The Worst Privates Ever, Crazy Military History & The Future Of Combat | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 225

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Worst Privates Ever, Crazy Military History & The Future Of Combat | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 225"

Release Date: August 10, 2025

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1. Tour Announcement and Excitement

The episode kicks off with the hosts, Eli Doubletap, Brandon Herrera, Justin Taylor, and Cody ("Donut Operator"), enthusiastically announcing their upcoming tour dates. Responding to audience feedback, they emphasize their commitment to visiting the Midwest and other regions previously overlooked.

• Brandon Herrera [01:15]: "This time, a lot of you guys were complaining that we weren't hitting the Midwest and a lot of other areas. And you know what? This time we're making things right."

They reveal the tour's name, humorously chosen by their listeners as "The Geneva Suggestion Tour," reflecting their irreverent humor.

• Eli Doubletap [01:35]: "Thank you for that name. That is fantastic."

The hosts outline the tour schedule, expressing both nervousness and excitement about performing in larger venues.

• Eli Doubletap [02:34]: "Guys and gals, we are super excited for this tour. This one's bigger and better than last time."

2. Personal Military Experiences and West Point Stories

Justin Taylor shares a poignant and frustrating story from his time at West Point, highlighting the challenges of military discipline and the complexities of dealing with troubled privates.

• Justin Taylor [06:20]: "But that's like, why? Why? That's why the person is relevant... he looks at me and he goes like, oh, you going home? I'm like, yeah, you know, going home."

He recounts an encounter with a senator who advocated for "weaponized autism" in cyber warfare, showcasing the absurdity and ethical dilemmas within military strategies.

• Justin Taylor [07:58]: "Literally weaponized autism. And so, I mean, if you need anyone to appoint to head that group, I'll more than happy to take on that mantle of responsibility of leading the autist towards cyber victory."

The discussion delves into the rigid hierarchies and punitive measures in West Point, illustrating how minor infractions lead to severe consequences.

• Justin Taylor [14:01]: "Like one thing they do. And I don't know if they're gonna be happy about me saying this, but it's true. Is so everyone's always just waiting for the first person to quit."

3. Handling AWOL and Mental Health in the Military

The hosts explore the procedures and personal impacts of dealing with soldiers who go AWOL (Absent Without Leave). Justin details the bureaucratic challenges and personal frustrations of managing troubled soldiers, emphasizing the lack of effective mental health support.

• Justin Taylor [25:22]: "This guy, he gets in, brand new private... private so and so one day just doesn't show up for morning formation... he went all the way back to Los Angeles to film a rap video with his friends."

They discuss the complexities of military regulations, the inefficiency of certain disciplinary actions, and the emotional toll on commanders managing soldiers in distress.

• Brandon Herrera [28:52]: "We don't know. We could use you now."

4. Transitioning from Military to Civilian Life

Justin shares his journey transitioning from active duty to becoming a content creator, detailing the setbacks and the decision to pursue entrepreneurship independently after a failed contract with Task and Purpose.

• Justin Taylor [56:05]: "A month or three weeks before I'm out... they just scrambled. I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do."

He emphasizes the uncertainty many veterans face when shifting to civilian careers and the resilience required to pursue new ventures.

5. Military Technology and the Future of Combat

The conversation shifts to futuristic military technologies, focusing on the integration of AI and drones in modern combat scenarios. Justin discusses the potential and ethical implications of AI-controlled weapons systems.

• Justin Taylor [66:02]: "It's like a chessbot. Yeah, yeah. So, like, not only is it... it's like, it's just like a real time strategy game."

Brandon and Eli express concerns about the rapid advancement of military AI, drawing parallels to dystopian narratives like "Skynet."

• Eli Doubletap [114:48]: "I don't know if more people aren't. I mean, I think I know why more people aren't talking about. Because, like, no one understands it, including myself."

6. Ethical Dilemmas and Accountability in AI Warfare

The hosts delve deeper into the ethical challenges of autonomous weapons, questioning accountability and decision-making processes when AI systems are involved in life-and-death situations.

• Justin Taylor [111:14]: "Who are we pointing it to? So, and is it the guy who codes it? Or is it this guy who built the drone?"

They highlight the complex interplay between human oversight and machine autonomy, emphasizing the urgent need for clear ethical guidelines.

7. Reflections on Military Culture and Personal Ethics

Brandon Herrera and Cody share lighter moments and anecdotes from their military and post-military lives, including humorous takes on military gadgets and personal preferences.

• Brandon Herrera [70:57]: "I just don't understand how it's so expensive for the United States... Why does it cost us 18,000 a unit?"

8. Closing Remarks and Future Projects

As the episode concludes, Justin previews his upcoming series "Acquisitions Anonymous," which will dissect the Department of Defense's quirky and unconventional procurement requests.

• Justin Taylor [124:42]: "So, my new series will just be finding some themes like being like, oh, what's the army doing? What's the Navy wanting? What is... or what are some weird ops that people are doing?"

The hosts sign off with teasers about future content, maintaining their trademark blend of humor and insightful commentary on military matters.

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Notable Quotes:

• Brandon Herrera [02:07]: "I better get a deployment patch for that."

• Justin Taylor [07:58]: "Literally weaponized autism. And so, I mean, if you need anyone to appoint to head that group, I'll more than happy to take on that mantle of responsibility of leading the autist towards cyber victory."

• Justin Taylor [25:22]: "This guy, he gets in, brand new private... private so and so one day just doesn't show up for morning formation..."

• Justin Taylor [111:14]: "Who are we pointing it to? So, and is it the guy who codes it? Or is it this guy who built the drone?"

• Brandon Herrera [70:57]: "I just don't understand how it's so expensive for the United States... Why does it cost us 18,000 a unit?"

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This episode of the Unsubscribe Podcast offers a blend of humor, personal military experiences, and thoughtful discussions on the evolving landscape of military technology and ethics. Whether reflecting on the rigid structures of West Point or contemplating the future of AI in combat, the hosts provide listeners with both entertainment and insightful commentary.

Transcript

[Justin Taylor]

She's made up her mind to live pretty smart. Learn to budget responsibly right from the start. She spends a little less, inputs more into savings. Keeps her blood pressure low and credit score raises. She's cutting debt right out of her life. She tracks her cash flow on her spreadsheet at night. Boring money moves.

[Brandon Herrera]

Make kinda lame songs, but they sound pretty sweet to your wallet.

[Justin Taylor]

DNC bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. They take all of their autistic people and use them for cyber warfare.

[Brandon Herrera]

We don't do that.

[Cody]

One of them got a gun somehow, committed an armed robbery. Three of them in the car that was registered to them and registered to the base.

[Brandon Herrera]

Man, I'm a little brown for this.

[Justin Taylor]

If you try to murder your wife, you probably shouldn't be in the army with us.

[Eli Double Tap]

Say hi to Eli. He's racially ambiguous. Brandon. His hair is fabulous. Donut.

[Justin Taylor]

A dark joke disposition.

[Eli Double Tap]

And there's a fat electrician.

[Justin Taylor]

Welcome to Unsubscribe.

[Eli Double Tap]

We're going on tour. We are going back on tour and we're going to announce the dates and the locations.

[Brandon Herrera]

This time, a lot of you guys were complaining that we weren't hitting the Midwest and a lot of other areas. And you know what? This time we're making things right. Not because Nick made us.

[Cody]

You forced us to go there.

[Eli Double Tap]

I love the Midwest.

[Brandon Herrera]

They've got so many great landmarks. Like, this time around, we let you guys pick the name of the tour. And what did they pick?

[Eli Double Tap]

The Geneva Suggestion Tour.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, yeah, help us name it. You know, we get to go out and you hang out with you guys. What does that remind you of? And they said, war crime.

[Eli Double Tap]

Thank you for that name. That is fantastic.

[Cody]

We're gonna start off here in our hometown of San Antonio. That'll be Friday, October 17, at the Empire.

[Eli Double Tap]

Saturday, October 18, will be in Orlando, Florida, playing at the Hard Rock.

[Brandon Herrera]

And that makes me rock hard.

[Eli Double Tap]

He is Nick, where are we going next?

[Justin Taylor]

We are finally coming to the Midwest. On October 25th, we're gonna be at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines, Iowa. And on October 26th, we're gonna be at the Riviera Theater in Chicago. I better get a deployment patch for that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Nick is no longer in Paris. Thursday, November 13, at the Celebrity Theater in Phoenix, Arizona.

[Cody]

Then on Friday, November 14th, we're gonna go to Denver, Colorado, at the Paramount.

[Eli Double Tap]

Friday, December 12th, in Boston, Massachusetts. We will be playing in the Chevalier Cavalier.

[Brandon Herrera]

Chevalier. Wait, that sounds French. Don't use that. What'd you say?

[Eli Double Tap]

Chevalier.

[Brandon Herrera]

There you go. Saturday, December 13th at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey. Wait, that can't be right. We're going to Jersey.

[Eli Double Tap]

We're going to Jersey.

[Justin Taylor]

Fuck.

[Eli Double Tap]

Guys and gals, we are super excited for this tour. This one's bigger and better than last time. These are 2,000 seat venues. We are nervous and stoked at the same time. Cody. That means three levels on a majority of these.

[Justin Taylor]

Woo. Weeds.

[Eli Double Tap]

Don't worry, we still have stage fright.

[Brandon Herrera]

Ooh wee. I just want to die.

[Eli Double Tap]

Ticket sales go live August 13th for our pepperbox and Patreon members and it.

[Brandon Herrera]

Goes live to the General Public on August 15th.

[Cody]

Tickets will be on sale at unsubcrew.com.

[Eli Double Tap]

Can'T wait to see all go purchase tickets. Let's sell this out and have a good time. 3, 2, 1.

[Cody]

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the unsubscribed podcast. I'm joined today by Eli Double Tap, Justin Taylor, Brandon Herrera, myself, donut operator. Thank you so much for coming.

[Eli Double Tap]

How y' all doing, dude? It's exciting to have.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, good to be here.

[Eli Double Tap]

God, I keep looking at my brother, it weirds me out so much. It's like Che is right next to me. I'm like, okay. Nope, that's. That's not cheap. You guys actually met Justin before I did?

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, up in Austin.

[Justin Taylor]

Yep.

[Brandon Herrera]

I remember what we were up there for.

[Justin Taylor]

Battle ships.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, that's right.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

World of Warships.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, no shit.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, they gave me like some free coins and stuff. I don't know what to do with them.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, we never do.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, I tried to sell them on ebay. They weren't worth a lot.

[Eli Double Tap]

They just gave you free coins?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, they gave. Forced upon is a better use of the word. But yeah, they were given to me like, sweet dope.

[Eli Double Tap]

You guys got coins, right? And you're like, yeah, we. We just got coins.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's like merch that you give out at events and stuff where it's. It's cool to the average person. For us, it's like, fuck, where do I put this? I'll put it in my other stack of event merch.

[Eli Double Tap]

I don't know if you. We probably all do the same. We, we love the brands we work with. We all get a lot of it. We give it away to random people. I give that away to random people.

[Cody]

Like sometimes I respond to my PO Box mail and I'll just go in my storage room and just pick up shit that companies have sent me and put it in a box and send it to random people that send me shit. To my P.O. box.

[Brandon Herrera]

All the half the people I give it to are the cleaning ladies at the hotel when I leave.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, yeah, dude. Dude shot show. Yeah, those ladies walk away with gift bags of knives and whatever else.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

The.

[Brandon Herrera]

The other week, I just give them to homeless people when I'm walking through the Vegas strip.

[Justin Taylor]

Knives?

[Cody]

Yeah, knives in your leftover booze.

[Justin Taylor]

There you go.

[Cody]

Have fun.

[Eli Double Tap]

Bottle of whiskey with the knives taped onto it.

[Justin Taylor]

Half ball.

[Cody]

Gentleman Jack.

[Justin Taylor]

You need this more than I do.

[Cody]

There's copper over there. That officer has copper in his blood.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's giving the homeless guy a bag of Adderall and a Glock.

[Justin Taylor]

You'll be their leader.

[Cody]

We're good people.

[Eli Double Tap]

So Brandon, we were working out, and then he told me a story. So if you guys. Justin, give a quick synopsis of what you do.

[Justin Taylor]

My name is Justin. I make YouTube videos where I talk about military people, places and things. It's like my thing, I guess. It's pretty fun.

[Cody]

Channel's booming right now too, man. How many subs are you up at?

[Justin Taylor]

Close to 180,000. So for less than a year since I've started taking it seriously, I'm fairly happy with that. No, two big complaints, guys.

[Eli Double Tap]

Go 200,000. Pump them numbers.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, we could get that there. Our autists are on it right now.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon told the story about on the flight, or when did you hear the story of.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, the story that you told me in Austin where the guy that was sitting next to you on the plane, you didn't recognize.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. So I was coming home from college one time. This is like, my sophomore year of college, I think.

[Eli Double Tap]

Where'd you go to college at?

[Justin Taylor]

I went to West Point.

[Eli Double Tap]

There we go. So key factor right there.

[Justin Taylor]

But that's like, why? Why? That's why the person is relevant. So normally this wouldn't matter, but I'm flying home. I'm, like, exhausted, and I'm sitting in this window seat. I'm leaning on it. I'm just, like, tired. And then this guy sits down in the middle seat, older guy, and he looks at me, and I guess I had, like, a West Point shirt on or something. And we were coming back from New York, and so put the two. Two together. It's not too hard. He looks at me and he goes like, oh, you going home? I'm like, yeah, you know, going home. And I put my earphone back in, and he, like, taps my shoulder again, and he goes like, I'm your senator. I'm like, oh, fuck. Sir, I'm So sorry. It's great to see you. All this other stuff, and then he was just talking to me, and then. I don't know if I told you guys this part, but he then went on, like, this thing where he's like, yeah, I just got back from Israel and we were doing this thing where we were seeing how their military does things and they do something I think we really should do. I was like, okay, I'll buy it. What is it? But he's like, they take all of their autistic people and use them for cyber warfare, and we need to do that here in the States. I'm like, that's a.

[Brandon Herrera]

We don't do that.

[Justin Taylor]

I mean, like, I don't think we pursue it as aggressively as we could right now.

[Brandon Herrera]

We don't openly do it.

[Justin Taylor]

We don't openly do it. It's kind of just a passive, nice thing to have.

[Eli Double Tap]

So, like, weaponized autism.

[Justin Taylor]

Literally. Literally weaponized autism. And so, I mean, if. If you need anyone to appoint to head that group, I'll more than happy to take on that mantle of responsibility of leading the autist towards cyber victory.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, no, it'd be so difficult. No one's going to make eye contact or raise their voice.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, just like leading World War III on a Discord server. It's going to be awesome.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, okay.

[Cody]

That's what they did in the accountant too, remember?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cody]

She had the room full of autistic people on the computers, and it's like the big screens, like in some kind of intelligence agency.

[Brandon Herrera]

Literally just 4chan. Well, the reason that's funny, too, is because if you don't know, in order to get to either, to apply to West Point, I think you have to have a sponsor, like from either your congressman or senator, Right?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. You have to have a nomination. Right. What it's called. So once you get the nomination, then, like, your packet is complete, and then. Then you submit it. Then you get an appointment. Once you have your nomination, it's like this whole convoluted process.

[Brandon Herrera]

So is this the senator who nominated you?

[Justin Taylor]

It was, and I interviewed with him, and his office is the one who directly gave me my nomination.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hold up, you interviewed?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. No. Yeah. So it wasn't with him specifically. So how they did? Well, I mean, I met him in the office, but how they do it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Is before the plane ride.

[Justin Taylor]

But yeah, this is like. This was like while I was still.

[Brandon Herrera]

In high school, like, before he got into West Point.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, Even better now.

[Justin Taylor]

But, like, they literally sit you at this table and it's different for every person that does this, but they just sit you at this table, and you have all these old white dudes who are, like, super crusty, and they're like, why should you go to West Point? You're like, I don't know. It seems cool, I guess. Like, I could work hard. I know how to read, but that's about it. So it was. It was a good hour long, just grilling of why I wanted to do it. And the answer that even I told you today was, I have no idea. It seems like a good idea at the time.

[Eli Double Tap]

I nominated you again, off, sir.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. You're the reason I'm on. Yeah, exactly.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, damn. Okay. What the.

[Justin Taylor]

What?

[Brandon Herrera]

Why do you want to go to West Point?

[Justin Taylor]

I don't know.

[Brandon Herrera]

They were the ones who sent me the package.

[Justin Taylor]

I thought they wanted me.

[Eli Double Tap]

And you joined later. You did the officer route, and then you actually. What year did you join?

[Justin Taylor]

So I. I commissioned as a lieutenant in 2018.

[Eli Double Tap]

2018. Which is wild. That is, like, still a long time ago now that I actually. Jesus, that's seven years ago.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

We're getting old.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. But, like, kids will still ask me, like. And I feel bad because they'll be like, oh, how do I get in? I'm like, dude, I don't. No idea, man. Like, you know, that was, like, 10 years over 10 years ago for me, and, like, the process probably changed a ton. And. And also, like, I got in by the skin of my teeth. Like, I was the most average person ever. And it's also, like, by region. So, like, the joke I say is, like, I'm from Arkansas. So, like, it was me and another guy, and he couldn't read. So they're like, I guess we'll go with you. I'm like, all right, cool. Meanwhile, all the kids from, like, Texas and California are like, I was the. I scored the highest SAT score ever in the whole world. And I'm like, that's cool.

[Brandon Herrera]

I made it to 17 without a DUI.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brandon Herrera]

We'll take him.

[Justin Taylor]

He's destined for greatness.

[Eli Double Tap]

How was West Point as a whole? When you go, is it like basic training when you join? They're cutting your head, hair out the gate. And then you're just going into the mix because, I don't know, here's the shark attack versus here is college. Because Cody knows shark attack, everything like that. Like, basics, basic. Pretty much across the board.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. So what they do is you have this initial, like, you show up in, like, mid, like, end of June, early July time frame. And you do a six. At least it was six weeks when I went through. They call it cbt, Cadet Basic Training. And it's all, like, the normal basic training stuff where it's. You know, they shave your head, you're hot and sweaty all the time, everyone smells bad, and you do all the basic, like, marching and running and doing all, you know, getting yelled at and stuff.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's done there in New York.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, that's. That's, like, on campus. But there's a lot of, like, other, like, weird rules that go along with it. So, like, one rule is, like, we're not allowed to talk outside of our room. Like, that's for your whole first year, you're not allowed to talk outside of your room. So I went my entire freshman year of college only being allowed to talk inside of, like, either the classroom I was actively in or my barracks room. And, like, you have to walk along.

[Eli Double Tap]

I have the same rule with Sav.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And.

[Eli Double Tap]

She'S not shaking her head.

[Justin Taylor]

And, like, so, like, it's called. So they call basic training beast. And not. Not because it's hard, but it's supposed to be, like, a demeaning thing where it's like, all right, you are no longer a human. You are a new cadet. And so, like, you know, you. You have to walk around with your hands cupped like this. You have to walk. And that's, like, your whole freshman year, too. And you have to walk inside, along with your shoulder brushing the hallway as you're going through. And you have to square every single corner and all these other stupid things. You have to set up the tables. So how it works is you have assigned seating tables for all your meals, and there's three freshmen per table, and they're in charge of making sure all the food's set out, all the plates are set out, all this other stuff. And. And, like, you have to, like, know, like, all of the meals that are in advance. So, like, any upperclassman would have come up to me and be like, what am I having for dinner tomorrow? And I'll be like, sir, you are. For dinner, you are having. And I'd list out all the things that. So you had to, like, have those memorized. You had to have all these other things memorized. And it is stupid.

[Eli Double Tap]

And I guarantee you did the exact same thing. But the second you are a sophomore and up, you now treat them like shit.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. There's a little pinch of aggression where you're like, all right, I got mine. Time to get yours. And it never breaks the cycle. No.

[Eli Double Tap]

And you're like, this sucks. I'm gonna do it to the next iteration after me, though.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Like the.

[Brandon Herrera]

You just described my family tree.

[Justin Taylor]

Like one thing they do. And I don't know if they're gonna be happy about me saying this, but it's true. Is so everyone's always just waiting for the first person to quit. So the first person. You can quit West Point anytime before you like, affirm your sophomore year. So anytime before that, you're allowed to quit. So. But there's always like 10 or 15 to 20 people who quit on the very first day. And. And everyone's just waiting around for it. So I remember like, my sophomore year, we were out doing like field training out nearby, and we're like, literally sitting in a patrol base in the middle of the woods, like, pulling security and someone gets a radio call. Like, we know it was their first day. It had only been going for like an hour or two. And they're like, we got the first quitter. And it was like. Like it was an hour.

[Cody]

What the fuck did they think they were getting into?

[Justin Taylor]

There was one. There was one this year that I saw that people were floating around where. So at the end of your first day, you have this big parade. And the whole point of that is to show like, oh, we've already taken your son and or daughter from this dirty civilian high schooler to this well, uniformed person or whatever. And someone while they're doing like a passenger view. So like, while the big group was passing the general person, they just left. They like walked out in front of like thousands of people, just walked right into the stands. And there was like. There's one clip of it that I've seen where the general's like, turn around. Like, what the fuck? Like, get the fuck back in there. And they're just dead face going. That was. I thought that was pretty bold. That was pretty good.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just again, back to Cody's statement. How the fuck did you think West Point was going to be? This. Are people going in like, this is going to be a blast. I get a party and drink.

[Justin Taylor]

They. They kind of like boasted as like, oh, I mean, like, they always say, you know, it's the premier leadership experience or, you know, this, that and the other. And it's kind of like the. Oh, it's a. People always told me like, going there is like, it's a good place to be from. It's not a good place to be. So it's like, if you can just like stick it Out. You'll be okay. Whether or not that was true has yet to. I'm still waiting for that to pay off. I'm sure. You know, maybe in the next 10 years I'll get like a cool letter in the mail or something asking for money. Asking. Yeah, asking for money. Oh, the government taxpayer funded institution needs my money. That's great.

[Brandon Herrera]

Love that you get your name on.

[Justin Taylor]

A plaque, though, with like. Yeah, that'd be super worth it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Ah, man. Do you have to pay, actually, do you have to pay for West Point?

[Justin Taylor]

It's free. All the service academies are free.

[Eli Double Tap]

So it's just as long as you get picked, then it's a full scholarship.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, I mean, like, you have to serve afterwards, obviously, but like, but they. And they. They give you, like a really small stipend. Like, I think my freshman year I made like 150 bucks a month, which in New York gets you, like, to the end of the road and back. Bread? Yeah, bread.

[Brandon Herrera]

If you want Uber.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, Literally. So, you know, at the time, you're like 18. You're like, I don't have any bills. I can get 150 bucks a month. This is the best thing ever.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's one, two.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

In Arkansas, 150 bucks is pretty cool.

[Justin Taylor]

You can do. You could take over an entire county for 150 bucks and like, and position yourself with the same 150 bucks to take over the next county. You'll probably need another inflow. You have to probably wait for the next month. But you're. You're sitting good to.

[Brandon Herrera]

You're playing the game of risk with rural Arkansas.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. It'd be super easy, dude.

[Eli Double Tap]

I can't imagine going to, like, a military college. That is. I can't imagine going to college, period. But if I did, I think military college would be very low on the docket of things Eli would like to test. As the dude that went to basic.

[Brandon Herrera]

Training, I wanted to go to the Citadel for a while, like, when I was still in high school.

[Eli Double Tap]

What's the Citadel?

[Brandon Herrera]

It's kind of like a West Point thing, but it's in. It's in Charleston, South Carolina.

[Eli Double Tap]

I've never heard of this.

[Brandon Herrera]

The only thing that. Well, I actually went to there, I went to go visit. And that was what made me realize I didn't want to go to the Citadel.

[Eli Double Tap]

Really?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, this actually looks kind of. I don't think I want to do this anymore.

[Justin Taylor]

And you have to pay for it. That's the crazy thing for me is that you have to deal with all the bullshit of like a normal military college. But you're paying them to do it like a full like tuition that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah. Didn't seem like the path I wanted to go.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

At least you learned really quick. You're like, not today. Jesus.

[Brandon Herrera]

Beautiful school.

[Justin Taylor]

It's very pretty. They have a cool like tile thing in the center.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, I forget what they call that, but they like, as a punishment, they make you walk it like a chessboard.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, we had to do that too. Yeah, we. It's called walking hours. Like, but you do. You get it for everything. So like I was late for one class once and I. And like they only do it on the weekends too. I wish it had been something to break up the monotony. But yeah, like I was late for one class and I got five hours. So I lost my Friday and Saturday, like putting on full dress uniform. I had an M14 with a bayonet and my fancy uniform. Just walking back and forth and we, we actually got in trouble because there were so many of us, because so many. It was like towards the end of semester, it's like dudes were accidentally like sleeping through classes and stuff. And so they put us in like this big formation that we were marching in circles. And we got in trouble because we were doing like the 99 bottles of beer on the wall thing and we got down to like 30. That's a long time. And then like some major came over like, hey, cut that shit out. We're like, oh, sorry. Back to just dreary breathing, I guess. This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Summer's almost out and fall's calling.

[Eli Double Tap]

Luckily, Nordstrom has everything you need for the season ahead.

[Justin Taylor]

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[Brandon Herrera]

Heading back to class, or refreshing your.

[Justin Taylor]

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[Brandon Herrera]

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[Justin Taylor]

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[Brandon Herrera]

[e-mail].

[Eli Double Tap]

I forget fuck fuck games until I hear fuck fuck games. I'm like, oh yeah, I completely remember why.

[Cody]

Oh, stand there and watch that clock for the next three hours.

[Eli Double Tap]

And just walking in formation.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, just in circles, over and over again.

[Eli Double Tap]

We would just do like Private was late that just. You put a giant clock on them. I don't know if you ever did that.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh yeah, soldiers.

[Eli Double Tap]

They would have like a giant, giant clock you put on private that they fucked up or relate to formation. So you get to where the clock big guy and they just walk around all day with that thing.

[Justin Taylor]

Dude.

[Brandon Herrera]

There was one of my employee group chat I saw. It was like I was an Instagram reel where it was somebody who was being brought to basically getting punished for pawning their fucking helmet before formation. He's like, let me understand this correctly. You do not have your helmet because you pawned it for money?

[Justin Taylor]

Yes, sir. Like, you could tell.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, the guy's fuming. Like, he doesn't even know what the fuck to do with it.

[Justin Taylor]

I don't even know what I'd do with that.

[Brandon Herrera]

And then he brought up his. His nco. They're just like, did you not know that he pawned his fucking helmet? He's like, he borrowed it from his friend. So he passed inspection. He's like. And the only thing I could think of as I'm watching this go down because, like, the guy's recording the video. He's like, I. I don't even know what the fuck to do with you right now. As I'm thinking, how scary would this be if the guy you were reporting to was rich?

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh.

[Brandon Herrera]

If that was angry cops, my God.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh.

[Cody]

How much could you even get for, like, a shitty old helmet?

[Justin Taylor]

Like a hundred bucks? If that. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

It'S at one of those across the. The fort. It's literally across the base. It's going to be one of those. The foxhole or whatever. Little mom and Pop.

[Brandon Herrera]

Those are the ones that, like, they have so many of them.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, they're just.

[Brandon Herrera]

They have tons of them. And, you know, they don't give you shit compared to what they sell them for.

[Eli Double Tap]

Especially still at the end of the day. More on the line of, I check this out. My name's attached to this. This is a serial number. And then you walk to that place and like, how much can I get for this?

[Justin Taylor]

What's stupid is, like, you have to. You have to turn that in. Like, you don't get to keep your helmet. So, like, even if you pawn it for like 50 bucks and the army's going to turn around and charge you like, 400 bucks for a new one. Yeah.

[Cody]

But then he said, like, they make you turn in the smallest piece of equipment too.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Cody]

And if not, like, you're will be.

[Eli Double Tap]

Turning your will be your sleepy. Like, literally everything almost gets turned. I lost mine the same. It's crazy.

[Brandon Herrera]

But they specifically said he pawned it because he needed money for a date.

[Eli Double Tap]

Checks out that's private.

[Justin Taylor]

With a stripper, most likely, that loves them.

[Cody]

I don't know how some of these kids think they're not going to be caught. We had these two E3s when I was working auxiliary security on Norfolk Naval Base. They. One of them got a gun somehow, and they went to the movie theater on base and did a. Committed an armed robbery. Three of them in the car that was registered to them and registered to the base, like. Like, no one's ever going to find out. They stole all of, like, $60 in cash with a gun. Three of them.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, well, that was the one, like, those bunch of rangers that. That robbed that bank.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah, you remember that?

[Brandon Herrera]

The reason they got caught, like, they executed everything flawlessly except one of the dipshits. The getaway driver removed the front plate and not the back license plate, or vice versa. He had. He had the presence of mind to remove one of the license plates, and then Dennis. And that was how they. Somebody phoned it in.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jesus.

[Justin Taylor]

There's also those Rangers who, like, stole a bunch of stuff from an arms room from, like, a base that everyone already, like, knew and could recognize them.

[Eli Double Tap]

And, like, wait, I don't know that story.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, there's like, this. These Rangers, and like, apparently they're already out, but they used their VA car to get onto base, and there's a group of, like, three or four of them, and so they went. And, like, they went to, like, this arms room, and there was a guy in there, and they. The one dude, like, fought off, like, three of them somehow, and. And it ended up, like, pulling off one of the masks of them, and then they're like, oh, shit, we fucking know who that is. And so then, like, Bill. Yeah. The next day, like, they all got, like, hemmed up because, like, they stole from, like, their old unit, so their buddies were like, yeah, that's obviously so and so.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude, I love smart criminals don't get caught. That's like. Isn't that saying, like. Well, I mean, obviously, because the level of stupidity on the one that gets caught is amazing to me.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, it's like the. The plane diagram or survivorship bias.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Criminals are stupid. No, the criminals you hear about are stupid.

[Eli Double Tap]

Jesus. When you were in, what was your. I forgot, like, being a lieutenant, being a captain, you had to deal with.

[Justin Taylor]

Some amazing, amazing Americans. Yes. Yes, I did.

[Eli Double Tap]

What is, like, one of the worst ones, where it just stuck with you? I always okay you to see the true shit back in the military.

[Justin Taylor]

So one that will never Leave me. And, like, to this day, just, like, makes me super angry. And it's actually like, two kids because they were, like, fucking butt buddies.

[Brandon Herrera]

And I can already hear the resentment.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, I. I'm angry thinking about it. So if I have to breathe more, it's because my heart rates through the roof. So this. This guy, he gets in, brand new private. It's like 18 years old. Him, his buddy, they're like buddies from basic training. And already they're just kind of like shitbags. They never want to do anything. They suck. They're, like, getting into fights with dudes. And we had a really cohesive platoon and company at the time. So the fact that they were getting into fights with people, fist fights on a range, we're like, what the fuck is going on here? And so at one point, we're like, all these dudes. Something bad's going to happen. We need to figure out. It was me, my platoon sergeant, company commander, and we're like, how do we deal with this before we get a chance to figure out how to deal with this? You know, private so and so one day just doesn't show up for morning formation. We're like, that's weird. So we go ask his buddies, like, where is he? We ask his roommate, like, where is he Goes, I don't know. I don't know. And then, well, his car is in the parking lot. Like, something weird's happening. We're calling him a million times. We're texting him. We go to, like, his, like, family roster. Like, because we had. We had all the, you know, contact information for people's families in case something like this happened. And so, like, we call his mom, we call his aunts, and like, after, like, a day, I'm like, I finally get his mom on the phone. I'm like, hey, is. Do you know where Private so and so is your son? And she goes like, yeah, he's here. I'm like, where is here? And she's like, los Angeles. And for reference, I was in Fort Hood at the time here in Texas, so nowhere close. Oops.

[Brandon Herrera]

So I'm like, might need a passport.

[Eli Double Tap]

And you have to put in paperwork if you go over how many miles?

[Justin Taylor]

Like, 250. And I think. I'm not a geography expert, but I do believe Killeen, Texas, is more than 250 miles away from Los Angeles. Anyway, someone can fact check me that.

[Eli Double Tap]

You did go to college.

[Brandon Herrera]

Is that West Point education?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. I know where major cities in the United States are. It's great. You, too. Can Learn this information if you apply yourself. But so I'm like, okay. Is he okay? Like, we're like, what the Is going on? She goes like, yeah, he's. He's fine, but he's. We don't think he's gonna come back. And we're like, what. What do you mean he's not coming back?

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, there's a certain crime that describes that.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, it's like, so, like, we're like, okay. We're like, well, we kind of saw this coming. Like, we throw him on, like, the no Fly list. We, like, put him on AWOL status, all this other stuff. I finally get in contact with him.

[Eli Double Tap]

You go on the no Fly list.

[Justin Taylor]

If you go awol, if you're on. If you are awol, if you're AWOL and you try to go through, like, TSA or you get pulled over, you're supposed to, like, immediately get arrested.

[Eli Double Tap]

I never knew that.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, like. Like those dudes who, like. You hear stories where dudes are, like, awol for, like, 30 years or something. That has to be the most stressful thing because you get one ticket. You get pulled over one time, and it's like, you have. You haven't been to Fort Bragg in 30 years, but, boy, you're going back anyway.

[Brandon Herrera]

What do they do with people like that? Like, let's say you. You've been AWOL for, like, two years. They catch you.

[Justin Taylor]

What if it's like, two? I think it's like, there's, like. It's not really a statute of limitations on it, but, like, kind of how I've seen it is, like, if it's like, 30 years or something crazy, they're just gonna be like, all right, man. Like, here's just some really quick paperwork and, like, send you on your way. They might go to jail. They might get a fine. At that point, it's kind of like, whatever.

[Brandon Herrera]

We don't know. We could use you now.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. If it's, like, two years, dudes will typically get, like, arrested and, like, actually serve, like. Like a full punishment. Like, get crime, maybe sent off somewhere, depending on, like, what they did, you know? Because a lot of times, like, if a dude is caught awall, it's. He's being arrested, so he's. Now you're stacking up stuff on top.

[Brandon Herrera]

I can't imagine living 30 years without having. Without flying or having a cop run your information in any way.

[Justin Taylor]

It doesn't always work, but that's how it's supposed to work. So, like, the first thing we did was and like, for us, it didn't work. And I'll get to that part later because, like, as soon as we found out, we're like, no, no Fly list. Anyway, finally get a hold of him and we're like, what is going on? The short of the long is that he went all the way back to Los Angeles to film a rap video with his friends. And if it was good, if it was a good song, if it was a good music video, whatever, I'd have been more forgiving. But the song itself was also trash. I'm like, this is unforgivable.

[Brandon Herrera]

Can you shout it out? What was it?

[Justin Taylor]

I don't even remember. But if I find it, I will send it to you guys.

[Eli Double Tap]

Put it right here.

[Justin Taylor]

Right, right there. And so then, so then like. And that was like, annoying. It's like, all right, whatever. It's just a kid being really stupid. He's 18. I did stupid stuff. Later when he gets back, he comes back with his mom and his aunt. So they all, they all come back and like, he had been feeding his family these lies, basically. So, like, this guy had been in.

[Brandon Herrera]

I think you told us part of this.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, maybe like he, he, he had been with us for like maybe six weeks and. Okay. And in that six weeks, we hadn't gone to the field at all. We were like on the table. We were like just starting our train up cycle. So the, the only things we were doing were like going to the range and doing basic marksmanship, like doing maintenance for stuff that we're gonna do in a few months, like getting ready for the hard stuff. We hadn't spent. He had not spent a single night out of his bed, like, in the whole time he was with us. And it was like during the drawdown of COVID So like, a lot of stuff was still, like, super careful. And like, that slowed down training for the military a ton.

[Eli Double Tap]

This is peacetime army too.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah. No, like, like, this kid was just like showing up, collecting a paycheck. And like, I was a. I was a benevolent dictator. I let my guys go early. So, like, he was also like back in his barracks by like 3:30pm most days. Like, I was like. He had it like, super easy. So he comes back with his, with his mom and his aunt. And this is like when I got really angry because, like, she like, demanded a meeting with like, me, my platoon sergeant, our commander, like my company commander, and our company first sergeant.

[Brandon Herrera]

Can you just do that?

[Justin Taylor]

At that point we were like, I forget what had just happened, but like, we Were on like. Oh, it was. Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Okay.

[Justin Taylor]

Yes. What?

[Cody]

I think yes.

[Brandon Herrera]

Actually, I should have put that together way faster, frankly.

[Cody]

Yeah, I didn't want to say the.

[Justin Taylor]

Quiet part out loud.

[Eli Double Tap]

I just like.

[Justin Taylor]

He said rap video.

[Cody]

Then he brought his mom and aunts back.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Cody]

Brought auntie.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Auntie is more auntie. Auntie is more accurate.

[Eli Double Tap]

How do you want to borrow my ghost bed pillow?

[Cody]

Does it smell like you?

[Justin Taylor]

Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

Do you feel that? Cooling technology.

[Cody]

It's definitely not a hot pillow.

[Brandon Herrera]

I gotta get out of here.

[Justin Taylor]

Give me my pillow. I'm the one that has to sleep here. You got guys have your own houses and your own pillows. Quit touching it.

[Brandon Herrera]

All right, real question. Can the gang do a pillow fight?

[Justin Taylor]

Not with these. They're heavy.

[Brandon Herrera]

Slow motion pillow fight.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, they're heavy. It'll hurt.

[Brandon Herrera]

Are they really?

[Justin Taylor]

Yes, they're premium.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude, that would actually.

[Brandon Herrera]

That actually I don't think I'd want.

[Justin Taylor]

To get smacked with that. I'm swinging it hard. Okay.

[Eli Double Tap]

Your son. You walk up and just pee off on your kid.

[Justin Taylor]

If I smack you with this, you're going to be a ghost.

[Eli Double Tap]

And get this.

[Justin Taylor]

They're built to last with a 20 year warranty and they have a three month free trial period.

[Brandon Herrera]

What do they do with all the used mattresses that get returned?

[Justin Taylor]

Not black lights.

[Cody]

They have a complete sleep setup for spooky sex.

[Justin Taylor]

Boo.

[Cody]

Ghostbed has it all. Adjustable bases, sheets, pillows, and full bundles to upgrade your whole bed with over.

[Justin Taylor]

20 years of sleep expertise, which is really amateur hour.

[Brandon Herrera]

I've been sleeping for at least 30 years.

[Eli Double Tap]

Family owned and handcrafted in the USA. In Canada.

[Justin Taylor]

Ew. Ew Canada.

[Eli Double Tap]

Entrusted by thousands of happy sleepers like Cody, Brandon and Nick. Yep.

[Brandon Herrera]

They have over 60,000 five star reviews. And you get an extra 10% off when you use code unsubscribe at checkout.

[Eli Double Tap]

Head over to ghostbed.com unsubscribe to get started.

[Justin Taylor]

That's ghostbed.com unsubscribe.

[Cody]

Use the code unsubscribe to sleep better and stay cooler.

[Justin Taylor]

Word to use I would say guess that race.

[Brandon Herrera]

Who's that?

[Justin Taylor]

Pokemon. Yeah.

[Cody]

Well, it's the same thing like arresting people. You would have mom and auntie would always come in with an 18, 19 year old. Needs to speak to the arresting officer. Needs to speak to their sergeant, lieutenant and the chief of police.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Cody]

Need to speak with them right now.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. She was like demanding like our like full bird Colonel. I'm like, I think he's a little busy for what's going on right now, but I'll shoot him an email. Never shot him an email to say.

[Brandon Herrera]

I didn't know you could just walk onto a base and demand parlay with whoever runs it.

[Justin Taylor]

Something had just happened. I think it was like some big scandal, I think had just hit around that time where we were all, like, super sensitive to that kind of stuff. So, like, even our commander was like, hey, we're like, in full damage control right now. Like, if they, like, if one more thing hits the media from this base, like, because it's for Hood. So, like, a lot of bad stuff at the time was coming out of Fort Hood. Like, if one more thing comes out of Fort Hood, like, we're all toasted and we're never going to see the live day again. And so we're like, yeah, sure, whatever. And so she, like, she had this, like, notebook, like, you know, like the black and white splotchy notebooks you give to, like, third graders. Yeah, the composition books. It's wide. Of course it's wide. It's not going to be college ruled because those lines are too narrow for these kinds of people. And it makes me. This situation makes me angry. And it looked like she had, like, these notes that she had written, and it was scribbled as if she was holding the pen down like this writing like this. And, like, the most, like, unintelligible things ever. And she's like, these are all the things you did bad to my son. And she's like. She's like, you.

[Brandon Herrera]

You waited until you got there to write them.

[Justin Taylor]

It's. The handwriting looked like she did it while, like, trying to balance on, like, a unicycle or something. It was.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, you didn't see her using the pen?

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, no, no, no. I just figured based on the size and how not to be like, that guy judging people on their handwriting. But there is a level where you're like, all right, there's something, like, wrong.

[Brandon Herrera]

Very illiterate.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

And she's like, you've been emotionally, mentally abusing my son. And. And, like, you starved him. So, like, he got Covid once and he had to, like, go in quarantine for a week. And, like, you starved him for a week? I had to send him money for food. And we're like. We literally had a detail of, like, 10 dudes who would regularly bring people food. And, like, we asked his roommate who's quarantined with him. We're like, hey, you guys got fed, right? They're like, yeah, we didn't even eat half the stuff you've. You guys gave us because we just ordered pizzas. And we're like, okay, so obviously not. And. And so we're like, okay, well, there's.

[Brandon Herrera]

Where that food money went, though.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And so it's like, well. And like, at the time, I was like, all right, well, maybe I missed something. Like, you know, I'm. I'm three levels up from where he is, so maybe like, his team leader or squad leader or section leader doing something that, like, I missed somehow. I'm like, can you please give me examples? Like, I want to make sure this isn't like a thing. And they're like, well, we don't. And she's like, flipping back and forth between the same two pages. Like, well, I don't have any here, but you've been abusing my son. We're like, all right, I don't think we've been abusing your son.

[Brandon Herrera]

Could you please give me examples? Because I think you're just a. But I want to make sure.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, at that point, like, I was.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just like, hey, it's a bad draw.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, just mean.

[Brandon Herrera]

Army man.

[Justin Taylor]

Army man.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, oh, yeah, he's crying big tears.

[Justin Taylor]

And then she's like, she's like, you haven't been taking his asthma into a account. We're like, your son has asthma? And he signed up to be in the infantry. Like, what are you doing? And she's like, well, he. He lied at. @ MEPs about the asthma thing. We're like, okay, so.

[Brandon Herrera]

So perjury.

[Justin Taylor]

So that's very illegal also.

[Eli Double Tap]

He lied.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Interesting. And then. And then I remember, like, they're like, okay, well, we think he. I should mention, this whole time it's just him and his mom and his auntie talking at us. And he's like, sitting in the corner, like, all hunched over, like, all like, whatever. And we're like, oh, I hate you so much. Like, I was looking at them like, I'm gonna rip your throat out the second these people leave.

[Brandon Herrera]

18 year old kid.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. And. And. And so they're like, well, I think. I don't know if I'm allowed to. Hopefully I'm allowed to say this, but he's like, oh, you know, like. And she. You guys have made him like, we're like, okay, like, you said the magic words, like, we'll go do the little checklist we got to do now and then, like. So I had to, like, escort him over to the hospital. And I remember there's like a little incline. And I should also mention Mommy and auntie were not in the best shape ever. So this is, like, a small win I had for the day.

[Brandon Herrera]

Mild shock.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Yeah. Really. The parking lot that we stopped at was, like, slightly downhill of the hospital. So I, like, walked really fast up the. Up the hill. So I just heard them going behind me. I'm like, that's my only win for today. Like, I had to get that in.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'd have been like, man, first off, statistically speaking, he's not white, so he's not gonna kill himself.

[Justin Taylor]

True.

[Eli Double Tap]

Second, why are you winded? Yeah, okay, just go on.

[Justin Taylor]

But. And yeah, and so, like, when we. We got there and we get. We. I go. Because I'm his escort at that point, I'm not allowed to leave his side. Like, legally, according to the army, not allowed to leave his side. And so we go into this room, and it's me, him, and this, you know, army psych. And they're like, okay, you know, you're. And all this other stuff. And she goes like, well, I don't. Like. They talk for a few minutes, and she's like. The psych was like, I don't think you're. You don't have a plan to kill yourself. And he goes like, oh, I'm gonna take a lot of pills. And she goes, there it is. And she, like, writes it down. I shit you not. That's how the conversation went. And. And then, like. And then, like, she pulls me outside. She goes like, is he in trouble or something? I'm like, yeah, he's in a lot of trouble. And she goes like, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

And then the sudden onset is.

[Justin Taylor]

Crazy how that works.

[Eli Double Tap]

Run away, but stick.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, but for the. For the next, like, six weeks, because it's not just instant, like, you're out the next day. He had to, like, do all this out processing and, like, get cleared by mental health and all that other stuff. So he was still with us for, like, six weeks to two months. And, like, sure enough, someone's like, hey, we got to paint. So I'm like, stop there. I got someone for you. Say less to the point where, like, even my own commander is like, hey, Justin, we gotta cut that out. I'm like, I'm gonna keep fucking destroying this kid. Like, I don't care. And because he, like, he caused me, like, so much that was, like, 90% of my time then turned into, like, dealing with this kid instead of, like, my actual soldiers who were, like, motivated and wanted to train and, like. And we were, like, on the upscale of Like a training cycle. So we're like. I'm like, I'm really fucking busy. I'm trying to focus on the other things, and I have to make sure that, like, this guy checked into the CQ desk every hour to make sure he didn't, you know, off himself or whatever.

[Brandon Herrera]

If you're gonna steal valor, we're gonna.

[Justin Taylor]

Make you pay for it. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, he paid for it. But so he had a buddy, and his buddy was like, this, like, super hick kid, and they were like. They were. But. And, like, no one in the platoon liked them. No one in the. Yeah, shocker. No one in the company liked them. So they kind of, like, just banded together and we're like, if we could just like. We're like, my. My boss is like, okay, these. These people are cancer.

[Eli Double Tap]

And.

[Justin Taylor]

And we have to keep everyone away from them so they don't infect anyone else. And so, sure enough, like, a few weeks later, like, this kid comes into my office. He's like, literal tears in his eyes. He's like, I don't want to be in the army anymore. And we're like, okay, what's going on? Like, let's have a talk. Me and my platoon sergeant, we brought him in the office. Close the door, very respectful. We're like, hey, you know, maybe this. You know, this other kid was a fuck up. Maybe we can save this kid. Like, you know, we can always use another gun on the line. So, like, let's try to, like, do, like, V. Okay. With this kid. So, like, very honest conversation. We're like, all right, what's. What's going on? He was like, why? I joined the army on a. On a dare, and I don't want to be here anymore. We're like, what do you mean? You join the army on a dare? And, like, he's, like, actually crying while he's saying this. He was like, well, my uncle said I wouldn't do it, and I said, no. And then I did. And we're like, oh, dude. Like, you're. Now you're here in our office wearing a camo uniform.

[Brandon Herrera]

How long's he been in at this point?

[Justin Taylor]

At that point, maybe, like, two, three months. Like, oh. And again, like, the hard stuff. Hadn't even the hard stuff. Being away, like, training overnight, if you want to call it that, hadn't even really started yet. So. And so this kid, like, we're like, all right, well. And he's like, well, I have, like, a few good reasons why I think I should be out of the army. We're like, okay, what are they? And he's like, well, one, my uncle runs a lawnmower business and people won't show up for work. We're like, okay. Don't know how that's your problem, but okay, you know what? That's. You care about your family, man. What's the next one? And he's like, well, my mom got fired. And we're like, okay, you know, that's. Whatever.

[Brandon Herrera]

And then two things that aren't relevant so far.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. We're like, all right. You know, really hoping for this third.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hey, terrorism. Can you take a pause?

[Justin Taylor]

This guy. Mom got laid off. Just at least wait for the unemployment to kick in and then keep doing what you're doing. True believer.

[Eli Double Tap]

True believer goes so hard.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. And. And they're like, all right. Really banking on this third one. And he goes like, well, I can't be with my fiance. We're like, all right. You know, I. Family separation is hard. We've all been there. Like, what's the deal? Why can't she just come here and all this other. Well, her. Her parents won't let her until she lives with her parents, and her parents won't let her until she graduates. Or like, oh, like, graduate what? He goes like, high school. We're like, oh, God, like, we're getting another one. And then, sure enough, a week later, Private so and so is not a morning formation. We're like, all right. Well. And at the time, he had like this really identifiable run, done run down, like red truck. And we're like, all right, go look for it in the barracks. Can't find in the barracks. Like, all right, well, you know, at least he took it and he's alive somewhere. And so we're like, go. And I, me and my platoon start, like, we butt heads for a couple, like, come up with an idea. We're like, hey, we grabbed one of our section leaders. We're like, hey, go to the closest hotel off post. And he's like, why? We're like, go look for so and so's truck.

[Brandon Herrera]

He's like, I hate where I know where this is going.

[Justin Taylor]

Sure enough, not even 10 minutes later, I get a text picture on my phone. Like, he's here.

[Brandon Herrera]

And we're like, is he with a 16 year old?

[Justin Taylor]

I think she. I don't think she was. I think she's a little older than that. That's good.

[Eli Double Tap]

Er, better.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, I'm still gonna guess. Not the magic number.

[Justin Taylor]

Not the magic number. Yeah, but, you know, it is what it is.

[Brandon Herrera]

And that's when it becomes your problem.

[Justin Taylor]

And that's when it became my problem. I think she's the magic number now. It's been a few years. That's good. You know, and I hope, I hope they are just so, so happy and unemployed together because we got him out of the army too. And we didn't even, like, we didn't even arrest him. We're like, you know, just come back, please. Please just come back. We really don't want to do the paperwork to arrest you. We know where you are. Like, you're right here. We're outside of your door.

[Brandon Herrera]

Please just come back.

[Justin Taylor]

He pulled the.

[Brandon Herrera]

My buddy couldn't get out on the thing, so he decided he was going to try the statutory thing.

[Justin Taylor]

You know, there's many paths up the one mountain, as some people say. We had, we had one guy. This was like my first week as a platoon leader too. So he. Weird. We were four, deployed to Romania at the time. And this dude's like, I'm going to myself, blah, blah. And you know, if it's peace time, no one's shooting at us. Really? Yeah. Just watch. Go home. And so he goes home and then he's, he, he sends these Snapchats to the buddies. Buddies in the company of him holding a machete in front of his wife's or his mother in law's house where his wife was staying because he, he, he thought that she was cheating on him. Which is valid. Valid. Jody happens and which, which part's valid? Yeah, well, the, the, the, the idea that she might potentially be around like not response. No, no, I'm not.

[Eli Double Tap]

Machete took. Valid.

[Brandon Herrera]

We all been there.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, some, some putting that on Snapchat. Just some quick selfies real fast.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. So he, he sends those snaps to his buddies in the company.

[Brandon Herrera]

Might murder my wife later.

[Justin Taylor]

Well, hey, you up? We're getting to that part.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, no, don't worry.

[Justin Taylor]

And so I'm worried. So he, he, he sends a Snapchat with like, like this, like the bitch gets it tonight. We're like, oh, fuck. So he goes in, he goes into his mother in law's house.

[Brandon Herrera]

You guys are all taking bets.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Well. And so he then, yeah, like, oh, dude, he's gonna do it.

[Eli Double Tap]

This is a group chat where you're not, you're not helping.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And. And so he then attempts to murder both individuals. Fails the both, both people are alive. I won't say well, but they're alive today. Naturally he gets caught and all that other stuff. So. And then naturally, we have to kick him out of the platoon. And like, officially we said it was because, you know, if you try to murder your wife, you probably shouldn't be in the army with us. But the unofficial reasoning was, if you as an infantryman can't kill two unarmed civilians with a machete, how on earth are you? Are we expecting you to kill people who are trying to kill us? Your services will no longer be required in this platoon.

[Brandon Herrera]

Both remarkably fair reasons.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, so. But after we had the two guys go awol, we like, unofficially named our platoon the Runaway. And then like, we had this big platoon flag because we were the misfits. That was our thing. And underneath the big flag in my office, there was like a second smaller sign that said the Runaways. And it's like, without leave, without fear.

[Brandon Herrera]

That's funny.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Holy shit. I've. Man, I've had some shit backstories that trumps a lot of them. That is wild. We had. Have I told the private, maybe bleeped the dude that went awol, then got brought back a month later himself? No, like, same thing. Got cat, he got captured, got caught. He ran away to like another state. They got him at, I want to say an airport. They brought him back and then it was like, hey, we're just going to kick homeboy out and we'll start that whole process. So watch. If they do that because he went that route, I'm gonna off myself. You have to do an hourly check in 24 hours.

[Brandon Herrera]

24.

[Justin Taylor]

Yep. Oh.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh dear God.

[Justin Taylor]

And a lot of times they'll make you sleep next to like the. So like every barracks has like a CQ desk. It's like literally a desk with a person at it 24 7. Even on like Christmas and everything. A lot of times they'll move their bed there, like literally in the middle of a hallway, just some dude's bed. And that's where he has to sleep because otherwise, like, he has to like, get up every hour in the middle of the night and like, be at this desk, be like, I'm still alive and go back to his room.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's the most. Dude, it is annoying because now your entire team, squad, platoon, have to worry about this dude. Because they even made a joke about.

[Brandon Herrera]

That, like, oh, and now they know. Well, and they, they can see it like, oh, shit, it's that guy.

[Eli Double Tap]

Hey, Cody, you want better sex?

[Cody]

Hell yeah, brother.

[Eli Double Tap]

Woo.

[Brandon Herrera]

Same.

[Eli Double Tap]

What about you, Brandon?

[Brandon Herrera]

Is that an offer?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yes. Yeah, it.

[Brandon Herrera]

Why not?

[Justin Taylor]

I have sex with women.

[Eli Double Tap]

Does my hand count?

[Brandon Herrera]

Not gonna lie, hand's pretty weird. You're both simultaneously jerking off a guy and getting jerked off by a guy.

[Eli Double Tap]

But you're getting yours.

[Justin Taylor]

I'm gay, babe.

[Eli Double Tap]

Do you want better sex? Did you say go away? The best way to get started is head over to adameem.com. brandon, why was this in your closet?

[Justin Taylor]

Why did you break it?

[Cody]

You need a new one now.

[Brandon Herrera]

I hate doing ads for this podcast.

[Eli Double Tap]

I call this one Mr. Fisty.

[Brandon Herrera]

Hello, Mr. Fisty.

[Eli Double Tap]

Now when I snap, everyone comes.

[Justin Taylor]

Stop it.

[Brandon Herrera]

Stop doing that.

[Justin Taylor]

Eli, I'm in church.

[Cody]

The weirdest parent teacher conference ever. Thanks, man.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, it was a very touching funeral.

[Eli Double Tap]

On the real though, spice up that bedroom life. Don't be a get up in that.

[Brandon Herrera]

And if your partner says it just like that, it's probably time for you to spice it up too.

[Cody]

That's 50% off one item with free shipping with free rush processing. They also offer discreet shipping. So it's a blank box. Your neighbors aren't going to know all that crazy shit you're into.

[Eli Double Tap]

Jack Daniels is proudly served in fine establishments. Questionable choice and everywhere in between. So no matter where you go in every bar, you'll always know someone by name. Jack.

[Justin Taylor]

Jack and Coke shot at Jack. Jack Daniels please. Right away.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's what makes Jack Jack.

[Justin Taylor]

Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org Jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Copyright 2025 Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey 40 alcohol by volume 80 proof.

[Eli Double Tap]

I know about your life.

[Brandon Herrera]

Life sized donut figure possibly available at Adam and Eve.

[Eli Double Tap]

This Cody with a fan.

[Brandon Herrera]

If you're a fan of donut holes, go to AdamAndEve.com just head over to.

[Eli Double Tap]

AdamAndEve.com and select one item. It could be an adventurous new toy or one of your favorite desires.

[Cody]

Just enter code unsub at checkout.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's unsub. U N S U B Get your donut hole today. Yeah. And no one takes watch. Well like you're going to bully the fuck out a lot of the times the second that gets that flag rises like I'm going to do this. You're like, you piece of shit. Okay now because it's.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's super abused, right?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. Yes. In basic training we had probably four.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's not because there's. It's because they're faking being most of.

[Eli Double Tap]

The time to clarify that it's not. Hey, I'm actually feeling bad depress any of this. It's like I want a quick way out of the army. This is how I'm going To get out of the army.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And then they will pull that card. And then if basic training, you would have four extra people on guard duty. So Firewatch, instead of two people without rotation, now you have six people on Firewatch, four people that have to watch the dude to make sure he's not doing anything, and then two people. So now you get less sleep every night.

[Brandon Herrera]

In your experience, back of the envelope math here. Just ballpark and what. What do you think the ratio is of actually people to shit bags was?

[Justin Taylor]

I mean, it depends. Like in basic training, like, you're saying it's gonna be a lot higher. Like in my unit, I think I can honestly say because, like, we had like a few, like, actual attempts where it's like you wake up to a phone call, you're like, oh, like, never saw that coming in a million years. And then it's like the only. That was. I can honestly say it was like my only one. I'm sure some people have higher, lower numbers depending on, like, where you're at. But, like, it definitely, at least in my. In my personal experience, the. The ratios favored, like, actually helping the dudes. Because, like, if someone's faking it in that situation, like, it's so unbelievably obvious. And that's why, like, we're. People are harsh on them. Because it's not like, oh, you know, maybe it's. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Because, like, we had. When we had a guy that actually did do like a attendance, everyone was volunteering to, like, help him out because, like, oh, like, this guy's like, really, like, he got in some. He got in some personal trouble. He didn't see a way out, you know, all that Stu. And like, everyone was like moving mountains to, like, help him out. But then it's like when it's this kid who everyone knows is just fucking trying to get out of the army as fast as they can. Like, then it's just wreck him and.

[Brandon Herrera]

Make his life kicking the cots in the middle of the night.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah, literally.

[Eli Double Tap]

You up? You okay? You good? You're good. Because it is night and day, you know when somebody's actually going to do it versus that. And we will help. Oh, shit. Like, homeboy is going through a bad one. It's not like I'm running away. Then you get back. It's like, well, I'm on this watch. Like, chances are it's happening while they're enlisted or the few we had, we didn't see coming. And then afterwards, we never Seen any of my buddies that did it afterwards. It was like, get a call, get a text, like, hey, this just happened. You're like, what the. What the happened? Those dudes make it like, as transparent. Like, I'm gonna do this.

[Justin Taylor]

Boohoo.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, you so basic out of the four dudes. And it was all. Each time, it was just a. Not even a cry for help. It was just, I want to get.

[Brandon Herrera]

Out of the military, out of anybody we know. I don't think. I don't think there was ever any of us would have ever said, oh, yeah, it's going to be that guy.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Never is.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, I can't think of a single one.

[Eli Double Tap]

Never. Literally, I do not have a single one of my friends that I was like, oh, I seen that coming. It was always like, what the fuck? Holy shit, what happened? Okay, let's play catch up. Let's get talk to the family. Well, I just talked to him a couple months ago, and the only sign is the lack of communication starts happening. They go quiet.

[Brandon Herrera]

They.

[Eli Double Tap]

They'll start giving stuff away. It's like, hey, here's this. Hey, I want to take care of you. And then they just pull into this little dark hole, stop communicating, and then isolate themselves. And then, oh, that's what happened. That's why the statement check on your homies is always going to say this.

[Brandon Herrera]

This might be your, you know, reality check. Maybe it's time to check up on. On that guy you're thinking of.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, Never hurts.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just. Just talk. Just be like, hey, what's up? How you doing? Get that conversation going. Just get a normal conversation going. A lot of the time, that's all I take. And if they're. If they're like, oh, man, actually, I'm having a bad day, or I'm having X, Y, and Z reach out. Just like, hey, tell me about it. A lot of time communication goes really far. It lets them open up.

[Brandon Herrera]

That second part's pretty important too. Don't just check on your homies. Like, honestly, man, things aren't going really well. I'm having this issue. Damn, that sucks.

[Eli Double Tap]

Merry Christmas.

[Brandon Herrera]

That's crazy.

[Cody]

That's crazy, man.

[Justin Taylor]

Anyway, have a good, good birthday.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, don't do that. But.

[Eli Double Tap]

But yeah. And it makes a huge difference if. If they actually open up. Talk to them, reach out, have an open conversation with them. See what's going on. It's going to. It might take an hour, may take two hours, but at the end of the day, they will feel way better because now they're sharing that load, that backpack, that rucksack, and it's a lighter load. So then they can face that next day. And it's super helpful.

[Brandon Herrera]

But you're in the middle of the story. Sorry.

[Eli Double Tap]

With now, I'm like, maybe this story. Because homeboy, this is one of the smart ones now I'm like, we might just not do the story. We'll do the story on a different day.

[Brandon Herrera]

On a lighter note. How are things doing now?

[Justin Taylor]

Good. Got out of the military back in May of 2024 and then.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, wow.

[Brandon Herrera]

Pretty recent then.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah. And at the time I actually. So for people that don't know more of my backstory, I worked with Chris Cappy at Task and Purpose for probably like four years before I actually got out of the military. So I was like full active duty and working this kind of like side gig hustle, because I liked it. I liked working with Chris. I liked the team they had there and I liked what they were doing.

[Brandon Herrera]

So Cappy, big, big enemy of the channel. We're not really big fans of him.

[Justin Taylor]

I will do whatever you say. I'm against him now.

[Brandon Herrera]

Now we've had him on before. He's.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, no, I love that guy to death. Shout out to him. But yeah. And so kind of. And I won't get into too many specifics so that people that are still working at said companies don't get in trouble. But basically there was a plan to make like a second Task and Purpose where it's like, oh, and this was like right before I got out of the military. And they're like, oh, you know, we had, we did such a great job with Task and Purpose and putting Chris up there and like all this beautiful stuff was happening and it's like we could do that again with another company that's like a web military news based thing. And so they're like, oh, Justin, you have been working for this for a while and you've been on camera before you. You are a good fit. I'm like, all right, great. And so we get all this stuff signed. Like I start working on this new channel idea in like March of 2024. So like a couple months before I get out just to like land on my feet and like sign a contract for. And that was going to start the day I got out of the army. So, like I was getting out into the Army May 26, 2024. My contract started May 27, 2024. And then maybe like a month or three weeks before I'm out. And like at this point. This is my plan. Like, I don't. I don't have a school that I'm going back to. I don't have, like, you know, anything else. I'm like, I already have a job. Everything's going to be great. I had a house that I was moving to and all these plans. And then, like, three weeks before that, I get an email from or a text from one of them.

[Brandon Herrera]

I know why both of you are laughing, by the way.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And they're like, so he laughing. And I started laughing, and they're like, hey, someone went. Someone else went behind everyone's back and hired someone else for this role. I'm like, oh, no worries. Awesome. And so at that point, I'm just kind of, like, scrambling. I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like, it's too late to, like, enroll in a school. I'm like, all right, look, I'm going to give myself a year from when I get out of the army and just try to make YouTube stuff work. And if it doesn't work, I gave it my all. I gave it a year. I feel like that's a good enough time to where, if I don't get at least a little momentum going, I've tried, and I have enough savings to where if I really need to, I can just coast for a little bit. And if I make $8 a day on YouTube, that's my grocery thing for the day. And so I just kind of started that, and I was my. And then, you know, the. The original company's like, oh, we'll try to find a spot for you. We'll try to figure something else out. We'd still love you to be on the team, blah, blah. I'm like, all right, yeah, sure. Sure thing. That obviously didn't happen. And isn't it remarkable how companies like.

[Brandon Herrera]

That sometimes will just turn into entrepreneurship factories?

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah, It's. It's crazy how they're just like. It's almost like they're doing it on purpose. I don't know. It's. It's slightly remarkable how good they are doing that.

[Brandon Herrera]

And there's plenty of them, too.

[Justin Taylor]

It's. It's crazy.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, I'm not even just thinking of one particular company.

[Justin Taylor]

I'm thinking of one particular company.

[Brandon Herrera]

I think Eli's thinking of one particular company. But, like, there's. In the gun industry, you see it a lot, too. There's. There's like, I'll. I'll even.

[Justin Taylor]

I'll fucking call it out.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude, I never thought about it. It's like entrepreneur factories.

[Justin Taylor]

Like.

[Eli Double Tap]

You go be successful elsewhere. Like I.

[Brandon Herrera]

In the gun industry, it was Ruger. So many people that I know used to work at Ruger and they just like, they were really good at their job and they were just like, this company wants to run itself into the ground. I'm going to take my talents elsewhere and then start a multi million dollar company. And like so many people have that same story with that same company. Sig's another one.

[Justin Taylor]

Interesting.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude, it's wild watching. I mean it. Yep.

[Brandon Herrera]

At this point, task and purpose has you. Cappy, like a lot of people have.

[Justin Taylor]

And his whole team too. Because like, like when he talked to me about it like a long time ago, he was like, hey, I don't think I'm gonna. There's like a 50% chance I'm going to leave. I'm like, dude, just fucking do it. Like, I'll, I'll do, I'll work with you, whatever you got next going on.

[Eli Double Tap]

Why 50? Make it 100.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, and, and, but yeah, so like I just, I was just kind of like tired of waiting around for someone to be like, I was still kind of in that army mindset of like, oh, someone's going to come out of left field and tell me what to do. And then I realized that call after a couple of months, like, oh, that phone call's not coming. And so then I was like, you know what? Like I might as well just do all this on my own. Like, I know how to do it. I know how to write for an audience. And like, honestly, like the things I started putting out was just stuff that I thought was interesting that didn't really fit into like what Chris Cappy was doing or like the other channel that I was working for was doing. Because I feel like there's like just a lot of just like weird random military information out there that like doesn't quite fit into like, you know, the current news cycle or something. So like one of the first things I wanted to do was like, hey, you know, like the military has an entire roster of fake countries that we use with like these huge in depth backstories that, you know, it's like this huge world building thing and it's all available for everyone to look at and it's like super in depth and complex and like, I've even like recently interviewed some of the people who like built it and like they go even into more, even, even more depth.

[Brandon Herrera]

The army built its own rpg.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like mmo.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Like, like, no, like it. Like they're. Well, you joke, but they're like actual like RPG games. Oh, really?

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, wait. Like. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

Like, it's a. It's a thing. But it's a. It's a thing. Like the, the military legit has like tabletop games that are meant for like war gaming. Certain. Yeah. Like, and you play as. You play as like, you know, these fake countries. Like, you know, Denovia is. Is not Russia. It's like super Risk, but like more boring.

[Cody]

It's called Warhammer.

[Justin Taylor]

It's like, it's kind of.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's Warhammer 40K but boring.

[Justin Taylor]

I wish it was nearly as cool as Warhammer, but it's still like interesting because, like, you know, you'll have to do like these battles, but then like, you'll get to like a battle point and then you have to like. And it's like normal like dice and stuff you have to throw. But also like a lot of the times like you interject and be like, all right, we're going to do like a full operations planning around this battle right here. And so then everyone like stops playing and you go do like a full actual planning scenario, like a breakout table. Like, like full on. Like, all right, we're going into a 12 hour planning cycle. Like, let's go.

[Eli Double Tap]

Was it like civilization, which you were talking like a little that meets Risk meets.

[Justin Taylor]

Almost like it's. It's just like super in depth. It's like, it's like if you wanted to play Risk and you like go into a battle and it's like, okay, now instead of like, you know, three army people versus four, it's like, okay, they have this mechanized battalion versus our mechanized battalion. It's like, all right. And this is. We have arbitrarily decided that this battle is going to take place on this map that we pulled from. You know, because it. All this stuff is built in. It's called the dope. It's called the Decisive Action Training Environment. That's the name of like this whole fake world that they've built out.

[Brandon Herrera]

And so like they were one letter from Dice.

[Justin Taylor]

I know. Wait, no, no, more than. Cut that. That was so bad.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon's new ad for God. I can't.

[Justin Taylor]

I can't spell.

[Eli Double Tap]

God damn it Dies.

[Justin Taylor]

I can miss. I can missay date. Like, it's called dace.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon Herrera, 2025. I was thinking the tea.

[Brandon Herrera]

God damn it.

[Justin Taylor]

I'm.

[Brandon Herrera]

I'm gone into the camera. It's like.

[Justin Taylor]

My brain caught up a.

[Brandon Herrera]

Second later, I'm like, wait a minute.

[Eli Double Tap]

How have I never heard of this game, by the way?

[Brandon Herrera]

That's why I didn't go to West Point, man.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. So, like, when. When I played it, it was like they had. We had just like, these 3D printed. Printed pieces and like, these Ziploc bags.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's like, Cody, like, me, I fuck with this, right?

[Justin Taylor]

It's pretty cool. And, like, what you're supposed to do is like. And I can say this before, if we cut back, but, like, yeah, like, you're supposed to, like, just pull, like, all this information from, like. It's like, okay, I want to do a battle against, you know, the fake Russians. And you're fighting actually Russian equipment people. So you go into the date and it's like, all right. You have this fake battle group, and it's, like, meant like this. And it fights like this and has, like, full. Like. If you want to get, like, super fucking autistic with it, you can be like, all this crazy stuff and it's built on, like, actual dude.

[Eli Double Tap]

No, like, for real. Just hear me out for a second. This. Because we'd play this game, right?

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

This sounds like something we play. But then you make it a social game aspect where it's also the negotiations. That's why Commander and stuff like that. That's good, because you're allying and you're teaming up to take somebody else out. Or like, this, with that social element would do really.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Good.

[Justin Taylor]

Well, in the fun part, like, with the fun part, like, with that social element, is that, like, what I would always play. It would be like. I forget what they call it, but, like, you're basically like the referee, essentially. And, like, the whole game is kind of run by the American side. But, like, the referee is going to be like. Like, they go through, like, a full plan, right? And they lift out the plan. And that's the not fun part, because that's like 12 hours of fucking.

[Cody]

Yeah, you're the dungeon master.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, but like, the un. Like, Like, I'd have a guy be like, oh, our. You know, this unit destroys this unit on this objective. I'm like, that weapon system cannot destroy that unit. Like, you. You're. You're shooting, you know, a saw round at a fucking T72. And they're like, well, it does something to it. I'm like, no, it doesn't, dude.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, yeah, it alerts them to your position.

[Justin Taylor]

It draws a line straight from your face to their gun barrel. It works great. Brandon, do you need not One more time.

[Brandon Herrera]

You got this, buddy.

[Justin Taylor]

Brandon, can you.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon, do you.

[Brandon Herrera]

Almost there, bud.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon, where do you store your firearms?

[Brandon Herrera]

All over my house, in every crevice.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, do I have the product for you, Nick, show him.

[Justin Taylor]

Here, hand it to me, Brandon, so.

[Eli Double Tap]

I can show you. Brandon, this is Stop Box. Stop Box.

[Justin Taylor]

We love Box.

[Eli Double Tap]

You selling me what's in the box?

[Justin Taylor]

You have to open it and find out.

[Brandon Herrera]

All right, well, let's see if I can do this. Oh, wow, look at that. Oh, it didn't stop you.

[Cody]

Can I hide my goop in that?

[Eli Double Tap]

You can hide your goop in that. Cody. Cody, do you know why I love this thing? Why? Why?

[Brandon Herrera]

Why?

[Justin Taylor]

God, why?

[Eli Double Tap]

Because you don't have to use keys.

[Justin Taylor]

Gun not included.

[Brandon Herrera]

Cody, you've got multiple cats in your house, including. Including Squirt, who's quite the scrapper. Would you want Squirt to have access to your firearms?

[Justin Taylor]

No, he's violent.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, then Stop Box is the perfect product for you.

[Justin Taylor]

No cats getting inside that or people without thumbs. The nice part is it is actually TSA compliant.

[Brandon Herrera]

I didn't actually know that part until a couple months ago. That is actually really cool. Just put a little lock through there.

[Eli Double Tap]

Exactly.

[Cody]

When you check in a pistol or any gun, if there's a hole the lock can go through. On whatever you're checking your gun in, you have to put a lock through that. This has one hole, so you just need one lock. Easily accessible once you land on the ground.

[Brandon Herrera]

I know you're not normally a one hole kind of guy, but this is definitely an exception to the rule.

[Cody]

Never worry about tariffs because everything is sourced right here in the usa.

[Eli Double Tap]

Wait, what are tariffs like?

[Brandon Herrera]

I'm pretty sure I shot a few of them for a limited time.

[Eli Double Tap]

Only get 10% off your entire order if you use code unsubscribe to check.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, and right now, if you buy one Stop Box, you're going to get.

[Eli Double Tap]

Another Stop Box free.

[Justin Taylor]

So that's 10 off plus buy one, get one free. When you use code unsub at checkout.

[Eli Double Tap]

That'S stopboxusa.com discover a better way to.

[Cody]

Balance security and readiness with StopBox.

[Eli Double Tap]

Stopboxusa.com use code unsubscribe.

[Justin Taylor]

But yeah, and, and so, yeah, there's like this whole world that, like, they built upon it. And like, there's like, weird reasons as to, like, why things exist. So, like, their version of Korea is called Torbia and there's. There's north and South Torbilla. And. But the thing is.

[Brandon Herrera]

Sounds like pig Latin. Yeah, well, it's not Korea, technically.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, well, and the funny thing is is that like the normally like. Like Denovia in this, where it's like Russia is like. It is Russia and like, Irania is not Iran. It's Irania, but it is Iran. It's at the same place. Yeah, but like, with. With Korea at the time, they weren't really focused on Korea and they just needed a place where they had a lot of like satellite imagery of. So it's like some random island in the Philippines. And so it's like, kind of funny to think about. Like, I like to think about like tropical Kim Jong Un, you know, like, that's like just like him like in some new skin, like a specific skin where he's like, still like, scary and doing like all the normal stuff, but he's just like in flip flops and.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like a communist dictator skin just dropped.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, I think that'd be awesome.

[Eli Double Tap]

How the fuck, like, this is something you do, like clean work on this. This. If we can do a social element with risk where you just get to play with six people, each person has a country, and then you're talking out to partner or trade parts. I don't know if it would do good. That just sounds like a lot of fun.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, I think if you simplified like the planning part and like, just made it like a simple like rock, paper, scissors. Things where it's like infantry kills this unit, that unit kills tanks, tanks kill infantry. Just like keeping it simple and like strategizing that. You could like, or like add some like, random thing and like. Oh, your unit unexpectedly through track. And now you. Instead of moving five, you move four or something like that. Like that. It do be like that. I've been there.

[Brandon Herrera]

This. This gun is pretty. Pretty gay. But I'm not gonna lie.

[Justin Taylor]

It's.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's just. It's neat. I don't know. So I'm trying to acquire right now a corner shot which as we. We just talked about a little bit while we were on break, I think it's Israeli. And it's just. It's like a carbine that folds 90 degrees around a corner so you can look and shoot around a corner at the end. It's like a full auto Glock that's just at the very end of it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, I was going to say the.

[Brandon Herrera]

Recoil has got to be gnarly because I've never shot one. I've never even seen one in person. But it's got to just twist your fucking grip.

[Eli Double Tap]

That's what does It. Is it right or what?

[Justin Taylor]

Which way does it. Both.

[Brandon Herrera]

Probably do both.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, there's like a little handle that you like.

[Brandon Herrera]

Do this because it's straight until you.

[Justin Taylor]

Can, you know, same crooked around.

[Brandon Herrera]

God damn it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, this way you figured brace. Because when you're shooting this way. Now it's this way. Your hands here positioned. You're more stocked. But if it's shooting. Know what I'm saying? Yeah, that would be.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

I assume it varies dramatically based on the corner you're trying to shoot around.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, but I'm still like. If you're. I'm going to 90 degrees this way. But.

[Cody]

Bring up the clip of Angelina Jolie swinging that shit around in a pharmacy in the movie wanted.

[Eli Double Tap]

Thank you. I still.

[Brandon Herrera]

I've never seen that movie all the way through.

[Justin Taylor]

A lot of slow motion headshots in that one. Morgan Freeman getting domed in the forehead. Spoiler alert. Yeah, I saw that bit.

[Cody]

Movie's only 20 years old now.

[Eli Double Tap]

Now we can't. I like, they did the test. Like, this doesn't work, by the way.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, no physics.

[Eli Double Tap]

I'm not gonna be like, told you. Oh, he's dead.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, you might be. I don't know. I don't even know if you could do that with something as slow moving as, like a bad airsoft gun.

[Eli Double Tap]

When you pull it, it's just.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, exactly.

[Eli Double Tap]

Whatever. It leaves that barrel, it's like, I'm going out.

[Brandon Herrera]

The barrel's going straight.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think Mythbusters did. They had a machine that, like, whipped the gun and guess what? The bullet did? Went straight wherever it left.

[Cody]

Yeah, but they can control their adrenaline in the movie. Oh, super speed.

[Eli Double Tap]

I forgot about that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Is that really?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, brother.

[Cody]

That's why they're all super assassins. They can control their adrenaline. Do, like all this crazy shit, high speed stuff.

[Brandon Herrera]

I feel like there's a doctor out there that is feeling the same way now that I feel when I'm watching bad gunplay in movies where they're just like, that's not.

[Eli Double Tap]

They, Brandon. They do like a room that is a 360 and he just curves it hard enough. The bullet goes.

[Brandon Herrera]

Character did it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, but he was barrel.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah. Yeah, that was great. That was actually, I think, the craziest demo ranch video rip. Pour one out for. For my homie character.

[Justin Taylor]

He's still alive.

[Brandon Herrera]

He's doing well, but tail's dead. The.

[Justin Taylor]

The.

[Brandon Herrera]

The PVC shot that he did where he just had like, tubes where he's like, can I shoot a bullet into pipe and Just kept bending it crazier and crazier directions. Like he did like loop de loops, all sorts of shit and it actually worked. It is the most looney tunes ass shit I have ever seen. I would have never expected that to work in real life.

[Justin Taylor]

And what, what rounds did he use to do that?

[Brandon Herrera]

I think at one point he even used 50. But like he was using like pistol rounds and stuff like that in the beginning. I don't know how the 50 cal worked out. I just know he tried it.

[Cody]

It wasn't in the end. It was just shooting shrapnel out because the bullet was breaking apart so bad.

[Justin Taylor]

That tracks.

[Brandon Herrera]

It was cool.

[Cody]

We were in that video together, right?

[Brandon Herrera]

I was not, I didn't see it in person.

[Justin Taylor]

Okay. Yeah, it was wacky.

[Cody]

A couple of the bullets just shot right past the little bend in the barrel.

[Eli Double Tap]

This PVC pipe. It's crazy. That PVC pipe actually made the bullet right around that. That's wild.

[Brandon Herrera]

Bulls do weird, man.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, my monkey brain tells me that shouldn't work. Same like instant.

[Eli Double Tap]

It would travel like PVC and then go. I mean they had like a 90° one, didn't they?

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, no, he was doing, he did like I think a complete loop at one point or some like that. Like I, I, I'm probably horribly misquoting this. It was a while ago, but it was some that I would have bet, I would have bet in my net worth was never going to work.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, you would have figured, oh, it's just going to punch through.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, just go through it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Just traveled down it and then you hear ting and demo's face. When it actually did ting, he was.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like.

[Eli Double Tap]

Stood up from behind whatever armored plate he was, but he's like, oh, that fucking worked. What the hell?

[Brandon Herrera]

I would love to have ballistic high speed out just to see what the condition of that bullet was by the time it got out.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh yeah, I didn't even think of that.

[Justin Taylor]

Just keyholing if nothing else.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, ass over teacup for sure.

[Eli Double Tap]

Brandon just got a new Pew pew. Are we allowed to discuss that? And then how happy that makes Cody?

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh yeah, no, we can talk about that. I just got motherfucking MP7.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Not a fake one.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, not like it. Not like a Tommy built clone or anything. A real like factory HK MP7. And Cody didn't know I was fucking bidding on it. No, he's promoting it to his stream the entire week. Like look, there's an MP7 for sale. Look at how high it's going to get.

[Cody]

Yeah, I'M sitting there refreshing the website the entire time. I'm like, man, who is bidding on this? Nobody's bidding on this. Two weeks after bidding, he calls me and he's like, I've got the MP7. I didn't even know your ass is bidding on the MP7.

[Justin Taylor]

It was, it was the, the last.

[Brandon Herrera]

Day, like two hours from it. I'm like, it's at 20 grand right now. Like, I might get it. You're like, wait, you were bidding on that?

[Eli Double Tap]

I hope. Brandon's like, I hope no one's watching this. Cody's like, here, here.

[Justin Taylor]

26. We got 26.

[Eli Double Tap]

27, 27, 28. It's like, no, no. Why is this going up so fast?

[Cody]

Yeah, I was showing that to several thousand people a day for two weeks. I didn't know it was you bidding.

[Justin Taylor]

The highest on it.

[Brandon Herrera]

Thanks, bud. That was expensive. No, those guys shout out to them. They really, they really helped me out.

[Eli Double Tap]

You got, you, you got a suppressor?

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, no, they, they, they definitely hooked me up. Like, they, they helped me out a lot. The company that I, I bought them from, or excuse me, the company I bought it from out of Dallas was super cool. They got me a suppressor at cost and like a thousand rounds of 4.6. So we could around with that. As soon as it comes in, that.

[Eli Double Tap]

One super dope, like, Cody's gonna be. Are you going to let Cody shoot it first or are you going to break it in? Who's christening it?

[Brandon Herrera]

We'll like, we'll do it like Ghost with Patrick Swayze. Just both. I'll hold the gun, he pulls the trigger.

[Eli Double Tap]

Please do. Even as a real. Why is Cody shirtless?

[Justin Taylor]

Both of us.

[Cody]

Screw the suppressor. All together.

[Justin Taylor]

Literally, like the clay scene.

[Cody]

Guiding your hands, screwing it all.

[Brandon Herrera]

We are not beating the allegations.

[Eli Double Tap]

I really like this video. That one, I. How quiet are those? Because those are still supersonic rounds.

[Justin Taylor]

Like. Oh, they're.

[Brandon Herrera]

They're hauling ass.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, I've. I've shot one before. Suppressed. And it was, I mean it was like. Yeah, it was supersonic, but it was still like pretty quiet. Like, zero recoil is fun as.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, they're great. They're fucking his favorite weapon.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, no, that's cool.

[Cody]

I shot full auto at Iraq Veterans Shoot 2017. I think someone had one. Let me go through a magazine. They're so cool. Yeah, we met that. The big Delta guy at Mets. Remember he had 10 million. Were you there when he had 10 million subscribers? Or it was a birthday or something. It was a party at character's place. And there was this giant bearded man there. And it's like, oh, I know what he does. And got to talking to him and.

[Eli Double Tap]

You know, I'm talking about, yeah, in the mountain.

[Cody]

Yeah, big. And he was like, yo, I used. I took one of those into war every once in a while, man. Those were really well on people's heads. They're super cool. It's like, oh, that's neat.

[Eli Double Tap]

This dude's like, he needs three plate carriers. And it's like two here, one on his stomach. He is a very large man.

[Cody]

Like an MP7 in his hands is.

[Justin Taylor]

Just like a Glock to one of us.

[Cody]

And he said, yeah, man, they're so good at shooting people in the head.

[Justin Taylor]

You should be like, no, you were really good.

[Cody]

Yeah, you're really good at that, brother.

[Eli Double Tap]

Going and pop heads. You both pop.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, just the mountain.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude. That's gonna be a dope. What are you thinking on the video side of it?

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, I was joking around with this, I think when we were in the gym and I was telling you about it. I was. The MP7 is one of the only guns that you don't even need a theme or anything for the video. The video can just be. I have an MP7. And it's still cool because. Because it's. It's such a coveted item. Like, everybody has to have one.

[Cody]

Dude, those rounds are expensive as fuck.

[Eli Double Tap]

I've never looked at that.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's like a bucket round.

[Eli Double Tap]

It was like 5, 7, then 5.

[Brandon Herrera]

7'S gotten a lot cheaper. Like, Fiocchi's gotten the price down. It's like, I want to say you can get five, seven for like 70 cents around.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, that's not bad. Now I need to buy. I like it. The round itself, I don't even know, is it 4, 6? What. How does it do ballistic wise? Is it something like mind blowing? It's like 57 is actually not. It's like, oh, cool. It punches through stuff.

[Brandon Herrera]

But at the end five, seven, you've got to have like the black tip, like the good. Good for it to do anything that people think five seven does.

[Eli Double Tap]

Otherwise. What about four, six?

[Brandon Herrera]

Pretty much same.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Cody]

It's 1900ft per second. It's eight or not eight.

[Brandon Herrera]

Excuse me.

[Cody]

It's 60 cents around right now for 4.6.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's really not bad.

[Justin Taylor]

No, that's not bad.

[Brandon Herrera]

Again, Fiocchi. Yeah, the. God, there are a couple of like, the. The really super, like, sketchy. I forget. I can't remember. It's copper or there's. There's some sort of. Some sort of special projectile. I'd have to go back and look. I don't remember what it is off the top of my head, but some of that stuff is available in small quantities certain places. But, yeah, in general, I. I don't know. I'm never gonna use it. Use it. It's just gonna be for fun. It's just a fucking have.

[Eli Double Tap]

You know, it's like the P90. I love my. Like, my Seracota P90 never gets shot. I love that little thing, though. It's one of the most dope little rifles I have. Or SBRs just. Why? Because it's unique as shit and not.

[Brandon Herrera]

Many people have it, or the Weebs love it.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

That was a little too emphatic.

[Eli Double Tap]

What kind of guy do you.

[Justin Taylor]

What? What?

[Brandon Herrera]

No, no, we're not letting him get away with that.

[Eli Double Tap]

Make fun of him.

[Justin Taylor]

Well, okay. Well, one. One thing was. I had my. My. My personal Bradley that I was the commander of was filled to the brim with, like, hentai stickers. Like, every school, every.

[Eli Double Tap]

He's a gooner. It's the goon.

[Cody]

Brad, remember me telling you about when I went to Fort Hood?

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah.

[Cody]

The. The little infantry guys came up with binders of hentai stickers and were giving me hentai stickers and they trade those back and forth.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like, you'll go. You go on to Fort Hood, and, like, you can go into, like, any military base, and there's gonna be, like, at least three or four cars that everyone knows that are just, like, hentai stickered out. And they're like, yeah, sure enough. Like, my. My. Every square inch of that inside of that Bradley was like. You didn't see the green paint? It was just nothing but, like, giant anime titties everywhere. It was fantastic. You're, like, having a hard day. You're tired, tight. You, like, lean back a little bit. You're like, all right, I remember what I'm fighting for. And you lean back in. It was great.

[Brandon Herrera]

Inside the helmet meme.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. No, exactly how we didn't get in trouble for that, I have. I have no idea. People got in trouble for a lot less than that.

[Eli Double Tap]

So Goon Squad shows up.

[Brandon Herrera]

Because I remember they. We did one of those. The. The black rifle openings or something like that where the guy came out with that bag of stickers, like, oh, I heard you wanted some breeding.

[Justin Taylor]

Ha, ha.

[Brandon Herrera]

And gave me. I'm like, thanks.

[Cody]

I mean, these were vulgar, too. Lots of calm Tasteful.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, no, it was not tasteful.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's tasteful. If only I was 10 years younger. So you have. What's your favorite firearm though? No, you're a big firearm. You actually just did a video about like cyclic rate and why that doesn't get faster.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, right now, like really well. So my, my thought the video I made was about like, you know, the idea came from like, you know, you'll see like dudes on like video game videos and being like, oh, why don't we just give everyone a fucking Gatling gun and let them go crazy and all this other stuff. And it's like, that's kind of like one of the things I like doing with my, my channel is like taking some of these like misconceptions and like all this other stuff. It's like, why don't we want, you know, do the, the. The Neil DeGrasse Tyson, like answer it with another question. Why don't we want everyone to have a Gatling gun kind of thing? And like, you know the obvious answers of like, it's expensive and you know, why need more bullet when few bullet do trick. And bullets are heavy and cost money and hard to use sometimes and different.

[Brandon Herrera]

Things, but logistically speaking, it's a fucking nightmare.

[Justin Taylor]

It's a fucking. I can't even. It's like hard enough to get dudes to like clean their actual rifles, which takes like a second grade level ability to disassemble and put back together. So I can't imagine telling my AWOL people be like, hey, take apart this M134 for me real quick. That needs a college degree to know how to work. That's like one of many things and all that stuff. But yeah, I don't know. I grew up because when I was in the army, a lot of my inspiration for my channel comes from like I go home and then everyone's like, doesn't really get what we do. And it's like, like I, I remember like I'd go home, they're like, oh, you, they teach you how to like hand to hand fight? And I'm like, I mean kind of, but like, like, like the way that's like always the thing I use is like, dude, if I ever had to get into a hand unarmed hand to hand fight in combat, like I. Not only am I incredibly stupid because I've lost my weapon, I've somehow isolated myself from everyone and I, and I'm not smart enough to pick up a rock on the ground or call for help or something and not only that, I have met someone of equal intelligence who has lost his weapon, is not smart enough to pick a rock up off the ground or like have literally, like you could like a dude got a kill with an MRE spoon. Like you can figure it out, you know, I mean, you. That sound is the leaky shower head that came with your rental. The one that has you starting every.

[Eli Double Tap]

Morning with a low pressure nightmare that's nearly your age.

[Justin Taylor]

Stop settling for someone else's shower. Consider this your wake up call to swap it for the relaxing feel of a moen showerhead and see how one easy change changes everything. Water designs our life. Who designs for water Moen.

[Brandon Herrera]

So all that. That being said, you saw that gnarly body cam kill from Ukraine?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, the two dudes. Yeah, like, that was.

[Brandon Herrera]

Unfortunate.

[Justin Taylor]

It was hard to watch.

[Eli Double Tap]

Didn't he kill two?

[Brandon Herrera]

A long video?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, he killed more than one.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think he get. So I think you might know more. That fight happened, he got tracked and he killed like two more people and then got interviewed after. He killed two more people.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, yeah, I saw part of the interview.

[Eli Double Tap]

That knife fight though, that is one of the. Hey, you want to know what war is like and you want to know what actual combat and how messy it is. That is the perfect example of hand to hand and why knives are fucking terrifying and why it's not. He only had a knife. Why'd you shoot him?

[Brandon Herrera]

And if you know anything about those fucking Russian AK bayonets, them is not sharp. That was basically a blunt instrument that they were just.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, there's. There's no winning a knife fight. There's just like various degreeing of losing a knife fight.

[Brandon Herrera]

This is literally just a puncture implement. Like you're not gonna slash anybody. And like, it's not like a knife like you'd carry around. Like, it's just, it's. That was a brawl.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, that's why. Jagged from him open up like ammo cases and random stuff and. Ugh.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that. Brutal, brutal fight.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, please.

[Eli Double Tap]

Shows what war is.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, but like, you know, people be like, oh, you know, like, you guys just like go blasting 24 7. All this other stuff. Like, no, it's actually a lot more boring. It's like we establish fire superiority, then we shoot sometimes like very slowly and try to be as accurate as possible. They're like, oh, that's. That's no fun. I'm like, well, it's not about fun necessarily. It's. And it's like, well, I would just and you hear a lot of like, well, I would just do this. And you're like, well, if you did that, I hope you know how to use said bayonet five minutes later because you're out of ammo. Like, that's the.

[Brandon Herrera]

We. We count on people like you doing that.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

So we could do what we do.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Look, I've said it before, Mag dumping in the trash is one of the few things and that makes life worth living. But if you don't have ammo to kill the person who's trying to kill you, you won't have a life to live. So it helps to. It's a balance, you know?

[Brandon Herrera]

Yes.

[Eli Double Tap]

I would react this way. Okay, let's see that. Okay, you ready?

[Justin Taylor]

Just start shooting.

[Eli Double Tap]

Next one. Like, oh, God, what are you doing? You see all mechanics go out the windows.

[Justin Taylor]

Like, huh?

[Eli Double Tap]

You didn't react the way you did. It's like boxing. Yeah, we talk about that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. Even if you, like, do good on the bag or on the mitts or whatever, as soon as you start getting hit in the fucking face, things fall apart.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're like, I will definitely know how to win this.

[Justin Taylor]

That was actually.

[Cody]

Turn around.

[Justin Taylor]

That was actually my first class in college was boxing. That was. That's not a fun thing because then you had to, like, run to math right after that and like, half concussed, like, what is this? What is this? I'm like, I can't even see right now. Like, I have no idea.

[Eli Double Tap]

I was just punched in the face the whole bunch. So what, what, right now you're doing your. You did like, modern war. You cover modern war.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

What's one of your favorite subjects to cover, though?

[Justin Taylor]

I. One of my favorite things and that I can just nerd out about forever is just like the kind of like the post Vietnam, pre G. What era military. Because there's all these like, weird, crazy ideas that people are throwing out, and all of it is hypothetical. So, like, none of it is actually getting any real world testing. So, like, people will be like, oh, here's our hypothetical framework for how we're going to do this strategy. And on that is even more like crazy hypotheticals and like all this other stuff. So that's when you just get like weird, like, 80s tech of like, we're trying to build like, robots and like, with like, with 80s tech and like the future, like, what future soldiers were in, like the 80s and 90s and like, all that stuff. And it's like, it's just super, super interesting to me. And everything's like way cooler looking. Yeah, obviously, because not everything's painted tan. And I don't know, men were men back then, if you want to say that. But.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, it's also like nobody was expecting the next multi trillion dollar war to be against mud huts.

[Justin Taylor]

Exactly.

[Brandon Herrera]

It was like near peer, see.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. So you have these like crazy, like these crazy things coming out and like on both sides too, you know, like you have, you know, the Russians coming out with like tanks that only fire thermobaric rockets. And like we are, we have like all these weird variations, like one offs of experimental vehicles are going to do all these crazy stuff and like, it's like this like idealized version of war that I think is super interesting because like, you know when they, when they put firing ports in the side of Bradley's and they're going to be like, we're going to stick this port gun in there that fires 1200 rounds a minute and you can't aim and you can only use tracers. I'm like, who is thinking of that? Like, that's insane to think about. But like that's what all military doctrine was built on. We're all just these like weird ideas that dudes were coming up with in the Pentagon. Like this seems cool, let's try to do that. And then like trying to follow the logic and like where it goes from there. And I think that's all like just super, super interesting. And that's where you get like, you know, the Marines testing out combat skateboards and like.

[Brandon Herrera]

Excuse me.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. So if you look, look it up. So that's where you guys know, you guys seen like T block camo? Pat.

[Eli Double Tap]

What?

[Justin Taylor]

Okay, look it up. There's like this, it's, it's fucking drippy as shit. T block. It's super drippy. But it's, it was like this experimental urban camo. So the Marine Corps back in like the late 80s and 90s was trying to shift more towards urban style stuff. And so they, they put on this huge training exercise.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, it's, it's super cool.

[Cody]

That does look like something that would be like in an early 90s action.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah. And like, but to them, they're like, that's going to work. Like this thing is going to work.

[Brandon Herrera]

This is just Tetris camo.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, it's, it's Tetris camo, but I think it's super cool. So if anyone wants to send me a jacket with that, I'll wear the Shit out of that.

[Eli Double Tap]

Dude, look at that hoodie.

[Justin Taylor]

It's that kind of fox. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Do some shoes.

[Justin Taylor]

I mean, I'll tell.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's Tim Pool.

[Justin Taylor]

Take that as my idea. Yeah.

[Cody]

If you look up T block looks like metal. It's all dudes with skateboards.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah. It's because. So that was, that was Operation Urban Warrior. So that's when the, the Marine Corps is really trying to. Trying to test out like, its. Its own, like, urban warfare stuff because they were trying to transition to like, okay, you know, we're not going to be landing on this like, picturesque beach on northern France or like this random jungle in the Pacific. We're probably going to land into some undisclosed nation called Taiwan that has a bunch of cities on it. And they call it like the urban littoral zone. So it's like a city on a. It's a coastal city. City that's probably. We're going to be operating. So we probably need to revamp how we're going to look at urban operations.

[Brandon Herrera]

And this is also the Marine Corps specifically.

[Justin Taylor]

This is Marine Corps specifically throwing it out there.

[Brandon Herrera]

The one branch of the military that can be activated by the President to an urban area in the United States.

[Justin Taylor]

Correct. And so. Well, interesting. So what they did was they, they tried, I forget the actual city, but there was one city where they were. There was like an actual, like normal city. It wasn't like a training area where they're like, we're going to test this out. And that initial city got turned them down. So they ended up going to this other city. I want to say it was like Seattle or Portland. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it was one of those like, super, like, you know, the last place you'd expect military days to be running around in. And like, there were all these like crazy protests. And that's where like, that's like. If you look up like really early footage of like, the funny thing is if you want to, because I was trying to make a video on. On urban warriors specifically. I'm like, that's a cool topic. It's got some cool visual things on it. All the info comes from Alex Jones because he was like covering it, being like they're training to take away all our citizens and stuff. So like the globalists, they've seized the skateboard. Exactly. But yeah, like, they were testing out like skateboards and shit like that. So. But if Alex Jones wants to. Or his team wants to get with me to give me any B roll footage, they didn't use So I could make that video. I'd be very interested.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, you guys are neighbors. You're both in. I don't know if I should say that. Nevermind.

[Justin Taylor]

Well, Austin, that's fine. The People's Republic of Austin. Yeah. That's where I live. Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

God bless you.

[Justin Taylor]

I like it there. It's cool. You know, good, good small dose. Good music scene.

[Brandon Herrera]

I like it in small doses. It's got, it's got its nice parts.

[Eli Double Tap]

A little San Antonio. Stay here.

[Brandon Herrera]

I live here for a reason.

[Justin Taylor]

It's a lot cheaper here. For sure.

[Eli Double Tap]

They tried. So they ran this in a city, like an actual urban city.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And then what was the objectives?

[Justin Taylor]

They were training on like how to clear like skyscrapers with skateboards. Like that's how they would get to like. So like is like in urban settings, like to get from like point A to point B. Like safest way you can do it is do it really fast. And so it's like. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

I could see some indies happening.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, I'm sure they were. There's a reason that we saw it for that training exercise and never again. Yeah.

[Cody]

Like you hit a pebble.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Cody]

You're in a war torn city. There's little rocks everywhere.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. You just imagine just like a dude with an ak. AK like sitting on in an ambush and you see like an unmanned skateboard just across. It's a guy like, damn it. Gets up, tries to run away.

[Eli Double Tap]

Also hitting your objective. You like all pull up. You're like, skirt.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, it's just so gay. Your reaction of that does not look cool.

[Justin Taylor]

Like the cool kids in like a Disney Channel movie from the. They're like, oh, they all go like that. Yeah, they all.

[Cody]

It's also hard, hard to learn how to skateboard.

[Justin Taylor]

I think they like, they. What they did was they. They pooled all the kids who could skateboard. Like, can you skateboard? Yes. All right. You're fucking tactical skateboarder.

[Brandon Herrera]

We need you.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Your country needs you.

[Brandon Herrera]

I just, I love the idea of. Instead of trying to. This is like as. As military as it gets, I guess. But instead of trying to fit in, in an urban environment, like, you know, be somebody who would be in an urban environment. They were like, we're gonna blend in with the buildings.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. I never.

[Brandon Herrera]

And like, why wouldn't they just make it like a fucking denim top with a name tape?

[Justin Taylor]

Because. Because T block is too cool. Yeah, it's so cool. It's so cool.

[Brandon Herrera]

The cut off sleeves and the fucking fingerless.

[Justin Taylor]

Fingerless, like leather gloves. Like a mesh somewhere. But, like, you can, like, you can like, still buy, like the. The, like the original tops, but they're like hundreds of dollars now and stuff like that. But because, like, obviously the dudes who wore them one time, like, what the fuck am I going to do with this? Like, just going to sell it. And they're probably kicking themselves now for that.

[Brandon Herrera]

But they need money for a date.

[Justin Taylor]

They need money for a date. Or to get an editor for their rap video in Los Angeles.

[Cody]

Americana Pipeline needs to find an old warehouse with just a couple boxes of those.

[Justin Taylor]

They do. And when I go up there to talk to them, I'm gonna be like, I need this right now. I need a jacket and pants. And then I can terrorize Austin even more than I do now.

[Brandon Herrera]

Logan from Americana Pipe Dream knows that I love fucking, like, surplus watches and shit.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah. Like the Soviet watches they have.

[Brandon Herrera]

I love the Soviet watches. I've got a huge collection of them. They cost next to nothing for what they are.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

But all their military issue watches and I fucking. I dig it. So every time he finds something weird, like a Luftwaffe watch or something like that, he detects me. He's like, hey, you want this one?

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, damn, that'd be sick. Logan, please hit me up. I know we haven't met yet in person, but do something for me.

[Brandon Herrera]

All those boys are good people.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm super excited because we're going to be doing like a. Like a cool video on how does stuff end up on the surplus market? Why can't I buy a jet on Facebook Marketplace. And I genuinely have no fucking idea why I'm allowed to. I'm glad I can. Damn right I should be legally allowed to buy a jet on Facebook Marketplace. But why? Where does it come from?

[Brandon Herrera]

That stuff's always super interesting to me. Because Jared Isaacman, he was the guy who was. He was up for the nomination for NASA under the Trump administration. But we were out doing some stuff with him and Bozeman, and he has, to my understanding, the only civilian owned MiG 29.

[Justin Taylor]

Nice.

[Brandon Herrera]

In the country, possibly the world.

[Eli Double Tap]

He's doing fine.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, you know, he's.

[Justin Taylor]

He's doing fine.

[Brandon Herrera]

He. He started up. I think his. I might be butchering his life story, but I think he founded a payment software. Like an Internet payment, like B2B kind of thing.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. Oh, DOD.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, B2B kind of thing.

[Eli Double Tap]

I think you're fine.

[Brandon Herrera]

I could be wrong on that. It might be B to C, but he started it when he was 16.

[Justin Taylor]

Damn.

[Brandon Herrera]

And then sold it for billions.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. You do anything where everyone has to. You dtc, whatever it is, every transaction kicks back to you. At that age, you got to go to college. Do I, Dad?

[Brandon Herrera]

Do I.

[Eli Double Tap]

How do you like your fucking house, dad? That's what I thought. Shut the fuck up.

[Brandon Herrera]

Do you have eight digits in the bank, dad?

[Eli Double Tap]

You know what, son? You're right. We're good to go.

[Justin Taylor]

No, I love it because he's just.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, an aviation nerd now and just has a whole hangar full of jets. And just, like, that's just what he loves to do. Just. That's the dream. That's how people probably think looking, like, walking into my shop. But to me, those are two radically different.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, that's completely different.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's like running those jets for, like, a full day is my net worth.

[Justin Taylor]

Like, you probably have to, like, machine half the parts. If it's an old MiG like that. Oh, like, just custom everything. Then you get like, the. The mig of Theseus issue. It's like, if we replace everything, is it still the same MiG 29?

[Eli Double Tap]

Yes. That's the normal questions we ask ourselves.

[Justin Taylor]

That's fine. That's.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, that's what keeps you up.

[Justin Taylor]

That's what keeps me up at night.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like, it's that stupid meme. Like, I'm literally the guy in the photo. It's like, where can I find a ship like this?

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, it's literally.

[Brandon Herrera]

I'm right here. Ew. At what point did I stop being the ship in the photo?

[Justin Taylor]

What was the essential essence of the. What is the essence of the make 29. You know, that's the question that he has to answer now.

[Brandon Herrera]

Leave your answer down in the comments.

[Eli Double Tap]

Riveting. I'm confused at what to type in the comments right now. I'm like, I don't know what the fuck they're talking.

[Justin Taylor]

What is essence?

[Brandon Herrera]

Riveting philosophy tied to Soviet aircraft.

[Eli Double Tap]

So what is your next big project you're working on?

[Justin Taylor]

So next big thing I'm looking at is the army and the military as a whole are looking at building basically a drone wall in Europe. And if they're telling me this, it can't be classified. So if I get picked up by people in black SUVs before we finish this episode, I said too much. But anyway, this was sent to me on my Gmail, so it can't be that crazy, but basically they're wanting to. Them and Andrew are basically teaming up to build a wall of drones across the Russian border. Because the idea is that, you know, the Deterrence factor isn't going to be enough. Like if they really, really want to go and invade the Baltics for example, it's mostly centered around the Baltics. If they really wanted, you know, if Latvia is really looking really good that year, no matter how many conscripts they put on, on the corner with an MG3, like it's not going to be enough. Like they're just going to tank those casualties and just keep going along and set up shop after they take 50 miles or whatever. And so like well if we can't keep, we can't deter them from doing that. We can at least try to blow up every fucking thing that they send over with drones essentially. So it's going to be like this big mesh network of like sensors and like drones just ready to auto deploy the second anything gets triggered in conjunction with like team stuff. But I'm going to be going out there later this year to kind of poke around and see what they're doing.

[Brandon Herrera]

I mean that's, I don't think that's super classified because they, I mean even, even recently they did that public announcement from Sec Def that they're focusing more on like the drone, drone capabilities of the United States and NATO.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Where they, they made it from durable to expend. And if anyone is confused and like what the difference between durable and expendable is, it's basically just like, and I only know this because like this was like my job. One of my jobs in the army was like that basically just means that like a company commander can be like I want if I have this extra money or it's like I want to put more money into this. And like yeah, we might have like less extra sleeping bags but I want my executive officer to order like 50 drones. And so basically taking it away from like this higher up, you know, it's going to be like hyper serialized. We have to lay it out and do all this crazy weird. There's a, the amount of paperwork, it would be easier to take a live grenade with the pin already pulled on as you're carry on at a plane to get certain gear in the military. And so basically what this is just like slashing all of that and being like look, you can buy it now. It doesn't matter if it breaks or doing anything like that. We can still fix it. We can have the facilities to do that. But like you know, if private so and so is trying it, testing it out and like really seeing what it can do. And he breaks it because he's pushing its Limits. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's just going to be like a. Oh, you know, we hit the limit of that. We know we can't do that. Or we need to train them more. Not like this. Oh, we're going to do this. A big investigation and all this other stuff.

[Eli Double Tap]

And I think there were eight. How much did Butler say they were? They're like 18 grand.

[Brandon Herrera]

It was a lot more than a DJI. I know that.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, it was, it wasn't too bad though at that individual level compared to what we usually spend on equipment. But they were both here when Butler and Alex.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And they were going over that because Alex, I think heads that.

[Brandon Herrera]

I think he's the army cto.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

Chief Technology Officer, if I'm not mistaken.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. So they were going over. It's like, yeah, here's the new drones we're going to be rolling out. This is the cost compared to what it used to be. Now we can train people up really fast and then this is way easier to use.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, no, I mean I remember when I was in like to get a, to use a drone. Like we had drones, they were pieces of shit and they cost like $50,000 and they had like a, you can get like a, a 240p resolution video from like 50ft up off the air. And it had a five second battery and like we had to have like a specialist person to, to fly it. And now we can just throw those out and like do all the crazy man made horror things and all that stuff.

[Brandon Herrera]

But you got to love when the private sector's kicking your ass for a tenth the cost.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh yeah. Like it's, but it's, it's, it's super interesting and like I'm both scared and interested to see like where that goes because like that was like right when I was getting in. Like I remember like back in 2015, 16, like they, the army was like using us like cadets as guinea pigs for like drone guns. So we had a dude with like a weird looking. It was like a plastic AR body with all these weird antennas coming out and they had a big backpack and he would like shoot little, you know, laser beams at drones and stuff and jam them or whatever. And then, and then we had, I think that one of the biggest things that held this country back in terms of like military drones was the fact that DJI was like the drone company and they're Chinese. So I remember we were working on this thing with like using drones for like mapping. Like we're going to do this thing where we send a drone forward, it's going to get like a 3D scan of an area and then you can run like line of sight analysis on it. Like, okay, if I put a guy with a Dragon off or a PKM in this bell tower, what can he see from there based on like, oh, there's a bush here. So you can get that level of detail down. Like, oh, if we, if we hide behind this bush, you won't be able to see us.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

Or that kind of thing. We. We even had like, ones where, like, we could take the most. It would give us like three options. Like, the fastest way to get somewhere, the safest way to get somewhere, and then the most calorically efficient way to get somewhere. So, like the flattest way to get there so you're the least amount of tired when you actually arrive.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, wild.

[Justin Taylor]

That's crazy, right? It makes sense though, like, like, you know, how many times you roll up somewhere, like to an objective, be like, I'm fucking smoked already, bro.

[Eli Double Tap]

All the time.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And so like, the goal this was to be like, all right, well, now that some dudes have some more energy so they can run between buildings a little faster, you know, say fast.

[Brandon Herrera]

And you're not fucking climbing over walls and.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, exactly. Or like, you know, just taking a hill that you don't get really need to. Or something like that.

[Eli Double Tap]

We've never done that Hamburger hill ever, in.

[Justin Taylor]

No, never.

[Eli Double Tap]

The entirety of the US Never.

[Justin Taylor]

I've never gone up the hill in my entire life. I've somehow managed to only go down. It's been. It's been a beautiful life.

[Brandon Herrera]

I just don't understand how it's so expensive for the United States. There has to be something more to it. Just because, I mean, trust me, I understand how the military industrial complex works on that level, but it's fucking plastic that. I know there's hobbyists in the United States that go to like Radio Shack.

[Justin Taylor]

Or whatever the equivalent is.

[Brandon Herrera]

Get the fucking motors, they'll print everything else. It's like, if they can do that for 200 fucking dollars, why are we. Why does it cost us 18,000 a unit? Yeah, there has to be some extra sauce behind.

[Justin Taylor]

The big struggle right now is like. Is getting it to do one everything we want it to do, and in a contested environment. So, like, yeah, I can get a DJI strap, you know, with a 4K camera with thermals on it, and it can drop mortars for like five grand. But the second that someone puts up a $500 antenna, it just jams everything entirely. And so it's two things right now that are making it that the US is struggling to get to. It's making it work in GPS denied environments because GPS is super, super easy to jam. Like it's the easiest thing to jam on Earth and then being able to make it work in network jammed areas. So like, okay, I need to go scan this area. Well, it's jammed. Now what do I do? So that's like a whole thing and that involves a lot of AI and stuff. And AI is super fucking expensive right now. So that's probably one of the most expensive places because you need it to be like, okay, I'm jammed. But earlier some guy told me that I need to fly here and look for this certain thing. And yeah, you can tell it to fly to this hilltop and it'll be able to go to that hilltop. But what if the bad guys aren't on that hilltop and you're looking for the bad guys? So now it's got to make that decision that an operator would make. Like, oh, maybe I'm going to look over here in this divot where there's like a hidey hole because they probably heard me coming. Or like, ooh, maybe they're on this road. Is there any dust on the road? Oh, there's dust on the road. They went that way, they're going that way.

[Brandon Herrera]

This is getting a little Skynet.

[Justin Taylor]

It gets very Skynet also terrifying.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like that, that kind of war. We've said it multiple times. I could not go into that.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, dude, the, even, even that being a friendly drone, I'm like, man, I'm a little brown for this.

[Justin Taylor]

No, they're doing like some crazy like the big thing right now. They're trying to do with like across the board, not just with drones, but it's like drones are awesome, but at the end of the day they're, they're just another sensor, right? And commanders on the ground right now have a thousand sensors. And you know, it could be the thermals on this one guy's gun. It could be, you know, the, the communications guys on a hilltop that are like intercepting communications and all this other stuff. So and that's all information that, that commander think like a company commander, like 100 something dudes has to like compile in his brain while he's doing a million other things while actively like trying to fight for his life. Like, you know. And so like what they're wanting to do like AI now is it makes decisions for the Commander. So it's like, it's like a chessbot. Yeah, yeah. So, like, not only is it like, it's not just a camera, right? It's a camera that's picking up, oh, there's two tanks. Okay. Were we expecting there to be tanks there? Yes or no? Okay, well, let me get a little closer. Oh, this is actually like a T90 and not a T72. So if it's T90, not a T72, what does that mean? Oh, let's kind of put some of the pieces together and then formulate some kind of useful bit of information rather than just like a RAW video feed and then give that to the commander and then be like, hey, you can do these three options. Like I can call an artillery for you right now. I can do this, or I can, I can signal for this infantry to platoon that's nearest by and they report that they still have some Javelin ammo, try to go stop them or.

[Brandon Herrera]

So it's like, this is what it is, this is what it's weak to. Here are assets you have in the area that have shit that this is weak to.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's basically like, like the tutorial of like a real time strategy game. Like, that's what they're trying to turn it into, right? Where it's just like, oh, by the way, these guys that you have here, the T72 is vulnerable to the American.

[Brandon Herrera]

Javelin and this squad is glowing.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. And there's like a little way, but like, no shit, like there's an actual waypoint. And then you can tell them, like, all right, go here and everything's networked. And then also like hardening that network from jamming and like all that other stuff, while, man, there's a ton of stuff that goes in that I've been to a few conferences where they're trying to solve a lot of these issues. And then like, not only do you have all that stuff, but then you have a huge disconnect between and that like some companies, like Andrew, are trying to solve this problem specifically. But you have like a dude who like built ChatGPT, doesn't necessarily understand that, like, what a commander, like an army captain is trying to figure out on the ground. And so it's like. Because that's not really, you know, computers work very well and you give them like a very specific task. Like, if I tell a robot, I'm like, hey, go to, go to hill A and kill all the enemy on Hill A. And they go to hill A and there's no enemies on Hill A. They're all on Hill B. And say there's a jamming, so it can't talk to me anymore. So that robot has to decide, okay, was the purpose of me coming here to be on Hill A or was it to kill the enemies? And so then it has to start making decisions? And then that's, That's.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, that's the scary part to me.

[Justin Taylor]

And so that's. That specifically is called, like, the human in the loop problem. So it's like, at what point are we, like, how much risk are we willing to accept by giving this AI or this robot or this drone the ability to pull a trigger? Like, you know, if they're jammed and there's no way getting up and we have a shot on a tank or an enemy squad in a trench, like, do we let it do it or do we not? And it's like, okay, well, they, they. Can you put an AI on a war tribunal? I don't know. Like, those are all like, questions that we're.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, that is a really good question.

[Justin Taylor]

Like, who, like. And you know, like, okay, who's the accountable party? Yeah. Is it the guy who gave it the, the order? Is it the guy who wrote the code? Or is it this guy who built the drone? Like, where does that responsibility fall? Because, like, the military never wants to do it. That's why the, like, basically the entire officer corps exists. Like, that's, that was my job, was to be like, if something goes wrong, that is your fault, like 100%, no matter what. Like, at least we have someone to point to. And like, whenever you lose that, you know, who are we pointing it to? So, and is it the guy who codes it?

[Brandon Herrera]

Is it the guy who.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's. There's a lot of weird. A weird ethical questions are going to have to come up when it comes to that kind of stuff.

[Eli Double Tap]

Cody.

[Justin Taylor]

No, that's.

[Cody]

That's fucking nice. I'm just thinking about the legal aspects of that is insane.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're giving it the idea. It's. I have no mouth and I must scream. It is no different than that when it's like, hey, what's up? I'm sentient now and I have a gun.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

And I can control all these other things now because you didn't think about that. That's what's terrifying to me the second you give that. Okay.

[Brandon Herrera]

It's all still within its parameters though, right? Especially in the specific instances you're telling it can start.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, you Decide at this specific instant if you can kill this person or take the shot. That's where it's that line for me where I'm like, man, that's a hard one. Because is it. How far does that listen, don't get me wrong.

[Brandon Herrera]

Tesla was right. Like we are living in man made horrors beyond our comprehension. But yes, and this will almost certainly end poorly. But in this instance I'm like, all right, well if we don't use it, they will. And they are already using it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

Yes. And some of the argument, because some are already doing it in the sense where it's called terminal tracking, where it's like a drone will fly up really high. It'll be like an FPV style where it just slams into something, blows up and it'll be like identified a tank. Right. And it's flying in, it's like, oh, it's getting jammed. And so the AI takes over. It's like I'm already looking at this tank that's I'm already flying it like Mach fuck. Like I'm going to slam into it and blow it up. And like some people are saying that like, oh, you know, it's no different than like once I pull the trigger on my rifle, that bull. I have no control over that bullet and what it does. So it's like if it ricochets and you know, hits an orphan in the face, it's like that's still my fault kind of thing.

[Eli Double Tap]

Bullets not thinking that was my problem.

[Brandon Herrera]

If the bullet stops like a fucking Acme bullet in a cartoon.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well now I have a different look on that bullet. I bullet trigger did that.

[Brandon Herrera]

I don't know. I don't, I don't know if there's a right answer to that. Because if we, if we don't use AI technology for ethical reasons, then we fall behind on it.

[Justin Taylor]

Yep.

[Brandon Herrera]

If we do use it, then the ethical concerns could become real. And it's like, well, what's the right answer? Because it's like nuclear weapons. If we just decided like, oh, if ever. If we proliferate nuclear weapons, it could be the undoing of mankind. But if we don't do it, then we're the only ones fucking without them.

[Eli Double Tap]

Well, that's the terrifying part about like the nuclear arms race. But that wasn't self thinking and you can control it to a degree. Whereas AI, you're just trying to beat the other person on how the tech works or thinks for itself. There is a point of no return where you up and you flip a switch you're like, oh, no, we can control that one. Oh, oh, oh.

[Brandon Herrera]

I don't. I don't know if you know this, though, but America's enemy is not super big on ethical concerns.

[Eli Double Tap]

Don't trust me. I know. That's the terrifying part to me, where I think that will be. That's almost the next nuclear arms race.

[Justin Taylor]

No, it's happening right now. Yeah, that. That and, like, quantum computing. Because, like, whoever. Whoever gets, like, the arm. Like, I'm terrifying. I cover. I'm covering this in a video that'll come out in a couple of days on Pepper Box. But it's like the. The office for the Secretary of Defense specifically put out3.3 just this month, put out three requirements for quantum computing technologies. And right now, a lot of it is. It's just like, encryption. So the second that we can. Whoever invents battlefield quantum computing instantly gets access to every piece of transmitted information by every army, no matter how encrypted it is or anything like that. And we can protect our own from doing that. But whoever's first, like, wins. Like, there's. It's. It's. It's like an instant switch. It's not going to be like, well, we have a nuke and. And like, oh, we're just waiting for the other. Hopefully we can build more than the other person. It's like, whoever can get there first is going to win.

[Brandon Herrera]

And so here's my question, though. If something like that happens, like some. Let's say somebody gets there first, they have the football now is that a green light? They're like, we now have a very finite window where we can use this and have the advantage, and they don't.

[Justin Taylor]

I think, like, Well, I think like, the second it's. It's, I think, superpower.

[Eli Double Tap]

The second you get. That's the thing. There is no, like, I'm going to catch up. This is. Again, I just couldn't. I was like, okay, I got to double check this. This is the difference between regular cpu, fastest supercomputer we have, and quantum computer. So Willow is Google's, right?

[Justin Taylor]

Google, Willow.

[Brandon Herrera]

Okay.

[Eli Double Tap]

So the quantum chip. So when you're cracking a problem, a regular computer versus a quantum computer, quickly, differences. Regular cpu. You are ones and zeros. Quantum computer. There is no ones and zeros. It's just in and out. The difference on how fast this can solve this problem, Brandon, is a regular computer versus a quantum computer. Guess the difference in years in five minutes. Five minutes for a quantum computer. How many years for a supercomputer?

[Brandon Herrera]

10,000.

[Eli Double Tap]

Nope.

[Brandon Herrera]

If you're thirsting for asphalt, smelting your work boots, tape measure has anger issues.

[Justin Taylor]

Nail guns. Talking smack again. And hard hat baked onto head level refreshments.

[Brandon Herrera]

We definitely have that.

[Justin Taylor]

Cool off with Gatorade.

[Brandon Herrera]

Summer Blaze available only at Circle K. When you're feeling the heat, Circle K makes your day.

[Justin Taylor]

20,000.

[Eli Double Tap]

10 septillion.

[Justin Taylor]

Jesus Christ.

[Eli Double Tap]

That is not a joke. That is the difference between a supercomputer and a quantum computer. You are looking at a septillions, not billions, trillions. This is that next level. That is why the second we are on quantum level, whoever gets that first there is. They are the superpower. There is no catching up to that individual. They can then crack any password.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

In an hour of computing, you can do more computing than any computer has ever done since we invented them.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Times a million times. This is in times a.

[Eli Double Tap]

The universe has been around.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

Like, in five minutes.

[Justin Taylor]

Because it's, it's not like the second it's developed. It's not like a. Oh, we're gonna. If you piss us off, we're gonna use it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Read that sentence.

[Justin Taylor]

It's like the second that someone develops it at that level, like, it's, it's gonna be used the second it's invented. So, like, not only are they decrypting every single thing that every computer in every other country in the entire world is doing. Like, not only that, it's like, okay, now we're going to use it to develop the most efficient, efficient military technologies on Earth. And it's. And it's going to test millions of different designs across millions of different permutations. Iterations perfectly and seem like this. And then we can. And then we're like, how do we. How do we make it better? Like, oh, do like this. And then, yeah, it's, it's. It's an absolute race. And, like, why more people aren't. I mean, I think I know why more people aren't talking about. Because, like, no one understands it, including myself. But yeah, like, the second it's invented, it's like it's game over. Like, for basically everyone else.

[Eli Double Tap]

Imagine like our crypt. Like, that doesn't matter anymore. It's like, oh, this. If you use a normal supercomputer, it would take 10 billion years to crack this code. Great. Now I can do it in five minutes. That's the difference.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

On why it's terrifying as. And why they're racing, I think. I don't know if we're allowed to talk one of your buddies. That's what he was working on at the 250. Which one we sat down with. He was like, you. We were outside. He lives here maybe. But he was working with quantum tech. You asked him if you like he should be. He would be a good guest. And when he was like, oh, yeah, I'm working on the quantum tech, I was like, dude, yes, 100% trying to.

[Justin Taylor]

Think of who you're talking about.

[Brandon Herrera]

When we were at the 250 where. The 250.

[Eli Double Tap]

We're outside in the tent area. You sat down with him for a little bit and you grabbed me and pulled me aside. It's like, hey, you meet this guy really fast. He's a senator or Congress at the Army. Sorry, not at the army. 250 at the. At General George's house.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, no, yeah. That was a congressman. Congressman Pat Harrigan.

[Eli Double Tap]

So he's working on.

[Brandon Herrera]

He's working right now with. Within Congress. He's working with the army on quantum technology. Yeah, yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

That. That's why it's a fascinated conversation, because it's absolutely terrifying.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah. I've known Pat for a long time. He's a really, really good guy. Genuinely there for the right reasons. Believe former Green Beret. And so he knows what the army needs, but he also knows, like, how to get it done on the back end. So, like. And some of the shit he was telling us about quantum computing is horrifying because I remember having this conversation recently about quantum computing and I was trying to place where it was and that was it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah. I love this shit because reading about and reading how it works, you're like, wow, that's awesome.

[Justin Taylor]

Also.

[Eli Double Tap]

Everything'S just.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Like, I really hope that, like, in 10 years. Oh, remember when we thought quantum computer was going to be like this Armageddon technology, the military, we're like, oh, yeah. But I'm.

[Brandon Herrera]

The alternative is sitting in a tent.

[Justin Taylor]

Remember when we had air conditioning? Yeah. Really?

[Eli Double Tap]

It was shut down everything instantly. I hate that idea so much. So much.

[Brandon Herrera]

Who's ready for Skynet?

[Justin Taylor]

No.

[Eli Double Tap]

Love you, overlords.

[Brandon Herrera]

Well, that's why I still say please and thank you to chat.

[Justin Taylor]

GPT. I don't care how many gallons of water it wastes. I want to be on their side.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, shit. Actually, we can talk about. You're on Pepperbox now.

[Justin Taylor]

I am on Pepperbox now. Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

When did you we. You got onboarded? A couple of weeks.

[Justin Taylor]

Couple of weeks ago.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yes.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Eli Double Tap]

You're doing your normal YouTube stuff, but what is the new Shit people get to look forward to.

[Justin Taylor]

So the new thing I'm focusing on right now is a series called Acquisitions Anonymous. It's basically where I go through like all of those, you know, DoD acquisitions. Things like the military is wanting, like a lot of, you know, if you know where to look, you find some like really weird shit that they're asking for.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like the SAM certification, like those government contract sites or FedBiz ops, like stuff like.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, like DSIP or something. Like it's. It's a lot of just like weird stuff. And so a lot of it makes sense, like, oh, we want better air conditioning for our trucks. And then some of it's like, it's like we want to. We want a helmet that can work upside down. You're like, what do you mean it works upside down? So it's like. And then going through like that and, and every month it's like everything's on a monthly thing. So, you know, my new series will just be finding some themes like being like, oh, what's the army doing? What's the Navy wanting? What is. Or what are some weird ops that people are doing?

[Brandon Herrera]

What the dog doing?

[Justin Taylor]

Exactly. What the dog doing?

[Eli Double Tap]

What's a weird one you've read right now?

[Justin Taylor]

The weird one right now is they're trying to build an AI spoiler. They're trying to build an AI that can simulate blast injuries. So like think of like a crash test dummy in a computer that they're just gonna blow up for eternity. Which is probably not gonna be good when it becomes self aware.

[Eli Double Tap]

But you have cost me so much harm.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah.

[Brandon Herrera]

We have already done the I have no mouth and I must scream and.

[Justin Taylor]

We did it to a computer and. Well, because like they're gonna blow you.

[Brandon Herrera]

Up a hundred thousand times and you can't leave.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah. Cuz you know, you look at like the slow motion videos of like, you know, crash test dummies going and hitting a wall and it's like, that's cool. But like when you blow something up, it adds like a whole other level of complexity. And what they used to do is they used to just like take cadavers and do it.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yep.

[Justin Taylor]

And there's like that big story of like the one guy who donated his grandma to science and then they strapped her to. They strapped her to in the inside of Humvee and blew it up.

[Brandon Herrera]

So they thought it was a rocket.

[Justin Taylor]

Might have been a rocket. Maybe they hit it with a rocket.

[Eli Double Tap]

They've done multiple. I think it happened like time and time again. It wasn't a one time thing.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, but yeah, just the series was.

[Brandon Herrera]

Kind of thinking like she was like Buzz Lightyear on this big like cartoonish rocket.

[Justin Taylor]

Yeah, the inflatable two. Man, did we even learn anything from that.

[Eli Double Tap]

Look at this.

[Justin Taylor]

We learned it was awesome.

[Eli Double Tap]

Slow mo footage. Grandma's right, you know that exists her titties.

[Brandon Herrera]

That exists.

[Justin Taylor]

That's somewhere on a hard drive somewhere.

[Eli Double Tap]

But look at at them flaps.

[Justin Taylor]

Oh God.

[Cody]

Oh, put a GoPro on her.

[Justin Taylor]

What's up gang?

[Eli Double Tap]

Grandma.

[Justin Taylor]

But yeah, that's the ser acquisitions Anonymous will be like just kind of taking a look at some of the weirder ones. Some of the cool stuff, some of the weird stuff that they're asking for and kind of like why are they asking for that kind of thing.

[Brandon Herrera]

One of my favorite stories about that is the Gyrojet. Like the gyrojet pistol and rifle. I think it was NBA industries made them. I did a video on it with the super slow mo with the ballistic high speed guys. But originally it's like Vietnam era. The DoD put out a contract. They basically said we want a laser pistol. We want a like a Star Wars Star Trek esque laser pistol. Of course that didn't exist back then but you know what I mean. And MBA industries went to them and said we don't have that, but we do have this rocket gun.

[Eli Double Tap]

Rocket gun.

[Brandon Herrera]

And the DOD went It's not we asked for. We'll take 3,000 please. And they tested it, they fielded them. There was actually, I think there's a picture of a medal of honor recipient in Vietnam holding a gyro jet. And there was a potential that when he did the actions that got him the medal of honor he was carrying a gyro jet.

[Eli Double Tap]

Wait, get the fuck. Okay, I did not know that part.

[Brandon Herrera]

Nobody can confirm it or like whatever but like there are pictures of him holding it in Vietnam in the field. Who fucking knows. But you know they were, they were shit canned because they're you know, they're just trash.

[Eli Double Tap]

But yeah, expensive ammo. How much does one bullet cost? Brandon?

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, when you can find it maybe like 200 bucks around. But like that's because they're on. They don't exist anymore. It was probably a lot cheaper back.

[Eli Double Tap]

Then clearly but, but even in the idea it's like every bullet is a rocket.

[Brandon Herrera]

60 more bullet per bullet.

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, it went off course. Well it. We'll get another one then. Brandon your do we. We haven't talked. I now just playing catch up in my brain. You're on AK50 on Escape from Tarkov.

[Brandon Herrera]

Oh, yeah, yeah, I think we talked about that in the last or a podcast or two ago.

[Eli Double Tap]

Did we?

[Brandon Herrera]

Very briefly, I think so.

[Cody]

Because we're still trying to bully Nikita into giving us some to play with them.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, I don't really. Like, a couple weeks ago we did.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, I think so.

[Eli Double Tap]

I swore you just showed me that you were in the game.

[Brandon Herrera]

No, no, A couple of weeks ago in podcast time.

[Eli Double Tap]

Okay. Yeah, I'm like, wait, yeah, this was.

[Brandon Herrera]

Like four days ago.

[Eli Double Tap]

But, well, four days ago you got the news, right?

[Brandon Herrera]

No, it's been out for a minute.

[Eli Double Tap]

Damn it. I'm playing catch up now. I'm like, fucking wait. Okay. I'm like, what the fuck? Did we talk about your quest?

[Brandon Herrera]

No, I know we haven't seen. Well, I didn't even know about that yet, but that was pretty cool. I saw the description for the quest that gets to the AK50. Very clever, Nikita. That was well done. Basically, I have friend in States who is working on secret project like that sort of thing. And you have to apparently go out and find all the different pieces like AK50 barrel, AK50 receiver, stuff like that.

[Justin Taylor]

It's pretty cool.

[Cody]

And then you lose it to a hacker instantly.

[Brandon Herrera]

Immediately.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, that's what I was saying. We were at the gym talking about like, Brandon should get gifted like 10 so when he goes out he can bring it out. That's the other way to get is if you play against Brandon.

[Brandon Herrera]

I just want to play with my baby on stream. That'd be fun.

[Cody]

But he needs to go out with Willers and Landmark.

[Eli Double Tap]

When he has it, Willers kills him and takes it.

[Justin Taylor]

Cool.

[Brandon Herrera]

P. I know where you live, Will.

[Justin Taylor]

I will drive your house with the real one.

[Eli Double Tap]

Yeah, that's the stream. You just say, pull it off.

[Justin Taylor]

I gotta go.

[Eli Double Tap]

You did that and then you. Did you talk about it being in Clean Game?

[Brandon Herrera]

No, no, they did add it to Scaplands, so I don't know if that probably hasn't come out yet in time of podcast time, but that was pretty fun. He showed me a couple of the clips of using that in the game, which is pretty fun.

[Eli Double Tap]

I will say they have. I don't even know. Cody knows that they're like asking if we'll be like bosses. They're trying to find a way for all the hosts to be like bosses or something. And then we have individual weapons in scav lines, which is really fucking dope.

[Cody]

Hell yeah.

[Justin Taylor]

That would be awesome.

[Brandon Herrera]

Yeah, mine was kind of the free space in Bingo, but yours, you can.

[Justin Taylor]

Choose what you'd like.

[Eli Double Tap]

And Brandon just beat Simon. So congrats. Shout out to Brandon.

[Brandon Herrera]

Fuck you, Simon, for spending too much time playing Expedition 33.

[Eli Double Tap]

It's one of those games. Well, I think on that note, we can go to the after show. Cody, you want to close us out?

[Brandon Herrera]

Sorry, where can we find you?

[Eli Double Tap]

Oh, yep, that one.

[Justin Taylor]

I'm on YouTube. Justin Taylor. Also on Pepper Box. Justin Taylor. They also gave me the designation of Creator 69 on there, so that was pretty cool. And on Instagram, formerly Talior T A L Y O R. So that's where you can find me.

[Cody]

Bye, everyone. Thank you for joining the Unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli Double Tap, Justin Taylor, Brandon Herrera, myself, donut operator, please join us on the after show on Patreon.