The Truth on the Ground in Ukraine w/ Nate Vance | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

today we're joined by former marine Nate Vance. Nate spent the majority of the last 3 years in Ukraine initially helping the Mozart Group then serving with the Davinci Wolves for the last 2.5 years. New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️ https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.com Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Mick’s publications ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/ Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app Bluesky ⬇️ https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.soci Music by - Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, the reasons, obviously, you, you know, you took to heart because three years ago this month, almost to the week, maybe to the week, you showed up and I got a, I got a message from you, text message, saying you were showing up in Lviv with a group of British grunts. And then a few days later, I saw you in Kiev. So, and as I, as we said, not, not inaccurately, you were one of the plankholders of the Mozart Group. I mean, right, right at the beginning with the Russians knocking on the, on the gates. And we were, we were setting up that, what at the time seemed a hopelessly inadequate

• 1:41Speaker 03

  training course for, you know, for these guys. Yeah. IT workers, students, kids, remember?

• 1:48Speaker 04

  Was that the five-day one?

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like five days, if that, right, Nate? I mean, it was, it was.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  I can't, somewhere between three and five days, nowhere near enough.

• 2:14Speaker 04

  Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Eyes On, here with Andy Milburn and Nate Vance and myself, Nate Vance, you might have heard he's been in the news a little bit. Former Marine, of course, because we can't go at one show without having at least one former Marine on the show. He's been, spent the last few years in Ukraine, fighting with the Ukrainian military, part of the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion. He was involved early on in Mozart, that's how Andy got to know him. And Nate, thanks for coming on the show, man, we really appreciate it.

• 2:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, no problem.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, Nate, great to see you again. Why don't you, why don't you catch us up? Begin wherever you want to, man. First of all, let me just say, welcome home, and how's the last two weeks been for you?

• 3:02Speaker 05

  Well, the last week has been interesting, certainly not what I'm used to.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  But before that, I was camping in the mountains in the west, that was nice. And then I opened my mouth, and then that kind of ruined the camping trip, so.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Tell us about that. We've, we've, we've become, I was always a fan of yours, of course, but even more so in the, in the last week. How, how did all that kick off?

• 3:31Speaker 05

  Well, so, I was with that unit that you mentioned, and there was a photographer, if I remember correctly, he was Spanish. But he was a good guy, and he followed us around for a while, and you know, took some pictures, and then, you know, he left and went off and did his own thing, he was a freelance photographer, and then he got a job at La Figaro. And then, you know, he went back to that unit, and I think those guys were like, hey, isn't it crazy that Nate's cousin is the VP now? And he was like, holy shit, what? You know, so he knew me, but he didn't, it's not like I walked around and introduced myself and said, by the way, you know, this is who I'm related to.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  So, a lot of people probably didn't know, and I generally, like, just kept my mouth shut about it, it's not really something you want to be telling people over there. You know, obviously, like, my commander, I knew, because I was like, I figured it was appropriate. For him to know and then obviously any of the American, you know, Westerners that were right near me knew because they knew what my last name was, right? They figured they'd figure it out. So, um, anyway, yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  You know, all many questions and the thing about is look.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  I said what I said. They were pointed words. I'm obviously kind of emotionally attached to the issue.

• 5:00Speaker 05

  But my goal is not to be adversarial with the White House.

• 5:06Speaker 05

  For many reasons, not the least of which is that it's counterproductive. So, you know, as it pertains to that issue, I'm kind of like, I mean, I get it. Everybody's interested. It's one of those like headline kind of quotes. But moving forward, I think the goal should be less adversarial and more just like, how do we get to where we?

• 5:31Speaker 05

  You know, help these guys get what they need and solve the Russia problem. As efficiently as possible.

• 5:39Speaker 05

  And, and honestly, in that, in this last week, I've seen what appears to be things moving in the right direction. As far as, you know, like, I was never under the, any illusion that like you, somebody's just gonna wave a flag and be like, I would really appreciate it if you guys stopped shooting at each other. And then both sides go, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And then they just stop. It's gonna be a process and this 30 day ceasefire is, I don't honestly expect Russia to honor it. But at least it shows with, at least it'll show which side is the impediment to peace and which side isn't. And I think that's important.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, and honestly, what I saw of your comment was quite a, it was fairly innocuous. It was simply, hey, just because I'm related to the vice president doesn't mean that I share his politics. You know, and it wasn't. And as you, you know, as you pointed out, that you, you've certainly been emotionally involved in the war in Ukraine, involved. I mean, it's, you know, being emotionally involved.

• 6:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  So I, you know, I thought you were quite circumspect.

• 6:49Speaker 05

  Well, I think that, I think the headline grabbing one was the useful idiots one. I think that's, that's the one that obviously is like, that, that sounds, it sounds like, you know, a hateful thing. I'm not calling my cousin or the president an idiot.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  But looking at that meeting and some of the concessions that were made, it's, it's,

• 7:13Speaker 05

  you know, a lot of what politics are involved with is perceptions. And the perception was kind of scary at that moment in time. And that's what I was, I was worried about the perception of being, you know, being perceived as, as that, that title. So, you know.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  Has there been blowback since then?

• 7:38Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't really talk to anybody. So, you know what I mean? I was out in the middle of nowhere and I'm planning on staying there. There's a, there's, there's kind of a, you know, obviously on like Twitter, there's going to be, there's going to be people that don't like you on Twitter, no matter what the hell you say.

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• 9:22Speaker 05

  Hey, so I don't really give a, I don't really care if some idiot on Twitter's mad at me.

• 9:28Speaker 05

  You know, again, my, my only solitary goal really is to get those guys what they need. And, and quit, you know, if we're going to allocate money, quit wasting it on shit that is not involved with killing people and breaking things. And that may sound like a cold statement, like an almost inhumane statement, but that's what war is. It's killing people and breaking their things. And you can't kind of half-assed support that effort. If that's what you're doing, if you're supporting their ability to defend themselves, that's what you're supporting, is their ability to kill people and break shit. And I just think we need, you know, like I'm very critical of the Biden administration

• 10:09Speaker 05

  and the way they kind of figured out how to spend 60 billion to deliver 20. I don't know how they did that. That, that, that's some funky math.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  And drip feeding, drip feeding weapon systems.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  And

• 10:24Speaker 03

  Giving Russians time to adapt.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  And talking about it beforehand, right? Like, shut the hell up. Just one day, ATAC, I'm sure it just showed up and nobody knew about it. And then it was there, right?

• 10:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  So, you know, keeping your mouth shut, delivering things in sufficient quantity and at the same time to actually have an impact is a big deal. And I, you know, so I have, I have. Significant complaints about them and did the entire time, but I didn't have the same last name as anybody in the White House. So it certainly would have been as interesting to anybody when I said it.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Nate Harris.

• 10:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, maybe I should have changed my name to Nate, you know, Nate Biden and then complained about it online. But, um, but, you know, so obviously that's why it's, it's more topical that I, that I, that I made a complaint and then, you know,

• 11:21Speaker 05

  I don't know. There's other reasons besides just getting those guys what they need that I think the Biden administration did a really piss poor job at explaining and some of it is messaging. And I don't think the general mass of the American public realizes kind of the consequences of how it would affect American life if Russia were to, you know, emerge successful. And it's not, you, you would feel it, right? It would affect trade things. It would affect a lot of things. It would affect the dollar. So, um, there's a lot of reasons besides my just emotional connection to it. Um, and I don't think the Biden administration wasted three years trying to explain what those reasons are.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, what the reasons, obviously, you, um, you know, you took to heart because three years ago this month, uh, almost to the week, maybe to the week, you showed up and, uh, I got a, I got a message from you, text message saying you were showing up in, uh, Lviv with a group of British grunts. And then a few days later, I saw you in Kiev. So, and as I, as we said, not, not inaccurately, you were one of the plank holders of the Mozart group. I mean, right, right at the beginning with the Russians knocking on the, on the gates and, uh, we were, we were setting up that what it, at the time seemed to hopelessly

• 12:48Speaker 03

  inadequate training course, uh, for, uh, you know, for these guys, IT, IT workers, students, kids, remember?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  Was that the five day one?

• 12:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was like five days if that, right Nate? I mean, it was, it was

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Somewhere between three and five days, nowhere near enough.

• 13:08Jack Murphy?

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• 13:51Jack Murphy?

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• 14:44Speaker 05

  So, you know, I think it was either three or five days. I can't remember. We'd just gotten Akiv and then I had to turn right back around and go back to Lviv when we decided to do that training thing.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  But

• 14:57Speaker 05

  The, that's one of the things too, after I went and joined an infantry unit, which, looking back at my risk assessment, you know, strategy, it was probably, I probably have too high of a, a risk tolerance, especially for my age. But, um, after doing that for a while, that's one of the things that I really started to think about was like, you know, it's like, let's say I go out and every day, you know, I'm engaging and eliminating 10 enemy, right? That would be a significant amount of people. Um, the Russians don't care. They don't care, right? So ultimately, any personal contribution in that regard is somewhat limited.

• 15:41Speaker 05

  And, you know, I am no super soldier, right? Like I was a basic infantryman and, you know, wasn't in 20 years, but I do have some like management experience and between the military and that management experience of, of, you know, running a business is no different than running a military. It's just that the problems are different.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  So. I stop you for a moment. So what, so after the, the initial days of the Mozart group, you went back to Lviv and then you returned and when, when, when did you join a, a Ukrainian infantry unit?

• 16:14Speaker 05

  So I, you know, I, I don't know if you recall, but we, I went with your guys and we went to Lviv and did that like three to five day training. And then we, we came back to Kiev and we did a few other things. And I mean, God, this is a little long ago. It's hard to kind of keep track of exact specifics. But then I, I was actually scheduled to go home, right? So I did. I went back to the U S for a couple of weeks. And then I came back again and and then that's when I started getting linked up with that infantry unit was when I came back and it was actually had something to do with, I can't remember if the connection to that unit was through you or through some other people, but I think it may have been because we delivered some equipment out to Kiev. And they were

• 17:00Speaker 05

  kind of the same thing. They had a bunch of new guys that were like, you know, soccer hooligans the week before. And good eager kids, you know, I say kids, they're, you know, young enough to be my kids, but grown men.

• 17:16Speaker 05

  Extremely eager, and I think we did some, you know, again, like another short training evolution with those guys like nowhere near enough. And then they were headed to Donbass, and they kind of extended an invite, so to speak, for me to go. And I agreed to go. And that's kind of how I ended up out there and then decided to keep doing that. But what I was saying though was like, you know, we talk about sending equipment and technology and things like that over to Ukraine to support them. And information transfer is the oldest form of technology that humans possess, right? Just transferring information

• 18:00Speaker 05

  from one human being to another is as old as time. And but when you're talking about doing that on an organized level, it has to be systematized and things like that. And one of the things I've noticed is that each unit kind of has its own training protocol for a new recruit. So like in the Marines, if you're going to go to 3-1, you go to bootcamp first, and then the School of Infantry. And then by the time you show up at 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, you have at least achieved a minimum basic standard of an infantryman. And, you know, every squad leader will say, yeah, those guys are still idiots. But he's

• 18:41Speaker 05

  an idiot. If he's an idiot that knows how to load his magazine and get into a proper formation and move properly, and he knows basically how to communicate and things like that. And that takes a lot of stress and relief off of those individual unit commanders that they don't have to provide that basic level of training. And then also, one of the things that kind of Marines are known for is their consistency. So let's say, you know, an SF team calls for support or a QRF, and I've heard this many times, is that when they hear it's Marine Infantry coming, they know that it It's consistently gonna be good and that Marines are consistently gonna smash the fuck

• 19:25Speaker 05

  out of everything they see. And they're, so when they hear that, they're like, okay, that's a good thing. And it's not just good for those reasons. It's good because commanders know that when they pick on a unit to go do something, they know they're qualified to do at least X, Y, or Z. And I think because a lot of those training, you know, training systems are left up to individual units, just like anything else, you're gonna get some that are really good and some, some units that really take a, you know, in-depth dive into that training program and then you're gonna get some units that either because they're complacent or don't know how, just produce troops that don't know what

• 20:09Speaker 05

  the hell they're doing, right? And that, that gets people killed. And in terms of training people, if we were, if we had in 2022 implemented an organized kind of train the trainer program, um, the Ukrainians would already be self-sufficient. So that's another kind of gripe I have with the Biden administration. It was an opportunity that was wasted to, to say, look, we're gonna give you this aid, but in, in, but you have to systematize your training program and we have to know that the people that are gonna handle these weapons are handling it and using them as efficiently as possible. Um, and that's not to discredit the Ukrainians or say they haven't done incredible things

• 20:50Speaker 05

  with the amount of resources they've had and the problem that they're facing, but maybe it is the Marine infantryman in me that just constantly thinks it's never fucking good enough and it can always be better.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  What, uh, what was, what was it like in the unit that you were with, Nate? I mean, you, you talked about the, the very inadequate training that we were able to do. I mean, did, did the unit, what was your general feeling about its competence, about its ability to regenerate the leadership?

• 21:25Speaker 05

  Um, I mean, like, obviously I think things could improve, right? But it's difficult to criticize them because.

• 21:35Speaker 05

  Like, it's weird. I want to criticize them, but in a constructive way.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Um, I don't want it to seem like I'm beating them over the head. Um, and, and they're very open about their shortcomings too, like internally. Um, I don't want to specify them because obviously they're still, you know, out there doing things, but one of the things that I've noticed that's very difficult to,

• 22:00Speaker 05

  how do I put this? So

• 22:04Speaker 05

  there's, when it comes to mission planning,

• 22:09Speaker 05

  um, I think sometimes it needs to be more organized and structured. I think sometimes there's a lot of elements left out where if you were looking at it from the standpoint of an, of a US soldier, you'd be like, there's a lot of information missing here. And sometimes I think younger troops

• 22:28Speaker 05

  might think like, why the hell do I need to know what the back azimuth is back to friendly lines, right? Well, until it's nighttime and you don't have, you know, you don't know how to get back and things go wrong. Right? So there's a lot of those little details in a, in a, in a US mission plan that if everything goes, if everything goes well, 90% of that may be irrelevant to you. But when things start going wrong, it's like, oh shit, I'm glad I had a pace plan. Right? You know, if the enemy kills one of your guys, it takes the radio. You know, a pace plan's a pretty big deal and I've seen that happen, right? Um, and some of the things like pace plan in general, um, that's one of those deals where military style comms instead of just running with Motorola's.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  Um, that could solve a lot of that, right? But you got 10 different units in an area and you got Motorola radios with 10 channels. And if you switch channels, you're on another units freak, right? So.

• 23:28Speaker 05

  You know, the, the, the comms makes it difficult to make those planning things. And then I'll give you another example of one where uh, in a salt element kind of got dropped off at the wrong place. And there was some, some kind of confusion and telling the guys where to go. And they, they ended up not going the right way. Right? And I remember I, I, I carry, I still carry a compass and ranger beads on my gear. Anytime I leave the house and I'm really going to do something, right? And I'm constantly looking on a map like, okay, what's the magnetic azimuth to get to this next safe place and things like that.

• 24:06Speaker 05

  And that was one of those situations where had it been a US squad, everybody has a Kaminga fucking compass on their shit. They're hanging off their, their chest. And you could have just told somebody, just go, you know, 270 degrees for 400 meters. And you're going to be right where you need to be. And there's no thought, there's no confusion discussion, right? And it just happens. Um, and by, by virtue of that confusion and those guys not going where they went, things ended badly. Right? So, um, it's little details like that, that you, you don't think of. And, and even now in modern times, you know, things like land nav. People go, why would I need that? We have GPS. Well, it doesn't always work. Right?

• 24:47Speaker 05

  Um, and in that case, maybe, maybe that GPS was getting jammed there. Maybe that's why they went the wrong way. Cause they had their little tablet that they were working off of that was GPS based. So, um, those little details that most people would think, well, just teach them how to shoot a gun. And teach them how to dig a fighting hole and they're good to go. Right. That's not enough. Right? Like I can teach you how to shoot a rifle in a day. Um, but that's not enough. When you got to start moving around and doing things like that. And that.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  When I say communications, I'm not talking about radios. It's how to, how to speak to each other to deliver a message as quickly and concisely as possible.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Were you the only American in, in the unit, Nate?

• 25:36Speaker 05

  Uh, no, no, but there wasn't very many. There was just a handful of Westerners. It, yeah, the, normally it was about three of us and then guys would kind of come and go um and do different things, but it was primarily a Ukrainian unit.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  Can you talk a little bit about, so when you first joined the unit, what, what were you guys doing? I mean, where, roughly where were you and what was your, what was like a typical day like?

• 26:02Speaker 05

  When we first joined the unit, they were not actually part of the Ukrainian army proper yet, right? They were one of those like militia groups, so to speak. So what they were doing was more like going out and finding things and then reporting that to proper army units. And the reason that worked that way is because you couldn't get organic artillery um as a part of your unit unless you were part of the Ukrainian army, right? So you could work adjacent to other, you know, actual army units. And then what happened is, you know, the battalion commander at the time, which is Da Vinci, that's how the unit got its name.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  Oh, no kidding?

• 26:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, and, and he was like the equivalent of a Medal of Honor recipient in Ukraine, right? Like he's had the, the nation's highest award. So he wanted his own organic artillery. So then they ended up getting rolled up under the, another unit. But prior to that, it was like a lot of drone stuff and just finding targets and relaying those to, to, you know, bigger units and then letting them smash, smash the hell out of stuff with artillery. Um, and then as we got rolled up into the army, you know, it's like, okay, we're now you're an infantry unit. And I was like, well, things are going to get a little bit more, things are going to get a little bit more spicy. Um, because they're going to

• 27:27Speaker 05

  ask, you know, once, once you, once you get tasked with starting to take positions, that's, that's a different ball of wax altogether. So.

• 27:35Speaker 05

  So then that's what they asked us to start doing. So things got a little bit interesting.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  I got a question. What does it mean to take, uh, take up positions? I'm sorry.

• 27:47Speaker 05

  No, that means there's bad guys in a spot and you have to go kill them and occupy the space that they're currently occupying.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Got it.

• 27:55Speaker 04

  Sorry, Andy.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, we, so are you rotating out of, uh, out of trenches and, and then back to the rear? I mean, what, what was, uh?

• 28:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, so like if you look at it, it's almost like, almost like the US military where you have like a deployment system, right? So, you know, a unit will go to the front and you'll get assigned a position that maybe, maybe it's already held by Ukrainians and you're just relieving guys. Or maybe there's Russians in it and they want you to go kick them out and then, and then hold it, right? So you go on your deployment and then you drive out to whatever area of the front they were sending you to. And you'd either occupy your position or take your position. And then within that deployment, you would have like a little rotation system where you might spend it, you know, like one day on, two days off.

• 28:46Speaker 05

  Right? And you, you'd kind of take turns doing that. And each unit has their own little different kind of system of rotations. Where they would put guys out there and, uh, that's what you do until you either got relieved by another unit. Or unfortunately you experienced enough casualties where you kind of had to pull off the line. And, and then go get kind of, you know, new recruits and repopulate and retrain and and then get back after it. So it's, it's,

• 29:18Speaker 05

  you know, I, I don't want to give the impression that you're just sitting there in a hole, in a gunfight, 365 days a year. That's not, if that's your life, it's not going to be a very long life.

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• 30:33Speaker 05

  You know, so, so they are, at least in that unit, they did take,

• 30:40Speaker 05

  they did go to pretty good lengths to make sure guys weren't getting burnt out in positions and just sitting there.

• 30:47Speaker 05

  You know, because it will wear you down. I mean, you can't just stay there in that environment for too long.

• 30:54Speaker 03

  How long were you with them? Total?

• 30:57Speaker 05

  With them? From the time I left you until just recently, so, you know, years, yeah, I mean, I didn't, there was, there was a couple of times where I did kind of bounce around, like I, I met some guys in a drone unit and I was like, hey, why don't you just, what, you know, they were, they were pretty good dudes and like really fucking adept with that drone stuff. So I kind of talked those guys into letting me almost be like a foreign exchange student with them for a while. You know what I mean? So I was like, you know, it wasn't very long, but I went with them and just kind of, you know, tried to see what they were doing and pick their brains on the, on their drone end. And they're very gracious about it. I mean, they're very eager to share information and, but, but it's interesting that

• 31:43Speaker 05

  a lot of the developments and like TTPs are happening at an individual unit level.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  And not, I mean, I don't speak the language. So there's a lot of that I miss, right?

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 05

  It didn't seem like you had TTPs being driven from top down where if one unit learns it, one unit learns something valuable and then it goes up the chain and then gets disseminated back down to everybody. Didn't seem like that was happening as efficiently as it would in the US.

• 32:16Speaker 05

  But then again, I could be wrong, right? Like I, there's certain elements of stuff that I don't have access to.

• 32:21Speaker 03

  So Nate, you won't mind me saying, but you're in your 40s, right?

• 32:24Speaker 05

  I'm 45, yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, you know, how, how were you integrated into this unit? Were you, were you at squad level? And had, I mean, were there enough English speakers in the unit?

• 32:36Speaker 05

  There was, there was some in the unit. So typically I was a machine gunner in the Marines. So I'm pretty, pretty handy with machine guns and, you know, trying to explain to a layperson what like grazing on fillet fire is, is confusing enough in English. It's extra confusing in a foreign language. Uh, so, um, so, but what we did is because like, you know, if we're, if you're assaulting a position, right? Where you're having to communicate dynamically. And, you know, scream orders rapidly change and things like that. That's not a good place to have somebody who's speaking their second language. Try to communicate with the one idiot that came over from America.

• 33:19Speaker 05

  And so because I was good with machine guns, I typically ended up in that support by fire role.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  Because you don't really have to, you don't really have to know. There's not a lot of communication. It's like, hey, suppress this area. Yep. Roger that. And then you, you know, or if the enemy advanced, it's pretty easy to know what to do. It's like, well, there they are, you know? Do that thing you do with the machine guns. And, and then we'd usually have like the, one of the English speaking Ukrainians in the unit. It would be our chaperone that would communicate with headquarters on the radio.

• 33:54Speaker 05

  And then, you know, that guy didn't really have to do anything except keep communicating with them. And typically, like I said, the machine gun thing's pretty easy to do. And sometimes we were doing support by fire with just rifles because we didn't have machine guns all the time.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  So.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. What what kind of machine guns did they have when they they had them?

• 34:15Speaker 05

  We started out with just PKMs. And then we got some French fifty calibers, right? A couple of them. And I remember when they got them, I was actually back in the States. And these were the old style. They're not like the A ones where you don't have to do the headspace and timing. So these were the old ones. And I remember sending messages and I was like, do not fucking shoot them, right? Wait until like. And they shot them. And they had problems like from that point on. I think they didn't. I I don't know. Maybe they could have been screwed up and old to begin with. But I I I. I we we got them to cycle, but they just they were they were never quite that, you know, quite running the way a body should properly run.

• 34:58Speaker 05

  And then we ended up getting some A ones later, which were great. Um. But the another thing is like, you know. You have to run the barrel that's assigned to that receiver on those A ones. It's got two barrels and you can't mix and match them and just swap them out. And that was one of the things in the battalion. The battalion got a bunch of them. And all of them were having problems. And I was like, all right, look at the serial number on the barrel. Now look at the serial number on the receiver. Is it the same number? And they're like, no. And I was like, all right, I'm take all the fucking barrels off right now before we break these things. You know, and that I mean, you know, the the M two is an incredible weapon, but. She's a little bit.

• 35:41Speaker 03

  Finicky.

• 35:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, she can be, you know what I mean? But as long as you treat her right, she's she's great. And then we ended up getting a few Mark nineteen's, um, which are. God, I love that thing.

• 35:54Speaker 05

  But I don't like carrying it.

• 35:57Speaker 05

  And that's.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  That's. You know, I finally got to use a Mark nineteen in an environment where it was like appropriate, right? Where it was. Like, that's the that's the perfect place. For Mark nineteen's is over there. And it was also the place where I'm now in my forties. And you can't afford to drive a vehicle anywhere where you can use the Mark nineteen. So it's like. God damn it, you know what I mean? Now I gotta carry this heavy bitch everywhere.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  So but. You know, if you can get that thing in a position and and know how to use it, it is.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  It it it makes a difference for sure. So I ended up like that's another thing too is like, you got to be careful at telling them what you're good at or demonstrating what you're good at because we did use the Mark 19 one time to great success. And then the Mark 19 became the solution for everything. And I'm like, whoa, slow down. You know, I'm not carrying this bitch everywhere, you know, let's not get carried away. But, but, you know, after a while, it just gets to a point where when you're in that support role, you know, some of the guy, the guys you're supporting are in significantly more danger than you are. So as heavy as that piece of shit is,

• 37:17Speaker 03

  sure.

• 37:18Speaker 05

  You know, you you you get, you really feel obligated to get it to where it needs to be and get it up and running and.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a perfect role for you. Really, I mean, given, given, you know, I mean, given your na age, given but given your expertise and given the fact that they did.

• 37:37Speaker 05

  That was within, within that unit. That's where I'm, that's where I belonged. Right? Like, that was the right place to have me. And then, you know, after a while, I started training the guys on the, on the, on the Mark 19. Again, Mark 19 is a simple machine itself, but understanding the mill system in the T and E and how to use it and how to calculate it. And then, you know, things like time of flight, you can't shoot where the guys are, you got to shoot where they're going to be. Because it's, you know, it it two clicks, it's 15 seconds of flight time, you can cover quite a bit of ground in 15 seconds. So, but, you know, those guys are quick studies and they're eager. And they want to, they're like sponges, man, they want to soak up as much stuff as they possibly can. So.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  What were your impressions of the Russians? You know, the right, I know, in the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were very scornful of the Russian infantry.

• 38:35Speaker 05

  You know, did that change? Look, there's, there's, there's always the, the kind of.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  Natural dehumanization of your enemy.

• 38:49Speaker 05

  Which I completely understand. But when you're, if you're being logical and you're trying to, you have an opponent, you have to realize like, they don't want to die either.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  Their ability to deduce things and calculate things are just as good as yours are, you know what I mean? And you're, you're much better off if you presume your enemy is better at doing this than you are.

• 39:13Speaker 05

  You know, that, that will affect your planning. If you think these guys are really good. If you think they're idiots, you'll wander and ride into a trap. So it's like, my outlook on it was always assume that the enemy element that you're going up against is the best they have. And treat them like they're better than you are. And you'll tend not to forget as many things or take as many shortcuts if you do it that way.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  But you know, if I'm giving an honest assessment about the Russians, some of them are terrible troops, like some of them are just cannon fodder that they throw out there. But trying to paint

• 39:51Speaker 05

  the, the Russian military with a broad brush and just saying they all suck. If they all suck that bad, what are they still doing in Ukraine? Why, you know, why haven't you pushed them out? And

• 40:02Speaker 05

  they're very much, you know, and kind of in the same vein of the Ukrainians, they have really effective units and then they have, you know, some, some pretty dog shit units.

• 40:11Speaker 05

  The problem is you don't know which one you're coming up against on any, on any given day. So you may as well just assume that it's their best. And in plan accordingly.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  And that's extremely good with artillery. I mean, from the beginning of the war, they were, they could bring down artillery very quickly.

• 40:29Speaker 05

  They, they could, yeah, yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 05

  Artillery is something that they will not hesitate to use. Mortars are also, they got really good mortar men. I think on both sides of the on both sides of the conflict, you probably have some of the best mortar men and some of the best artillery men on earth right now. They, they've certainly had enough practice.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  I think the Russians suffer a little bit from the same communication problem. Right? I don't think they have enough like military style communication to kind of go around.

• 41:02Speaker 05

  And that sometimes kind of saved us a little bit. Because there were times where I was like, it's coming any minute and it never, it never came, you know? So, and the only thing I can kind of chalk that up to is the message didn't get to where it needed to be, or there was just another higher priority target somewhere else.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  It's hard to know, you know what I mean? It's really hard to kind of figure out why, why something didn't happen.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  But I have heard, you know, that like we've intercepted communications that they were using and they were like, you know, civilian radio, they weren't being frequency, they weren't frequency hopping or encrypted. So some of those units are using just civilian radios. Which that kind of indicates to me that there's not enough real military comms to go around. And then I've also found places that have been liberated where I saw old style comm wire laid everywhere. So in some places they're using field phones, which is not necessarily a bad idea, but you know, with as much artillery is going around, those wires are going to get cut fairly often. You know, which interrupts their ability to to, to call in for that kind of support, but

• 42:17Speaker 03

  I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  No, I was just gonna say it's a weird conflict. You know what I mean? Like in some ways you're surprised in multiple different directions, right? You're surprised by how seemingly inefficient the Russian army can be. And then in other areas, you're surprised, you're like, man, they didn't know they could pull that off. So you know, it's a weird mix.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  Pockets of unexpected excellence.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  And you don't need it.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, you know, you gotta think

• 42:50Speaker 05

  that somebody in there knows what they're doing, right? Like I think there are dumb Russians. Some of them are high ranking officials in the, in the Russian army. But I, Russians are not by definition dumb people, right? They're, they're really smart people. And it's honestly, it helps you more to recognize their intelligence than it does to constantly speak about their stupidity, right? If you think they're stupid, you, you'll take them lightly and lighter than you should, right? So you need to recognize like I get the dehumanization thing. I get making jokes on social media and making fun of the other side. But if you're a planner, you need to plan like they're

• 43:34Speaker 05

  Like they're dangerous because they are. I mean, they're, they're, they're good at a lot of things.

• 43:41Speaker 03

  Nate, what was the, uh, what was medical support like? I mean, I, I asked that because I know certainly during the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were struggling with having enough trained medics. I mean, how, how was it in your unit?

• 43:54Speaker 05

  Um, the, the concept of training medics that that got corrected fairly quickly. Um, the problem then became certain supply issues like whole blood products. And, you know, like one thing that I was never able to get my hands on was an easy I O kit. Um, which could have saved a lot of people, right? Like, you know, sometimes you just can't start an IV on somebody. Um, so little things like that, but I mean, you also have to think it's, it genuinely is a supply and demand issue. There's a lot of demand for medical kit. And it's getting, it's getting used up. It's not like it's just sitting in a stockpile, right? It's getting used constantly.

• 44:37Speaker 05

  Um, and then the, the main issue with medical that I see now is evacuation.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  So a lot of those areas where guys get wounded, it's just really hard to get a vehicle in there. And sometimes there's just not enough time to, you know, carry a litter out or you can't carry a litter out because you can't move quick enough to avoid the gauntlet of artillery and mortar fire. That's going to come your way if you try. Um, and there's times we did try and it didn't work and, you know, we just, you know, couldn't do it. So evacuation and whole blood product, like if you can't take the time, having whole blood products in a lot of cases will keep guys alive long enough to figure something else out.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 05

  Well, you know, if there's a system to get whole blood products all the way up to the zero line in an efficient manner, it saved a lot of lives. Um, and I, you know.

• 45:37Speaker 05

  You know, I did back away from the front once my cousin got the shoulder tap to be the VP. Just because, you know, I was like, well, I need to. But. You know, so I don't know if anything's dramatically changed in that timeframe or not, but I haven't heard anything like the situation's improving there, but.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? I remember when, you know, just during the first year when we were trying to teach them about casualty collection points. And they were saying, are you crazy? If we set up a casualty collection point.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  It's.

• 46:11Speaker 05

  That's insanity. Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. You've got to, you've got to evacuate the guy from point of injury as, you know, and all the way back and.

• 46:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, all the way outside of artillery range is where your CCP needs to be and it's really hard to do, you know what I mean? Like there's legitimately not really an answer for it.

• 46:32Speaker 05

  You know, a lot of those areas are just getting laced up with like. You know. ATGMs. All the time, right? You hear them whizzing over your head all the time. So you're like, dude, if we bring in a. If we bring in an M113 to this spot. It's just going to get smacked and we're going to have more casualties, right? And still no evac, right? So. It's one of those shitty decisions you have to make, but you're like, we can't. Bring a vehicle up here. And this guy needs it. We can't do it. We got to try to figure out another way. Or just keep him alive long enough. Until we can figure something else out and it doesn't always work and it's a shit spot to be in, but that's the reality of it.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Nate, what's? What's your? What's kind of your, your, I was going to say prediction. There's no other way to put it, but I mean, what, what do you think will make a good peace deal? At this point in the war, I know earlier on, when you were talking about your, your comments and. The fact that you didn't want to be too critical of the White House because it wasn't about that, but. And I know you tried to make a constructive comments about what, what you envision a working plan to look like, but do you mind? Going over that for us?

• 47:50Speaker 05

  Unfortunately, I don't think. There is really. A. A, there's no lasting peace plan that doesn't involve. Significant teeth.

• 48:03Speaker 05

  Because I don't think Putin has any.

• 48:08Speaker 05

  I don't think he has any um. Like for me, that I have no illusions about the fact that Putin intends on continuing this at some point. Right? I think the only reason Putin might be. You know, amenable to a temporary peace plan or something. That that kind of halts hostilities. Is because. You know, his industry and his forces need to rearm and regroup. I think in this. They have a similar necessity to do so that the Ukrainians do. Um. You know, like you don't see any more MTLBs on the line anymore, right?

• 48:46Speaker 05

  That's that's a significant thing that the goddamn Russian army ran out of MTLBs, right? That's that's like. They had thousands.

• 48:55Speaker 03

  Just explain with MTLB is.

• 48:58Speaker 05

  And MTLB is like a it's kind of like the Russian equivalent to what we would look at as, you know, just an armored personnel carrier. And kind of colloquially, we refer to them as like combat taxi. So if you're going to send assault troops up to the front, you might send BMPs to kind of give them some fire support. And then MTLBs with a bunch of dudes in the back and they pile out and you know what I mean? It's just a. Or casualty evacuation, right? So you might just send them up there. They're cheap, not particularly heavily heavily armored or armed. But it's armored enough to protect you from like small arms. And you can haul ass up to the front line, pick up a casualty, turn around and haul ass back. Um.

• 49:40Speaker 05

  And the Russian army had thousands of those things at the beginning of the war and the you're seeing the Russians use. Donkeys. To replace them. Yeah, I mean, there's I don't know if that I don't know how wide scale it is, but you are starting to see videos that the Russians are putting online. Of them using donkeys to bring supplies up to the front and bring them back. That was the typical role of like the MTLB.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  All the way up to this point. So you're starting to see them less and less. There might be a few of them still out there. I'm not saying they have zero. But if guys are having to resort to using pack animals, it's almost like that scene in Patton in the movie Patton where George C. Scott says. You know how I knew it was the end for them? It was the carts. And then he goes into some diatribe about how he was present with Napoleon, you know. But and that's like when I started seeing the donkeys, I read that's that that's the scene, the movie scene I thought of. And kind of internally was quoting was like, Jesus Christ, you know, how bad does it have to be where you're like, I'll get on a donkey and go out and FPV drone land and.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Make a resupply run. You know, the logistics problems have to be pretty bad for it to get to that point. So. I think the Russians do need a break, but I don't think that their long term intentions are to pause, right? Like it's just a halftime show for them.

• 51:04Speaker 05

  And I mean, and when you really.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Sorry, go on.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  And when you really look at it, this is not a three year old conflict, right? This conflict's been going on for a long time, even before 2014. Right before 2014, it was the. You know, the old school kind of so, you know, I know it's not Soviet anymore because the Soviet Union was gone. But they were using those same tactics of kind of trying to destabilize the government and, you know.

• 51:32Speaker 05

  Using subterfuge and propaganda to kind of. Turn Ukraine into a vassal state. That pissed them off. So then they said, okay, well, we'll we'll create a little rebellion in the east. Which was full of Russian troops, right? There's those weren't like rebels from Ukraine. Some of them were, you know what I mean? But there was Russian special forces in there doing things, you know, which Russia denied and is obviously bullshit. How did just random rebels get a hold of Russian artillery pieces, right? It doesn't make any sense. Like, where'd the BMPs come from? So obviously that was a Russian operation. That didn't work. They took Crimea, you know? Things still didn't change, right?

• 52:12Speaker 05

  Ukraine's still progressively moving more and more towards the West. And finally, I think they just kind of jumped the shark in 2022, but the conflict's significantly older than that. And it just escalated from can we do this the easy way?

• 52:27Speaker 05

  And they kept kind of realizing, no, this isn't going to work. This isn't going to work. So they kept doing it the harder and harder and harder way. And now we're in a full scale invasion. And, you know, I think if there's a momentary, momentary peace, you'll, there will be another sugar in the basement moment and they'll blame it on the Ukrainians. And that will be their excuse to kick it off again when they're ready.

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• 53:48Speaker 05

  So, you know, the only thing I think they respect is

• 53:55Speaker 05

  force or the credible threat of force that's insurmountable. And if they don't see that, then they'll, they'll do whatever they want.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, two, two great points you drew from that.

• 54:09Speaker 03

  Nate, or rather I drew from, from what you just said. One is the point that lost in this whole strange conversation now about peace negotiations not involving the Ukrainians, et cetera, et cetera. Lost in that morass is the fact that the Russians are hurting badly. Their economy is hurting. The military has been decimated.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  And, you know, they're

• 54:36Speaker 03

  The number of vehicles that they have lost is just a staggering amount and to say, hey, they have plenty left now, it no longer applies. Their industry obviously cannot keep up with the scale of losses. The war is very unpopular at home. You know, it's too easy to forget that by focusing on Ukraine's problems. And the other part that anyone who's dealt with the Russians knows is true is the fact that, no, they do not respect a desire for peace. They don't care about that. They respect fear and Putin especially.

• 55:14Speaker 05

  No, but look, they also respond to fear as well, right? Deterrence works. It worked during the Cold War. But that deterrence has to be credible and powerful enough to be effective as a deterrent, right? And it has to be powerful and effective enough to act as a deterrent. Five years from now, after, you know, Russia's had the opportunity to kind of rebuild and rearm themselves and implement their lessons learned over the course of this conflict. So it's a significant investment to keep them where they are. Because, you know, if you take Ukraine right now, and we just like, let's say there was a peace and we just say,

• 55:58Speaker 05

  okay, good, you guys are good, and we just leave, right? And their military kind of stays the same way it is right now. Well, Russia's is not going to stay the same way it is. They're going to continue to improve. They are smart, so they will implement those lessons learned. They will rebuild. And they'll come back, you know, stronger than they are today. So, you know, whatever the teeth is that you put in there, and I'm not a strategist, right? Like, I'm really not. So I kind of loathe trying to say what the specifics are, what that exactly needs to be. But it needs to be something that's

• 56:34Speaker 05

  Strong enough to where, you know, whatever Russia's gonna have five years from now, it's strong enough to make them pause and say, it's not worth it, right?

• 56:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 05

  And, you know, I don't know what that looks like, that we have guys with stars on their collars in the Pentagon, you know, they need to determine that. But if we are gonna say, you know, and again, this is like, you know, this is all outside my wheelhouse necessarily, but if we are gonna say, hey, you know, we're gonna sign this peace plan and we're gonna back it if Russia breaks it, whatever that backing is, has to have clearly defined strategic goals attached to it, that if they break it, what does that mean? What are we gonna do?

• 57:21Speaker 05

  What does that mean for Russia? Do we push them all the way back? Do we make, does that now mean that you can't, we're gonna kick you out of Crimea? You know, and whatever that, those goals are, it needs to be something that's more than an executive order, it needs to be like signed into law almost because it has, you know, like the, the, the bad part about this and what I don't want to have happen, and I think this is bad for our like long-term, you know, foreign policy reputation, is that if we say, you know, if America says we have your back, we gotta have it, right? And the, the first time you bail out of that, the effort that it takes to get your reputation

• 58:02Speaker 05

  back with other countries that you may need to be in that area of the world is Herculean, right? You can damage your reputation in 10 seconds and it takes decades to, to build it back up. So that's, that's part of it where I look at like, you know, when people say, what is America's purpose in all this? Like some of it is just salvaging our own reputation or just maintaining our own reputation. We said as a country, we got your back, you know, more than once, right? We said in the Budapest memorandum, and then we said in 2022 again, even if it was a different president that's in there right now, the rest of the world doesn't care that there was a administration change, right? They just look at it and say, well, America's wishy-washy and you can't rely on them.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Containing an adversary is an important strategic goal.

• 58:53Speaker 05

  No, I mean, it's. And this is one of those things that I am upset with the Biden administration because they did not clearly define to the American people why Russia is our adversary.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:07Speaker 05

  And they did a very good job talking about kind of the human, you know, the human interest part of it. But there's a certain amount of the population that is more transactional. I'm not saying that as a negative thing, right? They just look at it and go, what's the cost benefit analysis of why we're.

• 59:25Speaker 03

  In financial, in purely financial terms, which is.

• 59:29Speaker 05

  Not, not even necessarily just financial terms, but like, okay, well, you know, how does this affect, like, why is this beneficial to America? They all, you know, a certain proportion of the population understands, like, I get it, killing people's bad. But there's lots of evil in the world. Why is it in America's interest to be involved in this particular part of the world? And I don't think they did a good enough job. And the Russian propaganda machine was constantly churning out bullshit during the entire conflict. And you know, they're not really responding to it effectively. They just go, you know, it's, it's sad, but that's not, some people are,

• 1:00:08Speaker 05

  that's not what motivates them to make a decision, right? And, you know, that, like, it's not good or bad. I think that's what's great about our country is you kind of have those two conflicting things kind of working against each other. And somewhere in the middle is where the, the right answer lies. If you're purely emotional, that's a bad place to be. That's how I made some pointed comments about my, uh, my cousin the other day, and it got me a lot of unwanted attention.

• 1:00:33Speaker 05

  But, but if you're purely clinical, then sometimes you kind of lose your humanity. So I think that that's what makes us good as a country. We can be that marketplace of ideas and figure out a middle ground that tends to work. And we end up doing the right thing, maybe after we've done the wrong thing over and over again. But like Winston Churchill said, you know.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Can be relied upon to do the right thing after exhausting every other possibility.

• 1:00:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I couldn't remember the exact quote, but, but, but you know, as long as at the end of the day, we, we do the right thing, I'm happy. And you know, honestly, like I can't, I'm not in a position to move the needle or affect policy or anything like that. But if I see the country doing something and I think it's wrong, you know, I think we're moving in the wrong direction. I think it's not only our right, but kind of our obligation to speak up. And in this particular case, and in this particular political issue, when I do it, it tends to gain some attention.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Well, you continuously underplay yourself, Nate. I'll tell you that. And when I, you know, when I first met you and, and we were talking over a coffee in Kiev and asked you to help with training, I remember you saying, hey, I, I can't remember much about being a Marine at all. And yet, and yet I will say this, once you, once you, you threw yourself into it, it came very naturally to you, you know, so.

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  Well, like I've, I've said in some other publications, that's a testament to the Marine Corps, honestly.

• 1:02:09Speaker 05

  That's one of those things, you know, I hadn't, I hadn't seen a Mark 19 in 20 something years. And I got one delivered to me in a box, set it up on its tripod, and the following day was engaging targets two kilometers away that I couldn't see with a compass and a fucking bubble level. And that says something about the Marine Corps, you know, professionalism and their level of training. I wouldn't have thought I could do that, right? I wouldn't have thought that it would get back in my head. But, you know, when you have some, some surly sergeant being like, oh, I don't, oh, you're tired? Shut the fuck up and do it again anyway. You know what I mean? That's what happens is 20, 20 years later,

• 1:02:51Speaker 05

  you know, you can still remember to do that. And, and you know, if that was, it's one of the things that's kind of weighed on me a little bit. And what's made me think if we're not giving.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  Those Ukrainian troops, those Ukrainian conscripts,

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  the, that level of, of, of training, we're doing them a disservice. Um, and it's something that can be achieved. It's hard. It's hard to set up the infrastructure for it, but it can be done and it kind of must be done. And if you're not doing it, you're, you're not giving them everything that you can. And that's, that's unacceptable to me. So.

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  I got a question. Um, how many weeks are like new Ukrainian recruits getting in terms of training before they're?

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  Man, I don't think that there's a consistent answer to that.

• 1:03:36Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:03:38Speaker 05

  I don't know. You know, like, I know sometimes there was some examples of guys that got like maybe two weeks and then thrown out there. And, you know, I'm not trying to cause a big stink or do anything like that. There is a certain necessity involved, you know, with the Ukrainians. And I think they genuinely want to do everything they can. But I think that there's no, there's no singular like training kind of pipeline in their needs to be, which is also very difficult to set up because you got an enemy that's slinging fucking missiles at everything strategically valuable. So you'd have to kind of break that apart and have like a bunch of little small training things. And then maintaining a consistency between each little individual pipeline would be difficult, but it's,

• 1:04:22Speaker 05

  it's, it's not as difficult as going into the, going to the front lines, you know, and, and, and, and fighting with two weeks, two weeks of training. Certainly not as difficult as that. And if we're going to expect guys to go do that, then

• 1:04:37Speaker 05

  you know, to go into that hell, then the least we could do is

• 1:04:41Speaker 05

  give them every available bit of information that we can. So.

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  Well, Nate, thanks. Uh, thanks so much. You know, I, I, I talked about you underplaying yourself as a, uh, as, as a trainer of Ukrainians, but you've also underplayed yourself. I, in, you know, you're talking about your recent comments. I, I would say you're an articulate, articulate and credible voice. And especially, you know, with your background, not even talking about. Your relatives in the White House. I'm just talking about the fact that it's, you know, you're, you're the right person in the right moment to, to say the things that you have said because people cannot argue with you. You're getting embarrassed now because of course, you know, we don't

• 1:05:28Speaker 03

  flatter one another as, as Marines, but thank you. Anyway, that was, that was, it was great seeing you again. And I want to, I can't let you go without thanking you for, for your statements that helped me win that lawsuit against our friend, Michael Ryan Burke. Do you remember the, you know, the rapist?

• 1:05:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, I remember. Um, yeah, no, I mean, like,

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  just, I don't know, like the, the, the questions, you know, I was asked some questions and that's the truth. And I was like, well, that's, yeah, I'll make the statement on that. So that's.

• 1:06:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's, he's, unfortunately, he, he escaped justice and he is back in the States and doing a job that would, horrify you to know, but at least, you know, at least we did the right thing at the time. So I appreciate that.

• 1:06:21Speaker 05

  No, no, no problem. So you guys, thanks for having me. I do kind of got to get running. I gotta,

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  matter today. So, but I appreciate it.

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  Nate, appreciate it, man. Thank you.

• 1:06:32Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  All, all the best, Nate. Drive safely.

• 1:06:35Speaker 05

  All right.

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