Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 102 - The Crippled Eagles of Rhodesia

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

The Crippled Eagles were a collection of American Neo nazis, white nationalists, and fascists who flooded the colony of Rhodesia to defend white nationalism. They failed hilariously. This is the story... of how they failed and died. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://taskandpurpose.com/history/vets-want-fight-isis-can-learn-something-old-fights-african-bush https://ricochet.media/en/2394/meet-the-canadian-soldiers-behind-a-white-supremacist-military-surplus-store The Nation. Volume 222. New York: The Nation Company. 1976.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/magazine/rhodesia-zimbabwe-white-supremacists.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/01/03/soldier-of-fortune-marketing-for-mercenaries/475aac8b-ddce-4878-b732-77111bb70b67/ https://www.transcend.org/tms/2011/09/the-dark-side-of-soldier-of-fortune-magazine-contract-killers-and-mercenaries-for-hire/ https://www.maxim.com/maxim-man/soldier-of-fortune-magazine-2016-02

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the
Starting point is 00:00:34 Legion of the Old Led by Donkey podcast. I'm Joe and with me today, as always, most of the time, special guest, special guest on his own podcast, Nick. Nick, how you doing with this whole lockdown situation? You know, I wish some of the activities were open. You don't feel like, I don't know, protesting because you can't go to Applebee's or whatever? No, I don't even go out. It's more of hiking, I guess I can see that.
Starting point is 00:01:24 But, you know, whatever yeah i don't mind there i don't have any hobbies that like i legitimately risk my life to do right uh i don't know maybe i'm just spoiled when i say that because i have a pretty decently equipped garage gym i was hurting for a little bit and i don't know i work from my house anyway so really don't fucking care um honestly the only thing i'm really happy about is a pandemic makes my already shut-in lifestyle socially acceptable, which is nice. Yeah. So, Nick, I brought you on the show today, and I gave you a little warning as our podcast reenactor representative or outreach coordinator, if i was to give you a really bad official title now we're talking about rhodesia yeah now in your community former community uh
Starting point is 00:02:13 the community that i force you to represent on occasion you're familiar with rhodesia and the people it attracts people have a weird obsession with it. I mean, you're... I'm going to say most green actors are white guys. Yeah. Like, not stretched there. Have you ever seen any black guys play Rhodesia? No. I would imagine not.
Starting point is 00:02:34 And we are going to... Mexicans. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me too much. Just because, like you said before, you knew a Mexican guy who dressed up as the Waffen SS. I was going to say maybe the first thing that comes to my mind, and it's pretty new,
Starting point is 00:02:56 is just white dudes in booty shorts carrying baby shit green FNFALs. I think that's what their obsession is. That's all I saw with it. Is the aesthetic. I think that's what their obsession is. That's all I saw with it. Is the aesthetic? I think that's what theirs may have been. I never dove deep into it. I'm glad that you brought that up
Starting point is 00:03:13 because we will talk about why that aesthetic is kind of fucking dangerous. Because my buddy wears those shorts on the reg. And, you know, it's good that you bring that up because, like we're kind of talking about now is there's a huge reenactment circle jerk on Rhodesia. Like if you Google it and like image search it, this is because there wasn't free press in Rhodesia. But like 99% of the pictures that pop up are reenactors. Really?
Starting point is 00:03:41 Not pictures from the actual Bush War which is you know what their world was called uh it's just reenactors skulking around their local woods pretending that they're taking part in a race war um now i may be kind of the i guess if i was to call anyone on the show i just saw myself i used to take pictures oh yeah doing race war for the gram. Oh, not that part. No, I guess I'm the resident historian here. If I was to give myself a title, that's a bit of a better than mine. It's a bit of a better than it's a bit of a rich title. I don't deserve.
Starting point is 00:04:16 But my knowledge of Rhodesia, I would have to admit, is pretty limited. Even though most of what I studied in European history was colonialism, Rhodesia is not really talked about, mostly because I think people like to forget that it ever existed because it died. But I mean, what my whole knowledge of Rhodesia pretty much boiled down to like there are more racist version of South Africa kind of, but without the international support. kind of, but without the international support. And since most of my education focused around French, I didn't look too far into it. And also, how was I supposed to know I was ever going to host the podcast that made it over 100 episodes?
Starting point is 00:04:58 And that's pretty much where my knowledge in Rhodesia stayed until June 17th, 2015, when a racist dipshit terrorist named Dylan Roof murdered nine people in a church in an attempt to start a race war. He had the Rhodesian flag, along with that of apartheid South Africa on his jacket, and he posted in his manifesto on a website that he owned that was titled The Last Rhodesian. Now, since then, my research has whined a bit. I fell into a pit of insanity on the Internet where people that have no connection to Rhodesia pine for the glory days of the openly white nationalist state, pointing at the horrific corruption of modern day Zimbabwe, formerly led by Robert Mugabe, who is a huge piece of shit. But yeah, saying things like, well if rhodesia had won none of this would be happening or say what you will about the politics
Starting point is 00:05:52 of rhodesia but at least it was stable you get that shit all the time oh yeah you i mean you get it more with uh apartheid south africa um like you know say what you will about the politics but murder rate was lower like yeah but what about all the racism? What about like the literal ethno state that you ran? You hear that on particularly dark corners of the internet about Rhodesia, because it's weird that most people have accepted like Rhodesia's like on the mainstream level was bad,
Starting point is 00:06:23 but like they're willing to give way on stuff like this. A lot of this is lost causism. Now, when Americans generally attach the idea of a lost cause, we attach it to our own racist war against the Confederate South.
Starting point is 00:06:40 In Confederates, they chalk the lost causism up to state rights and the right to rebel against what they saw as a tyrannical government, rather than it was a slave masters revolt. In Rhodesia, it is a sense of people championing anti-communism, declaring white Rhodesians as a liberty-loving Western bastion in the middle of a communist uprising led by native Africans. And that is a sentiment that worked pretty well in the sixties and seventies. I mean, it is the global war on terror of its day. Like everything is fine here because we're fighting communism.
Starting point is 00:07:14 It's like how a lot of people are willing to overlook the awful countries that we support because they quote unquote, help us fight terrorism. What up Saudi Arabia? And it's also this is the same time where people legitimately thought the domino theory of the southeast asian countries falling to communism was a real threat so like it's schrodinger's capital it's like schrodinger's communists right like they're sandal-footed inbred savages but also they're
Starting point is 00:07:44 going to take over the world. Like, it's really fucking stupid. But that's kind of what you get whenever you attach it's a dog whistle to avoid racism. We talked about in our British Free Corps episode what all those hardline anti-communists have in common. They were fucking fascists.
Starting point is 00:08:02 The thing is, Rhodesia legitimately was fighting communists, but they were mostly just fighting African nationalists who wanted to kick out the white people for taking over their country. Those communist bastards. Now, some of the main groups were communists, but also a lot of them were not, because they were the only game in town.
Starting point is 00:08:21 Now, there was a lot of infighting between these groups, but most of their fighting was directed towards the rhodesians who is the term i will use for the white people uh they were you know they were banding together to liberate their uh what is generally their native land from a white minority government that had moved in and took over not even 100 years before like rhodesia was very new when rhodesia was a thing right um and people think of white minority governments africa they generally think of south africa but and you wouldn't be wrong for doing so and they met it's mostly because they managed to hold on to power for much much longer
Starting point is 00:08:57 and i would argue were much more successful being gigantic pieces of shit uh rhodesia was uh was a spark it burnt out real real fast i definitely fall into that for sure yeah most people do uh i don't know why uh but admittedly i mean south africa existed up until the point where uh an ethno state was like outrageous to everyone when rhodesia died at a time where a lot of white people were like, well, why not? But when Rhodesia broke off from the United Kingdom in the 1960s, white people of the country made up less than 5% of its total
Starting point is 00:09:34 population. I believe South Africa is like 8%. Immediately after they declared unilateral independence, they were in a war against various groups of Africans that had once been political groups within the state. But as soon...
Starting point is 00:09:49 Now, Rhodesia was pretty much a police state. There wasn't a whole lot of freedoms, even though they were technically a colony and then had a little bit more independence. Even for someone that's marginally controlled by the UK, they were allowed to govern themselves in the worst way possible. But as soon as they unilaterally declared independence,
Starting point is 00:10:10 they're like, yeah, all those political parties that kind of was allowed to exist, you're all going to prison now. Holy shit. And to be fair, they weren't really allowed to be political parties because to call yourself a political party, hypothetically, people are going to vote for you, right?
Starting point is 00:10:24 Right. Yeah, we'll get to that part. Okay. So the Rhodesian government was led by the fascist Rhodesian Front. As you can imagine, pretty much anything
Starting point is 00:10:32 called a front in a political party says, not good. Not good. It was led by a twat named Ian Smith. Sounds like one.
Starting point is 00:10:41 Yeah. No good Ians. No. Actually, that's probably not true. I don't even know a probably not true i don't know a good ian i don't know a ian do you no i do not we need yeah i don't know any neither we need some ian representation is what we need uh the greater ian union uh now ian smith had a problem i a n ian yeah yeah okay yeah yeah i guess you could consider my last name an Ian, or most Armenians for that matter.
Starting point is 00:11:06 I don't know. He had a bit of a problem. The white people were outnumbered about 18 to 1. And seeing how they saw black people as literally subhuman and not able to govern themselves, that's going to become an issue. So that's when he began to offer land and positions of importance to white immigrants that would move to Rhodesia.
Starting point is 00:11:24 And it worked. About half of the population by 1970 had been white people had moved there since 1965, eventually bringing their population around 220,000 people. That's it. That's less than the population of Iceland. Jesus. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:39 And why were white people moving there by the thousands? Well, racism mostly. black people in rhodesia literally had no rights white and black would be were to be completely separate unless a black person was employed by a white person black people could not go into white cities unless they literally had a permission slip like i know when i talk about race segregation you're like oh like america kind of but if everybody that was involved in the bullshit separate but equal thing like literally uh didn't even care about keeping
Starting point is 00:12:12 a mask on of equality which it was not like i need to point that out too a separate equals a sham uh but like and rodigio's like separate but also fuck them like it was real bad. Those are the hall monitors you would hate. Yeah. Black cities were, I would consider, akin to South African townships, if you're not familiar with those. It was, they were like, well, see, we don't believe in race mixing, so we're going to give you your own area to run. Black people are going to run it. You're going to be in charge of yourselves. Well, the thing is, they're still part ofhodesia technically uh even though they tried to literally
Starting point is 00:12:48 make them independent right so they had they could they couldn't even be like well there are people uh which is what like south africa did in the bantu stands and they're like well you're your own kingdom now figure it out black people and like we don't have any running water uh well that's pretty much what the white people in rhodesia did as well uh they were abandoned by the government to become crowded slums with no state-funded schools running water electricity or sewage and no means in order to correct that problem themselves even though the government's like well you control yourselves so you guys have your own we have our own yeah yes understand. We control literally the entire economy. But like, you're independent.
Starting point is 00:13:28 The best situation a black person could possibly hope for in white Rhodesia was to become a white family's live-in servant. They would be afforded a shack to live in where their whole family would be allowed to live in, in the white people's backyard. It would be little more than a hut in the fields behind the white person's house. The room, board, and food would be paid for along with their families. Assuming they did not piss off their masters, who are very likely simply to murder or maim them with little repercussion of the state,
Starting point is 00:13:55 it was the best life they could hope for. And they were not paid. There's a lot of lose-lose here. Yeah, they were absolutely not paid. They were sharecroppers yeah and uh which is slavery with extra steps yeah uh like hypothetically you could quit but they could just kill you and get away with it sounds awful it yeah uh it was almost the same as sharecropping but worse uh which is saying something because sharecropping is
Starting point is 00:14:25 fucking terrible it was quite literally slave adjacent it was as close they could get to owning slaves without going through the the problematic paperwork of literally owning them as property they leveled up they went in hard uh and it's there was a uh an account i had it in the script and then i cut it out because what this so this did start out as the history of rhodesia and as you can imagine that was a real motherfucker to do and then i realized i didn't want to give rhodesia that much attention so i quickly cut it down to the subject we're talking about today uh but there was a guy who um his slave was sorry his worker or as the texas history books call them migrant workers uh shot in texas one per episode um were he was late for work so uh the the owner like beat the dog shit out of him and like he
Starting point is 00:15:24 went back to work and then left the next day the next day he was late for work so the owner like beat the dog shit out of him and like he went back to work and then left the next day the next day he was late for work so the owner killed him oh yeah uh he was arrested uh tried and found innocent uh because he cannot kill his own property which i remind you he was not legally property like slavery was technically illegal in rhodesia but like it the, the jury was all white people because black people couldn't be on juries. And so they're like, well, he's not really my property, but come on! And the jury's like, yeah, good point.
Starting point is 00:15:53 The defense is literally like, come on! I'm white! Which is actually most white people's defense in America in 2020. Now, they didn't stop right-wing America from openly supporting and championing the Rhodesian cause. If you're thinking that America was going to escape this episode,
Starting point is 00:16:10 you're very, very wrong. William F. Buckley is a very, very well known journalist. And a lot of people who are listening probably like that sounds familiar. He helped organize a propaganda campaign called friends of Rhodesian independence and pumped out everything from think pieces to bumper stickers, which is entirely bankrolled by the Rhodesian government.
Starting point is 00:16:30 Despite the fact that Rhodesia had sanctions in place, making trading with them illegal. This is an open secret and was known at the time, but America's like, eh, you guys are kind of cool. Yeah. Rhodesian government straight up hired an American PR firm to do propaganda for them. Make our bumper stickers. It was probably McKinsey. Now, there was also the American Rhodesian Association, which just helped Americans move to Rhodesia. And guys thought 1960s America was not racist enough for them.
Starting point is 00:16:59 This was also illegal, but nobody cared because... Come on. Racism. This is also illegal, but nobody cared because racism. Now, admittedly, if there was like, like there's this thing called Galt's Gulch not that long ago where a whole bunch of stupid techno libertarians were going to go buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. And all the libertarians were going to go move out there and like kind of start a commune. But they couldn't call it a commune because that's communist. But they're going to start their own like uh capitalist paradise right i support that because they bought that land sure it's theirs and they're all gonna go there and just probably die of diphtheria or something um this i'm like
Starting point is 00:17:36 well we're getting rid of all the worst races possible in america but then the black people in rodigia have to deal with them. Now I'm conflicted. Like, just don't let them go. Like, you know what? If you're that racist, we'll buy you a plot of light and say, let's call it Florida.
Starting point is 00:17:51 And we'll just send you there. You spend your last days there. Like all rich white Midwesterners just moved to Florida. And they kind of, this PR firm knew what they were doing. It would have probably been safe for them just to lean into the anti-communist angle like i talked about but they didn't even bother saying like uh uh so their their tagline was literally quote black nationalists want to destroy the power and privileges of the white man straight up up. That's what they said. Wow. And like a lot of people
Starting point is 00:18:25 listen to that like, we can't stand for that. And they fucking move there. I mean, to be fair, that sentence, I totally support it. Black nationalists should destroy white privilege,
Starting point is 00:18:36 especially in Africa. But like, like that, that tagline that was white people like, they galvanized them to go like, we must defend these races that we don't know. It's like, you can't ask this class of people to have solidarity for
Starting point is 00:18:49 anybody except other pieces of shit this message was taken and ran with by such groups as the liberty lobby which is founded by a guy named willis carto now willis carto is a guy we talked about in our holocaust denial episode because he's a holocaust denier and think jews are pretty much the like the gene seed of evil in the human race uh and also the john birch society which uh alex jones is a huge fan of i've definitely heard of him oh god yeah now these groups went so far as to support presidential candidates in america uh like to include spending money on them which which again, illegal. Foreign organizations cannot spend money on American politics. Nobody cared.
Starting point is 00:19:30 Of course, the person they decided to support was noted segregationist George Wallace, who famously said, segregation now, segregation forever. Because they thought if he won, he would recognize Rhodesia and use the
Starting point is 00:19:44 Rhodesian blueprint to, quote, solve America's Negro problem. Yeah, they openly talked about that. Like, the Rhodesian's like, we understand that you really ended up separating the races. What if you just killed them? That's what we do.
Starting point is 00:20:04 I will give them points for not calling it America's Negro question. I guess even they were above making a Holocaust connection. Or not, because it turns out you do not, in fact, have to hand it to the white nationalists. Now, right-wing American politics was pretty furious that the U.S. government was not supporting Rhodesia's fight against communism, which, to its credit, even the CIA stayed out of it. What? Yes, I was fucking shocked. And to be fair, this is not a, the CIA is good, actually? No.
Starting point is 00:20:41 One, we haven't talked about them in a while. It's true, we haven't. And two, it's because they definitely would have supported Rhodesia, but the CIA had just tried to get involved in the Angolan War of Independence to stop the spread of communism, only to get shut down by Congress. So they're a little gun-shy on getting involved in Africa again so soon. Not for any political or ethical concerns. They definitely would have supported them, some white people.
Starting point is 00:21:04 They don't like being shut down. Like, it's that meme where the kid's at his desk and the veins are popping out of his head. It's like the CIA when they can't support a fucking fascist movement for five seconds. Yeah, yeah. But, shockingly, the CIA did not just go around Congress, which they've absolutely done before. They're just like, oh, I guess we gotta sit this one out guys. And then they did. I'm literally baffled. I'm waiting for
Starting point is 00:21:29 somebody to email me like, oh yeah, well what about this? And they completely prove me wrong and I hope you do. Because I hate saying nice things about the CIA. I'm not fucking John Krasinski. My paycheck doesn't depend on that. Jack Ryan. This attitude was not limited to America. And actually, I have to say that pretty much every white English-speaking country loved them some Rhodesia.
Starting point is 00:21:53 As long as you weren't the government. The government was not so hot on them. Propaganda like this flourished, and the popular sentiment was very pro-Rhodesia. Even in the UK, whose considered rodesia's declaration of independence to be literally open rebellion support for the rodesian cause by regular citizens was higher than fuck like 70 those bumper stickers most british people considered white rodesians to be british because it was a british colony so i'll kind of be like okay maybe maybe this isn't racist but then it, because it's the UK we're talking about.
Starting point is 00:22:28 Like, a lot of their attitudes, like, well, they called them kith and kin. Like, they're British. We can't possibly not support them, right? They didn't give two fucks about racism, because why would they? While all this is going on, the British were dealing with some pretty serious racial politics of their own. Now, a Tory campaign in West Midlands for Parliament successfully exploited racial discrimination to the extent that Minister of Parliament, Peter Griffiths, literally got elected on the slogan of, quote, if you want an Edward for a neighbor, vote Labour. He won. Wow.
Starting point is 00:23:01 Yeah. So like to say that there was a pretty groundswell of support for white Rhodesia. Yeah. Yeah. Now, to be fair, a lot of people called Griffiths awful for saying this. After he won labor, after the labor prime minister, a guy named Harold Wilson demanded that he be ejected from parliament for using such language to be elected. Could you imagine if they actually ejected him? They did not.
Starting point is 00:23:26 He said that Griffiths should be treated as a leper. The Tories walked out instead of condemning a racist within their ranks and even several labor ministers of parliament scolding the prime minister for insulting lepers. For comparing him to the racist. Nothing happened.
Starting point is 00:23:44 He kept his job. I imagine. imagine yeah everybody we talk about just fucking nothing ever happens we rarely talk about good people uh yeah uh now i bring that up about british politics because they did consider what the rhodesia did to be rebellion like the gov was like they're in rebellion against the crown uh but they did nothing about it except sanctions um because they knew there'd be absolutely no support for them to like roll tanks into salisbury it just wasn't gonna fucking happen uh these feelings were so strong that the uk government was pretty sure that even though rhodesia had rebelled they did not think that their military would be able to bring them under control this is not because they were not powerful enough.
Starting point is 00:24:27 Simply because their military leaders would just refuse to do it. There was like, there's rumors that like several high-ranking British military officers were just like, we won't do it. Just because? I mean, they're British. It's true. I mean, they didn't have the same feelings about Ireland. Oh, man. Clearly.
Starting point is 00:24:44 Which means that they're like hmm uh they have they have racist rebels in one hand and like people have the scale people that just want to be considered human like oh we're going rhodesia on this one y'all even though literally the entire world demanded that the uk use its military to bring them back under control which includes the ussr and the us both going you should bring them under control like it's those one times that it's like that meme it's like fuck the worst person you know has a good point yeah for once communism and capitalism like yo fuck rhodesia now obviously the soviet union wanted the communist rebels to win because they were helping
Starting point is 00:25:22 fight the rhodesians, but also good. For once, I was like, you have to hand it to the Soviet Union. Well done, guys. Fuck Rhodesia. Now, only about 22% of the British public support using military force to bring down the white nationalist fiefdom that
Starting point is 00:25:39 was actually still soaring allegiance to the British Queen. Their unilateral declaration of independence was really fucking weird because they really wanted to be part of the Commonwealth even though the Commonwealth did not want them to be a country. They had this thing where because of the
Starting point is 00:25:56 South Africa situation, because South Africa had been part of the UK as well. It's like, whoa, we cannot let another country as a white minority government become independent. They refused to grant them independence It's like, whoa, we cannot let another country as a white minority government become independent. So like they refuse to grant them independence because of, you know, all the racism. So they got around that by saying, well, we are independent from the British government, but we still swear allegiance to the queen.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Her face was still in the money. It's like really weird that they're like, we're totally part of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth's like, we really want you to go fuck yourself no it's weird the government of of the uk assumed that the entire world placing sanctions against them which they did what and and they were surrounded by enemies which they were the rhodesian government was just going to die in the fires of the war that started like they'll they're eventually going to run out of whatever goods they have and they'll be the end of rhodesia uh but there was no shortage of people who were willing to make sure that just wouldn't happen and that included some like really interesting arms and uh sanctions busting uh like through shell companies and mostly just south africa
Starting point is 00:26:59 south africa just trucked military goods right over the border. You guys are cool. And Namibia was under the control of Portugal at the time. Sorry, Zambia. And they were just like, well, yeah, all right, we'll be friends too because we're all fighting pretty much the same groups. But then Portugal eventually lost that war. And then there was just another front of the Rhodesian War. Which brings us to our main topic that was a huge intro I know there's Americans fighting in Rhodesia
Starting point is 00:27:30 because there is a few of them first I have to directly debunk a pretty pervasive thing that dominates the popular narrative about this topic the idea that Vietnam war veterans jumping from like just jumping on a plane and becoming like high paid mercenaries for the government.
Starting point is 00:27:46 I didn't know that. Yeah, it's like now that did happen. There's a lot of Vietnam veterans that were like, well, they were Vietnam veterans who either a strip got addicted to combat and like could not adapt to civilian life. That happened. But a lot of them were the ones that like truly were like, this is a war against communism, which is something like an actual mercenary complained about when he was uh when he was trying to find mercenaries is that people didn't want money they wanted to fight for political reasons uh and that's the thing rhodesia didn't want mercenaries they needed white people to move into the country and help it exist right they wanted settlers they wanted wanted colonizers. Not to mention
Starting point is 00:28:25 they were pretty much broke and running the entire country through front companies and shell corporations. Through a Teespring store. I mean, they were pretty much... It's almost like how North Korea stays afloat with pretty much 90% of their
Starting point is 00:28:41 foreign economy being based on the black market. It's kind of what they were doing too. They didn't have the means to be like yeah, come on over, pay $20,000 a month. They couldn't fucking do that. Instead, every single foreigner who traveled to Rhodesia did so on an official enlistment contract
Starting point is 00:28:58 with the Rhodesian military. They would be paid the exact same amount as a Rhodesian conscript, which is about $ bucks a month. You could get up to a thousand if you got promoted. Though it should be pointed out that like they switched from the pound to the Rhodesian dollar once they declared independence. So like if even if you're like, whatever, I'll go do my contract,
Starting point is 00:29:17 which is like three fucking years. Like they're like, well, I'll just save up my money and leave again. You know, like some people do. They do like, you know, a contractor tour. They save up my money and leave again you know like some people do they do like you know a contractor tour they save up some money they come back that's the thing the rhodesian dollar was not convertible you could not turn it you could not exchange it yeah it was not real it was like like whatever here's some funny bucks this one just has a smiley face drawn on it yep fuck it welcome rhodesia bitch yeah which one is greater in value like it couldn't even be used in south africa like look we agree with all the
Starting point is 00:29:52 racism but you actually need money here we have lint fish tank rocks and a packet of ranch what can i get uh you have the rhodesian dollar yeah you know you're probably wondering how the hell people got in contact in the 60s and 70s with a recruiter from an African country that was not actually a country. It's actually kind of like today with like Rojava, where there's no phone number you call, though maybe there is. I don't really know. But you have to kind of get in contact with a shady in-between like Facebook messenger. But yeah, yeah. I'm not saying I've looked into it,
Starting point is 00:30:26 but I've looked into it. This didn't even have that. So they couldn't call up a local office, so there was phone numbers listed places, and try to find out whatever shit job they had into the one in the Rhodesian Army via a badly engineered online tool like you can at the U.S. Army right now. You could do that.
Starting point is 00:30:42 Guess what? If your job isn't something skilled, the Army's really convinced that you should be infantry. Have you ever heard of the magazine soldier of fortune? I remember the game. I do too. They were not connected. No,
Starting point is 00:30:54 they were not, which is actually impressive. They did. They did that without a lawsuit, but soldier of fortune magazine for the, those that were unaware was actually, they still sold this in the px in afghanistan when i was there i'm pretty sure the magazine's still around it isn't in paper
Starting point is 00:31:09 form but it's only online because uh it's pretty much a giant grift and putting out a paper magazine is really really hard uh cost money now it was pretty much the dark spaces of the internet before the dark spaces of the internet existed it constantly posted articles showing the evils of communism how it needed to be fought by the liberty loving sons of freedom a lot of their shit was about fighting africans uh uh like african insurgents in africa like look at these savages they just really tried hard not to use the n-word that's pretty much it it even had a help wanted page where you could post literally anything, uh, to include hit men, which happened a couple of times and they succeeded. Wow.
Starting point is 00:31:49 Yeah. Uh, this is here that the, that the main recruiting effort of the Rhodesian military would take place in the United States said full, it had full page ads. It said magazine. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:58 Yeah. Yeah. It was like a fucking, uh, a Nestle decoder ring, but a military full pagepage ad that said quote be a man among men the Rhodesian army offers you an interesting and varied
Starting point is 00:32:11 career with new allowances for fighting troops and x-ray glasses and it had like an address and a phone number under it that was it other times Rhodesian army recruiters in plain clothes and undercover hung out outside of various military bases and bars frequented by soldiers having just returned from Vietnam. Around 300 Americans, mostly veterans or claiming to be veterans, found themselves fighting in Africa this way. be thinking like well they because i mean to be fair rodigia has by some amounts a warranted um reputation for having great soldiers so you and since a lot of them are foreign born um they
Starting point is 00:32:53 probably assume that they do their due diligence and like making sure they're bringing like green berets like people like rich's grandpa who's a straight-up badass nope how could they how fucking could they like there wasn't like you can't go foia this dude dd214 right like he was like this guy says he's a fucking pilot he's a pilot now a lot of a lot of times they ask for people's to uh like uh exit paperwork or uh paperwork they did ask for it they really didn't but a lot of people had legitimate cop-outs like paperwork gets lost. Shit gets left. Fuck my DD-214.
Starting point is 00:33:27 Doesn't even have my combat action badge on it. And I have literally pictures of me receiving it. I feel like you just don't have it at all. Yeah. I mean, I don't have the award anymore. But, like, I have the awards, like, issued to me. Like, on paper, like, the actual order. But it's on my 214 because I got out and it's all fucked up.
Starting point is 00:33:43 I didn't feel like it was really that important. I'm sure a lot of these, like, conscripts coming back from N probably felt the same way also sometimes like yeah uh there was a huge fire burned up all my paperwork that happened too like yeah that's actually something that a lot of uh stolen valor guys kind of get away with not that i really give a shit about stolen valor but uh there was like legitimate fires in va offices that carried paperwork so like none of them exist anymore so like they were willing to like squint real hard at some people like yeah whatever i'll come fight for you for 200 bucks a month and also like they weren't in rhodesia so like they had to they like mailed you the fucking contract you signed it and then you
Starting point is 00:34:23 mailed it back before you did any physical or anything because like how could they they're not gonna fly you back and forth right they wouldn't even fly you there after you sign the contract you still had to find your way to rhodesia they had no fucking money no some people did get their way paid but it's because they legitimately were pilots or like doctors and shit rhodesia's like yeah we'll show up we kind of need you guys yeah we have like two doctors. Paul and Jim. We don't even know if they're real doctors. This guy keeps showing up crammed in gauze and so he's an asshole.
Starting point is 00:34:51 Now that wasn't actually a requirement. You didn't have to be a veteran. You could just be like yeah I'm white I want to fight for Rhodesia. You guys seem cool. Yeah. I mean to be fair the person who really wants to fight in Rhodesia is absolutely the guy you don't want fighting in Rhodesia. The dude who's really eager about it?
Starting point is 00:35:09 Yeah. Yeah, I'm really down. Just fucking biting at the bit to really just drop N-words at the fucking family market or whatever. To this day, people argue that the Rhodesian recruiters heavily scrutinize each applicant. And those tend to be people that think that like the Rhodesian fire forces were the most elite force that ever existed. When in reality, most of their,
Starting point is 00:35:31 um, their successes early in the war, because the, the African revolutionaries really didn't have their shit together. Uh, or like a lot of them literally didn't have guns at first. So like, it's pretty fucking easy to kill a hundred of them at a time when they have
Starting point is 00:35:44 like a hatchet stick. Yeah. Until like the pipelines opened up and like they started getting flooded with weapons and rodigia was pretty much losing the entire time so yeah like there's firsthand accounts of americans who are disqualified from service in the u.s during the vietnam war which remember we did project 100 000 Really fucking hard to go through there. Like, they were blind in one eye or straight up missing fingers. Like, one guy went to Rhodesia and was, like, blind. And straight up 100% blind in one eye. Like, yeah, whatever. You only need one eye for a rifle.
Starting point is 00:36:14 Fuck it. You're good. Yep. You check out. Now, if you're thinking the kind of people who would answer this call to service, who are you picturing? For the people going to Rhodesia? Yeah. Oh. Obviously, they got to be white. No ifs, ands, or buts. call to service who are you picturing for the people going to rhodesia yeah oh obviously they
Starting point is 00:36:26 got to be white no ifs ands or buts so there was black people in the rhodesian military but they could not be officers because of course not no uh but there was i could not find a single account of a black american going to rhodesia to fight can you find a mexican i could not now let's go ahead and kill the rumor of the battle-hardened American non-vet fighting. Most were not veterans. Statistics show that most of these guys were not veterans. Most were divorced or single. Shocker.
Starting point is 00:36:55 And the vast majority of them that decided to go quickly decided that this shit sucks and they left. decided to go quickly decide that this shit sucks. And they left one reporter. No, the 1979, that quote, the majority found the routine just too rough to last more than a few months. The desertion rate against American citizens who had joined the Rhodesian
Starting point is 00:37:13 army over the past two years is 80%. Jesus. I don't know what I would buy with my 200 Rhodesian dollars. Yeah. Probably nothing. Fucking play. Like, fuck,
Starting point is 00:37:23 I can't buy anything with this. And most of them deserved just by running south to South Africa. Because it was a lot easier to be white there. But some of them were diehards who did not desert, and still others died wearing Rhodesian colors.
Starting point is 00:37:38 And let me say, they're exactly the type of people you expect them to be. These Americans became known as the Crippled Eagles. Now, it's a cutesy nickname that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It doesn't sound like a good name. They gave themselves the nickname, or journalists gave them the nickname, because they believe
Starting point is 00:37:54 that their abilities to fight communists were crippled due to the fact that the U.S. refused to get directly involved. So they're eagles of freedom but slightly crippled because the government thinks they're too racist to help. Like an eagle with a bunch of crutches on him well their uh their symbol was like an eagle with like a bandage wing that would have been better with crutches or something yeah broke dick eagle yeah broke dick eagles that's how you should call us
Starting point is 00:38:15 i would call it that but uh soundcloud really doesn't like what you swear in the titles um the first we'll talk about is a fun little piece of shit known named john allen coey now coey was not a vet he was born in ohio to a devout christian family he was an eagle scout who went to ohio state university while being part of the marine corps rotc sounds like a dick huge fucking dick and nerd dick nerds uh. He taught Sunday school in his free time in his nearby church, and he seemed to be the most normal person from Ohio I think we've ever talked about that.
Starting point is 00:38:53 He graduated college. He decided that he couldn't join the Marines because he became disillusioned with the Vietnam War. Not for any good reason, mind you. He's confused at why America could simply not win it, and why they weren't nuking them. He came to believe it was because the U.S. government had become infiltrated by godless
Starting point is 00:39:12 communists and Jews, who meant to bring the U.S. down so he could be taken over in a totalitarian, one-world government. Oh my god. So, the day after he graduated, he jumped on a plane and joined the Rhodesian government in 1972. These guys have their pants on, right?
Starting point is 00:39:28 Now, Coey thought himself to be a modern-day crusader, thinking God meant for him to go to Rhodesia and fight. I'm assuming Coey's God was really comfortable in using the N-word. Because there's one thing I remember Jesus saying is, Go forth and kill black people. Yes. That's the Jesus I remember. I remember Jesus saying is go forth and kill black people. Yes. That's the Jesus. I remember that scripture. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:48 Kelly joined these special air service of the Rhodesian special forces. He did well and graduate on time, eventually being selected for officer's training. During this time, he selected an Afrikaans name, Johan Coetzee. So he could write political pieces for various newspapers in both Rhodesia and South Africa. He's literally an opinion column writer while fighting a race war. seat so he could write political pieces for various newspapers in both rhodesia and south africa he's
Starting point is 00:40:05 literally an opinion column writer while fighting a race war the new york times would be all over this guy the washington post like how quick can you get to new york he eventually wrote a piece on the failures of american anti-communism that was apparently so right wing which i could not find a copy of this by the way that he was seen as an extremist by the rhodesian government really and he was kicked out of officers training holy shit he was too much of a fascist for a fascist government whoa you're kind of hardcore guy also like his anti uh jewish stuff his anti-semitism was like not something that rhodesia really bought into so like whoa too much for us chap now demoted to being a regular
Starting point is 00:40:48 trooper he went on one mission and was told that he would not be going on another because his commander said quote he was not worth it wow he was moved to a different unit and apparently did pretty well though everyone seemed to hate him for being an uptight religious nerd
Starting point is 00:41:03 imagine you're like finally I got to the land of my people Though everyone seemed to hate him for being an uptight religious nerd. Imagine you're like, finally, I got to the land of my people. And they fucking hate you. You suck. Just in the back all the time. And a group full of fucking racists. They don't like him. It's amazing.
Starting point is 00:41:21 He was so much of a fascist. He's a motherfucking bitch. Give me water! Imagine flying around the world to join a white ethnostate like you've always dreamed of and you get put on the fucking B team. Fuck that guy. He's such a fascist
Starting point is 00:41:40 that the racist white nationalist government said you went too far and are such a fucking dweeb that the rest of the white nationalists think you suck too. You just tried too hard. He's a tryhard. Yeah. Now, he became a medic. Ooh.
Starting point is 00:41:55 Which, like, he ended up writing a book, which I did read, and it's terrible. Really? Yeah. We'll get to that part. What's it called? I think it's called Martyr's Tale or something like that. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to that part. What's it called? I think it's called Martyr's Tale or something like that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:11 So I pirated it because I didn't want to give his mom any money. You pirate fucking everything. So it's not a surprise. Everything for everybody, man. Communalist up in this motherfucker. It's not a surprise at all. I pirate literally everything. I pirate your books. The only thing I haven't pirated is Adobe Aud audition because I could not find a way to do it.
Starting point is 00:42:28 But stupid cloud technology. I blow it up. I did have a copy of Photoshop back in the day, and I definitely line where that motherfucker. But so, yeah, he was a medic and a lot of people say like there's like legitimate like in memoriam websites for the people that died fighting in rhodesia because like racists are eternal uh but there uh was like this he's a revolutionary and being a medic literally the thing he did was bring a weapon because like medics like congratulations the u.s has been doing that a while in vietnam but yeah cool give it up
Starting point is 00:43:05 to cooey what was he doing praying for their wounds uh but probably not great because he got shot in the face and he died yeah fuck him can't pray after that uh he got shot in the head by a communist machine gun nest uh but uh in his diary which is what ended up becoming his book he wrote a lengthy entries on why he supported the use of biological, chemical, and psychoactive weapons on the black population, as well as starving them to death. Notice I said population, not the communist fighters.
Starting point is 00:43:33 He just meant on black people. After his death, his mom attempted to publish his diary as a book, but it was so extreme that Nobi wanted to touch it for over a decade until a religious press picked it up. Oh, man. So the mom is a piece of shit, too. Yeah, mom's a huge piece of shit.
Starting point is 00:43:50 One reviewer on Goodreads said, quote, I only made it through about 20% of the book before realizing it was a huge waste of time. Yep. How far did you get? I read the whole thing. Because I was originally going to do a whole episode on him and we'd just laugh at him the whole time.
Starting point is 00:44:04 But it's huge screeds of him about how much he hates communists like I can't fucking read this uh but also like yeah you're dead now now this fucking socialist is laughing at you you stupid dead fuck you fucking nerds shit that you shit, don't you bitch? You little bitch. There's also a few other Americans with weird ass histories that made their way to Rhodesia. One of them was a guy named Frank Bataglia. He fought in Vietnam and then he joined the Spanish Foreign Legion.
Starting point is 00:44:40 Now, this is weird because normally you have to be Spanish to join the Spanish Foreign Legion. The Spanish Legion was well known at the time for taking part in war crimes against the people of the Spanish Sahara and being used by the fascist dictator Francisco Franco for being a death squad. Yeah. Is that something that he liked? He was a huge fan. Apparently, he didn't get enough killing of unarmed people because him and his wife flew to Rhodesia to join the Rhodesian military. She packed parachutes or something. What the fuck?
Starting point is 00:45:10 Yeah. Both Patagli and his wife served until he was killed in 1978. Fuck that guy. Sucker. Now, this brings us to the next group of people who I'm sure everybody deep down inside, if you're like, i bet they're coming up everybody knew that they were coming nazis straight up fucking nazis now i have to admit
Starting point is 00:45:31 that i did get this information from a straight up neo-nazi website i will not put that i will not source this material because i want anybody else to go to this it was how do you feel looking at that real bad uh like i'm i didn't feel good clear your browser like i of course not uh someone has to do that upon my death uh but got you like i am literally quoting straight up nazi bullshit because they were not well one they're not upset the nazis because like they're literally wearing armbands and marching through the street back then and you know like good thing that doesn't happen anymore yeah i'm kind of proud of that shit i guess yeah uh and two like they were really really happy with that like someone went and fought multiple people went
Starting point is 00:46:12 and fought in rhodesia so like i have no reason to believe they're lying like they would be really happy about this uh so one of them is a little bit close to home that's a guy named harold covington is he from michigan he's from bremerton washington oh we got 45 minutes from this house yep uh he was he was um from a group called the national socialist white people's party yeah you don't have to put white people in a national so we we know that it's already there it's fucking assumed uh it's like you don't have to put jeffrey epstein's picture and like in the middle of the democratic emblem we know uh now he was the founder of the national front remember how i said front always bad yeah bad again uh it's a shitty nazi website he joined the American army in 1971 and discharged two years later.
Starting point is 00:47:05 We can assume for bad reasons. I couldn't find any reason why. Uh, after which he took his hate world tour to South Africa, but he saw himself as something of a revolutionary leader. Like he had to be like South Africa just to kind of existed. There didn't want to be time for his bullshit. So he hopped over the border to Rhodesia where he claims to have joined the
Starting point is 00:47:23 military, but no record of that exists. And I have to tell you that there's exhaustive records about people who served in the Rhodesian military. So he's stolen valor as well. Yes. Nobody has ever claimed to see him in uniform. And his combat records, which he could never stop talking about, are seemingly non-existent. What we do know is he tried to get involved in rhodesian politics but was kicked out
Starting point is 00:47:45 of the country for being a nazi like he was actually such a shithead that the neo-nazi website that i found this and it was like he was too wrapped up in political bullshit and got kicked out of the country like man even nazis are dunking on you and this brings us to Richard Biederman. No relation to Felix, I'm going to assume. Now, he's a Nazi, like literally wore a khaki stormtrooper uniform with a swastika armband through the streets of Minnesota and got in various fistfights in the street with anti-fascist organizers.
Starting point is 00:48:21 This dude was a tried and true nazi uh through and through uh he also had like the stereotypical like aryan brotherhood mustache like that fucking droopy mustache all the way down to the corner of his chins that you assume that it's either a shitty stepdad or a nazi has yeah he had that jesus uh i cannot confirm if he was a shitty stepdad or not uh he was not alone uh in from his group of minnesota to go to rhodesia another one named frederick verdun uh who's a star of a three-part series in soldier of fortune who managed to leave out the fact he was a literal nazi and a member of a nazi party weird how they do that uh Though most of these guys would unfortunately escape with their lives, Verdun escaped
Starting point is 00:49:08 the collapse of a Rhodesian state by jumping over the border of South Africa and continuing his career of murdering black people. Several of Verdun's soldiers in South Africa were British National Front members. So, shock how they keep coming back. Shit,
Starting point is 00:49:24 they're the ones that fill the fucking british free corps so why not go fight the race war also it's pretty interesting that he was um such a good piece of shit that the uh south african military is like yeah you can keep your rank and keep doing that shit over here wow yeah biederman would not be able to continue his campaign of racist terror uh he'd die yeah oh yeah but it was not the guns of the communist guerrillas that took him down it was friendly fire friendly fire from his own men so say what you will about the nationalists of the Rhodesian military but they killed that guy now after Biederman's death he was celebrated as a martyr in white power magazine just in case he
Starting point is 00:50:07 wasn't nazi enough for him also like the unit of nazis that he was a member of in Minnesota changed its name to the Biederman unit yep oh yeah now uh also his grave hilariously enough still in Zimbabwe and I really hope whenever a black person walks past, they pee on it. Yeah. You know, the problem with pissing on Nazi graves is you eventually run out of piss. The white nationalist nation of Rhodesia went, thankfully, gone to die, allowing Africans to finally form their own nation of Zimbabwe. their own nation of Zimbabwe. Hilariously, this happened after the entire country's
Starting point is 00:50:46 strategic oil reserve was destroyed in a single rocket attack in the Rhodesian capital of Salisbury. One attack, like, oh, we're fucked. Fuck, all our Salisbury gravy, fuck! Yeah, it's hilarious that everybody talks about
Starting point is 00:51:02 how great the Rhodesian military is, but they had the worst fucking planning on Earth, where they put their entire strategic oil reserve in one place. It wasn't even a real rocket. It was like a bottle rocket or something. It was like a training round for an MLRS. It's just a fucking telephone pole with a rocket attached to it. Damn it.
Starting point is 00:51:24 How did they know to attack us in this one place it's very clearly probably just the kid in the fucking neighborhood yeah it was made worse by the fact that white people were fleeing rhodesia in waves terrified that the coming black government might treat them as badly as they had been treating black people they should have fucked them. And to be fair, they kind of did. So, good. Oh, so they did. Eventually, yeah. Robert Mugabe went from being like kind of alright with white people to just being a batshit shoelace insane white person hater.
Starting point is 00:51:58 To be fair, they deserved it. But also, Robert Mugabe was a huge piece of shit. Like, he favorably talked about Hitler and stuff. Not a good guy. Now, if you remember back to our time with the British Free Corps, you'll remember that Nazis used the same recruitment tactics that Rhodesian did. Sure, regular fascists
Starting point is 00:52:15 already knew that they were down with the National Socialism, and they knew exactly what they were getting into, but for the ones who didn't, they used virulent anti-communist and anti-leftist ideas to fuel recruitment into white nationalism. It's a pipeline that is still open today. Eventually, you'll see
Starting point is 00:52:32 someone champion the lost cause of the Rhodesian whites, and it will come in various different shapes. Just pull up YouTube. Look at most FNFAL videos on their use in war. It's going to be the Rhodesian one.
Starting point is 00:52:49 I honestly wanted one just because it won the Falklands. That was my big. It's a cool rifle. Yeah. But mine was because of the Falklands. Not because of this shit. Yeah. And it's always painted that Rhodesian green.
Starting point is 00:52:57 Yeah. With that shit yellow. And it's funny. I really like forgotten weapons with gun Jesus. Oh, yeah. That dude's cool. He because they were just did make some minor changes to the FAL. And so he wanted to look at them.
Starting point is 00:53:12 And they had a really weird recoil dappener that he tried. But it was obvious that the person that he was talking to about... Because he doesn't own most of these guns. He gets them from other people. Was really into Rhodesian and made him uncomfortable. Wow. That's an episode on there? Yeah. He's like, I'm just here for the guns,
Starting point is 00:53:25 man. Um, you could tell in his face cause he, I mean, he's a professional. He's not gonna be like, yo, shut the fuck up.
Starting point is 00:53:31 But yeah, the same goes for those ridiculous khaki booty shorts that the Rhodesians for notorious for wearing for reasons that nobody will ever convince me. He's dumb as shit. Like I understand that it's hot. Like it's really fucking hot in Rhodesia or in zimbabwe or in africa in general um or in the middle east uh uh i can't imagine wearing shorts and like fighting on rocks and dirt and shit that shit's gonna fuck you up yeah um but like we talked about a reactment uh
Starting point is 00:53:58 reenactment bonus episode these those aesthetics that we talked about in the very beginning are important why people are one like you have to yourself, why are people wanting to wrap themselves in the colors and the symbols that represent things that, for any other reason than tactic support of them? And Zimbabweans themselves think the same thing. There was a company in Canada, which we'll talk about in a little bit, that blew up because of investigative reporting on who was running it. And Zimbabweans in Canada were like, why would anybody wear that stuff? I imagine to anybody else, it's like wearing a Nazi armband. We all, anybody right, is going to be like, wow, that's disgusting. But like,
Starting point is 00:54:45 they're hiding under a layer of obscurity, you know? They're championing white nationalist fascism, terrorism, concentration camps, and the idea that
Starting point is 00:54:53 black people aren't able and fit to rule themselves or be your equals. Right. That's what that is. So it can be neatly wrapped up in a piece from Ricochet Media.
Starting point is 00:55:04 Ricochet did a deep dive into a group of white nationalists. One is a guy named Hank. Hank runs Fire Force Ventures, a web store that sells Rhodesian military surplus and reproductions. The three people that ran the company were all members of the Canadian Armed Forces, which is why this ended up being such a big thing. Like, oh, fuck, we got racists in here. Just in case you think that this is for people like hank who are just into military history he was interviewed on a white nationalist podcast uh that no longer exists i will not name uh uh about why he runs this stuff
Starting point is 00:55:38 he said quote if you're into politics get a flag Because normies don't know what this flag means. The Rhodesian flag. He knows exactly what he's selling. So how do you feel about all those reenactors that you knew now? Oh man. At first I was like oh yeah, you're into the aesthetics. Because they were like, oh these fucking cool shorts and they're always into the camo and whatnot.
Starting point is 00:56:02 But fuck. Every once in a while you have to be like, there's somebody just dresses up as the Wehrmacht. I think it's safe to say that the idea that's generally accepted by the general populace, even if it's wrong, is that, well, they were just soldiers. They didn't do anything terrible. You know, Hitler was, they were just,
Starting point is 00:56:21 they were soldiers following orders. Right. We know now that's not true, but. No. A lot of people in the reenacting community even hide behind the whole oh I do this for the history to teach people a lot but every once in a while there's
Starting point is 00:56:34 symbols that come out that are you recklessly believe what they stand for the death said, the SS I have good stories about that and Rhodesian flag, uh, and South apartheid,
Starting point is 00:56:47 South Africa flag, like Dylan roof wore those symbols for a reason. He knows what those are. Um, and it's hard to, and you know, I'll even give a little bit of credit towards people, uh,
Starting point is 00:56:59 from the South who still dress up as Confederates. Cause there's a very good chance they got, they got the same public school, uh and education that we did that sure slaves were involved but they're fighting for states rights you know and you know my great great grandpappy or whatever wore gray so you know i respect his service or whatever other mental gymnastics they have to bend themselves to because there's a good chance that they're not going to actively go look into the fact of why their great grandparents or great great grandmothers were kind of pieces of shit. I mean, most people don't want to do that.
Starting point is 00:57:29 And who goes out and educates themselves further on history when you don't need it? You know, this podcast anyway. But yeah, there's certainly ways you give to some things, and this isn't one of them. there's certainly ways you give to some things and this isn't one of them. Right. Uh, unless you're gun Jesus on your channel and you just want to test out that fucking weird Rhodesian recoil dampering device, which by the way,
Starting point is 00:57:51 did work. Uh, it's like a weird flash guard thing I've never seen before. Uh, like, like, huh, that worked.
Starting point is 00:57:58 And then he moves on. Like, cause like, it's something that never popped up again. Like nobody else ever tried to use it. Um, or if you're talking about like how they used V shaped holes against IDs, like first time that's really ever happened.
Starting point is 00:58:11 Cool. You know, but then it's like, you end up falling into like certain wormholes and like why the national front was right. Like, Oh, I've gone too deep.
Starting point is 00:58:21 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's weird. I think that's something that comes with certain historical boogeyman that like people in the reenactment community fall for.. I think that's something that comes with certain historical boogeymen that people in the reenactment community fall for and I think that's one of them. That's something that
Starting point is 00:58:31 people in the John Birch Society probably agree on. I don't know. It almost makes me want to ask, what's your obsession with Rhodesia? It's a fair thing to ask. You do realize that this is all bad, right? No,
Starting point is 00:58:47 no, I'm really curious. It was like, you can accept that. Like, uh, that a, an army that we can all as correctly assume we're fighting for the wrong
Starting point is 00:58:57 reasons. Like we can be like, okay, you got to give it to them. They, they're a good army, but this, they're still bad.
Starting point is 00:59:03 Right. It's like talking about like people like autoscrenzy or something like that like dude was legitimate like mad genius type military person but he's a fucking nazi fuck him i mean that's how i feel about people like heinz guderian yeah or you know i'm a tank guy you're gonna read about heinz guderian but also like fuck him he's a nazi it's people that get too much into it they're too far into the weeds on this shit that like they kind of lose they lose the thread of why they're bad because like they were it's weird because it's like well i respect this one thing about him so all in all
Starting point is 00:59:34 he can't be that bad of a person yeah yeah yeah so nick that brings us to questions from the legion which we skipped last week and we we are haxed and we are proud. So we'll do two this week. So the first one is, what is your favorite Total War game? Because we both fucking love Total War games. Mine is definitely Shogun 2. Honestly, I enjoyed Napoleon Total War. I really liked Empire.
Starting point is 01:00:02 I liked Empire, but somehow Napoleon Total War just caught me. I don't know why. They almost seemed like the same game. They weren't, but Napoleon just got me. Yeah, and I probably would like Empire a lot more if it had the gameplay of Shogun 2, because Empire's units all kind of suck. I never played Shogun.
Starting point is 01:00:19 Shogun 2 is really good. Shogun 1 is aged terribly. You probably won't enjoy it too much. I haven't played any of the Warhammer ones.'m i'm a 40k warhammer guy i'm not a ye old for him uh warhammer guy so i probably enjoy it too much so i haven't i haven't played uh three kingdoms one even though i really fucking want to because my computer is a goddamn potato uh i really want to play it though. Our second question from the Legion is how would you
Starting point is 01:00:50 or what advice would you give someone who's planning on joining the military? Don't join the military? Yeah, that honestly would be mine. Now, I understand that if you're like us and you're trying to get out of like
Starting point is 01:01:05 a shitty hometown with like no prospects like I'm never gonna hate anybody for doing that nobody else should either if you look down on somebody for finding a way out of a shitty life circumstance that you probably don't understand you're probably a bad person
Starting point is 01:01:20 but also if you are that person you should know that the military doesn't give a fuck about you and you should do everything in your power to take everything you can from the military and get out as soon as possible it only takes three and a half years to get your GI Bill man get a nice cushy job that's going to teach you a skill
Starting point is 01:01:37 nobody's hiring fucking tank crewmen trust me I can tell you you know use your fucking tuition assistance while you're in. Get everything. Yeah, get everything you can and get the fuck out. This isn't a career, man. Unless you're already in fucking 12 years, get out.
Starting point is 01:01:56 The only thing that will happen for you at 20 years is you're going to get a pension that's not even your whole paycheck. No. And your knees and back are going to be fucked. And then you're going to get out and you're going to try to get a job doing something else. And guess what? You're going to be starting all the way from ground zero because nobody gives a shit about your experience as an enlisted person. It's true.
Starting point is 01:02:13 Officers can normally like segue into some bullshit middle management role, but nobody cares that you were a sergeant. Yeah. So take those stickers off the back of your car. Yeah. If you have your entire ERB on the back window of your car, I'm going to assume if I worked with you, I would have hated you. I assume that every time I go into a parking lot,
Starting point is 01:02:32 I go, Oh fuck. One of these guys. It's always a guy. That guy sucks. That guy sucks. Well, everybody,
Starting point is 01:02:39 uh, thank you for joining us this week on, um, our journeys. How much hate are we going to get on this? That one? Uh, probably not a lot. I assume it's a, I mean, I this week on our journeys. How much hate are we going to get on this? That one? Probably not a lot.
Starting point is 01:02:46 I assume it's a, I mean, I frequent guests on the show. Francis is a good example of hell the way to die. He's only in cause he's close to retire. I would do the same thing. I was actually kind of dumb for getting out when I did. Cause I was at 10 years.
Starting point is 01:03:01 Like, but you're at the 50% point, 10 years, a long fucking time. It is. And I hated the goddamn military. So I'm like, I, if I do another 10 years,
Starting point is 01:03:10 I will shoot myself. I need to get out. You were broken. I also, yeah, I was walking with a cane for almost a year. Um, I couldn't sleep.
Starting point is 01:03:22 Uh, yeah, I was, I was a mess. Uh, but yeah, I couldn't do another 10 years i would rather do 10 years in fucking prison i mean you get treated better you still get told what to do yeah at least so at least that's there yeah that's it do you ever
Starting point is 01:03:39 watch a show uh like 60 days in or whatever it's called to the people like the only people who ever do well are people are like veterans because they're like, I'm used to sitting around doing nothing and people yelling at me for no reason. I'm even used to the casual racism. Thanks for joining us this week in horrible Rhodesian history.
Starting point is 01:03:58 That's awful. Nick, thank you for stopping in and everybody else. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to like, share, and smash for stopping in. And everybody else, thanks for tuning in. Make sure to like, share, and smash that subscribe button. Rate us on iTunes and all other jazz because it helps us. And we will see you next week.

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