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0:37
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:50
Let's get into it. All right, guys, we're going to keep this botching Afghanistan series going,
0:54
but we're going to do it with a new guest that you're not familiar with in terms of my podcast,
0:57
and that is Mike Ritalin. So Mike Ritalin is a guy that we are going to have on our podcast,
1:00
and we're going to do a proper podcast with him later on down the road. But Mike Ritalin is a
1:04
retired Navy SEAL. He is an expert dog handler, and that's kind of his business, but he's also a
1:08
best-selling author. He's written a lot of stories about his military career and how we should respect
1:13
a lot of the dogs that are used in these areas. I was on the Mike Drop podcast, so that's how a
1:16
lot of you actually found our show is I got attacked by one of his meat missiles, and then I went on
1:20
his show to talk for about three hours. We had a really, really good conversation. But again,
1:24
we are going to have him on, I believe it's in about four or five weeks to talk about a new book
1:27
that he has coming out. So we're going to do the normal fanfare with that. But we're going to go
1:30
ahead and get into the story here. And guys, I really loved his perspective on a lot of these
1:33
things because Mike is not one to mince words. And again, there's kind of a language warning
1:37
on this episode for any of you guys that maybe have sensitive ears around or little kids or
1:41
something like that. Mike just talks and I just let it go and I don't edit out anything. I want
1:45
people to give me their honest feelings. But I really enjoyed his perspective on a lot of different
1:49
things because yes, he was on the ground in the Middle East and he's lost friends and he knows
1:53
gold star families and he serves a lot of those people even still today. But again,
1:57
I really, really dug his opinions. You should check it out. Obviously you're about to because
2:00
you're going to listen to this. So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
2:02
All right, Mike Ritalin. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I know that we're going to be
2:06
doing a more proper show here on down the line, but the circumstances just predicated having this
2:10
conversation sooner. It's insane what's going on in Afghanistan and you know what it's like on the
2:16
ground there, you know, it's like on the ground for those people. And so as with everybody else in
2:21
the series that we've done, I just want to kind of back away from the mic for a second to just
2:24
let you say what your initial thoughts are as to kind of what you're seeing and what's currently
2:29
going on in the country of Afghanistan. Sure. I appreciate you having me on and asking me what I
2:34
think in a word heartbreaking is probably the single most app descriptive word that I can pick to
2:44
you know, to convey what kind of what I feel and then just how it seems like things are going there.
2:50
You know, and for a number of reasons, I think that there's the obvious one of seeing, you know,
2:56
what we spent 20 years there doing essentially was erased, you know, at least one dimensionally
3:03
or as kind of a singular view, you know, which is tough to watch, you know, to see, you know,
3:09
thousands of our men and women lose their lives to set up certain mechanisms in that country
3:16
to be a certain way. And then they all just vanish in a matter of days is tough to watch.
3:21
It's also tough to watch to see just the amount of bloodshed that continues there and the rapid
3:30
exchange of kind of culture going from, you know, essentially a free democracy within reason.
3:40
Going right back to the way that it was pre 9/11, I would argue that it's actually more
3:44
dangerous than the 9/11 or pre 9/11, because they have a lot more experience. They've got a ton of
3:50
our equipment. You know, they have infrastructure put in place and recruiting pipelines and things
3:56
like that. So, you know, their capabilities could possibly be more. And I think that probably the
4:04
single biggest reason why I find it heartbreaking is that it didn't have to go down that way.
4:10
You know, I know a lot in the in the media on the administration side are saying, you know,
4:14
we plan for every contingency. And I would just say, well, [inaudible], because if that was the case,
4:18
it wouldn't be happening. And that's I don't know who listens to that and thinks, yeah, you know,
4:23
they did everything they could or saying that like the previous administration agreed to this deal.
4:29
And so, you know, it's out of our hands like that's a chicken chip response to and that, you know,
4:34
there's about 40 other deals that the last administration signed and agreed on that they've
4:40
reversed, you know, in a matter of days, you know, that they didn't want, you know, and so I think
4:46
it's just such a feckless and and a spineless way to to conduct yourself. I mean, as a president,
4:54
it's your job to to legitimately say that it's my responsibility in the buck stops here, not with
5:00
a caveat, not with a but not with a and I mean, just plain and simple, like it's your responsibility.
5:06
I mean, if I hire somebody that does something wrong, ultimately, that's my fault. You know,
5:11
yes, there's free will and there's, you know, people's decisions to make a choice. But, you know,
5:16
that's that's the big, big rub with being in a leadership position is that you take ownership
5:20
of of what happens. And, you know, you can't can't have it both ways and talk out of both sides of
5:26
your mouth the way the way that they're doing. I also think, you know, from kind of a more
5:30
strategic or tactical side, you know, what we're seeing right now and I don't know when this will
5:35
air. But, you know, you've got tens of thousands of citizens about 10,000 American citizens and tens
5:44
of 1000 Afghans that are supposed to evacuate and come here that are scattered all over the country,
5:50
you know, and so it's like, well, we've got the airport secure. You didn't, you know, that's why
5:54
there's people hanging on the planes and fought and coming off as well as, you know, the simple
6:01
fact that the fact that that wasn't planned for and they didn't have some mechanism to get those
6:06
people out of there. I think you're going to see over the next couple of weeks some really, really
6:09
horrible stuff because, you know, the Taliban, there's, you know, 100,000 plus of them scattered
6:14
all over the country, a lot of them centered around Kabul and the airport right now. You know,
6:20
so you can have the airport secured, you know, congratulations. But how all of these people are
6:26
going to get from where they're at to that airport? I don't see how they're going to do that. I mean,
6:30
the Taliban isn't going to just say, Oh, you're American. Yeah, come on, come on through. Like,
6:34
they're going to cut their head off, you know, so, you know, to me, the fact that those things
6:39
weren't planned for weren't, weren't, you know, accommodations weren't made. I think just speaks
6:44
volumes to how out of touch they are. And I think that the administration, not unlike, you know,
6:52
past administrations, plural, I think they're all guilty of it to a certain degree of surrounding
6:56
themselves with yes men and echo chamber folks that tell them what they want to hear. But I think
7:01
this is on a next level as far as that goes, or this wouldn't happen. And you can hear it even,
7:07
you know, in in press briefings where whether it's the president or the press secretary or the
7:14
department of defense or what have you, you know, I mean, they're all just kind of saying the same
7:20
thing. And it kind of reminds me of the the emperor's close story. And then it's like,
7:25
you can watch what's happening. And they're saying, well, that's not happening. Or, you know,
7:29
it reminds me of like, back in, you know, when Iraq back in the first Gulf War, there was that
7:37
Baghdad Bob that was like, maybe it was, I'm not sure exactly when it was. But, you know,
7:42
that the press secretary for the Iraqi regime was like, now we've got America right where we want
7:46
them. And, you know, they're on the run. And you know, it's going to be rivers of American blood
7:51
here shortly. You know, like while they're getting the [inaudible] kicked out of them, you know, and it's
7:55
just like, that's what that seems like to me is that, you know, these people in these these
8:01
upper echelon of government are just, I mean, they're blinded by their own arrogance. And it's,
8:05
it's frightening and sickening. The one, I would say silver lining though that that and I know for a
8:11
lot of veterans out there and just a lot of patriotic folks in general that probably look at this and
8:16
think to themselves, you know, what would, what were we there for? What did we accomplish? You
8:22
know, did our troops die in vain? And most people say, no, they didn't, you know, they did their
8:26
job and they volunteered. But I'll take it a step further from a, from a more kind of,
8:31
not just trying to make, make somebody feel better about what happened there. But, but legitimately is
8:36
that, you know, in interviewing Dr. James Mitchell, I learned a lot in reading his book called
8:44
Enhanced Interrogation about what, what intelligence was gleaned from the interrogations of a lot of
8:53
the masterminds of 9/11, including Sheikh Khalid Mohammed, as well as a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed rather,
8:59
as well as a number of other higher ups in al-Qaeda that basically all corroborated the same thing,
9:05
which was, you know, 9/11 was, was executed on the principle or the, the expectation that we were
9:14
going to respond in similar fashion to the last 10 years of al-Qaeda attacks on America, which were,
9:20
which was basically, let's lob a few Tomahawk cruise missiles to some training camps and call it a day.
9:26
They were not expecting us to launch a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan and knock them on their
9:33
ass. And in, in most cases, it was, you know, if we had known that, we wouldn't have done it the way
9:38
that we did it. And so the two things that I think came out of the last 20 years in Afghanistan that,
9:44
that we as a nation should be proud of. And, and if there's one thing I can say, you know, is absolutely
9:50
the case and, and why it was worth doing what we did there as long as we did, is that number one,
9:56
is that we prevented another 9/11 from happening for over two decades, number two. And this is
10:01
probably the most important thing for the long term and internationally is that not just al-Qaeda
10:08
and Afghanistan and Taliban and, and associated parties, the entire world knows that if you bring
10:14
an attack here to this country and, and attack civilians and, and a scale with which they did on
10:18
9/11, that we will use absolutely every resource in our arsenal to come to wherever you're at and
10:25
spend as much time as it takes to hunt you down and [inaudible] kill you and, and completely, you know,
10:30
redesign your entire culture, if that's what it takes to, you know, to prevent it from happening.
10:36
And so, to me that, that's something you can't put a price tag on because the reason it happened
10:43
in the first place is because they assumed we wouldn't do that. You know, now there's absolutely
10:46
no question. A couple of other things I think that are important though is, is that for us to,
10:52
to learn from this, not that we didn't already know this, we should have learned this from Vietnam
10:57
and, and a host of other conflicts we've been in, but, is that, you know, nation building is a mistake,
11:02
a huge mistake. Trying to set up democracies in countries that aren't democracies is a mistake.
11:09
I think it's, it's an arrogant and painful mistake on our part to assume that everybody
11:15
wants to live in democracies because they don't. I mean, Afghanistan is a good example. Yeah,
11:18
there are some people there that do, and some people that are, are, are broken and [inaudible],
11:22
rightfully so now that that's not happening. I mean, there's kids now that are, you know,
11:27
20 years old that were born that never knew what Afghanistan was like prior to 9/11 that are in
11:32
college. That's going to be a sobering [inaudible] wake up call for those folks. But, but the reality
11:37
of it is, is that, you know, whether it's Afghanistan or parts of Indonesia or the Southern Philippines
11:43
or North Africa, you know, the Horn of Africa, I mean, there are a lot of places in the world where,
11:49
where they want to live the way that they live, you know, or, or enough people there want to live
11:54
in, in that manner to where it's not going to change. And you can't force it on them. I mean,
11:57
the fact that it's, it's taken a week to go back to, you know, seventh century AD, essentially,
12:03
in terms of, of how they're conducting themselves tells you enough to, to where, you know, that,
12:08
that's clearly how, at least collectively they, they want to live. You know, again,
12:13
I know there's plenty of people that don't want to live that way, but not enough to,
12:16
to fight enough to change it or, or to leave or to what have you. So, you know, those, again,
12:23
I think are important things for us as a nation to consider, you know, and not make those same
12:29
mistakes. And, you know, one that we should have already learned. But, yeah, Mike, you brought up
12:33
a lot of great things there. Obviously, you mentioned the, all the contingencies, you know,
12:37
Biden gets up there and says, Oh, we thought of every contingency. It's like, Oh, so you planned
12:41
for the, for the airport to get overran. You planned for people hanging on to, you know, the landing
12:46
glare and landing gear into the sides of the plane. Oh, I didn't realize you planned for that.
12:50
That's so interesting. And of course, that's not something that that they would ever admit to.
12:53
One thing that I did key in on that you said is that, you know, obviously they didn't expect
12:58
us to come back at them with the full force that we did after 9/11 to basically make them pay for this.
13:04
But I'm curious as of right now, because again, we heard the narrative forever that, Oh, we can't
13:09
still be in these endless wars and these wars are never going to end. And how much blood and
13:12
treasure is it going to take? Even though we hadn't taken a casualty in or a death in warfare in
13:17
Afghanistan in 18 months, it wasn't like, and people were talking about it like it was World War
13:21
II or something like that. But do you feel like the American public has that kind of an appetite?
13:28
Because I've thought about another 9/11 quote unquote a lot. And I'm wondering like in 2021,
13:34
you know, 2001 is an unrecognizable time period because of how we're living now, because of cultural
13:40
revolutions and all that. Even if there was another 9/11 style attack, do you feel like it would be that
13:46
same, you know, garnering moment for the entire populace that no, we're going to get behind the
13:52
government and we're going to send our boys and girls over there to fight for us. It's like,
13:55
do you feel like it would be the same? 100% 100% and here's why is think about what what your life
14:01
was like on September 10, 2001. It was about like it is now people [inaudible] heads buried in the sand
14:07
worried about [inaudible] that didn't matter. You know, and it took getting, you know, the hornets nest
14:13
kicked over the way that it did for the entire country to collectively come together and decide,
14:18
you know what, [inaudible] this, we're going to pay him back. So it's still there. It's just, you know,
14:23
unfortunately, you know, that adage of, you know, strong, strong or good times create weak men,
14:29
you know, that whole thing. You know, that's part of the cycle that we're in right now. We're in the,
14:34
you know, we've had good times long enough to where, you know, we're worried about what pronouns
14:40
to use and, you know, who should be able to [inaudible] next to who in a bathroom. And, you know, if you
14:46
don't call me by, by, you know, the sex that I identify with, and that's a microaggression,
14:52
you should be arrested for it, you know, I mean, it's laughable. It really is. I mean, when if,
14:57
if watching the last six days doesn't put some of that in perspective, then I think you're, you're,
15:02
I would say legitimately crazy, you know, if you're like, if you can't watch what's going on and
15:09
realize that 99% of the [inaudible] that goes on here that people argue and fight and [inaudible] about,
15:14
is just absurd, laughably absurd, then I think you're out of your mind, you know,
15:20
because I can tell you, like, right now, over there, if you think any of that [inaudible] is on anybody's
15:26
radar, it's not, you know, people are trying to not get killed and set on fire and heads cut off
15:31
right now, not, you know, all the other just societal [inaudible] that takes place here where
15:37
people are complaining about everything, you know, but, you know, further kind of to your,
15:44
your question of, of, you know, do they have that, that appetite for it? I think it's also
15:49
important to remember, you know, kind of taking a few steps back to where we were, say, 30 days ago,
15:56
is that, you know, we were in a position where, like you said, the last casualty was
16:01
February, I think, of 2020, it's been about 18 months since a combat casualty happened.
16:05
We were in a position to basically say, hey, we have just enough contingent there between troops and,
16:12
and, you know, other bases and, and capabilities within, you know, an hour or two flight to where,
16:22
you know, the Taliban wasn't attacking us. Now, if you think that it was because the deal that
16:26
Donald Trump, Trump struck that they were just, well, that's what we agreed to. So we're going to do
16:31
that. As you can see what's happening right now, they don't stick to their [inaudible] word. The reason
16:35
why they didn't attack for the last 18 months and didn't do [inaudible], even with 2500 troops is because
16:40
they knew what would happen if we did, or if they did, you know, and so similarly, again, I, I will
16:47
go back to the, you know, that was the deal that was made and it was out of our hands is such a
16:51
crock of [inaudible]. I mean, they didn't give us their, their permission for us to invade their country
16:56
the first [inaudible] time. You know, we don't need their permission. We were already there and, and
17:00
it would have been very, very simple and easy. And this isn't Monday morning quarterback. I mean,
17:04
to me, this is common sense for anybody who's ever spent any time in that region. Frankly,
17:09
even most people that have never stepped foot in that country that just have some shred of common
17:13
sense can look at that and say, you know, this, this is working out pretty well. It's keeping things
17:19
at bay and we should just stick with it because we have almost nobody there in terms of real
17:24
numbers. I mean, 2500 troops is a very, very low footprint, but we had had invested enough time
17:29
and enough ass whippings over there for them to understand what what the alternative was if they
17:35
start messing around. So to change that, I think is dumb. I mean, it wasn't an endless war at this
17:40
point. The war's been over essentially. And we've been just maintaining a finger on the polls, if you
17:45
will, and making sure that, you know, cats away, mice will play isn't taking place. Well, now the
17:51
cat just just flew, you know, and now the mice are, you know, completely overrunning the entire
17:57
country and we're doing Jack squat about it. And so it didn't need to change. You know, Biden could
18:03
have very easily said, you know what, I know I said we were going to pull everybody out. We're
18:07
going to hold hold what we got indefinitely. And if you don't like it, we can we can go back at it,
18:13
you know, so, you know, to me that that's just the deal, you know, you're also at a point where,
18:19
you know, if you had to say, you know, we'll kick it up a notch and take the gloves off too and
18:22
stop caring about collateral damage, you know, we can go that route to we as a nation have done
18:27
that in the past, IE World War II, where, you know, we were facing a similarly dedicated enemy.
18:34
And it took those types of measures to say, Hey, you know, this, this isn't a good scenario. It's a
18:38
lesser two evils and we're doing what we have to do to get the point across to say, you're going to
18:43
stop [inaudible] with us. You're going to pay with your life. So we could have gone that route too. It's
18:47
just, you know, I think I don't think I know our current administration is, they've got their head
18:53
in the clouds. I mean, that's that's reality. But I don't, I don't want to make it about politics.
18:57
It shouldn't be and it really isn't. I mean, this is very simply, you know, you're in charge. You
19:03
made a series of really, really [inaudible] decisions. You know, and now, now this is what you're saying
19:09
because of it. I do think some of the military leadership is absolutely to blame too. I mean,
19:14
when you've got General Millie or Miley, I think his name is, you know, kicking, you know,
19:20
books off of the reading list and adding white fragility and, you know, going to, you know,
19:25
and talking to Congress about white rage and, and saying that, you know, the top three
19:30
terrorists, these are the top three terrorist threats to our country are
19:35
refusing COVID vaccinations, questioning, you know, COVID protocols, celebrating
19:41
Fourth of July and other or I'm sorry, between Fourth of July and 9/11, celebrating 9/11
19:48
or having 9/11, you know, party celebrations, what have you. And then lastly, but certainly not least
19:55
is questioning the the election results. You know, that that's the Department of Homeland
20:01
Security's top three terrorist threats as per them. I mean, it's absurd, you know, and so
20:06
if our military would focus less on social projects and, you know, the proper use of pronouns and
20:14
white fragility and transgender experiments in the military and just focused on one simple thing,
20:20
which is let's stay good at whipping some ass. I don't think we'd be in this position either.
20:24
So just it's heartbreaking. Yeah, you wish the focus would be on that and being as lethal as
20:30
possible. Because again, you have, you know, these people that are in the Pentagon talking about
20:34
climate change in a militaristic context is like, what are we going to do? Shoot nukes at the moon
20:38
or like try to like get rid of sun rays using, you know, different types of beating use. But
20:43
something that you came up with, which is kind of undergirding all of this is that you were over
20:47
there actually dealing with these people day in and day out, you were dealing with interpreters,
20:51
you were dealing with informants, you were dealing with people that were helping you.
20:54
And that is the those are the people now that the Taliban are apparently going door to door
20:59
and executing these people and their entire family tree, right? And so for you, that's one
21:04
of the most damnable things for me as I look forward into the future is is if we do go back,
21:09
not only are we going to have to take back these these cities, you know, house by house, block by
21:14
block grid by grid again, which I don't know if we have the stomach to do that. But who's going
21:19
to help us? Because if because if you're these people in the ground, why in the world would you
21:22
trust the Americans that you wouldn't? Yeah, you wouldn't. I mean, and you can't blame them, you
21:27
know, I mean, would there still be some people that would help? Because you know, the alternative
21:31
is getting their head cut off. Sure. But it's going to be much, much more difficult. And you know,
21:37
it paints a pretty terrible picture, you know, to the rest of the world for any future things
21:43
that happen that, you know, that America's not going to have your back. And it's just going to make
21:47
everything moving moving forward much, much more difficult. Well, from your perspective,
21:52
because you've kind of seen these things play out, you know, I've just thought to myself, we're
21:56
not going to see the true ramifications of this one micro decision by Joe Biden for decades. I feel
22:02
like we're this is going to be playing out for a very, very long time. But if from your perspective,
22:07
what can the American public expect to see in the next 12 months? You know, what would you,
22:11
what would you think? Yeah, I mean, so I don't subscribe to or necessarily agree that,
22:16
you know, that now all of a sudden overnight that the world is far more dangerous. I think,
22:22
you know, it's impossible to argue that it's more dangerous. I don't think that it's now all the
22:27
sudden 9/11 is going to happen in three months. Again, I really don't think that, you know, does
22:33
does that chance exist? Of course it does. But again, I'll revert to the last 20 years of, you know,
22:40
they they understand that. And that's why they've kept their distance the way they have over the
22:44
last few years is because they knew what the alternative was. You know, they also feel confident
22:50
enough in in the inability of our government at this juncture to do anything about it for them to
22:58
feel confident and comfortable enough to do what they're doing, which which is alarming. It also
23:02
tells you a lot about again, how they feel about Joe Biden. I mean, you know, to me, that's the one
23:08
thing like all politics, [inaudible], media, aside, the rose colored glasses that each political party
23:13
is guilty of seeing their own guy from is that, you know, that the litmus is the other countries,
23:18
you know, and you're seeing that right now. That's impossible to argue. I mean, they're doing what
23:22
they're doing right now because they don't they don't respect America being led by who is in charge
23:28
right now. And I use that very, very, you know, suspect, you know, it's not that he's in charge,
23:36
but I mean, he's the figurehead of the government and the country, unfortunately. And what they're
23:42
doing right now tells you everything that you need to know about how threatened they feel and how
23:47
serious they take him. They don't. You saw the same thing with with ISIS, you know, in Obama
23:52
in his second term is that absolutely no respect for American power with those people at the helm
23:58
because they're not doing anything about it. I mean, there's a reason why and this isn't about,
24:03
you know, right versus left or whatever, this is just, you know, solid internal leadership,
24:08
international leadership versus not, is that, you know, the litmus and the and the mirror reflection
24:14
of of how it's going and what the world thinks of you is how they how they treat you, how they
24:19
interact with you. And right now they're [inaudible] laughing us because that didn't happen when when
24:23
Trump went into into Iraq and stomped the [inaudible] out of ISIS in a matter of months and, you know,
24:28
killed back daddy. I mean, that they disappeared. You know, you stop saying all these
24:34
refugees, you know, piling into Europe and causing problems, you stop seeing, you know, Al Qaeda and
24:41
ISIS affiliates doing lone wolf attacks all over Europe and threatening to do it, do them other
24:46
places, all of that [inaudible] stopped. Why? Because he handled business the way that you need to the
24:51
same way Ronald Reagan did and, you know, with the carry the big stick attitude. And so, you know,
24:57
it's it's really unfortunate. Like I said, it's heartbreaking to see it. Ultimately, you know,
25:02
I pay attention to it. I'm watching and I'm keeping tabs on it. But I try not to let myself get
25:07
consumed with it because I think it's counterproductive. I mean, I, I focus on the things primarily that
25:14
I have the ability to do something about. And so that's that's what I spend most of my time focusing
25:19
on. So you obviously talked about the difference between, you know, how the Trump administration
25:23
with all their awards, but how they treated foreign policy and warfare versus an Obama or
25:27
a Biden administration. So from your perspective, do you feel like it's going to take the because
25:32
you said you didn't want to make it about politics, but obviously it is about politics. And you know
25:35
that just as well as everybody else does. Is it going to take another red tie in office for us to
25:41
kind of have that attitude or was, was Trump a unique figure was bushing unique figures to
25:45
Santa's going to be able to do it is, you know, Nikki Haley going to be able to do it? Like,
25:48
what are your thoughts there? No, I don't think so. I don't think it has to be a Republican to do
25:54
that. I think, you know, there are people on the left, you know, that, that I think, you know,
26:00
would have handled it better than, than Biden. But, you know, to me, ultimately, it really boils
26:06
down to one, one key thing is that you either have your, your country's best interest in mind,
26:10
or you don't, you know, and, and the reality of it is, is that right now the current people that are,
26:17
that are in office seem based on their actions. And I strongly believe that. And, you know,
26:23
one of my favorite adages is what you do speak so loud. I can't hear what you say is that I don't
26:28
give a [inaudible] what, what you say behind a podium, what your mouthpiece says, whatever, what you're
26:32
doing tells everybody everything about, about what your intentions are, what your priorities are,
26:37
etc. The fact is, is that, you know, from, from based on their actions, they care more about
26:44
optics and aesthetics and what people are going to think of them. You know, then they do, you know,
26:49
what, what their own country is, is having to go through. And the irony of it all is, is that,
26:55
you know, you, you kind of lose both ways that way. You know, when, when you do everything trying
26:59
to appease everybody, you end up [inaudible] everybody off. And that's what's happening is, is now like
27:03
their own party isn't even back in them. You know, I mean, it's, it's surprising to, to see people who,
27:09
you know, I mean, just no matter what the guy did would not hold him to task, you know, and hold
27:16
him accountable that are, that are really slamming him and questioning everything that he's doing
27:20
right now, which is at least refreshing to see, you know, because, you know, one of the things I
27:25
talk about in the book that's coming out is, is, you know, if you can't hold yourself, slash your
27:32
own party to the same standard, you hold the other guys to, you know, then you're a useless
27:36
hypocrite and you're no better than anybody else, you know, so it is nice to see that, that there's
27:42
some balance there. Absolutely. And as we wind do a close here, it's kind of hard not to end with
27:48
these types of questions, but you've alluded to this and I know you well enough to pretty much be
27:52
able to know your answer, but I want you to give it to my audience. And so it's kind of a two-part
27:55
question. The first is, do you regret going over there and risking your life considering how this
28:02
has ended up, but then also parlay that into your personal message, Mike Ritland's message,
28:08
to Gold Star families that have either lost dads or brothers or, or, you know, spouses or, you know,
28:15
their, their family members came home without their limbs or busted up in the head or something
28:19
like that. So go ahead and just kind of speak on those two things. So just, just to throw you off,
28:24
I do regret it and I have no message about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
28:28
No, I 100% I don't regret it. And this really ties into the message for Gold Star families,
28:36
as none of us do, you know, or I mean, I can comfortably say I speak for everybody that I know
28:41
at least, you know, is that none of us do. And there's one simple key reason is that, you know,
28:47
for myself and for most veterans, even the ones that don't come home, I think, you know, that we
28:54
all do what we do because we want to do it. It's a voluntary force. We chose to be there. We,
28:59
we know, you know, what we're signing up for and what the risks are that are involved. And there's
29:03
no place we would rather be than, you know, with our brothers and arms doing, you know, or getting
29:10
our hands dirty on behalf of Uncle Sam for our country. Having said that, it's easy, you know,
29:17
having been in Iraq, it's easy to look back on it now and be like, [inaudible], was that a mistake? Like,
29:20
why did we really go? You know, and you can ask yourself all those questions. But, you know,
29:25
to me, none of that really matters. And the reason it doesn't matter, and this would be my message
29:29
to Gold Star families, is that, you know, all of us volunteered to, to hand over a blank check up
29:38
to and including our lives payable to the United States government when we signed on the dotted
29:43
line and stand there with our right hand up given the oath. Past that, you know, it's up to our
29:49
elected leaders to decide what's, what our usage is in the best interest of the country. And they
29:55
decide where we go and who we fight and how we do it and all of those things. But for us,
30:00
it's just very simply, I'm volunteering to serve my country in whatever capacity my country sees,
30:06
you know, best fit for me to do so. And that's it. You know, and that's a very noble and honorable
30:11
thing to do. And it's, you know, serving a greater good that most people frankly aren't willing to do.
30:17
And, you know, that should be enough, you know, for everybody to hang their hat at the end of the day
30:22
and say, I'm proud to have volunteered and roger'd up to, you know, trust and love my country enough
30:28
to let them send me to go do whatever the [inaudible] they thought I should be doing. And I did it to the
30:33
best, my ability. And I came home and I'm proud of doing that, because that's really all that
30:37
matters. I mean, you can't control any of those other things. You can control whether or not you
30:41
volunteer or not. And that's it, you know, so and whether or not you give it your all and and
30:47
sort of honorably and things of that nature. So, you know, again, I don't view any of it in vain
30:52
for all of those reasons. All right, well, Mike, we are going to have you back on here before too
30:57
long and we are going to have a more proper interview where we break down some of your books and
31:01
everything. But I definitely wanted to get your opinion on all this very quickly. Is there anything
31:04
else you want to let us know before we let you go? No, just, you know, for all of us out there that
31:09
see that and are [inaudible] off again, just keep your chin up and realize the big picture of the good
31:14
things that came out of it. You know, I mean, at this point, there's nothing, nothing we can do
31:18
right now to change what's going on right now. The people that are in charge, you know, are the ones
31:26
pulling the strings and all we can do is, you know, try to find the best out of it and maintain
31:32
a good attitude and don't let, you know, things like that, you know, send you on a spiral downward
31:37
that, you know, causes problems. All right, Mike, thanks for coming on. Absolutely.