had to, you know, tell my sponsor that eventually, but still, like, you know, I would go out all hours of the night, and my mom would be worried, and, you know, I would just say, fuck off. But the discussions did get really deep because, as we all know, like, family. I mean, addiction as a family disease. [00:05:19] Speaker B: I think she saw me raw, and I saw her raw. And we also saw each other's mothers and family members, and we saw, like, wow, how powerful our addiction had been to our families. Like, the ripple effect it had caused. [00:05:34] Speaker C: The amends I made to my mom at the beginning of my sobriety. That was probably Like, a rough draft. I need to go back and do a better job next time. Because as soon as I did it. I shouldn't say as soon, but, like, over the years, I'm just like, God, there's so much. There's so much that I haven't addressed yet that she probably needs to hear at some point. [00:05:53] Speaker B: Yeah, for me, it was 2015 was when I hit my bottom and engaged Thelma. But 2016, around that time, we were involved in Thelma together. I think we're at different phases of our recovery. Originally, I was kind of, like, there to save my job and save my ass, excuse my language. And then it took about, like, four months of being in the room where, like, a sharing. On Fridays, we had panelists of visitors that would come and share their stories and their testimonies, and some guy was, like, telling us about Hollywood and strip clubs and cocaine and all. And I swear, I don't understand. Like, we, me and him ran in the same circles, but I never. I didn't know who he was. I was like, how is it that we party together? And based on his story, though, it was the first time I started to accept the 12 steps. And I admitted, oh, my God, I'm an alcoholic, and I wasn't just there to save my job and save my behind. And at that moment is when I really, like, wholeheartedly was like, okay, we're gonna do this. And then that was. It took me 10 months to complete the program. I think Audrey might know this about me, but I had to. I almost got kicked out of the program because I started missing a lot of time because of my ptsd. And at the time, I was going to the hospital probably, like, four or five times a week to the ER thinking I was dying because I was having massive panic attacks. And it took him about six months to catch it. But I ultimately got diagnosed HIV positive. In my alcoholism, I was going to strip clubs and sleeping with strangers and partying, and I, in my lifestyle, had caught up to me. And I was. By the time they caught it, they had me in the icu. And I was grateful that they found out because I knew for six months something was wrong. My immune system was compromised. On top of ptsd, on top of alcoholism, on top of diabetes, I had, like, a list of ailments, and I was trying to, like, mentally, like, okay, I'm going to Thelma. I'm not drinking. I'm working out, taking vitamins. I'm doing all this stuff, and nothing. I just felt horrible. And then once they Found it. They put me on the right entry virals and antivirals, and it took a couple months for me to get undetectable. And it's almost like taking a multivitamin now. I take my meds, I listen to my doctors. I've even reversed my diabetes over the years. I don't have diabetes anymore. [00:08:25] Speaker C: You're like Benjamin Button. You just keep getting younger. [00:08:29] Speaker B: That's funny. I just told somebody today. They asked my age, and I was like, oh, I'm 47. And they're like, what? You don't look 47. I'm like, oh, thank you. But I have a 21 year old at Cal State Long beach right now. And so, yeah, people don't believe me when I tell them I have a 21 year old. Yeah. I had originally worked the 12 steps. I did it twice my first year. I did it wholeheartedly, but I felt like I rushed through some stuff. So then a year and a half later, I asked my sponsor if I can do it again. And then I kind of took my time the second time around. And there were things that I realized, oh, I still needed to make amends for and things I needed to work on. And then after that, after thauma, I left, and I stayed engaged with the Alano Club in Hermosa Beach. I led AA meeting for, like, five years. It was a Thursday meeting, the noontime meeting. And I sponsored people throughout the years. Knowledge is power. When I first got diagnosed with HIV in 2015, late, it was like December, November of 2015, I thought I was a dead man walking. I spent. The doctor was not kind at all. When he told me, he. He was like, real blunt. Hey, you messed up and time to pay the piper. And I'm just sitting there like, you just gave me the heaviest News. It's like 6pm The VA hospital is closing down, and I'm walking the hallway like a zombie, thinking, what do I do now? I remember calling my best friend and asking him to meet me at a restaurant in San Pedro so I can tell him, hey, bro, I got hiv. And. And for three months, I thought it was a death sentence. I was writing my will. I was making recordings for my daughter and my family. And, hey, I love you guys, and I'm sorry I let you guys down. And it wasn't until, like, one late night, I was laying in my room crying, and I saw this big old stack of pamphlets that the doctors had given me, the nurse practitioner. And I just decided to read it. And I started reading the literature, and I watched The Magic Johnson documentary on Netflix. And it tells you his story of how he got HIV and he got in mid-90s. [00:10:30] Speaker C: Yeah, him. Him coming out about it was a real tide shift in the culture. Yeah. [00:10:33] Speaker B: So I had watched the documentary and I broke down crying because he understood what I was going through. So in my own family, immediately I noticed, like, I would start. I would be at my mom and dad's house, and my nephews and nieces would be wanting to wrestle with me, and my sisters would, don't touch your uncle. We had ordered food, and there was probably like 20 of us around the table. Nieces, nephews, mom, dad, brothers, sisters. And we had ordered pumpkin pie. And there was a pie on my side of the table, and there was a pie on the other side of the table, and it got devoured. But the pie on my side of the table, nobody would touch it because that was my pie, because I had hiv. And if you touch my pie, you might get my hiv. I go back to the same. Knowledge is power. Ultimately, once I was educated and I learned about hiv, I realized diabetes was more deadly than hiv. All I got to do is do what the doctors say. Take my antiviral, monitor my load, my viral load, make sure. And for the last nine years, I've been. I almost. There's times where I forget that I have hiv. You know, I literally. It's like taking a vitamin every day, and I get checked out every three months and. But that was a big part of my story in recovery. I guess that's the one thing about my personality. It's like I'm an open book. I will tell you. Like, I. I've dealt with porn addiction. I've dealt with same sex attraction issues. I've dealt with diabetes. I dealt with suicidal, IDE radiation, All these things that, like, you can't really talk about Hispanic families. And so I had gotten to a point where I was so desperate for healing that I was willing to do anything. And part of that was being transparent. And most of it comes from childhood trauma and our exposure to, like, early sexuality at an early age. Later on, when I was doing emdr, I had repressed memories of being molested as a kid by a family member, by two family members. And I was like Jason Bourne. I didn't even remember it happening until I'm like 38 and I'm crying in my therapist doing after EMDR session as if it happened that day. But the difference was, I guess EMDR allowed me to process the memory in a healthy way to where I Was able to give myself the love and say, hey, that was not right what happened to you. I love you and we're going to get through this. You know, whereas before as a little boy, I just compartmentalized it and acted like it didn't happen. You know, like, I was the eldest son in a Hispanic family where we weren't allowed to show emotions. I was a soldier, I was a police officer. I was the eldest son. And we don't talk about our problems. My dad just passed away two and a half years ago and he was a meth addict. I was his caretaker, changing his diapers and shaving him and feeding him. Because of my own work I had done in thelma and the 12 steps, I was able to be of service and make amends with him. And it's humbling if you ever had to change a parent's diaper. Especially my father, who was like the strongest person I knew. And his last three years, he will. He had the mentality, he had Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson's and he had the mentality of a 12 year old kid. But I love taking care of him. He had. He liked his cream of Wheat a certain way and he liked his coffee a certain way. And, you know, he was just a scared little boy. All that machismo and ego was gone. And it was, you know, that's little. [00:13:47] Speaker C: You're never going to regret spending that time doing that. You know what I mean? Like, as challenging as it must have been at the time, like, yeah, that's the kind of thing where, you know, you really put in, put in the extra effort, you know, but one of the most important people in your life. [00:14:03] Speaker B: It was tough, you know, like, it was a family effort. We ended up building them ADU at my sister's house in Lakewood. And it was like handicap accessible. I had the walk in tub so we can give him baths. And we had to learn how to lift him because we were hurting our own backs. We had to buy him the recliner that extended him all the way up. And then in the end, even his, like medical, the podiatrist and the blood labs, everybody came to the house because over the every year he would lose more and more mobility. And so it was humbling, but it also was kind of like a reminder for my own walk, you know, when I decided to commit to like changing sobriety initially, eight and a half years and just changing like my behaviors and trying to learn about my egoic self and learn new positive behaviors. I did it because I had a daughter. At the time when I first engaged in sobriety, she was nine years old, and now she's 21 in college. And I wanted to be there for her, to walk down for her. For her. It was important to me to walk her down the aisle, and it's important for me to see her graduate college. My promise to her as a father was, you're not going to have college debt. I'm going to make sure your college is paid for, and I'm gonna give you $10,000 for your wedding. I can't pay for the full thing, but we'll. We'll try to make a beautiful ceremony when the time comes. I have money put aside for her. And that was, like, my promises I had made her. And I realized, like, if I kept living the lifestyle I was living, I wasn't going to make those dates, and it was just going to devastate her. And so, yeah, I mean, it allowed me sobriety, allowed me to be. I was at every lacrosse game, every soccer game, every. You know, I was the dad that went to the tournaments in Riverside and San Bernardino and all over. We were part of a Redondo lacrosse, and we were undefeated for four years, so we got to be on a championship team. I didn't know nothing about lacrosse because I was a hot ice hockey guy, so I kind of knew the rules, but it was a little different. But I loved it, being present, you know, in someone's life. [00:16:02] Speaker C: I don't know a lot about it either. It's the stick with the net at the end, right? [00:16:05] Speaker B: I just was yelling, like, I knew the rules, but in my head I was like, what. What's going on, Richard? [00:16:11] Speaker C: What do you say to newcomers that you meet who are trying to get their lives together? Like, what's, what's. What's the best from the hip? Like, Richard, advice for how to unfuck your life. [00:16:20] Speaker B: You know, I met two girls yesterday. I was doing Uber, and they were a paid ride going to. There's a house here, House of Hope in San Pedro. And it's a like, similar to Thelma, but it's a stay impatient, like, recovery. And I. They started talking to me, and I shared my. My story and testimony with them. And they were like, oh, my God, like, you went to Thelma, and one girl had like eight days, and the other girl had a 30. And you could tell they were brand new into sobriety and stuff. And I kind of the same very question you asked me, I just told them, you know, a lot of stuff that's going to be introduced to you is going to be alien. It's going to be new. You never heard of Check the Facts. You never heard of Dialectical Thinking. You never heard of. Of, you know, all these acronyms and all these different new ways of. Of kind of dealing with life. I said, just go into it with the attitude of willingness. We have to really learn how to relive life all over again. Because my life was based on alcohol. Everything was Taco Tuesdays and tailgating and Laker games and Dodger games and, you know, playoffs and this and that. There was always a reason to drink. And when I sobered up, I became the Black Sheep. I didn't get invited to too many parties or no barbecues. Even to this day, I still get a little hurt. I started to wear that title of Black Sheep. Instead of seeing it as a curse, I started to wear it as no, I owned it. I am the Black Sheep. This is my path because it aligns with my. My values. Like, I didn't even know who I was. They asked me the first week in sobriety is, who is Richard Orozco without alcohol? And I was like, I don't know. I never met him. I've been drinking since I was 11 years old. [00:17:57] Speaker C: Wow. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Junior high in grade school. You know, I started so young, and when I took alcohol away, it was an alien world for me, for sure. I remember sitting in Thelma those first couple of weeks thinking, life is gonna suck now and you're never gonna have fun anymore. And that was the biggest lie. Me and my wife, our big thing, we like going to opera and different plays. I took her to Candlelight Theater recently in Orange county, and we. We've gone all of the Grand Canyon. We've gone to New Mexico, to the Caverns, Carlsbad Caverns. We've gone to Tulum, Hawaii. We want to go to Thailand. There's like, so many things we want to do in this world before, you know, we can't or lose the ability, you know, get too old or whatnot. [00:18:36] Speaker C: If that was true that the fun goes away, then nobody would sober up. [00:18:39] Speaker D: I think it's funny, Richard, that you're mentioning all of the. The acronyms and it's an alien world, because it sure is when you get into those modalities of healing, especially after you've been abusing substances for a while. And me as, like, you know, my journey, my sobriety journey led me to a lot of success as. And now I'm a clinical social worker. And I remember being in a sober living that's now shut down in Redondo Beach. And I'm sitting there on the couch by myself and I'm like, you know what? I want to become a social worker. And the next day I went to Cal State LA to like get some information, just go get some admissions information. They connected with some volunteer groups. I ended up working at one and then lo and behold, I went to UCLA to get my master's of social work. By then I had, what was it, I think about four years. And I just was so proud that I was able to achieve this because I got, I really, because I got sober. Because otherwise, honestly, I'd be dead. Richard, I, I'm glad you mentioned that you just got diagnosed with borderline personality disorder because it's something that's commonly diagnosed with and associated with substance use. It's such a heavy diagnosis and I, I work with folks who have it. I, I believe that I had it for a little bit as well, but then I got reassessed and it, I didn't have it. I actually have, like we've talked about on the show, I have bipolar one, learning how to do that mindfulness and that non judgmental thinking, ways to self soothe and ways to talk to others and in the ways we couldn't talk to them before because if we're drunk, we're high, we can't use those DBT tools to have interpersonal conversations, interpersonal effectiveness. We can't do that at all. We just start talking and screaming or. [00:20:53] Speaker B: Whatever as we share our, our stories right now. Like you realize in aaa, you realize really only alcoholics understood alcoholism. The families can all the judgments they want because of emotions, you know, whatever. But unless they walk that road of alcoholism and addiction, I think that's the one thing that allowed me to kind of forgive my dad. I was never addicted to meth. I think I dabbled with it at a party once or twice, but I never got to the point where he got to where he lost the childhood home, he lost his pension, he everything and his health and his very life. And I think I was able to give him grace because I realized I don't know what that type of addiction is like, whatever. However heavy life was for him, he chose to cope with numbing the pain with his, with meth, you know, and, and he paid the price for it. And I, I don't understand that. But like people in AA or even as a veteran, you don't understand the worst thing someone could tell me when I used to have panic attacks and I'm going to the ER was, just breathe. Like, oh, is it that simple? I just have to breathe? Huh? Is that it? And I'm just like, want to choke them. Like, shut up. Even my brother one time, he had called me, like, two years into my diagnosis, and he said, hey, you know, I want to go work out with you. He never works out with me, never wants to hang out, and all of a sudden, he wants to go to the beach and do my daily workouts that I do. Okay, come on through. So in the block, he starts to tell me all the things that him and the rest of the family are annoyed with me. You talk about HIV too much. You talk about, you know, basically, you're an embarrassment to the family. You need to stop talking about all this stuff and sharing your testimony and this and that. And I stop. And I said, well, how did you handle your HIV when you had it? And he froze. And he looked at me, and he was like, I never had hiv. I said, exactly. I go, I don't know the rule book. There's no rule book. I'm trying my best to keep my head above water. I apologize if it affects you guys and you're embarrassed by it, but I'm dealing with suicidal ideation. I'm doing dealing with nightmares and panic and anxiety attacks, and I can't afford to walk on eggshells for you. If you can't, I don't expect you to have my healing. If you don't understand it, then that's fine, but you need to get out of my way. [00:23:07] Speaker C: We were going to do an episode about women's rights and women's, you know, reproductive health and all the challenges and terrorisms of that that have come from just the first nine months of the Trump administration, what it's like to live in America right now as a woman. But then you texted me. Pete Hegseth had a meeting with the top military brass, and I think Trump spoke to them as well. And I always love when I get a text from you, Audrey, and I could just see how passionate you are about something. You know, just something really, like, sparked your attention. And so, yeah, like what. What. What went through your mind when that happened? And can you first of all, tell us what happened and then your reaction to it? And we can kind of bat that. [00:23:56] Speaker D: Around a little bit, essentially, if I'm not going off of any sort of, like, news stories or whatever. A few. Few days ago, Pete Hegseth, who is the director of the Department of War now, he decided to have a, like, a huge Meeting with all of like, very high ranking military personnel in which he gave some of this, like, pep talk, I guess, and let me actually pull it up because there are some choice lines that I remember that were just like, oh my gosh. [00:24:32] Speaker C: And I saw somebody comparing it to Ben Stiller's character in dodgeball. Do you remember that movie where he's like, he wants to be surrounded by like hot, strong dodgeball players. And it's kind of a similar dynamic with Trump and Hegseth. You know, it's, they want to get the woke out of the military and they want the military to be hot. [00:24:51] Speaker D: Yeah. He said, you know, the era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings. Leadership ends right now. And so I just, I, I remember hearing that and I'm just like, and I have a strong connection with veterans, like, you know, of course with people like Richard. And then we've done an episode on my, my, my close. My loved one, Adam, who passed away, who was a, he was a sailor and he was so committed to his country and he loved being in the Navy. And seeing that just made me think of him and made me think of all the folks who have signed up to, you know, put their lives on the line for our country and how dignified they are, how, how, how strong they are. And here we are having this weird ass pep talk by, by like a guy who, what did he used to do? He was like, he was a television host. [00:26:01] Speaker C: Yeah, he was in the National Guard and then he was. Yeah, he was a Fox News personality. Yeah. [00:26:07] Speaker D: Okay. So, yeah, he was in the National Guard and then he was a Fox. [00:26:10] Speaker C: News personality and full time, full time alcoholic and rapist. [00:26:15] Speaker D: It just stuck out to me. And his tone was so, like, how can you be talking to these high ranking military officials this way? Like, woke is over. No more beardos. Like, what, what is this? And so I just got so angry and I got so mad at, on the, on the behalf of like all of our service members and all of our veterans that could, that could see all of this disrespect. So that's when I texted you, Patrick. I'm like, did you see what Pete Hegseth said in that meeting, part of. [00:26:50] Speaker C: Trump's speech to those same troops? They're deploying soldiers to American cities to bolster ICE and their crackdown. And then they implied that they would be using US cities for training for troops. And anyway, yeah, I mean, I feel like there's this kind of all encompassing abuse and cheapening and disrespect of the function of military and those that are being handed the orders and then of course, whoever happens to be on the receiving end of the, the brutality meted out. So yeah, that, that's all this stuff is kind of in the soup of the many things that happened this week. We won't have time to get to all of them. But yeah. What's been going through your mind during all this, Richard? [00:27:43] Speaker B: You know, I saw the speech and as a soldier, it was an embarrassment. You know, these guys, I think Gavin Newsom has said it, has said it the best. They're projecting strength, but they're really like desperate to show how strong manly men they are. It's like, you can't tell me Trump is this war hero who, you know, I posted this funny meme on my Facebook. It's General McNugget and he has all these McDonald's whatever mocking him. But this is General Bone Spurs McNugget. You know, it's like you've never served. Nobody in your family has ever served. You've mocked disabled veterans, you've mocked gold star families. You've, you know, for you to get up there and say like they just, they speak. I think what's her name? Forgot her name. In the last administration, they called the term alternative truth. [00:28:36] Speaker C: You know, they, oh, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. [00:28:40] Speaker B: No, it was a blonde haired one that's married to the Democratic husband. [00:28:43] Speaker C: Oh, Kelly Conway. Kellyanne Conway. [00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah. She was on Fox News early in his first administration saying, oh, we have alternative facts. And I put the heck is alternative tax? So it aligns with your ideology. Like, okay. And it's just so to the point now where, you know, it's just ridiculous. You had a room full of hardened Purple Heart, four star generals, Rangers, Green Berets, guys that had bled and fought and been maimed for their country and are still of service, 30 plus years of their life. You know, and you can tell, like, honestly, I don't really think we needed to be outraged on what was heard and said because we already know the temperament and the character of these men. I like the fact that the entire room, even after Donald Trump almost begged them, you guys can clap for me if you want to or not. You know what I'm saying? They just stood there with stoic faces like, if that was a real commander in chief that was speaking on our values and was speaking from his heart, they would have no problem. But yes, sir, we're going into a tough, you know, next generation. We're on. We have all these global conflicts. But unfortunately we have the Donald Trump show and he really doesn't know how to govern. He thinks governing is, is the signing presidential orders. That's how he, you know, they used to cry foul if Obama or Biden declared a presidential order. Oh, that's not. You have to go through Congress and you have to go through this. And now that's all he does is governed by, by pen. And all it is, it's just they've literally crossed. It's scary because they've pushed our constitutional boundaries to the, you know, from the emoluments cause to. I mean, he's over getting golden cell phones and selling shoes and it's. There's no limit to, you know, what, what he's capable of doing. And I think this time around, the guardrails are off. Last time we had sound people, even though they were Republican, they still respected the rule of law. They still respected even Bill Barr to an extent. I didn't really guy but he still wouldn't go past a certain line. [00:30:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:48] Speaker B: You know, even was it Madsen and all his generals, the Joint Chiefs. Well, this time around he said, you know, we couldn't do what we wanted last night, so we're going to put our people in. We're going to fire everybody. I just read an article today. Two, One Air Force, the general, two of them basically retired out of nowhere because it's like in almost defiance of the administration. They don't want to be a part of it, so they're just giving up their careers. And these are two people that we are valued assets that we should have in our military. But they're walking away because they can't stand by this leader, you know. [00:31:27] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. The understanding of service members is that there's a separation of powers and that, you know, now that things are edging into. I shouldn't even say edging into galloping into this full autocratic, totalitarian kind of regime or that's certainly the way they want it. You know, when you gather all that military brass together, you know, they don't want to see guile the Fuhrer, they didn't sign up for that. But that's increasingly like what is being expected of them. Pam Bondi being the top cop in the US and then Pete Hegseth being the Secretary of Defense, like, what does that tell you? You know, they're just automatons. Their job is to implement Trump's will and to not ask questions and to not say no. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Well, I liked with recently, I think it was Senator Swalwell, the Democratic senator, when Jimmy Kimmel had gotten fired and they were threatening to revoke ABC's licenses, I think, is it the FCC? [00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah, the FCC. [00:32:31] Speaker B: So his director of the FCC was making threats to revoke licenses if they didn't do what they wanted them to do. And Falwell said in a hearing where they were discussing it, he said, I want you to save the paperwork because you're getting away with it now. And I think this is a message for all of the Trump administration. Save your documents and make sure you get a good lawyer, because there's going to come a reckoning. It might not come now. We might have to wait to endure this whole term, hopefully not, but we might have to wait to endure to undo the damage that he's done. But there's going to come a reckoning. And all you people, if you look at his first administration, how many of his, his people went to jail for him, There were a lot of convictions, a lot of people broke the law for him. He didn't get no repercussions. Teflon Don seems to get away with everything so far, but his people aren't, aren't Superman like him. They don't get the same benefits. So you, you think you're, you're following the Dear Leader now, but later on you're going to be crying with your lawyer saying, I didn't know. I, you know, a lot of people are going to, I didn't know or I know we told you, plain and simple, we told you this was illegal. And you said, nope. My president said, you know, and so I think there's going to be a lot of after the fact, you know, and even then, it's going to be hard to hold people accountable because they're going to say, oh, look at, they're using the, the presidency and the apparatus to go after their political enemies. You know, they're going to, it's going to be, they're going to try to use that as a defense. [00:34:02] Speaker C: But I have to say, I, you know, I'm feeling accumulative demoralization from just seeing them rack up success after success, success on their terms, success on no one else's terms. Organized resistance just hasn't emerged yet. And I think just like what really got my mental health kind of spiraling recently, this deployment, I guess we could call it a deployment, a Blackhawk helicopter in a Chicago apartment building. And they basically ice descended on this building and just rounded people up in the middle of the night. Children without their clothes on. Zip tied them, you know what I mean? No warrants. They've got this new thing now. You know, their Criteria for arrests, ICE's criteria for arrest is reasonable suspicion, you know, rather than probable cause. So. Yeah, and they're just. Yeah, it's like you said, Richard, they're just seeing how far they could go and get away with it. And I think just like watching this happen and just basically there's just no locks on the doors, and so they just keep going through door after door after door. And, you know, I. I feel like I'm hearing from too many friends that want to book it. They want to. That they're talking about, like, I. My sponsor got a job offer in India and he's talking about, like, wow, well, you know, I think I'm really going to take that job offer just to get out of the country, get my family out of the country for a couple years and wait for things to blow over. But I don't know about you guys. My fear is that I don't know what happens after this. I don't know that there is like a. I don't know that there is like a comfortable place to sit and a massage and a glass of lemonade. You know, at the end of the marathon. I feel demoralized, but I like to think that that's just a feeling. I'm not demoralized that, you know, we're meeting now, we're talking about it, there's lots more to do. I just don't know. I don't know where to get into the game exactly. But, you know, it feels. Feels bleak, though. It feels bleak. [00:36:12] Speaker D: I just have this heart for service members and having this clown tell them what to do and how to look and then making racist comments about, like, African American folks about beardos. And it's just. It made me so angry. And of course, you know, I. A lot of the times will equate politics with emotions. It's a good. It's a good thing to get my emotions out via talking about politics and writing about them. [00:36:46] Speaker B: When you guys reached out and were looking for veterans, I felt the same way. Like, I didn't have an outlet. Like, I. I vent to my wife, but a lot of times she doesn't want to. She very. She limits herself on exposure to news and politics. And so I get frustrated because I'm like, you can't keep your head in the sand. You know, we got to be aware. We gotta. You know, I ask myself every day, like, I'm a man of faith, even though I walked away from my religious organization two years ago. I still believe in, like a higher, whether you want to call it God or source or whatever. I still believe there's something greater than myself out there. And I, I tried to not let my own ego and my own fears. You know, you see all this, the Charlie Kirk shooting and these other shooting at the synagogue in. Where was it recently? This, the church shooting this last weekend. And it's just all these people at one point probably felt similar to how we're feeling, maybe on the other side of the spectrum, right, left, whatever. And they got overwhelmed and their brain or their thoughts said, this is a solution, this is, you know, let's go, you know, vent our concerns in this way. And so, like, I try to check myself when my thoughts. I, as a soldier, my wife makes fun of me. I have a solar powered jackery with panels in case we get emp'd. I have no radio. I have straws that I can drink filter filtration straws in case we have to. I'm thinking food, water and safety. I have a bladder that goes in my tub that will store 60 gallons of water. And my wife's like, why are you buying all this stuff? Why are you stocking up on canned goods? Because I don't know what's coming as I. And I was just thinking about this the other, like two days ago, I was meditating and you guys maybe can relate to this, but I have been in this frequency of fear since I was a little boy. In 2000s, they told me it was the Y2K that was going to get us in 2012. It was the Mayan calendar count. And then it was, you know, all these different things, CERN and all this stuff that was going to end the world. And now I'm sitting here watching AI3AI Atlas coming closer to our planet, not knowing what that's about. I'm watching the Russians and, and us talking about exchanging nuclear. Trump just said in that speech that he has a nuclear sub on Trump's Russia's border, which is the stupidest thing as a leader that you should be speaking about. Like, you literally are threatening another nuclear power in a bragging way. Like, nuclear weapons should not be used at all as a deterrent. It's always been a deterrent. And I'm sitting here waiting like, is it China? Is it civil war? Are we gonna lose democracy? Like, what emergency do I have to prepare for? And it sucks because I'm a veteran with ptsd and I'm like, I'm Always in the frequency of fear. And I. I start my day off when I do Uber. I listen to my positive affirmations. I try to do a gratitude, okay, I'm grateful for this, I'm grateful for that. And then I try to listen to a little bit of Eckhart Tolle. And it's so difficult because every time you turn on the news or every time, I think that's the one thing we got with Biden, the last four years was a reprieve from the daily onslaught of Trump's stupidity. [00:40:10] Speaker C: And I gotta say just a word on that. Yeah, it's different. You know, I didn't like Biden. I had a lot of resentment towards him for different things, but this is so far beyond the pale, just in its brutality. And it's, you know, the law, breaking corruption, you know, you name it. I hate to say it. It makes me appreciate what we had just a year ago, as awful as that could be in different capacities. [00:40:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:40:46] Speaker C: But there's just a lot. A lot of solution in what you're saying, Richard, and I really appreciate that because I think we, at the same time, we need to speak to kind of how bleak things are and just be cognizant of reality, but also to not let that drag us down into a despair where we're of no use to anybody else or ourselves. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:07] Speaker C: Both things. We can hold both at the same time. We can act in hope while recognizing how fucked everything really is. [00:41:16] Speaker B: I left my faith two years ago, but I remember the teachings of, like, turning the other cheek and loving on the meek. And there's times where I cry out to God. I'm like, God, the meek are getting crushed. Like, we are getting crushed down here. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with the show the West Wing. [00:41:33] Speaker D: Yeah, a client brought that up to me yesterday. [00:41:37] Speaker C: I was just in Morocco on a trip with my girlfriend, and I got a hammam, which is like a spa thing that they do there. And, yeah, there's a picture of Martin Sheen in the hammam when I go in. When I went in. So I'm just like, I'm getting a hammam at the same place Jed Bartlett once did. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Yeah, Jedediah Bartlett. [00:41:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:56] Speaker B: So for me, the West Wing was a lifesaver. I had two shows, the West Wing and NYPD Blue. Me and Sipowitz got through a lot of dark times together, and it was a story about redemption. He was an alcoholic, and he, you know, redeemed himself throughout the years and all this stuff And I never understood throughout the years why I was so attracted to, like, certain shows, but it was because of that, like, redemption story. And then even, like, West Wing, it took me out of my reality into a reality that I didn't know too much about politics and stuff like that. And there's an episode early on in the first season where it's this little. It has a little postmark. It says, let Bartlett be Bartlett. And they're running for presidency, and they're basically saying, let him be him, because natural Bartlett, that's who he is. He's a good leader. He's an honest man. And so you got to unleash him and not try to control him. And I remember having a dream recently where it said I had gone to sleep meditating with ketamine and crying and worried about the future. And then all of a sudden, I got this vision, or it was in my dream, said, let Trump be Trump. And I didn't understand it. And it was. I felt like later on, it was like the universe telling me, you know, you don't have to scream every time he does something outrageous. Pick and choose your battles. Don't let it overwhelm you. But also, he's gonna be his own demise. I don't need to sit there and tell anybody what a horrible person he is. The more he talks, let him. Let Trump be Trump. They're going to show their weakness. They're going to show you how absurd they are. They're going to show you the illegality of their behaviors. You know, and I think that's what's happening right now. We're looking at daily incidents that, like, you would Never imagine this 10 years ago in any presidency. You would never. The Republicans of old would never have enabled this guy. But they're getting to the point of desperation where I think in the midterms upcoming, they're going to get slaughtered. I think the House is going to come back under our control, and in that, we're going to be able to start impeachment, and we're going to be able to start inquiries into what's really going on. And he doesn't want that. Right now, he controls all three bodies, the judicious, the legislative and the executive. And they still can't get nothing done. They still function like it's, It's. It's like the Taj Mahal. He's literally running. You got given a country that we were, like, on the tail side of inflation, we were on the upswing, and everything got topsy turvy and he's. I don't really think he knows what he's doing. I think there's a bit of mental illness there. I've seen stories from other doctors around the world that have, like, kind of diagnosed him based on what they've seen. I've seen the bruise on his hands. That's blood circulation and stuff like that. There's some stuff going on that we don't know about. And it's. And then, even if he doesn't survive these four years, J.D. vance scares me, too. I'm kind of like, ugh, is he gonna be a puppet? Is he gonna. You know. I have no idea. [00:44:54] Speaker D: He's gonna force me to have five children. [00:44:56] Speaker C: I want you to have as many children as you want. [00:44:58] Speaker D: Exactly. So I can pass on the torch. Sam.