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Apologia Radio
563. Religious Discrimination in the CA National Guard
01:09:46
We are blessed to have the opportunity to break this story to the world. There is some serious religious persecution happening in the California National Guard, and we are pleased to have Captain Andrew Garza join us, along with his lawyer Caleb Byrd from Younts Law, to bring us up to speed. Spread the word!
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- [00:00]
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Caleb Bird
Non Rockabotus must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.
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Captain Andrew Garza
Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?
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Unidentified Commentator
Delusional. Yeah, delusional is okay in your worldview, I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being so. You calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt.
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Caleb Bird
She hung up on me.
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Captain Andrew Garza
What?
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Caleb Bird
What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding
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Captain Andrew Garza
them for their courage.
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Luke the Bear
Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies, not to make brosephs.
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Caleb Bird
Right.
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Luke the Bear
Don't go into the world and make homies disciples.
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Unidentified Commentator
I got a bit of a jiggle neck.
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Caleb Bird
That's a joke, Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're
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Captain Andrew Garza
speaking truth when they're not. Take an amazing journey to a place that will blow your mind and move your heart so you will never be the same again.
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Luke the Bear
You shall do no wrong in judgment and measures of length or weight or quantity. You shall have just balances, just weights. Adjust FF and adjust him. I am the Lord, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. And you shall observe all my statutes and all my rules and do them. I am the Lord. That is from Leviticus 19, verses 35, 37. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. Luke the Bear hosting today. Pastor Jeff is, I believe, on his way back from Tennessee. I got back yesterday and he's on his way back today. So had a very productive week. For those of you that have been following what we've been doing there. We had equal protection bills in the House and Senate, so we had a pastors meeting Nashville Tuesday night and then they had another one in Knoxville last night. And I think we had close to 200 passers combined. So I'm pretty excited for that. We did have a hearing on Tuesday at the Capitol, which the bill did not get a hearing. But that's okay. We know God's in control and we're. We are. We have a good start there in Tennessee. We've been praying for Tennessee for a while to get some bills there. And so we've got some brave legislators. Please be praying for Tennessee as they continue to build upon that and build that army there to protect the lives of our preborn neighbors. Of course, we still got bills going on all over the, all over the place. We've been working on starting to slow down a little bit now as we're getting close to April. So a lot of the legislative stuff is going to be running out of time here, but we still have bills going. We still working in, in other states. So please continue to pray for that. We're grateful for everyone that supports an abortion. Now, all that to say I'm excited for this show today. For those of you that been listening for a while, you should know who Davis, you's our, our good friend. And despite, despite what cross politics says, Davis is our lawyer. They can't claim him. I refuse to allow that. But we met Davis and we started protecting the seals back in 21 when or 22 when we started dealing with warriors. And he hit me up probably three weeks ago maybe about this case today that we're going to be talking about. So Davis doesn't join us today, but his partner Caleb is with us today and Captain Andrew Garza from the California National Guard. So I'm just going to bring us right into this conversation. Religious persecution is no bueno and we're, we're dealing with it. So Caleb, Caleb Bird. I'm gonna bring you in, brother, and why don't you just fill us in on what's going on here and then we'll turn to Captain Garza and hear his story.
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Caleb Bird
Thank you, Luke. First, let me just Say it's an honor and a privilege to be here with you. You know, I've listened to the show for a long time. I'm glad we were able to connect on this one because I think it's an important issue.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah.
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Caleb Bird
You know, for those of you who don't know, our law firm represents military members around the world. We also specialize in religious discrimination cases. So we have a unique front row seat to the halls of power. And what's actually happening to Christians who are serving in the military and in the government. You know, one of the things we've noticed is a lot of people think because we have Donald Trump as President, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, we've got really good people in the Pentagon right now that the religious discrimination we've seen over the past several years, that it goes all the way back to the Obama administration, that it no longer exists. But unfortunately, we have people like Captain Andrew Garza and his crew. And what's going on in California, that really shows us that religious discrimination is alive and well in our military. And your taxpayers, your taxpayer dollars are actually going to fund this discrimination. And so that brings us to Captain Garza and his team. Our firm currently represents Captain Garza and two other enlisted soldiers from the California National Guard who are facing religious persecution. And there's potentially more. Interestingly enough, what has happened over the last year is California National Guard has used its equal opportunity legislation in California to target Christians who are service members. Specifically is related to issues about women in combat roles, about transgenders and whether they can serve in the military, about relate about policies related to sodomy and its appropriateness in the military and whether you can say anything about it. And the simple fact is that unless you fully embrace and parrot the groupthink, you are going to be persecuted in the California National Guard right now. And that's exactly why we are here today. And so this is something that we wanted to bring to your attention because it's not a past problem, it's an ongoing problem that we're continuing to fight on the ground.
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Luke the Bear
Thank you, man, for that. I have a quick question I meant to ask you on the phone earlier today. I don't know the answer to this. Hopefully, I'm assuming you do, but this is actually the second instance I've heard of something similar with fire departments. I know this isn't exactly the fire department. We'll get into that. But I have a young man that is a medic, and he's looking to, you know, become an emt. And join the fire department, one of the fire departments here. And they're trying to make him do this DEI training. I was like, I thought Trump said no more of that. That was like one of the first things he said on day one. I feel like before he even started, he was like, no more DEI stuff. And so how is this. Maybe, maybe I'm incorrect on that. That was my understanding. But how is this still being allowed to take place?
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Caleb Bird
Well, part of it has to do with the state versus federal side. And so for this particular case, Captain Garza serves on a joint task force that fights wildland fires. And so this task force is comprised of state, California Guard and California National Guard. So you have this hybrid unit that's a joint task force that's out there fighting fires. And because the state is in control, you're seeing a lot more of this anti religious discrimination being applied from the state level. Now, it's interesting you talk about specifically how this relates to fire crews. So Andrew was the OIC for a hand crew in California that has been absolutely decorated over the last couple of years, including through the Palisades fire. But if you remember back to some of the news that was going on during the Palisades fire, the DEI hires over the fire department and the police departments in Southern California and la. You know, if you remember the famous quote by one of them, which was, well, if you're stuck in a fire, you're in the wrong place to begin with. Why should I save you? Right. Those are the kind of mentalities that are being applied now to military members who are also fighting fires in the California National Guard.
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Luke the Bear
Hmm. Crazy, crazy stuff, man. Okay, so thanks for that. The background into this. There's a lot we can, we're gonna get into in a lot more detail, obviously. So why don't we just bring in Captain Garza then? So, Andrew, if you just want to tell us about your, about yourself, bring us into this story, tell us a little bit about your history, because I know you have a, you know, significant military background before the National Guard. So we'd love to just get to know you a little bit and then you can walk us through, you know, what you've been going through here.
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Captain Andrew Garza
All right, yeah, sure. So I joined the delayed entry program in the marine Corps in 1999 when I was 17. And then 10 days after I graduated high school, I was in Marine boot camp and I was a Marine infantryman. I was stationed in 29 Palms and I was a squad leader during the invasion of Iraq. And kind of A cool story. My infantry platoon was attached to a tank company and the tank company that I was attached to. So the eight tanks in our, our records were the ones that tore down the statue of Saddam in Alfredo Square.
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Luke the Bear
Oh, awesome.
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Captain Andrew Garza
You know, Yeah, I got a piece of that statue.
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Luke the Bear
Oh, that's awesome, man.
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Captain Andrew Garza
Some cool pictures. Yeah. And then I got out of the Marine Corps in 2004 and joined the Guard in 05. And I just signed up for like a year and a half just to the end of my Marine contract. And that was 20 years ago. So here I am, mostly infantry in the National Guard. I was enlisted until 2017. I spent three years as a weapons instructor and competitive shooter for the National Guard, training, deploying soldiers, going to shooting matches. I also did a little bit of time on the Counter drug task force and then also a cadre member for one of the Youth Challenge programs in California. So at risk youth, they go to this residential program where it's a military type environment. They got guys like me, Ellen, Adam making a march and do push ups and then they go to school and it's a really great mentorship opportunity. I had a number of kids tell me that I was the closest thing to a father they ever had. So great opportunity. And then I commissioned and promoted myself out of a job and as an officer, I'm an infantry officer and I got a job as the officer in charge of one of the hand crews up in Reading. So Joint Task Force Rattlesnake and is a partnership between the California National Guard and Cal Fire. So California Guard provides soldiers as hand crew members and then Cal Fire gives us uniforms, equipment, Cal Fire captains, engineers, we ride around in crew carriers. So the only way you'd be able to tell us apart from a Cal Fire hand crew out on a wildfire is that we wear gray helmets and they wear yellow. Other than that, we're were pretty much like Cal Fire Wildland Firefighters. We're type one crews. We have to do readiness drill every year. And so we, we go on some of the gnarliest spots on some of the gnarliest fires. And we were on the Dixie Fire. I spent a couple weeks on the Dixie Fire, some of the other notable fires and then, yeah, most recently the, the Palisades. The Palisades was, was my last fire as the officer in charge of a hand crew and yeah, great, great cruise. The task force Rattlesnake provide some great crews. We have 14 of them and they go from San Diego all the way up to Reading. I was the officer in charge Toward the end of both crews up in Reading. So roughly a platoon size element. So two like 20 man crews approximately. And. Yeah. What else you want me to say
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Luke the Bear
for those that don't know what, what, what is a task of a, of a hand crew? What, what do you do?
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Captain Andrew Garza
Well, one of my fire captains like to break it down very simply and say we put a brown stripe between the black and the green. So the black is what's burning, the green is the fuel. And we cut fire break. Typically it's a four foot, we call it a scrape. So up in front we have saw teams and they cut away the vegetation for about six feet. And then the scrape, the rest of the hand crew comes behind with various hand tools and cut out stobs, which are little stumps and they get down to bare mineral soil, which is zero vegetation in the line for four feet. That's typical. And you do that for, you know, on a campaign fire, you'll be on a 24 hour shift and you're not doing that for 24 hours straight. But you know, there's times where you'll be, you'll be cutting like that for eight twelve plus hours and every bit of it's difficult. You're in some of the most austere terrain.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah.
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Captain Andrew Garza
In the state. I mean there's, there's been like, if OSHA saw what we do, they would stop, they would stop all firefighting. There's been times where I had a chainsaw and I'm like laying down something that was too steep to stand up on, trying to, trying to cut branches and stuff. Wow. And you're in just extreme heat up in Reading. I was stationed in 29 palms in the Marines. Sometimes I'll be in Reading, I'll just check the temperature. And sometimes Reading is hotter than 29 palms, which is in the Mojave Desert. Yeah, we had 120 degree day, I think in 2024. And so you're doing this stuff not only in very steep terrain, you know, wearing a 35 to 45 pound fire pack. If you're a Sawyer, you're carrying a 20 pound chainsaw. You're also doing it in 110 plus degree weather again for hours and hours and hours.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah.
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Captain Andrew Garza
So that's, that's the nature of the job.
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Luke the Bear
And that's, I mean, and then there's fire, which would make it even hotter than 120. Yeah. How, how does an infantryman end up being on a fire crew?
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Captain Andrew Garza
Well, that's where the, the joint thing. So in the National Guard. It is normally one weekend a month, two weeks a year. So I'm still. Well now, now I'm an OCS platoon trainer, so I train officer candidates. I'm no longer in an infantry unit, but my, my one weekend a month, two weeks a year job is that. But then as a full time Guard member, we're not in federal status, we're on state status. And so my full time job, essentially my civilian job is task force Rattlesnake. And I'm not on a crew anymore. Now I'm responsible for, for different training events and things like that. But yeah, so day to day, Monday through Friday, the hand crew members, they show up a lot of times, they do PT and they go out to a great project where they're just doing fuel mitigation, burning piles, chipping and, and then every month you got to go to drill, you got to go to at, sometimes get out, deploy. So that's how that works. So it's, it's full time National Guard, but it's separate from that called M Day, the one weekend a month, two weeks a year that everybody thinks of as the National Guard.
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Luke the Bear
Gotcha. So did they approach you and say, hey, you want to join a fire crew? Or is that something that you were like, oh, that sounds like it might be cool?
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Captain Andrew Garza
Well, I was actually a correctional officer with CDCR working up at Hydro State Prison. And I am not cut out to be a correctional officer. I commend, I commend the people that have that level of patience that can do that job for as long as they do a lot of respect. It was not for me and also doing the army thing because I'm an officer with at this point, 24 years in, I, I just made more doing that than being a correctional officer. And this opportunity came up, I had a buddy that was an OIC of another crew and he's like, hey man, let me call the commander and see if we can get you on. And they had a spot. So I did that. Didn't know anything about wildland firefighting and learned very quickly that it's one of the hardest jobs in the entire world. I mean, I've had some pretty hard days in the industry on active duty in the Marine Corps, as you can imagine, in 29 palms. And there's, there's shifts I had on the crew that rivaled any of those days. So yeah, that's. So I got my start on the cruise in 2020 at the end of 2020. And so 2020 through, I want to say, like May of 20, 25. I was the OSC of one hand crew. And then, and later on both up and running.
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Luke the Bear
Gotcha. So you're at 24 years now, you said going on 25. We'll get into like what the ramifications of this whole situation could be, but just quickly. Well, will, will this affect your, you know, any benefits or anything you get if you, if they just let you end up going what will you have a decent retirement package? Or how does that, or is that just done? Like what does that look like?
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Captain Andrew Garza
I think Caleb's actually probably better to answer.
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Luke the Bear
Okay.
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Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, perfect. I can only speculate with some of this stuff.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah, yeah, no, I, I don't know. I should have, I should have prefaced this from the beginning that Andrew is limited to what he should be saying because he is still, still under contract and in active duty there. And so we want to be, we want to protect him there. So there's going to be questions like this that Caleb needs to answer. But Caleb, let's go ahead and have you, have you answer that question then.
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Caleb Bird
Yeah. So potentially, certainly anyone who thinks about the military, you know, you think about your 20 year retirement, that gets really complicated when you start adding Reserve and National Guard time along with active duty time. And so one of the benefits of what Andrew is doing now being on active duty is it helps increase his retirement benefit in the end. Now your retirement benefit, whether you're Reserve, National Guard or active duty, depends on your characterization of service and at the time that, you know, you hit your 20 and then especially if you continue on. And so if in a worst case scenario, the California National Guard decided to try to separate Andrew, it could ultimately end up costing his, his retirement or at least significant portions of his retirement. And so that's always the concern in these types of cases.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah, that's what I was, that's what I was thinking. I just wasn't sure. I'm glad you answered that well because I wasn't sure how the Reserves worked with, you know, being full time duty and all that stuff. Okay, so what, we got a couple minutes left in the segment. I'll let, while I got you on Caleb, why don't you talk up Captain Garza's credentials and career a little bit because I'm sure he's probably not comfortable bragging about himself. But I want to hear you brag about him because there's some, some pretty great stuff that he's done.
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Caleb Bird
The, you know, it's, it's really interesting. So you know, Captain Garza has Been extremely highly decorated in this particular position. His officer evaluation reports up until this point have been absolutely phenomenal. The things that he's worked on has. Has been some of the most difficult tasks that you can assign a fire crew. You know, interestingly enough, we. We represent military members from all over the world. There's a military base there. We go there. And so that means we represent both traditional line units, National Guard reserve units, and Special Forces units as well. It's interesting that these hand crews operate so much more similarly to the way a special forces ODA unit would operate. You're talking about small crews of 10 to 12 people in very light, isolated, austere environments that are decentralized, they're away from the flagpole. You don't have the traditional chain of command on these fire crews that you would say like a division or a brigade. And the tasks that they're asked to do are extraordinarily physically difficult. The simple fact is the majority of men aren't able to do these tasks. You know, you hear him talking about fighting fires in some of the most austere environments imaginable. California is well known for its rough terrain. And so imagine carrying, you know, 125 to 150 pound rucksack up and down the side of the mountain, wearing firefighter gears, hauling chainsaws, hauling gasoline to protect people's lives and livelihoods and homes. That is some of the most difficult jobs that you could possibly imagine in the military or in civilian firefighting. And the fact that these guys are not only doing it for performing it and setting the standard for the state of California has been absolutely phenomenal. One of the things that Andrew didn't mention is that he's been awarded multiple years in a row as the hand crew, oic for having the number one rated hand crew in the entire state of California through some of the most disastrous fires we've had there in recent memory. And so that's just a drop in the bucket for what Andrew has been able to accomplish along with his crews in California.
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Luke the Bear
Thank you, man. I appreciate that. That brings up a good question, I think, is how, like, how are you graded on that, Andrea? Like you, you were, you know, you're the number one rating.
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Captain Andrew Garza
I want to, I want to clarify a little bit. We were crew of the year. I wasn't OIC of the year necessarily, so we were crew of the year. And there, there are a lot of things that go into it. Fire hours, readiness drill performance, number of fires. I don't even know all the metrics I just know that I was there for four and a half years. They, they recognized the crew of the year three separate times while I was there. One year they didn't do it. And all three times it was, it was ready and I, I had, I had something to do with that, but I also had great crewmen and crew members. And then the fire cabins we have up there are top notch. We got some of the best in the state. And that, that all, that all goes into it.
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Luke the Bear
Yeah. Are there. I don't want to get you in trouble, so if you don't want answers, don't answer. But I mean, like, like in your, in your opinion, like, what would separate you from a crew that say, is clearly not doing well? Like, you get what I'm saying?
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Captain Andrew Garza
You know, I never really spent time with other crews.
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Luke the Bear
Okay.
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Captain Andrew Garza
I know what we did was, and, and some of this, some, some of this came from me. And then some of it was just my, my people coming up with great ideas and doing great things. We, we ran it like a military outfit. You know, we had accountability formation in the morning. We'd have PT in the morning where we did a, you know, we're in formation, warming up by the numbers. It's not super rigid. You know, people are joking around, we're having a good time. And then every morning we do a 1 mile warmup jog in formation and people are just warming up, having a good time. So again, it's not super rigid, but we're doing that. We're in formation, we're going by the numbers, we're running in formation. And then we would just do some gnarly workout if I could. I don't know if I get in trouble for this, but Mountain Tactical Institute, we got our physical fitness program from them. Incredible organization and they got us in crazy shape. And so we would do these workouts that were just insane. And so we were, we're physically far fitter than, than most other crews out there. And we saw that on some of these fires we, we could hike in ways that they couldn't a lot of times we cut longer, faster, harder than they could a lot of times. And so some of that fitness plays into morale. We had very high morale. And, and then we also, we also, we had a bunch of, a bunch of dudes for the most part. And so they have rituals and traditions and rites of passage that I won't go into too much, but morale was very high and, and that has a, a lot to do with how well we perform. So.
- [25:39]
Luke the Bear
Okay.
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Captain Andrew Garza
Running it like a military outfit. Rigid discipline and structure, but also high morale and having a good time at work and then just execution, you know, people, people like being part of a well run organization and, and they, they bring up their level of performance when they do that. For, for the most part there are some people that were just there for a job and they were still solid. And then, then also like a lot of it is and you wouldn't think so hearing about, you know, reading about the case, but I care, cared about my people. Yeah sure, I, I love them genuinely as individuals. I cared about the job and then, and also the NCOs, my, my subordinates also, we cared about our people and the fire captains as well. Again, some of the best fire captains and engineers in the state of their bully shoop and reading and that all came together to contribute to our performance. I'm not going to say what other crews did because I never really spent time. I just know that, I know that we tended to stand out where, when we had a reputation even in other counties where people would be like, oh hey, I know those guys, put them on this tough assignment. And so yeah, I don't, I don't know what we did different from other crews. Maybe they did similar things, but chalk it up to the Lord's favor, I suppose.
- [26:56]
Luke the Bear
Yeah, sure. Awesome man, I appreciate that. Well, let's, that's a good place to stop. We're gonna take a break in here from our Ion Layer, our sponsor here and then when we come back, I'll, we'll pick this conversation right back up. We'll see you in about a minute.
- [27:11]
Unidentified Commentator
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- [28:43]
Luke the Bear
Welcome back from the break. Grateful for our partners that allow us to do what we do and Ion Layer is a big one. So we're grateful to be working with them. So let's just pick up this conversation. I told Andrew I want to ask him to tell me one of the most terrifying stories he's experienced on the fire cruiser. He said he has a good one. So Andrew, just take it away, brother.
- [29:05]
Captain Andrew Garza
Well, it's good for me. If there's any wildland firefighters listening, this is probably going to be small potatoes compared to what they've done. Well, we're on the Palisades fire and. We were cutting down this, this long hillside and it was weird. I've never been to a fire in January, which I guess Southern California tends to burn. Santa Ana's and all that. Some of the gnarliest fire activity I've seen. Very, very high flame lengths burning really hot. And so we were cutting a line down into a valley and you know, cutting, cutting line downhill. It could be done safely, but it's something that you do with caution. And, and it was, we were cutting for, it was, it was about an eight hour straight cut. We didn't take a break at all during that, that eight hours. And I was, I was pulling at that time. So, so my job was typically as the, the hot shovel. When I wasn't on a saw team. I was the hot shovel which is, you know, you set the line and then you help pull the brush, called a puller. You help pull the brush and you throw it out of the line for the saw teams if the pullers are getting overburdened. So I was pulling pretty much the entire time because it was very thick, very tall brush and probably around six hours in, we were cutting in, in tall brush with hotline right there. Typically, typically we would pull back from that but we were really trying to get this buttoned up and. And so probably 8 foot brush, 8 to 10 foot brush, and it's. And it's burning. So we're. We're taking a lot of heat, and the fire starts to, like, hook around us at the bottom. And so our two captains that were there. Awesome. Managed to get. Grab the hose, run it down, put the fire out. We're like running up the hill thinking that we're going to have to. To get out of there quickly. And then fire activity calms down a little bit. We run back in, and we're cutting like crazy. There's flames, and it would flare up, get super hot. We'd have to run out. Captains will try to cool it down a little bit. And we did this for probably like an hour or so. And there were times where, like, even the captains that are pretty seasoned, afterward, they were like, telling one of their buddies, like, man, that was. That was hairy because, you know, you're wearing all this stuff, it's really steep, you're exhausted, and that fire can just run uphill like crazy. We had brush on the other side as well, so if it hooked around us, it could have been really bad. And it almost did that a couple times. So, yeah, that was. That was. That was pretty gnarly. Well, I wasn't having a good time that time.
- [31:39]
Luke the Bear
Can't imagine. I can imagine. Man, that's crazy. All right, so, Caleb, bring us in then to. To the controversy here. What's the purpose of us even having you guys on today? Like, what's taking place here?
- [31:53]
Caleb Bird
Yeah, so as you can tell, there are very high standards to be a part of these hand crew teams. Right. Particularly Andrew's team performing at the level that they're performing. So there are two things that really started getting into this controversy in 2025. The first is enforcing and upholding standards. Standards within the team. And the second is Andrew's Christian faith when it comes to the first upholding standards. When you're on a crew like this and you're operating in these terrifying environments, fighting fires on the side of a mountain like you just described, you don't have the opportunity to not meet the standard. Failure to meet the standard is going to cost lives and potentially the life of your crew. Right. And so one of the things that Andrew was having to do as part of these crews was enforce standards. And there were obviously people on this team who did not like having standards enforced, who did not like having to meet standards, and who filed complaints when standards were applied to Them. And so that's really what kind of started this controversy and kind of started the momentum that brought us here today. The second is, and you could just hear it in the way Andrew talked when he talks about loving his people as individuals on his team and caring for them as a person that comes from his deeply, sincerely held Christian faith. And as you can already tell, Andrew is one of those guys who. He's not going to be quiet about what he believes and what he thinks is true. And as a leader of this hand crew, Andrew was very open about his faith. Not in a demanding way of you have to always agree with what I think. You have to have the same faith, I believe, but it just oozes out of his pores. Right. And so some of the things that happened that led us here today was, you know, there were things like, for example, Andrew, when he was at college at Regent University, wrote a very good thesis paper, frankly, on the impacts of women's suffrage and how to think as a Christian through issues of voting right and voting access and what that looks like with. With having women voting. In a conversation with a specific individual who was part of the crew who also like to participate in these philosophical theological conversations, this topic comes up. Andrew goes, hey, I've actually written on this issue. Would you like a copy? The guy says, sure, I'd love to read it. And so Andrew gives him a copy. And then suddenly this copy is spread around. And Andrew was eventually accused of discriminating against women for his personal opinion when it about a thesis paper that he wrote in college. That's just one example. You know, another example was Andrew hosted Bible studies for his crew before the workday began. So not even during the work hours, but before the workday. Again, no one was required to be a part of these Bible studies, but the investigator. There was ultimately an investigation in this case, and the investigator came out and said that even though this is generally permissible, it created this apparent discrimination that was just kind of ethereal in the atmosphere. And so you. You start having these things that's. That start rolling and snowballing downhill. And what it's ultimately turned into now is Andrew and a number of guys on his. On his t. On his hand cruise all attend the same church in Redding, California. It's a conservative church that's going through the process for event, hopefully eventual CR CERC membership. And California is actively targeting all the guys who go to this church because they're all exactly what we expect. When you think about CREC guys, they're masculine, unapologetic, Christians who aren't afraid to live out their belief in Jesus Christ and their day to day job. And that's ultimately what's got us here today.
- [36:10]
Luke the Bear
And they're all on the same crew?
- [36:13]
Caleb Bird
Yes, I'll let Andrea clarify that. As far as the crew breakdown.
- [36:17]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, yeah. All the, all these guys all on the crew name is Bully Shoot. Bully Shoot is a mountain in Reading and so Bully Shoot Fire center with has two crews and, and yeah, so all of the guys in question were all on Bully Shoot. And then we all go to chassis reformed out and ready.
- [36:37]
Luke the Bear
And how many total right now? Because I. Caleb, you can answer this because you were telling me on the way in today.
- [36:44]
Caleb Bird
Yeah, so we currently represent three total members of the crew, including Andrew and two NCOs. However, it's looking like a potential three to four others are possibly going to be placed under investigation here soon.
- [36:58]
Luke the Bear
And, and all of them will be from Bullish of crew. Are they from.
- [37:03]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yes.
- [37:03]
Luke the Bear
Okay. Wow.
- [37:04]
Captain Andrew Garza
Same. Same crew.
- [37:05]
Luke the Bear
Wow. Crazy.
- [37:06]
Captain Andrew Garza
Same church.
- [37:08]
Luke the Bear
So I mean that's, you said there were 20, 20 man crew, so that's a significant chunk of the crew. Wow, crazy. Okay, so Andrew, then tell us from your perspective what you can tell us. When did you start to see some issues or some red flags or when did you start to think that something was wrong?
- [37:34]
Captain Andrew Garza
I have buddies that were first sergeants that worked in the headquarters element just to be like, hey man, you're, you're too outspoken about stuff, it's going to get you in trouble. And the things that I'm outspoken about are just truths like that every Christian should believe. Sure. And, and you know, just caution me like, hey man, you got to keep that stuff to yourself. You know, we would have, you know, task force meetings and the commander would be like, hey look, you know, I'm, I'm a Catholic. I was baptized in the Jordan river, but I don't talk about my faith here. You keep that to yourself. That's between you and God and, and me and the, the Bully Shoot guys are like, yeah, no, negative. We're supposed to be a light. And, and, and so just telling the truth and living in accordance with the truth unapologetically, that that got noticed. And a lot of people just don't, don't like that. And so the only official word that I got was actually last May when I heard that there was an EO complaint. I won't get into too much about that unless Caleb wants me to, but I just heard there was an EO complaint. I didn't know anything about it. I heard that I would find out some details later, and I never heard about it again until all this flared up again in. In October.
- [38:47]
Luke the Bear
What's an EO complaint?
- [38:49]
Captain Andrew Garza
Equal Opportunity.
- [38:50]
Luke the Bear
Oh, okay. Go ahead, Caleb.
- [38:53]
Caleb Bird
No, I was just gonna say. So the complaints stem from an Equal opportunity complex complaint that alleged that Andrew was discriminating against members of the crew because they were female, because they were, you know, homosexual, or they didn't. Or they were not Christians. And so that's kind of the atmosphere that started the movement towards what eventually became the investigation.
- [39:17]
Luke the Bear
Gotcha. So you didn't hear anything until the fall, you said?
- [39:22]
Captain Andrew Garza
Right. So I was told that there was a complaint in May and then that I would hear something in 30 days, and I never heard anything. And then in October, everything. Everything came back up. I'll let Caleb get into the details of that if he wants to, but I didn't hear anything.
- [39:40]
Luke the Bear
Okay.
- [39:41]
Captain Andrew Garza
So May of 20. So I. I've been. I've been the OIC for at least one of the crews at Bully Shoot. And then the last year it was both crews for, again, four and a half years. And I never really changed my leadership style. If anything, I probably mellowed out a little bit as I got older. I'm 44 now. I'm a little old for this sort of thing. But, you know, I would do things like, you know, on the crew carrier on the bus, I wouldn't let them listen to degenerate music. So you're not going to listen to music that's glorifying evil and that's full of just foul language and talking about, you know, sex and drug use and criminal. Like, we're not doing that. Especially when there's girls on the bus. You're not listening. I don't care what you listen to. You can listen to rap. It's just not going to be degenerate. Like, I don't listen to music very much. So I didn't have a preference for what. Just. It's not going to be this. I would do things like that. I would expect certain levels of decorum in public, especially around women. And, you know, some people didn't like that.
- [40:49]
Luke the Bear
Yeah. So, Caleb, then why don't you bring us into this investigation that came up in the Fallen?
- [40:55]
Caleb Bird
Yeah. So this investigation really kicked off kind of around the October time frame. And let me. Let me just explain to you what some of the allegations in this case were. So one of the allegations that we've already discussed is that he had Bible studies, right. Another allegation was that he assigned women to administrative tasks instead of letting them on the hand crew. What was obviously not discussed was that for the most part, these females were volunteering for the administrative task instead of volunteering for hand crew tasks. What Andrew actually just explained about not listening to degenerate music on the bus was actually one of the allegations that he didn't let them listen to the music they wanted to listen to. Another allegation was this paper on women's suffrage that he wrote that claimed he was discriminating against women. These. And then probably my favorite was in the investigation. When we received the investigation packet, there's this really cool function called Control F. And as I was working through this, I kept noticing this phrase, microaggression come up over and over and over again. So I start hitting my control F function. And over half a dozen times in this investigation, he, you know, someone complained that Andrew was microaggressing them with no explanation, with no specific details. Just, he's such a Christian and in a leadership role. The air is just filled with microaggressions. And therefore, I feel discriminated against. And I have to tell you, I do these investigations all day, every day. This is bread and butter for my team and what we work on here at the Military Council. This is one of the worst findings and recommendations I have ever seen from an investigating officer. And I've been doing this since about 2016. The IO, the investigating officer, found that Andrew committed discrimination in part because he was microaggressing people in his unit. One of my favorite findings was that the IO alleged that Andrew was removed from the OIC hang proof position for misconduct, when in actuality, he was promoted and had to take another job because he promoted and could no longer stay in that OIC position. These are the types of things that we're seeing in this investigation which are just utterly, completely absurd. It's the kind of thing that you look at, and it may. It's clear from the face of it that they started with the end in mind, and they were. They would tell whatever lie they have to do to get the outcome that they desire. Wow.
- [43:47]
Luke the Bear
And for the record, I wanted to mention, for those that don't understand military lingo, OIC just means officer in charge. So, Andrew, did they. Did they just call you into the principal's office one day and sit you down, or did you get a letter in the mail? Like, how did this. How was this brought to your attention?
- [44:07]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, the commander called me into his office with the initial equal opportunity Complaint in May of last year and just told me, hey, there's. There's been a complaint. You'll know more in 30 days. You probably just have to take some classes. You'll get to see the accused and see what they said. You'll get access to all of that stuff. Well, no more than 30 days. That. That was. That was it. And then I didn't hear anything for months.
- [44:36]
Luke the Bear
And then. And then, like, they just. Did you get a letter or they send you. Like, how did. How did that. When you heard back, like, what did that look like?
- [44:45]
Captain Andrew Garza
Well, there was something that prompted the hearing back. Caleb, do you want to. You want to go over that or how are we going to talk about that one?
- [44:52]
Caleb Bird
Yeah. So once Andrew hired our law firm, okay. The first thing that we do is we start pinging the. The OSJA on the other side. Hey, where's this at? What's happening? What are you doing? When we hear. And so that's really kind of. Once we started poking the bear, that's when they started responding. They appointed an IO and everything took off. You know, really this whole thing came to a head around October of last year because Andrew took a very difficult, frankly and very hard stand. The state of California was forcing all of its National Guard members to undergo what's. It's called SHARP and EO training. SHARP just stands for sexual harassment, abuse response and prevention. And then EO is obviously equal opportunity training. The unique thing about California is if you remember a couple years ago during the Biden administration when they started pushing out training on transgenderisms and preferred pronouns and putting males and female barracks and that kind of thing, California actually goes beyond that. And so Andrew took a stand and said, hey, this is unacceptable. You know, I'm not going to tolerate this on my crew. And made it publicly known that he opposed these policies and opposed these trainings. And when he did, that's when this just for lack of a better word, took off like wildfires.
- [46:21]
Luke the Bear
Well done there. It's a nice little way to tie the room together. So, okay, so let me. I'll let whichever one. You want to answer this. Do you. Do you feel like there was someone in your crew secretly complaining and upset, or do you feel like this was maybe something that came top down and they were looking for reasons to go after you?
- [46:48]
Caleb Bird
I think it's probably safer for me to get out.
- [46:51]
Luke the Bear
That's what I was thinking.
- [46:52]
Caleb Bird
You know, it. I'm gonna qualify this as both and.
- [46:57]
Luke the Bear
Okay.
- [46:57]
Caleb Bird
Right. And so from the lower, from the subordinates, it was clear that the people who performed very highly on these hand crews loved Andrew, loved working with Andrew. And their statements in this investigation are outstanding. I mean they defending Andrew. And then what you have are what I would call the low performers who could not meet standards. These low performers were casting dispersions and allegations. But when you read through the investigation, what you see, it's a lot of this stuff like oh, I was microaggressed. Oh, I just felt sad because I was, you know, I was having to meet physical standards to be a part of this group because I actually had objective job requirements that I had to meet. And so that's from the subordinate side of people who were, who were honestly not meeting standards. And when they didn't meet standards, they were held accountable. And I'm going to tell you from having worked in the military and government, there's nothing that people hate worse than being held accountable to standards. So that's from the subordinate perspective. From the higher up perspective, the people they have appointed to the top of the National Guard infrastructure in California are some of the most avid DEI communists that you can possibly imagine. And they're in that role not because of their unique gifts and ability, but because of their Marxist beliefs and the fact that they're trying to impose this kind of ridiculous worldview on military members. Particularly in this case related to these task Joint Task force.
- [48:44]
Luke the Bear
Gotcha. That's a perfect place to stop right there. We're going to go to our next break here and you're going to hear from another one of our sponsors, Amtec Blades. And they got really good battle axes which probably would come in handy for Andrew fighting fires.
- [49:03]
Captain Andrew Garza
Excellent knife.
- [49:04]
Luke the Bear
Oh my mind. You can't see it.
- [49:05]
Caleb Bird
It's.
- [49:06]
Luke the Bear
Mine's right. I got the Northman X. It's, it's not in camera right now, but yeah. So you're very familiar with Amtech then. So we're going to go to our sponsor right now, hear from them and then we come back. We'll, we'll get one more segment. Wrap this up. This video is brought to you by Amtech Blades. We are very excited to be partnering with Amtech. Bill Rapier, longtime Navy SEAL, DevGur operator, amazing brother and friend looking for a battle axe to carry on your person to chop some wood. They've got you covered. Looking for a blade to carry on you every day. Also got you covered. Look at this. I got to check my mail. What do we got going on here? Oh, look how sharp that is. What is this? Oh, 5% off. You can go to amtechblades.com put apology in the coupon code. Get 5% off your order and he will match that and give 5% to end abortion. Now again, amtech blades.com we're grateful for them. Check them out. Welcome back everybody. Grateful for Bill Rapier. He's an awesome man, awesome brother and a legendary operator. So grateful for him and his very, very sharp blades. Okay, so last segment here, Andrew, you were told, I believe this, if I understand you correctly, you were told that you would know who your accuser was. To this day, do you know who was accusing you of stuff? Have you been able to speak to them or has that been kept from you?
- [50:32]
Captain Andrew Garza
I know who they are. Yeah.
- [50:34]
Caleb Bird
Plural.
- [50:35]
Captain Andrew Garza
I haven't been able to talk to them. There's, there's some just be like, hey, you know what, I'm really sorry you felt that way because they're really good people. That I had no idea. But yeah, I haven't been able to talk to him about it yet. I just got to keep it, keep it quiet.
- [50:50]
Luke the Bear
Yeah, I get it. I was just curious because obviously that's important. Okay, so. So where are we at now then? So you obviously, Caleb, you guys have responded to the initial investigation. Has there been anything at all from them since you responded to the, to their claims?
- [51:12]
Caleb Bird
Just so you understand the process. So because Andrew is an officer under the regulation, he has a right to respond to any adverse finding from an investigation. So the investigator released his findings of recommendations in January. We responded sometime around the end of January with a very detailed legal review memo that went through this with a tie with a fine tooth combination. And so we submitted that at the end of January. And it has been absolutely crickets. And I'll tell you, you know, sometimes with the National Guard, it can take a long time to hear something. But we're talking about full time National Guard people here, right? So the fact that, you know, we've gone six weeks, what we're concerned with now is it looks like California is sitting on the investigation, chewing the clock and letting the time run out on Andrew's orders so that they don't have to renew his orders into next year. And so this is frankly the coward's way out for the state of California. What it allows them to do is effectively kick Andrew off of the Joint Task Force without having to take any adverse action against him. And if there was adverse action taken against him, we would have the opportunity not only to respond, but to potentially have a hearing. And in that hearing, you know, basically I'm going to Drag every member of the task force up and down the ladder through this hearing and get to cross examine them. But it seems right now what we're concerned with is that California is going to try to run the clock out on this so that they can get rid of Andrew the easy way, have to do less paperwork, and frankly not have to put their money where their mouth is.
- [52:58]
Luke the Bear
Gotcha. So you said it's like in two weeks, right? Caleb, you said two weeks.
- [53:05]
Caleb Bird
Yeah.
- [53:05]
Luke the Bear
Okay, sorry.
- [53:06]
Caleb Bird
And I'll let, I'll let Andrew tell you exactly what that looks like, but I think it's within the next two or three weeks, orders will expire.
- [53:13]
Luke the Bear
Okay. Yeah. Andrew, why don't you answer that?
- [53:16]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, so orders, orders are renewed every year on March 31st. And so there's, there's an annual evaluation that everyone on the, on the task force gets from, from their supervisor and there's different metrics that you're evaluated on. And at the end it's, you know, recommend to retain or not retain based on, on all these things. So mine is due, it was actually due last month. I, I haven't gotten it yet. I saw a rough draft of it, but haven't gotten the final version that I'm supposed to sign. So.
- [53:49]
Luke the Bear
So.
- [53:50]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, and, and I know, I do know that they're, they're going to recommend not retaining.
- [53:54]
Luke the Bear
Yeah.
- [53:55]
Captain Andrew Garza
And essentially that's because of all this. Yeah.
- [53:58]
Luke the Bear
So essentially they're trying to quietly fire you.
- [54:01]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yes.
- [54:01]
Caleb Bird
And let me just say I've had an opportunity to review the initial draft of this evaluation. This evaluation was frankly despicable because the evaluation was based, they said, you know, it was an I.O. determined that you did all of these things. But the IO's recommendations are only preliminary at this stage. So the fact that for the purpose of this orders evaluation, they were relying off of preliminary investigative findings is frankly just absurd. So.
- [54:34]
Luke the Bear
Okay, so assuming this plays out like you're expecting nothing, he's, you know, not giving new orders or his orders aren't renewed, then, then what, what's next? What are your, what are your plans and goals? What are you trying to do attain?
- [54:52]
Captain Andrew Garza
Are you talking about to me or Caleb?
- [54:54]
Luke the Bear
Either one of you? Yeah, either. Either. Well, yeah, I mean, as far as like your, your job, like. Yeah. In the legal battle, like, you know, I'm assuming you're not just gonna be like, okay, and just move on. Like you're gonna fight for, for truth here. So what's, what's the plan? And yeah, we'll go from there.
- [55:10]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, go ahead, Caleb. You know, more than, than I do about that part.
- [55:14]
Caleb Bird
Well, I'll say from the legal side, these are the types of things that could potentially lead to future litigation, especially given the broad scope that California has used targeting all Christians from one specific conservative church in Reading California. These are the kind of things that we live for, frankly. And so we're still evaluating to decide if potential litigation is in our future. Obviously, part of what's holding us up right now is California is just kind of sitting on, back on their heels on the investigation, kind of letting the time play out. And so we have a little bit of ways to go before we have to make final decisions about whether to move forward with litigation or not. You know, that is potentially in the future if California continues to go down this train. And frankly, if they continue to go down this, this line, I'm looking forward to it. But we'll have to wait and see how all this plays out.
- [56:11]
Luke the Bear
Gotcha.
- [56:13]
Caleb Bird
By the way, Luke, this is a, this is a good time to, you know, let you, you know, I'm from Alabama. We have great euphemisms when it comes to litigation. We have a saying here in Alabama which is there's a reason you don't wrestle a pig. You both get muddy and the pig likes it.
- [56:27]
Luke the Bear
Yeah.
- [56:28]
Caleb Bird
When it comes to, when it comes to litigation, especially as relates to religious discrimination, we're the pigs on this issue. Love it.
- [56:37]
Luke the Bear
I love it. So, so everyone else in your crew that's in the same boat are, is they're on the same timeline.
- [56:47]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah.
- [56:48]
Caleb Bird
Wow.
- [56:48]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yes. So there's six of us, I think.
- [56:54]
Luke the Bear
Wow.
- [56:55]
Captain Andrew Garza
That are three for sure. And then three other ones that they're, they're, they're, they're in the sights.
- [57:01]
Luke the Bear
Wow. So.
- [57:02]
Caleb Bird
And by the way, Luke, think about this for a minute. Let's just say that you have, let's just say like the Seattle Seahawks won the super bowl this year. Well, if I told you that they were going to kick a third of their players off their super bowl winning team, you, you're going to assume immediately, oh, you guys are not going to be as good next year. That's what we're talking about here. When you're talking about a 20 man team and you're kicking six, seven, eight get people off of it, particularly because they're Christians, that's going to have an immediate impact on your effective affectability.
- [57:36]
Luke the Bear
Well, I mean, the Seahawks apparently let their Andrew Garza walk. So,
- [57:42]
Unidentified Commentator
so.
- [57:43]
Luke the Bear
Well, Caleb, let me ask you this. For the other guys you're representing, are the charges or the claims very similar to the ones against Andrew, or are they different or how's that looking?
- [57:59]
Caleb Bird
So they're a little different. You know, a lot of these things are intermingled. Yeah, those, those guys are being nitpicked is the way I would put it. You know, Andrew talked a little earlier about when you, when you have these kind of what I would call very masculine units. You. You have traditions and rites of passage that just everybody goes through to be part of the team. Right. And so effectively, what's happening for those guys is they're being very nitpicked on, you know, did this follow a specific regulation? And so I would say that their face, what they're facing is a higher command that's just trying to nitpick them to death to find any reason at all to get rid of them. But they're also facing similar situations. We responded to every single one of these investigations in January. California is sitting on all these investigations, and it looks like they're planning to just let the time run out.
- [58:57]
Luke the Bear
Yeah. So, I mean, for those of you listening that are in California, your state is basically dismantling your best fire crew because they're Christians. So I hope that fires you up. There's that pun again, not intended this time. Yeah. I mean, I would be angry to know that, you know, you're. They're putting your, your lives, your family's lives in. In danger and at stake over the fact that they don't like Christians. So I hope you hear that. What can people do, like, besides help support Andrew, which I'll let you talk about. But if you're, if you're people are in California, is there anything they can do to fight back against us?
- [59:50]
Caleb Bird
Yeah. Yeah. You know, often it feels like when we're dealing with issues like this in California, you kind of can feel like Elijah, right. When he's chasing the prophet of BAAL and he's like, you know, you know, God, I'm the only one who's, who's still fighting for you. And God says, you know, are there not 7,000 men of Israel that I've.
- [60:09]
Captain Andrew Garza
That I've.
- [60:10]
Caleb Bird
Right. And so the first thing to realize if you're a Christian in California is you're not alone. There are other Christians who are willing to fight and willing to stand with you. The next thing you've got to do is you've got to get politically involved. You know, Michael Foster has this great concept in county before country that's, you know, your sheriff is more important than your president because it has A more direct impact on your line when it comes to issues like this National Guard issue. This directs you personally, and this is actually closer to you than what's going on in D.C. yeah. And so getting involved to help change these policies is important. The other thing that I would encourage people to do is to be absolutely, you know, your state rep, your state representative, your governor's office, your congressman. You should be blowing their phones up and getting after them, putting pressure on them to thwart these kinds of things. Things. So that's where it starts. You know, if you want to get involved, the best thing to do is actually just start getting involved. The other thing that we're asking for is prayer. And that's because, you know, Andrew is not alone on this. This is happening to a lot of people. And so, you know, one of the things we're asking for is prayer that we can continue to wisely represent the. These guys and have discernment about the future steps that we're gonna have to take. And then any kind of public support is always welcomed and encouraged.
- [61:42]
Luke the Bear
Yeah. And I appreciate that. And I imagine that, you know, as word gets out that this could grow, I'm sure there's more than just Andrew's crew that's been going through stuff like this.
- [61:55]
Caleb Bird
Frankly, I would. I would love to know more. If there's other members of the California National Guard who have faced similar situations, we would be happy to offer them a free consultation. Because in my experience, you know, to use another euphemism, where there's smoke, there's fire. And I'm confident this is not the only case in the entire California National Guard where this is happening.
- [62:16]
Luke the Bear
Yeah. So where can people reach out to. To you? Caleb.
- [62:20]
Caleb Bird
Yeah. So you can find me on X at Caleb in Bird, or at our website, the military council, or yancelaw.com.
- [62:29]
Luke the Bear
sweet. So, yeah, I mean, it's so similar to the stuff we're doing with eagle protection. You know, we have people calling up legislators and putting pressure on them, emailing them phone calls. And the same here with. With Andrew. Like, if you're in California, I mean, if you're not in California, you can still call and send an email. I can tell you that if some of the higher ups in the National Guard or in, you know, the fire crews or whoever, though, you know, those local reps, if they start getting blown up with calls and emails, they'll. They'll take notice of that. They may not do anything, but they're gonna feel uncomfortable from it. And that's. That's the best way for, to put an end to this stuff is in the end against the same thing. Like, these people work for us here in California. They work for you. They're. They're your employees. And if you're unhappy with them, you need to let them know, just like Andrew's had to, you know, people didn't meet standards in his crew. If, if your legislators aren't meeting the standards, they need to hear from you. So. Yeah, so I appreciate that. That's. That's super helpful. Well, we got about five minutes left. Andrew, do you want to, you want to add anything, brother? I want to hear from you some more.
- [63:43]
Captain Andrew Garza
Yeah, I think so. I don't want to, I don't want to brag here at all. So what I'm saying, I'm not, I'm not trying to brag. This is, this is by God's grace. I don't have a. I don't have a plan B. I'm a soldier. I've got 24 years in. I, I could see this job have. Having lasted me for a very long time. There's certain things that I could do. And because I and my, my buddies took a stand for Christ, we stand to lose that. And so we're walking by faith. And I say this as an encouragement. And Jesus says, blessed are you when you're persecuted and when people utter all kinds of false things about you for my name's sake. He says to stay salty. And we are in this predicament because men for decades who should have stood up and said no were not doing that. Didn't. They had a price. And their price was either their reputation or maybe their pension. That's it for a lot of guys. You threaten them with their career and they, and they fold. And, and I would like to, to say that that's got to stop. Is. Is God real or isn't He? Will he provide for you if you seek first the kingdom, or won't he? He will. And there are subversive elements that are, that have gained a lot of ground in our. In our once thriving Christian country. And so I say to all men out there, especially in these positions, don't worry about your career, Stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, let all you do be done in love, and let God sort out your future. And yeah, there are times when I'm a little concerned. I, you know, I have a mortgage, I got a large family, and I don't have a plan B. This. This was it. And. But it's like, you know, What I don't. The Lord will provide. Yeah, we are being faithful. My conscience is clear.
- [65:49]
Caleb Bird
I'm not.
- [65:50]
Captain Andrew Garza
I'm not here because I, you know, did anything wrong. I'm here because I led boldly and I led in a Christlike manner and was unequivocal about the things of God. And so I just say that as encouragement. If I could say one thing out of all this. The Lord is real. You are blessed if you are persecuted for his name's sake and for the sake of righteousness. And so don't let yourself have a price. Live in accordance with the truth and proclaim it boldly.
- [66:21]
Luke the Bear
Amen.
- [66:21]
Captain Andrew Garza
And. And yeah, like I said, I'm. We're walking by faith right now. We trust the Lord. My wife and I have. Have peace in this time that the Lord's going to provide, you know, whatever it is.
- [66:30]
Luke the Bear
Amen. That's awesome, bro. Thank you for sharing that, man. Hopefully that blesses. Blesses some people and encourages, you know, more faithful men to stand. Stand for truth and, and not back down. So thank you so much for sharing that. Do you guys have time to stick around for like 15 minutes for an after show?
- [66:49]
Caleb Bird
Love to. Happy to.
- [66:50]
Luke the Bear
Excellent. Perfect. So we'll go ahead and wrap this show up then. If you're all access, please let me get off here. Hop over to the login over on our apology studios.com and we'll do an after show with these guys and continue this conversation a little more. Maybe getting a little more depth on a couple things. So as always, I just want to mention a couple more sponsors. One, I want to mention Heritage Defense. I just saw Bradley this week in Tennessee. Bradley Pierce, he's our constitutional lawyer. He's the one that connected us with Davis. Do you know, do you know Bradley, Caleb?
- [67:26]
Caleb Bird
I do. Bradley's wonderful.
- [67:28]
Luke the Bear
He's the best.
- [67:28]
Caleb Bird
Done some work with him as a law firm. He's absolutely.
- [67:30]
Luke the Bear
Yeah, he's the best. I just got. Love seeing that guy. Which, by the way, I gotta say this, I. I am fully comfortable being like organizing and doing the planning in the background for a lot of the legislative stuff. I tell you what, that, that capitol in Nashville was so stinking hot and sweaty and there's like a gazillion people crammed into this little room in this hallway, and they're all wearing full suits. And I was like, I had to go find a conference room that was empty, that was air conditioned and watched it live because I was about to combust. And I was like, kudos to you guys because I Literally would have passed out. So good job, Bradley. Heritage defense.org put apology in the coupon code. Get your first month free. If you homeschool your kids, please, please, please sign up with them. It's super, super affordable. And if a three letter agency comes your door, you can just call the 800 number. It may be Bradley on call. So give them to the agency. And then, of course, Dominion Wealth. I see you got a. Some 1689 stuff there behind you. Was that 69 cigars? Yeah, I see it.
- [68:38]
Caleb Bird
Yeah. Yeah, that's my buddy Chance over there. Yep.
- [68:40]
Luke the Bear
Yeah. So you know, you know those guys, too. We're grateful for them. You saw the ad at the beginning. You can go to reform money, check them out. And then of course, I want to point everybody to shop that apologiesstudios.com we got all these tracks which you can't see today, but. Coffee. I just, I wore this shirt. I just did this shirt. This is one of my favorite shirts. It's St. Patrick's or it's St. Patrick, but it's. I made sure I did it for St. Patrick's Day. And there's a green one and orange one available in case you're from Northern Ireland and you don't want to wear the green, you want to wear the orange. I understand that. Love St. Patrick. Cool story about him. No, he wasn't Catholic. And anyways, this says what I say, banishing snakes and defending the Trinity. So cool. Cool story there. But anyways, thank you again, everyone for your support. You keep the lights on, and Pastor Jeff will be back next week. I will not be getting surgery tomorrow. I'm gonna be off for a week, so be praying for that. I appreciate it and we'll see you guys later. Thank you so much. God bless.