Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 4 Sep 2024
Date: Sep 3, 2024
This is a special event alert. I have a dental appointment today, so I went back home to brush my teeth, which is an excuse number. 23 for being late for changeover, your weekly space news and variety show.
I’m Marty Smith, your host, and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Horat, our man in the closet, Jake Wall, our little mule, Juanito Lopez, and our Semia Fox out of Mondragon. With the snapper, bring you the latest headlines and update pertinent to all guardians and to the other lower branches as well. So take your seats, get them formed and have a laugh as we present late for changeover.
Why’d you add color to it, Marty? Juanito, how many snappers did you catch in La Paz? Fish, fish, I mean. About six of them. You said it was over one day, though? But the first day we caught everything, the last three days we caught nothing but some birds.
Are they big? Are snappers big? Depends. We caught a 60 pounder and a 40 pounder. And they’re ready to settle down.
No, the marlin, the marlin was 162 pounds. Depends on how old they are. The younger ones are small.
If they’re ready to settle down. Yeah. The snapper closes up.
The younger ones fight a little bit more. Older ones are just like, yeah, whatever. So unless you’ve got work for you.
You know, the two podcast members below us are having a completely different conversation than the three above. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I don’t know what to say.
60 pounds of fish I could never eat. That’s a lot of fish. Let’s see.
If you get shut out the first three days or the last three days. Well, that’s a lot of snapper for one day. It’s got to tide you over for three more days.
Some of us felt very terrible. That spread was impressive, though. Yeah.
Jake went on a long ride out to, was it Ure? Yeah, we went down to Ure for four days. Ure and the Million Dollar Highway and Telluride. Isn’t that place awesome, man? That place is awesome.
That is gorgeous. Especially when you come down out of those mountains. That whole ride down is south of Austin.
Yeah, in two weeks. Nice. You’ll enjoy it.
That’s the place. We hiked all around Ure. So Juanito went to La Paz.
Eric, what did you do for Labor Day? Went to my grandson’s awesome football game. I don’t know. Oh, yeah, they crushed him.
So lame. They crushed him. 43 to nothing.
They crushed him. Oh, yeah? Nice. Are you going to abandon your grandson towards the latter half of the season? Like Juanito abandoned his own son for the latter half of his baseball season? No, I’m not.
Holy cow. I’m dedicating. I bring a family truck and everything.
I’m a dedicated grandpa. Dang. Well, when Juan becomes a grandpa, he’ll be dedicated.
True that. True that. Yeah, I’m actually moving away from the state, so.
Yeah, nice. And you’re in no hurry for your son to be a father. I’ll visit you in La Paz.
Me too. Hey, actually, I’m really thinking about moving there. It’s fucking awesome.
It’s on my list of potentials. Ana, what’d you do for Labor Day? I played nurse and I stayed defense. Oh.
That’s it. That’s you. Yeah, so Sienna and Jimmy ended up with the flu.
Ah, shit. Like 104, 105. They were sick sick.
So. How’d you avoid that? How’d you avoid that? Not getting sick. No, I avoided COVID too.
It’s a lot of orange juice. Or vitamin C. That’s. That’s the zinc in the fish.
It’s the Brown and the snapper. Typhoid Mary. It’s everybody else.
I have no idea. I don’t wish I would get sick. Diet high.
You would get what? Washcloth on my forehead. Oh yeah. You just sit and watch and be catered to for 30 hours.
And then everybody gets annoyed of you and you’re like, Oh, I get your own orange juice. Get your own man. It’s it’s a glorious day and a half that you get until everybody gets pissed at you.
Yeah. So they’re both still sick. Oh my God.
I don’t know. It’s it. I don’t know what.
So I convinced Jimmy to go to the urgent care. Cause I was like, well, I’ve never seen a temperature like this. Like, I don’t know what to do other than get you in the shower.
So kind of in his, and he like, uh, he couldn’t talk like he would just call. That’s it. Over and over.
So I was like, let’s just go. Let’s. Yeah.
It doesn’t hurt to go to the dot. He tested positive for the flu. She was, she’s six eight.
Well, look at this way. They’re not sneaking out tonight. Good.
Good. Right. You know where they’re at.
You can’t sneak out of this house. It’s impossible. Well, so just tell you that she’s going out and never come back.
Oh yeah. That’s true. So we have the longest cement driveway.
Okay. She would have to either jump out of her window from the second story, which she would never do. Or.
Walk down the stairs. They’re all what everything’s wooden here. So you can walk.
It’s like. Yeah. So no, she’s, it’s impossible.
I am. We have a house alarm. I turn on every night.
It’s impossible. That’s what I thought too. Until, you know, like.
Years after my daughter was on her own and all that stuff. And we were having Thanksgiving and she was joking with everyone. And she’s like, dad, do you have no idea how many times I snuck out? And I was like, you did? She goes, Oh God.
Yeah. I was like, oh, it was all crestfallen cause I was all proud. She ain’t sneaking out.
Like every other night. No, it’s impossible here. Of course it is.
Cause we captured running up the driveway. We have five acres. There’s no way.
Okay. All right. She’s saving it up for what she’s.
She’s in the door. She’ll pay all about it. All right.
Maybe not. Ah, should we get to the news? Oh yeah. Do we get to our weekly installment of days of our starliner? Oh man.
To the news, to the news. The adventures of whatever his name and sunny. So from space news.com, they have set the return date for a starliner to September 6th.
Uh, NASA announced on August 29th that the agency and Boeing completed a readiness review for the upcoming uncrewed departure of starliner. That reviewed, that review confirmed plans for bringing the space back to earth from the ISS on September 6th. The agency decided to return starliner uncrewed.
Concluding uncertainty about how those thrusters would perform during critical maneuvers. Made it too risky to have astronauts on board. So starliner will perform a fully autonomous return.
Uh, all the ground controls will still have the ability to intervene and remotely command the spacecraft. It’s supposed to land at White Sands Space Harbor. I don’t know.
In New Mexico at 1203 on September 7th. Let’s take odds. There’s no harbor.
Well, it says White Sands Space Harbor. Maybe that’s an ironic piece of the desert they named. Uh, and said, Hey, this is the space harbor.
It’s like, it’s nothing but rocks and desert. And they’re like, yep, I think it’s going to burn up on reentry. Oh, well, I don’t know, but you know, they’re, they’re completely avoiding it.
So everything they told us is like, they would be fine, but we’re not going to have them come back on it. We’re just going to just remotely pilot it in. It’s a space port in New Mexico.
The space Harbor. I don’t know. Well, that’s creative.
I think it’s created more creative than, well, I mean the Mojave space port, I think was the first one, right? And then, uh, they, so what? You got to call it something new. Space Harbor. You know, so, uh, and it’s probably a good thing.
They’re sending it back because this story, uh, is from space.com. All right. And this one is NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore reports a strange noise coming from Boeing starliner spacecraft. That’s just Velcro on the wall.
Well, so the mice are making sexy time. Every time I go to bed, I keep hearing this. I don’t know what it is.
I get up and nobody’s around. So I go back to bed and I hear it again. So it’s a ghost.
Saturday, August 31st, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore knows something weird inside the starliner spacecraft. Wilmore radio down to mission control to ask about the bizarre noises heard emanating from starliner speakers while the spacecraft is currently docked to the ISS. He said, there’s a strange noise coming through the speaker.
I don’t know what’s making it. He told mission control. Well, Wilmore then holds a device up to the speakers, allowing mission control to hear the pulsating sound occurring at regular intervals.
Mission control Johnson Space Center and Houston said the sound was like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping sounding rather relaxing and phased by the whole situation. Wilmore replied, all right, over to you. Call us if you figure it out.
Mission control then informs Wilmore that the recording will be passed along to the team and they’ll let them know what they find. Gremlins in the starliner. Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield commented on the situation in a post on X and in the post you can hear the strange sound reported by Wilmore.
So here is the X post that he had. Did that scare the shit out of you? Sounds like a baby. Sounds like a baby.
No, it’s like a baby. That sounds like just don’t go in there anymore. Yeah, something’s going to kill you in there again.
I love what he says. There are several voices that confirm out here inside my spaceship, including this one. Right, right.
It’s crazy. Now, since we had that, since that story came out, NASA has come out and said, oh, that’s just feedback from the speakers. That’s no big deal.
Don’t worry about it. It’s just a lead to the hydrazine. Don’t worry about it.
Just a couple of thrusters. Don’t worry about it. They’re saying don’t worry about it, but we’re not going to have the astronauts come down.
But don’t worry. We could. Don’t worry about it.
It’s just nothing. We lost five of our thrusters. Don’t worry about it.
Don’t worry about it. It’s Howard the Duck. Howard the Duck landed.
They didn’t even need to be worried about something. Yeah. Yeah.
Howard the Duck landed on Earth the 8th of September. How do you know that? I don’t know. I just watched Howard the Duck.
It’s a terrible movie. It is super terrible, but it’s funny. Yeah, okay.
It could be Howard the Duck. So, it’s a good thing they’re sending it back alone. I mean, you’re just walking by and it’s making noises like that.
You just kind of shut the door. It’s like, don’t go in there anymore. This thing is not safe.
Not just shut the door, but lock the door. I wasn’t crawling in this joint. I mean, that’s creepy as shit.
I mean, there’s enough space horror movies out there, you know? Speaking of, the new Alien is awesome. You guys have now watched the Alien Romulus? Alien Romulus? Yes. I don’t know.
They got to go a long way to try to resurrect that series. That’s for sure. It’s in between the first Alien and Aliens.
You guys got to watch it. Was that the movie that the Alien busted out of the chest? It’s very soon. Hello, my darling.
No, that’s… And the singing is part of it. Oh, my… Yeah. That’s Spaceballs, Anna.
That’s Spaceballs. When you go so fast, you go plaid. I watch horrible movies.
Anyways. You’ve jammed us. All right.
For this next story, it affects four of us. It doesn’t affect Eric, but it does affect four of us. I’m going to judge.
Yeah. So this story from Stripes.com. The 3.10 space wing is Shriever prepared for inactivation. So the four of us all spent time in a 3.10 space wing, and now all that time is going away.
So hundreds of Air Force reservists focused on space missions are applying for active duty service as Space Force launches, a first of its kind model to employ both full-time and part-time guardians. We talked about this just last week. The current reservists can retire, put in for retraining with the reserve, or apply for the Space Force, but they can’t stay in their current positions under a law that phases out the Space Force, space-focused portion of the Air Force Reserve.
It’s a model that General Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Ops in the Space Force, has promoted saying it would allow active duty guardians to transfer between full-time and part-time, which they still haven’t explained what that is, and bring commercial experience to the Space Force. Across the country, most of the Air Force reservists eligible to transfer into the Space Force work for the 3.10 space wing headquarters at Shriever. The reservists with the wing who are eligible to transfer work in a special area such as space at some ops, cyberspace, and intelligence.
I don’t know those intelligence guys. I mean, they get intelligence reserve units anywhere, right? I don’t know who’s taking one of no’s, but… So it’s not getting a redesignation. It is just… It’s going away.
So this is different when we talked about the guard, because the guard has a lot more hurdles with it being a state force and all that stuff. The reserves, they’re just like, nope, you guys are… It’s fatal. You’re a history, right? It’s terrible.
Colonel Adam Fisher, the 3.10 space wing commander, said he expects part-time positions will open in a few years when they unscrew themselves and figure out what part-time is supposed to mean. Colonel Fisher expects to be the last wing commander as hundreds of people transfer into the Space Force and he leads the 3.10 space wing through inactivation. The transition could last through 2028 because of its complex nature.
So… What happens to the facilities, equipment, machines? What’s the deal? I don’t know. They were all proud of that building they built, what, a decade ago? The big 3.10 space wing building there? But that’s not the admin building. When it comes to equipment, Eric, it’s because they have sister squadrons that are active duty.
Nothing really happens. So everything’s going to pull it out? I think… Yeah, it was his personnel. I think the only one that doesn’t is six ops.
Six ops does its own mission. It does that… The NOAA mission? Yeah, the NOAA mission. I know.
You must see. Yeah, they’re the only ones that don’t have a sister squadron, I think. They do.
They have NOAA. NOAA. But it’s not like a… But it’s like they have a… Yeah, that’s fair.
Although, people forget that NOAA is a uniform service. They have officers and warriors. There we go.
Just saying, you know, so it’s public health services. So my first question… Like the Salvation Army’s uniform. One of many, Anna.
Go ahead. They hate this. They hate this.
Okay. So they’re going to deactivate or inactivate the three-tenths space wing, which took over a decade to activate. So if you recall history, they started as the three-tenths space group under the three-o-second airlift wing.
That’s right. And then they… Mrs. History here. They said space wing.
For all your brown snapper. If they don’t have that many space force transfers, shut up. Go to Mrs. History’s old defense page.
Oh, the companion page. What happens with all the people that are in the reserves currently supporting space? Because we’ve already proven… Not we, because I’m retired, but reservists have proven their importance and vitality. Mm-hmm.
Well, and they’re… They’re continuity. They’re continuity to the mission. So right now, even at Buckley and Marty, I’m sure when you go there, you probably see it.
But the AGRs are being used as day staff for 11th source right now, because everybody went to… So it gets us training up everybody, as the reservists. So that’s what I wanted to see. I don’t know.
I don’t see. What individuals who are the continuity of the mission, if you think about it, most of our reservists have stayed in the mission well over five, six years, if not more than a decade, and they’re contractors on the same weapon system. So then, like, what happens to them? I don’t know.
I mean, how long are you that reservist who’s got 17? All right? He’s like, a few more years, and I can be done with this shit. You got to transfer different squadron. You got to go active duty, or you got to get out? And he’s like… You know? And there’s no place in reserve.
If they do that to a 310, where’s the one Charlie Six going to go? Does it actually shut down all the squadrons, though, or is it just the wing? Yeah. No, I think all the squadrons are going away. Squadrons get absorbed, like… So two 19 sops, like… Go to two sops.
Eight Swiss, two Swiss… This is a real big personal hit on me, because every time I’m at Building 24, and I have to day poop, I go over to the 310th Building. That’s my secret… Yeah, that’s not what it means, but… You… That’s what I thought it meant, sorry. I know that’s what you thought it meant.
It is now. It is now. That’s my secret pooping stash, and I can have my phone there, as opposed to Building 24.
Well, I wonder who’s going to move into that building. I mean, they were so proud of that. I mean, I joined the Eight Swiss in 2000, right? So I saw it go from the group into the wing and how the big fights for all the extra personnel to get the wing, and then they built that wing building, and they were rimming, cutting, and they were so proud of it.
And now all that’s gone. Wow, what a rise and a fall. So that building is so empty day in and day out.
Now all that sits behind the restricted area too, correct? Because that’s on the outside. Hold on. No, not the three… They have support.
That’s in the RA. No. They have support for personnel.
The wing building’s outside. Yeah, and they have support for personnel. I don’t know what that is by the warfare center.
They have two security forces, one AMDF, aeromedical, something, and then personnelists. So it actually says here, about 400 people are supported personnel for the wing who are not eligible to transfer. Those reservists could be eligible to work for the 302nd Airlift Wing at Peterson Airport Space.
302nd’s not taking on a whole medical unit. Yeah, right. They’re not going to have a position to go to.
Or all those admin, they already have 302nd heads. That’s going to be weird. And you know what it’s going to be? It’s not going to be like one day they’re here, the next day they’re gone.
It’s going to be this slow, painful process over a couple of years. Are we going? Are we not going? What are we doing? Oh, we don’t know. Just come back next weekend.
Yeah, we got orders for the next two months, so we’re good right now. Yeah, yeah. That’s going to be ugly.
That’s going to be ugly, especially for those in late career, trying to make it and just like, I’ve been doing this shit for 15 years. I only need a few more years retired. Nope, you’re out.
And the amount of work to make a wing, so I was a part of the… Yeah, all that stuff they did, right? Three tenths space wing activation. Like I ran the activation ceremony and the amount of work. Wow.
Yeah. Well, I think making a wing was much more important to a lot of the officers at that time because it was all, as our friend Scott Westfall would say, it’s all a jobs program, right? So they make it a wing, then we got a whole bunch of new positions. Unless they were still like, okay, I guess we… Does it affect us? And they’re like, no, not really.
There’s a few more times you get to go down to Shriever and you’re like, oh, fuck. But I think it was much more important to the officers than anybody else, so. So anyway, three tenths space wing treated as well, but now they’re gone.
History. So. All right, Eric, let’s… For now, though.
For now. It’s still going to be three years. They said 2028, so.
But what are they going to… They’re going to be left with like 10 people left in the office and they’re like, okay, let’s close it up. It might be different because it’s a guard or a reserve, but active duty fighter squadron is shut down and it’s then brought back up and shut down. And that’s true.
And Jake, for Marnie and Jake, I mean, we were there… Well, I was a twoswister at the time, I was there. But I remember… And Jake, you were in twoswisters, but I remember HS. This is how many people like volunteer to search when everything kicked off in Iraq.
Oh, yeah. Like, remember, it’s like, it was… It’s like HS, I saw them as twoswisters and that right there showed the importance of the reserves. And a lot of that was, you know, people are like, hey, I can come back on for six months on orders.
You know, that’s pretty good. I’m in between jobs, this old… But not even that though, but I’m just talking about the experience, I think, too. And I’ll tell you, as an airman, too, just talking to them and just getting… It’s a nice reminder that there’s always a life outside, but then you’re able to serve part-time.
So it was just like, to me, that’s pretty cool. It is funny, because my previous experience when I was in the Army with the Guard was… I mean, they activated our roundout brigade during Desert Storm, and they made those guys who were in Shreveport… No, they were in Shreveport. They activated them, and then they sent them to Fort Hood, Texas to train.
To train up, to go over there. None of them wanted to do it. They did not want to be active duty.
They were like, I didn’t join the Guard to be this full-time, right? And they were horrible. It was an artillery unit, and that’s a perishable skill how to do all that stuff. These guys were terrible.
So I can only imagine… Did you ever interact with any activated Guard guys, Eric? We did. I wonder if it’s different for the security forces. I think it is.
Because when they come, they’re doing the actual mission that they would do if deployed. And it’s not a perishable skill, because that’s what they’re doing constant. Right, they’re probably doing security, and they’re like, finally, I get live bullets again.
Put me on orders. Charge it up. The same stuff.
This Taser sucks. I want to shoot something. Now, I will tell you, I always thought the… It’s like tackleberry in police academies.
The Guards guys were always better prepared than reservists were, if you ask me. Really? Yeah. That’s weird.
Interesting. They took the training much more serious. At least in my experience.
Those are the ones I shot. Have you ever tasted taste, Eric? Have I ever what? Been tased. Oh, yes.
You scream like a girl. In your professional life, Eric. In your professional life.
I didn’t know that. No, it was professional. In training.
I got it. Is that one of those things you have to do to know what it feels like? To carry it. You have to be tased.
Oh, man. Terrible. I would not voluntarily ever want to be tased.
That’s got to be worse than like the gas chamber. Right? I don’t think so. The gas chamber was pretty bad.
But the gas chamber, everybody’s kind of spitting out. You tase and piss yourself. Or you brown snapper yourself.
Forget it. There was that Air Force girl that we locked down. You remember that video? I will tell you in our training environments, they always had it at a very low voltage.
Oh, really? So you got it. You were getting zapped, but not at the rate that you can turn it up to. Yeah, yeah.
There was an Air Force video. Have you been tased? I’ve never been tased. No, no, no.
I’ve never been tased. So my nephew brought over. I think it was a tase.
No, it wasn’t a taser because it didn’t have like the little prongs. But it was some kind of. Like a stun gun.
Yeah, stun gun. Like the one they hold. You have to hold against the person.
Dude, this is Thanksgiving. And everybody. Like playing with this stupid stun gun.
And it would turn blue. And it would make noises. Oh, because it’s got the two parts.
Right. It gave us all like I would jump up and move out of the way. But they were just playing with each other, like stunning each other.
Because that it’s that loud snap, right? The snap. They’re like on their legs. I was like, we’re having Thanksgiving.
Stop. Why don’t you just take it away from them? Guys, not around the cranberry sauce. What sides did you have at your thing? What sides? Um, broccoli, casserole.
Oh, that’s a good one. That sounded very English, by the way. Um, I don’t know.
All right. Well, let’s use veggies. Just say, let’s use your cupboard.
There you go. All right. I can’t consider you for this episode’s podcast.
Good conduct metal. Okay. Sorry.
Uh, all right. Here’s the story. Order.
You’re done. Well, you, you brought it up. You brought up what were the sides and La Paz.
And I was just like, oh, she must be, she must be attuned to the sides of a big side connoisseur. I do like sides. Have you seen this pasta salad? It’s delightful.
Uh, wash. So, um, speaking of legacy or rather forced legacy comes this story from task and purpose about Tinker Air Force Base. All right.
The new Tinker Air Force Base model is immediately lampooned by Airmen. So Airmen assigned to Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, have a new mantra meant to inspire esprit de corps. Tinker strong.
Tinker strong. Come on, man. Members of the 72nd Air Base Wing are encouraged to say Tinker strong is a way of greeting individuals as they come through the gate or supporting customers within their work centers.
So all you customer service reps, you know, said all I can do for you. That’s all. That’s all I need.
Thank you. Tinker strong officials. The statement provides members on base a reminder that we are reunited and stronger together.
But too many commenters on the unofficial Air Force subreddit, the Tinker strong mantra has not been popular. The subreddit page includes several memes lampooning the mantra, including one that shows a version of Tinker Bell on steroids. That wasn’t too funny.
Another with Bart Simpson wearing a security forces Airmen’s blue beret and one with the Matt Damon puppet from team America, world police wearing an Airmen battle uniform patrol cap with the caption Tinker strong. So so retarded. Here is the here is the meme the Bart Simpson meme for Tinker strong.
And you called that out because he’s wearing my beret. It was the first one in the article. But it does say security forces point five seconds into their gate shift.
Say the line defender. I’m pulling my weapon and daring someone to say that shit to me. I would I would do that.
You would take the ID. You would salute smartly and say Tinker strong. No, I’d say have a good day.
You would say Tinker strong there. Good day. If you were if you were at the gate area, I’ll be a point at you like this.
Think you’re strong. And then I was like pull it over. Pull it over to the side.
Right. Random search. Yeah.
All your documents. Open it all up. Bring me your registration license.
In verification. And no one want you to be like you want my driver when I’m Take your strong training. There’s my take on registration in your car.
Okay. Four months left before this expires. Think you’re strong.
You know what I’m talking about. So that’s I mean they’re forcing that you know that’s what I’m talking about. Let me let me read this part.
This on a news release on Thursday or last Thursday 72nd Air Base Wing elaborated what messages leadership was hoping to send with the new mantra. Tinker strong is a direct product of great power competition. The news release says the mantra stands to provide members on base with the collective and common mission focused statement that is a daily reminder of the base wide objective of wartime operational mission.
Readiness. It sure sounds like the time when they tried to make us memorize the airman’s creed. Doesn’t it? Every couple of years they’re like let’s make some bullshit up.
Kinda. And force it on. And then make everybody do it.
So they want a mindset like this in fucking Oklahoma City like what preparedness do they have to worry about for freaking tornadoes? Yeah. Tinker strong. I don’t know.
Tinker flies a lot. Man those guys are gone a lot. They’re lift right? No they have like I think they have the ISR ones.
And they’re the backup guys too for the national defense. And they’re ATC there too for the navigators and all. The only issue I have with it is usually when Boston gets bombed or there’s a big mass shooting and they’re like Boston strong or Denver strong.
It’s usually like something tragic has happened. It wasn’t the guy that did the Tour de France lived strong because of his cancer. Oh yeah.
The one bald guy. Lance Armstrong? Yeah Lance. That’s his claim to fame.
His lived strong. You know the guy with mutilated generals. Oh yeah.
But he won. But he won the Tour de France. That’s irrelevant.
He won it many times. But he was doping. He was blood doping out of his mind.
He was just refreshing his blood cells with oxygen. Do it. So they have the AWACS there.
Yeah they do have the AWACS. Okay. But it’s still I don’t know Tinker strong just seems lazy.
No creative juices. Yeah that could have been something else you know. So what was that meeting like? Hey guys we need a new motto.
What’s it gonna be? I’m in a hurry. Let’s just do things in a hurry. You know what I think it was.
I think it was a year long effort. Probably multiple meetings. Walk me through the process Jake.
How do you think it happened? I’ll tell you the last few hours of how it happened. They’re like we’ve had a year. They said by this Friday.
And it’s it’s 3 o’clock now. What do you think? Fuck man. They should have came up with it.
What was it you said in January? I was like I was just joking when I said Tinker Strong they’re like fucking put it down. You gotta give them something. You gotta do something.
I like how you give them the benefit of that. They took forever on this. They discounted a dozen other potential things.
Right. And they’re like we’re going. You know what we’re doing? I bet you the commander’s wife said it.
I’m like I’m going with Tinker Strong. I like that decision. They should have came up with the Tink Blink.
Tink Blink. With the Bunk Tink Blink. That sounds like a brown snapper move.
That’s much more creative than Rick and Tinkers. Tink Blink. tonight.
Tink blink. That sounds like something down range. She gave me the Tink blink.
That’s a green light in my boat. Everything’s a green light. Eric, you want to go inspect the airway shelters? Tink blink.
Tink blink. I’ll take care of you, bro. Yes, please.
I don’t think the cops need any more encouragement. That’s on the very front of our orders, man. Tink blink.
Do I get to taste somebody or is there potential to cop a cheap feel? Tink blink. I like it. All right.
I’m glad we had fun with that story because this next story is just going to piss you off. This is a good one. This next one, our last one.
So you got to pick it up after this story because I know it’s going to make you mad. So this one is from stripes.com. 100,000 veterans who later qualified for VA disability benefits must repay old bonuses for leaving the military early. All right.
So roughly 100,000 veterans who received bonuses to separate from the military early. So basically a VSI or some other early set bonus, right? All those captions that get separated, right? It’s just the guy saying I’ll fucking get you. That’s right.
You think you’re safe, right? But a decade later and they got you. I don’t know about that, Marty, because a lot of people that I know in 2014, they were warned, hey, you’re going to get the separation payment for people that are early retirement or early separation. And they were told, if you go back to the reserve, AGR or stuff like that and get retirement, we’re going to deduct that from your retirement.
Or if you get VA disability, we’re going to deduct it from there. And there is a law that does talk about that. It’s a section 12, 12 chartering that requires the department of the Veterans Affairs to collect that money.
And that’s been around for a while. Marty, this is what happens when you give us the articles early. This is what happens when you have an informed.
I don’t know what he was reading in La Paz, I guess. I don’t know when I was in the bathroom. It’s good reading material.
Very good. Brown snapper. So here’s the situation.
Brown snapper reads something else. Red snapper in the morning. Brown snapper in the afternoon.
Hey, was the shocker? All right. So here it goes. The bonuses collected by the VA total more than two and a half billion.
And the numbers could increase drastically as more veterans apply for compensation through the PACT Act. Remember we covered the PACT Act? The law passed two years ago to provide benefits for those suffering from illnesses caused by toxic exposure, including burn pits. So Markie Barefield, who is the Assistant National Legislative Director of Disabled American Veterans, said more veterans are filing new claims after many years.
I just heard from a 75-year-old disability veteran who filed a new claim. The VA went into his record and found they had never collected set pay when he originally qualified for disability 30 years ago. Like Juan said, a federal law stops the VA from paying monthly disability compensation to veterans who accepted separation benefits to exit the military voluntarily at a time when the military services drew down troop strength.
The monthly disability compensation that a former service member was approved to receive is instead applied to repaying the bonus amount, which can be tens of thousands of dollars in some case. So essentially, a guy took an early separation of VSI, something like that. He’s going along to PACT Act comes and says, hey, were you around burn pits? And he’s like, yeah, I was.
Well, you can apply for disability. He applies. He gets it granted.
And then they’re like, oh, yeah, congratulations on the disability, but now you got to pay back that separation bonus. $10,000 in some cases. In some cases, even higher.
Yeah, more. Yeah. So you’re a couple hundred dollars a month that you get for disability or, you know, whatever it is.
$1,500, maybe every of those page. So you were get it, you know, you did have that bonus. Now, every one of those payments for disability is you’re never seeing it and you won’t see it until it pays off that set.
Marty, he’s already spent. So here’s what’s bullshit is one. The federal government does not need that money.
They’ve proven incompetent with that money. It’s not going to do anything to those people volunteered to do something. The military needed them.
Ask them to do that’s correct. People to get out rather than stay in. We need to get people out and we’ll pay you this much money.
We’re like, Oh, okay. All volunteer to do something in the military. Now we’re going to slap you for it.
It doesn’t make how disabled they are. Correct. They still went through all that shit and they still qualified for all the compensation.
Right. That is surprising about the article. So I knew about if you retired and accepted a, a bonus, but you do 20 years on active duty or you get those points that they will separate and they like, they let me know that.
But I, but I didn’t know that surprising about this article was if you separate and didn’t retire, they take that away, which I agree with Jake. I think that’s bullshit. So total, total bullshit.
So there is, um, a couple, um, veterans groups that want to fight this one. Yeah. D AV is fighting it.
Yeah. So yeah. Um, there’s a guy named John collage, who’s a Navy veteran and he’s taken this case to a federal court.
So we’ll see what they decide. But he said that he believes the VA has convoluted the law and is applying it incorrectly to justify collecting special separation bonuses from disabled veterans. The simple, he said, quote, the simplest way to state this is that we veterans are being held to a legal standard for people who later receive retirement pay, but we should be held to the legal standard for disability compensation.
That’s what Jake was saying. Yes. Correct.
So you’re right on track with what he says. And that’s his argument up to federal court. So this wouldn’t apply to any of us with it.
You wouldn’t apply to you guys. You guys are. We all retired.
Yeah. We all, you’re right. I’m gonna say that again.
You’re mixing different colors of money. Correct. But there is a disability entitlement with something that we’ve asked you to do.
And that was an entitlement that because you cut your career short, right? We paid you for that. So you’re mixing different colors of money. But the only way would apply to us, Eric, if I got out 14 years, took a separate stay and joined the reserve a week later and went active duty, AGR, then I will have to pay us that separation pay when I retire.
And now you get disability and retirement. They’ll take it away from your disability. So the reason I did that was I thought, actually, I know three people that retired last year, Anna, and that’s going on with them right now.
What were you saying, Eric? I was saying that I thought it might apply to you because of the army from moving from the army to the airport. No. But I think this is affecting more people because like the pack deck has gotten so many claims now because they’re just like, Hey, if you were ever in this, you know, Turkey, whatever it was, K2, whatever it was, you can file a claim if you have health problems.
So that opened up the door to people who were never going to file a claim. And they got out and like that 75 year old, that was 30 years after. Yeah, that’s crap.
It’s not just burn pits, though. It’s also it’s not the firefighters that like get right exposed to the phone that we wish fires. And it’s the missile ears of the PCB.
It’s all the forever. Miss Lairs. What was that place in the Marines? Oh, Lejeune? Lejeune.
Yeah, Lejeune. Yeah, water. Well, and then there’s Hawaii with all the oil in the water and all that other shit.
So I’m hanging out on San Angelo, Texas, paying us for drinking that nasty ass water. Oh, hold out for Shriever. Shriever water is rough.
In San Angelo, there is chlorine. No, it’s have you been there? Have you drank the water? One is a different color. It’s got kind of like a yellowish tint to it.
Not only that, when you make ice with it, there are flakes. Literally, like you can see this, there are flakes in your water. So like iced tea, coffee, it changes all of like the flavor of what you’re drinking.
But I didn’t realize that until I left in the Air Force and I came back and my mom called me bougie because she said, Oh, you’ve got to have bottled water. Honest got to have bottled water. She can’t drink the plastic.
But I was like, Mom, do you realize like, this is bad water. Like, this is terrible. Yeah, right.
It smells like fish. I mean, I was I mean, I remember being in like Louisiana. And going to my girlfriend’s house and they had they had to condition the water so much that when you took a shower, it was all they put like too many chemicals.
I don’t know, but it was slimy. You know, have you ever had the water? Yeah, the water softener. Yeah, that’s it.
That’s it. He just like, Oh, God, this is my wife always complains by Colorado water. But I was like, it’s not bad.
No, I don’t know where I’ve been. And so it’s no flakes in it. It’s not turning out.
I’m telling you, it’s disgusting. Shriever has a sediment. If you leave it over overnight.
Oh, does it really? Yeah. I mean, we’re going to get it anyway, right? Yeah, it’s freaking the flame retardant. And yeah, well, it’s like, I’m not going to drink that water.
I’m going to drink plastic bottled water because that’s better. And they’re like, Hey, how about all those PCs in that plastic? Can you see? Oh, yeah. Every bit of water you got when you’re deployed had been baking in the sun all day.
You know, it wasn’t a water. It was we got in the RV. It was that damn milk that you didn’t have to refrigerate.
Whatever that shit was. Hey, Jake, I don’t know. It wasn’t condensed.
It was just like there was, it was non-pastoral. So you didn’t have to refrigerate. Oh, remember that eight Swiss and two Swiss building was right.
That the admin building. You guys remember that being plastered up it through the hallways because they were clean out asbestos. Oh, yeah.
And we’re still working for that matter from the VA. It’s like, were you at Buckley from this time to this time? And then we were walking through the hallways while they were asbestos. Yeah.
Right. The other thing too is, did you guys, any of you guys work to a leak here or any of those? No, I missed out on that one. Inside the radar.
So you have a big radar. I thought it was a separate building. No, the face array radar you’re inside.
It’s like all in front of you. So I don’t know. I’ve heard about that.
Isn’t there? They have big warnings when they’re like radiating, right? I don’t know. I’m inside of it. It’s a seven story building.
You didn’t have your lead vest on. Like you did. Oh, no.
They say, oh, man, it’s been people that’s working here for 30, 40 years. It’s safe. Should have wore a helmet.
Not a single male child amongst all of them. Every last little girl. The Christmas party, the ride, the radar ride every year is like.
I just remember Buckley and the water would back up into the sink. So it was all sewage water. And it was ground girly.
Like, oh, man. I like when the data chase would flood and it was disgusting. I take my chances with the PCs in the class.
How about how was Turkey, Eric? How was Turkey? Yeah, you know, I don’t I don’t recall the water being bad. I really don’t. I mean, I was at Incirlik.
And so it. Yeah. And that was 82.
I don’t recall it being horrible. Just have an incident. Yeah, they did.
They had the Marines. They jumped the two Marines in Turkey. Yeah.
Well, I mean, I lived in Quonset huts. There were old Quonset huts there and it wasn’t even a dorm. So the water in the showers felt fine.
The water tasted okay. So I recall. Okay.
Are you from? Are you from San Angelo? He’s a Florida man. I’m a Florida boy. He’s got low standards.
I can’t remember the water for decades. Even in 1982, huh? Yeah, I was one year old. Jesus.
Thanks, bro. Appreciate it, bro. Well, lift our spirits, give us some.
Some true history. Some true lift up history. True lift up history, man.
This is a good one. This was this will throw you off. So you guys have any idea who actually developed the American flags? You remember? Well, which version? The original version or the original version.
Nope. The original that would later become known as the Stars and Stripes. So the, the circular 13 stars and the stairs.
Betty White. Remember her name. She was a Marine, you know, she was not a Marine.
Oh, so close. All right. So anyway, that’s not where I’m going with this, but I’m going to give you a piece of it.
So the American flag. It’s a distractor. Hey, I’m going to make you drink some water here.
Recall this random fact. It has nothing to do with the flag was first flown in battle for the first time during the Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s bridge, Delaware. Say that again.
It was a skirmish at Cooch’s bridge. The only way you spell Cooch and Brown Snapper today. Cooch’s bridge.
Go on. So depending on where you are from the country, it’s either a C or a K. So it’s a C bridge. Cooch’s bridge and people are thinking.
I just knew we were going to go down there. It’s an early water tower back in the day before water towers were invented. And it said, Harry, it’s a skank.
It was Cooch’s bridge. Cooch, you got a bridge named after her. For the very first time on September 3rd, 1777.
Under Patriot General William Maxwell, who was ordered, who ordered the Stars and Spanners raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry who met an advanced guard of British and Haitian troops. The rebels under General Maxwell. Yeah, they were German, right? Oh, I thought she said Haitian for a second.
Haitian, British and Haitian troops. The rebels were defeated and forced to retreat to George Washington’s main force near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania. All right.
So if you’ll remember, which you probably don’t, three months earlier on June 14th, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating the flag of the United States be 13 alternate stripes, red and white, and that the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation. The national flag, which became known as the Stars and Stripes, was based on the Grand Union flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes. According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Bessie Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background at the request of General George Washington.
Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disapprove that legend. So the piece of piece of where I’m going with this is the first time that the American flag went into battle was three September, 1777. At the Battle of Couches Bridge, Delaware.
It could be Cocos. Okay. Don’t try to church it up.
I’ve been to Cocos bridge. Cocos bridge. Sure, that’s not pronounced.
Don’t brag about that. I don’t know. I just like to do Snappers Bridge.
There you go. Under General Maxwell. Okay.
It’s a hell of a thing that your American flag went into battle and actually lost its first engagement. Well, it’s lost many engagements. No, I understand that.
But you’re right. The first time it goes into battle. Not a good sign.
No, it is a good sign. That means resilience, bro. She’s got you there.
I suppose. Well, okay. We ain’t going to back down.
We’re going back to. You’re going to go back. We’re going to dominate this engagement.
Wow. We had a lot that came out of this episode. In concrete.
In concrete. Brown Snapper. Take it by it.
The enemy and the submission. You’re going to take it by what is. Oh, and now we’ve gone down that road.
Eric, I think you’re going to have to anticipate your reaction. You know, this group’s reaction. A little better.
Don’t you dare. You know, as soon as I read the coochies thing and I went, oh boy. But I like it.
You pressed on thinking that maybe we would be professional. Oh, I knew about that. Suckers bet.
I want to go back to Jake. Did he say Betty White? Yeah, he said Betty White. I chose you how old he is.
Betty White. But that’s an old throwback. That was like last year when we were doing celebrities who had served in the military.
And Jake threw up their Betty White. And I said, no, she was not in the military. It was close to Betsy Ross and it was also ridiculous.
That’s why I chose it. But Betty White did look good in that Marine uniform. Must say.
Betty White was a hot stir. Like she’s a hotty nutty McQueen thing. Yeah, in the day.
If you look up Betty White in her Marine uniform. I got to do this. That’s a cry.
That’s a Koochie’s bridge rendezvous right there with a Tink wink and a brown snapper thrown in. Hopefully you catch a couple of brown snappers. Ouch.
Finally, yeah. You got a white snapper on that one. Betty White.
Literally white. Oh, that’s a retention thing. Anna’s like, Betty White, look at hot in the Marine uniform.
Google, please. She’s looking really good. Yeah, she looks sharp, man.
Hey, you know who else look good? Juanito down there is checking around too. He’s already got that thing. Well, look up B. That’s a whole lot of women in the actual Marines, right? Yeah, why was she in the Marine uniform though? Because she was like in an auxiliary.
She was in the Marine auxiliary. Betty White was. But the She was actually in the Marines, yeah, that’s a lot of women.
And you’re like, wow, look at that. You said JLo in the space uniform. Yeah, yeah, because that was such a good movie.
No, it was not. What is that movie? What is that? Did you watch that recent movie with JLo? No, she went to space. Yes, where the she’s got some kind of.
Some AI or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so make her own planet with your booty.
Oh my God, I don’t think. That’s what’s carrying me. Thank you.
Oh my goodness. Thinker strongly. Take with that.
All right. I I can’t take any more dirtiness out of our Shamiya Fox over there. So that’s I don’t think we’ve cussed that many times though this Let’s call that end-depth On behalf of all of us here I’d like to thank you for listening today Please like share subscribe and let us know how we did in the comments to make sure next week that you are not Life for changeover True you have a good excuse.
Yeah, please Hello, you know, yeah, you know what we used to call him Keepers keepers cuz he’s like, oh my gosh guys keepers like We’ll see you next week. Hopefully hopefully My age you’d never know gentlemen never know lost pick the bucket on the course