Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 10 Jul 2024
Date: Jul 10, 2024
There’s a line of cars at the gate and the cops have their dogs out, which means you will be late for changeover. Your weekly Space News and Variety Show. I’m your host, Marty Smith, and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Perot, and our man in the closet, Jake Wall.
What’s going on today? Good to see you. We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all guardians and to the other lower branches as well, so take your seats, get them formed, and have a great weekend. We present, late for changeover.
That was a long way to go. You didn’t like that one. That was a good one.
I didn’t like that as much as I did last week. I have an old sense of humor. That was good though.
I mean, if you see the dogs doing rams, you’re like, yeah, I’m calling. I’m not going to make it. They’re doing rams out here.
Forget it. All right. Well, it didn’t make sense, but it wasn’t that funny.
Well, you weren’t a gate cop. You were a special cop. You never got random stops by those cops.
You’re like, okay, guys. Oh, I did. They’re like pullover, poppy trucking.
All 42 forms. What did you say? What did you say? I was like, yes, sir. Do you have your vin verification? Hey, your vehicle stickers.
Your vehicle sticker is no good anymore. It’s like, you’re going to have to confiscate it, but not give you an appointment to get it back. So can you scrape it off, put it on a piece of paper, and bring it back to show that you have you ever done that? I’ve had to do that when I sold a car before.
I was like, that is so dumb. It was dumb. I remember that.
We did it all the time, man. And those stickers aren’t rubbery stickers. And when they get hot, cold, hot, cold, it just breaks in pieces.
It’s similar to the date on your license plate, like the same material. Yeah, right. Those won’t peel off either.
So so I’ve redesigned this late for changeover studio basement. So I just slid over like 10 feet. Right.
The dog doesn’t like it was. But so I put some pictures up, which I thought would be a little more visible. I tried another webcam, but with this, with my setup and this and using StreamYard, it has a lag because my other webcam has a zoom.
So I’m just using. Oh, OK. Well, regardless, I thought I’d show you what I put up.
All right. Here we go. So one of the slides is the classic CRE, where I spent nine years of my life doing changeover.
All right. Robot dogs. Of course.
Right. Those tappy chose, man. Tappy chose.
I always remember he was like, that’s the most terrifying thing. St. Gemma. Oh, yeah.
Patrons say in a space force for lower back pain. And if you guys are creative, I didn’t recognize you right off the bat. Well, yeah, that’s true.
And that was your nominee to win. Hey, Douglas, the camel. And for Mr. History.
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. So I’m going to figure out is that one.
Where did that guy go? Yeah. Is that in the middle? That’s in the middle over there. Uh, that one is.
Whoops. There. I know it’s hard to see.
I got to figure out a different way to do it. Oh, my. You know what’s funny about that picture is that all the hair is on your head and you are smooth everywhere else.
Now you’ve completely flipped. You know, I’m like, where did that guy go? Holy shit. That’s crazy.
Share on the USS Missouri riding the kid space junk. You know, we talk about it so much. I saw that.
That’s cute. So remember that auction that you could not get over. Eric, there’s no way that boat’s worth more than that.
No, hell no. That was a famous one, man. Yeah, that was so good.
I love the fruit. Oh, yeah, the mirror. Right.
So that one’s that one right here. Right here. And then, of course, our grooming standards.
So I think I would place a grooming standard with the CPAP. I think that would be good. Oh, yeah.
So no more. I love me wall. It’s now the I love the podcast wall.
All right. Anyway, do you guys got any banter or are we jumping into it? No, I like. Okay.
All right. I like the call. I’m amazed.
I’m amazed at how many stories we’ve done in life. It’s been, what, year and a half now, two years? In fact, last week was our 40th episode of doing late for changeover. Wow.
40. I know. That’s amazing.
Running through co-hosts like fucking loose change, baby. Oh, that’s perfect. No one’s on assignment.
I can’t remember if he’s in Mexico or Disneyland. So and, you know, maybe, maybe there’s not much difference between the two right now. So yeah.
But his he’s he sacrificed his son’s last game. So, you know, gotta be a good dad. Yeah.
Well, they had a good season until one pulled him out and they lost the last game. Oh, okay. So we jump into it.
Let’s get into some taxpayer money. So I remember when I went to, I think it was O. U. S. T. Right. Or E. U. S. T. Sorry.
Enlisted undergraduate space training when they talked about Sibbers. That’s the first place I really learned about. None McCurdy.
The none McCurdy bill, which is if a program goes over 20, 25 percent, 30 percent over budget, it usually gets killed. And you’re like, oh, shit. I mean, and there’s some famous bomber programs, tank programs that have all got none McCurdy and they died because you got to go to answer for Congress.
Not Sibbers. Sibbers had three at that time. I think they’ve had four now.
They’re like, and it’s still kicking. Well, well, none McCurdy still has no stopping power with this next story from era and space forces dot com. Oh, look, look who remembered.
Look at that. Nice banner. Yeah.
The new Sentinel ICBM survives a Pentagon review, but the cost jumps 81 percent. Holy cow. First up, let me give you some background on Sentinel.
The LGM-35A Sentinel, formerly called the ground based strategic deterrent, is an ICBM being developed by North of Grumman in conjunction with Air Force Global Strike Command. The new ICBM replaced the 400 five decade old Minuteman three ICBMs, 400 of them, which have been in service with the Air Force since the 1970s. The Sentinel development program began in 2014.
It will deploy 400 new missiles, update 450 launch silos, and modernize more than 600 facilities across 40,000 square miles in the US territory covering six states. The program will modernize the ground-based leg of the nation’s nuclear triad, extending its capabilities until 2075. And it’ll be a 95 percent job.
All right. It’s expected to have a range exceeding 5500 kilometers and can reach any target across the world in just 30 minutes. Wow.
So the story goes, the cost overrun on the Air Force’s Sentinel ICBM is more than twice, twice what was anticipated earlier this year. 81 percent compared to 37 percent, which they thought earlier this year. But Pentagon Acquisition and Sustainment Chief William LaPlante has certified that the program must continue.
Of course. It’s part of the triad. Yeah, that’s right.
It’s part of the triad. The Pentagon also indicated the program will be delayed at least three years instead of the two previously predicted so the Air Force can rejigger its program. If the program was to continue as it had been previously structured, it would cost one hundred and forty point nine billion dollars.
Wow. God dang man. So all this came out because the Air Force revealed that it was in breach of the Nunn-McKertie Act in January.
So a brief on the Nunn-McKertie Act, it requires a Pentagon to inform lawmakers of a program and incurs a cost or schedule overrun, oh, of more than 15 percent. I thought 30, 15 percent. Any breach over 15 percent is considered significant while a breach of 30 percent is considered critical.
For critical breaches, the Secretary of Defense must either cancel the program or certify it to continue as necessary for national security. Well, 81 percent must do that. So it will take about 18 months to two years to restructure the program so we can come back for review.
But work on Sentinel will continue in the meantime. LaPlante said he certified the program as necessary and should continue it because it is, one, essential national security. Two, there are no alternative programs that can achieve the requirement at less cost.
Three, the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation agrees that the new cost estimates are reasonable. Four, the program is LaPlante. Yeah, LaPlante, this guy said.
It’s reasonable. The cost estimates are reasonable. 81 to 140.
That’s reasonable. Four, the program is, quote, a higher priority than programs whose funding must be reduced to accommodate the growth in cost. And five, the program’s management structure is adequate to manage and control the program acquisition unit cost.
Here’s the good part. Can’t you just upgrade 400 ICBMs or do you have to decommission them? Didn’t they fucking do this? And this went into some of the minutia, but the major cost of this program is that they got to upgrade every hole in the ground. To accommodate this new missile? Yeah, the missile itself is kind of basically unchanged.
The warhead’s a little bit more powerful, but it’s not the missile that’s the cost. It’s like, oh, we got to put new silos in. LaPlante.
We got to put new ground equipment in. Okay. And so they’re talking.
They’re building houses, what, 100 feet below the surface. Yeah. And they’re going to replace.
They’re going to redo all of that shit. Or they want to redo all that shit. So I wonder if that includes the launch control facilities, you know, with the crews.
Oh, oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, that’s maybe that’s a little under then. Maybe they should just say, are they going to upgrade the, the cop house? No, I said the launch control facility. I thought you said, oh, and you know, give the cops a little better place to stay.
Just the LCA where they sleep. Right. That’s where we’re on site.
And give you something better than a, you know, a Hyundai patrol truck out there or something. Air Force Acquisition Chief Andrew Hunter indicated the Air Force will be solely responsible for finding the roughly $45 billion in additional funds. The Sentinel required, but said the overages will not start kicking in for another five budget years.
That means the Air Force has time to restructure its budget to adjust for the ICBMs higher costs. Ask what might be cut to pay for the Sentinel. Andrew Hunter said, our current cost profile does not suggest that any of the cost growth in the Sentinel program will be realized over the course of the next five years or so.
And we’re going to go down the road to decide what trade offs we’re going to need to make in order to be able to continue to pursue the Sentinel program. Now, I asked both of you, do you think five years from now, the Air Force is going to cut anything to make up? Like somebody’s going to go, Hey, remember five years ago, we were supposed to cut some stuff and they’re like, I had no idea what you’re talking about. So I do have my own conspiracy theory here, though, going back with our story with the VA losing $91 million.
Yeah. Yeah. I think the Air Force might be siphoning from the VA money from the VA.
There’s a sticky finger guy out there. And our current rate, we are on target to cover that bit. Thank you.
Meanwhile, the VA guys are like, what happened to the money? It was here. But they’re, they’re good with losses, right? They just, they sent that Air Force guy to help us. That’s good, Eric.
That might be valid. That might be valid. They’re sneaking around, man.
So, uh, I don’t know. I, you know, not to get too complicated, but I did. Isn’t the land based ICBMs kind of outdated nowadays? I mean, the Chinese balloon flew over every one of them and they know exactly where they’re at.
I don’t think that was a question. Aren’t the submarines a little bit more threatening or anything we can put up into space a little bit more threatening than a ground base. That’s, that’s going to be the slowest to target.
Yeah. But that’s part of the, the three, right? Triad. Part of the 1950s nuclear triad defense.
What’s the third thing? The missile missiles. Well, it’s got to be C and, uh, I don’t know, air. It’s got to be some long range bombers.
Oh, nuclear. Oh yeah. Long range bombers.
Right, right, right. So I don’t know. We’re putting all this stuff into the B 21 radar and all these bombers.
Yeah. I know he’s on it today, man. It’s a fucking elephant in the back.
All of a sudden he’s like, wow, look at that. Kick it ass. Crunk on that boy.
Uh, so in a couple of years, we’ll find out, uh, I guess they’ll, they’ll bring their rejiggering of the program back for review. And, uh, I, you know, I don’t know. Five years.
Okay. Not my problem. Right.
That’s what I mean. I’ll be gone. No worries.
You know, most people have begun on a problem. Nobody will remember that IOU that we just wrote, you know, today. You’re going to want to hold on to that one.
Well, you know, funny IO what, uh, Martin said, as far as the submarines, that is, that’s become the key player. It’s got to be the fastest new school year defense. Yeah.
You can come up undetected. Well, and we’re, and we’re dumping all this money, the B 21 Raider, right? That’s supposed to be the new stealthy bomber, stealthy Nuke delivery, right? So land-based ICDMs. I don’t know.
That’s, like I said, it’s the slowest to target. Then you’d have to call it the nuclear buy edge. It doesn’t sound as catchy.
That’s a good point. All we’d have to change all the posters. Yeah.
We did that for the army bases and look how expensive that was. Let’s just try and, you know, it’s easier to, to try to go over budget with these things. A small price to pay.
Wow. So could you see your tax dollars? Your, thank you again. They’re going to need to increase my fricking property taxes one more time.
Okay. That story just kind of makes you shake your head because it’s kind of invisible money, even though it’s our money, right? It doesn’t really fire you up, right? Well, now I got a story that’s going to get you going. Gonna get you going.
So from stripes.com. Yeah. Air Force is increasing number of quote, extremely demanding jobs, receiving bonus pay. More job specialties considered quote, extremely demanding by the Air Force and Space Force will be eligible starting in October for special duty assignment pay or SDAP, right? The Air Force approved 78 enlisted job specialties, an increase of eight over this year for special duty assignment pay in fiscal year 2025.
Guardians working in 22 different job specialties will receive the pay bump, the release said. The Air Force expanding, is expanding the eligible career fields, partly as an incentive tool, said Air Force spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Erica Yepsen. She said SDAP is used to encourage enlisted members to qualify for and volunteer to serve in or remain in designated positions with duties that are extremely difficult or carry an unusual degree of responsibility when compared to typical jobs of members of the same grade level.
Eligible Airmen and Guardians may receive a range of SDAP from 75 per month to 450 per month. So, you know, the typical ones like combat control, pararescue, I don’t know why MTIs, but MTIs is probably given that because it used to be non-vol, right? Non-vol and those uniforms they have to keep up all the time. Well, what is all that? Such a demanding position other than the stress level of a freaking guardian.
Now, Eric, hold on. We’re not there yet. All right.
We’re just talking about the Air Force because I couldn’t find what the guardians were. I gave you a little stress. Did you hear that part? I did say a little bit of stress.
Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit. But this year, Command Chief Master Sergeant and First Sergeant are some of the positions eligible this year for the extra pay.
First Sergeant and Chief. Now, Juan wanted me to stress that his opinion on it was if the Chiefs use that money to have off-sites or for the enlisted, like enlisted call or something, then he understands it. When have you ever been taken out to lunch by a Chief? They’ll give you a coin.
There’s a coin. Good job. Keep going.
Hey, Chief. You want to buy some Jimmy Johns? He’s like, how much will this get us? Nothing. Yeah.
Okay. Where was I? I think Whaley used to bring in donuts every once in a while. Oh, he did.
Or something like that at the beginning of every UTA. To be fair to that one, Chief. Okay.
All right. The rest can suck it. I’m just kidding.
Right on. I agree. Sons of bitches.
The added pay incentive recognizes enlisted personnel for duties that require demanding personal effort to ensure successful mission accomplishment. Those duties also require a greater degree of responsibility or difficulty beyond what is normally expected for an Airman’s grade and experience, and also require special qualifications or rigorous screening or special schooling. The service estimates that 30,134 personnel will receive SDAP and Fiscal 2025 for a total of $91.2 million.
You can’t tell me that this is not directly related to retention and recruitment. But here’s the statement that the Air Force put out, which sounds like, oh, let’s get ahead of this for people who are going to attack us. So they said, this year, the Air Force is focused on identifying personnel in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities using a defendable scoring methodology and made decisions agnostic of budgetary funding constraints.
You’re telling me they didn’t put that out because they’re like, everybody’s going to beat us. Well, right in there that we have a defendable scoring methodology. I would love to see the scoring methodology in which a academic faculty and structure instructor at the Air Force Academy warrants special duty pay.
It’s very demanding. Oh, special duty. So I don’t know, I was trying to go through it and a lot of them made sense, but some of them cyber intelligence analysis.
Isn’t that your job? Yeah, the demanding portion is what runs me the wrong way. Right, right. Come on.
More demanding than other airmen in your grade. That’s where I’m like, they have aircraft armament system, Jake. Did you ever get special duty? No, really? No.
Yeah. I got it when I came over to be a space nerd. Because of critical AFSC.
Is that why? Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever get it? Did you ever get special duty pay, Eric, for the Stinger stuff? Not for Stinger, but a couple of times that I was deployed.
Well, you got combat pay, right? Yeah. Well, why, why wouldn’t they give you an Air Force security forces special duty pay for learning how to do a Stinger? Well, it was special duty at this time. All those pigs want to do it.
Just to get out of the gate out of watching the freaking flight line. Well, they determined that holding the trigger on a Stinger tube is not that difficult. Put the battery in, click and turn it on, engage, pull the trigger.
Pew pew is the same with the rifle or the pistol. But you know, when he was walking in a security forces break room, you know, he had his beret on a little bit canton. He was strolling through and they’re like, there goes that Stinger guy.
Dude, I will tell you that I was, I had a jacket made, I had a jacket made in Koonsan that said, if it flies, it dies. Nice. Big Stinger guy in the middle of it, right? And you spent all your special duty pay on that jacket.
Yes. I had, I had the ghostbuster patch that said, we ain’t afraid of no hind. You know, the hind.
Yes. Oh, yeah. I had the one that went after.
What happened to that? What happened to that jacket? I don’t know. Come on. That would be hilarious.
That would be hilarious. Did the ex, did the ex-wife get it? Did you leave it at the ex-wife? She did. She probably cut it all down.
Well, so there you go. So they’re coming out. I could not really, I was trying, you saw the text messages.
I wanted one to, I was like, look at this up. What are the space jobs? He’s like, ah, I really can’t tell. And I couldn’t access it.
You had to go on an old computer. Yeah. And I was like, I couldn’t see that image either.
Oh, yeah. It was hard to read. It was small.
Thanks anyway. Appreciate it. Okay.
Let’s continue to depress, to get depressed on this episode. But maybe, maybe this is hope. Okay.
Maybe. So this one from stripes.com, a former army family awarded $10 million for a claim that moldy home and Fort Cavazos damaged son’s health for life. Where’s Fort Cavazos? Fort hood.
So black mold is not just for Marines. It’s also for army as well. But listen to this, this, this story will amaze you.
A former army sergeant and his family were awarded more than $10 million last week on July 1st, after a private arbitration panel agreed the moldy home that they leased at Fort Cavazos caused lifelong health problems for the youngest son and triggered financial hardship and loss. Wow. So this is how they got to that point.
The American arbitration association panel of three lawyers determined Fort Hood, Fort Cavazos family housing, now known as cavalry family housing and its parent company, Len Leese showed a lack of care of concern for families living in military housing. The $10.3 million was awarded to former Sergeant Jason Kiernan, his wife, Sarah Kiernan, and their three sons to pay for economic damages, mental anguish, and housing allowance that the company received at least a home. So here’s what happened.
Sarah Kiernan was pregnant in 2019 while living in a home leased at Fort Cavazos, then known as Fort Hood. During her pregnancy, she suffered from rashes, sore throats, and respiratory troubles. As her health complication became more severe, the doctor performed an emergency C-section in February of 2019.
Her newborn son Grant immediately had respiratory troubles. He was hospitalized and flown to Austin, Texas in April of that same year. So he’s only like three months suffering from asthma.
Oh, a two months old suffering from asthma at two months old, which the family and their attorney argued was caused by the mold in the home. After returning home from pediatric intensive care, Grant was again hospitalized two days later. A month after that, he was taken to a pediatrician due to breathing difficulties.
The mother Sarah said every time we came back home, he got sick. So now look at this one. Listen to this.
In May 2019, one of the Kiernan’s older sons was playing and fell through a wall that was soggy. Mold was revealed behind the wet drywall. The army then reassigned the Kiernan’s to Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Sergeant Jason Kiernan left the army in November 2020 and the family now lives in New Hampshire. Though their sons health problems have persisted. Now five years old, the boy has lifelong implications of a brain injury that occurred because he did not get enough oxygen after his birth.
He suffers seizures, impulsivity and speech delays and his doctors cannot predict what life will be like as he ages. Now here’s what really pissed you off. The Kiernan’s originally filed their case as a lawsuit in June 2020 with 11 other families living at Fort Campbell.
The lawsuit ultimately grew to include a total of 105 families. So it was rampant. It was everywhere.
Yes, it was rampant, right? However, as litigation proceeded, a federal court judge found the lease agreements signed by service members at the base required disputes to be arbitrated by panels that are typically made up of lawyers and formal judges. And that’s who awarded the Kiernan’s 10 million. The panel for the Kiernan family found overwhelming evidence at Fort Hood family housing and lend lease gave a false sense of security that the home was properly repaired and was safe for them to occupy with families and infants.
It also found false misleading deceptive and unconscionable conduct by the companies because evidence indicated housing employees use numeric codes in company maintenance reports to hide references to mold and withheld the company’s prior knowledge of construction or design defects that promoted mold growth in Fort Cavaso’s homes. Your lowest bidder. Oh, these these lend lease.
God. So the Kiernan’s award was announced on July 1st, just hours after lend lease, the company announced it was selling its military housing business to Omaha Beach investment holdings. Yeah.
Well, they sold it for 320 million to another company called Omaha Beach investment. That could have an impact on the claims against lend lease, depending on how the sale contracts are written, could motivate the company to move quicker to resolution. Probably not.
But it also shows how much money is available to be sued for, essentially. So, yeah, yeah, especially when they’re going, oh, yeah, this house is a number nine. What’s number nine? It’s a maintenance condition.
And if they knew they had mold and they just didn’t want to fix it. You know, I must say the fact that you, me and Jake are sitting here tonight without without some kind of disease, whether it be from fire phone that we played in mold house. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, all the gas, anything. Right.
And we’re just lucky. But some of this, some of these guys. Yeah, that’s terrible.
So the lawyer saying that he hopes this this settlement or this judgment will be a wake up call because there’s a lot. There was a lot in that article about how these people tried to bring the case. But the court said, oh, you waited too long.
So we’re not going to, we’re not going to hear it. And he’s like, come on, man. So there’s a lot of things like that.
While’s why some of this litigation hasn’t gone through. It’s really shitty. It almost sounds like you’re dealing with the VA.
I feel terrible for that kid. What a way to start his life. Well, he didn’t go there in Brockheimer.
Oh, yeah. Brockovich. Yeah.
Brockovich. Brockheimer. It’s kind of that way.
Right. And that’s it for hood, which is interesting. Right.
I mean, you go to Bragg or, you know, the ones on the East Coast and you go, okay, it’s it’s you know, I know it gets humid in Texas, too. But the design is holding black mold in the design of the building. Yeah.
So and you’re trying to trust. You go to you go to Barksdale defect and it’s got rats. I guess it’s that’s my boy.
We’re lucky to be alive. Right. With these guys.
And they all water was that that wasn’t a brag. That was it. That’s it.
That was Hickam. Camp Lejeune, right? Camp Lejeune. And yeah, the fuel oil in the water.
It’s just like, dang, you guys. What are you doing? Man. And they wonder why they have a recruit recruitment problem.
Yeah. You’re going to try to kill us all. Well, if not now, then, you know, several years down the road, that’s for sure.
So it’s crazy. Okay. I don’t know if it’s because Lil Mule is not here.
That’s just been kind of a depressing episode so far. And I can’t tell when Jake freezes or if he’s just not paying attention because he’s like, look down and I’m like, he’s like, yeah, I froze. No, I froze.
I got to do something about this. Or if he’s just, you know, well, anyway, this story has not been filled up with feel good stories until now. We need one gentleman.
I’ll give you two. I’ll give you two of them, right? They’re both 4th of July stories. One is from Fort Bliss and one is from Guam.
Which one you want first? You want the Guam or you want the Fort Bliss? Let’s go Bliss. All right. So Fort Bliss.
I don’t think I made banish for these. So at Fort Bliss, Texas, during their pop goes the Fort celebration, right? For July 4th, competitive eater Joey Chestnut goes up against four soldiers in a hot dog eating contest. Competitive eater Joey Josh Chestnut, 16-time winner of the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest went up against four soldiers competing as a team against him.
Specialist Daniel Alvarez Puente, Specialist Carter Shook, Major Jacob Elliott, and Private Second Class Colton Garcia. Normally on July 4th, Chestnut will be in Coney Island at the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. But after competing in the contest for 19 years, a surprise announcement last month through a wrench in those plans, officials from Major League Eating announced on June 11th that Chestnut, who ate 62 hot dogs last year, would be barred from competing in the annual competition after Chestnut signed with another hot dog brand.
Following that news. Following that news. Now I give these guys credit.
Following that news, Fort Bliss, morale, welfare, and recreation on X tagged Chestnut in a tweet offering him a chance to compete against soldiers at the base’s July 4th event. Chestnut enthusiastically accepted the offer. That’s cool.
So that’s kind of cool. Here is the edited replay edited by me. Once again, resetting the rules.
It is Joey against this group right here. One versus four. Five minutes on the clock.
Once the counter starts, we’re going to count that down 30 seconds. Give these gentlemen a chance to focus before they really dive in and get started. We’ll like the hot dog here right here.
This is very, very nice. So if you would have a great big Fort Bliss hand to get this thing started, let them hear you. So there’s a kid dressed as a hot dog.
Let’s start the clock. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Let’s go.
So these are always kind of hard to watch. So those four guys, they’re full, they’re total. They’re four total.
Okay. Yeah. Right into the fray, if you will.
Look at that guy, man. We have 15 seconds in and Joe is almost done with the first tray. Here we go.
First tray. Our four soldiers are at four. There you go.
You know, those four soldiers are eating at four. One minute to go. One minute.
Those soldiers, I bet three hot dogs in were like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a lot more than I thought. He is.
This is sort of disturbing right here at the end of every one counts. Now, 45, it’s 40 seconds and he’s four hot dogs ahead of those 46 for our soldiers. Let me see.
Five minutes of 30 seconds to go. Your body’s got to just fill up. Can you imagine a 13 hot dogs? It’s going to be 54.
We got 20 seconds. Now, 50, 15 seconds. This is 55 right now.
Here it is. 10 seconds. Oh my God.
Look at this. 57. Holy cow.
To 49. I guarantee you those soldiers are like, this was a long five minutes. That’s.
That’s 12 hot dogs each, right? Yeah, just about right. Just about right. Right.
Right. They could only do 12. He did.
Like he did 57. I wonder if Nathan’s at Coney. I wonder if their viewership dropped off because he wasn’t there.
Oh yeah. That’d be interesting. That’d be interesting.
I don’t think so. I don’t think it was that high in the first place, to be honest with you. They televised it on ESPN.
Well, yeah, you get about what we showed. It’s just a few minutes of it, right? Very important part of fourth of July. Like I said, good on Fort Bliss reaching out.
I mean, that’s really cool. They had to be as surprised as hell. They’re like, holy shit.
He said, yes, he’s coming. Oh my God. We got to do something, right? So that was good.
Yeah. Good on Fort Bliss. That was really cool.
All right. Here’s a, here’s a second July. It was really cool.
Not to be outdone by the army. The RFI, the air force makes a splash from stripes.com. Guam commander invites air force base to July 4th block party at his house. So Brigadier General Thomas Polanski, commander of the 36th wing and Anderson air force base on Guam, put out an open invitation to party at his house for two days on the 5th and 6th of July.
He wrote on Facebook. So I guess he’s got a big page on Facebook and it just says 36th wing commander. And I guess it’s pretty good because he puts a valid information that you can use and he recognizes a lot of the airmen.
But he put this post out there said the slip and slide scheduled for the joint force of my house on five July and six July. We’ll have a couple of food trucks available, a DJ and you’re free to bring your own lawn chairs and bring your own beer. The event will basically be a base white block party should be epic.
So Polanski has turned his official Facebook page into a morale booster in which he lauds the achievements of individual airmen, comments on the weather, wildlife and other aspects of life on Guam. And always ends with the exclamation Murica. Murica.
He knows his audience, right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess you put that initial post out there. And then like Friday evening, he put, Hey, if you didn’t make it out today, make it out tomorrow.
We’ll be here tomorrow. So here’s an example of the slip and slide that they have. All right, here we go.
Holy cow. Pretty good run. That’s awesome.
Gonna make it to the marker. How big’s this guy’s yard? I don’t know. That’s one hell of a yard.
So they had a good party and he, and he, and they just stayed out there for like two days and whoever decided to come could come that you didn’t have to, but he kept it out there. So here’s a, here’s another example of the slip and slide. You can see the sprinklers that he’s got going spraying.
That’s pretty, that’s pretty good. I don’t know. Oh, that’s awesome.
I mean, just to have, just to offer it up and go, Hey, come on out. What, what you want to drink you, you know, you bring it. I’m not going to give a shit.
Any commander stateside would be scared to death that it was some legal trouble, right? You know, somebody will be like, Oh, this commander authorized beer. And so I think it’s pretty cool. And there’s a lot of positive, real positive comments.
It’s like, Hey, thanks, sir. That was really, that was really fun. You know, he didn’t put any pressure on anybody and he’s a wing commander.
So he’s fairly, everybody knows him, but he doesn’t really know anybody. Yeah. So that’s kind of cool.
That’s pretty cool. I applaud that. That’s the first thing we’ve had that was positive.
That was a good one. So that’d be great. Oh, Eric was getting depressed.
I know. I know. I’m sorry about that.
It’s just the news day. But when starliner comes home, we are going to celebrate that baby. So it doesn’t, this goes back to the question of city here today.
Would you tell your children to join the military? Well, I’m telling you, man, it’s a hard thing to ignore a GI Bill and VA loan. That’s a hard thing to do. Yeah.
Especially when you got like, you know, my daughter’s 30 and they have a kid and they’re like, yeah, we’d like to buy a house, but, you know, how are we going to save up 20 grand, 30 grand, whatever it is. And, uh, you know, that four years of service, a service really that makes it smart. But, but, you know, you roll the dice and you might come up with black mold, alopecia, cancer.
Definitely roll the dice, man. Yeah. So that tells me every job is demanding in the military.
They should all get a frickin demanding than others. No, no, I got it. So they’re going to give you a ribbon for completing basic training.
They’re going to give you, and if you bring a buddy, well, you’re well on your way to E4, you know? So, and they’re going to give you a special duty pay for something, something that we didn’t. We’ll think something easier than what all of us did. And they’re going to get special duty.
By the way, I’ll do teapot side then. Yeah. You mean that.
But I’ll take teapot side where it provided guidance and direction for a lot of us when we’re younger. I didn’t know what I wanted to be going, be when I grew up. That’s true.
And I think that’s still out there, you know, and that is a benefit still. I like to say that I think it’s going to be significantly different once all these Joint Chiefs kind of move on. You know, I mean, we already saw the pendulum starting to swing right with ACC.
ACC is like, fuck you with your beards, we’re doing inspections. Better be to the tee on that waiver coming back. So maybe that’s part of the swing.
I don’t know how much shit he’s taken. That would be interesting. In fact, I’ll go look this week to say, how much shit is this guy taken for his stance on back to standards? You know, that would be interesting.
I mean, you can you can read the damn comments on like Facebook or something else like that, that has posted that story. And I saw one and some airman was like, I’m going to die on this hill for my shaving waiver. And everybody’s like, that’s the hill you want to die on? Okay.
I would like to think that the responsible, more mature people are going, we need that. We need to go back to those standards. Right.
Because we can’t tolerate the fact that I can’t, I can’t train you without you becoming defensive thinking I’m taking your rights away. Yeah, good point. That’s your offending me.
Yeah. Right, right. That’s why I don’t think we’d make it because, you know, somebody can drop dime on you and you wouldn’t even know it.
And you’re like, Hey, I heard you say something in the break room. It’s like, what? That’s completely out of context. And they’re like, and that would be intolerable.
So well, it’s completely. We’re really discouraged. My kids from going in, honestly.
Back to you. I wouldn’t either. I wouldn’t either.
I think like, here’s the pros. Here’s the cons. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. It depends on what you want to do.
If you got a killer, you know, if your son is just like, I really want to take out some Isis and you’re like, it’s the best place to do it. Here’s your weapon. Go to town.
Not a lot of civilian organizations have that under their purview. So yeah, the military is the best place to do it. Or if you want to learn cyber.
Fucking good. There you go. Go qualify.
You’ll get a million dollar education that you can cash in after your four years, you know, if you want cyber. So there’s definitely some advantages to it. It just seems there is why they have retention bonuses.
That’s true. That’s true. I, I just think the drama and the heartache of having to deal with all the BS that’s in my opinion would be difficult.
I mean, it’s not even as, I mean, it seems that it appears more dramatic than being in a commercial position. Yeah. A civilian job.
But you know, even before all this woke bullshit and all this stuff came up, there was things that we couldn’t stand when we were younger, you know, and it might not have been transgender or something like that, but it was like, I hate that fucker. Why does the commander love that guy? I remember competing with guys from rank and he went hunting with the commander. I was like, fuck, I’m done.
I don’t hunt. What shot do I have? So, uh, you know, there’s always, there’s always those little things that are going to, they’re, that are going to gnaw at you. But, and I certainly understand change is inevitable, right? I mean, it’s going to happen.
Yeah. Necessarily good change. My opinion.
No. Well, like that ACC commander said, you know, yeah, we change is fine, but we don’t change the standard to meet who we want in. Right.
You meet the standard that is here. So I like the way the guy thinks. Yeah, I agree.
Well, let’s completely raise our spirits and go out on a high note with us military history. No, let’s go. I’m going to compel the tragedy.
Yeah, I’m, I’m going to compel it. So on July 9th, 1960. Whoa, you’re in the 20th century.
The USS Thrasher was launched and it just, it was a submarine. USS nuclear attack submarine, the USS Thrasher. It displaced 3,750 tons and was 279 feet long.
It was the most advanced attack submarine of the time capable of greater speeds and dive depths than any previous class submarine. Okay. Okay.
July 9th, 1960. On April 10th, 1963, during sea trials after commissioning, it sank. Oh shit.
With 129 persons on board about 200 miles off the coast of New England. The whole crew? The whole crew. Whoa.
The sinking considered to be the worst disaster in submarine history was determined by naval authorities to have been caused by faulty brazing of pipe joints. Do you guys know what that is? Is that the welds? I think that’s what it is. I don’t know for sure.
Sea water is thought to have entered the submarine short-circuiting electrical signals and systems and shutting down the nuclear reactor and the powerless boat sank to depths where it was crushed by water pressure. August 1963, the wreckage of the vessel was spotted by the Bathscappy Trieste at a depth of 8,500 feet. Oh, that’s one of those diving subs, right? Right, right.
One of the deep dives. 8,500 feet. So they lost power and just sank like a rock and every foot was just crushing it more and more and more.
If you didn’t drown, you would just get crushed? Crushed. Yes. Plus the pressure in your airspaces and your head would explode.
Yeah, it would blow all your internal pressures, right? Yeah. So brazing is the process for joining two pieces of metal that involves the application of heat and the addition of a filler metal. And this was the first of its kind, the nuclear attack, which made it so big and then to lose one.
We really did it tonight. Yeah, I certainly didn’t want to compel our problems. We talk about a ton of attacks there.
Bad data stop sniffing glue. Think about a submarine, no way off. You’re dropping like a freaking date, knowing you’re going to get crushed.
I mean, are you hoping that we’re like, can we restore power? Can we restore power? Or did they just like, no sense in staring now. That’s it. Turn the music up.
Let’s party until we’re down. What a terrible, horrible way to go. Salute those men and families of the USS Thrasher.
1963 went down, right? Went down, yep. It was launched on today’s date, 1960. Well, you weren’t kidding.
That was a, it’s got to be the most depressing episode we’ve ever done. Well, let’s go slip and slide at the Colonel’s house. Well, you know, I should have.
I should have kept Jake’s article that he sent out about all the, all the convictions over there in Okinawa. Oh, yeah. Some Marines and Air Force men.
There’s a lot of rape and everything going on. Holy shit. It gets raped and pillaged.
Yeah, we want you to protect us, but my God, guys, we sent some high quality folks to Japan. I guess, I guess so. So well, that’s, uh, jeez.
I don’t know what to say. All right. Well, I thought I was bringing some, you know.
No, it’s good history. We shouldn’t forget it. But on the end on a low note.
Yeah, we did. You took that whole hot dog eating contest and shoved it right in the can. Oh, I was thinking about the, I’m just compounding everything tonight with history.
All right. We’ll work on, uh, we’ll work on cheering up next week, fans. I like it.
So this is definitely an end up. On behalf of all of us here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share, and subscribe if you can.
We had some great stories tonight. Leave a note in the comments and make sure next week. In fact, in fact, we promise next week is going to be more upbeat.
So next week, don’t be late for changeover. Oh, late for changeover. I’m going to reduce my only thing cost by a couple of dollars.
Oh, look at that. Only for the first two subscribers. We’ve got to pay the bills, baby.
I don’t. She’s you and your wife, right? And I’d give her a free, I guess. All right.
Good job. Horrible business, man. But a hell of an entertainer.
Man, thanks for the week. And we’ll see you next week to a happier time.