Vern Daly
Appearances
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
That sounds like Troxell. Matter of fact, he told me I was supposed to tell you if you didn't have it, you got to get a nasal pharyngeal. I can give those.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Let's see. About 10 years or so. He was a SEAC. Yeah. I'm sorry.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
So, first off, besides the fact that freaking... I fully intended to come in here and give you guys a hard time for the white box.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Miller Lite or bourbon. I stopped drinking frou-frou beer and all the rest of that stuff when I got a bourbon habit. You know what I'm saying? That's what it comes down to.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
That's it. It's like Landman. The thing you got to understand is like... Bourbon is like collecting stamps for Sarmaders. You know what I'm saying? It's like if you're a Sarmader and you don't collect bourbon, are you really a Sarmader type deal? You know what I'm saying? Waste money on a collection that you won't drink the whole thing. You know what I'm saying? But why not? Something to do.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
You got to have something that you want to do out there. You got to dip in. I do. Yeah.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Come on, man. Like, you guys told me you were coming in here. I'm not sitting in with the general officers to arrest that, you know. I take it out when I got to address certain parties, but I figured you guys were cool. I didn't see this in, you know what I'm saying? Like, a little nicotine light, nothing like that.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Thank you.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Yeah. So I started out in the Guard in 89. I spent about five years in the Guard before I came on active duty. I've been on active duty just over 30 years now.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Absolutely. So obviously, cycling is a super weird one. So I rode motorcycles for years. You know what I'm saying? That was my big thing. And then I went to Alaska, which is kind of a long, complicated story. Basically, like, 05, I was at Fort Benning. I was an IOBC instructor. And, oh, sorry.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
I'm not a super podcast dude, you know what I'm saying? No. But anyway, 03 or I'm sorry, 03, 04, I'm at Fort Benning teaching these little snot nose lieutenants to be infantrymen. You know what I'm saying? Hating my life because everybody's over in Iraq or wherever else. And I'm trying desperately to get out of there.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And 101st, 82nd were like 107 percent on the first class at the time, X, Y and Z. And so I couldn't get out. And they were starting this new brigade up in Alaska, 425. The snow darts. Right. And freaking.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And I've got a great, great story on that one because you're never going to get a better jump than jumping in a four foot of snow. Anyway, bottom line, the only way I could get out of out of Fort Benning was to go to Alaska. And I wasn't sure about it. I was like, I don't know about this stuff. And my wife was like, let's go.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And I was like, okay, everything that my wife's, because I've been married 33 years now, freaking everything my wife has told me, let's do that, has been exactly the right freaking thing to do, man. I cannot tell you. So went to Alaska in 05 and spent six years up there. How cold is it? Like for anyone that, you were jumping in. Negative 30 was the coldest that I've jumped in.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
You know what I'm saying? But we've, you know, folks have jumped up there, you know, as low as negative 45 up on the slope and some of the other areas. And then you're up every thousand feet is like at 10 degrees or 70 degrees difference. You know the deal. I mean, it's wind velocity, the rest of that. But you're so hyped. You don't really feel it until you get to the ground.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And then you're like, I can't move my hands. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You figure it out. It's cool. But the truth is, so remember, in Alaska, two separate places, right? You've got Anchorage, okay, where the Airborne Brigade is at, 211 currently, right? And then up north is 111, the Arctic Wolves, right, which is a light BCT, right? That's our true Arctic, guys. So it gets negative 45.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
It was negative 52. It was probably the coldest that I experienced up there. Those guys just got done, matter of fact, with a couple of weeks of hardcore out in the field. And our mark of, hey, we got the right conditions was they had to stop training. So when it gets to negative 35, the reality of what you're doing is you're going to go to ground and try to survive.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
No, that's straight temperature.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
helicopter pilot, Vietnam vet, freaking, I graduated high school at Fort Campbell High School, went to Auburn University where I failed out miserably pretty quickly. And, but I've always been in the South, you know, rode motorcycles, drank beer, fish, you know, that kind of stuff. And so the idea of going to Alaska was whatever. But I, Did not want to go to Fort Hood or to Fort Riley at the time.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
A lot of ego involved there. You know what I'm saying? The reality of being an airborne infantryman is kind of you get real stuck on you want to do your thing. And the only place I could go jump out of airplanes at the time was to go to Alaska. But we got up there. I'm an Alaska resident now. I freaking love that place, man. I mean, literally love Alaska.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
The bottom line, they were basically, what, MacArthur's secret weapon. In the end, they did not want to publicize a whole lot about what the division was doing. Some of the crazy airborne stuff they did there, whether it was inserting replacements through freaking L-Force Densons, like dudes were jumping in.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
They're like, hey, you show up as a replacement, as a new lieutenant or something like that to wherever. And they're like, hey, you got to get out to the guys. So get in this airplane. You're going to jump out and join them. You know what I'm saying? And then whether it was a combination amphibious, that's the big thing about the Pacific period, right?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Like in the end, I love Marines to death, right? Because they are some pretty badass dudes. But what everybody doesn't know is they've also got the best PAO in the services, right? They will pump themselves up, right? That's the way it is. It's always been that way in the Pacific too, right? The reality is the majority of the amphibious landings were done by the United States Army, okay?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
The biggest ones, right? Like most of that fighting. I mean, I'm not trying to take away from them, but the reality is everybody forgets. Whenever you talk about the Pacific, you're really talking about the Army, okay? And then particularly for the Airborne Force, talking about 11th Airborne.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
They did. Yeah, 11th Airborne was actually in Japan before – one of the first elements to get in Japan. Yeah. I know Nick would know all this. You're tickling his tism right now. And it's a big deal. So it was a big deal to get Reza designated too, right? So again, I told you in 05, I went up to Alaska and joined this new brigade. It's called 425, okay? And from 05 until 022,
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
That brigade was the 4th Brigade of the 25th, but we had zero connection to the 25th Infantry Division. Like, it was just a designation. And then the one up north was 125, okay? And they had strikers. Like, why you would have strikers in Alaska? Like, they won't go anywhere in the snow.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Like they are, they have eight wheels, but well, I mean, all that stuff was congressional stuff that from when then, anyway, you know what I'm saying? I gotta be careful with what I say, but the bottom line is, um, you know, we had, we had some issues up in Alaska, right. And luckily, uh, senior leadership recognized that, Hey, uh,
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
The majority, a lot of what we have problems with in the Army have less to do with money and programs and more to do with identity and purpose and grit and resilience and remembering that soldiers are here to be soldiers, right? Like, we're here to train. Like, most of the problems, you know this, right? Like, you probably didn't mind doing company live fires or FTXs or whatever else.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
What you hated was being in a freaking cough, freaking running a freaking broom or not doing anything. Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. And so, you know, and then identity matters, right? Like, I mean, we're very tribal in the army. That's, that's the reality. You got the 82nd playing gang, right?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
You got your fricking tankers or, you know, hood and, and bliss, you know, and, and, and so that 11th airborne designation makes a difference. You know what I'm saying? You put that patch on and, and you got a connection to a history that's unique and, a history and a legacy you gotta live up to.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Why do you go there, man?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
No, no. I mean, I'm not here to... The reality of it comes down to we want to be a standards-based army. We should be a standards-based army. We are. That's the way our leaders are. It's a standards-based army. If you can perform, then I want you around. If you can... The big one that nobody really talks about is availability, right? I'll tell you that one, right? Like, you ever watch...
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
NBA or football, right? Like, one of the values of a player is how much are they available? How much do they get hurt? How much are they there to play? Like, you can pay this guy who can be the most talented person in the world and wherever, but if they're getting hurt all the time, how much value are they, right? Well, same thing in the Army, right? Like, hey, we need guys to be there.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
We need guys that are consistent. You know, we need soldiers that are, oh, crap, you got Chris Mullinax, man. that dude's a freaking rock star. So, you know, the, the reality is, um, I, you know, I'm just a sergeant major. I've been very lucky, uh, to, to serve an army this long, you know, um, and to, uh, get to do what I get to do, you know, um, Once, you know, I told you there's an identity.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Right. And so I've been an infantryman. I've been in blue corps wearing guys since 1990. That's very much a part of your identity. Right. And to get to lead people. Right. Like. I don't think people understand the value in their life, right, of what it means to be in these positions and have the opportunities, right, to both serve with but then lead, right?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And to gain people's respect, like to work that hard and to gain that respect, right, doesn't have a value on it.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
you know and and i just hope that that we get away from some identity politics okay right because my identity is army it's it's this color right and in the end i value all my soldiers based on what they can do all right and what their potential is right because that's what sarmators do what sarmators really do is we develop people right we develop the next leaders we develop the next
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
And we do that by providing them opportunity, by providing them a direction, by sometimes making them go in a direction they need to go in, by sometimes doing other things. But in the end, the best thing that I've ever done in the Army is develop a bunch of people. Right. Who are now even ahead of me. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, no, there's a bunch of talk, man.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Look, man, if nobody's shooting at you, why are you stressed? You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's the bottom line. I mean, like, look, that's the reality. I learned that growing up in Fayetteville. Exactly.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
You know what I'm saying? And he knows what I'm talking about. Like, hey, look, the reality is freaking... Once you've been in kind of that stressful situation, you're like, well, I'm probably not going to die from this, so life can't be too bad. The only hang-up is you're still kind of searching for that feeling every now and then. You know that as well as I do.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
I mean, like, there's a reason why I love to jump out of airplanes, right?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
in the end you know when you're standing at the door right you're like hey i'm gonna put in god's hands today like there's there is something about that right you know and uh it was pretty neat to be able to still do that too when you're oldish crap you know what i'm saying i mean that's the reality i'm 55 years old man like freaking are you still jumping it's still well was until uh november this past year when i left that job and now i came to this job because the
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Now I've got a new job. So I'm the MDW, the Military District of Washington Joint Task Force, NCR. So we have the old guard and really a bunch of installations here and a number of other organizations. And so we provide everything from the special security for special events, whether it was presidential inauguration.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
So all the troops that you saw in the presidential inauguration, the bands, the rest of that stuff, that's all part of us.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
a different part of the army than i've ever seen because like i told you you know my identity is infantry like i've tried to be a in the dirt kind of guy my entire life and and coming here uh has been you know kind of eye-opening because the reality is we say stuff like soldier for life right well what soldier for life means is that these incredible tog soldiers are conducting six funerals a day in arlington burying our our following yeah following
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
There are brothers, there are sisters. In the end, it comes back to that legacy again, right? To your point, there's... When we did the transition to 11th up north, we invited who we could find. Well, there was like two dudes that could actually come who had been 11th Airborne during World War II. They're all past, right?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
But they're still our brothers and sisters because we're connected through history to every one of them. But anyway, the bottom line is when you hear Soldier for Life, they're really the physical – of that, right, by really showing that. And they do a job that because I've always sought not to do it, I respect even more. You know what I'm saying?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
What it takes to be a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, like, I couldn't do it. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, we pay a lot of respect, as we should, to all our special operators and to getting through ranger school and being a jump master and doing those things.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
But the things that these guys have to do on a daily basis, the discipline and everything that they have to show is remarkable. And so getting to be a part of that and see those things is pretty cool.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Smoke warned you. I'll talk your ears off, man. This is the guy you want to talk to.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Oh, you mean Bruce Buffer?
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
Make sure to embarrass him the entire time. Yeah, I like this. Let's see it. All right, let's see. All right. Man, I'm trying to think. I'm trying to get it. And from the left. Sergeant Major, you better sound the fuck off. Hold on. I'm trying to get it. And coming to the ring.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
From the G357, the previous 1st Infantry Division Command Sergeant Major, Ranger, Badass Overall, and truly the man, Christopher Mullinax!
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
One or two.
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202 - What REALLY Happens At The Pentagon? Our TOP Secret Mission | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 202
First off, man, it's a little tough for me to follow this guy. Man, Smoke is a legend around here in case you didn't know.