Latest / Honey Badger Radio / Jerry Clifft Returns to Tell His Story of False Allegations & Kangaroo Courts | Fireside Chat 257

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Jerry Clifft Returns to Tell His Story of False Allegations & Kangaroo Courts | Fireside Chat 257 · Honey Badger Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to Honey Badger Radio. My name
0:03
Speaker 1: is Brian and this is the Fireside Chat and today
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Speaker 1: I have a returning guest, Jerry Clift, who is going
0:11
Speaker 1: where He is a a well, he's part of a
0:16
Speaker 1: I guess you guys, it's like a movement or like
0:18
Speaker 1: a little you know, team or collective that is looking
0:23
Speaker 1: to get there is an issue. It seems to be
0:27
Speaker 1: a rampant epidemic of false allegations. So you know, false allegations,
0:35
Speaker 1: which are all allegations are taken seriously and some of
0:38
Speaker 1: them are can be tools or used to destroy people's lives.
0:42
Speaker 1: And you are one of those people. You guys, are
0:45
Speaker 1: associated with the would You Care? Right, that's the website
0:49
Speaker 1: would you doot Care? And there's also a change dot
0:54
Speaker 1: org petition for false, accused and wrongly convicted former military
1:00
Speaker 1: service members. You are a service member and I'm gonna
1:05
Speaker 1: make sure I said your name at the beginning. I
1:07
Speaker 1: think I did so. Jerry Cliff, Welcome to the show.
1:09
Speaker 2: First of all, awesome, Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how are you doing. How are you faring
1:17
Speaker 1: since the last time we talked.
1:18
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I don't have any real complaints. Life's
1:22
Speaker 2: pretty good, all things considering. So I'm hanging in there.
1:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well that's good. So for the people
1:29
Speaker 1: who may not know. So we did a show, but
1:33
Speaker 1: it got cut short. I guess you had some issue
1:36
Speaker 1: with your phone or the battery died or something like that.
1:39
Speaker 1: So we're going to try and do it over and
1:41
Speaker 1: didn't get the whole story this time. Sure, that's okay.
1:45
Speaker 1: So first of all, how did you like? I mean,
1:51
Speaker 1: I guess what's the story of what happened to you?
1:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that would take us all the way
1:59
Speaker 2: back to twenty fourteen. I'd been married for about five
2:04
Speaker 2: years at that point. It was it was clear it
2:08
Speaker 2: wasn't going well. At at some point there we had
2:12
Speaker 2: split up. She came back, we tried to work on it,
2:15
Speaker 2: got pregnant again with the second son. That son was
2:21
Speaker 2: about eight months old in twenty fourteen. It was July,
2:26
Speaker 2: I believe, early July, and you know, I had reached
2:31
Speaker 2: I'd reached my limit with with our fighting, and you know,
2:35
Speaker 2: neither one of us was happy, and she wasn't going
2:37
Speaker 2: to leave. So I decided to say the words fild
2:41
Speaker 2: wanted a divorce. About two weeks later, I was sit
2:48
Speaker 2: in front of my commander being told that I was
2:51
Speaker 2: under investigation for a sexual assault. So that was her
2:55
Speaker 2: response to me asking for a divorce. That whole process took,
3:02
Speaker 2: the investigation, prosecution, trial, all that took about a year
3:06
Speaker 2: and a half. So that led us into twenty sixteen
3:11
Speaker 2: and I was found guilty of of sexual assault. Contrary
3:16
Speaker 2: to my please, I put not guilty and I spent
3:20
Speaker 2: three years in a Navy brig in Charleston, South Carolina.
3:26
Speaker 2: I spent one year on supervised release, and now I
3:31
Speaker 2: live in Oklahoma. I'm a registered sex offender for the
3:35
Speaker 2: rest of my life. There's no path off of the
3:40
Speaker 2: registry here in Oklahoma, and I have to check in
3:44
Speaker 2: every ninety days and randomly sheriffs will come out and
3:48
Speaker 2: check my residence, check on me. It's much like being
3:51
Speaker 2: on parole. We'll come to my job, make sure I
3:55
Speaker 2: am where I say I work. Yeah, it's a short
4:00
Speaker 2: and suite and we can kind of dive into the
4:03
Speaker 2: find details as we go along.
4:05
Speaker 1: I guess, so, yeah, so let you we will do that.
4:09
Speaker 1: First of all, Wow, that sounds awful. So let's let's
4:15
Speaker 1: go back to when the allegations came out. Were you
4:21
Speaker 1: in the midst of a divorce as as this was happened, Like,
4:25
Speaker 1: were you still doing the paperwork or sort of like,
4:29
Speaker 1: you know, was there an issue with child custody at
4:33
Speaker 1: the time that these came out?
4:35
Speaker 2: There was? She initially before she levied a sexual assault allegation,
4:41
Speaker 2: she tried to get a protective order under other false allegations,
4:46
Speaker 2: but the difference was that she did not take it
4:48
Speaker 2: to the Coast Guard Investigative Service. She took it to
4:52
Speaker 2: local police, you know, and local police for the past
4:56
Speaker 2: decade or so of taking a pretty strong stance on
5:00
Speaker 2: any kind of domestic violence situation. If there's any kind
5:04
Speaker 2: of suspicion you're going to jail. It's they risked to
5:10
Speaker 2: the safety of the people involved, it's a risk to
5:12
Speaker 2: their career. And they opted to not arrest me. They
5:17
Speaker 2: the judge opted to not put into effect of protective order.
5:23
Speaker 2: So that was dismissed. And shortly after that that, I
5:28
Speaker 2: was brought into to see my commander and showed the
5:33
Speaker 2: the the investigative sheet that she just had drafted up
5:37
Speaker 2: in the charges that they were investigating for. Yeah, but yeah,
5:41
Speaker 2: it was it was pretty obvious that the marriage is over.
5:47
Speaker 1: The allegation is definitely evidence of that. Before Yeah, yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: for sure. What was it that you were specifically accused of? Like,
5:56
Speaker 1: do you know what you were charged with?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Specifically. I mean this isn't verbatim, but it's going
6:03
Speaker 2: to be close. It was sexual assault by bodiling harm,
6:06
Speaker 2: which is article on twenty Enumeration B, which you know,
6:13
Speaker 2: they they redid the one twenty statute. You know, there's
6:16
Speaker 2: it contains every every sexual assault sexually related crime basically
6:22
Speaker 2: in the UCUMJ. And then there's I don't know about
6:25
Speaker 2: what it is these days, but back when I was charged,
6:28
Speaker 2: there was maybe eight or nine different enumerations in which
6:34
Speaker 2: you're the type of crime, the mode of criminality that
6:40
Speaker 2: you used to convey the sexual assault would have been
6:43
Speaker 2: would have been charged under. And mine was bodily harm,
6:46
Speaker 2: which is which is the only one in that statute
6:50
Speaker 2: to which actual consent could be a defense for. So
6:56
Speaker 2: basically she's saying that she didn't want sex to have
7:00
Speaker 2: and yet it happened anyways, and that that's the basis
7:04
Speaker 2: of the crime.
7:07
Speaker 1: There was.
7:11
Speaker 2: There was a you know, her her allegation pre trial
7:18
Speaker 2: all the way up into the day of her of
7:22
Speaker 2: her testimony was it was a rapidly moving target. There
7:26
Speaker 2: were stories and this is both in an official and
7:31
Speaker 2: unofficial capacity, So statements she made to people that are
7:36
Speaker 2: mandatory reporters, basically first responders, clinicians, things like that statement
7:41
Speaker 2: she made to friends who aren't mandatory reporters, but we
7:44
Speaker 2: got their statements and testimony anyways. I mean, there was
7:48
Speaker 2: a version where she was allegedly raped repeatedly in one day,
7:55
Speaker 2: one where she was tied up, taken against her will,
7:58
Speaker 2: another where there was a gun held to her head,
8:00
Speaker 2: one that took place thirty days prior, which we'd never
8:04
Speaker 2: heard about until the day of trial, in which we
8:07
Speaker 2: kind of assumed to be basically a kind of dry
8:12
Speaker 2: run just to see what kind of response she would
8:15
Speaker 2: get from somebody if she made such an allegation. And
8:19
Speaker 2: that's not even her first allegation against the Coast guardsman
8:23
Speaker 2: in her life, she was I'm not going to give
8:25
Speaker 2: the guy's name texts privacy, but she was engaged to
8:29
Speaker 2: a guy who worked in the aviation field of the Coastguard.
8:35
Speaker 2: They split up many years ago, and that was a story.
8:38
Speaker 2: Lard always heard from her that this guy sexually assaulted me,
8:42
Speaker 2: you know, and that was a story that her mother
8:46
Speaker 2: knew about, and a few other people knew about. And
8:49
Speaker 2: she just said interviewed her mother, and her mother brought
8:52
Speaker 2: that up. I can't remember exactly in what context, but
8:55
Speaker 2: she brought that up. And when my accused are repressed
9:00
Speaker 2: about that, she suddenly went silent and didn't want to
9:03
Speaker 2: talk anymore. And that was the last time she spoke
9:05
Speaker 2: to investigators. Mm hmmmm. So while yeah, yeah, go ahead, no,
9:12
Speaker 2: you go ahead.
9:13
Speaker 1: Oh right, well, let's let's see. Yeah, let's go back
9:15
Speaker 1: to there's a lot going on there. So you said
9:20
Speaker 1: that you guys were not getting along, like it wasn't
9:22
Speaker 1: working out. Maybe you got married too young, too quickly
9:26
Speaker 1: or whatever. All right, but you said that you fought.
9:30
Speaker 1: But when you fought, was it just verbal or were
9:33
Speaker 1: there was there some you know, physical stuff that happened,
9:37
Speaker 1: because like what the reason why I bring this up
9:39
Speaker 1: is that, you know, couples fight. It happens in most
9:43
Speaker 1: domestic violent situations. It's a it's it's both ways, like
9:47
Speaker 1: they're both violent to each other, and it's usually because
9:50
Speaker 1: they're generally dysfunctional. But the way that police are trained
9:54
Speaker 1: on dealing with and not just police, but like anyone, uh,
9:58
Speaker 1: you know that that has like ability to enforce you know,
10:02
Speaker 1: laws that there, whether it's the military or whatever. They're
10:05
Speaker 1: operating under the same model, which is a it's a
10:09
Speaker 1: sociological tool called the Duluthe model, which always assumes the
10:13
Speaker 1: men are at fault. Which is why you know, even
10:15
Speaker 1: if the like if a woman is hitting a man
10:18
Speaker 1: and she hurts herself harming him, she could call the
10:21
Speaker 1: police on him and he would get taken away. And
10:24
Speaker 1: that's just kind of like the norm. So what I'm
10:28
Speaker 1: and I know that there's a lot of cases, probably
10:30
Speaker 1: most cases where there isn't violence per se, but there
10:35
Speaker 1: is a lot of you know, raised voices and you know,
10:38
Speaker 1: shouting and stuff. There's there may be like you may
10:42
Speaker 1: feel like you're close to like you know, cutting loose
10:45
Speaker 1: and all that. But what I'm wondering about is when
10:48
Speaker 1: you guys argued, I'm wondering if if she's not marrying,
10:52
Speaker 1: you know, like maybe like a kernel of truth to
10:54
Speaker 1: a much larger lie so that you know, like that,
10:57
Speaker 1: do you know what I'm saying?
10:58
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I I like to call them reductive fallacies
11:04
Speaker 2: where there's a bit of truth, but it's way out
11:07
Speaker 2: of context. I get what you're saying, but no, there
11:09
Speaker 2: was There was never any physical violence one way or
11:12
Speaker 2: the other. She never branded me. I never put my
11:15
Speaker 2: hands on her, and I was sure sure we yelled.
11:18
Speaker 2: We were both young. I was I think I was
11:21
Speaker 2: twenty five when this all started back in twenty fourteen.
11:26
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was normal young couple stuff, you know.
11:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just curious because you know, like, did when
11:34
Speaker 1: she did she ever do anything like injure herself maybe
11:40
Speaker 1: to make it look like something happened, you know.
11:44
Speaker 2: No, nothing like that. I mean, she did have a
11:49
Speaker 2: history of self harm. None to my knowledge while we
11:52
Speaker 2: were together.
11:54
Speaker 1: She was a cutter.
11:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, before before she met me. I don't I
11:59
Speaker 2: don't think she was doing any of that while we
12:01
Speaker 2: were together. You know, I could be wrong, but yeah,
12:05
Speaker 2: important than she she was open about is something she
12:08
Speaker 2: told me about.
12:10
Speaker 1: So and the previous guy that you say that she
12:13
Speaker 1: claimed that abused her, like basically had a similar story
12:17
Speaker 1: to the one you told you. I know this is
12:19
Speaker 1: a bit of a stretch, but out of curiosity, like
12:21
Speaker 1: did you ever meet him or because you know he
12:25
Speaker 1: was in the same kind of worked that you were
12:29
Speaker 1: once once, once I was released, I did try to
12:33
Speaker 1: reach out to him, or not even reach out.
12:35
Speaker 2: I tried to find the guy and I can't find
12:38
Speaker 2: you know, just such touch base.
12:40
Speaker 1: You wanted to see if his experience was sort of
12:42
Speaker 1: similar to yours.
12:44
Speaker 2: Is that I saw his interview and I read his statements,
12:48
Speaker 2: and he's that was his first time. I really believe
12:52
Speaker 2: that was his first time ever hearing that story. And
12:55
Speaker 2: he was like, what, you know, what are you talking about?
12:58
Speaker 2: And he he said, no, and do that and then
13:00
Speaker 2: he shut the interview down immediately and.
13:03
Speaker 1: Was, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That that's kind I mean,
13:07
Speaker 1: that's what I This is something that a lot of
13:10
Speaker 1: guys experience that we don't hear about, which is why
13:13
Speaker 1: I was curious about that. Okay, so she made the allegation.
13:17
Speaker 1: She went, she didn't go to So you were with
13:20
Speaker 1: the coastguard, right, Yes, she did not. Normally would she
13:23
Speaker 1: normally have to go through the coastguard for something like
13:28
Speaker 1: this or is it is it more like, you know,
13:31
Speaker 1: you go to the cops like most people do.
13:33
Speaker 2: Well, initially she had gone to the cops. In fact,
13:37
Speaker 2: she went What she did is she went and got
13:40
Speaker 2: a sane examination done. We knew about the we did
13:47
Speaker 2: not know, so there were She got two done. Actually
13:50
Speaker 2: we did not know about the first one for a
13:51
Speaker 2: very long time. She went and got us The first
13:54
Speaker 2: one had no findings. She went and got a second one.
13:58
Speaker 2: The second one claimed there was some small abrasion, which
14:00
Speaker 2: is really unremarkable, but you know, when you get down
14:03
Speaker 2: to technical terms, the abrasion in the report said caused
14:07
Speaker 2: by blunt force impact, which could be what it could be.
14:11
Speaker 2: It could have been from the prior exam. Could also
14:13
Speaker 2: be from consensual sex, which we had an expert testify
14:18
Speaker 2: on and the government expert conceded that. But it's it
14:22
Speaker 2: sounds bad, right, yeah.
14:24
Speaker 1: Of course when you say abrasions, you know, yeah, so
14:28
Speaker 1: you're saying that she they use it the rape kits.
14:31
Speaker 1: Is that what you mean?
14:32
Speaker 2: A singular abrasion not an abrasion One was just not
14:36
Speaker 2: I forget the measurement, but the same examiner said it
14:40
Speaker 2: said it was in the report, but it was it
14:42
Speaker 2: was insignificant. It was incredibly small. But other than that,
14:45
Speaker 2: no findings.
14:48
Speaker 1: So what it sounds like you're saying is is that
14:51
Speaker 1: someone could have a woman could have consensual sex claim
14:55
Speaker 1: rape or sexual assault and then get a rape kit
14:58
Speaker 1: and it would show if they found any abrasions, like
15:02
Speaker 1: just one, that would be that could be enough evidence
15:06
Speaker 1: to convict because ultimately the abrasions don't matter. It's it's
15:10
Speaker 1: the consent, and you can't test for that, correct.
15:14
Speaker 2: And that's you know again I don't. I mean, looking back,
15:18
Speaker 2: I can't tell if that had a significant impact on
15:22
Speaker 2: the jury's decision or not. And I'll may never know,
15:25
Speaker 2: but I mean, it's just that shines more of a
15:28
Speaker 2: light on how it's what links the prosecution the government
15:36
Speaker 2: will will go to paint a picture. It's like truth
15:40
Speaker 2: is not Truth is not the goal, all right, It's
15:42
Speaker 2: all about the w they want to win. You got
15:45
Speaker 2: these these young prosecutors feeling the pressure of higher ranking
15:52
Speaker 2: people than them that are also feeling the pressure from
15:56
Speaker 2: people in Congress that are saying they won't results. And
15:59
Speaker 2: if we don't see them, if you don't tow the line,
16:02
Speaker 2: if you make statements out of character with what the
16:04
Speaker 2: status quo is, your career is over. And that all
16:08
Speaker 2: trickles downhill, right, And so that's that's where the major
16:11
Speaker 2: problem lies is in the power and the money, and
16:16
Speaker 2: the money is tied up in people's careers and futures. Right,
16:19
Speaker 2: it's like checks being paid out to bribe people. It's
16:22
Speaker 2: something much more subtle. If if if you tell somebody
16:26
Speaker 2: prestigious career, you know, and all these headshots that they've taken,
16:30
Speaker 2: that have adorned the offices that they've held, they're gonna
16:32
Speaker 2: mean nothing if they don't play along. People are gonna
16:35
Speaker 2: they're gonna do what you want more than likely. Yeah,
16:38
Speaker 2: it's gonna be hard to be when that much is
16:40
Speaker 2: on the line, especially when most people have families.
16:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, it's not it's it's it's not so
16:46
Speaker 1: much about money per se as it is about like
16:50
Speaker 1: a sustainable career, like you're holding onto what you have
16:53
Speaker 1: or you're trying to get more, right, So yeah, because yeah,
16:58
Speaker 1: I think that's right.
16:59
Speaker 2: I think that's what got a little far afield. But
17:01
Speaker 2: back to those saying exams, that's that's what I picked
17:04
Speaker 2: it off, you know, because they're mandatory reporters. Somebody's coming
17:07
Speaker 2: in regardless of the veracity of the statements and whether
17:10
Speaker 2: or not the nurses believe like they have to report.
17:13
Speaker 2: So a police officer comes in, they do an investigation
17:16
Speaker 2: and they move forward with it or they don't. Well,
17:19
Speaker 2: they declined to go anywhere with it, but as a
17:23
Speaker 2: as a matter of kind of good faith or I
17:30
Speaker 2: mixed it. I can't find the right words. But basically,
17:32
Speaker 2: they reached out to the Coast Guard and said, hey,
17:35
Speaker 2: we're not going to do anything with this, but this
17:38
Speaker 2: is also your field, right because the Coast Guard has
17:41
Speaker 2: jurisdiction over any Coast guardsmen anywhere in the world. So
17:46
Speaker 2: Virginia Beach declined to do anything, and the Coast Guard
17:50
Speaker 2: picked up the investigation and it went from there.
17:54
Speaker 1: So okay, so the Coast Guard picked up the information
17:57
Speaker 1: and how did that go? Oh?
18:01
Speaker 2: It obviously didn't go well for me looking back, you know,
18:06
Speaker 2: the I feel like the investigators that interviewed me, I
18:10
Speaker 2: don't think. I don't think they were in on the
18:15
Speaker 2: drinking the kool aid, so to speak. They were pretty professional,
18:19
Speaker 2: They were fair to me. They didn't do anything crazy,
18:22
Speaker 2: they didn't do anything out of pocket during the investigation.
18:24
Speaker 2: They just interviewed They interviewed me, and they interviewed her,
18:28
Speaker 2: some of her family members, some of her friends, and
18:32
Speaker 2: that was really the gist of it.
18:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it sounds like they wanted to like get
18:36
Speaker 1: it like brushed brushing onto the rug, or get it
18:39
Speaker 1: over with as quickly as possible and then move on
18:43
Speaker 1: to the next thing. And so if it was just
18:44
Speaker 1: faster and more comedian for them to just convict you
18:48
Speaker 1: and then leave it at that, do what I mean?
18:50
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for them, but is that
18:52
Speaker 1: is that a fair assessment?
18:54
Speaker 2: Is But the you know, when it when it comes
18:56
Speaker 2: down to whether or not to push forward with charges
18:59
Speaker 2: and and go to a court martial, it's it's solely
19:03
Speaker 2: out of the hands of the investigators, and it's it's
19:06
Speaker 2: directly into the excuse me, into the the decision making
19:12
Speaker 2: of the jack so that the graphic at general and
19:16
Speaker 2: that and you know, it's a narrative I heard too
19:19
Speaker 2: many times and it's probably less true today things are
19:22
Speaker 2: from what I hear and what I understand, things are
19:25
Speaker 2: getting better. But we're talking twenty fourteen height of Me
19:29
Speaker 2: Too movement stuff. You know, women, women, Why would somebody
19:33
Speaker 2: pretend to be a victim victims quote deserved to be believed? Yeah,
19:38
Speaker 2: all these all these hot buttoned statements and and things
19:43
Speaker 2: like that, that just really it was good at getting
19:47
Speaker 2: at the emotion of the issue, but not really conducive
19:51
Speaker 2: to you know, it came down to getting to the
19:53
Speaker 2: facts of something. It got in the way. So and
19:58
Speaker 2: all of our all of our sexual assault mention training,
20:00
Speaker 2: which we had to do two three times a year,
20:03
Speaker 2: was all stuff like that. And you know, going through
20:06
Speaker 2: it before going through a court martial experience related to
20:09
Speaker 2: those incidents, you don't never really think about it, but
20:12
Speaker 2: then it hits you. Oh wow, like I'm I'm really
20:15
Speaker 2: in this in this mess now. You know, it's it's
20:19
Speaker 2: it's geared against you. It's not it's not a good time.
20:23
Speaker 2: You know. You see the posters and things like that,
20:26
Speaker 2: where like if two sailors got together and they were
20:29
Speaker 2: both drinking, Becky can't consent, but Jake, Jake can. Jake
20:34
Speaker 2: knew what was going on because you know, he's mental,
20:38
Speaker 2: horrible and they will rape you. That was the That
20:41
Speaker 2: was the narrative being pushed very hard.
20:46
Speaker 1: I mean it's the same as Yeah, it's the same
20:48
Speaker 1: one they put in in universities.
20:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
20:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the same like they will literally there's countless
20:57
Speaker 1: stories of men and women in the military, in colleges,
21:02
Speaker 1: at work, whatever, they both get wasted, they both go home,
21:06
Speaker 1: they you know, to a hotel or whatever. They both
21:09
Speaker 1: do the deed, and then the woman cries rape if,
21:12
Speaker 1: like say, for whatever reason. I'm not saying that this
21:15
Speaker 1: always happens, but a lot of the time when it does,
21:18
Speaker 1: it's because those women are trying to protect something like
21:21
Speaker 1: they're cheating on their boyfriend or their husband, and so
21:24
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I got I don't want to get caught,
21:27
Speaker 1: so I'm going to pry rape or whatever. But the
21:29
Speaker 1: issue is not that, because you know, dishonest people exist,
21:33
Speaker 1: manipulative people exist, they'll do stuff like that. The issue
21:36
Speaker 1: is is that the system will support that. So you know,
21:40
Speaker 1: guys will get thrown behind bars, they'll get court martialed,
21:43
Speaker 1: they'll get on personed, they'll get put on you know,
21:45
Speaker 1: sex offender registries. And it's it's that is really the issue, right.
21:51
Speaker 1: It's like we have to do something about the way
21:54
Speaker 1: that we talk about these things, the way that we
21:58
Speaker 1: think about these things, like when we hear about them,
22:01
Speaker 1: and I think that we've all well most people have
22:03
Speaker 1: been sort of conditioned to side against the man when
22:08
Speaker 1: they hear the story without even considering you know, any
22:12
Speaker 1: of the whatever the evidence might be or whatever, because
22:16
Speaker 1: it's kind of like in our nature to do that.
22:18
Speaker 1: So it's a shame. But I think we can. I
22:20
Speaker 1: think we're I think things are getting better. I think
22:23
Speaker 1: that there is a bit more reason coming to things because,
22:26
Speaker 1: like you mentioned, when the Me Too movement happened, it
22:29
Speaker 1: was such a big deal because of what we already
22:33
Speaker 1: were conditioned to be like, oh no, those poor women,
22:36
Speaker 1: what are we going to do? But then there were
22:38
Speaker 1: some bad actors that were like, we're going to use
22:40
Speaker 1: this right and so they did so.
22:43
Speaker 2: Right and that and there's another layer to that in
22:47
Speaker 2: the military, and when it comes to the system being
22:50
Speaker 2: designed to favor a certain outcome, and that outcome isn't
22:54
Speaker 2: truth and justice. That outcome is propping up the victim
22:59
Speaker 2: in favor of putting the accused away, and that that
23:04
Speaker 2: comes in the form of so when and this this
23:08
Speaker 2: was in the minutes of my trial, and it blew
23:09
Speaker 2: my mind to learn it. So when somebody makes an accusation,
23:14
Speaker 2: it's it's immediately ran up the pipeline. It goes right
23:17
Speaker 2: to sieg just as investigation is going to happen. Period,
23:21
Speaker 2: It's never it's never going to be contained within it. Typically,
23:24
Speaker 2: for most crimes or accusations in the military, it starts
23:27
Speaker 2: at the command level. The command makes a decision was
23:30
Speaker 2: completely out of their hands and goes right to right
23:32
Speaker 2: to the investigative services, and at least back then and
23:38
Speaker 2: for at least another five or six years after that,
23:41
Speaker 2: if you were accused and investigated, you were going to
23:45
Speaker 2: court martial.
23:46
Speaker 1: Period.
23:47
Speaker 2: It did not matter unless there was some crazy recantation
23:50
Speaker 2: or something like that, or they caught it on video.
23:53
Speaker 2: You were going to court martial. It was going to happen,
23:56
Speaker 2: didn't matter. It didn't matter if the local civilians dropped it.
23:59
Speaker 2: It was going to happen. But in addition to that
24:03
Speaker 2: fast pipeline to a trial stage the accusers, there's a
24:10
Speaker 2: benefit for accusers to make these accusations. So let's for
24:14
Speaker 2: my situation as an example, my accuser was a family member.
24:21
Speaker 2: She's a dependent. So there is an actual US code,
24:25
Speaker 2: and don't quote me on it. It wouldn't be that
24:27
Speaker 2: hard to find if you did a Google search of it.
24:29
Speaker 2: But it's there's a US code for accusers who are
24:37
Speaker 2: the victim of a service member that are you know,
24:42
Speaker 2: tied in as family as dependents. If I were to
24:45
Speaker 2: go to to prison or go to jail at this
24:49
Speaker 2: court martial, this accuser, because they are dependent, would be
24:55
Speaker 2: entitled to my pay to insurance, college tuition, even things
25:00
Speaker 2: like childcare, other tangible benefits, monetary benefits, things that can
25:05
Speaker 2: be measured and quantified. Right, so we're talking about money.
25:08
Speaker 2: It's it's a payout basically if I, if I already
25:11
Speaker 2: be convicted, they would be entitled to all these things
25:13
Speaker 2: for up to three years. And I know that she
25:16
Speaker 2: got that for a fact that she received it. So
25:20
Speaker 2: she received that. Not to mention, it's a slam dunk court.
25:26
Speaker 1: Right, this pay comes from the state then, right.
25:29
Speaker 2: It comes it comes from the federal government.
25:32
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a federal look from the government. Yeah, and
25:36
Speaker 1: it's it's a slam dunk because you were saying.
25:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a slam dunk in the in the family court.
25:43
Speaker 2: So I mean, I forget the actual math, but that
25:49
Speaker 2: that amounted to just shive about a six figure allotment
25:57
Speaker 2: of various benefits, Like that's that's kind of crazy, Like, hey,
26:01
Speaker 2: we're gonna give you this massive incentive to go along
26:04
Speaker 2: with your story. Okay, no strings attached. If it doesn't work.
26:09
Speaker 2: It doesn't work, I don't go to jail. She doesn't
26:11
Speaker 2: get this stuff. If it does work, I go to jail,
26:14
Speaker 2: she gets the stuff. Let's say it gets overturned or
26:16
Speaker 2: she recants or something like that. She's not gonna be
26:19
Speaker 2: held accountable because they won't touch her. She's not under
26:21
Speaker 2: the jurisdiction of the U cum J. She there's no
26:26
Speaker 2: So what I'm what I'm basically getting at is there's
26:28
Speaker 2: a system built where there is no negative. You've got
26:34
Speaker 2: nothing to lose, nothing to lose, and not even nothing
26:37
Speaker 2: to lose. But like we're going to prop you up
26:39
Speaker 2: and give you a real big incentive to go to
26:43
Speaker 2: go lie or stretch the truth and hope for the
26:48
Speaker 2: best outcome for yourself. So imagine doing that in any
26:51
Speaker 2: other any other state, any other jurisdiction, with any other law.
26:56
Speaker 2: It's wild.
26:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's wild if if the.
27:00
Speaker 2: Accuser is not a family member, and if they're just
27:03
Speaker 2: another service member, right a boyfriend and girlfriend, bad breakup
27:07
Speaker 2: on one night, hookup whatever, and this stuff happens. Sure,
27:11
Speaker 2: if they're in trouble at their command, already a real
27:15
Speaker 2: good way to get out of that trouble and to
27:18
Speaker 2: get away is to make an accusation to protect quote
27:22
Speaker 2: the victim, they will pick them up and ship them
27:24
Speaker 2: elsewhere so they don't have to be station with their accuser.
27:28
Speaker 2: If if it works, and just because of the documentation
27:31
Speaker 2: of that event, it's a it's a fast track to
27:34
Speaker 2: one hundred percent disability from the VA once you get out,
27:37
Speaker 2: because you have TSD from your experience.
27:41
Speaker 1: More benefit. Yeah, oh yeah, it's crazy, it's insane. How
27:47
Speaker 1: much of this do you think is also the military
27:50
Speaker 1: itself trying to like cover its ass. No, you know,
27:54
Speaker 1: start from the language, but you know, like there there's
27:56
Speaker 1: I think there is a rush in a lot of
27:58
Speaker 1: these cases with universities too, they're like, Okay, this is
28:01
Speaker 1: gonna be bad for our reputation. Let's just push this through.
28:05
Speaker 1: He's guilty, We'll move on. At the very least, we're
28:07
Speaker 1: gonna come forward and like throw him under the bus,
28:09
Speaker 1: because if we don't and we defend the guy or
28:12
Speaker 1: we like give him, you know, too much due process
28:15
Speaker 1: and take too long, it's going to get too many
28:16
Speaker 1: eyes on it. It's going to make us look bad.
28:19
Speaker 1: Do you think that's that's also a thing too, with
28:21
Speaker 1: the military very.
28:23
Speaker 2: Much I think the military has a very long history.
28:26
Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, like, despite what happened to me,
28:29
Speaker 2: I love my country. I'm very much as patriotic. I
28:32
Speaker 2: even love the services. It's not like I don't I
28:36
Speaker 2: look at the jack as a separate entity, Like we
28:38
Speaker 2: may have worn the same uniforms, but we're not the same.
28:41
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, sure of course, given the opportunity, I
28:45
Speaker 2: throw it back on and go back to work tomorrow.
28:47
Speaker 2: But I think the military has a very long history
28:51
Speaker 2: of when the people, the powers that be, Congress, right, presidents,
28:57
Speaker 2: things like that, when they make decisions and they put
28:59
Speaker 2: their thumbs down on the military services and say, hey,
29:03
Speaker 2: you better we expect results on this issue and make
29:06
Speaker 2: it happen. I don't want to hear excuses. I just
29:09
Speaker 2: want to see it get done.
29:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:11
Speaker 2: Suddenly the military is a hammer and everything is a nail,
29:15
Speaker 2: and they hit it hard and they kind of deal
29:19
Speaker 2: with the casualties on the back end, which is what's
29:23
Speaker 2: happening now. We've seen that played out before and in
29:27
Speaker 2: other realms of of of wartime issues like Vietnam all
29:35
Speaker 2: the way forward to Kuwait and most most recently, the
29:38
Speaker 2: Global War on Terror. The weapons of mass destruction, right
29:43
Speaker 2: like that, people people pulling the strings behind the curtains,
29:47
Speaker 2: and the military went and did the bidding and right,
29:50
Speaker 2: and they were doing what they were told, and it
29:52
Speaker 2: was all for something that didn't exist, and a lot
29:54
Speaker 2: of people knew it didn't exist. You know, we're kind
29:59
Speaker 2: of jumping off into I hate the word conspiracy, but
30:01
Speaker 2: it's very true, Like that's very much a fact theme. Oh,
30:04
Speaker 2: for sure, that construction didn't exist. They weren't really And then.
30:10
Speaker 1: If you don't know that by now, I don't know
30:11
Speaker 1: what to tell you, you know, I agree. Yeah, it's like
30:16
Speaker 1: the there's a difference between the bureaucrats and the soldiers, right,
30:20
Speaker 1: so so that that's basically what we're what we're talking
30:23
Speaker 1: about speaking of bureaucrats. Uh so the people who have
30:28
Speaker 1: been pushing this. I remember when we talked, we talked
30:30
Speaker 1: a little bit about Clobachar, who was I think that
30:35
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, it's Amy Klobachar. He's like a
30:41
Speaker 1: member of Congress, I believe, and she was involved with
30:46
Speaker 1: the whole the pushing of this kind of me too
30:48
Speaker 1: thing in the military. Maybe I was. I was talking
30:52
Speaker 1: to Arvest about that.
30:53
Speaker 2: But sounds familiar, but I did watch his in yeah yeah.
30:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I believe that that was the case. I'm
30:58
Speaker 1: saying that there are definitely people in political power. They're
31:02
Speaker 1: like feminist activists that are also a part of Congress,
31:06
Speaker 1: and they're pushing their kind of this uh feminist theory
31:10
Speaker 1: into the various you know, like practices, and that's how,
31:16
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's how because there's a lot
31:18
Speaker 1: of bad, bad science like involved in how they come
31:22
Speaker 1: to their conclusions. So that's why I brought it up.
31:25
Speaker 1: But I wanna, I want to go back to what
31:31
Speaker 1: your what happened with you? So she made the allegations,
31:35
Speaker 1: she got a payout, and I assume that this also
31:38
Speaker 1: basically just guaranteed her the kids.
31:40
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, I remember signing the finalized divorce papers in
31:46
Speaker 2: in the break. Yeah yeah, so she there was nothing
31:50
Speaker 2: I could do. I mean, I was going to be
31:51
Speaker 2: in prison for three years. There's no way I was
31:54
Speaker 2: going to get anything remotely close to what I wanted.
31:57
Speaker 2: I haven't seen have two sons with her. I haven't
32:01
Speaker 2: not seen since April twenty sixteen. I don't know where
32:05
Speaker 2: she is, I don't know where they are.
32:07
Speaker 1: M So you haven't spoken to him or anything. You
32:11
Speaker 1: have no idea, I have no idea. That's that's got
32:15
Speaker 1: to be tough and for your trouble. So you were
32:21
Speaker 1: in the brig for three years, yes, is that right? Okay?
32:25
Speaker 1: And after that I understand that you had to register
32:28
Speaker 1: as a sex offender based on well basically it's just
32:33
Speaker 1: like because of the even though you know there's no
32:37
Speaker 1: evidence of anything, but this is just like part of
32:39
Speaker 1: the procedure, right, Yeah, So what's other than the parole aspect,
32:46
Speaker 1: which I think that's worse than parole because isn't it
32:50
Speaker 1: true that if you're on parole, there's a point where
32:52
Speaker 1: you can like not be on parole. Is this like
32:54
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life?
32:55
Speaker 2: Now? Yeah, this is the rest of my life, and
32:57
Speaker 2: there's no there's no way to petition to be removed
33:03
Speaker 2: from it, just because of the unique way in which
33:05
Speaker 2: I was placed on there, which you know, it's all
33:08
Speaker 2: again all in the Federal Code under soorna qualifying offenses
33:12
Speaker 2: under the UCUMJ if convicted, will land you on a
33:15
Speaker 2: sex offender registry. And what they do once once you're
33:19
Speaker 2: released is they kind of have I don't know who
33:22
Speaker 2: the person is or the board that does it or whatever,
33:25
Speaker 2: but they send your information to them and they kind
33:30
Speaker 2: of determine what tier level you're going to be on.
33:32
Speaker 2: And if you're in the military and you come out
33:34
Speaker 2: convicted of a sexual crime, it's going to be tier
33:38
Speaker 2: free every time, lifetime, every ninety days for the rest
33:42
Speaker 2: of your life. It doesn't matter the severity. You know,
33:46
Speaker 2: you know I've done the compared toon I mean, if
33:48
Speaker 2: you want to get down to brass tax on the
33:50
Speaker 2: elements of my charge versus similar elements within the state
33:54
Speaker 2: of Oklahoma. Granted they're not they're not verbatim the same
33:57
Speaker 2: because Oklahoma's its own state rights, its own law. There
34:03
Speaker 2: there are people who have done much worse who will
34:05
Speaker 2: be on the registry for far less time than I will.
34:10
Speaker 1: So that's that's crazy. Yeah. So what's it like living
34:15
Speaker 1: in Uh? Well, I guess why did you decide to
34:18
Speaker 1: move to Oklahoma where you were in South Carolina before?
34:21
Speaker 2: Correct? Yeah, Oklahoma's home for me. That's what my family is.
34:26
Speaker 1: Oh I see, Okay, Well that's good. And how are
34:29
Speaker 1: you know, like, are does do you get into like
34:33
Speaker 1: any trouble for for this you know, this thing on
34:38
Speaker 1: your record or whatever or no.
34:40
Speaker 2: Occasionally it I mean that's I I guess I quote
34:45
Speaker 2: have the benefit of it not being a trial that
34:48
Speaker 2: happened close to home. It happened very far away. It's
34:53
Speaker 2: also very public. It's not that hard to find if
34:55
Speaker 2: you wanted to look up the case, the details, all that.
34:59
Speaker 2: But it's occasionally it comes up. You know, I've had
35:04
Speaker 2: to talk about it with one employer before, and they
35:09
Speaker 2: were I just laid I laid it out for him,
35:11
Speaker 2: very simple. It's like, hey, this is what this is
35:14
Speaker 2: what happened, this is where I am now. She said
35:17
Speaker 2: I did. I said I didn't, and it didn't go
35:19
Speaker 2: well for me. And now it's just part of life.
35:22
Speaker 2: I'm just a guy trying to make it out here,
35:24
Speaker 2: paying my taxes like everybody else. And but yeah, I've
35:28
Speaker 2: had I've had that conversation with one employer. It didn't
35:30
Speaker 2: go horribly. They were open.
35:31
Speaker 1: I'm oh, well that's good.
35:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm I mean, he spent anybody who spends
35:38
Speaker 2: you know, ten fifteen minutes with me in conversation, I don't.
35:42
Speaker 1: I'm not that guy.
35:43
Speaker 2: And it's becomes a parent real quick. There was a
35:46
Speaker 2: time I went to go update my registry at the
35:49
Speaker 2: Hughes County Sheriff's office, and one of the deputies that
35:53
Speaker 2: was there that is part of their compliance team for
35:56
Speaker 2: sex defenders. She said she was asking me all these
35:59
Speaker 2: questions about McKay and I was telling her and she's like,
36:02
Speaker 2: you just don't look the type. And I just kind
36:03
Speaker 2: of smiled and said, because it's because I'm not and
36:06
Speaker 2: I've been filling out my base forward and thanks, have
36:10
Speaker 2: a good day.
36:11
Speaker 1: Thanks for telling me I don't look the type. But
36:13
Speaker 1: it doesn't help.
36:15
Speaker 2: It doesn't really help, you know, give me a confidence boost.
36:18
Speaker 2: For all of about twenty minutes.
36:19
Speaker 1: That was a well, So, then, how did you come
36:26
Speaker 1: in contact with like the would you care people and
36:31
Speaker 1: arvests and stuff like where did that come in?
36:34
Speaker 2: Uh? This came in when you know I So my
36:37
Speaker 2: first interaction with I was registered in a different county
36:41
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. And you know, apparently the
36:45
Speaker 2: States said many years ago that each county was going
36:48
Speaker 2: to have a compliance team basically to go out and
36:52
Speaker 2: do this kind of quasi parole like exercise of checking
36:56
Speaker 2: on people who were on the registry. I remember being
37:00
Speaker 2: at home in February snowing and all of a sudden,
37:04
Speaker 2: I was home with my kids and my wife at
37:05
Speaker 2: the time, and I think this was in twenty twenty two,
37:09
Speaker 2: and they all they were all home and three share
37:14
Speaker 2: of deputies and different vehicles mobbing onto my property through
37:18
Speaker 2: our gate into our front yard, and I was I mean,
37:22
Speaker 2: I was concerning. There weren't flashing lights or signs or
37:24
Speaker 2: anything like that, which is very strange. They turned to
37:29
Speaker 2: the front door and they explain who they are, and
37:31
Speaker 2: they were a sex offender compliance officers, and they came
37:36
Speaker 2: in and started asking me all kinds of questions. They
37:39
Speaker 2: didn't search my property or anything like that, and the
37:42
Speaker 2: lead officer was professional and friendly enough and he's got
37:47
Speaker 2: some basic information and left. But it was embarrassing enough
37:51
Speaker 2: for me that I was like, I'm not dealing with
37:53
Speaker 2: this for the rest of my life. At that point,
37:55
Speaker 2: i'd kind of accepted it, and You're like, you know what,
37:57
Speaker 2: doing a quote change of address form basically ninety days
38:00
Speaker 2: isn't that bad. But I'm not going to have somebody
38:03
Speaker 2: looking at me and checking on me regardless of what
38:06
Speaker 2: I'm doing. You know, I'm not trying to move covertly
38:10
Speaker 2: out here or anything crazy, like I keep my address
38:12
Speaker 2: up today, but have been very compliant. But I'm not
38:15
Speaker 2: going to live like that period. And I started really
38:19
Speaker 2: looking into what I could do for post conviction and relief,
38:24
Speaker 2: essentially trying to get my case re examined, overturned, what
38:28
Speaker 2: have you, whatever I could do. And I found the
38:31
Speaker 2: group called Save Our Heroes, and I gave them a
38:35
Speaker 2: call kind of explained the gist of my case, and
38:39
Speaker 2: they told me about the dac iPad, which is a
38:43
Speaker 2: Congressional Pointed Committee that overseas. It's kind of a government
38:50
Speaker 2: watchdog group created by the government, and their job is
38:54
Speaker 2: to basically look at sexual assaults in the military statistics
39:03
Speaker 2: lessons learned the way to improve things on both sides
39:06
Speaker 2: of the aisle, you know, for the for the accuser
39:08
Speaker 2: and the accused. And he said they have a public
39:12
Speaker 2: comments section. I highly suggest that you attend and speak
39:18
Speaker 2: at one. And the first one that I intended to
39:20
Speaker 2: telephonically and I wrote, I wrote a statement and I
39:24
Speaker 2: spoke over the phone, and about twenty minutes after I
39:30
Speaker 2: made that statement, after the meeting had ended, I received
39:32
Speaker 2: a call from a Virginia number, and you know, I
39:36
Speaker 2: was like, that can't be a coincidence. I just spoke
39:38
Speaker 2: in an event in Virginia, like who is this person?
39:41
Speaker 2: So I answered it. And that's how I got in
39:42
Speaker 2: touch with Harvests. And you know the quote the group,
39:47
Speaker 2: you know, because we don't we're all I wouldn't say
39:50
Speaker 2: we're all loosely affiliated. We all say in pretty regular touch.
39:53
Speaker 2: I hear from Arbust about once a month about updates
39:55
Speaker 2: and things like that, and yeah, but that's that's kind
39:59
Speaker 2: of how we all got together. And I've I've talked
40:01
Speaker 2: to a few others since then that have been in
40:03
Speaker 2: similar shoes in a post admission aspect, and you know,
40:07
Speaker 2: they're looking for advice and you know, I'm not a lawyer,
40:10
Speaker 2: but I know my issues very very well inside and out.
40:14
Speaker 2: And I've given a few people advice on what they
40:17
Speaker 2: can do now that their traditional appeals are done and
40:21
Speaker 2: things like that. And that's that's kind of how I
40:25
Speaker 2: got in touch with with all those guys. And since then,
40:28
Speaker 2: I've spoken at one other event, one other dak iPad meeting,
40:32
Speaker 2: and I went to that one in person, and that
40:33
Speaker 2: was back in December of twenty twenty three, and that
40:38
Speaker 2: was that was recorded and videotaped and it's hard to
40:41
Speaker 2: get through my statement in person without crying. But arms
40:45
Speaker 2: Army said it was very worth it because he was
40:47
Speaker 2: watching everybody else in the room. He said, you had him,
40:49
Speaker 2: and he he said that I need I need to
40:53
Speaker 2: come back and do another one. I plan on it.
40:55
Speaker 2: You know, it's an expensive trip. I make okay money,
40:57
Speaker 2: but I want to go back and do it again
41:00
Speaker 2: for sure.
41:01
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny you should mention that because
41:03
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you if you, first of all,
41:05
Speaker 1: if you've I know that you've been working with these
41:07
Speaker 1: people in your in your group, but have you guys
41:09
Speaker 1: do you guys meet in person or is it just
41:11
Speaker 1: sort of like email and over the phone and that
41:13
Speaker 1: kind of thing. It's a lot of kind of scattered.
41:15
Speaker 2: And you know, I talked to Arvest more than anyone else,
41:18
Speaker 2: and we've had a few video chats like I have occasionally.
41:24
Speaker 2: You know, I'll get a kind of I'll get the
41:27
Speaker 2: fire and the motivation really going, and I'll start looking
41:29
Speaker 2: for people that I think can help us. And I've
41:31
Speaker 2: I've found a few individuals and put him in contact
41:34
Speaker 2: with and kind of open the door to get to
41:37
Speaker 2: get their their help and their voice you know, that's
41:39
Speaker 2: the biggest thing that we try to do is have
41:43
Speaker 2: a conversation with everybody that will listen. And that's you know,
41:47
Speaker 2: that's why we're here now, trying to get our voice
41:52
Speaker 2: heard because we think that that's that's essentially you know,
41:59
Speaker 2: what they hoped what happen, is that this awful thing
42:02
Speaker 2: would happen with us and we've kind of fade into obscurity. Yeah,
42:06
Speaker 2: you know, but they don't. I think they seem to
42:09
Speaker 2: forget that they they went after and destroyed the lives
42:14
Speaker 2: of hard men, and we don't take stuff lying down,
42:18
Speaker 2: at least not for very long. All it's going to
42:21
Speaker 2: take is the right event and the right circumstance and
42:24
Speaker 2: and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna push back, and
42:27
Speaker 2: that's that's all this is. And it's pushing back through
42:29
Speaker 2: conversation and dialogue.
42:32
Speaker 1: So yeah, for sure, that's what we that's what we
42:34
Speaker 1: try to do. So I wanted to ask, uh, do
42:40
Speaker 1: you have any hope that your situation will change? Or
42:45
Speaker 1: are you doing this mainly to help the next person
42:47
Speaker 1: that might find themselves or potentially find themselves in a
42:50
Speaker 1: similar situation both?
42:53
Speaker 2: I think for sure, No, matter what happens is that
42:56
Speaker 2: I can help others. I've I've seen too much. I've
42:59
Speaker 2: been involved in too much, and I've experienced too much,
43:03
Speaker 2: too much of the.
43:06
Speaker 1: Of the bad.
43:06
Speaker 2: But like I said earlier, I do think it's getting better.
43:10
Speaker 2: And then the services and it's affecting, it's affecting their numbers.
43:14
Speaker 2: Their recruiting numbers are in the tank. They're bad. You know.
43:19
Speaker 1: It's that you're talking about army, like military, you know,
43:23
Speaker 1: boys signing up. It's it's at like enrollment or whatever
43:27
Speaker 1: they call it, recruitment. Is that it's very low. I
43:30
Speaker 1: assume there's a number of reasons for that, but that's
43:33
Speaker 1: definitely one of them.
43:35
Speaker 2: One of them. It's and it's you know, it's like
43:38
Speaker 2: a it's like a sickness. It's it's not just contained
43:41
Speaker 2: in the realm of sexual assault, any kind of woke
43:45
Speaker 2: de I nonsense that is that is involved in one
43:49
Speaker 2: area of of of thought. Is it spreads to the
43:53
Speaker 2: rest of it. You know, our first female admiral is
43:57
Speaker 2: a man in drag. That is the most anti feminist
44:00
Speaker 2: thing I've ever seen in my life.
44:03
Speaker 1: So you couldn't say that, but I could definitely make
44:05
Speaker 1: the case that it's totally feminist, but it's like.
44:11
Speaker 2: Feminist.
44:11
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's it's it's it's really.
44:18
Speaker 2: And I think that you know, me and artist, we
44:20
Speaker 2: have a number of conversations. I know, plenty of things
44:23
Speaker 2: that not that I can't talk about, but that I
44:27
Speaker 2: won't yet, you know, just because think there are things
44:29
Speaker 2: being done and movements being made, and conversations are being
44:32
Speaker 2: had with people capable of making real change. You know,
44:37
Speaker 2: the military did just release the guidelines behind standing up
44:44
Speaker 2: a conviction Integrity Unit and some of the founding some
44:49
Speaker 2: of the founding members of that that movement are they
44:53
Speaker 2: were there when I made my first statement and they
44:55
Speaker 2: expressed the express interest in talking to me further. So
45:00
Speaker 2: my chances are never zero, but they're definitely zero if
45:03
Speaker 2: I don't advocate for myself, because who else is going
45:06
Speaker 2: to stand up and advocate for a convicted registered sex offender.
45:11
Speaker 2: Nobody's just going to do it. You know, you got
45:14
Speaker 2: to go and have those hard conversations, and.
45:16
Speaker 1: Right, that's part of the point of putting you in
45:20
Speaker 1: that category is that you're going to become kind of like,
45:24
Speaker 1: you know, uh, toxic for anyone to like even want
45:27
Speaker 1: to touch. It's like radioactive, right, right.
45:30
Speaker 2: But it's irresponsible. And you know, me and artist have
45:33
Speaker 2: had that conversation with navigating getting other people on board
45:36
Speaker 2: to talk to us like it's it's a reality of
45:38
Speaker 2: our situation. We need to really understand. It's not very palatable.
45:42
Speaker 2: It'll leave a bad taste and a lot of mouths,
45:44
Speaker 2: like we need to we need to really present it
45:48
Speaker 2: in a way in a nice a nice wrapping paper
45:53
Speaker 2: that says, hey, this isn't as bad as it sounds
45:56
Speaker 2: to talk about, right, normal people were not.
46:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I I heard from Arvest that you guys
46:04
Speaker 1: have been working with uh, you know, a couple of
46:07
Speaker 1: other people to help spread the message. But also there's
46:10
Speaker 1: groups like the Innocence Project, Right, how's that going have you?
46:16
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know too much about that. That front,
46:20
Speaker 2: Like this artist lives and breathes the stuff. I mean,
46:22
Speaker 2: it's very important to me too. But you know, Arvist
46:26
Speaker 2: is he's very driven. The man, the man at the front.
46:29
Speaker 2: You know, he's got all the answers and he's he's
46:32
Speaker 2: he's making the most He's he's definitely the one making
46:36
Speaker 2: the most effort, and the rest of us contribute if
46:40
Speaker 2: and when we can, and it's you know, it's like
46:43
Speaker 2: a game of It's like a game of football where
46:45
Speaker 2: we're just trying to move move that with that pig
46:48
Speaker 2: skin a few a few yards every time we get
46:50
Speaker 2: a chance to touch it. So and we all just
46:54
Speaker 2: kind of try to do our part.
46:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be meeting with Arvis Tuesday,
47:01
Speaker 1: there's coming Tuesday. Rather in person, I'm going to introduce
47:04
Speaker 1: them to another guy who's been doing a lot of
47:07
Speaker 1: work with men and men's issues, Paul Elam. He's like Grant,
47:12
Speaker 1: he's like one of the leaders or one of the
47:14
Speaker 1: most active members. I don't like to say leaders, because
47:16
Speaker 1: we all kind of do our own thing in our
47:18
Speaker 1: own way, right, So then what is like other than
47:24
Speaker 1: just continuing to spread this the word of this have you?
47:27
Speaker 1: Have you ever you said that you are looking forward to,
47:30
Speaker 1: like maybe doing like another speaking event or like a
47:33
Speaker 1: conference or something like that. Yeah, yeah, if we had one,
47:38
Speaker 1: Because so in case you don't know, we are part
47:43
Speaker 1: of the larger men's movement. We have these conferences that
47:46
Speaker 1: call the International Conference on Men's Issues or the ICMI
47:49
Speaker 1: for short, and we do them every year when COVID happened.
47:53
Speaker 1: We were doing them mostly online, but now we're back
47:56
Speaker 1: to doing them like in real you know, like brick
47:59
Speaker 1: and mortar places. This this one this year is going
48:03
Speaker 1: to be in Sydney, Australia, so that's probably a little
48:05
Speaker 1: bit too much. But the year, yeah, we've been to Australia,
48:08
Speaker 1: the UK, there was one in India.
48:11
Speaker 2: So long as I can get in the get in
48:13
Speaker 2: the border down there, man, I just I know there's
48:16
Speaker 2: some weird issues with with sex offenders trying to travel sometimes.
48:20
Speaker 1: If that's yeah, I would love.
48:21
Speaker 2: A good excuse to go to Sydney, Australia, So don't
48:24
Speaker 2: write me out just yet.
48:25
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, I don't know if we're going
48:27
Speaker 1: to go, but i'd love to. But the one after
48:30
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty six, tentatively is going to be
48:33
Speaker 1: here in the States. Right now, we're looking at a
48:37
Speaker 1: couple of options, maybe even d C considering you know,
48:41
Speaker 1: DC is probably going to be a little bit more
48:44
Speaker 1: friendly to us setting up than it would have been
48:47
Speaker 1: a few years ago. But uh yeah, so there's just
48:52
Speaker 1: I think that, like you're right, I think that there
48:55
Speaker 1: things are better. I think more people are having these conversations.
48:58
Speaker 1: I think that we're mostly like done with this kind
49:02
Speaker 1: of woke you know, framework of everything where you can't
49:06
Speaker 1: have honest conversations. You can't. And these are literally really empathetic,
49:12
Speaker 1: really compassionate discussions. They're not fake that it's not it's
49:16
Speaker 1: not about like looking better, you know, it's about actually
49:18
Speaker 1: talking about solutions that are real and talking about problems
49:22
Speaker 1: that are real. And this isn't like I said many
49:25
Speaker 1: times before, this is in the military, this is on universities,
49:28
Speaker 1: this is in the workplace, this is everywhere. It's in
49:31
Speaker 1: our you know, and it's it's something that we have
49:34
Speaker 1: to really confront. And what I think the key is
49:39
Speaker 1: is that the more people that speak on it, the
49:41
Speaker 1: more courage other people will find so also speak on it.
49:46
Speaker 1: So right, absolutely, yeah, yeah, So do you have any
49:51
Speaker 1: like because like now that we are going to be
49:55
Speaker 1: I think that the numbers of enlisting men is going
49:59
Speaker 1: to grow. I think that we're seeing a positive change
50:03
Speaker 1: in the image of our military and our country. And
50:09
Speaker 1: I'm also extremely patriotic. Uh do you think that there's
50:15
Speaker 1: that being said? What advice would you give to young
50:17
Speaker 1: men going into the armed forces, just so that you
50:21
Speaker 1: know they don't end up in a similar situation, right.
50:25
Speaker 2: I mean, if this was a year ago, I would
50:27
Speaker 2: have said, not on your life, you know. And I
50:30
Speaker 2: make it. I make it very clear with some of
50:32
Speaker 2: the examples. And I don't I don't skyline myself by
50:34
Speaker 2: tell them my story. If they don't already know it,
50:37
Speaker 2: I just tell them. You know, it's man, it's it's
50:40
Speaker 2: not safe. It's not safe yet, don't do it. But
50:43
Speaker 2: I think with Pete Heggseeth as a Secretary of Defense
50:47
Speaker 2: now and everybody kind of it's it's like everybody's eyes
50:53
Speaker 2: are opening in only the most extreme of the of
50:58
Speaker 2: the liberal left, clinging on to the incredible woke ideals
51:04
Speaker 2: of the past. You know it. I think it's gonna
51:06
Speaker 2: get way better. And I still think that young men
51:09
Speaker 2: need to when you go in, you need to I mean,
51:12
Speaker 2: enjoy the experience, but at the same time protect yourself,
51:17
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like if you're going to
51:19
Speaker 2: have I mean, it's dangerous and it shouldn't be like that.
51:23
Speaker 2: You know, out here in the real world, it's not
51:24
Speaker 2: uncommon for you to go out and hang out with
51:27
Speaker 2: a friend or a girl you're talking to, and you know,
51:30
Speaker 2: and you have some drinks and suddenly you guys are
51:32
Speaker 2: both feeling it and you have a romantic encounter. But
51:34
Speaker 2: in the military, that could still be very dangerous. I
51:36
Speaker 2: basically say, don't do that. Ever, even though even though
51:41
Speaker 2: that's not the circumstance that got me where I was,
51:43
Speaker 2: I've seen enough bad stories and bad outcomes to that
51:47
Speaker 2: that situation that I would still advise don't do that.
51:52
Speaker 2: I would very much advise not not dip into your
51:55
Speaker 2: pen in the company, inc so to speak. I think
51:57
Speaker 2: sleeping with your coworkers is messy. Being in the middlelitary
52:00
Speaker 2: doesn't make that any less true, you know.
52:04
Speaker 1: I just.
52:07
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think the culture that has
52:10
Speaker 2: been cultivated over the last you know, ten to fifteen
52:14
Speaker 2: years is could be undone overnight. I just I think
52:17
Speaker 2: you need to be very careful, and I realize that
52:22
Speaker 2: even the best meaning of actions and intentions are gonna
52:26
Speaker 2: like they could have some serious consequences that you would
52:29
Speaker 2: have never expected. I don't I don't think. I don't
52:33
Speaker 2: think the coast is clear yet, but I think we're
52:35
Speaker 2: on our way to being a true war fighting nation.
52:44
Speaker 2: You know, we have the greatest military on earth, I don't.
52:48
Speaker 2: I think I think it's taken a steep decline in
52:51
Speaker 2: the last in the last several years, but I think
52:53
Speaker 2: we're on our way back and people are starting to
52:57
Speaker 2: set all the bs aside and letting opening themselves up
53:01
Speaker 2: to the idea that we need to let our our
53:04
Speaker 2: young men and women fight wars, real wars, not not
53:10
Speaker 2: a war on whatever will go ideology they think is
53:15
Speaker 2: oppressing everyone else. You know, that's not what the military
53:18
Speaker 2: is about. The military is about being ready to step
53:21
Speaker 2: up and defend our borders.
53:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about effectiveness, that's it. It's not sentiment. I
53:30
Speaker 1: want to issue a correction. I want to thank Holly
53:33
Speaker 1: Eager and the Chat for saying because I was thinking
53:35
Speaker 1: of the wrong person when I was thrinking, I'm trying
53:37
Speaker 1: to think of a senator, and I said Klobuchar. I
53:41
Speaker 1: think that's not who it is. It's Christian Gillibrand. That's right,
53:46
Speaker 1: That's who I was thinking of. Kirsten Gilibrand is who
53:50
Speaker 1: I was thinking of. And I apologize for that, but
53:54
Speaker 1: but yeah, well, well, I just want to say thank you, Jerry.
53:58
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you wanted to say before we
54:00
Speaker 1: in the show?
54:01
Speaker 2: Here no, I think I think we did a pretty
54:05
Speaker 2: good recap. I mean, if people want to know a
54:09
Speaker 2: little more in depth about my story, I think our
54:12
Speaker 2: previous interview outlined that a little better you know, comes
54:15
Speaker 2: in for allegations and things like that. We don't we
54:17
Speaker 2: don't need to crack that open again. It's it's it's
54:19
Speaker 2: back there. Well, yeah, I left it up there.
54:22
Speaker 1: I'll include a link to the original just you know,
54:24
Speaker 1: it cuts off a little early because the battery on
54:27
Speaker 1: his phone died, but you can just you know, mergingly.
54:31
Speaker 1: This is like part two. Just look at it like
54:32
Speaker 1: a part two. So yeah, a sequel exactly. All right, Well,
54:38
Speaker 1: I guess that's it for me. I want to thank
54:40
Speaker 1: you guys. Let me just check to make sure I
54:43
Speaker 1: did miss any messages, because sometimes I do miss them,
54:48
Speaker 1: and I got to check our discord server for those.
54:51
Speaker 1: By the way, you guys can join the discord by
54:53
Speaker 1: becoming a member at feedbbadger dot com, forward sas subscribe.
54:57
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so no nothing on there, but that's okay. Normally,
55:01
Speaker 1: because of the timing of this show, everyone's watching the
55:04
Speaker 1: super Bowl right now. I assume we're getting ready to
55:06
Speaker 1: so they'll actually see this tomorrow, I think so yeah,
55:10
Speaker 1: a little later. But I want to thank you again
55:13
Speaker 1: Jerry for coming on the show. And if you guys
55:16
Speaker 1: want to check out the links of the description so
55:18
Speaker 1: that you can find ways support. You know, we basically
55:22
Speaker 1: just make it a little It's way too easy for
55:25
Speaker 1: people to make allegations and then you know, everyone just
55:28
Speaker 1: gets behind it and and that's just not that that's unjust.
55:32
Speaker 1: It it's just unjust and it should not be the
55:35
Speaker 1: way that we conduct ourselves. So I want to thank
55:39
Speaker 1: you guys for joining us on the show and checking
55:42
Speaker 1: this out and giving us a shot. So if you
55:44
Speaker 1: guys like this video, please hit like, subscribe, if you're
55:47
Speaker 1: not already subscribed, hit the belt notifications, leave as a comment,
55:50
Speaker 1: let us know what you guys think about what we
55:51
Speaker 1: discussed on the show today. And please please please share
55:54
Speaker 1: this video because sharing is caring. Thank you guys so
55:57
Speaker 1: much for coming on today's episode of The Fireside Chat,
56:00
Speaker 1: and we will talk to you guys in the next video.