WEBVTT 1 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:33.799 Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander and the Eagle One from Eagle 2 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:38.600 Speak at Sea or shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in 3 00:00:38.640 --> 00:00:44.359 all things maritime. And good day everybody, and I'm glad you've taken time 4 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:47.880 to join us for another edition of mid Rats. And if you are with 5 00:00:48.039 --> 00:00:51.119 us live, I'd like to invite you to scroll down to the bottom of 6 00:00:51.159 --> 00:00:54.719 the page. That is where you will find the chat room. And if 7 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:58.399 during the course of the next hour, if you have some observations you wanted 8 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:02.119 to share, or if there are some questions you would like for us to 9 00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:06.159 direct to our guest, that's the perfect place to do it. We already 10 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:11.040 have Steve and leave there so you'll have good companies over the course of the 11 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:14.680 show. And if you've got to leave before the show is over with, 12 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:18.640 or if you just want to make sure you don't miss any future mid Rats, 13 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:21.799 if you haven't done it already, go ahead and head over to iTunes 14 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:26.799 or spreaker or any other podcast aggregator you have, go ahead and give us 15 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:30.200 a subscription. That way you won't missed up like we've got today. And 16 00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:34.519 you know here we are at the beginning of August, and we saw a 17 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:40.799 back in mid July. For those that were paid attention, a rather normal 18 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:46.400 letter came from the White House activating three thousand reservists that the timing was a 19 00:01:46.439 --> 00:01:51.359 little rough. So it got some unusual interest in that regard, and that 20 00:01:51.400 --> 00:01:55.799 made me think that it was time to come on and bring on this mid 21 00:01:55.920 --> 00:02:00.959 Rats designated reservists to come on and chat. It's been about a year and 22 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:04.599 so you know, coming back for an additional visit. Today, we're going 23 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:08.639 to talk about the US Naval Reserve, what it's done in Ukraine, what 24 00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:15.599 a lot of the reserves are doing in Europe and other places even in a 25 00:02:15.719 --> 00:02:20.520 time of relative non deployment peace that we have going on right now, and 26 00:02:20.879 --> 00:02:24.479 in a larger sense, what is going on in Europe based upon the experience 27 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:30.800 that our returning guests, Chris Rawleigh may have. Chris Rawleigh is now Captain 28 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:36.039 United States maybe Reserve retired, so we're gonna chat about that at the beginning 29 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.879 of the show. And now that he's through of his busy career in the 30 00:02:38.919 --> 00:02:43.520 Naval Reserve, he'll have more time to invest in Harvest returns a platform for 31 00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:47.879 bringing farmers and ranchers together with investors for he is the founder and CEO. 32 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:53.680 Chris welcome back to Midrights. So it's great and even on its great to 33 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:59.400 be back again. I think this is show number five. It's actually two 34 00:02:59.479 --> 00:03:02.280 years ago that I was on, and I think show four you told me 35 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:06.319 that if I because I just recently re listened to it, you told me 36 00:03:06.319 --> 00:03:08.240 that if I show on five times, I get a blue blazer. I 37 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:13.879 think that's what's depending. So I'll I don't know if I need another blazer, 38 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:15.560 but next time I'm in your aoar, maybe I can come collect a 39 00:03:15.639 --> 00:03:24.240 point or something. Beer is always legal. Tenderer kick Ken dolls perfectly. 40 00:03:28.520 --> 00:03:31.159 You don't have to dye your hair blonde or anything. But hey, now 41 00:03:31.199 --> 00:03:35.680 that you're retired from the reserves, I do have to ask you a question. 42 00:03:36.159 --> 00:03:42.919 Please tell me that we don't have any type of uh ponytail, working 43 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:49.960 handlebar, mustaches, mullet, a Viking esque beard that's growing. Do you 44 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:53.240 still have that that civilized, manly look about you? Or now that you 45 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:57.599 don't have to worry about being activated anytime soon, have you have you let 46 00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:03.039 your hair go? I have not changed grooming standards, probably one iota south. 47 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:08.439 So I guess that's the boring answer, but that's I don't foresee that 48 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:12.599 changing anytime soon. Well, well, that's that's good because that way we 49 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:16.120 have to worry about you have a crisis of confidence, and you know, 50 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:19.120 because some people have a little bit of transition when they leave active duty. 51 00:04:19.160 --> 00:04:23.959 But I guess you had a low boil because you were in the Naval reserves 52 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:29.279 for a long time and you did a lot there. Now there are you 53 00:04:29.279 --> 00:04:31.519 know, we've got some listeners who are an active duty right now who don't 54 00:04:31.519 --> 00:04:35.279 want to netmake the Navy a career, so they'll do their active duty commitment 55 00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:40.680 and then they walk out the door and they might be interested in associating with 56 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:45.240 the reserves. And here you are, just like my co host, retired 57 00:04:45.240 --> 00:04:48.879 from the Naval Reserve as a captain, just as a you know, a 58 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:56.000 quick type of outline. If you're going to do an elevator conversation with the 59 00:04:56.120 --> 00:04:59.879 junior officer who was looking about affiliating with reserves, what are some of the 60 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:05.000 things that Lieutenant Raleigh would have seen in the progression and before you retired as 61 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:12.480 a captain. It's well, first of all, I would it's say it's 62 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:15.800 a good career to a good second career. I still recommend it. Um. 63 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:19.399 I enjoyed the good and the bad, and the ugly and the wonderful 64 00:05:19.639 --> 00:05:25.360 about you know, I guess it was about twenty three years that's been as 65 00:05:25.360 --> 00:05:28.040 a reservist, and you know, a big chunk of that was on and 66 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:31.800 on, on and off active duty after doing seven years. Uh, you 67 00:05:31.800 --> 00:05:36.920 know that initial training and c tour and a short tour. But you know 68 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:41.839 the reasons that I would recommend it, they're several. So, first off, 69 00:05:41.680 --> 00:05:46.560 it continues. You continue your career um that you started. You put 70 00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:49.399 a lot of energy and efforts into as a as an active duty guy, 71 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:55.600 especially if you're yourl and you went through those training pipelines to get your initial 72 00:05:55.639 --> 00:06:00.800 qualification as in you know, Aviator, Slow, sub person, feel Intel, 73 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.759 whatever whatever you did, and you can continue to do that on a 74 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:09.279 part time basis. And the nice thing is you've got a lot more career 75 00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:16.120 flexibility. The career moves with you as you move verse the you having to 76 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:20.040 move to accommodate the career. For the most part, you do the lift 77 00:06:20.040 --> 00:06:23.560 gets heavier as you get more senior, and you're going to spend more time 78 00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:27.839 and energy. But you know, some people decide they want to peek out 79 00:06:27.879 --> 00:06:30.120 as a as a first thought petty user an O four and that's awesome. 80 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:33.480 And some people decide they, you know, if they want to put in 81 00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:39.120 the long haul to get to six and beyond, and that's fine too. 82 00:06:39.199 --> 00:06:44.519 So there's still great travel opportunities, camaraderie opportunities. The benefits are good. 83 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:47.319 You get that reserve retirement. It doesn't kick in as soon as an active 84 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:50.639 duty, but medical insurance, all those sorts of things. And it's also 85 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:57.079 a good backstop. And myself and numerous other folks I know have used the 86 00:06:57.480 --> 00:07:03.279 reserve as a backstop when they were transitioning civilian jobs, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. 87 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:06.279 And you know, people we can talk about when we when we start 88 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:10.399 talking about the mobilization piece, but I think that's a fear of a lot 89 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:15.360 of people, and it's when you look at the actual numbers, it's there 90 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:17.279 were some periods, and especially if you're in some specialties, you know, 91 00:07:17.319 --> 00:07:20.839 the mid two thousands or early two thousands, where there was a lot of 92 00:07:20.839 --> 00:07:24.800 reserve heavy lifting. But that for the most part, that's that's done. 93 00:07:25.519 --> 00:07:27.839 But you know, that's your job. If you sign up for it, 94 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:31.560 you've got to be prepared to go down range and do what your country calls. 95 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:38.000 Mark you there, Yes, but my on off button didn't punch itself. 96 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:46.000 M forty five thousand plus active cell res selective reservists and about forty eight 97 00:07:46.079 --> 00:07:51.319 thousand, almost forty nine thousand IRR. And one of the questions is when 98 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:57.120 when we look at the message it came out from the Pentagon recently, was 99 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:01.399 it they were looking at at activating IRRP and and I started looking at the 100 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:05.759 goal. Who are they talking about? The biggest group of IRR people that 101 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:11.279 I know of in the Naval Reserve are the strategic Sea lift officers got about 102 00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:15.160 twenty five hundred plus of those. Do you have any idea when that when 103 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:18.519 they're when the militarious or the DoD is looking at these IRR folks, I 104 00:08:18.600 --> 00:08:22.439 mean, who are they looking for? What? What do you what? 105 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:26.079 Did you read the tea leaves? Now, I you know, I'm not 106 00:08:26.680 --> 00:08:31.879 I don't know who's on that list or what that list entailed, but you 107 00:08:31.879 --> 00:08:33.559 can you can make some catches. Three. First of all, it's an 108 00:08:33.600 --> 00:08:39.440 authorization, it's not an actual mobilization, right, So it's we can mobilize 109 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:43.840 up to three hundred or up to three thousand reservists and four hundred and fifty 110 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:48.679 UH people in the ir That's that's a joint requirement. That's not a Navy 111 00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:52.200 requirement. Um, I'm guessing it's not a heavy lift on the Navy. 112 00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:56.679 There there may be some onesies and two zi's out there. I don't see, 113 00:08:56.720 --> 00:08:58.559 you know, unless something gets really bad, God forbid, with the 114 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:05.039 Russian situation, I don't see a wholesale mobilization. You know. You can 115 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:09.360 look at that probably the same status of the Navy reserve that I'm looking at 116 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:15.240 Mark, and there's ninety two reservists mobilized in yucom as a last month, 117 00:09:15.320 --> 00:09:22.320 and there's probably quite a few that are on ads W and ADT and the 118 00:09:22.399 --> 00:09:30.000 other various flavors of orders. But for the most part, the mobilization piece 119 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:35.159 is not significant for that change. Maybe, but there's always Europe, at 120 00:09:35.200 --> 00:09:39.840 least the twenty something years that I was in was never a heavy lift on 121 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:43.759 reserves until about February of last year. January February last year, and I 122 00:09:43.799 --> 00:09:48.840 was kind of saw the beginning of that as I was working my way out 123 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:54.440 last year yeah, things have quieted down a bit, and I kind of 124 00:09:54.480 --> 00:09:56.120 nodded in my head, I think knowledge, and we talked about a good 125 00:09:56.120 --> 00:10:03.759 backstop when we still we're waiting to confirm whether the surge worked in Iraq in 126 00:10:03.159 --> 00:10:05.799 late two thousand and seven, early two thousand and eight, and we were 127 00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:11.480 starting to uplift of forces in Afghanistan in two thousand and eight, there were 128 00:10:11.519 --> 00:10:15.519 a lot of reservist and of course I was on active duty at the time 129 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:22.519 and I was fairly isolated from the domestic economy. But a lot of the 130 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:24.720 folks that I was in Kabul with an O eight and oh nine, which 131 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:28.279 is a horrible time stateside for the economy. You know, one of the 132 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:31.799 guys, he had been there a year and he just re uped to do 133 00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.120 another one. And I asked him. I hadn't worked with him. I 134 00:10:35.159 --> 00:10:37.799 just saw him occasionally over cigars, and he said, yeah, well, 135 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:43.879 my company went bankrupt and my wife divorced me, and I don't want to 136 00:10:43.919 --> 00:10:48.080 go home, so I want to go ahead and stay here for another year. 137 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.639 So yeah, it was an interesting to see how many, regardless of 138 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:58.639 where you go, you saw a lot of reservist naval reservists filling jobs that 139 00:11:00.120 --> 00:11:05.639 maybe you wouldn't expect for a naval reservists to do. And that's where when 140 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:11.799 things get a little busy, there are some interesting opportunities that open up, 141 00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:15.759 not just in Europe or other garden spots, you know. I found it 142 00:11:15.840 --> 00:11:22.200 interesting that that number twenty nine activated reservists. Even though we have a huge 143 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:28.759 military and our allies aggregate do as well, even at a time of relative 144 00:11:28.879 --> 00:11:35.799 peace, there are some specialties people have in the reserves that you'll you'll get 145 00:11:35.799 --> 00:11:39.039 a call and an opportunity to go back on active duty for a bit. 146 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:46.000 Yeah, there's always opportunities, and it's very unique. Like I said, 147 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:50.960 there's that flexibility factor, and you will find maybe reservists doing things you will 148 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:56.200 in places you wouldn't even imagine, and you know, been a part of 149 00:11:56.200 --> 00:12:01.320 those. I was in Afghanistan in eight to nine with the Soft Task Force, 150 00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:05.840 and then again and in someplace different with a Soft Task Force and twenty 151 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:13.639 twenty ten and then in East Africa as a deputy commander for the soft Ford 152 00:12:13.840 --> 00:12:16.320 uh soft pass worse. So I got kind of found myself in that little 153 00:12:16.360 --> 00:12:22.519 world for about a decade post nine eleven and even today you find some people, 154 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:26.399 um, you know, from junior people all all the way to our 155 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:33.320 flags that are that are in doing very interesting roles. That can kind of 156 00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:41.639 name some of those as well. If you're a reservist and you're think things 157 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:46.159 keep changing from when when I was in the reserves. But uh, are 158 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:54.840 there units specifically for YUCOM that that report to nav your or somebody. How 159 00:12:54.879 --> 00:12:58.720 are these things structure these days? Yeah? I mean we talk about the 160 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:03.759 European kind of the Navy reserve footprint in the European theater um and yeah, 161 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:07.080 I start up at the top at Yukon, there's a there's a Yukom unit. 162 00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:13.759 Some of those folks back last early last year got to spun up and 163 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:16.320 went over and stood things like battle watch captains. I know I had at 164 00:13:16.399 --> 00:13:22.440 least one friend who was over there um in Yucam and Stootguards standing battle Watch 165 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:30.120 captain. My last job was the Reserve Chief of Staff or Naval Forces Europe 166 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:35.039 and Africa and sixth Fleet. And in that job we have or in that 167 00:13:35.240 --> 00:13:37.559 unit or it's it's actually a series of units. It's around a dozen units, 168 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:43.720 give or take. There's about five hundred plus reservists they're ranging from the 169 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:50.320 vice commander who's as a reserve one star down to petty officers in um. 170 00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:56.440 During the kind of spin up last January February for the Russian incursion, large 171 00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:01.840 scale incursion into into eastern Ukraine Krane, we spent up quite a few reservists. 172 00:14:01.879 --> 00:14:05.639 And you know you've ever been around the staff, and I know you 173 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:09.320 guys have, and plenty of your listeners have. You know that there's sort 174 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:11.120 of a steady state battle Hythm, and then there's a third battle Withythm. 175 00:14:11.159 --> 00:14:16.080 And one of the things that these reservists that are in these numbered fleet units 176 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:22.399 as we call them. Every there's a reserve unit or reserve enterprise assigned to 177 00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:24.080 second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh fleet, And 178 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:30.519 in sixth Fleet when that happened, we spun up people that were doing a 179 00:14:30.519 --> 00:14:33.919 whole wide variety of jobs. Battle Watch Captain is one of those that you 180 00:14:33.960 --> 00:14:39.320 can never have enough of trained folks. When a crisis happens on a big 181 00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:46.639 staff, you stand up numerous operational planning teams and crisis teams and all those 182 00:14:46.679 --> 00:14:50.240 sorts of things. So we had staff officers on the five in the in 183 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:56.559 five we stood up a reserve only unique capability in kags enable control of shipping 184 00:14:56.559 --> 00:15:01.240 and guidance. That's one that was really unique. Um, when I was 185 00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:03.039 out there, I ended up going out. You always spent up a bunch 186 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:07.559 of liaison officers. So I went out, got got tired of being in 187 00:15:07.639 --> 00:15:11.679 Naples, and went out to Northwood, England or UK, where I was 188 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:20.080 the liaison to NATO Mariton Command, which which was very interesting. Um to 189 00:15:20.120 --> 00:15:24.720 make sure that the Native forces were all online with what sixth Fleet was doing 190 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:26.639 on the spin up to the war, and and as that kicked off, 191 00:15:28.759 --> 00:15:31.600 and then we have um, let's see we have you know, we have 192 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:35.759 guys that are in unique positions. So one of my contemporaries, UH, 193 00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:43.279 Admiral Tom Wallas is now the commander of Native Submarine Command. Pretty pretty cool 194 00:15:43.399 --> 00:15:46.519 job. This is an active duty job. He replaced Steve mac who was 195 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.320 out there when I was out there. And that's that's a heavy left job. 196 00:15:50.720 --> 00:15:56.879 And UM, down to other units, we've got soccier, those guys 197 00:15:56.879 --> 00:16:03.159 hanging out in Stuttgart with the soft guys. UM, there's some other smaller 198 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:07.240 units, logistics units and those sorts of things. But you name it Intel, 199 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:14.639 big, big job for Intel spin up both doing some support from the 200 00:16:14.679 --> 00:16:19.519 rear, Intel production support from the rear in Georgia and also Forward in Naples. 201 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:26.039 And oh, one important capability that it's another pretty much all the capability 202 00:16:26.759 --> 00:16:33.720 exist in a reserve is the navel and amphibious liaison elements for the nails as 203 00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:37.320 they're called. And that that has been a reserve capability for quite some time. 204 00:16:37.399 --> 00:16:41.840 So when um A JPAC a Joint Forces Er Component Command stands up, 205 00:16:44.120 --> 00:16:48.320 the most sort of utilized of one of these is the one out now uded. 206 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:49.759 That's that was now uded. It's been there for a long time. 207 00:16:51.480 --> 00:16:57.240 UM we send aviators that essentially create the air tasking order, the Navy piece 208 00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:02.840 of the air tasking order and the coordinating with the deployed carrier strike groups and 209 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:07.839 all the Air Force guys. And that's a reserved mission UM and as I 210 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:11.880 said, it's been recently more formalized and set up into its own sort of 211 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:15.039 specially career path and reserved for naval aviators. And you know there's some other 212 00:17:15.079 --> 00:17:19.319 pieces of that like like t LAMB and some other and Intel where you've got 213 00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:23.839 other UM support requirements for those nails. But but that was a huge one. 214 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:27.200 So uh it really runs the gamut um. And of course, if 215 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:33.680 if we ever gotten any kind of um sort of grant ground fight or or 216 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:40.319 naval fight in uh the europe are we we'd have things like CBS and you 217 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:44.720 name it with deployed, just like we we deployed repeatedly to a sitcom over 218 00:17:44.759 --> 00:17:51.160 the early part of the century speaking of unique capabilities. And I would be 219 00:17:52.200 --> 00:17:53.839 rom this to a couple of friends of mine if I if I didn't bring 220 00:17:53.880 --> 00:17:59.759 it up. But back when I was it's a little jo. The Naval 221 00:17:59.799 --> 00:18:11.079 Reserve had an air wing lots of ex shop the nineteen nineties. Most of 222 00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:15.720 those we've had rivering squadrons. I think the last one was in California that 223 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:21.960 decobbed in the late nineties. We decommissioned that capability, and one of the 224 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.279 last remaining ones Farly was decommissioned on the thirtieth of June of this year after 225 00:18:26.319 --> 00:18:33.759 fifty three years, HFC eighty five, which really was even though resident in 226 00:18:33.799 --> 00:18:37.160 the reserves, she had a sister squad until a two years ago, a 227 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:47.200 really unique capability and importing special operations. And as this process was going through 228 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:52.799 the last few years, I kept trying to find a reason we would want 229 00:18:52.799 --> 00:18:57.240 to decommission that capability given what we've seen the last twenty five years, what's 230 00:18:57.279 --> 00:19:03.079 still going on? I couldn't find up find a valid reason. The only 231 00:19:03.079 --> 00:19:07.559 that kept coming up in me is do we have a problem like we see 232 00:19:07.599 --> 00:19:11.000 in certain other communities. The VQ community is one of them. It's a 233 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:18.640 lack of advocacy. Not that the mission isn't important, it's just that there's 234 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:26.079 a lack of advocacy. Does a naval reserve have or could have better advocacy 235 00:19:26.200 --> 00:19:33.799 for some of its units and some of the policies that learned over the last 236 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:38.559 twenty five years since nine to eleven, that really really changed the post Cold 237 00:19:38.559 --> 00:19:45.599 War experience. That's a great question. Um. Yeah, as you said, 238 00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:49.720 you know, even twenty years ago, our Naval Air Force Reserve Command 239 00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:56.240 snapper as they call it, was much more robust. And yeah, we 240 00:19:56.279 --> 00:20:03.680 lost some important capabilities the HSC folks HM fourteen and fifteen. We're largely reserved, 241 00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:07.440 and so the airborne mind countermeasures decreased. I mean, what we still 242 00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:14.839 have is is a lot of them lift the enter theater lift like the c 243 00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:18.319 forties. Um, and I think we've still got some C one thirties running 244 00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:22.960 around that probably need to be replaced. But um and then some of the 245 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:29.160 some of the CBW type assets as well as aggressor squadrons and instructors. So 246 00:20:30.119 --> 00:20:33.680 all in all, the airside is really important is the search capability. I 247 00:20:33.720 --> 00:20:36.920 think you know, at one point we could employ and we did deploy an 248 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:45.880 entire reserve centric air wing onto the an active carrier, but we haven't done 249 00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:55.799 that and I don't think we can do that. Well, let's let's talk 250 00:20:55.799 --> 00:21:03.079 a little bit about the the benefits of having people regularly assigned to it. 251 00:21:03.160 --> 00:21:07.799 Like YUKM is it doesn't help. But if a reservist has been in that 252 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:12.359 in that unit for five years and he's joined a team that probably rotates out 253 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.640 every three years or two years, does that make a big difference to the 254 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:22.559 command you think? I think it does. I mean for the staff jobs. 255 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.000 You know, let's say, YUKM, you do have a lot of 256 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.640 institutional knowledge, you have a lot of qualified folks. And for example, 257 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:34.160 I said, the Battle Watch captain in Europe, in Africa and the six 258 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:38.559 fleet units, we had these partnership program units. That was in command job 259 00:21:38.640 --> 00:21:42.160 I commanded the one in West Africa and we did I think I talked about 260 00:21:42.200 --> 00:21:45.599 that previously on here, but we did a lot of partnering and we had 261 00:21:45.640 --> 00:21:52.200 folks that have gone to these same exercises, so for instance, in Ukraine 262 00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:56.920 it with Sea Breeze, but in West africa's Obanami Express for years and years 263 00:21:56.920 --> 00:22:00.519 and years, and they had actually built relationships with some of the partner nation 264 00:22:00.640 --> 00:22:06.759 folks that didn't exist on the active side, and so those those are really 265 00:22:07.160 --> 00:22:14.200 valuable capabilities we've got a little bit less. There's always some friction on the 266 00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:18.119 reserve career path on people wanting to homestead because they don't want to travel, 267 00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:23.559 especially as they become senior officers, and that's perfectly understandable to UM people need 268 00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:27.440 to move around and do upwardly mobile and it's more of the kind of active 269 00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:34.559 duty mentality. So but we still have people that want to drill in the 270 00:22:34.599 --> 00:22:38.079 same place they don't want to they don't want to travel to drill, and 271 00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:41.319 because of that that it come they stay in these units for a long long 272 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:45.160 time and they do UM at that institutional knowledge. So I think that's a 273 00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:52.000 that's actually an advantage, not a disadvantage. One of the only active duties 274 00:22:52.039 --> 00:22:56.519 side of the house. One of the big points of conversation in the last 275 00:22:56.599 --> 00:23:03.200 year has been the challenge and we prooding specifically new people, but also retention 276 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:08.960 and missing the numbers. Is that seeing an echo effect from your point of 277 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:15.880 view in at least the Naval Reserve. Yeah, I don't know. I 278 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:18.960 never saw the numbers, especially my last kind of job was more operational. 279 00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:25.319 I didn't. I didn't always see them big, big Navy Reserve retention numbers. 280 00:23:25.319 --> 00:23:27.640 So I couldn't speak to that. I can tell you anecdotes of Jo's 281 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:34.240 that didn't didn't want to stay in for various reasons. But that's you know, 282 00:23:34.319 --> 00:23:38.200 that's that's after the senior officers to kind of make a culture where we 283 00:23:38.319 --> 00:23:44.599 embrace the versatility that you need in a reserve career. And so I was 284 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:51.559 always pushing for those efforts where to keep our career paths versatile. And you 285 00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:55.200 can be you can be a hardcore reservist or you can be a not as 286 00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:57.920 hardcore reservist and kind of do the minimum, and they're both. We need 287 00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:03.640 both types, we need all in every place in between. And there was 288 00:24:04.400 --> 00:24:08.200 always, you know, what I saw was was friction between those types and 289 00:24:08.359 --> 00:24:14.000 that's okay. Um, but we need people that want to do that, 290 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:18.720 just want to have that secondary career and continue serving. Not everybody's going to 291 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:26.160 continue up the ranks, and that's that's okay. Yeah. You mentioned the 292 00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:30.799 as you as you go up in the reserves and pay grade, you tend 293 00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:33.559 to suddenly need to uh. And I'm not sure many people understand this. 294 00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:38.519 You don't get a billet in wherever you live. You may get a billet, 295 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:42.279 and you may live in Spokane, Washington, but you'll get a billet 296 00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:48.559 in d c Or or San Francisco or someplace. Uh. Doctor, did 297 00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:52.759 you did you have a lot of billet travel in order to keep a pay 298 00:24:52.759 --> 00:24:59.960 billet in the reserves. I traveled because I got the jobs I want almost 299 00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:03.279 every time, and most of the jobs were not always where I was living 300 00:25:03.319 --> 00:25:08.119 I was. I had very few times where I was actually drilling and living 301 00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:11.000 in the same place. Those are Those are great because you don't you don't 302 00:25:11.039 --> 00:25:17.400 have to blow your Friday's traveling or come home late late Sunday night, But 303 00:25:17.599 --> 00:25:21.359 a lot of folks do. And as you do get to be an oh 304 00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:26.440 five, that becomes pretty much mandatory. We're unless you get really lucky, 305 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:29.000 or you live in a fleet concentration, or you're probably going to travel. 306 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:34.799 But there's there's some good things because recently, you know, they've got things 307 00:25:34.839 --> 00:25:38.799 called idt are, which just means people get paid to travel. People in 308 00:25:38.920 --> 00:25:45.240 key leadership positions and in certain especialties get paid to travel. That seems very 309 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:48.240 obvious if you're an outsider looking in, Well, don't you pay people to 310 00:25:48.279 --> 00:25:52.799 travel for their job? Not? Not really, um so, especially some 311 00:25:52.839 --> 00:25:56.160 of the senior officers, like you said, they're they're paying for their own 312 00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:59.920 plane tickets and real cars and things like that. But as a gunior off 313 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:07.519 that doesn't hit you as much. Eye opener, has a lot of wonderful 314 00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:11.000 self paid trips from where I lived to San Francisco into d C and Corpus 315 00:26:11.079 --> 00:26:18.160 Christi. So it's it's it's carrying the naval reserves. It is. It 316 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:22.319 is a lot of free travel four at taxpayers that come out of a lot 317 00:26:22.359 --> 00:26:27.480 of these reservest pockets. So that should be at least respected as a minimum. 318 00:26:27.519 --> 00:26:32.279 I suppose you know. One thing that was an eye opener for me 319 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:37.240 living on the continent is how many ex pat Americans who live and work in 320 00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:44.680 Europe. Germany, Italy, the UK, Norway, Spain are also affiliated 321 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:48.079 with the naval reserve. And our friend Blake Herzinger, he lives in Singapore 322 00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:52.799 and he I don't know if he's still doing it, but he just went 323 00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:59.279 over a bit ago to Hawaii to do his reserve duty. And that's another 324 00:26:59.319 --> 00:27:06.240 opportunity that you talk about added value to the nation's defense. You have serving 325 00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:11.799 reservists who have been living in you know, Germany or Italy or Croatia or 326 00:27:11.839 --> 00:27:18.200 wherever for three or four years, living differently and thinking differently in the connections 327 00:27:18.240 --> 00:27:23.920 you have is really valuable. And I was I was really surprised how many 328 00:27:25.359 --> 00:27:27.400 naval reservists and I'm sure the Army and the Air Force were the same, 329 00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:33.799 are xpats, Yeah for sure. In my last, you know, last 330 00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:38.039 assignment, there was all those European reservists. For the most part, they 331 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:42.920 drill in Naples, and we had there was a guy that owned a distillery 332 00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:48.039 in a gin distillery in Barcelona, and another person she worked, you know, 333 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:51.720 who worked for the State department in one of the empassies and all kinds 334 00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:56.799 of interesting careers. Um. And you're right that that network brings a lot 335 00:27:57.920 --> 00:28:03.200 to the Navy, and the Navy should should appreciate that that these not just 336 00:28:03.240 --> 00:28:07.920 the skills these people bring, but their backgrounds and their their networks is important. 337 00:28:12.519 --> 00:28:18.240 Mark you there, I have that button issue. Um, talk a 338 00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:23.160 little bit about les talk about the Ukraine situation based on I mean last time 339 00:28:23.160 --> 00:28:26.960 YOU'REND we talked about a little bit because it was kind of the start of 340 00:28:26.039 --> 00:28:33.039 this uh mess. But what do you see now that it was going on 341 00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:34.279 we ought to be talking about and what people ought to be thinking about. 342 00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.440 Yeah, um, well, Ukraine is interesting and I did listen to that 343 00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:48.039 episode which the last episode which took place I think it was July or August 344 00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:55.839 of twenty one, so it was before the Russians attack just and obviously a 345 00:28:55.839 --> 00:29:00.720 lot of change the conflict went kinetic. And from the naval perspective, that 346 00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:07.160 is very interesting because we're seeing some things that in naval warfare that we've seen 347 00:29:07.359 --> 00:29:11.920 many times in the past, like like minds, very effective use of minds, 348 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:18.400 and some other things like UAVs and these US fees that have been used 349 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.000 pretty effectively in the past couple of a couple of weeks that we haven't seen 350 00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:26.079 before. And that's something we should keep our eye on, as in the 351 00:29:26.119 --> 00:29:30.200 A V. I think I've been kind of studying that and looking at that, 352 00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:33.200 and it might be writing a piece on it for someplace or another to 353 00:29:33.799 --> 00:29:37.160 understand, you know, how is how is this warfare changing, especially in 354 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:45.200 the lictorals where we've got an underdog force fighting a much more significant force. 355 00:29:45.599 --> 00:29:51.160 And it's been interesting to watch the Russians ever since the Moscow was sunk. 356 00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:57.960 They haven't used their navy a lot other than to lop some missiles from the 357 00:29:59.079 --> 00:30:02.160 seed, but they haven't devin done some of the typical navy missions. They 358 00:30:02.160 --> 00:30:06.240 were sort of thwarted from the amphibious landing in Odessa, which is a very 359 00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:10.920 good thing that that war would have changed had Ukraine not put those those minds 360 00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:15.200 in very early on and had the foresight to do that and deter that amphibious 361 00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:18.880 invasion, you know. And I don't have any insight whether the rest is 362 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:22.599 going to we're going to do that or not, but it was interesting. 363 00:30:22.960 --> 00:30:27.720 And now we're seeing supply lines disrupted from some of these deep strikes with the 364 00:30:27.799 --> 00:30:33.160 USDs, and I think the long arrangem missiles where we've got, you know, 365 00:30:33.200 --> 00:30:37.640 the cursed bridge is a threat, which is a major line of support 366 00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:45.559 for the operations in Crimea, and that has been threatened. And we saw 367 00:30:45.599 --> 00:30:48.079 this oil tanker, which I guess is kind of equivalent to like one of 368 00:30:48.079 --> 00:30:56.039 our mart tinkers struck last week. So that these weapons are making a very 369 00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:02.640 interesting impression, and that to me, the most interesting thing is that it's 370 00:31:02.680 --> 00:31:07.000 been very There's been a lot of iterations. So there's four or five different 371 00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:11.799 iterations of these USBs that have occurred in the past year. On the UAV 372 00:31:12.079 --> 00:31:21.039 side, the Ukrainians started out with these TB two drones that they acquired from 373 00:31:21.039 --> 00:31:26.400 Turkey, which were kind of more conventional military and now they've gone hardcore into 374 00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:32.960 these quad copters that they're building in little labs all over the battlefield and throwing 375 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:38.119 a throwing a grenade on them or an RPG round and doing a hell of 376 00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:44.519 a lot of damage to Russian troops and trenches and armor and things like that. 377 00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:49.279 So it's been fascinating to kind of watch this whole thing develop. I 378 00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:52.240 think, you know, one thing and I'd encouraged people the videos are all 379 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:57.200 over the place, is when you go back to twenty fourteen, the Ukrainian 380 00:31:57.359 --> 00:32:02.279 army was a different army and twenty fourteen was not that long ago. When 381 00:32:02.279 --> 00:32:08.279 the Russians took in, took Crimea, took a large chunk of Luhansk and 382 00:32:08.440 --> 00:32:15.400 the Donbass. They were kind of the scrubby step brother of a post Soviet 383 00:32:15.559 --> 00:32:23.240 army and a lot of what they've been able to do. An existential threat 384 00:32:23.240 --> 00:32:30.240 will focus the mind, but the mind in their thoughts and approaches changed a 385 00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:34.880 lot from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty two. They weren't, you know, 386 00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:40.279 a full you know, NATO's spec military, but they were definitely getting closer 387 00:32:40.319 --> 00:32:46.440 to do that. And a lot of that was the training that the US, 388 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:51.480 the UK, Canada, I think France did some as well. All 389 00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:54.839 the NATO nations helped out a little bit, but a lot of the US 390 00:32:54.960 --> 00:33:02.160 training with them since twenty fourteen help change how they think about what they do 391 00:33:02.880 --> 00:33:07.960 and help them be ready for whatever happened in twenty two and two. We'll 392 00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:19.759 see how this works out. And a for reserves in other services as well. 393 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:23.720 Before the invasion, what were some of the areas that our reserves were 394 00:33:23.720 --> 00:33:32.119 over in Ukraine helping them develop? Yeah, a lot of it was so 395 00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:36.960 the primary actually as we did with Sea Breeze, and that went on, 396 00:33:37.119 --> 00:33:43.119 I think for I want to think nineteen twenty iterations until twenty twenty two. 397 00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:47.960 They didn't have it obviously last year and then they restarted it twenty twenty three 398 00:33:49.480 --> 00:33:53.519 and that was actually took place in Scotland this year with UM some of the 399 00:33:54.039 --> 00:34:04.480 mind countermeasure ships that are being transferred to Ukraine from the United Kingdom and also 400 00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:09.239 assets from standing Naval Mind counter Measure Group one, which are kind of the 401 00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:15.480 elite piece of mind countermeasures if you look at it, they're they're very solid 402 00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:20.639 force full of ships mind counter measure vessels and in units from all over the 403 00:34:20.760 --> 00:34:25.199 NATO forces. So on the reserve side, a lot of it was facilitating 404 00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:30.239 these exercises. So in those during those exercises, you had all kinds of 405 00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:37.880 different skills that were built up. There was a lot of C two so 406 00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:39.559 when I was there, I was doing a lot of some of the mentoring 407 00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:45.840 on the C two side and what we would call the Maritime Operations Center or 408 00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:50.920 the command center where a lot of those tape those operations are are C two 409 00:34:51.079 --> 00:34:57.440 from and in Ukraine specifically, and there was there was just a bunch of 410 00:34:57.440 --> 00:35:02.679 pieces. So most people don't realize this. Almost every single maritime exercise out 411 00:35:02.679 --> 00:35:07.159 there there, there's reservists are out there. Um So, whether you're talking 412 00:35:07.159 --> 00:35:17.199 about Korea Rimpack, any of the specific exercises, any Europe exercises and sitcom 413 00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:21.039 extras, all those same staffs I talked about, those number of fleet staffs 414 00:35:21.039 --> 00:35:25.000 are out there running those exercises, doing exercise control group, helping stand watches, 415 00:35:25.400 --> 00:35:30.639 doing logistics. Whether it's in Africa we used to deliver and same thing 416 00:35:30.639 --> 00:35:37.480 in Ukraine they deliver a lot of fuel to help out both ground and naval 417 00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:42.360 forces and air forces where a lot of US contractive fuel. You got to 418 00:35:42.440 --> 00:35:45.519 keep accountability for it. Uh, these exercises wouldn't go off without that fuel. 419 00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:51.119 So it's one of those some of those unsung heroes are out there standing 420 00:35:51.119 --> 00:35:55.239 in line, um, you know, junior federalsters watching fuel transferred and filling 421 00:35:55.280 --> 00:36:00.559 out the accountability paperwork to make sure that US tax payers money is being well 422 00:36:00.599 --> 00:36:07.800 spent and not not ending up in in Uh. Some senior officers car for 423 00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:10.920 an officer's car, things like that, and that's that's actually stories I've heard 424 00:36:10.920 --> 00:36:17.280 and that's happened. Um in certain countries. So it's it's uh, you 425 00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:21.440 know, it runs the gamut these exercises. On the soft side, they 426 00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:25.840 do a lot of training, um, you know, basic skills and building 427 00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:32.760 capacity with the partner nations soft. So it's a little of everything. Out 428 00:36:32.760 --> 00:36:37.079 of the out of the time you spent doing this, uh this stuffer you 429 00:36:37.159 --> 00:36:42.320 come and and any other billas. What what great lessons do you would you 430 00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:49.440 like to pass on to the next generation of reservis. Yeah, well, 431 00:36:49.519 --> 00:36:52.400 first thing is go out there and do it. Um, you're gonna you're 432 00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:57.440 gonna have some really interesting experiences and go to some places that you wouldn't otherwise 433 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:02.719 be able to visit, uh as a civilian even And so I recommend it 434 00:37:02.760 --> 00:37:07.960 from just the adventure standpoint. It really is not just a job. There's 435 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.960 some adventure to it. You know. I had a chance to fly around 436 00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:15.800 a few times and m I eight's and those guys don't really do ntops. 437 00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:21.960 They were flying you know by my slow perspective looking over the water, maybe 438 00:37:22.639 --> 00:37:28.440 eight feet above the water. Just stuff like that would never happen on the 439 00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:30.760 US side. So you get some really and I've done some other crazy things. 440 00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:35.480 A reservist go to Somalia and I rack in Afghanistan, all kinds of 441 00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:40.519 places, But so go out and do it and experience the adventure. It 442 00:37:40.559 --> 00:37:45.199 does definitely teaches you patients. And you see that when the active duty guys 443 00:37:45.239 --> 00:37:50.519 come in, they have very very high expectations for some of these partner forces, 444 00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:53.000 and I think after you've done it a few times and seeing where they 445 00:37:53.039 --> 00:37:59.039 really are as reservists, you you you kind of resets expectations and you know 446 00:37:59.159 --> 00:38:04.280 that you don't you want them, the partner nations, to do well, 447 00:38:04.360 --> 00:38:08.119 but you don't. You also have some realistic viewpoints in You're you're not going 448 00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:12.440 to get frustrated when they you know, everything's not perfect. So that's that's 449 00:38:12.480 --> 00:38:15.599 one difference I solve. You know, when we see active duty folks coming 450 00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:22.360 in to do exercises and capacity building that they just they just don't appreciate necessarily 451 00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:27.360 where these these partner nations are are coming from and what their capabilities are or 452 00:38:27.440 --> 00:38:30.719 aren't. And in some places very basic things like they don't have internet, 453 00:38:30.760 --> 00:38:34.840 they don't have electricity. You've got to bring in generators, which means you've 454 00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:37.280 got to bring in fuel to run a command center. Those sorts of things 455 00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:43.239 that we take for granted in Uncle Sam's navy, that that you don't always 456 00:38:43.280 --> 00:38:46.119 see in partner navies. And you know, i'd say, the other thing 457 00:38:46.159 --> 00:38:51.960 I learned spending time UH interfacing with embassy teams is that are at the musk 458 00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:55.639 guys for the most part do UM pretty well. But in other cases they 459 00:38:55.960 --> 00:39:00.679 they have absolutely no clue as to what they're doing when they buy equipment, 460 00:39:00.679 --> 00:39:06.199 when they buy Western kit for some of these militaries. One small example, 461 00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:13.199 spent time in Kenya with one of the partners forces there and the have you 462 00:39:13.320 --> 00:39:16.840 ever been Afka? Everybody's got Yamaha outboards, but we decided to buy UM 463 00:39:16.920 --> 00:39:23.000 these very expensive Evan Rude outboards UM for their patrol boats and and it was 464 00:39:23.079 --> 00:39:25.840 it was a maintenance and nightmare. So they were all just sitting up on 465 00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:30.199 racks and I you know, counting, I don't know, at one point 466 00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:35.079 it was maybe like twelve probably ten ten grand of pop outboards that had maybe 467 00:39:35.079 --> 00:39:37.960 been used once or twice and then they just couldn't do basic maintenance on because 468 00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:43.280 we bought kits. So for the guys that are working in embassies, theos 469 00:39:43.719 --> 00:39:47.599 UM spent some time out talking to folks who actually interface with these partners and 470 00:39:47.639 --> 00:39:53.360 get out of the embassy. That's that's my lesson to the theos. Yeah, 471 00:39:53.360 --> 00:39:58.840 everybody should read Te Lawrence what he what he had to say in World 472 00:39:58.840 --> 00:40:02.679 War One, working with the forces does apply to pretty much everybody I think 473 00:40:02.719 --> 00:40:09.239 of. I believe it was the Bulgarians when they got off the plane and 474 00:40:10.239 --> 00:40:15.599 couple they didn't have anything We had to supply them. So a lot of 475 00:40:15.599 --> 00:40:19.840 the nations, we can complain all we want to about our supplies and our 476 00:40:19.920 --> 00:40:24.679 equipments, but compared to some of our counterparts, we live a gilded life 477 00:40:24.679 --> 00:40:32.000 in the US military, that's for sure. One thing I wanted to touch, 478 00:40:32.119 --> 00:40:37.199 and you started to talk on it a little bit about what the Ukrainians 479 00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:45.239 have been able to do in getting the Russians to brush off. It's pretty 480 00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:52.039 impressive when you when you just look at it, whether you're talking about consifting 481 00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:57.719 the Russians, that a small isolated island that is within range of their rocket 482 00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:00.519 artillery is probably not a good idea. So they they knocked the Russians off 483 00:41:00.519 --> 00:41:06.760 of Snake Island. They sunk the Moscow, which when I was a kid 484 00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:09.880 was an incredibly scary ship, and they got it with one of their own 485 00:41:10.079 --> 00:41:16.079 indigenously produced missiles. And of course you mentioned the classic use of minds to 486 00:41:16.199 --> 00:41:24.480 deny a sea lions to somebody else. When you consider that must of the 487 00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:32.039 Ukrainian navy has not been able to venture out at all because it was sunk, 488 00:41:32.920 --> 00:41:39.480 They've still been able to take what was a world class navy and have 489 00:41:39.719 --> 00:41:45.920 kept it on its back foot ever since. Then. What are some of 490 00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:51.679 those lessons that are kind of breaking out in bold face from you when it 491 00:41:51.719 --> 00:42:00.320 comes to a weaker force by defending their coast against a larger force. Yeah, 492 00:42:00.320 --> 00:42:02.800 this is actually the thing, the piece that I'm working on riding kind 493 00:42:02.800 --> 00:42:08.239 of oriented towards distributed maritime operations. Lessons learn from from Ukraine naval war. 494 00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:13.039 And you know, the first of those I'd probably say is is quantity. 495 00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:15.519 You know, the old Russian Soviet maximum quantity has quality all of it its 496 00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:22.360 own. Um. Ukraine's flagship was a Crovac three. They had that. 497 00:42:22.519 --> 00:42:28.159 You know, you look at that from our naval kind of surface perspective, 498 00:42:28.239 --> 00:42:30.079 and we're gonna say, oh, that's you know, they need more of 499 00:42:30.079 --> 00:42:34.360 those. Well, if they had more of those, they'd probably be sunk 500 00:42:34.400 --> 00:42:37.840 in port right now, like the Crovak three. So um that that's not 501 00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:42.559 what these what smaller militaries need. And more and more the more I kind 502 00:42:42.559 --> 00:42:45.039 of look at it, I do think it has poor implications for our navy 503 00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:51.880 as well. So uh, not just quantity um, but but price and 504 00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:55.360 the ability to iterate and adapt in war. And if you look at war 505 00:42:55.440 --> 00:43:00.519 throughout history, you know, history of US naval warfare, that was a 506 00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:05.679 thing. Um World War two. How many classes of destroyer O sport destroyers 507 00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:08.599 did we go through? I don't know, somebody smart in history, but 508 00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:13.159 it was more than just one that we had, you know that lasted thirty 509 00:43:13.239 --> 00:43:15.119 years, it was it's quite a few. We adapted, and we can't 510 00:43:15.159 --> 00:43:21.639 do that now because of the military industrial defends. In industrial sector we don't 511 00:43:21.679 --> 00:43:25.199 have. It's not robust enough to replenish platforms and weapons and the timeline that 512 00:43:25.400 --> 00:43:30.679 that matters. We worry a lot about mill speck and survivability in our naval 513 00:43:30.679 --> 00:43:36.079 platforms, and that's important if you've got sailors out at sea, but um, 514 00:43:36.119 --> 00:43:42.440 if you have un crude vessels, that becomes significantly less important. And 515 00:43:42.519 --> 00:43:45.639 so as I said, in in this war, you've got on the Russian 516 00:43:45.639 --> 00:43:52.079 side that they're using these I renamed built Shaheed drones, which appear to be 517 00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:55.559 built with a lot of Western kind of dual dual used parts. I know 518 00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:00.000 they've they've recovered ZOM and I saw something on the news there was like Irish 519 00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:02.960 engine parts and things like that. So people are people are kind of up 520 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:06.559 in arms. But you know the bottom line of that is there are only 521 00:44:06.559 --> 00:44:10.599 ten thousand dollars a piece. So essentially you have a an anti you have 522 00:44:10.599 --> 00:44:16.320 a loitery munition long range, it's only ten thousand dollars apiece. Uh. 523 00:44:16.400 --> 00:44:23.400 These quad copter UAVs that Ukrainian marines in army and and I'm maybe the Navy's 524 00:44:23.400 --> 00:44:25.960 seas and I just haven't seen anything about it, they're only about five hundred 525 00:44:27.079 --> 00:44:29.800 dollars. And you know, you can take out a piece of armor that 526 00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:35.159 costs a few millions of dollars and um, so that's that trade off that 527 00:44:35.239 --> 00:44:42.679 we're seeing. Uh. And in there's minds and the ability to fight those 528 00:44:42.760 --> 00:44:47.559 kind of cheap drones in mass um. You know, there's there's ways to 529 00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:51.559 do it, and there's there's a lot of counter drone weapons, but that's 530 00:44:51.599 --> 00:44:54.239 that's more going to be more and more relevant. I think as we see 531 00:44:55.079 --> 00:44:59.159 warfare of paulup here in the next naval warfare evolve in the next few years. 532 00:44:59.559 --> 00:45:02.519 And uh, you know, here's just another shout out to the reserve 533 00:45:02.559 --> 00:45:07.480 side. So I know we as as you know, we've transferred a lot 534 00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:10.960 of stuff, obviously a lot of US kit and weapons to the Ukrainians, 535 00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:16.519 and and uh there was a number of these thirty four foot patrol boats that 536 00:45:16.519 --> 00:45:21.920 that uh, we used to use. And there's a whole generation of reservists 537 00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:27.880 the past twenty years that that used them for force protection in and in across 538 00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:31.400 the Persian Gulf and in the US. And we transferred quite a few of 539 00:45:31.400 --> 00:45:37.480 those I can't remember how many um to the Ukrainian Navy, and they're using 540 00:45:37.480 --> 00:45:42.079 them for riverine patrol on a the Nebro River. And it appears they're also 541 00:45:42.239 --> 00:45:45.280 using them to shoot down or at least to try to target, um, 542 00:45:45.400 --> 00:45:49.639 some of these Shahi drones as they fly in over the river. So that's 543 00:45:49.639 --> 00:45:53.000 interesting. It's uh, you know, it's a reuse of relatively small, 544 00:45:53.920 --> 00:46:00.840 affordable platforms that to do something that is an important mission in the war. 545 00:46:04.079 --> 00:46:07.760 Yeah, I think you've really hit on an argument we've heard from a number 546 00:46:07.760 --> 00:46:15.400 of people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and other areas where we've gone in 547 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:19.719 and we've in the past we've tried to make the local forces look just like 548 00:46:19.760 --> 00:46:28.840 our forces instead of letting the local forces go to their strengths and helping them 549 00:46:29.639 --> 00:46:34.360 multiply their capacity. And I think that's what you're kind of talking about here 550 00:46:34.360 --> 00:46:38.840 with the the the ingenuity of the Ukrainians ought to be encouraged, and we 551 00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:45.400 don't need to keep dumping or trying to dump multimillion dollar weapons systems on them. 552 00:46:45.440 --> 00:46:49.880 They just need to They need to keep working with the stuff they have, 553 00:46:49.960 --> 00:46:52.159 and we can we can help them a little bit with things, you 554 00:46:52.199 --> 00:46:57.840 know, tons of artillery, I guess munitions. But I mean that is 555 00:46:57.840 --> 00:47:00.239 that kind of your view that sometimes we go win and we go in too 556 00:47:00.280 --> 00:47:04.360 big and and cause more problems than we do than we could help with. 557 00:47:05.559 --> 00:47:08.199 Yeah, per um. You know, on their navy side, they went 558 00:47:08.239 --> 00:47:17.320 from having a largely Soviet the Stigil navy in the nineties and that's slowly kind 559 00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:21.840 of evolved and then we we kind of tried to build them into a NATO 560 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:29.199 oriented navy and on a US side, we transferred some WPVS coastcard wpps, 561 00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:31.159 and you know, we're really focusing on in our operability. And now I'd 562 00:47:31.159 --> 00:47:36.079 say they're they're evolving on their own and sort of a post NATO Navy where 563 00:47:36.159 --> 00:47:42.639 they've got, um these weapons that they're adapting for warfare and and doing it 564 00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:45.840 because they're effective and because they can apport it. And you know, I 565 00:47:46.079 --> 00:47:50.119 there's been I can't speak to this because I'm not a ground guy other than 566 00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:53.519 I've spent way too much time with ground guys. Um, there's a lot 567 00:47:53.519 --> 00:47:58.239 of open source stuff about all the armor, the Western armor that we sent 568 00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:02.280 and um, yeah, Abrams tanks and Leopard tanks and things like that that 569 00:48:02.719 --> 00:48:06.880 haven't done very well for for the Ukrainians. And part of that because the 570 00:48:06.920 --> 00:48:10.840 Russians planted so many minds and and they don't they don't have nobody in this 571 00:48:12.480 --> 00:48:16.079 battlefield has air superiority. So because of that, they've they switched to these 572 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:22.760 smaller units ran around in toyotas or whatever kind of pickups, uh, with 573 00:48:22.679 --> 00:48:30.519 UAVs and Lady munitions and things like that, where um, they can take 574 00:48:30.559 --> 00:48:35.159 out that Soviet or that Russian armor and do it very cheaply and effectively, 575 00:48:35.719 --> 00:48:40.280 and according to Ukrainian estimates, they killed a quarter of a million Russians and 576 00:48:40.360 --> 00:48:43.679 a year and a half and that's just that's kind of a hard number to 577 00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:50.760 fathom, but it's, uh, yeah, it's it's pretty impressive. It's 578 00:48:50.760 --> 00:48:57.320 also interesting some of the fundamentals that don't get people very excited in times of 579 00:48:57.440 --> 00:48:59.960 peace really have come to the front, some of the ones that you out 580 00:49:00.079 --> 00:49:06.599 line there, but you also have some of the newer things coming into prominence 581 00:49:06.639 --> 00:49:08.280 and really making an effect. And he mentioned to them a little bit. 582 00:49:08.440 --> 00:49:15.599 Most people who listen here have seen the videos of the latest version of the 583 00:49:15.719 --> 00:49:22.679 uncrewed surface vessels, which there was a podcast I listened to where they were 584 00:49:22.719 --> 00:49:29.360 talking about some of the communications links that it's out there. But because further 585 00:49:29.400 --> 00:49:31.440 my past life, I don't like talking about stuff like that. The really 586 00:49:31.519 --> 00:49:40.159 gives almost a first person player video experience. We've seen that on the on 587 00:49:40.199 --> 00:49:44.800 the land side, but also at sea, which is why we see the 588 00:49:45.159 --> 00:49:50.800 unmanned surface vessel going into the Ropushka. And I had an interesting back and 589 00:49:50.840 --> 00:49:53.559 forth with a few people who were talking about how how radical I knew this 590 00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:57.480 was. It's like, well, no, not really, it's just with 591 00:49:57.599 --> 00:50:04.280 modern technology, a modern iteration of the old fire ship's concept that even the 592 00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:13.119 US Naty and in its infancy used, where you have fleets that are import 593 00:50:13.119 --> 00:50:15.440 and are static, which they're vulnerable, but you don't have your own fleet 594 00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:21.679 to go get them. There are ways that a lesser power, using a 595 00:50:21.719 --> 00:50:24.480 little bit of ingenuity and technology, may not be able to sink them, 596 00:50:24.519 --> 00:50:29.079 but can make them combat and effective. And in that same water space, 597 00:50:29.159 --> 00:50:35.000 we do have two NATO nations, Bulgaria and Romania, who also have naval 598 00:50:35.039 --> 00:50:39.480 forces on the Black Sea. What would you see as they look at that 599 00:50:39.639 --> 00:50:45.159 very similar environment, And they also have some frigates and things like that where 600 00:50:45.199 --> 00:50:50.719 they might want to shape, being that they're not presently at war, shape 601 00:50:50.760 --> 00:50:54.480 the future of their naval forces response to the lessons that they're seeing just up 602 00:50:54.519 --> 00:51:00.800 the coast off of Odessa. Yeah, I mean, first thing I do 603 00:51:00.920 --> 00:51:04.320 is invest in minds if they don't already have them, like a lot um. 604 00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:09.119 Yeah, that's assuming Russia is going to be able to ever wage aggression 605 00:51:09.119 --> 00:51:13.320 again in a Black Sea, which I think is a maybe not a good 606 00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:22.000 assumption, but um yeah, minds is sr UAVs for is sr that the 607 00:51:22.119 --> 00:51:27.480 kind of the nature of this ubiquitous UAV environment is if you can see it, 608 00:51:28.039 --> 00:51:30.280 or if you're seeing, you're gonna die. You're gonna get killed, 609 00:51:30.480 --> 00:51:32.599 at least a mission kill. And that goes for you know, larger vessels 610 00:51:32.599 --> 00:51:37.679 as well. And I've I've been kind of a staunch advocate that we're we're 611 00:51:37.719 --> 00:51:44.719 barking up the wrong tree with with with H platforms like Zoomwalt, where you 612 00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:46.920 know it's supposedly stealthy, but it's but it's not because it's got a big 613 00:51:47.039 --> 00:51:52.360 unique visual since uh signature and the other piece of this, you know, 614 00:51:53.079 --> 00:51:57.760 people are going to throw out some things counter with oh, we can just 615 00:51:57.760 --> 00:52:01.719 take care of that with electronic warfare. True, until these weapons start to 616 00:52:01.760 --> 00:52:07.039 be armed with the terminal seekers that have automatic target recognition, which is a 617 00:52:07.119 --> 00:52:13.159 very high end capability and always has. Then until you think about it, 618 00:52:13.199 --> 00:52:17.320 and everybody's got one in their pocket, a cell phone that can take a 619 00:52:17.360 --> 00:52:23.079 picture of a plant and identify exactly what kind of planet is through an app, 620 00:52:23.119 --> 00:52:30.159 and that that level of processing is not high tech anymore. It's it's 621 00:52:30.199 --> 00:52:34.519 it's out there. So um, you could jam a link between one of 622 00:52:34.559 --> 00:52:39.079 these first person operated uscs. But if they have a way to home in 623 00:52:39.199 --> 00:52:45.599 on a on a specific signature visual or infrared or audio, then you're not 624 00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:47.239 going to stop it unless you shoot it, which is sort of the defensive 625 00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:52.199 piece of this is we probably need to start putting more guns on our surface 626 00:52:52.199 --> 00:52:55.639 platforms, um of all sizes. Again. And it's interesting because if you 627 00:52:55.639 --> 00:53:00.159 do look at like even even today, the Russian ships, they have more 628 00:53:00.199 --> 00:53:05.079 guns than hours and uh that's probably you know, that's probably why some of 629 00:53:05.119 --> 00:53:07.599 these ships have survived these US beat attacks because they just lay down a lot 630 00:53:07.639 --> 00:53:12.079 of a lot of rounds into the water. So those are just you know, 631 00:53:12.280 --> 00:53:19.679 that's my my swag. It's yeah, I think that's a pretty good 632 00:53:19.719 --> 00:53:22.840 swag. I mean, you've hit a couple of things that I worry about 633 00:53:22.880 --> 00:53:29.960 for our navy, which is mine warfare and our defenses against shore based anti 634 00:53:30.039 --> 00:53:32.719 ship missiles. Uh. You know, if you're going to operate in these 635 00:53:34.159 --> 00:53:37.159 close to land areas, you're you're susceptible to a whole lot of stuff that 636 00:53:37.639 --> 00:53:45.360 don't require battle battle cruisers or or every electronic thing in the world. You 637 00:53:45.679 --> 00:53:51.519 you need to be a lot more stealthy and a lot I mean in terms 638 00:53:51.519 --> 00:53:59.400 of small profile stealthy, not necessarily zoom wall stealthy. And they also need 639 00:53:59.400 --> 00:54:02.119 to you know, I don't understand every exercise I've ever been in. After 640 00:54:02.199 --> 00:54:07.079 the when we were over in uh I was over in in Saudi Arabia and 641 00:54:07.519 --> 00:54:12.639 we had the Princeton and somebody else hit minds. You know, how long 642 00:54:12.679 --> 00:54:15.480 does it take to learn the lessons we did. The simplest weapon in the 643 00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:19.320 world has been these World War One minds, and they seem to continue to 644 00:54:19.360 --> 00:54:24.800 work. Yeah, we saw him in Iraq when I was in Iraq early 645 00:54:24.880 --> 00:54:30.320 in that war. Um. Interesting, here's here's one of my Navy reserved 646 00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:36.519 hero stories. So me and this other guy trained the Kiwaiti boarding teams to 647 00:54:36.679 --> 00:54:38.920 go up. This is prior to one kicking up. We were in Kuwait 648 00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:45.159 and we trained the boarding teams um Kawiti boarding teams to have professional VBSS teams 649 00:54:45.199 --> 00:54:50.880 to go on board ships coming out of Iranian couple of Iranian rivers, the 650 00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:59.440 Essay and the Ka and throughout that training period, our main our main challenge 651 00:54:59.559 --> 00:55:04.840 was to keep these guys from just going off and just beating people as they 652 00:55:04.880 --> 00:55:08.519 were boarding and using too much for us well, it turns out they they 653 00:55:09.239 --> 00:55:12.599 the cadre that we trained, they went out and trade their own a boarding 654 00:55:12.679 --> 00:55:16.000 teams and that didn't that didn't pass. And then one of the DALs that 655 00:55:16.159 --> 00:55:23.480 was coming out waterway early in the war before the war kicked off, one 656 00:55:23.519 --> 00:55:28.599 of the boarding members got really feisty and shot one of the guys in the 657 00:55:28.679 --> 00:55:31.840 head. He was just a fisherman, and apparently that scared a lot of 658 00:55:31.920 --> 00:55:36.440 the folks that were supposed to be laying minds. And it's not my story, 659 00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:38.679 this is actually related to me by at the time where the CSG commanders 660 00:55:38.719 --> 00:55:43.360 when he came up and visited in Iraq, that they shot and it was 661 00:55:43.559 --> 00:55:45.840 there was a couple of news articles. It was called the shot that started 662 00:55:45.880 --> 00:55:51.119 the war where these Kuwaitis shot an Iraqi fisherman, and that apparently deterred a 663 00:55:51.159 --> 00:55:52.719 lot of the mind laying although there were still plenty of minds in our mind 664 00:55:52.880 --> 00:56:01.760 our mind countermeasures guys did an awesome job of taking care of those. I 665 00:56:01.880 --> 00:56:06.000 notice that we just got a few minutes left. I wanted to tap in 666 00:56:06.199 --> 00:56:10.480 for a second into what is now your full time job. Now you have 667 00:56:10.480 --> 00:56:17.599 to worry about the reservist anymore is Ukraine before war, even though a very 668 00:56:17.679 --> 00:56:24.360 poor nation in the global sense, was and can be and still is, 669 00:56:25.159 --> 00:56:34.480 an agricultural powerhouse. She's been blessed since antiquity. In antiquity with great soil, 670 00:56:36.119 --> 00:56:38.679 not the best location in the world to get things to market. But 671 00:56:39.719 --> 00:56:44.360 eighteen months of war a lot of the agricultural land is going to take. 672 00:56:45.199 --> 00:56:49.639 As the Belgian and the French will tell you, it takes decades to get 673 00:56:50.199 --> 00:56:55.840 some land back into use after extended periods of combat like this due to unexploded 674 00:56:57.719 --> 00:57:00.960 ordinance and mine fields that aren't properly mapped, and it will kill people for 675 00:57:01.119 --> 00:57:09.199 years afterwards. But unlike nations like France and Belgium after the First World War, 676 00:57:10.280 --> 00:57:14.360 it's not a very rich and it's going to be a nation. It's 677 00:57:14.360 --> 00:57:19.719 not going to have a bunch of money it can tap into, and it's 678 00:57:20.119 --> 00:57:22.760 Russia isn't going to go anywhere, so she will have to spend a lot 679 00:57:22.800 --> 00:57:25.639 of money on national offense. She's not going to have a peace dividend if 680 00:57:25.679 --> 00:57:32.880 they're smart, so what looking at their agricultural section sector that which Cargill won't 681 00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:39.400 finance out of their back pocket. But for your standard issue farmer or people 682 00:57:39.440 --> 00:57:45.719 in the agricultural sector in Ukraine, whichever way this war winds up winding out, 683 00:57:45.880 --> 00:57:51.519 assuming they still have autonomy, what are some of those challenges you think 684 00:57:51.559 --> 00:57:57.920 are going to be bold faced to help the Ukrainians get their agricultural sector back 685 00:57:58.000 --> 00:58:02.639 up and producing an income. Wow, maybe a little bit out of my 686 00:58:02.960 --> 00:58:06.840 area of expertise, but I mean you're definitely right. It is gonna there's 687 00:58:06.840 --> 00:58:13.360 gonna be a massive demining effort for decades. Uh in these this there's going 688 00:58:13.440 --> 00:58:22.559 to be um a significant rebuilding of grain infrastructure, you know, from the 689 00:58:22.599 --> 00:58:27.239 whole supply chain to the to the ports. And unfortunately Russia kind of just 690 00:58:27.360 --> 00:58:31.119 started striking that. They seem to have avoid those targets until this past month 691 00:58:31.239 --> 00:58:37.400 or so, when now they're they're taking out grain export facilities both in Odessa 692 00:58:37.639 --> 00:58:42.519 and down on the Danube, which was kind of the secondary a couple of 693 00:58:42.599 --> 00:58:47.079 ports where where grain left the country. So that's all um that that infrastructure 694 00:58:47.199 --> 00:58:53.159 probably pretty easily replaceable to mine. Is is a more challenging program um problem. 695 00:58:54.079 --> 00:58:58.039 And then you know there's are there are there still going to be people 696 00:58:58.039 --> 00:59:01.239 that want to farm. Now that's a that's a. The number of farmers 697 00:59:01.280 --> 00:59:04.800 in the world continues to decrease, and part of that is because we have 698 00:59:05.239 --> 00:59:07.960 more efficient food production methods, but another part is because people don't like to 699 00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:10.159 work hard and it's a it's a hard job, and we see that all 700 00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:14.559 the time in my business, that there's just fewer people that want to be 701 00:59:14.639 --> 00:59:19.559 farmers. And so these people that we're trying to farm and had their whole 702 00:59:19.880 --> 00:59:22.679 livelihoods destroyed by the war, are they going to want to get back into 703 00:59:22.719 --> 00:59:27.280 it. I don't know, so I think it's a it's a good question 704 00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:30.800 to ask, an important one because of the you know, the amount of 705 00:59:30.320 --> 00:59:38.719 grain and other act product products that are exported from Ukraine. Well, Chris, 706 00:59:38.800 --> 00:59:42.719 we've taken up an hour of your time and it's been great talking to 707 00:59:42.800 --> 00:59:45.800 you again. Anything you want to tell us about what you're working on in 708 00:59:45.920 --> 00:59:52.800 the addition of the article you've mentioned not really just trying to figure out what 709 00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:54.280 to do with all my free time now that I'm retired from the Navy and 710 00:59:54.519 --> 01:00:01.760 re orient that energy and time into something productive. Well, I just spent 711 01:00:02.039 --> 01:00:06.840 a couple of days working outside in a hundred degree heat. So you can 712 01:00:06.840 --> 01:00:09.440 always find hobbies that evolve a lot to sweat, but hey, Chris, 713 01:00:09.559 --> 01:00:13.599 it's um. It's been a great hour. It's great talking to you again 714 01:00:13.679 --> 01:00:16.039 and look forward to the opportunity next time. Thanks a lot, guys, 715 01:00:16.440 --> 01:00:23.400 glad to be here, and thank you everybody for joining us for another edition 716 01:00:23.440 --> 01:00:27.760 in mid Reds and until next time, we hope you have a great Navy 717 01:00:27.840 --> 01:00:51.960 day. Cheers. Won't to marry me and believe you being to blame me, 718 01:00:52.320 --> 01:01:04.840 Cy Folding of the same long Dippernany, it's a long way to go. 719 01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:14.920 It's a long way to dippernanny to the green, and I know I 720 01:01:15.159 --> 01:01:23.599 don't by the condealing and well lest Dowell, it's a long long way to 721 01:01:23.800 --> 01:01:29.480 dippery. But my life like the