Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 22 Jan 2025
Date: Jan 21, 2025
I slipped in the driveway and lost my keys in the snow. I’m your host Marty Smith and I’m joined by Mr. History Eric Perron. What’s up guys? Two inches of snow losing your keys is not a good time.
Man in the closet, Jake Wall. Good to see you guys. Eric, it doesn’t happen in Florida, does it? No.
You messed it up. He might get a little wet. Yeah, exactly.
Mildly moist keys. And our puzzles are on a Monday. We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates from Pernodal Guardians into the yard and mower branches as well.
So take the sheets, get them formed and have a laugh as we present the place for changeover. We’ve been doing this for long enough. You know that pause more than like a half second.
I know. I had some gunk and I was like, you’re fired tonight. You just keep interrupting people.
I wonder if I’m delayed. Well, educationally or like developmentally. You could be like an Elon man.
Elon’s on the spectrum. But look at him. He’s a billionaire.
So. And how he was saluting. That was the dumbest.
I think people who had to like Star Trek or something. Hey, we’re right, right. It was kind of, I mean, it was funny.
The people who are attacking it saying it was a see Kyle. And it was funny. The people who were defending it said he’s just enthusiastic.
I was like somewhere in the middle of that knucklehead out of control. He’s great. Well, now we have to see him on every news media every time because he wants to talk and answer questions.
And I’m like, dude, enough. Take a break. He got ready first.
When he would first like give interviews and people were like, what the hell is this guy talking about? I remember one of his first ones was when he was talking about what his kid was named. Yes. This kid have like a weird, like consonant driven name or something like that.
All I know him is this six, seven Baron. That was true. That kid is tall.
Tall kids. Dang, man. That was crazy.
So I appreciate it. Eric, we had to put her dog down Sunday. I’m sorry.
That was crushing. And I’m and what was hard was the vet came out to the house. So I didn’t want to take her because she’s pretty shaky anyway.
And I was like, she’s gonna be scared to death going into going to the veterinarian. So my wife found a place carrying pathways. They come out.
They send the vet out to your house. And the procedure was a lot less traumatic than I thought it was going to be. So they put him to sleep and then they administer the whatever the drugs are that stop her heart.
What was he diagnosed with? What was the problem? She had, well, she was 17 and she had arthritis in her hips so bad that sometimes we had to carry her up and down the stairs. She had stage three kidney disease. And so it was just it was just hard to see her compared to what she used to be.
So we made we made the choice. And then but the bad thing was like two days knowing that this was coming. That was horrible because it was like my wife made mention.
She didn’t mean to. She’s like this the last Friday night that Harley will ever be with us. Oh, I was like, oh, don’t last walk.
It’s like meal as I was like prepping for hospice care. You know what I mean? It’s terrible. Yeah, it was bad.
The actual procedure was pretty gentle and kind of relieving after that many days of dreading it. But yeah, it’s been hard. It’s been tough.
So thanks for thanks for commenting. Appreciate it. Thanks for you guys not looking at the post.
Appreciate it. So just like watching the episode. You don’t watch the episode.
Yeah. Failed again. There you go.
Do you feel guilty? Do you feel guilty? You feel guilty? Here we go. No, I don’t feel guilty. It’s been three years of Marty scolding me.
Oh, shit. Here’s some news articles. No, I don’t like them.
Here’s some history. No, I don’t like them. All right.
Fuck it. Now, let’s not paint an inaccurate. I’m just maybe in the fucking closet.
You maybe did that on episode five. And then that was the last of the effort. No.
All right. Fine. How about if I just read them and you guys react to me like, oh, yeah, that sounds great.
We like that. Two years later. Because we didn’t read them right.
We still read them. We still read them. Don’t rewrite that history.
Yeah. I have the old episodes. Yeah.
You should hear these guys read stories. And I was like, holy shit. I knew it.
I would just read it like twice and then just wing it. It would be story time with Jake. So on a here’s what happened on this day.
So he filled in a lot of the gaps with his own creative. It was multiple articles all woven together. The best point was when we decided that there’s no details in the history.
You can’t. Scratch. Scratch.
Don’t scratch. It’s a surface kind of a history. Nope.
But the surface. Well, I was going to start the, the podcast off with like the two explosions from last week. Right.
So space X blew up their Starship. And. Bezos.
Crashed the trying to recover the first stage. So wasn’t a banner day. It wasn’t banner week for liftoff.
But don’t worry. He lands right back at it. He’s lost.
Was Boeing involved at all? No. Surprisingly. We can.
We can just disregard the door hatches. Then we’re good. Yeah.
That’s fine. They might just give that up. They might just like, you know, that’s enough.
Let’s, let’s do something else. But this story came out of the blue, which is, which is some of the best karma you’ve ever seen. I think.
All right. It’s from air and space forces magazine. Former space officer tapped to be new air force undersecretary.
Great. Which is crazy. Now we got to look at that new uniform in a position of power.
No, he’s going to be the air force. He’s air force. He was a space officer.
God. He’s so negative. So he’s a like, but that is a valid comment.
Yes. Now or something like that. GSCS.
Yeah. I don’t know what he’s doing right now. And the article didn’t really describe it, but.
Did you get picked up? Oh, no. He didn’t get. Did he get picked up? No.
Hold on. Oh, I know. He got kicked out.
That’s what it’s going to talk about. So incoming president, Donald Trump announced January 17th. He will nominate former space force, Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Lomire to be the next undersecretary of the air force.
If confirmed, Lomire would serve as a number two civilian in the department of the air force and the deputy to Trump’s air force secretary pick Troy Mink. Have you ever heard of that guy? Mink. Mink is an air force veteran and former KC-135 Stratotanker navigator.
Previously served as a test engineer for the missile defense agency. And he currently serves as a principal direct deputy director for the NRO, the national reconnaissance office. Lomire came to public prominence in 2021 when he self published a book alleging that Marxist ideology had become widespread in the military.
In the book and a subsequent podcast appearance, he criticized the Pentagon’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and claimed conservative viewpoints were being silenced among senior leaders. He was the one with the podcast. Yeah.
Well, he went on a podcast. He went on a podcast promoting his book. Yeah.
Then Lieutenant General Stephen Whiting removed Lomire from his post as commander of 11th space warning squadron at Buckley. Over loss of confidence in his ability to lead. A spokesman said at the time that the decision was based on his podcast comments.
Whiting is now the four star commander of US space command, one of the military’s 11 combatant commands. Shortly after being fired, Lomire separated from the military since he briefly hosted his own podcast and became a regular guest on others, keeping up his criticism of the military’s leadership. Now he is poised to return to the Department of the Air Force and Trump suggested Lomire will reverse or eliminate many of the policies and programs he has criticized.
If both Mink and Lomire are confirmed, the Department of the Air Force’s top civilian leaders will each have deep backgrounds in space. While previous senior leaders have had experience in the domain, Mink and Lomire would be perhaps the most space knowledgeable combination ever. Yeah, sure they will.
What do you say it that way for? Because… Space knowledge. What? Should we bring a security force guy to be in charge of space? How about the commander relieving him of lack of confidence to lead? Well, this is the ironic part. That was based on his opinions.
Yeah, I mean it was during that… It wasn’t through his actions, I don’t believe. It sounds like he was through his own personal opinions. Now, there is… Should have been some performance, right? Two, performance.
No, it was solely based on that kind of stuff. From what we’ve heard and read, it was… Well, I understood. I know that.
What that’s teaching me is that you’re not allowed to have a political view in the military. Well, and you never really were. Which is true.
That’s right. Have you ever? Yeah, you never really were. But I think the sweet irony is… The guy… Whiting his fort to him.
The guy who fired him now has to report to him. And I was like, whoa. Oh, that’s a rough one.
That’s a rough one, right? So, you know, opinions are split. We saw the text from Juan and I get it. I mean, I always knew that you… I always grew up in the military that’s like, hey, you can’t go in uniform to a political rally.
You got to watch your speech because you represent the military. You can’t criticize your senior leaders. Yeah, yeah, you can’t do that.
And to be honest, Lomire did all that. Now, was his points valid? I think his points were very valid. But the way he did it, I don’t know if that was the best way.
But he was supposedly a rising star before that whole thing, from what I understand. That’s like a million at an NFL football game. Wrong platform.
Yeah, that’s not bad. Yeah, that’s pretty good. I mean, I understand your cause, but that’s… But you’re getting paid out there, baby.
That’s true. He’s probably happy he doesn’t have to wear that damn Space Force uniform. If he goes… That is a plus.
If that’s his one act, I’d be like, well done. Yes. Well done, sir.
Well done. Because I don’t care how well they tailor that thing. That is an ugly uniform.
Ugly. It looks heavy. It does.
It does look nice. And with the gray pants against the dark blue and the whole one swipe over with the diagonal buttons. Yeah, diagonal.
Oh, man. It’s just… I’m not a good uniform, man. I’m telling you.
Ugly, ugly uniform. And you go by and you look at the Marine Corps uniforms. Sharpest thing out there.
Unchanged. Unchanged, right. No need to, man.
It sets the example. The standard is there. That is just a badass uniform.
But imagine this. And this way I challenge you guys to bring back to the shelf. I was thinking… The uniforms that… Remember the BDUs? How many damn patches we had to sew on for the BDUs? Oh, yeah.
They don’t got to do any of that stuff. Remember when we had black leather boots to shine? They don’t have to do any of that stuff, right? That is nice. And so it’s like… If you took… If you revived like a World War I guy and you explained to him what uniforms are and what the military is, he’d be like, why does that woman have hair down her back? You could do that now.
Why does that guy have a beard? He was like, oh, you could do that. Tattoos. Oh, he would roll over in his grave.
Piercings. Just… Well, speaking of that… Piercings. I made… So you can have facial piercings now in the Space Force? No.
No. But I think they’ve increased the number in like your ears that you can have. Yeah, I think… I don’t know if they let the cartilage… And I think this… Can’t you have the stud if it’s… As long as it’s just a stud in the nose? I don’t know.
Can you do that now? I thought… What is this world coming to? Honey, you were in, right, when they changed the ponytail thing? Weren’t you? Yeah, and I was too scared to wear my ponytail down. Because you had 20-plus years of not being able to do it. I mean, that’s a great grain, right? You never wore it down? I never wore it down.
I always wore it in like a high ponytail thing. Yeah, yeah. But it was never like super down-down.
Wow. But since then, I have cut my hair. I noticed a little short since we met for lunch.
Do you like it? I cut mine too. I sat it out. The one that was right there, I cut it.
I did know that you shaved back down to the goatee. Beard was just too rough, man. Too rough.
Itchy. Yeah, I didn’t like it. Well, I was going to do my own transition about beards, because our next story is about beards.
And Marines. So, where’s Jake? Why does he do this? Why does he do this? He had to go poo-poo. All right.
Well, I guess so. I hope I hear… How did it come out? I muted the mic, even. I just got… I’m just getting over a sinus infection, so I keep coughing.
Oh, I did see you cough. And I needed warm water to figure out how to leave this. I can hear it, man.
Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. You still have a hot toddy, man. That’s what you said.
You’re still all in your head. I’m still here, though. You are good.
Like I was saying, this one is from stripes.com, and it’s going to be right up Eric’s alley. So, the Marines’ commandant rules out beards in the Corps. Period.
That’s it. That’s my man. I figured he’d be all excited about that.
See, looking back now, I’m like, I knew I should have been a Marine. I frickin’ should have been a Marine, man. Yeah, if you were that go-ho, why did you go Air Force? Yeah.
Well, because the Marines told me I couldn’t go as soon as I wanted to. So, you’re impatient, so you just went to the pussy bridge? I was impatient and joined the Air Force because the guy said I can get you in right away. And you say you may not have air conditioning for the rest of your career.
That’s true. There would have been things that I could have been shot or died or killed or something, I’m sure. Or ran many, many, many more miles than you ever ran in the Air Force.
You’d have to pull all night guard duty on a Humvee because you couldn’t lock it up. The Marines have safety in mind. We literally watched them do that in Osan.
We would leave our tents in Osan, and the Marines are sitting there, and they weren’t allowed to lean on the vehicle, sitting there watching the Humvee. I’m like, what are you guys doing? They’re like, we have to watch the vehicle, sir. I’m like, we’re not that deviant.
We’re not the Army. 90% of us don’t know how to drive a Humvee, let alone start it. But when you talk about a star… They get stolen in a uniform.
It’s the Marines, man, I’m telling you. Oh, yeah. I will tell you a Marine story.
When I was in Hawaii, and the artillery can only shoot the big charges by going over to the big island. Otherwise, you had to shoot your men charges and all that stuff on Oahu. So we would go over there for like a two-week training period, and we would barge all our equipment from Oahu to Hawaii.
Well, you get over there, and then everybody else flies over there. But your equipment… And that place rotates units. So units coming out, units coming in.
And for a couple days, you have everything parked in this communal motor pool, waiting for the barge out or offloaded for the barge in. So when we were leaving that training, we’re professional. So when we were leaving that training area, we had guards down there because Marines were coming in.
Yep, deviants. And one night, they came down. The Marines had already gone, right? And we were still waiting.
We went down there. 15 Humvee tires were changed out. Oh, geez.
These guys all night ripping off the army because they got no money for their equipment. That’s awesome. And our guys fell asleep, and they just worked all night taking as good of tires as they could get.
I was like, wow. That’s amazing. Just waited for a barge.
Those are the dudes, man. That is hilarious. You don’t put your top guy on vehicle guard at night.
Right. You put the 19-year-old who’s going to fall asleep. And sure as shit.
Looking back, I can say I’m certainly happy. I did join the Marines, but then if you didn’t know what you know now of what the past 22 years was, I would have been like, yeah, maybe I could have done that. A 22-year Marine, though, is very rare.
True. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
True. A lot of them are four and six and done. We’re done.
That’s it. And that 22-year-old Marine, or a 22-year career Marine, also probably has like three ex-wives because he’s given his whole life to the Corps. He’s gone all the time.
Right, right, right. He did his beard away. That’s right.
No beard. Nud. Yeah.
Eric, you need to bring it back. That’s what I said. He looks good in that suit.
Is it just here for the holidays or something? Come on. You know, it would grow, and it would grow different directions, and she doesn’t get the light down. I know you and I haven’t had hair in decades, but like you kind of brushed that hair.
I brushed it. I even used that frickin’ beard softener wax thing. Yeah, that doesn’t work.
That worked. Yeah. It just clogs everything up, and then the hair still go, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
That’s what mine did, man. All right, let’s get back to the story. So, stripes.com, Marines Commandant rules out beards in the Corps.
General Eric Smith, the Marine Commandant, said Marines are different even when it comes to beards. Smith told reporters last Wednesday that the service would not make any changes to his regulations that would allow Marines to grow beards. He said during a Defense Writers Group discussion, here you go, Eric, we’re Marines and we’re different.
We don’t have beards. The Marine Corps has a brand, and we’re making our recruiting mission. We always made our recruiting mission, and what we don’t want to do is tinker with the ethos of the Marine Corps.
I could help you. You just got to give me. You’re just gaining momentum when you’re reading this.
What’s wrong with Shane? Listen to this part. You joined us. We didn’t join you.
You knew that coming in. You signed up. We don’t have beards, and you knew that coming in.
It’s like, wow. I like it. I like it.
Some Marines can grow a beard through a waiver process for pseudofaliculitis barbae, which causes painful razor bumps and disproportionately affects black men. That’s a medical waiver, not a fashion waiver, as Smith said. It’s not a, well, I decided I wanted to waiver.
It’s like, damn. I like the way the man talks. All military services have faced growing legal and internal pressure to relax grooming standards as debates on social media and in various other forums highlight the struggle to balance tradition and uniformity with individual rights.
Military officials have argued facial hair could prevent a perfect seal of a gas mask. That’s really like the only, I mean, that’s the only practical reason they have for you. And they’re in the ground.
But it’s a pretty damn good reason. But nobody’s really using gas, right? Nobody’s doing anything. Well, you know, how ironic is it that when the special forces are in country, they grow beards to blend in.
Or I’m like, well, we did that. We did that one story a bit like everybody. It was, it wasn’t until World War I, they said, where there was proficient use of mustard gas and the gas mask.
But up until then, all soldiers had beards. Yeah. I mean, and it makes sense.
It’s like, hell, you’re out there. Last thing you want to do is shave. Right.
Oh, I’ve had to shave in crazy cold. Oh, that’s miserable. It’s absolutely miserable.
But the Marines can’t deal with diversity very well. Their mission alone, their doctor doesn’t allow diversity. You can’t be individuals, right? Yeah.
They want, they push diversity. Diversity and question everything. What you’re saying is different missions.
Different doctorate requires different. Well, you need people to do the mission. Yeah.
You can’t run Marine standards when you’re sitting there on a midship and in front of a console that doesn’t really translate too well. Even if you are wearing a beard. With security forces in the air force, there’s not too much diversity that is allowed in that core mission.
It is what it is. That’s right. I think Eric, you’re getting more and more radical.
The longer you’re out. Nice. I liked it.
I was wondering what the Marines would do if they had, if we had, if air force had the budget for chairs. There’s, and that was equivalent for the Marines. We would all have folding chairs on.
Oh yeah. Well, the whole time you’d have to bring in your pillow from home. It’s gonna be like chair pillow.
That chair pillow. That’s my chair pillow. There’d be a lot of.
I’ve got hemorrhoids. I’ve been sitting on this cold ass, hard back to your folding chair for months. I don’t want to hear about your hemorrhoids.
Get that soft ass pillow top. Go grab that. MRE box.
You can sit on that. Yeah, sit on that. Just sit on the part who would not approve.
Just would not have approved. No, that’s true. True.
But the Marines did just recently lose that case to the, the three Sikhs where they, you know, Sikhs went to court. They lost that. They lost.
That’s the, we’re in the turbine. Yeah. But they have the beards for the religious.
Yeah. So, uh, the Marines lost that case. So they had to let that go through.
So I guess I, you know, maybe that general is just taking the, the ups well in like pushing back on all this stuff. And it’s just like, nope, we’re not going to wear beards. I feel it.
And a pushback is different than. Oh yeah. Everybody’s growing beards.
We should have, we should be able to. Right. So the, they’re waiting for the air forces study on beards.
They’re also waiting for a Navy study on beards. So that’s what Congress is doing. So we’ll see.
We’ll see what they do. Uh, I, I tend to agree with the Marines, but at the same time, uh, I don’t know if that really extends out. Maybe the army, you know, Navy.
I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know if they needed a space. You know, my point is the tradition of 200 years of your military from, I don’t know when we started going clean face to look more professional.
But I think that period of time was a good thing. You looked, you looked professional, you were a professional soldier. And I think that was good.
Well, it’s also being part of a whole, uh, culture, uh, accepting into what that culture dictates. I agree. And that, and that’s also part of it too.
I think so. China and Russia are spending all this money on studies within the different branches. They can have beards or not.
It’s a simple note. Oh, and then we wonder. Can’t get pay raises.
Uh, well yeah, that’s true. What a brilliant segue into our next story. Thank you very much.
Puzzle princess. That’s perfect. Speaking of pay.
This next story is from military.com and it’ll boil your blood. Eric boil your blood. All right.
I study show that us military pay is generally competitive with the private sector. All right. Us service members earn more in money and benefits than most civilians and similar demographics.
The default defense department said this week following the release of a military pay review done every four years. No major changes in the military’s compensation system were called. For in Wednesday’s report officially titled the quadrennial review of military compensation.
A defense official told reporters Wednesday. Our retention is really high. So I’m where is this retention really high? Where did that come from? So I’m thinking that the longer members serve the more fully they understand the value of the total compensation package.
That’s what the official said. The assessment considered salaries and benefits such as housing and subsistence allowances. Junior enlisted troops.
Here’s the it’s hard to imagine how they do this. Junior enlisted troops fared especially well when compared with Americans of similar career experience and education levels ranking in the 93rd percentile. So are these the same guys that lived in quarters with mold and had the bad water and had the food stamps.
Yeah. That’s the ones we’re talking about. That’s the ones we’re talking about.
We’re on call 24 seven basically. And the ones we’re leaving at a moment. Yeah.
Right. And no child care in the middle of the night. And they bring that up to most.
You know what though this whole thing. This remember that annual review we had to like initial or we would get failed. Right.
Yeah. And they always were like notary public that you’ve got this service and it’s worth $50 a month. And I’m like what the hell is going on that I’ve never needed this service.
No. Other than when the military required me to do it. And then they’re like you.
You should. This is $50 a month. What kind of person out there is going through $50 a month and that’s notary public housing.
Notary shit. Like, have you guys ever spent $50 a year on notarys? I’ve spent $50 in 10 years on. My whole life on notaries.
And do you believe. A military member did this study. No, I think it’s, I think it’s a civilian people who did this study.
me suit, you know, with, with a very express, uh, direction given. So let’s count everything, right? Count every little benefit you can, because we have to make this sound like if you are 21 years old out in the civilian market, you would really not be doing that much better than you would in the military. That’s when the military guys probably were like, Oh, they’ve got a 24 seven cafe, and it’s free.
Oh, yeah. We can count a lot of money. Look at that.
You can go eat for free whenever you want. You have a chef. Have you seen the show home? Oh, you mean the one they took away at Buckley that they don’t have access to that.
They do provide clothing. That’s true. Look, how much would you honestly pay on a, how much would you honestly pay for if you had to buy it for an O P T uniform? Like this with a, whether you were extra small or extra large, it had an inch and a half in, didn’t matter what size, what’s the NC Marlin? Eight and a half.
What size is it? Extra small. And you can hear the whole group of people coming for fucking a hundred yards. You’re like, Oh, somebody’s running in PT gear.
Yeah. But you could get a voucher to go get your patches sewn on. I never did that because it took forever to go do it.
And you get your, your patches for free. One patch. Here’s one for you to form and one for your field jacket.
That’s all we got. And that’s worth $25. That’s worth $25, $25 to get it sewed on.
So even though they said junior enlisted, we’re in the 93rd percentile officers. Meanwhile, we’re in the 75th percentile for financial compensation. It’s that clothing piece.
You don’t get a clothing allowance. You get more B A H B A S yeah. Although DOD compensation is competitive with the civilian labor market.
Debatable. There are some areas for improvement. Another senior official, uh, senior defense official told reporters, the report looked at the effect of dual income households on military retention and how issues such as a permanent change of station, uh, move permanent change of station moves and childcare access factored into the life decisions of armed first horses personnel for military spouses with careers, frequent moves pose challenges to finding employment and advancing their own careers, the circumstances can be a cause for service members to end their military careers.
Yeah, we know that that’s, that’s been commonplace. Uh, offering greater access to childcare was one of the improvements. The report suggested that the Pentagon may, you mean like after the bankers’ hours, maybe extending out to seven or eight, you know, so you can get off and get your kid.
Yeah. Uh, childcare thing is a racket anyway. Oh, because if you were, when Chris and I were mill to mill, right? And we had two young kids because we were tech and a master, we were automatically at the highest end of the bracket.
We were, no, we were billed on both ranks plus added together. Oh, wow. Did not matter.
How did they justify that? Yeah, because that’s how they did it. We were literally at the highest pay bracket in there. We were the same as a fricking general or full bird.
Wow. I guess that would, would be like household income is what they’re looking at, but at the same time, but they don’t do that. If I’m married to a nurse, right? Yeah, that makes sense.
I could be a staff sergeant and they’ll be like staff sergeant paid done. Sure. Right.
Right. Right. I mean, if they were really trying to cut you a break, if you were mill to mill, bill the least amount they could, because that’s going to help you out, right? Or make the childcare center 24 seven.
That’s yeah, absolutely. Because that’s what everybody on midships and just wondering who’s going to watch my young kids like in the middle of the night. I’m like, are you kidding me? Especially on an air force base more than any other service, because they’re running shifts all the time.
And they push education so much for the enlisted that when you get your education after hours, there’s no childcare for you. You don’t have time. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I think this year study is bull might be bull. I mean, I don’t know how they word it though.
Yeah, that’s, that’s a thing. I think that it is very clever. Can’t you do that with any subject when we both talk to any young airmen or private? They’re going to tell you, you know, who knows? They probably factor in like, uh, I’m sure they like, Oh, you could get a VA loan, you know, look how much money you’re saving there.
That’s 20,000 throw that in the calculation pool, you know, um, the military needs to do a better job communicating with service members and recruits about compensation packages and benefits that often get overlooked, such as free dental and health care. The report said. That’s what it says.
Uh, defense official said they would begin implementing the reports, various recommendations as soon as possible. So, so for all of you worried that service members were not making enough, don’t worry. They’re doing just fine.
Just fine. So as Congress and the Senate continue to get free health care until they’re dead. Oh, come on, Eric.
Right. I mean, you, you pick your doctor, you get to keep him. It’s so fair.
It’s really fair. Uh, were you ever like, did you ever see the same doctor? Two years in a row, maybe. No.
Oh, no, no, no, no way. So it wouldn’t even be a year sometimes. Yeah, sometimes since I had joined the military all the way up to 2021, whenever COVID hit, I think it was 20, 21 20, 20.
Yeah. Anyways, one of those years, I went in because I wasn’t feeling good. And I thought I had COVID I walked out and they’re like, here’s some high blood pressure medication.
But I had always, he was like, if I can go back at least five years and read your charts that show that you’ve always had high blood. I was like, it’s always high. It’s always high.
Yeah. Like since I was 18, all the way until I was like 40 something, they’re like, Oh yeah, you need a high blood pressure medication. I’m like, it’s always like this.
It’s always like, that’s, that’s my assessment. So maybe your next doctor can, can make it. He’ll change his mind.
He’ll be like, what’s, what the last doctor, right? Oh, high blood pressure. Okay. We got that for you.
We can give you that. Maybe you’re just nervous at the doctor’s office. White coat syndrome.
Oh, could be. Maybe. All right.
Since Eric slacked on his history, I will do a mock history. I will do a mock history. History.
Here we go. Well, it’s not mock history. Like I’d make man’s got important T times.
He hasn’t even played golf. He hasn’t gone out today. I, I, I, I don’t have any excuse.
I’m sorry. Come on, Eric, I’m trying to help you out. I know.
I know. What is cold in Florida? Oh, this morning it was like 41. All right.
That’s cool. Damn. Where are you at Pan Am or Tampa or what? I’m right near Tampa, Mid Largo.
Yeah. That’s, that’s pretty cool. So we got a higher 55.
I did hear Houston got snow. Yeah. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
The lizard. I said on the show. The panhandle.
What’d you say about the today show? They had a girl from Houston. Making some angels. Oh, really? And he used my God.
All right. So let’s have enjoyed us. I’ve tried to strip this out to make it as clear as possible.
It probably won’t be, but it’s, it’s good. All right. So this is from military.com and it is about the cuckold flag, which is a real thing, the strange history of the world’s weirdest battle ensign.
So it says battle flags are usually designed to inspire a sense of pride and service to your patriotism for one’s country or loyalty to a celebrated hero. So you have to admire the pettiness of British Royalists who raised a battle standard meant to insult and provoke one person in particular, that person was Robert Devereaux, the third Earl of Essex during the English Civil War. All right.
Do you want to see Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex? What a fine specimen. He used that hotel chair a lot. Great cheekbones, a lot of velvet, terrible beard, terrible beard.
Uh, Devereaux came from an aristocratic family and noble stock that’s both served Queen Elizabeth the first and then rebelled against her, his father. The second Earl of Essex was executed for treason and Elizabeth abolished his family title after he stole her clothes. Look at that thing he’s wearing around his neck.
It’s like the Space Force should do. Yeah. Have a big call.
That was, that was the runner up Space Force uniform. The cufflinks represent you reaching towards the stars and the collar is the atmosphere is the engine plume. That’s what I’m saying.
Well, that’s a good one. Yeah. Ooh, that is really good.
After Elizabeth died in 1603, King, King James the first restored his title and young Robert, then just 13 years old suddenly became an Earl, not long, not long after he entered into a political marriage with Francis Howard, also a young teen, but before the young Earl could consummate his marriage, it was 13. He was sent on a two year grand tour of Europe while Deverell was off completing his education. His young wife was getting an education of her own with Robert Carr, the Earl of Somerset.
Oops. So he’s off touring Europe. Robert Carr is getting it on with his wife.
When the Earl of Essex finally came home after two years abroad, his young wife didn’t want anything to do with him, let alone his consummate their marriage. She contacted her great uncle, a noble, close to the King to obtain an annulment when the Earl of Essex, Robert resisted, the case became a much major public scandal. Lady Essex claimed that the Earl was incapable of consummating the marriage because he was impotent and submitted to her.
She said it was impotent. He needed a blue chew. This brings us to our sponsor, blue chew.
Eric at his advanced age has been rock hard for 14 hours straight. Thanks to blue chew. Well, I ate three thinking they were gummies.
So that will happen. If only that was saved Earl, a lot of trouble. But look what Lady Essex did.
So she, uh, she claimed he was impotent and she submitted herself to a medical examination to prove she was still a bird. Do we have a picture of this Parisian whore? We do. This is Lady Essex.
Oh, that’s Lady Essex. There’s a little come hither look in those eyes. Oh, she’s got a, just in the ice.
Yeah, it’s just in the ice, but she, you know, she’s got waiting for her eyeball to blink. It’s not going to blink at you any time. Hey big boy.
So she went and got examined if she was still a virgin, no fewer than 12 experts examine the lady and determine she was in fact intact. Doctors look at her down there just to say she was a virgin. And they’re like, nope, no busting hymens here.
She’s good. What was the Earl of Somerville doing? They were volunteering saying, he could have been French, you know, who knows? It didn’t have to be that entrance. It could have been, you know, one of, one of three, obviously.
The anniversary route. So the Earl argued, listen to his argument. The Earl’s unhelpful argument was that he was only impotent with his wife and had performed quite well with other ladies in the past.
Just a 15 year old saying this. He’s 15 when he’s saying this. The entire controversy became a public spectacle and the Earl of Essex became a laughing stock.
By 1613, King James gave the Earl’s wife the divorce she sought, but the damage to Earl’s manly hood had already been done. Uh, for Francis, that’s her on the screen. The one time lady Essex married her lover, the Earl of Somerset, who apparently did not bust her hymen.
So, and became lady Somerset, the Earl, or maybe they paid the doctor. Could that have been possible? They, maybe they paid. The Earl went on to join the Protestant armies fighting in continental Europe for the next 20 years.
So this is a little complicated. I’ve paired it down. Uh, in 1625, King James died and his son took the throne as Charles the first.
Everybody hated Charles the first in charge. So they started this rebellion. Right.
Uh, in 1642 parliament raised an army to fight the King’s royalist and the Earl of Essex was voted to lead it. So Robert Devereaux is now the leader of the army among the part. Well, not yet.
Hold on. My departmentary forces was Colonel, uh, sir Horatio carries regiment of horse. So he was fighting with the Earl.
Then there was a battle then carry flip sides to fight against the Earl. Dick move. Yeah.
Ratio by the time his new cavalry Horatio carries cavalry was ready for battle. They were flying a new battle standard. It was a square red standard that featured a Fox representing the Earl poking its head out of a barrel, emblazoned in the gold lettering around it are the words.
Come out. You cuckold. So that’s what they’re flying as they’re attacking him.
That would highly motivate me to highly motivate me to, what is that animal coming out? That’s a Fox. Oh, so that’s representing the government or the Earl, whatever. It’s more like a hairless Fox.
Yeah, that is rough. Yeah, that’s right. So, uh, the story doesn’t end well for the Earl of Essex.
He was forced to surrender, uh, and had to escape by a fishing boat. He was soon, uh, outshined by another parliamentarian, Oliver Cromwell, who eventually would force Essex to resign his commission. Essex would die in 1646 without an heir.
Now back to the late, I have been telling the truth. Maybe, but back to the lady Essex. All right.
Uh, as for Francis, she was later accused of poisoning, sir, Thomas Overberry, an advisor to the Earl of Somerset, uh, who she married both she and the Earl of Somerset were arrested for the plot, uh, because Overberry had opposed her marriage in the ensuing trial. One of the members, and this was back before the whole battle of the cuckold flag. So she was under trial at 1615.
And one of the members of the jury who sentenced lady Somerset to death was none other than Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex. Oh, nice. He was like, you’re going to death.
You have been down that’s karma. But the King commuted her sentence and sent her to life in the tower, which was also commuted. And then she died 10 years later.
So do you think Devereaux, once he saw that flag was like, dude, I promise it wasn’t me, I wasn’t even watching. Like you tried to justify it. 12 doctors, dude, 12 doctors.
I was good with a whole bunch of other women in Europe. Just check, just ask, I was in Europe. Yeah.
And that was like 30 years after the incident. And this guy flies his flag about cuckolds. So what a horrible reputation he had.
That’s hilarious. That was interesting that they actually did point out that if you’re saying that’s part of history, that is not U.S. Motory history. Oh, yeah.
Well, we empower men who are couples. These days were like, oh, yeah, bro. Good job.
Right. Well, is Will Smith still a movie star? He’s very clearly a cuckold. Well, I think his burial hit that guy.
What is it like? Who is a comedian that he hit? I don’t know, but all the stuff that’s right, but all the stuff that come out after that about their marriage and all this stuff. It’s like, not too great. Not too great.
I was surprised that he’s going to send that on his first meeting invite. Just send that flag. That’s one over.
It’ll just be the waiting. How about you cuckold office? 452. I’ll be in between 730 and eight.
Just wait till I get there. Just wait till I get there. You answer to me now, bitch.
I’ve got a gift for you. Here’s your new squadron flag. I was surprised actually.
Instead of come out, I’m a. Cuckold sounds like an urban dictionary kind of thing, right? But apparently it went back 400 years. I mean, they’re already using it. So I’m going to start using that.
He’s just a cuckold. It’s hard to say. Just a cuckold.
It’s hard to say. Hard to say. Why is it hard to say? I wonder how many people say the C word or a P word.
You know, it’s hard. It’s C U C K. I don’t know. It’s hard to say.
It’s a different vowel. For me, it’s hard to say. Because you’re.
All right. When I get off tonight, I’ll, I’ll say it. I, you know, I, I’d love to hear, I’d love to travel back in time and talk to a staff Sergeant Perot.
They’re like, Hey, can you say cuckold? He’s like, fuck yeah. I just called this guy dead 10 times. But now grandpa Perot is like, yeah, I never use that language.
I don’t want to say it’s not a word, but it sounds like it’s like kumquat is just saying that the person’s unfaithful. He’s a cheater. No, he’s saying that person openly watches his old lady get rapped.
Right, right, right. That’s why it’s hard to say that that’s what that is for in the hotel room on a, the one chair in the corner, it’s the cup chair. You will never look at that chair differently now.
So yeah, the difference is he watches his, or maybe doesn’t watch, but his wife is unfaithful to him, but he stays with her. Yeah, yeah. So this guy made a whole flag about it, rallied a whole army around it.
We’re calling this guy cuckold. They’re like, damn right. Nice to be awesome.
Oh my God. And Eric would be in there. He’s like, I’m not comfortable with that word.
And they’re like, we had him. I’m leaning left here. I’m leaning like, oh, I go join a cuckold then.
That’s you now. Well, good. I was hoping maybe we could say that enough that we could just drive it into the ground.
I, it helps that Anna actually spelled it out to Eric. That’s what it’s like. It’s see you.
See, I was looking at the apology of it actually. All right, do it. That’ll be our history.
See what you did when you don’t provide history. Do you see what we got? I created a nightmare. Yeah, it was originally from derived from the word like the basically based on the cuckoo bird, where the female bird laid eggs, right to the bird.
They would get inseminated by the male bird. And then the female is like deuces. You got to take care of the kids, right? Gotcha.
Yeah, poor guy. And now she’s got a new mate across town and he’s stuck with these little, like you sit on the eggs. Yeah, that’s where it comes from.
Yeah, really. That’s kind of cool. So at some point they mispronounced it because it was cuckold and now it’s cuck.
Yeah. Well, that’s good history. Thank you for that.
All right. I’ll be better next week. See, there’s a boy there.
That’s for sure. A boy there. Yeah.
All right. Let’s wrap this episode up. All right.
Going off without you this way. I don’t know how to come back. That was good.
I’ll fix it. On behalf of all of us here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share and subscribe.
Let us know how we get in the comments and make sure that next week that you are not. Late for changeover. Let’s get started.
Yeah, that’s good. Get the button. It’s all it’s good to have the crew back and for everyone listening and watching.
Thanks for watching. Listen, we’ll see you next week. Really? So you’re on that first show.
Well, happy new year. Happy new year. Happy new year.
Happy Chinese New Year.