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9-4-26 KSEV Mornings with Craig and Wayne Hour 2 · KSEV Mornings with Craig and Wayne

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: No, it's crazy.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Thunderdome, people. News, opinions, politics, and the
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: stories that.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Matter to Texans.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I shaved for this?
• 0:09
  Speaker 4: Here are your hosts, Craig Collins and Wayne Dolcefino.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Remember, everyone, just don't be yourselves. On KSEV AM 700,
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  Speaker 2: The Voice of Texas.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Yes!
• 0:20
  Speaker 5: That's awesome!
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: And now, Craig Collins and Wayne Dolcefino.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Wayne Dolcefino is on special assignment. I am Craig Collins, though.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: And we're actually going to get the chance to talk
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: with Senator Paul Betancourt, who has a show coming up
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: in just a few hours of his own. The Amigos
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: kicks off at 4 o'clock. A big, fancy press conference
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: that took place yesterday. Senator Betancourt, how.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Are you doing?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Craig. We're going to light the fires and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: kick the tires.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And try to burn down this huge tax increase coming
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: through Harris County Commissioner's Court.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's insane the way that they're trying to just
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: squeak this in. And actually, you know what? I want
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: to ask you this before you even set up the
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: topic a little bit, because I've had a lot of
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: people call in and say this this week. They think
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: the reason that politicians can get away with these types
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: of tax hikes is is because a lot of homeowners
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: don't even pay attention. They let their escrow pay the taxes,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: whatever it might be. I'm feeling like you don't find
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: that to be as true. As a politician who's talking
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: to the people, I'm guessing that a lot of Texans
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: are very mad about these property tax hikes.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Well, they are, but there is some truth to what's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: being said because an escrow account kind of buries the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: payment because you don't see it directly.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And there's two ways that the escrow count kind of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: flattens things out. It's like with Harris County. I mean,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a 12% increase in one year. They
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: have now done this three years in a row. So
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the average increase is well over a third, which puts
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  Speaker 1: the combined county tax bill at like $ 2, 160 within like
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: 50 bucks of the Houston Independent School District bill, which
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is unheard of that a county government is sucking down
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: as much money as the school district. Now, the flip
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: side of it is, when we do cut the rate
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and do increase the homestead exemption for the ISD bill,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: which is why HIC's bill is down. You don't see
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: it if you're in an escrow because it basically gets
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: buried against insurance increases. But the bottom line here is
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: real simple. We've got a leftist progressive commissioner's court. His
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: spending is out of control. And they are plastering the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: taxpayers with a second largest increase. It's going to be
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: about $ 200 for the average home. And that has really
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: added up to real money. In fact, it's so bad
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: that the county itself is just what you give the county,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and that's not the flood control district and the port
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: and the hospital district, is going to be 50% higher
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  Speaker 1: than the average home's ISD bill statewide.
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  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: And that's like $ 450 more than the average ISD bill
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: in Texas is. Wow. That's what the county is getting.
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And people are hacked off about it. Now, Craig, you
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: follow lots of social media.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I do.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And so does Russell. So if you look at my
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: stack on Facebook, because basically you've got just one down–
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: The good news is right now I'm saying, okay, here's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: what we've done statewide on property taxes, and it's surprisingly good.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And then right below that is Harris County trying to
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: pulverize taxpayers. I had like 302,000 views of that.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, exactly, because it's ridiculous. Here, I want to
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: say this, too, because I think this is interesting. As
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: someone who actually fights this in the role that you
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: have as a state senator, you know– that if people
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: ignore these sort of things, if they let them keep going,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: that they get worse and worse and worse. The politicians
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: that are getting away with this abuse this more and
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: more and more. And so it feels like part of
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: the reason you're sounding the alarm as loudly as you're
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: doing it right now, Senator Betancourt, is that not only
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: is this an extreme jump compared to previous years. But
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  Speaker 3: it's the type of thing that if there's not a louder,
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  Speaker 3: adverse reaction to it, and if some people don't lose
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: their jobs, meaning we vote other people into power, then
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: what stops them from being even more aggressive next time,
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  Speaker 3: outside of maybe a state law?
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And you nailed it, because let's talk about, you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Russell's favorite judge, Lena Hildago.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know why that is. I didn't know he
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: was your favorite.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, go ahead.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: Oh, Russell's favorite.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to wake little Russell up since it's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: a sports show, okay?
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Come on.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get him to comment live here. All right.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: We love Lena. We love Lena.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Do you think she's hot? Is that really a thing?
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we love Lena. We love Lena.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, it's sarcastic.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: All right, thank God.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: This wasn't a Captain Jack thing with AOC. All right, continue.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Right, okay, or Eric Andel thing with AOC. Right. They're
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: both having things.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: They're insane.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Let's drop that. All right, so Lena in, let's see,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: what year is it, 2023, just a third year back,
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  Speaker 1: she tells everybody, okay, we're going to have a property
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: tax increase. It's only 8%, and I want you to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: vote for it. It's really 15%, and Bill King and I, Ramsey,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Tom Ramsey, everybody fought a pitch battle, Cindy Siegel, with
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: her and the commissioner's court because they were just flat lying. Now,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: after they did that and the public voted 51-49, that
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: increased everybody's bill by $ 312. Then there was last year's increase,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and then there's this year's increase, which, by the way,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is all tax rate because their roll is actually 1% down.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: So they're just jacking it up because they can't, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: they feel invulnerable, and they shouldn't. Because here's the real
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: hypocritical gig of this. Everywhere in the United States, the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Republicans are getting smashed on affordability, affordability, affordability. Gas prices, whatever, insurance, electricity,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: pick a number, food, which, by the way, at a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: hearing this week, The Restaurant Association came in and said
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that half of their members in Texas are making no
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: money or losing money. Wow.
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  Speaker 5: All right.
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  Speaker 1: Now, so with all that, with the national media, it's
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  Speaker 1: just pulverizing Republicans. But here in the largest county, third
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  Speaker 1: largest county in America, this leftist progressive group has decided
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: that they're just going to pour on the gasoline and
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: light the match.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's the biggest thing that shocks me about
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: having a conversation about the midterm elections in general and
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the amount of people that seem to think if some
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: sort of part of our economic system is broken, some
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: part of your day-to-day feeling that your money's not going
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: far enough, put the people back in power at a
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  Speaker 3: state level or a national level that did even worse,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: with even worse reasons for creating the havoc that they did.
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  Speaker 3: And then you look here in Harris County and how long.
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  Speaker 3: these politicians have been the majority and in charge, and
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: how things have only gotten worse that entire time. It's
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  Speaker 3: surreal that people make the argument that putting Democrats in
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  Speaker 3: power simply because they're saying out loud that a problem
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  Speaker 3: that you have is one that they know exists, that
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  Speaker 3: they're actually going to do anything to fix it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Craig, that's really what's happening, because the polling right
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  Speaker 1: now shows hardly anybody even knows what the Democrat challenger
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: to you know, uh, uh, you know, Greg Abbott is saying, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they don't even know who Dan Patrick's opponent is. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, now in the one race that leads the ticket, they, they,
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  Speaker 1: they've got a pretty good idea that there's a race
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  Speaker 1: on between Paxton and Tallarico. Um, but, but when you
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  Speaker 1: get down to this level, uh, you know, cause, and
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  Speaker 1: let's look at it, you know, okay, we've talked about,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Dora the Explorer is now going to be
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: headed out to explore other worlds because she's not running
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  Speaker 1: for election. All right. We've got a full-blown DSA member,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: which is Letitia Plummer. I mean, she's full-blown running against
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Orlando Sanchez. So who was at the press conference? Orlando
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Sanchez stood up. And he made a great comment, and
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you guys need to get him on. And Russell, you
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: got his phone number, so let's get him on next week.
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  Speaker 1: He basically said that the top two or three of
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  Speaker 1: the county administrative positions, which aren't even elected, this is
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  Speaker 1: like the Sheila Jackson Lee's daughter and the people that
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  Speaker 1: work for her, they make like a million dollars. And
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the Joint Chiefs of Staff all together don't make a
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  Speaker 1: million dollars. But this crew does here in Harris County.
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  Speaker 1: It's just a constant overspending theme. Oh, no.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Is to be campaigning on these promises that we're going
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  Speaker 3: to make life better for you, for whoever it might be,
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  Speaker 3: and then watching people who have DUI arrests give themselves
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  Speaker 3: 200 percent raises. Like part of you just can't fathom
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  Speaker 3: how people in these political positions do this. And they
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  Speaker 3: just keep doing it and they just think we're not
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: going to pay attention.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: No. And, you know, there is an idea that there
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: needed to be pay parity, parity between the consuls and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the sheriff. As Ramsey said, it was long overdue. I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: helped that process along, but you don't pick the high number.
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  Speaker 1: You pick a reasonable number. And we had Mark Howard
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: run against Treasurer Watt, who was the one that she's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: got a pair of DWIs and a theft indictment, I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: guess the best way to describe it. But this is
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: just commonplace with Harris County government. So we're really down to...
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: who can we get elected? And so you can forget
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: trying to win Rodney Ellis's seat. He's not on the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: ballot anyway. You know, Lena has hit the road. You know,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Tom Ramsey's voting no. And so the last two are
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Leslie Briones and Adrian Garcia. Now, their challengers came there.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Richard Vega made a great comment on the east side
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: about how This type of money, 200 bucks, is real
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: money on the east side of Houston. Working class, lower
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: middle class families, 200 bucks every year because you hit
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: on it, Craig. Once it goes up, it can't come down.
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  Speaker 1: That's the problem. So when they get the tax rate
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to 67 and they take in $ 3. 1 billion for the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: whole budget, it's not going down. And then the other
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: person is Steve Raddick showed up with a pretty humorous
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: slide that spending has increased 63 percent since he left. OK.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's six years. So he basically is running after,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you know, running for the seat that Briones has. Now,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Briones and Garcia could make the smart decision and turn
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: around and say, you know, too much is too much.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And maybe we'll know on Tuesday. which way they're headed,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: but it's only because we're all blaring away on talk
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: radio and on social media, and Fox News is covering
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the story. Channel 11 kicked on last night. You know,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: still haven't seen anything from Channel 2 or Channel 13.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Of course. And the editorial board has weighed in.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And at least they're, you know, 70-30 against the double-digit
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: tax cut.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: Sure.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I don't know. It's just crazy. I imagine
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: that you feel stressed a lot, Senator Betancourt, because you're
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: fighting a lot of good fights, but they're not easy
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: fights to win. I have a national host and a
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: cousin of mine coming up next. Is there anything else
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: you want to say before I let you go? Anything
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: else we didn't cover?
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: No, just keep tracking it next week. Have Orlando Sanchez on,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Benny Siegel, Tom Ramsey, usual suspects. Sure. And the final
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: vote's the 17th. So just keep the pressure up. And
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: when you see a post by Uncle Paul, whether it's
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: at Bo Betancourt, PaulBetancourt.com, Team Betancourt, whatever, like it, share it,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: pass it on, and say, you know, you're a matter
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: of nature, double hockey sticks. You don't want to take
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it anymore.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, and you need Harris County to change. And Orlando
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Sanchez is one of those people who has a real
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: shot at that job and a real great opportunity to
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: change a bunch of stuff. Thank you, Senator Paul Betancourt,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: for jumping on the show. The Amigos at 4 o'clock today.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Is it a rerun? Are you guys here in studio?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: We're live.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're live. All right, awesome. Listen to The Amigos
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: today at 4 o'clock. Quick break. A lot more KSCV mornings.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Craig Collins, Wayne Dolcefino on Special Assignments. What if you
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: could invest in real estate for pennies on the dollar?
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: Find out how on the Checker Pro Radio Show. When
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: tax lien certificate expert Ted Thomas reveals one of America's
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: best-kept investment secrets.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: That's Saturday afternoons at 2 p.m. and now Sundays at
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: 4 p.m. here on AM 700 KSCV and kscvradio.com.
• 14:35
  Speaker 8: At O'Hare & Company Real Estate, we believe there are
• 14:37
  Speaker 8: people in our country and other countries that are trying
• 14:40
  Speaker 8: to chip away at our freedom. We are taking a
• 14:42
  Speaker 8: stand against the tyranny that is happening and want to
• 14:44
  Speaker 8: protect what our veterans and forefathers have fought and died for.
• 14:48
  Speaker 8: Texans are independent thinkers, self-reliant, and bold. If you want
• 14:51
  Speaker 8: a real estate company that has a backbone, give us
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: a call at 281-373-3393.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Again, that's 281-373-3393.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Or look us up on the web at oherare.com.
• 14:57
  Speaker 8: KSEV Mornings.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: The Voice of Texas. Thrilled to be with you. So
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: much stuff to talk about. I want to get right
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: to the fancy national guest that I have on. His
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: name is Vince Colonnades. He does the Vince Show every
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: day from 12 to 1 o'clock right here on KSEV 700. Vince,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: how are you doing this Friday?
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I'm doing so good, Craig.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: Great to be with you as always, brother.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: I'm also doing pretty well. More crazy Tallarico stuff came
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: out this week, and yet I saw something last night
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that I wanted to start off by asking you about.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: that I really enjoyed. I think it was CNN that
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: was doing a debate, and they have the one conservative
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: and all the insane people. And one of the reactions
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: to Tallarico's latest insanity was, it's not even what he's
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: running on. This is really what the left has said.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: It goes, he might have thought that at some point,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: he probably doesn't think it anymore, but you should only
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: pay attention to what the politician is running on, what
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: their platform is publicly, not any of the stuff they
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: believe or might do behind closed doors. As a guy
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: covering politics nationally, what say you to that idea?
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: He's just so full of crap. I mean, it's so obvious. And,
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: you know, it's funny that that clip that was to
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: CNN's credit, actually, was that dude, Andrew Kaczynski. He does
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: the K file over there. He'll dig into like past
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: statements that politicians said and then share them. And this
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: is this was a goldmine because it was just this
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: clip of him talking to the Sierra Club a couple
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: of years ago, sucking up to them and telling them that, hey,
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: you know what really sucks? capitalism. I want to abolish capitalism.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: I want to get rid of it. It's linked in
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: there with white supremacy. We have to abolish that. We
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: have to stop all this climate change, he said. And
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: then he goes on to say, and we got to
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: get rid of Texas's oil industry. I hate to say it,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: but the oil industry in Texas, it's like the cassette
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: tape in the 80s, just going away. And you hear
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: something like that, and you're like, this crazy person should
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: be in a straitjacket, not in a United States Senate
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: seat for the great state of Texas. That's crazy. And
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: so his explanation is like, oh, it was just some
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: cringy comments I made. Cringy? That's just insanity. And the
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: voters of Texas, the great Christian, energy-loving, Texas-loving voters of
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: Texas should keep that guy far away from power.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: We need to, because it's not Texas if he somehow
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: gets elected. And all the money, I'll say this last
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: thing about this statewide race, and we can focus on
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: other discussions beyond it, because I do want to ask
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: you about the Venezuela oil deal. But a lot of
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: the money that Tallarico has right now is not coming
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: from Texas. It's not coming from people that live here,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: not coming from people that want Texas to be, you know,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: run a certain way or certain things given at a
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: national level from the state. All this money is being
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: flooded in from other places because these people are trying
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: to change Texas into something it's not.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and typically that is the explanation. If you have
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: a freak who doesn't share your state's values on the ballot...
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: The answer to that is usually that there are outside
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: forces trying to impose him on you. So don't let
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: that happen.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: We have to fight that.
• 18:19
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I do want to ask you about the Venezuela oil deal.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: That was a big thing that happened earlier this week.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: A lot of people were giving a lot of credit
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: to President Trump for creating it. And then I did
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: see some people saying, well, that oil is not even
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: any good. It takes like a couple of years to
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: process or something, which felt odd to me that that
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: was the excuse people were using. But what's your take
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: on the big announcement that happened earlier this week?
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: Well, it's great for Texas. It is great for Texas.
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: You know who makes that oil good? That would be Texas.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: It does that. Texas does that because this is big
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: for golf, golf refineries, because these are really the world
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: class refineries necessary to handle that heavy sour crude that
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: comes from Venezuela. And the amount of oil we're talking,
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, once you start getting into the billions, I
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: think it's hard for people to wrap their minds around it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: But let me just make it really clear. The deal
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: more than doubles oil. the proven oil supply that the
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: United States now has access to natively. We have something
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: like 45 billion proven barrels of oil that we have
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: access to in the United States. This deal is for
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: 65 billion barrels of that heavy sour crude, which will, again,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: have to be refined. It'll have to be refined in
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: these Gulf Coast refineries. It's going to help Texas in
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: a big way. It's going to be a big infusion
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: for the Texas economy. It's going to drive down energy prices.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: And it's the kind of thing... that if they can
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: move very quickly, we could see some big impacts very
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: quickly in terms of energy prices and the economy. But
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: the reality is like, you know, this is oil. Sometimes
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: it takes time. In the United States, when you stand
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: up a well, it actually takes like four years to
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: get through the regulatory process to get the well operating,
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: which is why it was always so funny when Joe
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: Biden would take credit for oil coming out of the
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: ground during his administration. And That was really a credit
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: to Trump every single time because it was Trump who
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: made it possible to get those wells drilled. And then
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: Biden would take this unearned credit for it. But it's
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: a great deal, man. Honestly, I don't think people appreciate this.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: This could be one of the most historic deals in
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: American history. It's like Louisiana Purchase size. I mean, it's
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: gigantic what he just achieved.
• 20:25
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: And it answers one of the biggest questions that many
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Americans have. Maybe it won't happen in the next like
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: 30 days, couple months. But everyone that's complaining about the
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: cost of everything, getting more energy into our country through oil,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: getting more gasoline inevitably, all of those things give us
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: the thing we're most asking for. Like gas prices are terrible.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: They're terrible. Giant deal that will eventually fix that problem.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: They want to ignore it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: And it's also a national security thing, too.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: I mean, look, who was buying all the oil before?
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: It was China. It was the Chai Coms who were
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: taking all this oil from Venezuela. Who was taking all
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: the oil from Iran before? It was the Chai Coms
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: who were doing that. So in the midst of this,
• 21:02
  Speaker 5: while the name China doesn't pop up in every single
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: one of these articles or even from the White House
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: that often, the reality is these energy fights are more
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: than just about the economy. They are really at the
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: epicenter of problems that span every single topic in American politics.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I do want to ask you about another thing that
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: you very closely follow military appointments, I think more closely
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: than a lot of people on a national scale. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: part of it is because you grew up with a
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: pretty prestigious and famous dude. as your pop, who was
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: doing a lot of things in the world of the military.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: But an announcement was made, and I think you shared
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: it on your social media post, for someone that will
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: be leading the Navy, or maybe it's the Army. Do
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: you want to talk a little bit about that?
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, actually, I think it was interesting. This is
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: Hung Cao is his name. He's a great American. He
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: comes from a Vietnamese family, loves the country, absolutely abhors communism.
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: He ran a campaign in Virginia recently, on that message
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: that we can't allow the country to descend into this
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: destructive totalitarian ideology. Unfortunately, he didn't prevail because there's too
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: many lunatics in Virginia that prevented him from getting there.
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: But he does end up becoming the acting secretary of
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: the Navy under President Trump during this term in office.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: And now what's happened is President Trump just fully nominated
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: him for the job. to take it on a full basis,
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: which I think is wonderful. The guy is a great
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: American and a proud sailor. He's a U.S. Navy veteran.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: And I think the Navy and the Marine Corps, which
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: is the job of the secretary of the Navy, they're
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: going to be in amazing hands if this guy gets
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: to continue to do this work with a Senate-confirmed position.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: So it's great. I do think that it was, you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: Dan Driscoll just left as the Secretary of the Army
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: this past week. And the media has really spent a
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: lot of time trying to hype that. Although if you
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: look at his statement on the subject, it's been great
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: working for Trump in excess. And he heads out. So
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: he didn't give them the drama that they wanted. You know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: whatever the internal explanations for all of that were. I
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: think his departure was the giddy up the White House
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: needed to just remind them, hey, we do need a
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: Senate confirmed secretary of the Navy, too. And I think
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: that's probably why they pushed his confirmation forward.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: And the other thing that's so funny to me about
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: this topic is so few people pay attention to these
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: things the way that they should because of how important
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: these roles are to our country, to our society, and
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: to the people who fight and protect our country. And
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: it's often the reason that I hear from veterans that
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: they like certain politicians. Like when I hear from a
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: lot of vets that they love Trump, part of the
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: reason they love Trump is the people he chooses to
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: lead our military branches are They know that these individuals
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: so much more embody the things that they believe in. Yeah,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: go ahead.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And in fact,
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: this is one of the things I hear a lot
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: from veterans, how pumped they are about Pete Hegseth being
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: in charge of the department to be the secretary of war.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: And the reason is because he's restoring the military to
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: its obvious purpose, which is lethality and readiness and and
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: merit and capability. He's doing all of that. And this
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: is the source of a lot of left-wing fake scandals
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: of the week. They're constantly telling you that, oh, he's
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: being a racist or a sexist, or he didn't let
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: that woman have that job. It's not about that. It's
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: not even about, he's literally just restoring merit. And as
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: he does that, he's cleaning out the garbage that the
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: Biden administration imposed on America's great military. And it's great
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: news for the future of our country.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: Well, and actually, one last thing I want to ask
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you about that before we take another break. And then
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I do a segment on Fridays called Veteran Voices, where
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: for the last half hour of every Friday show, I'll
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: have a veteran sit across from me and all we'll
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: do is talk about whatever he wants to talk about,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: including his experience serving our country. But I just think
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: it's so important that people realize and acknowledge that that
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: this is a conduit. to making us a stronger country
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: in general, as you said. And with Pete Hegseth, I
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: think it's kind of amazing that there's so much a
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: media obsession with trying to rip him apart. Like his
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: goal is to make the Department of War, as you stated,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: exactly what it's designed to be. Why is media so
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: obsessed with fighting that? What is the end goal there?
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: I know you're really great at this. What is the
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: end goal there? To just weaken our country? Or is
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: there something else that they're after when someone like a
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: Pete Hegseth takes a position of power within the world
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: of our military and does exactly what we should want
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: with that job.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: I think this is at the center of like every
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: major battle, whether people can vocalize it or not. It's
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: fundamentally about are there things that are true in life
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: or not? And like the left has this really core belief. Again,
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: I don't know if they can vocalize it, but I
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: think their view is that I am God. I can
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: control everything around me. And that if anything that befalls
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: me is ever blamed on me, that's just unacceptable. It
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: has to be an outside force that made this happen.
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: This is why, not to take you on a weird tangent,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: but it is true. The Lindsay Clancy thing that's going
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: on right now where everybody's like, it might be okay
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: that she murdered her children. This is all an extension
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: of the same ideology, which is basically nobody's responsible for anything.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: It's always outside forces. And one of the realities of
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: the American military is it's a responsibility culture. It is
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: a culture built on honor. It's built on tradition. It's
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: built on the things that make us human. And just
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: like the greatest traditions in American history can be found
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: in the American military. And the left has had a
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: never-ending attack on the military. They've always wanted to rip
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: up what makes the military great because it is living
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: proof that merit, excellence, self-discipline, hard work actually achieve things.
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: And if you can destroy... That very obvious expression of that,
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: that creates an invitation for you to continue to get
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: power in every other element of our lives.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Really quickly, since you mentioned it about Lindsey Clancy, I'm
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: barely talking about it because it pisses me off so much. Truthfully, Vince,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I can't fathom, and I'm not doing it because I'm
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: trying to placate the left and not let them yell
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: at me. They can yell at me all they want.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I can't fathom that anyone is defending this person. for
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: what she did, for killing your kids. I don't get
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: how our society has gotten there, and it has to
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: be self-obsession and not actual admission of the thing you're
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: looking at. I think there are so many people on
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: the left that no matter what the story is, no
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: matter how ridiculous it is, they put this cone of
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: themselves into it and then try to find some way
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: to come up with something other than facts and truth,
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: as you stated a second ago. It boggles my mind.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Go ahead.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: It's so crazy.
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: And also there's like something like deeply sexist about some
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: of the coverage, which is basically like, hey, you have
• 27:51
  Speaker 5: to understand sometimes women just kill their children. It's like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: wait a second. No, no, I'm not. No, I'm not
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: going to build that into my thought process.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: Women on some routine basis have breaks from reality and
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: then kill their children. Sorry. And in fact, on on
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: on this case, it's like the idea that like, oh,
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: she heard a voice during this one limited event. And
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: then that voice told her to kill her kids, so
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: she had to do it. I don't even understand that,
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: this idea. Like if a real person in real life
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: walked into your room and was like, hey, kill your kids,
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: you would turn around and strangle them to death, not
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: your children. The whole thing is like– the whole thing
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: is crazy. And so if you're looking at this going,
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: am I the crazy one or is everyone else going crazy?
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: The answer to that is everyone else is going crazy.
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: You're still sane.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Thank God people like you are out there saying it, man,
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: and saying it at the level you are. The Vince
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: show every single day at this station from 12 to
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: 1 o'clock all over the country, though. And you also
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: do your Rumble show, and that's at 8 o'clock Central Time.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: Do I get that right or no?
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: That's 8 o'clock Eastern. That would make it 7 o'clock
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: your time.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: 7 o'clock Central Time every day on Rumble. Watch him
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: and me. I'm also on Rumble, so go back and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: forth between the two of us. Thanks, Vince, as always.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: I look forward to talking to you again soon.
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: Thanks, brother.
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: Talk to you soon.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: No problem. And he is my cousin Vinny. I usually
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: admit that on the radio, too. All right, we're going
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: to take a break. We're going to come back from
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: that break for an uninterrupted commercially conversation with Yvette on
• 29:13
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• 29:52
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  Speaker 9: Plumbing emergencies never happen at a convenient time. Usually they
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  Speaker 7: From the KSEV Weather Center, today expect partly sunny skies
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• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And humid with a low of 76.
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  Speaker 7: and sunshine along with isolated afternoon thunderstorms. The high will
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  Speaker 7: be 94 on Sunday. Intervals of bright sunshine are expected
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• 32:53
  Speaker 3: This is KSEV, 700 AM, KSEV Mornings, The Voice of Texas.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Thrilled to be with you. Lots of stuff, as always,
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: to talk about. We do an uninterrupted conversation with a
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: veteran to end the show. I do this every single Friday.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: I've been doing this since I was doing an evening
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: show here at the station. Now it's a morning show,
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: but I don't care. Let's keep talking to the veterans
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: because they're awesome. We have a veteran in studio that
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: was recommended to us by Jimmy X. How are you doing, man?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Good, good, Craig.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: How are you?
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Thrilled to have you in. We were just talking off air, Mark,
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: about your experience joining the military. And that feels like
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: a good place to start. But I do want to
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: say this. How long were you on the East Coast?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: Almost 20 years. 20 years.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: OK. The co-host who's not here today, Wayne Dolcefino, was
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: born in Brooklyn. I was born in Jersey. And we've
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: been calling ourselves the mob guys. And we've been doing
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: way too much East Coast. So it's going to happen
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: at some point between you and I as we talk
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: about this. But Mark, give me your last name too,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: by the way.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Davis.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Davis, thank you. Mark Davis and you, Marine.
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: Tell me the story that Jimmy X seems to enjoy
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: so much about how you wound up being in the
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: military in the first place.
• 34:12
  Speaker 11: So I hadn't seen Jimmy in 45 years since high
• 34:14
  Speaker 11: school until recently when he hosted a crawfish boil.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: For some football players and some other alumni.
• 34:22
  Speaker 11: Got together with him. I know his business has taken
• 34:25
  Speaker 11: him around the country. Somehow we wound up talking about New.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: York city and, um, told him I had lived there
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: for many years and worked there for many years. Uh,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: conversation turns to nine 11 and eventually turns into, uh,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: how'd you wind up in the Marine Corps?
• 34:41
  Speaker 11: So the story I told him was after a couple of, uh,
• 34:44
  Speaker 11: unsuccessful semesters at LSU.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 34:47
  Speaker 11: Um, got into working in new Orleans and some other jobs.
• 34:51
  Speaker 11: And then one day I decided I need to go
• 34:52
  Speaker 11: back to school, signed up for the Marines enlisted, uh,
• 34:57
  Speaker 11: was literally at my going-away party in Baton Rouge that
• 35:00
  Speaker 11: some friends and my brothers threw for me.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Took a walk to the store with one of my brothers.
• 35:05
  Speaker 11: He was a smoker to get some cigarettes, and on
• 35:07
  Speaker 11: the way back was hit by a car walking on
• 35:10
  Speaker 11: the side of Highland Road in Baton Rouge. Don't remember
• 35:13
  Speaker 11: a lot of it. Busted up bones, woke up in
• 35:17
  Speaker 11: the hospital, couldn't enlist. Tried to take the test, the
• 35:21
  Speaker 11: physical test, six months later, and I couldn't do the
• 35:23
  Speaker 11: duck walk thing on the ground.
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: So they let me out of the contract.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Can I stop for a second? I want to better
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: understand the mentality of that because it's amazing to me
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: that you said fairly nonchalantly got hit by a car.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: You're like, yeah, that happened.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: It happened.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: But then you also said that six months after that occurred,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: you still tried to take a test to still be
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: a part of our military. So your brain, what is
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: it saying to you over that six months?
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Get ready.
• 35:50
  Speaker 11: I have to– It was a mission, you know, and
• 35:53
  Speaker 11: not knowing that I was mission oriented at the time,
• 35:55
  Speaker 11: but I had had set my heart on it, set
• 35:58
  Speaker 11: my head on it. And it was something I really
• 36:01
  Speaker 11: wanted to be a part of. And, you know, maybe
• 36:03
  Speaker 11: maybe not finishing college at that point in my life
• 36:06
  Speaker 11: was something that I felt like I needed some other
• 36:09
  Speaker 11: kind of self-validation.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Dude, military guys are built so different, man. I got
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to be like the fact that you're like a mission.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: I'll figure it out. And that I assume no matter
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: how how much it hurt to not be able to
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: do it. You have to be proud in some respect
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: that you were there to take it six months later.
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: So keep going with the story.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: So I couldn't join.
• 36:27
  Speaker 11: They let me out of the contract or told me
• 36:29
  Speaker 11: they couldn't take me through a couple of.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Other odd jobs. And I worked on riverboats in the
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Mississippi River. Nice. And eventually wound up– it wasn't really nice,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but– Very physical job.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: It sounds more fun than it probably was.
• 36:45
  Speaker 11: It was a 30-day hitch, and then you'd get 15
• 36:48
  Speaker 11: days off, and it was 12 hours a day, six
• 36:50
  Speaker 11: hours on, six hours off, six hours on, six hours off.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I did that for about a year and then got
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: into the restaurant business in New Orleans at Sheraton.
• 37:02
  Speaker 11: I started out working for Sheraton and then Brennan's Restaurant
• 37:05
  Speaker 11: in New Orleans with hiring waiters.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: So I got on as a waiter.
• 37:09
  Speaker 11: In the mid-' 80s, we did some table-side cooking, so I
• 37:12
  Speaker 11: kind of got into the cooking thing. Took a job
• 37:15
  Speaker 11: at a little restaurant in the French Quarter cooking lunch.
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: Nice.
• 37:19
  Speaker 11: Figured I might like this for a career, so I
• 37:22
  Speaker 11: got on with Hyatt Hotels in New Orleans in the late-' 80s,
• 37:26
  Speaker 11: and the chef that hired me there, who was a mentor,
• 37:30
  Speaker 11: asked me. He got transferred to New York City and
• 37:32
  Speaker 11: asked me if I think I'd want to go to
• 37:34
  Speaker 11: New York City and work for him there.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And I said, absolutely. So, 26- Moved to New York City.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: You're working at a hotel in a restaurant.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Worked at Hyatt for a few years. Met my lovely
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: wife there. She worked there as well. We got married there.
• 37:50
  Speaker 11: Had an apartment in the city. A year later, we
• 37:53
  Speaker 11: were expecting a son. Moved to New Jersey and eventually
• 37:57
  Speaker 11: bought a house in New Jersey. But before we bought
• 37:59
  Speaker 11: the house, I'm walking through Times Square almost on a
• 38:04
  Speaker 11: daily basis to work, and I'm passing– the recruiting station, right,
• 38:09
  Speaker 11: the famous Times Square recruiting station. And I'm looking up
• 38:12
  Speaker 11: at this poster, this Marine, you know, and he's all
• 38:14
  Speaker 11: cammed up and the few, the proud, you know. That
• 38:20
  Speaker 11: always meant something to me. And it just bugged me
• 38:23
  Speaker 11: that I never got to do it.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: How old are you at this point?
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: 32.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Good career. At that point, I was at the Yale
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: Club of New York City.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: Oh, wow.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I left to Hyatt and was the assistant executive chef.
• 38:35
  Speaker 11: And stopped in at that recruiting station one day and
• 38:38
  Speaker 11: asked him, you know, what's a guy got to do?
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: And he said, how old are you? And I said,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I'm 32. And they said, you're too old. And that
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: just kind of ticked me off. So I called.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: The same guy that got hit by a car six
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: months later. Yeah, go ahead.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just didn't like the rejection. I called Parris
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Island and asked a PR chief down there who was
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: the oldest guy to ever graduate from boot camp at
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Parris Island.
• 38:59
  Speaker 11: He said the guy was 50 years old. This happened
• 39:02
  Speaker 11: back in the 1940s or 50s. He was a friend
• 39:04
  Speaker 11: of a senator's. It's a good story.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: They named a visitor center after the guy. So I said,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: what would you tell somebody that's 32 and is being
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: told by recruiters that they can't do it? He said,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: where there's a will, there's a way. Yeah. And tough.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: And you're getting emotional as you say this because, and
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: I'll be honest and I'll jump in a little bit
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: as you you know, collect yourself. The reason why is,
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: and this is what I found to be true of
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: so many veterans that I've talked to, this drive to do,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: to serve might be the best way to say it.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: It's so special and it's so embedded in your heart.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: Like it's just the thing that you feel that you have,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: and especially living in New York City, and we haven't
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: even talked about it yet, experiencing 9-11 from the purview
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of that city. But then deciding that, you know, you
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: are the type of person that achieves where maybe few
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: people do. So continue.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: There's a will, there's a way. There's a will, there's
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: a way.
• 40:02
  Speaker 11: And I just saw, I started making a couple of
• 40:04
  Speaker 11: phone calls and I finally found a recruiter that was
• 40:06
  Speaker 11: willing to work with me. Now, I hadn't said anything
• 40:08
  Speaker 11: to my wife at this point because she didn't really
• 40:10
  Speaker 11: have any family that had been in the military.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So I was just going to see how far this
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: would go. I was kind of expected to tell me
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: that it wasn't going to work. I found a recruiter
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: that was willing to work with me. First thing you
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: do is you go take the ASVAB, the Armed Forces
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Vocational Aptitude Battery.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: See how you do on that. So every stage is like, okay, well,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: let's see if we can get over this hurdle.
• 40:32
  Speaker 11: So I had to schedule time off to go to
• 40:33
  Speaker 11: Brooklyn to take this test.
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I take the test. The score comes back. I think
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I got a 98.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Nice.
• 40:40
  Speaker 11: And, yeah, so the guy says, well, you could do
• 40:42
  Speaker 11: whatever you want to do, you know, other than fly jets, obviously.
• 40:46
  Speaker 11: But he said, do you want to be, you know,
• 40:49
  Speaker 11: nuclear submarine? Do you want to do any of this
• 40:52
  Speaker 11: kind of stuff? And I said, no, I just kind
• 40:53
  Speaker 11: of wanted to be a grunt. And he said, well,
• 40:55
  Speaker 11: you're a chef. We could put you in the culinary program,
• 40:58
  Speaker 11: you know, food services. And I said, I really don't want.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: To do that.
• 41:01
  Speaker 11: You know, I do enough of that now. And, again,
• 41:04
  Speaker 11: this is a reserve, so it's a weekend a month
• 41:06
  Speaker 11: and a couple of weeks a year.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: And he said, okay.
• 41:10
  Speaker 11: I said, then they send you for the physical. Well,
• 41:13
  Speaker 11: I had some sunspots on my back from childhood. We
• 41:17
  Speaker 11: spent a lot of time in Louisiana outdoors with no
• 41:19
  Speaker 11: shirts on.
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 41:20
  Speaker 11: And so the medical guy tried to disqualify me. He
• 41:23
  Speaker 11: did disqualify me. He said, oh, those are potentially cancerous.
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: The U.S.
• 41:27
  Speaker 11: Government doesn't want to be responsible for your skin cancer treatments.
• 41:31
  Speaker 11: And so I was crushed.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: But not done.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Not done. I called a recruiter.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: You're crushed, but you're like, I'm going to figure this out.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: And the recruiter says, what did he say? I tell
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: him what he said.
• 41:42
  Speaker 11: And he said, okay, you got to go see a
• 41:43
  Speaker 11: dermatologist and get him to sign something that says.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: That they don't think they're potentially cancerous. They're malignant, whatever
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: the term is.
• 41:53
  Speaker 11: So I find one on the phone book who's part
• 41:56
  Speaker 11: of my insurance plan in Hoboken. And I go to
• 41:59
  Speaker 11: see the guy and I tell him the story. And
• 42:01
  Speaker 11: he says, wait a minute, you're trying to join the Marines?
• 42:03
  Speaker 11: And I said, yes, that's what I'm trying to do.
• 42:05
  Speaker 11: He says, I was a Navy corpsman. I was stationed
• 42:07
  Speaker 11: on Camp Lejeune.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: He says, give me the paper. And he signs it.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: That's awesome, man.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: So that hurdle crossed. I call a guy back.
• 42:15
  Speaker 11: I give him the news. And then it was a
• 42:18
  Speaker 11: matter of, you know, you're going to need an age waiver.
• 42:21
  Speaker 11: You're going to need a dependent waiver that shows that
• 42:24
  Speaker 11: you can financially support your wife and your child while
• 42:27
  Speaker 11: you're gone.
• 42:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 42:29
  Speaker 11: So I get all of that stuff lined up, and
• 42:31
  Speaker 11: at this point is when I have to break the
• 42:33
  Speaker 11: news to my wife, you know, for several years.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: And she's like, I don't understand this. Why do you
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: want to do this?
• 42:39
  Speaker 11: And, you know, I just said this is something I
• 42:41
  Speaker 11: need to do for myself because I'm going to be–
• 42:43
  Speaker 11: I was 32 at the time. I'm going to be
• 42:45
  Speaker 11: 50 years old one day looking back, and this is
• 42:48
  Speaker 11: going to be a hole for me.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: So just bear with me.
• 42:51
  Speaker 11: What are you going to do with us? We were
• 42:54
  Speaker 11: in an apartment in Weehawken, so. I said, well, I'm
• 42:57
  Speaker 11: going to ask you to move back in with your
• 42:59
  Speaker 11: mom and dad in Newark.
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: Wow.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: So then I spent, so I get a, you know,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: all of that works out. I get a ship date.
• 43:07
  Speaker 11: Then I start renovating the apartment in Newark, you know,
• 43:10
  Speaker 11: on whatever downtime I had weekend.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Got that set up for them.
• 43:14
  Speaker 11: It's a little bit longer story. There were a couple
• 43:16
  Speaker 11: other personal obstacles there I'm going to leave out. But eventually,
• 43:20
  Speaker 11: 12 years to the day from the first time I
• 43:24
  Speaker 11: was supposed to ship, I was standing in Times Square
• 43:28
  Speaker 11: waiting on the bus to take me to Fort Hamilton.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: What does that moment feel like for you?
• 43:32
  Speaker 11: It's tough because my brother-in-law drove us. My son Jake
• 43:35
  Speaker 11: was a small child. And up until that point, my
• 43:39
  Speaker 11: wife really wasn't good with it. And, you know, standing
• 43:42
  Speaker 11: there in Times Square is when she finally said.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Because she could see it. She could feel it in
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: you that, like, this has to happen.
• 43:49
  Speaker 11: At that point, she finally said, I know this is
• 43:52
  Speaker 11: something you need to do.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: How long did you serve?
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: Eight years altogether. Most of it was reserves.
• 43:57
  Speaker 11: I go to boot camp.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: That whole experience. I was 33 by the time I
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: got there. Called out regularly many times a day to
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: stand up and tell the other drill instructors how old
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I was. How old are you? This recruit is 33
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: years old, sir. Sit down, freak. Wow.
• 44:16
  Speaker 11: And wound up graduating with honors. Got meritorious promoted. Went
• 44:20
  Speaker 11: to infantry school after that. Was the honor graduate for
• 44:23
  Speaker 11: the infantry school.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Wow. I was a mortarman, 03-41.
• 44:28
  Speaker 11: And then came back to New York and doing our
• 44:30
  Speaker 11: reserve thing. And we'd go to Norway and train in
• 44:34
  Speaker 11: the Arctic Circle. We trained in the desert. A lot
• 44:38
  Speaker 11: of live fires in different states. We'd do our two-week thing.
• 44:41
  Speaker 11: And just happened to be working in corporate dining then.
• 44:45
  Speaker 11: I had moved out of the restaurant and club thing.
• 44:49
  Speaker 11: because the corporate was five days a week, and you
• 44:51
  Speaker 11: didn't have to do the holidays and brunches. So it
• 44:54
  Speaker 11: was at Solomon Smith Barney, a traveler's building on Greenwich Street,
• 44:58
  Speaker 11: just a few blocks north of the Trade Center.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: And this is on 9-11. 9-11.
• 45:05
  Speaker 11: Didn't see the first plane hit. Got a call from
• 45:08
  Speaker 11: one of the other chefs that said, hey, you've got
• 45:09
  Speaker 11: to come up here.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: Coincidentally, it was the only kitchen I ever worked in
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: that had windows. So we had these floor-to-ceiling windows that–
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: We were on the south side of the building. I
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: commuted through the Trade Center from New Jersey every day.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Wow, dude.
• 45:25
  Speaker 11: And I remember walking up Greenwich Street that morning.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: It was a gorgeous day. And you'll hear this when
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: people talk about what kind of a day it was,
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: but it was in the 70s. It was sunny. It
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: was beautiful.
• 45:36
  Speaker 11: A nice walk from the Trade Center up a few blocks.
• 45:41
  Speaker 11: I come up, and my office was like a big
• 45:43
  Speaker 11: picture frame of the Twin Towers.
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: And there's this huge hole in the side of it.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: And I called my wife and I said, do me
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: a favor. Put the news on. She's home with our
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: youngest son at that point was Jackson. He was two
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: years old.
• 46:02
  Speaker 11: And I said, call me back and let me know
• 46:04
  Speaker 11: what happened. I knew there were restaurants and things in there.
• 46:07
  Speaker 11: So we thought maybe a gas explosion.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Because my wife and I had had our second date
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: at Windows on the World years before. Wow. She calls
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: me back and says, yeah, it's a plane.
• 46:20
  Speaker 11: And everybody in the city or everybody that's watching this
• 46:23
  Speaker 11: at the time thinks you have to be the worst.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Pilot in the world to ride to that building. So
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: we go on about our day, you know, preparing lunch.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: We're feeding thousands of people every day, breakfast and lunch.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: And I come back at one point and my partner, Eddie,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: who's there that I worked with, we're watching as this
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: fire's out of control and people start jumping.
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: That's surreal, man. There were a few photos that you
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: sent me about this as part of the conversation. One
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: of these photos is a friend of yours. Do you
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: want to talk about Sean a little bit?
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Coincidentally, Sean Tallon was a corporal in my unit, weapons company,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines. We were based in Garden City,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Long Island.
• 47:05
  Speaker 11: A lot of the guys in the unit, like me,
• 47:08
  Speaker 11: had regular jobs, but we had a lot of them
• 47:11
  Speaker 11: that were firefighters and police officers and law enforcement and EMTs.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: And that kind of thing.
• 47:18
  Speaker 11: Because the military kind of breeds that in a lot
• 47:20
  Speaker 11: of people. So he was a probationary, just coming off
• 47:23
  Speaker 11: a probationary firefighter. He had been an EMT in the city,
• 47:27
  Speaker 11: and he joined the fire department. He was stationed at
• 47:30
  Speaker 11: Ladder 10, which is.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: Across the street. So they were the very first people
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: on scene. So him and four of his.
• 47:40
  Speaker 11: Firefighters from Ladder 10 were on their way up the
• 47:42
  Speaker 11: stairs in the North Tower. The picture I sent you
• 47:44
  Speaker 11: is just It's actually taken from a video that somebody
• 47:47
  Speaker 11: did in the lobby of that tower as those guys
• 47:50
  Speaker 11: were heading up the stairs. So he was what they
• 47:53
  Speaker 11: called an irons man that day. So what's in his
• 47:56
  Speaker 11: hand is a couple of tools. One of them is
• 47:58
  Speaker 11: called a halogen, and it's for prying open doors and
• 48:01
  Speaker 11: things like that. So there's a couple of different stories
• 48:05
  Speaker 11: about where they actually were when the building came down,
• 48:08
  Speaker 11: but they all perished.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I can't. I can't wrap my head around a
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: little bit the road you take to be in that
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: place at that time. And then also the job that
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: you choose to have, not the job that you choose
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: to have, you know, for your nine to five Monday
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: through Friday, but the fact that you're a part of
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: our military at a moment when you see something this
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: horrific happen. I imagine some part of you says when
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: you're about to fight or our military is about to
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: fight the thing that just happened that day that like,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: this is why your whole life had to be about
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: chasing this dream to do this because these are the
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: things we need to fight.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. I was so, I don't know if proud's
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: the right word, but was so... Driven?
• 48:55
  Speaker 11: I don't know, resolved, I guess, that I was in
• 48:58
  Speaker 11: a position with the rest of our Marines from that
• 49:00
  Speaker 11: city that we were in uniform and we felt like
• 49:04
  Speaker 11: we were going to be in a place to do
• 49:05
  Speaker 11: something about this.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:08
  Speaker 11: But as we're standing there watching some of these people jump,
• 49:12
  Speaker 11: Never saw this plane coming from the south.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: So that picture with the big explosion I sent you,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't take it. I found that on the internet.
• 49:19
  Speaker 11: But sure we're watching and all of my people had
• 49:22
  Speaker 11: 100 employees were all pressed up against these windows watching
• 49:25
  Speaker 11: what's going on in the north tower when that fireball
• 49:27
  Speaker 11: comes toward us wow so all the employees ladies start
• 49:31
  Speaker 11: screaming they're losing their minds um and they evacuate our
• 49:36
  Speaker 11: building and At that point, nobody knew how long this
• 49:39
  Speaker 11: was going to go on. So that's when we realized, okay,
• 49:42
  Speaker 11: this is intentional. This is an attack. I think we'd
• 49:45
  Speaker 11: heard about the Pentagon. We start evacuating the building. I'm
• 49:50
  Speaker 11: doing the responsible chef thing, trying to get all the
• 49:52
  Speaker 11: food back in the refrigerator, which looking back on it
• 49:54
  Speaker 11: was kind of silly. But we get everything put away,
• 49:59
  Speaker 11: and my partner Eddie and I are watching, and he's
• 50:02
  Speaker 11: telling me he thinks the South Tower is coming down.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking it's not coming down yet. It falls.
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:08
  Speaker 11: And I decided at that point to go see what
• 50:11
  Speaker 11: I could do to help.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Because you could see the people below us.
• 50:14
  Speaker 11: We were on the fourth floor running up the West
• 50:18
  Speaker 11: Side Highway and just trying to get away from the smoke.
• 50:20
  Speaker 11: And it's just right there at our feet. And I said,
• 50:23
  Speaker 11: I got to go see if I can help. I
• 50:25
  Speaker 11: called my wife and told her, you know, I'm going
• 50:27
  Speaker 11: down there. She said, don't go down there. I said,
• 50:29
  Speaker 11: I can't watch.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I am going down there. Yeah. Look, we only have
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: like four minutes left in the show, five minutes left
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: in the show, and then it's over. Although I am
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: going to ask you to stay because I'm doing a
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: nationally syndicated radio show, and I think I'd like to
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: put your story in a second place. You wound up
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: being part of Search and Rescue too?
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:46
  Speaker 11: So we go down there that day, and then the
• 50:49
  Speaker 11: second building that comes down, the North Tower comes down.
• 50:52
  Speaker 11: So we wound up going to Pier 40. I just
• 50:54
  Speaker 11: asked the cop, you know, where's the Search and Rescue
• 50:56
  Speaker 11: team going to go? Pier 40 was a staging area.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: We went there.
• 51:00
  Speaker 11: They put us on buses and took us to the
• 51:02
  Speaker 11: Lexington Avenue Armory. And we're trying to get uniforms. I
• 51:07
  Speaker 11: wore a chef's uniform at work, so I changed back
• 51:09
  Speaker 11: into shorts and a T-shirt. And so some other Marines
• 51:12
  Speaker 11: met me there. We're trying to get gear to go
• 51:15
  Speaker 11: down and do search and rescue, but it was still
• 51:18
  Speaker 11: on fire. So it took me a long time to
• 51:21
  Speaker 11: get home because they closed all the bridges. I wound
• 51:23
  Speaker 11: up walking a long time. But my wife hadn't heard
• 51:25
  Speaker 11: from me. The last thing I told her was I
• 51:27
  Speaker 11: was going. Well, none of the phones are working. Most
• 51:29
  Speaker 11: of us didn't have cell phones.
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 51:31
  Speaker 11: So I've actually showed up, you know, later that night and,
• 51:35
  Speaker 11: you know, to everybody's relief. But then with some of
• 51:37
  Speaker 11: the other guys in our unit went back down there,
• 51:39
  Speaker 11: you know, next day or day after on that bucket brigade, hoping,
• 51:44
  Speaker 11: just hoping.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: That we would find somebody. We never did.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: So we did that.
• 51:49
  Speaker 11: A lot of the guys that I served with did
• 51:51
  Speaker 11: that for weeks and months. Then they activated our unit
• 51:56
  Speaker 11: and sent us to Camp Lejeune.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: For a year to train.
• 51:59
  Speaker 11: So the whole time we're training, we're thinking we're going
• 52:01
  Speaker 11: to go over to Afghanistan and we're getting these guys
• 52:04
  Speaker 11: because that had already started. They sent us home at
• 52:07
  Speaker 11: Christmas but said don't unpack. And then a couple of
• 52:11
  Speaker 11: months later sent us to Iraq at the beginning of
• 52:13
  Speaker 11: that war in 03. So we did a combat tour
• 52:15
  Speaker 11: in Iraq.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: How long were you there?
• 52:17
  Speaker 11: About six months. We got relieved by the Italians, the Carabinieri.
• 52:21
  Speaker 11: We were in a place called Al-Nazariya.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Fortunately brought all of our guys home.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's amazing. That's incredible. Again, I hate to disrupt
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: the story here. I will tell anybody listening on KSEV radio,
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: I happen to be filling in on the Chad Benson
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: show nationally. And then also Dana Lash, I'm filling in
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: for her today as well. Maybe I can repurpose a
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: recording of this and play this on both places. But
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: I'd like you to stay. I'd like to continue to
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: have a conversation.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: You served in Iraq. You and your entire group came home.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: I do just want to kind of close the KSEV
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: interview with with a reflection on the fact that you
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: were so driven to be a part of the military,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: and you wound up being called to the highest level
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: of service when you have to put your life on
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: the line and go across and fight in a conflict.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to disparage the people who don't wind
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: up getting called to that, but what is it that
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: you think back and feel now that that inevitably happened,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: that even though you were just joining the reserves, you
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: wind up fighting Iraq?
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: I can't explain it. Gotcha.
• 53:27
  Speaker 11: A crooked road that led me to be a few
• 53:31
  Speaker 11: blocks from the Trade Center from the kid that grew
• 53:33
  Speaker 11: up in New Orleans that got hit by the car
• 53:36
  Speaker 11: that couldn't go.
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: I can't explain it.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you might not have been in the military
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: at that point, actually. If you had joined originally, you
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: might have been out by then. All right, we got
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: to go. We got to get out of here.
• 53:46
  Speaker 11: We're going to say we're going to– I just wanted
• 53:48
  Speaker 11: to say, I'm sorry, Craig, we're doing a 25th anniversary
• 53:51
  Speaker 11: reunion next week in New York.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: My family's coming. We had about 60 Marines and their family. Wow.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: that has a memorial to Sean Tallon and a cheer,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: you know, a celebration of the living.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you again for your service. Please stay because
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: we're going to do more in just a bit. But
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: this is KSEV Mornings, The Voice of Texas. I'm Craig Collins,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Wayne D'Oltrofino on Special Assignment. Talk to you guys again
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: on Monday. One more time, thank you, Mark, for everything.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: All right. We've got to get out of here. I'll
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: talk to you guys Monday, as I said.
• 54:24
  Speaker 9: In the middle of a riding road track.