Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 18 Dec 2024
Date: Dec 18, 2024
My wife forgot to plug in the electric car, which is Gen Z excuse number 3 for being late for Gen Z, weekly space news and variety show. I’m Marty Smith, your host, and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Barak, our man in the closet, Jake Wall. Good to see you guys as always.
And 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 a seat, get informed, and have a laugh as we present Late for Changeover. Group, we got a guest with us returning to the show, Josh Rispecki.
Well, welcome back, man. Welcome back. That’s quite the last name, Rispecki.
Good to be here. The whole name is quite the bit. Well, try to spell it.
That’s a bitch. That’s still a bitch. So if I didn’t have a save to my phone, I’d still jack it up.
So F U and S U. I like you. I tell you, you know, whatever it is, it’s still legendary. Legendary farewell story.
So I’m going to keep that for my next Oh, yeah. Farewell, man. But if you had known what he got through, it was well deserved to everybody he pointed out.
That’s the show. Josh, welcome back to the show. How’s the tobacco business? Doing well.
Thank you for having me back, guys. So you were on, you just got back from trade show, right? Yeah, just going to see all my different states, different trade show, legislative meetings, different stuff like that. So it’s good to be back in my own house in my office.
Nice. What’s the what’s the legislative meetings like? Are they you’ve been to a million of them right now, probably. Yeah.
But can you tell when you kind of got some leverage going or, you know, what do you what do you what are you actually trying to legislate for or push legislation for it? It’s more just getting retailers and people that sell tobacco involved in their local or state legislation. So some states do things very easy. They have a discussion.
They open up a question of do we want a or do we want B everyone can pile in. And there is an orderly vote. What we see a lot of times, especially in the hotbeds, we’ll call it Illinois, Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, New York, the world’s local municipalities will do fly by night kind of things where an ordinance will be brought up and voted on within twenty four to forty eight hours.
So it’s really just kind of getting the retailers informed of what’s going on, getting their voice, giving them platform and then working with our legal and external affairs folks to make sure that we’re bringing the masses kind of what it is because you know how they like to tuck certain things into certain bills. So it’s just making sure that if people want to buy tobacco, that it’s a fair and even floor. We use a lot of comparisons to alcohol disposable vapes with the flavor.
So it’s just if it’s going to be regulated, let’s regulate it even across the board. So it’s kind of a nutshell. It’s always got to be a fight.
If they had their way, they’d ban all of it, right? Yeah, I was about to say it’s going to be an uphill battle. The next gen are all about those beats. Sorry.
White nicotine, nicotine, modern oral vapes. Yeah. So it’s the same thing 30 years ago, which was filters being put in cigarettes is the same metaphor right now.
So it’s just, you know, it’s all bad until you look at the tax dollars and revenue that brings a state or a city. And then it’s hard to give it up on both ends. So the dollar.
But they don’t seem to come after cigars. It was always just like, you know, the big evil tobacco. So yeah, I mean, the big evil cigarettes, I should say it that way.
Well, the size of the business too, if you look at cigars, it’s such a minute business comparative to cigarettes, right? Same thing. They’re not going after, you know, motorcycle industry the way they are automobiles, because the automobile industry is so much bigger and the billions comparative. So it’s easier target.
So yeah, damn. That’s pretty cool. It’s pretty fascinating, actually.
I thought I think we’d be better off as a country if they went back to allowing smoking, maybe not so public all the time. But people need a break. People need some relief.
It’s like go out and smoke a cigarette and come back and they’re like, okay, I’m calm. They don’t need a pill. Just go, go get a fucking marble red.
And that’s where the good gossip is. So I’m on back. Yeah.
Well, back in the day, how many people decided to go smoking just because the, you know, basic training, you got to take a break. No, I never did. But I want to take a cigarette break.
A puff and a blow. And it never inhaled. Never inhaled.
I want my 15 minutes. Heck yeah, that was a blow. You already set the quote for the show right there.
A puff and a blow. It wasn’t for release. It was just like… And you can hold it out here and just… Yeah, you’re just holding it, letting it burn.
Did you ever smoke and get caught by your parents? No. No, I couldn’t either. I never did either.
No, it’s just too way too hard to hide. But it’s way too hard of a habit to get into. Because, you know, I did Copenhagen for forever because of the army.
But it was like, you know, you’re not pressured, but I want to be with the group. You know, it was like, okay, I’ll do this. I was like, God, this really burns the shit out of my lip.
I never started at all. Because you want to numb it. Yeah, right.
Everybody grew up, though, either dipped or smoked. Right, not my parents, but like at the ranch, there was a handful that smoked. All the friends in high school dipped.
Were they doing leaf? Or were they doing snuff? No, yeah, the packets. Well, that was before the pouches. Yeah, now, see, I go back far enough where you took out that leafy red man.
Yeah, I’ve tried that and I threw up, like, I was like, I’ll give it a try. Sure. I’ve tried cigarettes, smell packets.
Like, why not? I’m about the foreskin is in right now. The Dick Nick. He just starts needing an advertisement for that.
Josh, maybe you can pitch that over to your advertisers. We went from back in the 70s, where it was just a little pinch between your cheek and gum to the modern day Dick Nick. So yeah, maybe that would work.
Marketing and select magazines only, I guess. The Paul Marman cowboy is rolling over in his grave. Do you ever sit and think, like, how do men come up with these things? Like, alcohol in the bubble, Dick Nick in your dick.
Oh, it’s all solving a problem. We’re solution-based. I can’t have this information.
Where’s the fleshy portion I could fit? We solved the problem. You’ve got to be fine. Oh, my goodness.
That’s a good point. Cool. That’s not the problem.
Yeah, and the fact that you’re drunk enough, drunk fast enough, butt funnel. Yeah, I mean, what do you do after a butt funnel? You have a little Dick Nick, you know, and you just even it out, even it out. Oh, my God.
Where did we go with this? Oh, it was that movie that the parrot tried it because he was at a party. He tried what? He tried funneling beer into his. Oh, I don’t know what that was.
It was John Cena. Yeah, they were like following their kids. What was that? Rock blockers.
Yeah, rock blockers. Absolutely terrible idea. So, a movie, but terrible idea.
Josh had told me that he was planning on showing this to his wife and his younger daughter. Not anymore. Maybe next one.
What to say? Let’s skip ahead 15 minutes and then start from there. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.
We could talk about that all. Oh, that’d be funny. That’s a good job.
But let’s go to the news. All right. So, we got a couple of interesting stories here to talk about.
This one is from a website I don’t often go to, but it’s Defense News. So, this was, and it’s not a, well, I guess it’s kind of opinion, but everybody’s been talking about it. And finally, Trump’s pick to lead NASA has just come out and said it.
He’s like, screw it. This is what we’re going to do. Trump’s NASA pick says military will inevitably put troops in space.
Of course we will. I mean, planes started just by, it’s just observation. And they’re like, hey, could you carry a bomb too? Okay.
Yeah, sure. Can you just drop that over at your rocket? We’re going to launch some space now. Why not space? We’ll just carry a bomb up there.
And if you feel like it, throw it up. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be NASA’s next administrator. Jared Isaacman said Wednesday that as the U.S. establishes more of human presence in space, we’ll eventually need Space Force guardians stationed in the domain to protect its economic interests.
Now, remember this story when I get to the last story of the day. So Isaacman said at the Space Force Association Space Power Conference in Orlando, Florida, if Americans are in low earth orbit, there’s going to be people watching out for them for all the reasons we described before. Isaacman, a tech billionaire who has traveled to space twice on commercial missions.
I think both was SpaceX. He went up with that all-civilian crew. Definitely not both.
James T. Kirk. No, yeah, right. So he’s gone up twice with them, paying his way, of course.
He said, exploration economic ambitions will drive more commercial civil activity in space in the coming years from space mining to NASA Discovery missions, while some of that work will be done by robotic probes or remote operators. Some of it will also require human input. Isaacman is not the first to suggest that the military may one day have troops in space.
The former second in command at U.S. Space Command, retired Lieutenant General John Shaw, said in 2020 that the Defense Department would one day send guardians to operate command centers or perform other missions in the domain. Isaacman didn’t offer a timeline for his prediction, but suggested that a military presence in space could coincide with future NASA, Moon, and Mars missions, especially since the Chinese are going to the Moon. We’ve got to draw some borders up there.
Could you imagine giving a ship in space? No, or a short tour would probably be more term. You’d be there a year or so up there. A short tour.
Yeah, you know, you go to space and we’ll give you your assignment when you come back. Yeah, you’re going to trust. Let your sonny and butch in your stuff.
I’m all extended orders. I’m still there. What’s their additional duties? You know, there’s one of them have, like, are they doing pistachs in space? Are they doing urinalysis? I mean, the Soviets are coming up there.
You never know what they’re on. Oh, yeah. He said this is the trajectory that humankind is going to follow.
America is going to lead and we’re going to need guardians there on the high ground looking out for us. So we’re going to send troops and we’re going to send space force guardians. Really? Well, let’s.
Okay. What are you going to guard up there, man? What are you going to mine? Space mining? Oh, no. Yeah, that’s.
No, there’s a shit ton of minerals on any one of those asteroids. Really? Yeah, but it’s going to be like the first the first like the explorers. Okay, we’re just friendly explorers and then somebody brings a gun and you’re like, ah, fuck.
Now it’s all changed, right? That’s how space is going to be. Apparently, you didn’t see Bruce Willis trying to land on an asteroid, did you? I don’t think that can happen just like that. That looks reckless.
Yeah, a little bit of Armageddon, baby. Maybe in the safety office. Especially when you got space dementia.
You had the gun. I always thought that position was so. Okay, I’m choosing my words.
Kindly. Why would you? Let it rip. Throw another dick in and let it fly.
I’m a safety officer for a space wing. I’m like, how the freak did you get that? I want that job. Because what are you doing? Looking for tripping hazards.
You know what he’s doing? He’s got to do all the paperwork when somebody goes and hurts themselves, like at the beach or something like that while they’re on leave. And this guy’s got to fill out all the mishap paperwork. Yeah, he’s the Stucky.
He’s not making anything safer. He’s just a paperwork process. Sounds great to me.
I’m going to go up and be the Velcro guy. I’m going to put Velcro in strategic locations for all. All opportunity times for everybody and safely.
I mean, is it going to be officers that are going up there with the guns? Or are they going to train enlisted? And if they’re going to train enlisted, I see an Armageddon training montage with a bunch of little listed knuckleheads going up there. Think of the enlisted guys we worked with. They’re the ones they’re going to send up into space.
And you’re like, really? This idiot? What would you do with a gun in space? It’s for space dementia. You shoot yourself. We can barely keep this.
No way. I tried to kill myself in space. We can barely keep the snack bar open in the socket.
And we’re going to throw him in a capsule. We backed up the goddamn bathroom like once a quarter. Oh, yeah.
Oh, man. Are we going to trust these knuckleheads about going to work? You know, I mean, you go down a shriever or you get deployed. And who’s in the bunkers? How scary force is getting it on? Imagine them up in space.
That’s why you’re going to be stuck. I’m going to be the Velcro guy, man. You guys had some dirty couches.
Where’s Perot for his ship? Migraines. Every cop is complaining of migraines because the blood doesn’t go all the way around. Come on now.
Remember that issue? You’re like, oh, yes. Have we ever had an actual enlisted astronaut, though? I mean, we sit in military up there all the time. Every one of our almost every one of our astronauts seems like former pilot.
It seems like we’ve if we have, they would have celebrated that person. Could you imagine if how much we would learn if we said like a non-educated person to space? Like, think about the people that we spend up there. They’re all like educated or.
New ignorant enlisted swine shows the beyond’s view of space, please. Hold on. Most of the things that we have learned as far as mistakes and wording or actions have been through uneducated younger generations.
But you know what I mean? That’s not a bad idea. That’s not a bad theory because like, if you look on the claymore, the claymore has printed into the plastic this side towards enemy, right? Why did they have to print that? I don’t know which way this goes. No, because if you didn’t know anything about it, if you didn’t know anything about a mortars, or you wouldn’t be able to tell what’s route, which way does it explode? It’s just kind of it’s a half move.
But to further honest point, every warning in the army is because some dumb shit is dying. Because we were issued army mittens up in Alaska and they literally said, these work for both hands. These are like, there was instruction manual in the mitten.
Always bring an extra pair of gloves. I was like, what the fuck? Four year olds are they giving these mittens to? Why are they so advanced at reading? Use mittens, but they sure as hell can read. Come on.
Tell us technical orders should be written at the ninth grade level. So, yeah, maybe, maybe we need to do a couple hundred missions with just like some knuckleheads like us up there. You know, 75% come back, but they all come back with a lesson learned.
So, yeah, that’s great. Last year, last nipple. I don’t know, Velcro, I was thinking Velcro.
It’s going all one way. It could happen. It’s a possibility.
There’s some water on it. Can you imagine seeing that warning? Warning, excessive nipple damage may occur if watch your ties and your nipples. What led up to that? Yeah, that’s true.
Hey, safety officer. We need an anti-nipple losing brief, please. Asap.
They’re about to launch. You don’t know. Just saying.
Well, speaking of nipples, we have a couple of female stories here coming up. Oh, my God. You don’t have nipples.
Oh, that might have been a rough transition. That might have been rough. Why are you going to ask for this? Please don’t get aired.
Please. I’m a successful man supporting a wife and children. I need this money.
I need this job. She’s going to go, how the podcast go? I can’t wait to hear it. He’ll be like, oh, we didn’t do it.
We didn’t have anything. It doesn’t have. Technical error.
You can nope anything, Parker. You don’t know. All right.
I chose these next couple of stories because I thought it was an interesting contrast. So this first one is from Air Force Times. And they talk about the status of female recruits, essentially.
So most girls do not think they could succeed in the military, according to the DOD, according to a new data compilation from Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies, or JAMRS, which is the Defense Department’s internal polling agency. Youth interest in military service is in a long plummet, and teenage girls are dramatically less confident than boys that they have what it takes to be successful in uniform. Add a brief to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service in December, JAMRS director Jeremy Hall showed that a significant drop in interest in military service following the COVID-19 pandemic was quickly becoming the new normal for recruiting.
From 2012 to 2019, 13% of young people aged 16 to 21 said they saw themselves definitely or probably serving in the military. But that average dropped to just 10% from 2020 to 2023. Well, yeah, yes.
And they addressed some of those. But that 3% change represents about a million American kids. Well, damn, that’s a lot.
So moreover, data shows women in particular lack the confidence to pursue military aspirations, even if they have them. According to surveys conducted in the fall and spring of 2023, 26% of young men said they’re probably are definitely sure they could fight in a war compared to just 8% of young women. So, so much for that empowering that heads that set, you know, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense was, you know, back in the day when he said that he didn’t believe women should be in a combat role.
Right. And because women were really aspiring to become more combative, be involved in those kind of units. And now we’ve got women who are younger, who are the potential candidates to fill those roles.
Don’t feel confident enough. Don’t feel like they can do it. That’s amazing that it’s like a paradigm shift big time, you know what I’m saying? And I think it does go to a little bit like what I was saying.
There’s social media stuff out there. There’s social media is killing the kids. So I’m pretty happy with Australia doing their ban until they’re 16.
I think that’s, I think that’s smart. But then, you know, there’s going to be a black market for them. Oh, yeah.
A block from house and they’ll, you know, back then it was like, I’ll stash my cigarettes here. I’ll pick them up on the way to school. Now is I’ll stash my phone here and I’ll pick it up on the way to school.
But both men and women are becoming less confident in their ability to serve DOD data shows. Overall, young men rate confidence at 43% down from 51% in 2018. While young women rate confidence at 26% down from 33% in 2018.
Top influences in young people’s lives, their parents, aunts, uncles, coaches and other adults aren’t doing much to push them toward military service. Specifically, parents with daughters are dramatically less likely to encourage their children to serve than parents with sons, 42% versus 32%. While that gap appeared to be closing in the early and mid 2000s, it widened again in 2020 to its greatest ever disparity, 45% from her sons, 30% for daughters.
The researcher did name specific did not name specific cases for the reasons for this, but the summer of 2020 had several instances of military sexual assault and harassment in the news. Yeah, right. That’s because men aren’t reporting this sexual assault or harassment.
Well, that’s true. We think of every situation that you’ve been in where a woman like made you feel uncomfortable. Yeah, they’re not going to report it.
Sort of like tonight. Would you report it? Guys wouldn’t report it. They, I mean, I don’t know.
I don’t want to say something too bad, but I think they would probably be like, I don’t see if I can see where this goes. I know, right? They’re curious. And they’re like, dude, maybe they have a different idea of how harassment and assault.
Yeah, that’s true. Is those two topics. So, but I think around that year is when they were pushing all those stories.
That was me too. That was everything else is sexual harassment, sexual harassment. Yeah, but when you look at the big scheme, those events are very, very few and far between.
But they got the majority of news. And social media did that, right? Everything is pushed to the surface. And now you can’t go in without being sexually assaulted.
That’s true. This is kind of funny. Beyond fears and concerns based on recent events, Jammers knowledge survey show teens have an outdated or off base idea about the military in general.
Only one in five boys and one in 10 girls can name all six military services. And only 38% of young people on average said they knew the difference between an illicit person and an officer. Here’s the funny part.
This director said he found it humorous that a number of survey takers reported believing that members of the Marine Corps served not in amphibious environments, but on submarines. Oh, that’s interesting. That’s like the man on the street stuff.
You know, that’s where they just ask random people. So yeah, you know, I think the moment that we introduce military education into the high schools, possibly the junior highs or whatever they call it now, middle schools, that paradigm will shift. It has to be put into some sort of government education where we’re learning about legislature and learning about all the different branches that should be a part military branches and what they do and why it would be interesting to see what they’re teaching history.
You know, I don’t know if they teach any military history to be honest. I don’t remember getting. Well, now remember some of the some of the high schools still have J. R. T. O. J. T. R. C. Or whatever the hell it is.
Roxy’s eyes are rootsy programs, right? Hey, Eric, your trip to the moon’s about to blast. Go up there. You know what I’m saying? The Roxy program.
J. R. O. T. C. Right. J. O. T. C. Yes. But what’s coming to try to change this around, right? In February, he said the new military campaign across all services will go live and it’ll say, quote, you have a calling.
We have an answer. I was like, all right. That might not be too bad.
You can be again. You know, I thought the old Air Force commercials weren’t too bad when they were like showing you doing things in your civilian life. And they’re like, this is how that translates.
Those weren’t bad commercials. The the one that always cracked me up about the Space Force one. Did you do you remember the Space Force one? And I think it was before the Space Force.
It was like when it was. Yeah, it was in Air Force space. And they had like the Mexican girl and the dad was watching a soccer game and the TV goes fuzzy.
And he’s like, Maria. And she runs up to the top and she’s like, you know, seeing the dish and the soccer game comes in clear. And they’re like, yeah.
And they’re like, we have a job for you. Sorry, I mismuted. No, I’m not playing any games.
It was great. You’re talking about noise mitigation. Breaking news.
I do feel bad for the surrounding neighborhoods. Anywho, we’ll keep going. Why what happened around the neighborhood? Do you have a for the auditorium up there? So loud.
They have huge concerts there. Okay. Don’t digress.
Ah, like you didn’t see it coming. They’ve been telling you guys have been building it for 10 years. Oh, that look at that.
Amphitheater. Why are they building that at? Tell Josh. It’s built.
It’s built and cranky old ladies are pissed because it’s so loud. Dude, you can see it from my 25 going south. Yeah, the nearest houses are over I 25.
So they didn’t complain about the highway. Yeah. Noise, you know, very different than traffic.
Well, that’s true. I thought that first story about how they were saying that, you know, basically teenage girls are not really feeling competent, not feeling like going in the military. So I wanted to contrast them with this story from air education and training command.
Oh, I like this one. So the Air Force names its first female SIRS specialist as a chief master sergeant. Yeah, very good.
Tiffany is a loud. Became the first female survival evasion resistance escape specialist to earn the of chief master sergeant, the highest enlisted rank in the US Air Force on November 1st. So good honor.
That’s high speed. Let me show you the new chief. That’s the new chief.
Look at that picture. Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s a tough.
I know. Although not the first female SIRS specialist when Zaludek earned her Beret in 2007, she did break an eight year dry spell in which no woman had graduated from a specialized training course reflecting on her initial recruitment. She remembers her recruiter handing her a SIR brochure with no women in it.
He told me that he only knew of one woman to ever graduate SIR specialist training and that I didn’t look like the type who would do this job because I was so feminine. I understood SIR was a demanding career path, but I felt I was ready for the challenge. Yes, sir.
Anna, have you ever been told that you were too feminine? I am a soft leader. Let’s be honest, Marty. That’s not what this was talking about.
No, but I just was curious. This is your career field is going to survive in the woods for freaking weeks on end. And I will never do that.
Let’s be honest. Anna’s never doing it. This lady doesn’t she’s got more makeup on than anybody around.
But you know what? I got to tell you guys a rabbit apart on her face. You know, this is the kind of person that you need to rise to the top of the pile. Yeah, that shows some of these younger women the pile.
How confident this one is. You know what I mean? Well, that’s what’s these forward. Thank you, Eric.
That’s why I was trying to contrast these two stories. Well, I’m sure Josh has been told that he was too feminine to work. Yeah, I told him that as a supervisor.
But then you cuddle me so then it made it better. Let that elastic out. You’re looking too feminine these days.
Give yourself some Velcro there. So as I read to the story, I’ll give you. That’s a good looking picture.
That’s actually really good. They did really good. When oh sure enough, eight years later, Zaludek was out in the woods, demonstrating to students how to properly skin and prepare a rabbit.
All while rocking a bleached blonde ponytail and acrylic nails. Jake when Zaludek first began her training. Some people doubted her ability simply due to her gender.
They jokingly called her combat Barbie. And questioned whether she would make it. Her response to them was always the same.
I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but I’m going to leave it all out there. So that’s a good section. Well, that’s impressive.
I’ve met many women that I would like truly follow to the end. And then I’ve met some that I’m like, uh, no, I don’t feel. And I know my skills and they’re not that strong.
So like I’m not. During Sears specialist training, Zaludek said her goal was to not only meet, but exceed every standard. And she told herself that quitting was never an option.
She was determined to be judged on her capabilities, not her gender. She just needed the chance to perform training phase. After training phase, Luda excelled until she ultimately earned both her beret and recognition as a top performer by the Sier cadre.
Even after becoming a Sier specialist, Zaludek said some people weren’t able to look beyond her gender and misjudged her. Individuals mischaracterized her outgoing personality as a form of weakness, she said. Zaludek responded by acting more reserved, becoming more stoic and flattening her character to blend in.
She said she’s spoken to other women of the services who have experienced a similar watering down of their identity as a response to inaccurate accusations that their success is attributed to their gender or looks. Zaludek eventually emerged from this protective cocoon and reclaimed her outgoing identity. And now she’s a chief master sergeant.
I’m going to say something mean. Looks awfully young to be a chief. I’m going to say something mean.
Do you think she has a stool for her feet or? I thought that too. So mean. I can’t do that.
There’s no way. Maybe we gotta assume she’s doing she’s doing pull ups. A pull up.
That’s fantastic. But I did cross my mind too. So her quote is to all the women out there, please know the strength and femininity.
Go hand in hand. You don’t have to act or look a particular way to do well in your career dominated by men. I personally like wearing makeup and doing my hair.
That doesn’t make me less of a serious specialist. And for those who prefer not to wear makeup or do their hair, that doesn’t make them any less of a woman. You can look however you want to look within regulation and be your own brand of woman.
How good quote was a decent quote? Does it say how old she is? I don’t know. She she earned her beret in 2007. It’s interesting.
I mean, she looks really young to be a chief. I was just curious. She might she might just have those, you know, Those jeans.
I don’t know. Or we might be old. Oh, we are old.
No, we are old. Yeah, we’re still job with that. Any woman that can actually drag out Jake, Eric, or Marty, or Josh, when they are in.
In combat environment. Yeah, out of a situation. Sorry, I’m sorry.
I didn’t do that on purpose. I can’t remember where the setting is. All the power to them.
All the power to them. Yeah, I agree. There’s no way that I could drag Jake.
If he was incapacitated. It’d be a lot of work for all of us to drag. And, you know, I tried to save him for like a moment.
It is interesting because she’s not like doing a GI Jane where she’s trying to go like, you know, seal. She’s a survivor specialist, which is pretty good. I mean, you got to go out field.
You got to learn what to eat. You got to learn how to do escape. The resistance part, the POW camp stuff.
There’s a part of the resistance piece. That’s pretty, pretty hardcore. So I think that’s actually a perfect kind of special.
It’s I don’t know. Is it considered special operations? But it is because she’s not she’s expected to survive. She’s teaching survival skills.
You know, resistance evasion, that kind of thing. So she’s not like, oh, we need you to carry this 100 pound rock up this hill. And she’s like, no, I’ll tell you how to eat a rabbit.
Yeah. How about that? With acrylic nails. I think there’s a lot more to it, though, the just the survival piece.
Yeah, there is. Of course, she’s got it. Well, and Carrie, I’m glad you transitioned, you know, right there.
If you are interested in joining Zaludek as a SEER specialist, reach out to your local recruiter, begin training for the physical fitness requirements. Before joining the tech training course, potential SEER specialists need to complete eight pull ups in two minutes, 48 sit ups in two minutes, 40 push ups in two minutes, and a one and a half mile run in less than 11 minutes. So that’s just that’s just the gateway to qualify to go to the course.
Yeah, so I could have done that. I just couldn’t eat a rabbit. You’d be surprised at what you could do when you’re hungry, Ana.
Yeah, eight pull ups. Come on, Ana. Let’s be honest.
Dude, when I was in my 30s, I could do at least four. Yeah. Well, that’s not eight.
I can’t do one right now. Yeah, I’m pretty sure like I was a foreigner that said living on a prayer, you’re halfway there, right? I’m joking. Yeah, because Pandora plays that every hour.
So that’s just so you know. I have less mass that I can live. How about you, Josh? Before all that stomach crap started happening with you, how are you in terms of being in shape? I don’t think I would have been able to do.
I mean, maybe at the peak. Maybe if you practice, right? I mean, especially pull ups. Pull ups doesn’t come naturally, anybody.
Yeah, no, I was never good at pull ups. Sit ups, push ups, probably. Running.
I run like a duck, so that would have been a little hard. But back then, it was a bike test, right? No, I still, I did the run. The bike was right when I was leaving.
Oh, okay. And at that point, I just was phoning it in. I was getting ready for my fucking send off.
So I was like, are you going to help me if I don’t run? It was funny back in the early 2000s, because the reserves had that walk, right? That three mile walk test. Within 13 minutes or something like that? Yeah. No, no, no.
It was a mile and a half. It was like 40 something minutes, right? There was a range. But that actually hurt worse than running, because you got shin splints and everything else.
But we had a guy in our reserve squadron who was one of the fastest walkers and he smoked all goddamn day long. But he could walk like a son of a bitch. I was like, holy shit, how is this guy doing that? And he drank Mountain Dew all day.
So he drank Mountain Dew, he smoked, and he was the fastest walker we had. Yeah, but he works with you. At that size, we’ve discussed it before, Marty.
You just get that fall. It’s a controlled fall. That’s all it is, right? You get that belly over that center mass, falling all the way to three miles.
Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. All right, let’s close this damn thing out with our last story from task and purpose.
Space Force wants its own boot camp. Unbelievable. Now hold on, Eric.
Hold on. Listen, just listen before you pass on your judgment. You security versus son of a bitch.
Leaders of the US military’s newest branch have said they want Space Force to go through their own basic military training, one that is separate from the rest of the Air Force. Well, let’s see. Chief of Space Operations General Chance Saltzman said during the 2025 Space Power Conference in Orlando, quote, we’re trying to figure out what’s the right scope, what’s the right scale, what’s the right evolution away from having the Air Force training our inductees and getting to a more guardian-focused environment, close quote.
Yeah, send them to boys camp. Issues that need to be resolved include the location curriculum and physical requirements for Space Force’s boot camp, as well as the timeline for establishing it. As of now, Guardians attend seven and a half weeks of BMT, a joint-based San Antonio Lackland in Texas, where Space Force recruits have had their own space-oriented curriculum since May 2022.
Wait, it’s already happening? Eric, why don’t you throw a fit out on that one? I didn’t know it, or I would have. Oh, there you go. Doing it for two years there, buddy.
Air Force is probably shrinking the amount of slot Space Force gets, too. They’re like, we’re only two in two flights. It’s on our dime.
After they graduate from BMT, Guardians attend tech school to receive job-specific training. Krista DeAndrea, spokesman for Air Education Training Command, said, there are approximately two flights of Guardians going through training at any one time. Most of the training for Guardians is the same as what Airman experienced.
The only difference is some of the curriculum is specified or specific to the U.S. Space Force. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, Think Tank in Washington, D.C., said it makes sense for the Space Force to have its own boot camp because it would introduce new recruits to the culture of the service and help the service more firmly established and cultivate its own identity. Really, that’s what it would do? The expectations and culture of enlistees in the Space Force are different than the Air Force.
The Space Force has a much smaller enlisted force relative to its officer corps. 52% of the Space Force is enlisted compared to 81% in the Air Force. And the Space Force has a higher share of senior noncommissioned officers within its ranks.
Twice as many enlisted Guardians have a four-year college degree than in the other services. Oh, they’re educated. Yeah.
SMRT. That’s why they need. That’s why they need their own basic training.
They’re educated. What is SMRT? I was intentionally spelling smart wrong. I thought it was an F. Anna, your trip to the moon is about to pretty good for you to go out there.
You got to see next to me eye out some stuff. Our favorite CU joke was dealing with the end on the Nebraska helmet means. I really thought it was an acronym.
I’m like running that through my mouth. That was perfect. Third timing couldn’t have been better.
Uh, the space. Eric, I think I’m with you though. If Space Force and Air Force break their basic training apart, who’s going to push the Space Force people around in their roly chairs? I don’t have the Air Force for something.
Yeah, we got Air Force baby. We’re used to it. Yeah, the Air Force is just going to have to go back to making fun of the guys who went security forces.
There’s Space Force in around here, but how about those smart guys? We are hardcore combat defenders. You’re the infantry of the Air Force. Come on.
Let’s go down the path of Space Force basic basic training. Like for real. Okay, what did we learn in basic training? We learned how to drill.
We learned how to follow. We learned the history of the Air Force. Rank structure.
Rank structure. We got physically fit. We learned how to eat really fast.
So we only need to do half of that, right? Physically fit. No, eat really fast. They should be, they should, they should adopt some sort of physical regiment, right? Yeah, yeah.
Healthcare is expensive. I don’t think they’ve decided on what they’re going to do for a PT test yet. I don’t think officially they’ve decided on what they’re going to do yet.
I’m telling you, it’s going to be summer camp and you go away for two weeks. And I’m excited about it. And you get your little freaking, you know, what kind of space badge are you going to wear? Here you go after two weeks and pat them on the head and send them on their way.
And three ribbons. That would be so exciting. Because, you know, remember back in the day, if you were going into missiles as an officer, everybody’s like, right, right, right.
Yeah, right. But if you think about it now, hey, I’m going into missile warning. Like, that’s got to be like the sexiest, most, you know, mission that you can get into.
Because then you’re going to go, you have a choice of like radar. There you go. Up to Thule.
You’d be like, right, right, right. You work at Dakota. Right, right, right.
So that’s a good point. I mean, either that or Shriever. I mean, that’s where it’s going to be.
So should they have, should they have boot camp at Shriever? That would be ideal. So they get used to the weather and then anywhere they go from there is going to be better. They can get altitude acclimated.
That’s true. That was Starcom standing up at Patrick. So that’s where it’s going.
No, don’t give them Patrick for basic. No, everywhere they go from there is going to be crap. Marty, that’s where they’re going.
They’ve already started starting it up. They’ve already started by hand. Houston, where NASA has their day camp.
There you go. There’ll be NASA. Yeah, space camp and Air Force, Space Force basic training.
They’ve got facilities. They got room for them. They can frickin teach them their little scope.
You put their little aluminum hats on. What about okay, okay. This guy, he’s been waiting.
He’s been so waiting for a lower. Because we Air Force has been the lower. So now we got somebody else to make fun of.
Oh my God. Here’s my pitch for Shriever, right? You put them through Shriever and then their fit test is to park in the farthest row of the parking lot. Get through the turnstiles and get to the mod within a certain amount of time or else you fail your fit test.
Yeah, that’s it. That’s all you need over. So you got to run that quarter mile to the turnstile and then sneak your way into the right mod.
You got a badge in. Got a badge in. Right, right.
Go get it read. Click, click. Oh no.
I mean, I used to talk. Oh, back to line. You are no go.
Hey, someone call Eric. I got a guy stuck in the freaking turnstile again. There you go.
The cops were just on standby just there that day. Give me your space force PT test today. You know how it is.
Crazy. We’re standing here. We’re standing there.
It doesn’t matter. I do think thinking back to not so much the basic part of it, but the tech school part of it. Because correct me if I’m wrong, like when we went in space, it wasn’t you knew you were going.
You know, you’re missing a tater radar sivers. And I remember going through it was test through and then as people failed out, it was a certain set of jobs. Kept on testing and other set of jobs.
Right on. And at the very end, I think I was the only one in class that was going to Swiss. Going to bucket and it was like everyone else was going to Shriever Patterson down to Florida.
Yeah, he told me Buckley and I like had to literally flip through the book to figure out there was something like Buckley, right? I mean, as far as basic goes, I agree. I don’t think the physical part of it. I think the drill, the leading, you know, I think those are all important.
I think truly it should be tack on schooling to prepare them for Texas. Yeah, yeah. Right.
I think that to me to bring them up to the level faster. Yeah, you know, customs and courtesies will be part of it too. How do you know how to frickin interact with the Officer Corps and the NCO Corps? Yeah, and it’s shown already.
There’s more NCOs and Officers and edumacated people in the space for us right now. So yeah, yeah, it would be interesting. We fought against that ring structure for a long time though.
And lost pathetically because it got worse. When they stopped, when they stopped lieutenants from going to the missile fields, they said you don’t have to do a missile command first and you can go straight into Sibberts and there was just like, Buckley, everybody. Really got to do with these guys, you know, so.
No, I think everyone should go through missile warning because that truly that challenges you not only as a leader but as a person. And then skirt off into some other space. So let me ask you guys this.
The more space stuff next. That’s what I was trying to say. I saw Jake’s face and he’s so disappointed in me and I threw me off.
He’s like, Do you guys not believe this is not about money? No, it is. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Sure, I agree with him. I agree with that. So I have a question.
Does the Coast Guard have a basic training? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there’s a school for the Coast Guard. Yeah.
The defense rests. Why not? But it’s like, you know, handle boats. Right, right.
So I don’t know. It’s it’s interesting. I think it’s it wouldn’t be as elaborate because you wouldn’t be having that many people because the end strength of space forces.
It’s really a third of what the Air Force is. So I have a problem with it. I have an issue with it.
Get the physical part. There’s they’re going to have different standards. Yeah, they’re going to have different standards.
I don’t know. If we start sending guardians to space, you would have to be physically fit. I would think you can’t be.
Job of the hut in space and just blur. We got a lot of those. It’s measured by the porthole size like the submarines.
Your bacon has no effect on the amount of. I still say bring the flight suits back. And if you’re out of Velcro, that’s it.
You got to go on the fat boy program. You know, because that’s a lot of Velcro and we’ve seen people max out that Velcro. But if you run completely out the little tabs on the side, if you run completely out of that is like, OK, you’ve got to do something now.
Do you listen? It’ll make your size. That’s like asking for another seat belt. Can I rent another seat belt extender, please? Oh, here we go.
OK, so I was curious about the comparison. Like Coast Guard has 40 something thousand. Just active members.
Yeah. And Space only has ten thousand thousand. So maybe it’s very few.
Right. Yeah. So and I and I get that because of the time, I guess.
Yeah. I mean, what what what would you get out of an Air Force basic training that you couldn’t get out of a maybe an abbreviated Space Force basic training? Well, just give them different pamphlets. Take different tests.
Right. And basically, we had to have those those information books. We had to remember all the rank, the history, all that.
Sure. You’d be standing in a chow line reading a book. Right.
Was it Air Force knowledge? Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
You just do the same thing only for space. Your space knowledge, space rank, space everything. But respect is right, though.
We might need to bring them up to a different educational level. Maybe could be. Yeah, could be to get them.
Oh, that’s going to be a touchy touchy feeling kind of place to go. Oh, you’re not. You don’t have a degree.
Sorry. You’re dumbass. We can’t accept you.
Did you try security forces? Yeah, Air Force. I said, my security forces will take this. I have my degree.
My God. I’m an educated guy. Oh, yeah.
It takes a very different brain to understand orbital mechanics. Just saying. I agree.
Electronic warfare is crazy, too. Like, there’s just. That’s true.
You could spend a little bit more time. I mean, you could you could do all of the UST in it, right? Or the old Space 100. Whatever they’re calling it now.
You can incorporate that into the basic and save you four weeks out of it. Radio frequencies in itself is super complicated. You’re like, what? Sure.
I mean, you could sing. You could sing cadences about the orbital mechanics to help you. You know, the right ascension of the sending note does not go to marching orders.
Look at him. Get out of here. You’re talking about Rand? You’re talking about the Rand? Rand doesn’t go in a cadence.
The weird guy on the saddle guy, he goes like this. Home and home and home and transfer. He is on his horsey horsey.
See, Eric, Eric, he’s just seeding at this. You guys are making my case about why we need your own. This is the case why we need to be isolated.
But you said we don’t need it. And now maybe you’re coming around and going, maybe, well, shave these guys off. Are the educated people.
You people need your own. True, not only I am right here. That stuff is hard to visualize.
It is really hard. You know, every non-space person is like, this shit sucks, man. We do feel sorry for that security forces guy.
They can relate. All that education floating around. Well, speaking of education, Eric, why don’t you educate us on some U.S. military history? Why, by God, I can do that.
It might be a little over your head, though, so. History is behind my head. Okay, so everybody remembers what happened on 7 December 1941, correct? Oh, yeah, we do.
So everybody knows who ran the Pacific during the war. That was where Admiral Chester Nimitz, right? Girls. They run the world.
Girls, run the road. So do you recall who was running pack fleet prior to Nimitz? Halsey. Negative.
That’s a facial condition. So if you remember, Kimmel was the problem with the attack. So on the morning of 16 December 1941, nine days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rear Admiral Chester Nimitz was working at his desk in the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Navigation.
He was on the East Coast. When he was summoned to the office of the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, exhausted from working for more than a week with little sleep, Nimitz trudged over to Knox’s office. When Nimitz arrived, Knox asked the Rear Admiral how soon could he be ready to travel? Nimitz curtly replied that depends on where he was going and how long he’d be away.
Knox answered, you’re going to take command of the Pacific Fleet. And I think you will be gone a long time. So Nimitz was stunned.
So again, on 16 December 1941, that’s when Nimitz took over as commander of the Pacific Fleet. I thought it was earlier on. He was already a commander.
Exactly. So I knew Kimmel had been in trouble, but I was really surprised. So Nimitz was stunned.
That night, he packs his things for the trip to Hawaii. He contemplated its mixed feelings at the new assignment. His wife, Catherine, noticed that he was in lost in thought and commented that he must be gratified to have been given the command of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
Unable to bear the weight of the nation’s secret any longer, Nimitz turned to her and confided, darling, the fleets at the bottom of the sea. And nobody must know that here, but I had to tell you. So he knew that all the battleship groups were gone.
He had just a few ships. His carriers were the only thing that were left. So he didn’t believe his command was going to be that big.
So when Nimitz made this remark, even he did not yet know the full scope of the tragedy had been fallen the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Knox had publicly announced that the battleship Arizona had been sunk and the battleship Oklahoma had capsized as a result of the Japanese attack. But only a handful of Americans outside Hawaii knew that the three additional battleships, three light cruisers, and two destroyers also sat in the mud in Pearl Harbor.
Nor had the Navy and Army revealed that a total of 24,000 people, Americans, had been killed and an additional 1178 had been wounded. So again, you start to garner the scope of what Chester Nimitz was facing. His fleets decimated.
He knows he’s got some carriers, but all the deaths, the battleships are sunk. And he was a lower rank in Abril. And by the way, Halsey was one in front of him that the Secretary of Navy said, nope, I’m not giving you the job.
And it was first recommended by Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s one that pushed Knox to put Nimitz in the chair. So, and he lived up to the occasion, 16 December, 1941.
Right. Then they kept that secret for 10 days. Yeah.
Well, it was all classified. They kept most of it classified, especially coming out of Hawaii. Yeah.
So all the numbers had to still be counted. And yeah, it was a mess. Wow.
Yeah, but shutting down that news, not letting the U.S. population know. Can you imagine that operation nowadays? Oh my goodness. No, there’s still a little bit of that that they don’t release that we don’t find out until later.
You know, I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know how, like Benghazi. I don’t know when we found out about Benghazi.
You know, all the details about Benghazi. Those 13 days. You know, what’s interesting is the, we talked about leaders.
Right. 13. I’m sorry.
We talk about leadership on this podcast quite a bit. And looking back over the leaders that were in place during World War II, or even prior wars, it seems like their capabilities, their leadership styles were so much at a higher level than what we have today. I truly believe that.
When you think about the pullout of Afghanistan, you had the Joint Chiefs and all those generals that had something to do with that. What a failure that was. It really was.
But, you know, I want to believe that we had competent people up there, but maybe their decisions were overrode or maybe their inputs were like, nah, we got to do this. They’re like, we’re recommending you not to do this. Noted, but I’m told we got to do this.
So we got to push. Maybe so. It’s just really interesting.
I mean, Nimitz walks into a shit show basically and fixes it. You know what I mean? Takes the bull by the horns and gets the job done, man. It’s impressive.
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Good one, Eric.
End the show. Josh, we got you late. I know we got you late, man.
I know you got more to add. You got to say something. Yeah, I’m good.
What’s coming up on the schedule for you over the next… Are you kind of off until the new year or what? Finish up all this stuff this week. Send out a couple more reports. Type some stuff in.
Set up a couple of meetings for next year, and then I’m off starting Friday until the first. So get a little rest and relaxation. Do you just give out cigarettes for Christmas presents? Right? No, none of my family smokes.
So it’s crazy. I couldn’t even give them out like Oprah, no. Come on, mom.
Come on, come on. What do you got to lose at this point, mom? So I’ve always wondered why tobacco hasn’t gotten on to… This is kind of a girl type or woman type comment, but most ladies start smoking when they’re trying to lose weight because this presses appetite. So why hasn’t tobacco fed that type of… Yeah, they tried that in the sixties and fifties.
Mom, I think the craps are recommending them. Both side effects have something to do with that too. Chemically changing it from smoking to a pill you can take.
Well, there’s plenty of different nicotine things that we do right now, right? So the zen stuff, that’s nicotine based, right? That’s a synthetic version of it. But even like Snus, which is like a fermented version of tobacco, that’s got nicotine in it. And then, so RJ Reynolds, you remember Ebola, right? So when Ebola came, they were racing to get all those vaccines.
RJ Reynolds was one of the companies that our bio engineer part of the company created one of the vaccines for Ebola. So it’s not just cigarettes. Yeah, so we got a bunch of different stimulant products.
So like mood enhancer, like go to sleep, you know, focus, energy. So cocaine, cocaine, cocaine, cocaine, cocaine. That’s just extra.
Give me the address though. Nice. Just a little bit.
You lost control of us. That definitely will help you lose weight, I think. I don’t know.
I mean, I tell my daughter all the time, she’s like, why is everybody so goddamn skinny in the 70s? I was like, fucking Coke, man. They’re all coked up, baby. I mean, every band, every actor, actors, yeah, it’s good times, Victor.
Barricaded cigarettes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s Virginia Slims was a big one for like the older women smoking, right? But for those who were like Grease, like Anna, and she was like, hanging out with Frankie and the pink ladies.
Groucho Marshmash. Groucho, Anna. Making 20s of mafia.
Puff blow, puff blow, puff blow. Turn in your ear first for you. I’m not saying your orders.
I do love it. You go like and you tour like the launch facilities back then. And like every inside console for the engineers had an ashtray because those guys were smoking.
They were chain smoking those sons of bitches, right? Yeah. Especially like doing Apollo 13, right? These guys are like, oh, you know, these guys are bad. So anyway, Joshua Speccy.
Great to have you back on the show, man. That was good to see you. It’s good to meet you.
Great to meet you. Wonderful to meet you too. And all the servers guys.
I mean, Eric, you’re you’re a honorary servers guy. He doesn’t want that owner. He’s a hog.
He’s a hog. He’s an honorary guard. Yeah, that’s me.
Oh, yeah. Didn’t he guard the missile silos? No. Where did you challenge the trail? Oh, no.
I was in a weapon or just a WSA. The weapons for a year. Other missiles.
Non nuclear munitions kind of thing. Yeah. So we would send guys out to the WSA when they lost their clearance.
And it was like, go work with those guys. We can’t use you. Whatever.
He has a shirt on. It says maximum effort. That’s right.
Come on. Come on. Well, on that note, let’s close out this episode.
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 get in the comments. And make sure next week that you are not late for changeover.
I love that. Josh, it was good to see you. Eric, Jake, Anna, thanks for being here.
And all of you listening and watching. Thanks for listening and watching. We’ll see you next week.
Yeah, it’s always fun. Thank you so much.