Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 11 Sep 2024
Date: Sep 11, 2024
I left my bed at my girlfriend’s house. And she left for work, which is excuse number nine for being late for changeover in your weekly space news and variety show. I’m your host Marty Smith and I’m joined by Mr. History Eric Peratt.
Presidential debate listener number one. And our man in the closet, Jake Wall. Uh, I had to listen on my car radio because I didn’t have people or anything.
We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all guardians and to the other lower branches as well. So take your seats, get a form and have a laugh as we present late for changeover. Whoo.
Good to see you on this debate was much rejoicing Eve right in the middle of the debates is when we’re filming this. And we bought, I think we all needed a break to be honest with you because we’re trying to be good Americans, but we were getting information. I was dying a slow death.
Each one of them was playing two truths and a lie. Every one of them, you know, which one of those three things was the last and Eric was right. Uh, Trump can’t speak, but he is funny.
He’s a lot funnier than any Democrat. So I’ll vote for him just for that because he makes, he makes me laugh. So I’m going to the poor house.
At least I can get a chuckle out of it. There we go. There we go.
Well, my, my taxes hit on my fucking mortgage. I was like, God damn. Oh, yes.
Brother. Yes. Property taxes.
I did not. Car insurance. Yeah.
Yeah. Those property taxes went up in Colorado. Bad.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
He’s a good guy. Yeah. Yeah.
Good guy. Yeah. We voted for it.
Yes, we did. Well, Denver voted for it. It’s not too good for living in California East, you know, and he’s a businessman.
So he knows how much money he’s taking from us. So no offense to you Californians, by the way, no offense. I just want them to, okay, just pause taxes right now and balance a budget.
That’s it. Just please. That wasn’t since the New Gingrich days, man.
Hey, are we talking about the VH, the government? You’re talking about. All of the above, which is, I know that’s like the, I might as well ask for world peace. You know, it’s a huge ask, but I mean, if I got to fucking balance my budget, you should have to balance my budget.
Come on, man. Yeah. You have to.
Come back to reality. In theory. All right.
Let’s get going. My rant is over. Marty said, let’s not play politics.
Well, I’ll get, I’ll get your rant going again with the second story. Let’s go. But this show, I’ll put it out tomorrow on 9 11, 20, like I said, I always get weird.
I don’t know what to call it. You know, it’s not an anniversary is right. It’s like the 23rd anniversary of 9 11.
I mean, although that wording is not wrong, but it’s hard to call disasters an anniversary. Yeah, that’s tough. But it’s also a day of remembrance, a day that’s probably better.
Or we can call it like they call it on base Patriot Day. Smiles Patriot Day, Patriot Day, which is only the 22nd instance of Patriot Day. So let’s go figure that one out.
Well, that’s because I know the day you can’t count the first incident. Well, no, I suppose not. I suppose not.
So in a way, it was patriotic, I guess, but not for Americans. Oh, sure. But, you know, hey, that’s off to all the victims and their families, especially the, especially the ones who made it through and then like contracted cancer or something else, all the debris that’s, that’s just as tragic as terrible.
But, uh, I thought, um, rather than go down through all the stats and everything, maybe we could share, I know we’ve done it before, but I don’t remember. So share where you were on 9 11. So for me, I had, I’d like six months early, I had just signed up to join the reserves and I joined as a one Charlie six, you know, the eight Swiss.
And I finally got a school slot that started like late August, I think something like that. So they were training us as mission crew cheese out in Vandenberg on the swing shifts, I think we went in at one or two, um, and then train to like 10 or something like that. And I was asleep.
I was, I was like, I should get up and go run. I was like, yeah, I’m not going to run. And my sister called me, uh, and she’s like, what are you doing? And I was like, I’m sleeping.
I am. I got swing, so swing shift training. And she goes, turn the TV on.
Um, and it was, I think I turned it on right after the first plane hit. I was like, what the fuck is going on? Right. And then, yeah, what was it? I don’t remember the time span 10 minutes or whatever before that next one hits.
I was like, Oh my God. Right. And you can tell the size of the second one, whereas the first one, it was like, uh, I don’t know.
Was that a kind of hardest? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But then you see that full scale jet on the side at full speed was like, oh my God. Unbelievable. So yeah.
And then, uh, they, they locked us down from there and brought us into, uh, I think that an auditorium or something and tried to brief us on whatever they knew, and I was like, wow, this is, this is insane, right? How about you, Eric? Where are you at? I was stationed at Peterson with the 21st space command I G team. Oh, okay. Okay.
Yeah. And we were in the process of conducting an operational readiness inspection at ORI with, um, Peterson as well as the Cheyenne mountain. And, uh, I was on duty at Cheyenne mountain, getting ready to kick off a, an attempted gate runner.
Oh, really? Trying to get in. Yeah. And, um, got a call over the radio for all inspectors to return to, to Pete and the IG building, and we got back in and Colonel Baldwin at the time, who was the IG brief to song what was happening.
So the four cops, me and two other inspectors in the major, uh, we all immediately went to the unit and volunteered our time. So we immediately got weapons, went into 12 hour shifts, locked down Peterson. And that’s what I did for almost two weeks.
Yeah. Did they let you go home or? Not that day. Uh, they put me, put me to work almost immediately.
And then after a 12 hour shift, I was out, but they didn’t confine you to base. No, no, we were able to leave. Wow.
That’s wild. Yeah. That’s wild Tuesday morning.
Who would have known it? Right. Crazy. Yeah.
Jake, where are you at? Sibbers? No, I was up at Isleson. I had, oh, you still work. I was, I was at that fighter squadron.
Okay. So I was getting ready to go to work, lacing up my boots, literally lacing up my boots. And, um, I got a call from my girlfriend at the time.
She’s like, turn on the TV and turn it on. And it was right around the same time. You picked it up right Marty.
Cause it was, oh, right. The first hour was here. And then we’re sitting there watching.
And it was like, Oh crap. What that? Yeah, it was that cause I think I was, and then I was like, right. What is going on? I was like, Oh, I better get to work.
I don’t know what’s going on. Yup. Um, and then I think one of the towers went down right before I left for work.
Oh man. And I was listening on the radio and I was like driving to work, um, drive. Cause I was living in North pole, Alaska.
Oh, yeah, you can see the big Santa across from my apartment building. Oh, yeah. You know, guys, when the, that, that last plane hit the Pentagon and you saw the footage, I thought, holy shit, man, where, what’s the next target? How many planes have they hijacked? So, man, I was ready to shoot anybody coming towards the base almost thinking about it.
It’s like, we got into base and then we, we didn’t have any orders to reload the planes, but we stripped the planes from all the training equipment. Yeah. And left them empty.
Um, but we didn’t know if the pipeline, the Alaska pipeline then was a target target. Yeah. We didn’t know what was going on.
So then they were going to do basically air, air superiority patrol. I mean, not a mate, you know, they have six teams were on alert. Oh, and then the 15s down at Elmendorf were on alert.
Eight tens are just chilling. We’ll just, we’ll get there eventually. What about a historic event, man? That’s part of history.
And it’s, it’s one of the, it’s, I think it’s one of the other things besides basic that connects like every service member during that time. I’ll remember where you were. Um, what’d you say they w that you did for work, Jake? I mean, don’t later that day, they called you, they called you guys in.
Well, no, we were, I wasn’t really going in. I was already going in just for a North cause I was Alaska and it was such a delay. We’re way out on the Pacific time zone.
So it was in the morning for us, like bright and early. Um, but, and I give those guys credit because nobody, nobody knew what to tell everybody. That’s exactly it.
Cancel classes, close the base. Uh, let’s try to figure out, lock it down. But of course, on base and right.
They go proof that you’re right. Like all those classes were canceled. So we just spent the day watching TV.
Like, you know, can you believe this? Can you believe it? Marty, did you end up staying out there the whole time or did they allow you to leave because there was no flights to get you back to, Oh no, we, we, we stayed. Uh, I mean, we were in the middle of the finish up class. Yeah, we had to finish that course.
Right. Um, so they just, they briefed us later that afternoon. And then, you know, the next morning we got another briefing and, uh, whenever they kind of relaxed the FAA stuff, they’re like, okay, go back to class.
You know, everything kind of was returning that there wasn’t any imminent threat at that point that they could figure out, right? Yeah. So I wonder how, if that, that has to be the most common phrase that day, right, turn on the TV, right? That has to be the most common phrase. Almost everybody I know I, I have yet talked, you know, talked to hundreds of people about it, but I’ve yet talked to somebody who was like, yeah, it was just, you know, I was watching my daily soap opera and then they broke in, nobody was watching when it happened, it just happened.
And you’re like, how many phone calls from parents? Were made that day. Oh, I immediately got one. Are you okay? Yeah, I think I, I think I, I don’t think they called.
I think I called them. I was like, Hey, don’t worry about it. We’re I’m okay.
I’m good. Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, hopefully, uh, and, and I, as, as maybe naive as it sounds, I, I think maybe we’ve done a pretty good job in the years since because nothing like that’s happened now.
I know that’s to preface that, but they’ve, you know, they’ve, they’ve probably thwarted twice as many as they’ve let us know about. I hope I would agree. You know, I hope so.
I hope. But fucking Richard Reed, man. That’s not the guy’s name who was a shoe bomber.
He’s still affecting my life. Yeah, that’s okay. Still affecting my way.
Yeah, I think it was Richard Reed. Wasn’t there something like that? I couldn’t remember his name. Yeah, he was the one who fucking tried to bomb the plane with the shoes.
Now forever more, we got to take our shoes on. Well, so, uh, again, thoughts go out to all the families and all the victims and all the people who helped. So let’s make sure we don’t have another one of those damn things.
And all the service members who lost their lives since fighting. Service member, firefighters, uh, police. Yeah, so well, let’s get to the news, shall we? Let’s get to something.
Let’s get to some good news. I like for Boeing. So let’s not be ridiculous on a relative scale.
It’s good news. So yeah, from space news.com comes this article. Starliner finally landed back safely in New Mexico.
So uncrewed, of course, historic day, but it did come down. So, uh, leaving his crew behind an orbit Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft undocked from the ISS Friday, September 6th, and chocked up, chocked up, chocked up a successful unpiloted return to earth, closing out a disappointing test flight with an on target and apparently problem free. New Mexico touchdown.
Even though I, I heard from some other articles that actually they had some issues with it, but for the most part it came down. Uh, NASA astronauts who are still without two astronauts, right? Despite NASA’s concerns about earlier thruster problems of multiple helium leaks in the ship’s propulsion system. The Starliner had no trouble undocking and moving away from the station at 6 0 4 PM Eastern daylight time and executing a critical 59 second deorbit breaking maneuver, uh, at 11 17 PM to drop out of orbit, slamming into the discernible atmosphere, 400,000 feet above the Pacific ocean.
The Starliner streaked across the Baja peninsula and Northern Mexico before descending to a parachute and airbag assisted touchdown at white sand space harbor and the new Mexico desert at 12 0 1 AM Eastern daylight times Saturday. Good job boys. Bravo Starliner.
Bravo job. All right. Um, now I saw, I saw a video on it.
It was very boring, but that’s a successful landed space junk. Yeah. So they had a, they had a bunch of like the airbags on the bottom and then they had the three big shoots that it came down.
So I don’t know what that little light is on the top. It’s like a little tree light. It’s a beacon of hope for Boeing.
It’s a beacon of hope at the mood. I guess so. I guess so.
Um, but it looks very peaceful, very nice. So Boeing got a background mood lighting when you see it. Well, no, of course, of course not.
Um, but, uh, let’s see, they said Boeing argued, uh, oh, wait a second. Boeing tried to convince their counterparts at NASA that the Starliner had plenty of margin and could bring Wilmore and Williams safely back to earth, but NASA managers did not accept Boeing’s flight rationale and opted to bring the Starliner down without its crew. Uh, norm night director of flight operations at the Johnson space center said, quote, space flight is hard.
The margins are thin. The space environment is not forgiving and we have to be right. So have to, they had, they had to, but they weren’t there.
So they left them up there. But when you’re fired, let’s see, but what better safe than, I mean, Oh, I agree. They didn’t even know if it could undock properly.
That’s right. They had, they had that too. But we kind of knew and it was within the margins.
I’m sure there was somebody says like, see, it would have been just fine. Fine. Especially butch.
God damn it. I’m still up here with this woman. Butch is getting headaches every morning.
But they don’t have to wait long because crew dragon, I think is launched in a couple of weeks to bring, uh, the next two space X guys up there. Um, and then, and then only six months after that. Yeah.
All four of them will come home in February. So yeah, we’re good. Yeah.
Yeah. No kidding. Uh, okay.
There is that saying it’s kind of a sarcastic joke where space nerds will be like, yeah, space is hard. I know. And that’s the whole statement they just released.
They’re like, space is hard guys. It’s difficult. You think it’s a piece of cake, but it’s not.
I mean, it is definitely hard. It’s just, it’s such a condescending thing to say. It is.
But when you say that and you’re freaking dragon, that’s getting ready to launch with no problems that has no problem. Elon doesn’t think it’s very hard. We’re doing it fairly easy.
At that point in time, you go, you have to respond with for some. For some. It is hard for some.
That’s right. That’s right. That’s true.
That’s right. It’s hard for some. It’s hard for the North Koreans.
Hard for Boeing. Well, you want some more good news? Oh my God. It was one night.
What? That’s right. Let’s see. Good news for veterans benefits.
I like that. No, no, no, you’re full of PCs. There’s no good news ever for veterans benefits from military times comes this story.
All right. Vets benefit checks could be delayed without a VA funding fix. So man, that’ll be so are they trying to go through another continuing resolution or are they just trying to, you know, what, whatever they’re doing right now, but because the article doesn’t really explain it.
However, it’s so wrong. When lawmakers return to Capitol Hill Monday, uh, they have just three weeks to agree upon a short term budget extension to keep federal operations open this fall and prevent a partial government shutdown. However, that might not be their biggest fiscal challenge because the Department of Veterans Affairs officials have warned that if their own fiscal short call shortfall isn’t addressed by September 20th, tens of millions of dollars in veterans benefits could be disrupted starting in October.
Administrators need about 2.9 billion, uh, to be approved for fiscal year 2024 ops and about 12 billion more for fiscal 2025 accounts because of a surgeon benefit payouts in recent months. The damn PAC act, uh, leaders have warned that was leaders have warned that without a solution next few days, compensation and pension benefit payments and readjustment benefit payments scheduled for delivery in October are at risk of being delayed. Marty, are you saying they didn’t budget for something they passed? No, not at all.
No, because they’re like, Hey, let’s, you know, they, they stand up. Let’s pass this. What effect will it have? Like PAC act.
Look what we did for that. We get so good. Everybody gets back there.
And somebody’s like, how many you think are going to take advantage of this thing? They’re like, what does it matter? What is this going to cost? Doesn’t matter. Stop asking bullshit questions. Just get on a celebrate.
I have a piece of cake. Come on. Have a piece of cake.
We got these pack that commemorative mugs, huh? You want one of those. Stop asking stupid questions. You won’t get one of those.
And the guys like disabled won’t get his $170 check. I know. Hey, he’s not going to get his check because he’s got to pay back his bonus.
Now he’s going to default on that. Yep. You know, they’ll charge him interest on that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Like your taxes. Do you ever get, you ever get overpaid like when you went on TDY or something like that? So terrified with that all the time. Me too.
Me too. Hey, well, you know, uh, I know you were trying to fight this, but you went too much past without paying us back. Yeah, for the two civilians we have that listen to this program, the military is horrible at paying you.
So you have to constantly watch your pay and especially horrible when you go TDY or on a trip. And so they will either underpay you or overpay you just for funsies, I swear. And if you get overpaid, heaven forbid they ever find out because you will literally the next paycheck with no warning will be zeros.
Yeah, right. It will literally you’re, you’re waiting for payday on the 15th and it’ll be like $800 short and you’re like, or just be zero. Right.
Did you ever hear the case of like somebody who’s like, I, they wouldn’t leave me, they wouldn’t let me PCS because they said I owed money. I didn’t know they overpaid me, but they said I overpaid him. And now I owe him a thousand.
And you’re like, yeah, like, okay. When I got out of active duty. I literally went active duty to active reserve at the same finance department on Peterson.
Okay. On Wednesday, I go in there and I say, Hey, I’ve been telling you about this. Here’s all my information I’m getting out of active duty.
And they’re like, okay. I was like, can I please have a printout of all my documents? Give me a printout of all my documents. They do an audit at that time.
Comes back even. Okay. We, I owe them nothing.
Nothing on Wednesday, going there Thursday. And I go, here’s my information. Here’s this they’re like, you’ve been getting BH with dependent rate.
And I go, yes, you gave me that. And a year and a half ago, when I got divorced, I actually argued against you paying me that I said, I don’t know for this. And they’re like, yeah, you’re not.
I go, you guys gave it to me for a year and a half, even though I argued against it, I even had the regs still highlighted in my little green notebook. Yeah. I was like, this is what I said to you on justification for me not getting more pay.
And they’re like, yeah, you shouldn’t have got that. Well, don’t you like us for paying you anyway? Dude, I, exactly. Guess what happened after then? Oh, some cash.
I went four months with no pay. Oh, wow. And it wasn’t a hardship.
No, according to them, because I had recently been divorced. We had liquidated our assets. I had moved all my, my additional savings over into my different accounts and I deployed, so I reinvested that in that deployment savings count.
Oh, smart. And they were like, this is not a hardship. You have plenty of money.
That’s bullshit. And I’m like, it’s for four months without pay. Yeah, it’s a hardship.
And that money’s there because I’m financially responsible. Right. And they’re like, yeah, so you could pay us back.
Oh my, this is blatantly your mistake, man. They’re like, oh man, oh man. If I had been living paycheck to paycheck or showed them that I was living paycheck to paycheck, they would have canceled the debt.
Really? Because I had savings and plenty of savings. According to them, I could pay it back. That’s oh.
Oh, I was paying myself out of my savings account. I believe treating it like a patient complaint. And I would have said, fighting this one, boys and girls, I was so livid.
Oh man. Yeah, they got the, well, let’s close this out. There’s not much more to the story, but, um, the, while the lawmakers are saying that it’s mismanagement by the VA, but the VA says the problem stems not from this management, but from historically high levels of benefit payouts by the department.
So get these stats through the first 10 months of fiscal 2024 staffers had granted disability compensation benefits to more than 1.1 million veterans and survivors on new record. Nearly 413,000 veterans have newly enrolled in VA health care services over the previous 12 months, up 27% from the same timeframe, a year earlier. Uh, uh, so that’s, that’s basically all from the pack that essentially.
So, um, so they’re arguing it. They’re trying to get something done before the 20th. Uh, maybe they will get it done on the 19th.
I know you’re arguing with the government, which is historically financially irresponsible, but the VA, you got that $3.2 billion in the lost money last year, so it’s difficult to argue that it’s not mismanagement also. I agree. Now they say that, uh, today was supposed to be these big arguments up to the house.
Like, uh, I think American Legion was arguing it and they were, they were going to try to fight to get this resolved before the end of the fiscal year. However, there are some who are saying, uh, also today, lawmakers are expected to begin debates on plans for a full federal budget, uh, extension past October 1st. If a solution of the VA funding shortfall is rolled into that package, it may not be passed until after September 20th deadline, potentially creating processing issues for veterans benefits checks.
So don’t go spend your money vets, cause you may not get it next month. Well, you got a budget. Well, you don’t, you have to budget your money.
Right. No, don’t, don’t allow the government to budget. Yeah, you got a budget for, you got a budget for us.
Yeah, that’s terrible. So infuriating. Yeah, it is, it is.
Uh, all right. You want to, you want something that’ll really cheer you up? That wasn’t enough. No, I got some new stuff.
So, um, we’ve come up with a new way to kill our enemy. Oh, yeah, it’s a good one too. So from stripes.com, the army just signed a $1 billion deal for switch blade portable munitions.
Have you ever heard of switch blade portable munitions? Well, weapons, man, you weapons manufacturer arrow, environment, that’s about as creative as tinker strong, but arrow environment will deliver more switch blade series loitering munitions to the army over the next five years after signing an agreement worth up to nearly $1 billion. Well, uh, the indefinite quantity contract doesn’t specify how many switch blades the arm, did you hear that? The indefinite quantity contract doesn’t specify how many switch blades the army will order over the next five years, but the first deliveries are expected within months. Now they’re already using under a different contract.
They’re already using this, uh, switch blade munition. So what exactly is it? Well, I’m glad you asked. Let me show you what the switch blade does.
All right. Bonus points for you. Floats up his drone.
There’s a baddie on the roof. Baddie on the roof. Little mortar thing.
But check it out. Look at that. Quiet.
Is that, is that really that? Yeah. Look, cause it’s a drone. It’s an explosive drone.
Oh my goodness. That is so cool. That’s really cool.
Right. Acoustic signature. Yeah.
Look at all that stuff. Still it lands on your ass. Oh, it doesn’t land.
No, it explodes you. A panning camera. Look at that.
You can see when your target is wiped. Wave off. Wave off.
That was a close one. Oh, like you can’t hear that. If you hear that, you’re like, oh.
Targeted target guidance. There you go. Like select your angle of attack.
Oh, that’s so cool, man. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Terrifying.
Aren’t you glad you’re retired? I mean, how many guys would you need? Would you like to be on the. The offense, like, or on the opposite team. Right.
Fighting us. Oh, yeah. Look what they got.
It’s not like a robot dogs chasing my ass down. They got suicide drones coming from the sky. Yeah.
They got one dude on an island in the Pacific. Launching faster. I forgot all about that guy.
He’s not getting hardship pay. Goodness, man. It says the switchblade 600, the most advanced variant has high precision optics and an anti armor warhead and can loiter in the air for more than 40 minutes.
It’s also said to have a range of about 25 miles and ways. 65 pounds. That’s a heavy son of a gun.
Whoa, really? Uh, how do you, how do you transport the tube? Is that, well, hold on the switchblade 300. Meanwhile, has a range of only 12 miles can loiter about 20 minutes, 20 minutes and weighs just seven pounds. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So that’s nice. You end up coming up with a bigger target, maybe artillery, a vehicle of some sort.
You know, you, you talk to those light infantry guys and they’re packing, they’re packing mortar base plates, which are much heavier, 65 pounds. So, um, pretty cool. Pretty cool little munition.
So, and who developed that? Do we know? AeroVironment. AeroVironment. A E R O capital V Ironman.
That’s pretty cool, man. That’s what I can say. It’s probably a foreign country.
No, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s American company. I think the U S military has been acquiring switchblade 300 for years. Uh, especially for use by special ops, uh, hundreds of 300 switchblade 300 were also sent to you, Chris.
This is my favorite one. As part of an arms baggage after Russia’s invasion. So, so we’re literally testing our military equipment with Ukraine with Ukraine versus Russia.
Maybe. Yeah. I think that’s a good effect.
Yup. Do you remember the issue with that though, is that now they face that environment, right? Now Russia has seen that environment and faced it. So it’s not really a surprise if we ever had to use it again, but.
Oh yeah. Right. Right.
That’s out of the bag. But it’s, it’s again, it’s almost with the drone stuff. It’s almost like the days of the radar detector and the police radar, right? So, uh, we get a really great radar detector and then the police switch to like their laser radar, you know, and then, uh, they improve on that.
Then the police go to like turning it off and on. And so, uh, it’s the same thing. It seems like with these drones.
So we, yeah, we show the capability and they come up with, uh, you know, disruptors or jammers. Countermeasures or guys just shooting at them. Like those artillery soldiers.
We did that story on, right? Did you see that there was a video of, uh, Ukrainian drone footage and it was a handheld drone, um, military drone surveillance drone, but. It took down a hind because right into the tail rotor, they’re watching it like it was cool footage because the drones up here, you could see the hind helicopter going like this. And they’re like, basically, yeah, cleared to try it.
And they’re like, all right, Brian, worth the shot. And you see it go all the way straight into the tail road. You’re like, whoa.
Yeah. They’re just making up new warfare there. That’s exactly it.
Yeah, that’s really, yes. And if a, how much, I mean, it wasn’t even, I don’t know if it was munition, it might’ve been one of the three hundreds. I don’t know.
Yeah, but if that’s how much money and it takes down a true carrying air defense piece of equipment, like a hind. Yup. Sure.
I mean, I mean, that’s, you know, a couple of hundred million at least probably, maybe, uh, maybe more, uh, for, uh, you know, $1,000 drone, something like that. And you know, I mean, I ran. I, you know, uh, North Korea, they’re all making them.
Yeah. You know, they’re all making them. The other side of that argument, Jake, though, is the Russians are also experienced experimenting with all of their new munitions.
We got to see that new tank that hasn’t done that whole lot, but it was some high speed tank, some other kind of vehicles, but yeah. It’s a weird testing ground war. I mean, it’s, it’s hard to figure.
Right. And we don’t get many, uh, news stories. And I think you can watch the whole thing on the internet though.
Yeah. Pretty much like freaking half of it’s on Instagram. You’re like, holy crap.
That’s true. It’s in a foreign language, but you can see what’s happening. The two drones that have went into NATO space, two countries, two Russian drones supposedly went into NATO space.
I forgot what country it was two countries. And both are concerned that NATO is going to respond because it was an act. That’s what it’s going to take.
When we, when we talk about that, okay, it’s not going to be the assassination of the arch Duke. It’s going to be some drone over flying some space and an over response. And there we go.
Now we’re all in it. Yup. Yup.
God, that’s so crazy. That’s so possible. I’m going to get you.
Uh, okay. Well, let’s, let’s actually do a good news story. Okay.
That’s, I’m not setting you up. Oh, wait, Eric. Oh, wait.
Latifia Latifia and Romania say Russian drones breach their space. Yeah. But nobody cares about those two places.
They do. Yeah. They do.
But I’m like, ah, guys, seriously, can you see a red line on the ground? That’s not the river. You know, you used to live here too. Right.
Don’t pretend like you don’t know. You crossed it. Um, well, uh, this next story is actually a good news story.
Right. And we try to give, I know on this show, we make fun of a lot of things, but I think we’ve given credit to where credit is due when it’s deserved. Right.
So, and in this case, it’s, uh, it’s the Navy who deserves this credit. So you’re talking about an all female summary? Not yet. Oh, okay.
Next story. Yeah, you ruined the surprise. I know.
I was just trying to spring all those, all those plus points are 7,000 scroller buys on Facebook and you just ruined it from military.com. Navy’s innovative recruiting programs pay off as it meets recruiting goal for first time in years. Well done. Maybe good job guys.
And the Navy said Thursday, last Thursday, it’ll meet. It’s annual recruiting goals after struggling for years to get enough people to join ranks, rare Admiral Jim waters who oversees the Navy’s recruitment command told reporters that the service projection will have 40,600 recruits by the end of September waters attributed the success to the hard work of recruiters, but as well as changes behind the scenes that made the process smoother for recruits and gave lenders leaders. Sorry, greater insight into how the Navy’s recruiting efforts are going.
Uh, rare Admiral Jeffrey, uh, I can’t even pronounce his last name. CZ E R E W K. Oh, Teresa’s rock. Well, he is head of the Navy’s training and education command.
Also noted that improving and strengthening the services, abilities to track and monitors recruiting efforts have also been key to the service’s success. He said, as of late last summer, quote, we never knew if we were winning or losing day to day until the end of the month. Now we know we’re winning or losing every day.
The close tracking also meant that leaders were able to move faster to clear interest of applicants through the medical screening process. When in years past recruits would get snarled in months long efforts to either explain minor health issues or try and get waivers to allow them to serve anyway, I think all the services, remember the recruiter we talked to at the avalanche game, Eric, she said that health thing is the biggest thing that turns them away. They can’t get around the little nit noise stuff.
So, uh, now so good on the Navy for meeting their, their recruiting goals, however strong, what are the people that they’re bringing in? So in addition to trying the conventional ideas of, of offering eye watering, enlistment bonuses and spending millions on high profile advertisements at events like the Superbowl, the Navy also dedicated some of its efforts to tweaking policy. Just a little tweak tweaking to increase the percentage of the US public and considered eligible. So first of these tweaks, it started offering exceptions over tattoos, single parent status, and positive drug and alcohol.
Oops, a little tweak, last winter, the Navy even raised a maximum enlistment age to 41 and loose. We covered that story. We covered that story, but I didn’t think it was 41.
Yeah, 41 and loosened the entry exam rules to allow the lowest performing academic category of applicant to join the service. So basically you can’t lose, right? You’re coming in didn’t we cover that too? I don’t know if we covered that one. Exactly.
Initiatives are, we’ve covered the tattoo policy. We did the weed test, which was 30 days. You got to stay clean for 30 days.
And if you get busted in boot, they’ll keep you in boot. You don’t need to have a GED anymore. Right, right.
So we’ve covered that. This one is, I think it’s ASVAB basically. I think it’s like, hey, if you were like Gump and you’re like, the line is right here.
Your applicant is right here. They’re like, come on in, baby. Sally Fields doesn’t even have to work for it.
No, she doesn’t even have to sleep with the recruiter to get us on it. We’ll work it. Sally Fields rocking the principal.
So it teamed all these efforts with pre-bootcamp schools that would either have recruits work out in order to boost their physical fitness scores or take academic courses to raise test results. So all that Navy’s the one service that hit the recruiting goal. What’s the Navy going to be like a couple of years from now? I don’t know, we’ll have to see.
A bunch of dope-smoking long-haired tattoos. I don’t know who you’re channeling right here. Here’s the thing though.
Tattoos have always been historically Navy. And I can’t describe the Navy way. I always love the irony of you got too many tattoos.
You can’t come in the Navy. But then you come in the Navy and you’re like, you need tattoos to show that you’ve been in the Navy. Yeah, that’s I was shocked.
I’d seen a handful of Navy guys when we were deployed. And I was always shocked at the level of tattoos. I’m like, it’s excessive.
Holy cow. It’s excessive. Like a barcode on the back of your head.
And I’ve seen that. I was like, yeah, what the heck? Yeah, the barcode is kind of. Strict.
I got to put a. Cheetos or something. You are a Filipino cheddar. Yeah.
It’ll lead you to my only fans, Jake. Eagle cash. Oh, scan.
For all your QR code themed only fans. Oh, my God. Don’t say you’re going to bribe with Cheetos because that’s half of the reason why Anna got into the military.
Oh, yeah, Brian, Brian Cheetos. Yeah, it’s too bad. She’s not here to defend that.
But she would actually go. That’s right. They did bright.
He was once to get into the military. Oh, that’s hilarious. So all right.
So good on you, Navy. Now we’re going to follow up with another Navy story. Yeah.
Oh, they want you to roll. And that picture was the Navy class that. Basic training class.
Yeah, it was all. It was all female. Yeah, that’s cool.
With just varying degrees of hair. Yeah. It just it almost looked like a bunch of actors wearing Navy uniforms.
But that’s the Navy now. That’s the that’s the military now. So there you go.
We made our goals. They made their goals shut up. Go go celebrate.
So from stripes.com comes this story about the Navy. So I just wanted to get you taken. I wish I was here to get her take.
But she’s throwing up at the moment. So and not for listening to the podcast. She’s throwing up for a different reason.
So she’s taking up bulimia. Just kidding. Which I heard you get 10 percent.
If the button got the bulimia. Yeah, I got the balloons. So I’d be way further.
I’ll be like. Oh, man. You got a problem.
You got a little bit of bulimia right now. Don’t you worry about it. So the Navy’s first submarine, which is fully integrated for co-ed crews, is joining the Navy next or the Navy fleet next week.
The first submarine fully integrated for mixed gender crews will join the Navy fleet next week during a commissioning ceremony in its namesake state of New Jersey. The future USS New Jersey, a fast attack submarine, will become a deployable part of the Navy’s force during the ceremony at Naval Weapons Station Irral in New Jersey on September 14th, culminating how many years do you think it took them to make this co-ed submarine? Five years, five years of construction that represents a historic shift in how Navy submarines are designed. Wait, I don’t understand.
Like they already had the blueprints for this. This is not a brand new innovation. No, it’s not a new class.
New berthing. Five years. Restrooms.
Five years. Five years. Maybe just to build it all from the ground up and all that.
All right. Well, but this is what you get for five years. So New Jersey is the 23rd.
That’s it. A lot of crazy. PVC pipe with shower curtains.
Look at the body we say that. Co-ed. Here’s the server room for those special evenings.
Now don’t start with that. I didn’t say a thing. The New Jersey is a 23rd Virginia class submarine, but is the first of its kind designed from the keel up.
I don’t know what I had to say keel up. It’s not grand. It’s not.
They’re not doing anything to the keel to make it male or female. Right. But from the keel, a design from the keel up is specific modifications for gender integration.
Now, what do you get for five years of construction? Modifications included obvious ones. More doors and washrooms to create separate sleeping and bathing areas. Okay.
And some that are more subtle, like lowering some overhead valves and making them easier to turn and installing steps in front of the triple high bunk beds and stacked laundry machines. Stairs. That’s what you get for five years at this time.
Okay. That’s all they listed. Then I think Jake’s innovative shower curtain is huge.
That’s about the level of a shower curtain. That’s right. No girl could possibly reach that valve.
We were shopping at the commissary in the pet section and they had those steps so the small dogs can get up on the bed. We’re like, why don’t we just use these for the triple bunk beds? Have you guys seen those squatty potties? Dual purpose valve release and personal release. You know what I’m talking about, Glenn? Ain’t no other ship going to have that on there.
A lot of innovation went into this thing, man. I don’t understand how guys don’t get stairs on the fourth birthing, like the fourth bed. No, they’re going to do something acrobatic.
You have to step on the bed below you to climb up there. Right. Are you saying women can’t do that? Or if you’re too tall for those standard bunks and your feet hang off, right? Yeah, no accommodation.
The design changes were made to accommodate the growing female force of submariners. In the past five years, the Navy has seen the number of officers and enlisted sailors and submarine force who are women double for the officers and triple for the enlisted. As of August 2024, 730 women were assigned to operational submarines, serving as officers and sailors on 19 nuclear powered ballistic missile and guided missile submarines and 19 nuclear powered attack boats, according to Submarine Forces Atlantic.
The increase follows the 2010 lift of the band that barred women from serving aboard submarines. A decade later in 2021, the Navy announced a long-term plan to integrate female officers on 33 submarine crews and female enlisted sailors on 14 submarine crews by 2030. Before construction of the New Jersey, the Navy retrofitted existing Ohio-class submarines with extra doors and designated washrooms.
So, the next step, because we have all female air crews, we should all have an all-female underwater attack submarine. Are you going to take this one? I’m not going anywhere with this man. I just stopped right there.
I’ll take it. It takes Crimson Tide to a whole new level. It’s recasting Crimson Tide.
Yes. That name better not change either. We’re going to get smacked here, man.
Where’s Anna when you need her, boys? I know she would come up with something. But you know what, think about it. What an amazing thing to have an all-female crew go into combat, blow up an all-male crew of the enemy, and then broadcast it.
All the women just kicked your butt. It’s a female crew that just suck you. Wow.
Wow. Not that that’s, you know, undoable, but. To all the male-dominated societies that are enemies? Yeah, they might just like, just, oh, I don’t know if they could take it.
Just got your butt kicked by a bunch of girls. Good point, Eric. I didn’t know where you’re going with that, but that’s a good point.
Good point. You talk about, what do they call it? Like Tokyo Rose will have the USA pan. Putting out rhetoric of the all-girl crew.
The propaganda, the machines. Crimson Tide just blew you up. Well, you may need, you may need like a, you know, a USA Chad or something like that with a little guy with a softer feminine voice.
Yeah, good point. That wouldn’t even piss him off even more. Good point.
Anything else for you guys in this game? Well, that’s true. That’s true. That’s amazing.
Eric, lift our spirits with some US military history on this thing. Gentlemen. Actually, I said, we should roll the dice or Jake and I. Roll the dice.
Is it going to be a catastrophic wipeout story or is it going to be a US victory? Which one do you think it’s going to be, Eric? I mean, I’m from the flex. I’m going victory. Wherever you stare.
Yeah, baby. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s a victory.
I couldn’t hold that back. Come on. Yeah, he’s not a good surprise.
We’d ruin the surprise, Eric. All right, let me, let me build the story for you. Oh, wait, let us guess on some random crap.
Which happened on a Wednesday? What century was this? I’m guessing 18th century. No, no, no, that’s it. He got it.
18th century, baby. At the start of the war of 1812, the British army and navy took control over Lake Erie and went unchallenged until the early fall of 1813. During this time, Admiral, American Admiral Oliver Perry was tasked with organizing and creating an American fleet to challenge the British presence and reclaim the lake and possibly the Detroit frontier because that was all British freaking hell.
Oh, yeah. Right, right. Perry prepared the launch, Perry prepared the launches attack on the British admiral Robert Barclays fleet with nine ships in early September.
On September 10th, this day in 1813, American naval forces under Oliver Perry attacked Barclays British fleet in Lake Erie and the resulting action, Perry’s forces gained a victory and claimed supremacy over the lake, causing the British to evacuate Fort Detroit. However, Perry’s flagship was destroyed. He had to take a little rowboat action over to the USS Niagara.
The ending engagement ended in an American victory. After breaching the British lines with his flagship, now the USS Niagara, Perry’s forces managed to break the will of the British navy and ultimately force a wounded Robert Barclay to surrender. After the victory, the American navy along Lake Erie maintained control over the region for the rest of the war and forced British forces to upper Canada to consolidate.
He kicked their butt in the Battle of Lake Erie. Nice, that’s very cool. Yeah, didn’t Perry become a Commodore or is that some Commodore? No, I’m pretty sure.
Sounds right, you know. Yeah, I think he did, but I’m not sure then. He had a hell of a set of sailing shoes though.
Yeah, so it was an amazing battle. What I read was he took his initial ship, his flagship, right into the garlic and he’s firing broadsides out both sides in two different directions and they of course are firing back at him, blew his ship out of the water. He starts rowboating over to the Niagara and demolishes the rest of them.
Remember, he only had nine ships, so that’s it. Every time you talk about the history of that period of time, I’m always amazed that they’re like, they built nine ships? How the hell do we have any money to do? Always amazes me. So yeah, that’s a good one, man.
The Battle of Lake Erie. It made Jake look from whatever he’s doing a couple times. I like it.
I was looking up the battle. It’s cool. Can you imagine if somebody occupied any of the Great Lakes today? Oh, they control all of that.
Yeah, yeah, they control all the ports, all that trade. Yeah, hell yeah. That’s Canada South.
Yeah, Canada is soft now. They don’t do any of that. Canada would take care of it, of course.
Yeah. Yeah. When, on a different note, when Ana is well, and she returns next week, and we wish Juan well on whatever he’s doing.
A little Juanito. Maybe he’s in the middle of sideburn class tonight. Oh, it’s the waxing session.
That’s why it couldn’t be. Oh, very good. Man, that’s a good one.
Mm-hmm. But when Ana comes back, next time we greet her, I’m going to say to, when I introduce her, I’m going to say, and with a warm tink blink, ah. And we got, tink strong.
Even my sister was like, what is that girl talking about the tink blink? And I was like, that was funny as shit. She goes, she’s a little wild, huh? And I was like, yeah, I guess she is. She is.
She’s a good fit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she’s funny.
Well, are we in in-depth then, gentlemen? In-depth? Oh, yeah. In-depth. In-depth.
Well, it came alive there, Jake. On behalf of all of us here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share, and subscribe, and let us know how we did in the comments.
And make sure next week that you are not. Oh, push the button right now. No, that was a good one.
That was good. Man, thanks for the week. And thanks to everyone listening and watching, and we’ll see you next week.
Yeah, and for all your Crimson Tide reenactants, go to mr.hitchy’s only days. Scan his QR code. Scan his QR code.
Or the companion. Your QR code pasties. Yeah, making them bounce.
Because, with the phone effect. You can’t see this. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.
You can’t see the titty flicks bounce with the black shirt. I’m sorry. Oh, my goodness.
Missed. History. Yeah.
That’s going to be my new tattoo on my lips. Just a little. They didn’t center that.
Hey, guys, we’ll see you next week. Bye.