I need to win this war, so I'm gonna go in

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and kill a few hundred thousand people,

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justifiably, that's not genocide,

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but if somebody else does it, it's genocide.

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If somebody, if a man on

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the street kills another man,

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we call it murder, but if

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one army defeats another army,

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you know, we call it victory or defeat,

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we don't call it murder,

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we don't wanna conceptualize

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that thought and people might.

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That's as much on a global scale,

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murder as a man on the

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street killing another man.

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It's murder, it's not justifiable.

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Well, this is gonna be interesting, Vince.

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I've never done an interview with someone

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that has your experience on this particular topic

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about the American military industrial complex,

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which is a big bunch of words.

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But before we get into that, just wanna note,

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you have extensive experience in the Air Force,

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United States Air Force, and then also 14 years

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in weapons systems development

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with the Department of Defense and so on.

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Why don't you briefly

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outline the kind of work you did

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before you left that world?

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You're part of the Anabaptists now.

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We did a whole other episode on your testimony

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and then went on the topic of non-resistance,

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so those will be separate

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things, people can look those up.

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But give us a bit of context

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of the kind of work you did

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and then we're gonna get into this topic.

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Yeah, I think the training actually started

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while I was in college,

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even as a cadet, so to speak,

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getting obligated to the Air Force

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for them paying for part of my tuition,

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going in, getting through

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the world's top flight training

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opportunity a year long of intense training.

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Again, building capabilities and trainings

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that you're gonna use

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eventually in some form or fashion

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against an enemy.

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So I had flown in Vietnam

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flying intelligence gathering,

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slow twin engine airplanes

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with a few guys in the back

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and that was intelligence gathering of the days

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like we wouldn't even do anymore.

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That would all be automated,

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maybe even from satellites.

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But then I got into B-52 bombers,

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which at the time the emphasis in Vietnam

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was conventional weapons, high explosives.

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We carried 22 750 pound

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bombs, did a lot of damage,

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but then the real, if you call it meaningful

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or the largest effect you would have

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was carrying nuclear weapons.

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And the potential of

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getting involved in or triggering

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a global thermal nuclear war as it's called.

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Interestingly enough, there was a strategy

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that we had dealt with the Russians,

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our arch enemy called MAD,

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Mutually Assured Destruction.

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And that capability to destroy each other.

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It's not you attack them and win the war,

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it's you both attack each

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other and you both end up losers.

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But we had to be ready for an eventuality

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on nuclear capability, wiping out whole parts

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of their economy or their society,

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key industrial

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capabilities with striking even terror

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in the people, a deliberate consequence of war,

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putting terror in the hearts of their people,

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destroying their own morale.

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We had billions and billions of dollars

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put into what was called a

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triad, of which I was part of.

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We had the sea launch

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ballistic missiles, a submarine,

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with tubes in it, carrying a

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number of nuclear tipped missiles

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could fire from underwater.

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We had bombers like I flew

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that could fly over a target

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in an area where, in areas where there weren't

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the air defenses as you would find today.

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And then we had missiles in silos,

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which effectively supposedly

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could survive a nuclear war,

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yet be able to still launch as another one.

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So as you knocked out any portion of the triad,

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you still had an incredibly powerful force

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with hundreds of nuclear weapons,

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not just a few hundreds of them,

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and almost all of them were

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aimed over the North Pole,

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which is the shortest route to the Soviet Union,

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who was the enemy at the time.

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China was not involved,

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they were developing nuclear

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weapons during the Cold War,

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but it was us and them.

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And the further you could spread out,

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get those submarines out

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there into the ocean far enough,

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not just off the shore, but way out in the ocean,

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patrolling in places where

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the enemy doesn't even know,

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you could come in from different angles

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and confuse the enemy's defenses

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and do incredible things, damage to him.

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And he's doing the same thing.

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So there's no winners in a war like that.

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So that's why they call it MAD.

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Okay, so you actually commanded a B-52 as well,

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Griffiths Air Force Base, I believe it was,

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which as I've done a little

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research before this episode,

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that was one of the largest stockpiles

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of nuclear weapons in the world at the time,

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which it's not there anymore,

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that they've all been moved and so forth.

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How long were you a commander of that B-52?

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I was in B-52 flying for nine years,

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and I was a commander

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probably two thirds at a time,

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six of those nine years.

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And so I had command over six man crew,

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he had a navigator, radar navigator,

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electronic warfare officer, and of all things,

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a gunner who would fire an

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electronically guided gun

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that was on the back of the airplane,

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a co-pilot who was my assistant,

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he was capable of flying the airplane,

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but I was the commander that

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made the decisions ultimately,

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is my decision, I would get the advice from them

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and decide, and we were, I had weapons initially,

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a couple of nuclear bombs up in the bomb bay,

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but then we started

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advancing even while I was in it,

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got the SRAM, which is a

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short range attack missile,

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and it was like a revolver,

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the rotating rack would drop a missile out,

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it would drop away from the

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airplane and then fire forward

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and fly many, many miles to the enemy target.

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Accuracy wasn't what it is today,

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but still it was a highly effective weapon.

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So you didn't have to risk

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the airplane flying over that.

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And we went with under the wing,

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mounted weapons in the bomb bay weapons,

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more and more destructive.

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So you had one airplane

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had the ability to destroy

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half the Russian economy,

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picking the right thing.

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One airplane.

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One airplane, because

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you're launching nuclear weapons

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that are capable of destroying,

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we didn't destroy whole cities anymore,

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that wasn't our objective,

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it's not as effective as

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hitting specified targets,

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high value targets we call them,

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where the return on investment, so to speak,

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you're risking bomber,

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you're risking what's onboard

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the bomber to hit a very, very important target.

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You may send a couple of bombers into one target

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in case the first one didn't get to the target,

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is that important?

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Those are the things we attack then.

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I didn't realize, I mean, I knew those bombers

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you're flying carried an incredible amount

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of destructive power, that

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was more than I was expecting.

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Whoa.

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Okay, so you're in the Air

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Force, 24 years as an officer,

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commanded B-52, multiple

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combat missions to Vietnam,

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but after that, you go into R&D,

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research and development

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with Department of Defense.

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How long did you do that?

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Can you tell me a couple projects you worked on?

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Outline why you did that.

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Yeah, I didn't say it, but I spent 24 years

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as a pilot in the Air

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Force, 24 years to learn all that

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taken from my childhood

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right up into active duty school,

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then some of the most unique weapons,

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and then get into what we

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called a research and development,

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specifically a system program office,

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developing a specific airplane.

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And I was in first in the B-2

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stealth bomber program office,

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and then in the F-22, which

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is our top of the line fighter.

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We don't even use that fighter today.

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It is so filled with classified information,

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so capable, we're not risking.

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We sent in the F-35, which

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is a less capable airplane,

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but they're cheaper.

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We got more of them.

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It's not as dangerous to

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risk one of those airplanes.

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And by the way, those

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things now are called platforms.

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There's no such thing

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anymore as air to air combat,

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like World War II with

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planes flying against each other.

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The other plane is not the target.

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It's a waste of your

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airplane to kill one other airplane.

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So this becomes a weapons

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platform that can go fast,

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get into the penetrate air defenses

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and get in, hit one target or two or three,

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and then get out with a lot of precision,

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a lot of deception and doing that.

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So all this is coming together

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in a technological capability.

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And we would not design airplanes.

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We would conceptualize.

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Here's what we want.

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We want a long range bomber

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that's stealthy cannot be detected,

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which by the way, stealth is not just the skin

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on an airplane, like people think.

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It's not non-reflective skin.

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Stealth is a whole order of things.

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And this is where

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classified information comes in.

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And I had had top secret clearance for years,

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but now we got into what we

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would call known unknowns.

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We know the Air Force is building a bomber,

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but it's unknown what it's gonna do.

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All we know is they're building a bomber.

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And those things go on today.

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And then you get unknown unknowns.

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We call them uncunks,

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where you had to be read into a specific program.

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They would look at you and your background

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and they say, I want Vince

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Lewis in on this program.

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It's not just give me seven Lieutenant Colonels.

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I want this one and I want that one

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because they've got what we're after.

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You were hand selected then.

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Hand selected and they were

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reading you into the program,

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which meant you would be

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told what the program's about.

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You may not even see all the program,

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but the other thing that's interesting,

277

00:11:17,551 --> 00:11:20,054

these SPOs or system program

278

00:11:20,054 --> 00:11:22,056

offices, as they were called,

279

00:11:22,056 --> 00:11:24,975

would be downtown in an office building

280

00:11:25,434 --> 00:11:27,895

with the military guys wearing a business suit

281

00:11:28,479 --> 00:11:31,107

and just acting like he's a banker

282

00:11:31,107 --> 00:11:34,568

in a local business tower in downtown.

283

00:11:35,152 --> 00:11:40,074

All that disguised in a skiff, big rooms,

284

00:11:41,325 --> 00:11:43,160

sensitive compartmented information.

285

00:11:43,953 --> 00:11:46,747

You can't afford this to get out of the room

286

00:11:47,081 --> 00:11:50,793

because people can pick up radio signals,

287

00:11:51,001 --> 00:11:54,088

even voices within a room,

288

00:11:54,547 --> 00:11:59,009

easy to capture the vibration of a window,

289

00:11:59,885 --> 00:12:02,638

a single pane window from what's inside the room,

290

00:12:02,888 --> 00:12:05,891

pick that up with a laser reflecting off of it

291

00:12:06,350 --> 00:12:07,977

to a certain frequency and tell

292

00:12:07,977 --> 00:12:08,978

what's being said in the room.

293

00:12:09,145 --> 00:12:10,146

You can't afford that.

294

00:12:10,646 --> 00:12:14,692

You have a facility that's so intensely designed.

295

00:12:15,234 --> 00:12:16,527

You might even be in on

296

00:12:16,527 --> 00:12:18,279

the building of that facility

297

00:12:18,279 --> 00:12:21,073

to know there's no embedded things

298

00:12:21,407 --> 00:12:22,575

that the enemy has figured

299

00:12:22,575 --> 00:12:24,869

out through his deception

300

00:12:25,453 --> 00:12:28,038

or hacking maybe to figure out,

301

00:12:28,038 --> 00:12:31,500

oh, they're gonna turn this building into a skiff

302

00:12:31,917 --> 00:12:34,128

and the local community doesn't even know it.

303

00:12:34,420 --> 00:12:37,131

I mean, this is like a lot of smoke and mirrors

304

00:12:37,298 --> 00:12:40,384

and murky world that you were in.

305

00:12:41,135 --> 00:12:44,889

I mean, that's obviously the B2 and F22,

306

00:12:45,306 --> 00:12:47,641

we know they exist now, but at the time,

307

00:12:47,641 --> 00:12:48,976

you were working on stuff that,

308

00:12:50,269 --> 00:12:51,937

I mean, it was like some kind of futuristic tech

309

00:12:51,937 --> 00:12:52,855

or something, right?

310

00:12:53,063 --> 00:12:54,315

I mean, that's wild.

311

00:12:54,690 --> 00:12:57,109

You can't say what security clearance you had.

312

00:12:57,359 --> 00:12:57,902

I'm just curious.

313

00:12:58,819 --> 00:13:01,739

Well, I can't say what programs I was read into.

314

00:13:02,239 --> 00:13:04,325

I had above top secret, that's it.

315

00:13:04,617 --> 00:13:05,493

That's all I can say.

316

00:13:06,702 --> 00:13:08,496

Well, we don't want them to come after you.

317

00:13:08,746 --> 00:13:08,996

For what?

318

00:13:09,663 --> 00:13:10,831

I'm gonna say that.

319

00:13:11,332 --> 00:13:13,167

And interestingly, so that

320

00:13:13,167 --> 00:13:14,919

those that have never heard this

321

00:13:15,294 --> 00:13:17,963

would know Congress has to appropriate

322

00:13:18,631 --> 00:13:21,133

billions of dollars to build an airplane.

323

00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:25,304

And it's so expensive that to tell Congress

324

00:13:25,846 --> 00:13:28,474

it's gonna cost these many billion dollars,

325

00:13:28,807 --> 00:13:30,142

you're never gonna get it approved.

326

00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:32,978

So you buy a basic weapons system,

327

00:13:32,978 --> 00:13:35,189

and this is not trickery,

328

00:13:35,439 --> 00:13:36,649

they know how this is done.

329

00:13:37,358 --> 00:13:39,360

Congress has so many dollars to expend.

330

00:13:39,735 --> 00:13:41,904

So you buy the basic airplane you wanted,

331

00:13:42,196 --> 00:13:43,072

and then you start

332

00:13:43,072 --> 00:13:46,158

modifying with really classified

333

00:13:46,575 --> 00:13:48,035

capabilities to bring it

334

00:13:48,035 --> 00:13:49,245

up to what you really wanted

335

00:13:49,245 --> 00:13:50,287

in the first place.

336

00:13:50,538 --> 00:13:51,705

But you know, Congress is

337

00:13:51,705 --> 00:13:53,040

never gonna give you that much.

338

00:13:53,749 --> 00:13:56,293

And even politically, this is amazing.

339

00:13:56,752 --> 00:13:58,879

That if you want this approved,

340

00:13:58,879 --> 00:13:59,838

this is what a congressman

341

00:13:59,838 --> 00:14:01,840

is saying to the Air Force

342

00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:02,967

or the Department of Defense.

343

00:14:03,425 --> 00:14:05,844

If you want this weapons system approved,

344

00:14:06,220 --> 00:14:09,848

I want some of the manufacturing in my state

345

00:14:10,349 --> 00:14:11,267

that I represent.

346

00:14:11,850 --> 00:14:13,227

And because I wanna get in

347

00:14:13,227 --> 00:14:15,062

on these billions of dollars

348

00:14:15,187 --> 00:14:15,729

you're spending.

349

00:14:16,564 --> 00:14:18,774

Create jobs in whatever state it's from.

350

00:14:18,774 --> 00:14:20,859

Jobs influence the

351

00:14:20,859 --> 00:14:22,778

possibility of getting reelected

352

00:14:22,903 --> 00:14:24,613

because I brought this employment.

353

00:14:25,447 --> 00:14:29,660

And most people, I'd say very few in this country

354

00:14:29,785 --> 00:14:31,620

realize what it takes to

355

00:14:31,620 --> 00:14:33,330

build a weapons system like that.

356

00:14:34,081 --> 00:14:36,125

You may have, this is incredible,

357

00:14:36,709 --> 00:14:40,754

a thousand contractors and 10 or 20,000 people

358

00:14:40,879 --> 00:14:42,381

building this thing because

359

00:14:42,381 --> 00:14:43,507

you've got whole facilities

360

00:14:44,466 --> 00:14:46,927

that are just into building an engine

361

00:14:48,387 --> 00:14:49,930

or building a cockpit.

362

00:14:50,681 --> 00:14:52,808

But we go through design.

363

00:14:53,767 --> 00:14:55,603

We didn't design the specifics

364

00:14:55,603 --> 00:14:57,146

or turn that over to a contractor.

365

00:14:57,605 --> 00:14:59,273

You got three major contractors,

366

00:14:59,857 --> 00:15:01,859

Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman

367

00:15:02,318 --> 00:15:03,360

and just referred to as

368

00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:04,486

Boeing, Northrop, and Lockheed.

369

00:15:05,362 --> 00:15:06,739

And they build our weapons

370

00:15:07,031 --> 00:15:09,575

and the competition is between them.

371

00:15:10,409 --> 00:15:11,702

And they make one of them,

372

00:15:12,786 --> 00:15:14,580

maybe, I hate to admit this,

373

00:15:14,580 --> 00:15:17,207

one of them may be hurting financially.

374

00:15:17,708 --> 00:15:19,793

And we need to put our finger on the scale

375

00:15:20,210 --> 00:15:22,129

when we're selecting a large

376

00:15:22,129 --> 00:15:24,965

contract or do a split award.

377

00:15:26,216 --> 00:15:28,594

You do the engines and in

378

00:15:28,594 --> 00:15:30,262

Boeing you build the airframe

379

00:15:30,804 --> 00:15:33,849

and Raytheon you build the electronics.

380

00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:36,977

So we're spreading this out.

381

00:15:37,269 --> 00:15:39,313

And then you get into test and evaluation.

382

00:15:39,688 --> 00:15:40,939

I have to build a whole test

383

00:15:40,939 --> 00:15:43,609

facility to test this engine.

384

00:15:43,609 --> 00:15:45,361

I have to run it through all the rigors

385

00:15:45,361 --> 00:15:47,279

that it's going into flight training.

386

00:15:47,279 --> 00:15:49,740

So I've got an entire test complex

387

00:15:50,115 --> 00:15:51,158

and I have a team in the

388

00:15:51,158 --> 00:15:53,243

Air Force that's a test team

389

00:15:53,786 --> 00:15:56,288

that approves what kind of

390

00:15:56,288 --> 00:15:57,998

test I want this to go through.

391

00:15:58,749 --> 00:15:59,917

So in systems

392

00:15:59,917 --> 00:16:02,503

integration, which I was involved in,

393

00:16:03,128 --> 00:16:05,297

how systems of systems operate,

394

00:16:06,131 --> 00:16:09,259

how does hydraulics affect pneumatics,

395

00:16:09,301 --> 00:16:11,679

how do temperature air activated systems,

396

00:16:11,679 --> 00:16:15,182

how do electronics and complex system interface

397

00:16:15,599 --> 00:16:18,310

with each other to create an overall capability?

398

00:16:18,727 --> 00:16:20,020

So you may have a system

399

00:16:20,020 --> 00:16:21,730

over here that has a weakness,

400

00:16:22,231 --> 00:16:23,357

but that weakness is going

401

00:16:23,357 --> 00:16:25,109

to also impact upon this,

402

00:16:25,109 --> 00:16:27,069

this and this system.

403

00:16:27,861 --> 00:16:30,447

And then failure mode and

404

00:16:30,447 --> 00:16:32,700

effects criticality analysis

405

00:16:32,700 --> 00:16:35,411

FMEKA says, what can I do

406

00:16:35,411 --> 00:16:37,287

with this weapon capability

407

00:16:38,163 --> 00:16:39,248

if it gets degraded?

408

00:16:39,915 --> 00:16:42,126

In World War II, I'd have just come home.

409

00:16:43,210 --> 00:16:45,379

But in today's warfare, if

410

00:16:45,379 --> 00:16:47,005

I lose capability to do this

411

00:16:47,923 --> 00:16:50,342

with proper pre-determination,

412

00:16:51,093 --> 00:16:53,345

I can go over and do this, this and this also

413

00:16:53,595 --> 00:16:55,055

with the capability I've retained

414

00:16:55,472 --> 00:16:58,267

and still bring that aircraft home to be fixed

415

00:16:59,059 --> 00:17:00,436

with a whole maintenance complex.

416

00:17:01,145 --> 00:17:04,565

And so you see that just an engine alone

417

00:17:05,149 --> 00:17:07,317

may have 10 or 15 different companies

418

00:17:07,860 --> 00:17:09,403

working on that and each

419

00:17:09,403 --> 00:17:10,738

company may have hundreds

420

00:17:11,238 --> 00:17:11,905

of employees.

421

00:17:12,531 --> 00:17:13,449

So it's an enormous

422

00:17:13,449 --> 00:17:15,784

capability to build this one airplane.

423

00:17:16,285 --> 00:17:20,956

And only 23 B-2 bombers were built.

424

00:17:21,498 --> 00:17:24,084

One of them crashed, one of them is used

425

00:17:24,084 --> 00:17:25,419

for test and evaluation.

426

00:17:26,420 --> 00:17:28,505

Almost always 30% of the

427

00:17:28,505 --> 00:17:29,840

aircraft are in some kind

428

00:17:29,923 --> 00:17:32,050

of maintenance state,

429

00:17:32,384 --> 00:17:34,178

either a standard maintenance

430

00:17:34,511 --> 00:17:36,013

inspection or refurbishment

431

00:17:36,013 --> 00:17:37,890

or adding a new capability

432

00:17:38,348 --> 00:17:39,641

to its own reality.

433

00:17:39,850 --> 00:17:41,602

And this is pretty well known

434

00:17:41,769 --> 00:17:45,230

within the military industrial complex.

435

00:17:45,564 --> 00:17:46,899

You only really got maybe

436

00:17:46,899 --> 00:17:48,317

half of these things available.

437

00:17:48,776 --> 00:17:50,486

So now you're down to 10

438

00:17:50,486 --> 00:17:53,238

B-2s, they're capable weapons,

439

00:17:53,614 --> 00:17:56,116

but you use those sparingly and you,

440

00:17:56,700 --> 00:17:58,202

the enemy knows their capabilities.

441

00:17:58,744 --> 00:18:01,079

You do them sometimes just for a show of force

442

00:18:01,705 --> 00:18:04,792

as we've seen some recent stationing of the B-2s

443

00:18:04,792 --> 00:18:07,586

in Diego Garcia within range

444

00:18:07,586 --> 00:18:10,672

of Iran and other countries

445

00:18:11,298 --> 00:18:12,257

that we might take out.

446

00:18:12,591 --> 00:18:14,176

And they know that America,

447

00:18:14,426 --> 00:18:15,803

United States could use that

448

00:18:15,886 --> 00:18:17,262

against them without

449

00:18:17,262 --> 00:18:19,598

having to put it into harm's way

450

00:18:19,765 --> 00:18:21,308

right near the country.

451

00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:22,935

So they're held in reserve,

452

00:18:23,519 --> 00:18:25,562

but they're not likely to be used

453

00:18:25,687 --> 00:18:26,980

unless it's a high stake

454

00:18:26,980 --> 00:18:30,275

game or game that so to speak

455

00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:31,276

is being played.

456

00:18:32,653 --> 00:18:34,154

Yeah, you're describing a

457

00:18:34,154 --> 00:18:37,241

whole world that I'm guessing

458

00:18:37,241 --> 00:18:39,159

a lot of people don't know exists.

459

00:18:40,035 --> 00:18:43,288

And it's pretty easy to, oh, you see on the news

460

00:18:43,288 --> 00:18:44,039

or whatever, there was an

461

00:18:44,039 --> 00:18:45,249

airstrike in whatever place

462

00:18:45,582 --> 00:18:45,958

or something.

463

00:18:46,542 --> 00:18:50,379

And to think of the massive machine and apparatus

464

00:18:51,088 --> 00:18:52,631

behind all of that to make

465

00:18:52,631 --> 00:18:54,842

this, to make that event happen

466

00:18:55,384 --> 00:18:56,760

is enormously complex.

467

00:18:56,760 --> 00:18:57,761

I mean, what you're very

468

00:18:57,761 --> 00:18:58,971

briefly outlining here is like,

469

00:18:59,471 --> 00:19:01,265

whoa, this war machine

470

00:19:01,265 --> 00:19:03,642

that America has is enormous.

471

00:19:04,101 --> 00:19:06,103

I think is the one piece I'm pulling out of this.

472

00:19:07,771 --> 00:19:08,730

So, but let's back up a

473

00:19:08,730 --> 00:19:10,649

little and can you describe

474

00:19:11,066 --> 00:19:13,652

or define what do we mean

475

00:19:13,652 --> 00:19:15,404

when we would use the word

476

00:19:15,904 --> 00:19:17,239

military industrial complex?

477

00:19:17,656 --> 00:19:19,157

Comes from, I think 1950 is

478

00:19:19,157 --> 00:19:20,158

actually when it first used,

479

00:19:20,450 --> 00:19:22,119

but what exactly is that?

480

00:19:23,036 --> 00:19:26,874

So the outcome of a

481

00:19:26,874 --> 00:19:29,209

weapons system is for a specific

482

00:19:29,209 --> 00:19:29,793

purpose.

483

00:19:30,294 --> 00:19:32,963

So you've got objectives, you got a purpose,

484

00:19:33,255 --> 00:19:35,924

then individual objectives within that.

485

00:19:36,550 --> 00:19:39,595

And it takes a lot of capability, but you know,

486

00:19:39,595 --> 00:19:42,139

those companies are out to make a profit.

487

00:19:42,139 --> 00:19:44,766

They've got stockholders return on investment.

488

00:19:45,601 --> 00:19:46,768

They need this program,

489

00:19:46,768 --> 00:19:47,895

they need this capability.

490

00:19:48,103 --> 00:19:50,147

So they build up their own capabilities.

491

00:19:50,647 --> 00:19:51,940

So you get to the two

492

00:19:51,940 --> 00:19:55,152

joined together almost in a,

493

00:19:55,819 --> 00:19:57,279

you can't tell where the line is.

494

00:19:57,738 --> 00:19:58,697

In fact, a lot of these

495

00:19:58,697 --> 00:20:00,866

offices are staffed with former

496

00:20:00,991 --> 00:20:03,660

military who, if nothing else,

497

00:20:03,869 --> 00:20:07,331

they look good on your advertisements with this,

498

00:20:07,748 --> 00:20:10,918

Hey, we're bringing in a formal general officer.

499

00:20:11,418 --> 00:20:12,211

He's going to be on our

500

00:20:12,211 --> 00:20:14,755

team and the kind of people go,

501

00:20:14,796 --> 00:20:16,214

whoa, you know, you're serious.

502

00:20:16,632 --> 00:20:17,591

You're bringing this kind of

503

00:20:17,591 --> 00:20:20,594

capability into the program.

504

00:20:21,219 --> 00:20:23,430

But so I've got all this,

505

00:20:23,430 --> 00:20:25,807

these back and forth benefits,

506

00:20:26,725 --> 00:20:28,268

the capability of contractors

507

00:20:28,268 --> 00:20:30,354

handing to the warfighter and

508

00:20:30,354 --> 00:20:31,730

the warfighters handing

509

00:20:31,730 --> 00:20:33,815

the development expenses and

510

00:20:33,815 --> 00:20:35,108

activities to the contractor.

511

00:20:35,859 --> 00:20:37,611

And sometimes we have

512

00:20:37,611 --> 00:20:40,614

contractors forward staged with that

513

00:20:40,656 --> 00:20:42,282

weapon system, uh,

514

00:20:42,866 --> 00:20:45,035

doing a number of roles on

515

00:20:45,035 --> 00:20:46,578

the airplane to keep it capable.

516

00:20:46,828 --> 00:20:48,246

A lot of people don't know that there,

517

00:20:48,455 --> 00:20:50,249

there'd be civilian, uh,

518

00:20:50,249 --> 00:20:51,792

support contractors in with

519

00:20:51,792 --> 00:20:53,877

that weapon system going forward

520

00:20:53,877 --> 00:20:54,461

like that.

521

00:20:54,836 --> 00:20:56,755

And so that whole picture

522

00:20:56,755 --> 00:21:01,259

builds one mass of capability and

523

00:21:01,259 --> 00:21:02,803

and contractors.

524

00:21:03,470 --> 00:21:04,846

That is- OK. Wow.

525

00:21:04,888 --> 00:21:06,431

And so that's the complex.

526

00:21:06,974 --> 00:21:08,141

And so you don't want to

527

00:21:08,141 --> 00:21:10,936

lose sections of the military in

528

00:21:10,978 --> 00:21:12,729

reality. You don't want to

529

00:21:12,729 --> 00:21:14,564

lose segments of that complex.

530

00:21:15,065 --> 00:21:16,274

So you're putting all that at

531

00:21:16,274 --> 00:21:18,485

risk when you go into a major

532

00:21:18,944 --> 00:21:21,780

warfare and uh, it's so

533

00:21:21,780 --> 00:21:22,823

many ways to look at that.

534

00:21:22,906 --> 00:21:26,493

It's not just our airplanes against their planes,

535

00:21:26,493 --> 00:21:28,662

our bombs and rockets against them.

536

00:21:28,662 --> 00:21:29,746

It's an entire military

537

00:21:29,746 --> 00:21:32,124

industrial complex taking on this

538

00:21:32,332 --> 00:21:34,710

capability. And what are you fighting against?

539

00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:36,336

You don't know what you're fighting against.

540

00:21:36,336 --> 00:21:39,256

You don't know what the enemy's capabilities are,

541

00:21:39,256 --> 00:21:41,008

where, where they're held

542

00:21:41,008 --> 00:21:44,094

located and things of that nature.

543

00:21:44,594 --> 00:21:46,763

So there's a whole other

544

00:21:46,763 --> 00:21:49,558

intelligence gathering network that

545

00:21:49,683 --> 00:21:52,519

supports this industrial military capability.

546

00:21:53,020 --> 00:21:55,689

So you can see it just gets bigger and bigger.

547

00:21:55,689 --> 00:21:56,857

And there are spies or

548

00:21:56,857 --> 00:21:58,150

people that have lived in foreign

549

00:21:58,317 --> 00:22:00,152

countries for years.

550

00:22:01,737 --> 00:22:02,154

I tell you, you want

551

00:22:02,154 --> 00:22:04,698

something in the Middle East and you

552

00:22:04,740 --> 00:22:08,160

need a, you need a person from the enemy.

553

00:22:09,202 --> 00:22:10,704

If you can get in there and say,

554

00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:12,789

we will take you and your

555

00:22:12,789 --> 00:22:16,460

family out of your country and make

556

00:22:16,460 --> 00:22:18,211

you a citizen in the United States,

557

00:22:18,545 --> 00:22:19,880

everybody on earth wants to be

558

00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:21,381

a citizen in the United States.

559

00:22:22,090 --> 00:22:23,842

We will secretly pull you and

560

00:22:23,842 --> 00:22:25,260

we will get your family out too.

561

00:22:25,761 --> 00:22:28,055

If you give us this intelligence information,

562

00:22:28,764 --> 00:22:30,599

how many people in third world

563

00:22:30,599 --> 00:22:32,017

countries or even second world

564

00:22:32,059 --> 00:22:33,101

countries are going to

565

00:22:33,101 --> 00:22:34,853

turn down and offer like that?

566

00:22:35,270 --> 00:22:36,480

This is a dream for,

567

00:22:36,730 --> 00:22:38,523

I'd say 80% of the people on

568

00:22:38,523 --> 00:22:40,650

earth to be an American citizen.

569

00:22:40,859 --> 00:22:43,904

You offer, I guarantee I'll get you in now.

570

00:22:44,237 --> 00:22:46,531

Tell me where so-and-so is or

571

00:22:46,531 --> 00:22:48,075

where these tunnels or where

572

00:22:48,116 --> 00:22:49,618

these weapons held or

573

00:22:49,618 --> 00:22:50,786

what are these capabilities?

574

00:22:51,078 --> 00:22:51,536

Yeah.

575

00:22:51,620 --> 00:22:53,121

All of this is working together

576

00:22:53,121 --> 00:22:55,582

on a global scale and it's not

577

00:22:55,916 --> 00:22:57,459

what the news is showing people.

578

00:22:58,126 --> 00:22:59,711

You're describing again,

579

00:22:59,711 --> 00:23:02,714

like just a whole world of

580

00:23:03,215 --> 00:23:06,051

infrastructure that if I'm

581

00:23:06,051 --> 00:23:08,470

hearing this right is all tied

582

00:23:08,470 --> 00:23:11,306

up with power and money

583

00:23:11,306 --> 00:23:15,435

and politics and the war and

584

00:23:16,645 --> 00:23:18,021

international relations, all

585

00:23:18,021 --> 00:23:19,147

this stuff getting all mixed

586

00:23:19,147 --> 00:23:20,315

and smashed and squashed

587

00:23:20,315 --> 00:23:21,775

together and entangled all up.

588

00:23:22,234 --> 00:23:23,902

Wow, seems awfully complex.

589

00:23:24,903 --> 00:23:25,112

It is.

590

00:23:25,862 --> 00:23:28,365

So then I have another question here.

591

00:23:28,657 --> 00:23:29,741

And as we think about this,

592

00:23:29,741 --> 00:23:30,617

we're trying to get that big

593

00:23:30,617 --> 00:23:34,287

picture look at the war

594

00:23:34,287 --> 00:23:36,581

machine, the American war system.

595

00:23:37,207 --> 00:23:38,041

From someone who was

596

00:23:38,041 --> 00:23:39,459

inside it for as long as you were,

597

00:23:40,293 --> 00:23:42,129

I have to ask, why do you

598

00:23:42,129 --> 00:23:43,588

think America has been involved in

599

00:23:43,588 --> 00:23:44,881

so many conflicts around the world?

600

00:23:44,881 --> 00:23:46,174

Like what's going on with

601

00:23:46,174 --> 00:23:48,552

that, proxy wars and the like?

602

00:23:48,552 --> 00:23:49,261

I know before we were

603

00:23:49,261 --> 00:23:50,428

recording, you were talking about

604

00:23:50,679 --> 00:23:52,305

deception and how

605

00:23:52,305 --> 00:23:54,558

worldview can affect these things.

606

00:23:54,724 --> 00:23:55,976

Why don't you dig into that a little?

607

00:23:56,852 --> 00:23:58,937

The intent of a combat

608

00:23:58,937 --> 00:24:01,231

engagement as seen by the public

609

00:24:01,565 --> 00:24:04,067

may or may not be like in

610

00:24:04,067 --> 00:24:07,445

World War II, we had a situation

611

00:24:07,654 --> 00:24:09,030

that's still not known by a lot

612

00:24:09,030 --> 00:24:11,116

of people where Admiral Halsey

613

00:24:11,700 --> 00:24:15,453

led a fleet of ships into a hurricane.

614

00:24:16,288 --> 00:24:19,332

Unbeknownst to him, where he over-prioritized,

615

00:24:19,332 --> 00:24:20,208

he didn't trust the

616

00:24:20,208 --> 00:24:23,920

weathermen, and we lost over 700 men

617

00:24:24,588 --> 00:24:26,965

in that era and I think

618

00:24:26,965 --> 00:24:30,594

close to 15 ships, one of the

619

00:24:31,636 --> 00:24:33,388

greatest losses of men in

620

00:24:33,388 --> 00:24:36,099

capability in a moment of time

621

00:24:36,558 --> 00:24:37,559

that I think we ever had.

622

00:24:38,059 --> 00:24:39,853

And yet that information

623

00:24:39,853 --> 00:24:41,688

was withheld from the public

624

00:24:42,105 --> 00:24:43,273

during the entire war.

625

00:24:43,607 --> 00:24:45,025

The USS Indianapolis,

626

00:24:45,025 --> 00:24:48,778

which took the nuclear bombs,

627

00:24:49,279 --> 00:24:50,030

were you going to use

628

00:24:50,030 --> 00:24:52,449

against Japan in World War II,

629

00:24:52,741 --> 00:24:55,076

they took them to two

630

00:24:55,076 --> 00:24:56,912

islands called Tinian and Saipan.

631

00:24:57,746 --> 00:24:59,789

That ship that carried those

632

00:24:59,789 --> 00:25:03,043

nuclear weapons to deliver them

633

00:25:03,460 --> 00:25:10,508

on the way home got sunk by a--they weren't using

634

00:25:10,550 --> 00:25:11,885

evasive maneuvers, they were

635

00:25:11,885 --> 00:25:13,053

just hey, we're headed home,

636

00:25:13,470 --> 00:25:15,347

no sense worried about being attacked.

637

00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:19,893

They got attacked and the ship sunk.

638

00:25:20,519 --> 00:25:22,229

The men were in the water, they

639

00:25:22,229 --> 00:25:23,688

were getting attacked by sharks.

640

00:25:24,481 --> 00:25:27,359

The ship, this highly capable ship went down.

641

00:25:27,817 --> 00:25:29,027

There's cases where men

642

00:25:29,027 --> 00:25:31,655

floated in the water 50 miles

643

00:25:31,863 --> 00:25:34,616

from where the ship went down because of currents

644

00:25:34,616 --> 00:25:35,533

and things like that.

645

00:25:35,784 --> 00:25:38,161

We kept that entire incident

646

00:25:38,161 --> 00:25:40,956

secret from the public for years

647

00:25:41,122 --> 00:25:42,707

even until after the war.

648

00:25:43,083 --> 00:25:44,084

People never knew that

649

00:25:44,084 --> 00:25:45,961

happened and how it happened

650

00:25:45,961 --> 00:25:49,089

and why is a horrible mistake on

651

00:25:49,089 --> 00:25:51,633

the part of--some of the people

652

00:25:51,633 --> 00:25:54,928

involved, the decision-makers, horrible mistake.

653

00:25:55,637 --> 00:25:58,598

And we didn't talk so we lost all those men.

654

00:25:58,598 --> 00:25:59,599

We eventually got a few of

655

00:25:59,599 --> 00:26:01,643

them out, but less than a third

656

00:26:01,726 --> 00:26:03,311

of those people survived

657

00:26:03,311 --> 00:26:06,439

simply because we didn't want

658

00:26:06,439 --> 00:26:08,525

known what was going on.

659

00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:11,820

And then we take all that and

660

00:26:11,820 --> 00:26:14,322

put it together into--there's

661

00:26:14,322 --> 00:26:15,407

a little bit of deception

662

00:26:15,407 --> 00:26:17,033

going on here, so it ought to lead

663

00:26:17,033 --> 00:26:18,576

you to realize, hey, if

664

00:26:18,576 --> 00:26:19,953

there's a little bit there,

665

00:26:19,953 --> 00:26:21,997

how much deception is going on today?

666

00:26:22,372 --> 00:26:24,499

So you see, looking at a global

667

00:26:24,499 --> 00:26:26,126

perspective, the United States

668

00:26:26,251 --> 00:26:30,046

attacking like we did with North Vietnam.

669

00:26:31,381 --> 00:26:32,966

And South Vietnam and the

670

00:26:32,966 --> 00:26:34,926

Vietnamese and the Vietnam War

671

00:26:34,926 --> 00:26:37,053

that I was originally in

672

00:26:37,053 --> 00:26:38,430

in the first couple of years

673

00:26:38,430 --> 00:26:44,227

of my career, were we just attacking communism

674

00:26:44,978 --> 00:26:49,733

and defeating parts of this communist mechanism

675

00:26:50,358 --> 00:26:53,111

and making the world safer democracy,

676

00:26:53,611 --> 00:26:55,613

or was there some other objective?

677

00:26:56,114 --> 00:26:58,283

Maybe there was a getting a foothold

678

00:26:58,700 --> 00:27:00,660

into there for going up

679

00:27:00,660 --> 00:27:02,370

through China in a particular way.

680

00:27:02,746 --> 00:27:06,041

Or maybe by knocking out this country,

681

00:27:06,833 --> 00:27:09,878

this other country would find that favorable,

682

00:27:10,086 --> 00:27:11,963

and they would give us a

683

00:27:11,963 --> 00:27:14,257

priority in selling us oil.

684

00:27:15,342 --> 00:27:17,010

So you see, whoa, wait a minute.

685

00:27:17,385 --> 00:27:20,055

There's things going on that we don't know about.

686

00:27:20,263 --> 00:27:22,098

We think we're fighting the enemy here,

687

00:27:22,098 --> 00:27:22,974

and we're doing good.

688

00:27:23,433 --> 00:27:27,312

But there's all these behind-the-scenes decisions

689

00:27:27,604 --> 00:27:28,396

and capabilities.

690

00:27:28,438 --> 00:27:33,151

I'm not talking about people exaggerating things

691

00:27:33,318 --> 00:27:37,822

and all these strange theories about warfare,

692

00:27:38,907 --> 00:27:42,077

including some that are saying, you know,

693

00:27:42,327 --> 00:27:43,828

"we never did go to the moon."

694

00:27:43,828 --> 00:27:45,080

That was all done in Hollywood.

695

00:27:46,706 --> 00:27:48,208

And I know this sounds

696

00:27:48,208 --> 00:27:50,960

strange, but I call that the giggle

697

00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:51,294

effect.

698

00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:54,381

I said, you know how many thousands of people

699

00:27:54,881 --> 00:27:57,092

would have had to been in on that?

700

00:27:57,133 --> 00:27:58,426

You look at what was called

701

00:27:58,426 --> 00:27:59,969

Cape Canaveral at the time,

702

00:28:01,221 --> 00:28:03,348

how many people would know that there was never

703

00:28:03,348 --> 00:28:05,100

a missile launch out of

704

00:28:05,100 --> 00:28:06,351

there to get them to the moon?

705

00:28:06,351 --> 00:28:08,603

Well, you'd have a couple thousand people

706

00:28:08,603 --> 00:28:09,854

who supported that launch

707

00:28:09,854 --> 00:28:11,106

would know there was never

708

00:28:11,314 --> 00:28:12,690

anything launched out of here.

709

00:28:13,149 --> 00:28:15,735

So it's so obscene to think there

710

00:28:15,735 --> 00:28:17,946

was a rocket that never went to

711

00:28:17,946 --> 00:28:19,948

the moon and never landed on it.

712

00:28:20,824 --> 00:28:23,034

Surely, somewhere in those years,

713

00:28:23,410 --> 00:28:24,411

somebody would have talked.

714

00:28:25,036 --> 00:28:26,955

Maybe a couple of guys could have--

715

00:28:27,288 --> 00:28:31,334

no, it's so obscene of a thought pattern

716

00:28:31,835 --> 00:28:32,794

that it's almost funny.

717

00:28:33,461 --> 00:28:34,838

I call it the giggle factor.

718

00:28:35,380 --> 00:28:36,548

Come on, give me a break.

719

00:28:37,257 --> 00:28:38,133

You're dreaming.

720

00:28:39,884 --> 00:28:41,052

Go talk to somebody else.

721

00:28:41,344 --> 00:28:42,429

Do something.

722

00:28:43,054 --> 00:28:44,848

Just stop pushing this stuff.

723

00:28:45,473 --> 00:28:47,642

But when it comes to the

724

00:28:47,642 --> 00:28:48,852

military-industrial complex

725

00:28:48,935 --> 00:28:50,603

and war, I think that

726

00:28:50,603 --> 00:28:53,022

piece on the smoke and mirrors,

727

00:28:53,064 --> 00:28:55,108

the murkiness, the deception tactics

728

00:28:55,108 --> 00:28:57,235

that are used to achieve a

729

00:28:57,235 --> 00:29:00,613

certain directive or objective

730

00:29:00,822 --> 00:29:01,781

that they might have that

731

00:29:01,781 --> 00:29:04,701

maybe we don't know about, this,

732

00:29:04,701 --> 00:29:05,243

that, whatever.

733

00:29:06,035 --> 00:29:09,747

I think when I was getting your story initially,

734

00:29:12,041 --> 00:29:13,877

I realized you did your bombing missions,

735

00:29:13,877 --> 00:29:16,629

but it was over Cambodia, not Vietnam.

736

00:29:16,629 --> 00:29:17,338

And I'm over here scratching

737

00:29:17,338 --> 00:29:18,214

my head and being like, huh.

738

00:29:18,590 --> 00:29:21,801

I thought the Vietnam War was against Vietnam.

739

00:29:22,510 --> 00:29:24,387

And here, you're running

740

00:29:24,387 --> 00:29:25,680

all these bombing missions

741

00:29:26,264 --> 00:29:28,391

that the president authorized, President Nixon,

742

00:29:28,933 --> 00:29:29,934

against a country that

743

00:29:29,934 --> 00:29:31,936

America never declared war on,

744

00:29:32,103 --> 00:29:35,023

that wasn't at war with the United States,

745

00:29:35,231 --> 00:29:35,899

did not have--

746

00:29:36,900 --> 00:29:39,235

was not fighting American troops.

747

00:29:39,777 --> 00:29:41,112

Cambodia wasn't involved in that.

748

00:29:42,030 --> 00:29:42,780

And that just kind of got

749

00:29:42,780 --> 00:29:45,116

me, huh, what's going on there?

750

00:29:45,575 --> 00:29:47,535

And so that comes back to some of that deception

751

00:29:47,702 --> 00:29:51,414

and that military machine.

752

00:29:51,456 --> 00:29:52,290

It's so big.

753

00:29:52,790 --> 00:29:55,043

And do you want to talk about that just briefly?

754

00:29:55,418 --> 00:29:57,670

Because at the time, I

755

00:29:57,670 --> 00:29:59,172

think I'm getting this right.

756

00:29:59,172 --> 00:30:00,924

You would have said, I'm a good patriot.

757

00:30:00,924 --> 00:30:01,925

I'm serving my country.

758

00:30:02,467 --> 00:30:04,511

We are the good guys killing the bad guys?

759

00:30:04,511 --> 00:30:06,596

Or what-- to make it ridiculously simplified,

760

00:30:07,138 --> 00:30:08,306

we're killing the bad guys here.

761

00:30:09,307 --> 00:30:10,308

But you were bombing Cambodia.

762

00:30:10,683 --> 00:30:11,893

So talk me through that a little.

763

00:30:12,519 --> 00:30:13,895

First of all, how did

764

00:30:13,895 --> 00:30:16,814

Cambodia get to be a target?

765

00:30:17,524 --> 00:30:19,192

I was flying B-52s.

766

00:30:19,192 --> 00:30:20,944

We were stationed on the island of Guam.

767

00:30:21,402 --> 00:30:23,112

I did two short tours there.

768

00:30:24,072 --> 00:30:27,575

And we went into Cambodia and bombed.

769

00:30:28,201 --> 00:30:30,078

But President Nixon ordered that.

770

00:30:30,161 --> 00:30:32,664

President Nixon needed congressional approval

771

00:30:33,081 --> 00:30:35,041

to attack another country, almost

772

00:30:35,041 --> 00:30:36,793

as if we were declaring war.

773

00:30:37,126 --> 00:30:39,128

He did not have the approval on that.

774

00:30:39,921 --> 00:30:41,506

And that was a real big

775

00:30:41,506 --> 00:30:43,633

issue that was kind of squelched

776

00:30:43,716 --> 00:30:44,217

afterward.

777

00:30:44,217 --> 00:30:47,095

We kind of wanted to bomb Cambodia anyway,

778

00:30:47,262 --> 00:30:48,346

because we knew it was part

779

00:30:48,346 --> 00:30:49,597

of the way it went in war.

780

00:30:50,056 --> 00:30:52,767

But he bypassed getting approval for that

781

00:30:52,892 --> 00:30:54,435

at the presidential level.

782

00:30:54,811 --> 00:30:56,646

That's the kind of things going on.

783

00:30:57,146 --> 00:31:01,025

When you're flying a B-52, the maps

784

00:31:01,192 --> 00:31:03,361

you're looking at, the intelligence day,

785

00:31:03,361 --> 00:31:04,696

they don't have borders on them.

786

00:31:05,029 --> 00:31:05,780

They have coordinates.

787

00:31:06,698 --> 00:31:09,242

And you're told, go bomb these coordinates.

788

00:31:10,285 --> 00:31:12,161

Oh, I wonder who's down below that.

789

00:31:12,704 --> 00:31:13,246

You don't know.

790

00:31:13,538 --> 00:31:16,583

You may not even know today whether or not

791

00:31:16,666 --> 00:31:19,460

that was a city or some rice paddies.

792

00:31:19,961 --> 00:31:21,754

But you just bombed those coordinates.

793

00:31:22,005 --> 00:31:23,506

It must be in South Vietnam.

794

00:31:23,715 --> 00:31:24,632

That's where the war is.

795

00:31:25,091 --> 00:31:27,010

No, you're attacking Cambodia.

796

00:31:27,594 --> 00:31:30,263

And you may not find out for a long time

797

00:31:30,263 --> 00:31:31,139

that you've done that.

798

00:31:32,098 --> 00:31:35,476

Again, deception, unauthorized activities,

799

00:31:36,019 --> 00:31:37,562

looking that the means--

800

00:31:37,979 --> 00:31:39,647

or the end justifies the means.

801

00:31:39,981 --> 00:31:41,482

Our objective is to get these

802

00:31:41,482 --> 00:31:43,109

North Vietnamese soldiers who

803

00:31:43,192 --> 00:31:45,069

are going around Vietnam

804

00:31:45,069 --> 00:31:46,613

and coming into Cambodia.

805

00:31:47,196 --> 00:31:48,448

That's our objective.

806

00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,618

Yes, so we destroy parts of Cambodia.

807

00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,037

But we won that part of the

808

00:31:54,037 --> 00:31:56,497

war and eventually lost the war.

809

00:31:56,789 --> 00:31:59,500

I think that's the part that just gets me.

810

00:31:59,500 --> 00:32:01,628

Because it's like, you're getting

811

00:32:01,628 --> 00:32:02,754

all these Cambodians that have

812

00:32:02,754 --> 00:32:03,963

nothing to do with this conflict

813

00:32:03,963 --> 00:32:05,673

are also getting hit.

814

00:32:05,673 --> 00:32:07,300

I mean, bombs land where they land.

815

00:32:09,552 --> 00:32:12,180

And in the end, America

816

00:32:12,180 --> 00:32:13,431

loses the Vietnam War anyway.

817

00:32:14,057 --> 00:32:15,350

And so that must have been

818

00:32:15,350 --> 00:32:16,684

a little difficult for you

819

00:32:16,684 --> 00:32:19,896

when you realize all this, of thinking,

820

00:32:20,188 --> 00:32:22,231

we're the good guys killing the bad guys,

821

00:32:22,231 --> 00:32:25,360

to use the propaganda phrases that are used.

822

00:32:25,985 --> 00:32:27,028

And then to realize, well,

823

00:32:27,111 --> 00:32:28,655

maybe it wasn't really the case.

824

00:32:29,614 --> 00:32:31,824

Was that unsettling when you learned that?

825

00:32:31,824 --> 00:32:32,283

It was.

826

00:32:33,868 --> 00:32:36,829

Nobody wanted to say it, but we lost that war.

827

00:32:37,664 --> 00:32:39,499

That was the first war.

828

00:32:39,916 --> 00:32:42,293

Well, Korea, we also--

829

00:32:43,086 --> 00:32:44,295

massive loss of lives.

830

00:32:44,295 --> 00:32:45,713

There are not as many as Vietnam.

831

00:32:46,339 --> 00:32:49,550

But Korea basically came to a stalemate

832

00:32:49,634 --> 00:32:50,760

because you still have

833

00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:52,887

South Korea and North Korea

834

00:32:53,346 --> 00:32:53,763

as enemies.

835

00:32:54,389 --> 00:32:57,600

Today, you have no South

836

00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:58,935

Vietnam and North Vietnam.

837

00:32:58,935 --> 00:32:59,977

We clearly lost.

838

00:33:00,353 --> 00:33:02,647

But the media had to do that.

839

00:33:02,647 --> 00:33:03,898

And the government was

840

00:33:03,898 --> 00:33:06,442

shuttling information and direction

841

00:33:06,984 --> 00:33:09,112

to the media to back off of this thing.

842

00:33:09,612 --> 00:33:10,488

Let's act like it.

843

00:33:10,947 --> 00:33:13,116

Let's get as far back in American memory

844

00:33:13,574 --> 00:33:17,120

as we can because this hurts American morale.

845

00:33:17,620 --> 00:33:19,497

Americans may actually start thinking, well,

846

00:33:19,497 --> 00:33:20,581

maybe this wasn't a good--

847

00:33:20,873 --> 00:33:22,625

maybe there's other wars that aren't good ideas.

848

00:33:22,959 --> 00:33:24,210

We don't want them thinking that.

849

00:33:24,836 --> 00:33:27,130

Let's get this out of our minds and get it out

850

00:33:27,130 --> 00:33:28,339

of the media, public

851

00:33:28,339 --> 00:33:30,466

attention, and go on from here.

852

00:33:30,466 --> 00:33:32,135

Talk about other parts of the world.

853

00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:33,845

Let's ignore this part.

854

00:33:33,845 --> 00:33:35,680

It didn't work out the way we wanted it.

855

00:33:36,389 --> 00:33:37,181

We don't like to talk

856

00:33:37,181 --> 00:33:41,060

about the countless thousands

857

00:33:41,060 --> 00:33:43,813

of pounds of ordnance, high explosive bombs that

858

00:33:43,813 --> 00:33:45,648

were dropped on Cambodia, for example.

859

00:33:45,648 --> 00:33:49,235

And this huge, most powerful country in the world

860

00:33:49,485 --> 00:33:52,780

defeated by this little bitty country of Vietnam.

861

00:33:53,406 --> 00:33:54,949

I mean, it would have been kind of embarrassing

862

00:33:55,116 --> 00:33:57,577

for American interests, even

863

00:33:57,577 --> 00:33:59,579

from international relations

864

00:33:59,579 --> 00:34:00,955

or political perspective.

865

00:34:01,164 --> 00:34:02,039

This is kind of circling

866

00:34:02,039 --> 00:34:04,125

back to the deception stuff

867

00:34:04,250 --> 00:34:05,042

you're talking about when

868

00:34:05,042 --> 00:34:06,419

it comes to the military

869

00:34:06,419 --> 00:34:07,336

industrial complex.

870

00:34:07,754 --> 00:34:08,254

Well, there are certain

871

00:34:08,254 --> 00:34:09,380

objectives they have here.

872

00:34:09,380 --> 00:34:10,882

And we don't like that.

873

00:34:10,882 --> 00:34:11,924

So we're not going to talk about that.

874

00:34:11,924 --> 00:34:14,093

Or we're not going to mention how we obliterated

875

00:34:14,093 --> 00:34:16,345

huge chunks of Cambodia or something.

876

00:34:17,138 --> 00:34:17,847

Again, it's just hard for me

877

00:34:17,847 --> 00:34:18,931

to get my head around that.

878

00:34:18,931 --> 00:34:20,600

And it's easy to lose touch of that

879

00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:22,351

and just think good guys versus

880

00:34:22,351 --> 00:34:23,853

bad guys when it comes to war.

881

00:34:24,061 --> 00:34:25,563

And I think what you're really showing

882

00:34:25,563 --> 00:34:27,774

is that's not the case.

883

00:34:28,232 --> 00:34:29,692

And that pivots with the

884

00:34:29,692 --> 00:34:30,818

next question I had here.

885

00:34:32,570 --> 00:34:33,738

I heard you say, I think it was

886

00:34:33,738 --> 00:34:34,989

yesterday when we were talking,

887

00:34:36,908 --> 00:34:39,744

America has done the same things that it

888

00:34:40,119 --> 00:34:42,789

would claim its enemies have done.

889

00:34:44,874 --> 00:34:46,042

Tell me more, because I'm sure

890

00:34:46,042 --> 00:34:47,001

there'll be some people that,

891

00:34:47,001 --> 00:34:48,586

wait a minute, we're the good guys.

892

00:34:49,837 --> 00:34:50,546

We're the good guys.

893

00:34:50,713 --> 00:34:51,380

That's not true.

894

00:34:51,756 --> 00:34:53,382

But as someone who was in that world

895

00:34:53,716 --> 00:34:54,884

and has left that world now

896

00:34:54,884 --> 00:34:56,177

and says that wasn't right,

897

00:34:57,345 --> 00:34:58,304

talk to me about that.

898

00:34:58,971 --> 00:35:03,601

Yeah, I want to first mention a book called--

899

00:35:04,018 --> 00:35:06,187

just the name kind of makes you wonder--

900

00:35:06,187 --> 00:35:08,523

it's called Christianity, War,

901

00:35:08,940 --> 00:35:11,359

and America's Salvation Story.

902

00:35:12,318 --> 00:35:15,696

Salvation Story by Michael Lewis, No relation.

903

00:35:16,197 --> 00:35:17,698

And he spends about the first

904

00:35:17,698 --> 00:35:21,869

120 pages on non-resistance,

905

00:35:21,994 --> 00:35:22,620

surprisingly.

906

00:35:23,162 --> 00:35:26,332

The book is 600 pages long and has just

907

00:35:26,415 --> 00:35:28,668

shy of 1,000 footnotes.

908

00:35:29,043 --> 00:35:32,463

This is the best documented book I've ever seen.

909

00:35:32,463 --> 00:35:34,924

He has a lot of supported information.

910

00:35:35,466 --> 00:35:36,759

He can direct-- the book

911

00:35:36,759 --> 00:35:38,135

directs you to the sources.

912

00:35:38,386 --> 00:35:39,804

So this is not made up.

913

00:35:39,804 --> 00:35:41,389

It's not maybe this happened

914

00:35:41,389 --> 00:35:42,515

or it seems like it probably

915

00:35:42,515 --> 00:35:43,140

would have happened.

916

00:35:43,599 --> 00:35:44,767

The documents are there.

917

00:35:45,268 --> 00:35:47,812

For example, there's clear evidence

918

00:35:48,312 --> 00:35:50,147

that we dropped the bombs on

919

00:35:50,147 --> 00:35:52,108

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War

920

00:35:52,275 --> 00:35:57,613

II to defeat Japan when our intelligence told us

921

00:35:58,072 --> 00:36:01,659

Japan was on the verge of surrendering anyway.

922

00:36:02,243 --> 00:36:04,787

But we needed to not only

923

00:36:04,787 --> 00:36:05,788

destroy their capability

924

00:36:05,997 --> 00:36:08,374

to fight us, but for future years.

925

00:36:08,791 --> 00:36:10,126

So we took out their military.

926

00:36:10,126 --> 00:36:12,003

We took out their industrial complex.

927

00:36:12,378 --> 00:36:15,423

And we then eventually took out the people that

928

00:36:15,423 --> 00:36:17,133

worked in that industrial complex.

929

00:36:17,466 --> 00:36:19,594

And so those wars, those

930

00:36:19,594 --> 00:36:23,139

bombs done by the United States,

931

00:36:23,306 --> 00:36:24,473

directed by United States,

932

00:36:24,473 --> 00:36:26,100

were actually targeting civilians.

933

00:36:27,101 --> 00:36:28,144

America targets civilians?

934

00:36:28,603 --> 00:36:29,228

Oh, can't be.

935

00:36:29,896 --> 00:36:32,148

And we-- have we tortured prisoners?

936

00:36:32,773 --> 00:36:32,982

Yes.

937

00:36:34,192 --> 00:36:36,402

I won't go into that much, but we have.

938

00:36:36,903 --> 00:36:39,238

There's some public information out there.

939

00:36:39,655 --> 00:36:41,073

How, why, when, and where;

940

00:36:41,657 --> 00:36:43,117

That's not going to be public.

941

00:36:43,117 --> 00:36:43,910

I don't think ever.

942

00:36:44,035 --> 00:36:45,828

There's people that were in

943

00:36:45,828 --> 00:36:47,496

that and no longer around.

944

00:36:47,705 --> 00:36:49,290

They passed on.

945

00:36:50,374 --> 00:36:53,044

They kept their mouths shut pretty well

946

00:36:53,419 --> 00:36:55,713

because they knew the damage could be causing.

947

00:36:56,589 --> 00:36:59,967

So we had summary, as it

948

00:36:59,967 --> 00:37:01,302

calls summary executions,

949

00:37:01,844 --> 00:37:04,889

where you didn't give an enemy soldier a trial.

950

00:37:05,348 --> 00:37:06,599

You've taken his gun away.

951

00:37:06,599 --> 00:37:08,559

He's a prisoner of war, or

952

00:37:08,559 --> 00:37:10,311

he's coming in with his hands up.

953

00:37:10,937 --> 00:37:11,938

And he's unarmed.

954

00:37:12,521 --> 00:37:13,481

And you shoot him anyway.

955

00:37:13,522 --> 00:37:14,690

Because you're so angry at

956

00:37:14,690 --> 00:37:16,567

that enemy for killing your buddy

957

00:37:16,943 --> 00:37:18,611

in the trench or blowing

958

00:37:18,611 --> 00:37:20,655

up a group of your friends.

959

00:37:21,072 --> 00:37:22,031

So angry, you just shoot

960

00:37:22,031 --> 00:37:23,658

him, even though he's unarmed.

961

00:37:23,658 --> 00:37:25,159

He's coming with his hands up.

962

00:37:25,159 --> 00:37:27,453

It's called summary execution

963

00:37:27,453 --> 00:37:31,082

and other things good and bad.

964

00:37:31,082 --> 00:37:31,874

We did that.

965

00:37:32,792 --> 00:37:36,837

And we used the weapons on places that--

966

00:37:37,588 --> 00:37:39,507

oh, I didn't know our country did.

967

00:37:40,049 --> 00:37:42,093

I didn't know that we used gas.

968

00:37:42,426 --> 00:37:43,302

I didn't know that we

969

00:37:43,302 --> 00:37:46,764

poisoned water and things like this.

970

00:37:47,556 --> 00:37:49,225

We're just as bad as the other guy.

971

00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:54,188

So when you say this is for a good purpose,

972

00:37:55,064 --> 00:37:56,023

well, who's good purpose?

973

00:37:56,607 --> 00:37:58,067

Is it America's good purpose?

974

00:37:58,985 --> 00:38:00,820

Or is it another country?

975

00:38:01,529 --> 00:38:05,700

If my religious upbringing

976

00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:07,618

is, for example, Islamic,

977

00:38:08,369 --> 00:38:11,122

they have a different worldview than I do.

978

00:38:11,414 --> 00:38:13,958

They see themselves as good and us as bad.

979

00:38:14,417 --> 00:38:17,169

We are the infidels, the enemy, the unfaithful.

980

00:38:17,545 --> 00:38:19,880

We look at them as the enemy, perhaps.

981

00:38:20,548 --> 00:38:23,426

And you've got a lot of these interrelationships

982

00:38:23,426 --> 00:38:26,429

are creating a false sense of good and evil.

983

00:38:27,346 --> 00:38:29,390

Whose version of good are we talking about?

984

00:38:29,724 --> 00:38:32,101

So there's got to be some determination.

985

00:38:32,977 --> 00:38:34,562

And I think that's what some of the public

986

00:38:34,854 --> 00:38:38,482

is beginning to see, like in Ukraine, even

987

00:38:38,899 --> 00:38:43,571

the well-known Elon Musk, who created the Tesla

988

00:38:43,821 --> 00:38:46,407

and the satellites that are giving us

989

00:38:46,407 --> 00:38:48,701

GPS, this amazing man,

990

00:38:48,701 --> 00:38:49,869

whether you like him or not,

991

00:38:50,411 --> 00:38:50,953

as immaterial.

992

00:38:51,454 --> 00:38:52,413

He said, do you know in the

993

00:38:52,413 --> 00:38:54,415

Russian-Ukraine war, which

994

00:38:54,415 --> 00:38:57,501

is going on right now, is the topic

995

00:38:57,877 --> 00:38:59,003

or is the background of

996

00:38:59,003 --> 00:39:01,047

this discussion right now,

997

00:39:02,548 --> 00:39:04,800

they are losing, according to his statement,

998

00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:05,760

and I think it's valid.

999

00:39:06,844 --> 00:39:10,598

They're losing at least 10,000 soldiers a week.

00:39:11,432 --> 00:39:13,100

And they brought in North

00:39:13,100 --> 00:39:14,685

Koreans to support them,

00:39:14,685 --> 00:39:17,271

the Chinese to support them, and the North Korean

00:39:17,813 --> 00:39:19,899

Chinese soldier is going, wait a minute,

00:39:20,316 --> 00:39:23,152

most of the guys going to the line to fight

00:39:23,152 --> 00:39:24,945

are getting killed and not coming back.

00:39:25,446 --> 00:39:26,530

I'm from China, what am I

00:39:26,530 --> 00:39:27,907

doing fighting for Russia?

00:39:28,282 --> 00:39:29,825

And they're still there and

00:39:29,825 --> 00:39:31,327

there's a lot of defection,

00:39:31,827 --> 00:39:32,912

a lot of pulling back.

00:39:33,370 --> 00:39:35,498

But you know, in three years of fighting,

00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,834

the front lines have never moved.

00:39:39,877 --> 00:39:42,922

We pushed into Russia, or I shouldn't say we,

00:39:43,214 --> 00:39:44,340

the Russians pushed into

00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:47,134

Ukraine, or the Ukraine pushed away

00:39:47,134 --> 00:39:48,344

into Russia, didn't happen.

00:39:48,844 --> 00:39:51,180

They're at a stalemate and they're still throwing

00:39:51,305 --> 00:39:53,766

thousands of men at that thing, and you go,

00:39:54,016 --> 00:39:55,559

why are we doing this?

00:39:56,060 --> 00:39:57,061

And people are starting to

00:39:57,061 --> 00:39:59,522

say, let's just stop this.

00:39:59,939 --> 00:40:01,357

Even the world's beginning to say,

00:40:02,358 --> 00:40:04,151

you know, this is insane.

00:40:04,902 --> 00:40:08,531

There's no benefactors, there are, you know,

00:40:10,032 --> 00:40:11,158

from a global perspective,

00:40:11,408 --> 00:40:12,993

but in this particular warfare,

00:40:13,828 --> 00:40:14,620

nobody's winning.

00:40:15,413 --> 00:40:16,580

They're both losers.

00:40:18,082 --> 00:40:21,335

So some of what you're outlining here,

00:40:22,044 --> 00:40:23,045

you know, how, again,

00:40:23,254 --> 00:40:24,588

America, having done the things

00:40:24,588 --> 00:40:27,925

that we, you know, what the

00:40:27,925 --> 00:40:28,884

military industrial complex

00:40:28,884 --> 00:40:30,177

should say, well, the enemy has done that,

00:40:30,678 --> 00:40:31,554

and America has actually

00:40:31,554 --> 00:40:32,596

done those things as well.

00:40:33,848 --> 00:40:35,933

I have to ask then, when it comes to war,

00:40:36,600 --> 00:40:37,643

are we looking at a case

00:40:37,643 --> 00:40:39,562

where this is just the ends,

00:40:39,687 --> 00:40:41,147

justifies the means, or you

00:40:41,147 --> 00:40:42,690

could say situational ethics?

00:40:42,690 --> 00:40:44,066

It's like, well, this is

00:40:44,066 --> 00:40:45,943

war, so it's okay to drop

00:40:45,943 --> 00:40:47,236

some nuclear bombs on some

00:40:47,236 --> 00:40:48,571

people, you know, in Japan,

00:40:48,571 --> 00:40:51,031

and vaporize tens of thousands of people.

00:40:51,657 --> 00:40:52,533

Is that what we're looking

00:40:52,533 --> 00:40:53,909

at here, situational ethics?

00:40:54,201 --> 00:40:54,827

I think so.

00:40:55,369 --> 00:40:57,580

There was an old phrase going around,

00:40:57,580 --> 00:40:59,331

all is fair in love and war,

00:41:00,249 --> 00:41:03,836

meaning everything's fair game.

00:41:04,545 --> 00:41:05,796

And now, what you said

00:41:05,796 --> 00:41:07,256

earlier, I don't want to portray

00:41:07,256 --> 00:41:13,637

the fact that America has this horrible strategy

00:41:14,430 --> 00:41:15,681

to torture prisoners, and

00:41:15,681 --> 00:41:17,850

that I'm saying we've done it,

00:41:18,142 --> 00:41:22,229

and we do it, and we have men that go to church,

00:41:23,105 --> 00:41:24,023

regularly, Christian

00:41:24,023 --> 00:41:26,525

churches, they are combatants,

00:41:26,817 --> 00:41:30,613

they're military, they're looked up to in America,

00:41:30,738 --> 00:41:33,824

and they have that fundamental morality,

00:41:34,283 --> 00:41:37,077

that they're not on a grand scale,

00:41:37,453 --> 00:41:38,579

they're not all this way.

00:41:38,787 --> 00:41:39,580

So I'm saying these

00:41:39,580 --> 00:41:41,332

incidents that we accuse the enemy

00:41:41,749 --> 00:41:44,251

are doing, we're doing some of those ourselves.

00:41:45,002 --> 00:41:46,170

Why are we doing those?

00:41:46,170 --> 00:41:47,880

Because, just what you said,

00:41:48,631 --> 00:41:51,425

the end justifies the means,

00:41:51,467 --> 00:41:54,136

instead of around the other way, where the means,

00:41:54,678 --> 00:41:57,681

to get there, are supposed to justify your way

00:41:57,890 --> 00:41:59,934

and your objective, and so

00:41:59,934 --> 00:42:02,895

we're using those mentalities,

00:42:02,895 --> 00:42:06,190

those mindsets, to go after enemy,

00:42:06,857 --> 00:42:08,567

and make our people feel

00:42:08,567 --> 00:42:11,445

good about what we're doing,

00:42:11,487 --> 00:42:13,030

eliminating the enemy.

00:42:13,489 --> 00:42:15,824

So, and then, what is the

00:42:15,824 --> 00:42:17,826

real objective of the war?

00:42:18,369 --> 00:42:19,662

People may not even know,

00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:21,997

they may see on television,

00:42:22,873 --> 00:42:25,334

we're out here to do this, this, and this,

00:42:25,918 --> 00:42:30,130

but really, that may not be our objective at all.

00:42:30,130 --> 00:42:33,050

Sometimes, we've attacked countries,

00:42:33,759 --> 00:42:36,887

just to deplete their ammunition stockpile,

00:42:37,429 --> 00:42:38,847

or damage them financially,

00:42:39,098 --> 00:42:41,558

to where they can't retaliate,

00:42:41,976 --> 00:42:44,353

because they no longer have the means to that.

00:42:44,353 --> 00:42:46,272

We've used a number of times,

00:42:46,272 --> 00:42:48,899

we've used those tactics far beyond.

00:42:49,608 --> 00:42:51,694

You knock out an enemy's

00:42:51,694 --> 00:42:55,281

ability to transport petroleum,

00:42:56,532 --> 00:42:59,285

yeah, but it's winter, and there's civilians

00:42:59,576 --> 00:43:02,621

depend on that petroleum to heat their homes.

00:43:03,497 --> 00:43:05,165

But yeah, it has a military purpose,

00:43:05,499 --> 00:43:09,128

so "it's okay if they freeze

00:43:09,128 --> 00:43:11,046

to death," in one perspective,

00:43:12,089 --> 00:43:13,299

because "we're killing the enemy,

00:43:13,299 --> 00:43:14,425

we're doing good for

00:43:14,425 --> 00:43:16,468

society," as far as we see it.

00:43:17,052 --> 00:43:19,513

And that comes back to some of the mythology,

00:43:19,513 --> 00:43:20,389

I guess you could say,

00:43:20,681 --> 00:43:23,017

around the military industrial complex,

00:43:23,017 --> 00:43:24,351

of "we're the good guys,

00:43:24,351 --> 00:43:25,602

we're doing the right thing here,

00:43:25,644 --> 00:43:29,982

so it's okay if there's collateral damage."

00:43:30,232 --> 00:43:32,067

Do you wanna describe what collateral damage is,

00:43:32,067 --> 00:43:32,484

by the way?

00:43:32,901 --> 00:43:35,404

Absolutely, interesting concept.

00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:40,534

On a smaller scale, it's saying some of the bombs

00:43:40,701 --> 00:43:43,370

fall on people we didn't want them to fall on.

00:43:44,538 --> 00:43:47,541

Civilians, non-combatants, as it referred to,

00:43:48,083 --> 00:43:50,711

especially when you're spraying bomblets,

00:43:50,961 --> 00:43:53,130

small bombs, anti-personnel bombs,

00:43:53,464 --> 00:43:55,591

out all over a section of a country,

00:43:57,092 --> 00:43:59,553

that's horrible, and that's collateral damage.

00:44:00,346 --> 00:44:03,140

The civilians, we know cases,

00:44:03,140 --> 00:44:05,476

I've seen cases myself

00:44:05,476 --> 00:44:08,270

where 20 years after the war,

00:44:08,729 --> 00:44:10,731

those munitions are still there,

00:44:11,357 --> 00:44:12,733

and they're still killing people,

00:44:12,983 --> 00:44:15,194

and they may be there 20 more years.

00:44:15,652 --> 00:44:18,030

And because of some of the things we've done,

00:44:19,031 --> 00:44:20,866

their food supply is cut off,

00:44:21,408 --> 00:44:23,327

we've spread, maybe caused

00:44:23,327 --> 00:44:25,871

disease to occur in a country,

00:44:26,205 --> 00:44:29,124

maybe we've destroyed their economy,

00:44:29,750 --> 00:44:31,335

and maybe we've changed the

00:44:31,335 --> 00:44:32,961

relationship between nations

00:44:33,545 --> 00:44:34,755

by doing this and this.

00:44:35,005 --> 00:44:38,008

We've made them vulnerable, they're our enemy,

00:44:38,550 --> 00:44:39,968

but we've made them vulnerable

00:44:40,386 --> 00:44:42,346

to maybe a third enemy over here,

00:44:42,346 --> 00:44:44,765

who's now more easy to go into here,

00:44:44,973 --> 00:44:46,517

which we didn't intend to happen,

00:44:47,017 --> 00:44:48,685

but it's a consequence of war.

00:44:49,019 --> 00:44:51,188

So you see, we're depleting a

00:44:51,188 --> 00:44:52,731

lot more than enemy soldiers,

00:44:52,940 --> 00:44:54,566

enemy capabilities, we're

00:44:54,566 --> 00:44:56,902

depleting whole segments

00:44:56,902 --> 00:45:01,907

of a society in ways that

00:45:01,907 --> 00:45:04,076

sometimes are hard to describe,

00:45:04,076 --> 00:45:05,119

there's so many ways that

00:45:05,119 --> 00:45:07,413

we're impacting non-combatants

00:45:07,579 --> 00:45:09,540

with collateral damage, as it's called,

00:45:10,207 --> 00:45:12,334

damage that was a result,

00:45:12,793 --> 00:45:15,587

but wasn't intended to be the purpose

00:45:16,004 --> 00:45:17,297

of the damage that was created.

00:45:18,298 --> 00:45:19,341

And to go back to the

00:45:19,341 --> 00:45:21,135

Cambodia part of your story,

00:45:21,802 --> 00:45:22,511

I mean, that's a classic

00:45:22,511 --> 00:45:24,721

case of the collateral damage,

00:45:24,721 --> 00:45:27,307

which is really just sanitized language

00:45:27,558 --> 00:45:29,351

for these bombs fell on

00:45:29,351 --> 00:45:31,645

people that were just living

00:45:31,645 --> 00:45:33,897

their life in their village in Cambodia,

00:45:34,022 --> 00:45:35,899

having absolutely nothing to do with this war,

00:45:36,275 --> 00:45:38,277

and they got wiped off the map, obliterated,

00:45:38,819 --> 00:45:40,320

because oops, that's where

00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:41,280

the bomb happened to land.

00:45:42,114 --> 00:45:43,657

Is that, yeah.

00:45:44,032 --> 00:45:45,951

It's totally true.

00:45:47,286 --> 00:45:51,707

In fact, I know, I experienced cases where

00:45:52,458 --> 00:45:57,212

we've dropped bombs from 30, 32,000 feet,

00:45:57,629 --> 00:46:00,007

and while that bomb is still on its way down,

00:46:00,007 --> 00:46:01,300

and it may be killing

00:46:01,300 --> 00:46:03,510

children and nursing mothers

00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:04,970

and all those sorts of things,

00:46:05,637 --> 00:46:08,015

the bomb is still falling, we turn off the target

00:46:08,348 --> 00:46:09,224

and head for home.

00:46:09,808 --> 00:46:12,853

And in one specific case,

00:46:12,853 --> 00:46:14,688

I remember my pilot's name,

00:46:15,105 --> 00:46:17,524

I was the co-pilot at the time, name was Bob,

00:46:17,983 --> 00:46:19,401

and I said, "Bob, I wonder

00:46:19,401 --> 00:46:20,736

what they're serving for dinner

00:46:20,861 --> 00:46:22,029

"in the officers' club."

00:46:22,529 --> 00:46:25,699

And wait a minute, you just dropped bombs,

00:46:26,033 --> 00:46:27,576

multiple bombs that are

00:46:27,576 --> 00:46:30,120

undoubtedly gonna kill combatants

00:46:30,370 --> 00:46:31,705

and non-combatants and their

00:46:31,705 --> 00:46:33,165

source of living and all this,

00:46:33,499 --> 00:46:35,042

and you're wondering, you know,

00:46:35,250 --> 00:46:37,419

"I wonder if they're serving steak tonight

00:46:37,419 --> 00:46:38,670

"in the officers' club.

00:46:38,670 --> 00:46:40,172

"It'd sure be good to sink

00:46:40,172 --> 00:46:41,590

my teeth into a good steak."

00:46:42,466 --> 00:46:44,885

What a contradiction of thought,

00:46:45,761 --> 00:46:48,180

and I had that mentality, I was typical.

00:46:49,139 --> 00:46:51,225

That was good, that was me doing good

00:46:51,683 --> 00:46:56,063

by taking care of an enemy of world security

00:46:56,313 --> 00:46:57,189

and world peace.

00:46:58,065 --> 00:46:58,815

Obliterate your enemy.

00:46:59,733 --> 00:47:01,693

It comes back to the,

00:47:02,027 --> 00:47:03,320

we're the force of good here,

00:47:03,654 --> 00:47:05,531

we're defending, what was it like,

00:47:05,531 --> 00:47:07,199

defending democracy around the world,

00:47:07,199 --> 00:47:08,617

so this is what we gotta do,

00:47:08,951 --> 00:47:10,869

and oh, well, that's unfortunate

00:47:11,203 --> 00:47:13,789

that we wiped out all these villages or whatever.

00:47:14,289 --> 00:47:16,250

Making the world safe for democracy.

00:47:17,709 --> 00:47:18,418

And I'm wondering, you

00:47:18,418 --> 00:47:19,378

know, those people on the ground

00:47:19,878 --> 00:47:21,672

who had their village blown to bits

00:47:22,172 --> 00:47:23,298

are probably not thinking about,

00:47:23,715 --> 00:47:24,675

"Yay, I'm glad we made the

00:47:24,675 --> 00:47:25,634

world safe for democracy."

00:47:27,177 --> 00:47:29,054

Or maybe we're no longer

00:47:29,054 --> 00:47:30,305

friends in the United States

00:47:30,806 --> 00:47:32,224

who are sending us food

00:47:32,224 --> 00:47:34,309

packages and things like that.

00:47:34,726 --> 00:47:37,563

You change political perspectives too

00:47:38,021 --> 00:47:40,649

and used another consequence

00:47:40,649 --> 00:47:42,109

of war and collateral damage.

00:47:42,651 --> 00:47:43,777

I think, I really think

00:47:43,777 --> 00:47:45,946

the ends justifies the means

00:47:46,154 --> 00:47:48,907

is a really core concept here.

00:47:49,324 --> 00:47:52,786

When it comes to war and how the philosophy,

00:47:53,829 --> 00:47:55,831

framework, mindset, whatever you wanna call it

00:47:56,290 --> 00:47:58,542

is used for people to get to

00:47:58,542 --> 00:48:01,128

that place where that's okay.

00:48:01,628 --> 00:48:02,921

Like that's the right thing to do

00:48:02,921 --> 00:48:04,506

to go drop bombs on a

00:48:04,506 --> 00:48:06,008

country that we're not at war with,

00:48:06,466 --> 00:48:08,343

or have nothing to do with this conflict

00:48:08,510 --> 00:48:10,470

and they just get swept into this,

00:48:11,138 --> 00:48:13,015

I don't know, the big churning wheels

00:48:13,015 --> 00:48:15,559

of the giant international war machine

00:48:16,018 --> 00:48:17,894

and it crushes a bunch of people

00:48:17,894 --> 00:48:19,730

that really have nothing to do with this war

00:48:20,063 --> 00:48:22,107

and they just get caught into the system.

00:48:22,524 --> 00:48:23,400

Am I getting that about right?

00:48:23,775 --> 00:48:26,403

Yeah, I can go back to my

00:48:26,403 --> 00:48:28,739

beginnings, even as a boy,

00:48:30,115 --> 00:48:34,244

very popular in the 50s and early 60s

00:48:34,703 --> 00:48:37,539

to have cowboy and Indian TV shows

00:48:38,206 --> 00:48:41,001

and the cowboys and the cavalry,

00:48:41,627 --> 00:48:45,589

the soldiers of the day were the good guys,

00:48:45,797 --> 00:48:46,840

the Indians were the bad guys

00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:50,636

and you would see scenes of horse chases

00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,472

when the shooting the Indians

00:48:53,972 --> 00:48:58,060

like they were some kind of sport to do that

00:48:58,310 --> 00:49:00,270

and so, "that's good."

00:49:00,562 --> 00:49:03,649

We got Roy Rogers and whoever,

00:49:05,150 --> 00:49:07,903

singing cowboy, whatever they wanna call them,

00:49:08,278 --> 00:49:09,946

the cavalry, all these guys

00:49:09,946 --> 00:49:11,740

killing Indians, that's good.

00:49:12,491 --> 00:49:15,535

Wait a minute, that Indian had a family too

00:49:16,203 --> 00:49:17,579

and he had hopes and dreams

00:49:17,579 --> 00:49:20,248

and also he had all the same things that I had.

00:49:20,791 --> 00:49:25,087

Yeah, they were raiding sometimes forts

00:49:25,087 --> 00:49:27,297

and sometimes civilian communities,

00:49:27,673 --> 00:49:28,674

but why were they raiding?

00:49:29,257 --> 00:49:30,300

They had their own means,

00:49:30,676 --> 00:49:31,885

but we took away their means.

00:49:32,177 --> 00:49:34,513

So now they come and take away our means

00:49:34,971 --> 00:49:37,391

and you've got this going back and forth

00:49:37,808 --> 00:49:40,352

where if we'd have helped them

00:49:40,477 --> 00:49:42,187

or done it a different way,

00:49:42,187 --> 00:49:44,106

we could have avoided the entire war,

00:49:44,773 --> 00:49:46,858

that mindset was never there

00:49:47,317 --> 00:49:49,861

and so growing up, hey,

00:49:50,112 --> 00:49:51,780

the way to get what you want

00:49:51,780 --> 00:49:52,948

is blow away the enemy.

00:49:54,157 --> 00:49:56,785

That's just part of the worldview,

00:49:57,577 --> 00:49:59,079

the culture that you're raised in.

00:49:59,079 --> 00:50:00,831

It's like, I'm gonna do my part,

00:50:00,831 --> 00:50:03,625

I'm gonna join the Air Force and so on.

00:50:04,167 --> 00:50:06,586

Okay, so I'm gonna go more big picture then.

00:50:06,878 --> 00:50:08,380

When it comes to war and

00:50:08,380 --> 00:50:10,841

this idea of ends justifies

00:50:10,841 --> 00:50:13,009

the means, situational ethics,

00:50:13,885 --> 00:50:16,221

I think the ultimate example

00:50:16,221 --> 00:50:18,598

I can think of is nuclear war.

00:50:18,974 --> 00:50:20,267

The concept of nuclear

00:50:20,267 --> 00:50:22,018

deterrence, nuclear weapons,

00:50:23,019 --> 00:50:25,313

the case of bombing Japan with nuclear weapons,

00:50:25,939 --> 00:50:27,649

it seems like that's a very clear case of,

00:50:28,108 --> 00:50:29,568

well, we're gonna obliterate,

00:50:30,235 --> 00:50:32,028

what is it, a couple hundred thousand civilians,

00:50:33,196 --> 00:50:35,574

but it's part of winning the war, so it's okay.

00:50:36,241 --> 00:50:39,244

Tell me about the American war machine

00:50:39,911 --> 00:50:41,455

and how it views genocidal,

00:50:41,705 --> 00:50:43,623

I mean, you could call them nuclear weapons,

00:50:43,623 --> 00:50:44,958

the ultimate genocidal weapon.

00:50:45,751 --> 00:50:48,378

How does it view those things?

00:50:48,378 --> 00:50:49,963

You were really involved with this.

00:50:50,714 --> 00:50:53,091

I think you were part of strategic air command

00:50:53,842 --> 00:50:56,219

and the nuclear deterrence strategy of America.

00:50:56,470 --> 00:50:57,721

You mentioned some of this at the beginning,

00:50:57,929 --> 00:50:59,848

but dig into that a bit more

00:50:59,848 --> 00:51:03,351

and especially talk to me about, in your mind,

00:51:03,351 --> 00:51:05,020

how was it justified at the time

00:51:05,479 --> 00:51:07,773

to carry these nuclear warheads in a B-52,

00:51:08,231 --> 00:51:09,983

knowing that if you use those things,

00:51:10,776 --> 00:51:13,278

potential millions of people would die, millions.

00:51:13,779 --> 00:51:16,031

And that's just, I mean, the numbers are so big,

00:51:16,364 --> 00:51:18,700

we can't even really get our heads around that,

00:51:18,700 --> 00:51:19,993

but talk to me about that.

00:51:21,161 --> 00:51:23,789

Interestingly, that word genocide,

00:51:24,998 --> 00:51:26,583

you would never hear that word discussed.

00:51:27,167 --> 00:51:29,294

That's kind of a new concept,

00:51:29,669 --> 00:51:32,339

genocide wiping out whole peoples, people groups,

00:51:32,881 --> 00:51:35,759

are driving them out of

00:51:35,759 --> 00:51:37,052

their country, so to speak,

00:51:37,803 --> 00:51:38,553

forcing them out.

00:51:39,262 --> 00:51:40,263

We never heard that word.

00:51:40,889 --> 00:51:42,098

We never thought of that.

00:51:42,599 --> 00:51:42,974

Interesting.

00:51:43,183 --> 00:51:45,852

You might be killing thousands of people,

00:51:45,852 --> 00:51:47,521

you and your other pilots.

00:51:48,313 --> 00:51:50,023

And that triad I talked about,

00:51:50,357 --> 00:51:53,568

you may be wiping out millions of people,

00:51:54,569 --> 00:51:56,988

but genocide, this is, no,

00:51:56,988 --> 00:52:00,200

this is us doing good for world peace.

00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:01,868

But how though, can you take me,

00:52:01,868 --> 00:52:03,745

I don't know how much this is still classified,

00:52:03,745 --> 00:52:04,913

but can you take me into

00:52:04,913 --> 00:52:05,914

some of the mission briefings

00:52:06,164 --> 00:52:09,042

for nuclear war, say, and it's like,

00:52:09,084 --> 00:52:10,544

okay, we're gonna fly these bombs

00:52:10,544 --> 00:52:12,587

and drop on such and such targets

00:52:12,796 --> 00:52:15,799

and wipe out millions of people.

00:52:16,299 --> 00:52:17,801

Was there ever a point in your brain

00:52:17,801 --> 00:52:19,135

that's just like, wait a second,

00:52:19,135 --> 00:52:20,846

how is a war strategy that kills

00:52:21,263 --> 00:52:23,181

millions of people a good plan?

00:52:23,765 --> 00:52:26,434

Did that ever enter your mind at all?

00:52:26,434 --> 00:52:28,645

It may surprise you, but the answer is no.

00:52:29,938 --> 00:52:33,400

And there was so much of myself invested in this.

00:52:33,984 --> 00:52:37,571

We had not only, everything we did flying

00:52:37,779 --> 00:52:39,030

was a training mission,

00:52:39,739 --> 00:52:43,869

but we would have to certify in front of a board

00:52:44,494 --> 00:52:46,705

our knowledge of what was called

00:52:47,038 --> 00:52:49,291

the emergency war order, or EWO.

00:52:49,708 --> 00:52:51,918

And we would have to talk about

00:52:52,377 --> 00:52:54,296

where we were going to get to our target,

00:52:55,046 --> 00:52:55,881

and it's a long way.

00:52:55,922 --> 00:52:58,133

So I had to get additional fuel

00:52:58,842 --> 00:53:00,218

from an air refueling tanker

00:53:00,343 --> 00:53:02,304

somewhere out over the Atlantic

00:53:02,512 --> 00:53:05,891

or going up over Canada to get to my target.

00:53:05,891 --> 00:53:08,518

I had to know where that tanker was

00:53:08,518 --> 00:53:09,978

and how we were gonna rendezvous

00:53:10,395 --> 00:53:12,355

and meet in the air so he could pump gas

00:53:12,731 --> 00:53:14,733

into my airplane while in there.

00:53:15,150 --> 00:53:19,112

We had so much as NALs,

00:53:19,112 --> 00:53:19,738

as they were called,

00:53:20,238 --> 00:53:22,157

natural alternate landing sites.

00:53:22,449 --> 00:53:24,075

If you can't get to your target,

00:53:24,409 --> 00:53:26,870

or if you use up your gas getting to the target,

00:53:27,287 --> 00:53:28,496

do you know down in Egypt,

00:53:28,872 --> 00:53:30,457

we've made an agreement with them

00:53:31,082 --> 00:53:32,834

to keep this runway for our landing,

00:53:33,084 --> 00:53:34,711

and nobody knows about those.

00:53:35,253 --> 00:53:38,048

So you had to certify all that.

00:53:38,048 --> 00:53:40,258

I mean, are you really into this thing?

00:53:40,842 --> 00:53:43,845

Mentally, emotionally, you can't talk about it?

00:53:43,845 --> 00:53:47,474

That gives you just sense of, oh, that's really--

00:53:47,641 --> 00:53:49,184

Oh, I mean the no, yeah.

00:53:49,851 --> 00:53:53,021

Okay, can you talk about what kind of missions

00:53:53,313 --> 00:53:55,440

you were potentially looking at?

00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:57,108

Like what kind of plans are we talking here?

00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:59,402

Like we're gonna have this plane

00:53:59,819 --> 00:54:01,237

with however many nuclear warheads

00:54:01,488 --> 00:54:04,157

and we're gonna go strike what?

00:54:04,157 --> 00:54:06,576

I mean, massive targets across the Soviet Union?

00:54:06,576 --> 00:54:08,078

I mean, what are we talking about here?

00:54:08,620 --> 00:54:11,581

First of all, I want to describe the fact that

00:54:12,540 --> 00:54:15,418

through- not decades, but through many years,

00:54:15,919 --> 00:54:18,755

we were fighting the Cold War with Russia

00:54:18,755 --> 00:54:20,382

and nobody ever shot a missile.

00:54:20,715 --> 00:54:27,389

So we came close to start the Cuba Missile Crisis

00:54:27,722 --> 00:54:28,932

where Russia had brought

00:54:28,932 --> 00:54:30,850

nuclear weapons into Cuba

00:54:31,476 --> 00:54:35,563

and President Kennedy, he was on the verge

00:54:35,563 --> 00:54:36,856

of having to make a decision.

00:54:37,482 --> 00:54:38,358

What do we do about that?

00:54:38,358 --> 00:54:39,275

The Russians ended up

00:54:39,275 --> 00:54:41,069

pulling their weapons out of Cuba,

00:54:41,069 --> 00:54:44,322

but I was in a position, we

00:54:44,322 --> 00:54:45,615

would call it nuclear alert.

00:54:45,991 --> 00:54:47,450

Our bombers were ready to go.

00:54:47,909 --> 00:54:50,704

The submarine missiles were always kept top shape

00:54:50,704 --> 00:54:52,414

as well as those.

00:54:52,789 --> 00:54:54,958

And we would live in an underground complex

00:54:55,375 --> 00:54:56,376

near the airplane.

00:54:57,002 --> 00:54:59,504

We had a theater, we had a

00:54:59,504 --> 00:55:01,923

huge kitchen staffed with cooks.

00:55:02,340 --> 00:55:05,010

We had sleeping quarters downstairs, showers

00:55:05,385 --> 00:55:08,555

and nice beds, everything that you'd want.

00:55:08,555 --> 00:55:10,640

And we'd stay there for 7 to 10 days.

00:55:11,099 --> 00:55:13,560

They'd my family at home, come here and do this.

00:55:14,310 --> 00:55:16,229

But, and there was these tubes

00:55:16,980 --> 00:55:18,148

that would come out of the building

00:55:18,314 --> 00:55:20,358

and they had a horn called a klaxon.

00:55:20,817 --> 00:55:21,818

And if you were asleep,

00:55:22,318 --> 00:55:23,987

this klaxon would raise you up

00:55:23,987 --> 00:55:25,113

off the bed, but you would

00:55:25,113 --> 00:55:29,409

also get a order over a phone,

00:55:29,826 --> 00:55:32,120

special phone on a special frequency

00:55:32,579 --> 00:55:35,165

that you would get that alert.

00:55:35,749 --> 00:55:38,209

And you had what we call quick donning boots

00:55:38,710 --> 00:55:40,253

and you had your flight suit arranged.

00:55:40,795 --> 00:55:42,422

So instant that went off,

00:55:42,422 --> 00:55:44,007

you got maybe 30 seconds

00:55:44,257 --> 00:55:45,592

to get your clothes on and

00:55:45,592 --> 00:55:47,302

it's 10 below zero outside.

00:55:47,302 --> 00:55:49,888

And you grabbed your parka and your hat

00:55:49,888 --> 00:55:50,847

and maybe you're gonna put it

00:55:50,847 --> 00:55:52,140

on later and take it with her.

00:55:52,849 --> 00:55:55,810

With it and you and another officer have to show

00:55:56,227 --> 00:55:58,229

a special code to an armed

00:55:58,229 --> 00:55:59,939

guard that's around that airplane.

00:56:00,356 --> 00:56:01,483

But that airplane was

00:56:01,483 --> 00:56:03,276

loaded with nuclear weapons.

00:56:03,526 --> 00:56:05,945

It was fueled, it had,

00:56:06,488 --> 00:56:08,406

usually you park an airplane

00:56:08,406 --> 00:56:11,034

and you put big chalks or call down to the tires

00:56:11,034 --> 00:56:12,452

to keep it from rolling.

00:56:12,952 --> 00:56:15,371

There was stuff like roll over chalks.

00:56:15,705 --> 00:56:17,248

They would keep the airplane from rolling,

00:56:17,248 --> 00:56:19,209

but if you used it enough power,

00:56:19,459 --> 00:56:21,336

they would collapse and let you keep going.

00:56:21,795 --> 00:56:24,547

The engines were started in unusual way.

00:56:24,547 --> 00:56:26,424

There was an explosive cartridge

00:56:26,925 --> 00:56:31,179

in the two inboard engines that would ignite

00:56:31,638 --> 00:56:32,472

immediately upon

00:56:32,472 --> 00:56:34,140

electrical signal from the cockpit.

00:56:34,557 --> 00:56:37,477

They would drive hot gas into the engine,

00:56:37,477 --> 00:56:39,646

getting it rotated, getting that fire going.

00:56:40,021 --> 00:56:42,690

With those two engines and pressure off of those,

00:56:43,233 --> 00:56:46,611

you activate a pneumatic system within the wing

00:56:47,028 --> 00:56:50,490

that would then spin up the other six engines.

00:56:51,199 --> 00:56:52,492

And you might be rolling

00:56:52,492 --> 00:56:55,036

forward towards the runway

00:56:55,370 --> 00:56:57,705

while you're still spinning up the engines.

00:56:58,206 --> 00:57:01,334

And you've got from our strategies and tactics,

00:57:01,709 --> 00:57:05,088

you may have only minutes to get off the ground.

00:57:05,672 --> 00:57:08,299

And you wouldn't call the control tower

00:57:08,633 --> 00:57:09,968

for permission to take off.

00:57:10,593 --> 00:57:13,930

You had an angular taxiway onto the runway.

00:57:14,389 --> 00:57:16,224

You did what's called a rolling takeoff.

00:57:16,224 --> 00:57:17,350

You didn't pull out of the runway,

00:57:17,475 --> 00:57:19,978

stay in there and roll, run up the engines.

00:57:20,562 --> 00:57:22,480

You rolled onto the takeoff and you just,

00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:24,357

on the runway and you just kept going

00:57:24,774 --> 00:57:26,651

with everything you had in that airplane

00:57:26,651 --> 00:57:28,736

to get it off the ground on its way.

00:57:29,112 --> 00:57:31,823

And no matter what happened on the way to,

00:57:32,824 --> 00:57:34,826

drop nuclear weapons on Russia.

00:57:35,326 --> 00:57:37,495

How fast on alert would it have been

00:57:37,954 --> 00:57:39,581

from the moment that bell rings

00:57:40,206 --> 00:57:42,792

and you get the orders to, you're off the ground?

00:57:44,043 --> 00:57:45,170

Interestingly, that used to

00:57:45,170 --> 00:57:46,379

be classified information.

00:57:46,588 --> 00:57:47,172

I thought it was.

00:57:47,630 --> 00:57:51,676

But if you, I mean, you could watch a video,

00:57:51,676 --> 00:57:53,428

I've shown you a video of

00:57:53,428 --> 00:57:54,679

something like this happening.

00:57:54,971 --> 00:57:55,847

I mean, I could start a

00:57:55,847 --> 00:57:57,265

stopwatch and tell you myself,

00:57:57,599 --> 00:58:00,727

it was probably in the four minute range.

00:58:00,852 --> 00:58:01,811

No way.

00:58:01,853 --> 00:58:03,730

From out of a dead sleep in bed,

00:58:04,731 --> 00:58:08,568

out to the airplane in maybe 30, 40, 50 seconds

00:58:09,235 --> 00:58:11,529

into the airplane, everything in there,

00:58:11,529 --> 00:58:13,364

your clothes, your helmet,

00:58:13,364 --> 00:58:15,116

whatever you're using as pre-position,

00:58:15,783 --> 00:58:17,410

you may end up taking off

00:58:17,410 --> 00:58:19,370

without even your helmet on,

00:58:19,370 --> 00:58:21,831

just with some earphones on,

00:58:22,707 --> 00:58:24,792

minimum time on everything.

00:58:24,792 --> 00:58:25,585

It's been researched,

00:58:26,211 --> 00:58:27,879

how to get this airplane off the ground

00:58:28,296 --> 00:58:30,048

to survive an enemy attack

00:58:30,340 --> 00:58:32,300

that may or may not be coming in.

00:58:32,383 --> 00:58:33,593

Well, yeah, cause you're,

00:58:33,593 --> 00:58:35,053

this is Griffiths Air Force Base.

00:58:36,095 --> 00:58:37,222

I think we'd mentioned that before,

00:58:37,305 --> 00:58:37,972

you had told me that,

00:58:38,431 --> 00:58:40,183

which was a major part of

00:58:40,183 --> 00:58:41,684

the strategic air command

00:58:42,894 --> 00:58:47,607

for, yeah, the nuclear strategies of America.

00:58:48,107 --> 00:58:49,359

So I'm guessing it would have been a target

00:58:49,359 --> 00:58:50,860

in the event of a nuclear war.

00:58:51,069 --> 00:58:52,153

It would, it would.

00:58:52,654 --> 00:58:54,781

And my head is just spinning,

00:58:55,698 --> 00:58:58,868

like you were really in this world.

00:58:59,244 --> 00:59:02,914

I mean, and was it kind of this sense of,

00:59:03,414 --> 00:59:04,499

well, this is my job.

00:59:04,499 --> 00:59:06,251

I mean, this is just what I gotta do,

00:59:06,417 --> 00:59:09,212

and you're not really thinking through

00:59:09,420 --> 00:59:11,631

when I unleashed these weapons,

00:59:11,923 --> 00:59:12,924

what it's gonna do.

00:59:13,675 --> 00:59:15,385

That didn't really hit your mind.

00:59:16,386 --> 00:59:18,930

I'm telling you, this sounds strange,

00:59:19,555 --> 00:59:21,975

but it's not only this is my job,

00:59:22,517 --> 00:59:24,852

it was exciting to do it,

00:59:25,186 --> 00:59:26,771

because you were looked up to,

00:59:26,771 --> 00:59:27,689

you had this power.

00:59:28,106 --> 00:59:29,107

You were the reason the

00:59:29,107 --> 00:59:30,566

whole Air Force was there,

00:59:30,566 --> 00:59:32,944

to make sure you were ready to fly into fight,

00:59:32,944 --> 00:59:33,820

as we used to say.

00:59:34,445 --> 00:59:36,489

And it was a real ego builder.

00:59:37,615 --> 00:59:38,908

You would just walk around,

00:59:38,908 --> 00:59:40,702

feeling like you're on top of the world.

00:59:41,703 --> 00:59:43,454

And it was exciting, thinking

00:59:43,454 --> 00:59:44,956

what you're capable of doing.

00:59:45,581 --> 00:59:48,710

Never thinking about the collateral damage

00:59:48,835 --> 00:59:51,838

what I might be doing to non-combatants.

00:59:52,338 --> 00:59:55,216

So I was part of the force for good on Earth.

00:59:55,758 --> 00:59:57,593

Mm, It was like, we're the good guys,

00:59:57,593 --> 00:59:58,845

and those are the bad guys,

00:59:59,178 --> 01:00:00,430

and we're gonna be ready,

01:00:00,430 --> 01:00:01,514

and we're gonna go get them.

01:00:01,514 --> 01:00:02,348

Was that, I mean--

01:00:02,849 --> 01:00:05,268

And they've got the same capability

01:00:05,435 --> 01:00:06,853

looking at us the same way.

01:00:07,186 --> 01:00:08,354

Man, that's-- These are the bad guys.

01:00:09,272 --> 01:00:10,940

Yeah, and that's the part that, yeah,

01:00:10,940 --> 01:00:11,983

because if you flip it around,

01:00:12,608 --> 01:00:15,028

back to the worldview perspective,

01:00:16,112 --> 01:00:17,905

from an American perspective, they're the enemy.

01:00:18,781 --> 01:00:20,199

You flip it the other direction,

01:00:20,450 --> 01:00:21,492

and they're looking at America,

01:00:21,492 --> 01:00:22,243

saying America is the

01:00:22,243 --> 01:00:23,328

enemy, and we're the good guys.

01:00:23,911 --> 01:00:26,539

And what's terrifying is

01:00:26,539 --> 01:00:29,083

both sides had weapons systems,

01:00:29,083 --> 01:00:30,752

or have weapons systems,

01:00:31,419 --> 01:00:32,211

thermonuclear warheads,

01:00:32,754 --> 01:00:34,505

that if we ever have a nuclear war,

01:00:35,381 --> 01:00:36,924

if the world ever has a nuclear war,

01:00:36,924 --> 01:00:38,760

I mean, almost certainly

01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:39,886

just about end civilization.

01:00:40,178 --> 01:00:41,596

I mean, it would be so catastrophic.

01:00:42,347 --> 01:00:44,015

And so it's like, over these

01:00:44,015 --> 01:00:45,433

debates of who's the enemy,

01:00:45,433 --> 01:00:46,809

and who's the good guy, and all of that,

01:00:46,809 --> 01:00:50,063

we've gotten to a point as a human race

01:00:50,188 --> 01:00:52,440

that could about end the world.

01:00:53,274 --> 01:00:54,859

Not quite, but you know what I mean.

01:00:55,276 --> 01:00:56,444

As we know it. Yeah, it end the world

01:00:56,444 --> 01:00:57,487

as we know it, there you go.

01:00:57,612 --> 01:01:00,365

As a lot of third world countries,

01:01:00,531 --> 01:01:02,283

in South America, Africa,

01:01:02,909 --> 01:01:05,995

and many other of the people

01:01:05,995 --> 01:01:07,455

that are not in the belt of

01:01:07,455 --> 01:01:08,915

the rich people around the earth,

01:01:10,249 --> 01:01:13,419

80% of the world's wealth is in this narrow band

01:01:13,961 --> 01:01:16,005

around the world that encompasses Europe,

01:01:16,005 --> 01:01:17,799

and that's where all the fighting goes on.

01:01:18,299 --> 01:01:19,342

These third world countries,

01:01:19,342 --> 01:01:20,718

they may have local battles.

01:01:20,927 --> 01:01:22,845

They're not into this global thing,

01:01:23,388 --> 01:01:25,431

and that's not even in their mindset.

01:01:26,057 --> 01:01:27,517

We have countries like Australia

01:01:28,184 --> 01:01:29,143

that support the United

01:01:29,143 --> 01:01:30,311

States, they're our friends.

01:01:30,937 --> 01:01:32,397

Australia may never get into war,

01:01:32,647 --> 01:01:33,856

but they're part of our war

01:01:33,856 --> 01:01:35,274

machine and our relationships,

01:01:35,983 --> 01:01:37,485

and those things change.

01:01:38,069 --> 01:01:40,571

Yeah, this is just talking about

01:01:41,030 --> 01:01:42,365

the military industrial complex.

01:01:42,573 --> 01:01:45,660

This is at the most extreme form, I guess.

01:01:46,244 --> 01:01:48,121

Back to ends justifies means.

01:01:49,705 --> 01:01:52,708

Can you say how much of a

01:01:52,708 --> 01:01:53,876

nuclear payload you'd carry

01:01:54,502 --> 01:01:56,129

on average, like what kind of weapons?

01:01:57,255 --> 01:02:01,426

The kind of weapons varied from the original days

01:02:01,426 --> 01:02:02,385

in the 50s.

01:02:02,927 --> 01:02:05,096

There was a joke about what those weapons,

01:02:05,096 --> 01:02:06,973

a sad joke when you look

01:02:06,973 --> 01:02:09,308

back on about what those weapons

01:02:09,517 --> 01:02:11,018

were, but they were, maybe

01:02:11,018 --> 01:02:12,562

it could fit two of these big

01:02:12,687 --> 01:02:14,689

bombs in the bomb bay, and

01:02:14,689 --> 01:02:16,232

then the weapons got smaller,

01:02:16,566 --> 01:02:19,861

and then we had got into this rotary launcher

01:02:20,027 --> 01:02:22,071

like a pistol revolver,

01:02:22,613 --> 01:02:24,907

and it would rotate and drop

01:02:25,032 --> 01:02:26,117

a short range attack

01:02:26,117 --> 01:02:27,827

missile, and that missile would take

01:02:27,827 --> 01:02:29,662

off on its own path, like

01:02:29,662 --> 01:02:30,955

if it were its own airplane.

01:02:31,372 --> 01:02:35,168

You rotate that cylinder and drop off another one

01:02:35,168 --> 01:02:36,586

that would go to a target over here.

01:02:37,128 --> 01:02:38,379

So now you've got each one

01:02:38,379 --> 01:02:40,214

of those as a nuclear bomb.

01:02:41,132 --> 01:02:46,262

But now I'm not wasting those bombs on cities

01:02:46,512 --> 01:02:49,807

like we did in World War II in Japan.

01:02:50,433 --> 01:02:53,311

I'm going after a very specific target.

01:02:53,853 --> 01:02:57,064

I may want to eliminate the seaport.

01:02:57,482 --> 01:02:58,983

I could do that with one weapon.

01:02:58,983 --> 01:02:59,984

I'll probably put two or

01:02:59,984 --> 01:03:01,068

three in there to make sure

01:03:01,486 --> 01:03:02,278

I destroy that.

01:03:02,820 --> 01:03:05,364

That's where a country's fighting material,

01:03:05,364 --> 01:03:06,407

their warships are.

01:03:06,491 --> 01:03:10,578

That's also the place where food and grain

01:03:10,828 --> 01:03:12,705

and things sustaining

01:03:12,705 --> 01:03:14,957

life, also coming in through

01:03:14,999 --> 01:03:17,335

that port, I may hit his

01:03:17,335 --> 01:03:19,504

electrical generating system.

01:03:19,587 --> 01:03:22,340

I may hit key oil pipelines

01:03:22,340 --> 01:03:24,133

that would just eliminate him.

01:03:24,842 --> 01:03:28,679

I saw in Saudi Arabia, extremely vulnerable.

01:03:28,971 --> 01:03:31,807

I was stationed there once in Riyadh for a year.

01:03:31,807 --> 01:03:33,267

I got to know a lot of

01:03:33,267 --> 01:03:35,770

the ways of the Saudi life.

01:03:36,145 --> 01:03:37,355

They have a couple of

01:03:37,355 --> 01:03:41,067

pipelines that pump desalinized

01:03:41,275 --> 01:03:46,405

seawater from the Persian Gulf and pump it in,

01:03:46,405 --> 01:03:47,698

desalinize it, make it

01:03:47,698 --> 01:03:49,325

drinkable water, usable water,

01:03:49,534 --> 01:03:50,368

within the capital.

01:03:50,701 --> 01:03:51,661

You knock out those

01:03:51,661 --> 01:03:54,038

couple of strategic water pipes

01:03:54,038 --> 01:03:55,456

and there's more than a couple now.

01:03:56,415 --> 01:03:56,874

They're dead.

01:03:57,458 --> 01:03:59,293

They have no water in the capital city.

01:03:59,794 --> 01:04:00,336

They're done for.

01:04:01,087 --> 01:04:05,466

But Saudi Arabia is the location of Mecca

01:04:06,133 --> 01:04:08,678

in all the surrounding communities,

01:04:09,095 --> 01:04:11,097

including the Muslims that are in other countries

01:04:11,097 --> 01:04:11,597

in the world.

01:04:11,931 --> 01:04:14,141

They know you don't mess with Mecca.

01:04:14,892 --> 01:04:15,977

That's a holy place.

01:04:16,727 --> 01:04:19,105

And so you protect Saudi Arabia,

01:04:19,272 --> 01:04:21,107

even though they may not be your friends.

01:04:21,941 --> 01:04:23,109

But they're very vulnerable

01:04:23,109 --> 01:04:24,860

because they put a lot of stock

01:04:24,860 --> 01:04:26,612

in a country like that.

01:04:27,822 --> 01:04:31,409

We call it dispersion, where in our own country,

01:04:31,409 --> 01:04:33,035

we disperse our targets,

01:04:33,035 --> 01:04:34,537

because you don't want to cluster them together

01:04:34,537 --> 01:04:35,162

and make them easy.

01:04:35,871 --> 01:04:38,499

You bury some, you disguise them as buildings.

01:04:39,125 --> 01:04:42,253

You maybe hold them back for a second strike,

01:04:43,129 --> 01:04:44,463

which by the way, is just

01:04:44,463 --> 01:04:46,132

as destructive as the first

01:04:46,299 --> 01:04:49,135

you go in with a wave of bombers and missiles

01:04:49,844 --> 01:04:53,014

and you then assess what happened.

01:04:53,014 --> 01:04:54,599

Then you go in, if you got

01:04:54,599 --> 01:04:56,434

surviving nuclear weapons,

01:04:56,434 --> 01:04:58,352

you go in with the second wave and pick off

01:04:58,853 --> 01:05:01,147

what may be left and it

01:05:01,147 --> 01:05:03,399

just, there's total destruction.

01:05:03,774 --> 01:05:05,276

I mean, we're talking, see, this isn't,

01:05:05,276 --> 01:05:05,901

I mean, this is like

01:05:05,901 --> 01:05:07,695

annihilation level type stuff

01:05:07,987 --> 01:05:08,863

you're discussing here.

01:05:09,155 --> 01:05:10,656

Like what size of warhead

01:05:10,656 --> 01:05:11,741

was on one of those missiles?

01:05:12,742 --> 01:05:15,369

Originally, we talked megatons,

01:05:15,411 --> 01:05:18,873

mega means millions of tons of equivalent.

01:05:19,624 --> 01:05:23,336

It was equivalent to TNT, which is your standard.

01:05:23,794 --> 01:05:27,048

A bomb has a gunpowder, so to speak in it.

01:05:27,381 --> 01:05:30,468

And then we got as accuracy increased,

01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:33,846

we got into smaller and smaller weapons.

01:05:34,513 --> 01:05:35,848

And because we didn't need

01:05:35,848 --> 01:05:37,183

to wipe out whole cities,

01:05:37,183 --> 01:05:39,810

but smaller targets, the

01:05:39,810 --> 01:05:42,688

weapons I was dealing with were,

01:05:43,731 --> 01:05:45,232

you may not believe this,

01:05:45,274 --> 01:05:46,692

they were the size a little

01:05:46,692 --> 01:05:48,152

bit bigger than a basketball

01:05:49,403 --> 01:05:54,367

inside this self-flying,

01:05:55,076 --> 01:05:56,952

self-directing capability.

01:05:57,578 --> 01:05:59,955

How many megaton kiloton,

01:05:59,955 --> 01:06:01,165

like what size of yield is this?

01:06:01,207 --> 01:06:06,003

They're in kilotons, which is maybe 1/100

01:06:06,003 --> 01:06:08,923

of the size of a bomb dropped in Japan.

01:06:09,340 --> 01:06:12,218

You don't need a huge bomb to wipe out cities.

01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:15,137

I just picked some strategic targets,

01:06:15,429 --> 01:06:17,056

toss a couple of these in there,

01:06:17,431 --> 01:06:19,975

and I've obliterated enemy characteristics.

01:06:21,185 --> 01:06:24,772

But see, we are not in that scenario right now.

01:06:25,147 --> 01:06:28,234

The dangers we have, I mean, in those days,

01:06:28,234 --> 01:06:31,362

it was Russia and the United States, that's it.

01:06:31,737 --> 01:06:33,531

We control the world of nuclear weapons.

01:06:33,823 --> 01:06:37,493

Then along comes China, and then you get Korea.

01:06:37,993 --> 01:06:40,371

And now you're seeing India and Pakistan,

01:06:41,205 --> 01:06:42,289

they've been in the news lately.

01:06:42,998 --> 01:06:45,167

I think they've negotiated some kind of halt.

01:06:45,543 --> 01:06:47,878

Both of those countries have nuclear weapons now.

01:06:48,421 --> 01:06:51,674

And so, whoa, you may have a chain reaction

01:06:51,966 --> 01:06:53,300

where one of those

01:06:53,300 --> 01:06:54,927

countries attacks this country,

01:06:55,511 --> 01:06:57,012

and that country starts losing,

01:06:57,012 --> 01:06:59,890

so they bring in another country to back them up,

01:06:59,890 --> 01:07:01,767

and this country goes for more resources.

01:07:02,435 --> 01:07:04,729

And now, that's how World War II got started.

01:07:05,604 --> 01:07:07,106

Nations started supporting nations,

01:07:07,106 --> 01:07:10,067

taking sides in the destruction,

01:07:10,359 --> 01:07:13,404

and just increased exponentially.

01:07:13,946 --> 01:07:17,199

And that's what could happen in today's warfare,

01:07:17,908 --> 01:07:20,327

not just obliterating everything,

01:07:20,745 --> 01:07:22,246

taking out key targets with

01:07:22,246 --> 01:07:24,290

very small, very accurate weapons.

01:07:25,082 --> 01:07:26,375

The more accurate it is, the

01:07:26,375 --> 01:07:29,253

smaller the weapon needs to be.

01:07:29,962 --> 01:07:30,796

So, here we're talking

01:07:30,796 --> 01:07:33,716

about nuclear bombs this big.

01:07:35,760 --> 01:07:37,344

That's just hard for me to get my head around,

01:07:37,344 --> 01:07:39,972

and you're carrying a lot of them.

01:07:40,055 --> 01:07:43,434

A lot of them, and just

01:07:43,434 --> 01:07:45,895

being ready at a moment's notice

01:07:45,895 --> 01:07:50,357

for the unleashing of just that level

01:07:50,483 --> 01:07:51,817

of annihilation, destruction.

01:07:52,109 --> 01:07:57,406

Let me give you a scenario where you take a ship

01:07:57,990 --> 01:08:01,660

and a cargo ship with grain,

01:08:02,328 --> 01:08:05,372

going to England to ship grain.

01:08:05,790 --> 01:08:07,792

But in that ship is a nuclear weapon,

01:08:08,292 --> 01:08:10,211

and the British, looking for the,

01:08:10,628 --> 01:08:11,879

wanting to purchase the grain,

01:08:11,879 --> 01:08:14,215

they allow that ship into their port,

01:08:14,423 --> 01:08:18,302

or something as simple as taking a semi-truck

01:08:18,302 --> 01:08:19,345

and putting a nuclear

01:08:19,345 --> 01:08:21,263

weapon in that thing and driving.

01:08:22,473 --> 01:08:23,057

It can be done.

01:08:23,849 --> 01:08:26,811

It can be done with deception and tactics

01:08:27,353 --> 01:08:28,479

that are unknown to most people.

01:08:28,771 --> 01:08:30,856

Drive that semi-truck with a nuclear weapon

01:08:30,856 --> 01:08:33,025

and it'll ride into the middle of New York City,

01:08:33,609 --> 01:08:36,779

into the financial Long Island,

01:08:36,862 --> 01:08:38,823

some of these places, financial capital,

01:08:39,156 --> 01:08:41,200

not of the United States, but the whole world.

01:08:41,659 --> 01:08:42,952

Drive one of these things in there.

01:08:43,410 --> 01:08:45,788

You knock that city out, one weapon would do it.

01:08:46,121 --> 01:08:47,790

And you could create chaos,

01:08:48,499 --> 01:08:49,542

similar to what happened

01:08:49,542 --> 01:08:51,669

with the World Trade Center,

01:08:52,378 --> 01:08:53,879

the Twin Towers that went,

01:08:54,380 --> 01:08:58,717

I mean, they struck fear in the hearts of America

01:08:58,717 --> 01:09:00,386

and thinking that we're under attack.

01:09:00,928 --> 01:09:02,388

This is gonna be the big one.

01:09:02,888 --> 01:09:04,431

Thank God it didn't turn out to be.

01:09:05,015 --> 01:09:07,017

But you strike fear in the hearts of people.

01:09:07,518 --> 01:09:09,061

So we're painting a picture here.

01:09:09,645 --> 01:09:13,858

This is a lot bigger than just trench warfare

01:09:13,858 --> 01:09:17,695

where you're shooting this dilapidated old gun

01:09:18,028 --> 01:09:21,198

and at the enemy that's a hundred yards away

01:09:21,198 --> 01:09:22,658

and another trench fight,

01:09:23,576 --> 01:09:25,327

this is the highest tech.

01:09:25,327 --> 01:09:27,997

We're not even talking yet about hacking

01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:30,374

into people's computer

01:09:30,374 --> 01:09:32,543

systems and some of that capability.

01:09:33,168 --> 01:09:34,420

That's beyond imagination.

01:09:34,837 --> 01:09:37,089

You get into that and I read the journals.

01:09:37,631 --> 01:09:38,757

You say, hey Vince, eventually you haven't been

01:09:38,757 --> 01:09:40,009

in the Air Force for a long time.

01:09:40,259 --> 01:09:41,260

But if you know where to

01:09:41,260 --> 01:09:42,845

look, there's journals out there

01:09:42,845 --> 01:09:44,847

and you put some of these papers

01:09:45,097 --> 01:09:46,432

that this professor has

01:09:46,432 --> 01:09:48,267

written or this high rank,

01:09:48,267 --> 01:09:50,394

you put that with this paper.

01:09:50,936 --> 01:09:52,605

It's unintended consequences,

01:09:53,147 --> 01:09:54,440

but nobody realizes you put

01:09:54,440 --> 01:09:55,566

this paper with this paper

01:09:55,566 --> 01:09:57,401

and you start getting a picture of,

01:09:57,735 --> 01:09:59,194

hey, there's something going on here

01:09:59,695 --> 01:10:00,571

that I didn't know about.

01:10:00,905 --> 01:10:03,157

Laboratory experiments you didn't know about.

01:10:03,657 --> 01:10:05,951

Maybe some guy publishes a paper.

01:10:06,535 --> 01:10:09,997

Maybe we turn it into a civilian capability,

01:10:10,372 --> 01:10:11,707

but where did that come from?

01:10:11,707 --> 01:10:13,667

It came from a nuclear or a

01:10:13,667 --> 01:10:16,378

weapon that was being designed.

01:10:17,004 --> 01:10:19,798

We found out the chemical was

01:10:19,798 --> 01:10:22,176

also good for curing headaches.

01:10:22,384 --> 01:10:24,261

So we're doing that, but where did it come from?

01:10:24,553 --> 01:10:27,056

It came from that military industrial complex.

01:10:27,056 --> 01:10:28,974

That's kind of a spinoff thing.

01:10:28,974 --> 01:10:32,019

So if I can hack into those systems

01:10:32,853 --> 01:10:34,772

with some of the programming,

01:10:35,314 --> 01:10:40,110

we have countries have now whole industries of,

01:10:42,071 --> 01:10:43,280

for lack of a better term,

01:10:43,697 --> 01:10:47,159

to hack into the other person's weapon system

01:10:47,618 --> 01:10:50,704

or sell them something that they want.

01:10:51,330 --> 01:10:53,332

But in that thing you sold

01:10:53,332 --> 01:10:55,334

them is a listening device,

01:10:56,210 --> 01:10:57,920

kind of a small example.

01:10:58,963 --> 01:11:02,257

So you got all this going on way beyond

01:11:02,800 --> 01:11:04,218

what your average civilian

01:11:04,218 --> 01:11:05,928

is gonna see on television

01:11:06,595 --> 01:11:08,931

or remember from his textbooks in school.

01:11:09,431 --> 01:11:12,643

It's massive and understanding it is not,

01:11:12,643 --> 01:11:13,686

you can't do it on your own.

01:11:14,144 --> 01:11:16,230

A team of people operating together

01:11:16,230 --> 01:11:19,650

can begin to see this all how it works together.

01:11:19,817 --> 01:11:21,151

It's massive, it's huge.

01:11:21,735 --> 01:11:24,905

And the world is right now essentially capable

01:11:25,406 --> 01:11:26,573

of destroying itself as

01:11:26,573 --> 01:11:29,034

far as industry, population,

01:11:29,034 --> 01:11:29,785