transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] OnesReady, OnesReady, Go! Team! What is up? Welcome back to The Ones Ready Podcast. A little housekeeping to get out of the way, thanks to Tasty Gains. Tasty Gains is a partner and a sponsor of the podcast. Please go over to tastygains.com. You can find them over at our page, onesready.com. You can just Google Tasty Gains. They've got the biggest names in the game on their team, and of course, they had to get us, because we're also super huge. Favorite product of all time is the Neutropix. Check the Neutropix out from Tasty Gains. They are fire fire. I absolutely love them. They help me work and focus and organize my thoughts, and I am just an absolute dumpster fire in this nugget of mine. And I'll tell you straight up, the Neutropix are fire. Thanks to Tasty Gains. Please go check them out. All right, folks, here we go. It's been a crazy week or two for all three of us here on the podcast. Obviously, the events that happened in Iran and global instability, the Air Force is front and center in everything that we're doing and we couldn't be happier. This is the entire reason that we have the podcast and the initiative and everything that we're doing is to try to get people to understand how great the Air Force is. And we finally got that chance. So, you know, me as a person, I'm not trying to be self-aggrandizing. I'll just say that I was on Newsmax, I was on News Nation, I was on Fox News, and I got the chance to talk about some of the just absolute professionals that I got to work with alongside and now I get to watch Go Do The Job. Man, it was great. It was absolutely amazing for those folks. If you're not a member, you know, I did a pretty, let's call it emotional. I was just worked up, man. I hadn't processed it. I got on the mic and started talking. We didn't, we considered not dropping it, and we just kind of put it behind the wall. So, I don't know, maybe go check it out if you want to. It didn't make fun of me. It's fine. It's super cool. But it was really born of just the deep level of pride that we all felt for this operation. No matter how you feel about the overarching thing that is Epic Fury, that you can feel, well, however you want about it, it's a great thing, it's a terrible thing, we should be there, we shouldn't be there. If you could just zoom out for a second and just take things a little bit in a silo and talk about them just a little bit on their own accord, it was just amazing to see the boys go to work. I was lucky enough to get asked a couple of questions, the folks on each one of those shows, absolute professionals, I know how everybody feels about the mainstream media, I got it. It's an ends that justified a means, and the means were us being able to talk about this on the largest stage. So of course, I'm not going to turn down somebody that wants to talk about being a PJ. I'm not going to turn down a chance to talk about Sear in the way that I did. By the way, I meant it. Absolutely meant it. Now, we give Sear crap. Sear is literally Pararescue's little brother. PJs used to do all the training for all the air crew members way back in the day before they were even PJs, and the Air Rescue and Recovery Service days in between 1947 and 1966. I'm sure somebody is going to tell me I was wrong in the comments. Sear came from Pararescue maybe like, hey, we're doing all this other stuff. We can't really take on the training aspect of it, and Sear was born. I didn't do my good research to tell you when Sear was born. So I'll let the Sear bubbles chime in there. So they are like our little brother, right? But they're our little brother. No one's allowed to talk crap about our little brother, and I was so proud of the work that they did, and that's specifically why those clips went out, and why I wanted to focus on them. There are some things that I didn't get to say on those new shows, because these things are two or three minute hits. Sometimes I was on a panel with people. They were asking me direct questions, and I wanted to provide the audience the questions that they asked. If you go back and listen, my wife gave me a little bit of input. She laughed as well as my father-in-law, because my father-in-law watched the clips, and his very first comment was, you didn't answer any of those questions directly. You just pivoted to what it looked like you wanted to talk about. That's fair. That's fair input, because I think my 15 minutes of fame is probably up, right? It was those stars aligned. I just happened to be the guy in the space that had the knowledge, and I got there. Shout out to Jared Taylor. Jared Taylor is the reason that I got the Fox News interviews. Somebody called Jared Taylor because he's actually famous. I'm just sort of podcast famous, which isn't really famous at all. And they asked JT to come on and talk about it. JT calls me and goes, hey, F-Face, I don't know how to talk about this stuff. I told him you did, and this lady is going to call you. And I was like, for what? He was like, for Fox News. I was like, oh no, I am in danger. And I was in danger. But you don't get to say everything that you want. You don't get to highlight all of these career fields. And I did get some folks, we kind of joked about it on one of the other podcasts, but we did get some messages where they were like, hey, bro, we could have used a shout out. Guys, I'm sorry. Here's what I would have said if I had unlimited time on Fox News. That's what we're going to call this episode. What I should have said on Fox News. I can't tell Peaches what to call the episode. He does the thumbnails and does the descriptions. So maybe that's just input that Peaches will ignore, but he's a chief. He can do whatever he wants. Man, we already talked about Sear. These helicopter pilots, Para Rescue has had a tense push and pull relationship for a long time. For those of you that didn't know, Para Rescue, the teams used to work in a helicopter squadron underneath helicopter leadership. I almost coughed there. I got water on my throat and I almost quit. We used to work in the helicopter squadron and you had a boss that was a helicopter pilot and you were constantly fighting for funding. And a lot of the stuff didn't work out great. Sometimes the teams wanted to do stuff that the helicopter pilots were like, that's dumb. Why do you need to do that? We need to take the planes to go train to do this thing. There was always that professional tension, right? I can't tell you how professional those pilots and those special mission aviators were in the face of overwhelming odds. It's not just PJs going into battle. We need somebody to take us. And we are attached both historically and operationally to that HH-60 airframe, whether it's the Whiskey or whether it was the Lima or Golf or whatever you ended up flying on. And that HC-130 or MC-130 or the C-130, the HC-130, the King aircraft, that Royal Call sign, what's up. I can't give enough credit to those aircrew members. Seeing those initial images of a C-130 dragging two rescue helicopters, low, extremely slowly, in daylight, in Iran, looking for what ended up to be three separate recoveries, the F-15 pilot, Dude 44 Alpha, the WISO, Dude 44 Bravo, and the A-10 pilot that had to punch out feet wet after getting shot on target. The aircrew and all of those folks, from the enlisted folks in the back to the pilots that are driving, I can't tell you how proud that made me. To see that there is somebody that's willing to go on what everybody else would call a suicide mission. You're not going to find that anywhere else. You guys are amazing. You know, to the A-10 pilots, people don't know this, the A-10, the pilots can achieve what's called the Sandy Call Sign. That's not just a call sign, it's a qualification. A-10 pilots are vetted, they go through their entire pipeline. A lot of times they go to weapon school first, so they're patch wearing A-10 pilots. Weapon school is not easy to get into, it's even harder to graduate. After that, they're given their Sandy Call Sign, after they get another three to four years of training to be the rescue mission commander, they're the only pilots in the Air Force that can do it. We had a fantastic guy, an instructor of mine, Attinger, AT. AT ended up being an A-10 pilot, he was heavily involved with all of this stuff. He's got a great story, we've had him on the podcast, I think one or two times. Man, to have an aircraft like that and to have it on the chopping block is just absolutely insane, especially after what we watched unfold. They are an integral part of the entire rescue architecture. The fact that we're talking about getting rid of the A-10s, what are we doing? What are we even talking about? Secwar, I know Mr. Hegseth, Secretary Hegseth, I know you're a big fan of the podcast. You DM us all the time, brother. Say, D-A-10, you saw what they could do. We've had Killer Chick Campbell on that saved the lives of everybody on the ground, got shot off target and flew that plane home in manual reversion, which only at that time one out of four pilots had done. They protect everybody on the ground. They are that rescue mission commander, the only pilots in the Air Force that can do it. Don't kill the A-10, keep the A-10. There's no reason to get rid of them. We love them, everybody loves an A-10. The enemy fears them. Why get rid of them? There is a whole group of people that supported this from the ground, through reintegration, the entire thing for all of these pilots. Our Intel folks, we're talking to these folks right away to get the most valuable on the ground Intel for what's the enemy doing? What did you see? Did you talk to anybody? All these questions that they would ask, none of that's protected, by the way. Don't hit me in the comments, talk about, Oh, Aaron's talking about stuff that you shouldn't say. Shut up. I know better. Go away. Don't even leave the comment. Our Intel folks, developing target sets and telling you what threats are in the area, those Intel folks are invaluable. The people that work at the pilot that ejected, the only reason he survived is because there's an AFE, an aerial flight equipment professional that packed that kit for him that made sure, along with the SIR guy, that he had the stuff that he needed to survive, to get recovered, to make sure that he came home to see his family. I can't stress to you that there's not a single person. The people that took off from a base, I bet there were security forces airmen that were protecting the assets that were on that base. And I know it's fun to make fun of certain career fields. Without them, the mission wouldn't have happened. And I can say that about every single one of these career fields. Shout out to my maintainers. Not only did they have those birds ready to go, that's a no-fail mission. You think they slept? No, they were getting the aircraft ready. How about all those aircraft that got shot off? Two HH-60s got shot off the zone. One A-10 made it home, the other one didn't. Who do you think is fixing it? You think we just parked that plane somewhere and we're like, well, hey, man. Yeah. No. Those maintainers stayed up 24 hours a day working constantly turning wretches, patching holes, re-arming the aircraft, ammo out there all day long. All day long. Those crew members that are working around the clock to make sure that everything is going as well as it can on the flight line from a maintenance aspect. Get out of here. Get out of here. Everybody that touched this mission deserves all the credit in the world. I wish I had more time. I didn't. Those people that are doing even the admin jobs that aren't cool. When those guys got off mission or before they went, who do you think got them food? Who do you think made sure that they had water? There's a logistics officer somewhere around there that made sure that those fridges were fully stocked with RIPITS and that everybody had their light, like last-minute gear request that you just can't figure out. I need this one specific piece of gear. There were some professional out there, I guarantee it, that found a piece of gear for one of those operators. I guarantee it. All of these folks, I just have the highest praise. Those enlisted and officer folks that operate those ISR platforms that were overhead protecting this guy. The EC-130 crews, the special mission aviators that were on there just raining hate to protect him the entire 36 hours that he was on the ground, exposing themselves to most likely daylight, exposing themselves to high threat environment to make sure that one American came home safe. Every single one of these career fields deserves credit. Every single one of them. And that's not cap, that's not me saying something to get, that's a weird thing to get clout about, right? But I truly feel it. Because if you're doing what you're supposed to as a good senior NCO, I wasn't, but I saw good senior NCOs that did the right thing. Thankful for them. You can connect every single one of these career fields from services to air crew resource management, the folks that manage your flight hours. The world doesn't stop because we have a contingency event. All these processes still need to happen. All of these things need to happen at the same time with zero fail. There is zero room for failure in all this stuff. And from the youngest airman basic, A1C, through Colonel, two stars, three stars, making these decisions, every single person involved in this deserves credit. I just didn't have the time on Fox News. And I wasn't a slight at anybody. I did get a couple of mean messages. I'm like, hey, bro, you could have said this. Yeah, I could have, but I'm stupid. Sorry, I am who I am. Have you never listened to the podcast before? I shouldn't even be allowed to talk on here. I don't even know why I'm allowed to give you input. Here I am. I guess that's what it is. And I'm trying, I'm desperately going through my Rolodex and my nugget to try to get to every single career field that you could, you know, the psychologist, the human performance optimization staffs that work at these places, the strength and conditioning coaches that are almost always contractors. I think they're 100% contractors. Those guys had a hand in making sure that these gentlemen were super hard to kill. They were able to, on no sleep, probably not enough food, definitely not enough water, but they were able to respond to this event at a moment's notice. That was built by months training in the gym on a standardized program that these strength and conditioning coaches, these athletic trainers, these physical trainers, these people that get guys back from injuries, nutritionists, psychologists, chaplains. That entire team had a hand in this of keeping everybody mentally, spiritually, physically ready to perform in the highest stakes environment where they could not fail. I love a good chaplain pump up speech too. Gosh, I hope there was a good chaplain out there that was just giving them fire and brimstone right before they took off. Man, nobody gives a good pump up speech like a good motivated chaplain. Because they ride that line like, should a chaplain be saying this? Like he's talking about killing people. Good kind. It's fantastic. So to all those humor performance folks, good on you. You performed, you got to watch the fruits of your labor happen on national news for a week straight. You deserve all the credit in the world. More than I could possibly give to you. Those instructors, everybody working in AETC from basic training, all the way through our specific pipeline, guys hate taking that instructor duty just as a standard. They feel like they're getting pulled away from the team. Sometimes it's exactly what they need. It was for me. Imagine being one of these guys' instructors that walked onto that aircraft and came home with three Americans that were shot down behind enemy lines. It's got to feel pretty good. And that includes CADM, Security Forces, guys. There's CADM folks that are better shooters than most of the operators. That's why we have them come instruct. Those weapons were perfectly maintained by a Security Forces airman. They worked perfectly when they went out. Ammo had them all loaded up and ready to go. Intel let them know where the threats were. The pilots in the face of just absolutely ridiculous odds in all airframes, just charging into battle. To include the fighter dudes. People forget that an S-15, which isn't supposed to be able to be shot down, they got a pretty good record until very recently. Those guys just performed. And it's truly my intent. It's truly my intent to say that I am proud of every single AFSC, Air Force Specialty Code. For those of you that don't like acronyms, those are the jobs inside of the Air Force. We call them Air Force Specialty Codes or AFSCs. Every single one of you deserves to feel proud about this one. I don't care if you touch rescue or not, you were part of the world's greatest Air Force. And you performed at the highest level and in no fail mission when lives were on the line. That's what we do in the Air Force and the Space Force. Shout out to those Space Force folks, too. Mind-blowing what they can do. Mind-blowing. Cyber Command. Mind-blowing. Look at what we did in Venezuela. Oh, what's up? We're going to turn your power grid off. We're going to take over your internet and then we're going to fly in, blackbag your president, bump some Chief Keef and bounce. Space Force. Cyber. Good for you. Good. It makes me insanely proud to know that just for a little bit, I was part of that organization. I hope that it makes everybody out there just as proud because you deserve it. That's what I would have said on the show. I just didn't have enough time. Boy, you got a lot of peacock fly, right? You try to put a peacock in a two-minute cage where you ask me a specific question. My heart rate was about 192. I didn't know what I was. I blacked out. I don't know if I did any good. In all seriousness, everybody deserves a part of this. Every single person out there deserves a part of this. From medical, I can't believe I almost forgot medical. Who do you think gets these guys ready to fly? Who do you think gets them back from an injury? Who do you think makes sure that they can go do their job? Medical. Good job, guys. Flight docs, all those who, the IDMTs that work at the squadron, good job. Good freaking job. That's what we do. And it makes me proud to see the Air Force front and center for all of these recoveries, getting the credit that they deserve, even if I forgot to mention your specific career field. It wasn't intentional. I'm not going to talk about combat controllers, though. I refuse. Their hat's a weird shade of, it's a weird shade of red. Can I be honest with you? The Ohio State Marching Band wears the same beret, like who's imitating who? Who came first? It was actually the Ohio State Marching Band, the best hand-band in the land. No, but I mean the controllers, the Tac-P dudes on there, come on, what are we talking about? The most audacious plan executed the best that it possibly could be. And then when everything went wrong, who do you think they looked at to blow those aircraft in place? Who do you think they looked at? Well, I know that they looked at them before the mission. They were like, hey, can we do this? And there may or may not have been a red-headed bro in that room going, maybe not, allegedly. But when everything went wrong, they looked at the Air Force. Let that roll around in your head. Let that sink in, per Elon Musk, for just a second. You just saw the entire Department of War in a moment of crisis, look to one team, look to one service, and go, hey, fix this problem. It was a team event. Everybody was involved. I got it. But this is why the Air Force is different. This is what makes us different about the Joint Force. You saw it play out. It was every single career field. I am so freaking proud of y'all. We appreciate you. From Peaches, from Trent, from me personally, this is not cap, this is not blowing smoke, up your respective trousers and or skirt, whatever you want to wear. It's just the facts of the matter. You guys crushed it. And we're all so proud of you. Thank you for everything you do, every single career field, every single one. Thank you. And that's it. That's what I would have said on Fox. I just didn't. Cause again, stupid. Hey, go check out operatortrainingsummit.com. We got all kinds of stuff going on. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we're here. We got a little bit of motion. Maybe five events a year wasn't enough. We're getting way more requests to do these events than we have events. That's a good problem to have. You should be on the lookout. We're going to announce some other events that aren't already on the schedule over at operatortrainingsummit.com. You guys should go check it out. We would love to have you come and hang out for a weekend and let us pour that experience into you and let you go do and try one of these things that everybody else thinks is impossible. Even Navy influencers. So go check it out. operatortrainingsummit.com. Check the LinkedIn for everything else that you could possibly need. For Trent, for Peaches, for myself, we are freaking proud of you. Good job, Air Force. Now go take the trash out. Yeah, I wasn't born to be average.