Kitbag Conversations - Proto Kitbag 19: Battles and Beers

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

This week, I  talked with Battles and Beers (@battles.and.beers) We had a great convo about: -The war in Ukraine  -Modern warfare  -The warfare today  -And who we are

Hello everyone and welcome back. This week we are joined by Battles and Beers. You've definitely seen him running around publishing two well received books about conflict and war from the soldiers point of view. Soldier Marine Airman. It doesn't really matter. It's all a conflict reporting condensed into a novel. You've seen him running around a lot. He's going to Ukraine here soon. I mean, he's really an interesting individual. So hey, man, how you doing today? Good. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So battles and beers. Like what is the origin of that, those two words thrown together into a, I guess your little corporate niche empire?

Yep. So B&B originally started out as its own podcast with my buddy Ricky and I. So we were both just freshly out of the Marine Corps and I was always the history guy. I was always in the smoke pit or in the barracks, whatever, talking about history from the soldiers point of view. So from the bird's eye view, for those of you who don't know, in the Marine Corps, we call that big blue arrow. And so that's like big giant army or regiment division movements. It's literally the big blue arrow that you see on the map in history books. And I was always way more interested in what was happening inside of that big blue arrow.

So like, what was it like to be on the ground? And so Ricky and I started a podcast. It was just at the time he was in school, I was in school. It just got really hard to do. So we kind of abandoned that and I Stuck with B&B and I started just posting on Instagram and Facebook just excerpts of different books. So like Vietnam by Andrew Weiss or Lest we forget by Max Arthur

I would pull little pieces out of that book out of those books and many many others and just post them online pieces out of that book, out of those books and many, many others and just post them online. And people started commenting their own experiences in the comment section. And so I thought, well, holy shit, like there's tons and tons of veterans out there from all over the world on both sides of every war who don't have their stories written down anywhere. And so that's kind of when I made the transition to interviewing people by myself. So I would go on YouTube comment sections and creep around like, oh, my grandpa was here

or I was here and did this and I would message them. And it's just grown and grown into what BNB is now. And it's a lot of fun and it's very interesting. And I get to speak to people on both sides of pretty much every conflict. Like if you can think of a living veteran in the last 80, 85 years of a specific war, odds are I've spoken to someone from it. It's really funny that you mentioned the, because my background, I was a Marine as well. And it was not uncommon to go to a smoke pit and run into a, like a smoke pit philosopher just reciting, you know, just any kind of niche conflict, Schwarzkopf 91, it's just

anything you're like, and this is a grunt, you're like, like, you should, some of the smartest people I've ever met were in the Marine Corps and they were definitely those line company riflemen just, just be like, yeah, I'm reading books and I'm slamming a bag of wine. Yeah, what's going on? So it's but yeah, I remember, like you just mentioned these YouTube comments, it's not uncommon to go to like a major Sam video or a Mauser or just one of these, you know, kind of war footage music compilation videos. And someone goes, Oh, my dad was at the or grandfather was at the frozen chosen. He talked about all these great things and how he saved the soldiers and held off 10 Chinese divisions. And, and then I found your account where you're like, I think the first one I found is when the

war in Ukraine started. And you start going like, if you know anyone on the Russians and, or the Ukrainian side hit me up. Cause I want to talk to these guys. And it was, it's just really interesting. It's not even your words. You just throw throwing everyone's words into like an easily digestible platform for everyone to um, they just review, just get the stories out. Yep. So I did, that's what I try to do is I try to get like a bite size piece of essentially the worst experiences of these people's lives. And um, I always try to try to tell people like the stories you'll find on my page and in my books, you won't really find anywhere else. Because a lot of the stories that I document, a lot of big name authors or documentary filmmakers, whatever, it's not really stories

that they're interested in, you know,. Just recently I documented a story from a guy, he's a Western volunteer in Ukraine. And he was saying how really kind of pointless and boring war is. He was saying that they were basically sitting in a ditch. He was staring, playing with a grasshopper and a Russian jet flew by strafe them and like that some somehow within all that commotion and mess like the grasshopper got or the grasshopper got cut in half and he was just like how pointless you know and like it's not a story that like you'd read about in like a bigger book or something like that but it's it's a personal experience. And to them, it's something you only experience and think about if you are in war.

And so it's those moments that I try to capture and share with people. We're gonna have all these individual stories, especially like from the global war on terror, whoever, where all of these stories and all of these interactions shape essentially the person you're talking to. Yeah.

Whether it's a guy who was on a foot patrol in Iraq who stepped on an ant and came to epiphany that there's no God or just, you know, there's mental associations that immediately just shape who they are today. And it's like you said, like Steven Ambrose is out here or was out there just writing like the script for Band of Brothers. Like, yeah, this badass, rough, tough company from World War II. But then it's like, what about the guy that was playing with the grasshopper? It's like, those are like the more genuine human stories that are usually more well received than a company of guys taking on the world. It's like, no, man, it's like, yeah, I mean, we could watch the war on TV all day, but then just reading and or listening to the stories is something else.

Yeah. And you know, you really come to a realization reading through my books and my Instagram that this could happen to any one of us. The majority of soldiers fighting in Ukraine right now on both sides were civilians 10 months ago. Some of them were taxi drivers. I've spoken to a guy who made rope for a living and they're living through these events that you can't even comprehend. And it's not like 13 hours or like Lone Survivor, you know, where like you have to be like a Navy SEAL

or Green Beret or something like cool guy, high speed person to like experience these things. It's literally normal people that these things are happening to. And I think that's what's the craziest thing of all is like, it could happen to any one of us. And it really kind of drives home that after speaking to as many people as I have from as many different conflicts is we're all vastly more alike than we are different. And I've spoken to like the Taliban as well. And it's just it's just crazy to see what makes people tick and how similar at the core we all really are. And And I'll quote Dan Carlin here, but it's to paraphrase and it's, how does it go?

It's sometimes the helpless victim and the evil henchmen are the same man. That's, I mean, what you're talking about is absolutely true where it's, there's a lot of people you can go into any kind of comment section and go, wow, these Russians and Ukrainians were probably playing on the same Call of Duty servers 10 months ago laughing with each other. Or those Americans that run into Russians in Syria, they have the same favorite adult film stars. It's like these guys are no different than we are. But yeah, it's just a flag in the end of the day. But yeah, it's just these crazy things.

One thing I do want to ask you about is when that Taiwan situation was really heating up, you threw out like a like a questionnaire of, hey, if anyone knows somebody in Taiwan hit me up, and then did you interview any Chinese soldiers or was it more like Americans and Taiwanese? like Americans and Taiwanese? So I did get my hands on a lot of Taiwanese soldiers and some Americans in the area and I did find one Chinese soldier. There was no way for me to confirm 100% that he was a Chinese soldier but I did speak, I believe that I did speak to one of them. He was like their equivalent of like a tank gunner, I guess is what I would call him. How did that go?

How did that entire interaction? It was very short. Because obviously when that whole thing was heating up, it was very fast-paced and everyone was moving very quickly. And from what, basically the gist I got from him was that he doesn't want anything to happen, but if something happens, he's going to do his job as best he can. And I guess, you know, that's as good of an answer as a soldier can give you. Yeah, exactly.

Have you ever identified like anomalies when it comes to, I guess, certain military groups or something like that, where you said you talked to the Taliban, Taiwanese, Americans, Brits, volunteers in Ukraine. Is it like a central theme for everybody or is there kind of like a, well, the Brits tend to kind of talk this way or the Ukrainians are more like tough-chinned in this kind of area. Is there kind of like a, I don't want to say like,

I don't know, stereotype's not even the right word, but it's like, do they, if you're talking to somebody, you go, yeah, I can, based on everyone else I've talked about, again, in Ukraine or something, it makes more sense. Yeah, Ukrainians are definitely more somber about the war in Ukraine. They, I think, I wouldn't say they take it more seriously because they're all facing the same risk, but I guess it's they understand the consequences a little more if they lose. For the vast majority of Western volunteers like Brits, Americans, Canadians, Australians, if Ukraine loses the war, like. Their homes aren't going to be the ones occupied by Russian soldiers.

For Ukrainians, though, on the other on the other hand, it's if they lose, like they lose their country. And it's very apparent to all of them. And I have not yet spoken to a Ukrainian soldier who doesn't believe in what they're doing. It's especially when I was talking to all the soldiers inside of Azobstal during the siege of Mariupol. That was for me one of the most humbling and sobering moments of my entire life. And so I was speaking to quite a few of the soldiers inside of the steel plant and they were basically all just willing to die. Most of them that I talked to, they had basically accepted that they were dead men, but they would prefer not to starve to death. And I remember people in the comments and stuff on Battles and Beers saying like, oh, they're soldiers,

they should be not trying to get out of there and like they should stand and fight to the last man. But there's a difference between standing and fighting and dying in combat and slowly starving to death and becoming so weak that you can't fight back. And just seeing how they almost, they went through the different stages of like accepting their own deaths and like up like like denial grief acceptance all that stuff and it was just it was crazy to see From the outside and now that a lot of them have been traded back I'm gonna go meet a lot of these guys in Ukraine and I am a Lot of them I consider to be personal heroes because they handled that situation better than I ever could have and I'm just so excited to see some of them and shake their

hands and look them in the eye and know that I'm in the presence of men greater than myself. I'm very excited for that. I spoke to Major an excellent. Yeah, I spoke to Major Bowden Krodovich. He was the chief of staff of the Azov regiment there. And I spoke to him quite a lot while he was inside there. And I know the burden of command weighed heavily upon him while he was in there. And he handled it better than any officer I ever saw in the Marine Corps. Really? Yeah, he's next level above and beyond. it better than any officer I ever saw in the Marine Corps. Um, really?

Yeah. He is next level above and beyond. And the fact that he's only, I think, 28, my age or 28, 29, like, and to be handed that responsibility, he wasn't the overall commander of the forces in there, but, um, just to have the level of responsibility that he did and to handle it the way that he did, I, it's just amazing. Yeah. Your upcoming trip to Ukraine is definitely going to be one of those that I'm going to follow and listen in and keep up to date with what you're doing. But I don't know if you've noticed while talking to these guys, or if you kind of like have a similar kind of, you follow the same guy through the whole war, but I'm sure that a lot of Russians in the early days of the war were very motivated and the Ukrainians were kind of like on the back

end, just kind of like degraded moral-wise or morale-wise. And then now it's completely reversed where the Russians are facing starvation, the Russians don't have any food, water. They're the ones who are scared because they're losing ground, but the Ukrainians are very excited. They're ready to go back and retake the entire country. Yeah, it's been it's been crazy to watch the war unfold because I had a feeling in November, November, December last year that the invasion would actually happen. So I started building a network of contacts in Ukraine.

So I started building a network of contacts in Ukraine. And I would argue that I was one of the first people in the world, in the Western world at least, to know that the war had, over the border, I was getting WhatsApp messages, telegram messages, signal messages, like it started, like it's happening. Oh yeah, you saw the picture of the Ukrainian border patrol guy turning around and it was like, that was the first picture of like, yeah, the war started because they were coming across the bridge from Crimea.

And I was definitely awake for that night. That was insane. Yeah, I was awake that entire, I must have been awake for 30 plus hours when the invasion started. And I remember thinking like, okay, a week from now, there's going to be the Russian flag flying above the capital of Ukraine. I did not anticipate the defense. I just know I don't think anyone could have predicted that the Ukrainian soldiers would be as steadfast in not letting the Russians take their country over. It was just incredible. Oh yeah, because my background is I was an analyst in the Marines. Like I air land, see the whole thing. I was across the entire Magdef and initially I had zero faith that the Ukrainians would

hold off the Russians for like a week. I was like, maybe a week max. I was like, Ukrainians don't have this. And I was like, Russia is going to win. But then the Ukrainians started slowing down the Russians and there was like the logistical supplies came into effect. And I was like, maybe the Russians won't win in seven days. Maybe it's going to be like a month or two.

And then I just went to, oh, Ukraine's probably going to win. But then I went back to the mindset of there's so many more Russians, Russians are probably going to win. Like it's not about if, but when it's a slugfest. And now I'm like, actually looking at the home front side of the Russians, they're not looking too hot. So I'm kind of like more back into the mindset of yeah, Ukraine's got the Russians, it's they're not looking too hot. So I'm kind of like Bormak more back into the mindset of yeah, Ukraine's got this, but it's kind of ebbs and flows. You can't really give an exact answer and have to stick by it because everything changes within minutes.

So yeah, like I said, I'm not a military analyst or strategist or a tactician or anything like that. I simply, I'm more of a carrier pigeon. So I pass messages from the soldiers to the rest of the world. But I do like to make guesses and speculations and stuff like that. And I remember thinking after the liberation of Erpen, North of Kiev. I remember thinking like, okay, this is similar to like 1943 for the Germans. It's like they are not going to win, but it's like, so the Russians are not going to win, but it depends like how much Ukrainian land they're going to hold after this. And I remember thinking like, okay, like Ukraine is going to win the war, but how much of Ukrainian territory is going to stay in Russian hands. And I was anticipating by now that, um,

the battle lines from a month, two months ago would still be the current lines and that it would slowly devolve into a form of like trench conflict that it was from 2015 to eight, nine months ago. And it's honestly crazy to see. It's like a game like that. It's impossible to call which side's going to win or not win, but like how it's going to end, you know, it's as if it's impossible to call which side's gonna win or not win, but like how it's gonna end, you know? It's as if the Game of Thrones writers all got together and decided to write a story about a war. It's just, it's like so impossible to predict

what's going to happen next. And from a historical standpoint, it's all terribly interesting, but me being a realist and a humanist, it's like, I know that all of these big crazy events are affecting people living through them in such tremendous ways. And it's, it's hard to comprehend. And so that's one of the reasons I am going to Ukraine. So I will be partnering with Chris from Project Leaflet. He's been a good ally of mine since the early days of this war. And then Atlas as well, the nonprofit, they are going to be

footing almost the entire bill for me to go to Ukraine. And so those are two good pages to follow and support and donate to. Because our goal over there is to speak to people in the rear areas, in the hospitals, in the clinics, in the training camps and at the front line as well. I'm going to be talking to as many of them as I possibly can. So you're going to fly in through probably Poland or something and then just kind of cross into land border or you got to try to get as close as you can before you have to get out and I guess get scooped up by a Toyota Helix or something. But who knows.

All right. When it comes to the details squared away, but I have received threats in the past, so I'm not really gonna chat about that until it's all done and over. Sounds good. Yep. Have you talked to a deserter who would have been part of that operation, but he had broken his leg several weeks prior to that. And then after the invasion had started, he just kind of walked away, if that makes sense. Like he literally just was in his cast and just walked off.

Really? I can't say where he is now, but he's gone. And he had family in Ukraine and in Russia. And so for him, it's like he couldn't morally participate in that. And he said that breaking his leg is what saved his life. He does feel bad about leaving, you know, like his comrades essentially to die because most of them did. But for him he morally couldn't participate in the invasion because he does have family in Ukraine and to him it seemed like a civil war and he didn't want any part of it.

It is really interesting talking to, because I talked to a lot of these guys in Eastern Europe, the Russians and the Ukrainians. And again, like, like you just said, it seems like a civil war to them. It's not so much a operation of reconquest or retaking the former Soviets. It's like a family dispute in a way. Yeah, I always have to be very careful with the terminology I use, because no matter what you do, you're upsetting one side or the other. Yeah. So to some people in Ukraine and Russia, it is a civil war, to others it is not. I would say the majority of Ukrainians

don't view this as a civil war. They just view it as themselves as a sovereign nation, which I agree with. And they are being invaded by another sovereign nation, which I would agree with. But then to a lot of Russians that I've spoken with, they see Ukrainian culture as an extension of their own. And they kind of eat the propaganda pie. There's a few Russians I've spoken to who are educated men. They spent time in the West. They've seen the real world, but they eat the propaganda pie and they believe like the Ukrainian government is just riddled full of Nazis. It's as if

like, like Hitler and his Reich never ended. It just moved to Ukraine. And they fully in their hearts believe that they're liberating these villages and towns and stuff like that. But you know, like anyone with two sets of eyes and a pair of ears knows that that's not the case. I don't doubt it's strange where. Yeah, I don't. It's kind of strange that even Ukraine, but definitely not the numbers that they're claiming. I met Nazis in the Marine Corps, like neo-Nazis are everywhere. Like you can't back, you can't justify an invasion based off of point two percent of a population. Especially the Russian government likes to reinforce Soviet history of, you know, we fight Nazis is what we did. The Great Patriotic war. But it's almost like the gloss over the fact that they were a part of Ukraine

30 years ago. And so it's like, all right, so based on that entire ideology, that entire model, there's also Nazis inside Russia, they're like, not a chance, not one. They're like, okay, but it's like, it's more of the younger guys that are that bought into that, because I'm not sure how dialed and you are and everything when it comes to the education system, but they can't question it. And it's, you got to push this whole rushes the savior rushes the runs the world kind of educational mentality. And it's yeah, definitely the younger guys. Well, not so much anymore. They're probably long gone. But it's more of the the youth that soaked up that propaganda. gone. But it's more of the youth that sucked up that propaganda. Yeah, and that's the thing, man, is everyone, everyone is susceptible to propaganda. I know I have been in the past, you know, I probably should have questioned more motives of like why we were even in Afghanistan when I was younger. But you know, I just chewed up the propaganda that these people are our enemies. And you know, I mean, no side is completely right and no side is completely wrong. That's what I always try to remind myself. Like no one is the

true good guy and no one is the true bad guy. There's always gray areas, especially when you need to consider people on an individual level. Are all Russian soldiers bad? No, they're let's let's be real. They're not are all Ukrainian soldiers good. No, like they're not It's just It's a very polarizing Event in world history and I would I would argue like in my lifetime at least it's probably the most significant geopolitical event to have happened It's just crazy to see how it's changed things and how people interact with each other.

I guess pivoting away from Ukraine a little bit, let's talk about a more interesting topic for a lot of people. Since you do interview a lot of soldiers, former soldiers, combatants, have you talked to anyone from ISIS or the entire Levant region? So I had basically cyber bullied a certain Middle Eastern government to giving me access to one of their prisoners of war. I never actually ended up getting it. I got handed different emails and phone numbers and I called and called and called them. And that's one of the things on my list when I'm done is to go back and continue cyber bullying

a certain Middle Eastern government to get my hands. I wish I could figure out which one. Yeah. But on top of that, what about someone like in Kurdistan where that's an incredibly polarizing topic where it doesn't matter who you talk to, someone has a strong opinion about it. And it's like, hey, they don't deserve to have their own country or they're good fighters,

but they're also terrorists. You know, one of those things. If you talk to anyone on that side of the house. No, that's another, so it's kind of difficult to break into these different communities because you kind of have to know someone who knows someone who knows someone to chat with them. And a lot of them are very closed circles. It's like, again, like circling back to like Russian soldiers and stuff. Like, they're very hesitant to talk to anyone who speaks English. And so that's it's the same way with a lot of different parts of the world, but I have interviewed a lot of people, but there's still like pretty large groups that I haven't managed to get inside of yet. So what's your next big push, your next crusade after Ukraine and everything? Like is there a, you know, Myanmar or something like that?

Or maybe the Frenchman that were fighting in Mali? author, Ilya, he helps run BNB with me. He does a lot of the interviews that need to be done over the phone for guys who don't speak English, because he speaks fluent Russian and Ukrainian. So whenever I have a high profile interview, I'm like, Hey, man, I need you to take care of this. And he does it. He's amazing. So he cannot join me on our current trip to Ukraine, but we have planned one in the future to embed with some Nigerian soft guys as they fight ISIS in their own era. And so sometime in the future, don't know when, we do plan to go to Nigeria.

We're going to bring our packs, bring our cameras and basically film like, hopefully like a Rastrepo style documentary of Nigerian soldiers and their fight against ISIS in their own war. So that's the next like, big project coming down the line after the Ukraine one. Interesting. I like how you mentioned Restrepo because I think that's when everyone thinks about documentaries from Afghanistan,

that's the big one that comes to mind. Have you made any documentaries before or would that be your first big one? That'll be old, Ukraine will maybe be... Ukraine, I'm not going in with any like really set mission. If that makes sense. I do plan to take pictures and record everything. When I'm done, I'll kind of sit down and see what footage and pictures and interviews I have and see what I can do with it. But by then, hopefully by the time we go to Nigeria, I'll have a lot more experience doing this

because everything I'm doing, I'm doing basically for the first time I'm learning. Like, it's just every single day I learn something new about like, like media production or like how to do interviews or networking, stuff like that. But yeah, I have not made a documentary before. But I guess it's coming down the future now. And it's weird because I accidentally basically fall into all of this stuff. Like I fell into independent war journalism. So would you want to go out and get your, I guess, journalist certification or something like that?

Because if you're doing interviews in a combat environment, would that classify as journalism or can you go there as a kind of like a bystander? Yeah, so the governments don't just let like people go places and film things on camera without like a media accreditation. And so to go to Ukraine, I actually had to fill out like a series of forms and submit pictures of myself and my passport

and all that stuff to get a media accreditation. And it's been a long process, but it's almost done. So we'll get that done. But yeah, sure. They don't like to fill in the front lines. You can't just be like a random person. Yeah, I'm sure they don't like guys that are like, I'm going to go take pictures. And then you immediately drop your camera and pick up an AK and become a fighter. They're like, we want to make sure no one's just showing up to be a pain. Have you ever talked to, I mean, French West Africa where the French government left and the colonies broke up, but then there's been this insurgency essentially since decolonization. Have you talked to any Frenchmen in like Mali or Niger, the Sahel G5 or anything like that? Yep. So I've spoken to quite a few French soldiers who have deployed to Mali and fought there. It's basically their Afghanistan. It's quite interesting talking to them. It's like a very low tempo conflict,

but like the stuff that does happen is pretty crazy. You can find some of their stories in my first book of the first volume of what war did to us on Amazon. And they're always French soldiers are, they're very interesting because they're very, they're very humble when it comes to speaking. I almost have to like, it's like I have to convince every single one that I find to speak with me. Whereas on the other hand, a lot of people now come to me to be interviewed, like, Hey, I've got a story about this place, that place, but most French soldiers, I have to actually seek out and like request that they speak with me. That's also something I've noticed

because I've definitely thrown out the big net, say if you know a French soldier who was in Mali, hit me up and I'm talking to two and they're very, if you ask them a question of what happened in Mali, they're like, I did my job. You're like, okay. Yeah, it's very short and to the point. I have to ask them like 60 times

to elaborate on a certain thing. But if you talk to an American volunteer in Ukraine, they're like, what do you want to know? So it's, or a YPG volunteer from, I don't know, Denmark or something, they're very much like, I went there to do XYZ, here's my goals, here's my mission, here's what I believe in. But also I think it might be cultural because the French are kind of reserved already.

And so, I guess going into post 9-11, they were not very excited about going to Afghanistan or Iraq again. So, and they went, oh, we're going to do our third way. We're going to go secure our interests in West Africa. And here they are several years later and they got replaced by the Russians so I'm pretty sure that's a topic they really don't like talking about so it's I just wanted to get your opinion on that one. Yeah it's all pretty interesting speaking with people from different places because you can it's um they all kind of speak in the same way, and they all kind of have like the same attitude about different conflicts and stuff like that. Like when I speak to like Iraqi soldiers and like stuff like that, they're all like extremely

like respectful and they speak of the dead with like a sort of reverence. And then you speak to like Americans and it's more of like a stereotypical, like cowboy Western shootout, like wars. Like an American pastimes sort of thing. It's very, it's very interesting to see how different people from different parts of the world treat war and all that stuff. Well, I did think was interesting is because I've been doing this for about a year now and the American military, most Western militaries are all volunteer based. But then there's a difference between the volunteer for the military and a volunteer to go to say Syria.

Most of them are, some are like former soldiers or servicemen, but most are like college kids or kids who graduated high school said, I can get in the military, might as well go fight with the YPG. It's almost like there's a different psyche between volunteering for your country and volunteering for a, you know, ragtag group you kind of believe in. So it's, and they definitely are more passionate when they go to say, Syria or something, but then Ukraine's a different situation where I know a lot of guys saw the war started, they're veterans, they're like, I have nothing going on. Guess I'm gonna go over and fight as soon as they're at the end of month one, they go, this is kind of boring, I wanna go home. So it's a different way of looking at everything.

Yeah, it's very interesting to, especially looking at Western, specifically American volunteers of like why they go to fight. I've spoken to the majority of them, of volunteers in Ukraine, and you get all sorts of answers you get answers, ranging from like I believe in the sovereignty and the independence of Ukraine and like Russia needs to be stopped all the way to war is fun and this is the best one going on right now. It's kind of crazy to see how different people, you know, again, treat war and their mindset and motivations behind it. Oh yeah, at that point, you're just a war tourist.

You're like, what's your resume, where you been? There's definitely a ton of war tourists and there's a lot of scammers out there as well. Ukraine has been horrible. It's filled with scammers, especially one Frenchman. I'll leave his name out of it, but he scammed hundreds of people and used all sorts of combat footage claiming it was his to raise money for his unit and then kept it all for himself. And then ran away to Monaco and rents Ferraris and stuff like that. And it's like real men are fighting and dying in the mud and you're just out here being a sex and war tourist and it drives me insane. The LARPers that show up and they took a picture, you know, in Poland in their fatigues that they bought at, you know, a military surplus store. They're like, yeah, man, I'm in the shit. I need some money to buy MREs in that. I've gotten plenty of messages like that where it's like, oh, like I need, can you share my GoFundMe?

And it's like, I asked for proof of their location and their unit and they can't provide it. It's like, well classified. You're like, it's like, well, okay. So is my, my sharing then like, yeah. Yeah that's a, those guys really, I mean, I've talked about, talked about this on the show before, but when the war in Ukraine started, it was almost completely obvious that so many people were going to take advantage of that.

It's not Aleppo and it's not Syria or Libya where a Western government can just kind of show up and pump their local companies in. Ukraine's different where you could just drive into there from Poland. where it's you could just drive into there from Poland. Yeah, Ukraine is a very accessible war. Basically, anyone can go and visit Ukraine still. It's not like, like, if you were going to volunteer like in Syria or Iraq or whatever to fight ISIS or the Turks or whatever, like where you kind of had to know someone and know someone you had to fly here to this obscure airport and then get picked up by a truck and like you can literally just walk across the border in Ukraine. Like there's plenty of different ways to get in there and to volunteer in one way or another.

I know plenty of guys who just like had no idea what they were doing when the war started. They just knew they wanted to fight for Ukraine. So they flew there and they were just literally just walking around cities until like someone in the military found them and were like, hey, you need to go like to this place to sign some paperwork and they'll give you a uniform

and a rifle. Yeah, they're like, they pointed at themselves and they do the trigger pulling motion. They're like, I would like to go. And they're like, okay. Yeah. I mean, that's like the early months of the war are honestly pretty crazy to think about that. That even happened because it was like, we were watching like, like a meme unfold in real life almost. Oh yeah. What'd they call that? The Reddit battalion where our Ukraine was like, we need volunteers. And then next thing they know they had 30,000 kids showing up and Lvov and everything. They're going, Oh, um, all right. You took this seriously. Okay.

Yeah, for real. What about, um, Belarus? Because everything I've seen from the Belarusian soldier is number one, they don't like the soldier is number one, they don't like the Russians. Number two, they don't want to go fight in Ukraine. But there's this big push that makes it seem like Lukashenko made a deal with Putin where they're going to send Belarusians into northern Ukraine.

Have you talked to those guys? I have spoken to one Belarusian soldier and then one Belarusian, I don't know what the word would be, like a, not a nurse, but like a step down, it's like a CNA or something, whatever worked at a hospital. And so the soldier is like, yeah, absolutely not. Like I do not want to fight in Ukraine. From what I understand is most, and I could be completely wrong here, but the ones I've spoken to are pretty like, anti-war in Ukraine and anti-Russian. But I guess their president is like buddy buddy with Putin.

And- Yeah, that goes way back, yeah. Yeah, and I guess, I don't know, I guess he's like, I don't know, like two inches away from getting overthrown or something. I don't know. I might be just be talking completely out of my ass right now, but I just remember hearing something about that. But yeah, from what I can tell is if Belarus does decide to participate in the war in Ukraine and reopen that northern front, one, it is not going to go well for them and two, the morale of the soldiers is, it'll be hard to find a Belarusian who believes in the cause. I remember in February,

because the Russians started rolling in, they were coming across from Belarus. Ukraine couldn't shoot into Belarus because that would be a declaration of war. And there was these interviews coming out from Belarusian soldiers saying Russians have been here for six months. They're alcoholics. They steal our stuff. They get in fights with us. They don't want to work with us. We don't want to work with them. The communication between the two is essentially a you know Russia looks down on anyone who's not Russian but that same family mindset. But they're like, yeah, you're Belarusian, so whatever's yours is mine and you can't touch me and I'm in charge here. And they painted the Russians as the bullies, which is like, yeah, sure. I mean, they walked into the country and said, buckle up. But from the ones I've seen, the interviews I've seen, they're very much not for the war.

And I have seen a lot of Belarusians volunteer to fight in Ukraine. I want to say that it's a... Is it a company level, maybe a regiment level, or battalion maybe? But there's a bunch of Belarusians who were defectors from the military, went to Ukraine to fight the Russians. Yeah, I think it might be like a battalion worth the Belarussians who joined a fight in Ukraine. I know a lot of Poles are there and a lot of Georgians especially.

Viking, I don't know if you're familiar with him on my Instagram, but he's Georgian and I would consider him a good friend now and he's one person I'm very excited to see when I get to Ukraine. Yeah, he's a representative of the rest of the Georgians fighting for Ukraine. They're pretty good soldiers. Yeah, that Georgian Legion kind of took the world by storm when they went either, a, if our government let us up in the second front for the Russians, guess we're going to go right into Ukraine. So it's honestly remarkable how they got there because Turkey doesn't like them, number one. And number two, the entire Black Sea is owned by the Russians.

So they had to take a long way to get into, you know, essentially go to Greece and then take a cab to Romania, then into Odessa. But it's, you know, Georgians have really done a good job. Yeah, they have. It's crazy to see like the international support for Ukraine. And it's not even so much like for some of them, it's like defending Ukraine. It's just, this is an opportunity to hurt Russia. And like, so a lot of Georgians, uh, volunteered because they remember their own war in 2008 with the Russians. And then I've spoken to a lot of polls as well. And we all know, if you know anything about history, you know, the relationship between Poland and Russia is not, not a good one. So I know a lot of polls who, um,

are volunteering to fight in Ukraine for the simple fact of it's an opportunity to hit back finally. Oh yeah, just honestly kick them while they're down, get your little morale boost. But what about Armenia? Are you going to head out that way at anytime soon if you talk to anyone there? Because that conflict keeps going. Yeah, that is another conflict. We've got some ends for the war there.

By ends, I mean contacts on the ground who could help us out for embedding. Some big stuff is in the works there in the future. And I'll just leave it as that. Gotcha. Yeah, that's definitely one of those topics where it's kind of a controversial statement to say that the greatest period it was to be Armenian was under the Soviet Union. But ever since that wall came down, this guy's been battling with the Azerbaijanis

almost every single day. And now that the Russians are kind of out at it, this paper tiger, like Azerbaijan's not holding back. So it's, and that's another one of those topics that, you know, everyone kind of has an opinion on based, it's usually religion based or whatever, something like that. But that's definitely another topic where no one talks about it, but everyone has an opinion on it. Yeah. And that's the thing is everyone's got an opinion and whoever sort of believes whatever they believe now, it's like their mind is not going to be changed. Regardless of how much you tell people to read or, you know, write a deep, long analytical

post on Instagram. It's like, I mean, they're going to read it and then kind of fight people in the comments. So yeah, you know, and so that's sort of why one of the reasons I do what I do is to give people perspective. Like this is what it's like to be on the other side of things, you know, and like, I can tell like some people get upset that I share Russian stories and, but I don't really care, you know, like it's, they are one half of this conflict. And it's important that their stories are told as well. Um, people can call it propaganda. They can, I've been accused of like sitting down and just literally writing these by myself, like I'm Stephen King or something. Um, that's funny. Oh man. Yeah, I wish. Um, but, um, you know, I kind of lost my train of thought here, but

I'm not a problem, man. Yeah, it's interesting to just see the different perspectives out there and like why people do what they do. And at the end of the day, I think it's just a lot of people just don't want to admit that the other side is a lot more like them and they're willing to admit. Well, yeah, I mean, you and I were both in the military and it's one of those where you're in boot camp or something like that and you're told that Arab is the enemy, you know, the military is supposed to work in one direction, not sit and ponder. But it's, I remember even earlier in the war where it was really cool to post videos of Russian columns of tanks getting blown up. But if you posted one about Ukrainians, they were like, you're Putin's shill. You believe that all Ukrainians should die. And I was like, that's not even what I, I'm a news page man. I try my hardest to be as unbiased in the middle as I can.

At least when it comes to reporting, I've got my own beliefs, you know, that I believe in. But I think it's just important to stay, especially like anything in the media, like you need to stay unbiased and just willing to report and hear both sides. And that's not just for every war. Like I've spoken to a lot of German soldiers and stuff like that. And one Japanese soldier.

And then, you know, some of them, it's just amazing to hear their perspectives because we've only heard our side. You know, like we've seen Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, all that stuff. But like, I can't think of any movies or anything like that from like the German or the Japanese perspective. There's actually a show and it's usually pitched as the German Band of Brothers. Oh, yeah. Generation's called Generation War. Yeah, I mean, there's the 1993 movie Stalingrad, which was made by the Germans, which is phenomenal film. But yeah, it's one of those where it's, I mean, yeah, it's really cool. But one,

most people don't want to read subtitles. And number two, like, well, why would I watch anything about the losers? So yeah. And that's, yeah, that's bad. It's a bad way to think. In a lot of the cases, I think the learning from the other perspective is more interesting, at least to me personally, because it's like my whole life, you've only heard from like, one side, you know, and I think that goes for like different jobs in the military too. Like, can you name like one movie in the last 20 years about the GWOT that doesn't, that isn't like focused about like Navy SEALs

or green berets or something like that? Or locker maybe. It's an EOD. It's EOD, yeah, it's a specific. I can't think of one movie about your average rifleman. And I think that's- You're trying to think right now. Yeah.

I think that's a big appeal to my page is it's literally just the average guys. The guys who are literally living through the war. It's not like they're showing up for a week or two running cool ops and then taking off. It's like they're literally living in it. And that's what I try to show people is the perspective of just normal people. Yeah. Especially, I'm sure you have a very large veteran following where it's not the gung-ho, Richard know, Richard Bricostein himself, you know, assaulting a ridge on his own. It's a platoon of guys with one single MRE and they're told to hold on for a few days and they're, I don't know, writing poetry or something like that. Or some guys cracking the most offensive jokes you can think of. You're like, that's actually what happens.

That is what it's like to be in the military in a combat zone. It's not, the whole war is not in your face 24 seven. It's there might be a firefight every 72 hours maybe. But yeah, you know, and I, and I love doing this. It's like, for me, I say all the time, it's like, I hold so many of these, like if I hold so many of these guys, like on a, like a higher level, like just for enduring these things. And it's like, I get to meet 10 different versions of Tom Brady every single day is the way I describe it. It's like, I like almost idolize every single person

that I talk to. And it's just crazy getting to like hear their stories and like the reach that I have sometimes is crazy. Like there's this new viral video of a Ukrainian tank driver. He's on a tank and he's behind the Dishka. They're driving down this road and then like two Russian trucks like drive right past them. And like artillery is like smacking the road and you see Ukrainian soldiers off to the right and then a Russian sniper takes a shot at the guy on the tank. And it's like today, just before we started this podcast, I was messaging that tank driver back and forth about like his experience.

And it's just like really to get like insider information behind like a lot of viral videos and stuff, like what it was like and like what actually happened is just crazy. Like the the the Yuri guy on the 50 cal and the Humvee where he was yelling for ammo and they passed him two AT-4s. Like I talked to him and I got his perspective of those events and it's just like... What do I do with this? They have no ammo. Like there's no missile to go with it but... Yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's just crazy like getting the opportunity to like speak to all of these people and it's very fulfilling it's just so much fun for me. It's almost, yeah, fulfilling is a good word to put it because it's not so much you're doing this to make money you're just you're like this need stories need like this need to be told it's again

it's you know Stephen Ambrose can write this bestseller all day and leave out the nitty-gritty but it's this cool ass viral video that everyone probably saw for, I don't know, a week. You're like, well, I actually talked to this guy who was sitting behind a disheka and it's, I'm not even, I'll probably ask you offline about how you even contact these people, but that's just, have you ever talked

to the filthy American, Chase Baeger? Oh yeah, he's one of the guys helping me get my press accreditation. Yeah, he's he's great I think he's great. He's a great dude. I've actually got a thank you Like written for him in the back of my book, but really yep. Yep. He's one of my I guess He's one of my like real-life personal heroes. I saw Footage of him in the Donbass and I was like, you know what? That's journalism. I wanna do that.

And he's one of the reasons they really put a fire under my ass to get out of my living room and go to Ukraine to document these stories for myself. But yeah, he's an awesome dude. I owe him a lot. He's given me a lot of advice. He's good people.

He's absolutely. I met up with him a few times and he's a really cool guy. But the funny story I think he told me was, I don't know if you remember this video, it was like a Ukrainian TikTok influencer who stole a BTR and gave a video demonstration of how to drive it and everything. And she found him and she started texting him. She's like, when you come to Ukraine, hit me up. And he went, is this real life? Like this girl I saw on TikTok about how to steal and use Russian military vehicles is like, meet up. It's just crazy. Because the world's so small these days. It's not, you know, I mean, you've seen the trailer

probably for that new all quiet in the Western front movie. It's all in German and everything. I'm very excited for that. But I am so far removed from today where you didn't know BDA until days, maybe weeks later. But now, you know, instantly that a Russian column was ambushed. It's, it's crazy, especially something like telegram or anything. It's the world is so small. And you bring up a good point, like how technology has changed war. And it's like when I was speaking to the guys in Azob Stall, like it was fucking crazy that like they were literally living the Stalingrad experience. Like worst case scenarios of things that happen to you when you get surrounded by an enemy,

these guys were living through. And it was like, I'm literally- Remember we had a bingo sheet lined out? Yeah. Oh yeah. Hit it. I'm literally sitting there texting and calling them, like while they are enduring this. And it was like, I remember reading like tons of books about like the German army in Stalingrad.

And I was like, what were they feeling and like thinking about while they were surrounded, you know, and it's like now like, part of that desire of mine has been answered speaking to these as of Stahl guys. And it's because because of technology. Like I was privy to information and pictures and videos that like no one else has seen, but like I got to see because of technology. And you know, and I, one of the most important things I think I've ever done is for me at least documenting the last words of a lot of these guys. One in particular, his name is Anton Krill. He was a Ukrainian soldier in the Azov regiment in Mariupol. And I had befriended him on the internet, we had spoken on Instagram. And then during the battle, I was interviewing him. And, you know, he'd give me stories about different

things that happened. He would describe these like incredibly scary or incredibly brave things that he witnessed and participated in. And I remember on the last day of me interviewing him, I asked him what he wanted to do when the war was done. And he said that we have done everything possible and impossible. And that when he leaves, he wants to marry his girlfriend. And he was killed by a drone later that same day.

And the sorry. And me being able to document his last words to the outside is very important for me. I think about him a lot and I'm planning to his brother as well, Bogdan. He also fought in Mariupol but was wounded and he was evacuated before the encirclement. And so when I go to Ukraine, I'm going to find Bogdan on the front and I'm going to shake his hand. Really good. That'd be very emotional. Yeah. It's a remarkable story. He's got some beautiful art in my book. So in my book, there's different artwork done by an amazing artist. And on page 273 is the artwork done by Mr. Alves for Anton. Yeah, I think about him a lot.

And it's weird because like I've never met this guy or anything like that, but he played such a big role in why I continue doing this. And yeah, I just think about Anton a lot. It's not something that I can verbalize why I do or like why I get so emotional talking about him. But yeah, it's just one of those things about this job that's like, I can't explain, but it just means so much to me.

Yeah, there have been a few, and almost a similar situation where on the Kiersen front, I talked to like a Western volunteer and they're feeding me like the Russians are using mustard grass. Russians are using this, they're doing that. This is what's going on. And he goes radio silent for two weeks and you're like, I really hope this guy's okay because he literally just told me where he was at. But it's, yeah, I mean, going back to the technology bit,

it's Instagram is the entire reason Cossack Gandhi is still alive. It's if he did not have, if he did not have that account, him, Sean, everyone else, they'd be gone way long gone. So he was my first contact in Ukraine was the entire world. I into it. Yep. I remember as it was funny. I was speaking to Aidan's mom literally three days before he got surprise released. And I was talking to his mom and I was like, you know, how great would it be like, if he just like magically came home,

you know, and then like three days later, I, my phone is exploding at work and all these people are messaging me. They're like, get on, get on Instagram right now. Aiden's free. And I'm like, what? Like, there's no way. Like it just let him go. And I saw pictures and videos of him landing in Turkey and all this stuff.

And I had messages from his mom saying like, Oh my God, like he's, he's free. Like he's coming home and it's, oh, that's crazy. Uh, I'm again, I've never met Aiden in person, but he's one of those people in the coming weeks. I'm going to hopefully shake hands with because he played such a huge influence on battles and beers in my life up until now. And it's again, like another personal hero of mine. Well, yeah, his last, I don't remember who made it, who recorded it, who he talked to, but there was a phone call interview with like Aidan

and somebody else where they went, hey man, I'm gonna be a journalist in Ukraine soon. He went, that's cool. He was like, what are you up to? He's like, the Russians are looking for me. And he was like, yep, okay. I don't remember where I saw that, but he was like, Yeah, I'm definitely going to get captured here soon.

So I hope you have a good time in Ukraine. It was indicated, you know, it's technology. We could see these things. It's conversation never would have happened. The world never would have seen it. He'd probably be dead if we didn't have these things. Yeah, technology definitely kept Aidan alive. And it's again, it's like a crazy thing that we even can communicate with them. Like Aidan's last message to the outside world. I've got it right

here in my book. It's been 48 days. We tried our best to defend Mariupol, but we have no choice but to surrender to Russian forces. We have no food and no ammunition. It's been a pleasure everyone. I hope this war ends soon." That was on April 12th. And it's like the fact that he was able to communicate that to the outside world. It's, oh my God, it's crazy. Like technology, they've changed information. It's nuts. And it's like the fact that like, changed information. It's nuts. And it's like the fact that like, and it's just like a cool example of this on the, uh, Harkev front. So I interviewed a Russian soldier not too long ago,

and he described, uh, an ambush on the very first day of the invasion. So it's nighttime. He described an ambush, uh, in which they kind of got fucked up a little bit. And then a couple of weeks later, I spoke to a Ukrainian soldier in the same sector of the front on the same day, who described an ambush exactly the same. And that's like, how many other like, like, I think I just just like documented both sides sides of a small engagement in this war. And it's like, I did it all through Instagram. And it's definitely, you know, here in five, six years, it'll be a Wikipedia article of, you know, the first offensive, whatever, first day of the operation, blah, blah, blah.

But it's, your books are definitely going to be used for something like that. History recounts of the war in Ukraine essentially. Yeah, I hope so. You get this huge following, you've absolutely killed it. And one of the last things I want to touch on in Mariopole is, all the videos that came out of it was just soldiers laughing and blowing stuff up. Because what else do you do in a situation like that? You just make fun of it. You laugh. You, I mean, what is the term? Embrace the suck.

You're like, wow, this is terrible. This is hilarious. It's like, what are you going to do? Be somber. You can't afford to do that. Yeah. And it's the psychology of like warfare. I think it is what really draws people in and me too. It's like, how can it's like like how does this event make people feel? like how can you endure and live through these horrible things and do these things and Still find joy in the world or like does it suck all the joy out and you know, it affects everyone differently

and I think it's the psychology of all the joy out and, you know, it affects everyone differently. And I think it's the psychology of the after effects of these things is that, is that people are so interested in it's like, how many times have you sat down and like, not so much like fantasize, but like wondered like what it was like to be the first wave at Omaha beach when the ramps dropped, like, what would it have been like, like, what was the five minutes prior to that? What did it feel like? would it have been like? Like what was the five minutes prior to that? What did it feel like? And it's like, I think that is what keeps me doing what I'm doing is I'm not just capturing like their stories,

but I'm like capturing like the human emotion and the feeling that goes with these events, like what it's like to live through them or what it's like to not live through them. You know, it's, it's just all terribly interesting stuff to get down on paper. That's almost like when a crime happens and a police officer comes up and gets the eyewitnesses detail it's they can describe everything. And so even if it happened a couple days ago, it's the way,

because I read your stuff, it's like the way they relay their information is it's like the grass was this green, you know, it was kind of chilly outside, it smelled like this, just crazy thing. The attention to detail is so dialed in that that's the human aspect of why people essentially are very drawn into, with the beauty of war, I don't know if that's the right term, but it's, yeah, that just adrenaline in the back of your mind while watching Save and Private Ryan, you could watch that all day,

but then you think, wow, what if I was there? That's- Mm-hmm, and that's another thing. It's like why I enjoy film and movies so much is I always think like, what would I do? You know, like how would, how would I survive this situation sort of thing? And the stories help kind of paint that picture of what it is do? But then you really don't know what you would do because you've never been in the situation. So it's, and then all you can do is fantasize and, you know, maybe talking about the, the psychological, the psychological toll of, you know, being a combat veteran or whatever, where it's like, you're really wound up. And so a lot of guys get out and join Merck groups and just travel the world so they don't have to address it, you know, that's really a topic no one talks about, but you have groups like Mozart Group or all these other mercenary groups that kind of funnel in through Africa and Ukraine and all these crazy places. Most of them are veterans that really don't want to address their own issues. And that's another topic, like I said, that no one really

likes to address. Oh yeah, I agree with you 100%. But yeah, man, we're getting to about the cutoff time, but I really appreciate you coming on. I'll turn it over to you for a minute to plug your books, everything, all your projects. Yeah, you can get both of my books on Amazon. The links are available on the link tree either on my personal Instagram which is NicklaytheLaw or on the Battles and Beers one. You can get What War Did to Us volume one and two on there. And again, in the link tree there's another Shopify account where there's a merch and stuff for B&B.

But the big thing right now I'd ask is for support with Atlas Global Strategies. And just continuing to fund their projects because it helps me as well in the long run. Yeah, man, I had a lot of fun on your show. Absolutely. This was a really engaging conversation. Nick, I really appreciate you coming on. Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So Thanks for watching!