Speaker 1: Well with the come and take my pains, my ry,
Speaker 1: oh whiskey.
Speaker 2: Why think alone when you can drink it all in
Speaker 2: with Ricochet's Three Whiskey Happy Hour, join your bartenders Steve Hayward,
Speaker 2: John Yu and the International Woman of Mystery Lucretia where
Speaker 2: they lapped it up and David, ain't you besy on
Speaker 2: the should He's happy, got a giving and that with me. Well,
Speaker 2: Hi everybody, and welcome to this first of the revived
Speaker 2: classic format editions of the podcasts, in which I have
Speaker 2: long form conversations and interviews with authors and other interesting people.
Speaker 2: And fitting for the Three Whiskey Happy Hour podcast that
Speaker 2: our first guest in the revived series is someone who
Speaker 2: not only traces his ancestry back to Ireland, but who
Speaker 2: spends a lot of his time in Ireland a living
Speaker 2: today and that person is Michael Walsh, whose most recent
Speaker 2: book is called A Rage to Conquer Twelve Battles that
Speaker 2: changed the course of Western History. Before I get into
Speaker 2: it with Michael, you should know that he is a
Speaker 2: true renaissance man. He's written over twenty books, worked as
Speaker 2: a senior foreign correspondent for Time magazine for almost twenty years.
Speaker 2: He has written classical music and made many classical performances,
Speaker 2: and his books ranged from novels to books about classical
Speaker 2: music and modern opera, and books about things like the
Speaker 2: insidious effect of the Frankfurt School. And now this book
Speaker 2: that we're talking about today is the second of a
Speaker 2: projected three volumes to talk about the glories of warfare,
Speaker 2: and by that he means that modern sensibilities are all
Speaker 2: against war and fighting, and of course he recognizes it
Speaker 2: as a trade of human nature, a necessity that should
Speaker 2: be grasped with relish rather than with the fashionable dread
Speaker 2: of modern times. His first book in a series was
Speaker 2: called Last Stands, Why Men Fight when all is lost?
Speaker 2: And the current one, as I say, is a rage
Speaker 2: to conquer. And so let's get into it with Michael,
Speaker 2: and I think you will find this conversation fascinating. Well, Michael,
Speaker 2: this is your nineteenth book, by my count, A Rage
Speaker 2: to Conquer, Twelve battles that changed the course of American history.
Speaker 2: And I haven't read all your books. I've read, I
Speaker 2: don't know a quarter of the maybe, but this is
Speaker 2: my favorite so far. I just had a delight reading
Speaker 2: through it. And I'm actually not through the whole thing.
Speaker 2: But every chapter I'm having great fun. So it's a
Speaker 2: sequel to Last Stands. I want to come back to
Speaker 2: the Last Stands book later actually and get straight into
Speaker 2: this book. So twelve battles, but it's wrapped inside of thesis,
Speaker 2: which is you're rehabilitating war. I remember graffiti on a
Speaker 2: bomb from the First Gulf War in nineteen ninety one
Speaker 2: that said give war a chance, which play on that
Speaker 2: stupid old John Lennon lyric. I think it was again
Speaker 2: big Wark raad again. Well, and I think hopefully this
Speaker 2: isn't too much of a simplification to say your thesis
Speaker 2: is that war is normal, natural, praiseworthy, something to be
Speaker 2: admired and not abjured the way it is in modern times.
Speaker 2: Is that too the summary of of what you're trying
Speaker 2: to get at here.
Speaker 1: No, thinks I think that's fair Stuve. I think what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do, as I did in the last
Speaker 1: Stance with a quote from the Manual Kant, was to
Speaker 1: point out war as the natural state of mankind and
Speaker 1: pieces the aberration, and so we lived in this funny
Speaker 1: interwar period. It'll be seen as that later on. Of course,
Speaker 1: we don't notice it because we think, well, this is normal,
Speaker 1: and we grew up in that. But you know, old
Speaker 1: cultures like you and I grew up, were born and
Speaker 1: raised right after the Second World War, and we've really
Speaker 1: lived through a time of extraordinarily a peaceful world comparative
Speaker 1: to World War Two, and I just think we have
Speaker 1: to face the fact that war is inevitable. And the
Speaker 1: most important takeaway I have is that war is not
Speaker 1: a failure. I think that we've come to this notion
Speaker 1: I think post World War two, especially with the UN
Speaker 1: that war can somehow be preempted or avoided. And it
Speaker 1: represents a misinterpretation of Classovitz's famous dictum that war is
Speaker 1: policy by other means. And as I go to some
Speaker 1: length to point out, but he actually said it, war
Speaker 1: is policy with other means. The German word is very clear.
Speaker 1: I don't know why it's been so consistently mistranslated, but
Speaker 1: if you say by to me, it sounds like, well,
Speaker 1: everything else has failed, so now we're using other means.
Speaker 1: Whereas properly understood, warfare is a tool in the diplomatic
Speaker 1: kit to be used when necessary. It's the acts behind
Speaker 1: the glass basically, but when you need it you use it.
Speaker 1: So that's really the thesis behind all the discussions in
Speaker 1: Rage to Conquer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of a professor I had in
Speaker 2: graduate school now more than forty years ago, who, before
Speaker 2: going on academia, had been a tank driver for Pattent's
Speaker 2: Third Army in World War Two, and he had an
Speaker 2: ingenious way of starting his class on diplomacy and military
Speaker 2: power that you'll appreciate. He would, on the first day
Speaker 2: of class pass around to World War two M one
Speaker 2: rifle and explained how it worked, and then he'd fix
Speaker 2: the bandet, describe how to use the bayonet when you're
Speaker 2: out of ammunition, and he was very lyrical about it.
Speaker 2: And then he would end by saying holding up the
Speaker 2: gun and say, this is the basic tool of diplomacy.
Speaker 2: Next class we'll start talking about the basic tools of
Speaker 2: military power. So that was very much your understanding of
Speaker 2: class what you're just explaining. And they don't make professors
Speaker 2: like that any more, needless to say, and so I
Speaker 2: am hearing echoes of certain Then other person you remind
Speaker 2: me of a bit was well, maybe I'm jumping ahead
Speaker 2: too far, but your last chapter about the post nine
Speaker 2: to eleven World and how unserious we've been about things.
Speaker 2: Remind me of my late friend, who you may have
Speaker 2: known was Angelo codevillav Oh well, right, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Angelo used to say, I'm not sure you ever wrote
Speaker 2: it anywhere, but he used to say, as you point
Speaker 2: out in your chapter, the Saudis were up to their
Speaker 2: necks in what was going on behind nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: I think we know that's the concealed part of the
Speaker 2: nine to eleven Commission report. And he said, you know
Speaker 2: a lot of those royal family people live in those
Speaker 2: high rise luxury hotels. We just ought a round up
Speaker 2: three thousand of them and execute them, as you know, right,
Speaker 2: as retribution for what they connived in. And I okay, anyway,
Speaker 2: the point is is this is a real breath of
Speaker 2: fresh air when so much treatment of a warfare and conflict,
Speaker 2: as as you say, is sort of I put it
Speaker 2: sentimental continism. Oh right. Anyway, that's my commentary on your
Speaker 2: very sound commentary. We're in heated agreement about all this.
Speaker 2: I think let's take a look at some of the battles.
Speaker 2: You pick a lot from antiquity, you know, Achilles, Alexander, Caesar, Constantine,
Speaker 2: And I guess maybe I went to unpractice to say
Speaker 2: a lot of those are a long time ago and
Speaker 2: remote from you know, modern history, and although they're important
Speaker 2: to ancient history, seems to me the presumption there is
Speaker 2: that the Western history is one long continuity and that
Speaker 2: without those we wouldn't be where we are today, which
Speaker 2: I think would be a novel proposition to a lot
Speaker 2: of people who think that's just antiquity and has no
Speaker 2: relevance to our world today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well they're They're almost as old as the constitutions,
Speaker 1: Steve right, I love that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yes, I forget which idiots said that, but.
Speaker 2: As reclined it was, ezraclined, a constitution is like one
Speaker 2: hundred years old, one.
Speaker 1: Hundred years old, and what relevance could it possibly have
Speaker 1: to ut Well, I was thinking about this last November.
Speaker 1: I was actually in the Forum in Rome, which is
Speaker 1: like old, right old, and I was walking the footsteps
Speaker 1: of Caesar, and it doesn't seem that old when you're
Speaker 1: actually in it. I think that's the point is, especially
Speaker 1: as Americans where disassociated from our own originations and our
Speaker 1: own pasts and our own people's past to some extent,
Speaker 1: we have a new covenant, as it were, a new
Speaker 1: beginning a new hope. But we go back to Greco Romanism.
Speaker 1: And I've made the distinction in this book, and I
Speaker 1: will make an even more in the third book in
Speaker 1: this series, which I'm writing right now. That I believe
Speaker 1: we are a Greco Roman civilization not a Judeo Christian
Speaker 1: civilization for many, many, many, many, many, many many reasons.
Speaker 1: But as far as our Western civilization starts, it starts
Speaker 1: with the Iliad, and it starts with Homer. Now that
Speaker 1: is roughly contemporaneous with the origins of Judaism, as you know,
Speaker 1: so that the Trojan work takes place about twelve hundred BC,
Speaker 1: So do the early stages of Judaism and Moses and
Speaker 1: the Egyptian captivity, etc. Homer rights in eight hundred BC,
Speaker 1: which is right around the time that Judaism is coming
Speaker 1: together as a mosaic faith. Augustus becomes emperor, right around
Speaker 1: the time that Jesus is born and Christianity is born,
Speaker 1: and Rabbinic Judaism is begun. So these religions and histories
Speaker 1: bump into each other constantly. But from my own point
Speaker 1: of view, and this is not to argue religion, I'll
Speaker 1: do that in the next book, but I've got to
Speaker 1: leave the folks wanting more. From a historical point of
Speaker 1: view and from a literary cultural military point of view,
Speaker 1: we really start with the Greco Roman period. So that's
Speaker 1: why I began with the Iliad and with Alexander the Great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and then you one chapter that goes into
Speaker 2: a period that I have to confess I'm weak on.
Speaker 2: Was the Crusades. It's your chapter seven? Yes, was that
Speaker 2: Beaumont at Dori Lea. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'm not. I was not surprised, but still
Speaker 2: nonetheless delighted to see you rehabilitate the Crusades from all
Speaker 2: the calibi thrown that episode in Western history. But then
Speaker 2: from there you jump up to Napoleon, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: is there a reason you skip some of the battles
Speaker 2: in between, or maybe this in your last book and
Speaker 2: I just don't remember it. I'm thinking, you know, if
Speaker 2: the Polish cavalry doesn't show up at the Battle of
Speaker 2: the Ponto, more of Europe would be Islamic hundreds of
Speaker 2: years ago, as opposed to only half a quarter Islamic today.
Speaker 2: We'll come back to that anyway, so what was you
Speaker 2: What were your criteria for picking the back battles and
Speaker 2: excluding certain other ones that might be.
Speaker 1: Well, some of them I had done. So people said, oh,
Speaker 1: well you forgot X, Y and Z. I said, well,
Speaker 1: was in Last Dance and something going to do in
Speaker 1: the new book, which is called The Wrath of God,
Speaker 1: and it's explicitly about religious warfare. So the whole Muslim
Speaker 1: Christian series of conflicts, where I'm going to begin with
Speaker 1: the with the Hebrews and the Canaanites in the first
Speaker 1: book of the Torah and continue forward again to nine
Speaker 1: to eleven. In the current well very long war, we're
Speaker 1: fighting against Islam, even though only once it seems to
Speaker 1: think that it's right, which is a problem. So that's
Speaker 1: why also I wanted to get the notion of heroic
Speaker 1: individual commanders front and center in each one of these battles.
Speaker 1: That's why it's Xander and Caesar, it's Constantine, it's a
Speaker 1: guy nobody's ever heard of called Asius, who stood off
Speaker 1: until of the hun at the Battle of the Catalonian Plains.
Speaker 1: And by the time I was getting past that those
Speaker 1: origin stories, I thought Napoleon was the next person to do.
Speaker 1: He just is more so than Wellington in a way.
Speaker 1: And remember that Napoleon and Wellington never fought each other
Speaker 1: until the very last battle, which was water Booths. Napoleon
Speaker 1: dominated the nineteenth century in a way that very few
Speaker 1: men have dominated a century, and that's a century filled
Speaker 1: with dominant medicinalities. So I just was irresistibly drun to Napoleon,
Speaker 1: partly for his tactics on battlefield, but mostly because he
Speaker 1: represents the artist as hero. Forget that he's a military commander.
Speaker 1: He is a self made man of lowly relatively low origins.
Speaker 1: He's an Italian for one thing, who is French by
Speaker 1: pure acts of a treaty. He never even learns to
Speaker 1: speak French very well, as men made fun of them
Speaker 1: all the time. His accent was apparently terrible. And yet
Speaker 1: by sheer personality he wins the Battle of Austerlitz because
Speaker 1: he knows Alexander and Caesar. He studied them very carefully,
Speaker 1: and each one of the battles enrage to conquer not
Speaker 1: each one, but many. You will see the commander goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Caesar was in this exact same position, and what did
Speaker 1: he do to get out of it? Well, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm going to do. And so you see this constant
Speaker 1: repetition of battlefield tactics and maneuvering and strategic maneuvering. Even
Speaker 1: more important that echoes down through the ages. So that's
Speaker 1: why I left. That made that big leap to Napoleon.
Speaker 1: And then we move into the World War II Commanders
Speaker 1: on Battle in nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: Well, right, yes, I mean, you know, Patent's invocation of
Speaker 2: Caesar and leaders of military leaders of antiquity is legendary
Speaker 2: from the movie if nothing else. And you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: we also mentioned Nimits at Midway perishing at san he Hell, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't say French myself worth a darn mers of Napoleon,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that's right in a war that yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean World War One is a a war known for
Speaker 2: its lack of maneuver for reasons. I'll come back to that.
Speaker 2: I think maybe you're of lingering importance. But yeah, but
Speaker 2: I mean the other one did anyone bring up to you?
Speaker 2: And again, forgive me if I missed it in the
Speaker 2: previous book, Uh, it skipt the Civil War battles or
Speaker 2: the Civil War itself, which seems to me was quite pivotal,
Speaker 2: not just to America.
Speaker 1: But I think for the world. Actually, well I did.
Speaker 1: I did Shiloh in last stance, okay. And the reason
Speaker 1: I did Shiloh and not Gettysburg or Antietam or Vicksburg,
Speaker 1: was that if Grant had lost at the end of
Speaker 1: Day one of Shiloh, the war was over over. He's gone,
Speaker 1: Sherman's gone. The Union army has been defeated and sent packing.
Speaker 1: The Confederates command the Tennessee River and the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: Because you don't have Grant to come take Vicksburg. Later on,
Speaker 1: the whole war effort collapses right there, up against the
Speaker 1: banks of the Tennessee River. And when I did that chapter,
Speaker 1: I got on the car and I drove myself from
Speaker 1: New England to Shiloh, actually to walk that battlefield. And
Speaker 1: when you get to the part where they're right at
Speaker 1: the river, this is the end of day one. They've
Speaker 1: been surprised, attacked. Sherman has blown off the reports that
Speaker 1: there's this giant Confederate army right out there behind the trees.
Speaker 1: Grant's up the river recuperating from a riding accident, and
Speaker 1: he was the best horseman in the army, and his
Speaker 1: horse had slipped in the mud and landed on his leg,
Speaker 1: so he was rec operating from that. If they were
Speaker 1: to have been pushed into the river on day one,
Speaker 1: that was the end of it. So that's why I
Speaker 1: let that stand in for the Civil War for this
Speaker 1: current project.
Speaker 2: Right, So let me ask you a combination question that explains,
Speaker 2: or it gives reason why the rage to conquer, as
Speaker 2: you put it, is not respected, not acknowledged, not understood,
Speaker 2: and not encouraged today. And that would be the argument
Speaker 2: that I think Churchill makes the best of anybody starting
Speaker 2: around nineteen oh one, that modern warfare was going to
Speaker 2: be different. Right, that famous early speech he gives, I
Speaker 2: think in nineteen oh one where he says, the wars
Speaker 2: of people's will be worse than the wars of kings. Why,
Speaker 2: because of technology, we're now going to have you know,
Speaker 2: total wars we later called it, in which civilian casualties
Speaker 2: and civilian damage would be much greater than it ever
Speaker 2: been before. And then you combine that with technology, and
Speaker 2: you know, one of his later essays, I think it
Speaker 2: was mass effects in modern life. He says, I'll paraphrase,
Speaker 2: the problem with modern warfare is there's no or as
Speaker 2: much less scope for battlefield heroism. The generals who used
Speaker 2: to be on their horse, like Napoleon, like Marlborough, like
Speaker 2: Grant and Lee, they're now remote from the battlefield, and
Speaker 2: so they're not as decisive as they once would have been,
Speaker 2: you know, in those older battles. And so, in other words,
Speaker 2: the nature modern warfare has changed. It has lost its
Speaker 2: I guess I may say it's manliness in some ways.
Speaker 2: And so I mean, how do you regard that argument
Speaker 2: and you credit that with being a factor in why
Speaker 2: or mass opinion has turned so against war or regards
Speaker 2: it the way it does.
Speaker 1: Well, let me start by uttering a complete heresy.
Speaker 2: I'm afraid you're gonna do that.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, I'm not a Churchill fan. I'm afraid you're
Speaker 3: going to say that am I'm not a Churchill fan.
Speaker 3: I am not a Churchill fan. And the reason I
Speaker 3: am not a Churchill fan has to do with that
Speaker 3: exact attitude. Remember that Churchill thought with Kitchener in the
Speaker 3: assault on the MACHTI was already dead. He killed Gordon
Speaker 3: and then he died, And then there was the Battle
Speaker 3: of Omdumont, and Churchill was a young, young officer, and
Speaker 3: he wrote famously there's nothing more exhilarating than being shot
Speaker 3: at an Okay, so you got shot at and missed.
Speaker 3: After that, his military judgment is horrendously terrible. He's the
Speaker 3: architect of Gallipoli for one thing, which was Blatant's stupidity.
Speaker 3: He was the architect of the soft underbelly theory that
Speaker 3: got Americans killed at Anzio and didn't work anyway. At
Speaker 3: no point is he a great strategic military thinker. He
Speaker 3: has lots of great qualities, and I'm not going to
Speaker 3: get into an argument with Larry Arn't about Churchill or right,
Speaker 3: But I don't think he's a great military mind. And
Speaker 3: I think he presided over the dissolution of the empire.
Speaker 3: I mean, he has a lot of negatives in his
Speaker 3: column that the Churchill fan club seems to ignore. But
Speaker 3: I think see his experience was riding that horse and
Speaker 3: getting shot at by some Arabs that couldn't shoot straight,
Speaker 3: and therefore he wonders about that. But Patten gives the
Speaker 3: light to that. Patten gets shot in World War One
Speaker 3: his orderly carry. He's right in the front. He and
Speaker 3: MacArthur wandering around in costumes saying Ill us right, and
Speaker 3: Patten gets shot in the butt and has to be
Speaker 3: dragged into a shell hole and then brought back. He
Speaker 3: was always at the front, and so I quoted John
Speaker 3: Keegan at the beginning of this book about great commanders,
Speaker 3: which is in front always sometimes never. Okay, still have
Speaker 3: a great commander who's never at the front. Nimitz is
Speaker 3: a good example of that. Nimmits fought the Battle of
Speaker 3: Midway from Honolulu where I grew up, Pearl Harbor. As
Speaker 3: a matter of fact, when I grew up and I
Speaker 3: was going to high school, i'd walk out my front
Speaker 3: door and see Pearl Harbor. It was right there from
Speaker 3: so I lived with that as a young teenager. But
Speaker 3: Nimmus won that war because he understood the enemy and
Speaker 3: he had a sense of technical innovation. His great genius was, hey,
Speaker 3: we're a little short on aircraft carriers, but hey, that
Speaker 3: Midway island that's an aircraft carrier just doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3: So what we'll do is hide our other aircraft carriers
Speaker 3: behind it, and the Japanese will sail right into the trap.
Speaker 3: And that's what happened, and we put four of their
Speaker 3: carriers at the bottom, and that really broke the offensive
Speaker 3: power with Imperial Navy. The war's over at that point,
Speaker 3: but the mopping up campaign. Don't get me started on
Speaker 3: Deglas MacArthur. The mopping up campaign also obviously follows that,
Speaker 3: So I think that's only partly true. I think Alexander
Speaker 3: wore a plume, Talbot kill me, Caesar wore a red coat.
Speaker 3: Here I am you want a piece of me? I'm
Speaker 3: right here, and rat commit and Napoleon did too, and
Speaker 3: that and their men loved them. What we have is
Speaker 3: a bunch of political generals, plush bottomed fruit salads who
Speaker 3: have never done a goddamn thing and have risen in
Speaker 3: the peacetime professional army. I'm also against the the all
Speaker 3: the all volunteer army. I think it's very bad. I
Speaker 3: think it's bad for them. I think it's bad for
Speaker 3: young men. I think it's bad for women. I think
Speaker 3: it's bad for everybody. And the results, well, tell me
Speaker 3: the last war we won.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, No, I think I agree with you about that.
Speaker 2: I sometimes have friendly expressions about the idea of national service,
Speaker 2: which would be mostly military service. It's it's a big problem.
Speaker 2: I'll just I don't want to argue about Churchill either,
Speaker 2: except I do want to say, Michael that I wonder
Speaker 2: if some of that isn't your inner irishman coming out a.
Speaker 1: Bit seriously, it's not, because after all, Churchill was half Americans,
Speaker 1: so you know, right, or as.
Speaker 2: A critic said, half American and wholly reprehensible.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, or I wrote in my novel and all
Speaker 1: the stints about fear l L Da Guardia half Italian,
Speaker 1: half Jewish and neither half the good half basic.
Speaker 2: What I do think there's something to his argument though
Speaker 2: about you know, push button warfare, which we have now.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you, I mean, I know you have
Speaker 2: strong views about which I have a lot of sympathy with.
Speaker 2: I think about the Russian Ukraine war going on, but
Speaker 2: it's hard to see coming out of that that there's
Speaker 2: going to be a commander or you know, a military
Speaker 2: figure in you know, tales of heroism and turning points.
Speaker 2: It looks like a grinded out technological war of who
Speaker 2: can bring the most killing capacity from our modern machinery
Speaker 2: and who wants to sign up for that.
Speaker 1: Well, that's true. There's a wonderful book by a woman
Speaker 1: named and her name will lose me at the moment.
Speaker 1: It's called nuclear war, and it is a scenario is
Speaker 1: relatively recent. It's riveting. I recommend to everybody what would
Speaker 1: happen in the event of a nuclear war. The answer
Speaker 1: is We're all going to die. That's it. So there
Speaker 1: is no battlefield tactics to nuclear war. Much of it
Speaker 1: is going to be controlled by AI. Actually, so the
Speaker 1: robots will end up killing us after they steal our livelihood.
Speaker 1: They'll kill us. But what's lacking isn't so much battlefield exposure.
Speaker 1: It's just plain leadership. You don't You haven't had a
Speaker 1: leader among military for my lifetime, basically. I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember very vaguely, I think, or maybe it's in my
Speaker 1: childhood MacArthur's farewell speech after Truman fired him. And what
Speaker 1: figure has there been, even though I think what MacArthur's
Speaker 1: vastly overrated, What figure has there been of that national
Speaker 1: stature who was a military person?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, would you count de gaul and Eisenhower,
Speaker 2: who were still figures of my youth? I mean I
Speaker 2: was born late Eisenower years, but you know de Gaul
Speaker 2: came back in the sixties, and I mean I always
Speaker 2: point to him as someone who was in many ways
Speaker 2: a repulsive human being and also very able and I
Speaker 2: think and indispensable in some ways, and I figure more
Speaker 2: Americans ought to study. That's what I say.
Speaker 1: Well, I think Eisenhower was it was a great general.
Speaker 1: He was a great beercraft general. He didn't fight. In fact,
Speaker 1: of all the guys in World War Two who had
Speaker 1: been World War One veterans, Eisenhower wasn't one of them.
Speaker 1: He stayed in the United States the whole time. But
Speaker 1: what he was was a guy who could move his
Speaker 1: chess pieces. So there's no doubt that Patten is one
Speaker 1: of the greatest battlefield commanders we ever had. But you
Speaker 1: couldn't let Patent run the whole thing because it would
Speaker 1: been off the rails and you needed to unleash that
Speaker 1: dog of war only when necessary. Marshall was very similar.
Speaker 1: Marshall wanted a command but very early on the Army
Speaker 1: had realized this guy is an organizing genius. So why
Speaker 1: do we want to get him killed off as a
Speaker 1: as a first lieutenant or a captain when we can,
Speaker 1: you know, stash him at Fort Belvoir in Washington and
Speaker 1: learned the bureaucracy. It's important to remember, I think for
Speaker 1: our audiences we didn't have them professional.
Speaker 2: Let me stop you, Michael. You froze up on me
Speaker 2: for about twenty seconds there and where you left off,
Speaker 2: or maybe it was my end, but let me have
Speaker 2: you restart. You were the sentence you were in the
Speaker 2: middle of was Marshall was an organizing genius. And you
Speaker 2: know before they were talking about you know, Eyesenhower and
Speaker 2: so forth. So pick up again with a General Marshall,
Speaker 2: and you know, just start from the beginning of that
Speaker 2: and I'll splice it together.
Speaker 1: Sure, Marshall was an organizing genius, so it didn't make
Speaker 1: any sense for them to send him to war and
Speaker 1: get him killed off as a first lieutenant or captain
Speaker 1: when they could stash him at Fort Belvoir in Washington
Speaker 1: and teach him the organizational principles of the army. So
Speaker 1: it's important to remember that we didn't have a professional army.
Speaker 1: We didn't have one at the time of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: We didn't have one in World War One, we didn't
Speaker 1: have one in World War Two. We started from scratch
Speaker 1: in every one of those wars. Remember that Grant had
Speaker 1: been a graduate of West Point and had served and
Speaker 1: had resigned his commission and gone off. He was lonely.
Speaker 1: He was stationed out in Nowheresville, California and the Oregon territories,
Speaker 1: and he was lonely and homesick, and he missed his
Speaker 1: wife so and he drank too much when he was
Speaker 1: off duty. He was never on duty drunk. So he quit.
Speaker 1: And at the time of the Civil War he was
Speaker 1: working and failing in a little tanner shop in Galina,
Speaker 1: that is I think his father owned, one of his relatives.
Speaker 1: And he said, hey, you know, I've got a captaincy
Speaker 1: in the army. I'm actually a professional soldier. So they
Speaker 1: gave him a command immediately, and then he made his
Speaker 1: bones rather quickly after that. But we had to start
Speaker 1: World War One from a standing start. To General Pershing,
Speaker 1: who is the hero of the World War One section
Speaker 1: in my final big chapter, he had been a career
Speaker 1: army officer, but he had well, he was like at
Speaker 1: the what's the name of that place in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: the presidio, Yeah, the presidio he had there. He had
Speaker 1: also commanded a troop of black soldiers in Southwest, which
Speaker 1: gave him his nickname of black Jack. That's where that
Speaker 1: came from. He was the white officer in charge of
Speaker 1: an all black unit. And as a result, so when
Speaker 1: World War One comes, Pershing is the most senior figure
Speaker 1: and it's up to him to suddenly organize an army
Speaker 1: out of nothing, out of Aisle of Armbolice basically. And
Speaker 1: then we got caught with our pants down again in
Speaker 1: World War Two and had to mobilize. Now, luckily, America
Speaker 1: in those days was capable of doing such a thing,
Speaker 1: and we could turn civilian production like Henry Ford's automobile
Speaker 1: assembly line into making tanks and trucks, so we were
Speaker 1: able to do that. But the standing professional army was
Speaker 1: something the founders warned against, and no one really thought
Speaker 1: that was a good idea because that was a tool
Speaker 1: of tyranny. That's why you have the Third Amendment, for example,
Speaker 1: that the army can't come to your house in California
Speaker 1: and say here, we're putting a tune of soldiers in
Speaker 1: your den. Have a nice day, right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2: So let's go to your last chapter on the post
Speaker 2: nine to eleven world were in the middle of. When
Speaker 2: I say it's a splendid, contemptuous rant, I meant that
Speaker 2: as praise, not as criticism. Let me share with I'm
Speaker 2: quite sure how I can characterize it. So let me
Speaker 2: share one sentence with our listeners from page three seventy one, quote,
Speaker 2: the Imperial Romans would have gone full to Lenda st On,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia raised its cities, destroyed the ka'aba, leveled the mosque,
Speaker 2: occupied the oil fields, seized its wealth, executed its leaders,
Speaker 2: and sold the populace into slavery. They knew an existential
Speaker 2: struggle when they were in one. So I mean, that's
Speaker 2: when that blows your hair back, and you know.
Speaker 1: But that's the money sentence in the book everyone picked
Speaker 1: up really.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, right? No, I mean, rather you explained sort
Speaker 2: of the incompetence and the sort of willful blindness to
Speaker 2: what really is going on, and by the way that
Speaker 2: feeds into I agree with you completely about we have
Speaker 2: political generals who were promoted not for military excellence but
Speaker 2: for bureaucratic role playing, and it's very, very bad. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you want to add all that. I mean,
Speaker 2: that is your money sentence, but well, I do have
Speaker 2: this to say. We do have political generals, and people
Speaker 2: don't realize that. For example, with general, the rank of general,
Speaker 2: there's gradations of it, and you get the first two
Speaker 2: from your service. So you get promoted to brigadier general,
Speaker 2: and you get promoted to major general lieutenant general, which
Speaker 2: is three stars you get from politicians, and then four stars,
Speaker 2: and then there's on eve been a handful of five
Speaker 2: stars in the history of the country. So and oftentimes
Speaker 2: offices are created that require three stars. So the head
Speaker 2: of the National Security Agency, for example, must be a
Speaker 2: three star. So if you're up for that job, you're
Speaker 2: going to get promoted to a three star, and then
Speaker 2: you're going to be the head of the National Security Agency.
Speaker 2: There are a number of positions in which that is
Speaker 2: a requirement. So you know, in the rockdvertizing monster that
Speaker 2: is the US government, we create roles and then fill them.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean we have more generals or more top generals,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't mean any of them that have any
Speaker 2: military in the field experience, except accidentally. It just means more,
Speaker 2: you know, more generals, that's what it means. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: last question on military subjects, and then I want to
Speaker 2: change to Ireland for a few minutes. I have seen
Speaker 2: you tweet out here and there and make other brief
Speaker 2: comments that all seem to point in the direction of
Speaker 2: thinking we are overestimating China as a military threat to us,
Speaker 2: and so say a little bit more. And you did
Speaker 2: mention that, I think here in your last chapter of
Speaker 2: the book. And I gather it's not that they're not
Speaker 2: building lots of ships and planes and rockets that are
Speaker 2: bad things, but that they're actually not very capable as
Speaker 2: a war fighting civilization. Is that fair enough?
Speaker 1: For how do you shows that so name of war
Speaker 1: they've won against a Western power? The answer is zero.
Speaker 1: They took on the Arabs in the eighth century at
Speaker 1: a battle called Kalas Talas, and it was mixed army
Speaker 1: of Chinese and other Asians against the expanding caliphate, and
Speaker 1: the Chinese were trying to push westward. They ran into
Speaker 1: the Arabs and they got whopped. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons they got whopped is in Chinese culture, a military
Speaker 1: career wasn't honorable. It wasn't something to be remember that
Speaker 1: is a giant bureaucratic hat, and military people didn't rise
Speaker 1: to the top. So their generals were Koreans. And now
Speaker 1: I can speak with some familial interest in this, since
Speaker 1: my father is a veteran of the Chosen Reservoir, a
Speaker 1: battle that the Marines fought against the Chinese. He's one
Speaker 1: of the last survivors. He's ninety nine years old.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And he was in the whole Korean campaign, from Pusson
Speaker 1: to Incheon to Soeul, to the Chosen Reservoir to the extraction.
Speaker 1: And people sometimes bring that up and say, well, the
Speaker 1: Chinese really put a hurt on the Marines. Well, it
Speaker 1: helps if you have ten to one numerical superiority and
Speaker 1: you attack in a surprise attack and it's thirty below
Speaker 1: zero and you have overwhelming manpower. And what the Marines
Speaker 1: did is it's considered a glorious battle in marine history.
Speaker 1: Is they withstood that assault, maintained unit cohesion, and took
Speaker 1: everybody home basically that could get there. I think he
Speaker 1: must have weighed one hundred and twenty pounds by the
Speaker 1: time he landed after they came back. So China doesn't
Speaker 1: have a great track record. They can fight civil wars,
Speaker 1: then their civil wars are astoundingly bloody. I like to
Speaker 1: point out General Gordon beat them with a swagger stick.
Speaker 1: That's why he was called Chinese Gorgon's garden. Right before
Speaker 1: he got killed at Khartoon, the Japanese beat them twice
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties with a platoon of Katana swordsmen
Speaker 1: and some sushi. I don't know what they did, but
Speaker 1: they beat China twice. So I don't think they're a
Speaker 1: good military power. I think they're building a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but we know the quality of what they build is bad.
Speaker 1: The Africans are finding out now that it's a faustian
Speaker 1: bargain when you let them in to build dams that collapse,
Speaker 1: some roads that don't work, and nothing works. And I
Speaker 1: also have been told by some people that much of
Speaker 1: the technology that they have stolen in order to produce
Speaker 1: their stuff is booby trapped.
Speaker 2: Oh I hope. So. I mean, you know, we did
Speaker 2: a little of that with the Soviet Union way back
Speaker 2: once upon a time.
Speaker 1: If they launched those ships, they're going right down to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the oce Interesting. Yeah, I know a
Speaker 1: lot of our colleagues are obsessed with China, and Frank
Speaker 1: Afrin I have this argument all the time. I just
Speaker 1: have other things to worry about then the Chinese.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, me too. Let's switch to Ireland a little bit,
Speaker 2: because you not only are of Irish descent, but you
Speaker 2: live what half the year over there or some good
Speaker 2: portion of your time out in the remind me where
Speaker 2: it is out in western Ireland. You have a residence.
Speaker 1: Yes, I rebuilt my great grandmother's birthplace. It's now a
Speaker 1: beautiful home where my wife lives much of the year,
Speaker 1: where my daughter met her husband and married him. He's
Speaker 1: a Dubliner, and where my three grandchildren come and play.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's in a wild, wild part of the west called
Speaker 1: the Burn, which doesn't look like any other place in Ireland.
Speaker 1: It looks like the moon. It's all rocks. But right
Speaker 1: out my window are the cliffs of More the Three
Speaker 1: Aarn Islands, the Atlantic Ocean at Galway Bay in the
Speaker 1: hills of Conamaras. So someone wants overlooked out our dining
Speaker 1: room window and said, you know, there are five six
Speaker 1: sights everybody comes to Ireland to see, and five of
Speaker 1: them are right out your window. Right, So I like
Speaker 1: grandma there, But it's I've been. I went back and
Speaker 1: reunited the family is fifty two years ago and since
Speaker 1: then acquired the property, built the houses, really established a
Speaker 1: whole life there.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: In fact, my whole my white daughter is is Her
Speaker 1: ashes are buried there too, So it means a lot
Speaker 1: to me. So it's not just that I'm some returned
Speaker 1: to Yank who has what thinks his family came from Cork,
Speaker 1: which is what they all say when you ask them,
Speaker 1: where did your family come from Cork? The reason they
Speaker 1: say that is that Cork is where the boat's left from.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's the way the Irish think, By the way,
Speaker 1: it's the kind of Celtic way of thinking. Specific that
Speaker 1: question means where did I literally come from to get
Speaker 1: to the United States. Cork is always the answer, right.
Speaker 2: So you know, I was in Ireland for almost ten days,
Speaker 2: about a month and a half ago, and I happened
Speaker 2: to be in Dublin on a day when there was
Speaker 2: a large protest against immigration. I'm not quite sure who
Speaker 2: the umbrella group was, but and then there was the
Speaker 2: lefties organized the counter protests that was small and pathetic,
Speaker 2: and communists, I mean, they're very open about it. But
Speaker 2: I have to say I was impressed by the size
Speaker 2: of the protest. I mean, the march stretched for I
Speaker 2: don't know ten or fifteen blocks, I forget what that
Speaker 2: main street is, and that ended up in a rally
Speaker 2: in front of the customs house where the speakers, and
Speaker 2: I wasn't familiar with any of them, but I listened
Speaker 2: to their speeches and I thought they were all very good.
Speaker 2: These were crazy people. The crowd was very diverse, as
Speaker 2: you know, as we were supposed to. We're taught that
Speaker 2: we have to a factor into things these days, and
Speaker 2: so I got the sense that, you know, there is
Speaker 2: not a lot of press coverage of Ireland and the
Speaker 2: American media, and you've got to work to find it
Speaker 2: in you know, the British press or the Economist, which
Speaker 2: is you know, no good of course. And then someone
Speaker 2: told me just this morning about a tweet that apparently
Speaker 2: is exploding on x as we call it now today
Speaker 2: as we're talking, and it goes something like this. I
Speaker 2: couldn't find it, but apparently it says something like, if
Speaker 2: you're an American visiting Ireland and you say I'm Irish,
Speaker 2: they say, no, you're not. But if you're Somali fresh
Speaker 2: off the boat twenty minutes ago, oh of course you're
Speaker 2: an irishman. So this question seems to me is you're
Speaker 2: splitting Ireland down the middle, as it ought to and
Speaker 2: as it is other places. What's your sense of the matter. Okay,
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 1: Sorry, it's complicated, but cause it's Ireland, you know, among
Speaker 1: the most disputatious people in the world. It's very simple.
Speaker 1: Ireland is a slave state for eight hundred years. It
Speaker 1: has lived in a bubble. It has no experience of
Speaker 1: the outside world except that it sent its sons and
Speaker 1: daughters abroad, where they became tremendously successful, wealthy, famous movie stars.
Speaker 1: Captains have been to street titans of Hollywood, politicians presidents
Speaker 1: of the United States, Ireland nothing and a certain resentment
Speaker 1: has grown up on both parts that the returned Yanks
Speaker 1: come back and say I'm Irish, and the Irish say,
Speaker 1: you are the son of a bitch who abandoned us
Speaker 1: to the family. We hate you. You left us in
Speaker 1: our hour of need. Whether they articulate that or not,
Speaker 1: is that is the undercurrent. So they really hate the
Speaker 1: diaspora of people like me and a lot of my friends,
Speaker 1: and they have rushed because they're a slave state still
Speaker 1: they now slave state of the what I like to
Speaker 1: call the eussr under ilsa she wolf of Brussels there who,
Speaker 1: by the way, has never been elected to anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Irish politicians have all sold out to Brussels. And
Speaker 1: so when people say, well don't they why aren't they
Speaker 1: helping the Irish people, I tell them that's not their job.
Speaker 1: Their job is to answer to Brussels. They don't care
Speaker 1: what happens to you. The population has increased by a
Speaker 1: million and a half of a very short span of time.
Speaker 1: Most of them are not ethnic Irish. But to say
Speaker 1: ethnic Irish is to be a racist. The word they
Speaker 1: most fear is racism. So if you don't think that's
Speaker 1: Somali who, by the way, destroyed his passport on the plane,
Speaker 1: walked through customs waving and was immediately given food, shelter, money,
Speaker 1: you name it, you're a racist. My village happens to
Speaker 1: be the one that took the first first wave of
Speaker 1: Ukrainian refugees. They put them in where a tourists town
Speaker 1: and in the summer, hotels were all filled with tourists.
Speaker 1: Now they're filled with Ukrainians and they don't have to
Speaker 1: obey the laws, they don't have to register of their cars.
Speaker 1: They get free money every week and you see them
Speaker 1: lining up of the post office. And these are able
Speaker 1: bodied draft dodgers, that's what they are. And there's no
Speaker 1: sugarcoating it. And They laugh at everybody because they're sitting
Speaker 1: there free. Yes it's raining, the weather is terrible, famously so,
Speaker 1: but they're collecting free money and they're going to do
Speaker 1: it for as long as they can get away with it.
Speaker 1: And as soon as they leave, you'll see even greater
Speaker 1: influx from Africa, North Africa, Central Africa, Afghanistan. Romanian Gypsies
Speaker 1: are now quite prominent in the criminal subculture of Dublin.
Speaker 1: We just have one now that turns out the father
Speaker 1: is the head of the Roma Community Civil Rights League
Speaker 1: or something, and the Sun is running eight brothels in
Speaker 1: Dublin and the Irish shirts done by this because they
Speaker 1: have no experience with the world. They really believe all
Speaker 1: of the problem that they have been fed about the
Speaker 1: goodness of man and the brotherhood of man. And we're
Speaker 1: all exactly the same.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like being trapped in the nineteen sixties in America.
Speaker 1: Their brief and you feel sorry for them because they're
Speaker 1: going to have to learn the hard way. But that
Speaker 1: government is never going to stop. It's never going to
Speaker 1: stop importing foreigners because the EU, US Ireland is basically
Speaker 1: empty space and it's a dumping ground for the EU's
Speaker 1: migration problems, so you can't walk to Ireland, so you've
Speaker 1: got to come by boter by plane and they'll just
Speaker 1: keep They literally fly them in the government advertised in
Speaker 1: Africa for people to get on planes and come to
Speaker 1: Ireland at government expense to stay and live.
Speaker 2: For Yeah, I mean I should add that the protest
Speaker 2: I saw the species. It wasn't just immigration, it was
Speaker 2: the European Union in Brussels. In fact, some of them,
Speaker 2: you know, paraphrase slightly. London's not our enemy anymore. Brussels
Speaker 2: is our enemy.
Speaker 1: That's the point. That's the point. They're still obsessed with
Speaker 1: this stupid trouble stuff. Yeah. And as an Irish American,
Speaker 1: let me say this to all of our Jewish friends,
Speaker 1: and you and I have lots of Jewish friends. The
Speaker 1: anti Semitism is a disgrace to irishmen everywhere. That what
Speaker 1: that government is doing passing the occupied territories build which
Speaker 1: amounts to a gnat on a water buffalo's rear end
Speaker 1: nothing but it's pure virtue signaling. They are constantly slagging
Speaker 1: off the Israelis. The Israel closed its embassy in Dublin
Speaker 1: because it couldn't take it anymore. And the Irish just
Speaker 1: see see that's more proof of these perfidious Jews. Look
Speaker 1: what they're doing. You can't trust them. They're everywhere, they
Speaker 1: run the way. It's a mass outbreak events of insanity,
Speaker 1: and it is incredibly disgraceful. And I'm pleased to say
Speaker 1: there are a number of US diasporans with audiences and
Speaker 1: money and influence who are going to organize against this
Speaker 1: because we don't want to see Ireland go down the drain.
Speaker 1: It didn't suffer under the English terribly for eight hundred years,
Speaker 1: only to throw itself in the arms of Brussels. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like that line from Man for all Season, I
Speaker 1: could see selling your soul. But for Wales, you know,
Speaker 1: basically eight hundred years of fighting the British, who were
Speaker 1: a real worthy opponent. But for Brussels, King Leopold, who
Speaker 1: are we talking about here? It's really stunning. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you had a good time and some of Ireland. Dublin's
Speaker 1: never been a very nice city and it's worse now.
Speaker 1: The rest of the country is great. It's beautiful. If
Speaker 1: you can take the weather, it's paradise and I love
Speaker 1: every second that I'm there, but the governments anti Semitism
Speaker 1: and its hatred of its own people is just unacceptable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I have two exit questions for you, one
Speaker 2: about your next book and then one about music and
Speaker 2: how they may connect together in a certain way. So
Speaker 2: you said that you're writing yet another what a sequel
Speaker 2: to this book in your last book? I guess there'll
Speaker 2: be book number twenty. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: what that book's going to be about, and maybe one
Speaker 2: or two things to look for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called The Wrath of God and it's about
Speaker 1: the history of religious warfare. So when religions and people's
Speaker 1: clash so specifically because of faith. So I mentioned the Exodus,
Speaker 1: for example, the foundation story of the Israelites and taking
Speaker 1: the land of Canaan at God's command very violently. By
Speaker 1: the way, I'm going to treat the Thirty Years War,
Speaker 1: which you know, contrary to the notion that civilians never
Speaker 1: suffer and wars, the Thirty Years of War reduced the
Speaker 1: population of Europe by about fifty percent. I mean, nobody
Speaker 1: was free from that, and that was purely brand new
Speaker 1: faith Lutheranism taking on Catholicism. I treated the Sack of
Speaker 1: Rome in the sixteenth century by the Lutherans and the
Speaker 1: Swiss guards, saving the pope and rushing him to the
Speaker 1: Castel San Angelo in last stance. But these, and of
Speaker 1: course the ongoing battle between Islam and the United States.
Speaker 1: Our problem has always been in bush well, starting with it,
Speaker 1: both bushes, but the notion that there's no state actors,
Speaker 1: so we have no one to punish. As I said,
Speaker 1: Caesar would laughed in that. Yeah, I see one right there,
Speaker 1: and that's what he would have done. And we don't
Speaker 1: fight the enemy that has declared war on us because
Speaker 1: Islam doesn't have a pope, so any mufty can issue
Speaker 1: a fat law that is like a federal gey parent
Speaker 1: binding on the entire planet, right, even though the judges
Speaker 1: in Honolulu.
Speaker 2: Right. So it's an.
Speaker 1: Asymmetric war that we haven't figured out how to fight yet,
Speaker 1: but we need to focus on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me do a follow up question on that,
Speaker 2: because since your book came out, well, I think somewhere
Speaker 2: in here and I can't find it as I flipped
Speaker 2: through the pages, I thought you said something about how
Speaker 2: we've never seriously struck at the sort of central node
Speaker 2: of this which is Iran. Now, since your book was printed.
Speaker 2: We've had Israel have its twelve day war against Iran
Speaker 2: that culminated with Trump deciding we will use these weapons
Speaker 2: we've been developing for twenty years to try and take
Speaker 2: out their main nuclear weapons development facility. What do you
Speaker 2: make of all that? As it was, we did not
Speaker 2: go far enough. But isn't that a sign at least somebody,
Speaker 2: at least Israel standing up for the West.
Speaker 1: Well, Israel is standing up for the West. And I
Speaker 1: support the Israel least because they didn't start this fight.
Speaker 1: And that's the point. It's so hard to make this point.
Speaker 1: But Islam fetishizes buildings. So if the Kaba is gone
Speaker 1: and the well that jam Karan is gone, Islam is gone.
Speaker 1: You can destroy Saint Peter's church and the pope will
Speaker 1: go live in Avenue. Catholicism cannot be destroyed by bombing,
Speaker 1: even setting Notre Dame on fire, which they did right.
Speaker 1: But Islam is focused on places, so the pilgrimage, the
Speaker 1: Hajj is very important. The Shia version is that down
Speaker 1: this well in Kum is hidden the twelfth Ebom who
Speaker 1: Will is waiting for the It's an apocalyptic version. It's
Speaker 1: he will emerge at the time of complete chaos and
Speaker 1: convert the world to Islam, and that will be the
Speaker 1: end times. So the radical Christians have the same basic
Speaker 1: theology about end times and then Jesus appearing and that's
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. But we won't go after
Speaker 1: their buildings because that's not who we are. And that's
Speaker 1: giving up the fight before you even have the fight.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. Now, if Islam promises to stay like
Speaker 1: a good enemy behind its own borders, we don't have
Speaker 1: a particular problem with them, and the Europeans have learned
Speaker 1: how to deal with that since stopping them at Vienna
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. But you can't have constant encouragions
Speaker 1: and provocations. And that was why I made the point
Speaker 1: about what Romans would do. Because Rome didn't last for
Speaker 1: two thousand years for nothing. It had a will to
Speaker 1: survive in a way that no other major civilization has
Speaker 1: ever had, and it took action when it felt it needed.
Speaker 1: Is that kind of an apologist for Rome? Yeah, absolutely
Speaker 1: it is. I think Roman civilization was great and well
Speaker 1: our existence to it well.
Speaker 2: I do like seeing the sort of comeback of the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire among especially young men. These days that hear about.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think that's the best marine ever. Uh, he's
Speaker 1: probably thinking about other women. No, he's thinking about the
Speaker 1: Roman Empire. Well, I think young men need that, and
Speaker 1: I think this book I've written part for young men again.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the Marine Corps. I was born
Speaker 1: on a major Marine Corps base and I was the
Speaker 1: son of a guy who had just come back from
Speaker 1: from from Korea, highly decorated marine officer. So that was
Speaker 1: the tradition in which I grew up and it wasn't militarized.
Speaker 1: And my father I don't even know what his politics are,
Speaker 1: I literally don't, but what he incultated in me and
Speaker 1: my brother and my three sisters is discipline.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I asked him once, Uh, what was your Were you
Speaker 1: afraid when the Chinese came down the hill on the
Speaker 1: day after Thanksgiving and attack? Uh? And he said, first
Speaker 1: of all, I thought it was going to hit me.
Speaker 1: And even though he's ninety nine, I still stay well
Speaker 1: back from him because that left hook as a killer.
Speaker 1: He said. We went to work, and I finally understood
Speaker 1: what that meant years later, which is we're trained to
Speaker 1: do this. And the way marines are trained is here's
Speaker 1: your training. If you're in trouble, observe your training. If
Speaker 1: you abandon your training, you're dead. If you observe your training,
Speaker 1: you have a chance to get out alive. So what
Speaker 1: they did was they immediately formed into their jobs. He
Speaker 1: commanded mortar platoons and began saturating the fields between the
Speaker 1: Chinese and the Marines to keep them backed off, and
Speaker 1: nobody panicked, and they all picked up and tried to
Speaker 1: get out of the pickle they were in. So it's
Speaker 1: all about a military background. It's not about killing people.
Speaker 1: It's about discipline and getting your work done. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have written twenty well, this is going to be twenty
Speaker 1: and then there's twenty one, and then there's twenty two.
Speaker 1: So they're all in the planning. It's just discipline that
Speaker 1: gets it done. You know, you can't shop down the
Speaker 1: tree with one blow, and you can't hit a five
Speaker 1: run homer. You have to do it every single day.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, So last question comes in two parts, and
Speaker 2: I call it the other side of Michael Walsh. You
Speaker 2: have serious formal training in music. Yes, I've noticed. I
Speaker 2: think I've noticed the influence of that in your writing.
Speaker 2: I think in particular of your couple of books on
Speaker 2: the Frankfurt School, which gets much more at the cultural
Speaker 2: aspects of that whole thing and whole influence than the
Speaker 2: political philosophy parts that narrow people like me think of.
Speaker 2: And so the first part of the question is, is
Speaker 2: am I right in saying that there's an essential connection
Speaker 2: with the way you perceive certain things with your musical training.
Speaker 2: And part two is you're serious composer, and maybe say
Speaker 2: this a little bit about I think you're working on
Speaker 2: a piece or maybe you've done a piece you're performing
Speaker 2: in Europe recently, So anyway to take both parts of
Speaker 2: those if you would.
Speaker 1: And to the Eastman School of Music, among whose graduates
Speaker 1: is the late Chuck Man Jones, who just died yesterday.
Speaker 1: I guess I knew Chuck a little bit. He was
Speaker 1: about ten years ahead of me, I think. At Eastman
Speaker 1: Renee Fleming, the great opera Sopranos, friend of mine. She's
Speaker 1: also a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. I'm
Speaker 1: not a composer anymore. I was in college, but that
Speaker 1: was not my calling. But I you know, I did it,
Speaker 1: and I learned a lot from it as a writer.
Speaker 1: So I'll be playing the program of mostly Franz List
Speaker 1: at the Brand Library in Glendale. It will also consist
Speaker 1: of a very rarely performed sonata by Wagner, who was
Speaker 1: Liszt's son in law, so it was a lecture recital
Speaker 1: but mostly a recital. And then I'll be playing it
Speaker 1: in London at the List Cultural Institute of the Hungarian
Speaker 1: Government in London, and then I'll be playing it in
Speaker 1: Budapest's lists third hometown as well in November. But I'm
Speaker 1: writing a very large novel which has been in plan
Speaker 1: now for two or three years, which will incorporate music
Speaker 1: of all kinds into the fabric of the narrative. I
Speaker 1: see them as essentially the same activity, writing and putting
Speaker 1: the piano, and it's just kind of sums up everything
Speaker 1: I've devoted my life to. And hopefully that will be
Speaker 1: the last book I write, Steve, and then I'll retire
Speaker 1: to my jack in Ireland, I guess right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, well thanks for this, Michael. This has been a
Speaker 2: fun tour of the of a part of your horizon,
Speaker 2: and I'll look forward to that next book and in
Speaker 2: the meantime, a best of luck to rage to conquer,
Speaker 2: and I don't know. I may or may not be
Speaker 2: around the LA area one of those appearances, or I'll
Speaker 2: find an excuse to go to Budapest and hang out
Speaker 2: with our mutual friend John O'Sullivan. Oh absolutely, you know
Speaker 2: opens and closes the town there, right, I mean it's
Speaker 2: always fun seeing John and Melissa there.
Speaker 1: Well, you will certainly know where to eat when you
Speaker 1: go to boot that's right.
Speaker 2: I blame John for the fact that I've gotten larger
Speaker 2: than a few years ago. Anyway, Thank you, Michael, good luck,
Speaker 2: see you soon. Welcome.
Speaker 4: I thought it would be real me. I thought it
Speaker 4: would be real cool, Bob, because my dad's get tired.
Speaker 2: Learn me some Irish tunes.
Speaker 4: Blame for a couple of friends. That's some little Polish far,
Speaker 4: a little whiskey and the jar.
Speaker 2: I never thought it go so far. So why are
Speaker 2: you onna bring me down? Because I'm not from my Ireland.
Speaker 4: I'm from Allen Town. I something drumming. I risk girl,
Speaker 4: she give you her second show, and I am scaring
Speaker 4: of somebody to say she's gonna.
Speaker 2: Let you know.
Speaker 4: She said she was very fond your volume up to ten.
Speaker 2: I didn't buy. Ricochet joined the conversation