The Purple Heart Medal is presented to service members who have

been wounded or killed as a result of enemy action while serving in the U.

S.

military.

A Purple Heart is a solemn distinction and means a service member has greatly

sacrificed themselves or paid the ultimate price while in the line of duty.

According to the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor, more than 1.

8 million Purple Heart Medals have been presented to service

members since the award was created in 1782 by George Washington.

It started off as the badge of military merit and eventually evolved into

the Purple Heart Medal we know today.

The Purple Heart is the oldest military award still presented to American

service members and was one of the first military medals given to all ranks.

This is why we were honored to join some of the leaders of an organization

called the Guardians of the Purple Heart.

The Guardians of the Purple Heart is a group of veterans, family members, and

spouses who want to make a difference for the combat wounded servicemen and

women in the state of Connecticut.

In 2016, the organization helped their first Purple Heart recipient,

Vietnam vet Clarence Hook.

From there, the organization and concept took flight.

The Guardians of the Purple Heart is a 501c3 non profit that specializes

in obtaining items or services for Connecticut and Rhode Island, and

Combat wounded vets that are not being met by other organizations.

They recently asked us to be guests on our podcast titled cover

down on the cover down podcast.

They talk to fellow veterans, discuss the progress of their organization

and keep things honest and authentic.

We were honored to join them and wanted to share our conversation with our audience.

If you enjoy the host as much as we did go check out the cover down podcast

on YouTube or anywhere you listen.

Now, today we're going to learn all kinds of fun facts about history.

Like for instance, uh, why the Roman empire split because of a pair of Caesars.

Roll the intro.

I'm not going to lie.

It wasn't my best joke, but I liked it.

I liked it.

Let's get everybody in the room real quick.

How's it going guys?

Good.

Good.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for having us on tonight.

Yeah, no, it's a, it's an absolute pleasure.

For so, for, for, uh, Our audience who doesn't know, um, this is Scott

and Jen from an amazing YouTube channel called Walking with History.

Um, I love history.

I grew up around it.

Uh, it is part of my DNA and actually a really close bond I have with my dad.

Uh, so naturally I gravitate to kind of stuff like that.

I think his channel is awesome.

Um, And yeah, it's, it's been a lot of fun getting to talk about some cool

stuff, getting to know you guys and have our audience, you know, come and

hopefully watch some of your content.

Um, especially since we're talking to fellow veterans.

Right on.

That's right.

So that's pretty awesome.

Doug, uh, how's, uh, how's your history?

Is it, is it

good?

So I'll be honest, history was never my strong suit.

It was never, it was one of those subjects in class that I was just

like, all right, let's get on with it.

It's nothing as exciting here, but I will have to say wholeheartedly the way that

you describe History it, it's intriguing.

Like I'm actually paying attention and learning stuff.

And I was like, man, I'm actually, I'm getting smarter now.

Seth is going to love this one.

So, so Doug, I mean, I'll have to, I'll have to be honest.

So for your audience, for those who don't know us, I'm

Scott and this is my wife, Jen.

So, so Jen's the historian.

I met, I married into like the history nerddom in this, in this house.

And my goal kind of, and I'm the producer editor, you know,

extraordinary behind the scenes for, for the vast majority of our videos.

Um, and so I'm actually learning while I'm making it because I am

not a history buff whatsoever.

I was much like you, Doug, when I was in high school, like history

wasn't, I had, I had one great history teacher, shout out to Mr.

Beck in San Dimas high school.

Um, but, uh, you know, it was not my, my cup of tea.

This one right here is the one who kind of, you know, kind of get got this off

the ground and we team up together.

Yeah, I kind of grew into it, guys.

So, you know, I was in the Navy.

And, you know, going over to the Middle East for the first time,

I wanted to know more, right?

Like, what's going on?

Why do these?

Why are people these deep rooted?

Hostilities going on.

I wanted to understand more of it.

And every time we pulled into port to it became my job to kind of put out the brief

to the whole crew of where we were going.

What's the history of the area?

What kind of money do they use?

What kind of tours do you want to see here?

So I kind of got immersed in that kind of history.

That would have been nice for me to have.

I just got told the places I wasn't allowed to go.

Yeah.

That's probably

what you heard.

And I'm, I'm, I'm pretty confident.

They probably said some other things.

You just heard all the places you weren't allowed to go so

that you could go there later.

You

might be right on that one.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Believe me.

I've, I've walked into a couple of establishments and I'm like, Oh,

there's my guy right over there.

Yes.

So then coming back, uh, after deployment and after getting out

of the military, I used my GI bill because I hadn't had kids yet.

So I hadn't given it to them.

And I went back to school to get a master's of history.

I wanted to understand how do people study this?

How do people, you know, quantitate it?

Cause you know, talk about science and math.

I knew that, but how do you, how did, how does something in history

gain fact, gain truth, have merit?

And so I went back to grad school and, uh, I graduated 20 years after my undergrad.

I felt like the old lady there.

But it was, it was, it was great.

I actually went back to school and I got the master's degree of history.

And then what do you do with that?

Right.

You're married to an active duty officer.

We move around every three years.

It's hard to keep a job.

So why not do a YouTube channel?

It moves around, right?

It kind of, it's it fit.

And so we move around and so then our radius can change.

We can take you there.

And like you said, Doug, why I try to emphasize, why does this matter to you?

Right?

What's the point?

Why am I telling you this story?

Because history will impact you, whether or not you realize it, right?

It's having an impact on you.

So I try to do that.

I try to connect the dots.

So why should you care about this and tell interesting stories along the way,

motivational stories, a lot of like unsung heroes of Gettysburg or civil

war, things like that, things that we can kind of, you know, aspire to

or hear about and, and as a patriot, kind of like, what are we defending?

Right.

Who has defended before us?

What have they done before us?

And what are we defending now and looking forward into the future?

That's awesome.

Doug, you think you can get on board with that?

Maybe like it's gonna, it's gonna take, it's gonna take a little bit.

Cause I mean, Like I said, it was just, and I think you hit the nail on the head.

Like I was sitting there in class and I was like, what is the point of this?

Mm-Hmm.

, you know, I was 38 when I went back to college.

Mm-Hmm.

. I walked, I was older than probably about 90% of my professors.

And I'd walk in a class and it'd be this old crusty dude

teaching, you know, history.

And I'm just sitting there like, why do I have to take this?

Mm-Hmm.

. This isn't interesting whatsoever.

Now I'll admit there was certain points where I was like, oh, okay, that's.

That's kind of cool.

But at the end of the day, I was like, this is just draining for me.

I know.

And it shouldn't feel that way.

It should feel invigorating.

It should feel exciting.

I try to make it fun.

And like, we're here, we're standing where George Washington

stood where he touched that.

Like I stand on Jimmy Stewart's porch.

I'm like, I'm on Jimmy Stewart's porch.

And

that's cool stuff.

I mean, so my, my biggest thing in life was the areas of the

world that I wanted to travel to.

I wanted to travel to ancient places.

I wanted to travel to places with that were very old.

And growing up in New England, specifically, uh, in York, Maine.

All right.

We're pretty old there.

All right.

But you're only ever going to be like two, 300 years old, you

know, in the night United States.

Right.

So unless you start really going back further and actually in York,

Maine, we have a world treasure that most people don't know about.

I'll go to that in a second, but, um, Yeah, just having all that history around.

And so naturally when I was in the Navy and I would hit a port, like two on

France, I was lucky enough to have a buddy that could speak fluent French.

Uh, I was walking through this, uh, beautiful stone archway that

kind of looked like a bridge, but it didn't really go anywhere.

And there was a plaque on the side and asked him to read it.

And he said that this is where Napoleon marched through to retake France.

And I lost it.

I'm like, I'm staying, I'm standing where Napoleon Bonaparte.

Marched his army back through from, from Italy, if I can remember correctly.

And I just thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

And so for me, it was, if I can go to places that have

history, the older, the better.

So I'd love to go to places like Egypt.

You know what?

I'll go to any country that has like the, what are the, the UNESCO

world heritage sites, right?

Those, those things where it's like, we'll never demolish these in the world

because it's part of human history.

Those places are fascinating to me.

And I just, I would love to go.

But you have a.

specific, um, uh, kind of wheelhouse and then it's American history.

So that's, I got my masters in that because if you do world history,

you have to speak a foreign language.

And if you know me, I barely mastered English.

So there's no way I'm speaking another language.

You should see me.

Even when we go to France, thank God, Scott can read French.

I try to read it phonetically.

I look like the biggest, Moron.

So I do not even try to open my mouth.

Um, so I did American history because it made it easy.

I only have to know English.

So that's kind of why I centered on that mostly.

Now you can't really study American history without knowing

world history too, because you're going to be impacted, right?

Like even Napoleon is impacting America.

Uh, you know, America's impacting other countries at the same time.

So you have to really understand world history at the same time.

You're just not emphasizing it as much.

I mean, Frederick

Bastier, I think was his name, was a lot French philosopher

and writer that we based a lot of our, the, the sense of our laws.

Yeah.

Around some of his work wasn't American.

Nope.

The enlightenment was, yeah, it was basically coming from the French.

And so you, so you're, it's America is really is studying world history.

It is impacted by it.

So even though I, I emphasize the American and even our channel is

mostly in 80th anniversary of D Day.

So I'm going to be in Normandy, so, and I'm going to hit Paris.

So we do venture out a little bit.

If we can get out there, uh, it does still connect to America.

So, but I do try to get in other places, but really we do, we do, uh,

really center on American history.

That's awesome.

Doug, what was the, what was the oldest place you went America or abroad?

I

have to say it was, um, when I was in Baghdad, Iraq and, uh, yeah, I

did, uh, visited the, the cross swords.

So I will say on the history aspect, it's kind of cool to know that.

You know, in years to come when, when, uh, school kids are reading

about like the, uh, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and, and all that.

Uh, and they, and even to this day, when I see on Facebook, like people

posting pictures of the cross swords and everything, and I'm like, man, I was

there, like I climbed up the top and, and I, I looked down from the handle

and whatnot, it's cool to know that you are a part of that and to, you know,

to Place your feet like right where like Saddam Hussein was and not saying

that he was great or anything But just knowing that you were there in the same

spot I mean, that's kind of cool, but that's the oldest spot that I've been to.

Oh, yeah That's one of the oldest beginnings of

civilization Middle East, right?

And and

for me, that's that's Kind of a future goal is like Seth, like

you were saying, is, is for us to be able to do more world travel, right?

You know, I've, I've got plenty of time, you know, hope, knock on wood

left, left in the, in the Navy.

Um, but you know, we're building this channel now to kind of build it into a

little bit of a business so that I can hopefully make, make some money and,

and supplement retirement so that when our kids are out of the house, then

we can run off and kind of do this.

You know, as for retirement, you know, with supporting it with some income,

we've got some other stuff that we're kind of, kind of slowly building

on the side and stuff like that as part of this kind of history thing.

So,

well, I'm 100 percent for a, for a history channel campaign.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you guys, you guys, one, you definitely

got the, uh, the cadence.

Right.

And the voices for it and the knowledge.

And I think that the, the duo thing is awesome.

Yeah.

So I don't see why they wouldn't pick it up.

Honestly.

Yeah.

What we, we, we joke all the time with, with our subscribers and we do it more

on our podcast, talk with history, but we say, Hey guys, we're only, you

know, the YouTube channel is only like.

10.

5 million subscribers away from beating the history channel.

Like, let's pick up the pace.

We're only 10, 11 million subscribers and we're coming after you history channel.

Like let's bring history back to the history channel.

Bring history back to the history channel.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Can we get rid of ancient aliens and pond stars and all the conspiracy shows?

It's like, you don't believe in

aliens.

All right.

We're not done.

They're a part of history in front of my friends.

It's

some history, right?

Area 51.

It's true.

Blue book.

Right.

Very true.

That is very true.

Um, so a little bit for myself because, um, like the Doug said, he's never

been a humongous fan of history, but fully understand because the things

he's our fans of, he educates me on.

Um, what would that be?

Besides pizza?

Pizza.

Pizza.

Well, you educate me on how someone can consistently believe there's

no dinosaurs or the earth is flat

telling

you all my evidence

is stacked and you just can't argue in a

hoodie.

My friend, I'm telling you just can't

argue it, son.

That's what that's what you get annoyed with is that you try to be the smart

one and then I drop knowledge on you.

And you're just like, I have nothing because he's right game set match aliens.

Yeah,

this is Doug.

Um, so for myself, history has been, has been kind of a huge part of my life.

Um, one of the fondest memories I have is, uh, my dad sharing me, sharing

with me the story of Leonidas and the 300 and the battle of Thermopylae.

Um, Before I even knew that Frank Miller wrote a comic about it and eventually

gets turned into a movie, right?

So he would tell me all these, these, these stories of, of

ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

And, uh, cause he was a big ancient history buff and I

would find them fascinating.

So like when you're a little boy and you're hearing all these crazy battles,

you know, how, 300 Spartans, you know, fended off the entire Persian army.

And then you come to realize it'd be like, well, the Persian army had wicker

baskets as shields that I don't want to count, you know, but regardless,

you know, it, it, it was a lot of fun.

And so I started to gravitate more towards that.

I still have a book.

That's like three inches thick.

He gave me about the history of Rome.

And then I would start to notice things around my hometown of York, Maine.

That were very historical, like, uh, I think we have the oldest

schoolhouse and the oldest jail house or one of the oldest jail houses.

Um, we have a crazy statue that's been there since 1906.

That has a lot of folklore around it, that it was a confederate soldier

statue that was mixed up in transit.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Um, and that, uh, when we asked to get ours back, the South had destroyed

ours.

Yeah.

And, but we erected ours anyways.

Now, like I said, it is folklore, but there, there's certain things about

the sculpture and the uniform of the soldier, which really was supposed to

be dedicated to the, uh, the soldiers and sailors, uh, from that town that

make it look somewhat Confederate, but it's not, but it's still fun folklore.

Yeah, sure.

And then I didn't even know this until two years ago, but apparently

we've had a Viking ship under the beaches at short sands beach in

York, Maine for hundreds of years.

Oh yeah.

No way.

Yeah.

So every once in a while, um, I think the last time was like 40

years ago, a big storm will come in and wash away all the sand.

And it'll actually, um, show the remnants of this Viking ship, how cool, and this

code, and they never remove it because obviously it'd be too costly to sit there

and so they just take the time to research as much as they can, and then they

fill it back up and they let it go and they wait for another storm to come in.

So I would find all kinds of stuff like that.

Um, and it, it just kind of grew from there and I've loved history ever since.

And yes, yes, in fact, I did get a, I did get a D in history, you know,

but that was just because I either one wasn't there or two, I, I, uh, I just

wasn't doing my homework, but I just.

It's such a great example for me and everything I, I like the materialistic

things that I have that I kind of treasure the most all have history

with it, uh, in some form or fashion.

I actually have a really good example right in front of me.

I'm a giant nerd.

If you can't notice from my background, I have this wonderful comic book.

It's super rare, but it's called something called Grenada.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

All right.

The only way you would ever got this book is if you were in Grenada because the

CIA dropped thousands of copies of it.

Uh, as propaganda, uh, under a, what was it?

Uh, it was a company called voice, which was the victims of

international communist emissaries.

So like still it's a comic books, but that is, that is a piece of history, right?

Yeah,

absolutely.

And so I, I, yeah.

I loved it.

I gravitated towards it and I wanted to have, um, so that's kind of

just been my thing here and there.

And I agree.

I'd love to see you guys on the history channel instead of half

the stuff that I see nowadays.

What happened in documentaries?

Exactly.

Or just, I mean, you probably got a D in history because history a lot

of times is rote memorization, right?

People expect you to memorize things.

Dates and times and battles and the names, name me the first 20 presidents.

They made it for, you know, like it's hard, but if you make that stuff kind of

fun and you want to remember, okay, what's leading into this, what's leading into

this, what's influencing this next battle influencing this, like we just talked

about the death of Meriwether Lewis.

Mary, Mary, Mary, where the Lewis decides to travel across land instead

of down to New Orleans and get on a ship because he's afraid of impressments.

And the British, this is 1810, right?

That's what's going to pull us into the war of 1812 is the British keep

impressing our sailors into their Navy.

And this is like Lewis of Lewis and Clark, Lewis

and Clark.

So that's influencing him.

So if you think about that, and then he dies in 1809, like.

You can memorize dates if you understand how things are connected

and influencing each other.

And that's how you make history fun.

It's like, Oh, because these people aren't just operating in a vacuum.

Like they're influenced by the time as well.

So it's very interesting to see how things are just connected, especially

American history, how all of our heroes and things we learn, they're kind

of connected together with a string.

And if you kind of pull that string, you can understand how it's all connected.

working together.

Um, and I think that's what a good history.

teacher does.

Yeah.

My, my thing is, is that history is not black and white.

No, absolutely.

It

is very, very gray.

And it's one of those ones where you're like, well, what, what caused this?

So you start to pull the string and then you shortly realize you, you're

going to never stop pulling that

string.

Yeah.

Like it just goes on and on and on.

It's continual chain reactions.

The context that's there behind anything.

Like we all have the stuff we learned in high school or that

we didn't learn in high school.

Um, you know, in my case or maybe your guys case as well.

But the, One of the things is, is you get back into it or you start

learning about a particular topic and you just kind of dive down the rabbit

hole, whether it's on the internet or reading a book or whatever that is.

Um, we just interviewed, in fact, actually we'll give you this

preview to our next week's video.

We, we interviewed, um, someone from the original cast of

the Broadway play Hamilton.

So the guy who played George Washington, Christopher

Jackson, um, we interviewed him.

And so he, he talks about how.

You know, with history, even he is, is learning and he, when he was researching

Hamilton and George playing the role of George Washington, um, what he

learned and kind of brought back to the surface, you know, he said that

history is history as we learn it is something that kind of set out and

it's just kind of dried out in the sun.

And it's kind of our job as historians or Jen's job or Uh, you know, somebody

else's job to kind of bring that back to life, sprinkle some water

on it and bring it back to life.

So you can learn more of that context because a lot of times

we can learn a subject matter and just assume it is what it is.

But when there's so much more layer and depth, and like you

said, you keep pulling that string, you're just going to keep pulling.

Yeah, I will have to say like, so.

I listened to, um, you were talking about Lewis and Clark.

I listened to that, that episode.

And just to give you an idea of just how, how well you teach it.

Uh, I listened to the entire thing and it was anticipating what was coming next.

And then, As I was sitting there listening to it, I was like, in this 9 to 12

minutes of listening to this video, I have learned more in 9 to 12 minutes

than I did in 4 years of high school.

Like, I didn't know he shot himself in the head and in the stomach, and

then he was still alive and begging for water and all this other stuff,

and I'm like, I'm like, Why are we not talking about this kind of stuff?

Yeah, that's the stuff that I would remember,

right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I that's the best part of some of these.

Like you said, it's the story.

It's the story.

They're like, that's a crazy story.

Yeah.

And it takes a very unique person to be able to deliver a story

like that, but then deliver it to where you're You're intrigued and

anticipating like what's coming next.

So kudos to you.

Um, you have this very, what is it kind of like news broadcaster

vibe, but like an interesting

one.

Yeah.

It's like you watch all the newscasters and

they're like today at seven.

And we're like, I'm like, shut up.

I don't care because you're going to spit nothing but garbage.

And then you come on and all of a sudden it's your intro.

So.

To what you're going to be talking about.

I little, no lie.

I got goosebumps and I was like, okay, something's going on here.

Yeah.

I mean, so that was the biggest thing I took from history because

again, I went back to school, not even, but five years ago.

Right.

And I am, I consider myself a centralist, but I lean on the conservative side.

And when you talk about history, it's very left leaning and I.

Could hold my own actually graduated 4.

0.

I could hold my own and still make the argument because my whole stance was,

I don't want to tell you what to think.

That's not my job.

My job is to tell you how, how do historians come up with this?

How do historians say that this is the fact?

This is the primary source.

This is what a person who was there who said this, what

are you pulling out of this?

Like, that's what I do.

That's what a historian does.

A good historian presents you with all of that information.

And then you decide what to think.

Yeah.

It only works like at cert with certain groups though.

My daughter was asking me the other day.

Yeah.

Cause she, she was interested in that, the going ons of Israel and Palestine.

She's asking me like, well, why is this happening?

And I'm sitting there and go, well, I could tell you about the Balfour

declaration, or I could just say they don't like each other and we can

talk about this later, you know, but, but it goes back to the same thing.

Like you can, you can pull that string extremely far and

you're never going to stop.

Yeah.

But

to kind of harken off what, what Doug was saying on how you

can really Captivate an audience.

Um, not just from, um, what you write for your script, but, but

actually how, how you display it.

So, so kudos to the producer.

Um, but

there's

a, there's a term, uh, it's called narrative history telling.

Are you familiar with that?

Probably.

One of the things that I love the most, um, there's a, there's a gentleman

that I listened to as well, or he said that there's, you can only learn

so much from digging up pots, right?

Yeah.

But if you can put yourself in a region of the world in one time period, like

say you were going to put yourself, I don't know, in Venice, Italy in 1410,

what

would most likely be your occupation and when, depending

on what your occupation is, who are you most likely trading with?

And

if you're trading.

You know, what kind of other stuff's coming there?

So you can actually start to build a story, a narrative around simply.

Uh, starting somewhere.

What would it, what would it be like to, to live in a Roman outpost in Britannia?

You know, I just, I found that fascinating and it, it kinda was like, Oh, I, I

have, I have a new way to learn history.

You know, I don't have to score over all these books, you know, or search

for an interesting documentary.

I have people that are willing to tell a fictional story.

That's really, really interesting.

Factually based and, uh, and, and just tell the facts, you know,

and

that's simply it.

Yeah.

And I find, you know, another thing is, is we try to take our giants of

history and kind of put them in a box.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, and I try to always open up.

I'm going to tell you about these amazing heroes, and I'm going to tell

you about these evil, terrible people.

And sometimes they're going to be the same person.

And I want people to understand that these are humans.

I want to humanize these people because they are going to do amazing things.

And then they're going to do terrible things, just like any other person.

They're going to make good decisions and they're going to make bad decisions.

But I don't want to hide from either of those things.

Right.

And I think that's also what a good historian does.

I remember being at the Battle of the Bighorn and standing

there and trying to tell people, this is what people are seeing.

They're seeing Crazy Horse right out in front and he's

not getting hit by any bullets.

And it's so motivating for the rest of the American Indians to keep

going because it's, think of George Washington riding out in front.

This is their leader and he's out there and he's, it seems divine.

That he's escaping all the bullets.

It just, to them, it seems like a sign.

And I want people to, to stand there and feel that what that feels like, but we

don't, sometimes we don't talk about those people in history because we don't want to

put them in those places, but they deserve to be there because they did do that.

Yeah.

And, and.

And that's been one of the fun things about the YouTube channel, too, because,

you know, being in the military, right, you don't have too many artistic outlets,

right, you know, former ship, former ship guy, you know, not, you know, I'm

sitting on a ship all day, you know, now, now I'm doing more desk stuff.

And, uh, this has been fun because, you know, While she's kind of pulling the

facts and doing the research and saying, Hey, this is kind of what we're looking

at at the same time over the past couple of years, we've learned that storytelling

craft and we, you know, just through the process of putting out a video and seeing

what works and seeing what before and all the feedback that you get from just, Hey,

I'm going to hit publish and we're going to see how it goes and and all the stuff.

You, you learn that.

And so it's been fun for both of us, right?

She's gotten a lot better on camera over the past couple of years.

I've gotten better with, you know, my amateur videography or editing and

kind of that storytelling narrative and how to use music to transition and

kind of give you the feel for it and everything, because it brings context.

And, and, uh, texture to that story.

And it really draws you in, like, like you were saying, Doug with Meriwether

Lewis, because you're, you're there.

And so you're kind of like, Oh, it feels like I'm walking from behind this bush

over towards the house where the guy shot himself and, and all that stuff.

You feel like you're watching, you feel like you're there kind of drawn into it.

It's captivating.

It's, and that's, what's been super, super fun, you know,

especially doing it together.

Yeah.

The music definitely does sell it though.

Like your background music.

It was not only do you feel the story, but you also feel like you're immersed in the

story because the, the music just kind of brings you right back to that time period.

And then next thing you know, your 12 minutes is up.

And I'm just like, okay, what's the next video we're going to watch?

Cause I need to learn something else now.

Yeah.

Finding the right music is one of my favorite things was one of my, I

mean, editing for me takes, takes a while.

Like that video probably took me.

Six to seven hours, you know, just sitting on my couch on a Sunday, you

know, to, to edit, but finding the music is probably one of my favorite parts of

the, of the process, because once you find the right one, you're like, oh my

gosh, yeah, it makes a huge difference.

Like this is going to be my main one and I'm going to find as many Similar songs

as I can, you know, unless you're kind of going from dark to light or whatever,

after a while, you probably see me throwing in like the girl from

Iponema, you know, behind Pearl Harbor.

And it doesn't really make any sense.

Like I said, I'm not, I'm not the producer.

That's how I feel.

Um, so Scott, let me ask you a question.

Um, you, you've admitted that you weren't like a real history buff person.

So like, I have to know what, at what point were you sitting there

at, were you like editing or were you just like, okay, Now I'm getting it.

Was there like a certain story that just kind of slowly brought you

into where you started expanding your, your knowledge base?

Or did you just kind of just get used to it?

So, so honestly, for, for me, it's been, it's been kind of story by story.

I won't lie.

Like certain, certain stories for me are just less interesting, right?

Um, because it's, it's, it's niche or something like that.

And some are just over the top.

Oh my gosh, this is such an amazing story because here's what this historic.

Figure did, um, but for me, when we started the channel, I

knew that it would take me time.

I knew right up front because I had done some family stuff.

I had messed with YouTube a little bit since, like, 2018, and we started this

in 2021, um, and so I knew right away that there would be kind of conflict

between the two of us, and there still is.

Sometimes I'll try to cut stuff out.

And she'll see like, Hey, I talked about this, I talked about this,

this, and this story left it all out.

I was like, but it was boring.

Um, and so I, so we, I mean, we had that argument about, you know,

something, you know, just the other day and she usually wins those.

Um, but, uh, But through that, again, what she's also gotten better at

with the storytelling aspect of it is crafting those facts to, to fit

a good, like a, a story narrative.

Because when you're telling that, that historical event, or you're

talking about that person, if you kind of have a mental map, it makes

telling that story so much easier.

You, I kind of call it like you're almost reeling the fish.

You're constantly kind of casting a little bit, you're giving

them a taste of what's coming.

But then you're coming back.

And you're walking them towards what they know is, is, is kind of coming.

And so that storytelling aspect of we've both of us together have really grown.

And I joke sometimes that my goal is to make a history video that I

would watch as a non history nerd.

If I could watch all the way through and find it interesting,

then that's, that's my bar, right?

So if I can watch it, then the history nerds should really love it.

Um, and so that's, that's kind of the goal there.

So it took me some time because we kind of had to, even just, even though

we'd been married, married for a while.

It took us a while to kind of find each other's cadence.

And when she's saying this, does she, what does she mean?

And sometimes it takes her even today, it'll take her doing a couple of takes.

She'll spit the facts out early on in the day in the filming, then she'll, she'll

put them out again in a later clip and she'll have said it a couple of times.

So she'll, she'll be better later because it's smoother.

So it's all some of the, Um, editing stuff.

And then we do a follow up, you know, our, our podcast talk with history

is kind of a follow up to that.

So we go deeper in depth and because I've already made the video, I only, I,

you only usually make the podcast until I made the video first, because then I

know enough of the story and I can speak.

You know, intelligently to it.

Um, but it took some time and to be perfectly honest, like I'm still

not really, I don't go seeking out history videos on YouTube.

Um, I, I, I, I honestly don't.

Some, sometimes I do just to be like, Hey, this, a friend of ours, who's another

history creator, their video exploded.

Okay.

I'm going to watch and go see what he did to tell the story.

I'm more interested in.

How do they tell the story and maybe I'll kind of look at their subject

matter or something like that research purposes, research, but I'm just, you

know, I like watching the tech stuff or I like watching the producer side of

things or the, some of the travel stuff.

Like that's, that's what I'm interested in.

Um,

we're so lucky because of that.

Yeah.

We, we, cause I know

nothing about that.

I wouldn't even know how to start editing anything.

I would be so lost.

So I, we are so lucky.

I'm really, it, I, it feels like a great combination.

But yeah, I mean, and really Doug, it's, we both kind of, at

a certain point, we both kind of realized like story is King.

Story is King.

Story is King.

Story is King.

If you have an interesting story and interesting historical event,

But you don't tell the story well, or it's not presented well.

And we've done that before.

I look at some of our old videos and we're like, Oh my gosh, like,

Yeah, that's boring.

I hope

nobody goes back and finds it.

But, uh, so story is king, even with those, those historical events.

I think

when you use, when you use that storytelling method, Not only one, is it

gonna, it is gonna make it a little bit more interesting for people who can't

just sit there and, and read textbooks.

And like, I I, I will go and read a hundred year old news

articles to like Mm-Hmm.

To figure out the pulse of the culture at the time.

Sure.

That, that's just me.

But I can still go back and watch your video and be thrilled.

Right.

And, and, and just find it fascinating and very captivating.

Um, but one, it'll, it'll help people kind of remember, but

it'll help them understand more.

Yeah.

My opinion, because they're like, okay, I kind of, I kind of see, I see how

that person came to that decision, you know, um, cause yeah, there's, there's

so much context and like we had stated before history is not black and white.

Um, I heard, uh, I heard a comment the other day I was watching, I was

watching something on the, the cold war.

And so the cold war starts directly after world war two.

And, uh, they made the comment that said Hitler was the worst, uh, was

the worst of mankind's creations.

But they were very specific when they said mankind's creation was like,

well, something had to create that man.

So what

did, you know, and, uh, it makes you want to go back and be like, okay,

well, what are the conditions that created this one, this one event.

And within the world, like, you know, why was Constantinople

constantly being conquered?

And you know, what's so important about it, you know, you can

go back and do that stuff.

Uh, but let's talk about favorite, favorite topics.

I hear, I hear John Wayne.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a huge, okay, dudes.

I mean, come on guys.

Like I tell you, I was a pilot in the Navy, right?

I'm so used to hanging around dudes.

It's like, not even funny.

My call sign was Yoko because I broke up the band, right?

First female in the squadron.

And my, I, my father was a high school football coach.

My father was a cop, right?

I have a brother who played football.

Like I'm raised on John Wayne.

I love John Wayne.

That's like, I, I, I, I'll go to my grave.

The searchers is the best Western of all time.

, like, I, I cannot wait to talk about that and talk about the anti-hero.

Yeah, I think it's John Wayne's best performance.

We have a couple more.

John Wayne Media is coming and that's awesome.

And that is kind of what started the channel because I was on my treadmill.

And it was COVID.

And I was looking up John Wayne Museum.

And then I was like, has anyone been to Marina O'Hara's grave?

Because most people do not know that she's buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Marina O'Hara is one of John Wayne's great co stars, right?

She was in the Quiet Man.

She's in, uh, McClintock.

You know, it's really the red head, right?

The fiery red head.

And she was married to a brigadier general in the air force.

And he died in the seventies a long time before her.

And she outlived him.

But so most people kind of forget, but she's buried in Arlington and no

one had visited her grave on youtube.

No.

Well, a lot of people don't understand that.

That the spouses of the service members that are barely acknowledged

and can be buried with them.

Yes.

Yes.

Unfortunately, my, my grandmother recently passed away, but my, my

grandfather is buried in Arden.

So she had the opportunity, however, she denied it because she said that that's,

that's where our heroes go to go to lay.

And so she wanted to keep that there for him, but I had no

idea that she was buried there.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm.

That's one of our first videos from Arlington.

That was

kind of our first positive signal that we were doing something right.

As I

would visit Marie Ann Mino Hera, and that took off because

a lot of people didn't know that.

A lot of people like her.

She's connected to John Wayne.

And so to go to her grave and to talk about her, I kind of found this really

great I don't know if it's a niche, but I did other people in Arlington that way.

I did the Gunny, right?

I could go to their grave and sit with them.

Uh, Charles Durning, people who were a part of the entertainment industry, but

are now in Arlington National Cemetery.

So it was so great to tell their story with them and a great way to honor them.

And I, it, for me, it was just a really great experience.

And so then as a.

As a veteran and to be there and talk about what Arlington means to me.

And then I could visit some people.

We knew I could talk about people who influenced my

military career, who were there.

So it was really, that was one of our first videos and probably the

first video to really take off.

Yeah, that was, that was person really take off.

And now we've been back, you know, back there a bunch of times.

And,

but John Wayne is huge.

Yeah.

John, John Wayne's a good one.

We

compare the two, two grit movies.

That is a huge video.

Yeah,

that's awesome.

Let's, let's, let's talk, let's talk about, you know, service for a second.

Um, I know for myself, all right, as a Navy guy, especially as a

submariner, fourth generation, right.

History is a big deal for our culture and it has a tendency to be a big deal

for just the military members in general.

Um, do you, do you feel like, like your time in the service or your current time

in the service and what you're learning there and knowing that you, you're part

of a long history of something kind of inform you or help you along or inspire

you more to, to do what you're doing or

I'd say, you know, Um, for me guys, it's not a lot

of women who do this, right?

There's not a lot of women pilots period.

Right.

And so I feel, and maybe it's the confidence that comes out, but I feel

very confident and what I do, I think the education helped me be more confident in

what I say and then being out there to represent, I really take that seriously.

Uh, there was another pilot named Jennifer was a helicopter pilot who went down in

Iraq and she was, she was killed there.

So I think about.

A bunch of people that didn't make it home and I take the risk

and I take the chance for them because they can't and I try to go.

I'm going to live my life as much as I can because they can't.

And sometimes if I would have been more timid and I'm not going to try that.

I'm like, no, I'm going for it because I can't.

Yeah.

And I think it's You know, in some sense, it's probably similar to why, you know,

Doug, you probably helped start stand up the gardens of the purple heart.

And it's like, you know, if there's something I want to do, I'm going,

I'm going to give myself the mission and I'm going to attack, right.

I'm going to, I'm going to move towards that mission, whatever that mission is.

And for us, when we finally, we joke that we've, yeah, after 15 years, we

finally found something that we enjoy doing together and that's the YouTube

channel, um, but for, for us, it was.

It kind of put everything together.

And then it also, again, that confidence of like, we have no

idea what we're doing, but we're just going to go and do it anyways.

And we're going to figure it out along the way because that's what we do.

And that comes from, and I think I'm preaching to the choir here, you know,

that comes from being in the military when, when your commanding officer or

your boss or whoever it is says, Hey, you kind of just need to figure this one out.

And you're like, okay.

Let's go.

And, uh, and so I think that's what gave us the confidence to start the

channel, you know, with history, with, with her background and me

wanting to kind of do the production side and enjoying that piece of it.

And then, you know, again, me just kind of doing all the research

on, like, how do we need to do this and how does it all set up?

And then, okay, now we're going to drag the kids along with us and

everything that kind of comes with that.

And then, you know, You know, like anything else, I think anytime you talk

to fellow vets, a lot of us have that perspective that a lot of folks who hadn't

had the opportunity to serve, even though we've met plenty of people who said, Oh,

I wish I could have, or this, that, and the other, you just get a perspective that

not a lot of people get, whether it's from deployments or from what you're doing.

You've seen, you know, just, you know, in your few years or a full career or

whatever that is, um, and so when you have that perspective, when you're

talking about stories in historical context, and that just helps, it kind

of helps you as, you know, the artist crafting that story, paint the picture

a little clearer, hopefully, um, and I think a lot of that stems from that.

Yeah.

And

you

guys, you guys are really, I mean, you pay a wonderful respect to a

lot of aspects of history, but as well as, as some military stuff, you guys

recently did a, a medal of honor video.

Yes.

So I was asked by a fellow, uh, history creator on Instagram, To

visit that grave because they were doing a story and because I am, I'm

very much on location historian.

That's kind of what sets me apart, right?

As I go to the location and tell you about it.

And I was going to Arlington anyway, and I told him absolutely.

So I looked him up and I His story and I sat there with

the Medal of Honor recipient.

I told his story and then it coincided with their, they did a

long form video of their story.

So that was

Instagram.

And then we had done another Medal of Honor when I think it was

the, um, who is the local Carney?

Oh yeah.

Sergeant Carney.

Sergeant Carney is from the civil war.

You remember in the movie glory.

He's kind of played by Denzel Washington and, uh,

carries the flag, carries

the flag.

Yeah.

So he's the first African American to be awarded the medal of honor.

He didn't receive it first because someone else got the actual physical

medal before he did, but his action preceded that other person action.

So he was the first one to receive it.

So yeah,

he's buried here in the Norfolk area.

So we visited his grave and there's a marker, you know, we found his

marker and, you know, kind of, kind of tried to tell that story.

So,

yeah, that's, that is.

I love that.

Yeah.

Thank you for doing that.

I think that's pretty awesome.

Uh, I mean, cause there's stories that shouldn't, shouldn't kind

of fade to history, right?

Yes.

They should continue to be told.

Yeah.

It's, yeah, it's some crazy stuff you guys are doing.

Doug.

Yeah.

You got another question to add in there?

I, like I said, I got a, I got my homework.

No.

Okay.

I mean, not history related, but I mean, I always have to know

just because I, I just love it.

But what's your guys favorite pizza?

We'll go completely off topic here.

Pizza for me, my, my favorite piece is probably pretty controversial.

I know.

At least people have, people tend to have strong feelings.

We get, we get people mad at us.

So

I'm a big pepperoni and pineapple guy.

I like pineapple on pizza.

Some people I've, I've literally had friends who didn't, who didn't like it.

Yeah, it's

so good because it's the sweet with the spicy.

I've, I've had like

close friends that didn't know that I like that.

They'll, they'll, that topic comes up and they'll be like, if you

like, if you like pineapple on your pizza, don't ever talk to me again.

We cannot be friends, et cetera, et cetera.

I'm jokingly.

But, uh, so, so for me, that's, that's honestly my favorite.

And

I can eat that too.

Actually, when we used to do a lot of like, Climbing and

stuff and you're so exhausted.

That was a really good treat, but I, I'll try to send your

rock climbers.

This

guy did El Cap.

He's done the nose of El Cap twice.

He did the face of half dome.

This guy is a big wall rock climber.

That's no joke out there pulling on some rock.

He was a Naval Academy gymnast.

So.

He's the real deal.

Wow.

I know.

That's what I said.

I don't usually bring, I don't usually bring that up with random strangers

that I just met on the internet.

But it's okay.

I'll let, I'll let her bring it up.

It's impressive though.

It's a, it's a definitely, definitely a fun, fun sport.

To get into, we actually, we, we got a family membership to a

central rock gym, uh, here and the whole family fell in love with it.

I'd done it multiple times before and then gone out to

actually climb a couple of times.

But, uh, I was like, well, let's just go do it.

And sure enough, they all fell in love with it.

Especially when they're a bunch of little kids that climb on everything anyways.

So it's, yeah, it's, it's perfect for them.

I actually, I tried to start a climbing gym, uh, when I,

I actually got out of the Navy, uh, for about a year or two.

Um, that's what I, that's what I tried to do.

But 2010 after the great recession was not a great time to start a business.

Yeah.

I tried to start a book, start a comic book store.

So try,

try selling picture books to big kids.

Yeah.

But, um, so you, you mentioned.

Well, you mentioned multiple times.

You're the traveling historian, the on the on scene historian, but I've heard the

phrase, uh, evergreen used a few times.

Can you, can you explain that?

Yeah.

So, so that's a, that's a concept, um, that I actually got from, there's a,

there's a podcast out there, dusty Porter.

He has the YouTube creators podcast, right?

Um, and he basically just kind of talks to other creators.

Creators and talks about what they learned building a YouTube channel.

So I listened to that for a while.

Like anything else, I'm researching the hell out of, you know, how do I

make a successful YouTube channel?

And he talked about evergreen content and evergreen content is something

that you could listen to it today.

You could listen to it three years ago.

You could listen to it in 10 years and it's, it's still the same story.

It's still relevant.

You know, it, it lasts no matter what, if we're sitting here talking

about the most recent Text stuff.

Well, in a couple of years, that's going to be out of date, but if we're talking

about history and that's why I knew when she brought this up, she said, Hey, I want

to start a history channel in my head.

I was like, ding, I know for a fact that that will work.

Um,

and so that's that evergreen content.

Like if you tell it right, um, and you don't kind of try to interject

too much modern day, uh, kind of context and comparisons, you

can keep that story evergreen.

So that again, if you tell it properly, In five years, someone could watch

the video we just published the other day on Meriwether Lewis, and

it's going to be the same story.

It's going to be the same engaging story.

He's been

dead since 1809.

So if you're telling the same story, think of it as a great rerun, right?

It holds its syndication, right?

So you don't have to, the content is good.

Someone could watch that same video.

10 years from now.

And the, all the information is still the same.

I can watch.

I love Lucy till the day I die.

Oh my gosh.

Yep.

Right.

Cause it's still relevant.

You're

right.

We, we had a, a video that we put up, um, that we were toying

around with the idea of doing medal of honor recipients as well.

And we did a master sergeant, uh, was it Roy?

Was it Roy Benavides?

Yeah.

Um, and, and his story and like that did just kind of did quite well for

itself, you know, for a small channel, but I was like, all right, well, that

shows that people are interested.

People care.

Um, there wasn't anything special.

It was literally just his speech, you know, I think it was, uh, I think

Reagan might've been speaking at the time or, or someone, but, uh, yeah.

Yeah.

It's true.

They are.

They are evergreen things.

I think I've gone back and I've listened to tides of history's

podcast, entire catalog twice by now, but it's the same thing.

It's that narrative history telling that I love so much and you guys

are a great addition to that.

Um, so now, now we have some questions about history.

Yes.

Um, we are the guardians of the purple heart.

That's so cool.

Anything that's fun.

You can tell us about the Purple Heart Award.

Well,

George Washington is on the Purple Heart and George Washington

originated the, the medal, but it wasn't, wasn't what it is today when

he first started it, I think the first Purple Heart that actually was a Purple

Heart came out during the civil war.

for being injured and during combat or injured during battle.

I think for George Washington, his Purple Heart, he was giving it to

people who had just, who had served.

And so it kind of took a transition between the Revolutionary War to

the Civil War to what it is today.

Uh, if you are a Purple Heart recipient, your name is in a book in Mount Vernon.

You can go ask to see it.

I didn't know that.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so if you are a Purple Heart recipient, you go to Mount Vernon.

Really bad for not knowing that.

You can ask to see your name in the book.

It's on the second floor of Mount Vernon.

So you will be allowed your, your family, whoever you're allowed to

go up there and look and see your name in the book, the Purple Heart.

We might

have to take a trip.

Yeah, those are the things I know about it.

We might, we might have to, I mean, I think the whole book idea is, is really,

I mean, it's awesome because you're like, your name is, is kind of like edged in

history forever and having that it's, I would say it's kind of cool, but then

again, on the, I would have to say on like the psychological side of things,

I look at it and go, I wouldn't want to see my name in a book and reminding me.

Of the day that I possibly almost died, right?

It's like, I, I have, you know, I've been through multiple surgeries, um,

because of my injuries overseas and.

Everyone tells me wear them as a badge of honor that, you know, you made it through.

And yeah, I do.

But at the same time, it's, it's that constant reminder too.

So I'd have to say on the psychological side of things, I could see how it would

be a little bit troublesome, but I mean, either way, I still think that's awesome.

We need to take a

trip.

Yeah.

Well, your name is in a book in Mount Vernon and I think it's

reminiscent of George Washington.

So I think that is the kind of what.

They're trying because his face is on the heart and your name is in his house.

So my, my question, um, is just fun.

Uh, can you tell me anything about, uh, Doc Holliday?

Oh man.

So pe people keep recommending to us, so we're gonna have to compare.

That's, I love tombstones.

We're gonna have to compare the two movies.

You were just watching it the other night.

Yeah.

We're gonna have to compare

the two movies because people, because people love

the True Grit comparison.

Mm-Hmm.

. We're gonna have to Doya, Earp and Tombstone.

Yeah.

We've been to Deadwood.

It was super cool.

Recommend going, uh, I think Val Coer played him better.

Uh, do what did we just learn about Big Nose Kate the other day?

That was neat.

That something was named after her and most people don't know

it was named after so big nose.

Kate is doc holidays.

I like better where his girlfriend, uh, he is a doctor.

He's a doctor of dentistry.

That's what he's a doctor of.

And I'll tell you, I'll tell you

what, just from like a traveling around the United States perspective, I

was so surprised at South Dakota, that part of South Dakota where, where dead

wood is right, right near Mount Rushmore.

It's gorgeous out there.

It's like hilly and like.

Not almost mountainous, depending on what you're kind of comparing,

you know, as, as mountains, but just that, that part of the country, I

can 100 percent understand why people were just flocking out there because

it is

beautiful country.

We went out right when she said, when we went out there,

we just whole Western road trip.

And so it took the kids and I mean, we drove 6, 000 plus miles over

the course of a couple of weeks.

Yeah, we were, we were hitting it hard.

Um, but, uh, We were out there.

We stayed in South Dakota for a couple of days for a family reunion.

Cause I've got family in Montana and Colorado and California.

And so we all kind of met, you know, semi in the middle.

Yeah.

Like I said, doc holiday had tuberculosis.

I know that.

And when we were in Deadwood, do you know what, um, The Dead Man's Hand is with

Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he died.

Oh,

yeah.

Ace, eight.

I don't remember the hand, but I know.

There you

go.

Aces over eights.

Aces over

eights.

Aces over eights.

And one thing.

Yeah, that's the Dead Man's Hand.

Um, where was the OK Corral shootout?

Was that the, uh.

Arizona.

Yeah.

I'm still hung up on the fact that you gave me that doc was a dentist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which was interesting 'cause I believe during that time period, dentists were

also often barbers or it was Barbers

were often dentists.

No, barbers were also surgeons.

I think it was because that's where something like, so if you look outside

the barbers, see maybe I'm gonna teach you a little bit of history, so, oh,

the spinning my lottery

ticket, y'all.

I'm ready.

Is it that spinning thing?

Mm-Hmm.

with the red and the white.

Yep.

It's because they used to put, um, the bloody rags on the, the thing, the

white, the white pole, and it would spin around and then it would, they

would use it to dry them out that way.

Yes.

Oh, interesting.

But, but surgeons could pull teeth.

You can kind of, you can kind of put them both together, the teeth pulling.

And so, I can see that

either way.

Um, I just, I just love tombstone and I love that character.

So

he's so good.

It's all cameras.

So good.

So where was, was the tombstone in the city?

Was that Arizona?

It's in Arizona.

So it's Arizona.

So wasn't it, uh, Lisa that we were talking to?

So, um, our friend Lisa, she's got a, um, Pretty big Instagram channel.

Historical USA.

So her family's from the Arizona area and her, was it her great grandmother?

Yeah, it was there.

Was actually at the shootout at the O.

K.

Corral.

She was there.

Wow.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

So she was from Arizona, um, lived a hard life, but that was something

that was passed down in her family.

Yeah.

She was there at the, at the actual shootout.

Another cool thing about history, genealogy, right?

People want to know who they're connected to in history.

Yeah.

I have that for music history in my family, oddly enough.

Yes.

Speaking of wits, my fiance is, um, she has direct ties with Abraham Lincoln

and like a part of, um, I forget who in her family, like they were there

in the theater when he was shot.

And she has like all this memorabilia of like letters and stuff like that, like

hanging up downstairs in our living room.

But.

I mean, that part is kind of, that's kind of interesting.

That's cool.

Yeah, I have.

I am.

Yes.

Han Solo did shoot first.

Yes, right.

It's fact.

A fact.

I'm not, I'm not a Star Trek fan.

Fact.

Princess Leia is the hero of that movie.

Don't get her

startled.

All right.

So for my, for my wife and I, uh, our, our individual families that, uh, the

sharps and then, uh, One of the sides of her family, the Maxwell's very deep

Scottish roots, hers more so than mine.

All right.

So like the Maxwell clan has a castle in Scotland.

It's this beautiful, awesome triangle castle with a moat around it.

Um, The leader of the Maxwell clan was one of like, I think the 22 clan and, um,

uh, leaders that signed the equivalent of Scotland's declaration of independence

as a letter to the Pope at the time.

Um, which it's cool to show my children, be like, this, this is your heritage.

You know, your, your family name is attached to a country existing.

Yeah.

Where mine is the only reason why I can, I know my ancestry is because Scotland

prisons have really good prison records.

So the joke is, is that I married up, um, that her family owned the castle and

my family was probably in the jail cell.

We were always caught stealing horses or food.

It's, yeah, it's cool.

Like the, the genealogical.

Mm-Hmm.

, uh, history as well.

My, my grand, my great-grandparents, uh, met at the Hoover Dam

while it was being built.

Oh, shit.

Uh, my great grandfather was a foreman, uh, there after he got out of the service.

That's cool.

And, uh.

He would have, uh, you know, back then when you have giant projects

like that, there's just small towns that pop up around the projects.

Right.

Uh, so they would have big chow halls and stuff and people would come in,

move in from all over the United States to go to go to work there.

And my great grandmother was one of the cooks in this, in this chow hall.

So my grandfather every day would go to make sure that his guys were getting fed.

Well, um, Goes down there, sees that they're all happy and laughing.

They're enjoying great food, goes to talk to the cook to, to, to thank

her and is just floored by her.

And so every day he would come back to check, check, check on his guys

and make sure they were being fed.

Eventually the, the two fell in love and they got married.

They all kind of built around the Hoover dam and a giant

thing for the United States.

Right.

So that genealogical history, my, my grandfather was part of the USS Torsk,

which was the submarine that was, uh, part of the Naval blockade, uh,

during the Cuban missile crisis, the Russian submarine that actually had a

nuclear torpedo pointed right at us.

Wow.

So it, yeah, to, to, to be, to know, like your family is part of history

and stuff that you kind of realize that history isn't just facts.

It's, it's who we are,

you

know, um, you have a really cool.

Piece of merchandise.

I'm going to share it here.

I love it.

It says history or die.

I'm wearing it.

Yeah.

We just came up with that one.

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

And there's, and the bumper sticker that's next to it that

says I break for historic markers.

A couple of years ago I had bought my wife, um, uh, like a big GPS for her car.

Cause I didn't have one.

And so I set it all up for, and when I started.

I realized that there's history channel logo logos all over the map.

And apparently the version that I got was contract with history channel

shows all the historical spots that are around you, wherever you are.

I still, I don't need a GPS.

I still have this thing.

Well, I love that, that bumper sticker, because I was really doing that.

Like we were driving and I would be like, slow down the horse, dark

marker, I want to read it real fast.

And I told Scott that we should make a bumper sticker to warn people.

Because we're slowing down to read these.

And so he's like, I'll make it.

So that was kind of funny.

The history or die, uh, we were going out somewhere and he had a

shirt on that said, join or die.

And I was like, wouldn't it be great if we could wear this with the channel

and it said history, and he's like, I'm going to make it right now.

Hey, you know, I, I had, uh, I had the saying like for my entire

life, which was stay heavy, stay metal.

I grew up in a heavy metal family and, uh, we, we turned it into our Our

kind of our sign off the stay proud.

Stay grateful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And uh, the, the, the fun thing with the history of die, we're

actually kind of trying to do some kind of history content, community

content, uh, support behind that.

So if you, um, We're starting a website, actually history or die dot org.

It's kind of in a soft, soft launch kind of phase right now.

But what we're trying to do is bring on, you know, basically

make it like a place for people to go find good history creators.

And then from there, kind of go off to their channel.

So we just kind of started reaching out to the people we knew.

And then I just, I literally went on YouTube and started finding some of the

biggest history content creators I could.

And I just.

Email them blind, right?

And just said, Hey, I'm starting to say that.

Yeah, exactly.

And I basically just said, Hey, you know, the, the concept is

a rising tide lifts all boats.

And so we're hoping that no cost to you.

I made a Google form.

They fill it out in five, 10 minutes and I just kind of create a profile

page for them and then I, I asked them, Hey, you know, The concept

behind history or die is it's kind of a nod to that, um, join or die, which

is that that call for unity, right?

Hey, we're trying to get together to learn history because it's important.

Same thing with the join or die that Ben Franklin put out in May of 15,

Um, so he, so he put it out then and it was like, Hey, we need to

stay together because if we don't, then, you know, we're going to die.

And so that's, that's the concept is, is that call of.

Hey, you know, good quality history content is really going

to, it can only help, right?

Um, it'll keep us together.

And so, um, I'm working on some stuff.

I'm just, we're getting busy cause I'm PCSing soon and, uh, uh, trying to,

trying to get some of the big channels to promote the site, which will bring up the

smaller channels because we'll get lots of people there and kind of just build it.

And so any history or die stuff that's bought off of our, off of

our walk with history gift shop actually goes towards that site.

Um, and we try not to put ourselves out front.

This is kind of a community thing.

Um, think of it

as the history channel.

Yeah.

So that

has real history.

I love

it.

I think it's

fantastic.

Yeah,

but

yeah, that's, that's one of my favorite shirts we, we made recently.

That's, that's a cool one.

Well, Doug, you got anything left?

I just need to

know

tank

over there.

Out of, out of all the places that you've been, what is like the number one place

that you want to go and do an episode on?

So like, so it'd be like your dream vacation of a history episode.

Your bucket

list.

Yeah.

Oh, like

the big bucket list.

Yes.

Yeah.

What did we, probably the Monument Valley of the searchers.

I mean, for me, so I'd say within America, it's definitely

going out to Monument Valley.

In Utah, trying

to recreate some of those scenes from the searchers, right?

When he's like looking over the valley and I want to

retire

in Utah.

Yeah.

It's so beautiful.

I'd

say here in America, that's definitely like highest on our list

for, for me personally, if I was going to do, I could go anywhere, right.

The budget budget, no price.

Um, I've always wanted to go to Switzerland because I just think that

the country is just as a kid, right.

Purely there and I'm sure there's history there like there's the Matterhorn and

stuff like that right being a climber There's plenty of history there When it

comes to that kind of kind of realm and I would love to go see like Setha you were

saying some of those Just truly ancient.

Yeah

sites like if we were gonna do a world travel for a year for the channel

That's kind of what I'd probably start with is some of those truly ancient sites,

right?

Go, go into Istanbul and going into the cathedral there and seeing Viking

graffiti up on the wall, Petra,

I'd like to go to Petra, you see the

pyramids.

Even though I know a lot of that stuff, there's touristy stuff around

it now, like, um, but I would love to.

To do that stuff.

And then I'm sure you give me enough time.

I'll find some places that are off the beaten path and then

then I'll really be in my element kind of away from the crowds.

Yeah, let's go.

I wanna go to Jerusalem and find the Holy Grail.

Right?

Right.

And there's I mean, there's a lot of places around the world where

you just, you know, if you get an opportunity to go see him, you should.

Yeah, they won't always be there.

Even if they're natural ones like me.

I was, I grew up with, uh, what was it?

Uh, the old man in the mountain up in New Hampshire, right?

No longer there.

Yeah.

Um, it's, uh, I mean, we'll, we'll look at China for instance.

Um, China during the fifties and the sixties lost a large portion

of, of its, uh, heritage sites.

Yeah.

Italy was

doing that too during World War II.

Yeah, Italy, Italy as well.

And it's such a shame.

But I would love, I would love to set foot in just ancient

Greek, you know, and Roman areas.

Yeah.

You know, I just, take me there, please.

Yeah,

I would too.

I would like to see some Greek.

We were in, um, I think it was Italia Turkey, uh, with the Navy.

And I was sitting in a Coliseum eating a sandwich and they were like,

this has been around since 1500 BC.

And I'm just sitting there eating a sandwich going, I'm sitting here

where people sat and watched and it's been around since before Christ.

Like it's just, it's hard to me to even fathom, right?

And I'm just sitting

the entire score from the gladiator.

Yeah, inside the Roman Coliseum.

I was like, how, how you get better than that?

Doug, where, where would you

go if you could, if you go anywhere?

Anywhere but Connecticut.

No, I'm kidding.

Um, I really don't know.

Like I'm, I'm a, Huge.

Um, like I'm really big into, uh, the Renaissance, so I really

would love to visit like England and Scotland and all that.

I think the, that countryside is just absolutely gorgeous.

Switzerland is, I mean, I agree with you.

It's absolutely like you look at the pictures and stuff and it just

seems like a magical place to go to, but I don't think I have a.

Like number one place that I would like to go, because I mean, and then this

is going to sound kind of cheesy and cliche, but it, I look at, I drive down

the road, even if I drive an hour away from my house, like I'm thankful enough

just to be able to visit that area.

Because like you said, there's people who don't have that opportunity.

So.

I mean, I get excited when we drive down to Long Island for a weekend.

So it's like the only person I'm joking.

Yeah.

I mean, I would definitely love to do like the Switzerland, Ireland, Scotland,

London, all that, all that stuff.

So we did Ireland and Scotland.

We didn't know we were pregnant with our first and I drank Guinness like every day.

So I always say our first was swimming in Guinness.

We went to Kong Ireland when they filmed the quiet man, the John

Wayne movie, we stayed in Ashford castle where the whole cast stayed.

And we walked like a lot of the scenes of the quiet man.

We walked and did all of them.

It was, that was cool to do.

And we watched the quiet man pretty much every St.

Patrick's day.

So it was neat to actually be there and to see it.

And, uh, if you watch our top 10, John Wayne, like it's, it's in there for me.

It's it's coming.

That

video is coming.

And

that was like his, my top 10, that's his youngest role.

And I think he's 45 in it, but I think that's like John Wayne

at his, his almost his best.

I can't, I can't remember the name of it.

It's a, it's a temple in India.

Um, and the only aspects that I remember of it is, is that.

monks would go live their entire lives there.

And the point of the temple is that it's built like a ziggurat, right?

So you wind around it all the way to the top and the entire pathway, there

are carvings, they're independent of each other and there's lessons

to be learned from every carving.

So monks would spend their entire lives meditating in front of a carving,

trying to like, the divine, the deep meaning of what's there and slowly work

their way up all the way to the top.

When you get there, the, the view is so alien almost that it's like

you've actually reached nirvana.

And that was the whole point of it.

It

was that by then, if you, if you have sussed out the meanings

of each one of these things, then you have become enlightened.

And then this is that place for you.

And I just found that fascinating.

That is cool.

Well, you're a very visual guy, comic books, you know, like,

yeah.

And I mean, if you're walking a tower and you're not looking out because

you're staring at the The carving, and you're not looking the other way,

then when you finally get to the top is the first time you're looking, then

yeah, it probably would seem awesome.

Right?

But that's what I'm talking about.

Places like

those.

Yeah, that's neat.

That is neat, though.

Yeah, that's one of the places I had actually tried to go.

was Nepal.

Yeah.

We wanted to do the hike to ever space camp to Kevin.

Yeah.

And, uh, when I, when I got out of the Navy at the time, it was off limits.

Um, so I couldn't go.

Well, I think, uh, I think that's what we'll call it for the day.

I could sit here all night and talk about history with you guys.

I love people that I can learn from.

Um, and it's fun.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

And especially like, like Doug and I were talking about the way that you

guys deliver, um, Uh, the history makes you want to know more, makes you want

to know more about, you know, American history, history in general, um, and it

can sometimes spark that thirst for it.

Yeah.

Uh, which is, which is great.

I think you guys do.

An amazing service to, to the history itself and a service to everyone

else, uh, by continuing to teach it.

Yeah.

Um, I agree.

So yeah.

And also I agree.

Thank you for your service.

for your service.

Even the

army guy,

Doug's, Doug's hating this.

You got no chance to go by.

There's more Navy guys, bunch

of Navy folks on this.

You got no chance.

I'll admit before we cut out, I will admit, so I work for the fleet

and family support center at our.

At our submarine base here in Connecticut.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Oh, since I've started working for them, I've said the, the army and the

Marines, they're, they're there to just like mess stuff up the Navy and the

air force are definitely the smarter of the branches because it's like some of

these people I talk to, I mean, granted, a lot of them are nukes and they just,

you They have to just like dissect everything, but it's, I will admit, I am

outnumbered in the smart department here.

No, it was great.

It was,

this, this, this was, this was super, super fun guys.

And we'll, I will absolutely make sure that we, we share this, uh,

you know, a bunch, whenever you guys kind of end up getting it posted.

So thank you for what you do.

Guys, I

hope that anybody watching, especially anybody from our audience,

um, that they may come over here and watch this and make it to this point.

Like, you know, support the, your guys guardians of the purple harp foundation.

That's awesome.

Yeah, that's really awesome.

Appreciate

it.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

I'm going to close this tab, uh, how to sound smart at history.

So, yeah, so real quick, before we close out, um, Tell us

where we can find you guys.

Um, I know you got the merchandise, which, you know, we brought up there.

I'm absolutely getting one of these and one of these, the

shirt and the bumper sticker.

I love it.

Um, I break for historic markers.

I love it so much.

And then we have our YouTube channel and we can find you on, I'm assuming Spotify.

Yeah.

So,

so our walk with history stuff, obviously on YouTube.

Um, The probably easiest place to find everything that we're doing, um, is

our main website, which you can get to that main link on our YouTube channel,

but it's walk with history dot net.

Um, so walk with history dot net.

Um, you'll you'll find links to our podcast, which is talk with history.

Um, I try.

A newsletter.

I'm not very good at being consistent about it.

So it went from monthly to by month by monthly.

Um, but uh, but yeah, so pretty active on Instagram.

If you're kind of for daily stuff, if you really want to interact with

us, um, Instagram walk with history, uh, Jen's very, very active on there.

Yeah.

Community is growing pretty fast.

Let us know where you're going to be.

I saw your booths and stuff.

I would love to come out and.

Collaborate and make a reel.

I like doing Instagram, like daily things.

There are some people who are much more into the daily Mm-Hmm.

quick bites of history.

And there's people who like the longer form videos, so.

Well,

I'll tell you what, I'll, I'll, I'll promise you this as I

go throughout my travels 'cause I'm always looking for fun history stuff

I stumble across anything good.

I'll make a post for it and I'll, I'll tag you guys.

Perfect.

Perfect, perfect.

Alright.

It's gonna be awesome.

Um, so yeah, we and you guys get

your Patreon.

I believe as well.

We do have our Patreon.

You know what?

I love when people go over there.

Um, in the future when I actually am not working full time and getting ready

to move and all that stuff, I will invest more time into, into being able

to put more out exclusive content.

Um, really, if you, if you find our YouTube channel or if you find our

podcast, um, those are the two places that, that we point people to the most.

Patreon is great.

Um, but, but I definitely don't, I don't push it out there too much because

that's not the primary goal right now.

The primary goal is for us to inspire people to get out there

and go find historic places.

So,

well, you've successfully inspired over 22, 000 people to watch your channel.

So yes, in 2001.

I love it.

There we go.

Okay.

Yeah, we are.

We are.

I subscribed on my personal account and the show's account.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

All right, folks.

Well, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show.

Um, and, uh, if we want to do this again, if you ever guys, whenever I

come back on, all you gotta do is ask.

Awesome.

Definitely

once you definitely come into the fold of the Guardian family, you,

you're here to stay as long as you want.

Um, if you're in the area you wanna come out to event, I'm, I'll be there.

I'm kidding.

. Um, uh, yeah, if you're in the area at any point in time you wanna

come out to an event that we're having, you're more than welcome.

You can be our guest honor.

Um, maybe we can actually get you in the studio.

If that's ever the case.

I don't expect some surface sailors to make it up to Connecticut.

. Scott: Be a, be a little tougher for, for me.

I'll, I'll leave, uh, gentle leave you with this.

Um, I have two German shepherds that are named Maverick and goose.

Nice.

You guys are going to love this.

My maiden name before I married Scott was Mitchell.

So I was Lieutenant Mitchell and I heard all the jokes that my

name wasn't the best in the Navy.

Yeah.

Um, uh, Top Gun is, is Nick, our producer and our president for the

Connecticut chapters and mine's favorite movie followed very,

very closely by Wayne's world.

Hey, they're both great.

Yeah.

And you happen to forget that my ride name in the motorcycle

community happens to be goose.

So, all right, folks, we'll, we'll close it down here.

Um, guys, thank you so much for coming on.

But, uh, we greatly appreciate it.

Uh, if you're watching at home, uh, make sure you subscribe

to a walking the history.

Uh, and if you're.

Watching us for the first time.

Be cool if you subscribe to us as well, you know, um, but they got a cooler show.

We'll take it home from here.

Um, as usual, thanks for watching, uh, share, like subscribe and,

uh, stay proud, stay grateful.

We'll see you next time,

Joaquin, with history.

That was awesome with history, Joaquin with history.

Oh my God, , I'll do my outro.

I hope you enjoyed our conversation with the Cover Down podcast.

If you wanna support the Guardians of the Purple Heart, there are links in our

show notes, or you can do a quick search for a Guardians of the Purple Heart.

Thank you, and we'll talk to you next time.