Episode 9
Is the US Losing Faith in the Military?
Is the US Losing Faith in the Military? That was supposed to be the subject this week – and after about 30 minutes, it was. My guests were Coffee or Die Executive Editor Havok Journal founder Marty Skovlund Jr. and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint. We had a lot of ground to cover with Marty - from the founding of Havok Journal to the latest on his new book - which explains why we took the scenic route to get on topic. But when we got there, we dove in headfirst: why are most parents patriotic up until their kid is about to enlist? Should vets look down on those who never served? How many of the Army’s image issues would be eliminated if we just closed Fort Hood? What is the single best tool to eliminate toxic leadership? Marty and Charlie are at the top of their game and have answers to these and so many more questions.
Have a listen here.
Show Alibis
So I asked Marty about Charlie’s acronym-ization of the “Havok” in Havok Journal. He answered. And then we moved on without me explaining what acronym Charlie came up with. We had talked about it on the first episode, so this should really be on you for not going back and listening to all of our old episodes first. (Please don’t. Seriously, we’re so much better than we were two months ago). So, on the off-chance you haven’t heard the first episode yet, it stands for “Have A Voice Outside of Killing (HAVOK).”
Marty says he leaned into leaving the military for a writing career like Leroy Jenkins. I didn’t have enough time to mention that Leroy Jenkins was a fraud. But you should know that by now.
It takes me just under a decade to get to Charlie in this week’s episode. How he hung on that long, I don’t know. Maybe he was delirious from holding his middle finger into the camera for a prolonged period of time. Wayne Knight once said that playing Newman on Seinfeld was challenging because he would only have a few lines an episode, yet he had to make a huge impact every time out. Charlie was our Wayne Knight this episode. Hopefully, he won’t ever have to be again. And I won’t do anything corny like say, “Hello, Charlie.” But seriously, he was on point.
So, while listening to a rough draft of the show, I winced, noticing that I laughed when Marty says that Vanessa Guillen wasn’t even the only soldier murdered at Fort Hood that month. Trust me, I don’t find anything that happened to her funny. But Marty had a great delivery, and, as I explained on the show, I was thinking of the tepid parents who don’t want their kids to enlist hearing this and rolling their eyes in “I told you so’s”. What happened to Vanessa Guillen was horrific and so crazily over the top, it’s hard to quickly summon appropriate human emotions when her case is thrown into a conversation. We rag a lot on Fort Hood in this episode, but, all joking aside, there is something rotten in the culture there that needs to be addressed, like, yesterday.
Show Notes
The Ranger by Marty Skovlund Jr.
The True Story of How Standing Rock Fell by Marty Skovlund Jr.
The Longest War by Marty Skovlund Jr.
Violence of Action by Marty Skovlund Jr.
2020 Gallup Poll on US trust in the military
