Left Of Greg 083 Captain Dale Dye

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Alright, so we'll go ahead and get started here, sir. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Everyone listening and watching right now, we have Captain Dale Dye, a legendary Marine. I don't usually typically get excited, sort of fanboy type, with anyone we've ever had on, but since you've been on here, sir, I mean, I remember you since I was a little kid watching your movies and growing up and being in the Marine Corps and hearing about you. So, first off, thank you for coming on. It's an honor having you on here today.

Yeah, thanks, Brian, and thanks for reminding me of how old I actually am.

That's great. That's, it's meant out of respect, I assure you. So I kind of wanted to start. Can you hear me still? We get a little bit of audio issue. I'm not sure, it's probably on my end. We had something going on this morning, but I think we should. I'm good. Greg, you're alright?

Yeah, all clear.

Okay, perfect. So I just wanted to start off real quick because Greg wanted to tell a story about meeting you or working with you years ago, and he wanted to kind of see if you remember him at all. But I'll let, I'll let Greg go ahead and start off.

So, our paths crossed a couple of times, and it's funny because you never remember certain things. I was up in Midterm, Colorado with Shelly. Oh, Sensei Steven Seagal was up there doing one of the Dark Territory films, and so we had time to power around with him, and you were on that film, and we were all hoping that we would run into each other on that film, and it never occurred.

So then, much later—it was probably, I'm thinking, late 2006 or early 2007—I just returned from Iraq, and you just married Julia. I was sitting in a car on Pendleton. Grossman spoke earlier in the morning than you were speaking, and I was sitting in a car, and I look in the rearview and I go, "Hey everybody, it's Dale Dye!" And they all go, "No way!" So I was with Teacher Atkinson, Shelly, and we had just done a Combat Hunter course there, and I was speaking on the relevance of Combat Hunter in Iraq. So we came out, and you were with a young Reserve Major, and I can't remember his name. I know I thought it started with "S". And I said, "Hey, I know Dale!" And he came in and your wife was there, and she and Shelly were talking, and you and I got to catch up. It was like the most amazing thing because, just like Brian, it was like I couldn't, I couldn't sit there and just talk about your work. I was sitting there and thinking of all these Hollywood lights blowing off at the same time. Everybody laughed at me because we didn't get a photo together, and we certainly did not get an autograph at that time. So I told Marren, "I'm certain he's not going to remember that because of all the people that he meets." But it was a great memory for me.

Well, thanks, Greg. You know, I do meet a lot of people, and I try to look in their bds eyeballs and pay attention. Frankly, while I don't specifically remember you, I remember the incident and the Combat Hunter program, which I was a great advocate of. I thought it was great stuff.

Great, thank you. Greg, Greg had a small hand in writing that program, actually.

Exactly. So, so yeah. Well, so I want to start off with that, but I do appreciate you coming on here, sir. There's a kind of, I've actually heard you speak, just not... Yeah, I was in your movies and everything, but I heard you on. You were on the Born the Battle podcast, and then Tanner, who's the host there, actually had reached out to me and I did an episode on there as well, and he talked to me about some of the stuff we were doing. But I started off as I was like, "Hey, I shouldn't be on the same podcast that Dale Dye is." And he's like, "What?" Because I heard your whole, he told me the story about how he ended up getting on. It was really funny stuff. So I was like, it's just cool or funny how it all comes full circle.

But, you know, for those folks who don't know too much about your career, I mean, you were enlisted in the Marine Corps, then became a Warrant Officer, and then a full Commissioned Officer as a Captain. So it's like, man, you've hit everything! You hit every wicket in your career doing that, which is cool. So I'm just, if you want to tell us a little bit about that or how that kind of came to be. And I know you've got a ton of experience, but, you know, what, what you glean from all that?

Well, I think, I think the business of having kicked it through all of the wickets: enlisted, NCO, Staff NCO, Warrant Officer, and Commissioned Officer, it gave me a sort of a unique perspective. In the Marine Corps, we call it a Mustang. It gave me a kind of a unique perspective on everything that I did because I could always see it from the other side or I could recall having had that experience in one form or another. And that's been inordinately valuable in the books I've written, in the movies and the television shows I've done. There's very little perspective that I can't put myself in, if you will. And I have a, I have a sort of an eidetic memory about things. I seem to have been self-aware during the whole time, and so I can conjure up emotions and I can conjure up philosophies. And I can say, "Okay, I remember when I was a Corporal and that idiot was screaming in my face, and that was bad leadership, so don't ever do that." So I tried to use that broad experience, and I think it's paid some dividends for me.

No, that you bring up a great thing actually I want to talk about because of your perspective. Not, not just, you know, as enlisted and Warrant Officer and then Commissioned Officer. I mean, obviously that, that's a, that's incredible perspective from anyone, not from the Marine Corps or in the military, to be able to do that. It really does give you a unique insight into how everything works. You know, I didn't even learn about that stuff till I was involved in some projects right after the Marine Corps as like, you know, I was a fly on the wall, but it was big picture stuff and I just went, "Holy cow, there's so much that goes into this that I had no idea." And it was, so you gain a different perspective.

But you, you covered a lot of the Vietnam War as a correspondent. And I know you started out, I think, in the infantry and then you, you, you were covering it there, and as a Marine Corps correspondent, what we call—I don't know if it was called back then, but we, you know, we have Combat Camera now. And you know, it reminded me of, I mean, in Iraq, in Anbar Province one time, I actually watched a Combat Camera Marine. We bounded across a street and we were actively taking fire, that's why we were bounding, and he was had his camera out snapping photos as he's running. And I just remember going like, "Man, I'm, I'm glad I don't have that job. I, I'm just worried about fighting back." But you go into perspective, and it does give you almost like you're, you're in the fight, you're a Marine, but you're also covering the story, not just actively participating in the story. So what, I mean, what was, what was that like or how do you think that helped?

It really gave me a broad perspective on the war. We were unique. There were only a handful of us, and we could, we could go practically anywhere and do practically anything, assuming that we would at some point produce some little story or picture that we had, we had taken. And Lord knows, we saw that. We knew we had the keys to the kingdom there, and we took no end of advantage of it. But what I really liked about it, Brian, was that the grunts used to refer to us. They were amazed that we were up there on point with them to begin with, but they used to refer to us as JARs. I heard that for a while, and I said, "Well, what does that mean? Jarhead?" "No," because they would use that in a different fashion. I finally, embarrassed as I was, I went up and I said, "Listen, what the hell is a JAR? Why are you...?" And he said, "A JAR: Just Another Rifle." Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because, of course, I mean, when the defecation hit the oscillation, I mean, yeah, we were pumping rounds. It wasn't about cameras or anything else. We, and we did our interviews and reporting, if you will, after the lead stopped flying.

But the neat thing about it—and I think this is the direct answer to your question—is that we saw the real heart and soul of not the war, because that's big picture. Yeah, we saw the heart and soul of the people who were fighting the war. And we, we had the modicum of talent that would allow us to sort of explain that to people from a, from a common reader, sort of Ernie Pyle perspective. Which we did, and we were very proud of that. I was very proud that our little unit in the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam, for instance, it was one of the most highly decorated little coteries of Marines there was. Almost all of us had one or more Purple Hearts, and we were decorated for what we did in support of the infantry. And so I kind of remember it that way. I kind of remember it as a guy who was fortunate enough to be able to put a little microscope on what was happening. And I really, in combat—and I think this is a common experience; it's certainly probably your common experience—one of the neat things about surviving infantry combat, close combat, is that you see the entire gamut of human nature. You see the absolute most heroic and selfless things you will ever see, and you see the most horrible and unjust and inhumane things you will ever see. And all of us try to be somewhere in the middle of that, but it gives you a real insight because, given that you have to try to write about it and try to explain it, you examine it, you think about it. Whereas, you know, were I not in that slot, in that billet, I probably wouldn't have thought about it at all. You know, I just thought about staying alive and the hell with it. But anyway, that's a long and complicated answer to what question I think you had.

No, that's, that's perfect. And you, you hit up because, you know, you're, what I always got from you is you're a storyteller, right? You tell the story, whether as a journalist or onset of a movie, you have to. And, you know, people forget sometimes, those, well, you're actively involved. You're, I mean, it's weird because you're writing about a story that you're also a character in that story, right? So, Hunter Thompson, Gonzo. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I'm sure as a young enlisted guy with the freedom to go anywhere, I'm sure you took that and ran with it, just like any Marine would. But, but, you know, that's such an important part, right? So storytellers in any culture or tradition, you know, throughout history of mankind, like those, those are who, they have a certain spot in that culture, and it's because they're carrying the traditions forward. They're going, "Hey, this is what happened, let's learn from this," right? And then that's the idea. Let's tell the story about institutional memory.

Yeah, and because you, you hit it on the head when you say, "I saw the best, and I saw the worst." And that's what I always tell people, is like, "Hey, what was it like in the Marine Corps?" You say, "It's like the absolute greatest moments of your life and also the absolute worst moments of your life, and everything in between." And so, just interesting that you kind of, kind of phrased it that way. I don't know, Greg, I know you had.

Yeah, so I'm thinking, I'm a bit of a storyteller myself, and so I'm thinking, the, my favorite book—like we could do a drinking game: favorite Dale Dye movie, favorite Dale Dye saying. You get what I'm trying to say, because we honestly, we honestly have compiled so much stuff over the years because we love you. And, by the way, Cape Girardeau, where you were born, we've got some great friends from there, and they couldn't stop talking about you, and I don't think you spent much time there. Call you a legendary son, you know.

So we, we had just come off of, I was reading a book, your, I believe it's your first book, but I was reading a book solely because of the strength of the title, and it was about "Running Between the Raindrops." And you made the comment that it was harder getting out of Hawaii than it was running between raindrops without getting wet. And that's just a killer title. Anybody would love that.

So much later, years later, in fact, a good friend of mine, Don Jaeger, the infamous hero of the 173rd in the Central Highlands, we're, we're watching my kids play, play hockey in Gunnison, Colorado, and he hands me a book. And it was two books that he gave me, but it was the book Outrage, and it was your book that closely mimics the Beirut bombing. And it was just amazing, just an amazing book. And the guy sitting next to me while we're watching my son play hockey goes, "Hey, do you know Dale Dye?" And I go, "I, I kind of like, I, I think I know him, but I said, I bet he couldn't sign up." And he goes, "Well, great book, great man, great warrior, valor, this and that the other." And he's telling me this great story, and he walked off, and Jaeger looked at me and goes, "Hey, do you know who that was?" And I go, "I have no idea." He goes, "That was Oliver Stone." I go, "You gotta be kidding me!" Oliver Stone has property up there and was there watching the hockey game, just like somebody else, and I go, "Ain't this about something?"

So subsequently, we're back at Lejeune, and we, we stopped on the side of the road at the memorial for Beirut, and it just had a profound effect. I don't think another person could have written that book. I don't think somebody could have written what you have written over the years because I, I know you from, from, from books as much as I know you from your television and movie appearances. I don't think anybody without your insight could have written that. Am I right, or how do you feel about that?

Well, it's, it's quite complimentary, Greg, thank you. Maybe, maybe you just got to be there in a gonzo fashion. Look, I, I take what you, what you said about being a storyteller very much to heart, because I think, I think guys like us do have an important place around that human campfire. And we're the guys, you know, who can, who can tell you a shaggy dog story with a one-line punch line, you know, but it lasts an hour because we're just storytellers. It's just what we do. And I, I was talking to my wife this morning about it. We go out on the patio since, you know, the Rona is on us. We go out to patio and drink coffee in the morning and talk about the weirdest damn things. And this morning it was about storytellers, of which I'm one, she's one, you guys are both storytellers. And I thought about, you know, is it the mechanics of the writing that's attractive, or is it the message of just telling a story? Because we seem compelled to continue to do it, whether it's, whether it's for monetary remuneration or just because, you know, we gotta do it. It's one of those things. And I don't know, frankly, but, but I do know that it's neat, and I'm really glad that that we're, we're, we have that gift, wherever the hell it came from.

Yeah, so it's like I said, you kind of went, alright, so you went in from, from being in the military for, for being the Marine Corps for a long time, and then from what I, I read—and you can correct me if that's wrong—you, you then kind of went into Hollywood, one of the movies, but specifically to tell, like, try and tell a real story because there wasn't good stuff out there, right? So I'm just curious, is, is, you know, what, what made you decide to do that or how did you get into that? Or maybe that was reported incorrectly, and you just landed some job luckily? I don't, I don't know, I'll let you tell it.

Well, alright, I mean, look, I, when I, when I finally decided to retire from active duty, I did, I did a long period of sort of fuzzy-headed navel-gazing: "You know, what, what am I going to bring to the civilian table?" And, you know, I've been shot too many times to want to be a cop on today's mean streets, and I knew that if I, if I took a job in corporate America, you know, I'd be a suicide in six months or promptly become the, you know, the barfly down at the VFW whose whole life is about draft beer and sea stories. So none of that was appealing.

And, I, I got to thinking, "Oh, look, what, what's your, what's your gig, guy? I mean, what do you like?" And I came to think, "I really like movies. I think I had seen every war movie there was." And the common denominator to those war movies was that the vast majority of them just pissed me off. And I thought, "Well, okay, why do they piss you off?" "Well, because they didn't reflect who I knew you were, how we thought, how we acted, how we related to each other." And, and so from there, I jumped to, "Well, how can that be? I mean, in the movie credits, I see, you know, Captain Freddie Empty Frats, USA Retired, as a technical advisor." "Well, he's either drunk, asleep, or, or, you know, never heard a shot fired in anger because this crap. I mean, how could you let that go on?"

So I decided, you know, when you're ignorant, you can do a lot of things people tell you you can't do, and that was certainly my case. I knew nothing about how movies and television were made, but I packed up my eyes and I'm going to L.A. because that's where they, they make these things, and I'm going to find out what the hell is wrong. So I, I tried that for a while, you know, I would, I would walk onto a movie lot and I'd see some guy wearing a tie and carrying a briefcase and I'd go snatch him up by the stacking swivel and say, "Hey, you make war movies? If so, you're screwed up, and here's why!" And, you know, naturally, I would get arrested and thrown off the lot.

[Music]

So, you know, it was, it was not going well. I, I had, I had an idea of how we could make movies and television about the military and about war in general better because I felt, I felt two things. I felt, first of all, that the reality as we know it is much more dramatic than anything a guy who hasn't been there can dream up. That was point one. And point two, I've, I felt an agenda, a motivation. I felt like it was time for somebody in the popular media, because it's so influential as you all know, it was time for somebody in the popular media to shine a little long overdue and much well-deserved light on the men and women who serve our country in uniform.

So I wasn't, I wasn't getting very far with that agenda. There was a certain hubris in Hollywood. There was a certain, "Look, you, you spent two decades in uniform, you can't possibly have a creative bone in your body. I mean, if, if you did, you'd be here making movies and television and writing books and things like that." So, you know, "you, you're obviously a maggot." And, and it was difficult to sell that program that I had a better way to build a mousetrap.

So, I was about to give up, frankly, you know, I was, "Guys, you know, okay, I, I screwed the pooch here. This is, they're not going to buy my idea." And, and then serendipitously, I ran into a column in, and I think it was Daily Variety, by this time I'd learned to read the trade papers, and it said that a heretofore relatively unknown writer-director by the name of Oliver Stone—didn't know him from Adam—was going to do a war movie based on his own experience as a combat infantryman in Vietnam. And I said, "Well, here it is. If anybody is ever going to get my program, my ideas, he will." And, of course, the big problem was was getting in touch with him, you know, fighting through the Hollywood gate guards. And, and through a certain situation that I won't really detail for you because I'm not sure that the statute of limitations has run, but I managed, I managed to get a hold of Oliver, and he let me make my best two-minute pitch on what I thought was wrong with most war movies and what I felt was the way to correct it. And he bought it immediately, and he said, "Yeah, you're right."

So it was just a matter of him deciding that I was the guy that he would trust with this very, very personal story of his. The rest, as they say, is history. He did trust me. He gave me 33 actors to take into the bush for two weeks, and that's where they lived with no contact. And we brought them down out of there, and they were us at 19 years old with all the right words and all the right thoughts and all the right mechanical abilities. And that little film, Platoon, in case you didn't catch on, that little, that little film we brought... I mean, it was, it was only a five-million-dollar project. I mean, we, we didn't have doodley squat, you know, we didn't have two dimes to rub together. But, but we made it, and we brought that film home, and it won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Oliver. And he was kind enough to recognize me at the Academy Awards ceremony as a huge asset in getting this done. And at that point, I didn't have to go down and accost people on the movie lots anymore. The phone started ringing, and I, I ended up, you know, at this point, I think we counted the other day, 51 or 52 major motion pictures or TV products. Yeah, some of which are iconic, like Band of Brothers and The Pacific. We just finished a great film that's just getting mountains of buzz, called Greyhound with Tom Hanks, a World War II Navy story about a battle that doesn't get much attention, and a very serious and very long and bloody battle, the Battle of the North Atlantic. So, so that's, that's how it came to be. And, you know, I still continue to kick around out there, so we'll, we'll see what happens with it.

That's, that's incredible. But so, out of, I mean, because you started with Platoon, and like you, you know, you took them actors down, you basically ran them through almost like a boot camp slash infantry training slash team building exercise. And then, you know, people started doing that for a lot of these movies. And I know you did that with other ones. And, and I'm just curious, which, like, out of any of those that you worked on, was there one that you had that was like your favorite, or that you went like, "Yeah, I nailed it on that one," or, "I really liked the way that one came off?"

Well, listen, it's, I'm always going to have a soft spot in my heart for Platoon because it launched my career, right? But I, I have a, I have really good feelings about Saving Private Ryan. I loved working with Spielberg and Hanks, and the trust that they put in me to get that right. And I love Band of Brothers. Band of Brothers is a mini-series for television, ten episodes. And I like the business of a mini-series. I like, I like being, spending that long with characters. You know, in a feature film, you've got 120 minutes, or you've got two hours to let people know and love those characters or know and hate them, whatever the deal is. And with a mini-series, you can, you can develop that slowly, and you've got room for more characters and more, you can pay more attention to supporting characters. I've, I've just written a mini-series for television called The Forgotten War, which, which follows—it's kind of Band of Brothers in Korea. It follows one company of Marines from spool-up at Camp Pendleton all the way through the end of the war in ten episodes. So I like that form. But I'd have to say, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, The Pacific—those, those projects allowed me to do it my way, and in my way, it worked. So, so they're always high on my, my best list.

That's cool. I've got a question for you. Some people that don't know the breadth of your career might have missed that you were also a technical advisor for Last of the Mohicans. Now, I see it. I see it because it's no different than what we do with human behavior pattern recognition and analysis. We can apply our work in Combat Hunter, ASAT, or anything else to any human being. It doesn't matter what the language or the culture was. Do you see it that way, and, and how was that project? To me, the book and subsequently the film, I'm still quoting it. You know what I think it's, it's wonderful. What was, what was that experience like?

Greg, you know, that, I'm glad you brought that up because it's proved one of the things I've always believed and I've always preached. You look at Last of the Mohicans, 1757, French and Indian War. You look at Alexander, which I did, which is ancient Greece, and several other historical projects. There, there is a common denominator, and that is the human element. Look, I think a soldier is a soldier is a soldier, and he thinks like a soldier, and he acts like a soldier, regardless of what period he's in. Geez, I can remember, we, when we were doing Alexander, we were in Morocco, and everybody was worried about how, how, how would these guys move from one location to another carrying all their crapola, you know, their armors and their 20-foot sarissa and, and so on and so forth. And I said, "Look, they will do, they would have done in those days and would do exactly what any other soldier does. You find the comfortable way to carry that crap, and you do it." And so we, we ended up with people stringing their armor on the sarissa, and two guys would carry it and, you know, hump over the hills.

And it was the same in, in Last of the Mohicans. I think the important thing, Greg, for the question you ask, is that if, if you understand that soldiers are soldiers, they have a certain mentality. They have certain concerns, and they, they have certain behavior norms which are very human. They're modified by training, they're modified by the company that they're in, but they are in essence always at the core the way a human being would respond. And that, that, that broaches race, color, creed, exactly, sex, gender, that sort of thing. So, and you know that from, from studying human behavior as is applicable to, you know, out-thinking the enemy in something like Combat Hunter. So, so I get it, and now I'm desperately trying to remember what the hell the question is.

No, you nailed it, actually. I, I was talking to Tom Savini once, just the greatest special effects artist of our time, and I'm a huge Night of the Living Dead fan, not because of the zombie genre, but because of what it tells us about humans. And, and one of the, the quotes, I was telling Brian, we were driving through Pennsylvania where the original film was made, and I was telling Brian, the funny thing is that they spent tens of thousands of dollars—Savini and his crew—to to get together these dancers and influential people that would show all of the zombies how to stand and how to walk. And they were having all these different experiences and they started rolling, and it was horrible! And they said, "What's going on?" And they said, "Okay, let's throw those people on. Let's grab these people in, and just let them do what they do." And you know what? It was historic! It was remarkable because people have a nadir, they have a level at which they operate. And when you allow human performance to come through, it's that human element that people walk away with that's a memorable part of your films.

Yeah, it, it really is. I think, and, and now that you've, Night of the Living Dead, by the way, you scared the hell out of me. I'm still scared. Yeah. So I wish you hadn't brought that up. But anyway, I think, I think a big part of leadership, I've always believed this, and Brian, Greg, you've been leaders, you, you know what this is, is an understanding and a willingness to empathize with human nature. You, you've got to figure out what it is before you formulate orders, before you expect people to perform in a certain fashion. It's important that you understand who you are and more importantly, who they are. And you can do that without indiscipline. I've never had discipline problems, and yet I've always tried to be empathetic and always tried to be understanding. And the, the approach that I make—and I think this is the approach that you guys would take—is looking through the other guy's eyes, you know, "If I order him to do this, is he likely to have a hissy?" And, and if, if he has a hissy, is that a, is that a valid hissy? I mean, think about these things without being a martinet. And I try to do that. And if you're colorful, if you can entertain as well as instruct, yeah, those, those things last.

They land. It, it definitely makes, makes it more of an impact so that information gets real sticky, right? If you can deliver it in a manner, right? And that's the big thing, it's just articulating those experiences. And that goes back to what I brought up, the, how important storytellers are. And you, you hit on so much so far about that culture and getting it right for a film to display it because, well, you just talked about empathy and seeing like, that's actually what the true warriors were. It was, you had to be educated, you had to be strong, you had to have empathy for. It wasn't just murder, death, kill. It was, what, you weren't a robot, it was, no, you had to, you had to think, and you had to feel, and then you had to act appropriately and just, but, but also decisively. And so like, there's this, it's a constant struggle. And, and I think what, what in, why I would say the important role of what folks like you do is is telling that story is, you know, it's articulating the problem sometimes is the hardest part, right? Any time we have an issue, especially like, I always look at, you know, two people communicating like, it's like we're me and my wife, we're not where she's transmitting on one frequency and I'm transmitting a different one, right? But that's what most stuff comes out. So it's just learning and I, because I tell a lot of, a lot of veterans, a lot of other guys with this, it's learning to articulate your experiences, what you need, what you want, what this and that, and knowing yourself like you brought it up. Just knowing the words to describe it is, is so powerful. So, because you had mentioned earlier, where I don't know if it's the, the method in which you write or this, it's just sometimes it's just having the ability to express to where that other person goes, "Oh, I get that. I know what you mean." That's huge. I mean, I, that's an important part.

Yeah, it, it really is, and that's, that's well articulated.

That's his first time. Give him a minute. Give him a minute to write that one down.

But I think, I think one of the, one of the big gaps in human relations today is that lack of ability to communicate. And, and I look, you, you have to learn the English language or the French language or whatever. Yeah, exactly, whatever it is. You have to learn those languages, and you have to learn to be able to formulate ideas and then articulate them in that language. And I think, I think we don't, or we don't do it well. I think our education system in America has failed us badly, and we have failed to keep it on the right track. I think the curriculum of the English language, you're talking about America primarily. I think, I think the business of learning to use the English language, to learning to learn to be facile with the language, to learn how important it is, what it means and that sort of thing is, is something that we badly need to do. I mean, look, I would, I would take for the most part as, as part and parcel of any NCO leadership course, a study of the English language. I really would. I know, you know, everybody says, "Hey, I need that in my corporate," yeah, you need it, pal. You need to learn how to do this. And the more entertainingly you can do it, the better off you are. Proof of the pudding is, is that drill instructor, you know, "How about I talk to you like this? How about you listen up and pay attention to me!" And you're, you're scared to death of him, and then after a while, when you realize he's not going to kill you, you begin to get entertained. Yeah, and he's like, "Oh, Jesus, was that funny?" You know, you talk to each other in the back about that stuff. "Do you know what the Gunny said?" Yeah, and, and it was colorful and it was articulated and extremely colorful in many cases. You can't be profane these days as we used to be, and I think that that drains some of the color out of it.

But I, I also, just on that point, I also think that forces Marines to be even more creative because no matter what rules you place on like a drill instructor, they're going to keep that traditional live and go, "Alright, I can't do that. How can I still do this?" Well, so it's almost like we're making them, like, you realize you're making them smarter. Be careful because they're going to get really good at having to create, just, just on that point. I, I, I think sometimes it forces us to go, "Alright, I gotta get creative with how I'm going to thrash these guys until they're so tired that they can't stand."

No, listen, I think that's very valid, and, and it's very difficult these days. I think, I think PC concerns and cancel culture, to use a few pop terms, have really begun to drain the color out of being a soldier, a sailor, a Marine, an airman, a Coast Guardsman. And I think that's a shame because that culture was established over centuries, decades anyway. And, and it is part and parcel of the appeal of service. You know, you want to be part of that colorful tribe, that, that colorful circus. And anything that you do—now I'm not advocating unfairness or prejudice or that sort of thing—but anything you do to drain that, anything you do to, to turn those vivid colors into pastels, I, I really think is a, is a, is a terrible mistake. And, and it's a mistake that that will not show up in the short run, but after this time, Maker A retires, it's going to show up in the long run, and it's going to be detrimental.

That's a great point. And, and I know that especially the Marine Corps likes to fight a lot of, of, of, you know, policies that get pushed on them from very successful. No, but, but they do. And it's important. But, but, you know, you take, take for example, the recent one that the Marine Corps was the first one to come out and say like, "Hey, Confederate flags are banned on any Marine Corps installation. We do not want that." So meaning they, they take a while to change, and rightly so. Like, they, I, I, it should take an act of Congress to make the Marine Corps change, right? Because it has traditions for a reason. A lot of people just don't understand those traditions. But when it is time to change, it's very decisive, direct action with a very clear orders. So that's amazing. And that's what people forget. It's like, there's a, there's a reason why all this stuff happens. You know, the drill instructors didn't make me make my bed 37 times just to mess with me or to learn how to make a really good fold. It was, it's attention to detail. It's everything has to be perfect because people's lives are on the line. The way you speak, you know, when you respond, "Yes, sir," or, "No, sir," or, "Yes, Gunny," "No, Gunny," that means I, I've received what you said, I understand it. So we're, that's clear, concise communication, right? Any organization right now, you know, private companies out there, like, "Wow, we're having all these issues. This is a simple communication issue. You're putting out great stuff, you're just doing a terrible job at communicating it, and they're not receiving, like, you have the right information." And, and that goes into what you talk about. And then we also, obviously, you know, you create your own culture and words and stories within there. And coming from the outside, you're someone like, "That's insane!" But when you're in it, like, "Well, no, this is where it came from, and this is who we are, and this, this bonds us together to where you have 80, you know, it's just specifically on boot camp, you know, 80, 90 Marine recruits who, who come from all different backgrounds, all different religions, all different skin colors that have to in a very short amount of time learn to work together really well, otherwise they just get beat down, right? So you, you learn what's important, and you, you drop all that stuff and you go, "You know what? None of that crap really mattered. This is about me and you, right, surviving together. Together we survive, like we have to make it through every day together, otherwise that day doesn't happen." And because I mean, that's, that's exactly right.

Absolutely right. But, but the danger, the danger is allowing that to be influenced or affected by outsiders. Look, Marine Corps decisions should be made by Marines. Navy decisions should be made by sailors, and, and so on because we're part of that tradition, we're part of that culture, and we understand that culture better, and its effectiveness, than, than anybody from the outside. And I think, I think when Congress meddles in that, with that culture for no reason other than it, it looks good on their resume or on their, on their voting record, that's a terrible thing. It's, it's harmful. I, I would rather, I would rather we make some mistakes in uniform than, because those mistakes are correctable, and they're not harmful in the long term. I'd rather we make some mistakes in, in how we do things than and change them haphazardly and destroy a culture that folks like you and I served, admire, and support.

I was at a deficit, and the only thing that kept me alive in, in the grunts and clicks of the Marines around me was the fact that my father was a decorated Marine. Even though I served in the Army, being on Pendleton, being on Lejeune, being around the world with Marines didn't really help, even in a combat zone, until they knew what your contribution was. So what happened is, as I was building programs like, like Combat Hunter, I would embed. We would do limited objective experiments and I would go forward with them. And so you were always that guy until they got the point, until they saw you were value-added. And there was a time on Pendleton where I was surrounded by a Sergeant Major that shall remain nameless and a bunch of other NCOs, and they were like, "Hey, listen, you got to shut up. You got to stop telling these Marines about critical thinking. We don't need critical thinking. We need a Claymore that we can point towards the enemy and they'll do." And I said, "Hey, this is going to make them stronger and faster and smarter and harder to kill." The minute they saw that, then they embraced it, and guess what? It was an insurgency from the ground up. Every Marine said, "We got to get this to people before it's, it's amazing because if you're not part of that culture, and listen, I was a strap-hanger, I'll say it because I can never be a Marine, but I was with them, and I was down there with them. I was always the oldest guy forward on the Marine Corps birthday in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that was funny. I'm going, "I'm not that old." Never go, "No, don't worry, Pops." So those type of things then become entrenched, and they're hard habits to break. The great thing about tradition of all of our military services and our country is, is that it's institutional memory that we're willing to give away. We're willing to say, "Okay, we're going to bet and concede these issues." That's not how it works. History is too important to our future for us to just knee-jerk reaction and say, "Hey, we're going to change things."

I mean, absolutely right. Look, there, there is great wisdom in the adage that says, "Those who will not study history are doomed to repeat it." I, I think that's important, and I really worry, you know, Lord knows I've got enough to worry about, but I really worry about losing our culture and our color in uniform. I think, I think civilians ought to stay the hell out of it. Leave us alone. Sure, we, sure we take directions from the President as Commander-in-Chief and from the Congress as representatives of the people. And sure, we have a responsibility to the nation and to its population. I get that. And Lord knows, I've sworn to support and defend it. So I, I'm not speaking glibly here. On the other hand, I, I know from experience that our traditions, our culture, who we are—we're tribal. We should be extremely, and, and, and I think folks ought to leave us alone to determine the rites and the procedures and the traditions of that tribe.

People sometimes ask, "Can you illustrate that very quickly?" And Brian and I were together on the East Coast very recently, and I said, "Chasing your, your round, you know how you try to do a BZO and you're trying to fire three rounds and then you're going to lift and shift, and now you've got your, your, your calibration down. And, and if you start chasing that, that flyer and you're looking for that round and you're, you know what, you're going to be busy the rest of your life, and you're never going to hit a target." And that's what I see without leadership, and, and when people have a political agenda, that's what I see. They're spending money, they're creating all of this fervor, but to what answer? You know, I see no end state.

Yeah, well, there isn't one. It's a circular firing squad, and there's no question in my mind, you, you must let the traditions and ambitions and insight of the military guide the way it gets done, what you want done. And, and if you'll do that, you can rely on those people because they are selfless and they're willing to sacrifice. And there's some of our most brilliant young men and women. But, but they require structure, they require discipline, they require guidance that should come from senior NCOs, junior NCOs, and young officers and old officers for that matter, because they're, they're the elders of the tribe. And, and I think that's extremely important. That's an important role. And if you smell it out, if you're the guy who's got nine stars on either shoulder and, and you say, "Oh, geez, maybe I can become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs if only I kowtow and do this or do that." And, and you never think that you're screwing badly with, with a structure that doesn't need screwing with, and is worse off if you screw with it, then I, then I think you're, you're doing, you're doing an enormous disservice. I guess, I guess I guess I should be plain spoken here: If, if you're a politician, get the hell out of uniform.

Yeah, I know. That's, that's the clearest way to wait it. And there, there are plenty of arguments to say the other day, "Well, you know, if we hadn't done this, there was something wrong going on." And, and that does go back to me. You say, "Look, mistakes are made, and those mistakes are learned from and corrected very quickly sometimes," or it might take a while before they realize there's a mistake. But once it's made, the military in general, it, it learns its lessons in blood, right? So it, who corrects mistakes as quickly as it can. And, but just like you said, you know, that that isn't going to have a long-term effect, right? When you come in from an outside perspective and try to force an agenda or a viewpoint, and, and that's what you want them to take, that, like you guys both brought up, that, that you don't even see those effects for, for the next generation, and it actually kind of, that just reminded me of when I listened to you, you put it well in your podcast when you were on the Born the Battle one. And it talked about, you know, experiences of, you know, guys in Vietnam. So my dad was a Marine in Vietnam. He's there around the same time as you actually. And them coming back, and it was a very different time in the U.S. And you put it well. You said they didn't get an opportunity to vent, right? So they weren't welcomed, and it was almost you were had to feel ashamed or this occurred, especially after Vietnam, and there were protests and people calling them names. And now they had to go back and try and fit into a normal society and get back. And what, what I saw happen, you know, when, when I got, I remember getting off the plane from my first deployment to Iraq, and we landed in Bangor, Washington—or Bangor, Maine, excuse me—out on the East Coast. Right from, and we had just, we'd gone from, you know, the Anbar Province of Iraq, we had one stop in, in Dublin airport, and we got off and drank as much Guinness and booze as we could, and bought out the duty-free shop. And that was a wild plane ride back. But I remember landing, and, you know, we just got back from a very, very kinetic deployment. And so you're thinking like, "I want to party! I want to go hit the bar!" The plane's just refueling, and then we're going to go. And standing there were guys from Vietnam and Korea. And they all had their hats on, and they were just standing there. I'm getting chills just thinking about it. And they just, you know, kind of shook our hand and said, "Welcome home." And it's like your generation said, "You know what? We're not going to let this happen again, right? We're not going to do this." I'm getting like emotional just thinking about my, because it was so powerful. And they said, "You know what? We're not going to let these guys go through what we went through." And that was huge, huge, huge. So that's why, like, I always thank, you know, your generation for going, "Hey, you, you made it better for us." So, and that goes back into the everything you were just talking about about the tradition in the military, you know, we have to take care of our own.

I, I hope that's great. I mean, I, I do know that you're correct in saying that there was a, a sort of an unspoken promise among us Vietnam guys who, who got sort of the dirty end of the stick when we came home and couldn't vent, couldn't get those horrible things out of, because nobody wanted to talk about it. So we ate it, and it sat in our bellies and ate through, and that caused a lot of behavior problems and over-medication and so on and so forth. So, so I, I think there was that, that promise that, that one sort of unspoken truth that our generation, my generation, and that is, "We're not going to let that happen to these guys," no matter what. Although, these guys are kind of weird because these guys use words like "kinetic deployment."

Because you have to distinguish it for a lot of people. People say combat, yeah, I know. Yeah, it's, yeah, combat employment.

Funny, he's trained. He's trained to say things like that.

Yeah, and you should get that out of here. You should broom that. Yeah, I know, you're right. You're absolutely right.

Yeah, because "kinetic deployment" doesn't mean doodley squat to Joe Civilian. He's not going to understand what a kinetic deployment is. And he's, he going to give a damn? Just say, "I was in combat. He was an ass-kicker. You know, they were shooting at us and we were shooting at them." Then Joe Civilian says, "Oh, hey, oh yeah, I got that." Yeah.

But kinetic. Funny, a funny story about that, sir. Don Jaeger, our dear friend that I, that I bring up all the time, we're, we're in Afghanistan, and he's on one of the mobile training teams. And Afghanistan's just a weird animal. And so we're sitting in a room, and we've got Afghan Special Forces and cop. We've got U.S. forces and everybody, and Jaeger's trying to explain Vietnam to him, and Jaeger goes, "You guys aren't going to understand this." He says, "You're not going to get this." He goes, "We're fighting guys that are carrying AK-47s that are blended in with the local population. He said they're, they're using SVDs and taking pop shots at us, and whatever road we're going down, they've got these bombs and these booby traps on everything." And all the Afghan guys through their, their translators and their cultural attachés are going, "Is this a joke?" And then I go, "Jaeger, do you, do you understand?" He goes, "Holy crap!" He had his epiphany in Afghanistan that warfare is warfare is warfare, and warriors are warriors. But how you treat them is different.

The best and worst experience I've ever had as a veteran happened in Gunnison, Colorado. The worst was separating Memorial Day from Veterans Day at a ceremony out at the local cemetery when I wanted to rip the heads off of a bunch of people that didn't get it, and we're making a light of it, "Hey, you guys get two ceremonies, you know, every year." And that doesn't go well with me. The other one was coming out of a local shopping center, and it was this old vet moving mighty slow, and he had his Vietnam cap on, and I said, "Hey, thanks for your service." He said, "Did you serve?" I go, "Yes, sir, but not, not in Vietnam. I hope I don't look that old." Made a little joke. We sat down on the tailgate of the pickup truck, and he talked to me for the next 45 minutes about Vietnam, and I am so glad that I took that time. And, and we don't sometimes in our normal lives.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a strange thing. And, and what I like to tell the guys that I meet—World War II guys, although there, there's a diminishing number of those, Korea guys, the guys who are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan—one, one of the greatest honors and privileges in my life is that I find young men and women who are coming home from our deployments in, in the Middle East, be they kinetic or not, is they, they want to talk to me. And, and for some reason, they, they perceive—probably through some of the work I've done or some of these podcasts and TV appearances that I've made—they seem to think that there's a kindred spirit. And let me, let me talk to him. And, and I am so privileged that that's the case. And I, I mean that. I'm not saying that advisedly. I mean that wholeheartedly. The fact that they'll come home and they'll talk to me about nonsense sometimes, you know, about the fact that his, her, her husband cheated on her, you know, when, when she was in Afghanistan, all that stuff. What it, what it spells to me, Greg—and this is what you're pointing to, I think—is that there is this common denominator to the experience. And, and if we will take the time to talk to each other, if we, if we'll take the time to just say, "Hey man, how'd it go?" And, and be willing to give the 30 minutes that it's going to take for you to talk about how absolutely kinetic that bastard was.

There you go. So funny.

You know, the, the, the, here's the one thing that talk about the culture: only a soldier or, or Marine, anybody that's served, can, can jibe somebody else that bad. They're, they're the only ones. It's just like a cop, if you've ever been a cop before, only a cop understands the cops. That's a humor. An emergency room worker, you know.

Hey, the U.S. Army Infantry came up with an honor that's called the Order of Saint Maurice, and you won that order. And so ever, in my, first of all, my entire life has been in your shadow, apparently, because I, I consulted on a couple of graphic novels back in Detroit, none of them made it very far, and you've got Code Word: Geronimo, your graphic novel. I worked for EA Sports on Call of Duty, and when I was in the room, I go, "How did I do?" They go, "You did great, but Dale Dye was here last week, and he did better, you bastard!" And then I'm saying, "Okay, well, you know, I'm pretty happy with my words." And then I see that you've got the, the, the order. How did that come about? First of all, congratulations because it's such a, such a unique, yeah, it's a unique order.

The interesting thing is, what, what they say to me is, "Captain Dye is the Army's favorite Marine," because that's true. So many Army projects. Yeah, they've made me an honorary member of the 506th Parachute Infantry. That's great. And, and I got a call one day, and this, this was, I think, I think it might have been after Ryan (Saving Private Ryan), I can't remember. Either that or it was after Band of Brothers. And, and it was from the Army recruiting command. And they said, "Listen, the Army, we've, we've heard from, I think it was General Chalice Cavilli at the time, Army Chief of Staff, that, that they want to give you the, the, install you as a member of the Order of Saint Maurice, which is the ancient and honorable organization of infantrymen." And I said, "Well, no, no, no, wait, see, I'm a Marine." And they said, "No, no, we get this." So, as it turns out, the Army Chief of Staff has me flown to Washington, and, and we went to a reception in his quarters at Fort Myer, and it was, it was really, really interesting. There were about three or four other active duty folks who were being installed in the Order of Saint Maurice. And so when the installation ceremony took place—and it took place, I think, at the Old Guard Headquarters at Fort Myer, 3rd Infantry Division—everybody showed up, and I showed up in Marine dress blues, dress blues Alpha, with the full metals and the, and the Sam Browne belt. And they, they installed us by hanging this, this medal and medallion around, around our neck. And I'm standing next to this Army Colonel, great guy, combat infantryman from way back, and, and he was being installed at the same time. And while the speeches were being made, this Colonel turned and whispered to me, he says, "You know, we got to do something about our uniform. We're tired of being upstaged. I mean, I love that Sam Browne and you look great. We look like, we look like potato sacks." So I, I was, I was thrilled for the honor. And, and I was interested that this many years later, here's the Army changing back to pinks and greens.

Look at Marren. Really?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But that, it's funny how that some of that stuff comes full circle. It's another great point. It's like we learned from the mistakes and what worked, and they go, "Hey, everyone said this worked, why don't we just go back to something?" I mean, that's, I, I, I don't think it may broke. Exactly, exactly.

So, um, one other thing I just kind of wanted to, well, I appreciate your time, sir. This has been awesome. But I, I just wanted to ask you about like what you thought of, and how some of this stuff is changing in Hollywood where they're like actually now just hiring guys either right out of the military or if you're, if you're in the Naval Special Warfare community apparently while you're still in the military, but like, you know, what, what is your thoughts on, on people who are doing that or, or how that's changed or evolved? What do you, what do you think of that?

Well, two, two aspects to it. One in which Hollywood has done a really good job, and another one in which it hasn't. Hollywood is doing a good job right now of giving a break to veterans—all services, all sexes, all colors, creeds, et cetera, et cetera—who want to work behind the camera, who want to become technicians and get in the guilds, become cinematographers or become gaffers, the lightning folks, or becoming grips or, or hair and makeup people or, or wardrobe people. They're doing a good job of offering an opportunity. But because for years and years and years that was a closed shop, you know, you had to be somebody's kid or know somebody really wanted to get into that, into those guilds. But Hollywood has done an excellent job of opening that up, and I'm, I'm really glad to see it.

On the other hand, they have not done such a good job—and I hope this doesn't sound like sour grapes because it isn't—but they haven't done that good a job about using so-called, I call them military advisors. Hollywood still calls some technical advisors. I think the proper term is military cultural advisor, but regardless, they haven't done, done a good job with that. And, and some of it is to blame for the people. You know, I've, I set a kind of a standard, and, and a lot of young men and women say, "I, you know, I want to go do what Cap'n Dye does. How cool is that? Get to schmooze with movie stars!" Yeah, that sort of thing. And they, they've brought the wrong, the wrong approach to it. And in many cases, because they brought the wrong approach to it, because they don't have the bona fides, they get misused. You know, "Which, how did, how does the, how do you wear this uniform? What's which arm do the patches go on?" And then, "Now go over and sit in that chair and shut up. We're going to do what we're going to do." So I think there's still, there's still something to be done. I wish, I wish I could, we seem to be reinventing the wheel all the time in Hollywood. You know, I, I think I showed and wrote about and talked about and demonstrated how a military advisor should be used. But now we've got a whole new generation of filmmakers, and they're all coming up, and, you know, they, they just, they don't get it. Once again, why, why hire a guy who isn't creative? Well, he might, he or she might be creative, right? But that you gotta, you gotta utilize that. You have to employ that. You have to exploit that. So they're not doing a very good job on that.

Look, and it, and it's not only American movies, it's British movies. Christ, we've been, we've been watching this great series on, on BBC, the wife and I, we follow this series called Missing, which in, in the second season of that particular show, involves the BAOR, the British Army of the Rhine. And, and Brits who have worn berets forever, somehow on this show, every beret looks like a damn pizza plate, you know, sitting on somebody's head. I mean, what, what's the deal here? And, and there's a guy who's listed as military advisor on the, on the credits. So it, you have to be facile, credible, and willing to get yourself more involved than, than just, you know, adjusting uniforms and teaching a person how to carry a weapon. There's so much more to it if you're going to do it right, right? And so Hollywood's, Hollywood's trying, at least they're asking for a military advisor, but, but there's too many young men and women trying to get involved in it and taking any shot they can and being exploited and being misused and are not contributing as they should.

No, that's, that's a good point. I mean, that, that, that leads to, and you could, you could say that in a number of areas, right? Where someone does the, "Oh, well, I was in the military for a while. I could go do that." It's like, "Well, that's not, it's not just about your experience." One, you have being an advisor, not everyone can go be an advisor in the military, right? That takes a certain person that's willing to go work with a partner for us, right?

There's an enormous amount to it, Brian. Yeah, look, I get, I get hundreds of emails and calls every year from young men and women getting out who want to do what I do. And, and a lot of them are these, you know, Special Forces, high-speed, low-drag. Everybody is "real", nobody's a truck driver. Yeah, I, I get that. But, but those guys don't work out well because they're used to dealing with, you know, what? The guy who's a good military advisor for motion pictures and television was probably a squad leader, you know, a Sergeant or a Corporal Squad Leader who understands how to teach and can, and can deal with people one-on-one and doesn't need to know how to bail out of an aircraft on oxygen at 30,000 feet, right? That's not going to be in the movie. You know, and, and, and he, and that guy has forgotten everything he knew about, you know, leading a squad or leading a fire team. So anyway, there's a lot to it. For instance, you have to be able to do any service. You know, I'm, I'm not a soldier, but I've damn sure done a pot full of Army. I'm not a sailor, but I've damn sure done a pot full of Navy. You have to, you have to have a broad knowledge of those things. You have to be willing to do the research, willing to do the work, and then bring your own military experience to it as, as a leader, you know, essentially as, as an officer instructor or a Sergeant Instructor. If, if you're able to do those things and tackle any period—you know, 1757, ancient Greece, the Civil War, Spanish-American War—you've got to be able to do those things. And, and young men and women with experience, kinetic deployment experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, don't get it. But that's only going to take you this far, and it's only going to work if we're doing a story, making a movie or a television program about, about Iraq and Afghanistan. Other than that, you're standing there with your thumb in your butt. Yeah. It's so, so there's a lot more to it than, than we think. Once again, I can't remember what the hell you asked me, but it's kind of a spot-on answer.

Yeah. So back in 2006 or 2007, when I wouldn't let you go in the parking lot and wanted to milk that up for everything it was worth, I said, I had you promise me that one day we'd collaborate on something. That promise is still out there. We're still teaching and training and traveling and doing our human behavior bit, and, and not just for Marines and soldiers and sailors and airmen anymore, in the, in the Coast Guard. We now do law enforcement and first responders, and we also do corporations and private businesses and schools and churches. But I would also say—and, and I mean that because it is our shameless plug, and I love you, you could announce a soup can and I would show up—but, and Marren as a former Marine Scout Sniper and member of the intelligence community, do you ever have a show coming up where you need a Jared Leto look-alike that's got some human behavior background? And for me, for me what I was thinking about is sort of an Orson Welles or Marlon Brando much later in life. Do you get what I'm trying to say? Like on a death story. I think right now I'm looking at you, so I'm thinking, I'm just saying that I'd, I'd love to get together and save some more lives by doing a training piece, but yeah, but if it comes down to playing Winston Churchill on his deathbed, apparently.

Alright, Greg, you're on the short list.

Yeah, yeah, we'll go ahead and pitch that to some producers. Let me get right on that real quick. Is there a problem with the connection? They can't hear me? Alright. Well, well, sir, we, we appreciate you coming on and talking to us. I'm, like I said, a big fan, even since I was a kid. So it's really cool. We love what you do and the storytelling and how you tell it, and what it's, it's so fascinating. You're one of those people that have carried those things forward and really kind of like what you intended to do, is bring it out to, you know, the general population of the U.S. to, they get a feel for what it's really like, not with something you walk, you're tackle, yeah. You just like, there's elements in there that when you know, I mean, because you know it has to pass a test for a guy who served, was like, or girl or whatever, be like, "No, this is BS, I'm not buying this for a second." But the real ones are like, you laugh so hard because you're like, "That's exactly something I would have said," or, "That reminds me of so-and-so," because there's like, my thing is like, there's like seven different types of personalities, that's it, right? Or maybe ten, whatever it is. But meaning, we all fall into that somewhere. So when you can relate to those, it's, it's cool, and it, it gives you the so what, you know, behind it. And instead of just looking at it as, "Hey, we fought this war," or, "This occurred," or, "This many people died," it's like, "Hey, man, that was your neighbor. That was the person down the street. That was the, the mom or the dad at the PTA function." Like, you know, that's them right there. That, that's, that's a real. And, and it's always cool when you see that and when they get it right, and you just go, "Damn, that was, they nailed it on that one. That was good." So I, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thanks, guys. I mean, look, and, and let me just return the compliment. I, I really am taken by what you guys do, this business of studying human behavior and using it. I, I'm so happy to hear that you're, you're working with cops, law enforcement on this because I think it's crucial for them. More crucial in some cases than it is for, and that's really a good thing. It's a good thing to understand who we are. You've got to ask the right questions as you said, and I think you guys do. I mean, every unit has its Karen and its Kevin, you know, and, and you have to be aware of those guys and gals and, and know how to, how to deal with them. And, and you do that, and I know that, I know that it must seem frustrating at times because, you know, this stuff. You know this from experience and from your study and so on and so forth. And other people are sitting there picking their nose, "What good is that going to do me?" All I can say is, is it is going to do them some good. You're doing a valuable service, and I hope you get well paid for it. But, uh, you're not getting service. Not yet, but we're trying to.

Alright, well, thanks so much, Cap'n. It was awesome talking to you. For everyone watching, listen, don't forget: Training changes behavior.