The Spirit of '76: Remembering America's War Heroes 250 Years Later

00:00:03 Speaker 1: My name is Charlie kirk I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful. 00:00:24 Speaker 2: College is a scam, everybody. You got to stop sending your kids to college. 00:00:27 Speaker 3: You should get married as. 00:00:28 Speaker 1: Young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start at turning point. You would say college chapter. Go start at turning point, yould say high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. 00:00:39 Speaker 4: I gave my. 00:00:39 Speaker 1: Life to the Lord in fifth grade, most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am Lord, Use me. 00:00:48 Speaker 2: Buckle up, everybody, Here we go. 00:00:56 Speaker 1: Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirkshaw, a company that specializes in gold I rays and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegold investments dot Com. That is Noblegoldinvestments dot Com. 00:01:17 Speaker 5: All right, Happy Memorial Day to all of you across this beautiful country from sea to shining sea. 00:01:24 Speaker 6: Blake, I am with you. 00:01:25 Speaker 5: I think that this as far as like civic holidays that we celebrate as a country, there is no more important holiday than Memorial Day. 00:01:33 Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah. 00:01:34 Speaker 7: I think I think Fourth of July you get more fireworks out of this one, but I think this is the one that really reminds us what it took to create America, build America, defend America, preserve it. 00:01:47 Speaker 5: And it's a solemn day and we celebrate it with parades and things like that, but there's also earlier today. You probably saw the wreath laying at Arlington National Cemetery. It's a somber day. It's a day to reflect on those who paid the ultimate price for our nation. And you know, we're grateful and we're grateful to be with you guys. And you know, we thought we'd mix it up. We want to have longer form conversations today, not focus as much on the breaking news, but focus on our country. I think today is really the kickoff of America two fifty. Of course, we had the rededicate event in DC where we're rededicating the nation to our faith and providence and all of those things, and that we would pray that Jesus would continue guiding this country into the future. And that's important. But Memorial Day is really the kickoff. So here we go, Blake, why don't you welcome our guest here? 00:02:42 Speaker 7: Alrighty, Well, we want to remember, of course, I think this is especially important two hundred and fifty years We look back on how do we get here two hundred and fifty years ago? And of course we had to win our independence. We had to battle against the most powerful country in the world at the time to win that independence. So we thought we should speak to a historian of that conflict, the American Revolutionary War, and so and it's also a person who's a who's a friend of mine. We played in the same Yeah, you guys did wargame Club Washington, DC. So we are joined by Patrick O'Donnell. He is a Revolutionary War historian, author of Revolutionary Snipers of Washington's Immortals, numerous other books. Patrick warr and stuff on this. Patrick, Welcome to the show. 00:03:28 Speaker 2: It's great to be here again. It was with Charlie Kirka in twenty twenty four that we discussed The End Banquished. It was one of my favorite interviews. 00:03:36 Speaker 5: Yeah, I remember that actually, and it was a fascinating conversation and people should go check it out because guess what, we have all of the old catalog with Charlie available on podcasts. So, yeah, twenty twin when did you release that book so they can. 00:03:52 Speaker 2: Approximate it was in May twenty four. 00:03:54 Speaker 6: May twenty twenty four, so please do best selling book. Yeah, awesome. 00:04:00 Speaker 5: Well let's go back, so we say two fiftieth yes, but we talked about this recently. It's really almost like two hundred. You have to go back almost two thirty two hundred and thirty years when you're understanding the revolution, and really farther than back than that, because the colonies governed themselves for one hundred and fifty years before that, you know, and they created. 00:04:19 Speaker 6: A whole culture. 00:04:20 Speaker 5: You think, one hundred and fifty years, that's a long time to develop a culture and develop you know, rules and norms and ways of governing oneself as the colonies. But take us back, maybe Patrick in the lead up, here's here's a trivia question. Who was the first American colonialist to die in what would become the revolution. 00:04:42 Speaker 2: The if you it depends on where you want to go with that, because the revolutionary begins in the eighteen in mid mid eighteen sixties, and it begins seventeen sixties. It begins with the stamp Act, and it's it's it's here that the colonies go into economic rebellion against the greatest empire of the time, you know, in existence, which was the British in the Crown, and they wield enormous economic power by boycotting British goods. I mean. The real takeaway, and why this is important today is the Founders understood dependence and if you are dependent on another nation for your livelihood or for the goods that you have in your supply chain, you don't really have any freedom at all. And that applies today with China and in other places. But the great, one of the great aspects of the American Revolution is the non importation Exportation Agreement, which was an extension of what they initially did during the Stampback, but it begins in seventeen seventy four. But the revolutionary war is first about economics, but it's about really ideas in the the most important ideas in world history are really founded from the American Revolution, the ideas of liberty and freedom, which will shake empires to the core and break them down. And it begins in the seventeen seventies, and really seventeen seventy three and seventy four, there's a massive it's here that the political revolution is really kind of comes to being, and it's in seventeen seventy four, though in September, on September one, if you're familiar with Somerville, Massachusetts, right end Cambridge, right outside of Boston, there's what looks like to be an old windmill there, and that is the old powder magazine that the colonists had in seventeen seventy four. And this is where the kinetic revolutionary war really begins. Its General Gage conducts a covert operation to take two hundred half casts of black powder away from that magazine. It's the rate is successful. What happens next is ten thousand people from the colonies, armed to the teeth in most cases, descend on Boston Common in protest. And why do they do that? Because they're about to be disarmed. It doesn't matter how you know, great your revolutionary ideas are if you have no weapons, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's something that's the lesson that's being learned in Iran right now. And that's exactly what the British plan to do. They plan to disarm the colonies. And they did it because they knew that black powder was scarce. There were weapons laying around from the French and Indian War, but there was hardly any black powder. And it was because production within the colonies had been outsourced to India at the time because it was cheaper. But there are also royal bands on black powder to keep the counties in check. But it's the beginning of these raids that will culminate in Lexington and Concord that will begin the actual revolutionary war. 00:08:16 Speaker 6: And you guys are Boston massacre that was a little before that. 00:08:19 Speaker 7: But I guess we have a minute to break here. But if you were to ask one of those men who descended on Boston Common or who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, the guys who first joined General Washington's army, and you asked them even before the declaration of Independence, what do you think they would have said? 00:08:35 Speaker 4: Why had they joined this Army. What were they fighting for? 00:08:38 Speaker 2: They were fighting for They were fighting for America, they were fighting for their liberties in freedom. And Revolutionary Snipers, which I just finished, is a trilogy of three books on the American Revolutionary where I've spent sixteen years of my life writing fourteen books, and three of these books are in the American there's specifically on elite units in the American Revolution, the Marylanders, the Marbleheaders, which were part of the original at Lexington and Concord but born the Navy, and also Road Washington across doorwa and Revolutionary Starpers. It's here in seventeen seventy four that's really kind of the precursor of the Declaration of Independence is something called the Fort Gower Resolves, where these men had just fought against a massive Native American army and one and it's to hear that they declare there are allegiance to the Crown, but with a big butt. It's about American liberty and freedom and they're willing to fight for it. Incredible thing. 00:09:45 Speaker 7: So again we're talking about two hundred and fifty years back is of course the year of the Declaration of Independence, but it's also I think a lot of people are aware it's the year of the great kind of the greatest crisis of the American Revolution that I think seven is the year where we come closest to losing the whole thing. Can you paint that picture for us. What was the military situation like two hundred and fifty years ago. I know this is a big part of Washington's immortals, for example, is that's the Maryland Line Regiment that basically saves America, the American cause, from being annihilated. 00:10:20 Speaker 4: Paint that picture for us. 00:10:22 Speaker 2: You're absolutely right. Seventeen seventy six is a is a great turning point, but it was also the origins of one of the great crisis periods in American history where everything could have been lost. And there were several key inflection points where this occurs. The three books that I've written are on elite units that are that touch upon these inflection points, and it's their individual agency that saves the war in Washington's army. But the first great inflection point is at the Battle of Brooklyn, and this begins on the night of August twenty six, twenty seven, seventeen seventy six, where the greatest land battle up until that point begins where the British land in Brooklyn Long Island and they outflank Washington's army. And it's here that you know, everything could be lost. If ten thousand troops of the Continental Army are surrounded and annihilated and Washington is captured, the war is likely over. But it's the efforts of the men in the three books I've written, especially beginning with the Maryland Line in Washington's Immortals, where there's an epic rear guard action near a stone house where they charge three times with fixed bayonets. They sacrifice themselves to open a hole in the British lines that allows the remainder of Washington's army to escape to the fortifications in Brooklyn Heights. And it's here that Washington has a great decision to make. Does he stay and fight or does he retreat? And a massive hailstorm comes in a nor'easter, and it's in you know, a mansion in Brooklyn Heights to the three Chimneys, where he decides whether he has a council of warror and he decides to evacuate Brooklyn. And it's on the shoulders of the indispensable men from Marblehead that they escape and this is the American Dunkirk. This is an incredible story. They gather all the small boats that they can. They only have literally hours to gather these boats and gather ninety five hundred Americans, put them in the boats, and then crossed the East River over to Manhattan. But oh, they got to do it in the middle of a you know, a giant twenty thousand men passion and British Army in their front and the Royal Navy in the East River behind behind them, and they somehow have to do it. And initially none of it goes well at all. The winds are not favoring them, and suddenly the winds change. But it's on the backs of the greatest sailors in the Continental Army, the marble Head men of the fourteenth Regiment and John Glover that they are somehow able to get across. And this is a race against time. Blake and Andrew. They have to ferry the army across nearly a dozen times, back and forth, and it's a race against time because dawn is coming and with it, you know, visibility, and the entire the small fleet of small boats conducting this American Dunkirk are about to be blown to smithereens by the Royal Navy. But it's here that God's hand, you know, shows itself in a fog, miraculously at the right time. At around five thirty am comes in and screen means the movement of the rest of John Glover's boats. General Washington and the riflemen from American Snipers are in that rear guard. They're the last men on the boats, but they make it across in one of the greatest evacuations in military history. 00:14:16 Speaker 7: It's really incredible. You think of everything that's ever happened in American history, Emancipation Proclamation, winning World War Two, landing on the Moon, everything we've invented, the right flyer, and it's all resting on these men who maybe I don't even know if they've heard the texts of the Declaration of Independence. Yet it's only about a month old. They're surrounded. It's an incredible thing. I looked up while you were describing it. Since it's in Brooklyn, if you want to go, if you're in that area the scene where this all happened, it's in Prospect Park of Brooklyn. That's where the monument to the battle itself is. And of course it's the waterways nearby that they would have been fleeing across it. 00:14:53 Speaker 5: I love the way you described that, Patrick, the American Dunkirk. I think that's like for our modern context that really brings it home. 00:15:01 Speaker 2: It's the American Thermopyla where the Marylanders make this epic stand. And I will add that the men of the Maryland, four hundred, most of them, have never two hundred and fifty six men have vanished to history. It is very likely that there is a mass grave in Brooklyn of their bodies and their sacrifice to this day. Many of them that were also captured, and they may have been on you know, floating concentration camps in New York Harbor and just just tossed overboard like bags of trash their bones. So this is, you know, a story of epic sacrifice. It's a fitting story for Memorial Day because if it hadn't been their sacrifice, an hour is one historian of the time said, an hour more precious in our history than any other. We would not be here today. But that I will add, is only one disastrous defeat in seventeen seventy six it was one after the other. 00:16:03 Speaker 5: How much are life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness worth to you? This is the question America's founders had to answer. You see, for more than one hundred and fifty years, America's thirteen colonies governed themselves until Britain declared they had no right to self rule. So ordinary people had to make extraordinary choices and risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight for independence, and against all odds, they won, and in victory they built one of the most stable and lasting republics in human history. Now experience the American solution like never before, thanks to our friends at Hillsdale College. 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You do not want to miss this opportunity to see this on the big screen. 00:17:33 Speaker 6: Hillsdale dot edu slash Revolution. 00:17:37 Speaker 5: To locate a theater near you and buy tickets for Revolutionary American one more time. 00:17:42 Speaker 6: That's Hillsdale dot edu slash Revolution. 00:17:48 Speaker 7: Well, we were discussing the Great Crisis period of the American Revolution seventeen seventy seventeen seventy six. We just covered the Battle of Brooklyn Heights and the escape the American Dunkirk. I don't know if there's another crisis that happens between this, but why don't you take us to the story and we know how the year ends? And I know this is also it's the cover of the Indispensables, another great Crisis the Washington's crossing of the Delaware to end the year of our independence absolutely Blake. 00:18:16 Speaker 2: I mean, after the Battle of Brooklyn, the British land in Manhattan, and it's punctuated by a few victories. For instance, at Harlem Heights there's a victory over British regular soldiers, some of the elite units, and it's the men of the riflemen that actually deal that defeat on the British as well as they stop a landing where twenty five riflemen armed with the Pennsylvania long rifle, which is the sniper rifle of its day. It was path breaking technology. They stop an entire British invasion at Throg's Neck. But really after that, it's one disaster after another, and Washington's army of twenty thousand is in full retreat across Manhattan up through White Plains. They then cross the Hudson River and they're going into New Jersey and they're trying as quickly as they can to get to the Delaware River and across it to the friendly farms of Pennsylvania and hopefully safety. But it's at this time there's massive hyper inflation. The army of twenty thousand is crumbling because the enlistments are expiring at the end of the at the end of the year, you know, Washington's army is reduced to you know, five thousand or so. And it's here that you know, it's the great crisis point. Washington knows if he doesn't conduct a counter offensive that changes the course of things, all will be lost. And it's at Trenton that he plans, really one of the greatest counter offensives, one of the great battles in American history, that will change the tide of the Revolutionary War. And it's a dangerous and hazardous thing because the tradition their their their their their allies. The Hessians are outposted across New Jersey. He chooses Trenton, which is one of the more vulnerable outposts, but it's manned by the Hessian lion, uh Colonel Rawl, who's one of their best commanders. But like the Battle of Brooklyn, they have to cross a river, and you know, they have to do it secretly because if the plan is is known, that the entire thing can be blown. When indeed, the British intelligence did pick up that the the Washington was coming, but it's a nor'easter that once again comes in to play. And it's once again that Washington asked John Glover if he can take the army across, and he said, don't worry about it, my boys can handle it. There were three prongs of the attack on Trenton. Two of them failed. It was only the men of the Marblehead Regiment that got the army across because the the tides in the Delaware River were such that there was floating chunks of ice. There was a massive nor'easter, snow was coming down. It was impassable to anybody but the most experienced seamffarers of the Marblehead Regiment, and they'd make it across and they attack Trenton at dawn. They're behind schedule, but they surprised the garrison. They were not. It's like in all the story books out there. These guys were not drunk and idle. They were actually sleeping in their uniforms with their muskets in hand and ready for the American attack. In fact, British intelligence actually tip them off and I get into the indispensables as well as Revolutionary Snipers, which comes out in November and in Washington's and mortals and how that intelligence was relayed. But an earlier ray as well as the northeaster sort of convinced Raw that it probably already occurred, and he wasn't as alert as he should have been. And they attack, and it's a sniper's rifle that will take down and mortally wound Johann Ral and will swing the course of the battle. But this is just ten days in crucial American history and three battles which will change the course of world history. And it's all part of Washington's counteroffensive at Trenton. And then there's a second Battle of Trenton, which hardly anybody's ever heard about it, but it's a great inflection point as well, in a key bridge had to be held and the continentals were across something called asmp Creek on the other side of Trenton, and it had the bridge fallen, the army would have been ripped apart and destroyed, just like the Battle of Brooklyn. But Washington escapes. They hold the bridge against all odds. The riflemen literally delay them for about six or seven hours, chewing up precious daylight as there on their way to the bridge, and then they hold the bridge. Against all odds, Washington himself is at the rail of the bridge, you know, beating its men. I mean that's how just the leadership is striking across the board, from enlisted men to General Washington himself, and then they win the surprise battle at Princeton and change the course at history. And it's it's about agency. It's about individuals that will change and shape and bend history. Yeah, so ordinary soldiers. 00:23:34 Speaker 5: Yeah, this is what's interesting to me. Yeah, this is what's interesting to me, Patrick, is that you've got thirteen colonies. 00:23:42 Speaker 6: Right. 00:23:43 Speaker 5: I understand a lot of this is happening in New Jersey and you know, Massachusetts, New York, so it was up north mostly in this particular season. But you've got because I don't think a lot of people realize nowadays, how much if you were a colonialist you identified with your state versus Americans at being an American at this point, right, what was holding them together in these dark days? 00:24:09 Speaker 6: Like how did they. 00:24:11 Speaker 5: Keep going after defeat defeat defeat? Especially understanding that the British force was so formidable in the it was, you know, the greatest force militarily in the world at that point. 00:24:25 Speaker 2: It's what's so remarkable is that it's small groups of individuals that will hold the army together in its greatest times of stress. And the American Revolution was an insurgency. It was our first civil war because not everybody was on board at all with the Revolutionary War, and they would jump sides back and forth. And it was also a conventional war against the greatest power at the time. And you know, I'll never forget. I asked a number of Darby's rangers. I've interviewed four thousand World War two veterans, and you know, throughout the course of my I've been writing for twenty seven years full time, and I've been interviewing people for the last forty years or more. And I asked him, are you the greatest generation? And he said to me straight up, he said, Patrick, what about the boys of seventy seven and seventy six? He said, the men of the cause, the men that believed in the Revolutionary War. And he is absolutely right. The greatest generation is this generation because they not only fought the greatest empire of the time, but also anybody's greatest enemy, and that would be fellow Americans. And they also have forged the ideals and ideas of the American Revolution that would change history and continues to change history. And it's these ideals and parts of our founding that I think will are so important now as we're going through great change as well, and it's so important to look back at our founding and it's probably what's going to say. 00:25:59 Speaker 5: So they were you know, Blake asked the question, you know, what were they fighting for? Right, Obviously there was the stampags and the intolerables, and there was all these things that were circulating. But again, this sense of home and that their identity, Like when did Americans start thinking of themselves as Americans. 00:26:20 Speaker 2: It begins prior to the Revolutionary War, It begins in that period of you know, over one hundred and fifty years where they were self governing and they were determining their independence, and it forms over time of this identity of being an American. And what you have is at the very beginning of the American Revolution, there's a sense that perhaps the king, who many of them still pledge allegiance to, can somehow resolve their grievances. But they start to move away and closer and closer to full independence. And as you alluded to at the beginning a series of atrocities, you know, beginning with you you go back to this seventeen sixties and beyond, where the Royal Navy is impressing, kidnapping Americans from places like Marblehead, and it's a lifetime of service in the Royal Navy. They never come home to their to their their families, or they're killed on board ships or the Boston massacre. You know, these are things that that will crystallize the the American resolve, of the American revolution and in the American identity. And this is where people will put their lives and their fortunes on the lot on the line for a country that it yet to be born, which is really remarkable. 00:27:50 Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's one of the most interesting. 00:27:53 Speaker 2: I mean used to give you sort of a sense. Let's just you know, we look at modern combat where people are well paid and well equipped. These men of the Paws in seventy six, many of them were shoeless. Literally, their trails of blood as they went to the boats at Trenton would mark the Army's march to Trenton. They had poor clothes, frostfight was rampant, they were not paid. 00:28:24 Speaker 6: Blake I'll throw it to you. 00:28:26 Speaker 5: We've absorbed a lot of content here, so I want to make sure that your brain is reflected. 00:28:32 Speaker 7: I mean, we've just jumped around all over this Revolutionary War. 00:28:36 Speaker 4: We wanted to really. 00:28:38 Speaker 7: Remember it because sometimes I feel it feels odd. Sometimes it's a forgotten war. We have a lot of World War two stuff, we have a lot of Civil War stuff. Memorial Day itself was born out of the Civil War. But this is the war that actually could have extinguished America. We've just seen it came very close to doing. So I want to talk about something Charlie thought a lot about leadership. We've mentioned General Washington repeatedly throughout this Patrick, can you create a sketch of George Washington as a leader? What set him apart? How is he holding this army together did How is he becoming the man who would become the father of this country. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: George Washington is the indispensable man of the Revolutionary War. It's his leadership that is priceless and indispensable in making things happen, because he understands the concepts of liberty and freedom and how those need to translate. Not only in the halls of Congress, but also on the battlefield, and you know, things like treating prisoners properly. These things transcend the halls of Congress and the battlefield and they become part of the American way of war. But he understands diplomacy, he's able to enter. He's the first general since General Pershing really to have to interact with an ally. I mean, after the Battle of Saratoga. The French come in the war, as well as the Spanish later on. And it's this understanding of diplomacy and working with allies that he's able to coordinate that. But he's also dealing with the politics the day, and it's as ruthless in many ways as they is what it is today, where you have people that are that are in the Civil War, that are that are hardcore loyalists, but you also have people on the patriot side that you've got to I mean, you've got a full spectrum everybody, from a Benedict Arnold who's a great general at the very beginning of the war, to an amazing to a trader, a full blown trader at the end of the war, to people that are just backbiting Washington, buying it for his position. You know, through all of that and through you know, you know, not having his men paid or poorly equipped and everything else, he holds the army together. The thing is, I would point out that the books that I've written, the three books, you know, Washington's Dispensables, Washington and Mortals, and now Revolutionary Stipers, this is about the men of the line, the privates, the corporals, the sergeants that really hold the army together in their resilience and to gain their stories, I tapped in the great oral History Archive of the American Revolution that until Washington's Immortals that ever hardly been touched, and that was the pension application files that if you were a surviving member of the Revolutionary War, you could go down under oath and swear to a judge what you saw and did. And in some cases these are the first person accounts, and they can be very graphic of what you know these men saw and did. And those are the stories that are impuwed in the nonfiction that I write that in many many people have said reads like fiction. But there's over you know, a thousand end notes of primary sources that buttress the stories that are a band of brothers. I wrote the First Band of Brothers, Washington's Immortals on the American Revolution. It's a very cohesive story about this small group of men, through their personal agency, really changed the course of the war. 00:32:13 Speaker 5: I you know, we talk about what was the greatest generation and that World War two vette pointed back to the boys in seventy six and seventy seven? 00:32:23 Speaker 6: What was it? 00:32:25 Speaker 5: And I think this is good for modern Americans to look back on, because you know, we're not raised the same as they were there, We're not all working the farms. But you know, what was it about them that set them apart in the whole sea of humanity and all of history? What made them special? What was imbued in their character that made them able to achieve so much? 00:32:48 Speaker 2: Revolutionary Snipers in particular kind of as a throwback to rugged individualism. And what I mean by that is individuals that lived on the frontier, and the frontier is the Appalachian Mountains and beyond. Some of them that lived illegally, and they had to not only contend with hostile Native Americans which were there to burn out their houses, and many of these men their families were executed by Native Americans and then in some cases they were Native Americans that were allied to the crown. I mean, but the story has nuanced where Native Americans also fought with us. But it's that rugged individual of dealing with the elements, dealing with massive uncertainty in their lives. But somehow they have to forge not only a life survival, but they forge a nation. And it's this, you know, collective effort, this rugged individualism, this resilience, this belief in freedom and liberty, which is these are this is a time of you know, the great kings and empires where you were swearing allegiance to the ground. This is where subjects speak citizens. It's a very very important time. 00:34:05 Speaker 6: I think that is I think what you just said, and these. 00:34:07 Speaker 2: Are citizens soldiers I will know too. 00:34:11 Speaker 5: Yes, where subjects become citizens is a really powerful transformative point in history. And what a what a blessing of providence that we as Americans are the inheritors of that point where we transform from subjects to citizens. 00:34:27 Speaker 6: Blake final thoughts. 00:34:29 Speaker 7: I just I want to make sure we shout out fourteen books. Washington's Immortals, the Indispensables, Revolutionary Snipers, but eleven others. He's got books on world War two and the Civil War the Unvanquished. I know you mentioned there, so give Patrick's books a look A great way to celebrate our country on Memorial Day. These are the guys who made it possible. They're the ones who got through the times that try men's souls. As Thomas Paine put it, so, Patrick, thank you for coming on the show today and happy Memorial to It was an honor. 00:35:02 Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on. 00:35:06 Speaker 5: Here's what your financial advisor won't tell you. By the time the news tells you to buy gold, it's too late. 00:35:13 Speaker 6: You're waiting. I get it. 00:35:14 Speaker 5: Everybody's waiting, waiting to see if the ceasefire holds, waiting to see if the straight of horn Moose reopens, waiting to see what happens next. But gold isn't waiting for you. It moves on fear, on instability, on the unknown, and it moves faster than you can react. So while you're waiting for certainty, the rest of the world is planning for what comes next. You can wait or you can get prepared. 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First and foremost, it's It was the first country ever to be founded on an idea, not on a racial background, not on ethnocentrism, not on any sort of lineage, but an idea, an idea, very simple, an idea that we do not get our rights from government, but we get our rights naturally, whether it be from a creator, from God, or from some super supernatural being. So America is the greatest country in the world for couple reasons. Number one, our diversity, I'll talk about that, our economic power, our generosity, and our upward mobility. 00:36:55 Speaker 5: So is the Charlie Kirk Show here on Memorial Day. So Happy Memorial Day to all of you. I hope you are spending this day in gratitude for the gifts of providence that have been bestowed upon the American people and the American Republic. And in our one, we spend a lot of time thinking about the Revolution, the Boys of seventy six and seventy seven, and that was an awesome conversation. And now we're going to kind of widen the aperture and think about some other sacrifices that great Americans have made throughout the years in different wars and different eras. So to help us do that is doctor Mark Moyer Hillsdale College. He's the William P. Harris Chair of Military History. Doctor Moyer. Welcome to the show. 00:37:37 Speaker 3: That's great to be with you. 00:37:39 Speaker 5: So you I we have this the first time we've had you on the show, and it's an honor to have you. And I said, well, what does he specialize in? You know, like what eras should we have? He's like he'll talk about anything. He could talk about any of the military history, which is what a testament to you, because there's a lot, there's a lot, But I think what would be most fascinating because we know we could do a whole hour on the Civil War. You could talk a lot about that, you could talk about eighteen twelve, and there's been a lot of ink spilled, and it's a really fascinating history. But why don't we advance our attention up and fast forward to the twentieth century and what brings us up to now? 00:38:16 Speaker 6: Because I know you've. 00:38:17 Speaker 5: Done a lot of work on the Vietnam War and the Korean War, but let's start this first segment on World War One and World War Two. Maybe some stories of sacrifice of the American story that are just unique to this country. 00:38:30 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:38:30 Speaker 8: Well, World War One is a fascinating case. It's something we don't tend to know as much about as Americans that we should. But it was a war that was fraught with controversy, both as America gets in and afterwards, which is worth remembering because in fact, most of our wars have controversy of this sort. But the American military really was not very well prepared, and this is really a turning point in our history. 00:39:00 Speaker 3: That we had thought we could be citizen. 00:39:02 Speaker 8: Soldiers and that we didn't need to have a large standing army. So we send over an army that is really not well prepared for the war it's about to enter, and so you have a lot of Americans suffering. The initial plan for General Pershing was that we were going to break out of this trench warfare, of which we're all too familiar with. These horrific conditions, people spending years in these awful trenches, and the Americans hope to get out of it, but ultimately we end up having to fight that conflict, and it really is a bitter one that does have it does certainly have its share of heroes. The Americans do get there just in time to save the Allied cause. 00:39:53 Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, that's a really fascinating dynamic that you just pinpointed this, you know, because citizen soldiers, this idea that that we could not have a standing army, and yet there was an isolationist streak in the US that was very deep and very profound, and yet we went off to go save Europe, which was a tremendous sacrifice on and so many levels. Maybe I'm really curious about the American psyche at the time. 00:40:19 Speaker 6: Of entering World War One. 00:40:21 Speaker 5: I mean, what kind of country were we and how controversial was it to send us in the first place? When I mentioned this isolationist streak. 00:40:29 Speaker 8: Yes, well, it's interesting because the country at the turn of the century has this resurgence of patriotism. When the Spanish American War comes, you have a massive amount of volunteering, and when World War One comes you do still have lots of volunteers. With that war, you certainly had some controversy. You had Irish Americans and German Americans who weren't excited about fighting against their native countries. And yeah, a lot of people just asking why is this fight concerned us? And Britain head was blockading Germany and so some American questions whether. 00:41:09 Speaker 3: That was fair. 00:41:11 Speaker 8: So, but there was certainly an enormous sense of patriotism. You had a great faith in the nation and its ideals. We didn't have any of the sort of questioning that we're going to see you in about five decades or so within this country. 00:41:27 Speaker 5: M that is it's you know, I think people average Americans wouldn't even understand what the war was about, which historians argue. 00:41:37 Speaker 7: About what the war was, and they find them and they found themselves asking that question very shortly after. I think an interesting strain in American life is in the nineteen thirties, it was already very popular asking what what did we achieve in that? Because over one hundred thousand Americans died in that conflict, and that's far less than World War Two, it's less than the Civil War, but it's a lot more more than we lost in Vietnam, for example. And if you looked around, yeah, we triumphed, But Americans started to ask what was the point of that? And we do find ourselves asking that about a lot of wars ever since. 00:42:11 Speaker 6: M Yeah, in some ways it was the. 00:42:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct. 00:42:13 Speaker 8: It's there is this this wave of isolationism. A lot of people look back and say, you know, did we really fight this for the wrong reasons? Were and there was some truth to the fact that British propagandists were exaggerating what the Germans were saying, And you know, there are other arguments that we were somehow the munition's industry pulled us in. But you know, we'd have this series of neutrality acts passed in the nineteen thirties because of this general unease and this idea that we got sucked into a war that we didn't necessarily need to. And yeah, one hundred thousand Americans is an enormous price to pay. Of course, there's no better time to remember that that I'm amoral day. 00:42:54 Speaker 6: Yeah, what would you know? 00:42:56 Speaker 5: What was the I guess the you gotta talk about these new vitality acts. But like I think about the post Great War era and he takes us into the booming twenties, right, you had a massive economic growth, the country industrializes. What were the big lessons learned? I guess, and what were the ramifications of that war? 00:43:18 Speaker 8: Well, for a lot of Americans, there was this sense that we didn't really want to get outside our hemisphere. 00:43:26 Speaker 3: We should stay here. 00:43:27 Speaker 8: The Europeans, of course, have had been warning for centuries, and you know Warren Harmon Harding promise to return to normalcy, that we were going to get back to our domestic affairs and not go crusading around the world. And there was also a general sense that will Woodrow Wilson had gone too far with his idealism and his talk about how we have to make the world safe for democracy and put other countries' interest on a par with ours, And you had people returning to the to the notion that, yeah, you know, we like the rest of the world, but this is our country and its interests come first. 00:44:05 Speaker 5: Man all I'm just it's occurring to me now just how this would echo, as you said, five decades later, but even now, how much foreign affairs like this can really challenge a domestic population of like, when is it worth it? When is it worth putting American lives on the line? Lives and treasure. I find it oddly comforting to know that this is that other generations have wrestled so greatly with this question. 00:44:34 Speaker 6: So let's fast forward. Now we're World War two. 00:44:38 Speaker 5: How big of a mobilization in the history of the United States did this represent? And what you talk about controversy with World War One? How controversial was getting into World War Two? 00:44:50 Speaker 8: Yeah, there's great questions, and we talked for about what some of the things people learned. 00:44:56 Speaker 3: One of the biggest problems. 00:44:58 Speaker 8: We had after the war was there was this notion that we had fought the end to the war to end all wars. Now we're going to disarm because weapons cause war, and so we have these disarmament efforts, but you know, it turns out the bad guys don't always play by their rules, and so Germany and Japan start re arming, and the United States and other countries are late. 00:45:22 Speaker 3: In coming to the game. 00:45:25 Speaker 8: And so just barely is Franklin Roosevelt able to start mobilizing. And that's not really till after the fall of France in May of nineteen forty, and the economy really won't get on a war footing until after Pearl Harbor. But once it happens, of course, it will be the biggest military build up in world history. Twelve million Americans going. You know, a lot of them volunteered, a lot of them drafted as well, and that does have implication. Because we have a smaller war, you can rely on a lot of volunteers. But now we are really digging into the population in a great. 00:46:06 Speaker 3: Way. 00:46:06 Speaker 8: And so that's partly why we think of this generation as the greatest generation, because so many of them went on to serve in the war. 00:46:14 Speaker 7: So one thing that this points to World War One World War two. We went into both conflicts with a pretty small military that we massively expanded ever since. 00:46:25 Speaker 4: World War Two. 00:46:26 Speaker 7: We've never really had a small military ever since, we sort of permanently have a large one. We do draft a large army again for Korea, for Vietnam, but after that we go to the all volunteer military. This is getting a little more philosophical abstract. Did America's identity change at all from that shift towards having a significant standing army that is professional and all volunteer as opposed to a small army of conventional, often drafted, citizen soldiers. 00:47:00 Speaker 8: Yeah, that's an excellent question too. And you know, there is certainly with World War Two we're going to have a military on an unprecedented scale. But there is after World War Two a huge demobilization effort. You go from a twelve million to I think six hundred thousand very quickly, and so the country actually will be very unprepared for the Korean War. And you get to the Korean War, there's a case of task for Smith, which was sent to try to stop the North Koreans or in the early stages, and they lack equipment and lack suitable leadership, and so this becomes the rallying cry for those who think we need greater readiness, that we want no more task for smiths. And so it's really from that point on, I think you've got this really greater conviction that we, given our new position in the world, simply cannot afford to wait until war comes to prepare for war. 00:47:56 Speaker 5: That's fascinating in the identity though, to drill deep and that you know, this idea that we now inhabited, this position in the world, that we that we had to sort of police it, you know, you got you think back to Eisenhower though, and he's warning about the military industrial complex. You know, this idea of national identity though. Did it shift in World War Two? Was it the after war propaganda, the films you know that glorified these brave men and women in the fights. Is that all that kind of contributed to it? Or was it the war itself? 00:48:29 Speaker 8: The war I think certainly had a very strongly unifying effect. And you had, you know, a lot of recent immigrant groups into the country being pulled together, people from different parts of the country. So I think it had a unifying and generally positive effect on the country. Now, when you get to this question of the military industrial complex, that is is a trickier one. And you know, as I said, I think Americans were hoping we were going to have this piece dividend after the war, and there was expectations the Soviets were going to play nice. 00:49:04 Speaker 3: But it turned out. 00:49:06 Speaker 8: The Soviets had a pernicious ideology that has been on world domination. 00:49:10 Speaker 3: So we had to counter that. 00:49:12 Speaker 8: But I think Eisenhower realized by the end of his second term that in doing so, we were building. 00:49:20 Speaker 3: This massive defense establishment, and. 00:49:23 Speaker 8: That when you build something that big, it can be a threat to liberty, especially. 00:49:30 Speaker 3: When it gets involved in politics. 00:49:32 Speaker 8: And we see this more recently if you look at the tech giants and how people are concerned about their influence over politics. But he certainly recognized there was this peril, as did a lot of other Americans. But at the same time you have these challenges to deal with, so it's a very difficult question. 00:49:51 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's interesting too. 00:49:52 Speaker 5: You said twelve million people were mobilized during World War Two. The US population in nineteen forty from the census was that we had one hundred and thirty two millions year, basically looking at about ten percent of the entire population was activated, specifically to go fight and get you know, you know, put on a uniform, which is wild to think about. 00:50:16 Speaker 4: Wild. 00:50:17 Speaker 5: I mean, we all know somebody in the military now, but like ten percent of the entire population be mobilized for that, and then everybody back home rosy, the riveters and everybody throwing in for the war effort. Like I just don't think. 00:50:29 Speaker 4: There's just no level. 00:50:30 Speaker 7: We've never since had that sort of all consuming mobilization of the country. 00:50:35 Speaker 4: But we were fighting to win, and it's worth asking, you know. 00:50:38 Speaker 7: We we mentioned how the country changed, and one of those things you think is could we do it today? If we somehow got in a conflict with China. Would we be able to come out and say, everyone's got to mobilize, we need to take ten percent of people into government service. 00:50:54 Speaker 4: Would people be up for it? Would our current bureaucracy be able to management. 00:51:01 Speaker 6: This Mother's Day month. 00:51:03 Speaker 5: You can help make motherhood possible if you've ever joined us providing ultrasounds and saving babies with preborn Thank you. There are babies alive today and mothers celebrating this year because of the gift of an ultrasound that helped her know the truth of the baby that was growing inside of her. Today you can help another young woman choose life for just twenty eight bucks. And that is just the beginning, the start of a two year long mentorship that includes services like free maternity clothes, baby clothes, diapers, strollers, cribs, formula, and so much more. And it all begins with that ultrasound you provide today. Because Preborn separately fundraises for administrative and overhead costs, one hundred percent of your gift goes directly to providing ultrasounds. So call or click right now and join us in saving babies and moms so that next year there's even more to celebrate. Call eight three three eight five zero baby that's eight three three eight five zero two two two nine, or click on the Preborn banner at Charliekirk dot com. Let's fast forward to Vietnam. You know, our modern imaginations have seen all the videos and you know, all the movies and it, but this was like a war unlike any other. Maybe you could say that about World War two is certainly world War one, but this changed America forever. Just set the backdrop of what made it extraordinary? And why was it so controversial? 00:52:30 Speaker 3: Yes it is, I. 00:52:32 Speaker 8: Think our most misunderstood war, which is why I've spent so much time looking at it. 00:52:38 Speaker 3: But when it starts out in the fifties with. 00:52:41 Speaker 8: An American commitment to South Vietnam, there is broad bipartisan support for helping South Vietnam. 00:52:49 Speaker 3: As part of the containment policy. 00:52:51 Speaker 8: We have set up a series of anti communist allies in Asia, fought this South the Korean War to save South Korea. We're supporting Taiwan, Japan, and so there is general consensus that Asia is a critical part of the world and we need allies there. And so it doesn't really get controversial until nineteen sixty four. And really some of the controversy starts in nineteen sixty three. There's this disastrous coup that we support, which is a huge mistake. But then President Kennedy himself is assassinated just after that, and so you know Lyndon Johnson coming in and he is really focused on his re election, and well, this will come back to haunt him because he talks about how he's not sending American boys to Vietnam, and then after he's elected, he will send American boys to Vietnam. But I think the rationale in terms of protecting the region from communist influence. I think has stood the time very well. And if you look in the region we have today anti communist allies, I think he can make the case that we actually saved many of those allies by what we did in Vietnam. But the war itself was fought in unfortunate way in many respects, and so a lot of the disillusionment comes with the fact that the Johnson administration tried what was called gradual escalation, where we thought we would slowly increase the pressure on North Vietnam, but it ended up just playing into their hands. But you know, when Nixon comes in, you know it's been a war for the Democrats. And Nixon could have thrown up his hands and walked away, but he said, no, this is this is still in our national interest, which I think he deserves a lot of credit for. 00:54:43 Speaker 3: But a lot of the opposition that comes out to is connected to I. 00:54:48 Speaker 8: Think the baby boom, and you have a lot of people who aren't really that focused on Vietnam, but they want to criticize their own country, and so Vietnam becomes a convenient a whipping boy. 00:55:00 Speaker 4: That's interesting, and it's very possibly right. 00:55:02 Speaker 7: There was a lot of social turmoil and change in America while this was unfolding. But do you think there's an unfortunate template that got set with Vietnam? You mentioned they tried gradual escalation, and what stands out to me about that is, you don't graduate did America gradually escalate any other war we fought. I don't think Lincoln tried gradual escalation in the Civil War. I don't think FDR was doing anything like that with World War Two. No, you just you hyper mobilized to win the war, and if once the war was done, you rapidly demobilize, and suddenly you have this almost it's like war as a management consultant would come up with it, which a lot of the guys who ran that war, Robert mcnuer, I think he literally was a consultant beforehand, or kind of that type of person he worked at Ford Motors. Did we get sort of caught in the wrong loop where we started to treat conflicts as a thing to be managed, that you could calibrate. 00:55:59 Speaker 4: You could half fight a war, and we've been doing that ever since. 00:56:02 Speaker 7: Zac had half fighting the war with Iraq, half fighting the Afghan War. You got these wars where you can't easily define what you're actually trying to achieve. You don't know what victory looks like. We didn't know that with Vietnam, and we had that same issue with war as we fought since. Do you think America got stuck in some sort of doom loop there? 00:56:20 Speaker 8: Yes, And in sixty four and sixty five there is these sharp debates where you have the military and these are generals who had fought in World War Two in Korea, and they're saying, Okay, if we're gonna fight here, we're gonna give them everything we've got and we're gonna hit them hard right away. 00:56:35 Speaker 3: But you had McNamara pushing back on that. 00:56:39 Speaker 8: And one of the most sort of pathetic aspects of all this is that McNamara was very influenced by academic theorists who were using game theory and these other abstractions to try to come up with some new ways to manage conflict, and it just turned. 00:56:58 Speaker 3: Out to be a complete disaster. 00:57:00 Speaker 8: But yeah, he came from the business world and he he had a strong arrogance. He was also intellectual who thought that these abstract theories had some place in the world. But it turned out, you know, human nature hasn't actually changed, and the ways you fight wars really shouldn't change either. 00:57:21 Speaker 6: How did it change America? You know? 00:57:23 Speaker 5: And because again I have in my childhood and growing up, I mean from Forrest Gump on where you know, you get so much Vietnam era content that's been created, and it feels all very depressing, and you think. 00:57:39 Speaker 6: About the backdrop of it. 00:57:40 Speaker 5: Yeah, you had racial tension and the riots, Watts riots, and the sixties, and then you had this basic malaise that started setting in in the seventies. How did it change the identity of America and the way we felt about ourselves. 00:57:58 Speaker 8: Yeah, well, it was the first war where you had a significant part of the population actively disparaging military service. Now, in other wars, you'd had plenty of people dodging the draft, but this time you had the baby boomers claiming that in fact, they were the real heroes because they didn't go to this war, which they thought was immoral. They didn't have a great case for that, And so this spills over into what follows and a lot of the media depictions. I think one of the worst things that happens in the Vietnam War. Is that a lot of these people end up putting the blame on veterans, and veterans are treated horrifically after the war. You know, eventually the left kind of figured this out and so in later conflicts you don't have this same vilification. 00:58:47 Speaker 3: And you know, I think probably makes sense. Everyone needs to know that it's. 00:58:51 Speaker 8: The you know, politicians who actually make these decisions about war and not the truth. But you've had this general I think ever since that time, you've seen much of the left side of the political spectrum has been hostile to the military. 00:59:05 Speaker 3: And I think that's also, you know, been problem in. 00:59:07 Speaker 8: Terms of maintaining national unity when you have so many people who are disparaging this important institution. 00:59:14 Speaker 2: What so. 00:59:15 Speaker 5: You you mentioned the Baby Boomers were different in the sense that they were prepared to disparage the war effort. What made the Baby Boomers disparage it? Was it the fact they were getting drafted? Was it the mission itself? Was it the the idea that you're you're not killing other white Europeans, but you're, you know, you're these are Nam Vietnamese and the Jungles, Like what what was the central kernel of that drove such controversy. 00:59:40 Speaker 8: Well, I think actually it's was fundamentally about their own self preservation. Now they tried to dress it up in more idealistic terms, but you got to remember this was the most the generation that had grown up in the greatest degree of affluence, and I think they were rightly characterized by some of their elders is saying, this is a generation of spoiled brats. 01:00:04 Speaker 3: They've had too much given to them. 01:00:07 Speaker 8: And now you know, as we know, spoiled brats tend not to want to make sacrifices and and do hard things, and so that was really driving it. You can see this too, because when the draft ends, most of the opposition to the war goes away. And so you had these young people who were self absorbed and they thought they were so important that, you know, they didn't want to risk their lives in some far away conflict. 01:00:33 Speaker 5: So, doctor Moyer, is your perspective that the aims and ambitions of the war effort were noble, were they rightly placed or was it a miscalculation? 01:00:45 Speaker 8: I think it's the fundamental objective of containing communism in Asia was spot on, and again we can see the consequences still today. China's no longer technically communists, but they are still there are number one threat, and so we've sustained these alliances. Asia's economy is hugely important, and by making a stand there, we bought time for our allies to stay. And now it was disastrous the way we left them in nineteen seventy five, which was the Congress being petulant and upset at Nixon, partly over Watergate. 01:01:23 Speaker 3: But I think it was tremendously unfortunate. 01:01:26 Speaker 8: Although we have benefited from the fact that we've got so many great Vietnamese who've come to this country, and our current Acting Secretary of the Navy is actually a child of Vietnamese who came here. But you've also got to remember we were fighting against an ideology that killed one hundred million people worldwide. That's international communism and killed more than fascism. But a lot of people don't talk about that, but that I think has to be at. 01:01:54 Speaker 3: The center of the conversation. 01:01:56 Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, gosh, you're saying these things, and I think that they are. For example, Korea, South Korea is a thriving country now, unlike North Korea because of the sacrifices of the Korean War. 01:02:13 Speaker 6: You know that was a bit of a stalemate. 01:02:16 Speaker 5: It's in retrospect history has not judged as a full win, right, you know, but I think it was a win. Vietnam it feels a little murkier to me, but you're giving me something to think about. And yeah, I mean, listen, the baby boomers, they get mad at me on this show, and they got mad at Charlie a lot. 01:02:35 Speaker 6: But I think there's some truth. 01:02:36 Speaker 5: I mean, listen, if you grow up with the war dividend and this massive amount of wealth and this optimism, and then all of a sudden you get drawn down back into sort of a foreign conflict and a war overseas. Yeah, I think they had a good point. You know, you don't want to go have to fight a war in far flung places. But was the overall objective, noble, you know, to stop communism. It's tough to argue your point there, all right, Like we were having a conversation and doctor Mourray, I'm wonder if you would agree with it, but you were saying as you wrestled through Vietnam. 01:03:09 Speaker 4: I just think about with Vietnam. 01:03:10 Speaker 7: What made me so sad about it is if you look at the people who signed up to go fight for that war. There were drafties, but there were many volunteers, uh. And it was one of the actually a great generation of Americans who were incredibly patriotic, incredibly pro America, incredibly anti communists, wanted to serve their country, and they had a leadership of this country that told them this is crucial for America's security. 01:03:35 Speaker 4: This is a war. 01:03:36 Speaker 7: That is as important as anything we've ever fought, and we have a plan to win this. And it feels like a huge tragedy to me in that I feel that a lot of those men who went and many of them died, that they were kind. 01:03:50 Speaker 4: Of lied to. They were lied to both about. 01:03:54 Speaker 7: The nature of the war itself, but also especially having a plan that we had leaders This is the first big case of us getting into a war where we didn't. 01:04:02 Speaker 4: Have a clear cut idea of how to win it. 01:04:05 Speaker 7: And even after it was clear, they didn't have that idea, that the war was sort of perpetuated because it had inertia to it, like it would be politically costly to back. 01:04:15 Speaker 2: Out pot committed. 01:04:16 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think about that. 01:04:17 Speaker 7: It's similar with like Afghanistan, for an example, where you have US troops continuing to die because Lindsey Graham has decided I am a tough war on terror guy. 01:04:30 Speaker 5: And that means this war must continue. I'm curious about that, doctor Morier, because Vietnam was the politicians leading it, were World War two vets, right, they had fought in this triumphant war. Was the approach this like gradual escalation? Were they trying to adjust for the traumas of World War Two that they I mean, were they trying to avoid some of that? What's the like? Where does that come from? When you were so triumphant and so victorious that you would then go and lead men to battle in this kind of haphazard way. 01:05:05 Speaker 8: Well, the idea of limiting the war and gradual escalation comes mainly from macnamara, and he pushes it with Johnson, who was barely at all in World War To me, he's in it for a brief moment, and he flies on airplane once and tries to make into. 01:05:22 Speaker 3: A big deal. 01:05:22 Speaker 8: But they are petrified of nuclear war. Now, the Joint chiefs of Staff, they are coming up with some alternative strategies which actually I think would have won the war. One is to invade North Vietnam. One is to go into Laos and cut the Ho Chiman trail. One is to step up the bombing of North Fetenom. And they kept recommending these things, and Johnson and McNamara kept saying, oh, no, we can't do that because we're going to bring the Chinese and the Soviets in. Now Richard Nixon will end up doing some of those things. And it turns out Chinese and the Soviets sat on their hands. So there's this terrible miscalculation and things are going better in the end. 01:06:03 Speaker 3: And had it not been. 01:06:04 Speaker 8: For Watergate, I think the South would have been would have held on. But one of the most important things to know about Vietnam veterans is that by large majorities, they they believe that the main problem in Vietnam was that the politicians would not let the military win the war, which is something you know, you don't hear the mainstream media and moving and so forth. 01:06:28 Speaker 3: They don't want you to get that message. 01:06:30 Speaker 8: They want to say that this was some unwinnable conflict. But as someone who's spent decades looking at this, I can say that that's definitely not the case. That there were strategies that would have succeeded had we not been so petrified of what the Chinese or the Soviets might think. 01:06:50 Speaker 5: You know, that's a great place to end it, because it takes us kind of up into our present moment where President Trump has said, hey, the war on terror. You saw this in Trump one point zero, where he unshackled the US military to really achieve objectives, to use the full force in might of the US military. It seems like, you know, we've almost come out of this really bad you know, I would say it's like fifty years of kind of really tough lessons. Do you predict do you predict that we've learned our lessons from this era? I mean, because we have the bravest men and women, the most awesome military on the planet, but we also don't want to fight dumb worse right, we don't want to keep this foreign adventurism. I guess in the final minute and a half two minutes we have here, have we learned our lessons? Are we in a better place now? 01:07:39 Speaker 3: Well? I think this country is. 01:07:42 Speaker 8: It's not always one of our fortes of learning the right lessons. Of course, there's a lot of lessons you can learn from history, and one of the big problems you have is that sometimes we try to apply the lesson of one place in another. And so when we wanted to Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of people who supported those are saying, well, we can democratize these places because it worked in other countries. Well, it turns out Iraq and Afghanistan our Islamic states with different cultures. I think that is the biggest reason why we failed in those places. Now, I do think we've learned. If you look at what people say about Iran. Now, I think we recognize, well, we've now tried in Iraq and Afghanistan to turn them into democracies. Didn't work, and so probably doesn't make a lot of sense to send hundreds of thousands of troops into Iran and try the same thing. 01:08:33 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:08:34 Speaker 5: I mean, we could disagree till we're blue in the face about Iran, or you could agree with it, but boots on the ground in a nation of ninety million with sectarian splits, in a deeply ingrained regime, you know, thankfully we're not doing that, and hopefully we won't ever have to do that. Doctor Moore, it's been a pleasure, what a breadth of knowledge you possessed. 01:08:57 Speaker 6: I literally didn't I didn't. 01:08:59 Speaker 5: Even tell the folks that we were working to coordinate this, how we were going to do it. And I was just told you could, and boy could you. So hats off to you. Thank you for joining us on this Memorial Day special. We pray that you have gratitude for what the men and women have done to preserve this nation, and thank you for joining us today. 01:09:18 Speaker 3: Thanks great to be with you guys. 01:09:19 Speaker 6: Yeah, Hillsdale College is the best. We love those guys. Happy Memorial Day. 01:09:23 Speaker 5: Be grateful for the sacrifice that was made on your behalf to enjoy the greatest country in the history of the world. 01:09:33 Speaker 8: For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to Charliekirk dot com.