Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 149 - War Duck

Episode Date: April 5, 2021

A return of the animal episode! Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

I don't need Lisa to write a good review. The food at the Gilded Truffle really, uh, what's a good word? Sucks! That's great! And the bread was really... Come on, help me out here! Ruff! Ruff? I don't know, you've been pitching that all night.

Chewy? Chewy! That's inspired! Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of the Lines of My Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe, and with me today for the first time in three fucking months, the guy who everybody kept asking me if he was dead, is Nick. I shit you not, I had so many people like, did Nick die? So I just came up with a conspiracy theory that you're

actually never real in the first place. How'd that go? It didn't get people to stop asking me if you died or not. Or if I fired you, which we can't do. I'm not your boss. Nobody's in charge here. I thought Laiko was.

That's fair. And, and until she gets out the words, you're fired, I think we're safe. Nice. Oh, it's one of the greatest episodes of The Simpsons. I don't know if we've ever used that for an intro, but I'm using Homer doing food review with his dog as the intro for

this episode. Have to. It's great that you bring up dogs. It also brought up my dog's name. That's good. I did tell you. I moved, obviously, across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. My next-door neighbor's

dog looks exactly like your dog. Even the same mannerisms in everything. It's the spookiest shit same coloring like same attitude so i caught here yeah it looks kind of like a deer and so i call it uh hawaii chewy and i'm sure it only confuses my neighbor uh who i do not speak to i just say hello but i look across the balcony of my split fucking...

Was it called condo, I guess? Duplex is the word I'm looking for. And I'm like, hi, Hawaii Chewy. And the lady waves to me. I just go inside without acknowledging her. I'm like, I'm speaking to your dog, ma'am. I'm speaking to whoever's in charge of the house i'm terrible i'm a terrible neighbor and i'm i'm but i'm sure everybody already knew that um now nick we do a thing on this show where

we we talk about animals in war uh after we talk about horribly traumatic stuff and yeah i wrote And I wrote the script about three months ago to directly follow our the Khmer Rouge series. And I like I I accidentally gave everyone to include you a very Pol Pot Christmas and New Year's, which I did not intend to do. We've been doing this for almost this will be three years. I think next month or the month after that one or two May or June whatever

and never once have I ever done an episode or timed an episode where it like actually syncs up with the holiday or any day of importance and if I have ever done that it was completely an accident i assure you uh i remember when we were starting we were saying oh yeah we should get a calendar

and write down stuff yeah that never worked quickly went out the window yeah we're like oh we need to do uh you know uh we bought a fucking marker board uh yeah i still have it and it's still blank it's now followed me to two different houses and I've yet to use it. We wrote random shit on it. I think most of the time we just drew random things and I just try to get each other to laugh, which is the kind of organizational skills

I think people assume that we have. For sure. And, you know, so I apologize. This is like the palate cleanser. I think some people were calling it. Maybe I called it that at one point. I don't remember. And I know people have been asking for one for a very long time.

And the reason why I didn't do it, because while you were gone, I had probably like six different guests drop in. All of them very cool. I'm glad they did that. But I felt like I owed you the palate cleanser more than anybody else. Because nobody else was trapped with me on a Skype call for, what, five hours? Talking about genocide. Other than Nate. Shout out to Nate.

At this point, this podcast has just made him dead inside if living in the UK hasn't killed him all the way. So I was waiting for you to come back to the palate cleanser. So this is that palate cleanser episode. And the reason why I don't do more of these is one, there's a very finite amount of animals that are worth doing this much research on. So I kind of have to spread them out. There's no better explanation. A time will come where we will run out of shit for these episodes and I'll have to think of something else.

Who knows, maybe one day, like 10 years from now, we'll be sitting here, all right, this is Lions Led by Donkeys and we're here to talk about Tupperware containers. Yeah, this is how this Tupperware container really kept this guy's wallet safe when he got wet that one time. Yeah.

Thank God that'll never happen. Season 30, much like The Simpsons, we will eventually wear out our welcome. And it'll probably take half as much time. So, yeah, I've been trying to spread these out. But also, I do have to go back over my notes from time to time from past episodes to make sure I don't cover the same animal twice I know we've joked

about it but I do have legitimate memory problems and also this is like episode 150 shit starts to blend together after a while did you still use your navi to get home from work yes I did that for a very long time blend together after a while. Did you still use your Navi to get home from work?

Yes. I did that for a very long time. And I don't know if I'll ever learn Hawaiian roads. They're awful. Now, most of our episodes are like dogs, cats. I don't think we've... I think we did a donkey or a horse once or twice. We did a bear. We did do a bear.

And people have never let me forget that I mispronounced his name terribly. It's Wojtek, not Wojtek. I apologize. I'm not fucking Polish. Leave me alone. I should have known that. My bad. Yeah.

That was your fault. And I did actually watch some stupid YouTube video on that bear around the same time, but they mispronounced it the same way. So I don't feel so bad. But, so this is going to be the first time I think we've ever talked about a bird. And not just any bird, a duck.

Oh, can I guess the time period? Shoot. World War I. No, you're one world war off so far there's only two of those fuck um so this is World War two um

and the Pacific theater um not the what yeah yeah uh so in November of 1943 the United States invaded the Japanese held island of Tarawa on that on that fateful day thousands of Marines would go to shore

alongside them was when chain smoking beer drinking duck whose name I will talk about it a second and the reason why you know it was the Marines that fucking introduced him to those bad hundred percent and that's like you know say what you will about the Marines and we say a lot

full disclosure every fucking animal that I think we've ever talked about as soon as they start hanging out around soldiers or Marines or semen or airmen I don't know if any airmen have ever adopted any animals because you know it's just mean to shove like a

dog onto a World War 2 airplane oh absolutely they all immediately start feeding it booze and cigarettes most because it's just mean to shove a dog onto a World War II airplane. Oh, absolutely. They all immediately start feeding it booze and cigarettes. Okay, never mind. It wasn't the Air Force. I know the Army Air Force had dogs as fucking pets. Like mascots though, right?

But they put them on the plane. I would hope not. Yeah, that would just be mean. They weren't even pressurized. Alright, you ready to go up, Julie? And the reason why I didn't say the duck's name yet is because we do have to talk about it a little bit. It may or may not, depending on who you talk to, be an old-timey racial slur for Native Americans. Oh. It is World War II, and they are Marines.

So, yeah, to the surprise of nobody ever, a whole bunch of Marines in the 1940s named a duck a racial slur. You know, this is hardly the first time this has happened. What's his name? HP Lovecraft famously named his cat just the n word um and yeah this this has happened a few times throughout history i believe the full word was n word cat was it was the cat's name yeah um so to get to the bomb this i do have to say what the word is and it's cywash. The reason why I feel comfortable saying that

a grand total of one time is that it's not technically a racial slur, but it can be. Kind of like howly. Okay. So a historian points out that this is a common Chinook term once upon a time that simply meant a native

person. Chinook was a very dominant language in the tribes of the Pacific Northwest, so it became common and used amongst various different tribes as their languages slowly bled together. However, the first translations of the word into French, the first white people to show up and not immediately murder them and actually attempt to communicate with them,

meant savage. Obviously, savage was a common term for people of the First Nations that is now recognized to be racist as shit. Over time, the word changed from simply meaning any person of the First Nation to just

savage, eventually turning into a racial slur when used incorrectly. And by incorrectly, I mean by white people. You can't say it. So we'd be calling this duck another name. Yes. Now, there's currently a lot of arguments, especially in the Pacific Northwest,

but there's a lot of memorials and rocks named using this term. And they are advocating to change those names and a lot of those efforts are being supported by people of the First Nations. So as a white guy, I do not feel comfortable using that name any more than the one time I did to fully explain it. So instead, I will just call the duck

Jack, which was actually another name given to him. So I don't want to sound like I'm just picking a random name. This isn't duck stolen valor or whatever. Um, Jack, I thought honestly thought his name would be Jonathan. He looks like a Jonathan.

Uh, actually he doesn't look like a Jonathan or a Jack and, but we'll get to that point. Um, so Jack, the duck was one in a poker game or a raffle, depending on who you talk to at a bar by a marine corporal francis fagan while he was on leave in new zealand um which sounds like something that would happen right

like a soldier a marine or whoever getting fucking piss drunk and winning a goddamn duck in a in a card game uh just from new zealand all the way to the Pacific islands. Okay. So I looked over several different articles. You know, normally when we talk about, you know, getting a,

a dog or a cat or whatever on a boat or on a base, they have to like sneak them in or whatever. I couldn't find any account of that. He just brought them back to the barracks uh and then eventually made his way onto a ship where he was just accepted by uh the commander um uh by the blended in so well i i assume because he had the same mental capacity as a marine we love you guys but we're gonna fuck with you for about the next 10 minutes um i don't actually i don't know uh if i fuck with you for about the next 10 minutes. Actually, I don't know if I fuck with Marines anymore through this script. I'll just assume it's always

a maybe. You're never safe. We're two soldiers running a podcast. The editor, also a soldier. Everyone else that's ever on here, also soldiers. So, I don't know if I've ever had a Marine on this fucking show.

Are you telling them to step their game up? I've had Navy veterans. I don't think I've ever had a Marine on this fucking show. Are you telling them to step their game up? I've had Navy veterans. I don't think I've ever had any in Air Force. Yeah. Navy and Army. It's about all I got. Coast Guard. We got Coast Guard.

That's close. That's small Navy. We're good. I say small. Yeah. Puddle Navy. But the duck was accepted by the 1st Battalion of the 10th Marines, Colonel Presley M. Rixley, a name that only exists in World War II.

Now, for reasons we'll talk about, this duck became a celebrity. So people got interviewed about him. And in a Chicago Tribune article in 1944, Rixley said, quote, we value him too much to eat him. And besides, we have no orange slices to serve with him I had no idea what that meant but apparently duck orange is a duck with orange slices is a common meal never

fucking heard of it I think I think you're a cook peaking duck that sounds pretty good that's pretty good I mean honestly duck is good I don't think I've ever turned down duck because it didn't come with orange slices, but whatever.

Marines being Marines love to feed the duck beer, and he would also enjoy stealing cigarettes from people. He'd also steal beer. If you were drinking a beer, because people who aren't super familiar with old-timey shit, you could be deployed to the Pacific Theater or Europe or wherever, and you could still get

beer. It doesn't happen anymore because the army's all ran by fucking Puritans. It's probably not even good beer. I mean, if I was not saying I did drink in Afghanistan, but I did, you could read about it in my book. Buy my book. Nice book. Or donate $5 to the Patreon, and I'll. You could read about it in my book. Buy my book. Nice book. Or donate

$5 to the Patreon and I'll send you a digital copy via your email. I would much rather crack any shitty can of beer than smuggle vodka, crotch vodka, like I'm smuggling weed like I'm in high school again.

They'd be drinking beer but wouldn't offer Jack any beer, so the duck would just dunk his entire fucking head into it, which I'm going to assume did not discourage them from continue drinking the beer after a duck just teabagged it. He would also eat cigarettes, lit or unlit. I don't know about you. I never did this with cigarettes, but back in high school... You used to eat them? No. I used to smoke a lot of weed. And when

you'd get caught, you wouldn't want to get caught because weed is such a big deal even though it's totally legal in the state that I grew up in now. There was a saying that you'd superman the joint, which was... i don't know why i got this name which is like you got caught by a cop and it was lit and you're actively smoking it so you immediately just swallow it while it's still lit um and it sucks dick it hurts so bad

um to superman a joint i don't know if that was a common saying anywhere other than metro detroit michigan or why it got that name. I highly doubt Superman smoked weed. He'd be cooler if he did. He would be. So I can't imagine this did not hurt this duck pretty badly. I imagine Superman probably would, actually. Superman would probably inhale a duck before he did drugs.

Now, this is probably the weirdest part about all of us because it's a duck who eats lit cigarettes right apparently the duck did have specific taste in beer uh yes it's like quack quack translation only a good ipa please um but you have a sour back there maybe a hazy going on nobody's friends with this duck anymore um no the beer had to be warm and from a bottle he would not drink from cans or the tap i mean i like bottles too to be honest i do too but like a good draft beer is like you know i forget what it's like because we've been locked inside for a year and bars are closed, but you know, whatever. I mean, he had the same, this duck had the

same basic food groups as any other 18-year-old Marine in the barracks. And also me. I honestly figured you'd start making your own. Beer? I've made my own beer before. It was just... Like out of the toilet? No, that would just be like toilet wine.

I've brewed my own beer before and it did turn out really good but the amount of effort that went into it was not worth the amount of beer that came out of it oh no i'd rather buy it yeah and i and i do um though this is kind of weird because it's never explained how the fuck the next part because he's a mascot he lives on the boat or whatever but he was packed aboard a landing craft and was shipped ashore with Marines they land on fucking Tarawa what asshole did that I don't know

and who thought that was a good idea Tarawa is known as being one of the most horrific battles the Marines would take part in all of World War II. Put a duck in that motherfucker. Put the duck in the boat. Fuck it. Maybe they're like, you know what? This is probably

going to be an easy one. I mean, they did. They did think that, which is one of the problems. So for people who are unaware, Tarawa was a terrible battle that cost the marines over a thousand dead for an island that's about 11 miles in size um and that's crazy to think about because that's an island even smaller than the one that i'm sitting on and this island gets

smaller and smaller by the day i swear to god um now alongside the marines as i already pointed out hopefully uh was jack uh jack landed right alongside them by all accounts running waddling he's a duck he swaddles you think he's first wave i hope so like fighting fighting to the head of the fucking pack or whatever uh it it like you know obviously these marines are coming ashore getting hit with machine gun rifle fire mortars artillery and duck jack the duck was diving into foxholes and like zigzagging with them and like i obviously am

assuming that the japanese soldiers did not see him because he's a duck but i will i would like for them to be as confused as i am they're like is that a fucking duck don't shoot like hey stop shooting at the duck. Quit being an asshole. Like, treating him with some reverence.

Show that duck some respect. I don't know. I wonder what would his purpose be? Just to be there? So, good news. He gets his combat action badge. Or, it's the Marines. His car?

Yeah, his combat action ribbon. Sorry. Marines don't get badges. As Jack stormed the beaches dodging bullets and shrapnel, he decided he would earn his moniker of being a Marine. He found an enemy soldier, sprinted to engage them at close range combat, and won.

What? Okay, so he's a duck. The enemy soldier was a chicken. Really? Yeah, he just picked a duck. The enemy soldier was a chicken. Really? Yeah, he just picked a random chicken and attacked it, which might actually count for a war crime because the chicken may have been a civilian. I don't know. I'm not sure how this works.

Did the chicken also start screaming bonsai for the emperor or whatever? I assume this chicken... Do you think the Marines and Japanese just gathered around and said, well, respect the 1v1? Yeah, the Marines are like, everybody back off. He can handle this. It just circles around him.

They're circling with a knife fight. Kind of like that King Arthur movie. Yeah, like how for some reason it's always the main characters and the main villain fighting and there's nobody like, oh, let me go ahead and stab this guy from behind real quick. Yeah, it's like the number one rule of any the number one rule of any like close quarters engagement is the one who wins is like whose friends show up first but

yeah he he didn't kill the chicken he chased it off which brought great shame to the chickens family and so would you be surprised you've been doing this show with me for a long time would you be surprised if I told you Jack, a duck,

was awarded an official citation for his actions? I honestly wouldn't. It's good because I have the full text right here. Quote, for courageous action and wounds received on Tarawa, the Gilbert Islands, November 1943, with utter disregard

for his own personal safety, Jack, upon reaching the beach, without hesitation, engaged the enemy in fierce combat, namely, one rooster of Japanese ancestry. And the wounded... I don't think they can prove that. I don't think they've got hard evidence on this. They're just assuming.

They're doing the same thing I did. And the wounded on the head by repeated pecks, he soon routed the opposition. He refused medical aid until all wounded members of his section had been taken care of. End quote. I thought they'd make him like

a cigarette bearer. I don't know. Just running fucking party bait up the beach. I think he could only carry a few rounds, so I don't think he's useful for as to carry ammo like the bear was oh we're gonna talk about another animal that carries ammo but I from everything that I'm reading is just a random I'm

assuming incredibly terrified duck running around the battlefield what the fuck is going on uh so the bloody battle of Tarawa would not be the only time jack would see combat he was present also at the battle of saipan and tinan oh no not saipan he keeps finding himself in the worst fucking possible place didn't wasn't that like one of the biggest uh bonsai charges

was in saipan i think it was the saipan airfield, but I could be wrong. And so at Tienan, he also pinned out and captured an enemy duck, which was then eaten by Marines. I wish I could say it was the first time I read about a POW being eaten by soldiers during World War II.

I've talked about this before, but George H.W. Bush was war ii um i've talked about this before but uh uh george hw bush uh was uh you know former head of the cia eventual president of the united states for a term and uh pilot during world war ii i believe was shot down uh and him and his co-pilot like his co-pilot parachuted out and was captured by the japanese and then eaten uh on an island uh outside the home islands of japan and he was rescued so we were like one gust away a good one gust of wind away from getting rid of the bush family once and for all yeah wow yeah i didn't know that yeah uh and the the japanese also i think a couple australian pows if i remember

correctly i don't think bush would taste good i don't think people would taste good i don't know that too obviously um like people call it long pig because apparently just kind of tastes like shitty pork but i don't know uh so maybe you just gotta i don't know cook it low and slow maybe maybe a braise yeah this is normally when i say new patreon goal but i'll again get away with saying that in the situation involves human trafficking um so this is around the time that the marines who uh you know been spending years with the stock fighting with this duck over multiple different war zones for some reason uh learned that I'm picturing this duck like a sledge from the Pacific.

He's just so grizzled and fucking out of it towards the end. He goes to duck community college and just doesn't fit in. Yeah. Well, they found out that Jack was actually a girl because Jack laid an egg. Some Marines also failed duck anatomy.

No, for the first time ever and the only time ever, Marines accepted a woman, I assume. Finally, Miss Jack's war was over. She was sent back to the United States where she received a hero's welcome. This included two different radio broadcast interviews of a duck. I assume

it was very one-sided. And also all of the beer she could drink. That's a good deal. One of her retirement gigs is being a marine recruiter and then retired to live with Fagan for quite some time before eventually going to the Chicago Zoo, where she lived until

1954, where she lived until 1954, where she finally died of liver problems, I assume from all the beer and cigarettes that she was eating. I imagine at the zoo they didn't know what to do. They're like, yeah, she won't drink water. Keeps trying to invent a coffee company. I don't get it. So that sounds like tragic or whatever,

but for a war veteran duck with a drinking problem, Jack had a hell of a lifespan. So according to a quick search, a normal duck's life is between five and ten years, though some can live up to 20 in captivity. And I assume that those 20 years in captivity were not spent drinking in bars full of Marines like Jack and Jack lived to be at least 10 years old but nobody's entirely

sure how old she was but lived a you know a long healthy life as healthy as you could oh yeah I imagine those captive ducks haven't seen any of that combat no those captive ducks were not having duck flashbacks or whatever

and dealing with what I assume is a chicken based tbi from getting pecked on the head so on to our next war hero uh so when i talk about a war horse you're probably thinking like calvary right what happened to the egg i I assume somebody ate it. Oh, okay. It was, you know, unfertilized unless Jack was getting dicked down on the side by another duck or a marine. Oh, fuck. That'd be an ugly baby.

Yeah, it fucking would. Kill me. Someone give that fucking egg an exorcism so you know when you think warhorse you probably assume like world war one was the last time you'd see those or you know maybe in 2001 but

you assume that there is a trooper carrying a sword or a spear or whatever on its back, something triumphant. This war horse is a little different. or the morning flame was born in South Korea in 1948 or around there at least, uh, and was owned by the family of a young boy who was recorded being named Kim hook moon. Uh, unfortunately for everybody involved for a few years,

uh, after that, a little event known as the Korean war happened, uh, plunging the entire area into chaos. Um, this is when a young Marine lieutenant, again, another Marine,

named Eric Peterson, a platoon commander of a Marine recoilless rifle platoon, had been given authorization and money by his commander to find a giraffe animal for his platoon. You know, like, a pack animal. Because recoilless rifles are fucking heavy. I thought you said

giraffe. Yeah it find a giraffe animal just a giraffe you're never gonna believe it we said this stupid fucking LT to go bite a giraffe and soul wait until he comes back and fuck he has a track I would just lay it around in the zoo dumb bastards now in case anyone is curious carrier coilus rifle is kind of a huge

pain in the ass they're quite heavy uh and the u.s military is rapidly learning yeah they're like i think over 80 pounds or something like that um every weapon system back then was fucking cumbersome for no reason yeah we don't know why but we attach another eight pounds of metal onto it. Made of cast iron for no reason. Korea was one of those wars like the Italian front of World War II where you quickly found out that mechanization of your military only works

so well if there's roads. There's a lot of rugged mountainous terrain in South Korea. They're like, we need donkeys and shit because our jeeps aren't working. Or in this case, a horse. And the US military bought pretty much

every draft animal they could get their fucking hands on. And Lieutenant Peterson ran into the Kim family who was standing outside the Seoul racetrack and was trying to sell his family's horse to pay for a prosthetic leg for his sister. Because the world is a dark

and grim place. And at this point, it's worth pointing out that, I mean, obviously the Koreas are in the middle of a war, but also South Korea is significantly less developed than North Korea. So like it was a rough time to be in South Korea. Right.

Kim was asking $50, but when Peterson heard his... Sounds like a deal. A horse for 50 bucks is a sweet deal. I don't know what the inflation rate is here, but when Peterson heard the boy's story, he paid him all the money he had, which is $250.

I would really like to think... Oh, good guy. Yeah, I would really like to think that Kim just grifted the shit out of the Marines like suckers. That's a much happier story than thinking about his sister without a leg. Oh, absolutely. The horse was renamed Reckless

because it sounded close to Recoilus Rifle. Apparently, Reckless Rifles were what Marines called the weapons at the time which is pretty rad honestly um i don't know why but i like it um she was true yeah i don't know why you'd get reckless out of recoilless unless you're just trying to make it make like i don't i also don't know why recoilless rifles are called recoilless rifles they look like fucking

rocket launchers yeah they really do. But whatever. I'm sure someone will comment like, actually, I know there's an actual reason. I don't care. It's less cool this way. So Reckless was trained in her new job by Gunnery Sergeant Joseph Latham, calling it hoof camp

instead of boot camp. Get it? I'm assuming that Gunnery Sergeant was very good at dad jokes. Now, this training included how to get around barbed wire and run for a bunker if she heard someone shout out incoming, which is... You know how terrifying

that would be if you were in a bunker and a fucking horse comes running? Yeah. Give him his own fucking bunker. I don't want to be trampled. I had to run for bunkers a couple of times in Afghanistan mostly because they made us.

If you're on one of the big bases and the sirens go off, you have to run into the bunkers or the MPs will yell at you. I can only imagine because those things are packed like there's very little room for people just a horse just lowering it's built like lowering the boom and plowing through humanity getting

into this bunker shoulder checking people but she took to her training pretty quickly and was reportedly pretty chill about everything the Marines loved her and soon she was sleeping and eating with them. Her favorite foods being bacon

and scrambled eggs and yes coffee, beer, and Coca-Cola. Cigarettes? I don't think so. Though at one point she did reportedly also eat her horse blanket and $30 worth of

whomst amongst us am I right and she also ate $30 worth of Latham's poker chips I'd be kind of pissed $30 is a lot of fucking money in the 50s man I might end up waiting on the back end remember this entire horse

is almost 50 dollars like yeah latham's like where's my fucking money where's my money reckless just beating him in the legs now uh obviously as a pack animal carrying uh replacement parts and ammunition for recoilless rifles it's only a matter of time before reckless saw combat and her first time she has seen combat she was actually more terrified from her units or coalesce rifles going off than anything else but she didn't run uh instead while loaded down with hundreds of pounds of ammunition uh she jumped straight up off the ground which must have been very hard to do uh like when the gun when the coalesce rifle went off she jumped straight up into the air and then that was pretty

much it um i assume she went deaf afterwards like just couldn't hear it anymore uh during the battle the marines learned another thing about reckless she was really fucking smart um i don't like horses i don't know if you have any experience around horses i fucking oh yeah absolutely they're they're giant assholes and they're dumb as shit. I've been around the whole dressage thing. Horse dancing. Pretty much. It's kind of big in our culture. Dressages? Really?

Yeah. Alright. Fair enough. I should send you some fucking family videos. You should. I assumed it was like, especially in California, I assumed it was more rodeo type stuff. Oh, absolutely. It's that and then dressage is all the types of shit like you'll have the horse dancers come for the quinceaneras and shit oh okay that makes sense um i've never seen that but i think i've i think i've heard of that before um but you know i don't i don't

fucking like horses oh neither do i uh my why are you dancing? Yeah, stop dancing. Go somewhere else. My uncle actually had the tip of his ear bitten off by a horse. Yeah, I guess. I mean, also, my uncle's a dumb idiot, and we're all from the city, so we don't know how to act around horses. He was wearing a straw

hat and got the tip of his ear bitten off by a horse. He was eating his food. Yeah. That's kind of his fault bitten off by a horse. He's winning his food. Yeah. That's kind of his fault. At the same time, my dog likes eating food. If I put food on my head, my dog would bite my head. But, whatever.

Whatever. I'm giving the horse a pass on this one. And I like Reckless. So, moving on. But, Reckless is smart as fuck. Now, Reckless his first job was delivering ammo to various frontline gun positions and her handlers learned that they would only have to walk the horse

up to the position one or two times and then she just memorize it and she could be able to do it on her own without any supervision whatsoever thank god I don't have to walk into fucking combat with this god damn horse i mean this horse is better at her job than most soldiers i mean of how many soldiers have you supervised or in

no situation would you ever leave them unsupervised oh plenty exactly this horse better than that um and like all they would have to do is like say it like they would name a point uh and like hey this is point a or fucking whatever and uh they would then would later load a ton of ammo onto reckless like point a i assume reckless would be like finger guns just like horse its ass off in that direction um So after that, Reckless would come into her own as a war horse. Her and her unit found itself stuck in the middle of the Battle of Pamujan, Vegas, one of the bloodiest battles in all of Western Korea during the war, when an entire division of Chinese infantry launched a major attack

across a few outposts, and mostly in a way to better the position of North Korea during ongoing peace talks. Little-known behind-the-scenes look, I had an entire series on the Korean War done, scripted out, and cited when my laptop died and ate the entire thing. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Yep, yep. As eight hours of a podcast, you'll never get, at least until a while when researching that war no longer makes me angry. I'm so ready for it. The Korean War is awesome. It's interesting to me. I even lost my notes

in my outline, so this makes going back even harder. I think I've heard of Vegas before. It is a pretty big battle. And Reckless found herself being the main supply mechanism for her entire unit during the three-day-long battle. She

worked the entire time without rest. At one point when her handlers attempted to pin her in so she couldn't run out anymore, she simply busted down the door. During the battle, Reck during the battle reckless never had a soldier where I'd have to say hey stop stop working yeah I mean

I get a little too much reckless is an animal but at the same time like the horse wanted to work which is very weird yeah clearly not an e4 no so this horse just jumped e4 just to be safe during the battle reckless made 51 trips

carrying ammo to the front line herself under withering machine gun and artillery fire during the battle she was wounded twice one of them costing her an eye oh did not slow down she's like no that sucks can do without got another one i didn't even like that i couldn't even see that well out of it. She's just like bloody as shit staring down an entire division of Chinese infantry like, got you just where I want you motherfuckers. I'm just in the fucking stand, Marsh.

Is that the best you got? The fucking drunk horse. She carried over 9,000 pounds of ammunition during the battle, and whenever she returned to position, the Marines would then cheer and give her pets and snacks in the middle of a firefight. Yay, Reckless!

Is that on brand? I don't know. I've never hung out with Marines enough to know. I feel like you'd chill with the dog. Yeah, probably. If a horse showed up to give me ammo, I'd give that motherfucker anything it ever wanted. You want my boots, horse?

Yeah, we're about the same size. Reckless never stopped. At several points, Marines had to stop her. On her return trip, loaded her down with wounded men to be carried back to the rear for treatment, all without guidance. and it should be noted you know fuck this guy

is heavy got this horse yeah this horse shows up missing and I shot this shit like hey you want to carry those sort of back and reckless is like yeah all right um and at no point was reckless ever trained to carry people like reckless has never ridden.

Is she cool with it? Yeah. No, did not mind. One bit. All right. This ammo feels weird on my back. This ammo is warm. Marines were shocked to see her still working and ignoring her natural instincts to run from the thousands of bullets flying all around her.

One said, quote, instincts to run from the thousands of bullets flying all around her. One said, quote, I looked back at the Eastern skyline through the smoke and swinging flare light and could hardly believe my eyes. Surely an angel must have been writing her. I imagine it's because it's probably deaf and missing an eye. It's like Augusta shit.

And even reckless, like took a look at the angels. Like, no, you walk behind me, motherfucker. I don't get rid of you. For her actions during the Battle of Pamujan, Vegas,

Reckless was officially promoted to Corporal and awarded two Purple Hearts. Jesus. After this, she became the first Marine warhorse ever to take part in an amphibious landing, landing at Inchon. What? She was then giving a battlefield

promotion to sergeant by General Randolph Pate, the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division. Could you imagine that horse telling you to get on a detail? The horse is like, hey, I bet you just need to fucking pray to rest for me. Hey, how about you pick up my shit while I'm gone?

After the war, Reckless has moved back to the Marines to Camp Pendleton with some difficulty due to the importation of animals from different countries. I can say customs is a motherfucker when it comes to this, and I just moved to Hawaii. She underwent blood tests, and Marines

are about ready to riot when they learn that she was positive for a disease known as Dorian? I thought you were about to say dwarfism. Normal-sized horse. are about ready to riot when they learn that she was positive for a disease known as Dorian? Doreen? I thought you were about to say dwarfism. Normal-sized horse. This is a sexually transmitted disease in horses. And she would have

to be sent back to Japan until the infection was taken care of. It sounds like a marine to me. Exactly! If there's one thing that Marines identify with, it's a wounded-ass horse with an STD. Thankfully, that didn't happen. Due to

General Pate's direct intervention, she was able to skip quarantine and come to the United States. They should have just put the old fake glasses with the fake nose and the mustache on it. This isn't the horse. The other horse only had one eye.

Yeah. Reckless made it to the United States and attended her first Marine Corps birthday ball where she ate most of the cake and shit on the floor. That would be the best fucking ball ever. What are you putting in the grog Just fucking Vomiting cake and shit everywhere

She was again promoted to Staff Sergeant 1959 This promotion was also given On order of the now Marine Commandant, Rudolph Pate. Oh, points were low. That's the only excuse I could come up with. And not only that, it was preceded by a 19-gun salute and a 1,700-man parade of Marines made up from her former unit when she got promoted. That's kind of badass.

Just for a comparison, normally 19 gun salutes are reserved for the Vice President of the United States. Wow. To be fair, I respect this horse significantly more than any Vice President of the United States. Or Presidents of the United States.

During the parade in her honor, she ate the special horse blanket that was covered in her awards and ate somebody else's hat as they walked by. A book was written by a colonel during her wartime service who had taken notes,

which must have been a very weird thing to do in the middle of a war about a horse. The book, named Reckless, Pride of the Marines, came out in 1955. She was treated as a... I had a hope in Reckless wrote it. Just hoof prints

and plates being taken off pages. She was treated as a VIP everywhere she went and did several public appearances. But her time on the Ed Sullivan show had to be cancelled due to an incoming typhoon. After that, she became effectively retired.

Though she didn't become officially retired until 1960. She had to get those 20 years in, you know? During her time in retirement at Camp Pendleton, she had four children. One of which was named after Chesty Poehler, the only Marine ever allowed to ride Reckless. That's kind of... It might be a bit of popular fiction, honestly.

That's what a lot of people say, is that Chesty Poehler was the only Marine that Reckless ever allowed to ride her. But that seems some hero shit, in my opinion. But maybe. Who knows? allowed to ride her but that seems some some hero shit in my opinion um but maybe who knows but the her one of her sons was named chesty puller gotcha though reckless was no doubt a bad motherfucker she wasn't exactly built for her job she was a racehorse and was pretty

small and as she aged she suffered from the ultimate veteran affliction arthritis in her knees and back not service related? Because of this, she eventually... The VA said it's not service related. It's weird. The horse VA. Because of this,

she eventually tripped and fell, injuring herself, and she died while under anesthetic getting treatment. And she was about 20 years old at the time of her death. In her honor, several monuments were built at Marine bases as well as in Korea. She was awarded the highest medal an animal

in the military can receive in the US. The Animals in War and Peace Medal of Bravery. One of her sons, named Fearless, remained in the Marines as a mascot. This episode has been pretty Marine heavy.

More Marine heavy than usual. We're going to close it with a soldier dog. I'm always down for a dog. I like dogs. Honestly, it is the best story in this whole thing. Obviously, I'm a dog person and I was in the army, so I'm a little biased. The horse is

pretty fucking good. This is about Chips the dog. Chips the dog. Yeah. Chips the dog was born sometime around 1940 in New York and bought by the Wren family. Chips was a husky collie shepherd mix and meant to be just a family friendly dog. He wasn't going to be a working dog or a guard dog or anything.

Just going to be a kid's dog. That was until the US entry into World War II. The US created the Dogs for Defense program where civilians could donate their dogs for use in the US Canine Corps in the war.

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad. I would definitely not give my dog to the government. When the war was over, the government said they would simply ship them back to their families um now through this program um over 40 000 dogs were donated to fight fascism and uh there's a reason why they needed so many a lot of dogs simply weren't good enough they couldn't be trained they had you know they weren healthy. Then they were sent back to their families. Of the 40,000, only 10,000 made the cut. So I guess Chips went through selection

and graduated, whatever. Laika would not make it. First of all, she's almost 10 years old. And she's stubborn as shit. She's not going to get trained for anything. Now, the reason why Chips was

apparently donated, according to the family's son later, years, years later, is that Chips had bit the garbage guy. So they're like, oh, off to where you go, kid. Which I guess is the dog version of having the choice between jail and the draft.

Chips was given to his handler, a private named John Rowell, and sent to Morocco. There, Chips was used as a sentry dog, apparently just sniffing and barking at a lot of stuff at night.

And he was apparently very good at his job, and he made everybody else look bad. Other dogs were compared to him. And so Chips just kept getting promoted. And by promoted, in this sense, I mean moved up the ladder to good assignments, I guess. One of those was he was used as a guard dog for the Casablanca Conference where FDR and Winston Churchill met to discuss wartime strategy. Both men met the dog and loved him.

And I'm a little sad that Chips did not bite Winston Churchill. Just tear that fat fuck up. After this, Chips and Rowell were part of the aptly named, wait for it, Operation Husky the invasion of Sicily

I think I'd still rather be in Sicily I think I would much rather be in Morocco yeah now during the invasion of Sicily Chips and Rowell among the first wave of soldiers to hit the beach yeah I'm not exactly sure what Chips' job was

he was never trained as an attack dog from anything that I've ever seen. He was mostly and almost entirely used as a sentry. Not something you need at the first wave, but it's not the dumbest decision we made during the invasion of Italy, so whatever. But yeah, they were part of the first wave of soldiers that hit the beach and found themselves immediately pinned down by German and Italian machine machine gun fire now these soldiers trapped down on the beach returned fire but could not get a good angle on these bunkers uh so they had no way out that is

when chips decided to take shit into his own paws i'm not proud of that pun. I also had a pun earlier about Jack the Duck. I was going to say we're going to talk about an animal of a different feather. And then I didn't. But Chips broke free from Rowell's hands and sprinted directly at the bunker. He leapt through the gun port next to the machine gun and began attacking everyone inside, tearing Nazis apart. He

then grabbed the machine gun in his mouth and pulled the entire assembly down from the mount so it couldn't be used before grabbing a Nazi by his throat and dragging him, kicking and screaming out of the bunker. In the middle of all of this,

soldiers finally got up in advance and secured the bunker, being outdone by a single underweight husky. Jesus. This dog took a machine gun nest by itself. People have got the medal of honor for significantly less than that. Chip's only wounds during his assault on the bunker were burns from biting a red-hot machine gun barrel.

But that did not slow him down. Yeah, he's like, now you've got me really angry. I get pissed off when that happens. Like, if you fucking bite down on, like, some, I don't know, some soup. Like if you fucking bite down on like some, I don't know, some soup, not that you'd bite down on soup. It's like too hot and it just fucks your mouth up. Chew that soup up.

Um, actually I ate some very fucking spicy pretzels the other day. Um, and I'm a baby back bitch. So don't do well with spice. I don't, it burnt the shit out of like my gums and it's still like, it hurts to eat right now. So what I'm saying is me and Chip's struggles are

exactly the same. The pretzel had salt on it. Too spicy for my ass. So, yeah. Chip's wasn't done, though. He didn't even get treatment because I assume the medic didn't know what the fuck to do with mouth burns for a dog. I don't know. Eat some ice chips.

But he wasn't doing he wasn't done um doing war better than all of the humans around him later that same day he once again ran away from his handler who I'm starting to assume is bad at his job um maybe he's just used to staying in one spot as a sentry yeah

he's like um chips I need you to bite me so I can go hang out on rear d um chips kamikaze dove into a trench line and quartered 10 italian soldiers who surrendered to the dog who has the heart to take out a dog though i mean they are italian soldiers during world war ii so maybe they're hoping to just join the dog side like I don't know what side you're on but we're here for it we're here for it now for his actions chips that is not the Italians

and for making his human handler look like a real bitch chips became the most heavily decorated animal in United States military history chips was awarded the silver star with V device distinguished service cross these are like actual medals like animals will be given like purple hearts and stuff

um now for people who are unaware than us yeah way better so much better for people who are unaware or are driving or whatever and can't look this up the DSC or distinguished service cross is one step below the Medal of Honor he was also given a purple heart for the mouth burns now are you sure those weren't self-inflicted

wounds in the middle of action I'll say that their enemy enemy wounds I mean that was a German machine gun. Now, chips is actually the reason that the military changed its policies on giving awards to animals. The military

revoked these medals due to having an unofficial policy of giving military awards to animals and made it official then. That's why you have things like the Dickens Medal and stuff now or the War and Peace Medal that Reckless got.

I've never heard of the Dickens. The Dickens is British, but they give it to... It's like... I want to say it's the ASPCA or some shit. I don't know, but they'll give it to animals around the world, but now the US has a US-centric one because of course we do.

It's a couple years old. It's pretty pretty new I think the last time we did this show in February of 2020 that by that mean an animal palate cleanser that metal didn't exist yet so they're pretty much only awarding it retroactively though they have given it to a few animals from like the global war on terror and stuff

but his handlers and fellow soldiers that served alongside him kept making sure his real awards that being his silver star and his DSC were always pinned to his collar the unit also awarded him a

theater ribbon with an arrowhead signifying his participation in an amphibious assault landing this went alongside his eight battle stars could you imagine walking by this dog on post you better fucking salute this dog I mean I don't know

they called them battle stars then we have campaign stars now they're a little bit different but and they mean various different things but yeah he had eight fucking battle stars jesus uh chips then did what every enlisted soldier wants to do deep down inside he physically attacked a general officer and got away with it he bit the shit out of a general no it wasn't patent that would be even better

so after stories of his heroic spread allied Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower, five-star general, wanted to meet this dog. The handler then brought Chips to the general, and Chips bit that motherfucker on the hand when he tried to pet him. Hell yeah. That's fucking awesome. And, like, to his credit, Eisenhower wasn't mad about it. Because, like, the handler said, like, I wouldn't pet him if I was you. This dog's kind of fucked. He's seen some shit.

He was apparently really nice to all the soldiers around him. He never bit anybody that he worked with. But he did not like strangers. That sounds normal. Honestly, on Operation Husky, they're all pretty much just lucky he took off in the right direction to attack germans probably yeah rather than just like mauling some unit he wasn't familiar

with the handler uh after the war the army sent ships back to his family where he reportedly had a hard time fitting in back at home honestly that's not even a joke. The dog had fucking adjustment problems. Could you imagine the kids trying to play fetch

and he just thinks it's grenade? Fucking probably. Now, I assume this is the point where he started picking up drinking, used his GI Bill on a history degree, and started a podcast. But actually, he was a decent-sized dog. Most large dogs don't have a super long lifespan, unfortunately.

He died at around eight years old. Nobody's really sure why. Probably, I'm assuming, for the eight fucking battle stars he got from landing on Sicily. Being a stressed out war dog in the late 40s, probably not the most healthy

time to be a dog. Several decades later, people realized that Chips technically didn't have any awards because the army took them all away. So, the most heroic animal in US military history needed some recognition.

In 2018, chips is posthumously awarded the Dickin medal. Uh, the highest award for animals could, uh, the animals could receive until the medal of bravery was instituted in 2019, which chips is also given at his award ceremony. The medal was presented to John Wren, the young

boy who Chips was originally bought for back in the 1940s, now 76 years old. Jeez, that's actually kind of cool. Right? You think he's wondering, like, yeah, Chips was kind of fucked up when he came back. Hey, that dog is part of the greatest generation, I'll have you know. I mean,

that's not technically incorrect. Ken Burns is going to make a fucking very melodramatic documentary about him. I love Ken Burns. I do too, even though his documentaries have some problems from time to time. Mostly like the Civil War one, giving like eight hours of camera time to Shelby Foote, who's a big piece of shit. to Shelby Foot, who's a big piece of shit.

Now, Nick, that is our much-delayed palate cleanser. Do you feel better retroactively about the Camaraderie series? Loved it. That's good. So we do a thing on this show called Questions from the Legion.

If you'd like to ask us a question from the Legion, you can donate a dollar to the show, bother me on the Discord, send me an email, DM, message in a bottle, dog-based message, pigeon. Do you keep the dog at that point? I assume so. I'd have to just absorb it into my family.

Solid. But anyway, this one came from our Discord, and actually the voice chat uh while we were playing video games one night so yeah that's that's also something else that you can join in and do um and i almost spoiled it and they told me not to because they point out how good of a question of a legion this would be and i remembered it everybody should give me a round of applause and i actually remembered something um and that is where is the worst place you've ever taken a shit? You probably got a great one,

but I know I've been, oh, I used to do it down in the TAs down at Fort Hood in an MRE box, and I used to shift around whenever the, I want to face the sun pretty much. If the sun was going down, I wanted to face it. That's a view.

That's the worst place you've ever taken a shit? I'm talking about the nastiest bathroom, the worst place. In all honesty, I don't think I've ever had a bad experience other than that. I mean, Japan's bathrooms when I went to Japan, amazing.

I could talk about the most amazing, but those were probably the shittiest ones. Honestly, you rotating a shitbox around to face the sun for a view reminds me of that Rick and Morty episode where Rick had an entire dimension dedicated to having a really good shitting experience.

I mean, NTC, I'm not going to count NTC because everybody has a terrible NTC shit story. Well, I mean, that would count. I mean, it's just everybody's got it. I mean, sure. I'll throw one down. Throw down the gauntlet.

Yeah, I guess they didn't have the contract for the Port-A-John company to come by, so we used to carry around rocks to throw into the Port-A-Shitters so we could depress the shit in the toilet paper so we didn't have to touch it or hover. God, you had to weigh it down yeah oh that's bad

it was awful mine is definitely um i immediately have one that comes to mind so um i one of my jobs i had in afghanistan was living at afghan police stations um a lot of these places are decades old.

They don't have plumbing. If they do have a toilet, it's rudimentary. And I was not sick because I dealt with dysentery quite often because I always ate the shadiest food I could find because it was delicious. But I had to take a dump. I had to take a real bad dump. Chicken sashimi. And I was not going to make the six-hour foot patrol

back to base, right? And I was like, hey, I need to use all this toilet. And they pointed me to this... I guess it was like a mud brick building, which is pretty common there. No windows, no ventilation, um with like this really small like tin door which i was wearing full combat gear i'm a large person i'm six three and 230 pounds i had to almost half squat to get through the door uh there's no lights in this place. We've all been to

Asia or wherever where they have the floor squatty potties or whatever. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with that. I'm pretty flexible for a guy my size, so I can handle them just fine. I was puzzled when I first saw them. It does come out of left field if you're not expecting

it. I'll give you that much. This was not one of those. It was quite literally a hole in the ground, which I get. I'm in rural Kandahar. They're not going to have the nice ones they have in Japan, you know what I'm saying? Or even Kabul, for that matter. But this place does not have plumbing. So what it effectively is,

is just a giant concrete box full of shit that is unventilated with the exception of this single hole and this is a I mean everybody's heard of clam baking a room with weed smoke I walked into

what is effectively a clam bake of hundreds of assholes um and have you ever walked into something that you could what is effectively a clam bake of hundreds of assholes. Have you ever walked into something that you could feel the smell? Oh, yeah. Your fucking hair start curling? Yes. That's what it felt like.

That's where I pooped. I'm not proud of it. It wasn't a good poop. I feel like you could taste it oh you could i'd have like either you like i obviously was like oh if you could smell something breathe through your mouth congratulations now you're tasting it yeah i wish i could better explain how awful that was but i really thought about recreating it oh no uh like there was another police station that we had to live at for weeks at a time wish I could better explain how awful that was but I really can't. Oh no. Like there was another police station that we had

to live at for weeks at a time that like you if you had to take a dump you had to like put on all of your body armor bring a buddy and go out back where a sniper could take your head off and you shit in a field. Much better experience. But yeah

that's my worst experience ever. And I hope I, I described it good enough for everybody. Yeah. New Year's would be good. If there's a weird place I've pooped in it, that's, that's the,

that's my tagline. That's my series arc here. I know when I first saw the floor ones, cause I, I was at the airport in Japan. I was like, damn, I need to take a shit that was a

long flight fucking go into the the bathrooms look into the stall like where's the toilet i go to the stalls where the fuck is the toilet where the fucking bidets i've been hearing about no sir and uh one of my buddies was telling me like hey did you see the floor the floor shitters and i was like yeah he's like yeah i just got naked i didn't know what to do yeah it can hit you out of left field if you're not expecting it uh there is some places in japan that have like american toilets but from my understanding they're pretty rare. Have you tried Bidet? I have. They're magical. Oh yeah. Warm water? More people. That's

peak humanity right there. Nick, it's good to have you back. Thanks for joining me. Anytime. Everybody, thank you for your support and your questions from the Legion. And until next time, be like chips and bite Nazis. Yes.