Latest / Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk / The H-Train Show - Jeffrey W. Baxter -The War I Fought After Retirement

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The H-Train Show - Jeffrey W. Baxter -The War I Fought After Retirement · Military Broadcast Radio | MBR Talk

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  The station where our veterans voices are heard.
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  MBR talk. Hey, thanks for supporting our
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  channel by watching and listening.
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  Morning and welcome to the show it's Red Friday.
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  Remember, everyone deployed, we hope you wore red today.
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  Thank you for joining us and supporting our.
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  Troops. We begin on the tracks, rails
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  stretching beyond the horizon, each tie a memory, each rail a
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  promise of where we might go. In the early years, our first
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  logo appeared, a pioneer stepping onto the platform of
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  possibility. Through seasons of growth,
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  change and challenge, we moved forward.
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  The whistle of opportunity sounded and we boarded the train
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  of time. The view changed with every
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  mile, Some stations brief, others lasting.
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  Our logos change too, not just emblems, but mile markers of
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  evolution. Along the way, seats filled with
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  teammates, mentors, veterans and friends.
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  Some stayed for the ride, others stepped off, leaving their
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  legacy on the rails behind us. And still, the journey
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  continues. The tracks ahead stretch into
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  the unknown, familiar yet full of new promise.
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  What matters most is how we travel with purpose, with grit,
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  with heart. Because the journey matters, the
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  movement matters. And the legacy of those logos,
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  every year, every show, lives on in the rhythm of these rails.
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  So here we are once again, all aboard.
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  The whistle blows, the tracks call together.
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  We ride. We are the H train show showing
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  veterans programs beyond the VA since 2015.
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  Waiters. Oh good.
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  Good morning, everybody. It is we're on Friday and we're
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  we're just, we're just taking care of some technical issues.
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  HG, I'm going to go over to help.
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  Give me real quick. Go ahead and give the sports
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  report. All right, well, I don't have a
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  ton formally planned out, but we have our opening week of NFL
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  football. It was the highest scoring week
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  one this this millennia and one of the highest scoring week ones
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  of all time. I think we saw 638 points total
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  scored across all of our games and something interesting that
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  kind of led to that surge in scoring.
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  We also saw the highest use of under center from the
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  quarterback position, the highest percentage of under
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  center snaps taken this decade, a 5% increase in the full back
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  usage from this year's, the last from last year to this year.
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  So I think we're starting to see a return to the under center
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  renaissance. Teams are going to want to run
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  the ball. We're going to see a return to a
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  lot of 5 to 7 seven step drop backs are going to be a lot less
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  shotgun and spreading teams out. It's we saw this sort of the
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  trend start last year with this more heavy personnel to 12 and
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  13 personnel being more popular and used a lot more this year.
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  And now I think your top offenses are really going to run
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  a lot of under center. They're going to, you know, hand
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  the ball off and try to run it a lot on 1st and 2nd down and
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  again, just take those five to seven step drop backs from under
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  Senate rather than having the quarterback in the shotgun.
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  So might be seeing the return. I mean, we had another game last
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  night, the Bills and Lions 41 to 31.
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  I mean, we might be seeing a, a return to some really
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  high-powered offenses in the more high, higher scoring league
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  the past couple of years. I mean, really since 2020, after
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  that Super Bowl between the Chiefs and the Bucks, we really
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  saw the 2 high shell defense really limit offenses and
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  offenses not quite not scoring quite as much as they were in
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  the 20 tens. But I think it's the scales are
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  starting to tip back towards the favor of the offense as we get
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  back in the more heavy personnel and under center quarterback
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  play and get away from less shotgun, less spread and and
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  just get the big boys back out there on the field and running
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  the football. Crazy to think that Q BS are
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  actually throwing for 5000 yards at a regular and they were under
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  center more often. Yeah.
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  Shotgun W passing looks threw for 5000 yards more commonly and
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  now it's comes at a comes at an exclusive 5000 yards has been
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  done in a while. No, I with the way we've been
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  moving this, the start of this season, I mean it's only week 1
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  and one Thursday Night Football game and I'm feeling like we
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  might get a a 5000 yard passer again this season.
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  I mean the offenses have looked really explosive.
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  Josh Allen would probably be at the forefront of that for me.
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  I mean, he absolutely torched a really good Texans defense on
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  Sunday and then absolutely shredded the Lions last night to
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  the tune of five total touchdowns.
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  Sorry if you were going against Josh Allen and your fantasy
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  Football League. Maybe, maybe it might just be a
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  year of really crappy defenses because that's the Lions allowed
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  What? That's 7272 points that the
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  Lions allowed in the last two weeks, and that's 62 points that
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  the Bills have allowed in the last two games.
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  We might just see like just points galore this year.
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  Defenses might be looking a lot different.
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  Yeah, because I'll say, I mean, not really too many defensive
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  units looked elite in Week 1. I mean, the Seahawks, they were
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  still really good that we saw the Vikings give up some big
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  plays, but then they did ultimately they generated some
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  huge takeaways late in the fourth quarter, Brian, Brian
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  Flores sent blitzes on 82% of his snaps on.
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  I mean, that's an insane blitz rate right there.
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  So. But I mean, besides that, not a
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  lot of defensive performances jumped out to me.
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  I did like the Bengals. They did score.
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  They did have a defensive touchdown.
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  They had four takeaways there. But yeah, I mean, Steelers maybe
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  I like in that even that I'm like, they were playing Cooper
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  Rush. I mean, the Falcons were on
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  there. What they?
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  They still scored like 10 points. 1313 points, and Bijon
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  did tear them up a lot too. They're just Cooper Rush
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  couldn't complete a pass down the field.
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  You know how it is, Yeah. The worst QB in the league.
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  I just don't think we just didn't see a lot of elite
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  looking defensive performances from week 1.
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  So I don't know if it's, but the offenses have just the scales
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  have tipped back more into their favor or if we just don't really
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  have any real elite defensive units this year.
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  It's very early, but I'm leaning more towards I think like it's
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  just every five or six years, you know, the you have the
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  scales tip more in the favor of one side of the ball than the
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  other. You know, as coordinators sort
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  of figure out how to beat the popular schemes and looks of the
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  other side of the ball and then you'll see one side struggle
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  while the other looks a lot better until that side gets
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  figured out. So like I was saying, like for
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  after that Super Bowl between the Chiefs and the Bucks, Todd
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  Bowles really gave Mahomes fits with that too high shell that
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  became a really popular defensive look.
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  I mean, now teams like it was all about keep your guys deep,
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  keep everything in front of you. But now teams are really getting
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  back to just old school running the football and.
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  All right, well, before we run out of the segment, let's jump
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  in. Thank you guys for being
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  patient. This is the H Train show going
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  on since 2015 where our mission here is to show all veterans and
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  our men and women in uniform all over the world where there are
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  more programs out there beyond the VA.
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  My name is H Train and sitting in for Amber because remember he
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  was having some Internet issues, you know, while they're
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  travelling right now and the HG is sitting in for me.
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  Next week MJ should be back and that'll be a good thing.
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  So hey. Kind of insulting that you won't
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  call me your eye candy for the day, but whatever.
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  Dang. You're my Garth for the day.
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  I can't call you. Garth.
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  I'm not Garth because. You got a haircut?
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  Yeah. All right.
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  Well, hey, look, it is that time, everybody.
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  It's a very short mail call. All right.
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  And ladies and gentlemen, today's mail call is brought to
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  you by I know it's it's it's Ozzy Gonzalez Photography
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  capture the moment. Well, I'll tell you what capture
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  in a moment. I tell you what this, this
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  brought up this week's mail call.
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  Welcome, everybody. I want to introduce real quick
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  housekeeping. We want to recognize September
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  18th as National POWMI Day, recognition day and preview
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  today's guest, retired Air Force First Sergeant Jeffrey W Baxter.
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  He'll be on today talking about his new book that he wrote.
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  So that's going to be awesome. And then of course, today's mail
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  call is the I got the video of their mail call should be
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  mission, same brotherhood. Finally the recognition nearly
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  16 years later. Someone's heal.
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  Some stories just take longer to tell.
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  So you know, I had this, I have this all written up and somehow
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  it has got somehow deleted. But a gentleman who is like 87
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  years old, I'm trying to find his name now.
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  He received his Purple Heart finally, after 17 years.
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  Oh. Jeez.
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  You know, and I was, I had this whole summary that I was going
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  to write today and yeah, it's not exactly going the way that I
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  wanted it to. Technology has.
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  Failed. I'm telling you, man, I'm
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  telling you. I got everything else, but I
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  don't have the. I don't have the.
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  I don't have what I need, but I'll make sure to put it in the
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  podcast because it's it's definitely something that we
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  need to talk about. You know, there's a lot of
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  people out there that they're having a hard time having the
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  awards and stuff because DoD like it's, it's crazy.
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  You know how you go to a DMV and you're waiting on your license,
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  you know, be called and stuff. So with DoD, when you fill out
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  an application or you turn it in, you're kind of waiting in
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  line for a year. And then when it comes up, they
• 15:36
  look at it and it's not like they spend a, a good quality of
• 15:41
  time. They look at it and they're
• 15:43
  like, OK, if it's an order, you know, it depends on who's
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  reading it, who's looking at it. If it if it's a good order,
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  great. If it's not the they don't tell
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  you what's wrong with it. They just kick it back.
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  That's awesome. Yes.
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  Love that. Then you get to just play the
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  guessing game of oh watch, why'd I get rejected?
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  Yes, pretty much slower than yes.
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  And that's exactly that's exactly what it is.
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  So you know, with that being said, we're just going to go
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  into the top story because at least I know that thing's going
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  to come up. So, ladies and gentlemen, once
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  again it is the top story. Welcome back to our weekly news
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  broadcast. I'm your host and we have some
• 16:26
  massive updates today. Let's dive right into our top
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  story. All right, so today's top story,
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  it's not coming up either. Jeez, Please come on guys.
• 16:44
  Let's try this 218 signatures reach though for.
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  The Richard star, yes. So everybody knows that we have
• 16:51
  been keeping track of the Richard Starr act and the.
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  I believe she's the like I said, like all my, all my everything
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  that I was supposed to write it, it didn't make it with the
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  technology. See what I mean?
• 17:10
  Oh, yeah. Well.
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  Nothing. Not safe.
• 17:14
  I I had saved it on this computer, but it's not.
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  Even on here. Either, OK, I was looking for
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  you. So anyways, they have been
• 17:25
  really trying hard for the last it's been almost eight years to
• 17:29
  get this to this point. OK, we were given this case the
• 17:34
  situation around January. I think MBR has really done a
• 17:40
  good job of explaining it and giving.
• 17:45
  Last two years we yeah. Shout out to MBR.
• 17:48
  Yeah, giving info out to the veteran community to let them
• 17:52
  know what has happened. Nancy Mace, I believe she's
• 17:57
  either a senator from South Carolina or from Nebraska.
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  I I, like I said, my summary thing isn't in front of me and
• 18:05
  I'm not going to keep on looking for it.
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  So she's the last person that signed it.
• 18:11
  And because this this is what's really messed up.
• 18:15
  And I'm not sure on politics show.
• 18:16
  I'm just this is just how it is. So since a bunch of politicians
• 18:22
  came up with the idea, OK, we should impeach the secretary of
• 18:28
  war. That's that's what trickled down
• 18:33
  for them to recess the Senate until like November.
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  Now, the only thing that benefits that that that we have,
• 18:44
  that benefits us right now is that the 218 signatures that the
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  little form or whatever that gets you to the House, it has to
• 18:54
  be at the House for seven days before it can even be voted on.
• 18:59
  So while it's at the House, the seven days that's going to help
• 19:04
  our chances for it to vote. So if this goes vote and this
• 19:08
  was so crazy, like I see it all on my group chats and stuff like
• 19:16
  veterans are already spindle down, you know?
• 19:25
  Valid opinion I have, it's falling back on.
• 19:28
  Right, it's. Wait time.
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  Yeah, and. I just, I think that's
• 19:32
  ridiculous too, that like Congress, like, oh, you have to
• 19:34
  make a difficult decision. Let's let's force a recess and
• 19:38
  go on the two-month vacation. Well, you know, they're they're.
• 19:40
  Like, did you imagine anybody else their job when you had to
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  do something difficult? You just you just stopped
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  working for two months before doing it?
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  Like, I mean, like that's not a, a luxury afforded to anybody
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  else right in this country. You got to deal with the
• 19:58
  difficult choices, the difficult things that have to be done now.
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  I want to say good morning to everybody that's on TikTok.
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  Penelope, you know, she, she, Penelope said.
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  Let's go. She's, you know what?
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  I'm I'm going to I'm going to let you enjoy this win.
• 20:19
  Okay, we're we're coming back Sunday.
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  Don't you worry, you know, don't you worry.
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  Just just remember our our first game when Beau next plays last
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  year it sucked and see where we can.
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  So that's, that's OK. I will say Beau has been
• 20:36
  historically terrible in week 1, yes, his rookie debut in Seattle
• 20:41
  he had like 3 interceptions. Yeah.
• 20:43
  Week 1 against the Titans, he threw 2 picks and fumble.
• 20:46
  Yeah, he was not good. And then yeah, I mean he had
• 20:48
  like the two 3 fumbles and then the interception in this one.
• 20:52
  There's about 12 teams. This happens every year.
• 20:54
  There's about 12 teams in the NFL that the first three games
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  they're polishing that trophy, and then they lose that trophy
• 21:04
  that next week. Yeah.
• 21:05
  You know, So you can't really judge a team how good they are
• 21:10
  until they've done at least five games.
• 21:13
  Yeah. I mean, honestly.
• 21:15
  See, I think the reason this bad bow performance stands out more
• 21:18
  than the others is because those other two games were closer.
• 21:20
  We won the Titans. Game and he's not very good.
• 21:23
  He's not very good on prime TV. Well, our deep start.
• 21:26
  Was only a one point line right? Like a one or two point loss.
• 21:29
  I was a six point. Loss.
• 21:31
  I don't know, but we need to go on break, yeah.
• 21:34
  But I'm just gonna say like, our defense played a lot better in
• 21:37
  those games. So they were they were closer.
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  One was a closer loss, the other was still a victory.
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  The defense was horrible. We like had like the worst
• 21:46
  tackling performance maybe in NFL history.
• 21:49
  We missed 28 packs all. Right, all right, we we got the
• 21:53
  music going guys. We're going to go on music break
• 21:56
  when we come back. It's more of the shit show.
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  So what do we do? Stay with us.
• 22:03
  You listen to the a strange show right here on MBR giving a
• 22:06
  veterans voice. Stay with.
• 22:09
  Us. They thank me for my service.
• 22:11
  They The station
• 26:38
  and welcome back. It is Red Friday.
• 26:42
  It is for. Much more to get.
• 26:47
  I'm trying to look at the date and it's September 18th, Friday.
• 26:51
  Wow, I need more coffee. 27 minutes past the hour, you know
• 26:56
  we were talking. Time to wake up though.
• 26:58
  Yeah, we got. Another hour and a half we.
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  Did Yeah, We, you know, was talking a little bit about
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  sports and we was talking a little bit about the Richard
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  Starr act. You know how important that is?
• 27:12
  And you know, I just like the thing that bothers me is they,
• 27:23
  the, the politicians, they, they, they want to block it.
• 27:26
  They want to block it. And they just showed me in
• 27:30
  actions that they wanted to block it because they put
• 27:35
  another bill on top of that to kind of deter people away.
• 27:41
  So it was using the veteran community against each other and
• 27:46
  you know, they they really need to put a stop to using military
• 27:52
  as pawns and political agendas. You know, there's a certain
• 27:57
  things that you don't do right, and that's one of them.
• 28:03
  That's one of them. They need to make a rule against
• 28:05
  that. I'm so sick of it.
• 28:07
  Anyways, now the I was scrolling through TikTok and not only did
• 28:14
  I get to the video, but this is something that we didn't need to
• 28:18
  talk about. OK, ladies and gentlemen, it is
• 28:22
  the what the segment can. Text me.
• 28:26
  Text me of course. Nice script.
• 28:37
  What? What?
• 28:37
  That fart was epic. I didn't know you had a doorbell
• 28:40
  camera. I have a doorbell camera.
• 28:42
  Well, yeah, I can see that now. Do you?
• 28:44
  Need to come back down and use my bathroom.
• 28:46
  No, I I think I'm all good. You sure?
• 28:49
  You might want to check that one.
• 28:50
  I'm sure it's fine. Didn't sound fine.
• 28:53
  It's fine. Fine.
• 28:54
  It's fine. It's fine.
• 28:54
  Don't be embarrassed. I fart all the time.
• 28:56
  Time. That's great.
• 28:57
  Good for you. Yours sounded.
• 28:58
  Kind of wet. Well, I think I'm just going to,
• 29:00
  I think I'm just going to go. All right, we'll get home safe.
• 29:04
  Will do. Thanks.
• 29:06
  Might want to roll your. Windows down on the drive.
• 29:12
  Though All right, so I played a little funny little clip or
• 29:15
  whatever and you know, if you read some of the comments,
• 29:18
  comments are pretty funny. But you're in a relationship, do
• 29:22
  you? Far in front of your wife?
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  She's my girlfriend, not my wife.
• 29:27
  Basically the same thing. Go ahead.
• 29:29
  But, well, she's going to get mad at that.
• 29:34
  She's like, oh, I'm not. She's gonna be mad about that,
• 29:36
  OK. But yeah, no, I do.
• 29:41
  Much to her dismay. Yeah, OK.
• 29:43
  Does she ever do around you? Yeah.
• 29:46
  Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 29:46
  So you guys are comfortable. You know, I I remember before I
• 29:49
  got married, that's the first thing that I told my wife is,
• 29:53
  you know, we're. We're not getting married until
• 29:56
  you can successfully fluctuate in front of me.
• 30:00
  Because when you fart with somebody, that means that you're
• 30:03
  comfortable, you know? You know, So everybody's all
• 30:09
  worried about that. You know, She gets so mad when I
• 30:12
  go down Walmart aisle and I just let it RIP.
• 30:16
  She gets so mad when I do that. Do you get mad when your
• 30:22
  relationship or your friends do that?
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  Shave man. When people fart.
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  Yeah, like right in front of you.
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  No. Like you don't care, right?
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  Well, it's not. It's not like going to bother
• 30:36
  me. Oh man, it bothers my wife.
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  Like she gives me the stare down the stare down.
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  But you know, I, I think it's important that, you know,
• 30:49
  relationships, they, they take that into consideration.
• 30:53
  I mean, to be in a really good true relationship, you have to
• 30:58
  show what was that word alterability or I, I forget the
• 31:04
  word. I'm, I'm batting 100 today.
• 31:08
  I forget the word, But you know, it's mainly the reason why I
• 31:13
  play that clip. I, I think it's important, you
• 31:15
  know, it's a, it's a conversation to have with your
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  loved one. Hey, what happens if I'm going
• 31:19
  to do that, you know, once or twice, But if you could like do
• 31:22
  it constantly, you know, it's it's, it's good to talk about
• 31:25
  that stuff, right? Joe, I love that you said I'm
• 31:28
  batting 100 because you're, that's all ironically, a really
• 31:31
  bad batting average. The the saying is I'm batting
• 31:34
  1000. Oh, I'm batting 1000.
• 31:35
  OK, whatever. 100's kind of like a bunch warmer.
• 31:41
  Whatever. All right, it's that time we're
• 31:44
  going to go to drop the date. Oh.
• 31:50
  Call, then, now. Always remember.
• 31:57
  Honor, never forget. All right, so ladies and
• 32:01
  gentlemen, September 18th, 1947, this is your drop the date the
• 32:08
  US Air Force is born. On September 18th, 1947, the
• 32:13
  United States Air Force officially began operating as an
• 32:16
  independent branch of the US Armed Forces.
• 32:20
  W Stewart Symington was sworn in as the first secretary for the
• 32:29
  first Secretary of the Air Force that same day.
• 32:32
  That means on September 18th, 2026, the Air Force, the first
• 32:39
  Sergeant that we're talking to, Jeffrey Witten Baxter on the Air
• 32:42
  Force. It's going to be his 79th
• 32:46
  birthday. Actually the second connection
• 32:49
  on the exact same day this year, September 18th, 2026 is national
• 32:55
  POW in my recognition day because it falls on the third
• 32:59
  Friday of September. So it, you know, it's primarily
• 33:04
  about the birth of the Air Force because that drastically
• 33:09
  connects for today's drop today, especially for our interviewee
• 33:14
  that we have later on today. But we just wanted to say happy
• 33:18
  birthday to the Air Force. Everything that I wrote doesn't
• 33:24
  make sense. AI has been messing up here the
• 33:28
  last couple of days, so that doesn't really surprise me
• 33:33
  whatsoever at all. But that is drop today.
• 33:36
  Today is the official day that the Air Force was created.
• 33:42
  We are going to go on a Is there more sports that you wanted to
• 33:47
  talk about before we go on our next break?
• 33:50
  WNBA playoffs about to tip off? They are.
• 33:54
  Here pretty soon. They are women's international
• 33:57
  team just won gold at the the FIBA World Cup for women's
• 34:02
  basketball edition. So they they pull that off.
• 34:06
  I think the season's going to resume.
• 34:08
  The playoff field is already set, so we're just working out
• 34:12
  the final seeding. I don't know all the teams off
• 34:17
  the top of my head with a couple of teams have clinched
• 34:20
  postseason berths in the MLB. It's the Brewers.
• 34:25
  The Dodgers did. Did Atlanta technically clinch
• 34:31
  RD2? Do you know Caveman?
• 34:34
  Not, not as far as, like, any team or any, like, league
• 34:41
  boasting about it yet. Not at the moment.
• 34:44
  I think they still have. They're still waiting on a
• 34:47
  couple more games to decide that.
• 34:49
  OK, if they won, yeah, The Dodgers won the NLS.
• 34:53
  No surprise there. No shocker.
• 34:56
  And I don't think, I think technically the Brewers just
• 34:59
  clinched, but they they're not safe from the Cubs yet.
• 35:03
  Yeah, they they've just clinched.
• 35:05
  Yeah, they. Don't exactly won the the
• 35:07
  division yet, yeah. That Cubs one of the hottest
• 35:10
  teams in baseball. PCA is having himself a great
• 35:13
  season. Now might you know, crazy to
• 35:17
  say, but he could win MVP over Otani.
• 35:20
  He really good. He's really just having himself
• 35:22
  a fantastic season. He's I think he took over the
• 35:26
  home run lead now too and he's hit his just recently got his
• 35:31
  like 43rd or 44th. If you ask a Dodgers fan who
• 35:37
  would win MVP just blind looking at their stats for the season
• 35:43
  you they would say well whose team is doing better?
• 35:48
  Yeah. I know this for a fact because
• 35:51
  that's exactly what my friends die hard Dodgers fan and that's
• 35:56
  that was his exact quote. What I I just named.
• 35:59
  I was just reading off their stats without saying their
• 36:01
  names. I was like who should win the
• 36:02
  MVP and he already knew where I was going with it.
• 36:05
  He's like whoever's on the better team should probably be.
• 36:09
  This guy, we're not going to act like the Dodgers don't have the
• 36:12
  most stacked roster in baseball with that.
• 36:15
  It does suck that like there's so many other teams in the MLB
• 36:20
  that have owners that are that rich and they just don't want to
• 36:24
  spend that much money. It's like they kind of care more
• 36:27
  about the revenue than the fans. But at the same time, if you
• 36:31
  bring in a good team, good group of guys, you're bringing in
• 36:36
  revenue and you care about your fans.
• 36:39
  If you have a better team, the revenue is still going to
• 36:42
  skyrocket. Most owners just care about
• 36:44
  being just competitive enough that like it's worth it for
• 36:47
  people to come, but they don't want to spend the the actual
• 36:52
  money it takes to really get that championship team with.
• 36:56
  The Lions and Jared Goff right now that it's like the Lions
• 37:00
  that were bad for so long that they kind of just want a guy
• 37:03
  who's good enough in the regular season.
• 37:06
  Because at this point right now, do you think Jared Goff wins the
• 37:10
  Lions playoff game? It's going to be Javeer Gibbs
• 37:14
  that wins that team playoff game.
• 37:17
  They maybe have a chance if they win the North, but then it's
• 37:21
  like you got to hope that you have like the two seed.
• 37:24
  So you're getting like the seven seed.
• 37:27
  Because I mean like if you're like the four seed taking on
• 37:29
  like like what could be like a San Francisco or Seattle or a
• 37:35
  Philadelphia or even like a Chicago, Minnesota, you know,
• 37:40
  that's like a four or five or a 5 or 6 seed.
• 37:43
  Like you could be in some trouble.
• 37:45
  I'm not randomly hating on him. No good respect.
• 37:48
  So I I finally found my place before we before we go to break.
• 37:53
  I wanted to I wanted to read this.
• 37:55
  So the the soldier spotlight, his name is Corey L Cook.
• 38:00
  The Arman published his story yesterday, September 16th of
• 38:04
  chief Warrant Officer to Corey L Cook.
• 38:07
  He was a green beret. He was finally awarded the
• 38:11
  Purple Heart on September 15th at Fort Carson, Colorado, nearly
• 38:15
  16 years after the IED blast that wounded him in Afghanistan.
• 38:21
  So we wanted to, you know, just show a, you know, spotlight him
• 38:26
  real quick. He deployed and helmsman
• 38:29
  Province Afghanistan, but then received his Purple Heart until
• 38:34
  this week's ceremony. Fort Carson's brigade General
• 38:39
  John W Sentence pinned the medal on him.
• 38:42
  He has he has a remarkable story.
• 38:46
  We will be sure to put that in the chat as well.
• 38:51
  And you know, the like I said, the drop the date, Yeah.
• 38:57
  And today the Air Force is it is, you know, it was born.
• 39:02
  You know, the thing that gets me.
• 39:04
  And I don't know if you guys have seen this since you guys
• 39:06
  been with me now for three years.
• 39:09
  But like, I don't know when when we're talking about like the
• 39:13
  Marine birthday or the Army birthday or the Air Force
• 39:16
  birthday and stuff. Like, I don't really know why we
• 39:20
  celebrate it because, you know, it's like, OK, yeah, I mean, you
• 39:24
  guys are here another year, you know, why?
• 39:26
  Why wouldn't it be your birthday kind of thing, you know?
• 39:30
  And like, the Army isn't all about the birthday, not like the
• 39:34
  Marines are. But I tell you what, we are
• 39:37
  getting to that time where we do need to go on music break.
• 39:41
  And when we come off of that music break, ladies and
• 39:44
  gentlemen, the interview that you have been waiting to hear
• 39:48
  all day, all week long, Jeffrey Baxter, he's the dash, the he is
• 39:55
  the veteran, veteran Air Force. And he will be joining us and he
• 40:03
  will be talking to us about his recovery and his struggle on his
• 40:11
  journey. So whatever you do, stay with
• 40:13
  us. Don't go away.
• 40:13
  You're listening to show the highlights of the nonprofit
• 40:15
  programs out there beyond the VA.
• 40:17
  You're listening to the H Train show right here on MBR.
• 40:20
  Stay with us. I was holding back the truth,
• 55:06
  The station Right.
• 55:24
  And we are back, ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to
• 55:26
  the show that highlights all the nonprofit programs out there be
• 55:29
  on the VA. You're listening to the H train
• 55:31
  show on the station that's letting a veterans voices be
• 55:34
  heard. MBR Yeah, I'm, I'm not going to
• 55:37
  lie to you, the the first half of half first half, first half
• 55:42
  of the show has been kind of a ship show.
• 55:44
  But you know what we have, we have Mr. Jeffrey Baxter and the
• 55:49
  backstage waiting to be announced.
• 55:52
  You know, this he, I, I forget the award that he won, but he
• 55:58
  recently got nominated and, and won.
• 56:02
  I, I believe won the award. And you know, the huge
• 56:07
  congratulations to him. He was telling me that today is
• 56:12
  one of the I, gosh, I've, I, you know what?
• 56:16
  Without further ado, let's just bring him on board.
• 56:18
  Ladies and gentlemen, it is the interview of the week.
• 56:21
  The interview of the week is brought to you by Jersey Mike's,
• 56:26
  a sub above. Welcome, welcome, welcome,
• 56:39
  ladies and gentlemen, book author and veteran retired Air
• 56:43
  Force. Happy birthday, Air Force, by
• 56:46
  the way. Thank you.
• 56:49
  Jeffrey Baxter joins us. He has the brand new book out.
• 56:54
  It's called Dash, you know. And well, I'm going to let you
• 56:59
  ask the first question, HG. Well, Jeffrey, before we get to
• 57:04
  the difficult part of your story and everything, take us back to
• 57:07
  the the beginning. Why did you originally join the
• 57:10
  Air Force? Yeah, H Street, great question
• 57:14
  number one, thanks for having me on.
• 57:16
  It was, you know, a little irony real quick.
• 57:19
  As I was waiting on the break, I was listening to the song that
• 57:22
  you guys were playing, Hold My Beer, and I thought to myself
• 57:26
  that, yeah, someone's going to have to hold my beer forever
• 57:28
  now. So.
• 57:31
  But let me get to your question. Thank you.
• 57:33
  I think. That was a bad statement song
• 57:37
  right to you, right? I didn't think about.
• 57:39
  That hey, no, no, not at all. You know, I, this is my disease
• 57:45
  to keep in surrender, right? The world has to keep moving.
• 57:48
  So I navigate the landmines when I when they see him.
• 57:52
  So, yeah. But to get to your question, you
• 57:57
  know, I I grew up in Kentucky, small rural town.
• 58:00
  My dad was retired Army first Sergeant and my sister, straight
• 58:08
  A student, did the same things I did, you know, same field
• 58:12
  parties, drinking beer. She was just smarter.
• 58:15
  She knew how to keep A's and stay out of trouble and under
• 58:18
  the radar. And I didn't.
• 58:21
  But you know, I've overheard a conversation one time that I
• 58:24
  wasn't supposed to, that my parents didn't have the money to
• 58:27
  send both of us to college. And I, I knew that I was going
• 58:30
  to join the military at that point.
• 58:33
  I wanted to go on the Marines, but my father being a three tour
• 58:37
  of Vietnam, hindsight now with some maturity, I think he didn't
• 58:42
  want me going, you know, the route that he did.
• 58:45
  He wanted me to go in the Air Force or Navy, maybe learn a
• 58:48
  trade case. I didn't want to stay for six
• 58:52
  years if I got out in the in the corporate section.
• 58:57
  So join the Air Force and I'm absolutely glad I did.
• 59:03
  Happy birthday today to all of our airmen out there still
• 59:07
  serving and those no longer serving.
• 59:10
  But yeah, I joined the Air Force and you know, it was ironic
• 59:13
  because I came in under a general category.
• 59:18
  So I should have been a a cop or a civil engineer or a cook, but
• 59:25
  somehow I, I landed up being chosen to be loadmaster on
• 59:29
  AC130. So somebody who wouldn't had
• 59:32
  their first flight was to basic training.
• 59:34
  My job now was going to be flying all the time.
• 59:37
  So that's what got me into the military.
• 59:41
  And I'll let you kind of drive this if you want me to expand on
• 59:46
  that service a little bit or you know what question you may have
• 59:50
  next. You going to say you eventually
• 59:52
  became a first Sergeant, So what did that responsibility and
• 59:55
  taking care of airmen mean to you?
• 59:58
  Oh wow. You know, short back story, 2003
• 1:00:02
  and 2006, I was stationed actually here where I'm at in
• 1:00:06
  Tampa at U.S. special Operations Command.
• 1:00:10
  Unbeknownst to me at the time, they, my supervisor had put me
• 1:00:14
  in for US Air Force NCO of the year.
• 1:00:20
  When I had learned that I earned that I I don't like the word.
• 1:00:24
  Win, you know, it's kind of like every now and then you hear
• 1:00:26
  someone say, you know, he won a Purple Heart.
• 1:00:29
  It's not a contest. Nobody purposely goes out to
• 1:00:32
  achieve that. But when I found out that I
• 1:00:35
  earned that, I mean, I was humbled #1I, I was just grateful
• 1:00:39
  that I, that US SOCOM, the Air Force One star thought that I
• 1:00:46
  would be a representative of the Air Force.
• 1:00:48
  So when I won that I, that put me up against category I didn't
• 1:00:53
  even realize was against the service Member of the year of
• 1:00:56
  each of the service against the Marines, the Army, and the Navy.
• 1:01:04
  And by God's blessing, I was 2006 USO Comms Servicing Member
• 1:01:08
  of the year at the time. 4 star General Doug Fenton was there.
• 1:01:13
  And, and that opened a lot of doors for me.
• 1:01:17
  I mean doors that I, I never imagined were even going to be
• 1:01:20
  on my path. But I was offered a Commission
• 1:01:23
  at the time that he was going to endorse.
• 1:01:25
  I had eleven years in, but with my father being a retired Army
• 1:01:30
  first Sergeant, and I didn't want to Commission.
• 1:01:35
  I said I want to be a first Sergeant one day.
• 1:01:37
  And I remember General Fenton, excuse me, General Brown's staff
• 1:01:41
  at the time, saying, look, being an intelligence, it's a critical
• 1:01:45
  career field, you'll never have the opportunity.
• 1:01:47
  Well, I stuck with my dream and in 2008, the Air Force got low
• 1:01:52
  on manning for first sergeants. They only have about 1100
• 1:01:56
  billets, so they allowed two individuals from the
• 1:01:59
  intelligence critically manned career field to apply to be a
• 1:02:02
  first Sergeant. And so I applied and again,
• 1:02:06
  another miracle. I was selected and went to the
• 1:02:08
  First Sergeant Academy at Maxwell Air Force Base and came
• 1:02:12
  back to Goodfell Air Force Base as a first Sergeant with the
• 1:02:16
  word in the diamond what that meant to me.
• 1:02:19
  That was a huge change, but it ignited something to me that I
• 1:02:22
  didn't know. You know, my job was people.
• 1:02:26
  My job was taking care of people.
• 1:02:29
  I worked directly for the commander and basically on a
• 1:02:33
  day-to-day basis, I had the pulse on the morale of the
• 1:02:37
  squadron. And and that's what's kind of
• 1:02:40
  ironic with, you know, when we, when we get to talking about the
• 1:02:44
  how the book came about was, you know, at at that time, you know,
• 1:02:48
  I knew I knew how to take care of everybody else.
• 1:02:51
  But what I didn't know was slowly creeping up with my
• 1:02:54
  disease was I didn't know how to take care of myself.
• 1:02:58
  And I didn't know that at the time.
• 1:03:02
  Yeah, I feel like that that's a case that a lot of service
• 1:03:06
  members feel is you. You go into the military, you
• 1:03:10
  want to, you know, you want to serve your country and be of
• 1:03:13
  service of others. And something that gets lost
• 1:03:16
  along the way, but whether it's just equally as important is
• 1:03:19
  taking care of yourself. You are, you know it.
• 1:03:24
  Your needs are also important. Like while we appreciate all of
• 1:03:27
  our service members and their selflessness and their self
• 1:03:29
  sacrifice for other people that you know, I, they, they deserve
• 1:03:35
  to, you know, have them be taken care of as well.
• 1:03:38
  And to, to have their needs addressed.
• 1:03:40
  They're just as important as everyone else's.
• 1:03:42
  And I don't know if you've noticed this, Jeffrey, but ever
• 1:03:45
  since I got out it, it seems like we, we kind of lose our
• 1:03:51
  identity in the, in the military and we're like trying so much to
• 1:03:58
  keep a like grab a hold of it and keep it.
• 1:04:02
  And we, we forget, Hey, you know, we, we don't have to do
• 1:04:06
  that anymore. We're we're, we're not in it
• 1:04:08
  anymore, but we still have that kind of identity.
• 1:04:12
  And, you know, I think the biggest thing about this book
• 1:04:19
  that I mean, I haven't read it, you know, it comes out August or
• 1:04:23
  October 4th. And the biggest thing I, that I,
• 1:04:27
  I'm assuming that you, you talk about in this book is not only
• 1:04:33
  the identity, but also like the struggle, the struggle that you,
• 1:04:40
  that you fought in your journey, literally resilience, you know,
• 1:04:45
  and you're, you're trying to, I, I, I found this out in life that
• 1:04:51
  people tend to not tell you, yeah, hey, I'm watching you.
• 1:04:56
  I, I see you struggle and the way you combat it and the way
• 1:05:00
  you're smiling and stuff. It helps me.
• 1:05:03
  They never say that. They never say that.
• 1:05:06
  And sometimes that's one of the reasons why I, I, I make a big
• 1:05:12
  deal about birthdays because you have one day out of the year
• 1:05:17
  that you, you need a pep rally. You need a pep rally because a,
• 1:05:22
  a year full of, you know, I've lost this or failed this or
• 1:05:27
  somebody walked away or, you know, all that stuff.
• 1:05:30
  It, it, it, it's a tornado right in your mind.
• 1:05:34
  And it just keeps on it moving and stuff.
• 1:05:37
  And I'm assuming that this is part.
• 1:05:41
  What I'm describing is partly what you wrote about.
• 1:05:47
  No spot on. You know, I think, I think
• 1:05:52
  anyone who has a military background, first responders,
• 1:05:56
  you know, we're taught to carry the weight.
• 1:05:59
  You know, we're taught to continue to carry whatever is
• 1:06:04
  put on our shoulders and we don't ask for help.
• 1:06:09
  And eventually, you know, that led me into survival mode.
• 1:06:13
  I think a lot of us stay in that, you know, retiring.
• 1:06:19
  I went right back and worked, you know, as a contractor in the
• 1:06:23
  intelligence community. So although I was around
• 1:06:26
  military, yeah, you still kind of look for that identity.
• 1:06:31
  And, you know, as I look back now with my wife and my sister,
• 1:06:36
  you know, I had many people telling me that I, you know, was
• 1:06:44
  kind of lost or I was searching for something, but I never heard
• 1:06:48
  them, you know, you know what I mean?
• 1:06:51
  I was still focused on internally and.
• 1:06:56
  Well, you know your family, they don't like your wife or
• 1:06:58
  girlfriend. They never tell you until after
• 1:07:00
  you break them up. So like, that's just how it is.
• 1:07:04
  No, nobody tells you the truth until until you're in pain.
• 1:07:10
  Well, and I think the hardest thing for me, you know, I, you
• 1:07:15
  know, how the book came about. To be honest, I, I never set out
• 1:07:18
  to write the book by dash. I had no intentions on becoming
• 1:07:23
  an author. That was never on my bucket
• 1:07:25
  list. I, you know, did 60.
• 1:07:30
  So I finally came to a point, you know, just to kind of get to
• 1:07:33
  how the book came about to where, you know, alcohol.
• 1:07:38
  I mean, I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic and I can
• 1:07:42
  say that with no shame anymore. And it takes a lot sometimes
• 1:07:48
  never for people to get to that point.
• 1:07:51
  And I don't have anything to specifically blame the the
• 1:07:55
  military genetics, not sure. But regardless, my, my willpower
• 1:08:02
  alone wasn't strong enough. And, and I knew that I needed
• 1:08:06
  help for several years. But again, in that survival
• 1:08:09
  mode, I felt that I had to carry that weight, that I was a
• 1:08:13
  protector, a provider. You know, when you're on a, just
• 1:08:17
  like in the military, when you're on a team, you have
• 1:08:22
  duties, responsibilities, and other people depend on you.
• 1:08:25
  And it took me probably 12 years to really realize that sometimes
• 1:08:32
  taking a knee actually makes your team stronger when you're
• 1:08:35
  not 100%. And my dash really does talk
• 1:08:41
  about resilience, but it talks about resilience after
• 1:08:44
  surrender. I think probably the most
• 1:08:48
  difficult leadership decision that I have ever done in my 32
• 1:08:54
  years of serving the country and still serving today was to
• 1:08:59
  openly admit that I needed help. And that decision alone allowed
• 1:09:07
  me to be where I am right now talking to you.
• 1:09:13
  It allowed my marriage to be able to start to rekindle
• 1:09:18
  itself. And my dash the hopes of that is
• 1:09:23
  to reach someone who's still struggling in silence.
• 1:09:26
  You know, I almost died in silence for 12 years, to be
• 1:09:30
  honest with you, knowing that I needed help.
• 1:09:34
  Surrender gave me my voice back. And so my dash.
• 1:09:38
  I'm not here just to I'm not here to promote the book, if you
• 1:09:41
  will. That was not, that's not my full
• 1:09:44
  intention, but I'm hoping that someone somewhere will pick it
• 1:09:48
  up and it will give them hope and strength to ask for help.
• 1:09:54
  And that's the faith now that allows me to lay my head down
• 1:09:58
  and sleep at night, not knowing if someone's going to not ever
• 1:10:04
  meeting that person, but just hope.
• 1:10:07
  And hope is stronger for me than my disease.
• 1:10:11
  And today's one year and 14 days of sobriety.
• 1:10:15
  And it took 12 years for me to get to the point of
• 1:10:20
  surrendering, to get that. And that's one day at a time,
• 1:10:24
  you know? But yeah, it's special to me.
• 1:10:27
  And to be able to, you know, I, I started the blog online and I
• 1:10:34
  get up at 4:00 every morning for seven days a week to have about
• 1:10:37
  3 hours of quietness. And I was just writing and
• 1:10:41
  posting on LinkedIn once a week, raw and unfiltered of my journey
• 1:10:46
  of, you know, the 21 year active duty, 7 years of the Pentagon,
• 1:10:51
  being blessed to be an advisor to General Fitton, 4 Star
• 1:10:56
  Commander at AUS Special OPS Command.
• 1:10:59
  And then I had to surrender. I had to make the decision that
• 1:11:02
  I can lose all that. I can lose my clearance, I can
• 1:11:04
  lose my identity, I can lose everything.
• 1:11:07
  But unfortunately, that was the only way that I was ever going
• 1:11:10
  to be able to get this disease in remission.
• 1:11:12
  And I had to do that. And so sobriety was at all cost
• 1:11:16
  for me, even if it meant a divorce, even if it meant losing
• 1:11:21
  family. I had to put that out front.
• 1:11:24
  And that's what I chose to do. And because I almost died in
• 1:11:28
  silence, surrender gave me a voice and I want to use it to
• 1:11:32
  try to help others. That's that's my goal.
• 1:11:36
  Well, that's awesome. That's awesome.
• 1:11:38
  And I'm so I'm so glad and appreciative that, you know, we
• 1:11:44
  was able to fit you in this Friday because we've, yeah,
• 1:11:47
  we've been having a tough time with the schedule here lately,
• 1:11:53
  you know, kids going back to school and stuff like that.
• 1:11:56
  I'm going to ask the next question and I want you HJ So
• 1:12:00
  the military people are trained to accomplish the mission and
• 1:12:04
  take care of everybody else. We we've talked about that.
• 1:12:07
  Did that mentally make it harder for you to admit that you needed
• 1:12:12
  somebody to help take care? You know, of you 'cause like he
• 1:12:17
  was talking about, you know, you're, you're happy and proud.
• 1:12:22
  And I, I have a couple of friends that are happy and
• 1:12:25
  proud. Hey, I'm like 2 years sober.
• 1:12:28
  I'm a year sober. Does it ever bother you if you
• 1:12:32
  like tell somebody that and doesn't they, they don't seem to
• 1:12:38
  grasp that celebration like you do because they, they've never
• 1:12:41
  been through it. Does does does that aggravate
• 1:12:44
  you ever? Not people that I don't know
• 1:12:50
  when I say early, early sobriety, the first couple
• 1:12:53
  months it did bother me when I I knew my marriage was was on the
• 1:12:59
  rocks and and my wife earned the space she needed.
• 1:13:04
  She earned the right to heal on her time frame.
• 1:13:07
  Took me a while to really comprehend that.
• 1:13:11
  You know, when you go 12 years drinking every single day after
• 1:13:17
  work, power hour drinker like I was, you know, a month of
• 1:13:22
  sobriety, you feel like you just won the lottery.
• 1:13:25
  And I felt like I was miles ahead of my wife and my family.
• 1:13:29
  And so it bothered me that I didn't seem to feel the ASM from
• 1:13:34
  them that I was feeling. But I had to be taught and and
• 1:13:40
  educated that, you know, Jeffrey, Yeah.
• 1:13:44
  For you, you feel like that you just, you know, defeated a
• 1:13:47
  monster and it's in surrender. But they're still dealing with
• 1:13:51
  12 years of lies and, and deceiving and where all the
• 1:13:55
  money went and they're they're not where you're at.
• 1:13:58
  So it did bother me for a while, but I have, I have a phenomener,
• 1:14:05
  excuse me, a phenomenal sponsor named Harry and him and I have
• 1:14:10
  not missed a connection, text or phone call in one year and 14
• 1:14:15
  days. And he has guided me through
• 1:14:19
  those emotions and through how to handle those situations.
• 1:14:23
  And that's the important thing of, of having a sponsor or even
• 1:14:26
  in the military, right? Having a mentor, someone to
• 1:14:29
  guide your career. But yes, to your, to your
• 1:14:32
  question, it did bother me early.
• 1:14:34
  It doesn't bother me now because I know that, you know, a lot of
• 1:14:39
  people still think that alcohol is a choice.
• 1:14:43
  And really the only response I have to that it it, it's kind of
• 1:14:48
  humorous that we say in the a, a community, But you know, I, I
• 1:14:52
  just kind of tell someone, you know, go home and, and take a
• 1:14:55
  half a box of X LAX and when it hits, make a choice not to go to
• 1:14:59
  the bathroom. That's kind of how I felt with
• 1:15:02
  alcohol. I didn't have a choice.
• 1:15:05
  It was more powerful than I was. And you know, I shoot, I, I have
• 1:15:11
  that problem today, except it's with tobacco.
• 1:15:13
  It's, it's smoking. So, you know, I, one thing I
• 1:15:17
  found out in life is that it's very easy to give advice, but
• 1:15:23
  then when you have to take your own advice, it's very hard
• 1:15:27
  because you know, they're not in the, they're, they're not in the
• 1:15:30
  same pair of shoes. You know, they, they didn't know
• 1:15:32
  what choices you can make and, and stuff like that.
• 1:15:35
  So no, very powerful, Steph, actually you have a question.
• 1:15:39
  Yeah, I was going to ask if you were comfortable sharing with
• 1:15:42
  us, when did you kind of realize that alcohol become more than
• 1:15:46
  just drinking? Or was there like a moment for
• 1:15:48
  you where you're like, if I keep going, I'm I'm not going to
• 1:15:51
  survive? Yeah, I ruined my wedding night
• 1:16:01
  to a degree, not intentionally, but at towards the very end of
• 1:16:05
  it, you know, like many weddings, you know, people want
• 1:16:08
  to start throwing shots around and things of that nature and
• 1:16:13
  beautiful wedding all the way up until probably about 10 minutes
• 1:16:18
  before my wife and I were ending the night to go upstairs.
• 1:16:24
  And then I don't remember anything every all those shots
• 1:16:28
  from the last 30 minutes kicked in.
• 1:16:31
  That wasn't the defining moment though.
• 1:16:34
  The defining moment for me after many, many times in Airbnb's or
• 1:16:41
  in a hotel room separation from my wife for a day or two or a
• 1:16:44
  week was probably about 15 months ago.
• 1:16:51
  I was just parallel parking my truck out.
• 1:16:55
  My wife asked me to put it on the street to free up the
• 1:16:58
  driveway and I parallel parked and bumped into my neighbor's
• 1:17:04
  car and at the moment the disease kicked in.
• 1:17:10
  Told me, looked around, nobody saw it, but I looked over in my
• 1:17:15
  garage and my my 12 year old daughter was standing in the
• 1:17:18
  garage and the look on her face and the silence hit me
• 1:17:28
  internally like a brick. And I knew at that point that I
• 1:17:37
  no longer was able to control this, that I thought I was
• 1:17:42
  controlling. And I realized at the moment
• 1:17:47
  that I just brought my daughter fully into my disease by seeing
• 1:17:53
  the actions of what happened to her.
• 1:17:56
  It was, you know, kind of daddy bumped into a car.
• 1:18:01
  But, you know, once my wife found out and once I tried to
• 1:18:04
  hide it at that point, that's when I knew I needed help and
• 1:18:11
  that's when I decided to make the first phone call to go
• 1:18:15
  inpatient. Well.
• 1:18:18
  Thank you for sharing that. Yes, being vulnerable with us,
• 1:18:21
  we really appreciate that. And I think that's, yeah, just
• 1:18:25
  it's great to share those those experiences for anybody else
• 1:18:28
  that might be struggling with alcoholism.
• 1:18:32
  Another question I had for you. So the full title of your book
• 1:18:35
  is called My Dash, The War I Fought After Retirement.
• 1:18:38
  What does the My Dash mean? Sure.
• 1:18:43
  So I did my, I did 30 days inpatient as I just mentioned
• 1:18:51
  and then I did three weeks of an intensive outpatient and I was
• 1:18:58
  going to start a, a virtual program online.
• 1:19:03
  Now mind you, I was still getting tested everyday,
• 1:19:06
  breathalyzer urine samples. And I decided to go on to a a
• 1:19:13
  week trip to Kentucky where I was born and raised before I
• 1:19:17
  started the next phase of recovery.
• 1:19:21
  And on that trip, I visited my mom and dad's tombstone.
• 1:19:27
  And that's also on that trip is where I had a 12 day relapse
• 1:19:31
  after 48 days of being sober. And the one thing I noticed was,
• 1:19:35
  you know, I saw all their names. I saw when they were born and
• 1:19:40
  when they died. But that little dash, there's a
• 1:19:43
  poem out there about it, but that little dash that no one
• 1:19:47
  really looks at, I realize that's my entire life.
• 1:19:51
  I mean, that's my successes, my failures, the military, the
• 1:19:56
  people that I love, the people that I've lost and the journal
• 1:20:03
  when I was writing it and it end up.
• 1:20:06
  The Chicago Tribune reached out to me out of the blue to write a
• 1:20:10
  book, and I came up with the title My Dash, because what I
• 1:20:13
  wanted to do is I wanted to be able to tell my journey and my
• 1:20:15
  story so generations down the road of my family stories and
• 1:20:23
  memories didn't get faded or lost.
• 1:20:25
  I wanted great grandchildren to pull a book off the shelf and be
• 1:20:29
  able to read about my dash, about their grandfather, great
• 1:20:33
  grandfather. And I wanted it to be accurate.
• 1:20:36
  I wanted it to be true. And so I came up with that.
• 1:20:39
  My dash and the war I fought after retirement seemed fitting
• 1:20:43
  because my disease and my surrender came just right after
• 1:20:48
  I retired. And so I thought, you know, beat
• 1:20:51
  in the military and all the deployments and all those things
• 1:20:54
  that happened. But really, to be honest with
• 1:20:56
  you, the biggest war I fought was after I retired and that was
• 1:21:00
  battling alcoholism well. That's the I had never
• 1:21:05
  considered the the dash thing like that on the tombstone
• 1:21:07
  before. That is actually incredibly
• 1:21:10
  profound. That's.
• 1:21:11
  It's the smallest. It's the smallest part of your
• 1:21:13
  tombstone, but it is 99.9% of from the day you were born to
• 1:21:19
  the day you passed. Every story, every memory, every
• 1:21:22
  person you met lies in that little tiny piece of cement
• 1:21:28
  that's a rectangle that just sits there that nobody looks at.
• 1:21:33
  Incredible. All right, well, it is that time
• 1:21:37
  for our time to shine, ladies and gentlemen.
• 1:21:41
  Are we having issues with the OH?
• 1:21:51
  Stand by. OK, technical problem.
• 1:21:53
  OK. Jeffrey, first of all, I wonder.
• 1:22:06
  It's a great story. Yeah, I was just very.
• 1:22:09
  I was back here in the sound booth just so I was enthralled
• 1:22:13
  listening to this interview. It was.
• 1:22:15
  We've been great. Yes, Jeffrey, we want to thank
• 1:22:18
  you once again for having coffee with us this morning.
• 1:22:22
  Can't wait for your book to come out and and read it.
• 1:22:27
  This is our time to shine. What our time to shine is, is
• 1:22:31
  maybe I didn't set you up for the right answer or for the
• 1:22:35
  right question. HG also, this is your two-minute
• 1:22:41
  platform to to say or you know, shed some light or spotlight or
• 1:22:47
  do anything that we didn't cover what you know, something that
• 1:22:52
  you want to cover for sure. Sure, off the cuff I would say I
• 1:22:58
  want to say thank you too. I heard you say this.
• 1:23:01
  Been going since 2015. Probably have gotten a lot of
• 1:23:07
  emails and a lot of thank yous. But from the bottom of my heart,
• 1:23:11
  you have probably helped a tremendous amount of people by
• 1:23:16
  doing what you're doing just by giving someone like me a
• 1:23:19
  platform with to share their story, their journey.
• 1:23:24
  So you probably don't get enough.
• 1:23:25
  Thanks. So thank you all very much for
• 1:23:28
  all the backstage work that we don't get to see.
• 1:23:33
  If I were to lay anything in the last minute, I would say for for
• 1:23:38
  anyone out there who's suffering in silence or for anyone out
• 1:23:42
  there who may know someone suffering in silence, the one
• 1:23:47
  thing you can't do is force someone to get help.
• 1:23:52
  If you're a family member or friend, you didn't 'cause it.
• 1:23:55
  You can't control it and you can't cure it.
• 1:23:59
  The individual has to ask for help.
• 1:24:03
  If you are that person struggling with some type of
• 1:24:06
  addiction, you have to let the ego go.
• 1:24:09
  You have to be able to take a knee from your team and you have
• 1:24:13
  to be able to surrender and ask for help.
• 1:24:16
  That is the only way out. Either that or jail or death.
• 1:24:20
  Those are your two. Those are your three options.
• 1:24:23
  Ask for help, go inpatient, institution, jail or death.
• 1:24:29
  So I would leave it with that. And if anyone wants to know
• 1:24:36
  anything more about my journey, every proceed of the book that
• 1:24:41
  sold goes to the Wounded Warrior Project.
• 1:24:43
  This isn't about money for me or my family.
• 1:24:47
  This is about being able to share hope and strength.
• 1:24:51
  The one thing that I've learned is I can't keep, but I have
• 1:24:55
  unless I give it away. You know, my disease is sitting
• 1:24:59
  right here next to me. Everywhere I go, it's right
• 1:25:03
  here. The only difference today than
• 1:25:06
  what it was a year, 15 months ago was I don't give myself
• 1:25:11
  permission to listen to that disease anymore.
• 1:25:15
  And I've learned that through my sponsor.
• 1:25:17
  I've learned that through therapist, and I've learned that
• 1:25:20
  through living one day at a time.
• 1:25:23
  So that would be what I would leave this episode with from my
• 1:25:29
  perspective. Ask for help.
• 1:25:32
  Don't let the ego and shame get in the way.
• 1:25:35
  Everyone in your family and your friends will support you, love
• 1:25:39
  you, and your life will slowly get better.
• 1:25:42
  It does. I wouldn't change the thing
• 1:25:44
  about my life right now. Things have come my way that I
• 1:25:48
  could have never imagined simply by surrendering the alcohol.
• 1:25:53
  So I want to thank you for the opportunity for the platform and
• 1:25:58
  just to be able to share my story.
• 1:26:00
  That's part of recovery for me is just sharing it, right?
• 1:26:04
  I don't anymore. So thank you all very much.
• 1:26:08
  And it's it's been an honor. I, I saw that you guys, I heard
• 1:26:13
  you did the red. So I made sure that I had a red
• 1:26:16
  shirt on for the show. Awesome.
• 1:26:19
  Really appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, once
• 1:26:22
  again, before we let him go, he is the new book author.
• 1:26:26
  His book comes out October 4th. It is Jeffrey Baxter, the dash
• 1:26:34
  in the I'm I'm trying to find the exact the war I fought after
• 1:26:40
  retirement. Happy birthday Air Force, and
• 1:26:45
  and I'll send you the stuff after the show's off the air
• 1:26:48
  today. Sounds great and if anybody
• 1:26:53
  needed it, I didn't mention earlier, but if they want to
• 1:26:56
  learn more about the book or just my entire journey, the
• 1:27:00
  website is www.riseabovealcohol.com.
• 1:27:07
  Awesome. All right, Jeffrey, thank you so
• 1:27:09
  much for being on with us this morning and and take care.
• 1:27:13
  Have a blessed day. Godspeed.
• 1:27:15
  Gentlemen. All right, for everybody else,
• 1:27:19
  before we go to the Tribune Troupe, I'm going to, I'm going
• 1:27:24
  to read this stuff off real quick because it was a shit show
• 1:27:27
  earlier. I want to recognize that today's
• 1:27:32
  spotlight, it's still, it's still kind of it's, it's still
• 1:27:38
  kind of messed up. All jumbled up.
• 1:27:40
  Right. What the heck?
• 1:27:42
  It's like it just. Build it.
• 1:27:44
  Build it, you know. It's like it just took all your
• 1:27:46
  notes for the different, yeah, threw them in the blender and.
• 1:27:50
  So his his name is CW 2 Corey Elko Key of Green Beret the
• 1:27:58
  story we were working on he's finally received his Purple
• 1:28:01
  Heart after 16 years after being wounded in an IE attack and
• 1:28:07
  helping province Afghanistan. The army titled the story the
• 1:28:12
  medal he never saw we were building it into roughly he
• 1:28:20
  let's see here Juju since his involvement, his actual account
• 1:28:28
  of it after after the immediately afterward the
• 1:28:33
  injuries he's returned home nearly 16 years away.
• 1:28:37
  It was a traumatic brain injury. Remember he couldn't receive the
• 1:28:40
  Purple Heart after 2000 until after 2007 for a traumatic brain
• 1:28:46
  injury. And that's how he had it.
• 1:28:49
  So you know it. It's been 25 years since
• 1:28:52
  September 11th. So I would, I would surely bet
• 1:28:56
  that you're going to see a lot more veterans get these, these
• 1:29:00
  kind of awards. It unfortunately, it just, it
• 1:29:04
  takes time. And I wanted to explain to
• 1:29:08
  everybody the, the drop the date that, you know, I, I didn't, I
• 1:29:13
  just, I just didn't get a chance to really talk about drop the
• 1:29:17
  date. And I'm trying to, I'm trying to
• 1:29:21
  find it now, actually. And yeah, gosh, today's just
• 1:29:28
  been a crazy day because I'm like going through this and it's
• 1:29:33
  all jumble. So yeah, because this is talking
• 1:29:41
  about July 26th of the day. It's crazy.
• 1:29:46
  Well, you're looking at that. I just got the shams
• 1:29:48
  notification. The Jazz are spending some big
• 1:29:51
  money. They just gave Kiante Georgian 5
• 1:29:53
  year 157 and a half million dollar rookie scale contract
• 1:29:59
  extension. I had the Jazz, they're doing
• 1:30:03
  some stuff down. They brought in Jaren Jackson,
• 1:30:05
  they got Triple J, they had Lori Markin and still there.
• 1:30:09
  Kiante's been a solid player for him, gave him that.
• 1:30:13
  Who is it? OK, now I got it.
• 1:30:14
  Now I got it, now I got it. OK, everybody drop the date
• 1:30:18
  September 18, 1947, because 79 years ago today something
• 1:30:22
  happened that permanently changed the United States
• 1:30:24
  military. But I'm just saying September
• 1:30:27
  18th, we actually have to back up a little bit.
• 1:30:30
  Military aviation obviously didn't begin in 1947.
• 1:30:34
  American military aviation had already been involved in for
• 1:30:37
  decades. Aircraft had gone from
• 1:30:40
  Renaissance machines to fighter bombers and transports.
• 1:30:44
  Then came World War 2. The world Two demonstrated just
• 1:30:48
  just how, just how about that, You know what we're today it, it
• 1:30:57
  went off. You know, that's all right.
• 1:30:59
  Ladies and gentlemen, it's that time.
• 1:31:01
  We're going to get a tribute to the troops.
• 1:31:02
  And when we come back, hopefully it doesn't mess up.
• 1:31:06
  We have the story behind it. Here's a teaser for you.
• 1:31:11
  Have you ever told somebody about your life or what's what
• 1:31:16
  you're going through or a little bit about yourself and they look
• 1:31:20
  at you and say you, you, you should write a book.
• 1:31:24
  Has anybody ever said that to you?
• 1:31:27
  If they have, we're going to tell you the story behind that
• 1:31:32
  expression and the story behind it.
• 1:31:34
  Coming up next after Tribute to the Troops.
• 1:31:39
  Detail attention. First, call.
• 1:31:47
  The service member's name is called out loud.
• 1:31:49
  In the context of a unit. This is meant to ensure all are
• 1:31:53
  present and accounted for. Second call, The name is called
• 1:31:57
  out again louder to confirm that the service member is indeed
• 1:32:01
  absent. Third call, The name is called
• 1:32:05
  out for a final time, followed by a statement indicating that
• 1:32:08
  the service member is not present and accounted for,
• 1:32:11
  signifying their death. The final roll call serves as a
• 1:32:14
  symbolic gesture to respect and remember their service.
• 1:32:24
  Sir, I don't. I'm not telling the story.
• 1:32:27
  Well, you got the joke. You telling me people would be?
• 1:32:30
  You tell them how much Hoopers died.
• 1:32:56
  Hey everyone, thank you for tuning in to MBR today as we pay
• 1:33:00
  tribute to serve First Class Alan Grendel Cash, age 35 of
• 1:33:04
  Columbus, GA. Alan was born on July 13th, 1970
• 1:33:09
  in Sanford, FL. He grew up in Oviedo, FL, the
• 1:33:13
  youngest in a large blended family.
• 1:33:15
  His father, Andrew J Cash, passed away when Alvin was just
• 1:33:19
  six years old, leaving his mother, Ruby Mae Jones Cash to
• 1:33:22
  raise him and his siblings through hardship and resilience.
• 1:33:25
  Allen attended Obiedo High School, graduating in 1988
• 1:33:29
  before enlisting in the Army that same year.
• 1:33:32
  His early life marked by loss, grit and a tight knit family
• 1:33:36
  shaped the warrior and later he would become Sir First Class.
• 1:33:40
  Cash served his nation for 17 years, deploying to the Gulf
• 1:33:43
  War, Bosnia, Kosovo and multiple tours in Iraq.
• 1:33:47
  He was assigned to a company First Battalion, 15th Infantry
• 1:33:51
  Regiment, Third Infantry Division.
• 1:33:53
  During Operation Iraqi Freedom on October 17th, 2005 near
• 1:33:58
  Samara, Iraq, Gash's Bradley Fighting Vehicle struck an
• 1:34:02
  improvised explosive device explosion, ignited fuel, and
• 1:34:06
  engulfed the vehicle in flames. Despite being drenched in fuel
• 1:34:11
  and suffering catastrophic burns, Cash re entered the
• 1:34:15
  inferno, repeatedly pulling his soldiers in an Iraqi interpreter
• 1:34:19
  from the burning vehicle while under enemy fire.
• 1:34:22
  He saved six soldiers and refused medical treatment until
• 1:34:26
  every one of his men was evacuated.
• 1:34:28
  His burns covered more than 72% of his body and he fought for
• 1:34:32
  life for three weeks before passing away on November 8th,
• 1:34:36
  2005 at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, TX.
• 1:34:42
  He was 35 years old, started first class.
• 1:34:44
  Cash's actions are widely regarded as one of the most
• 1:34:47
  selfless acts of heroism in modern military history.
• 1:34:52
  Who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor?
• 1:34:55
  The first African American service member to receive the
• 1:34:58
  award for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
• 1:35:01
  His widow accepted the medal on December 16th, 2021 in
• 1:35:05
  recognition of his extraordinary courage and sacrifice.
• 1:35:09
  So our first class. Cash is survived by his wife
• 1:35:11
  tomorrow and their children, Majeda, Alexis and Andrew and
• 1:35:15
  his brothers and sisters in arms.
• 1:35:18
  We here at MBR would like to thank you Sergeant First Class
• 1:35:22
  only friend. Go Cash for your service and
• 1:35:24
  dedication to our country. You'll leave a legacy of love
• 1:35:28
  and courage. Our prayers are with your
• 1:35:30
  family, friends and those who served them on side you.
• 1:35:34
  We honor you, we speak your name.
• 1:35:36
  We remember your sacrifice. Ready.
• 1:40:36
  The station All right, we're back Ladies and
• 1:40:55
  gentlemen, thank you for joining us for coffee.
• 1:40:58
  We know that you have a choice of who you listen to in the
• 1:41:01
  morning and we just appreciate that you stop by and show some
• 1:41:04
  love. Commented like, you know, you
• 1:41:07
  know, do all those great things. You know, while we was on the
• 1:41:12
  break, I I asked AG and I asked caveman.
• 1:41:16
  I didn't really get an answer, but you know, sometimes when you
• 1:41:20
  talk about your struggles or you talk about how your, you know,
• 1:41:24
  your life journey and stuff, some people code to you and
• 1:41:28
  they're like, you should write a book.
• 1:41:32
  Well, here, ladies and gentlemen, we, I found the story
• 1:41:36
  behind the expression. You should write a book, ladies
• 1:41:40
  and gentlemen, It's that time. It is the story behind it.
• 1:41:43
  Sponsored by Signature for Soldiers.
• 1:41:47
  Every service member has a story because sometimes your story can
• 1:41:52
  help somebody else survive theirs.
• 1:42:00
  All right. And there, there, there should
• 1:42:03
  be a story behind it. Hold on, let me find it real
• 1:42:09
  quick. I.
• 1:42:10
  Got in the teleprompter for you. It's it's the, yeah, I got that.
• 1:42:15
  And this the, the new one, the story behind it is, hold on,
• 1:42:19
  it's I, I believe it's this one. Every item has a story.
• 1:42:23
  Every story connects us to a legacy that must never be
• 1:42:27
  forgotten. Discover the story behind it.
• 1:42:32
  All right, so I I just want to play that we are sponsored with
• 1:42:37
  the signature for soldiers. What they do is they have people
• 1:42:43
  sign baseball cards, sports millabelia, and they sell that
• 1:42:49
  and they get those funds for homeless veterans and other
• 1:42:54
  nonprofits. Community session like we have.
• 1:42:58
  All right, So the story behind it, you know, I was wondering
• 1:43:02
  about this and I was just, you know, for shits and giggles.
• 1:43:05
  I looked and I did some research and I found out that you should
• 1:43:09
  write a book. Maybe you're sitting around with
• 1:43:13
  friends, maybe you're at work, maybe you're having a couple
• 1:43:18
  cups coffee. Somehow the conversation turns
• 1:43:21
  to everything that you've been through.
• 1:43:24
  You start telling them about good stuff.
• 1:43:26
  You start telling them about bad stuff.
• 1:43:28
  You tell them about the absolutely unbelievable stuff
• 1:43:31
  that you life has maybe turned. And when you're finished,
• 1:43:34
  somebody looks at you and says, man, you should write a book.
• 1:43:40
  Well, we've all heard that one. I've heard it before.
• 1:43:44
  Nobody's ever told me that. No, never.
• 1:43:47
  Now they're like, you're such a boring, uninteresting lame.
• 1:43:50
  Piece of shit, piece of crap. Don't I don't.
• 1:43:54
  Nobody needs to know anything about you.
• 1:43:56
  Boo. But here's something I started
• 1:43:59
  thinking about. Why a book?
• 1:44:01
  Why? Why don't people say man you
• 1:44:04
  should make a movie? Nobody normalize looks at you
• 1:44:07
  and says Netflix needs to make an 8 episode about your life.
• 1:44:13
  It's almost always you should write a book.
• 1:44:16
  So I started wondering, you know, is this one way that
• 1:44:20
  they're like, OK, OK, alright, everybody has a story, let's
• 1:44:23
  move on kind of thing. Before you get to that guess,
• 1:44:25
  could I say that maybe the reason they say you should write
• 1:44:28
  a book is because you can just do that with like by yourself?
• 1:44:32
  Like if you're going to make a movie or ATV show, you need a
• 1:44:36
  whole production crew, actors, directors, producers, they, you
• 1:44:41
  know, they got a. Little more.
• 1:44:43
  Good point. Maybe, maybe.
• 1:44:44
  Yeah, you know, what's the story behind that?
• 1:44:47
  And interestingly, there doesn't appear to be one person that we
• 1:44:51
  can point to say, OK, that's the person who invented the
• 1:44:55
  expression instead of the idea developed naturally because for
• 1:44:59
  hundreds of years, writing was one of the most accessible ways
• 1:45:05
  for an ordinary person to preserve the story of their
• 1:45:08
  lives. I was like for 10s of thousands
• 1:45:10
  of years. Man, think about it.
• 1:45:12
  There was no Hollywood. There was no television, no
• 1:45:16
  YouTube, no TikTok. There weren't even podcasts
• 1:45:20
  where you can sit behind a microphone for two hours and
• 1:45:23
  tell your whole world what happened to you.
• 1:45:26
  If you wanted your experience served to survive after you were
• 1:45:31
  gone, you wrote them down. You didn't need actors, you
• 1:45:35
  didn't need cameras, you didn't even need a production company
• 1:45:39
  and certainly didn't need millions of dollars.
• 1:45:41
  And you was right. She you needed your memory and
• 1:45:45
  something to write with and eventually somebody willing to
• 1:45:50
  read them. And just take note that people
• 1:45:54
  that were really, really close to you, they probably won't read
• 1:45:57
  it and you certainly don't need millions of dollars to do it.
• 1:46:02
  So, and that's where something interesting happened.
• 1:46:05
  People began writing about their own lives in different ways.
• 1:46:09
  We got autobiographies, we got memoirs.
• 1:46:12
  And although people sometimes use those two words
• 1:46:15
  interchangeably, they're actually a little different.
• 1:46:19
  And autobiography generally tries to tell the broader story
• 1:46:24
  of someone's life, the beginning to the present, where they were
• 1:46:30
  born, how they grew up, their career, their accomplishments,
• 1:46:34
  their failures, their major events that shape them.
• 1:46:37
  Basically, here is the story of my life.
• 1:46:42
  A memoir is different. A memoir doesn't necessarily try
• 1:46:45
  to tell you everything. Instead, it usually focuses on
• 1:46:49
  particular experiences, period, relationship, struggle, or
• 1:46:55
  transformation. Memoirs, I can't say it.
• 1:47:02
  A memoir says, let me tell you about the part of my life that
• 1:47:07
  changed me. The turning page, if you will.
• 1:47:10
  And that distinction matters because sometimes the most
• 1:47:14
  powerful story isn't everything that happened to somebody.
• 1:47:18
  It's the one thing that they survived.
• 1:47:21
  War, loss, addiction, trauma, failure.
• 1:47:27
  Recovery is starting over. That's why memoirs can hit us a
• 1:47:32
  little differently. You're simply not reading
• 1:47:37
  someone's timeline. You're experiencing a piece of
• 1:47:41
  their life through their memories.
• 1:47:43
  And there's another reason why people write these stories.
• 1:47:46
  Perspective. When something happens to you,
• 1:47:50
  you're living it inside. They don't know what you're
• 1:47:54
  thinking. They don't know what you're
• 1:47:56
  feeling. Sometimes you don't understand
• 1:48:00
  what it meant while it's happening.
• 1:48:05
  Years later, you can look backwards and connect things you
• 1:48:08
  couldn't see at the time. You understand why certain
• 1:48:12
  decisions matter. Do you recognize mistakes?
• 1:48:16
  You recognize people who saved you.
• 1:48:19
  You understand moments that change the direction of your
• 1:48:22
  life. And when you write those
• 1:48:25
  memory's down, you're doing more than documents.
• 1:48:28
  And what happens you're, you're asking, what did it mean?
• 1:48:32
  That's really the heart of a memoir.
• 1:48:35
  And there's something else about telling this, your story that I
• 1:48:38
  think that doesn't matter. When you're going through
• 1:48:41
  something difficult, it's incredibly easy to believe
• 1:48:46
  you're the only person going through it.
• 1:48:50
  You're the only person whose military career ended and
• 1:48:54
  suddenly didn't know who you were anymore.
• 1:48:58
  You're the only person who drank too much.
• 1:49:02
  You're the only person who screwed up something.
• 1:49:05
  You're the only person whose marriage struggled.
• 1:49:09
  You're the only person who relapsed.
• 1:49:13
  You're the only person who looked in the mirror and didn't
• 1:49:15
  recognize the person that they were looking back.
• 1:49:18
  Oh my gosh, I just saw my wrinkles the other day.
• 1:49:21
  Jesus, I'm getting old. Then you read somebody else's
• 1:49:24
  story and suddenly you think, wait a minute, somebody else has
• 1:49:29
  been here. That's why I'm telling our
• 1:49:33
  stories matter. Not because everybody thinks
• 1:49:37
  they're famous or they want your sympathy.
• 1:49:41
  Not because everybody needs their name to be in front of a
• 1:49:45
  book. Sometimes you tell your story
• 1:49:48
  because somebody will never meet, needs to know how you
• 1:49:54
  turned out. And that's what brings us to
• 1:49:57
  today's guests. You know, retired United States
• 1:50:00
  Air Force First Sergeant Jeffrey W Baxter.
• 1:50:05
  You know, he spent more than two decades serving this country.
• 1:50:09
  And for years, he was responsible for helping take
• 1:50:13
  care of Airmen. When the uniform came off and
• 1:50:17
  Jeffrey found himself fighting a completely different war for
• 1:50:21
  nearly 12 years, alcohol addiction became part of his
• 1:50:26
  life there. There was consequences, There
• 1:50:28
  were setbacks, there were relapses.
• 1:50:31
  There were relationships affected by it.
• 1:50:33
  And eventually, there was recovery.
• 1:50:36
  And, you know, you don't see that stuff on Facebook.
• 1:50:39
  Nobody. Nobody brags about the pain.
• 1:50:42
  They brag about the aftermath. Today, Jeffrey has taken that
• 1:50:47
  part of his life, the part of the people would rather hide,
• 1:50:50
  and he put it on paper. He, his book is called My Dash,
• 1:50:54
  The War. I thought after retirement.
• 1:50:57
  And when you think about everything we just talked about,
• 1:51:00
  that's exactly what a memoir is supposed to do.
• 1:51:04
  Jeffrey isn't just simply saying, here's what happened to
• 1:51:08
  me. He's saying, here's what
• 1:51:09
  happened to me, here's what it did to me, here's what I learned
• 1:51:14
  from it. And maybe something in my story
• 1:51:17
  can help you so that you don't trip on your special purpose.
• 1:51:22
  That's why we tell somebody you should write a book.
• 1:51:26
  Because long before Netflix, podcast, social media and
• 1:51:29
  streaming, human beings figured out something pretty important.
• 1:51:34
  A life ends. A story doesn't have to.
• 1:51:41
  And sometimes the darkest chapter in somebody's life
• 1:51:46
  becomes the chapter that helps somebody else survive theirs.
• 1:51:51
  And ladies and gentlemen, that is the story behind it.
• 1:51:58
  All right, so. I like that it shows a really
• 1:52:01
  nice straight way to tie in that segment with the the guest
• 1:52:05
  today. Yeah.
• 1:52:06
  Very well done. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:52:08
  So you're kind of good at this one.
• 1:52:10
  I'm. I'm getting better at it.
• 1:52:11
  I wouldn't say I'm good. I'm getting better at it.
• 1:52:14
  You know, I tell you what, before we go into final
• 1:52:16
  thoughts, so I've started, I don't know if you guys know the
• 1:52:21
  program, but Blender, do you know that program?
• 1:52:24
  No, OK, so I'm, I'm, I'm learning how to do this
• 1:52:27
  animation because I created a virtual beaker which you know,
• 1:52:31
  you saw and stuff and I'm. Animator.
• 1:52:34
  Though, Yeah, yeah, that's the program that you use to animate.
• 1:52:37
  You got, you got, you got to create a skull, a skeleton, and
• 1:52:42
  then you got to create these rigs that rig to their eyes and
• 1:52:46
  their eyebrows and and stuff like that.
• 1:52:49
  And you know, my ultimate goal is to have all of our ducks.
• 1:52:55
  You know, we've got 6 ducks now, all of our ducks to be virtual
• 1:53:02
  animation. So that if there's veterans that
• 1:53:05
  don't want their picture shown, now they have a virtual that
• 1:53:09
  they can do like a talk show or anything that they want to.
• 1:53:13
  It's like it like goes with them their face or is it like make it
• 1:53:18
  AI kind of thing? It's a, it's, well, it's not
• 1:53:22
  really AI because I rigged it up.
• 1:53:24
  OK. It's, it's like a, it's like a
• 1:53:27
  puppet. It's a puppet that moves with
• 1:53:31
  your webcam when you're moving, like arms and stuff like that.
• 1:53:35
  Oh, so it's. Oh, OK.
• 1:53:37
  Yeah. So that's, that's, that's what
• 1:53:40
  I'm that's what I'm preparing and I, I, I have beaker and I'm
• 1:53:45
  going to have boots tonight. Huh.
• 1:53:46
  It's. Like AV tuber.
• 1:53:48
  Yes, yeah, yeah, same thing. Yeah, uh huh.
• 1:53:52
  So we have that in, We have that going for us.
• 1:53:57
  We have a couple of demonstrations of 3D printing
• 1:54:02
  that we're going to be doing here very in the near future for
• 1:54:06
  some of the local Rotary Clubs. And you know, we just started an
• 1:54:11
  account with Zephy. So if you would like to donate
• 1:54:15
  100% of your proceeds, your donations, make sure you go to
• 1:54:20
  our website and donate on Zephy. And ladies and gentlemen, it is
• 1:54:24
  that time where we're going to hit the final thoughts.
• 1:54:38
  Might just be hidden. He's just, he says, Rusty.
• 1:54:42
  That's right. That's.
• 1:54:45
  Right there, but next to the story, next next to it, next to
• 1:54:49
  you're passing it, you're passing.
• 1:54:50
  There we go, I got. It at Project ML.
• 1:55:02
  Our mission is simple, to give motorcycles to veterans who need
• 1:55:04
  the kind of peace and freedom that only a ride can give.
• 1:55:08
  We sponsor charity events and rides to generate donations.
• 1:55:11
  On the acquisition of the lights while direct.
• 1:55:13
  Donations. Make up the We seek to provide a
• 1:55:16
  little motorcycle healing to capable vets.
• 1:55:20
  All right and you know it's a fantastic organization take them
• 1:55:25
  up on it go to their website ML project guide too.
• 1:55:30
  They give away a motorcycle to a deserving veteran every single
• 1:55:34
  year. It's it's actually turning out
• 1:55:36
  to be like every single like every three months.
• 1:55:40
  They're just amazing check them out Kim Thompson.
• 1:55:44
  We know her as a cherry dragon. And yeah, nominate a veteran or
• 1:55:51
  nominate yourself. So, yeah, great organization.
• 1:55:56
  All right, caveman, what did you learn today?
• 1:56:03
  It's, you know, like the military branch's birthday is, I
• 1:56:07
  guess it's just kind of for like, celebrate veterans.
• 1:56:11
  Yeah, the. People that you know are serving
• 1:56:13
  now, you got like a good day. Yeah, and I didn't want to be
• 1:56:16
  Debbie Downer earlier, but like, I don't know, just when the Army
• 1:56:21
  birthday comes up, I'm not like, you know, I, I, I don't buy a
• 1:56:26
  round of beers for everybody at the bar.
• 1:56:28
  You know, it's not like the Marine birthday.
• 1:56:30
  You know, I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people
• 1:56:33
  want to become Marines is because, you know, the, they,
• 1:56:37
  they longing for that togetherness and Marines, they,
• 1:56:40
  they tend to do that a little bit more than everybody else
• 1:56:45
  because everybody else has a huge population.
• 1:56:48
  The Marine population isn't as big.
• 1:56:51
  It's, it's pretty small. And, you know, it's just like
• 1:56:54
  people would rather go to a private school than they would
• 1:56:57
  rather go to a public school because, you know, it's, it's,
• 1:57:01
  it's, it's more togetherness than separate.
• 1:57:05
  So I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of people go
• 1:57:07
  into the Marines is just for the, the family atmosphere.
• 1:57:13
  And like I said, I, I'm just not big into the military birthdays,
• 1:57:17
  not even the Army. But you know, happy birthday,
• 1:57:20
  Air Force. Thanks to you.
• 1:57:23
  Our our skies are clear except the Chinese balloons that came
• 1:57:29
  into or neighborhood a couple of years ago.
• 1:57:33
  Other than that, good job HG. What did you learn today?
• 1:57:37
  Well, I kind of learned a new perspective just the, the whole
• 1:57:45
  with the whole my dash thing. Like I, I never thought to or
• 1:57:50
  I'd never consider that that was really like that dash on the
• 1:57:54
  tombstones really your entire life.
• 1:57:55
  And that was just, again, I'm very like just profoundly, I
• 1:58:00
  can't believe I'd never heard of that before and never considered
• 1:58:04
  that. That really put a lot of things
• 1:58:07
  into into perspective for me. You know, one thing that I was
• 1:58:11
  thinking about doing for my grave, which, you know, for me
• 1:58:14
  to do it, it's, it's sounds kind of creepy, but I thought about
• 1:58:17
  putting like a dash, like check Marks and, you know, big life
• 1:58:21
  events that I, I felt that was important on my grave.
• 1:58:25
  But then again, I thought about that and I'm like, wow, that's
• 1:58:28
  that's, that's a lot worse. So I don't, I don't.
• 1:58:30
  Know how to do it. Gravestones are very expensive.
• 1:58:33
  Probably, probably. Yeah, Yeah, most definitely.
• 1:58:36
  Maybe I'll 3D print something and tell people to just glue it
• 1:58:40
  on. I don't know.
• 1:58:41
  Well, hey, ladies and gentlemen, That is our show for today.
• 1:58:45
  We have the safety briefing. And of course, next week, if
• 1:58:48
  everything goes all right, we'll be talking with Mike Richmond.
• 1:58:53
  He is the VA writer that wrote about us, the VA, and really
• 1:59:01
  sparked us up. So we'll be talking with him
• 1:59:04
  next week. And once again, ladies and
• 1:59:06
  gentlemen, Beaker has a safety briefing for you.
• 1:59:09
  Beaker's safety briefing. Never leave a grill and watch
• 1:59:12
  the weather. Never leave a grill on a 10 to
• 1:59:14
  life jacket. Veterans in crisis then press 1.
• 1:59:17
  Safety first. Beaker out.
• 1:59:20
  All right, ladies and gentlemen, and that is the show for today.
• 1:59:24
  Have a fantastic weekend, don't drink and drive and whatever you
• 1:59:28
  do, we'll see you here next Friday 'cause remember, we are
• 1:59:33
  all here for you, not for us. We're giving our veterans a
• 1:59:38
  voice. Hi.
• 1:59:40
  I'm beaker with military broadcast radio TV.
• 1:59:44
  We're your virtual. MWR bringing veterans radio,
• 1:59:47
  podcasts, gaming, animation, 3D printing and a community that
• 1:59:52
  never leaves you behind. Download.
• 1:59:54
  Our Roku or mobile app today. If you listen this week, so pull
• 2:00:00
  up a chair and stay for a spell. We're heading down a trail.
• 2:00:03
  We're good stories, dwell. It's.
• 2:00:05
  Done.