**Please note: this transcript was automatically generated. We're working on going back over this to clear up misspellings as we have time ... but as we all know, there is precious little of that** Travis: God, you guys are only, like, 25 minutes late. Jesus Christ. Chris: Listen, I had to pick up my kids. I just had to go drop off my kids. Travis: Wait a minute. Chris: So there you go. Travis: EW Chris: ...at the pool. Travis: EW. Travis: EW. Travis: You know what? ...let's cancel this call. Travis: The vibe is already in shambles, and we haven't even started. Other Chris: Perfect. Chris: Let's see. Travis: Hello, and welcome back to Rtfb. Travis: This is Travis, and today, Chris other Chris and I are talking about the first half of Starship Troopers, which will cover everything from chapter one to chapter nine, but won't include chapter ten. Travis: So stop there. Travis: This is your standard warning to finish up all the reading you wanted to do to avoid spoilers. Travis: And then let's get back to my conversation with the Chris's already in progress. Other Chris: Again, going back to that thing about your dad that long ago. Other Chris: I mean, we're not talking about the Dark ages at this point, but 100 years ago, 200 years ago, your dad wasn't necessarily somebody that you were close to Other Chris: What I'm and especially for a like a daughter, you're not necessarily going to know a lot about your dad unfortunately. Travis: Yeah, well, even Levi told me the other day, he's, like, telling me of time that he finally figured out what my name was, and I don't remember what he said the event was, but it was something like when he was, like, seven. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I'm like, what the h***? Chris: That's about? Chris: When I remember whatever it was is. Travis: Way too old for him to be like, oh, you have an actual name. Other Chris: I'm pretty sure that I knew my parents names earlier just because I had to. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: I think all of us at some. Other Chris: Point, probably earlier than your kids, right? Other Chris: Had to be somewhere. Other Chris: Go somewhere, do something alone. Travis: Right. Other Chris: Remember your parents name so that if you get picked up by the police or something, you can find your way home. Chris: Yeah, right. Chris: That's what I was thinking. Other Chris: I knew my address in kindergarten, right? Chris: Yeah, I did too, because that's one. Other Chris: Of the first things that they make you do in kindergarten, right? Travis: Write your name and learn your address. Chris: Yeah. Chris: I couldn't always remember our phone number, but I did our address first and then our phone number. Chris: Yeah. Chris: And I remember having by a certain age, probably about six or seven, having to know my mom's name so in case I got lost in the store at the mall or something, then they could pay her. Other Chris: And I definitely did. Travis: I definitely did get picked up by police at, like, festivals, Little Hills, more. Chris: Than once I didn't get picked up. Other Chris: I never had to do that. Other Chris: One of the things that my mom told me growing up is like, yeah, your dad's really tall. Other Chris: Just look for your dad. Other Chris: Yeah, he stands out. Other Chris: You'll notice. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Anyway, like. Other Chris: Man, I forgot what I. Other Chris: Was going to say. Other Chris: Oh, well, conversation over. Other Chris: Sorry, guys. Travis: All right, the end, we did our. Chris: Probably segue anyways, do our due. Other Chris: Great transition into the beginning of the episode after almost 25 minutes of f****** bullshit. Other Chris: Like add rambling about coins. Travis: And listen, that's what people come for. Chris: Is the Add knowing names? Other Chris: Is that what the show is? Other Chris: Really? Chris: I think it is. Travis: I'm looking at our metrics right now and it says Add Rambling is like the top search. Other Chris: Should we start, like, hashtagging things? Other Chris: Is this something that kids do? Other Chris: No. Travis: Well, except for the one yeah. Travis: About to put out Tweets later today about hashtag save kindred or whatever. Other Chris: You got to get that going. Other Chris: But is there a hashtag? Other Chris: No. Chris: Probably you could start one. Chris: Just make hashtag, do a hashtag and then write out hashtag. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Hashtag, pound sign. Other Chris: Hashtag, pound sign. Chris: There we go. Other Chris: Hashtag. Chris: All the kids today don't know that was the pound sign. Other Chris: Octathorp yeah. Chris: And I think it was something else before it became the pound sign. Travis: Speaking of Add Rambling. Other Chris: Oh, my God. Travis: No, I was going to say, like. Other Chris: Let'S get down to this rabbit hole. Travis: If you could just claim your citizenship by just, like, voluntarily signing up for the military for a couple years, you can then you could be a citizen of Luxembourg. Chris: You can do that. Travis: Well, then why aren't you doing, like feels so much easier. Chris: Do I look like the military to you? Travis: Well, you could get a do nothing job like counting caterpillars. Chris: You can get citizenship by volunteering for the Luxembourg military. Chris: You can do that for America, too. Other Chris: But you're what you call it a legacy, right? Chris: Yeah, basically. Other Chris: Exactly. Travis: Surely you know somebody in your network. Other Chris: That used to be in like, the military, infantry or whatever, and they'll let you right in. Travis: Or as a pilot. Chris: I mean, I do know some people who were in the Afghanistan and Iraq. Travis: Yeah. Other Chris: Still a French Foreign Legion? Travis: Sure. Other Chris: Can I don't die. Travis: I mean, women make better pilots, but you could probably still get in. Other Chris: I like that women make better pilots. Other Chris: Because they're so hot. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: You're like, man, this chick is so hot, I forget that she has value outside of that. Chris: So we can't have to be in segregated parts of ships, right? Other Chris: Yeah, that's right. Travis: Because they're too anyway, what did you guys think of this first section? Other Chris: I enjoyed it quite a bit. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I liked it a lot, too. Other Chris: It was like a lot of world. Travis: Building and kind of setting the stuff up, but it just kind of felt like a guy being like, yeah, f****** boot camp sucks. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: No, telling you stories about boot camp. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Reading this again, it really struck me just how f****** military this all sounds. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: It just sounds like a f****** soldier talking. Travis: Right? Other Chris: I don't think I had the context for that the first time I read it. Other Chris: I don't think that I had that sort of experience of being around people that had been in the military. Travis: Right. Other Chris: But after having known more people that were military and hearing the way that they speak and hearing sort of the way that they and it's kind of insane that that culture was already in place like 60, 70 years ago, whatever. Other Chris: Like military culture has not changed that much. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: If you take out the freaking halo spacesuit you could hear it at the VFW now. Other Chris: Exactly. Chris: And especially probably a while when you go back for all the military academies they at least probably sounded very similar for a long time and then that spread as we developed more professional army and all that stuff. Chris: But yeah, I agree with you there. Chris: Considering I know some military people too. Chris: It's very like okay, that makes sense. Chris: Yeah, that sounds about right. Chris: From what they've told me of their experiences and kind of how they talk and are. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: It felt like. Other Chris: S***, what was I going to say? Travis: It just felt like he kept coming back to a central point of being like yeah, we got to be really harsh because f****** war is harsh. Other Chris: Yeah, exactly. Chris: And since anyone can, which I thought was interesting, everyone has a right to join the military. Chris: That concept too of like we have to be able to do that to weed out the people who are going to suck. Chris: My life is not dependent on them. Other Chris: Right. Chris: And if they stick around then we know who to give. Chris: Like the s***** jobs or the desk jobs. Chris: They're not something on the front, like potentially f****** it out. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Here's something that I was curious about but not curious enough to actually go look up. Other Chris: But I was curious about what was the shape of the military in the 1950s, the US military? Other Chris: Because this is a very modern way. Other Chris: Our volunteer army that we have now operates essentially this way where it's like anybody can show up and volunteer for military service. Other Chris: They're not necessarily going to take you for infantry or something right. Other Chris: Because you might be flat footed or have bad hearing or something. Other Chris: But I'm pretty sure they can find. Other Chris: Something for you to do right, if they need you. Chris: Yeah, depending on the part of the 50s, like in the beginning of the. Travis: 50S that became all volunteers. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: So it was still drafting people to fill needs. Chris: Like you could join up on your own volition or be forced to by a court order or something. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Clearly you could still go to the military academies. Chris: That's always been the case. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: But especially in the early 50s they were still pretty much on the same footing from World War II because it took so long to draw down from that. Chris: And then we had occupation forces for a while that by the time we were ending that, like in Japan and stuff like drawing down from there, then it was time for the Korean War. Other Chris: Right. Chris: So it all ramped up again to then draft a whole bunch of new young people and get them trained and shipped. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: And then yeah, that's how we did it through Vietnam. Chris: But because of that clusterfuck right. Chris: You'll have to beep that. Chris: Sorry. Chris: Maybe not. Other Chris: No, you won't. Chris: It's not radio. Chris: And the backlash from all that, that's when we ended, really, actually ended the draft. Chris: And it went to all professional, all volunteer military. Chris: And I mean, technically, we do still have the draft. Chris: We all had to sign up for it so we could get college loans, as we learned when Iraq hit and all that s***. Chris: Yeah, they need to get more people, but they never had to call on any draftees, so the chances of it happening are very slim. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: That's also created the weird thing in our culture. Chris: I think that's what has made us a little more pro war, because since basically nobody goes into the military except for a small percentage of people, none of us touch it, so to speak. Chris: Even we were kids. Chris: I remember all these guys were Vietnam vets. Chris: And if they weren't directly like their brother or their cousin were, things like that, we don't have that anymore. Other Chris: Exactly. Chris: So if your family doesn't sign up or volunteer like mine did, you don't know anybody who was in it. Chris: But I wasn't in it. Chris: I didn't grow up on base. Chris: My mom thought about doing that, but then she didn't. Chris: My older half siblings did, but my older brother went. Chris: He just finished last year. Chris: Year before his 20 plus years in the army. Other Chris: This is kind of exactly the point that I want to make about this book, I guess, is that we're talking about 1950, whatever, 60. Other Chris: When was it published? Chris: I want to say like 58 or 59. Other Chris: Hold on. Other Chris: Travis has it. Other Chris: I appreciate it. Chris: Right before Vietnam was ramping up again. Other Chris: But most of those institutions first published in 1960. Other Chris: 1960. Other Chris: Okay. Other Chris: Basically, that was the state of things back then. Other Chris: But you look at this book and you look at the state of things now, and you look at, like, okay. Other Chris: Well. Other Chris: Basically what he has said about infantry in this book, the way that it's organized, the way that it's worked. Other Chris: The way that they're trained all of that in terms of a volunteer force. Other Chris: This is the way that we do things now, right? Other Chris: We take volunteers and we whittle them down and weed them out until we have strong people, basically people who are soldiers, right. Other Chris: And they are equipped in a very similar way where they have all of this kit. Other Chris: They have technology, they have might as. Travis: Well have f****** laser swords. Other Chris: Yeah, exactly. Other Chris: They have the rockets and the snipers, and they have the anti tank s***, and they have the ability to call down s*** from heaven. Other Chris: They have insane capabilities. Other Chris: Like a single soldier has insane capability. Travis: Right. Other Chris: And all of this was kind of predicted in 1960. Other Chris: That's kind of where I'm going with this. Other Chris: The fact that in 1960, he predicted the single soldier as being this sort of force that is dropped into an area and taken back out again. Other Chris: Part of it is definitely coming from paratroopers, and part of it's coming from whatever else was happening. Other Chris: Sort of like in in terms of, like, Korea, but we hadn't had what, the helicopter stuff in Vietnam and everything. Chris: Right, right. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Not yet. Other Chris: Not yet. Other Chris: But dropping in from orbit and doing that and then getting picked back up, I guess. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Well, I suppose that leads us to the first chapter of the book. Travis: Are you trying to do a f****** segue again? Travis: Like, what, the guys yeah, you guys, I'm so proud of it's. Chris: A really good like, I've been enjoying it. Chris: And I've had that question in the back of my mind, like, we talked about, like, people say, oh, heinlein was a fascist and supported fascism. Chris: Like, no, I don't get that from this. Other Chris: I'm not getting that at all. Chris: I get very much he supports kind of an ordered life that's devoted to duty. Chris: Very much makes sense for a military guy. Chris: And I'm like, that's not necessarily a bad way to order your life for those who want it that way. Other Chris: Point out that a lot of the s*** that comes out of people's mouths in this. Other Chris: It is a character saying. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: One of the things that you have to consider is that the narrator of this book is a f****** 18 year old kid. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: And very highly at the time he's talking about it. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: He's 18. Other Chris: He's writing it as though it's like a memoir from Labor On. Chris: Yeah. Chris: Which it is, I'm sure. Other Chris: But whenever he's speaking in dialogue or talking about himself, thinking you can see his age. Other Chris: He's even signing up for the military man, even his thought process and all. Travis: Of that very easily, basically. Chris: Oh, pretty girl came along. Chris: I don't want to say no in front of her. Other Chris: Exactly. Travis: My friend was going to do it, so I guess what the h***? Other Chris: His dad talked him out of it, so I guess I'm not going to. Chris: Oh, but pretty girl I like, friend, pretty girl I know shows up, so, okay, I'm going to sign up. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And going from being totally bummed out to being the infantry to some one guy being like, oh, that's what I was. Travis: He's like, oh, they're the f****** best. Travis: I love the infantry. Other Chris: Yeah, exactly. Travis: We're the heart and soul of the. Other Chris: Heinlein. Other Chris: I don't think you could really say that he doesn't have a nuanced approach to this because he is showing that, oh, this kid's being manipulated. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: He is being pushed and pulled in lots of different directions in his life at this point. Travis: Right. Other Chris: And so it is very plain, I think if you read this as a kid, you might not notice it. Chris: Yeah, I agree. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Because because it is still so much your way of thinking. Travis: Right. Other Chris: But yeah, I don't think you can say that heinlein was absolutely just a fascist or something just because of these little nuances that like, oh, well, the character that's saying all of this s***, of course he would say it because he's f****** infantry. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: He's literally working a worthless government job that they gave to a retired military. Other Chris: And I would say that Heinlein's whole. Other Chris: Approach to this, even. Other Chris: I don't have a lot of specific examples, but it really does seem like, again, the world that he predicted is the one that we live in now, where most people don't have any connection to the military. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: And they don't have any real sense of value for their rights and duties as a citizen. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: We just have it. Chris: But hence the critiques in there of at that point late 20th century society. Chris: It's the same thing. Chris: Nobody values it because you just have it. Chris: They don't think about it and they just go on and live their life and do something. Other Chris: I even I even wonder if heinlein is being critical of those people at. Travis: All or just documenting it's. Other Chris: Just like this is their point of view and this is another point of view and these are all of the things that we have. Other Chris: I would go as far as to say that I don't think he's necessarily being critical of those characters. Chris: It sounds very much to me like they chose to just live a nice normal life and that's okay. Chris: Perfectly fine. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: It really does seem to me that he just had a very good prediction of what things were going to be like once we moved to this sort of volunteer army, I guess, and how yeah, most people don't have any relationship to it, don't really care about it, don't really engage necessarily with the government. Other Chris: It really seems like in this future, government, citizenship, civics, all of that is just a hobby for specific people or a career for specific people. Other Chris: It's gotten to a point where there's sort of a complete separation between government and private life. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Most people on the planet don't really care because the entire planet is at peace at this point. Chris: Right. Other Chris: We've solved the World Works War problem. Other Chris: All of our threats are outside of us now. Other Chris: As we continue reading the book, we should really assess, I think, whether these things are actually threats to us. Other Chris: I think this is something that is going to be important to keep in mind as we continue to judge whether heimlein is a fascist or not. Other Chris: Does it seem like any particular character is saying something about the nature of the quote unquote threat that they are facing as space infantry? Travis: Right, well, speaking of threats, I was surprised to not see like a single well, one mention of bugs. Other Chris: Yeah, it's like, what the h***? Travis: I came for bugs. Chris: Yeah, well, no bugs the main gist at this point. Chris: I was also intrigued by the fact there's actually two aliens that we're war with. Chris: Two alien species working together, but separate the bugs and the skinnies. Chris: Because that's not in the movie, folks, for those of you the skinnies humanoids. Chris: But they go f****** terrorize their planet to make a point, too. Other Chris: In the first chapter, I had just assumed that that was a completely separate war. Other Chris: Yeah, I don't know. Travis: Well, he really only talks about it in that first section when we're going. Other Chris: Along on that first drop. Travis: And he's, like, tactically blowing up things to not necessarily kill people. Chris: But no, it's shock and awe. Travis: Yeah, shock and awe. Travis: But he kind of name checks. Travis: Like these people were strategically terrorizing. Travis: And also there's bugs out there. Chris: Yeah, but it's to show we have power, not to necessarily use it. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I don't know if we're fighting, like, a two front war here or just. Chris: About them because we've only heard the bugs about them so far from their attack. Other Chris: Right. Chris: So that's it. Other Chris: Right now, the only thing I remember about bugs is him saying something about, like, at least we're not fighting. Other Chris: Worst. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I forget. Travis: Did we come down, like, anti bug on this podcast? Travis: Like, I think we yeah, they're creepy. Travis: Neil Patrick Harris is going to be right. Chris: Yeah. Chris: Would I like to know more? Chris: Yes, please. Travis: They didn't do that either. Travis: Although I guess that might be I. Chris: Think that's Paul Verhoeven. Chris: That's his influence. Other Chris: That's just him. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Help remind you that this is, in fact, actually propaganda film, not just to. Travis: Kind of nail it. Other Chris: I feel like there was one other. Travis: Thing that you brought up that I wanted to talk a little bit more about. Travis: But I guess we'll figure it out when we get to it in the notes. Travis: So speaking of that f****** drop yeah. Other Chris: Let'S open to the thing that was kind of neat. Chris: Yes, I thought so. Travis: Quick Tech demo of all the s*** they've got bouncing around and just blowing s*** up with, like, mini nukes and stuff. Other Chris: Yeah, it's that part of Metroid at the very beginning, before you get to lose all your stuff, before you get to the boss and they knock all of your weapons off. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And that's kind of what I thought of also for this powered suit, like Master Chief or Samus probably not exactly right. Travis: But I'm not very creative. Other Chris: But this would have been, like, one of the first instances of something like this, though, right? Other Chris: They've all been influenced by this. Other Chris: All of that s*** comes from here or someplace like it. Other Chris: Right. Chris: And I don't know Samus personally, but. Travis: I bet she'd agree. Travis: F*** bugs. Other Chris: From my experience with Samus, I would say yeah. Other Chris: Like, absolutely. Travis: That one saved her that one time. Travis: But mostly f*** bugs. Other Chris: Yeah, mostly. Chris: I mean, they're just creepy even. Travis: They look different, too. Other Chris: Different. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: They always take too many missiles to kill. Other Chris: Like Jesus. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Exoskeletons. Travis: Yeah. Travis: So if we're going to get into some specific notes here, I did like that the dedication was like two sergeants. Other Chris: And all sergeants who've labored to make. Travis: Men out of boys. Travis: That does feel like something he's generally like. Travis: Yeah, boot camp sucks, but it'll turn you into something. Chris: That's what my brother did for a while for him during his army career. Chris: When I first visited him, he was doing direct boot camp. Chris: He was a sergeant. Chris: He still was. Chris: He was a first sergeant when he retired. Chris: So he's as high as you could get in the army without some further more specialization, those recruits into fighting. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And you might have like a family history of military, but I did military science at Truman, so I'm basically oh. Other Chris: Nice, senior military member here. Other Chris: Exactly. Travis: Yeah. Chris: I thought about doing some of those. Travis: Classes basically exactly the same as going through boot camp. Travis: Like I had PT like twice a week yeah. Chris: Totally. Travis: For 40 minutes. Chris: Well, I mean, if you signed up because did you meet Andy Guthrie? Other Chris: Yes. Chris: One of Marissa's friends. Chris: He did that too. Chris: But he did go to actual boot camp for a done it. Travis: They would have sent you J-J-R-O-T-C. Travis: Like, yeah, played paintball and s***. Travis: So yeah. Travis: Refer to me for any military questions. Travis: Okay? Travis: Yes, sir. Travis: Put that on the record. Travis: But yeah, I did like them jumping. Other Chris: Off with did they even say his. Travis: Last name in this section? Other Chris: Johnny Rico. Other Chris: They haven't. Travis: They haven't, but it's Johnny Rico. Travis: And he's like explained to us that despite all the preparation, I think they also said like hypnosis that he shouldn't be able to feel any fear here. Travis: Like he always gets the shakes before he drops. Other Chris: Yep. Travis: Which yeah, I think that'd be pretty. Other Chris: Tiny little coffin getting shot, shot out of a tube. Travis: That would be scary, I think. Travis: I don't know. Chris: I think it's okay to be a little apprehensive then. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: They've got a newly promoted Lieutenant Jelly, getting the team ready for a show of force drop. Other Chris: Like each of you cost us half. Travis: A million dollars and you're fifty cents of that. Travis: So like bring the suits back. Travis: Die if you have to, but get the suit back. Chris: Right. Travis: That's what we care about. Travis: Which again, feels like military grade. Other Chris: It does. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: The equipment is the important part. Other Chris: And I did like the note that. Travis: The chaplain is going to drop with them too, because how could you bless something you're not going to do? Other Chris: Right? Chris: Because we don't do that now. Chris: But maybe you get assigned a dude to defend you if you're out in the field. Other Chris: Yeah, but how are you going to. Travis: Bless a marriage if you can't get married? Travis: Chaplain, you don't know what's going on. Chris: In that future. Travis: But yes, they even have a quick word with each other. Other Chris: Like they kind of have this thing. Travis: Where if they push their heads together, they can talk to one another through their helmet. Other Chris: He's like, don't buy the farm, just do it. Travis: So Nike also stole from this, apparently. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So everybody, minus the one guy who's dismissed because he has a cold, loads into their human sized bullet coffins and shot out of a cannon. Travis: So, yes, Johnny notes that you can tell that the Roger Young's pilot is a woman because of how many G forces he's feeling. Travis: But he's like, I bet they are better pilots. Travis: I mean, they just drive a little. Other Chris: Bit rough, but they get there better. Travis: Still doesn't feel great on your spine, but they are the better pilots. Other Chris: Wow. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: We're shot out of the battle bus along with him and he's describing the very complicated system of shells that kind of peel off as he's entering the atmosphere and getting targeted where he's going to land. Chris: Yes, I thought that was interesting. Chris: A cloud to confuse radar. Travis: Yeah. Travis: Putting up his back as well. Other Chris: Got sort of anti air missiles and s*** coming in after him. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Enough to confuse radar and biological eyes. Travis: Both don't know where to shoot. Other Chris: Right. Travis: So after they land, Johnny's job is basically to blow s*** up on his. Other Chris: Way to a rendezvous point and he sees like, space jumping in his suit at what was it? Travis: Zero point 87 G's. Travis: Get a sample of all of his weapons, including handhold flamethrowers, back mounted bomb launcher. Travis: Some sort of like a fire pill gun, I guess. Travis: Laser sword rocket launcher with fun sized atomic bombs. Other Chris: It's like tribes. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: He's playing tribes. Travis: Yeah, exactly. Travis: Half life tribes. Travis: Pick your FPS of choice. Other Chris: Well, no, tribes specifically because of the jump jets, man. Other Chris: Jump jets. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: But again, like we said, it's not enough to kill everything, but the natives. Other Chris: Are going to notice. Chris: Just a bit. Travis: The kind of name check a guy named Ace who's not too pleased that. Other Chris: Johnny's like, in command of this particular squad, but just goes hopping building to. Travis: Building looking for good targets. Travis: Like how about that church or this water treatment plant? Travis: Like, that would make them have to leave the city and wouldn't technically kill them. Other Chris: So maybe that one. Chris: But nobody answered the question of why are we doing this to begin with? Other Chris: Because because Johnny does not give a s*** why we're doing this. Chris: I mean, that's where he's told to go, right? Other Chris: Exactly. Other Chris: Johnny does not give a s*** why we're doing this. Other Chris: So we don't get an. Other Chris: And they. Other Chris: They even point that out later on. Other Chris: And again, this is something that really makes me question whether heimline would really be considered a fascist, but he has Johnny say something to the effect of what was it when he's talking about the usefulness of infantry versus carpet bombing or other things that take out massive targets or whatever or cause wide scale demolition or could wipe out all the life on the planet or something. Other Chris: Why would you want infantry? Other Chris: And he's like, well, the specific use case of infantry is like, if you needed to go into a place just, for example, to get all of the left handed, uh, that's like a little bit yeah. Other Chris: Calling out left handed people and right. Other Chris: Why? Other Chris: Why those specific things? Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: And why have Johnny, your infantry man, say it and then point out very. Chris: It'S a joke in there. Other Chris: Very specifically, we would do it. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: If we were told to do that, we would do it. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: It's a complicated thing. Travis: Right. Travis: I think he does a good job. Other Chris: Showing both why they might have a. Travis: Legitimate use for this and then the sinister aspect to it. Travis: Like, they're kind of hinting at. Other Chris: Because. Travis: They talk about in that section, if I'm remembering it right, they're like, well, yeah. Travis: I mean, if you're trying to correct. Other Chris: A puppy for doing something wrong, you. Travis: Don'T cut its head off. Travis: Like, you don't just obliterate people. Travis: You go in and show them, like, we could do that, but we chose not to, so do what we wanted to instead. Travis: So that feels like what this is demonstration of. Travis: Like, we will utterly destroy you if. Chris: We have to, but we don't want to. Travis: We don't really want to do that. Chris: We'll get to it later. Chris: But they do have an interesting philosophy about doing that kind of stuff we're not really doing out of malice. Chris: It all feeds into our you have to know how to behave properly to function in our order, and we're going to teach you, and we're going to teach you how to do that whether you want to or not. Chris: And we will use pain, right? Chris: But nobody's really super concerned about it. Chris: They're like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Chris: Given our history, that makes sense. Other Chris: Right? Chris: Got to do some spankings to get the kids to behave. Travis: That's where we all went wrong. Travis: We stopped playing cards and we stopped spanking kids. Other Chris: Apparently. Travis: That's why we're all subject to apes and bugs now. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So yeah, they go on their show. Other Chris: Of force, but as they're sounding off. Travis: To get retrieved, they notice that one. Other Chris: Of their guys is not there. Travis: And Ace and Johnny go back for him. Travis: They find him with a hole, like an actual hole through his suit, and they carry him back together. Other Chris: Looks like they're not going to get. Travis: To the ship in time. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: They don't leave anyone behind. Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: They aren't going to get back to. Travis: The ship in time. Travis: And orders are to just leave them because it's, like, really hard to recalculate an orbital rendezvous, as you might expect. Travis: That takes a lot of math real quick. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Power skipping through an atmosphere if you had to, like all sorts of. Other Chris: S***. Other Chris: Yeah, but Lieutenant Jelly is like, belaying. Travis: The takeoff order, and he goes out and meets them too. Travis: And the battle bus driver is like, well, we're all f****** dead now. Travis: Thanks a lot. Other Chris: But the captain of the Roger Young. Travis: Is just too d*** good. Travis: Like, changes route on the fly manually and manages to intercept. Other Chris: That's why you have a woman pilot. Travis: Yeah, she's smart enough to do it. Travis: Also, that guy they saved dies on the way up. Chris: Sure, but chapter doesn't matter if you're dead. Travis: At least they brought him back. Other Chris: That's true. Travis: They do a good job of showing where they'll talk about, like, don't do something stupid that's going to get everybody killed. Other Chris: But then they do it anyway. Other Chris: They're like, yeah, well, not leaving someone. Chris: Behind supersedes all that, right? Other Chris: Exactly. Other Chris: I do like the mixed messaging behind it, though, with sort of the expression of the pride of not leaving anyone behind. Other Chris: And then also this direct order of leave everyone behind. Other Chris: Do not be a hero. Chris: Right? Travis: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Travis: He's doing a really great job of. Other Chris: Showing kind of both sides of the same thing. Travis: I think we'll talk about this later, too, where they're like, oh, we wouldn't over punish somebody, but we're going to go collect this guy and f****** execute. Other Chris: Him because we don't want the shame. Travis: On our patrol or whatever. Other Chris: Yeah, exactly. Chris: Well, I mean, we get to know that one kind of makes sense based on how their society operates. Travis: That's a teaser for later, everybody. Other Chris: Yes. Chris: Which we didn't get to. Other Chris: I don't know. Other Chris: Oh, my god. Travis: You're just going to be blown away when you hear what happens. Other Chris: So chapter two. Chris: We got a ways to go. Chris: My computer might run out of power by the time we get there. Travis: Oh, s***. Other Chris: My God. Travis: Well, at the risk of draining your battery more 61%. Travis: Unlike our last book, this one was very easy to be like. Travis: I'll just summarize. Other Chris: Yeah, because this is a lot now. Other Chris: Of just some stuff. Other Chris: A lot of philosophy in these pages. Chris: Yeah, a decent amount. Chris: I was pretty proof by that. Travis: Great talking points, but not necessary for me to summarize every single thing that happens here. Other Chris: Right. Travis: So chapter two is where we kind of go back and like, how did I get into this mess? Travis: How Johnny ended up enlisting, like, telling us about his friend Carl, who's like. Other Chris: In this and then so far, not again. Travis: But they're like best friends. Travis: They share everything. Travis: He could use my hello Rolls Royce. Travis: And I could use his basement science lab. Travis: Even though he was born unlike me, carl is like, I'm going to go into the voluntary two year stint in Federal Service and do like, science s***. Travis: And like I said before, he's like, that sounds cool. Other Chris: I'm going to do that. Travis: Carl's like, I don't know how your dad's going to take that. Travis: I don't think he's going to be. Chris: In love with this idea, right? Travis: Yeah. Travis: Carl had mentioned, because they are all graduating, it's like, this is the only free choice you can make in your life is whether you're going to volunteer or not in the society. Travis: So that's why I'm going to figure this s***. Other Chris: So, yeah, Johnny goes and tells his. Travis: Parents, and his dad, who I imagined is Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear. Other Chris: Is. Travis: Like, yeah, don't be an idiot. Travis: It's all planned out. Travis: Like, you're going to go to Harvard and then you're going to go to. Other Chris: The Sorbun, and then we're going to. Travis: Get you an entry level job somewhere so you can learn about working. Travis: And then you're going to take over. Other Chris: The company from me. Other Chris: Yep. Travis: So you're going to be a nepo baby all the way. Chris: That works. Travis: Also, I wasn't gonna tell you this, but we're sending you to Mars on vacation so you can get Marsian strange. Travis: Yeah. Travis: Go sow some wild oats on Mars. Other Chris: And then come back and do my job. Chris: I didn't get serious. Travis: He's like, well, I guess that's that. Chris: Anyway, I had a nepo job like that. Travis: But then he didn't. Chris: Waiting for me. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And then he doesn't tell Carl he's changed his mind. Travis: He's like, I guess I'm going with you to the recruitment office. Chris: Well, initially it was to show support. Travis: For his, you know, still goes with them. Travis: And like, we alluded to before. Travis: On their way there, they meet another classmate who's graduated, kerman Sita Banyez. Travis: She's like, I'm joining up. Travis: He's like, I guess I'm going to be a pilot too. Other Chris: I want to be a pilot. Travis: I want to be a pilot. Other Chris: Let's purl it. Other Chris: Let's see what this pilot thinks about. Travis: If this had been said in the role of Carmen Sito would have been played by Top Gun, the movie Top Gun. Travis: Like, I'm going to be in the. Other Chris: Navy and do pilot shoot. Other Chris: But they all report to a guy. Travis: At a desk noting that he has one arm gone and two stumpy legs. Other Chris: But he's like, Carmen Sita go, we always need pilots. Other Chris: You go, Yep. Travis: Everybody else like, good f****** luck. Travis: Basically, what you're going to do is it's rare that you have any sort of skills we actually care about or want. Travis: So you're going to end up doing make busy work for your two years. Travis: Like we said, counting the hairs on. Chris: Caterpillars by hand, get you your service in, get you your vote, counting how. Travis: Many bullets you've got in the bullet. Other Chris: Cases or whatever, and writing it down. Travis: Plus, like, earning your citizenship. Travis: This way it doesn't pay a single extra centavo. Travis: So what are you even doing? Other Chris: Basically? Travis: Like, trying to get them, like, don't do this. Other Chris: Yeah, it's not a good idea. Other Chris: Trying to discourage people from joining the military, right? Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: So they don't have to kick them out. Chris: It takes time and paperwork, right? Other Chris: True. Travis: But they're going to go through with anyway. Travis: And they take a very long version of the oath. Other Chris: Like, oh, when you actually have to. Travis: Say the words, it feels different. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: There's extra responsibilities and s***. Chris: Wait, I could be called back up again after my service is done if something happened. Chris: Yeah, I thought I was done. Travis: So Johnny's like, can I at least call my parents before we leave? Travis: And he's like, b****, you get 48 hours to cool off. Travis: Like, you don't even have to come back. Travis: If you don't come back, we'll put a check mark. Chris: Right. Chris: Like, we're not going to care and hunt you down. Chris: We'll just figure it as you resigned. Chris: Granted, then you can never get the right to vote, but nobody really cares. Other Chris: Yeah, right. Travis: And they talk about that later too. Travis: Even if you desert, they're like, usually we don't do anything. Travis: It's fine. Chris: Well, even if you do, usually the people come back because I guess they don't hunt anybody down. Chris: But I guess s*** pops up in your background if they're on a background check. Chris: If you desert it, they come back, you take your licks, and then you're done. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: What was the well, yeah, they said that you're kind of a fugitive. Other Chris: I would say that it's probably something more on the order of unpaid parking. Other Chris: Oh, you can't go back to Madison, Wisconsin anytime soon. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: And they said the military thinks it was like, oh, it's just a harsher resignation. Chris: Like you didn't really want to do it, so that's fine. Other Chris: It's only bad if you desert. Other Chris: Once you are actually a soldier. Other Chris: Right. Chris: Then it's a capital. Travis: Yeah. Travis: Johnny has a very crummy going away. Other Chris: Party is what calls it. Travis: But he does come back and goes through a battery of aptitude tests, and that pretty thoroughly crushes his chances of him being anything, like, at all. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I was starting to wonder if I could even count on my fingers that. Chris: Well, since he didn't raise his dog very well, he couldn't be with the canine unit. Travis: Yeah, I really like their canine unit. Chris: Genetically engineered super dogs that can talk to you that are then bonded to your DNA. Travis: Oh, my God. Chris: I'm like, you better be f****** serious about a dog if you're doing that. Other Chris: It might have just become half dog and half like a half man dog friend. Chris: Yeah, that's pretty serious. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: I would want to see then somebody walking their dog, and then the dog takes a s***, and then the human cleans it up right, with the bag. Other Chris: And then the human takes a s***, and then the dog cleans it up with the bag, and then they go on their way. Chris: That'd be awesome. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I don't know why that part struck me as like a Rick and Morty. Travis: It was a cool idea, but particularly how it was like, oh, yeah, if your dog dies or if you die, we kill the dog because they're so. Other Chris: F***** up and if the dog dies. Travis: You go to counseling forever. Travis: We couldn't kill you legally, but we would want to. Chris: And they might get you another dog later. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And then the guy's like, I used to have a dog. Travis: Like, oh, s***. Other Chris: Oh, God. Other Chris: Yeah, anyway but yeah, I like, specifically, why didn't you study anything useful? Other Chris: Because his plan was to go to f****** business school or go to that's not Sore Bun. Other Chris: Right. Chris: Nobody cares. Other Chris: Go into the military and learn an actual skill. Chris: Right. Other Chris: He's like, a pretty average high school student. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So he's gone through all these tests and find out he's not so valuable. Other Chris: But every other job you can think. Travis: Of, that's not going to be, like, really s*****. Travis: Last of all, canine unit and infantry and like, we alluded to he does have an interview with the placement officer. Travis: He's like, hey, you like dags? Chris: You like dags. Travis: Mobile infantry. Chris: It is. Travis: Yeah, I guess. Travis: But my mom didn't like him. Travis: He's like, oh, you never snuck one in? Other Chris: He's like, no. Travis: He's like, no dogs for you. Travis: Then you're not the right kind of guy for neo dogs. Other Chris: If you didn't sneak your dog inside and your dog didn't and lie to your mom yeah. Travis: You're not cut out for it. Other Chris: No, not cut out for canine. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: But he's like, yeah. Travis: Your History and Morals teacher whose name I wrote down somewhere. Travis: Professor Dubois. Other Chris: Dubois. Chris: Dubois. Other Chris: Dubois. Travis: Dubois. Travis: We kind of skipped past talking about that class. Chris: Unlike the movie. Chris: It's not Lieutenant Ratchet. Chris: It's Mr. Chris: Dubois. Travis: Different Dubois, who's, like we said, ex military. Travis: And teaching a class that you can't. Chris: Really fail ungraded, but also only veterans can teach. Chris: We will find out later. Other Chris: Right? Travis: Just kind of bullshitting the whole time. Other Chris: About philosophy, duty, and honor. Travis: Yeah, that guy. Other Chris: It would have been a really cool. Chris: Class to have, for real, honestly, in. Other Chris: High school that you had to take. Chris: We had a philosophy class at Shamana. Other Chris: But nobody took it. Chris: It was an elective. Chris: But it would have been neat to have our history class also encompass a lot more, like philosophy and s*** like that. Other Chris: But I mean, this is if you read between the lines, this is very obviously like a propaganda class. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: And it is very obviously, again, like. Other Chris: A make work job. Other Chris: He's passionate about it. Other Chris: But again, if they don't care if the kids pass it, they just the exposure in front of it and they point it out. Other Chris: They don't care. Other Chris: Even if it's taught. Other Chris: It just has to be audited. Other Chris: So they could probably just at another school, wouldn't even have a teacher. Other Chris: They would just have videos that you have to watch or something. Other Chris: That'd be pretty sweet, maybe. Other Chris: It reminds me of I heard stories of somebody had, like, a traffic violation in Japan. Other Chris: I can't remember if it was, like, speeding or what. Other Chris: But you have to go to traffic, right? Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: And traffic school is like, I don't remember how many hours it was, but it was like, oh, you have to go sit in this classroom for like, I don't know how many hours on a Sunday and listen to a guy talk. Other Chris: And there's no test at the end of it. Other Chris: There's no anything to prove that you were there. Other Chris: You just have to go do it. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: And the guy's like, what's the point of this? Other Chris: Everyone in here, no one's paying attention, no one's doing anything. Other Chris: And then they're like, oh, well, honestly, what it is is the Japanese government made this specifically for retired police officers to teach. Other Chris: And so it's like they just have this out here so that this guy. Other Chris: Has a job to do because they. Other Chris: Didn'T have enough retirement money or whatever to support all of the retired police officers. Other Chris: So they just created all these positions so that they would have some small job to do and still get paid. Other Chris: Nice. Other Chris: And so it really smacks of that to me of this is one of the perks of having been in the military, I guess. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: One of the perks of being a citizen is that the government will make these opportunities for you, I guess, and you'll have more support and you see some of the other rights that you get as a citizen, as a soldier, further into the book, I guess, some. Other Chris: Of the other things. Other Chris: It isn't just voting, it seems like in this society that you get from going through all of this. Chris: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: Good. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: Anyway good. Travis: What were we talking? Other Chris: Oh, my God. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: This class. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: So he took that one and his teaching of philosophy of whatever. Travis: But apparently he was like, yeah, this guy's cool. Other Chris: Noted on his file. Travis: And so, like well, he vouched for you. Travis: Also, anyone who has a C minus in TV appreciation can't be all bad. Chris: Right? Travis: Which that's a cool class. Travis: I want to take that. Other Chris: Which, I mean, that's another again, going back to remember, this is f****** 1960, right? Other Chris: How old is television at this point? Other Chris: So this is very specifically like, oh, he's like, sometime in the future there is going to be a television appreciation class. Travis: And guess what? Chris: And there was. Other Chris: We have them now, right? Chris: Yeah. Chris: Usually in college, not high school. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: If you went to a nice high school, though, they probably have it. Other Chris: I'm sure Shamanad has one. Other Chris: At this point. Chris: They might at this point. Other Chris: I'm sure they do. Other Chris: Anyway. Other Chris: Just another small this guy's a good Sci-Fi author touch of like he predicted some s*** way before he should. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: Yes, he did. Travis: So Johnny, on his way out, like, runs into the recruiting officer from before, who's now walking around on powered prosthetics. Other Chris: Yep. Other Chris: Magic legs. Other Chris: Magic legs. Other Chris: Ice cream. Travis: So this is he's then introduced himself. Other Chris: As Fleet Sergeant Ho, who, upon learning. Travis: That Johnny's been assigned to the Mobile. Other Chris: Infantry, is like, hey, that's my like. Travis: We are the army. Travis: Like, we're gonna make a man out of you or kill you or both. Travis: We're going to make a man out of you, kill you, trying, or both. Other Chris: He's like, all right. Travis: And like I said before, I liked this little coda to that where he's like meeting with his roommate. Travis: He's like, so what'd you get? Travis: And he's like, oh, I got military amateur. Travis: He's like, you poor stupid clown. Travis: He's like, you shut the f*** up. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Mi is the heart of the army. Travis: I'll punch you in the mouth. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: And man, yeah. Other Chris: Having been around people that age who are going into the military, like, yes. Travis: They bought Lema Mustang. Other Chris: They're the best. Other Chris: I use my bonus for that. Other Chris: It's very strange how comfortable people are with dying at that age. Other Chris: I don't know. Travis: Yeah, but it's like an ideal, like a higher calling. Chris: You're really going to die. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Other people will die in the war. Chris: You can be comfortable with the concept, but it's not really going to be you. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: You're invincible at that age. Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Not the kid. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: So yes. Travis: Then we get some details about Johnny and his early days at basic camp. Other Chris: At Camp Arthur Curie. Travis: And he says it was like camp, too, because the only permanent buildings are like storage. Travis: And it's up in the northern Plains and might as well have been the North Pole for him. Travis: He's like f****** freezing. Travis: Yeah, I hate it. Travis: And no one lets him sleep. Travis: Like, they dump him out of his cot without even checking to see if he hit the ground. Travis: F*** up, do things. Travis: Their drill instructor, Sergeant Zim, who I pictured as Invader Zim. Travis: Yeah. Travis: Is very eloquent and loquacious insulter of people and very disappointed with the quality of new recruits, which I feel like. Other Chris: There'S never been any drill instructors like. Travis: Oh, my god, you guys are great. Travis: No notes. Other Chris: Pizza party for everyone every day. Travis: Don't change a thing. Other Chris: My God, you guys just were soldiers. Travis: Already born with your boots on. Travis: So yes. Other Chris: I don't know what this word says, but oh, yes. Travis: He's marching around with his instructor's baton, and Johnny's like, I think I would like to have one of those because they look f****** cool. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Swagger cane. Travis: Swagger cane, man. Travis: That's how you know who's in charge. Travis: I'm going to hit you with this baton. Other Chris: Maybe. Travis: But one recruit, Jenkins, is dismissed for sneezing. Other Chris: Like, get out of here. Travis: But I'm not sick. Other Chris: Get out. Travis: And then Invader Zim is like asking the recruits to try to kick his a**. Chris: I like that part. Other Chris: That was cool. Chris: That was funny. Travis: So the first guy, like, all 250 pounds of him lasts long enough to get his wrist broken. Travis: Then two German guys make it a bit longer, but are also dealt with without much of an issue. Travis: But the third guy, Shujumi, has, like, a Dragon Ball z style. Travis: Fight that if you paid close attention, you could see what was happening. Other Chris: But yeah, right. Travis: You had to pay attention. Travis: It's like, oh, you must be this guy's son. Travis: This will be great. Other Chris: Our fighter is going to be epic. Chris: How'd you know? Travis: But yes still defeats him. Travis: And Vader Zim is not even really tired. Travis: We'll have another fight sometime soon. Other Chris: It'd be awesome. Travis: And then they exercise forever. Travis: And then they talk about the food, which is a little bit like Texas. Travis: It's like it's not very good, but. Other Chris: There is a lot of. Travis: Um and Jenkins is, like, cursing Zim out. Travis: He's like, God, I'm not sick. Other Chris: Jeez. Travis: That's where I went back and checked to see if he was the guy who couldn't go on the drop with them. Travis: And, yeah, this just seems to be his thing. Travis: Well, you can't come. Travis: You're sick. Other Chris: Sorry. Chris: It affects your performance. Other Chris: Yes. Chris: There's a thing. Other Chris: We'll find out later that he's a real nepo baby or something. Travis: Really? Other Chris: Only there Colonels, he's never actually gone on a drop and done anything dangerous. Other Chris: Yeah, Jenkins always, like, squirting a nasal. Travis: Spray up his nose so he has to sneeze before. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So there's a section here I wanted to read about the difficulties of camp. Other Chris: Well, a couple of things. Travis: But first of all, I like this. Other Chris: He's like, I made a very important. Travis: Discovery at Camp Curie. Travis: Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Travis: Just that, nothing more. Travis: All the wealthy, unhappy people you've ever. Other Chris: Met take sleeping pills. Other Chris: Mobile Infantrymen don't need them. Travis: Give a Cap trooper a bunk and a time to sack out in it, and he's as happy as a worm. Other Chris: In an apple asleep. Travis: He also notes here, like, I may have given the impression that boot camp was made harder than necessary, but that's not correct. Travis: It was made as hard as possible and on purpose. Travis: This is the firm opinion of every recruit that this was sheer, meanness, calculated, sadism, fiendish delight of witless morons in making other people suffer. Other Chris: But it was not. Travis: It was too scheduled, too intellectual, too efficiently and impersonally organized to be cruelty. Other Chris: For the sick pleasure of cruelty. Travis: It was planned like surgery, for purposes as unimpassioned as those of a surgeon. Travis: Yes, it's hard as s***, but on purpose, like we said before, to weed people out, right. Travis: Who aren't going to enjoy it if they have to go into war later. Chris: Take those who survive and make them into soldiers. Travis: Exactly. Travis: Trying to get the easy ones to quit, they say. Other Chris: Or quit. Travis: Or die. Travis: As long as on the bounce. Travis: And they died trying. Travis: Everything has to be on the bounce. Travis: Do it quick, at least. Other Chris: Don't waste our time. Other Chris: We should make that a thing. Chris: Hashtag on the bounce. Travis: They talk a lot about training with all sorts of weapons, like even low tech ones, like throwing knives and wire, and how, at this point, their drill instructor even has time for them to ask silly questions. Travis: Like one kid, Ted Hendrix. Travis: He's like, what is the point of practicing with this crap? Travis: Like, if all I have is a. Other Chris: Knife, I'm dead, right? Travis: He's like, listen, kid, do you just want to resign? Travis: Because you can do that? Other Chris: But why use. Travis: Why use a stick when a professor can push a button. Other Chris: And blow up a whole planet? Other Chris: And we talked about this a little already. Travis: He's like, if you want to teach a baby a lesson, do you cut its head off? Travis: No, you paddle it. Travis: So we're here to do the paddling and not decide who should be paddled. Travis: So we're just going to do that. Travis: I like the note they have here. Travis: About one in every 500 rounds in their training is a live round just to put the fear of God in them. Travis: Make sure they actually practice cover because it could be the unlucky one that kills them. Other Chris: What? Chris: I like how too, though. Chris: They might increase that too, depending on. Other Chris: If you like. Chris: Too much. Other Chris: I've heard that a lot of the Special Forces in different countries I don't know if they do it in the US. Other Chris: But a lot of Special Forces do live ammunition training. Other Chris: Like. Other Chris: Yeah, take f****** covered. Other Chris: Yeah, do it. Other Chris: Do it. Other Chris: F****** do it. Other Chris: Even if it's on an ant hill. Travis: Which like, speaking of, I'd rather be. Chris: Eaten up by ants and be alive than not, right? Other Chris: Exactly. Chris: It would suck. Chris: But I'd still be alive, right? Travis: So we get a scene here where I guess Johnny had gotten injured trying. Other Chris: Out the power suit. Other Chris: So he's on some random duty with Captain Frankel. Travis: And Zim comes in with a black eye and Ted Hendrix is in tow. Travis: He reports that he hit him. Travis: And the captain snaps the f*** to attention. Other Chris: He's like, he did what? Other Chris: Yes. Travis: And what the h***, kid? Travis: And he's like, well, he hit me first. Travis: He told me to freeze, but like, I was on an ant hill, so. Other Chris: I had to move over. Other Chris: And he's like, and if you took. Travis: Cover in a battle on an ant field, are you going to get yourself killed by standing up? Other Chris: He's like, no, but I moved over. Travis: And then he hit me. Travis: So I hit him back and then proceeds a very quick and efficient, like field court. Travis: Like they get people on the f****** horn. Other Chris: And h*** of acted, basically. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Ted is like, I think I want a lawyer. Travis: He's like, guess what? Other Chris: You don't get one of them. Chris: Yeah, this is the army. Travis: Tell us what happened. Travis: And he's like, yeah, like I said, I hit him because he hit me. Travis: And like, all right, well, you are f****** dismissed. Travis: You're discharged and you're going to get ten lashes. Other Chris: And if this had been a full. Travis: Court martial, you probably would have been. Other Chris: Killed, like sentenced to hang. Travis: And this is what I'm comparing to them. Travis: Like, well, if you want to correct a puppy, do you cut its head. Other Chris: Off or no, you paddle it. Travis: But they would have killed this guy if the conditions had been right. Travis: So yeah, they have the poll up and ready like that evening. Travis: And yeah, they note that that s*** is hard to watch. Travis: He even has to be slapped back awake after fainting. Travis: And he notes that he's not the only one. Chris: Right? Other Chris: They march him the f*** out of there. Travis: Later on. Travis: He overhears the conversation between the captain and Zim. Travis: And he's basically laying into he's like, why'd you even give him the chance to hit you? Other Chris: Like, what the f***? Travis: I didn't think he was going to do it. Travis: Yeah, I thought he was going to stick it out. Travis: He seemed like the kind who was like, I'm not really into this, but I'll stick it out to get my citizenship and then parlay that into a business or something later. Travis: But yeah, the captain's like, yeah, we both failed him then, so I need to be transferred. Other Chris: He's like, no, f*** that. Travis: Like, you're staying and we're going to go fight later and we'll work this. Other Chris: Out, have some combat practice. Travis: Basically, this section 90, 80 is like the one thing they can't let recruits even think they can have a chance of breaking. Other Chris: You cannot give them the thought that. Travis: They could say no to their instructions and then punch somebody. Chris: Right? Other Chris: It makes it make more sense why he would beat the f*** out of people the first night then. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I'm going to kick your a** anyway. Travis: So first of all, don't try that. Travis: But especially don't maybe he wasn't supposed. Chris: To do that, but he likes to just to test them. Other Chris: That could be know. Chris: But it's not a reported right? Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And Zim's even like, I guess I just like them too much. Travis: They're like puppies to me now. Travis: Like, I'm growing them up now. Travis: We're going to go waltz Matilda. Other Chris: We'll feel better. Travis: And Johnny is here is impressed to learn that officers also have frustrations with the armies. Travis: Like, I thought I think it was cool for them. Travis: Yeah, but I guess not. Travis: And also they're working, like filling out paperwork and s***. Other Chris: That's really weird. Other Chris: Yeah, I thought you didn't have to. Chris: Do that if you were an officer. Other Chris: Again, showing the sort of perspective of a kid. Other Chris: Yeah, right. Other Chris: You do things during the day. Other Chris: Weird. Other Chris: Weird. Chris: Sat around and waited for me to come home, right? Travis: Waited for me to be here to. Other Chris: Yell at. Travis: He'S johnny's at a pretty low point after this and gets a. Other Chris: Letter from his mom, who's like, your. Travis: Dad hasn't written to you because you. Other Chris: Hurt his pride, but you're always my. Travis: Baby, and you can always cry in. Other Chris: My lap and be my baby forever. Travis: And he's like, okay, I'm going home. Travis: I'm going to resign. Travis: Like, I would have resigned right there if it hadn't been the middle of the night, and Jim would have kicked my a** for waking him up. Chris: Right. Other Chris: Once again, showing that so easily manipulated. Travis: Yeah, very easily. Travis: It's like, as soon as I have a pen and paper, I'm going to. Other Chris: Take care of this the next day. Other Chris: But they're sent out on a thing, like at a patrol mission or something. Travis: And they note that the one thing the military never denies you is, like, letters. Travis: Like, they're going to f****** find you and give you a letter. Travis: So he gets a letter from his. Other Chris: Old teacher, Professor Dubois, who's like, yeah. Travis: I'd been in the military infantry, too. Other Chris: I was a lieutenant colonel, which, despite taking military science at Truman, I'm like, Good. Travis: That's pretty high up, right? Other Chris: That's pretty high up. Travis: Yeah, pretty high up. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: That's Lieutenant Commander Wharf. Travis: I don't know, that's where my military knowledge is from. Travis: Basically Star Trek. Other Chris: I only know Navy ranks, so I. Chris: Can'T remember which one it is either. Chris: Oakley's. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I gather it's a pretty senior role. Other Chris: It is, yeah. Chris: I think it's like commander. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Lieutenant Colonel, basically, his letter is like, I didn't write before because I wanted to make sure that you were over your hump. Travis: And I guess since you aren't back by now that you did, like, you're in the clear. Other Chris: And Johnny's like, hey, I am. Other Chris: I was just about to quit, but I guess I'm not. Other Chris: I'm not going to now. Other Chris: Yep. Chris: You call me comrade. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And again, someone I respect thinks that I'm doing a good thing, so I'll keep doing. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Okay. Chris: So full on, Colonel is the first Navy captain. Chris: So Lieutenant Colonel is the one below. Chris: So that would be like commander, I guess. Chris: I gotcha in the Navy. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: And then my dad was lieutenant Commander, so he had gold oak leaves, but I think commanders had silver. Chris: And then captain has this eagles. Chris: My mom made it to Lieutenant Nice before she got out, but that's Captain for all the other services. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So the two Captain America. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So, yeah, Johnny's thinking back to a lesson that he had with Professor Dubois about value, basically, and how the best things in life are technically free, but only in cost, not in how you actually earn. Travis: And like we said on the Match March, back from reading that letter, he's like, yeah, I guess I am over my hump. Other Chris: So cool. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: In the letter, Professor Dubois like, if anyone's still around there, say hi from me. Travis: And so he talks to Zim, who's like, really pleased to hear that the girl sent him his regards. Chris: I thought that was cool. Other Chris: I like that guy. Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Good old Dubois. Other Chris: So chapter seven is basically going on. Travis: About how easy their powered suits are to use and like what they are, which, again, I think we've talked about. Other Chris: But I marked to read another passage here. Other Chris: Hold on. Travis: Yeah, so it goes on like this, like. Travis: A spacesuit or a suit isn't a spacesuit, although it can serve as one. Travis: It's not primarily armor, although the Knights of the Roundtable were not armed as well as we are. Travis: It isn't a tank, but a single Mi private could take on a squadron of those things and knock them off unassisted if anyone was silly enough to put tanks against an Mi. Travis: A suit is not a ship, but. Other Chris: It can fly a little. Travis: On the other hand, neither spaceships nor atmosphere craft can fight against a man in a suit except by saturation bombing. Other Chris: Of the area he's in. Travis: Like burning down a house to get one fleet. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: The suits are pretty f****** awesome. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: One guy in a suit can f*** things up very badly. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: So they're super deadly, but also very precise and surgical. Travis: Like, you blow up a whole planet from orbit. Travis: But if you want to apply pressure. Other Chris: And enforce a decision, you use suits. Travis: They're going to come in and be like, nice planet. Travis: You've got a shame if something happened to it. Other Chris: Knock your drink off the counter. Travis: You need to sign up for your Mi insurance. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: Then they're also talking about a simulated time and a simulated simulation where he simulated firing a rocket during a rescue that probably would have gotten his teammates. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And he's very quickly and mostly quietly court martial himself, just like Hendrix. Travis: But he remembers that guy. Travis: He's like, I'm going to shut the f*** yeah, I'm just going to deal with this. Travis: And so he gets five lashes. Travis: Zim does step in beforehand and gives him a rubber mouth guard. Chris: Yep. Other Chris: Okay. Travis: Just like, let's get through this. Chris: Well, actually, he's like, I know how it right. Other Chris: Right. Travis: Johnny notes that getting beaten is way easier than watching someone get beaten. Other Chris: Yeah, I guess. Travis: Mentally, maybe. Other Chris: But aside from it hurting more than. Travis: Anything he's ever been through in his. Other Chris: Life, plus the disrespect that hurts the. Other Chris: Second. Travis: The beating hurts the most. Other Chris: Disrespect. Chris: But then when they're done, it's over. Chris: No one cares about it. Travis: Yeah, exactly. Travis: After that, they're like, okay, great, move on. Other Chris: Moving on. Chris: Basically, you got your severe spanking. Chris: Now it's over. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: And it sounds like this is what we do instead of prison now in this society. Other Chris: Pretty much, yeah. Chris: From some of the insights they give, I can't remember that chapter or the other one. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: There's another point where they're like, yeah, the way we would punish people is just by publicly flogging them. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: If you had unruly children, then they'd do it to your father, too, because your father should be teaching you how to behave. Chris: So yeah, you as a kid, yeah, you got to get punished to learn your lesson, but it's your dad's fault too, for not raising you properly. Other Chris: Exactly. Chris: So I'm like doing your duty, but not untrue. Chris: It is a parent's responsibility to raise their children to be better. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: That's a weird way to do it. Other Chris: I love the idea, though, of psychopath kids getting their parents into trouble all the time. Other Chris: I just like seeing my dad get beat. Chris: I think after a few times, I. Travis: Wanted the Coco ruse dad ask if. Chris: This kid maybe has some issues and just secret him away somewhere. Chris: But hey, at least we don't have roving gangs of murder robbing children. Travis: Like children with their liberties. Travis: Robbing everybody. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: F****** liberties of children. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Anyway, attacking you in parks at night. Other Chris: One of the things that he got wrong about his prediction of the future, I guess, is that the entire country did not turn into free jewelry. Chris: Into New York. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Just New York and like yeah. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So chapter eight is talking about a time when one of their guys from the unit deserts and we talked about this before, but since it's voluntary service. Other Chris: Deserters are like, well, all right, if. Travis: You come back, we'll deal with it, but just don't come back. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: We're not going to go find you. Travis: But this guy left and then also kidnapped a girl and then killed her. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So that's when the infantry swooped in to retrieve him from local authorities. Chris: Well, because they didn't know we'll take care of this, I think the authorities had to let him know because it sounds like he went through trial and they convicted him, and then they looked him up like, oh, s***, he's a deserter. Chris: We got to let the army know. Other Chris: Right. Chris: I think they would do that now anyways. Chris: Yeah, that's probably you would just then do your time in the brig and. Other Chris: Then go to right. Other Chris: So unless Jag got you off, though. Other Chris: No, they can't. Chris: It's separate codes of justice. Other Chris: But Jag I'd like to mention Jag. Chris: The military one's harder. Chris: You can get brought up in charges and go to court for adultery, so don't do that. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Especially don't kidnap and kill girls. Travis: Pretty much even now, Sci-fi, even if. Other Chris: You'Re not a deserter, don't do that. Chris: Don't do that ever. Chris: It's not cool. Other Chris: If you're about to stop, right? Travis: If you're listening to this and about to murder a girl, stop where you are. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: It will raise your hand and someone will pick you up. Other Chris: You must write it. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: So, yeah, they bring him back. Travis: They strip him of his uniform and hang him, and then they actually go into mourning for 30 days afterward because. Other Chris: He shamed their unit. Chris: Right. Chris: Well, and I'm mourning the girl, which I thought was nice. Chris: That's the way to do it. Chris: We're sorry this dude who represented us did this, so we're going to remember her. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I'm, like, imagine a world where authority figures were punished when they broke the law. Chris: I know. Chris: That would be great. Travis: Can you imagine, like, police units, like, oh, you accidentally killed an unarmed teenager, so we're going into mourning. Travis: After we kill you, we kill you. Chris: One could only dream. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So there's another flashback to a lecture. Other Chris: With Professor Dubois counting, like, how the. Travis: Republic of the XDX century eventually rotted away because, like we said, parents failed in their duties of hitting their kids. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: That was the only reason why that. Other Chris: Was the only reason. Travis: They had too many freedoms. Travis: And like, a puppy that you let pee on the floor. Travis: They just kept peeing on the floor everywhere. Chris: And told me these social workers and psychologists were too influential. Travis: F****** psychologists telling kids they had rights and that was the way they went wrong. Chris: Go with their and their feels should be respected. Other Chris: Yes. Chris: I was like, Wait a minute. Chris: I'm a social worker. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So the note I had here, I. Chris: Think we outright beating your children or your pets. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: Wait a minute. Chris: Am I responsible for the downfall of America? Travis: Yeah, pretty much. Travis: Use you personally. Chris: Sorry, everybody. Travis: They'll look back to you and your social work and your idea for masturbatoriums. Travis: And, like, that's where it all went wrong. Travis: As soon as everyone had jack trucks. Chris: Like, collecting of coins, everyone stopped. Chris: No one was going to work anything. Other Chris: What you can really gather from this is that there have been people since 1960 who've been b******* about the direction of the country being wrong because we don't beat our kids. Other Chris: Yeah, you're right. Other Chris: Like, already in 1960, they're like the libs telling us not to beat our kids. Chris: Like, well, do you really need to beat your children? Other Chris: It's in the Bible. Chris: No, it's not. Other Chris: Spare the rod. Chris: That's not how you interpret spoil the child. Other Chris: Yeah, haven't we talked about that before? Other Chris: That that guy was like the guy writing it was a s***** dad. Other Chris: No, it was specifically if you look at what was it? Other Chris: If you look at how his kids turned out right. Other Chris: They were all really s***** and Solomon subjects hated them. Other Chris: It's. Chris: Supposedly Solomon writing it. Chris: It's probably some other dude, but it's in that time period. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: His kids turned out crappily. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: That was the point that someone had made to me, was that, yeah, Solomon wrote all of these tips for raising your kids specifically about how you should beat them to make them better. Other Chris: And then his kids turned out to be f****** raging a*******. Other Chris: Yep. Chris: Had some wars, little insurrection action in. Travis: Maybe. Other Chris: Don't do that. Chris: Yeah, I don't know. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: The note I have in here, I think we talked about a lot about. Other Chris: How this felt like a place where. Travis: You could misinterpret what's going on with what he's saying. Travis: You have to consider who's saying it exactly in this case. Travis: But the kernel of truth to me seemed to be them talking about how juvenile delinquent is a contradiction and not something that exists. Travis: Because if you're a juvenile, you're not. Other Chris: An adult, and if you're delinquent, you've. Travis: Not done your duties. Travis: But you can't have duties when you're a child. Chris: Right, which I would tend to agree with that because children are children. Chris: They're still learning. Chris: They don't know how to be a fully formed person yet. Other Chris: Exactly. Chris: So therefore, if they are acting up in this way, outsiders like parents, family, and even society bear some responsibility in teaching them how to be how to. Travis: Function properly and giving them ability to do that. Chris: Yeah, social status and stuff by a certain age and into their early adulthood. Chris: That's on us for f****** up and not doing our job to them, our responsibilities to them. Chris: Which I'm like, yeah, I could agree with that. Other Chris: Totally agree. Travis: He's like, you can't just warn them forever. Travis: Like, you're doing wrong. Travis: You're doing wrong, and now you have the death penalty because you're an adult, so f*** you. Chris: Yeah, that's not fair. Chris: I get that part. Chris: I don't think the solution is spanking, but I totally do agree with that line of thinking. Chris: Something has to be changed in there in order to give them an actual fair chance to change and grow instead of just doing the same s***. Chris: And like I said, warning, warning and warning up. Chris: Now you're on death row right? Travis: Now it matters because you're 18. Other Chris: Yeah, right, because turning 18 is how. Travis: You become an adult. Chris: Yeah, even though it's not. Chris: I mean, it is legally, but as we've discovered, your brain isn't fully adult till you're 25. Other Chris: Right? Other Chris: My brain is not fully adult now. Chris: I would argue with that, too. Other Chris: What does that even mean? Chris: It's your sense, your ability to make proper choices and weigh all the consequences of your actions. Other Chris: Yeah, I'm not an adult then. Chris: Diminished. Chris: Highly diminished. Chris: When you're still like 20, it's more like you're 16. Chris: When you're 16. Other Chris: What does it mean when you're almost 40? Chris: I mean, your brain is physically there, Chris. Chris: Whether you're able to use it appropriately or not is the other question. Chris: But that gets the other stuff. Travis: Chat GPT well, I mean, that's what. Chris: Takes us into neurodivergences and different brain structures, different brain setups that some of us have our abilities to do some of the s*** is hampered by deficiencies elsewhere. Travis: Right? Travis: And plus having too many freedoms. Other Chris: I mean, that's probably what I wasn't beaten enough? Other Chris: That's probably what it was. Chris: You know what they would say I wasn't either. Chris: That's because I learned. Chris: My mom would tell me about that. Chris: She's like, you weren't really she's like, you'd get the SWAT on your bottom, but you were like two, and diapers were thick as h***. Chris: So it was more just like, get your attention. Chris: The only time I really remember having to slap you, I had to slap your hand once. Chris: The one time you reached to touch the stove. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: She's like, I didn't really have to do anything with you because you were shocked and then didn't want to do that again, so I didn't really have to. Chris: I'm like, Good. Chris: I don't know. Chris: But then I read some stuff recently that kind of plays into certain things. Other Chris: About my biology and s*** I learned. Chris: As I got to be an adult. Chris: So I'm like, oh, okay. Chris: Well, that makes sense. Other Chris: I don't know. Chris: Yeah. Chris: And brain differences. Other Chris: Freaking brains, man. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: We know some more things now, I think that we do in 1960. Other Chris: We do. Other Chris: Sorry. Chris: We know a lot more now than we did in, like, 1980. Other Chris: Yeah, the s***, like, I don't know. Chris: Somebody will tell you about it all. Travis: No, I'm sorry again. Travis: It's all your freedoms. Travis: It's turning you all autistic and gay. Other Chris: Sorry. Chris: No, it's probably crap in the environment. Travis: It's all these freedoms. Travis: That's why you want your kitty litter box in your school now, because all your freedoms, that's the dumbest. Travis: I'm going to drag this joke into the ground as long as I can. Travis: My God, letting kids be the way they think they are is the worst. Chris: I do think there is very much a lack of awareness of what our rights and responsibilities are and what they mean because we just have them from being born here. Other Chris: But I've always thought, like, well, I. Chris: Don'T think we should have national service. Chris: That means, like, the military. Chris: I really think it would even when I was younger, it would have been a good idea to widen up Job Corps a bit and make it more like America Peace Corps, because it kind of is, and just have us all do like, a year of that after we finish high school. Chris: Then you get put into a little unit and you get to go work on a project or do s*** in a field you're interested in, but you live as this little group on a base, and you just do a year of service to your country and then go to college or go to work or do whatever. Chris: And that's what you get that way. Chris: That's how you qualify for loans and other s*** and even maybe some more programs. Chris: Or we have more programs after that because we've done national service to help people start businesses and do s*** that they want to know on comedy. Other Chris: Bang bang. Other Chris: Name checking another podcast. Other Chris: Here a much more famous one. Other Chris: America's Podcast. Travis: It's pretty close, the podcast. Other Chris: I don't know what you call it, but on there, Scott Ackerman talks about he's talked a couple of times, or maybe it was on Freedom. Other Chris: He talks about, like, it would be cool if we just had high school for adults once you turn 45 or something. Other Chris: Like, they just do high school again, back to some kind of a high school thing. Travis: I would do that. Chris: Get a refresher on s***, learn some. Other Chris: New skills and go hang out with some people your own age. Other Chris: Just go do the social thing for a while. Travis: Level set your commitment to socialism or socializing and being part of a society. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Also, I don't know, you would probably have a better experience the second time through. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Just because people are better. Chris: I guess you're not full of raging hormones anymore. Travis: Yeah, some of us. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Speak for yourself. Other Chris: Jeez. Chris: Trust me, gentlemen. Chris: I know none of us are full of raging teenage hormones anymore because we're not. Other Chris: Again, speak for yourself. Travis: Speak for yourself. Travis: Well, but either way, Johnny Rico sleeps very soundly after that guy is murdered. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: Well, not murdered, but executed. Other Chris: Executed. Other Chris: Executed is the word for it. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: They didn't hunt him down and secretly kill him in his sleep. Other Chris: Revenge murder. Other Chris: Revenge murder. Other Chris: Very carefully planned revenge murder. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: We murdered him right back. Other Chris: That's right. Travis: So there's kind of like the small Coda chapter where they're talking about Camp. Other Chris: Spooky outside of Vancouver where they go. Travis: To practice, like suit jumps up mountains. Other Chris: And stuff because that's harder. Other Chris: Again, just like tribes. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: And there's many casualties. Other Chris: Just like tribes. Travis: Just like tribes. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: And they go through practice drops and stuff. Travis: And here's where he's talking about the very military idea. Travis: He's like, you got to know, like, the guy in your flank is tough. Other Chris: You don't want someone who's going to be a p**** halfway through. Travis: I'd rather have an empty flank than someone who's just going to be not dependable. Other Chris: Yeah, exactly. Travis: And then there's a little section where. Other Chris: They have some shore leave where Johnny's reminded that girls are pretty cool. Other Chris: Yep. Travis: I haven't seen them for a couple of months, and now they look pretty good. Travis: And he and his buddies get crossways with some merchant marines in Seattle who don't really seem to like the military. Other Chris: Infantry and maybe just a little bit. Travis: Jealous of their citizenship. Other Chris: Yeah, I guess was what we were. Travis: Supposed to get from that. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: And I think one of the other products of that scene is typically in a situation like that in our society right. Other Chris: Where you have a bar fight with military dudes who just randomly showed up. Other Chris: Somewhere, the police are not going to be on their side. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Typically we're going to see the military dudes from on the base as being the instigators troublemakers. Other Chris: Right, right. Other Chris: And they're going to be the ones that the police are like, we don't want your trouble in our town. Other Chris: And in this particular case, the fight goes down and the merchant marines get their a**** handed to them and then the police show up and they're basically. Other Chris: Like, so do you guys want to. Other Chris: Press charges against these guys? Other Chris: Like, wait, what? Travis: Right. Other Chris: They just got obliterated in a fight and now the police are coming up to them. Other Chris: Like, you want to press charges? Other Chris: No, because I guess in this society, it is also, like a huge offense to assault someone in the military. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: And it's basically because they're treated as citizens at this point. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Like right. Other Chris: Yep. Other Chris: You seem pretty you have a lot. Other Chris: Of rights now as a soldier in society. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: The other people seem to be very. Other Chris: Respectful of of I'm not really remembering. Travis: This very well, but there was like a section where he's like, hey, welcome to Seattle. Travis: Do you want to go visit some consorts or yeah, our Seattle geishas will be pleased to see you. Travis: Over. Other Chris: Yeah, come on, guys. Travis: Like Fleet Week in New York or whatever. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Talking about society, I guess this isn't necessarily a point. Other Chris: Again, we can't say what his actual thoughts were on it timeline, but this is absolutely a thing that's done purposefully, I guess this sort of people who have dangerous professions that we don't want to do, we tend to put them. Other Chris: Up on a pedestal right. Other Chris: And treat them better specifically because we don't want to do their job. Travis: Right. Other Chris: It's questionable whether this show of appreciation is something that's like something that's calculated to sort of manipulate people into doing these jobs that are dangerous, deadly. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: Is it a calculated manipulation by this society, I guess, to get people to join the military, to get their citizenship, to get all these rights right, or. Other Chris: Is it be a hero? Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: It'S an OD thing to think about. Other Chris: I guess it's similar to sort of in our society, how we have that thank you for your service kind of. Other Chris: Mentality, or like. Other Chris: A lot of people supporting I don't know, people with their support of police and firefighters and that. Other Chris: Kind of thing too. Travis: That gets a little more sticky, but yeah, it does. Travis: There's a lot of people who are like, I'll put this thin blue line. Other Chris: Flag on my car because I'm not going to be a cop. Travis: I guess I respect that. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: So it's like you have to give people the sort of prestige of being police or firefighters or soldiers or something because the job is so dangerous. Other Chris: They have to feel more appreciated somehow. Other Chris: Again, it's questionable whether it's like a calculated move by the society or something. Other Chris: To get people to do it. Other Chris: And like teachers and nurses. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: I'm not going to do it. Other Chris: You have to apply the sort of lip service, I guess, to make people feel better about the profession they went. Other Chris: Into because it's so no, but teachers are cool, most of them. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: The ones that are taking it seriously. Travis: Yeah. Travis: When Curse Ham gets back, let's thank. Other Chris: Him for his service. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: As a teacher. Other Chris: Yeah, I'm sure that's pretty thankless we'll. Travis: Find out about it, I got to imagine. Travis: So anyway, after that, then they've graduated and they've gone from 2009 recruits to 189. Other Chris: Now they're soldiers. Other Chris: Neato. Other Chris: Hold on. Other Chris: He's going to get his cans back on. Other Chris: Cans moving in. Chris: Headphones on. Other Chris: There we go. Travis: Hey, Chris Ham, thank you for your service. Travis: As a teacher. Other Chris: As a teacher. Chris: Thank you. Chris: Yes, thank you. Travis: Thank you for your service. Chris: I appreciate it. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So, yes, you missed the part where they went to Seattle. Chris: Oh, yeah, that's the fun part. Travis: But now they've graduated from boot camp, and they've gone from 2009 recruits to 189. Travis: Like actual soldiers. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: I kind of like Johnny. Other Chris: They've been decimated. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: But quite literally. Chris: Oh, I did remember we actually do have a domestic version of Peace Corps. Chris: It's called AmeriCorps. Travis: Put that that's what. Chris: We should all do when we turn 18. Chris: Join AmeriCorps. Other Chris: Can I do it now? Other Chris: Can I just quit? Travis: Go for it. Chris: Actually, I think you can. Chris: One of their volunteer programs or something like that. Chris: I think you can do it for a little bit. Chris: You can also do Peace Corps, regular Peace Corps. Chris: And when we get older, they have a specific program for older people that's like six months long commitments instead of, like, two. Other Chris: Yeah. Chris: So makes it a little easier. Travis: I worked with a lady who's like, I'm going to quit and go to the Peace Corps. Travis: Like, she went to do, like, a manager role over there. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Oh, all right. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Neat. Travis: I did like this last little note from Johnny being like, I probably left a lot of things out. Travis: Like the time we had to do firefighting and these drills that turned out to not be drills. Chris: Right. Travis: That's boring, though. Travis: Say what now? Other Chris: I specifically liked his comment about the weather. Other Chris: Like, you could just flip through an almanac and it would probably be right. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: I specifically liked that comment because if you were writing a book, that's probably what you would do. Other Chris: So he basically was like, this is left as an exercise for the reader. Other Chris: I'm not going to write about the weather because that s***'s boring. Travis: You can do that if you want to. Other Chris: I love that he called it out, maybe because an editor was like, you didn't say anything about the weather. Other Chris: Well, f*** you. Chris: Right. Chris: That important. Travis: That scene in Forrest Gump was kind of funny, though, when it just rained. Travis: Yeah, but not in Camp Spooky, apparently. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: You don't get that kind of rain. Other Chris: Know the northern Vancouver Plains or in the Canadian Rockies. Chris: Yeah, I think that was in the Canadian Rockies. Other Chris: At least on the one side of the Rockies, you wouldn't get that kind of rain. Chris: The middle part you do on the other side. Chris: That's why Vancouver's wet. Other Chris: Right. Chris: And has that nicer climate. Other Chris: But there is the rain shadow on the other side. Travis: Yeah, right. Other Chris: Quite right. Travis: So now we got to read the rest of this book, you guys. Travis: We do. Chris: I think it's going to be interesting. Travis: I can only imagine all the action probably stuff is going to happen. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: All of the rest of the s***. Other Chris: We've gotten through all of the sort of basic soldier stuff right now that. Chris: We know hit the fan. Other Chris: We know all about the world and the people and such. Travis: Now things have to happen. Other Chris: Right. Travis: So we'll figure out when we can meet again and talk about that. Travis: But do you guys have anything else that's good. Chris: School is almost out for us. Chris: This Friday for the kids is their last day, unless they have to do EOG makeups, which might be a sizable chunk, because that's crazy. Chris: Well, normally we wouldn't do that. Chris: Like, we would have had it differently. Chris: We are a little late, but I think we started a little later than everybody else, too. Chris: Yeah, we still started in August, but I think most of the states started more in the middle and we started a week later. Chris: Yeah, we had like a week left before August was over. Chris: So we found out Friday that they took the reading EOG on Wednesday, and the 6th graders only out of 65. Travis: Of them passed, they were decimated. Chris: Also, four were projected to pass. Chris: So we got ms. Chris: McGuire said we got one more, but she's been working with them so hard this year. Chris: We should have had more, but we don't have the data yet, so we don't know how many were like super close. Chris: Yeah, but the ones who are super close for reading and math are supposed to be invited to retake it. Chris: And that'll happen the following week, which I'm not too happy about, but I'm scheduled to be there that Monday and Tuesday. Chris: We'll see what happens. Chris: But I need that time that week to get my car oil changed and have my NC state inspection done so I can get my plate renewed so I can drive it to Indiana the following week. Travis: Gotta do that. Chris: Yeah, they will. Chris: I mean, North Carolina wouldn't, but other states yeah, because they can look it up on the fly and like, oh, he paid for it. Chris: He just doesn't have a sticker like this year. Chris: Like, I never got my sticker last year and I didn't have any money to get a new one. Chris: And then by the time I did, I'm like, I only got like six more months. Chris: What's the point? Chris: So go. Chris: Well, just been driving around on a fully current car, just no sticker that says it. Travis: But the thing that's good is that summer is coming up. Chris: It is. Chris: It's almost here. Chris: I have to remind myself that, yes, I have to go two more days after this week because this is the last week for most of the students. Chris: And Friday is supposed to be like some fun s***. Chris: So we'll see. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: I want to take the summer off. Travis: Me too. Chris: Well, I mean, I don't get paid during the summer. Chris: Remember that part? Chris: I have some money that I have enough money for meet my basic responsibilities. Chris: I just don't have any extra. Chris: Yeah, but I'm going to try to maybe find I was interested in maybe doing seeing who does the house sitting companies around here and just do that during the summer. Chris: Pretty low. Chris: It doesn't matter if it pays a whole lot. Chris: Just some income. Travis: Something yeah, something's better than nothing for. Chris: Spending monies and gas money. Other Chris: Absolutely. Travis: Can watch their cable and drink their sodas. Chris: That was my thought. Chris: It might be some oh, just check on their house. Chris: So I have a few of those in the day and then someone needs someone there for, like, overnight delivery. Other Chris: Yeah, that could you know, like I mean, if if like, that actually sounds really. Chris: And I might end up having to go down to Charlote to do it because there's a lot of rich people there. Chris: But that'd be like I've never really had a chance to explore Charlote and be like, a little vacation. Chris: All the. Other Chris: Pretty cool. Chris: It'd be cool. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Let us know if you find a good one. Other Chris: We can party. Chris: Yeah, we'll do secretly clean up. Chris: It doesn't matter. Travis: Yeah, we're good at that. Other Chris: Yeah, we are. Other Chris: We are. Other Chris: We got five stars or whatever. Travis: Absolutely did. Chris: Perfect. Travis: We cleaned the s*** out of that house. Chris: Yeah, sure did. Travis: They would have us back and everything. Chris: Like, it helps when we don't make a lot of mess to begin with. Other Chris: Right? Travis: That's the secret to cleaning your messes, is don't make them. Chris: It doesn't apply to my own space, but other people's spaces. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: It's easier when someone else's other chris, what's good? Other Chris: Oh, man. Other Chris: So I just watched Sheen ultraman does. Chris: That one on Netflix. Other Chris: It was in theaters. Other Chris: It was one of those fathom events. Other Chris: But it's part of the new heroes, if you're aware of that at all. Other Chris: So studio kara and Hideakiano have been remaking some classic sort of Japanese characters, starting with Sheen Godzilla, which was very good. Chris: Yeah, it is super weird, but very good. Other Chris: So it wasn't Sheen Ultraman that I watched, but I watched Sheen Ultraman a while ago. Other Chris: It was Sheen Commonwriter that I that's. Travis: What I was going to ask if that was part of it, too. Other Chris: Yes, I've seen that. Other Chris: Just I watched a while ago, and now Sheen Commonwriter is the one that just came out. Other Chris: That's the one that I watched. Other Chris: And that was pretty excellent. Other Chris: It wasn't as good as Sheen Godzilla, but it was better, I think, than Sheen Ultraman. Other Chris: Yeah, that's kind of where it shook out. Travis: Gotcha. Other Chris: But yeah. Other Chris: If you're familiar at all with the story of Kamen Rider, he's a hero who was sort of created out of dude, how do I even begin to explain Rider? Other Chris: Yeah, he's part grasshopper. Other Chris: He's part grasshopper. Other Chris: He's got a suit that collects bioenergy for him to use and turn into a super powerful grasshopper man. Other Chris: He jumps really high. Other Chris: He does some martial arts fighting. Other Chris: I don't know if you've ever seen any of the Tokusatsu sort of like Power Rangers or anything like that. Other Chris: Like, it's very similar sort of action choreography, I guess. Other Chris: Okay. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: But he's got a sweet motorcycle. Other Chris: It transforms and s***. Other Chris: It does all kinds of cool stuff. Other Chris: Yeah, man, it's right off the bat, like a much bloodier movie than I expected, but in kind of a fun. Other Chris: Way. Other Chris: Not in a surgical way, not in a gross way, just in more of like a hilarious way, I guess. Chris: All right. Other Chris: People's heads just like exploding. Other Chris: Like people getting stomped through the chest, whatever. Other Chris: It's glorious and it's fun. Travis: Nice. Other Chris: And then the guy who's actually playing Rider, like he takes it all very seriously, right? Other Chris: He's very shaky through the whole movie about killing people. Other Chris: Not happy about it, but anyway, overall good movie, I would say. Other Chris: Check it out. Travis: Worth the watch. Other Chris: Yeah, and worth a watch. Other Chris: Watch Godzilla though. Other Chris: Definitely. Other Chris: Yes. Other Chris: And keep an eye on these new Japanese heroes because I think we've got Shin Evangelion coming out oh, s***. Other Chris: At some point. Other Chris: And then there's going to be a whole universe crossover. Other Chris: And I saw a trailer no s***. Other Chris: Where there is a gotta form of Godzilla. Other Chris: Ultraman Kamen Rider and Ava unit one. Chris: Wow. Other Chris: Like all of them join. Travis: What could they possibly need to be fighting? Travis: Like, oh my God, they're fighting the sun. Other Chris: It's probably Japanese thing I think I've. Travis: Ever seen in my life. Chris: Sounds like it. Other Chris: What is going on anyway? Travis: Can they add sheen samurai pizza cats to it? Other Chris: I don't know what else is coming. Other Chris: I really don't. Travis: Can I suggest that? Other Chris: So, Travis, what else is good? Travis: I was just going to say for the common writer wasn't something I knew about until recently. Travis: And actually I was watching an Iron mouse stream. Travis: She was doing a ranking of their theme songs for all the series. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: Okay. Travis: And they got some banging theme songs. Other Chris: They do. Other Chris: Oh, man. Travis: I didn't realize there were so many series. Travis: Yeah, it was pretty cool. Other Chris: Yeah, I'll have to look into that. Other Chris: Some of are pretty crazy. Other Chris: It's my friend Mike who's actually into all of that stuff. Other Chris: He's the one who would know all of the theme songs. Other Chris: He's the one who. Travis: So what else is good for me? Travis: So Daniel and I watched a show on HBO. Travis: Like, not Max. Travis: It's an HBO show called Love and Death. Other Chris: Okay. Travis: Which has the good. Travis: Olsen scarlet Witch. Travis: Elizabeth olsen. Other Chris: Elizabeth Olsen. Travis: And it's like a true crime story about a lady who lived in McKinney, Texas. Travis: No, Wiley, Texas. Chris: Okay. Travis: Which is right up the street from me. Travis: It takes place, I want to say late 70s, early 80s, who had an affair and then murdered some guy, his wife. Chris: Oh. Travis: So it was interesting because it's trying to be period piece. Travis: So it's like late 70s Texas and felt pretty accurate. Travis: Like the weird Fox and Jacobs homes that we have all around here the same. Travis: And seeing the Central Expressway before it was 75 and where they would go to have their cheap flings or whatever. Travis: But it was interesting because the first half of this limited series is just them leading up to them having an affair and the way they kind of like project manage the whole thing. Travis: She breaks out like charts and note cards to be like, okay, if we're going to do this, the pros are we get the intimacy and the relationship, but the cons are like, our spouses might be damaged by the we got to make sure we agree. Travis: We're not going to get romantically involved. Travis: And we're only going to meet on these days. Travis: And she like, f****** packs a lunch the first day they get together. Other Chris: Did they SWAT this? Other Chris: Draw it up on the whiteboard and. Chris: They put up the grid? Travis: Yeah. Other Chris: This is what happens when type A people have an affair. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: So it's interesting because there's also a show out on Hulu at the same time about this same event that fits them very differently. Travis: In this one, you kind of see the lady as know this all got out of hand, and then the guy's wife was postpartum depression and kind of maybe not all there and flipped out and tried to kill her with an axe. Travis: So then they focused on what she did after she had to kill her in self defense by hitting her like 41 times with the axe because that's self defense. Travis: So that's the death part of love and death, but. Other Chris: Maybe not 47. Other Chris: Yeah, right. Other Chris: I could see a few being explained by adrenaline. Other Chris: Right. Other Chris: But right. Chris: They got to make sure they don't get up. Travis: Well, she kept getting up, like in a horror movie. Travis: Just kept having in the show, at least. Other Chris: Oh, okay. Travis: But like we were saying before, you got to remember who this testimony is coming from here. Travis: They're really only going off of what they were talking about. Travis: But the parts I liked the most was just kind of like, I don't know, it never ventured too far into being like ridiculous satire, but following all these church people through their petty squabbles and the very matter of fact lady, she's like, I think we should have an affair. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Oh, all right. Travis: So that ended. Other Chris: What you're telling me is if a woman ever comes up to me and says, I think we should have an affair, it's going to end in murder. Other Chris: Probably avoid it. Travis: Don't trust them. Travis: If they're like, I did the flow chart. Other Chris: Even if we do SWAT it out and it comes out to be more pros than cons yes. Other Chris: It's probably going to end in murder. Other Chris: Probably. Other Chris: So probably like almost 99%. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: Just don't do it. Other Chris: Don't do it. Travis: Don't have affairs. Travis: Just get divorced and then have a relationship if you want, but don't do the affairs. Travis: They'll get you murdered. Chris: Right. Travis: Worth the watch. Travis: Elizabeth Olsen in particular was really good in it. Other Chris: Is she the murdery lady? Travis: Yes, she's the one who goes on trial for. Other Chris: Cool. Travis: Cool and what I can looked a lot like the McKinney courthouse where I've been to before. Travis: Not in, but driven around and parked by. Chris: Right. Other Chris: Interesting. Travis: It's pretty cool. Travis: The other thing I've been doing is I finally got around to playing Breath of the Wild, okay, which I had pre ordered when it was supposed to come out on the Wi U. Travis: And then it did come like but it didn't come out till there was a switch. Travis: And so out of anger and peak, I'm like, I'm not playing this. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: F*** you guys. Travis: Like, I bought a whole Nintendo system for this, and you brought it out on a different system. Travis: But with Tears of the Kingdom coming out, I figured it was finally time to go back and play it. Travis: And I don't know if you know this, but this game is pretty good. Other Chris: Yeah, I put like, 200 hours into it. Travis: Some people have said it's pretty good. Chris: Yeah, just a bit. Travis: It scratched a lot of the same itches that Genshin Impact did when I was playing. Other Chris: That. Other Chris: A lot of these kind of games now. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: You don't have to have Add to play it, but if you don't, it's a good way to simulate it. Travis: I have to go get some ingredients. Other Chris: Oh, s***. Travis: There's a shrine up there and like, oh, God, there's enemies. Travis: And my weapon broke, so I go, f***. Other Chris: Grand Theft Auto was like that for me, too. Travis: All these random missions and stuff. Other Chris: I'm like, I'm going to go do oh, no, I'm just going to go to the top of this building and start randomly firing rockets at things. Travis: Yeah, whatever. Travis: I was just going for that one ingredient for cooking, and then all this Lionel showed up and f****** shot me with lightning, so I have to deal with that. Travis: Now. Other Chris: You end up finding a sweet place to ski or sled down a hill or something, and you're like, I'm just going to do this for an hour. Travis: Got to do that. Travis: Yeah, it was really cool, and I really liked the way that they did the story in this, as opposed to other Legend of Zelda games where it's like, you've already f***** up. Travis: The world is already devastated. Travis: So you don't have to do the standard, like, we better hurry and get to this place. Other Chris: Exactly. Travis: And get the hook shot so you can go over here. Other Chris: Yeah. Other Chris: There's no ticking clock element in this one. Travis: Right? Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Right. Travis: So, yeah, I'm sure I missed a lot of it still, even though I played it all the way through. Travis: But definitely going to have a cool down time before I go play Tears of the Kingdom because they amped that up to 100. Other Chris: Like I said, I put, like, 200 hours into the game. Other Chris: I did most of it, I think, and I did not actually do the final Castle me. Other Chris: So we are opposites, I guess, in that regard. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: The temptation was there to go back and do the other stuff. Travis: Like, I didn't really do the snowy area because I was bad about cooking things to deal with. Travis: Snow. Other Chris: Well, no, you get warm clothes and then you're fine. Travis: Yeah, but that place is so cold. Travis: Even with my warm clothes. Other Chris: No, you get the set, you get warmer clothes. Travis: I need to get the set. Other Chris: You get warmer clothes. Travis: But the other thing to mention is the character design in here. Travis: You don't have to be bisexual to play this game, but if you want to feel what it's like I know we're talking about bird guys and fish ladies, but I was ready to risk it all for basically every character, especially the garudo people. Travis: I might have learned something about myself today. Other Chris: You would cross dress to go into a city full of women in the. Travis: Desert if it was those ladies. Other Chris: Yes. Travis: That will crush me between their pinky finger and thumb. Travis: It'd be fine. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: They're all, like, twice as tall as Lincoln. Chris: That's fine. Chris: They can pick me up and carry me around. Travis: ABS. Travis: That would cut diamonds. Other Chris: Breath of the Wild pretty good. Other Chris: I just think of Brody from Mall Rats, like, popping out wearing the underwear. Other Chris: He's like, I'd make a sexy chick every time there's, like, cross dressing in a game or something like that quote pops into my head. Travis: Yes. Travis: Take it from me. Travis: If you haven't played Breath of the Wild, go play Breath of the Wild. Travis: It'll be fun. Travis: You'll get distracted by the game and the character. Travis: I'm probably the first person on record to say it. Other Chris: Yeah. Travis: Anyway. Travis: Okay, that was our session for today. Travis: This week is the easy to remember homework assignment of now. Travis: Just read the rest of the book. Travis: This episode's already running a bit long, though, so a brief on second thoughts section for you. Travis: So when we were going on about thanking the troops or saying thank you to people who work those thankless jobs, I just want to be clear that we aren't trying to suggest that those jobs aren't difficult, necessary, nor underrewarded. Travis: We think that all of you firefighters, teachers, nurses, service industry, and hospitality workers are great. Travis: You probably should have a great big raise, too. Travis: And if you're a cop, well, today's episode could have just been looked up in an almanac and filled in later by Chris chris Ham, Chris Other, Chris Jacobson. Travis: It was edited by me, Travis Rowe, and was sponsored by no one in particular. Travis: Until next time, keep f****** reading. Other Chris: Due to master. Chris: But I am stepping away from I'm. Travis: Just going to go through the last. Other Chris: Couple of sections, and we'll double back for okay. Other Chris: Yeah, but you go ahead. Other Chris: Thanks. Travis: We can be like, how come Chris Ham always disappears halfway through? Other Chris: Say nothing. Other Chris: Yeah, just gone.