STARRS Podcast
STARRS Podcasts includes the series STARRS & Stripes which interviews military veterans, talks about their careers and military service, and their concerns about what is happening in today's military. See our website, starrs.us, for more information.
STARRS Podcast
Cognitive Diversity and Constitutional Values in Today's Military: A Conversation with Navy Veterans from the Calvert Task Group
STARRS & Stripes host Commander Al Palmer, USN ret, leads a thought-provoking discussion that challenges current narrative views on military diversity and readiness, featuring key insights from three retired Navy veterans LCDR Bruce Davey (a Blue Angel), Capt. Guy Higgins, and Capt. Brent Ramsey. All are members of the Calvert Task Group, an organization concerned with restoring the US Naval Academy, Navy and Marines.
Is the U.S. military's core mission being overshadowed by societal and political influences? Our guests address this pressing question, offering a critique of the current landscape shaped by diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and the potential impact on military preparedness. Brent Ramsey shares compelling observations from Calvert Task Group's new book, "Don't Give Up the Ship: Woke Politics Are Endangering Our Military and Our Nation," emphasizing the urgency to refocus on fundamental military principles in light of global threats, particularly from nations like China.
As the conversation unfolds, we highlight the power of cognitive diversity in fostering innovative military leadership. Beyond superficial measures, cognitive diversity provides a wide array of problem-solving approaches and perspectives that enhance decision-making. This episode underscores the critical need for diversity initiatives to be firmly rooted within the framework of the Constitution and personal beliefs. We explore how constitutional fidelity serves as a guiding light for military officers, promoting unity and effectiveness in service.
In a deep dive into the intersection of political influence and constitutional values, we explore the repercussions faced by a Naval Academy midshipman supporting law enforcement during Black Lives Matter advocacy. This episode examines the broader implications of societal debates on military readiness and recruitment, while also reflecting on the foundational stability provided by the U.S. Constitution. Join us as we advocate for preserving the Constitution's intended purpose and discuss the challenges of maintaining high standards and accountability within military and government institutions.
https://calverttaskgroup.org/
Book: https://a.co/d/26Y4dx9
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For more information about STARRS, go to our website: https://starrs.us which monitors and exposes the CRT/DEI/Woke agenda in the Dept. of Defense and advocates a return to Merit, Equality and Integrity in the military.
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Well, hello, America and welcome back to another episode of STARRS and Stripes and I am your host, commander Al Palmer, US Navy retired, and also a little bit of Air Force thrown in there too. But we're here today to discuss a little bit about our military and diversity, equity and inclusion and some of the other issues of isms that are affecting the military today. To do that, I've got a seasoned panel with me today of three of us other than myself who are part of both STARRS and the Calvert Task Group, and we're going to talk about their history and about what we're doing to kind of save the military today. But first just a couple of words I want to say about where we are today following the elections we've just had. Things seem to have changed fairly substantially since then, and today we find ourselves not in troubled waters, swimming towards shore, hoping we can make some difference. We're still afloat, we got our life rafts inflated and we can see land in the distance, and so for us in the Navy particularly, that's a good sign, and so we're going to talk about that at some length here today, and a lot of it is going to focus on solutions rather than problems. We're going to focus on things that are good and things about our country and about our service in the military that make things work every day, work every day.
Al Palmer:So to do that, I've got a panel of three guys with me here today, starting with Bruce Davey, our Blue Angel Lieutenant Commander, great guy, and he's part of the Calvert Task G roup. His dad also was in the military and so he was also a graduate of the Naval Academy. So we share that and in fact we've got a family that's been in the military before and that's probably what's distorted us. Is that right, Bruce Right. And then Captain Guy Higgins. Guy is a Naval Academy graduate as well. He's been a Navy fighter pilot and he's had over 30 years in the military, and his dad was also in the Navy, and we'll talk a little bit more about him.
Al Palmer:And then Brent Ramsey. He's really the brains, I think, behind the Calvert Tasks Group and what you're doing with Don't Give Up the Ship, and it's good to have all of you with us here today. So welcome. And guys, I'm going to give the floor first of all to Brent, because I'd like to have him talk a little bit about your book and about where it is now, having been released, and I would note to our audience that it was released before the elections and maybe our view of things was a little dimmer then. So I'm interested to hear, brent, what you're thinking now that the book's been out for a while and how that's been received.
Brent Ramsey:Brent O'. Thanks, al. I'll hold it up so you can see, or I actually I think Cindy might put up a graphic of it. Our book came out on the 17th of September. It's available at Amazon, and what it is a collection of essays written by 17 of our members and some other partners with us. Several of the authors are STARS members, and it's a collection of essays that expressed our concerns about what was happening to the Navy and the military at large. So it's very readable.
Brent Ramsey:It's been endorsed by some fairly important people, like Secretary of Defense designate Pete Hegseth is one of the endorsers, speaker Newt Gingrich is an endorser, former speaker Governor Mike Huckabee, a number of flag officers, some of them affiliated with STARRS, General Arbuckle and Vice Admiral Lee. So it's gotten good press saw occurring in the Navy and in the military at large associated with a political agenda that had gotten into the military and being promoted by certain elements of our society. They're certainly entitled to their opinions about social issues and that sort of thing, but the political influences that had entered into the Navy and the military as a whole are seriously detracting from readiness and performance of our military, our Navy especially, and so the purpose of the book is to focus attention on that and to show why that's bad for the Navy, that's bad for the military. If you focus on individuals, it's exactly the opposite of the concepts that we train as military members. As Navy members, we work under the concept of shipmate and everybody's in the same ship. If the ship goes down, everybody goes down, so it can't be focused on individuality and social justice issues and all sorts of distractions.
Brent Ramsey:Our view is that the Navy and the other services need to get back to basics, to readiness, to preparing for the fight. We know we have enemies scattered all over the world. China intends to rule the world. That's their goal. They're on a 100-year plan and they're well on the way to achieving that goal. The world's largest military their Navy is much larger now than the United States Navy is, and that should concern us is much larger now than the United States Navy is, and that should concern us.
Brent Ramsey:In the Pacific they can array over 300 ships. We have approximately 40 ships in the Pacific, more than a 10 to 1 ratio. Actually, it's not a good scenario. We have Pacific allies that are threatened. Taiwan is not a formal ally, but we have a longstanding relationship with them. We do have treaty allies in Japan, the Philippines, south Korea and so on. So our focus is not to criticize what's commonly known as DEI and some of these other social issues, but it's to point out that those kinds of things have no place in the military, and then they actually detract from the military and the military's ability to do its mission, and we will rue the day that we allow our military to be weakened because our enemies are poised to cause trouble, and they are In fact. It's not news to anybody who's listening to this. We have a very active war scenario that's going on in two theaters and we have China out in the Pacific causing trouble to their neighbors. So it's important that we get back to basics and get rid of politics and the military.
Al Palmer:And I think in the book you point out the fact that the general public doesn't perceive the military the way that we do. Sometimes, you know, I think they think that military just like regular civilian life. You know, you go to work at Amazon or you go to Morgan Stanley, there's no real problem in your day. Your day is not going to be ruined by someone running over you or you crashing into something or someone shooting at you. And maybe, if you work at Amazon, that's true. But the larger issue here, I think, is you know, the military, being in the military is exceptional. It's not the ordinary and it's not for everybody. The military is exceptional, it's not the ordinary and it's not for everybody. Is a guy? Uh, you know, we don't. We don't solve problems by just putting somebody in the job, hoping that they'll learn it on the job training. There's specific issues that involve physicality and lethality and, I'd argue, a commitment to doing something bigger than yourself. Right?
Guy Higgins:right. Yep, I think you got that exactly right, Al. After I retired from the Navy, I spent 12 years with the Boeing company and I was astounded at how poorly they developed leaders. Leadership is just as important in industry as it is in the military, but they would wait until a guy was selected to be in a leadership position before they did any kind of training or educating him or her to be a leader. And in the military, as soon as somebody's out of boot camp, they start experiencing leadership.
Guy Higgins:So you know, you have petty officer petty officer third class in the Navy. He's liable to be working with two or three guys that are working for him and he's got to exhibit leadership and he's got to know how to take that stuff over, and it's really important to be able to know how to do that and to be able to work together as a team while you're doing that. So, yeah, I agree with you.
Al Palmer:So in the civilian world, I mean, you've got unions and that supposedly takes care of people and all their problems, but we know that it's that band of brothers feeling and that bonding that occurs. That's the long-lasting part of that. And we do take care of our people. You have to. If you don't, you're not going to have the team that you're going to have to depend on when it comes to it right, especially on a ship, do you think, bruce? Or, in our case, as aviators in the air, if you don't have your wingman there to help you out? Look out, you're in trouble.
Bruce Davey:Yeah, I'd agree with that completely. I think the parallels there with civilian industry. There are some profound aspects of union versus management there. And I was an airline pilot and part of the Airline Pilots Association, which is a union, and growing up in a military family, that was kind of an anathema to us and I discovered that there was a reason that we had a union and you looked after the other members of the union.
Bruce Davey:Now, obviously, union leadership can be any sort of thing, but the idea was that we were dealing with each other as part of a team and I think that's an important part in civilian world, just like in the military. But the military the consequences are a lot greater. Of course, you're not going to take a bullet through the brain if you screw things up as an airline pilot and the Union isn't going to suffer. So I think the military is kind of sets itself apart from the civilian world from that standpoint. And one other thing that is important I think and Guy is really dialed in on this and that's we are not against diversity, we welcome diversity and everybody all of us, I'm sure would recognize that there are people who bring things to the table from their background, their educational background, their emotional background, everything that we may be blind to Heck, you can see that in your marriage.
Bruce Davey:That we may be blind to Heck, you can see that in your marriage. None of us, I'm sure, have marriages that our wives say, oh yeah, well, I just agree with everything that you think about. My wife comes from a different background. She comes from a different educational process and a different emotional background, and so when she critiques my performance in some scenario, I take it to the bank, because it may very well be that her diversity of her thought is worthwhile, and so we don't question the need for diversity. We just don't think that that should be the driving force behind selection and movement within the armed forces.
Al Palmer:Yeah, and I saw that myself. A big career, going from an Air Force aviator into the Navy. You know I thought, well, those guys aren't going to want to listen to anything about the Air Force. But they did and we both listened to each other over some time and you do learn. You're right that diversity counts, but I would say diversity tempered with meritocracy.
Bruce Davey:Absolutely.
Guy Higgins:So let me weigh in here, al, and I agree with you, but I think the first thing that we have to do is decide what we mean when we say diversity. Okay, if I walk downtown here in Lafayette and stop somebody and say, what does diversity mean? They're going to say, well, you need to have an African-American, and you need to have a Asian, and you need to have a Native American. And okay, yeah, that is diversity. But is that what builds power?
Guy Higgins:One of the big problems with DEI, or critical race theory, is that they want to segregate people into these silos. You're in the African-American silo, you're in the Native American silo, and those silos are mutually exclusive. And when was the last time that worked out well? Did that work out well in the Balkans? No, how about in Rwanda? Don't think so. It doesn't do anything. Our national motto is a pluribus unum From many one, and diversity builds strength. When you work together as one, we're all Americans. Well, I was never an all-american, I wasn't even on the varsity, but but uh there's hope for all of us we're all american citizens and to be able to take advantage of that and work together.
Guy Higgins:Just like bruce said, take advantage of the different ways that we think about things, the way we see the world, the way we solve problems, the way we anticipate the outcomes of those solutions. We hear all the time about oh well, that's an unintended consequence. Well, maybe it's an unintended consequence because nobody on the team that built the solution thought differently about it than anybody else on the team. The CEO of intel one time famously told his executive team if you guys all think the same way, I only need one of you.
Al Palmer:Now go think about it we've got to apply that to government in general so, guy, I think it may have been guy may have been you who said, though, that that ethnicity and skin color are no different than your shoe size, your height and you know where you go to church. When it comes to war fighting, those are all extraneous external things that just don't matter.
Guy Higgins:Yeah, yes, yes, and no Big, yes, little, no, okay, we can't just pick people because they have a different skin color or different gender or different ethnicity and expect that to all work out well about things differently. Okay, so my ancestry is Scots Irish, which means the Scots have disowned me and the Irish hate me, but that's my ancestry.
Guy Higgins:My wife's ancestry is Czech, german and French, and my grandchildren have thrown in a little bit of English and some native American and who knows what else, but we all tend to think a little bit alike.
Guy Higgins:But if you take somebody who came here from, say, um, jamaica two generations ago, they still have a very different way of seeing the world and solving problems. That is that are there. Those are the things, the perceptions and the problem solving that we can leverage to get much better performance, much improved solutions, approaches, ways of interacting with one another. But if we just bring together a bunch of people who look differently, there's no guarantee whatsoever that they're going to think differently, particularly in today's America, where they've heard for so long that unless you're a white male, you're in a minority and you ought to think this way, and it's not clear that all thinking that way I think that's what we used to call group thing, and so we need to be careful about that stuff. And it requires leadership to lead a team, that whose members think differently, because the purpose of the team is to generate the best possible solution, not for me to fight for my solution as opposed to your solution. So we need to understand how to lead those teams too.
Al Palmer:And that's something special about the military, and that's something special about the military Al.
Bruce Davey:May I add something there, within the diversity conjunction, if you will, the thing that we have to overlay it with is the Constitution, and as a Christian, as a believer, I have an overlay that says whatever choices of action that I have, it has to measure up to the, this particular requirement, and that is the over the overriding aspect of of the development of the course of action. And and beneath my, my Christian beliefs, I have the Constitution and it has to line up with the Constitution. Then, once we have those that overlay that says this is the within these boundaries, what do we do then? I think that's where the diversity, of cognitive diversity is the term that that guy has introduced me to and and I think is a really soft sound one background, uh, historical, um, leadership and so on, goes into it. That's where we start applying those things, after we put in the, the, the imprint of your spiritual beliefs and your and the constitution, and then you, then you can move under those words, just like we say under God in our Pledge of Allegiance.
Guy Higgins:Well, I think Bruce is exactly right that we do have to start with that common basis, that common foundation.
Al Palmer:Well, let's stick with the idea of the Constitution for a moment, because you go into that in your book pretty extensively and I think Brent in particular has a really good essay or two in there about how we do that when we take our oath and we all take an oath and we say it and we mean it. But sometimes I'm not sure that when you take the oath to defend the Constitution, what exactly are you defending it against Constitution? What exactly are you defending it against and how do you go about doing that?
Brent Ramsey:Often, I think, young people joining today may not really understand that. You want to speak a little bit to that, brent. Well, fidelity is to the Constitution. The officer's oath is subtly different than the oath that everybody else takes, and we take an oath to the Constitution, and so it's not that we're insurrectionists and we're not going to obey the orders of those in the executive, the powers, the president and the commander, who's called the commander in chief, but it's just fundamentally officers. First, fidelity is to the Constitution, to the Constitution, and we make that clear in any number of essays, and so things that are not consistent with the Constitution or things that violate the law, even we have some soul searching to do about that.
Brent Ramsey:A lot of people have left the service in recent years because retention and recruiting and that kind of stuff is very strained, because people have seen these political influences being introduced that were really straying away from the Constitution and undermining values that our country was founded on. So you know we formed as a result of what we saw were abuses, constitutional abuses, freedom of speech. Abuse occurred at the Naval Academy. A midshipman was being thrown out for exercising his free speech in a Facebook posting, and it was also tied into what we thought was unseemly advocacy by the management at the Naval Academy for the Black Lives Matter organization. This was after Mr Floyd's unfortunate death and there were riots in LA and Mitch Chippin in question. His parents were police officers in the LA Police Department and their lives were put in jeopardy by these riots. He spoke out in favor of the police and, I guess, technically critical of Black Lives Matter. I don't think he even overtly said anything even remotely close to that. But the Naval Academy started processing him for discharge and they were going to throw him out of the Navy and make him pay back the expenses. And he's a top student, no honor code violations, just a perfect midshipman. And in a private setting in his Facebook he was making these comments and so we came to his aid. Fortunately, after a lawsuit which he won, he was allowed to continue his commission on time, had actually already gotten some advanced education and recently that young man has graduated flight school, had his wings pinned on him and he's on his way for advanced training.
Brent Ramsey:I believe in F-18. And correct me if I'm wrong, bruce I think that's where he's going to. But that's why Calvert Group formed. We saw problems in the Navy chain of command that didn't look right. Why is someone in the Navy advocating for Black Lives Matter? Why are people's rights to express themselves being attacked, and not just attacked but punished? So we got involved, formed ourselves and the more we looked into it, the more problems we saw with political influences affecting operational things and affecting things, like I said, recruiting, retention, promotions and that sort of thing, promotions and that sort of thing. The typical demographic of young Americans who want to serve and unfortunately it's a very small percentage that these days who do want to serve, but it's white, southern Christian males. Well, who was being attacked by the political influences in our nation, white Christian conservative males, that's who's been attacked.
Brent Ramsey:So we got involved and said you know, this is wrong fundamentally wrong, but also the main issue is if you're distracted by gay pride month and pronouns and DEI nonsense and climate change and on and on and on and on. We saw all this evidence of all this stuff. You can take classes at the Naval Academy in critical race theory. What's that got to do with operation of a ship or an aircraft? Race theory what's that got to do with operation of a ship or an aircraft? So we got involved and we started writing articles. We've written I mean this book only consists of about 60 essays We've written several hundred essays and published in a lot of different places to get the message out that the Navy, the military in general, is no place for politics.
Brent Ramsey:These discussions should be taking place in our society. We're fine with that. People have freedom of speech. But we need to get back to constitutional values and we need to get back to focus on the Navy's needs and to focus on having a Navy that's prepared to fight and defend our country against our enemies. Having a navy that's prepared to fight and defend our country against our enemies that's much more important than these social uh experiments so.
Al Palmer:So what happens, though, when someone starts moving the goalposts around a little bit, uh, and they talk about the constitution not in its terms, as it was a set document by our founders, but, all of a sudden, this notion that it's a living document? And they don't a lot of people they don't know history very well to know that Woodrow Wilson attempted that years ago in World War I, and he tried to provide a living document that they could change when they needed to, and then Obama, later on, when he introduced DEI, did some of the same kind of thing. It's, we can change the Constitution. We don't even need a constitutional convention to do it, we can do it by executive order, and so that's all come about now, and the last thing I'll say about that is it seems to be coming back a little bit. People want to change the structure of government, and they can just do it ad hoc. What are your thoughts on that?
Guy Higgins:So let me weigh in here, Al. I happen to think that 248 years ago we had the 13,. At that time, 13 British colonies in North America had the confluence of some of the most brilliant and educated political minds the world's ever seen, and I think that's just astounding that we were fortunate to have those people.
Al Palmer:And, by the way, they were cognitively diverse.
Guy Higgins:They did not agree with one another across the board on things. The development of the Constitution was truly a remarkable event, and a lot of it did not occur during the day in the hall, but occurred in the pubs and the cafes afterwards, when they could sit down there and beat some of these ideas about without having to be too formal about it. It's just remarkable. And that constitution a very short document. When you look at other constitutions around the world, they're incredibly long and detailed and they try to control everything. Our constitution merely sets up the way the government's going to operate. That's what it is. It's the blueprint, the spec for the us government and we do have a way to change it and it's hard and it should be hard this idea of having a living.
Guy Higgins:A living constitution, a living document, means you don't have anything. You just, if you want to change the, want to chang time that something comes doing it. That's what hap constitutional amendments in California and here in do that and change the do. We have hundreds of amend constitution here, so we we just have a series of what the public thought was a good idea and that's not a terribly good way to do that.
Guy Higgins:The founding fathers recognized what's today called the cost of information we talk about. We need an informed voter. But for me or you or anyone to be an informed voter, we have to spend time reading and listening and understanding and debating the issues and if we don't do that, we're not an informed voter. The founding fathers recognized that and what they wanted us to do was to hire, to vote for people who would be dedicated to understanding the issues and be able to vote on them intelligently and rationally. And that is just a remarkable idea. And we, the American people, invented an entirely new form of government in 1787. And it's just remarkable how successful that's been. So the idea that you can just change it because you want to or because you need to is truly astounding. This woman in Pennsylvania who just said well, people break the laws all the time, so why don't we just break it now that we want to count these ballots, even though that's against our law?
Guy Higgins:That's an astounding absolutely astounding statement.
Al Palmer:Well, that's about as astounding as over at the military academy West Point, they abandoned duty, honor and country and substituted army values for it, which is like having a great big bucket. You can put anything you want into it. That's flexibility that they were talking about, I think. With a living constitution, you know you can change it ad hoc whenever you want to. You don't have any rules anymore, you just make it to whatever comes up today.
Bruce Davey:There's a peripheral point to that too, that when you have a solid system that is going to remain solid, then you can forecast from a business standpoint and from a military standpoint, for that matter, an administrative standpoint, you can forecast what is going to happen. If you're dealing with uncertainty, constant uncertainty, where executive orders can change things, then the stability of the whole system starts becoming fractured, and that's what's dangerous from either side. If either side is capable of issuing an executive order that basically changes the way we do business in America, then the next group that comes in can issue a new one and change that one, and so the stability is the problem, and we are the end products of a remarkable stream of stability in America. And people would say well, wait a minute. What about the 68 riots? No, no, no, no.
Bruce Davey:We've been under the constitution the whole time and, in fact, everybody that wants to change things has to reach back and touch the constitution and say it meets the standards of the constitution and, as a result, we are the longest lasting government in the world. America is, which is astounding. We always think about the new world, whatever. No, we're the longest lasting government, and why? Because we have this touchstone that we're constantly. Everybody has to. They can come up with any idea they want to, but they have to be then referenced the Constitution of the United States of America and say does it meet the standards of the Constitution? And that stability is a key point in our success.
Al Palmer:Well, that's a stability is reinforced by the notion that if you think it through and you have a problem, you identify it and you come up with solutions. Those are going to be probably the most workable things you can do. If it's an executive order, you're trusting that somebody just came up with the answer and it's going to work. I think we saw that recently with the border, did we not?
Bruce Davey:Yeah, no question about it.
Bruce Davey:And you know, I was looking at those pictures you had up on the screen a little bit ago and one of them was a catapult, the catapult officer and his a uh assistant there, um, signaling the, the departure of an aircraft from, from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, and it immediately flashed to me that the team aspect of the whole thing you know I'm the guy sitting in the cockpit, but all of the stuff that is gone on underneath the, in the bowels of the ship, in order for those two guys to be pointing down the cat stroke, for me it's, it's astounding.
Bruce Davey:And the, the guys that loaded the weapons, the guys that that uh, greased the catapult stroke, uh itself that and and uh the work that went on before in order for me to be sitting in the cockpit of that airplane, and it makes you think about that's what that represents our country. We've got a lot of people most of us at a kind of a low level in our country, pushing along the ideas of good things that our country does, and up on the top you've got somebody that is riding on the work that all of those people have done, and we don't want that guy sitting in the cockpit to say no. I think the way we should run the catapult is this no, he should get on there and ride it.
Al Palmer:That's the constitution in effect should get on there and write it. That's the Constitution in effect. Well, and the other part of that is those yellow shirts. You know, you can't tell what race they are, what their ethnicity is. You probably can't even tell if they're male or female, can you Right? And they probably can't see that you in the cockpit or me in the cockpit the same way.
Al Palmer:But we all work as a team together and the other thing is somebody gets shot down in combat. No one's going to stop and ask them about that either. We go after them, risk our lives to do it, and it's all part of that team that has to function that way yeah, yeah.
Guy Higgins:So and when bruce is sitting there in the cockpit ready to get the cat stroke, the uh, the yellow shirt that's doing the final check on the airplane is how old bruce?
Al Palmer:probably 17, 19, maybe between 17 and 21. Yeah, yeah and and you know it's it's. It's an absolute thrill to have watched a carrier come alive that way, from our initial workups before we go on a cruise, until everybody finally gets trained and is operating every day. It's like watching a.
Bruce Davey:It's like watching a ballet yeah, and the and the, and the funny thing is that at every level, it's that it's that sort of thing. When you're, when you first get back aboard the ship, everything is kind of strange and you're and you're worried about this, and you're worried about that, and you're and, uh, you know what's? What is the briefing? Heck, how to get from your briefing room, your ready room, up to the flight deck.
Bruce Davey:You know that there, yeah, there are all these things that you have to learn and the same thing, with the guy shooting you and the guy operating the heck, the guy steering the ship, and and uh, then, after a period of time, you coalesce into a team that you're not worried about.
Bruce Davey:Some guy shooting you off with the deck, moving 25 feet up and down in the weather, down on the, on the, on the ocean, and uh, and knowing that they're going to get you back aboard, the ship's going to be there, the lso is going to be on the platform, everything's going to work just the way it's supposed to. And when you touch down, that same guy is going to be on the platform. Everything's going to work just the way it's supposed to. And when you touch down, that same guy is going to be rolling you back, getting the wire out of your hook and telling you to fold your wings, and all of that stuff is a team operation, and I see that as part of the way America is supposed to work. We're supposed to be a big team.
Al Palmer:And so you know, and as we know, when there's a problem on the ship, whether it's a fire or an accident or somebody's man overboard, you know it's general quarters, all hands on deck, right, right, and I see that as where we are today. You know we've just had an incident here, with elections and a change in leadership that's occurring and it's got to be all hands on deck now. Everybody's got to get involved.
Bruce Davey:Right, right, and if you're the guy that is normally testing the water going into the boilers, it doesn't make any difference. Now your job is to fight the fire and put the fire out and save the ship, and then you can go back to doing your duties and you may think your job as fighter pilot. Your job is to save the ship when things go bad. And luckily, I think we've crossed the Rubicon here. We're in a place where the potential is that we're probably going to save the ship, but we've got to pull on the same end of the rope.
Al Palmer:Well, as Brent said, we're all shipmates and that's being in it together. The old Billy Joel song good night Saigon. We're all gonna go down together and that happens on the ship, right? Yes?
Brent Ramsey:when there's a fire at sea, that will definitely focus your attention. Every person on the ship wants to rally to the fire point. I was sound asleep on a tin can. I was on in the middle of the night and I heard the GQ sounded fire, fire, fire in compartment such and such. I got out of my rack and my skivvies and went right straight to after communications. Now it turned out to be a minor electrical fire, but it's definitely something that will focus your attention, because if the ship goes down and you're in the middle of the Atlantic, everybody dies.
Brent Ramsey:Okay, so just reinforcing what I said earlier on the concept of shipmate is critical to our performance in the Navy, and I'm sure the other services have similar sorts of things. But whether it's a shipmate, or whether it's your woman, or whether it's your whole flight crew on a P-3, well, I guess we don't fly P-3s anymore. I'm dating myself. I was stationed at a P-3 base the Aleutians. We had P-3s back in those days. It's now what? The P-8. P-8. It's a modified 737, I believe that the Navy introduced a few years ago, but it didn't matter.
Guy Higgins:Everybody has to pull on the same end of the rope or people die.
Al Palmer:So the question I'm sorry.
Guy Higgins:Let me just segue off that a bit, al, the election that is now whatever. 14 days ago was a watershed event, I think, for the United States, but it is way too early for people to be spiking the ball. President Trump's going to come in and he's going to sign an executive order with respect to critical race theory and DEI, but the Congress needs to act also because, as Bruce pointed out, an executive order can be undone by an executive order and uh, and that's not true when there's a law passed. So congress needs to step up to their responsibility of being the governors. The congress governs, the executive just executes, and we've gotten away from that.
Guy Higgins:But president, president Trump's going to sign an EO, but that doesn't end it. All of his political appointees, whether it's Secretary of State Designee Rubio or whether it's Secretary of Defense Designee Hegseth, have got to push that down to their people, who have got to push it down all the way to the deck plates. It's getting rid of this attitude is not something that's going to be done with deck plates. It's getting rid of this attitude is not something that's going to be done with a memo. It's going to be done with leadership throughout the entire organization, the entire hierarchy, and it's not going to be an easy thing to do. It's going to be a really hard thing to do to pull that team together and it will take a lot of work and we need to recognize that. End of rant.
Al Palmer:Well, I think. But I think you guys talk rather eloquently about that in your book, about the senior SESs, the three and four stars in elevated positions and people who are pure career bureaucrats in whichever branch of the government in and I've seen that up close after I retired. You know you get people there that have been there for a long time, think they own it. They're just waiting for the admiral or the general to leave so they can continue to do what they do. So how do we handle that in the military, do you think?
Guy Higgins:I think that's a really good question. Al and I was in Washington when Secretary Rumsfeld showed up for his second tour as SecDef and I was terribly disappointed because Don Rumsfeld seriously smart guy, okay, ncaa wrestler for people who didn't know that and naval aviators too. Everything went back to the way it was, and so to solve this problem, it's gonna take identifying people who are absolutely resistant to the president's agenda. The president was the guy that got elected by the American people. His agenda is what counts, not mine, not the career civil servants, not the three stars. It's his agenda that counts, and the people who actively resist him need to be encouraged to find another line of business. And the people who are on the fence or are not part of that resistance need to be brought on board. We need to go get them and bring them on board, and that's leadership that isn't dictatorial dictate Go do this. That is bringing them on board and helping them to understand why things like DEI and CRT are destructive and why individual merit and teamwork are the things that build this country and make it great.
Guy Higgins:It's going to be a hard. It's going to be a long, hard slog, and I think that we, the people who believe that need to be working to maintain the kind of position we have in the government today, in two years, in four years, in eight years, because it's going to take time. This didn't happen to us overnight. We're not going to fix it overnight and we have to win in the courts. So SFFA, the suit against the Naval Academy, that's in the courts. We have to win in Congress and the executive, that will be the EOs and the laws, and we have to win in the court of public opinion which, al, is what you're doing with the podcasts here, and what we're doing with the book and the podcast and interviews is we're trying to help people understand where we are. We're not telling them that they're wrong. We're helping them to go find out what the truth is.
Al Palmer:Well, guys, I'd argue that we're probably making some progress there, because, just as a casual observer, I've noticed that these issues are now showing up in the mainstream media more than they ever did before, and there's talk everywhere about. Everybody I talk to is awfully aware now what those initials mean CRT, dei and what they stand for. But it's not just that, it's also the intrusion of the isms into the government, particularly the military. There's now an awareness that wasn't there a month ago.
Bruce Davey:Well, to tag onto what Guy said, I think that what's the saying? There's nothing that focuses a mind like a public hanging, and, um, I think that there there needs to be a few of those. And and uh, the other one that comes to mind, but and one of you may remember who it was the british general that was in some part of the world and they said they were getting ready to sacrifice in some part of the world. And they said they were getting ready to sacrifice a young woman, as I recall, on their altar. And he said to the leader of the crowd that was sacrificing him why are you doing this? And he said well, that's how we operate here. And the British general said that's good, go ahead and operate the way you operate. And the British general said that's good, go ahead and operate the way you operate.
Bruce Davey:In my world, someone that kills someone like that, gets hung, and that's what's going to happen to you is after you get done your act. And that that sort of consequence, action, consequence thing is something it does focus your mind. Um, you can, you can have all these bright ideas, but if a guy that has the axe in his hand, um, is standing next to you, you'll change your bright ideas, and that's what needs to happen in a lot of our government agencies right now yeah, I, I made a statement.
Guy Higgins:I made a statement, I don't know a month or two ago, that we need to not go on a purge because people are going to see that very negatively. But we ought never pass up the opportunity to um, have one of those public hangings, bruce, you know, pour encourager d'autres. And we need to do that because it does clarify the mind. You know, you do that and people say, well, they're serious about this and we need to be serious about it.
Al Palmer:I'm not looking to get pressy.
Guy Higgins:I'm not looking to fire them, but if you give me the chance, I will.
Al Palmer:Wasn't there some precedent for that? I think it wasn't. A Mark general Marshall had the plunking committee.
Guy Higgins:Yes.
Al Palmer:And they, they, they picked out, they picked out a few flag officers after the war and said you know, you guys did not stand up and we're going to replace you. Thanks very much. You're getting to retire.
Brent Ramsey:Yeah, but I'd like to piggyback on what Guy said. The other important thing right now, our military and the Navy and the other services are operating under what's called a continuing resolution. The Congress didn't do its job and didn't pass an actual what's called NDAA National Defense Authorization Act, and that's followed by the actual appropriations bills for all the departments. So this happens too often. Our government is very inefficient at getting the bills passed that fund the operations of the government. So there's going to be a lame duck session next month to reconcile the two versions of the notional 2025 NDAA National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate version and the House version are slightly different, but they're going to get together and they're going to come up with a single bill, try to pass it and have President Biden sign that before he leaves office. So it's critical right now for the services, for the bad things that are still in those two bills is they're still in because there's inertia in the government and then the current administration is still an advocate for things like DEI and all the other things we've talked about that are political agendas that have gotten into the military. There's still a lot of that kind of stuff in the actual defense bills funding for DEI positions, funding for mitigating climate change, funding for paying for abortions for service members, our station and a duty station where the state doesn't allow it, so they have to be. To get an abortion, a person has to go to, a woman has to go to another state to do it. The DOD is by executive decree. The Secretary of Defense decided on his own authority to pay for that. There's no appropriation for that. He did it anyway, and so on and so forth.
Brent Ramsey:There's all sorts of political stuff still in the NDAA. So one of the messages we're trying to get out to our in fact we have an all hands email going out to our entire membership on the topic of the 25 NDAA, urging our members to get a hold of the people responsible in the Congress. Primarily it's the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee. They're going to decide the final form of this bill that's going to get passed, it'll be signed into law and that'll take us for another nine months through September, because government operates on a fiscal year, so it's not the calendar year, so September it's October to September and so on. So time is of the essence.
Brent Ramsey:If some things that are these political influences stay in the NDAA. That's just delaying the change and the progress that President-elect Trump wants to make in all his administration, because it'll be in the law for that period of time. So we urge, I urge our listeners if you have a mind and think that's the wrong approach, contact the leaders in Congress and say knock that stuff off. We need to get back to basics of military readiness and focus on what it takes to fight and win our wars. And you should see the handwriting on the wall. The public spoke. 75 million people voted for President-elect Trump and he's going to clean house when he comes in. Let's go ahead and start that transition now and not drag our heels and delay it for another nine months. So that's an issue that we're pursuing actively right now in Calvert Group is waking the public to the knowledge that there's a lot of bad stuff still institutionalized that we need to get rid of.
Al Palmer:And meanwhile we still have to put up with retention. That's sagging, recruiting, which is still a problem in all the services although I think maybe not quite so much in the Navy as it is in the Army and the Air Force these days. And then standards. You know we're loosening standards up so we can bring people in, but that goes back to the issue again of ability and performance and meritocracy. So this is still something that's kind of a moving mass of sorts. How do we stabilize that? Any thoughts on that, bruce? Because part of that is I was watching something recently from Tailhook that they're having trouble hanging on to aviators. Now they're trying to pay them big bonuses and even there's now command money and then there's money for the surface warfare guys. They're all turning down at $20,000, $40,000 a year. What's wrong?
Bruce Davey:Yeah, that bonus stuff is. It's amazing how much money they're waving in front of these guys. My son is a navy fighter pilot and uh, the incredible, uh bonuses that they're offering in order to keep people in the service from a from an aviation standpoint. Unfortunately for the Navy and the Air Force, those dollars don't measure up to what can be obtained in civil aviation, and so the only thing that will keep you in is if you are attracted by the service, by what you're doing and seeing the importance of it.
Bruce Davey:I was just back at the end of season festivities for the last air show of the season for the Blue Angels, and there I came across a bunch of naval aviators who were still in the armed forces and we're approaching, or were admirals now, and you have to just admire these guys.
Bruce Davey:The up and coming ones that are still there after with all the things that have gone on, are people who are dedicated, dedicated men, dedicated Americans, dedicated naval officers, officers. I think that they're people who have survived despite the political end of things. But I think there needs to be a real house cleaning in the in the upper reaches of the armed forces, to the point where we where young people and mid-range people, lieutenant commanders, commanders are saying to themselves I want to be like that guy up on top, I want to operate that way, and that's operating, once again, according to the Constitution and according to the mandates of of how the military is supposed to operate. Those things are attractive to a certain sect of people and we need those people in the armed forces. The only thing that will keep them in there is the feeling that they're part of an exceptional team that is protecting that which we love.
Guy Higgins:You know, it's interesting because the Marine Corps.
Al Palmer:The Marine Corps, of all the services, has had the least losses in retention and they had the most successes, probably in recruiting. Why? Because you know, once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine. But more than that, they take their pride in being different and being exceptional and being accomplished. And I'd offer maybe there's a lesson in that for the rest of us well, I agree with you.
Bruce Davey:There, there, there, um, my son-in-law's was marine company commander and and uh I, I swell with pride whenever I mention uh shane he that mentioned Shane. He, that's the sort of person that every, every young man should want to be like is, is focused, have a, have a mission in front of them and, and you know, in the Marine Corps even, there's the. There's this charming end of things where they say, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, but that's not the Marine way.
Bruce Davey:And and that's and you know, to focus back to our previous conversation, a little bit of that would go a long way in America If we said, yeah, that sounds like a good idea, but that's not the constitution way. We're going to hang with the constitution. We're going to do it the way we've always done it, and you know there's a pride in that, as well as the obvious evidence from the historical background, but it may make more sense to try to appeal to that.
Al Palmer:you know the magnificence of being a part of something bigger than you even imagined you could be, versus getting paid a bunch of money and then wondering if you're going to go work for United or whether you're going to go to Southwest.
Guy Higgins:You know, when Tom Burbage and Bruce and I were at the Academy and met with the superintendent one of the statements that was made by her staff was that, you know, young people in America today are different than when we went to the academy, and that's undeniably true. They're different, but the implication was that the academy had to change their standards, change the way they operated, because these kids were different. No, the Marines don't do that. You go to boot camp. You are torn down and built back. People will perform to th that are laid on them An lay some serious expectat and say this is the way t and if you can't do that, be someplace else.
Al Palmer:Well and that goes, I think, to the honor code issues that have been brought up in both Annapolis and also the Air Force Academy lately Is they want to sort of change the structure of the honor code so that there's a redemption factor in it, and maybe it's okay to cheat a little bit. You didn't cheat a lot, so we'll, we'll, we'll make up for it by retraining you or something. Didn't used to be that way, did it?
Guy Higgins:no, you know, you build a thousand bridges and nobody calls you a bridge builder, but you sell your body on a street corner. One time dot dot.
Bruce Davey:You know. In line with that, al, I think that we do a disservice to the young men and women that are going to the service academies if we say, well, you can't hold to the standard that previously we held Mitchipman to, and so we're going to have to change the standard. I think you diminish the standard not the standard, but the institution that way, and the esprit de corps is diminished somewhat too. That, oh, yeah, a little bit of that, you know. We can work with it and we'll retrain you. Yeah, a little bit of that, you know, we can work with it and we'll retrain you.
Bruce Davey:My belief is that when you walk in, if you're told right away okay, here's the deal, if you step on the commanding officer's rug, he will have you taken outside and beaten. Okay, you don't have to have remediation or anything else. You know right from the start don't step on the commanding officer's rug. End of story. That that's a simple one. And if at the academies, if you say, hey, there are two things that you have to worry about conduct and honor. And if you do, if you violate something in the conduct world, that means you know you got to, your brass isn't shined or you go over the wall and go on unauthorized liberty. Okay, you're going to get caught and you're going to pay a price. You're going to wind up marching tours or being restricted to base or whatever. And there's the other one, which is honor. There isn't anything other than you're gone if you commit an honor violation. You're gone and so right out of the shoot.
Bruce Davey:If you're told that it's like stepping on the commanding officer's rug, you say okay, okay, I'll do. I may be a wise guy, I may not make my bed well or whatever, but I'm going to be very careful about honor. And I'm going to be careful about honor from now on. And I think that's what we say when a person walks in the doors and say, hey, there's a new score here. This is the way it works, and be right on board with it. Bet you the dallas cowboys feel that way. I'll bet you that the whatever the name of the team is in atlanta these days, um is or washington dc. I'll bet they have that written on their wall somewhere.
Al Palmer:You are now a cowboy and this is how we walk through this hall and you're now a part of the team, right.
Bruce Davey:Exactly. And when you walk up the steps of Brancroft Hall and you're looking at don't give up the ship in Memorial Hall, just up the ladder above you, you should be saying to yourself okay, this is a new deal here. Regardless of how I was when I started, it just changed.
Al Palmer:That's always been kind of the case. I remember when I was building the Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor, one of the hangars we had big hangar there. They used to have the big seaplanes in. On the steps you could still see written words. You know, honor, fidelity, hard work, shipmate those are all things that the sailors saw going up the stairs every day, and somehow we may have lost some of that, I guess. But the other thing is we put trust in people. As you guys were at the academy or in ROTC or as I was in OTS, we all got the same message we trust you and we're going to make sure that you're a good leader. But if you violate that trust, you know once you do it's gone right. You really can't get it back. And so, with that thought in mind, when we, those same people we've trained and educated and experienced the leadership, when they get into the upper levels in the Pentagon, they seem to forget that. Do we not apply the same standard to them as a four-star as we do an ensign?
Guy Higgins:Well, we certainly should. Yeah, you know those amazing men those amazing men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. When they signed it, they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.
Al Palmer:And a lot of them lost their lives and fortunes, and the other thought about the signers was, as I recall, there were about 43 of them who were actually first generation immigrants from England. They were not sons and daughters of people who've been raised there yet they still felt the same way about the country and forming it, and they signed the Declaration of Independence as immigrants, I guess.
Brent Ramsey:Yeah Well, they were still considered under the British crown, so they were colonists, not immigrants. That was the term used back then.
Brent Ramsey:At the time, yes, but, yeah, they put their lives on the line. And, going back to something that was said earlier about our constitution, not only is it the longest lasting one, the people who formed the constitution were highly educated people. They had studied human history. They had studied every form of government that had ever been tried anywhere on the planet, going back 10,000 years. They were not neophytes, they were not country bumpkins. They were highly educated, disciplined minds, people who had studied and studied and studied, and when they crafted both the Declaration and the Constitution, it was a remarkable accomplishment Because, just as I think Bruce said, it's lasted longer than any other nation and it's because it was crafted so carefully. So it's complicated, with the three parts and each balancing the other and all that Federal were constitutional.
Brent Ramsey:The other party, the party on the left, likes to talk about democracy, democracy, democracy. That's all you heard about during a campaign. We are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. A constitutional republic, we are not a democracy. Democracy is the rule of the 51% over the 49%. That is not how our system works, and so we need to reject that notion out of hand. We are a constitutional republic and the foundation upon which our nation stands is that constitution and the fidelity of our officer corps is to that founding document and we need to hold fast to that and rectify the wrongs that have been done, to take liberty with even the language that's used to describe our country. We're not a democracy, we're a constitutional republic.
Al Palmer:Yeah, because democracy is basically two wolves and a sheep discussing what they're going to have for dinner.
Brent Ramsey:Exactly.
Guy Higgins:I find it interesting that there are a number of prominent Democratic elected officials who have suddenly discovered the value of things like the filibuster and the rights of the minority oh yeah, they're great it. It all depends on whose Ox it is that's getting Gorg.
Bruce Davey:Yes, and, and so the other thing too let me, let me ask something about what, what we uh, what we were talking about, about the beauty of expecting the right thing from people. That isn't solely the purview of the service academies. That's part of our nation and that has historically been part of our nation. That when you came from Ellis Island, you were expected to operate differently from the way you had arrived and you were now approaching US citizenship. And you know, it reminds me of when Paul was brought before Festus and he said you know, I'm a Roman citizen. And suddenly the whole game changed. You're a Roman citizen? Okay, then we're. We have to deal with you differently, when we should be looking at our young people and not saying, oh well, you know, we gotta do this or that or the other thing. No, you're now a US citizen. You, you are part of us.
Bruce Davey:And with that comes the expectation that you will operate in a particular way and just like we've said a half dozen times already today, from in their performance. Hey, you know, you're part of this team. We don't do it that way. We do completed staff work, we do completed sidewalk work, we do completed whatever sort of work it is. That's the way we operate here in America, and I think if we start feeling like we're a team, the American team and everybody's part of it, then we've turned the corner. The American team and everybody's part of it, then we've turned the corner, and that's what. And if the leadership can't get on board with that, fire the leadership, change the leadership. Don't tell them, don't allow people to be in leadership that say, oh, you're a special case, you aren't expected to operate this way or anything like that. No, get rid of that leader and tell the person you're a part of us now and this is the way we operate, in excellent fashion.
Al Palmer:Well said, bruce. I couldn't do it better Well so. So just that kind of brings us to the point now where the question is where do we go STARS and Calvary Group in the days and months ahead?
Brent Ramsey:Well, we're concentrating on continuing to get the message out of the parts of the military that are misguided, and it's going to take both executive action on the part of President Trump when he gets in office to reverse some of those things, and it's also going to take congressional action to modify the appropriations and the authorization bills so that it doesn't continue to fund things that are not conducive to readiness. That's our whole. Focus is readiness. We need to have a ready Navy in order to fight our nation's wars and win them, and the Navy is an extremist in a lot of ways.
Brent Ramsey:I've written a lot of articles about DEI and that kind of stuff, but I've also written a lot of articles about the needs of the Navy in terms of capacity and readiness issues and the ability to fight and win our war. So we really need to get a focus on, you know, having enough ships, having enough aircraft, having enough missiles, having enough manpower and overcome some of the leadership failures of the last 20 years. I mean, there's whole classes of ships that are utterly useless. The LCS, the Zumwalt class of ships, are basically huge boondoggles. Those ships are being phased out. Well, they're not being phased out, but they really are ships that don't have the LCS is being phased out. But you know we got to get back to building more ships and being ready to fight and win our nation's wars. Building up the merchant marine Like I said, there's a host of issues to get back to basics and strengthen the armed forces so that they can defend our nation.
Bruce Davey:And I would offer that the things that Starz and Calvert Group and MacArthur should be thinking about is the first skirmish has been accomplished. We're starting to get the attention focused on things that are certainly important. I think education of the elected representatives of the people is a critical element, and how that is accomplished is a huge problem. But that's the first step is we need to educate those people. The second thing is those leaders in the armed forces who insist on continuing business as usual. That's a good place to start with the public hanging and get rid of those people ASAP. And I think the nominee for Secretary of Defense has laid that out pretty clearly and I hope that that follows through. And if we wind up with the number of flag officers in the various branches of the armed forces that we had 40, 50, 60 years ago, that would be a good thing if we reduce those numbers down. And then we should be going through the civilian staffs and saying are you ready to step across the line and join this team of changing the way things are done? That's the next step. If they aren't, another public hanging.
Bruce Davey:And then the third thing is businesses that are doing business with this, with the defense department need to understand that there is a new game in town and the new game is we're going to operate the way in general and and guy could speak to this better than I, but in general the way I operate with someone that I'm contracting with to do work, and that is you agree to do this and I'll pay you this and any.
Bruce Davey:If you think you can add on because you bid it low, because you know you can add on, and I'm very familiar with how this, how this operates in the aviation world then you're wrong. That isn't how it's going to work anymore and if we have to change some of that, we need to change it. Those are the things, that the steps that need to take place and, from our personal standpoint, we should be talking to people around us and influencing them to understand what has gone on. And the numbers that Brent just mentioned about ships is astounding. Just mentioned about ships is astounding how our military, our Navy, is woeful in our surface combatants and a little bit in the subsurface.
Al Palmer:I think last time I checked we were down to about 220, 230 ships in the Navy. Or was all of them workable?
Brent Ramsey:No, as of today it's 295, only 40 deployed ships. Think about that. There's only 40 deployed. The United States Naval Institute has a weekly. It's called the Fleet Tracker and I look at it and yeah, when Reagan was president, we were all in during that time I believe we had a goal of 600 ship Navy. We were all in during that time. I believe we had a goal of 600-ship Navy. We've got to 500.
Al Palmer:I remember that well.
Brent Ramsey:We didn't quite get 600 ships, but that's what helped cause the fall of the Soviet Union. And think of it. We have more problems now. We had one enemy then, the Soviet Union. Now we've got enemies all over the world and we've got only 295 ships. And I just read this this morning too 40% of our submarines are in long-term maintenance, 40% of our subs the ships that we have and or build the new ships. So we've got. We've got the real, real problems with the industrial base in the America in America having eroded such that to build the armed forces that we need is now. A guy was in acquisition. He could speak to this much more than I, but you know some of the big aircraft manufacturers. Boeing is on its lips for a variety of reasons which I don't understand. But we would. Even if Congress appropriated all the money that we needed for all the services, the industrial community would have a very hard time quickly building us back up, and that's a real problem. May.
Al Palmer:I add one thing here.
Brent Ramsey:May I add one thing?
Bruce Davey:here. I'm sorry, go ahead.
Al Palmer:I was going to say. The National Defense Survey that just came out a few months ago talked about the defense industrial base being the lowest since World War II, meaning we don't have the capacity to build aircraft, ships and tanks the way we used to.
Bruce Davey:Right. One additional point that I think is important, and that is we can't, we don't. It's clear that we don't have the capability to fight two major wars at one time. We just don't have it. We don't have what's necessary to do that. But one thing we do have the capability to do is we can step on things that small bugs that are a problem, and a perfect example of me is the Houthi thing, where we can silence the missiles that are coming at our ships and at all the ships going through the straits there. We can silence that. We could stop that, and I think that would be a good beginning. I think you know like they say about if you bury 200 warriors up to their neck, what is it? It's a good beginning, it's a good beginning. Yeah, what is it? It's a good beginning.
Bruce Davey:But but uh, if you, if you silence the hooties, then you have done something that benefits the world. It benefits us. It also discourages people who want to ally themselves with iran. That's an iran sycophant. And and if we polish them off, then the other nations that are sitting around there that are no longer saying, well, we're good friends with America, they're just wondering whether they should line up with somebody else, they would suddenly say you know, I'm not sure I want to be part of that smoking hole that once was Yemen, and I know I'm not and I'm not in the policymaking decision here, so thank goodness for that. But I do know that it doesn't make any sense to try and shoot bullets out of the sky. It's better to shoot the guy that's pulling the trigger, and that's what we should be doing there.
Bruce Davey:And when we do that, we accomplish a couple of things. We stop those ships being attacked. We stop it before one of our combatants gets hit by one of those. And you've read the same things that I've read that they have 15 seconds from the time they see that missile coming to do something to stop it 15 seconds. Well, those of us that have been in the navy know that there are times when 15 seconds is not enough time to get things rolling.
Bruce Davey:And uh, so we're gonna have a one of our us navy ships hit by one of those missiles and we're gonna have a bunch of young people killed. So it will stop that it'll. It'll stop the missiles getting shot by by theouthis, it'll stop one of our combatants getting hit and hurt and the last thing it'll do. It will change the focus of the people in that area of the world, saying who do we want to ally ourselves with? Do we want to ally ourselves with the troublemakers in Iran, or would we rather ally ourselves with somebody that can, if they want to flatten us, but are happy not to?
Al Palmer:I think, as admiral halsey said so famously years ago, hit them hard, hit them fast, hit them often well guys listen, been great talking to you.
Al Palmer:Uh, I think we've got a lot of work ahead of us. Calvert Task Group is instrumental in making that happen, and thanks for your being here today. And thanks to STARS for putting this podcast on and letting me host it here, and for you guys, thanks so much for your service. Your career is keeping the country safe and we will depend on you to keep it safer going forward. Thanks for being with us.
Guy Higgins:Thank you, al, and to our audience.