Kitbag Conversations - Kitbag Conversations Episode 14: Making American Doctrine

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

Have you ever wondered how America learned to fight in a war? Where did we learn "Combined Arms Warfare" and our skills in proper soldiering? Well, Cody gets fueled up on caffeine, creatine, and Gatorade to fill you in on how America stole from everyone. Also Matt comes back and this is the end of Cody's solo adventure.

I am a real American Fight for the rights of every man I am a real American Fight for what's right Fight for your life When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside You gotta take a stand if you don't have to hide If you have my friends, then you have my bride I gotta be a man, I can't let it slide I am a real American Fight for the rights of every man I am a real American

Fight for what's right, fight for your life What's up guys, so it's just me again this week and I let you down last week and we haven't been doing a whole bunch of stuff but things have been a little bit crazy here at the KitBag conversations compound. So Matt is back. He just got back today from Cowboy Space Camp Prison. I don't know if we're gonna talk about it or not. But Longstore's short, he is back. And I am back from vacation in Montana. Don't go there, it's awful.

Actually not, it's awesome. I loved it. I hate my life now because I don't live there. But we're not going to be sipping on bang or any energy drinks. So as he already had that and we're just sipping Gatorade mixed with Cretean powder. It's like hydrate and then dehydrate. So that's nice. What else do we got going on? So for housekeeping, once again, we have the Patreon. I'm not gonna look. So the last two episodes, I sat there and I made it so that if it went past an hour, it went to the Patreon and you had to go to a paywall.

Those episodes are locked behind a $3 paywall. For $3, $3 simple dollars, you can have access to all the stuff on the Patreon. You don't get access to the Discord, but you get all the extra content that we make and you get our hot spicy takes about what's going on in the world that would probably get us banned on Instagram. Like it did with Grow a Toll in Report,

but it's only $3. If you wanna give the content a look, if you wanna do a little bit more for, you know, six dollars, you can join the Discord. Look, as I'm always in there, Matt's always in there now that he's back. We're always talking to everyone. We have 50 plus people in there,

but we still manage to kind of keep up with everybody and hang out. And if you do, we actually just bought an Armature Server and a Project Zonboid Server. The Armature Server is going to be filled with missions that Matt and I create based on events that either we've seen on deployment or historical points or just shit we make up. But you guys as a team and as a group will get to go in and kill a bunch of bad guys and see who does the best. Maybe there will be rewards, maybe there won't. Project Zomboid is a zombie survival game. Obviously, we just kind of focus on like the teamwork and aspect and having fun.

Right now, we took over the firehouse in Rosewood and we're trying to make it so far. We've only lost one person. It's a really tough game. A lot of realism with infections, wounds, bandaging, medical, all that stuff. So we're having a blast in there in the Patreon. I think there's only five slots left in the recon tier, which is $4.25 for the $10 tier. So for $10, what you get, you also get the book clip where we read books every month together, we talk about it. You get the Discord games and Hangout sessions. You also get Q&A time with me and Matt, kind of ask questions, post things, talk about stuff. You also get our hot topics and you get more podcasts. So this is actually probably the last one I'm going to do flying so well. And if we go past an hour, I will take it and I will put it on the Patreon for free. That's right for free. You don't got to pay. Just go over there. If it goes past the hour,

go take a look, go see what your wallet has to offer. And, you know, hey, join the community. We're more than just a podcast now. We're an Instagram page, we're a podcast. We make venture onto YouTube here shortly, but we're also a pretty strong community. It was up till 3am last night playing Project Zomboy, the Boys. So, once again, it's open.

What else? Do we have anything else? I don't think so. Yeah, and review us on Spotify. Go ahead, I think we're at 62 reviews. Everything helps, it helps push us to the top, helps put more people in the community, helps us do more things with you guys.

I think we bought $1,500 in steam keys between Armature and Project Zamboid. So yeah, it's all sitting over there. Now, for today's episode and what we're gonna talk about, I recently posted on the Instagram and I posted a thing called How We Fight. And it was about all the Ukrainians getting the materials that we use, the Bradley Fighting vehicles,

the M1 Abrams, the Bradley Fighting vehicles, the M1 Abrams, the Javalan's, the AT4's, the 240's, the M4. Basically, Ukraine has everything we have. Actually, they have more. We don't have those high cut-off helmets for every soldier and pelters. We don't have nice plate carriers. Most of the stuff we wear are like flat vests and plate carriers. It's a, they're doing, they got a lot better gear than us for the individual soldier in some units, but they're not fighting like us. And I mentioned that and some people got a little, but hurt, some people tried to bring up historical nonsense and it doesn't fly with me. Like they, they said the United States can never do this

You know look at the first call for look at the invasion of Iraq Panama Korea All of that there are still living veterans that could tell you yes, not only can we do it? We could we could still do it NTC rotations JRTC rotations were constantly every year doing huge movements as a team Even NATO exercises. So it kind of irked me because I was like, you know, this doesn't make sense. Right. Why would anybody sit there and say, oh, you can't, you know, America could never fight this war. And then NATO officially releases a number of saying a thousand to one like for every one NATO soldier that would die in a war

with Russia we'd kill a thousand and it it kind of goes to a thing that I heard once where they talked about sitcoms in the 90s right and so in the 90s in America there was kind of this split that nobody knew about. It's kind of talked about on TikToks and Instagrams. And the thing about that is like there were black African American sitcoms and then there were white sitcoms. And what I mean by this is like if you're white and you remember the 90s there was Frazier, there was Seinfeld, there was Friends, there was Full House, but then if you're African American chances are you probably heard about those shows but on the African

American side there were shows like Martin a different world living single us living single and all these different shows for different ethnicities and it just kind of shows that we were We were segmented and so I've gotten fan mail. I've gotten DMs and stuff like that And people have been saying like the last episode They're like I never knew that about Russia or I never knew this about mercenaries And so I thought to myself if we're having problems understanding why or how America could fight a conventional war and still be extremely good at it, how? Right?

Like what is, what's the thought process behind that Cody like show your homework or like why is America so good at fighting conventional wars and not, I mean, nation building. I understand that, you you know we didn't win in South Vietnam. We're not doing so hot in Iraq and we failed in Afghanistan but militarily we won everything right like we've won every engagement in Vietnam but then we lost the war because of politicians and so it's like as I drink this gatorade creatine mixture, it's more like jelly than it is water. But anyway, how did that come to be? Right?

Like, how did we go into this professional army that could technologically do the things that it does? And there's debate on whether or not Gen Zier, the next generation after that, can carry the torch. And we can debate that in the discord. But what I'm getting at is how did we get there? And we weren't always like that, right? Like there obviously is this disconnect

between all the gear, all the operator stuff, and you know, what that is, and like why we use it, right? Like why? After 200 plus years as a nation, why does the United States fight the way it fights? And it's history, it's these moments in time that come together, right? Like we talked about with Blackwater and how Columbine led to them being successful to last up to 2003 and getting those GWAT contracts and then continuing on and creating Wagner group later on because they inspired him.

But it's like one of those moments in history when it comes to the United States and fighting and it's very interesting, right? We weren't always like this. There's this thing that keeps popping up time and time again. And if you hear some rustling, it's my terrier. She's behind me trying to destroy a baby elephant. But what is it that keeps popping up is this term, citizen soldier.

And it's all the way up until roughly Vietnam. It's all the way up until roughly Vietnam. There was this idea that America's citizens could become soldiers, right? They could eventually move on. At any moment, they could just pick up a rifle and go, but war became very complicated. You know, that fallout quote, war never changes. Like, yeah, it does. It changes like literally every day right and so it wasn't always like this and

part of what makes American soldiers American soldiers or Marines is the pre-colonial times right During those history classes something that always kind of came up was the French and Indian War. The Europeans know it as the Seven Years War, but here in America we know it as the French and Indian War. And it's very, it has almost everything to do with the Revolutionary War. You know, most of you know, take for instance George Washington and many of the generals that followed him, they were veterans of the French and Indian War. That's where they learned to do most their fighting. They were of course on the British side, but my point being is it created a system of veterans that knew how

to fight, knew how to conduct themselves in war, and carry on with the revolution. You see that in Operation Valkyrie. There's all these guys talking about killing Hitler, and it takes one colonel who's like, hey, I'll do it. I'm a combat veteran. I'm missing an eye on a hand. Let me do it because you're all a bunch of staff officers that have never done anything. The revolution may have never happened if not for the French and Indian War, because there was a bunch

of veterans sitting around. Now, there's very many things that lead up to this, right? Like trade rights and stuff like that. But what makes the American fighter who they are actually goes back in my opinion to Fort Necessity. Okay, so what happened here is, sorry, Fort Necessity, you have a guy by the name of Major Washington and he is down on a valley out there in the Ohio Valley and he is supposed to be working with a guy called the Half King of the Ohio Valley,

who is supposed to work with him in establishing a trading post in that area for American colonists, and it's owned by the French. Some back and forth goes there and the French kick out the Americans, and so they go and they build for necessity. Now what happens is this little young major, for necessity. Now what happens is this little young major, Washington, builds a fort for necessity and they're out there and they're building it and they get attacked and so what does George Washington do? Well he fires back and he maneuvers his elements in a way that no that's how it happens. Washington lines up his men. So they're building this fort, they get attacked, and the first thing he does is like, get online men, you know, and everyone's just getting online. And they expect the French to come out and engage them like gentle men, but they don't.

They start attacking from the trees, they're behind cover, they're, you know, out there doing what they need to do to survive and fight a good fight. And so George Washington is just, you know, taken it back. Like he just sent all of his men into an open field, stood them up and they just get mowed down by the French. And so eventually they get into the trenches and then it starts raining. And so the gunpowder gets wet. It just goes to shit in Washington. This is his first engagement in the British Army. And he is forced to surrender. And in that surrender, he actually has to take responsibility for the death of a French

delegate, which starts the French Indian War. But I don't want to say or go into the French Indian War. I want to go into that moment, right? Imagine being an officer in the British army and your first engagement, not only do you screw up everything, but your force to accept that you committed a murder and that you started this entire thing, and this was all your fault. And it impacts Washington because I mean this is his first fight and it's a loss, you know, O and one. And there's many moments and I talk about my career on the podcast and I talk with other people and I'm like, all these great things, but I have a lot of failures and those stick

out the most to me. And so for Washington, this was one of those moments, right? He realized that warfare doesn't have to be in the new world, this thing where we line up in fields and kill each other for glory and honor. These French and Indian settlers, these new French and Indians, are not fighting fair. And it cost him his first battle and it doesn't matter at the end of the day whatever he says right like he's gonna go back to Virginia and he's gonna get shit on. They're gonna laugh at him, they're gonna talk about old Washington who not only was forced to surrender his fort but he was also forced to take responsibility

for the death of a French delegate and And so that ends up sticking with him. And this is what the French and Indian War becomes, is this frontier war of Indians teaching colonists how to maneuver through the woods. You know, you don't need to stand shoulder to shoulder like they're doing in the seven years war back in Europe. In the French and Indian War, we're running around and we're doing things the Indian way but with muskets.

And so the bottom line is this has a huge impact on the psychology of like how Americans are going to fight. And not only that, but this is the British army we're talking about. You know, it's easy to sit there and go, well, they lost the American Revolutionary War, their Red Code, they suck, they don't know what they're talking about. This is the first engagement they've seen the British army in, and they're dying. And, you know, they're having to fight. And so, you know, here you are, an American colonist, and you see your first group of

Red Codes get ambushed by Native Americans and French settlers and they beat the English army. So you have to, as an American settler, get in there and fight too. And it becomes this thing that sits in the psyche of all these veterans. The British army might not be invincible. These guys may not be the crem de la crem, the dudes that are going to push us around. It's like watching your bully get beat up for the first time ever. It's life-changing. It's like, oh shit, it bleeds. And so that's the second point. But the third point I wanted to bring it up, and I keep mentioning it is the trappers and hunters. There's this awful long book that was free on Audible. It was the story of Daniel Boone in the Ohio Valley. And it is awful. I mean,

it's super dry. It's a lot of him going to Kentucky and then coming back, dealing with Native Americans, coming back, going with Native Americans, coming back, going to get supplies, coming back, and it's just this movement across the Ohio Valley that Daniel Boone does. But the whole time you read it, you realize, like, these individuals who are going around and doing these things are the Americans. And that's the mindset that they're in, right? Like they're scavengers, they're trackers, they're guerrilla fighters, they're dealing with the Indians, and then, you know, along comes the Revolutionary War. And so it's those kind of three defining principles that are going on. And like I said, the seven-year war is happening in Europe.

And so like when you talk about like this with a European, they may not know this, right? They may not know what our history is. You know, many people like to shit on the French and say like, oh, they're so bad at war, all they do is surrender, but it's funny because if you look at history, like who's had the most battles and won the most, it's actually the French, Bunter, and Napoleon. And so we don't know much about their history,

but they don't know much about us. And so, already, like, as I start this podcast, you can see how we both learn different things about different time periods as societies and different cultures, you know, we're all focused on different things. And so this is what kind of forms the basically the ground, the earth to which is going to be the American army. And then obviously this carries on into 1776. And the weird thing that happens here is like I said on the mercenary podcast right? It's It's full of mercenaries right like it's not just Three percent or tattoos and don't step on snick right like there's a lot more going on then

just That you know there's that is Koshishko who's the father of the engineer core a Polish Lithuanian mercenary with a Spanish saber who runs around all of, you know, the Revolutionary War. There's Baron von Stubin, who worked with Washington to create the basic infantry, the blue book, right? He wrote the book for a system in which the American army can conduct itself. And he was a gay Prussian, basically the Prussian Army kicked him out for being homosexual and he'd said, hey, does anybody want to hire a Prussian general? And they would be said, yeah, hell yeah,

we'll take whoever we can get. And so he came here and he formed the basis for our infantry. And then obviously there is Lafayette and his leadership on her Washington, but that's the first point is that we're not a... If you think about like... Take this for example. If you think about the Five Eyes, which are America, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and

Australia getting together, there's only one that kind of acts and functions like us and That's Australia because it was a prison colony and then you have us right the guys who you like I'll never come in home but then New Zealand Canada and Britain all kind of act the same and There's a lot that goes into that right And it's like the formation of the army, you know, the Canadians kind of asked, hey, mom and dad, like, I wanna leave. And so, but the basis for which we, as Americans, conduct ourselves, is based on a blue book written

by a homosexual oppression. And it's this melting pot that is the main pillar. I mean, the blue book is still used today and trade octeted out to basic training individuals before they become soldiers. So this is a lasting impression. And once again, you have the civilian soldiers popping up here, right?

And it's the hunters, the militia, the warfights from the French and Indian War getting trained up by this rag-tag group of guys. And the so what is like, we don't even know who we are anymore. If you think about American history or like, many people think like, yes, it was the militia. There were three different dudes with three different systems running around, helping George Washington and the Continental Army form the basis of who we are. And then don't forget, there's Rogers Rangers, which would eventually become the Ranger Regiment running around here to somewhere. And it's just this chaotic mess of nobody knows who we are as a society, Nobody knows who we are as an army either, but what we are is everything we can find. We're gonna take the best pieces from it

and put it into our pot and we're gonna cook it. And so during this time, right, like after the Revolutionary War, you have Napoleon Bonaparte, which would develop the French system, right? You have the British army that has the same system up until World War I, marching abreast and walking that way until they get hit with a machine gun for the first time. And so this point is, you know, this is like a hundred years of making an army.

And so it's two of the three, because I'm trying to do like three things for every war, but the last thing is a guy by the name of Henry Knox. And so Henry Knox was a general who at one point went to Fort Taikon, Aroga, and brought cannons from there to Boston to help George Washington win a battle. Naroga and brought cannons from there to Boston to help George Washington win a battle. And this is the first time that you kind of see American logistics at play because Hock's becomes like the father of the artillery and the quartermaster core. And so this is going to keep popping up is the logistics. And it's one thing that stays pretty steady is that America is always trying to find weapons America's always trying to find gear and artillery pieces and so

Henry Knox is the father of that like if you want to talk about the military and actual complex it belongs to general Knox and he was at Washington Side every step of the way helping him get equipment and so we're an army that likes to take shit from everywhere equipment. And so we're an army that likes to take shit from everywhere, put it in a pot, throw out the fat, and then we love, love, love, getting equipment. Absolutely love it. Right. There's an element of economics to it. And so that's, that's always a thing. And like I said, the civilian soldiers are a thing up until after Vietnam. The idea that the average American could just pick up a gun and go, whereas in today's society where 70% of men can't do a single pull-up, or 50% of men can't do 10 push-ups consecutively, different times.

So a draft back then could actually get the job done versus like now where there is no real draft no politician wants to be that guy and so Yeah, you could kind of see For like all you Europeans and Australians and guys out there you can kind of see like if you've ever served with Americans or talk to an American It's like okay. Yeah, like they all kind of have a little bit of everything and then they throw out the fat. They learn to fight unfair and ungentlemanly in the French and Indian war where you know, scalps were a thing and there used to be bounties. And so yeah, that's that's kind of the basis of what makes American soldiers, American soldiers and

that civilian warrior, right? Like you don't need to be a high standing gentleman to be a soldier. It really isn't a profession as much as like the military would like it to be. It's always going to be the hooligans that show up to join the military as Matt and I have talked about it. The trailer park coming out, and then West Point and Congressional appointees and officers and like Senator Sun's leading the trailer park to victory. It's always been a thing, right? It's just for the first time and I don't know how long and never really and we'll talk about that more with GWAT,

but like it was always like that. Americans just fought. And so, there really isn't much. I mean, yeah, there's the War of 1812, bite me, Canadian. I know there's, we have a Canadian in the discord, so he's probably gonna love that. Like, yeah, well, you got your ass beat. But there wasn't much going on. Yeah, you burned the lighthouse, but it's like,

there wasn't anything culturally significant for that, right? Like, there was a couple of naval battles, a couple couple infantry battles, and that was it we define the Canadian border But there's nothing really until like the civil war, and I'll mention that in a minute here after I take some water Yeah, first first water break I'll freaking 25 minutes into this thing. We got a long way to go First waterbreak. I'm freaking 25 minutes into this thing. We've got a long way to go. Oh dear God, it's so cold. Okay. So the Civil War.

This is like America's failed attempt as far as like a military is concerned to look like a European power. If you read Grant's memoirs, a lot of historians have said, like, oh, it's designed for, to make him look good after his presidency and he's trying to cover up some things in his history and explain certain things, like, because the Guilded Age happened, right? There was the presidency of Ulyssia's grant, and then obviously, sorry, there was the presidency of Ulysses Grant and then obviously I'm sorry there was a Civil War there was the frickin what was it? His presidency and then the Guilded Age that's right and so there's all this corruption that kind of tainted Grant's image and he's trying to make up for it and by explaining

things like you know, this happened This is where I was you know here. He talks about his time as like being in general and how he was made fun of when he went home And his like tassled out uniform and he was everybody was wearing fake little uniforms to make fun of Grant So in his memoirs, he's like explaining why he wore normal uniforms why he wasn't so rambunctious and talked a bunch, and why he didn't seek an earlier appointment to Commander of the Union forces. And in it, there's this little piece he talks about, and I'm a fan of it, but he talks about how in this time there is this split between the European style and like way of military, and what Americans want. And so what I mean by

that is like hey there's West Point here and it's kind of this aristocracy where you need a congressional letter of appointment, you need to pass these rigorous exams which means you probably come from money. Stonewall Jackson actually sweat through all of his clothes and barely passed. Like, that's how rigorous the exams were to get into West Point back in the 1800s. And so, everyone's like, why do we have West Point? Like, this is stupid. It's some leftover sandhirst, which is like the British version of the military, or that's their military academy, but we have West Point.

And so, there is this divide. And that's kind of what the Civil War becomes. Is like, are we a European-style power or are we our own thing? And General Lee was actually first in his class at West Point. He's Aristocracy. He is a Southern gentleman.

Stonewall Jackson is a renowned general of the Confederacy. And then you also have, you know, most B's Greg Ghosts, which are like the first signs of like long range reconnaissance and deep penetration, Gaggedy. But yeah, it's on the Confederate side, you have that. But on the Union side, you have Hook on the Union side you have Hooker who was banging Hookers. The battles that Grant won were out west mostly like where he could do whatever he wanted and he wasn't on the East Coast.

And then Gettysburg, there's two significant moments like the right wheel where they close in like a door and ban that charge. The Confederate's back and then there's a battle but four getties burnt which was won by commissioned officers now West Point so what I'm trying to say here is you have the Southern aristocrats who are all West Point commanders or West Point graduates who are all of rich fat families and then you have the Union Army which is this ragged-tag group of dudes led by Number 16 in his class, which was the Ulysses Grant. He was middle of the pack and so Obviously the Union Army won and this

Aristocracy that the South had created with West points and millionaire families was defeated and It comes down to this in those battles, right? Like, obviously, you have Sherman as well, who went in burn, Georgia. He had that concept of total war. And so when you look at the Civil War, or at least when I do, I see this kind of like the citizen soldier again, right? Like the average dude versus the aristocracy. And yeah, there's slavery, but if we're looking at this from like a military standpoint, right, like from a soldier of standpoint, like the Union Army was just a bunch of average dudes,

like ROTC, a couple, you know, mid-packed white spoilers versus, you know, General Lee and the top of the class, and they won. And there's a lot of economics that goes into that, right? Like there's the blockade of the Southern ports, there's the rail networks. It's actually, the government took control in the north of all the railroads,

whereas in the south, they gave the permission to companies to do it, right? They gave it to private companies to build the railroads and that had successes and failures, but ultimately it was a bunch of average Joe's leading immigrants and you know, the Irish volunteers and then the state owning the logistics system that won the Civil War. And so what happens here is the idea that we're going to be a military that has a sand

Hearst and all these traditions and feather in your cat pony show. It's not there. It's not going to happen, right? We're not going to be a bunch of Southern aristocrats, or we're not going to be a bunch of British aristocrats. And for those American listeners, we had an episode with AFD recognition and tank diary and they described the British officer corps like 95% of British officers are put into their positions based on where their father or grandfather was and where they placed in Sandhurst. And so it's

like it's hereditary. Like if you want to be in the paras, you just have to be from a good family and do really well at Sandhurst. But if you're a nobody coming from nowhere, you have to work twice as hard as him to get into the paris. And so we prevented that with the Civil War and that is a defiding moment. Now West Point has a lot of like I don't like it. I think we should do a way with it. It's stupid. If our best officers all go to the state or not our best officers, but if the officers all go to the same little gentleman's club and they all learn the same thing and they'll do the same thing and they're all gonna die the same way, right? You know, if 30% of our officers are whatever come from West Point and they all think and act the same, then if you can figure out how to defeat that little chunk, you've already defeated 30% of whatever of the American military officers, but West Point might like to claim the Civil War and all these generals, but I mean Robert E. Lee was literally the most perfect West Point cadet

there ever was, and so he lost. And nothing really happens again until we get to World War I. Now I want to preface this because we got a lot of Marines here. There's a book called The Savage Wars of Peace by Max Boot. There is a lot of wars and battles and engagements and conflicts, whatever you want to call them, that the Marine Corps goes through that don't make it into major points. And it's actually starting to come back around that history, Libya from the halls of Matizuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Those are starting to come back around, I think. And we've just discussed this in the discord. I don't think I mentioned it on the Instagram because it takes me a while to post all that stuff, but I mentioned the fact that the Marines are kind of skirting around the outside and nobody really knows what they're doing, right? Like they got rid of the tanks, they got rid of their MPs, they're getting rid of all this heavy equipment. And everyone's like, oh, that's what makes the Marine Corps or the Marine Corps.

And there's these moments before World War I where the Marine Corps was this kind of light infantry unit that went around and beat people up who didn't want to listen to America. And so as we look at the Marine Corps, it's kind of like you've got to take one lens off from your glasses and put in this old one and see it through that light because if you look at, you know, the Savage Wars of Peace and the history of the Marine Corps being this light, strike, assault, infantry type of style, kind of semi-alete through history, right? Better than your average Joe. And I mean, we were talking about the citizen soldier, right? Your average Joe was usually a conscript or drafted or whatever, given eight weeks of training

and thrown on the front line. The Marine Corps was always going around beating people up who didn't want to listen to America. So the point I'm trying to make here is like, if you want answers to why the Marine Corps is doing what they are doing with the silencers, the M4s, you know, their new night vision capabilities, their light vehicles versus their heavy vehicles, look at that history and tell me what you think because I think they're going back to that. I don't think they're going for that heavy capability. Like we saw with Iraq and Afghanistan, I think what we're seeing is a force that wants to be lighter, faster and move with lethality versus the army, which is this big moving behemoth. You know,

it's the difference between using our little, like, pontoon boat or like a rib boat and just turning it real quick. Like that's the Marine Corps. The Reversa-Tool, they can move quicker, they're smaller, they can get into places that, you know, the army can't. The army is like an aircraft carrier.

It's this huge moving behemoth. And so that's what I would say between the Civil War and War One, if you're looking into the Marine Corps, you're looking at US Marines, is look at that history because it's starting to creep its way back into the Marine Corps. This, that style of like squashing rebellions and doing regime change versus like heavy movements.

And so now we're gonna go into World War 1. I think I might get this done in like an hour. When it comes to modern warfare for the American military and how we fight and how we do things, it's important to look at Germany from this point, from World War One on. And the reason I say that is because after World War II, we basically took Blitzkrieg and called it

Combined Arms Manoeuvre Warfare. We did it to the Iraqis in 03, we did it to Panama, we did it to Grenada. We just immediately destroy a country. There's a couple good things and when we get to those points I'll talk about it, but there's these things that happen in World War One and I'm gonna gloss through them that you need to know in order to go like you know how do you create the American soldier and

all that stuff. And it's the invention of some things, some people, some key elements, but I'm gonna take a drink of this Gatorade Createen. So here we go. By the way, I mentioned in the last episode I talked about Rusebuse. I'm a Veribu that is somebody who likes the German army in World War 2. They have like their different subsections within World War 2. I'm a Vera Boo. I like to read about the Eastern Front. And so it's... It's a big impact. And so let's look at America first, right? You have the Doe Boys,

as they were called, so lovingly by their British counterparts. And the reason why they were called the Doe Boys is because they were just kind of like fat, chunky, or whatever. But the biggest thing was like they were inexperienced. When we went to war, we went to war with old equipment. In fact, President Wilson, when he did this, he was actually really hoping that we wouldn't get used that much. You know, we had, I think it was like four million sign-on, and the plan was that we kind of just fill some gaps help out. Yeah, we're gonna we're here guys, but like we're not really here, but immediately the British and the French will like get your asses in there and Pershing, the commander of American forces, wanted us to get that battlefield experience. It took some training, a lot of soldiers

were green and it's because of the da da da da, citizens, soldiers, right? We don't really have a professional army at this point. In fact, there was a battle, I'm not going to tell you which one it is, you can go look it up yourself because I have so many notes here. There was a battle that the big red one, the first infantry division, actually was relieved and the rainbow division, a national guard unit, made up of guys from several states, had to go in and relieve the first infantry division and actually won. So the idea that a national guard unit was on par if not better than a active duty unit in World War One. unit was on par if not better than a active duty unit in World War One. This, that right there should tell you everything you need to know about this

citizen soldier idea that you can take your average citizen and turn them into a soldier. But then like, this doesn't work today, right? And this is why a lot of people may be frustrated. And, you know, it's like, well, why do you don't need to pick on the fat kids and all that stuff? And it's like, well, you know, there's this thing called the draft, right? And we may need them to go in and do things.

And like I said, when half of America's men can't do pushups, you tend to pushups, It's kind of ridiculous. And so obviously, like I said, the doe boys had old weapons. They needed training, bad equipment. You have these small fights like Bellow Wood, where the Marines get their famous retreat. here quote but that took six charges and you know it's the World War One is that weird war that like some people don't really like studying some people absolutely love it because there's so much going on there's this YouTube show called The Great War which is just literally a YouTube channel about World War One and what happened all around the world. And it's, it's a lot. And but the the thing is is like you have this mass production of soldiers versus this new equipment and this equipment is just mowing down these soldiers. And so you need quality versus quantity. And

once again, like I said, when a number or when I said like there's Henry Knox in this like little bit of economic warfare with the United States because we're this capital estate site. But in World War One, the British put a blockade and dealt with us a lot to starve Germany out. They put up a blockade, they bought all the extra cotton. Like so at one point they told the United States like quit selling to Germany and they're like, no. And so the British were like, okay, we'll just buy everything that you are going to sell them. And so they just basically blockade a Germany, stop the American imports and then bought

whatever they couldn't stop from being imported. Like food and cotton and all that stuff. So there is another blockade. And this kind of economic warfare will continue on. I mean, we've done it with Russia now. We're doing sanctions and all that stuff. But this is where it gets spicy. And yeah, 40 minutes into the podcast. A lot of people, when you talk about World War One, they don't know where to start. They're like, ah, what? There's so many wars, there's the psalm, there's, you know, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom,

and, you know, the Ottoman Empire, T.E. Lawrence, and the father of special operations. If you're one of those guys who likes to read about special forces and special operations, I don't judge. It's just everybody does. But there's one battle I think you should look at. I put a video in the discord. There's an old father's son duo that you used to do shows called the 20th century battlefields in the first episode was called the Battle of Amiens. This is literally the pivotal moment in all of military history. If you get nothing else out of this episode, go and watch the Battle of Amiens. On 20th century battlefields, the Battle of Amiens, because what happens is it's kind of a trait,

right? And so there's this stall in 1918, and the Germans and the British don't know what they're going to do. They're like, okay, how do we break the stalemate? Right? Like there's trench warfare going on, obviously on the western front. By the way, that's not what's going on in the eastern front and I'll explain that in a minute. But there's this kind of stalemate and they're looking at each other and they're like, all right, what are we gonna do to break this stalemate? And it Germans are the first ones to come out with an idea and execute. And what they invent is called the Stormtrooper.

They train them up, they are under the age 25, they're these motivated lethal killers that wanna get after it, they're gonna be a killers that want to get after it. They're going to be a rating party. And I mean, we've all, if this is the first time you're hearing about stormtroopers in World War One, then you take a break and go watch some YouTube videos. But the point I'm trying to make here is like, they invested in their infantry. They said, if we can't break these lines, what we'll do is we'll create a different

type of soldier. And what they invented was essentially what is today's modern soldier. It was a thinking, moving, assertive soldier that would bypass tough positions and leave them for mop-up crews that basic infantry or tanks, if they had them, but the Germans really didn't have any. And so basically the stormtroopers go in, they attack really, really hard at one point. At the weakest point, they blow through it,

and then they get in the rear, and they attack the artillery. And it worked. Starting in March of 1918, they pushed the British and French forces back. They were actually trying to create a divide between the French forces and the British soldiers, and drive the British back into the sea and cut them off from the French But it just barely by a mile or two didn't work and so

this is kind of like This will go on like if you look at like a tree and like hearts of iron for like a civilization tree like stormtroopers are like the early predecessor to what is like modern day ranger regimen, right? And the British come up with a different idea. And this is gonna piss off a lot of verabuse. They basically invented Blitzkrieg at the Battle of Ham yet. So the British and the French are pushed back

and they're like, all right, what are we going to do? We're about to lose this new stormtrooper idea with like coordinated artillery is mind blowing. They like artillery bombard us for four hours instead of like three days or three weeks. And then they attack like they do this quick attack versus like a prolonged week long attack. And so Henry Rollinson of the British military comes up with Blitzkrieg essentially and what he does is he invents phase lines pretty much and so he's got these colored lines and they want to get to the blue line and Essentially what it happens is he does op-sec for the first time too He cathers all the tanks and one point. He cathers all the infantry and all the air. And even cavalry, horse soldiers,

for the first time in like World War One, in like a long time, there's going to be a successful cavalry charge. And this is all in, like I said, this is all in that 20th century battlefield documentary, get in there, listen to some British dudes talk about this because it is, it's really mind-blowing to see this because you, as a modern soldier, you're like,

yeah bro, the phase lines, what are you doing? What is this a big deal? But this is like, somebody had to invent that. It's like the first suicide bomber, right? Like, somebody actually walked up to a guy and was like, no, no, Jerry, Mohammed's cool. It's all fine. He's going to be okay, you know, and then it gets blown up. There has to be a guy who figures this out first, and it's Rollinson. And so what he does is he attacks with infantry and tanks at the same time, and they do a rolling barrage. And the infantry are only like 10 minutes behind the barrage. And so the British are jumping into the trenches, following this barrage. And the Germans don't know what to do. This is their first time being like this is happening like a coordinated effort with tanks, machine guns, infantry, air, and they advance for the like this is the longest anyone has ever advanced in World War One. And it's eight miles in one day. Mind blowing, I know. But they actually advance all the way up to the red line that they are supposed

to and they create this opening and they send the cavalry through and the cavalry are ending up at like headquarters positions, they're capturing kernels, they're killing dudes, left and right. I think it was like music box was a light tank that ran around back there as well and just like was just knocking over cars shooting up artillery pieces doing drivebos and eventually they did kill one of the drivers and captured the other two but it's like just mass chaos for the first time ever a coordinated attack with all elements you know artillery tanks infantry air all come together and

no it's not Nazi Germany for the wearaboo's, it's the British. And it is considered the black day of the German army under the Kaiser. It's called, you know, it's August 8, 1918. And this is, I mean, can you imagine that, right? Like, no, the frontline hasn't moved for years. And then all of a sudden, in one day, eight miles, boom, right there. That had to be huge, right? Like everybody and their mother probably wouldn't have heard of that.

And I haven't seen anybody talk about this, but the guy who invented the invasion of France, right? And the perfection, the monumento Blitzkrieg, right? Like you have Poland, you have Czechoslovakia and all these. You have all of these wars that go on, right? Like they invade Poland, nothing happens, right? Nazi Germany. But France was the big one,

because they cut through Belgium as well. And it was, it was like, okay, this is game on. We're going to go up against the French and the British and we haven't done this since World War One. But there is a guy who's in the city of Reams. His name is Eric Von Manstein and you've probably heard me mention him a couple hundred times because he was the guy who became the Army Group Commander in charge of taking Ukraine. Yeah, that's Stinking, right? Yeah, he's uh, he's only like a captain in World War I. But Eric von Manstein was actually transferred from East Germany from fighting the Russians in World War I to the West

to the 213th Infantry. And he's two hours southwest of Reims. He's at the headquarters of the 233th Infantry and he's two hours southwest of Reims. He's at the headquarters of the 233th Infantry and he's only two hours south and he would have heard about this, right? He's a staff officer so the maps got to be adjusted so he's probably there one day and he's like what are you doing? They're like well the front lines moved and they're like he's like, what are you doing? They're like, well, the front line's moved and they're like, he's like, where? And they're like eight miles back and he's probably like, you're fucking shit me. What? And so Eric von Mangelstein is in a headquarters when this happens. And so the guy who invented the invasion plan for France was in a staff position two hours

away from the battle of Mien when it happened. And I'll get to this in a minute, but that's like, I think that this played a huge role. There are no memoirs, there is nothing out there. This has never been talked about before, but like I said, he was only two hours south of MN. And he was in a staff position. And then there's this other thing. Erwin Rommel, infantry graffiti. And yet he's in an all a staff position and then there's this other thing Irwin Rommel infantry Grafita Grafita its infantry attacks Irwin Rommel's book comes from World War One

And now I'm drinking water because dry mouth Anyway, so we're one Irwin Rommel, right? So Irwin Rommel is given the Iron Cross for his efforts on the Western Front, but there's actually something else that goes on because you can read his book and you can learn about the desert fox of World War II, but and if you don't know who Erwin Rommel is, go pick up a history book. I can't help you. That's like way too much. The Desert Fox, the guy who helped lead the Italian army, you know, that shit box of

an army to victory in Africa against the British, that guy, you know. He was a lieutenant in the infantry in World War 1. He earned the kind of nickname or phrase of, you know, if you're looking for the front, just follow Rommel because he, at one point, tried to charge a allied position. I don't know if it was French or your English. And his men wouldn't follow him. And so he like crawled back to them and he said, if you don't fucking go, I'm going to shoot you myself. And so they got up and they went and they won that day. But there's something else going on here that nobody else I've ever seen really talks go. I'm gonna shoot you myself and so they got up and they went and they won that day but

there's something else going on here that nobody else I've ever seen really talks about when it comes to you know invasion plans because remember Irwin Romell and the ghost division of World War Two Sabaton's got a song about it like he was high on meth and just kept going and going and going and attacking. That comes from his time as a captain or lieutenant, I think when he, but he earned the medal of the poor, the poor they made it. It's a medal that only like generals received and he received it as a lieutenant and then got promoted to captain, but he led a group of 100 storm troopers and captured an entire Italian infantry division. Basically, he got the chance to leave what is like Germany's Ranger Regiment.

And he outflanked a Italian infantry division and they thought he was much bigger than he seemed. And probably another brigade or possibly another division. And so they surrendered. And so 100 soldiers surrendered to like, sorry, 8,000 surrendered to 100 soldiers surrendered to like, sorry, 8,000, surrender to 100 soldiers. And so Erwin Rommel received one of the highest awards a soldier in the Prussian Army could receive, which was poor they may or at.

Now if I can't hit you in the gut with that, like what comes out of World War I, right? Like what we're talking about America, yes, but we copied Nazi tactics after World War Two. And World War One is where it comes from. This is the brainchild, the three things, right? You have the British emian, you have Eric Von Manstein in a room looking at a map, his army, you know, not his army, but like the German army get its nuts crushed. And then you have Erwin Rommel in Italy doing, you know, infantry attacks. He's special operations, Ranger Regiment, Erwin Rommel receiving like the honor, the middle of honor. And so these three things all happen. And then Germany loses World War One.

And so, two guys, one has the worst day of his life, which is, fucking battle of M. Yen, he watches the front line go back eight miles. And then the other has the greatest moment of his life, his life the portal admit it and then they lose the war and so everybody's just kind of looking at each other. Now going back to America right like what's happening with America at this time we're sitting fat and high on the hog. I remember watching a video in ROTC

about our history of ROTC through like the years. And when the German army, like the invasion of France and like their training and their drills and like how they looked and how they did things, was brought to ROTC departments and officer training course, they didn't know what to, what they didn't know what they were looking at because not only that, but they had like paratroopers, right? Like the Germans, you know, had paratroopers of forces. They had stormtroopers. They had all these things.

And in ROTC land, they had wooden guns. They didn't even trust, you know, cadets with real firearms. And so the part I'm trying to make here is like we talk about the citizen soldiers, but then we talk about if there's this reoccurring pattern of like after every war America just drops the guns and goes We don't need anymore. We'll be fine. It's cool. And then That's not what the Germans do and this is why I'm a Of Arab is this moment right here is not World War two. It's what happens before

Not phrasing. Not that not too stuff, but there's these two books. The German Way of War and the Path to Blitzkrieg by Robert M. Satino, C.I. T.I. and O. And what he talks about is he basically explains why Germany invented Blitzkrieg, why combined arms maneuver warfare was created and essentially what happened were three things one before the World War One War Two period and that is that Frederick was great and pressure Essentially Germany was surrounded. It always had to be on the offense. The wars had to be won in like 90 days because it takes an army, because like think about

it, it's pre-war war one. An army has to get conscripted, put on the trains, push to where they need to go, train up, get back on the trains, and then go to the front line. So Frederick the Great and like all these Prussian generals after him were all like Prussia has to be quick. Prussia has to move fast and they have to fight fast. So aggression was rewarded, right? And so it wasn't about measures and all that stuff. It was literally like what idea of Frederick the great show we use for this battle? Ha ha ha ha, Birbü. Or you know,, and so this is the pulley in time I'm talking about.

And then you have after that you have the blue-blooded pressions that would go on to do more things. And it's always this idea of because of where Germany sits on the map in Europe, you know, they've got Austria-Hungary, to the east, they've got Poland, they've got France, Spain, the UK, the Denmark, you know, these, now you see Austria and you're like, who cares, it's Austria. Like Austria used to be a big fucking army bro. And so because Germany was always in the middle, they always had to be on the attack and they always had to be fast, right?

They had to get the job done fast or else they were screwed because you know France is allied with Poland and Austria-Hungary is married to the British Prime Minister's daughter, but to get it done and so aggression was rewarded these blitzkrieged tacked tactics kind of start to fought like the seed is planted. Adderwin-Rommel victory into Italy, then you have Eric Von Manstein seeing the battle of M.Y.N. and then you have two other incidents, right? And these are very, very big incidents. Like I probably would bet you didn't even know these things.

But I am gonna blueball you because we are sitting at the lovely moment where it's about to hit 59 minutes ish and so yeah like I said We will talk about how America learn to fight why it fights the way it fights and I will continue this little discussion about Germany and where they learn to fight the way the front and All that fun stuff on the Patreon. Like I said, it's $3.3. Who doesn't have a cup of coffee to spare? It's $3. You know, I have to hold up a little sign that says, you know, veteran, please money. But no. No, I won't do that. But seriously, guys, it's $3 to join the Patreon. Get all that content for only $3. I won't bother that, but seriously guys it's three dollars to join the Patreon. Get all that content for only three dollars.

I won't bother you unless you want to be bothered. You can pay for six dollars and then you get to join the Discord. Come play games with us, come talk with us. Come learn all the fun stuff that we talk about mostly just bullshit and little hit pieces that pop up on Twitter. We're always in there playing games together. We're always talking. We're having a great time. Like I said, I'm in there all the time. Matt. We're always in there playing games together. We're always talking. We're having a great time.

Like I said, I'm in there all the time. Matt probably gonna be in there all the time. We got Arma too coming up and we've got Project Zamboy going right now. So, you know, get in there. We talk about everything from lifting weights to what's going on in Ukraine and then also the rest of episode two

for this part will be on there. And you can learn those super weird things that the Germans were doing between World War I and World War II, GBA.