Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 19 Jun 2024
Date: Jun 18, 2024
Turn off Lord of the Rings and put it back on CNN because you are late for changeover. Your weekly space news and variety show. I’m your host Marty Smith and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Perron.
Oh, I just turned off the radio and I swear. Our man of the closet, Jake Wall. That was a good one though, Marty.
That’s very… Oh, you like that? Yeah, that was very relevant. And our little mule is back, Juanito Lopez. Are you happy? We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all guardians and to our earthbound branches as well.
So take your seats, get them formed and have a laugh as we present late for changeover. I did have turn off stepbrothers, but I think that was two later. So Lord of the Rings was always on TNT and they would always put it on the fucking sock floor.
Or it could be for the arm coming, like the off-going crew. Yeah. Changeover.
Eric, we used to have… There was one point where they allowed us to bring DVDs in, but you could never bring them out again, right? And they had to be cleared and labeled and stamped and all that shit. We had this huge wallet of DVDs. Fine.
You do realize that you’re making my argument about space right now. Well, hold on. I’ll make it even more.
So we had this huge wallet of movies. So the Midship, you could watch something, right? You can only watch movies on the midship or on the weekend. And then somebody, and I don’t remember who it was.
I don’t know if either one of you guys were there or you left, but somebody came up and goes, Hey, this DVD doesn’t have a label on it. It wasn’t checked in at the front desk. Oh, no classification.
The next thing you know, the knee jerk burn them all. They got rid of like a hundred. I remember.
I remember I probably contributed to like back then $80 worth of DVDs. I, I gave up my Dave Chappelle season. Yeah, I did too.
I did too. Because it was a whole bunch of them. Yeah.
It was worth it to watch it out. I watched it more in the sock than I did at home. Oh yeah.
You know what I mean? I remember one of the Canadian SSO’s was pissed off because we were watching the roast of Pamela Anderson. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
She’s a Canadian national, right? Oh my gosh. It was like, it was very, very. It was, you know, very religious and stuff.
And like he had a problem. I remember the crew commander. I do know the names, but I’m not going to call out any names.
You said, well, you have a problem. Go take a nap in the break room. I remember, uh, Eric, when Band of brothers came out, it’s like, you guys are watching movies.
I know. You’re taking apps in the break room. Disregarding HR complaints.
Don’t forget about the pranks and bullshit in the bathroom, putting all your freaking papers. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Hold on defender talking about pranks in the bathroom. So draw that line. I’m very faint because you’re right there too.
But I, but Band of brothers had just come out. Dean’s easiest captain Dean’s easiest at the time went and bought the whole set. He’s like, Hey, let’s watch it.
13 hours. We were on 12 hours shift. Wow.
We watched almost that whole thing. And by the time of it, it was just like, holy shit. I feel like I’ve gone to Germany.
It’s too much. It’s too much in one city. Was that a bit bolder? It could have been.
I don’t remember when, but he just went episode after episode. Exactly. I was like, I remember beyond you, even during the changeover, where it was just going on and on for like a, like a whole rotation.
Man. Speaking of the bathrooms. Do you guys remember? Remember the ketchup packets that they were put on the teapot.
Teapot described that. That was a story. So they got them.
You know who that was, right? That was Kyle Edner. I did notice on, uh, it’s funny. I saw a couple of people on there on LinkedIn who, who liked the bits that I put out on LinkedIn.
What was Mike Shore? You remember Mike Shore. I know you don’t Eric. I know just bear with us.
And, uh, one was St. James liked it. I was like, oh, I haven’t heard from that guy. Hey, you should get him on here.
Cause I’ll be interested in see Dan and Erica added with history. Actually, that’s what he teaches now. Dan.
Oh, is it really? But as the U S military history. Uh, he was always into it. So it’ll be interesting.
Intuit is one thing to be details to history. That’s a whole nother. That’s a talent.
So, Hey, Dan, if you’re listening. Oh, you did get the brunt of a few of my pranks too. He got St. James.
Some good ones. Yeah. Um, I got a, I’ve got an amazing story for father’s day.
My daughter made reservations at Eddie V’s. Have you ever been to Eddie V’s big seafood place? Never been there. That’s awesome.
So I said, okay, I’ll order for us. And I got the big Eddie, $145 worth of seafood. There’s a shellfish tower featuring wild jumbo shrimp.
Blue point. Oysters, jumbo lump crab, fresh ahi tuna. Pokey Alaskan king crab and main lobster on ice.
So that was more seafood I’ve ever eaten. So no blue pills for you for a week. Well, yeah.
Yeah. I’ve been running through me a little bit still. Wasn’t sure if it was that or the horse, the atomic horseradish.
Oh, my God. You guys have good father’s day. Good father’s days for you guys.
Outstanding. Good stuff. Uh, okay.
Let’s, uh, let’s jump into the news. Um, this first story. Oh shit.
I didn’t make banners. I forgot about making banners. So we’ll do it old school with no band.
I’ve got, I’ve got in my notes. It says show the banner. And then the other one is like dumb ass.
You didn’t make the banner. That’s a good note. That was a note in my head.
It says podcast, Marty. I know. I’m going to be like Biden here after a while.
I’m going to read my own show notes. They’re like, make a joke to Jake. Hey, Jake.
Pause for effect. Oh, you see on Fox today where they were talking about, uh, who’s his PA person, the black lady. Corinne Jean-Pierre.
JP. Yeah. So she’s talking about how the fact that he went to some concert but didn’t dance.
That was a Juneteenth thing. Yeah. Yeah.
He’s the only one that I swear to God looks like he’s died standing up. Oh yeah. I don’t think that he didn’t dance.
He just looked like he lost. Shell shocked. Like it was like, what is going on? Like you just woke up in this whole new situation.
She was trying to say that it was, it was all fake. Some of the, yeah, that’s their whole tactic. Yeah.
It’s all fake for me. I was like, look at that guy, man. You look at him and my wife who deals with long-term care, home care and some Alzheimer’s patients.
She’s like, yeah, he, he does the same thing. He gets mad out of the blue. You know, he’s very stiff.
Yeah. He turns his whole body. Yeah.
Remember the movie mafia, the spoof, the movie mafia. I think I’ve heard of that. I never watched that place of president on there.
Oh, what’s his name? Hold on. Um, but anyways, he just reminds me of the current leadership. And it’s just mafia.
That was well said though. He did the leadership. It’s current leadership.
That guy. Yeah. But it was like, oh yeah.
I mean, you know, you see him at the G seven, you see him at that fundraiser the other day. He’s just funny. Oh, my favorite one was when he was walking off stage just recently.
And he’s like, yeah. And he did that creepy smile. Oh, I was like, what the, did you see it where Obama had to grab his arm? Yeah.
That was at the fundraiser. The other day. And they denied that too.
Oh, no. So I’m thinking of Lloyd bridges saying the president and hot shots. Oh yeah.
So a totally different movie. I know. He plays, he plays on it.
No, no. He also let us down the path of mafia. He plays, but he plays in mafia too as one like that.
Lloyd bridges is funny as shit when he puts the thing in his ear and he pulls it up together. He’s like, look, no ear drums at all. Just, just like how he plays the president there.
He’s kind of just like a live paradise. You can’t tell me there’s something is not going on with him. But it doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter. He’s a, he’s a figurehead. Yeah.
There’s a whole cabinet. There’s a whole cabinet. That’s for every administration.
Somebody’s always. Yeah. Do you remember? Like all the other presidents.
They, they had like an annual health report. They used to. Yeah.
They stopped that. Trump had it. Bo had it.
All right. All right. Well, Shannon, they’re like, Oh yeah, he’s got high cholesterol.
That’s right. It’s so ridiculous. Yeah.
And they’re like, well, he’s got a high cholesterol. Oh shit. Let’s question his authority.
It doesn’t happen. Yeah. It’s amazing.
The suppression power that this administration has. Okay. That’s back to the news.
Okay. Damn you, Joey B. Joey B. From space news.com. We got some more contracts given out here. Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA to compete for 5.6 billion dollars in Pentagon launch contracts.
All right. So US Space Force has selected Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA for the National Security Space Launch or NSSL phase three launch services program. The three companies won contracts potentially worth 5.6 billion over five years.
The Pentagon announced last week that three companies will compete for orders over the contract period starting in fiscal year 25 through 29. Under the NSSL program, Space Force orders individual launch missions up to two years in advance. At least 30 NSSL lane one missions are expected to be competed over the five years.
So what is lane one? Lane one is for less demanding launches to low earth orbit while lane two is reserved for heavy lift rockets capable of delivering payloads to nine reference orbits including some of the most demanding national security missions. So the really important shit is going to be lane two. Lane one is like, yeah, you know, put it up there.
Throw some more garbage up there. Yeah, let’s put some more garbage up there, you know. The payloads included in lane two require launches to be more stressing to more stressing orbits than lane one necessitating higher performance launch systems.
Space Force officials said the goal of NSSL phase three is to increase competition, drive down launch costs for national security payloads while maintaining assured access to space through redundant capabilities. Now Blue Origin is new and it’s Bezos’ company. So it’s the first time that they’ve been selected to do national launch.
SpaceX and ULA, ULA being Boeing and Lockheed Martin, they’ve had a lock on national security launch contracts under the phase two program that began in 2020. So here’s my question. They’ve let Blue Origin in.
Blue Origin tried to get in a couple of years ago. Blue Origin is new and they’ve been working on their heavy launch. I should have marked it.
Their heavy launch vehicle that hasn’t flown yet. They’re supposed to launch for the first time later this year. And they selected us for this program, right? So it kind of makes you like, hmm, I wonder how much greasing the skids Jeff Bezos is doing.
I wonder if that’s a legal requirement that they have to have at least three bidders. Well, no, they turned down a couple. There’s a couple others that they eliminated.
So they narrowed it down. Yeah, they narrowed it down to these three. And a company that’s never launched a heavy lift is in the competition.
So, I mean, I like the philosophy of competing companies, right? That only makes for a better product or product. But Blue Origin and Jeff Bezos haven’t launched anything heavy. Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Well, we see they’re moving at the speed of NASA, right? To be fair, they just launched the main animation. That’s true. But SpaceX is just running rings around these guys.
So I personally, I would love to see a study with the results. Why is SpaceX so much farther ahead? Well, I mean, they got all the great German scientists after World War Two and they’re like, they’re all working for SpaceX. The thing about SpaceX though, if you kind of look at their history, how many failures did they have and learn from? Well, that’s the thing about SpaceX.
They just kept launching and launching. They had so many failures. But at the same time, I don’t think they sit and perseverate over the failure.
They’re not like, oh, we shouldn’t launch for another six months. They’re like, nope, next week. And I think that’s what makes them so unique, right? It could be.
I think about this. He’s willing to blow shit up. It was.
Think about what the U.S. was like in the 1940s when they were starting to launch stuff, right? They just kept launching shit and they kept blowing up. How many failures did we have until we got it right? And I feel like they took a page from that part of history and they just did that with their Falcon 9s and all that shit. Well, I think ULA suffers from too much process, right? And when something goes wrong, you know, you go into that whole wire diagram.
What is it? What is that thing? When you’re trying to error resolution things. Yeah, the fishbone kind of thing, right? And they get mired in that. And then all of a sudden months pass and they haven’t done anything.
Whereas maybe SpaceX knows it. I don’t know. That’s why it would be interesting to see what risks is SpaceX willing to forego or absorb and still move forward, right? It would be a really cool analysis.
Yeah. To see why not only he’s willing or they have the ability to launch so much, but also they’re constantly innovating. They’re there.
I mean, he’s like, let’s, let’s launch it and reuse it. To your point, he is launching people in the space and he’s working on recovering the bit of the vehicles. That’s something everybody just accepted wasn’t possible.
Yeah. Yeah. Good point.
We can do it. It’s like, yeah, watch. So I used to a quick search and it says that SpaceX reflects on the bit in the back and they use always keep moving forward.
They don’t look back. They use learn from it and they use keep moving forward. There’s your story.
Don’t even dwell on it. Don’t even dwell on it. So I think it would be one thing if they are like they launched and it blew up on the pad.
They’re like, okay, let’s let’s launch next month. Blew up on the path. You know, they had like, well, we had 17 failures before we launched.
Somebody might go, hold on a second guys. Take a step back here, boys. But they, I mean, relative to how many launches they put up, their percentage of failures is like minuscule, you know? So I think it would be a great lesson in leadership there.
So that’s what I wanted to bring out in that story. I think Basos is definitely greasing a wheel somewhere without any tried and tested heavy lifts. I’m like, uh, Wasn’t blue origin, the ones who were, who were selling tickets for just that suborbital flight.
Was it that with Kirk? I mean, he went up, right? Was that Virgin Galactic? They’re different. I think they’re both. Those two.
Oh yeah. They were the other ones doing suborbital stuff. Right.
Yeah. Blue origin had William Shatner going up. Right.
Yeah. The blue origin though. Like that, that rocket just cracks me up.
Every time I see the blue origin rocket just. Oh yeah. Yeah.
The penis. Yeah. Straight up.
It looks like a massive bill. They’ll go into space. It does.
Um, and if you ever searched it, if you ever seen it, Eric, you’ll search and you’re like, holy shit, look at this thing. It reminds me when I was a kid, there was a porno. And it was called.
Who is. The school of cock. No, no, no, no, no.
For all your old timey porno needs placing history. There’s a, it was based on the sci-fi. Oh, I’m going to get it because they had rapist robots and penis sources for lost in space.
Like, no, sort of like that. But it goes back. What was the guy that wore red? Red and yellow as the hero.
Flash Gordon. It was called flesh Gordon. Yeah.
Yeah. Hey, that’s what we should do one day. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, portal names. I was going to send you this picture because I was clearing out my garage speaking of this.
Oh, and I had this box with brand new. And, you know, it, it, it shot these little nails, you know, Brad’s. Right.
And it was an automatic thing. I was like, Oh shit. I forgot I had this.
But on the box, I had written Brad nailer. And I was like, Oh, what a great porn name. Brad nailer.
I was like, Oh, that is so good. I am Brad. Brad nailer.
Beautiful. What do you name the podcast? Speaking of that, have you, you guys know power tools and stuff? You know what a keyless Chuck, you know, a keyless Chuck. Yeah.
Adam Carolla had a famous joke. He’s like keyless Chuck is my favorite homeless name. I was like, that’s so good.
Okay. So potential $5 billion worth to those three companies, but at least they have choices. So something goes wrong.
At least they go to somewhere else. Thank God. I’m not the contract manager trying to put that prop together.
Okay. All right. Now the tech news, some tech news.
So DARPA again, right? Is from space.com. DARPA unveils six new designs for uncrewed vertical takeoff military aircraft scheduled for 2026 test flight. So US military could soon have new uncrewed aircraft that carry weapons and takeoff and land vertically. The vehicles could undergo test flights as early as 2026.
DARPA has announced it is moving into a new testing phase for proposed experimental aircraft in which designs will be assessed for risk and analyzed for efficiency. The advanced, here’s another acronym. The advanced aircraft infrastructure lists launch and recovery or ancillary program.
Oh, I got that out of there. It’s terrible. Ancillary program will field designs for new uncrewed aerial systems carrying weapons.
So UAS specifically, the project aims to deliver X planes capable of vertical takeoff and landing like a helicopter that can operate from naval vessels. So X planes. Here is their rendering.
Yeah. There are six. There’s six concepts or six companies have proposed proposed their concept vehicle.
So starting clockwise from the bottom left, that’s Sikorsky. Then above that is Krem aircraft. Above that is Griffin aerospace.
To the right of that on top is Method Aeronautics. The one below that on the right is Aerovironment. Yeah, Aerovironment.
And then Northrop Grum is on the bottom. So you can’t get a sense of size of these things. So I did download the video.
For these guys. This is a concept breed. So it doesn’t show.
It’s advanced aircraft infrastructureless launch and recovery or ancillary X plane program will develop and flight demonstrate critical technologies required for a leap ahead in vertical takeoff. Do a little better on the high payload and long endurance capabilities. The unmanned air system will be able to launch from ship flight decks and small austere land locations in adverse weather without launch and recovery equipment typically needed for these systems.
The program will study advanced propulsion architectures such as hybrid electric propulsion, advanced onboard energy storage such as high density batteries or fuel cells and advanced structures and manufacturing technologies to enable these leap ahead capabilities. The ancillary program desires a small vehicle form factor that will allow many aircraft to be deployed onboard a ship providing a local commanding officer a network of organic information surveillance reconnaissance and targeting assets. Technologies demonstrated by the ancillary program would also benefit point to point unmanned logistics operation.
You know what they’re going to find on those islands those two guys we dropped off with that anti-ship missile. It’s a one marine. Remember us? A year ago.
We left him there. The ability for the warfighter to launch and recover the system in austere environments without reliance on infrastructure equipment will minimize personnel and costs as well as vulnerability during sensitive operations. Please join DARPA at our Proposer’s Dand Expo on September 20th, 2022.
Late for changeover we’ll be there. Like who are you guys? We’ll do a podcast. So you can see there’s some real varied designs there.
And I was trying to look up each company’s site nothing. They are so close hold with this stuff that they’re not announcing or showing anything that they have. That rendering that Sikorsky has on the bottom left looks like some kind of bomber.
I don’t see that thing landing on a moving ship. It’s all all of these are designed to be VTOL. I know.
It looks hefty. It’s a wing tip. But they’re designed, they’re one of the mandates that they want them to carry a pretty sizable payload.
So you could see in that video it’s like the size of a man or bigger. So these are big things. And to contend with the wind on a Navy ship especially moving that fast.
And then rough seas. One that’s going 100 miles an hour. That’s possibly rough seas.
That’s pretty good. Whatever that is in knots. That’s a lot of knots.
So DARPA aims to increase its use of UASs by a factor of three in the coming years given the small size and low weight of ancillary X planes. The Navy could store far more board ships than it can helicopters and launch them directly from the deck without needing specialized equipment. Ancillary is currently in phase 1B with testing set to run for 10 months from June 24 to spring 2025.
During this time DARPA will assess the manufacturer’s individual designs based on the safety of their systems and other tests. We need to do a follow-up with this. I want to see the winner.
I know. I want to see the winner. It’s coming up though, isn’t it? Like the start of it? Well, the start of a year long of testing.
And then they move into phase 2 where I think they’re going to down select. What do you think the cost of this little contract proposal is between what? I don’t know. That’s interesting because these aren’t… That’s pretty substantial.
Yeah, it’s got to be less. I mean, I can’t imagine like they’re going to get a billion bucks for it. Yeah.
But I don’t know how much these are to make. I mean, they’re still pretty full size. Yep.
So it’s not like you can do off the shelf stuff with it, but… I don’t know. The drone stuff is all over the place. It’s so crazy.
They’re coming up with everything. Yep. So, you know, we never did do a follow-up on the tactical bra.
Good point. We didn’t follow up with that. Those AI-generated co-pilot things.
I haven’t seen anything like that. That was the dog fighting, but then you haven’t heard anything. That was the one that I was interested in.
That’s probably because they’re getting operational. And they’re like, oh, this… We’ll talk about it. Do you remember that? Did you hear that one, Juan? They were actually using multiple AI-generated or AI-controlled aircraft to co-pilot or wingman.
In F-16s? Full-size F-16s. Full-size F-16s that they would use as a secondary aircraft. It was pretty impressive.
It was like a drone, but it was AI-controlling it. Yeah. It was an AI-controlled aircraft, like a fighter.
The more we talk about this, the more I think of Skynet. It’s got a big ball in the front seat. Hey, that would be cool.
Look at Eric coming up with cleverness. I like it. It’s that whole flesh gordon thing that launched him into this mood here.
I sent you the trailer for that in the chat just in case you needed it. The YouTube link for flesh gordon. YouTube link for flesh gordon preview.
Stay away from them rapist robots, man. Bad news. That’s a rapist.
All right. Let’s talk about some good news for military members who are about to get out of the service. I like it.
All right. Now it’s not good news. It’s not good news.
It’s another Rand report. Curse the Rand Corporation. Not Rand Corporation, but the Rand organization.
And another bad outcome. So from military.com, military transition programs focus too much on higher education and not enough on jobs. A Rand report says so.
This won’t burn you up, but it’ll be some interesting discussions because I want to know where you guys are on the tap and when you took it and all that other stuff. So federal programs used to help service members transition to civilian life are too focused on education and are not spending enough money and time working toward finding them employment and some seemingly aren’t effective at all according to a new study. The new report published this week by Rand Corporation, a federally funded think tank focused on military issues, takes a deep dive into how the roughly, how much would you think is spent annually helping service members transition? It can’t be lost.
Would you think a billion dollars are helping service members transition? I wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, it’s the government. So I don’t know how much money it takes.
The way you know what else is in that now is that a frickin’ transition program where they’re skill bridge. So they have to pay you to go over and work for free with a company. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that’s your rank, your BAH. So that might be in that. Well, that would make more sense because the Rand Corporation looked into, it took a deep dive into how the roughly $13 billion spent annually on helping service members transition out of the ranks is used and whether it’s effective.
What? $13 billion. We’re spending $13 billion. No way.
Here’s your book. Open it up to page five, sign your name and advocate. I mean, how many are in the total military? Less than a million or a million maybe? Less than a million, right? I don’t think there’s a million.
There’s probably not even a million, right? And we’re spending $13 billion annually on people getting out. The TAP program, because like… Just give them a million. Hey, thanks.
That’s a great transition program. If you ever go online, those TAP instructors don’t get paid a lot. Like you’ll look at TAP instructors and they only get paid by the hour.
Some of them get paid pretty crap because I see those jobs all the time. Right. Hosted.
So, okay. So where’s that? Where’s that one? Is that on those freaking books? I don’t know. Maybe they’re giving themselves bonuses like the VA did, you know? Unbelievable.
Good call on that. The RAND report found redundancies and issues, namely that the programs focused too much on higher education. RAND researchers said, quote, dedicating significant portions of the transition budget is also unsurprising because of the high and growing costs of college.
So now you start going, hmm, here’s this vicious circle again, right? College tuition goes up, government subsidies go up, and it’s just like, ooh, you’re making money just putting these guys in debt. So, but why would they focus on education? So now just thinking about it, right? All those certifications. I joined the military.
So I could do four years, get out and get my GI Bill. Well, maybe not everybody. That’s a small percentage that goes to retirement, right? So if we’re talking about first term, airmen, soldiers, marines, sailors, guardians, I wonder if just the feedback that you get… Good point.
I think I want to go to school. I think I know where you’re going with it. I wonder if that $13 billion includes the tuition that they’re paying out.
Because that would make more sense, right? A little bit more sense. $13 billion is still pretty effing high. But if they’re in that $13 billion, they’re like, well, we’re paying for this guy’s $9.11. We’re paying for this guy’s $9.11, the GI Bill, if that’s included in that.
But somehow it doesn’t seem like it. No, it doesn’t. Yeah, it’s just a lot.
The way it’s written, it doesn’t seem like it is. Because they would have pulled that point out right up front, right? Fellows, 2.86 million troops to include 778,000 military civilians. So the total is $2.86 million as of September of 2023.
All right. And that includes Garden Reserve, too. Yeah.
But $13 billion annually? I wonder what the stats are for people getting out annually. You know what I mean? Is it $100,000 that get out annually? I don’t know. Yeah.
I mean, okay, let’s… Can you imagine a world where your standard army person gets… Let’s pretend like gets $400,000 or $500,000 as soon as they leave instead of any kind of education or transition. Can you imagine the fucking motorcycle sales, the freaking strip club revenue, the trash… Oh, man. Oh, yeah.
That’s a great point. That’s a beautiful world to imagine. When I was… They didn’t blow that shit.
When I was a commissioned officer and went off to Officer Basic Horse, six months in Fort Sill, for whatever reason, they gave you the first three months to pay your billets, right? To pay your bill of bill. And they’re like, here’s three months’ worth. I don’t know why they did that.
And they’re like, don’t go spending on something. One guy went and bought a motorcycle. He went and bought a Honda Hurricane.
And he crashed it and bent the frame. And it was like, he did exactly what they told him not to do. Why would you do that? And they can’t pay for his billets.
Well, it was like when they first came out with a government credit card. Oh, yeah. You want to give that to an 18-year-old and say, be disciplined.
And they’re buying Xboxes and… Oh, my God. It’s so dumb. So… Okay.
The researchers also raise concerns over whether the programs are doing what they are supposed to do. For instance, the Defense Department’s Transition Assistance Program, or TAP, had a negative effect in some cases. The report found that out.
They were like, oh, this is negative. These guys are being hurt by this. Oh, by the way, how many homeless veterans do we now have that transition down the military? Yeah, went to TAP, and now I’m homeless.
I’m homeless. According to the report, there is virtually no evidence that any of the programs we examine have had a direct effect on transition outcomes. In some cases, the evidence is counterintuitive.
For example, the large interagency TAP, which is overseen by DOD, is associated with lower-rate wages for program participants. McDonald’s. Here you go.
Rand looked at 45 programs, ranging from major initiatives such as the Post-9-11 GI Bill, Veteran Readiness and Employment run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, DOD’s Tuition Assistance Program, and VA Survivors and Dependence Educational Assistance, as well as a host of smaller ones. It determined that, quote, oversight is weak across all 45 programs and found that there are numerous redundancies and available transition programs and services. Overall, researchers recommended there be more oversight and accountability for these programs and even suggest Congress get involved in sorting out some of the financial information.
$13 billion. Yeah, $13 billion. I mean, it’s not… Well, they gave us $100,000 and we helped a couple people with it.
This is $13 billion. So, like, how much is being allocated to DOD? How much is being allocated to the VA? Because the VA… Right. …usenamed like two, three programs, right? So the GI Bill… Let’s see.
So they got Post-9-11 GI Bill, Veteran Readiness and Employment, run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, DOD’s Tuition Assistance Program. Is that different than Post-9-11? It is. And then VA Survivors and Dependence Educational Assistance.
So it’s… That’s just saying they’re going to spend $2,000 to bury you. That’s all. That’s too good.
If you shoot two grand, you’ll need a supplement to do this. Because the DOD Tuition Assistance, it’s the $4,500 we were allocated every year. Yeah, it’s… Why do they have all these divisions? Why do they have all these different programs, man? $13 billion.
And they’re all mismanaged according to this report. So… Jake, can you say $13 billion? It’s so much money. Okay.
Here’s the capper. Rand’s report comes on the heels of several GAO reports, probing various aspects of the Transition Assistance Programs. A December 2022 report from the GAO said the Tuition Assistance Program lacked timely participation, revealing that, quote, nearly 25% of service members who needed maximum support didn’t attend the mandatory two-day class.
Okay. Nobody wants to go to TAP. And that most service members didn’t start the program at least one year before leaving service, as normally required.
What do you mean normally required? That was never told to me. Never was that told to me. It was told to me that you could register for it up to a year before.
Mine was required. Mine was always required. A year before you retired? Yeah, I don’t even remember.
Not me. It was a year. So it was required and recommended if there was like a, you know, when they’re going to kick people out, when they’re going to do post-production.
Like a riff? A riff. So I remember, when they were doing the early retirements and then they said, the volunteers are going to kick people out. So that’s 2014.
They made me take TAP. They didn’t make me. They highly recommended.
I was in Alaska, I was like, hey, you’ll know. So we’re making our NCOs take TAP. So I took TAP in 2014.
I wasn’t planning on getting out, but you know what cracked me up about that? They had more volunteers than they expected. So that program ended like in a week. How long was your TAP class, Juan? It was a week.
Yeah, mine was a week. Two days. Okay.
Yeah, to generate. That’s what they’re talking about. Here’s what I was going to ask.
Now, I’ve talked to both Juan and Jake, so I know their stories, right? It’s like, we weren’t planning on retiring, but then some events happened. And we’re just like, fuck it. We’re pulling the trigger.
All right. Did you have a date in mind when you were going to retire, Eric? Or did something kind of convince you? It’s like, ah, it’s time to get out. And then a couple of months later, you got out.
Now, if something convinced me, it was called stop loss. Oh, shit. So, okay.
So you’re where my point is we’re all in the same boat in the sense that we’re like, hey, I think I’ll retire next year. So let me start laying the groundwork for my transition now. Right? And that’s what it’s saying.
It’s like, you should be taking this a year prior. Bullshit. Juan, your commander’s not going to let you go for a week to go take a tap class when you’re retiring next year.
Yeah. Man. So that’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just so.
You know what, Marty, too? You just, you saying that. So when I talked to anybody in sister services, I have time. Marie.
Or different field or different careers. Like magic vendors. Or like, I’ll use the defenders as an example.
No, it’s I don’t know. Space operators. but I’m saying that space operators like working with a lot of officers and and even educated like on their listed side like like you look at the stats there’s a lot of people with degrees on the space side so they always pushed and pushed education and the the one thing I always heard was prepare for your next rank but also prepare as if you’re getting out because you never know when you’re gonna get out so I mean that was driven to me as airman so like it’s just like well they were probably telling you that for a different reason well maybe they wanted me either I won just your one you’re you’re one foot in the civilian world anyway so you might as well prepare but but you know when I would talk to other people do you want to get out this year one foot stuff foot stuff so when I would talk to other people from different career fields they were just like you guys have time for school you guys have time for this yeah that’s a good point yeah that’s true so so I would like to see the stats like based off career fields and services who has the time to go and who has the time to go right and well who has who has the commander who will let him go yeah right and then who who will even put the complaint and be the Karen say like hey my commander’s not letting me go and it’s not mission critical right because it’s always comes to how critical is the mission is manning okay uh jake role play with me real quick let’s pretend where security forces in turkey first of all you can’t even leave once I’m your commander and you want to ask me if you could go to school so go go ahead oh man hey sir I uh I saw this brochure for amu uh they said I could classes online oh yeah yeah or but there is one in class I have to go in person monday monday uh you know you’re such a good troop man I’d love to let you do that but we got this asshole playing football half the year and he’s not here so I need you to work while he goes out and plays football so sorry well there you go what’s more important here the commander’s trophy over in europe warm around some piece of shit degree from amu oh so that’s it that’s how that went down in turkey being a wild boar turkey bowl champion is much more important than that degree okay that’s gotten you farther than a sociology it’s really probably school that’s like the longest yard that’s what you make it seem like turkey bowl baby but just Santa he’s wild boar you guys should have got rings you should have got a ring man oh I’m telling you or at least t-shirts yeah oh oh they had t-shirts don’t play you had t-shirts didn’t you eric man we had jerseys I had a yellow well I know but you did you have like morale t-shirts no hell no oh they they would have thought they could print it up like a shirt that you can wear under your btus or your in fact I’ll suppose if if if I could do a Turkish woman’s accent I would I would mimic this football team walking into the bar and be like good thing I’m hydrated I am going to send you a picture that you will be amazed news report for some reason panty sales have escalated cannot keep up with demands thanks to the turkey bowl winners these guys are menace on our undergarments the first notorious americans over there that’s awesome the turkey bowl baby stealing all our wood so anyway I thought it was an interesting talk keep looking eric I thought it was an interesting thing about tap that they’re finding out all these efforts because they all brief it right they all brief it oh tap yeah we got a good tap program here we got a great I remember when I went to tap that peak and three of the four or five days that we were there was a guy was like hey let me tell let me teach you how to network let’s all stand up all right and let’s act like you’re online at the grocery store just talk to start talking to the guy what’s your elevator pitch I was like oh my god are you insane yeah this is moronic even for the 22 year old this is okay now after after you’re out two years look back at the advice they gave you and you’re like no man like if I look at corporate America right now and I would have done exactly what they told me to do in tap they would have been like what the fuck are you talking about right it’s like oh is your uh linkedin program fleshed out I mean is your profile you have all the profile stuff on linkedin I was like linkedin linkedin never helped me yeah like like I’m pretty sure that all of us got our jobs by someone that we knew and it really comes down to networking actually I didn’t this is the first job I didn’t get because I knew somebody it was totally like we knew John Greffleman and Kyle Cordell though I knew but they didn’t that they didn’t know that I was applying to the job oh really yeah that’s what I’m saying this is the first time that I haven’t did you put a picture of you on that resume I pretty sure you put a picture that oh fuck yeah this guy is getting higher no in fact uh the HR person called me and she goes do you happen to know Kyle Cordell and I was like yeah we used to work in H-Swiss together wasn’t Natalie yeah it was Natalie she goes she’s sitting he’s sitting right next to me I was like oh no shit tell him I said hi yeah so uh it was fluky jake you back you were frozen there for a second yeah I was frozen man sorry sorry you’re good so uh well hopefully um I don’t know everything every report they do not only on VA but anything government-run is not good man yeah you know but I it’s a struggle yeah it’s a struggle like I said though but I really think it depends on career and well you know that the fact that sometimes I talked to vets I did four years I didn’t know we had tuition assistance I didn’t know we had these just benefits when our entitlements were in part of that is you just kind of got your head in the sand man you got to look out for yourself a little bit but um I remember uh I think I heard a report that the army they were doing it for tap for the army and I can’t remember what the company was but they were saying hey you can come with us and we’ll do like a like an intern with you and we’ll teach you for a week we’ll teach you all the basics of construction we’ll teach you the terms we’ll teach you what it is we’ll teach you how to frame we’ll teach you tools and then when you get out you’re going to go apply and we’ll you know hey we’ll bring you on uh to try out for six months but you got the basics and I was like that’s brilliant you know that’s what when you were bringing that up pre-show one it’s like hey yeah why don’t why don’t uh uh these plumbing companies come out and go hey or electricians and say hey we’ll we’ll bring you on and we’ll train you with what we want you to know yeah so then you will hire you on at a you know not not a high rate but we’ll hire you on at a new rate until you start progressing through the journeyman and all that kind of stuff for these for plumbing for electricity for you know those those kind of jobs you know it’s funny that you bring that up my buddy he works for the union he’s a industrial mechanic and they have a program called boots to hardpads and oh no no it’s this is outside it’s a union he’s an industrial mechanic and they have boots to hardpads and what’s cool is they’ll take you on and then they’ll give you five thousand dollars worth of tools and they’ll start start you up and the apprenticeship program but um but they’ll expedite your um expedite um your process citizenship to journeyman to journeyman oh yeah yeah that’s so there but that’s the thing is there’s all these programs taps never gonna tell you about it’s kind of like saying you have your head but you see this is the shit that they should be researching hey here’s these companies is what they do for you this is what they’re gonna do it’s not even skill bridge but but all this information out there but nobody knows anything about it and even more than that because they should more than just giving you the information they’re like during that week long they should be like who did you call and talk to you last night what’s your homework yeah right get out homework all these people show me your freaking resume what you know literally all we did for two days is go through that stupid book oh yes yeah yeah well i think that’s the requirement because i think that’s the one that has to get signed off right like when you out process like but the fact that you created that account it’s that’s that’s a that’s a higher up a commander’s thing is like look we created this book so we can make sure that they’re all trained and everything they’re like good let’s keep doing that but the execution of that is just well and then it’s also mandated by congress that we do tap because they say oh bets are not getting their jobs yeah it’s it’s it’s the classic they think they can fix that problem but on the ground level it’s not fixed right no it’s not and i think this round report just shows this yeah and really all you need is just that requirement completed i forgot was it that you signed up for your e-benefits that’s all they cared about and but yeah that’s all they cared about i i’m laughing because i forgot about that yeah you don’t have that i forgot yeah it’s like e-benefits if you’re signed up for e-benefits and they see it on their end guess what you graduated tap and the rest is on you but what you can’t you can’t get out unless you graduated you get signed up that’s the big thing right so real quick let’s go back and we’re back in turkey and i’m like hey jake i’d like to let you go to school but this guy is off playing football he should be on shift this weekend so jake i’m going to need you to step up and yeah in fact you need to cover his shift and like my favorite on that is the no shirt sleeve so you know your pads were flapping like crazy oh yeah and the neck roll like that’s gonna do it that’s gonna protect you well and look at the look at the sweatshirt that’s an old lackland air force base yeah sweatshirt from tech school oh man and you just beat the shit out of that thing i’m glad we got that into the shelf oh goodness yeah all right gentlemen it’s been a while so it’s time once again to play our movie quiz and this week it’s all space movies all right all space movies so i’m going to show you two movies at a time and all you have to do is guess which movie had the higher audience score not the critics but the audience score according to rotten tomatoes all right audience audience versus critics audience what no no no we’re not audience versus critics we’re just taking audience audience okay okay throw critics out is strictly who had which movie had the higher audience score okay all right so first up is these are two movies that threatened life on earth all right yeah yeah so we got armageddon oh yeah okay no versus army wait wait wait i got some uh dialogue to read here i think armageddon uh 1998 bruce willis billy bob clorton right ben athlete don’t forget that well there was a ton man i’m not gonna hold it all cast a good cast i’m actually a good cast um versus independence day 1996 with will smith bill perman but yeah bill pulmon i thought the best uh scene in independence day was uh will smith’s fiancee dancing in the club when she found out i was like yes was that was that vivica fox i think yeah well it was yeah it was still when uh hooker was a uh still a respectable well the term was exotic the answer not trained it’s exotic that’s right so uh i’ve also got a score sheet all right jim so now yeah that’s a tough one though yeah we’ll start which which one outscored the other all right yeah eric um will smith an independence day vivica fox a little more of a uh serious kind of epic um sort of armageddon so i’m gonna say independence day oh bold guess jake uh i’m going armageddon because arrow smith had that song associated in the whole video that’s true that was live tyler in her prime you know crying the gazelle the gazelle is coming up the gary son it was so corny but the whole movie was corny right oh yeah uh okay one so same point that jake made i was gonna say because i remember watching that video on mtv all the time that’s true and then they played and then my sisters had a huge crush on ben africa i mean who did i think i had a crush on them but nice it’s like and i was in high school so all the high school chicks we always talk about a ben africa mad game yeah yeah so i would just say based off just like you know the teeny boppers the music and everything armageddon but i’d like independence day better so which what’s what’s your choice armageddon no no my choice is my choice but i’m saying all right the question was audience i think okay and the scores are 73 for armageddon 75 for independence yes i know it’s interesting i like how they’re in the 70s 70s yeah yeah i mean they were big at the time but over time you’re like it’s not the greatest it’s i i do love the uh um space dementia of armageddon so you know oh yeah well i like when will smith punched the alien welcome to such current parts they were perfectly aligned with each other right he was the president’s speech was pretty good that was a good speech built woman had a good speech yeah yeah um and billy bob is pretty good serious and as a flight director of armageddon so all right next we have tom cruise against matt damon so edge of tomorrow all right versus the marsh yeah i did yeah we’ll rotate jake you’re up going with the martian the martian for jake one i’ll take it i’m going with the martian too oh eric i’m going with the martian because the edge of tomorrow was it it kept repeating itself yeah i thought people were getting tired of that i know i was like jesus Christ it was going laying on the ground and it’s hard to figure out a little bit i like honestly i did too both were good movies to me they were the martian was more you know what just for the sake of ridiculousness i’ll go edge of tomorrow damn it jake you’re doing that again you gotta have both sides you gotta have a winner of the loser jake changing his vote and the scores uh 90 for edge of tomorrow 91 for the martian you know what you know what takes away a little bit for from the martian for me jessica chesting she annoys the shit out of me which one was she she was the commander of the mission oh on the on the ship yes okay yeah she annoys me edge of tomorrow beat out both the last two movies though oh yeah yeah i mean but that’s the that’s the evolution i guess right so i mean i mean armageddon and uh independence day we’re kind of like con air you know it’s all in that same kind of just fast and ridiculous and and so it was weird okay you guys ready for a female battle matt damon was also an interstellar right now that who matt damon was he an interstellar too yeah he was that’s that’s that small part yeah yeah where he was crazy man on out out on the planet by himself uh okay next one’s a battle of female leads a linguist versus a setty scientist so we have arrival versus contact oh oh first arrival was 2016 with a amy adams and jeremy renner contact was 97 i didn’t realize it was that old with jody foster and matthew mcconaughey you know what all right all right all right all right one you’re up i said contact oh contact sorry yeah eric i’m gonna go with arrival jim jeremy renner was coming up to be a big guy that’s true yeah no he was establishing himself and i thought the plot with arrival was better than the plot with contact arrival well i’ll save my comments till the end jake so i’ve i’ve made oh and two so it’s really just deciding which one i want to lose a point here that’s all this which one of these guys i’ll go contact contact it is and the scores are 82 for arrival 78 for contact i’m sorry well i’m the problem i had with both of these movies is that like both of the main characters had something to do with their father it was like some weird thing right there’s jody foster like went out and then like saw the alien as her father and then there was some father thing with amy adams too and i was like god it’s so annoying both of them are annoying daddy issues you see i thought you were gonna say that they were both uh female roles so you’re disappointed female roles is fine but when you go into daddy stuff is like and once again edge of tomorrow beat out both of these and like what yeah yeah all right we got a showdown between nasa uh movies not nasa sponsored movies but movies about nasa and so first is apollo 13 versus the right stuff oh do you remember the right stuff paulo 13 1995 tom hanks ed harris among others uh paula or the right stuff 1984 was scott glenn ed harris again and dennis quay it’s my turn and i’m going to paulo 13 tom hanks the man he got a academy award for that didn’t he yeah you know yeah we’ve got a problem the fact that you said that makes me mistrusted we got a problem it was one of it that was in the string of like academy awards or something paula 13 you got it jake oh right stuff one oh i have to go up paula 13 did you ever see right stuff one yep no i have not that’s a good movie that was a good movie it was good oh 87 for apollo 13 and 90 for the right stuff i would have never guessed i wouldn’t either that’s why i put a nice streak you f’d up and got it right oh my goodness i would have never thought that all right next is invading alien movies battle los angeles i like it versus war the worlds that was tom cruz what my turn that was tom cruz the other one was erin eckhart two-faced i’m i’m going with the tom cruz effect yeah tom cruz and he doesn’t make him that’s what i’m going with war of the worlds war of the worlds for jake juan world of the wars i mean and the reason the reason for it it’s because everybody always talked about the radio show right like when you talk to the old timers in the 30s or whatever and the 30s that everybody and then and then you start yeah i’m talking about eric when he was a kid listen to the radio we all gathered around the radio on sunday that is a fascinating thing like the fact that people actually took it serious and then you know that’s not like when this the commercial for this came out and you know i started hearing yeah they played it up like that yeah yeah yeah so tom cruz okay so who was the who was the guy that he’s dead long gone who did um oh he did the radio show the voiceover was a Hitchcock no but like him Leslie Nielsen no now you know what guys i’m gonna go battle of la because of the excitement that that show had i i liked it too man i mean they were on it yeah i’m gonna go battle la just all right no tom cruz is probably the guy scores are 48 for battle of los angeles 42 for war of the world that was surprised i checked that three times didn’t change that much man they were both horrible ratings yeah 48 and 42 they’re both rotten and you’re not talking about dance emo eric are you i’m sorry dance emo no here’s an announcer ball headed guy um deep voice the guy who used to announce the hundred-year-olds with the grape jelly oh yeah the schmuckers the schmuckers jelly yeah yeah all right showdown the space comedies space comedies coming so we got space balls versus galaxy quest eric pay attention i know you’re looking it up no i wouldn’t look i’m trying to find the guy because you guys will know the name and you’ll go oh shit now i understand it was concerning the war of the world uh yeah all right my turn it’s not my turn no it’s one’s turn okay uh dude we watch spaceballs at least once or twice a year because i might have to go with mil brooks you can’t go around with them and then you got john candy fair enough fair enough eric galaxy questers space balls more entertaining space balls and jake look i brought it up beforehand i do love mil brooks but galaxy quest was funny galaxy quest has its yeah i agree i’m going with galaxy quest trek versus wars that’s true that’s exactly what it was the scores are we’re going plaid 83 for space balls 79 for galaxy quest right on right on all right we’re heading into the final rounds here one and six jake i think you’re pretty much out of it so hey the right stuff screwed me from my perfect record all right these two shows could be i think they’re kind of considered cult classics in their own respect starship troopers oh yes versus stargate stargate’s a tough one right it was a kurt russell james spader was in stargate oh man that that flat top that kurt russell flat top yeah it was amazing because he because he did like universal soldier or whatever that the others i think he just kept the same haircut so yeah all right star last week starship troopers 1997 uh casper van deen denise richards great shower scene that’s all anybody that’s what we’re all striving for in the military the co-ed shower stargate 94 kurt russell james spader eric you’re up baby oh man i’m going to go starship troopers strictly because the shower scene oh that’s fair that’s a good reason actually i’ll buy that jake oh wow i’m so bad at this you’re trying not to choose it which is just as difficult exactly stargate i gotta go up and sit there take the other side i’ll make that okay Juanito so i love stargate and just because it is one of my i saw it on your rankings way up there actually yeah um i’m gonna go stargate although i think popularity i think starship troopers but you know what i’m going stargate i’m sticking with stargate all right i jinxed it for you why and the scores are 70 for starship troopers 73 for stargate i’m buying it uh okay last last choice or last uh competition two movies separated by 37 years all right close encounters of the third kind yeah it’s versus interstellar what kind of hey yeah yeah yeah i know this one man i know this one why did you cheat no okay cheater let’s get them cheater pants on i just you’re up okay i’ll shut up so it’s my turn i’m going close encounters close encounters one uh me too just because i know like everybody always talks about this movie and it’s like how scary it was it was steven spielberg you know for this one and then you know when you talk to people about interstellar you have to be like a like a space nerd to like really love it i love the movie it’s a great movie but when you talk to other people they’re like oh it’s just long it was slow so he’s in the bookcase what’s he doing behind the bookcase uh close encounters the third kind 1977 interstellar 2014 eric call eric so picture this donald trump sitting in margo mara lago thinking about creating another force because he watched fucking close encounters that’s that’s how it happened that’s your reasoning that’s how it happened everybody was all over close encounters they thought it was the best thing since i spread man close encounters all right close encounters was like when he was a kid i mean he’s old he’s 76 but he’s still watching tv don’t bother he’s rolling yeah you know scores are 85 for close encounters 86 for inner stay by one point wow oh let’s see still one why did we still be by live die repeat or whatever tomorrow still be um holy shit one i think you got one you got one point one no no you got two you got two points you got the right stuff and you got stargate yeah i did so you got two jake you got three no that that was jake i got three you got him the opposite oh sorry sorry yeah you’re right jake you got two one you got three eric you got five six oh booh yeah yeah because i miss him underground it’s because he never underground space aficionado he never i don’t know how he does it eric wins most of these companies he never wasted his brain cells like on education so he did oh that’s what it was yeah he’s the dumb security forces football football playing only fans having uh body body flexathon on participation and he wins every three a game we watch this flash gordon all the time flash guard i’m looking forward to watching that uh that preview on youtube we should watch that we should have a watchathon a live viewing on eric’s only fans oh yeah i got him i finally got him hg wells oh you remember that guy yeah i’ve been checked out for 10 full minutes finding h i wasn’t gonna let it go man that’s the author right yeah that was a guy well i think he’s the one who read it on the radio no there was part where he did a voiceover for the war of the worlds where people heard his voice on the radio wow i got you yeah pretty wild all right eric if you can refocus and uh oh this day give us a u.s military history today would you oh i got a good one man i got a good this this um this history moment isn’t talked about a lot which is really cool i thought for a second there you were gonna say this history moment is brought to you by my my fans wild wild boar football by flash gordon all right fellas this is the war of 1812 okay how about that so 18 18 june the war of 1812 began on june 18th oh no kidding wow with the united states formally declaring war on the united kingdom the war lasted from june of 1812 to february of 1815 a span of two years and eight months wow i’m just going to give you a quick cause the war of 1812 was part of a larger global conflict the empires of england and france spent 1789 through 1815 locked in an almost constant war for global superiority that war stretched from europe to north africa and to asia and when the americans declared war on england the war engulfed north america as well the united states had a variety of grievances against britain many felt that the british had not yet come to respect the united states as a legitimate country the british were expressing or commandeering american sailors at sea and putting men work blockading the american trade with france both of these were also spillover policies from the british prosecution of the war with france the british were also inseparably don’t know that word the british were also supporting native american groups who were in conflict with american settlers along the frontiers so we said england we’re coming after you babe you can’t be doing it plus at the same time can canada was under british rule so yeah yeah we tried to invade at the beginning of the war in 1812 invade canada and they kicked us back near the naira falls and kicked us out so we lost that little battle right but we ended up beating so yeah yeah so 18 18 year 1812 we were wow england we want a piece of you baby nice again the name is kind of misleading it should be 1812 to 1815 well the the declaration of war was 1812 we’re coming for you kind of a bullshit lazy naming convention we won’t name it when did it start that’s war of 1812 yeah we’re going with it i there was a song that you used to sing here is um we fired our shots and the british kept coming we fired once more and they began a running dad drinking songs off of mexico you remember that yeah there’s something but was that about the war of 1812 it was yeah because it was andrew jackson it was andrew jackson all right fight no more baby yeah good one eric well done all right all right gentlemen in depth i think we can turn the lord of the rings back on and uh get into the midship here so on behalf of all of us here i’d like to thank you for listening today please like share subscribe and let us know how we did in the comments and make sure next week that you are not late for changeover i still have like real a fortune man thanks for the week and thanks everyone listening we’ll see you next week have a good day