905: The Secret Pentagon Department Controlling Hollywood | How War Propaganda Tricks Young People

Brian Nichols  0:03  
All right, and with that, joining us here on the Brian Nichols show, talking about veteran mental health. Jonathan Phillips, welcome to the Brian Nichols show. How you doing? Hey,

Unknown Speaker  0:13  
Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Nichols  0:15  
Absolutely. Jonathan, thanks for joining the show. Um, elephant in the room. We had some scheduling snafus beforehand. Mai, with travel and Duke Energy deciding to do some maintenance randomly during scheduled recording time. So first of all, thanks for flexing with me. But second of all, thanks for joining the show to talk about an issue that, candidly, I would say is one of the top five issues that as a country, as a whole, we are facing, but one of the top five issues that is, is like relegated to what like 20th, 25th on the list of priorities. And no, it's not inflation, it's not the economy, it's not climate change, it's none of that. It's the issues that veterans face, specifically veterans over the past 20 years who have been in combat zones, they've seen a lot of stuff. They come home, and then what are they allowed to talk about those issues? Are they allowed to seek resources to help with their mental health struggles? There's a lot there we need to unpack. Jonathan, so before we do that, do us a favor. Introduce yourself here to the Brian Nichols show audience. And why are you so passionate about trying to bring mental health solutions to veterans who are struggling.

Speaker 1  1:24  
Sure. Jonathan Phillips, I was a Marine lands corporal in the Iraq war after high school. Why I'm passionate? I just think that. I mean, veterans are not being given a lot of treatments. I mean, if you've been to the Department of Veterans Affairs, you just know how horrendous it is, not that it's all their fault. I mean, it's a top down approach in Washington, and they just don't care. They used us for what they needed for 20 years, since 911 and they don't care that we're not really an important subset for them, once the rain stops, the umbrella is unneeded, you know. And that's the reality

Brian Nichols  2:00  
so and pardon the the horrible, horrible um analogy here, but more or less it seems like the way you are articulated, vets are what pawns in this big chess game of foreign policy and vet issues be damned, right? Like you're the you're the first pieces that move across the chessboard in order to to line up all the other important pieces, and you're just as important, right? If I get a pawn across all the way to the board, you turn to a queen. But it seems like a lot of the folks in Washington, they don't have that mentality of that are vets, not only the important on the chessboard, but after the fact, right? Like when the game's over, the vets are just as important. And I would say the mental health aspect is as important, if not more important, than the things they're doing overseas. Yeah.

Speaker 1  2:45  
I mean, when you're using pawns and a chessboard, at least, there's usually a victory at the end of the game. Someone loses. But I don't think any of us can tell what that victory is what

Brian Nichols  2:53  
so let's talk about that. Because you were overseas, and you look at what we've had from foreign policy for the past 20 years, there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of what success looks like. Have we had success? And to your point, do we even measure success? So I guess, just from somebody who's been in the arms armed forces, what do you guys feel success looks like as you're speaking to your your you know superiors like What do or what are they articulating to you as this is what victory is versus this is a loss.

Speaker 1  3:25  
So in the Iraq War, there was none of that. Wow. We were all 1920 21 year olds. We're all just looking at each other like, this is off. This is all off. Whatever's going on, the American government is playing a game way above our heads, and it has nothing to do with this country. They're playing some way. And I don't think the American government is working for the American people anymore. And that's, that's a dangerous reality. I don't think there's any accountability. I mean, they lost, what, $7 trillion the Pentagon admitted to losing in the the Iraq War, on top of the the the price tag of the war, just another $7 trillion and they kind of just said, whoops, we're not going to account for it. We, you know, we deal with that, whatever, and we're not going to account for it. And that's kind of the the mentality. So there's no accountability. Um, yeah, I remember being over there and just being like, this is off. This is way off. There's it's a mess. It's a chaos. The like, we even knew the Iraqis were never going to take back their country? I mean, we were either going to be there forever or leave and the country was going to descend back into chaos. The local forces didn't even want to fight for it, predominantly to the point where the American government needed manpower from the American youth that they were actually medicating us. They were putting us on medication on the battlefield to keep us from leaving the battlefield with physical and mental injuries. It was horrible. Well, tell

Brian Nichols  4:44  
us more about that. They were putting troops

Speaker 1  4:46  
on Ambien. Ambien was a popular hypnotic at the time. I mean, you had guys that were basically sleepwalking. We were walking around like comatose, you know, just not sleeping for months on end. I mean, it was to the point, yeah. I mean, that was before Washington wanted to usher in the search campaign, which took them months to even figure out a solution. We were getting decimated in the Iraqi Civil War. The Iraqi police, the Iraqi army, they barely ever even wanted to do fighting. I mean, they just, all they wanted was money, and the American government just poured it in there. So

Brian Nichols  5:19  
you said something earlier, Jonathan, let's tie this together. You said, I don't think that the US government is really working for us anymore. What do you mean by that?

Speaker 1  5:28  
I think there's a level of elitism that they're playing games so far above our heads that it's not really in the best interest of America. They're playing a longer game than I think if we knew what it was, we wouldn't be on board. And that's why they're keeping it from us.

Brian Nichols  5:42  
Do you think it's just relegated to Iraq, or are we seeing this, you know, creep itself into other foreign policy engagements, geopolitics, for sure. Yeah, interesting. So we talk about what you guys experienced firsthand, um, candidly, a lot of what we hear civilian life is promoted through the media. Now, with that in mind, there's obviously going to be some rose colored glasses. So Jonathan, help us paint the picture like what we see when we're looking at the television, right, versus what you guys actually experience boots on the ground. Where's that discrepancy? And if there is a discrepancy, do you believe it was just a miscommunication or something nefarious?

Speaker 1  6:24  
Now, there's no miscommunication with the elite. They know. They know exactly what they're doing. These aren't stupid people. So a big thing that really causes a lot of shame, I think for us, Iraq Iraq guys, and probably Afghanistan too, was when we were overseas, the media would only highlight things that made the American troops look bad, like, Oh, this guy shot someone without provocation, or this guy made a horrible decision, what a psycho. But what they weren't telling people was how the insurgency in Al Qaeda in Iraq were burning Americans alive. They were capturing Americans at checkpoints and castrating them alive. They won't. They won't talk about that stuff. The New York Times barely goes into that. They keep all the nitty gritty details out of the equation. So the American people are deprived of an imperative context of what's going on in the battlefield. So can you imagine what what it was like to be an American serviceman, a 1920 year old, being up against an enemy like that. We weren't up against an average enemy, by any means, these guys were sick, diabolical, and it, it forced us to step our game up to such a level that just, I mean, it's intense.

Brian Nichols  7:31  
So let me ask a silly question, but like, where are these stories? Why are so many Iraq war veterans silent? Is that, is it, like top down, like you're not allowed to talk about this? Is it? Is it all the trauma and the PTSD keeping people from expressing what they experienced?

Speaker 1  7:51  
I think there's a big shame factor from the top down, where a lot of my a lot of my buddies even don't want to talk about, like, how our how bad our buddies were tortured. Because I think they're like, Man, I don't want their parents to see this, and I agree. Who wants their parents to see this? But, you know, my buddy got tortured alive. Do I keep quiet about it? Does that do him more justice? You know? I mean keeping quiet and I don't, you know, I can't live with that. I mean, there were some horrible torture, I can tell you right now, that enemy torturing our guys way more than the worst thing we ever did to them. So I go into that in the book, you know, pretty painfully around the time when I was deployed. I mean, there were, there were three army guys that were castrated, alive, horrible, horrible stuff. And the New York Times kind of omitted that part. The enemy. The enemy was actively trying to capture US Marines when, when we were deployed for a propaganda victory, and so our our heightened alert status was exponential. We had to operate on a level of vigilance that was just unknown.

Brian Nichols  8:53  
Wow. So I don't mean to interrupt Jonathan, but like the importance of this conversation, right? Because just elephant in the room from a civilian standpoint, this is stuff that we need to hear, because every two years, every four years, we're either going to the ballot booth to vote for members of Congress or cast our vote for our president. And if we don't have the context of what's actually happening, how can we as voters make informed decisions? Right? Because I can already hear the folks who are listening to this who maybe are like, well, we shouldn't have been over there in the first place. Okay, let's, let's absolutely go down that that conversation. But in order to make that educated decision first in the voting booth, you have to first know the consequences, the ramifications of our actions or inactions in certain cases and what that actually leads to an outcome, not just from a foreign policy perspective, but our blood, sweat and tears are our boys and girls overseas who are putting their lives on the line and facing atrocities. Jonathan, that none of us, none of us really get the chance to hear because. Uh, I mean, the the fourth estate are media entities that are supposed to hold our governments to account. It just seems like they're bought and paid for nowadays by those very entities that they're supposed to be laser focusing their attention on to hold them to account.

Speaker 1  10:15  
Absolutely. I mean, the the global war on terrorism. I mean, it's, it spanned, uh, three presidential administrations Can, can either of us say, what? 20 years of fighting gutters,

Brian Nichols  10:26  
a lot of, a lot of just a lot of heartbroken families, trillions of dollars gone. It's just national

Speaker 1  10:32  
deficit beyond even being fixed, to be honest, like, I mean, I can't answer it. And that's tough. That's tough for the veterans who have fought that gave everything that they had for those I mean, the American youth rose to the occasion. No matter what was asked of them. They gave 120% and that's a hard one to to know that they can't even see what was, what was the end game. So

Brian Nichols  10:52  
we're 20 years later, right? Like Iraq war one or two, rather, started in 2003 we had the genesis of that start with 911 which turned into our American freedom campaign overseas, and that turned into 20 years of endless war. Now those wars have ended. I'm using that very loosely, and we've changed all of our attention over to just north of the Middle East, to Russia and Ukraine. So we've seen the focus change away from the Middle East, specifically from an American foreign policy perspective, but those scars remain. I mean, Jonathan, we're 20 years removed from first stepping foot in Iraq in the 21st century to where we are today. I'm guessing that despite it being 20 years later, those very real wounds, those very real pains and such that, not just veterans faced on the battlefield, but then those scars that carry forward. I'm gonna assume that those continue to today. So what resources are available for these vets? I mean, is the government offering any solutions? Is there third parties that are outside of that collective, like government sphere, that are offering solutions. Do we need people to do that? Like, what do we can we do here

Speaker 1  12:04  
so Washington isn't offering any so under President Donald Trump, he actually tried really hard, through executive action to expand the VA Choice Program, allowing veterans to go into the private sector. And now, since he's been out of office, the VA has tried to close ranks. They make it almost impossible for you to get to go see private providers. I mean, you come back from the wars and you're you're forced into a single paying healthcare system. Wow. You have no options. I mean, everyone else in the world gets to go choose their provider, not veterans. You go to the VA, you go to a subpar system that's just, yeah, it's horrible. You have no option whatsoever. Every time you walk into the VA you're kind of looked at like a someone who's, you know, two yards away from losing his shit or, you know, throwing a fit. And that's not even the case, but being treated like that just it's heartbreaking.

Brian Nichols  12:55  
So you have a new book coming out here, Jonathan. It's the fifth general order as we're recording here today. It should be coming out very, very soon. So folks, as you're listening, head down below into the show notes, you're going to see the links there for Jonathan's book, but help articulate some of the the areas you outline in the book, specifically for mental health. And if we could also, if you have some solutions that you're bringing to the table without giving the farm away, right? Give us a little context what the books Bring, bring here to the audience,

Speaker 1  13:21  
sure. So the fifth general order, as all veterans know, is, I shall not leave my post until proper leave, which is what the global war on terror was about. I mean, American, American youth gave everything they had, never left, never never retreated. The book goes into just First off, we gotta reclaim our sovereignty, as far as not holding our head down for the Iraq war, I can tell you, the the politicians who wage that war, they don't feel bad whatsoever, whether it's Dick Cheney or George W Bush. So me, personally, I'm done feeling bad. I'm not going to feel bad for whatever I did, whatever I had to do over there to keep my fellow Marine, soldiers and sailors alive, and vice versa. So it's really important that we take that sovereignty back and not not hold our heads down. And like we talked earlier, the American people don't even have half the context for what happened over there. So I mean no offense, but I don't care what a bunch of people think about me that don't even know the context. And other than that, we just gotta force Washington to give us the same health care that those politicians who sent us over there get, and that's the only way we're going to be able to prevent future wars, is if we hold, you know, those politicians accountable. And part of that's just not keeping quiet, and this book will be controversial. That's fine with me. I don't care what flak I get, as long as it helps a bunch of guys and as far as solutions, we gotta start, you know, gratitude. We gotta step away from the whole victimization. Don't let the VA victimize us, because that hasn't worked out. The suicide rates just out of control. No, we gotta be just grateful and just the fact that we're alive now to tell these stories. Words, or I'm even here speaking to you, that's gratitude in itself. So that's a huge one.

Brian Nichols  15:06  
So Jonathan, one thing I want to circle back to, let's go back to 2012 the one candidate from both parties who was receiving the most veteran support in the primaries was Ron Paul. Now, Ron Paul is what we would call a small l libertarian. He's very pro pro freedom, pro liberty, non intervention. He's very much like, hey, we have a constitutional process. If we're going to war, let's declare war instead of just these, never ending campaigns, right? So when I look at someone like Ron Paul and I hear the veteran support again, the one presidential candidate that had the most vet support across the board, it leads me to believe, and if I'm wrong, tell me that a lot of veterans look at the foreign conflicts that they themselves were a part of. And they say, Why the hell am I doing this? Why the hell are we going overseas and putting our lives, our brothers and sisters, lives on the line to what complete this mission? What's the mission? What's the goal? You know what? Let's reevaluate the politicians who are putting us in these positions, oh, a non interventionist like Ron Paul, and all sudden, he gets all the support. So my question, Jonathan, is, we see that there is this desire from the veteran community for non interventionist politicians and elected officials? Do you see that there might be an opportunity for some of these folks in the veteran community to step up and say, You know what? We're going to plant our flag in the sand. We're going to say we're going to run as Ron Paul vets right, saying, no more endless foreign wars, no more just sending us overseas to, you know, make our backers happy. Who are, you know, Global Elite halfway across the world. Like do you see that there might be an opportunity for more veterans to start to take control and lead with not just what they did in the battlefield, but now in Congress or somewhere else.

Speaker 1  17:08  
Absolutely, I think, I think, I think a lot of US veterans may be afraid of being attacked as like unpatriotic, but doing what you said is probably the most patriotic thing you could do, right, especially paving the way for the next generation and making sure that the process isn't repeated. So absolutely, I think a lot of us are just like weary of being targeted and, you know, as like, I don't know, sympathizers or whatever, when, no, I think we need to, like you said, plant the flag and be absolutely ardent about our support.

Brian Nichols  17:37  
Where do you think that comes from? Where do you think that fear of being labeled as, like, you know, someone who's anti patriotic or against America. Like, is that because veterans are so like you're, I mean, you're literally putting your lives on the line for this country. So the idea of standing up and saying, we shouldn't be doing this, is that where this like feeling of unpatriotic sympathies come in, or am I missing something?

Speaker 1  17:59  
I think Washington weaponizes it. But then in the military, I think guys who are a little insecure, if they see anyone else stepping out of line to, like, speak up, they'll kind of, like, pounce on them a little bit, a lot. So that's why,

Brian Nichols  18:11  
is that? Is it just like the system, the vibe? They'll

Speaker 1  18:15  
be like, you know, we lost a bunch of our guys, you know, you're over here, like, saying all this stuff, and they'll call you a liberal or whatever, and they'll be like, Dude, don't do that. Don't do that. Like, I don't like, dude. Like, I know we lost a lot of guys. I'm trying to make sure it wasn't in vain. I'm trying to make sure their names were in vain. Um, because, you know, your buddies died no matter what, hopefully you can make their service like, somehow save a bunch of other people, and their names aren't in vain at that point. Um, that's where I come from. There

Brian Nichols  18:41  
seems to be a lot of like, I'm going to use the term gaslighting from our politicians. They'll tell these, these, her, you know, just amazing, you know, honorable stories, these, these, just crazy use case or not use cases, but like, crazy examples of soldiers going out and, you know, fighting for America's freedom. But for every one of those stories, Jonathan, it feels like there's 15 of their there's 15 other stories of just some catastrophe where men and women overseas lost their lives fighting for our interests in vain. And to your point, like you're trying to help bring an opportunity to make sure that their loss was not in vain, that we're not putting more boys and girls in the future in harm's way for situations like this. Like, I guess my, my main question is, like, who's against this? Like, I know it, as you talked about, like, there's this, this patriotic vibe, but like, the folks in Washington, they're not, they're not the folks going over and putting their lives on the line. They're the ones who are saying yes, no, and then, you know, having their names signed on a bill and then go off to DC to go off to the President's desk to inevitably be forced down our throats. So like, where's the disconnect there? The folks actually boots on the ground versus the politicians,

Speaker 1  19:53  
the politicians weaponize it. There's an entire department in the Pentagon that advises Hollywood. I mean, as far. Propaganda machine. They're the ones making sure the films are all look all super patriotic and make you think war is cool. I mean, there's, this is a top down approach. They spare no expense. It's, it's the culture.

Brian Nichols  20:13  
The culture is what you're talking about here, like creating this mentality of the culture that this is, this is, this is cool. This is what it means to be a man like rah, rah America, right? They're not putting

Speaker 1  20:23  
any of the raw stuff in those films that are going to make you think, Well, no, that's, that's, that's horrible. Um, like, No, not at all. Um, so they know what they're doing. Um, so when you're, when you're 19 years old, you, you know, you watch those movies and you just all the recruiting posters, and it's no wonder why the military is having such a hard recruiting issue now, getting guys in the military after those 20 years, there are a lot of horrible ways the American youth are treated, not to mention the rules of engagement overseas. I mean, I guys are being killed in left and right. I mean, you're telling me the war is necessary, but they were like they were scaring us of even, like, firing our weapons under the threat of court martial. I mean, you got like, no one wants to talk about this stuff, but like we said, We just knew things were so off over there. It wasn't even more

Brian Nichols  21:12  
about that, by the way, like that. It was like, what would you say we're doing here if we're not allowed to use our weapons? It

Speaker 1  21:18  
was like the government didn't even want to win the war, which, by the way, is like the height of the military industrial complex. It was like they wanted to prolong the wars. I mean, like, it wasn't even like they wanted to be there and win it. They wanted to be there and stay, stay there for a while. And the politicians were making a lot of money. The defense contractors were making even more money, the cronies. I mean, it was all off. So much money flew into that war. My

Brian Nichols  21:41  
day job, I'm in, I'm in sales, and we talk about, in like, the software sales world, it's MRR, monthly recurring revenue, which is every business's dream. You get a customer paying non stop. That's what it sounds like these defense contractors were doing. They're like, Oh, the government can give us MRR only. It's gonna be every year for the next 50 years. Okay, let's do it and, and who's gonna stop us? Who's gonna stop us? Yeah, yeah, man, that's scary. That's scary. Well, Jonathan, let, let's talk about this. Um, I know we, we painted the picture today of what vets face, um, and specifically the roadblocks you face. Give us, give us, I guess, a peek into the crystal ball. I mean, we're recording here today. It's the September of 2024 where do we envision the next five years of American foreign policy going? I know tensions are hot right now, over on, on the eastern side of the European continent, you go just a little bit skipping a jump down to the Mediterranean. Over there in Israel, Gaza, we have a bunch of chaos there. Iran, Libya or not Libya, Lebanon, rather, with all the conflict there. So do you see America continuing to, like push itself into these conflicts, despite being $35 trillion in debt somewhere. Ballpark, round up a few billion or trillion here or there. Or do you see, collectively, the country taking a step back as we try to put our own house in order? What do you think, man,

Speaker 1  23:13  
if we continue down the road of these interventionist wars and getting no return, it's pure insanity. I sure hope there's a movement, a growing movement, to stay out of it and get our own home in order, you know, secure our borders and just allow the American people to feel safe for once, at least get something tangible in return for the middle class. Who fight these wars? You know? Yeah, I think the real downside to fighting in all these needless Wars is when a when a legitimate war comes, you don't want to fight it. It makes you just even less of an appetite when you engage in all these unnecessary battles. War should be reserved for a really serious matter.

Brian Nichols  23:57  
How much do you think the political climate is paying or playing a role here, and specifically, we're right before a presidential election. So you have, you mentioned former President Donald Trump and then current vice president Kamala Harris. I mean, what do you see with the two different directions that the country could go down with? Let's say a Trump re election, I guess bookend his presidencies there with Joe Biden in the middle, or Kamala Harris carrying forward the second term of Biden.

Speaker 1  24:27  
All I know is that President Donald Trump is the only guy who doesn't want to be in foreign interventions. Doesn't want to engage in wars. He spoke out about even the invasion of Iraq, and he's the one that's most demonized from top to bottom. I mean, they're acting like this guy's the worst individual ever. He's going against the establishment. He's for all the stuff that we just talked about, as far as non interventionist policies, and if there is a war, he's about ending those wars swiftly. Yeah. I mean, he even,

Brian Nichols  24:57  
that's it, by the way. Is that where the hate comes from? Because, like, the. Media pushes the hate on him non stop. I mean, you just mentioned it. He seems to be the only candidate who's really standing up against this status quo, military industrial complex. I mean, is that where this hate really is is rooted in,

Speaker 1  25:12  
I mean, yeah, he's, he's throwing the whole Monopoly board to the side. I mean, he's, you know, he's redesigning the game. He's bringing us back to a reset. And absolutely they. I mean, that's terrifying to the elite, to the establishment.

Brian Nichols  25:24  
What happens if he wins again? From a foreign policy perspective,

Speaker 1  25:28  
I think radical change, and radical change scares a lot of people, but, you know, it brings us back to a time when you know that was the way it should be, um, take care of America and just securing what we have going on here, absolutely not letting countries get over on us, and not intervening on everyone's behalfs and getting nothing in return. A mental health epidemic, a drug epidemic, you name it, things at home, domestically,

Brian Nichols  25:57  
it breaks my heart, because we hear the mental health epidemic and then what's the response from Washington or the VA, as you mentioned, right? Throw some medication at them, right? That should help without and this is this goes to, we talk about this in the show a lot, right? Treating the actual root causes of problems versus treating symptoms. And, you know, as a sales guy, I teach sales teams all day long, and I see this, right? Sales guys will sit down and they'll they'll start selling features and benefits. There's actually a great video I just saw. It was an old one. It was a Grant Cardone video. And he's sitting down with a guy, and he's like, all right, Sell me this glass of water. And the guy starts going, like, well, this glass of water, it's got a lot of benefits. It's got all the minerals you'll need. It's the highest quality, no no contaminants. And he starts going through this thing off all these all these beautiful, wonderful things that water can do for you, right? But what's he missing is the guy thirsty, right? Like, is there a problem being solved with the water? Doesn't matter how great the water is. If the guy is swimming in the ocean with a gallon of water right there, right? He's like, Oh, whatever. I got some water. I can scoop it up and I gotta Desalinate it. Let's have a good old time. Um, like, in that mindset, right? You look at Washington, and it constantly feels like we have been putting band aids on the problem versus acknowledging the root causes. And you look at Trump, I think you're right, by the way. Um, he's he's bowling a china shop, breaking the things that had been built up over, really, since the end of World War Two. And I think his doing so is really disrupting the global order. But maybe Jonathan, in the best of ways, what say you

Speaker 1  27:33  
absolutely? I mean, He's scaring a lot of people, and sometimes that's what you need. Sometimes the things you don't want to hear you know, it might feel easier to believe a lie for a while, but it's not. It's not easier in the end, the invoice comes due. You know,

Brian Nichols  27:48  
where does this leave us now? Um, you know, moving forward, not just as a country, um, but, you know, just talking about veteran issues in general, I mean, what? What's our call to action today? Jonathan, besides, obviously, buying your brand new book The fifth general order. So, so what are some things that we can take away and start doing right now is, let's just say civilians listening to the show, and maybe we know some veterans in our in our spheres of influence, or if you're a veteran, listening to the show. I guess those are the two pathways. What say you

Speaker 1  28:15  
so as far as the American public, I think that they first off, need to start caring about what wounded veterans are doing at the VA and how they're being treated. Because if they keep this up and you know, this nonchalant attitude towards what's going on with the wounded guys coming back out there fighting their wars, no one's going to want to protect their their interest anymore. No one's going to want to hold the line. No one's going to want to hold the fifth general order. You know, I'll tell you now, if people keep turning a blind eye to how veterans are being denied care and being you know why we have this unprecedented suicide epidemic? I'll tell you right now, no one's going to want to do your fighting anymore. So when a real war comes your way, you know, people aren't going to want to sign up for a draft or honor a draft if it comes to that. So if they think it doesn't involve them, or it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not of their concern. It does apply to all of you. To be honest, you might want to start holding veterans and esteem and giving them the health care and advocating to your politicians to give them the same health care that those politicians who sent them the war get to engage in, or there's going to be a big problem.

Brian Nichols  29:16  
And let's again, address the the actual root causes too, right? If you, if you see the veteran epidemic right now that we're experiencing, we're talking about today, and you're saying, I don't I don't like this. I don't like that. There are more and more veterans each and every day facing these challenges. Stop sending them off to endless wars. Just a thought, um, Jonathan, this has been a great conversation, and candidly, a conversation we need to have. I had no we had our good buddy Garrett Biss, who joined us back in June. He was talking about the transition from civil or from a veteran life, or, geez, active service to civilian life. There we go. Give me three times I'll get it and the challenges faced there. And I opened up about the challenges I faced with my alcohol abuse. And I know that that was something that we talked about in the past, a lot of veterans having. Deal with substance abuse issues, mental health issues. So there's a lot here to unpack, but I think the underlying call to action, from my standpoint of the audience today, is please, as much as you enjoy the war films, as much as you enjoy gents sitting down playing your Call of Duty with the boys, right, understand that that is predictive programming. To Jonathan's point, there is a department in the Pentagon who has a budget upwards of billions with a B, billions of dollars to help influence Hollywood, to influence our culture, to influence the video game environments, so that they can create this preconceived notion that this is just normal. This is what we do. And it's kind of cool. Look at those guys going out with their guns and and they're they're protecting American interests. They're taking down the bad guys left and right. No, that's a video game, right? That's a movie. There's a narrative there. There's a controlled story, a controlled environment. When you go off to war, if there's one thing that is the most guaranteed is that nothing is guaranteed, right? So in that mindset, get out of the perspective that, oh, all this, you know, this, this sexy war stuff, we see it's sexy. It's not first and then second, understand the real impacts of your vote. When you vote for politicians who just blindly send our boys and girls overseas to again, protect American interests start really asking the question, what interests are they protecting? Over in Iraq, over in eastern Ukraine, what are we doing? Why? Why? I go down the road and I see a little encampment of people who are homeless right now, I can guarantee some of them are veterans, right? Let's, focus on helping these let's go to our southern border, where we have millions of people flooding into our country every single every single year, like I can see a very real national security conversation to be had. And I don't know, maybe a more useful time for our armed services to go. And actually, I don't know, Protect America, but that just might be me being just a funny duddy here. Jonathan with that being said, where can folks go ahead and purchase this brand new book, The fifth general order. And also, where can folks go ahead stay in touch with you if you want to continue the conversation,

Speaker 1  32:11  
sure I got my Facebook page and my email. I think you'll stream that. And pre order should be available in about three weeks, and then the official launch will be for the hardcover and November 12,

Brian Nichols  32:21  
perfect, and peek behind the curtain. We're recording here on a Saturday, early in our mid, mid September here. So by the time this episode airs, Jonathan, I think your your actual book should be fingers crossed, either about to release, or it just has released. So with that being said, audience, please head down below into the show notes, you're gonna find two links. Specifically, first is a link to the book, the fifth general order available over on Amazon. And also the second is that link to the aforementioned Facebook group that Jonathan did bring up there. So if you wanna go ahead, check those out. Both those links are in the show notes. Jonathan, any words of parting wisdom, of advice, any calls to action beyond going ahead again and purchasing these, these new resources, or joining the Facebook groups? Anything else you want to leave the audience with today? Yeah,

Speaker 1  33:08  
we're in the middle of movement, a revolutionary movement, and the status quo is the enemy. So, you know, we're in kind of change. You know we're it's long coming. We've waited a while for some change, and I'm not, I'm not backing down until we get it to be honest. So you know, Washington's got an enemy by me if they don't start changing things here,

Brian Nichols  33:28  
here, I always tell, tells folks in the sales world that the most dangerous words I hear whenever I sit down with a new customer and we're going through a sales process, they look at me, they say, but Brian, we've always done things this way, I know, and that's why I'm here, and frankly, that's why we're here today. Jonathan having this conversation, because if we continue to do things the exact same way we've always done things, then the status quo will unfortunately succeed. Which to your point, the status quo is the enemy. The brand new book, The fifth general order available over on Amazon again. Link in the show notes. Folks, thanks for joining us. And with that being said, Brian Nichols, signing off for Jonathan Phillips, we'll see you next time. Thanks, Brian. You.

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