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0:50
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
0:54
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:56
Let's get into it.
0:57
Guys, we've got a special guest on the podcast today.
0:58
His name is Hunter Robocho.
1:00
So he's a retired Marine, the son of Chad Robocho, and he is one of the main figures
1:04
of this new book, A Mission Without Borders, why a father and son risked it all for the
1:08
people of Ukraine.
1:09
So if you listened earlier this week, you heard from his father who helped write this
1:13
book and was kind of the main character this whole deal.
1:16
But in this interview today, it was just an interesting perspective after we've gotten
1:19
the father's perspective to now get the son's perspective.
1:22
But we talk about, you know, why did he become a Marine?
1:24
You know, how was this in the Robocho blood to be United States Marine, but also the
1:28
politicization of the United States military, which actually helped lead to him leaving the
1:32
military, how he got into ministry, how he was left out of the Save Our Allies mission
1:37
to help people in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal, but then how disappointing that
1:42
was to him.
1:43
But then also how he got roped into the mission in Ukraine.
1:46
In the middle of the interview, we start, we kind of both went off on a diatribe a bit
1:50
about, you know, modern day pastors and modern day Christians not really stepping up.
1:53
And, you know, there's not really a focus on man friendly churches.
1:57
And there's not even really a focus on men's ministry.
1:59
So we talk a little bit about that, but I really enjoyed his perspective as well, hearing
2:03
about what Ukrainian pastors are like over there.
2:07
So these are guys that are helping literally fight the Russians.
2:10
These are people that are fighting and killing people in this conflict, you know, using just
2:15
war theory to help push back darkness over there in their country.
2:19
And so it was interesting to hear his perspective on that.
2:21
We wouldn't talk about a lot of different things as well, so I just want to go ahead
2:24
and get you into it.
2:25
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
2:28
Hunter Robocho, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
2:31
Man, thanks for having me.
2:32
I appreciate it.
2:34
It's weird.
2:35
I feel like I'm collecting Robocho's at this point because your dad's been on a whole
2:38
bunch of times.
2:39
There's you like how many others before I could like maybe be considered like part of
2:42
the family?
2:43
How many more do I have to get to?
2:44
There's a list.
2:45
I don't have to get my brother, my sister, my other sister, my kids.
2:51
All right.
2:52
Well, that just became like an extra line item that I don't really have the time to do.
2:56
But you know, we need to get into our discussion today.
2:59
And one of the, I guess easiest ways is I guess being a United States Marine just runs
3:05
in the blood of a Robocho.
3:06
So it's just kind of like a thing.
3:07
It's kind of like the family business.
3:09
So you're not a former Marine because I've been told there's no such thing, but you are
3:13
a retired Marine, but let's just start there.
3:16
What made you interested in joining the military?
3:19
Why the Marine Corps?
3:20
You know, why did you get out?
3:21
Let's just start there.
3:22
Yeah.
3:23
Well, I wanted to join the best.
3:25
First of all, I'll start with that.
3:26
No hate to other brands here, but yeah, no, I have respect for all the branches, you know,
3:32
but being a Marine was always a goal of mine.
3:35
I wanted to, I wanted to join something that I took a lot of pride in, something that I
3:40
saw a lot of men take a pride in, take a lot of pride in, but also the Marine Corps history
3:45
runs deep in my family.
3:46
My dad was a Marine, my grandfather was a Marine, my great grandfather on my mother's
3:52
side was a Marine in the Pacific in World War II.
3:56
So it's, there's a lot of history within the Marine Corps within my family.
4:00
And I wanted to do something that was bigger than myself and that was to join the Marine
4:04
Corps to serve my country.
4:06
So I had both sides.
4:07
I wanted to do it because it was family tradition and I also wanted to serve my country.
4:12
And so you serve.
4:13
So how long were you in?
4:14
I was in a total of eight years.
4:16
Okay.
4:17
And so deployed as well.
4:18
I did.
4:19
Yeah.
4:20
I deployed to Afghanistan in 2019.
4:21
Let's talk a little bit about why you got out because that's not like the, the most fun
4:28
story, because my understanding is that you did want to stay in correct?
4:31
I did want to stay in one of the, one of the things that I, that I did not like about
4:39
my later part of being in the military was how political things got.
4:43
I, you know, everybody ends entitled to their own opinion about politics and I respect that.
4:49
That's part of your freedoms as an American.
4:52
But when politics get involved of, when politics get involved in the military of where you have
4:58
to make decisions that can ultimately get your Marines killed that are around you.
5:04
And then things such as the force vaccine, thankfully I did not have to get into a situation
5:10
where I was either forced to take the vaccine or get pushed out of the Marine Corps.
5:14
That happened to my little brother Hayden.
5:16
He actually got kicked out of the Marine Corps because he did not get the vaccine.
5:21
But it got so political where I was like, I can either stay in this and, and deal with
5:26
the politics and be a sheep and just go with the herd or I can bow out.
5:30
I did my time.
5:31
I did my deployment.
5:32
I, I fought for my country.
5:34
I served my country, which I think every man in our country should do for at least a certain
5:39
amount of time.
5:41
And you know, it was, I felt like God was calling me out of that position.
5:45
And I, I, when I originally went into the Marine Corps, I wanted to do 20 plus years
5:51
in the Marine Corps.
5:52
I wanted to become a master gunnery sergeant.
5:53
I don't want to be the sergeant major of the Marine Corps or anything like that.
5:57
But I wanted to be a master gunnery sergeant in my job so that I could get back to my community
6:02
later, years later on the road.
6:05
And so let's talk a little bit about kind of the rug being pulled out from underneath
6:08
you, because you know, you did say you felt like God was leading you out, but there were
6:11
plenty of other stimuli kind of pushing you in that direction of leaving.
6:16
And so it, you know, when you think you're going to be a 20 year guy, and then you get
6:19
out basically after a couple of contracts.
6:22
So you got your eight years in, like that's got to be like, at the very least, it's got
6:27
to throw your future plans, like, you know, into a spin cycle a little bit to where you're
6:31
like, man, I really thought I was going to be doing this, but you know, my life took
6:34
a hard right turn, you know.
6:36
Yeah, absolutely, it was a major, like, change of my plan for life.
6:42
But it was, like I said, where God was calling me.
6:45
So I had peace about it.
6:48
You know, I look back at it and I'm glad I made that decision.
6:52
I'm glad I made that decision to step out of the Marine Corps because that ultimately
6:56
pulled me into doing ministry full time.
6:59
If I wouldn't have gotten out of the Marine Corps, I probably wouldn't have had this
7:03
opportunity to serve more people.
7:07
I get to serve more people now than I get in the Marine Corps.
7:10
And so God, God prepared me for this time in ministry in my time in the Marine Corps.
7:16
Okay.
7:17
So what was the ministry that you got into right after you left the Marine Corps?
7:20
Yeah.
7:21
So my family started my d oaks in 2011.
7:24
And many of you are familiar with my d oaks, but kind of short, just spill.
7:29
We help first responders, service members and their spouses, veterans and active duty,
7:36
struggling with pushman of stress would bring them to a five day camp, completely free peer
7:41
to peer based mentorship.
7:42
If you want to learn more, go watch my dad's podcast or go to mydioaksprograms.org.
7:48
But what I do for my d oaks is I'm the international programs director.
7:53
I joined my d oaks because I wanted to serve these type of people, but then while being
7:58
in my d oaks, there was opportunities that came up to do international ministry in Afghanistan,
8:05
Peru, and most recently, Ukraine.
8:08
And I saw that as a great opportunity for me to use my expertise from the Marine Corps
8:13
of working with locals to go into these areas and work with a local chaplain network.
8:20
Okay.
8:21
Let's actually get into Afghanistan because, you know, we had we had chat on.
8:26
We had Tim Kennedy on.
8:27
Sarah Verardo on, you know, talking around the stuff that was happening during the pull
8:30
out from Afghanistan and all the subsequent things that save our allies did.
8:34
But there's a very appropriate quote from actually a book that we're helping push right
8:38
now, which is a mission without borders.
8:39
This is a book that, you know, your dad wrote, which talks about the mission you'll had in
8:44
Ukraine, which we'll get to in just a second.
8:47
But at the end of the book, you have your own section and I want to actually want to
8:49
read one of your quotes here.
8:51
Not being able to go into Afghanistan personally, that summer hurt.
8:55
I've never been the guy who gets held back, especially as a Marine.
8:58
I've always volunteered, always wanted to be the first guy to put up his hand no matter
9:02
what the mission.
9:03
But in that summer of 2021, when I was told to stay right where I was in Abu Dhabi, I
9:07
was deeply frustrated.
9:09
I also understood the position my dad was in as both a leader and a father.
9:13
I'm sure it wasn't easy for him to make those calls.
9:16
And so obviously no spoiler alert, you weren't allowed, like on the ground in Afghanistan
9:20
to be a part of what, you know, Tim and Chad and C spray and all those guys were doing actually
9:24
on the ground.
9:26
And you know, you didn't really like that very much.
9:29
And so let's get into why that decision was made.
9:33
And also what you were prepared to do if a different decision had been made.
9:36
Yeah, obviously I went there with the intention of going to Afghanistan.
9:40
I went there with no other intention.
9:42
I was dead set on doing that, you know.
9:46
And when I found out I was not going, I was definitely hurt.
9:50
I mean, I can get into all the personal reasons for it, but that doesn't matter.
9:55
You know, God, God had me wait for a reason with what it really comes down to, like God
10:01
had me working within the humanitarian city during that, during that season there.
10:07
But it hurt like if I would lie to you, if I said I wasn't hurt, because my whole life,
10:12
I've always been the one that said, yes, to doing the most crazy stuff because I'm not
10:19
really like I know where I'm going when I die.
10:21
And so the fear of death doesn't scare me.
10:24
I think maybe the fear of like it hurting scares me, but the fear of death doesn't scare
10:28
me because I know where I'm going to be.
10:32
And so hearing that I had to stay back, hearing that I wasn't going to be able to hop on a
10:37
plane to go over there, but other people were going to be allowed to go that I felt like
10:43
weren't qualified or weren't the right person for the task, that was something that I had
10:51
to put on the shoulders of Christ, because I couldn't handle that in my own.
10:54
I couldn't handle hearing that I was the one being put on the bench because I was the one
11:02
that was always off the bench.
11:04
I was the one in Afghanistan that was always volunteering to make sure that I was on the
11:09
machine gun.
11:10
I was always like the guy trying to go on every single mission because I wanted to be
11:16
known as that guy.
11:17
I wanted to be known as the guy that wasn't afraid that wasn't someone that would back
11:21
down, but someone that could lead when I know obviously we can connect the dots looking
11:27
backwards, but you couldn't have known that what popped off in Ukraine was actually going
11:32
to pop off.
11:33
There were signs everywhere.
11:34
Obviously, when the Biden administration took over, I'm sure Putin was just looking
11:38
at his chops, thinking about all the borders that he could push back for the sake of Mother
11:42
Russia.
11:44
Ukraine happens.
11:46
Your father, I believe, was actually on the ground in Ukraine right before the actual invasion,
11:51
but this time was different in terms of your involvement because you were going to be pulled
11:56
in to help in Ukraine, not because of nepotism or because your dad really likes you.
12:02
You missed your shot in Afghanistan, so let's go play soldier over here in Ukraine, but you
12:07
were actually very qualified to help out with a very specific task, which actually was your
12:12
initial foray into getting into what was going on in Ukraine.
12:16
Take us through that.
12:18
Yeah, so the night the invasion happened in Ukraine, my dad was actually at home at this
12:25
time.
12:26
Okay.
12:27
Him and I live eight minutes from each other.
12:29
Oh, yeah, it was C spray that was actually in country.
12:31
He was already.
12:32
That's right.
12:33
That's right.
12:34
That's what I was about to kick off, and so everything comes up on Instagram, so I get
12:41
a text from my buddy Steve saying, "Hey, did you see what happened in Ukraine?"
12:45
Because like a month before, we were talking about the Russian stage up on the border,
12:50
and I was like, "They're not going to do anything like Putin's just flexing.
12:54
That's not going to happen."
12:56
Text me.
12:57
Look on my phone, and sure enough, I'm watching live warfare on news cameras and Keve, Keve
13:07
is being attacked, Keve is being bombed, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, Keve is being straight
13:16
up World War II-style ambush."
13:18
And so I texted my dad, I said, "Hey, did you see what's going on in Ukraine right now?
13:23
It's actually happened."
13:24
And then the typical talk of, "What are we going to do now?"
13:31
This was around the time that the whole SOA thing was happening.
13:34
It was like the world's superheroes, and so it's like, "Oh, what are the Avengers going
13:39
to do?
13:40
We're going to fly over there."
13:41
And so I was pumped.
13:42
I was like, "We're obviously going to do something, we're obviously going to go help."
13:46
So within 24 hours, we had a team ready to go, and I was a part of that team.
13:52
And some stuff happened, some administrative stuff, and kind of that plan for that team
13:58
to go over to Ukraine dissolved, and it was just going to be my dad.
14:03
And I really wanted to go with my dad, I really wanted to go to Ukraine with him originally,
14:09
but I had to stay back.
14:10
And that frustrated me, because that took me back to that point in Abu Dhabi when I
14:14
was benched, I'm not going to Afghanistan, I felt like I was being benched again.
14:18
And I was like, "All right, God, I can either choose to be super angry about this and just
14:26
annoyed again, or I can just choose to follow what you're calling me to do, continue to
14:33
serve where I'm at, and eventually you'll place me where I need to be."
14:37
And that's what happened.
14:39
Six days later, I was in crack-out Poland.
14:42
The reason I went to crack-out Poland originally was I needed to bring some gear over there.
14:49
Sea spray saw a crack in the system within Ukraine, within the infrastructure, the Russians
14:54
were hitting the communications networks and the power grids, and he needed to get a communication
15:02
to infrastructure built.
15:03
So I helped facilitate in creating this communications infrastructure within Ukraine.
15:09
And so I got the equipment in the U.S., probably almost a million dollars worth, put it all
15:14
in bags and flew from Houston to crack-out.
15:21
I had a ton of bags.
15:22
I don't know how I didn't get stopped by U.S. customs.
15:24
I did not get stopped in Germany by their customs, and I did not get stopped in Poland
15:28
by their customs.
15:29
It's an act of God, right?
15:31
I mean, the stuff that I was bringing across, it's not like I was bringing across weapons
15:36
or anything that's lethal, but I'm bringing across thousands and thousands of dollars
15:43
of equipment.
15:44
I mean, if you're traveling with jewelry and you don't like, what is it, disclaim it at
15:50
like customs, like traveling, that can cause some problems.
15:53
And meanwhile, I'm traveling with almost a million dollars worth of radios in a bag.
15:59
So funny story, I was boarding my flight to Frankfurt, and the gate agent is like, "Oh,
16:08
you can't take this bag on, and this bag was full of lithium batteries."
16:13
And I'm like, "Dude, I can't check this bag in.
16:16
It's literally full of batteries."
16:17
He's like, "Well, you got to figure something out, or you're not getting on the plane."
16:20
So I had to take almost 100 pounds of lithium batteries, find little every crevice in my
16:25
backpack and throw this backpack on.
16:27
So I walked across all of Europe with this backpack full of lithium batteries just to
16:34
make sure that those lithium batteries that go on those radios were able to make, it's
16:37
where the Ukraine...
16:38
Hey, you were like to energize your money there temporarily.
16:40
Yeah, it literally was.
16:42
I got the nickname FedEx, because I became the shipping dude.
16:46
So that's kind of how I got pulled into it.
16:49
And I met some great dudes upon arrival.
16:53
It was weird coming from a regular unit, not a regular unit, but a...
16:57
We were a specialized unit, but not like tier one or anything.
17:01
And then going to where I was in Poland and coming into a room, and there was a guy in
17:09
there, I'm not going to say his name for security reasons, but C-spray was also in there.
17:13
And I get there with all these bags and say, like, "Welcome to the show, man.
17:16
We're so glad you're here.
17:18
Let me make you a cup of coffee.
17:20
I made your bed upstairs, there's a towel in the bed for you to take a shower, go get
17:23
some rest, like, enjoy your time."
17:27
And I was like, "Man, like, I felt like I was part of the team, like, I felt like I finally
17:32
made it at this point in time."
17:36
Well that's got to be a great feeling, because you don't strike me as a guy that needs the
17:39
accolades, you don't strike me as a guy that needs, you know, the pad on the head, but
17:44
it is one thing when you're outside looking in on the team that you want to be a part
17:48
of.
17:49
And so, you know, it's obviously very good that you were there.
17:52
And again, you were there because you weren't just trained in a way to where you could find
17:58
all this equipment in America, because you didn't just go to Best Buy, you had to really
18:02
work hard to find all this equipment in America.
18:05
But then over there, you had to get ready to get all this stuff set up.
18:08
And so it wasn't like, "Okay, thank you FedEx for getting this all here.
18:12
Now we're going to let the professionals take care of it."
18:14
So save me through the process of just getting these things set up, because I'm assuming
18:17
it wasn't like the most exciting work ever, but in terms of importance, it was incredibly
18:23
important.
18:24
Yeah, I mean, this was one of the most important parts of what we did in Ukraine, other than
18:30
rescuing people and saving their lives, but no one knew communications equipment like
18:37
I did.
18:38
I think I'm a little bit of a nerd, like I might definitely be on the spectrum, especially
18:42
for like communication stuff, like it has to be done perfect.
18:48
I have to have my communication stuff right.
18:50
What I did in the Marine Corps involved a lot of radios, and if one radio doesn't work,
18:55
that means it's like the daisy chain of stuff not working.
18:58
So I expected these guys, my dad, C spray, and some of the other guys there to be able
19:05
to pick these things up and start programming them and getting everything set.
19:09
And that wasn't the case.
19:10
They looked at it like it was a rock and they didn't know what to do.
19:13
The only one that really knew about it was C spray, he kind of knows everything about
19:17
radios, but he wasn't going to be able to do it by himself, and he didn't have time
19:23
to do really any of them.
19:25
So I got asked to stay, and I basically stayed up for like four days straight, programming
19:34
radios, contacting companies within the United States to get these radios programmed, activating
19:40
everything, making the communications packages, so going through each one of these pieces
19:46
of equipment, getting serial numbers off of them.
19:49
So we knew where these pieces of equipment were going.
19:53
After they were staged and ready to go, I would get their serial numbers.
19:56
I would put them into our database so I could see them on a screen live feed basically where
20:03
these pieces of equipment were at within the country and tested everything and then we
20:10
activated it.
20:11
We had chaplains from Ukraine come into Poland, I gave them the equipment, and we did our
20:18
test run with about 15 pieces of equipment.
20:21
They went into the country and we saw the spider web form.
20:26
And you know, I was like, holy cow, like I just did something that I don't think anyone
20:33
has ever done in the history of the world, and now I'm watching it unfold in front of
20:39
my eyes, and I didn't do this for money, I didn't do it for accolades, I didn't do it
20:44
for anything other than I felt like God was calling me to help.
20:49
And seeing how God was able to give me the energy to program about 150 pieces of equipment
20:58
by myself and countless hours of like wanting to throw a laptop across the room, I was able
21:04
to see how those pieces of equipment were going to ultimately save people's lives and
21:10
still save people's lives to this day.
21:12
Well, I'm going to be real honest, I'm glad you were there because if it were up to me,
21:16
those people of Ukraine were been absolutely screwed and so we need we need you guys like
21:19
you to do your thing.
21:20
But no, you know, the same thing is true about the church.
21:23
The body is not all one part, you have many parts that make up the hole that make up the
21:28
body.
21:29
And the same thing goes into the mission that you guys had in Ukraine.
21:33
But you were there, it wasn't like, Hey, thanks for setting up the radios, peace out.
21:37
You were there for a while, you stuck around for a while, I want to kind of get an understanding
21:42
from your perspective about the reality of what what you saw or what the team saw on
21:47
the ground because there was this hasn't been widely reported, but there were Russian special
21:52
operation snipers that were targeting us and other humanitarian aid workers in Ukraine.
21:59
There were Russian kill squads that were going into civilian communities where they knew there
22:02
were no military age males in systematically executing the elderly men, but also the women
22:09
and children of all ages, throwing them into mass graves, stuff that we should be hearing
22:14
about.
22:15
But if we were to hear about them, maybe, you know, it would kind of throw off our support
22:20
for certain political candidates or something or other, it's just not really that important
22:23
for anybody to hear.
22:25
But what did you and the rest of the team see when you were actually there on the ground
22:28
while the conflict was happening as it, you know, is still ongoing?
22:31
Yeah, you know, I've been there over 10 times now, and it still doesn't get, I don't get
22:37
used to it.
22:39
Seeing the stuff that you see over there because it's not like, it's not like this is a Taliban
22:45
fighting force.
22:46
This is a conventional military, doing conventional military type of things to civilians.
22:55
So see, some of the stuff that you see in this type of warfare is like World War I, World
23:01
War II-type of stuff, cities completely leveled to the ground, civilians dead on streets.
23:09
Obviously, you see Ukrainian and Russian soldiers dead on the streets.
23:14
There's a lot of death and destruction.
23:16
If I could do two words to sum it up as death and destruction everywhere, east of Kyiv.
23:24
And you see the people that are living, you see the death in their eyes, you see them walking
23:29
around like zombies because they're in constant fear of if they're going to live that next
23:35
day.
23:36
And they're in fear of their kids are going to be able to walk to school freely without
23:40
getting hit by a rocket coming from the Russians, you know, it's just so much evil, so much
23:48
evil is visible there.
23:50
Yeah.
23:51
Well, so let me actually ask you about that a little bit more because everyone that's
23:57
done any level of Christian apologetics has dealt with this question because it's kind
24:01
of the first question, which is the problem of evil.
24:03
And so it's like, okay, how can bad things happen to good people?
24:07
Then you obviously have to unpack.
24:08
Okay, what do you mean by good people?
24:10
What do you mean by bad things?
24:11
What do you mean by?
24:12
Are you holding the ultimate seed of judgment?
24:13
Can you see all the different tendrils that come off of this one situation and you just
24:17
kind of go on and on and then everyone leaves angry?
24:19
But like for you, where is God in this conflict?
24:24
Because there are people in America, Hunter, as you know, as you sit here in America right
24:27
now, that they feel like they are suffering persecution because someone left a mean comment
24:32
on their Instagram when they shared a scripture or, you know, video of their favorite pastor.
24:37
And you have these people that, you know, these cowardly pastors that won't stand up
24:42
and say anything like about, you know, transgenderism of children or, you know, forced upon them.
24:47
They won't say anything about abortion.
24:48
They won't say anything about, you know, an Olympic athlete, a female getting beaten up
24:52
by a man or they won't say anything about any of these things because they just want
24:55
to be about the gospel, even though they're not really about that either.
24:58
And so I'm just curious, like for the people over there on the ground, are they seeing God
25:04
work even in the midst of rubble and dead bodies?
25:08
Absolutely.
25:09
Yeah.
25:10
There is no place on this planet with universe, galaxy, whatever we can go past all that right?
25:16
There's nowhere where God is not at.
25:19
He is with us everywhere.
25:21
And I've seen Ukrainians attest to this and I can personally attest to this with, you know,
25:28
multiple times in Ukraine seeing God work within the ministry that we're doing to saving
25:33
our lives.
25:34
Like he is there, but to go back to your original question with why do bad things happen to
25:39
good people?
25:40
Well, first of all, as a biblical Christian, right?
25:44
The Bible clearly states that like we were born into sin, right?
25:49
We were, we are not good people.
25:52
We can be a nice person.
25:53
We could be a person that gives the clothes off our back.
25:55
We can, you know, honor God all, all of our days, but we are a sinful nature.
26:00
And so therefore we've allowed sin into this world.
26:04
That means evil is going to come to this world, right?
26:07
What's happening in our country, right?
26:09
We allowed this to happen in our country.
26:11
Our politicians didn't allow this us as the community for not sticking up for what's right.
26:18
We allowed sin to come into our country.
26:21
And so we see evil happening in the world and we're like, well, if there's a God, like
26:25
why would God allow this?
26:26
Well, we allow this, right?
26:30
We allowed sin into our heart.
26:32
Sin is the recipe for evil and destruction and death to happen.
26:38
So it's just, I mean, as much evil that is happening within our world, but specifically
26:43
Ukraine for this topic, I've seen God move so much in that evil place because there is
26:51
always light where there is darkness.
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28:19
Well, Hunter, tell me a little bit more about what you experienced from the pastors there,
28:28
because it's elucidated a little bit in the book, A Mission Without Borders.
28:32
But when push comes to shove, you see who the tough guys are, right?
28:37
I mean, you're a jujitsu guy, like your dad was a fighter, like, I mean, there's the guys
28:41
that are popping their mouth off, like pointing their fingers at dudes in the bar.
28:45
And then there's the guys that are just about it.
28:47
And we're seeing that with pastors.
28:49
It's like, okay, you kind of saw who the real dudes were in the 1930s in Germany when
28:55
the third Reich was rising.
28:56
And there were certain pastors that were willing to stand up against that.
29:00
And there were certain pastors that were not.
29:01
And some even like a Dietrich Bonhoeffer that were down to try and kill the guy, right?
29:05
Hitler, that was in charge of the rise of the Nazi party.
29:08
But then you get to Christians and American again, it's kind of like this whole squishy
29:12
thing.
29:13
It's like, oh, we don't want to be about the culture war.
29:14
But then it's like, wait, so do you only want atheists running the government?
29:18
Do you only want atheists running the culture?
29:19
Do you only want atheists teaching your children?
29:21
Like help me understand your position.
29:23
But then you go to Ukraine and y'all are seeing guys that are actively a part of the
29:27
war effort.
29:28
They're not just giving balls of water to dying men and praying for their families once
29:31
they're gone.
29:32
So talk to me a little bit about what you saw from these pastors and what you've seen from
29:36
them continuously.
29:37
Yeah, these pastors are willing to go into the trenches with these men and fight with
29:43
these men.
29:44
There's a lot of chaplains in Ukraine that do that, mainly the ones that are part of
29:48
the Eastern Orthodox Church.
29:51
Those ones who do not fight, but the ones that are part of the non-denominational or
29:56
Protestant movement.
29:58
Those guys are the ones that are willing to pick up a rifle and throw down with soldiers.
30:03
And that's the type of pastor we need in America.
30:07
We need a man that's willing to stand up for truth, to fight for truth, right?
30:12
Because we have a lot of pastors within the U.S. that are afraid to say these specific
30:19
things or talk about tough subjects because they're worried about people not coming to
30:23
their church or worried about offending people.
30:25
Meanwhile, you have pastors in Ukraine who are literally fighting for their country, killing,
30:33
not murdering, killing enemy soldiers that are trying to kill them, their friends and
30:39
their families.
30:41
The reason why I don't know life is here, Hunter, is to equip men to push back darkness.
30:45
The thing that's easy as an American is that there's darkness, but it's not like darkness
30:51
like an invading army or invading military, rather, like it's not a darkness like that.
30:57
And so for a lot of us, we can get really philosophical about darkness.
31:01
And of course, there's the spiritual darkness that's always coming and there's, you know,
31:04
the cultural rot that we're currently living in here in America.
31:08
But you do wonder, you do wonder who are going to be those pastors that when push comes a
31:12
shove, they might do a sermon about just war theory, but then when it's time to pick up
31:17
an M4, it's like, oh boy.
31:19
And I was just talking with someone the other day, Hunter, that, you know, I forget even
31:23
the context, but he's like, yeah, I just don't really know if I could kill someone.
31:27
I guess I would just, you know, have to see how I felt in the moment.
31:29
I'm like, that's literally the exact wrong opinion to have at this moment.
31:34
Because at the time of decision, like the time for decision has passed.
31:40
If you have not pre decided that you are capable of taking a life that is trying to take an
31:45
another innocent life, it's too late for you.
31:48
And so Hunter, I don't know what it looks like from your perspective, but like I feel
31:52
like if we were invaded from from both sides, you know, the Atlantic and the Pacific, I would
31:58
hope that a lot of these pastors would drop the whole, you know, go along to get along.
32:02
I want to be known for what I'm for and not what I'm against thing.
32:05
But I would assume most of them would bend over and just take it.
32:08
What do you think?
32:09
I agree.
32:10
100% with you.
32:11
I think, I think the men in this country lack masculinity, not in a way of being like
32:18
the macho, egotistic, narcissistic guy, but the guy that's willing to stand up for what's
32:24
right.
32:25
I think what we have going on in our country, what we have going on in our country right
32:31
now is we've taken God out of everything, right?
32:35
And we've taken, we've taken what it is to be a Christian man out of our churches because
32:41
that starts with our pastors.
32:43
You know, I can go in here and name certain pastors, but I'm not going to because it's
32:47
the body itself, right?
32:50
We have weak leaders as pastors that when push comes to shove, they're going to run and
32:56
hide, or they're going to give in instead of fighting for truth.
33:01
I mean, Hunter, we saw that in 2020.
33:02
Yeah.
33:03
We saw so many pastors say, okay, daddy government, we will keep our doors closed and we will
33:08
open them when you allow us to again.
33:10
But don't worry.
33:11
We'll wear the exact masks that you tell us to mask and we'll do all those things because
33:14
there's a difference from being concerned about your flock because in the early days
33:18
of COVID, we didn't know what it was.
33:20
We didn't know if it was going to kill like children in the same way, killed the elderly.
33:23
And so it's like, well, we had no idea, but then when we kind of had an idea, there was
33:27
still so many pastors that were like, well, daddy government hasn't told me what I'm
33:31
allowed to do yet.
33:33
And so I'm concerned because, you know, whether you believe in any of the stuff or not, some
33:37
people see 2020 as a dry run.
33:38
It's like, let's see how far we can push the populace in a particular direction and see
33:42
how much control we can gain over their brains.
33:44
Yeah.
33:45
And then the next time we'll just start from there, or we'll start right before that point
33:49
and then push it a little bit further.
33:51
But I don't see a lot of pastors that I think are going to stand up and even vocalize negativity
33:58
towards the man or towards the dominant hegemonic governmental structure.
34:02
Because again, they're maybe afraid of losing their tax exempt status.
34:06
They're afraid of being seen as divisive that they're afraid of being seen as the type of
34:11
guy that would overturn a table when somebody is violating the father's house and Hunter,
34:17
that's one thing that we're doing.
34:18
We're trying to make man-friendly churches be a reality.
34:21
Like, I kind of stopped caring about men's ministry because you know what men's ministry
34:25
is?
34:26
You know, for the most part, it's once a year, we're going to bring in a, you know, speaker
34:30
like your dad or a speaker like me to come in and yell at you guys and get you all fired
34:34
up.
34:35
Everyone's going to eat some barbecue and then we're going to bounce.
34:37
And then it's another year until that church does a damn thing for any of the men in their
34:40
congregation, except for to castigate them on Father's Day for not stepping up.
34:45
And it's like, what are you doing exactly to equip these men so that they can be, you
34:50
know, ready to go and discipled and catacizing of their children on a year-round basis?
34:54
You're doing nothing.
34:56
And yet you want to complain.
34:58
So I mean, I'm in this fight until the bitter end, but we just need even more guys like
35:02
you that have the same philosophy to be like, yeah, amen, I'll raise my hand and volunteer
35:07
for that service as well.
35:08
Yeah.
35:09
Absolutely.
35:10
I think it's important that like you're saying that, that one event for a year, like you
35:15
can't be a Christian man and just go to church one time a year or go to that one event per
35:20
year.
35:21
You need to literally do it every single day.
35:24
And like it says that in the Bible, right?
35:28
Like to pick up your cross daily and walk.
35:31
And like that's how you lead your family, right?
35:34
You lead your family.
35:36
That leads the community.
35:37
Well, Hunter, imagine going to jujitsu on January 1st, doing a class, rolling five or
35:44
six rounds and then saying, all right, good for the year.
35:47
I'm good for the year.
35:48
Now.
35:49
I am so mega dangerous.
35:50
I don't need to train again until next year.
35:52
Like you wouldn't do that with jujitsu or with exercise.
35:55
You wouldn't take one day of eating, right?
35:57
And then only McDonald's for the rest of the year.
35:59
Like everybody kind of inherently knows that.
36:01
But then we're just seemingly okay with our churches basically having blinking neon signs
36:07
on the outside saying men, this isn't for you.
36:10
So the sermon content is going to be focused more on grace and on softer skills and on
36:17
how to be a better person.
36:19
The music is going to be homoerotic in nature, at least in lyrically.
36:22
It's going to be sung by these doughy men and these, you know, frumpy women.
36:26
And we're just supposed to get like fired up and excited about that.
36:30
And it's guys like you and it's guys like, you know, the guys you around in the military
36:34
and in the Marine Corps and things like that.
36:36
That's why we try to do things like what we do at Undaunted because there's a whole population
36:40
of guys that are ready to just be given that opportunity like you were given in Ukraine.
36:47
But they want to do that in service of the local church.
36:50
They want to do that in service, you know, of the local populace.
36:53
But they don't necessarily want to sit there and hold a crying baby.
36:56
They don't necessarily want to, you know, go to the nursing home and hold the hand of
36:59
a woman who's lonely.
37:00
I'm not saying those things are bad, but these are men that want to be activated in
37:04
a different way.
37:06
These are men that when a tornado rips through Oklahoma or Texas and destroys a community,
37:10
they want a church that goes out goes to Lowe's, buys 20 chainsaws and asks for 20 volunteers
37:15
and says, guys, we got chainsaws and work gloves.
37:18
We need to go start cutting down some trees to help some people get their lives back together.
37:23
But we don't do that.
37:24
Right?
37:25
So it's all just kind of the normal Christian stuff.
37:27
Yeah.
37:28
The church, like what I what I've seen is the church is just somewhere to go on Sunday and
37:32
check the box for many men and the men that are, you know, I did a program two weeks ago
37:39
from IDO's instructing and some of the men I saw were struggling with this exact thing
37:44
we're talking about.
37:45
They're involved in church, but they don't feel like they have a purpose there.
37:48
They feel like they don't connect because their pastor is in a masculine man.
37:54
They did say that their worship leader was a dough boy.
37:57
So that that was like almost the word straight from him guys need a purpose, right?
38:03
We are men or we are a being that needs a purpose.
38:06
We need to feel like we are part of something.
38:10
And if the church isn't doing that, we're going to have a lot of men coming short, falling
38:15
short, right?
38:16
And so there needs to be a shift within our church community where we enable men.
38:25
We provide the opportunity for men to serve.
38:28
I think a great way to serve is starting off within your community.
38:31
Look at the problem with drug addiction right now and alcohol.
38:35
Within your own community everywhere you look, you probably can find someone that struggles
38:41
with drinking too much or someone that struggles with substance abuse.
38:44
I've never struggled with substance abuse, but I know that is a very common thing amongst
38:48
our country.
38:49
Like, why don't you start there?
38:51
Why don't you go find the guy at your local bar that you know is there all the time and
38:57
just go talk to him.
38:58
I'm not saying you need to drink with him, but go talk to him.
39:02
I came in, what's your name, like get to know the guy, get to get on that peer-to-peer
39:07
level with that guy.
39:10
I think to really understand ministry, get involved locally.
39:16
I always say like, you don't have to be called to Africa, Ukraine, Peru or some other country
39:25
to do ministry.
39:27
Look at your back door because there's going to be people at your back door.
39:30
Jump over those people at your back door to go to a different country.
39:34
Look at what's in your back door so that your community can get healthy.
39:37
Right.
39:38
In Hunter, ministry doesn't mean a microphone in front of your face in a podcast recording
39:43
video.
39:44
It doesn't mean a microphone on your face up on a stage talking in front of people.
39:46
It might mean that, but it's all the unsung heroes that are doing exactly what you're
39:53
saying in saying, "Yes, Lord, I guess I will go and talk to this random stranger and give
39:57
them a word or to see what I can do to encourage them."
40:01
Even just recently, I was in New Mexico, I had just finished the speaking engagement.
40:05
I'm driving back home to Oklahoma and I can't remember if I've told the story on the show,
40:10
so if you've heard this before, deal with it.
40:11
You're hearing it again.
40:13
But we're at a gas station and it's kind of in a weird spot and none of the credit card
40:18
machines are working on any of the gas pumps.
40:21
I go inside and I get my gas going or whatever and then behind me, I hear, "Excuse me, sir."
40:26
And I can automatically be like, "Oh, great.
40:28
Here we go."
40:29
Some person that's got the sob story, they need my money and the blah, blah and all that.
40:33
And I turn around and this dude is completely covered in tattoos and I've watched a whole
40:38
lot of shows about different gangs and prison gangs and all that.
40:41
And so honest to goodness, I recognized his gang tattoos.
40:44
I knew exactly what click he was with.
40:47
I knew I kind of had a good idea that he had been in prison and what he was in prison for.
40:52
Just from his tattoos.
40:53
Okay, and so I'm like, "All right, this is going to be a little bit of a different interaction."
40:56
But he's like, "Hey, man, the cards aren't working.
40:59
I literally don't have any cash.
41:00
I'm trying to get to Albuquerque.
41:01
My wife and son, we're an accident.
41:05
Anything that you can do to help."
41:06
I'm like, "So I was able to help this guy get some gas."
41:09
But while I'm at the pump, obviously having some caution for a guy that's got his entire
41:13
rap sheet basically written on his skin, I literally just go, "Hey, man, were you clicked
41:17
up?"
41:18
And he just kind of puts his head up and he's like, "Yeah, man.
41:21
I was clicked up."
41:22
I was like, "How long were you in?"
41:24
He didn't say he was, but I just asked him, like, "How long were you in?"
41:27
He's like, "I went in in 1998 and I just got out a few months ago."
41:32
Well, you can do math and realize that he wasn't in there because he stole a pack of gum.
41:36
But in that moment, I was like, "Hey, man, when you were in prison, did you ever have
41:40
a chaplain or anybody talk to you about Jesus?"
41:42
And this is kind of that moment to where it's like, "I work about to figure out what this
41:45
interaction is about to be all about."
41:47
And he goes, "You know what, man, one of the homies, when I was in prison, when I was
41:51
like at my worst, one of my homies told me about Jesus."
41:55
And he gave me a Bible.
41:56
I told him I was illiterate that I couldn't read.
41:58
And so one of the homies, one of the OGs in his click, was reading the Bible to him on
42:03
a daily basis.
42:04
And just think about this story, Hunter, if I'd said, "Hey, man, go away.
42:07
I'm not giving you any money.
42:08
Get out of here."
42:09
Or if I had just gone the route of, "Here's you some gasoline.
42:12
Let's just move on with our lives."
42:14
But I felt the Holy Spirit telling me, "Just ask him.
42:16
Just ask him about Jesus.
42:18
Just ask him if he's heard the name of Jesus."
42:20
And it led to this really interesting interaction where I was able to put my hands on him.
42:24
And we were able to pray over each other and pray over his family.
42:28
And his son is in a gang now, and like, he got in a gang while his dad was in prison.
42:32
It's like this whole thing, right?
42:34
But so many guys are just unwilling to take that next step because either it doesn't seem
42:38
sexy enough or doesn't seem important enough or they're too cowardly to kind of get those
42:43
words out of their face hole.
42:44
So I know that was kind of a longer story, but I think that gets to your point, Hunter,
42:48
to not focus on macro ministry when micro ministry is all around us.
42:53
Yeah, everywhere.
42:54
Yeah.
42:55
And so I think that's a good example and it's a good reminder for everybody listening
42:59
to this.
43:00
I do want to actually circle back to Ukraine because there's a very interesting story that
43:04
has talked about in a mission without borders, and it's at a checkpoint.
43:08
And so typically you were not lead.
43:11
You were not at a checkpoint, but I do want to read this quote here from the book.
43:16
I faced what what felt like my biggest risk of the whole war, the risk of having to step
43:21
up to lead when others lives depended on the decision I made in that moment.
43:26
And so I want to go back to that moment when you're at that checkpoint.
43:29
And these are checkpoints where things can go south.
43:32
Like that is just the reality of what y'all were doing.
43:34
So paint the picture for us.
43:36
What was going on at the checkpoint?
43:38
What was going on in your head?
43:40
And then how'd you get through it?
43:41
Yeah.
43:42
Are you talking about the beginning of the book or more towards the back of the book?
43:47
More towards the back of the book.
43:48
Okay.
43:49
Yeah.
43:50
So this was like my first mission I was leading in Ukraine by myself.
43:57
And there was a lot of weight on my shoulders because the guys I was leading were very qualified
44:05
individuals.
44:07
But I had one of my best friends with me, Steve Latham.
44:11
And I were in Afghanistan together.
44:13
We were in the same unit together for my entire Marine Corps career.
44:19
We were like Jonathan and David close.
44:21
And we still are.
44:22
I mean, I talked to him this morning.
44:24
We talk every single day.
44:27
And I became very close with his family throughout the years.
44:33
And so basically before we even left Afghanistan in 2019, I promised his wife Haley.
44:41
At their wedding that I would basically do anything I could to always protect her husband
44:48
and die for her husband if I had to to make sure that he came home to her.
44:52
And so our relationship was closer than the personal level.
44:57
It was like literally I was friends with his entire family.
45:01
So being in Ukraine with him, I felt like the responsibility of not only leading my team,
45:07
but keeping my team safe was extremely important because these guys weren't just depending on
45:14
me to get them out of a hard situation, but also depending on me to get them back home
45:20
safe to their families.
45:21
These guys have kids, wives, families, like it's a serious deal when you're going into
45:28
this type of area.
45:30
And so I remember like even being on the plane ride going to Ukraine or going to Poland,
45:37
like well, like I'm going to have to make decisions within the next few days that are
45:41
going to be life and death.
45:43
And sure enough, we get to an area in Eastern Ukraine called Bach Moot.
45:48
And we start getting bracketed on by artillery, you know, I just got into this terrible situation
45:57
where I had to make the decision to either stay at that spot, ride it out or get my team
46:04
out of there, and we chose to leave, we got out of there, and we went to safety.
46:11
And I look back at that situation, and well, in that situation, I was like, that was my
46:17
biggest decision in leadership that I've ever had to make in my life.
46:22
It was like the transition of like being a young leader to growing into like an actual
46:30
like grown up making grown up decisions in a straight up combat environment.
46:34
Because when you're in the Marine Corps, it's kind of like you're in combat.
46:37
It's kind of like, I don't know, you got 19 and 20 year olds together, like you get into
46:42
something and if something goes wrong, it's like you just tell the officer or like tell
46:49
your staff and CEO, like everybody knows what to do, right?
46:52
We got the guy that the head honcho, but then you get into that position as the head honcho.
46:58
You get into that position as like the guy that's got to make the hard decisions.
47:02
The guy that's got to be like, I know people are going to die if we stay here, and I know
47:08
people could die if we get out of here.
47:11
Like I had to be willing to take the risk of knowing that there was death on either side
47:15
of this, but having the ultimate faith in Christ that he was going to get us out safely was
47:21
the biggest point in me, like truly learning what what leadership was.
47:29
I'm glad you made it out.
47:30
I'm glad you're here.
47:31
Hunter, what is the status as it stands right now of the conflict because it's really hard,
47:38
especially since we're in this crazy news cycle where not that long ago, President Trump
47:44
was shot and that got memory hold and now everything's about the switcharoo to Kamala
47:48
Harris and the Democratic National Convention and all the like, there's just so many things
47:54
happening where we don't really have an appetite for what's going on in Ukraine, but for all
47:58
intents and purposes, anyone who's even mildly paying attention is like, all right, this seems
48:02
like a stalemate.
48:03
This seems like a stalemate until something incredibly bold happens, and those options
48:08
are typically like, all right, Ukraine decides that they're going to give up part of their
48:13
country to Russia to have some sort of a, you know, pseudo peace or this thing goes nuclear.
48:19
What's your read of where we're at right now?
48:22
I, you know, I have so many reads on where it could go.
48:26
It's like throwing a dice and seeing which one it lands on, right?
48:31
But Russia is throwing so many bodies in so many men at the frontline that they can Russia
48:39
can afford to lose men.
48:43
If they lose one, they replace them with another Red Army Soviet style.
48:47
Ukraine on the other hand cannot.
48:50
So Ukraine is losing at least 1000 soldiers per day.
48:54
And okay, so we've been in this war has been going on for two and a half years now.
49:00
I'm not, no math genius, I can't do the math on it per day, but do the math on it, right?
49:05
Think about how many guys are dying.
49:07
Think about how many guys are dying on the Russian side.
49:11
Ukraine is losing men at a staggering rate and will not be able to keep up with the amount
49:17
of men they're losing and they won't be able to have a military to fight for their country.
49:23
So Russia is chipping away, right?
49:25
They're chipping away at the rock until there's no more rock left.
49:30
The only way for this to end peacefully is for a ceasefire to happen, is for the Ukrainian
49:37
government to give the land that they have lost to the Russians to Russia.
49:46
Let them have it.
49:48
Most of those areas are pro-Russian anyway.
49:51
They don't really care for Ukraine.
49:55
That's the way that I think this needs to end.
49:57
I think Zelensky needs to be like, all right, look.
50:00
Too many Ukrainian men are dying.
50:01
We're going to have no more Ukrainian men left to even produce a new population, right?
50:09
They need to put the line in the sand and say, hey, like, what's the point of surrendering
50:15
and what's the point of doing what's best for my country and doing what's best for the
50:18
people and best for the world compared to getting billions of dollars in his pocket?
50:24
Because it sucks because I love the Ukrainian people so much.
50:28
Like, I got the Ukrainian tried and tattooed on my wrist.
50:31
Those people are like family to me and to see these men dying, to see some of the men
50:36
that I worked with at the beginning that were not obligated to go into the military that
50:41
have had to go into the military and now have died because of super politics, it sucks.
50:47
There's no win for anyone in this war.
50:51
As much as I think the Russians are evil, there's Russian men that don't know what they're
50:56
going to do, like, they don't know they're going to a war.
50:58
There's so much propaganda there that they think they're going to train and then they
51:01
end up getting shot at.
51:03
Like, those Russian men need Christ just as much as the Ukrainians and just as much as
51:09
we do.
51:10
Amen.
51:11
Like, so that's my, like, that's my thought, like the only way for this to end is there
51:17
needs to be a ceasefire and Zelensky just needs to let those areas of Ukraine go.
51:21
There's no infrastructure left in those areas that Russia holds.
51:24
Like they flatten to everything.
51:26
So like all they would be getting back is muddy dirt, like every, like it's just, there's
51:31
no win to it.
51:32
They need to stop.
51:35
So we'll make this the last question today because, and I told Chad this, as soon as
51:40
I saw the cover for the book, I was like, Hey, man, just the fact that there's a Ukrainian
51:44
flag on there is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way because the only people that
51:48
have like, you know, a Ukrainian flag emoji in their bio are typically slobbering progressive
51:54
leftists.
51:55
Yeah.
51:56
It's not typically conservative people.
51:57
It's not typically Christians and you're right.
52:00
Everyone in this conflict needs Jesus and like all these people need our love and concern.
52:05
But as Americans, man, we just don't like this conflict very much.
52:09
And it's because of what you alluded to.
52:11
It's because of the deep corruption of the Ukrainian government and oligarchs, the amount
52:17
of money that we're sending over there that is not getting to the frontline soldiers.
52:23
People like the people in your team should not be taking freaking tourniquets to soldiers
52:28
that are out there fighting for Ukraine.
52:30
We keep hearing about these operations where we're sending money over there and it gets
52:33
laundered right back here into the coffers of politicians here in this country.
52:38
It stinks, it stinks to high heaven and we will never know to what levels the corruption
52:43
has gone to because this is going to get memory hold just like everything else.
52:47
But from your perspective, how should Americans view this entire situation, not just the conflict,
52:54
but Ukraine as a country, the Ukrainian people, how should we view it moving forward?
53:01
I'll start that with a question.
53:04
What would you want if Mexico and Canada were to converge on our borders today on a full
53:11
scale level and let's just hypothetically say our military wasn't as strong it was as it
53:15
was or is, what would you want?
53:19
Would you want other countries coming here to give your family food, to bring medical
53:24
supplies to your sons and your husband's fighting on a frontline, to give them boots?
53:30
Would you want that help?
53:32
Now let's bring this to another area.
53:34
I do not personally agree with the cash value that we are sending to Ukraine.
53:41
I think it's dumb that we are sending physical money to Ukraine.
53:45
I do not think it's dumb that we are sending weapons to Ukraine because it's protecting
53:52
us.
53:53
It's protecting Ukraine.
53:54
I've personally been saved by Patriot systems in Ukraine like I can agree with sending weapons
54:03
there and with oversight of it though because we don't want something to happen like with
54:07
what happened with the late 90s.
54:12
But the whole sending my tax pay, my tax dollars to Ukraine for it to go to the politicians
54:20
of Ukraine, not to the people of Ukraine who I love so much, that's what frustrates me because
54:27
you have politicians all over the world getting rich from the money that is being sent to Ukraine.
54:35
Like I love Ukraine, I support Ukraine, I even support parts of the Ukrainian government.
54:42
But the hierarchy of the US government and the Ukrainian government, I think that's where
54:49
the money is going.
54:50
I don't think, I know, because you got guys that don't even have real turn-it-kits on
54:55
the battlefield.
54:57
So it hurts.
54:58
I mean, we're every single person in the United States right now is filling the struggle
55:04
of our economy, every single person.
55:07
And the amount of tax that I have to personally pay, that you have to pay, like it puts a
55:13
strain on our family and people are so angry about this.
55:16
I mean, the VA, Veterans Affairs can't even meet their budget right now.
55:22
They're 40.5, I think the number I saw last week, $40.5 billion short of their budget.
55:29
They can't be taking the money of harder Americans.
55:35
Our tax dollars, forget about the problems and the struggles that we have in the United
55:40
States and give that cash to other countries.
55:44
That's going to ultimately hurt us.
55:46
This might sound evil, this might sound bad, but we have to put America first, right?
55:51
We have to put our country first so that we are in fact healthy enough to help other countries.
55:58
Because I think we should.
55:59
I think us as Americans, we are the best example of helping people that cannot help themselves.
56:05
There are so many different through points and things that can be discussed with a conflict
56:08
like this.
56:09
And I just, I hate that we're in this position, but we live in a post Genesis 3 world where
56:13
warfare is just a thing that we're all going to have to deal with at some point.
56:17
And every now and then it comes directly to our front door.
56:19
So Hunter, we covered a lot of ground here today, but that's all for me.
56:22
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
56:24
No, man.
56:25
I appreciate it.
56:26
Thanks for having me on.
56:27
I'll end it with the challenge for all these men and here is be patient.
56:32
Wait on God's timing.
56:33
Sometimes your own timing won't make sense to you and it'll be frustrating, but God's
56:38
timing is always perfect.
56:40
Amen to that.
56:41
All right, Hunter.
56:42
Thanks for coming on.
56:43
Yeah.
56:44
Thanks, man.
56:45
I appreciate it.
56:46
All right, guys.
56:47
Thanks so much for listening to my interview with Hunter.
56:48
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56:50
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56:51
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