Episode Transcript
For me, and again, I'm not the most political person, right, as a service member, I realize that regardless of who the president is, I'm going to have to do the shit that they say, so I don't really necessarily get wrapped up into who sits off in that office, and I'm not going to allow anyone who I love or support to force anybody into an ideology in order to support a belief so that you feel like, leave us alone, don't come in the comments, F you, if that's the type of person that you are. You're listening to The Slide Podcast with Tavares Bethel.
What we attempt to do is to always speak, blunt, blood raw, straight from the city of Jacksonville, to connect the economics , politics, education in the streets.
So we slide on every concept, we slide on every topic.
We're going to just jump on and we're going to slide.'
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Welcome. And again, thank you for joining us, , for today's, episode of the slide. My name is VARs Bethel and I'm the host of the slide, and I'm, I have the pleasure of being joined today by, uh, Mr. Jeff Aldrich and Mr. Travis Edens of the Collective Perspective Podcast. Gentlemen, it's an honor and a privilege to have you on our podcast today.
Um, we have a unique opportunity here, uh, in front of us today because what we're gonna do today is we're gonna trade war stories. Mr. Uh, Edens and Mr. Alrich, uh, are both of. Former service members, veterans of the United States Navy, even though we don't hold that against you, right? We don't hold, we don't hold your service to the Navy against you.
And like I was telling this other gentleman from the Navy just the other day, um, since we kicked y'all ass in the last army Navy game, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you here with us today. So again, introduce yourselves to the people, if you will, Mr. Travis and, and, and Mr. Jeff, I'd appreciate it. Uh, my name's Travis Edens.
Uh, I was in the Navy for six years. I was a corpsman in the Navy and that was a little different. We had training to back up with the, the Marines and also with the squadron. So when I was in the Navy, I did get training for Marine, uh, corpsman and never went with them. And I never say that I did because I've got friends that are in it, but you know, I, I, I was never there, unfortunate, well, fortunately for me, I guess I would, I would be a way to say that.
Uh, but I did go aviation medicine and I was, uh, medical support for some, uh, one of the squadrons out in Spain when I was in. So yeah, that's, that's more of my background. I later went on to school and became a nurse and have been traveling that path ever since. Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you for your service and thank you for your continued service as you serve in our healthcare industry.
We really appreciate it. We're grateful. Thank you. And you, sir. My name is Jeff Aldrich. I did 10 years in the Navy. I did two tours in the Persian Gulf and relieving the Nimitz. Uh, I was a dental technician in the Navy and while a dental technician, I was also the ship's decontamination expert. Luckily we'd never had, uh, any need to use those certain things, but I really found kind of a weird joy in trauma, uh, treating trauma too, because trauma in a battlefield is a lot different than if you were to treat trauma in civilian world.
You want to try to save the one that's about to die. Uh, we're in the military. It's saved the one that can get back out there faster. Right, right, right. So, uh, your, your mind's in a different mindset, but luckily I did not have to use that hands on, but I was in harm's way in the Gulf. Yeah, well, it's a, it's a unique set of experiences, um, having an opportunity to serve in the nation's, uh, fighting force.
You know, I, I spent 21 years, 4 months, and 18 days myself in the United States Army, uh, having deployed, uh, a couple of times to Iraq. You know, I spent several years of my life in, in Korea, you know, as well as some, just some regular operational deployments and a lot of individuals don't really understand, you know, we see TV, we see movies, right?
We see Full Metal Jacket, you know, uh, we see those type of movies and, you know, we gain an opinion of the military service based on those things that we see through Hollywood and media when actually Military service is something that is absolutely different from those things that we experience in that, in that fashion.
For you, uh, what was it that made you join, um, America's Fighting Force? That's kind of a loaded question, I guess. Um, uh, getting ready to get out of high school and didn't have any really desire to do anything really. Didn't know what I was going to do. Um, and then the Marine recruiter came knocking at the high school and, uh, you know, it looked good.
It looked fun. Um, yeah, every, everybody gets gung ho about the recon, you know, force recon. Uh, so. That was kind of where I wanted to go and be a sniper, but it wasn't in my cards. My dad looked me straight in the eye and said, now, what the hell are you going to do with that when you get out? I hadn't thought about it.
So my dad's teaching me to think down the, you know, long, long range thinking. So after, you know, the, the. Probably the rest of that summer, I was thinking, you know, it's harder to save a life than take a life. So let's, let's, uh, let's try the Navy and the Corman. Um, and I, I did really good with that. Cause I did like science a lot in school, uh, anatomy, human anatomy, physiology, those things were, were actually what I did excel at and I didn't realize it at the time.
So Corman was the route that I went. Yeah. Um, so that's, that's why I. How I got in to the service. My daughter currently serves as a, as a, as a corpsman. She's stationed out there in Portsmouth, Virginia is where, is where she's located. Well, what about, what about you, Jeff? Well, what made, what led to your commitment to the military?
Uh, not bragging about it now, but, uh, I was a straight up gangster, man. Um, I was involved, uh, I don't know if you ever heard the band social distortion, but they have a song called prison bound. I was probably definitely prison bound at some point, but I decided that I needed to get out of that environment and, uh, decided to join the military instead and did, uh, ended up doing 10 years.
Wow. Well, and thank you for your service as well. It's like, it's like, I can remember the day I came to school late and I was running through the hallway. And, uh, and some first class Allen was standing by the cafeteria. I'm from Miami, Florida. I went to Miami Carrot City Senior High and when I ran in the hallway, um, the security guard came in the building, right in back of me.
And so I'm standing on position like equal distance between some first class Allen and the security guard who's catching me skipping school. And so I turned around to the security guard. I'm like, cuz. Man, I was over here trying to get to Sergeant Allen, you know what I'm saying? So I go take the pre test for the ASVAB, right?
And Sergeant Allen looks at me, and he cosigns. He was like, yeah, alright, let him in, and he'll come take it. Yeah, he was coming to see me. And so this guy lets me in, and now he's not At this point in my life, I'm skipping school practically every day, so no one really expected me to perform well during the course of the test.
But when I scored, I scored high. I couldn't get Sergeant Allen from around my house. Right. Now I didn't commit to the military. Um, um, on that occasion, cause I still believe kind of much like you, I thought we was going to hustle, like it was nothing in, in my trajectory that suggested that I should have went to the United States military.
Um, but however, after, um, you know, a lot of different, um, circumstances that occur over the course of our life. You realize you're like, you know what? I can die anyway, especially the army. Come on, man. You know what I'm saying? Hey, come on. I had to take a step. Yeah. Hey, listen, I tell people all the time it's some people that, that, that, that join, you know, the, the, the army that Arnold Schwarzenegger is in.
And, um, and Sylvester Stallone, I was with the Hogan's heroes. Right. And I'll have no problem. Well, the thing is, is the difference of today and how people are against each other in that way, that civil matter, you think about it, you have sports. I'll never be a Jaguar fan. I just won't, but I don't hate you for being a Jaguar fan, nor do I hate you for being in the army, because at the end of the day, I like football and I love my country.
And that's really. Yeah, that's really where the, and really, if we look, if we, if we look at it, Travis, right, any hate from Jeff at this point will be unfounded because you got to get a w before you can even suggest that you had the ability to have an opinion. Uh, you know, I'm siding with Jeff on this one.
We got an opinion here, but it's, and it's, I agree with his analogy, like sports teams, that's really what it is. It's, you know, We're on different teams playing for the same cause. So there is an inner, if you will, like a, a rivalry between us, but it's, there's, there's a bond that's there that supersedes that rivalry.
So no matter what happens, we, we, we know something about each other that nobody else in the country knows. Because what I can know for certain is that if I know that you're out there, I got autonomy to do whatever I want to do because I got a, I got a supporting force that can eradicate anything that opposed me.
Right. And so, and so, yeah, we, we, we might banter and we might go backwards and forth, but the unity of our collective operation far exceed anything that we can do individually. Right. And I think, I think that that relationship, and that's what we would like to attempt to model here today for, for people who may have opportunity to watch this interaction or just watch this podcast.
What does, what does America look like when it operates like that. I, it's an unstoppable force. If you ask me, if we're able to operate and, and have that, that, that fun banter that, you know, just joking and, and actually getting along on many things, and then we come together on the big things and then move forward through them.
So, so in your, in you guys opinion, the collective perspective podcast, what are some of those ills that are limiting our ability as a society to operate at optimal efficiency? Right? Because that's the, I guess that's what, you figure, we sacrifice, we go to the military, we make these sacrifices, right? You don't make these sacrifices because you ain't got nothing else better to do.
Some of us, you know, we, we, we made those sacrifices and along that process we discovered things about ourselves. Right? We discovered things about the society even that, that, that we live in. But what does it look like now? What do we have to do? Right? And what are those things? How, how do we, how do we shape the environment in order to be able to attend to the needs of the people?
I, I think the media is trying to separate us so we can't communicate. Because I know if we can communicate See, there's there's a fine line between disrespect and a disagreement. Hmm disrespect means this is my opinion You either like it, which happens very often today, or F you, you're banned, you're, you know, you're, you're banned from society.
Or, uh, I'm sorry, a disagreement is, we can agree to disagree. So, just because I don't agree with what you're saying, We can have a conversation about it, but the thing is that we're having a conversation. I remember back when I was wondering about voting and stuff and I would ask my parents and nobody wanted to talk about politics.
I think there's certain places where you shouldn't talk about politics, but I think that's where the problem is, is that nobody wants to talk about it. There are certain platforms like this. Our podcast, uh, Joe Rogan's podcast, where it's say what you gotta say. Uh, in our podcast, we try to stay away from the rabbit hole as much as possible, because that's kind of up in the air.
We don't know for certain, because we haven't really truly experienced or no first hand knowledge of something. And I think, uh, what we're in trouble of is, uh, where we're in trouble is freedom of speech is being, is being diminished, because the media won't let that out. I think if we did that more often, we would succeed.
Yeah, you know, and for me, right? So as a, as a retired service member, understanding that the thing that I primarily did was support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That's the primary function of a service member. So one of those rights governed or granted to us by the constitution, just as you just stated, was the freedom of speech, right?
So if I sacrifice my life for the freedom of speech, then yeah, I think I'm a, I'm a, I'm a maximize my opportunity to say whatever the hell I want to say. And I can be wrong. The beauty of America is that you get to be wrong as hell and nobody gives a fuck because. It's America, right? We get, we get the opportunity to hash things out, you know, discover those things that we don't understand and then we move forward.
Right? But the sickness in this environment is that you tell me that I have that opportunity, but then you limit it at every turn by trying to shape it with, you know, the media engine or this or that. Think about it like this. In the workplace, they say, hey, two things you don't discuss at work, right?
religion and politics, right? But you spend the majority of your time at work. The majority of the relations that you will form will come from work. Your work environment is governed by politics and the people in the environment are governed by the morality that will be extended to an environment that was governed by a church.
So, so, so, so, so without these systems operating at optimal efficiency and working together, communicating, that's why our, that's why our society is trash right now, right? And no one really wants to, um, you know, Uh, uh, attack the, uh, solutions for me and again, I'm not the most political person, right? Uh, as a, as a service member, I realized that regardless of who the president is, I'm gonna have to do the shit that they say.
So I don't really necessarily get wrapped up into who sits off in that office. And I'm, and I'm not going to allow anyone who I love or support to force anybody into an ideology in order to support a belief so that you feel like, leave us alone. Don't come in the comments, F you if that's the type of person that, that, that you are.
However, I did hear something in the last, um, statements that was made by the, uh, um, um, former first lady, her husband. I, I did, I heard him use the word hope, right? Now me as a service member, I kind of abstain from the usage of the word hope because hope is not a method, right? You can't eat hope. You know what I'm saying?
You can't, right? So if you're going to tell me to have hope in the thing, what I'm going to need for you to do is I'm going to need for you to immediately provide me with the tangible method by which I'm going to be able to achieve my aim. I'm a service member, right? And you can't hold that against me, right?
You can't hold it against me that the fact that when you speak a word, the flowery nature of the word don't tickle my fancy, right? Because what I understand is that when it's when shooting and bombs and things are exploding, you You ain't got time for that. Right? So, so, so anyone who may not particularly understand that, then we want to revert to our religious understanding and we want to hope and faith and hope and miss me.
Right? I'm a soldier. Right? So the soldier in me wants something that's tangible. I got 37 soldiers. They need to eat. I need 37 meals. Right? I need 37 meals and I need 37 meals in the next two hours. I just don't have time for it. Right? So, so what do we do? How do we get there? How do we mature environment?
What does that look like? I think we're doing it right now. I think, uh, this is people just getting the word out of what we're doing. Our podcasts align very closely together. This is just a different angle. Which, you know, there's not a team full of pitchers on a baseball team. You know what I mean? So, in a sense, we can be considered a team as a wrecking force.
We coincide with the same idea. We're not in competition with each other. We just have, I think it's great to hear a different perspective and that's what this podcast is versus ours. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have to realize that perspectives are great. You, you want, you know, to be able to have a disagreement in an argument with someone, if you don't know the three, Opposing views, what makes, what the core of why they believe what they believe, then you yourself don't even have any room to talk.
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. You know, I can argue my point all I want, but it's just my point. If I don't know yours, I don't, I need to know, I need to understand what that is. Or at least that's how I am as a human. Uh, Jesus and I were talking about it earlier. Uh, I find myself to be a soul rebel. Which translates to being a heathen, which you might not think is a good word, but it means that I'm always seeking the truth.
Is, is how I feel. Okay. Okay. Where, where are you, where are you from? Where are you guys from? I'm from, uh, I was born in Anaheim, California. Okay, okay. And I'm just down the road, just up from where you are. You're from? I'm from Titusville, Florida. Oh, okay. Okay. So that's, that's kind of over there, near, um, near the Kennedy Space Center and all of those types of things.
That's it. Yep. Right. Our orange juice is better in California. I, I can't agree with that. I'm gonna have to disagree. I'm have to disagree with my army buddy on that. I always brought, I, I brought it up 'cause I know we argue about it, but, but that, but that's the thing. Right. Right? And me, let me say this, right?
I really, I really don't believe in anything being better than another thing. Right? I don't like, like, like, I think that the individual that strives to be better than an individual is probably running a race that they'll never win. Right? That the individual trying to be better than somebody. Now, what I will, what I will say is California has amazing orange juice.
I would, I would say, I would say that Florida orange juice scientifically Is rated higher than the orange juice produced in California. You see what I'm saying? Hey, we just said the same thing. But it's just a perspective. You guys get more water. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, I'm a Floridian now, too.
Yeah, and welcome. You're welcome. Because, because everyone who is, who is in a place, you're not going to stay in that place, right? That's the thing about the, the society and evolution, right? We find ourself in a unique space right now because there's so much foolishness that we experience on a day to day basis and what we're needing is we're needing to be able to see individuals who are going to be those brave individuals that say, you know what, man, Right?
Regardless of all the other foolishness, we're gonna, we're gonna tear those, uh, barriers down in order to be able to get to the place where I can really make a decision. I had a conversation with a gentleman in the state of Texas, and we were talking about the sickness of, of, of, of our societal illnesses, such as racism, and sexism, and classism.
And I was telling the guy, I was like, man, we should just start a bowling team. You know what I'm saying? Because at the end of the day, you know, uh, this individual may have an extreme ideology, and this individual may have an extreme ideology, but a strike is a strike. You know what I'm saying? Let's meet on those tangible, real things, because then now you have an opportunity to see whether or not you really even want to like me.
Right? You might decide, you know what, that guy Tavares, man, F that guy, right, right, right, I hate him. Right? Which is fine, right? Or you might say, you know what, that guy's a decent human being. But how do we know if we never interact with individuals? And I think that is a bigger point of, uh, why we're so disconnected.
Even though they say we're the most connected, uh, society that we've ever been. We're more disconnected from each other because we don't get out there and say, Hey, let's have a conversation. Let's talk with even with just your neighbors getting out in your local community first and then branching out from there.
If you want to, I think that, yeah, the, the, the disconnectedness of our so called connected life is, is, uh, is driving that wedge that keeps us separated from coming together and seeing that we're not all that different. I would say Jacksonville is a lot different from California in a lot of ways, that it's a big melting pot here.
I was really surprised when I went to the landing, when they had the whole concert thing set up before they tore it down, how many different people were dancing, how many different types of people were dancing to the same music at the same time and in the same place at the same time. I don't think California does it intentionally, but there's a lot of, you know, they have Chinatown and little Mexico and.
Little Korea and all these different spots and it's just kind of like usually that's kind of how California is. They self segregate. Yeah, they self segregate themselves instead of Like the landing I was just like blown away and like man every walk of earth It's here. It's here and Miami much a similar place, right?
Yeah, I think I think in that regard You know on Florida may be ahead of the rest of the country Maybe even ahead of the rest of the world as far as how We've become a melting pot of cultures, right? And that may more respectively look like what the rest of the world will look like at some point. I think when you see the Chinatown or the Little Korea, those are, those are things or mechanisms for survival that individuals learned how to do.
over periods of time. But I think what we'll see in the future is I think we'll see a greater normalization of, of, of cultures because of, you know, initiatives like Netflix and Amazon and the things that they're doing as far as being able to spend that media money so that way they can bring those cultures Closer to us, right?
Because now there's no more barriers, um, separating us except the ones that we construct in our minds. And so it's our responsibility to challenge those assumptions, challenge those views, so that way we can really get to the heart of how to improve our environment. We ain't make these sacrifices for nothing, man, right?
Right? We go out and you know, when you, when you look at the country, riddled with war from its inception, right? Always fighting a cause. Either it's because we want independence from the crown, or we want Uh, equality amongst people. What's the next fight that, that, that, that we're gonna have to fight? What, what does that look like?
What does, what does the fight that our children will have to fight, what does that fight look like? Those are scary thoughts. Because it, it, I think now it's more of information war. This is the, this is what is real and what isn't. Yeah, this is, this is our current battle, in my opinion, is exactly that.
What's real, what's fake. Uh, you know, I've always said, and I've heard, I can't remember where I heard it, but there are three sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the truth. And when all three of those come together, you'll have the, a greater understanding of the whole situation. And it's kind of hard to get that with the information that's out today because how far from the truth is that other story?
What did they use to fabricate it? So that I think is the battle that are like moving forward is what we're fighting. Yeah. That money is controlling everything. So they control the media. There's 16 billionaires. So 16 individuals control everything that you watch and hear, uh, where Where the podcast come is, is that they don't have control over that, even though they're trying to, and I'm sure if we got a big enough voice that I would be honored if they tried to shut us down.
Either try to shut you down or buy you out. Right, right. Yeah. If I can't beat you, join you. Can I bring you in? Right? Can I, can I, I'm, are you gonna take Jeff? Hey, hey, hey, Jeff. Say he ain't going. Jeff, I got a billion dollars for you right now. What are you gonna do? Uh, a billion dollars. I would take it. And, and, uh.
Help other people start podcasts. What about you do you say I think the Bible says what doth it profit a man if he gained the whole world and sell his soul Travis is your soul for sale. No, I don't think my soul's for sale. Hmm. No, I Couldn't not be myself and you know, I joined the military right out of high school.
So You know, when you first went in, they ingrained core values in you. And, and I think that, that, those have stuck with me, honor, courage, and commitment. Mm-Hmm. that have stuck with me throughout everything that I do. And, you know, especially being in the medical field, you have to have that honor and that commitment to the truth and, and truth, finding the truth.
So, no, I, I couldn't sell my, I couldn't sell it out. I wouldn't wanna sell myself out either. I. I might rent it out, but You hoe.
You're a hoe. But you know, I was watching a stand up, uh, a stand up act with Damon Wayans. And they said, and, and, and Damon Wayans said, They asked me if I get money, am I gonna change? To which his answer was, you got damn right I'm gonna change. Hey, so, so, so, so, so now I'm gonna be more giving. Right. So, my thing is, we live in a world with so many negative inputs, right?
You know, for the individual that is, that does compromise, right? I, I, hey, hats off to you, do your thing. I ain't got nothing to say to you, that's your business. There ain't a whole bunch that I need, right? I don't need a lot, and you know, it's not worth it to compromise that for any individual. After having seen everything that you've seen up to this point in your life, what would be the reason that you would want to compromise who you have worked so hard to become, to become something that's immaterial?
It doesn't make sense to me. Because the example I set for my children would be for nothing. Right, right, right, right. And at the end of the day, that's the only, the only thing. That's all that matters. That's powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, so we're going to stretch, right? Let's stretch because you got black people and white people in the room.
We got our Hispanic brother in the room, right? Let's stretch, right? Because this is my opinion, right? My opinion is that the transatlantic slave trade, right? I'm gonna go somewhere real deep. We did an episode on that. Okay. All right. So let's go. All right. So my opinion is that. The slave making, breaking process was terrible for children, right?
Black children and white children, right? Because at some point, children Non biblical. Non biblical. Only, we're talking only U. S. history. Yeah, I, I, I, I Biblical is a different slavery. We're gonna get a pastor in here. Next time we get a pastor in this room, we're gonna beat his ass up about all of that stuff that they teach people that don't really have real substance.
Right? Because at the end of the day, if you're going to teach me something and you're going to attach the word God to it, I want it to have enough substance to move me to a behavior. But I say that to say this, right? At some point, two year olds don't comprehend societal structure, right? So if I'm a little black child and I'm in the enslaved process and I'm a little white child and I'm in the enslaved process and we're watching the heinous acts that are taking place, both children are having to make decisions about how they're going to govern their lives when they become adults.
Right? That child that sees one as his friend is going to have to recognize that at some point this man going to have to beat me. And at some point this child is going to recognize that at some point I'm going to have to beat my friend, right? So now, so now the seed that is planted in the minds of those children, it grows, it permeates.
And it becomes the sickness that we see today where individuals are trying to maintain a power structure based on a flawed concept. When if we just invest our time in setting the appropriate example for our children, We give them the ability to decide for themselves, right? And I think that's what came out of my military experience.
The, the, the ability to decide whether I like a person or not. Not based on color, not based on, on economic status. Do I like your character and how you conduct yourself? Are you a good guy or are you not? And, and what I realize is that whether you are a terrible person or whether you're the best or the greatest person ever, we're still humans, right?
And that's what it is. It comes down to, uh, does my dog like you or not? Why doesn't my dog like you? Yeah, yeah. It's that simple, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, so for us, I believe as we move forward, Right. In this iteration of time, what is it going to require is it's going to require a willingness to be vulnerable.
I had the pleasure of serving as the equal opportunity advisor during my time in my tenure in the military. And, you know, having had an opportunity to be, uh, in that environment and learn at that level to realize that we all, regardless of who we are, have some type of of remnant of the sickness of that period of time with us every single day, every single person, it, every single person has something.
And I, and you know, saying every is very, very broad, right? Right. We generally tend to lend to what's catastrophic thinking. We want to say all and everybody, cause nothing is all and nothing is everybody. What I'm saying is all. And what I'm saying is that every single person in the United States of America that comes from that era of brings forward with them a remnant.
Of that period of time that we as men now have to figure out how to solve for in order to not surrender the planet to our children in a dysfunctional state. That's my opinion. Like, like, for me as a man, I don't want my son to have to solve for slavery. I don't want my children to have to solve for economic ineptness, right?
I want to be able to fix those problems in my life so that my children can figure out how to just add value to, to life as they move forward. That's, that's what I would want to do as a father, you know, just my opinion. We did an episode on the importance of a child's mentality or how they're treated from age one through six.
Mmm. And, uh, if you go to anything on Netflix and watch it about sociopaths or, uh, serial killers or anybody that has a disrupted, uh, non positive life. It's because they were mistreated between one and six. Mmm. Mmm. And, uh, I think it's important that your children have a healthy, uh, Lifestyle between one and six to avoid all those atrocities down the line.
I mean, those are some of the biggest, uh, uh, formative years there where you learn your morals, where you learn the rules. Uh, and if, if there's trauma involved in there, that becomes the norm. Uh, that becomes something that you will act on later. Those, those, those traumatic, man, we're going to have to bring y'all back.
Hey, cuz, cuz you just went somewhere when you, when you start talking about the cognitive development of children between the ages of zero and six, that the majority, the majority of the world can go deep with you, man. Yeah, man, because listen, because if we can figure out how to unpack those six years worth of Experiences, right?
We can probably, um, lay a foundation for individual to have an enriching experience and a better quality life, man. Listen, gentlemen, I'm honored that you took the time out of your day to come and sit down with us so we can begin the process of normalizing interaction between men so that we can make the world a better place.
I think that's what's happening here right now. Just that collective perspective in order to give us the ability to slide On into the future, baby. Hey, we do this, Zeus. Hey, we do this. Hey, we don't spit written. You want to be here. You don't want to miss what's taking place, right? We slide. So, so again, as we, as we get ready to depart, if y'all could share some guidance or some words with the individuals who have opportunity to see this, um, um, podcast, please.
I believe that you have to be the future that you want to see in the world. If you want to see a good world, you got to be good. And, you know, I, I, I, I place a lot of value in the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Um, get out there and talk to somebody in a nice way and, and they will reciprocate.
You will get a good response. I, I see it in the grocery store all the time when I'm standing in a checkout line. I don't know these people. Hey, how are you doing? How's your day today? Just a little small talk. It, it brightens their day. It makes you feel a little bit better. Yeah. And you can see. Hey, I, I made a difference in somebody's life.
It might not be like a huge difference, but brought a smile to their face. Yeah. That changes everything. Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, so, so we're going to be doing here over, over the period of time, uh, you know, as we move forward, we're going to trade war stories. So if you're interested and have an opportunity to share your particular story, if you want to have an opportunity to learn more about the collective perspective podcast, please feel free to like, subscribe, share, comment in the comments, right?
And we want those stories. We want the world to learn from the experience of the 0. 46 percent of the individuals that have opportunity to serve on the nation's fighting forces, um, our brothers and sisters in the arms. And also so that way we can kind of. Share and, and, and nurse from one another's experience as we work towards repairing our lives.
Because something else unique about that military experience is, is laden with trauma, right? And so we're going to work, and we're going to work to correct some of those things. So again, we appreciate you, we enjoyed you, and thank you for taking this ride on the slide.
