Victor Davis Hanson: When I Cruised Iraq in an Abrams Tank

Summary

Victor Davis Hanson: When I Cruised Iraq in an Abrams Tank
Podcast: Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words
Host: Victor Davis Hanson | The Daily Signal
Date: January 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode is the second of three special listener Q&A installments, where Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) answers questions submitted by his fans, focusing on his familial farming history in California’s Central Valley, tank warfare and technology, military history, and a critical reflection on Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and the “Okie” experience. VDH’s answers are rich with storytelling, historical analysis, and personal anecdotes, delivering both nostalgia and perspective on how the past has shaped the present.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Farming in California’s Central Valley

(Timestamps: 04:10–18:06, 20:20–26:03)

• Origins of Family Farming:
  Hanson discusses the agricultural roots of his family in California, recounting how his great-great-grandmother chose their land for its artesian pond and proximity to Sierra snowmelt.

  • "They picked this place because it had an artesian pond. The water table is only about 10 [feet]." (04:47, VDH)
  • Early farming relied on dry farming of wheat and oats due to the lack of established irrigation.

• Irrigation Development and Water Rights:
  A detailed journey from dry farming to the introduction of irrigation canals and the eventual impact of the Big Creek hydroelectric dam project, which powered Southern California and transformed valley agriculture.

  • "Everything changed when the dams came in... And that allowed the bottom lake—Millerton Lake—to supply all of the irrigation districts around Fresno." (09:32, VDH)
  • Hints at community tensions over water theft and the ongoing struggle with declining aquifers.

• Farm Tools, Tractors, and Mechanization:
  Hanson fondly recalls his family’s team of workhorses and subsequent transition to tractors, especially the revolution brought by Ford's 9N, the Jubilee, and Massey Ferguson models.

  • "My grandfather used to tell me, 'Boys, thank God for the Ford Ferguson tractor and the 9N.'" (12:20, VDH)
  • Family tractors all had nicknames—Bluey, Ollie, Big Boy, Massey twins—personalizing the story of mechanization.

• Organic Farming and Markets:
  The Hansons managed up to 180 acres, including a 25-acre organic plot, bringing diverse produce to farmers markets and involving children in every step.

  • "We bought a telephone van... and we would put about £3,000 fresh tomatoes, plums, peaches... and they'd sell out. And you can make a lot of money, but no pesticides, no nitrates." (15:51–16:15, VDH)
  • Organic farming subsidized the rest of their operation:
    • "This little 25 acres made so much money we would break even every year." (18:03, VDH)

• Government Regulation in Raisin Farming:
  Hanson illustrates the effects of federal policies on raisin growers, highlighting price-fixing mechanisms and struggles with the Raisin Administrative Committee.

  • "They said, 'You don't own them. You got to deliver all of them.' ... I got the full price of $500 a ton for 15% of the crop." (22:00–24:05, VDH)
  • He points to the demise of the raisin industry for almonds due to labor and regulatory changes.

2. Tank Warfare – Personal Experience & Military History

(Timestamps: 26:06–38:09)

• American vs. Export Abrams Tanks:
  Insight into how US-exported weapons, including Abrams tanks, are deliberately engineered to be less advanced than domestic versions.

  • "When we export any weapon system...we have a general rule that that weapon system...would not be able to have equity with the weapon systems that we have now." (27:10, VDH)

• Tactical Use of Tanks:
  Hanson underscores the importance of combined tank operations vs. standalone use, referencing HR McMaster’s leadership in the Gulf War’s largest tank battle and relating his own experiences embedded with US forces in Iraq.

  • "I rode in an Abrams for...a half an hour. And believe me, I could not believe the difference. It was like a Cadillac." (30:59, VDH)

• Comparisons with Historical Tanks:
  Commentary on World War II armored warfare, highlighting German tank superiority on paper but affirming the American Sherman tank’s reliability, production scale, and evolutionary improvement.

  • "Of all the Sherman tanks...I think there were 11,000 destroyed in World War II. Three out of five crewmen survived. And that was not true of the destroyed [Russian] one." (32:21, VDH)
  • "It had an airplane engine in it. It was very reliable...it was so versatile, and you could do so many things with it." (34:45, VDH)

• Anecdotes and Pop Culture:
  Referencing films like Fury and the mythos of tanks like the Firefly and the Grant and Lee tanks.

  • "Did you ever see that Brad Pitt movie Fury? ...The Americans with their uploaded Sherman medium tank..." (33:08, VDH)

3. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the Okie Diaspora & Central Valley Class

(Timestamps: 38:09–57:16)

• Dust Bowl Migration and its Legacy:
  Hanson contrasts the suffering depicted by Steinbeck with his own experience growing up among descendants of Okies in California.

  • "One of the groups...they were called okies versus non okies. And what did that mean? ...White kids that were poor and they had a slight southern accent and they dressed differently." (39:51–40:20, VDH)

• Assimilation and Class Divide:
  By the 1980s, Okies were largely assimilated. Bakersfield, once synonymous with dispossession, has become a hub of economic dynamism versus relatively stagnant Fresno.

  • "By 1980, that was gone. They were completely assimilated. And...the most successful people I know...are second and third generation Oklahoma diaspora." (41:14, VDH)

• Class and Social Tensions:
  Vivid memories of ethnic and class-based divides at his high school and the rough social landscape of the Central Valley:

  • "In high school, the big fights...were from Okies calling Mexicans beaners...and Mexicans calling Okies white trash." (46:05, VDH)
  • "If you want to be frank...about who was discriminated the most at the school, I would say, Okies." (50:31, VDH)

• Reflection on Grapes of Wrath as Art and Propaganda:
  Hanson respects Ford’s movie as an artistic achievement, but critiques its exaggeration of hardship and government benevolence:

  • "It exaggerated the discrimination and the poverty and maybe it glorified the government a little bit. But yeah, it kind of demonized the farmer." (52:17, VDH)

• Personal Anecdotes and Color:
  The segment is sprinkled with stories of Hanson’s interactions with Okie, Mexican, and other farmworker families, as well as playful recollections of growing up on the ranch.

  • "Joe, my grandfather said, those are tire tracks. No, no, no. A snake will grab his...[tail]..." (54:57, VDH on the hoop snake myth)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Farm Water Wars:
  "I had a neighbor, I won't mention him, who kept stealing water and I would lock it with a padlock and he would break it. It was horrible." (07:32, VDH)

• On Mechanization:
  "My grandfather..never made the transition...He didn't know how to drive a tractor. He was a great teamster. So he would always say the whole barn was full of horse collars..." (12:20–13:40, VDH)

• On Federal Raisin Control:
  "You bring them [raisins] in...and then we Count up all the raisins in the whole valley and we get a tonnage. And then...as bureaucrats how many can be sold at a break even price...The government would actually go in. And if you tried to sell...they gave you a certain amount...But if you tried [more]...then they would say, you're a scab." (21:00–23:12, VDH)

• On US Exported Abrams Tanks:
  "Those Abrams tanks, if they got into a fight with an American Abrams tank, would not be as successful." (28:15, VDH)

• On T-72 vs. Abrams:
  "They were daring me to drive their T72...but then I rode in an Abrams for I don't know, a half an hour. And believe me, I could not believe the difference. It was like a Cadillac." (31:21, VDH)

• Class Tension in the Valley:
  "It was more about class, I think." (51:10, VDH)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Farming and Water Rights History: (04:10–11:39, 12:20–15:14)
• Tractors, Mechanization, Organic Markets: (12:20–15:51, 15:51–18:06)
• Federal Raisin Control & Policy: (20:20–26:03)
• US Military Tank Technology and Use: (27:10–31:28)
• Sherman Tanks, Firefly, WWII Analysis: (32:21–37:54)
• The Okie Diaspora, Central Valley Diversity: (39:51–50:31)
• Reflection on Grapes of Wrath and Critique: (45:19–53:21)
• Anecdotes & Personal Memories: (53:21–57:16)

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Tone and Language

VDH’s storytelling is informal, colorful, and rich with lived experience and historical analysis. He is candid, sometimes self-deprecating, and often adds humor or folk wisdom to his recollections. The tone balances nostalgia (for a vanishing agrarian world), analytical depth (when discussing tanks and history), and frankness about class and ethnic tension in Central Valley life.

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For those interested in the intersection of American agricultural life, military history, and the real human cost of social change, this episode is a rewarding listen, filled with wisdom, practical knowledge, and evocative storytelling.

Transcript

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It's a historically hideous season. It's our 100th ugly house. And if these walls could talk.

[Jack Fowler]

Do you cry a lot?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I do. Ugliest house in America. Season premiere Wednesday at 8 on HGTV.

[Jack Fowler]

Hello, ladies. Hello, gentlemen. Welcome to Victor Davis Hansen in His own Words. Victor is the Martin and Neely Anderson senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a senior contributor for the Daily Signal, which is the happy home of this podcast. It's also the happy home of Victor Davis Hansen in a few words, which are. Four times a week, Victor does videos. They're about seven, eight minutes each that the Daily Signal carries. Victor has a website, the blade of Perseus. VictorHansen.com is the address. I'm Jack Fowler, the host. Sometimes I say I'm a man lucky enough to get to ask Victor questions, and I am. There's no question about that question. But we are now doing the second of three special episodes that are based on viewer questions and listener questions. Victor is going to going to take a little. A couple of days off sometime this month. We're recording in early December, but to handle a few matters. So I asked our good friends at the Victor Davis Hansen fan Club on Facebook to send in questions. And many of you did. And we're very, very appreciative. So we're going to get started today asking about some. You there, Victor. We're going to get some farming.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, I am.

[Jack Fowler]

Okay, we're all settled in. We're going to get some farming questions, some questions about tanks, um, and we'll see what else we have on hand here.

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We'll.

[Jack Fowler]

We'll start with that when we come back from these important messages.

[Tony Kennett]

Hey, folks, it's Tony Kennett, national correspondent for the Daily Signal and host of the Tony Kennett cast. I need to share something with you. Our goal at the Daily Signal is simple. To cut through the noise and give you the facts you need to stay informed as engaged citizens, unlike so many liberal media outlets, we're honest about our conservative views and report the news with a commitment to telling you the truth. But I'll be straight with you. Running an independent news operation isn't easy. While big media companies have corporate sponsors and massive bloated budgets, we operate differently. We answer to you, our audience and supporters. That independence is exactly what allows us to tackle the stories others won't touch and ask the tough questions others often avoid. But our independence comes with a challenge. We need your help to ensure the Daily Signal can continue to counter the liberal media's lies, which with the truth. Every deep dive investigation, every exclusive interview, every fact check we publish requires time and investment if you've found value in what we do. If the Daily Signal has helped you stay informed or given you insights you couldn't find elsewhere, would you consider supporting our work with a donation today? Even a small monthly contribution makes a real difference in our ability to bring you the journalism you deserve and expect you can support our work by visiting dailysignal.com that's daily signal.com donate every dollar goes directly into making sure we can continue serving you with the reporting you've come to count on. Please go to daily signal.com donate and give your gift today.

[Jack Fowler]

No, I know you can't. We're back.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It's non alcoholic now.

[Jack Fowler]

We're, this is all. Yeah, we have. We are, we are real time people here at Victor Davis Hansen. In his own words, even I will, I'll. If slurping's the. If slurping's the way. Here, let me, let me join you with that. So Victor, we have a interesting question, two questions from Matt from Northern Arizona. One has to do with farming and the other interestingly set of questions has to do with tanks. So let me read the farming.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes.

[Jack Fowler]

Question and Matt writes my family originally a homestead in Fallbrook, California, north of San Diego outside the Marine Corps Camp Pendleton. Stories I've heard the family dry farm, oats, raised lemons cattle and tended bees for honey and wax. Did your relatives in the Central Valley ever have to dry farm or were the irrigation canals already tended to up and running? And then what kind of livestock was being raised in the Central Valley besides cattle on the Hanson farm? I don't know that you ever raised any cattle on the farm.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, that's a good question. I was told that when my great great grandmother Luciana Davis came in the 1870s, they picked this place because it had an artesian pond. The water table is only about 10. We're within 35 mile. Anything within 50 miles of the Sierra Nevada had runoff from the snow melt and the big river. Of course the two rivers were the San Joaquin river and the American River. The American River's for the northern part and then the San Joaquin had a lot of tributaries such as the Kings river or the Cahuilla river or the Kern river, et cetera. And the early my great great grandmother and my great grandfather, they were dry farm. There was not any. And what that meant is that you planted wheat or oats in the fall and then the rain came and you harvested it like you do in Greece in May and June or maybe a little earlier here. And you can still see that durum wheat on the west side. When they cut off the water, and they've cut off so much water to west side farmers, a lot of them are planting Durham wheat, dry farm. They get enough. Usually they get enough rain, November, December, January, February. And then they'll. And it gets very warm and they'll harvest it. And that's for pasta and stuff like that special type of flower that it produces. And then they started to tap in the Consolidated irrigation. They started to go up in the foothills and they had big water fights. So they tapped into the Kings river, in my case, other people in Fresno, the San Joaquin. And then they, you know, they started to dig laterals. So on our property around 1915, there was a lateral called the Mill Ditch in Selma and the Fowler Switch that came off the. The Kings river and under my place, where I'm speaking right now. When I was a boy, there were big ditches coming through this ranch. Two of them. And we used to swim in them. They were about. And one of them still there partly. And then each farmer then wanted a farm, but you couldn't because the ditches cut your property. So my grandfather mortgaged his house in the 30s and put concrete pipes in and filled it over. And one is called the 84 ditch and one is called the Terry Ditch. And then we have laterals that come out subterraneanly and they come out and we used to furrow, irrigate. And then when furrow irrigation went out, because it was supposedly inefficient, then the drip came in. And each. You still have those water rights. And you can fill up these artesian ponds instead of using it for furrow. You use them to replenish the water supply. Then you pump. Cause you need clean water from the ground for a drip system. People try to do it from ponds and put the pond water into your drip. But you have to have a lot of outside and filters. So yeah, that did it. And then everything changed when the dams came in. So the Big Creek project on the San Joaquin started. Oh, I'm doing this from memory, but about 1910, 11, 12, 13, 14. And they built Huntington Dam and then later Shaver, then later Florence, and then much later Edison. And they made a series of dams on the San Joaquin. And they. They have. The Big Creek Power project has over 1,000 megawatts. It's huge. And that supplied. That was built by Los Angeles Power Co. By Henry Huntington, the nephew of Carlos Huntington. Henry Huntington, the nephew of the big for Huntington. And that was the largest transmission line. So this is how the LA development started. You know, Manhattan beach and oh, you know, all the way from Malibu around all the way to the Pacific Palisades area. That area was supplied with electricity from this big creek project. This was the first river that was large enough to dam and they dammed four or five and then later down on the San Juan and they're still there. And that allowed the bottom lake is Millerton Lake right outside of fresno. It's about 500,000 I think. No, excuse me. I think it's almost a million, well, 500 600,000 acre feet of water. And that supplies all of the irrigation districts around Fresno and the development. And then in the 50s, when I was a little boy, I can remember going to Reedley, Californ or my father telling me there had just been a flood. And then they made a huge dam called Pine Flat Dam on the King's River. That was a tributary near us and that is a million acre feet. And that supplied all the irrigation districts from Fresno south to Tulare. And so we get our water and the ratio is built on how many acres you have and then you get a certain number of acre feet per year. Getting turns on the ditch, not as contentious as it used to be because everybody did furrow irrigation the ditch. They would tap out, they'd steal water at night. It was a mess. When I farmed, I had a neighbor, I won't mention him, who kept stealing water and I would lock it with a padlock and he would break it. It was horrible. Or he would say he doesn't know who's stealing the water. And I would see his tracks. Or finally I would go up at three in the morning with a flashlight and wait out by the ditch where he snuck in. And because everybody wanted water and there wasn't enough. And now with drip it's so efficient and you're pumping. They're still drawing down the aquifers. Fallen from my house at about 45ft all the way to 90 and it's going to go down more and more. Almonds take about 3 acre feet a year. Contrary to invective, they don't take more than grapes or tomatoes or cotton. It's about three acre feet. But everybody's planted almonds now and there's no more raisin industries really shrunk in my area. Yeah, we had stories of dry family, by the way. Kingsburg, California. But especially this little town called traber at about 19:10 was the largest wheat producing area west of the Mississippi.

[Jack Fowler]

Oh wow.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, the whole San Joaquin Valley around Tulare Lake Basin was all dry farm. And Traver was a huge shipping on the Southern Pacific Railroad for wheat flour. The mill ditch in Selma is called the Mill Ditch because they had a mill there for dry farming wheat. And they used a water paddle wheel to mill the wheat into flour.

[Jack Fowler]

His curiosity about animals, of cattle you were not. The Hansons were not cattle people. Right. But you're in a stable, right? You're talking from a former stable. So there had to be some.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

But another big thing my grandfather used to tell me was boys, thank God for the Ford Ferguson tractor and the 9N tractor. And that was in the late 20s and early 30s. I mean they had steam trackers and all that, but they were not. So he told me of the 135 acres he farmed, 60 of them were pasture here. And that was for. He had the names of the horses and he never made the transition. So he was. When I would help him on the ranch, he was in his early 70s and 80s. He didn't know how to drive a tractor. He was a great teamster. So he would always say the whole barn was full of horse collars and, and you know, straps and reins. And I still have some of the tools. They've mostly been stolen but Fresno scraper, Springtooth disc, hay rake. And so half of your property had to be in fodder alfalfa to support the machines, the horses to pull the implements. And then suddenly Ford came out. The first modern tractor was a 9N and it had actually a hydraulic lift. That meant that you could take the implement and open, you know, you wouldn't have to drag it. And then the Aden came in and I think the Aden had overhead valves. And then the big famous tractor was the Jubilee. That was just a modern tractor with PTO and everything and hydraulic. We had one of those. I used to drive it when I was a a kid and I knew all the tractors we had names for. There was Bluey, the Blue. The blue Ford 3000. It was a three cylinder Ford from Britain. And then there was Ollie. That was an old Oliver Italian tractor imported. And then, then we had Big Boy. Big Boy was an Alice Chalmers huge tractor. It was very inefficient. It was very big. It would barely fit down the road we to rip. And then we had Massey, Massey, the Massey twins, the 265 and the 275. And then finally we had enough money to buy 285. I love Massey Perkins engines. They were the best trackers in the world.

[Jack Fowler]

They sound like we never could afford a John Deere.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Everybody said John Deere's were the best, but I think they heated up a little bit more out here than Massey's were wonderful tractors. And I had a Ford I, you know, when my family broke up and everybody sold out and left, I still had Bluey, the Ford 3000. But it's a beautiful tractor. Little tiny, 45 horsepower. And I gave it to my neighbor.

[Jack Fowler]

When you were strictly farmer Hanson, how much acreage were you overseeing at your maximum amount?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

We had 135 plus a place in Kingsburg where my dad was born. 45. So we had about 180 acres.

[Jack Fowler]

Wow.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Wow. And we had 25 acres of just. It was crazy. We had 1 acre plots, 25 different apple, pears, quince, and it was all for organic farming.

[Jack Fowler]

Okay.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then we had, we went to six or seven farmers markets. So what I would do is take the Monterey market on Thursday days. So we'd farm and then we'd pack up an old. We bought a telephone van. When Bell telephone was broken up, they sold their vans for nothing. We had an old Bell telephone and we would put about £3,000 fresh tomatoes, plums, peaches, nectarines, quints, palm gr. Anything and we would go and just say a dollar a pound on the table, take anything. And they'd sell out. And you can make a lot of money, but no pesticides, no nitrates. And then, you know, we divided it up. Somebody went to Santa Cruz, somebody went to Palo Alto. We had like six markets. It was kind of. I look back and I don't think I'd ever do it again. I mean when the. We had. I had three children, my brother had four, my cousin had three. So there was 10 of them here. And, and when the first one got to be 16, they. We would let him take the other 14 and 15 year olds on his own all the way over Pacheco pass with 3,000 and an ancient farm. And then my daughter did it a lot when she was 16. My daughter's very mechanical. She's 44, she has three kids and she does weed whacking and mowing and chainsaw. She had, she did everything. And so that, that's what they, the kids were responsible for that 20 acres. They picked it, they did it. And then the rest of them were raisins, plums, peaches and nectarnes. And I can tell you that there were big family arguments because the 25 acres, that was organic and completely our own labor that subsidized everything. The other thing, because we were all doing traditional you gotta make raisins, you gotta go to Sun Maid, you gotta send your fruit to the packer, to that your nectar. And you'd always lose money. And this little 25 acres made so much money we would break even every year.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, I have a follow up question on that. And then we're gonna get to another question. Matt has, believe it or not, about tanks. And we'll do that when we come back from these important messages.

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[Jack Fowler]

We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in his own Words, the second of three special episodes we are producing in early December with listener and viewer questions. So, Victor, on the the 20 or 25 acres you had that were organic, that was yours because you've talked in the past about the raisins. The raisins. The government somehow owned them so hard to get your head. But did they own.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, it was just. This was all raisins.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, raisins. They.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

They had something called the Thompson Seedless. It was a hybrid. It was a very good grape. It's still there. We had. Everybody had Thompson Seedless, and you was the green grape you see in the store that's seedless. And you. If you cut the stump or the cane and you. You cultivate it and farm it a certain way, it'll get big, big fat ones. But the little gold ones you see in the store, they're called sweeties or something. They're yellow almost. That's when you leave them on the vine and don't do anything to them. And we made those into raisins. And that's a very difficult. I was pretty good at raisin farming, where you have to pick and then, you know, have to get the right sugar, and then you dry the right time. You have to avoid rains. And then you put them on trays, you roll them up, you put them in boxes, you shake them, you set. It's a very complex, but the government.

[Jack Fowler]

Had its hand in that.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, what happened was it. It boomed in World War I, because when we sent 2 million people to Europe, raisins were like, you know, processed food. They would not go bad, and they were full of energy and sugar. So the troops had them, and the price went sky high. So everybody planted them. And then the Depression came, and there was no. The military dried up, and everybody. The price of raisins was almost $400 a ton in 1918 and 19. I'm just speaking out of my grandfather's diaries. You know what it got to be in 1933? $30. Wow. And he has a little note. Sold raisins for $30. They will be soaked in brandy and sent to CalFeed. At that point, the Roosevelt government came in and they said, we're going to create the Raisin Administrative Committee, and we're going to make a set price. And they didn't set the price, but they're going to say, there's too many raisin farmers. And they didn't let the natural thing, you know, people just pull them out. They said, what we'll do is, you don't have to pull out your vines, but we own your grapes, and we will determine how big the raisin crop will be. And so you just keep farming. But if you have Thompson, we have to control everything, and we own your grapes. So you bring them, and then you bring them into a packer. Then we Count up all the raisins in the whole valley and we get a tonnage. And then we figure out as bureaucrats how many can be sold at a break even price. And let's say it's 30% of the crop. So then we say, this is called free tonnage and we pay you for it. But then they don't tell you is the rest of it is reserve tonnage. And for two years they give that away. The government buys some of it, or they sell it below cost, or they sell it for cattle feed. And everybody says, I don't want to do that. I just want to take my raisins and go out. Then they would say, you're a scab. You're just selling to bakeries directly. And why we can't do it because our raisins are set aside. So the government would actually go in. And if you tried to sell, they gave you a certain amount that you could stem and wash and sell at farmer's market. That was it. But if you tried to, I can tell you that in 1985 and 86, we had about 200 tons. And I just said, you know what? I'm not going to deliver them. It's $500 a ton. And I went into the co op and I said, I don't want to deliver them. They said, you don't. You don't own them. You got to deliver all of them. And then I said, yeah, but last year you paid me 30 on 30% and you had a revolving fund. So I didn't get the 30%. It took a year and a half. I got paid for 15. It worked out that I got the full price of $500 a ton for 15% of the crop. And you sat there and then what they would do. And I know this is going to be controversial for my valley. I have to be careful. But once you put the reserve tons, the packer there were private packers and everybody, they would go through it and get the best. Because grapes have. Raisins have enormous differences in quality. The whole thing about raisins is if you don't want to get rained on and you want to get a crop in, you pick too early when there's not enough sugar. If you want to be at the gambling tables and say, I'm going to get a heavy raisin, a beautiful raisin, I'm not going to pick until September 10th. But every day gets shorter, more moisture, and you can lose your whole crop from a rain or rot. So what they would do is they'd get all the great raisins and they'd go through all the reserve tonnage. You would deliver them and then the packer would go and get the good stuff and then filter, put the bad stuff in the reserve stacks and then not tell you. And so they were. So it was a bad system. It's still in effect, I think it's almost dead now. Nobody pays. It's dead because 70% of the raisin acreage was pulled out for almonds because of the labor. Now it's mechanical, but it's very expensive to have a mechanical raisin farm.

[Jack Fowler]

Raisin wars. All right, well, that's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I wrote about it in a book called Fields Without Dreams.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, here's the second question from Matt and it's entirely different subject. He says a little history here. He says, after high school I served in the Marine Corps. I was an M1A1 Abrams tank crewman deployed to Iraq. Videos I have seen of M1A1 tanks being used in Ukraine. Oftentimes the Ukrainians appear to use the Abrams as a standalone heavy tank such as an M26 Pershing or an IS2 Russian tank from World War II. I'm aware many M1A1 Abrams have been destroyed and or captured by the Russians. In your opinion, if the Abrams tanks were used in the same manner of the US army or Marines, such as working in a section 2 tanks up to a company size 14 tanks with the Abrams may have made a better impact on the battlefield and would they have a higher number of working tanks? So that's about tank strategy, essentially.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, I can tell you that when I was at the Naval Academy for a year, I had a security clearance and I would go about once every two weeks and to Andrew Marshall's Office of Net Assessment. And it was classified. But I did hear a couple of lectures there and also a classified lecture from other people. And people can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think it's classified now, but I think it's true of all weapons systems that we have. When we export any weapon system to anybody other than the closest ally we have, we have a general rule that that weapon system that we export would not be able to have equity with the weapon systems that we have now. What would that mean? That would mean in the case of the Abrams A one that has a very sophisticated type of ceramic hardened steel, layered and reactive armor on it. You know, the reactive where you hit it and a little explosion pushes the shell out. It's got. Anyway, I am told that if we Send Abrams to Egypt or anybody else. Those Abrams tanks, if they got into a fight with an American, Abrams tanks would not be as successful. But I don't think we broadcast that and I think that's true of a lot of other systems as well. It's not that we just give old stuff away. We make sure that they're not. If we get in a war in the Middle east, for example, given changing alliances and we've given Jordan a bunch of Abrams tanks and they've attacked Israel and Israel has Merkabah, maybe they had some Abrams that the ones that we authorize will be able to withstand the 120 smoothbore round better than the ones that they have.

[Jack Fowler]

What about as for fighting in packs as solo versus multiple tanks?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, my office is next to HR McMaster and he's pretty famous because in the first Gulf War he was a army captain and that had been the largest tank battle since the Yom Kippur War of 73. Eastling. Yeah, has Eastling. And anyway, I don't know, I can't remember that. I've talked to him about, I've read about it, I've talked. It's. It's about. They had about 35 Abrams and they had their volleys at the range and their velocity and the bore and they took out. Each one hit their. Except one, I think T72 top Russian tanks and they, they blew them up without losing anybody. And then when I was embedded, the first or second time, I can't remember which, I think I mentioned they asked me if I wanted to go with some Iraqi people for an afternoon. So I went in and they showed me the Iraqis. It was very funny. They gave me an M4, I think, or maybe it was a Vietnam style M16 and said, take the gun and put. Drop it in the sand and jump on it. And I did. After about a minute, it misfired. And then they did an ar, I mean, you know, what do you call it? Not an AR15, but a AK, an AK, Russian one. You know, they're semi and they did the same thing and it kept firing. But I could tell you that I couldn't hit anything with the AK47 and I could hit something with it. I'm not ever a good shot. And then they were daring me to drive their T72 and they said, you'll never be able to drive it. But it had little, you know, levers. Like my grandfather, after World War II bought a 1946, I don't know what they call it, a D1 or D2 Cat. And we used it. And I used to screw around when I was a kid, but then I rode in an Abrams for I don't know, a half an hour. And believe me, I could not believe the difference. It was like a Cadillac.

[Jack Fowler]

There's something about the Russian tanks in World war to that to change gears you had to use like a hammer.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Or a hammer, the quality of steel. If you go to a tank museum and you look at a Sherman tank turret or you know, a Russian, any of the standard T32, whatever they are, they just don't look the same. And then when you look go inside a Russian World War II tank versus a Sherman and even a later Pershing, very rare. There's so much more room in a Sherman. And then the later Shermans, they have a little trap door to get out. Of all the Sherman tanks. I think there were 11,000 destroyed in World War II. I'm doing this by memory. Three out of five crewmen survived. And that was not true of the destroyed one.

[Jack Fowler]

Wow.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then if you read certain memoirs, there's one, I think it's called Tigers in the mud by German tank commanders. T34 was a great tank, but the Panther came in late. Panther was not as reliable. The Tiger 1 and 2 was not resolved. The Mark 4 was very reliable, but they had about a 7 to 1 kill ratio against Russian tanks. Oh wow. And on the western front everybody called Sherman's, you know, Ronson lighters. But when they up board the Sherman 75 millimeter to 76 and they had the right. Did you ever see that Brad Pitt movie Fury? Yeah, it's kind of an exact.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, but that's.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I think they're fighting a Panther or Tiger and they're all going around. But the Americans with the, with their uploaded Sherman medium tank, they had a, they couldn't go off one on one with a Panther and Tiger, but they never saw them, they were so rare. But a Mark 4 they were as good or better as. And then the British came in and they had something called a 17 pounder. It was a 76 millimeter, but it had a very high velocity barrel and the velocity rate was more than the German 88 millimeter. And they put this huge barrel gun on a Sherman tank turret. And because the Sherman was so reliable and it had like 10 hours of running for one hour maintenance where the Panther and the Tiger were one to two or one to one. So then in those famous tank fights they'd have one Sherman to every four, one Firefly to every four Shermans. And the Germans then would start, you know, trying to get them, pick them off. So then the Americans would have fake barrels. You know, they would put kind of extensions. Yeah. They'd extend the fake wood barrel. They'd put a sleeve over their short, shorter barrel so that Germans didn't know which one was the Firefly. Yeah. And. But the Fireflies would, you know, they tear off a turret of a Tiger. They were so good. Everybody made fun. I, in the book I wrote the Second World Wars, I kind of defended the Sherman tank. It had an airplane engine in it. It was very reliable. Everybody said, well, it has a too high profile. Yes. The tracks. It's too narrow. It doesn't have quite as much armor as the Tiger. It's under gun. Yes. Yes. But it was so reliable and it was so versatile, and you could do so many things of it. And they did improve the gun. And it was never designed as a heavy tank. People forget that a Panther or Tiger just runs off the tractor out of the factory in Germany, and they put it on a locomotive, and there it is. The Americans, you got to put it on a crane and drop it on a ship and ship it over there. And after 30 tons, that's pretty hard to do.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

So they were limited. They couldn't be 55, 60 tons like a Tiger.

[Jack Fowler]

I think you also like what it was named after General Sherman. So that's a good thing.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah. Well, there was a Lee tank. The predecessor was the Grant and Lee tank. It had two cannons on. Have you ever seen it? It looks like a.

[Jack Fowler]

No, I never really.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, it was. It was very famous because the British were outmanned. And we came out, we didn't know what to do. So we came out, everybody had come back, and they said, hey, wait a minute. 37 millimeters and 50 millimeter cannons don't work on the Russian front. Even the Germans. 50 millimeter mark 4 is not working. The T34's got a 75, 76. And so they said, well, we got to rush a tank. And so they created this monstrosity called the Mark. I don't know what it was three, but it had a movable turret that was, I think, 37 or 50 millimeters. I can't remember which. But then it had a 75 millimeter stationary gun below it, but it wouldn't rotate. And that gun, they used it effectively because that gun would take out a German Mark 3 or Mark 4 tank. But then when the Shermans came into North Africa, the German Montgomery really liked Them, they were better in the sand. And the mark 4. And the thing about everything about war, I think everybody realizes it's not the specificity of the specifications of a weapon system necessarily, it's how many you develop of them, how reliable or how good are the people using them. Right. You know, I get questions where people will write and say, well, you know, the. The Raiden Japanese fighter on paper was just as good as the Corsair or just as good as the Hellcat. And you say, yes, but they made a thousand and we made 12,000. And their pilots had all been wiped out in the Philippines, and our pilots were getting 2, 3, 400 hours of training. And there was most deadly man in the world in an airplane in 1944, late 44, 45, was an American pilot in a F6 Hellcat or a Courser in the Pacific or in a Mustang or Thunderbolt because of the training and the reliability of those planes were so great.

[Jack Fowler]

Right.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Germans made great planes, but except for the Focke Wulf on the 109, you know, the ME210, and all these crazy things they tried to do, they weren't reliable. The British made great planes.

[Jack Fowler]

I love the Spitfire is just a beautiful thing to see. Hey, Victor, we're going to wrap up today's podcast by going back to California and talking about the Grapes of Wrath. And we'll do that after these final important messages. We are back with Victor Davis Hansen in His Own Words, the second of three special episodes we are creating to give Victor. He'll be taking a little time, and we don't like to have gaps in this podcast, so we're trying to fill them up. And thanks to those who submitted questions to present to Victor. So here's one from Hannah Kirchner, who wrote this year I studied and reread Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath, only to learn the novel may not be an accurate representation of the Oklahoma diaspora. While it presents the Okie experience almost entirely through the extreme hardships of the Joad family, it gives the impression that all 300,000 migrants suffered in the same way, when in reality it was only a fraction. I'm curious about VDH's perspective on the Grapes of Wrath, the history of the Dust bowl migration, and the effects of New Deal policies on the region. How does he interpret Steinbeck's work as socialist agitprop, as a kind of fictional truth or as something in between? And she concludes, here I would be especially interested in his viewpoint as a farmer, Californian film, a buff and A historian. So, Victor, you know something about the Okies, don't you?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, I did. My first wife, who I'm very friendly with, and her family came from Oklahoma and they came with nothing. But they were the, I guess you would call it the second diaspora. The first diaspora were the foreclosures. You know, the terrible at the worst of the depression. 29, 30, 31. The depression hit farming in 2728 before the stock market collapsed. And they had, they had it pretty rough. But the latter 30s, there were government, the civil. Civilian CCC, there were civilian Conservation Corps. Yes. And there were, as you see in that movie by John Ford of the Grapes of Wrath. There were government camps, you know, that they tried to allow. So they had it rough. But when I was in high school, from 1967-71, when we had, I was at a high school, it was about 40% Mexican American, maybe 50% and then 50% so called white. And that would include Armenians, a lot of Armenian kids, a lot of, a lot of Japanese kids. But non Mexican American, they were the majority. But there were other people. And one of the groups, there were two types of white people, so called from the Mexican American point of view, and they were called okies versus non okies. And what did that mean in 1960, even 30 years after that meant that when I went to high school, there were white kids that were poor and they had a slight southern accent and they dressed differently. They had cowboy boots or a few of them even had tattoos. They fought. And then the local population, and then you would also say the local population of white kids, they went to about three different churches. Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodists, and the Okie kids went to Church of Christ, Church of the Redeemer, Church of God, all of the evangelical churches. And I would say by 1980, that didn't. That was gone. They were completely assimilated. And in terms of some of the, what most successful people I know that are so called white are second and third generation Oklahoma diaspora. And it used to be that the locus classicus of that diaspora was Bakersfield. And Fresno had a large Oklahoma diaspora, but not nearly as much as Bakersfield, because that's where the oil fields were. And then that's where you had Buck Owens, you know, and Merle Haggart. It was kind of a country western town. We didn't have in Fresno. Fresno always had kind of, oh, we're more sophisticated. It had a bigger downtown. It was the seat of an appellate court. It had the court system. It was much more supposedly refined it had the San Joaquin river come through it. It had a lot more money. And you know what's funny today is it's kind of flipped. I was just down to Bakersfield for Megyn Kelly's tour, but I speak there a lot. And because of the Almond Boom, which is really. And then the oil, they went back and started fracking, horizontal drilling on the Elk Reserve and all of that oil. And then it's only an hour and a half from Bakersfield to downtown Los Angeles, right over the grapevine. And then the housing, it was in Fresno. The west side of the freeway is poor, and the east side near the mountains are the wealthy part. And that used to be true of Bakersfield, but Bakersfield opened up its west side much more effectively than Fresno did. And so what I'm getting at, that's just growing closer to the. The coast Ranges. So all the kids that go away for school, Cal State, Cal Poly or Berkeley or any of the coast, Santa Cruz, Irvine, all the universities are on the coast. And they all stayed there. Well, Bakersfield's had this return because they've made really. They've created whole upscale communities on the west side of the freeway. And they're very big homes and you can get maybe twice the square, three times the square footage for the price of Monterey, Santa Cruz, Palo Alto, you know, San Luis Obispo. So they have a huge educated, upscale population. So when I go to Bakersfield, it seems like it's booming and I go to Fresno and I'm really worried. It doesn't seem to have its. It doesn't seem to have the dynamism that Bakersfield does. Maybe it's because it's closer to la. I don't know.

[Jack Fowler]

Did you, like. Two questions. Did you, as a movie buff, and you are. What. What do you think about the Grapes of Wrath? And back in the day, if I had met your wife that your then girlfriend called her an Okie, would that have been an insult?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yes, it was an insult. I never used that word. I thought it was white trash, all of that. I know that my wife was very. Her father was very gifted. He was an electrician. He worked his way up to being a PG and executive. But they were. They were. I don't know how to say it. They weren't directed toward university education and all of that working class. When I got married, I was only 23. I had a PhD. My wife had not gone to college. It didn't mean anything to me. She was very bright. Yeah, I didn't.

[Jack Fowler]

Well, I didn't mean to pick on your wife. I just meant someone from the diaspora would have.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Would have, yes. They would have said that was a stern, was a slur. And there were a lot of fights, I can tell you. In high school, the big fights that I saw were from Okies calling Mexicans beaners and stuff and Mexicans calling Okies white trash. And they fought all the time. And then the third and fourth generation, so called white and maybe second generation, they had all these terms. It was so bizarre, Jack. There were Mexican people who had been in this area for three or four generations. They were called white Mexicans and they did not speak Spanish. They were completely intermarried with so called white people. And a lot of the Mexican people who'd come more recently from Mexico or illegally didn't like them. But they were the aristocracy. And then there was the white three or four generations farming class. And then there was the more recent, they called them wet Okies, call them wetbacks or Beaners. And they called Okies white trash or Okies. And those were the poor people. And they fought all the time. And the other two classes kind of kept distant at least, but there was a lot of fluidity, as there is in America. So I can remember, I can remember going over as a little kid to a family that just came from Mexico and nobody spoke English. But my friend John Trevino was a great guy and he, he didn't hang out with the people who were, you know what I mean? It was. Or I met a lot of Okie people who, their parents had come from Oklahoma or they came when they were little kids, but they were, had no accent and they were completely absorbed by the native white class. And then I knew a lot of white class people that were no good, you know, the white class, they went what we used to say, they went bad, they took drugs or they were criminal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it was a pretty rough high school and it was a rough. But it was, it was so weird though, because we always talk about diversity, diversity, diversity. When I, when I would go out on Saturday nights with my high school guys, there would be two Japanese Americans, there'd be two or three Americans, there'd be one Chinese guy, there'd be one black guy, there'd be four Mexican guys, there'd be two Okies and we, and nobody, you know, they would insult each other with ethnic put downs, but nobody took it seriously. And then they did stuff that would be crazy, like, hey, let's fight, Fight club. Kind of like that. And hey, you Mother, blame, blah, blah. And then bang. Oh, he's called you a name. Get to it. And then they'd start fighting. Or then they'd say, I got a case of beer. Anybody? I was always kind of a nerd. And they'd always. They'd always say to me, they'd get a dictionary, some guys, and they said, I'm going to find any word. Victor, you don't know. And I can still remember one person said, ah, you don't look. They look. Tried to look for one of them had a rosette thesaurus. He said, lesbian. And I said, that's a woman that likes a woman. Oh, my God. How did you know that, man? Victor knows what a lesbian is. Find another word. And they were the easiest words, you know. They were, you know, heterosexual. Oh, my God. A heterosexual. You know what that is? And then they would drink and stuff. It was. I had a great childhood.

[Jack Fowler]

Glory days.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It was not. Nobody stole anything. Nobody used drugs, you know.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

It was just. That was right on before the 60s drug thing came. And I'd say some of my closest friends, if I can use that stereotype, my best friends in school were Armando Chavez, Frank Gutierrez, Lewis Carbajal, John Trevino, Nacho Guzman. I was at Quest Laboratory two days ago, and this guy started staring at me, and I started staring at him, and nobody said anything. And then he said, I know you. And I said, I know you. And we were waiting, and he goes, you're Naus Alfred Reese. I said, no, I'm Victor. Ah, those are my rel. I said, you're Manuel. Manuel Barolo. I know you. And so we start talking, and so those are the kind of guys I hung out with.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Isn't that great? When you see someone from 50 years later and you know who they are, you can pick them out.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

If you want to be frank about it, about who was discriminated the most at the school, I would say, Okies. Yeah. I say the teacher. Everybody discriminated. They made fun of their churches. They made fun of their accent. They made fun of their fighting. The girls, you know, would wear white plastic boots, you know.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Kind of.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then miniskirts and then teased hair. And they all had those brushes with really sharp points on the end. And heavy makeup. Heavy, heavy makeup. And sharp, pointed brushes.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, I don't know. It was a pretty cruel class. It was more about class, I think. Yeah.

[Jack Fowler]

Always is at the base of it, by the way, Victor, I agree here with Hannah's concerns that the movie is surprisingly For John Ford. Yeah, it is kind of left whitewashed, but it is a great movie. There are some terrific performances in that movie.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

John Carradine is in that, remember?

[Jack Fowler]

Oh, he. Yeah, he was, you know, I think he was in more movies than anyone ever. There was some. Someone. I gotta dig that up. But he.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

He was so wonderful in Stagecoach. He was the aristocrat from a famous family that had gone bad. And he gets killed in the Stagecoach. And he was really wonderful. The man who felt liberty. I came to hear the carefully prepared.

[Jack Fowler]

Speech and then he throws it away.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

And then he pick it up and there's nothing written on it.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, he was part of John Ford's company because he was also Company.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Was that what it's called, the Ford Cattle Company.

[Jack Fowler]

He. The last Torah also. He was one of the false Brahmins and that. So.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Yeah, that was a very good movie. It kind of romantic. I mean, I think it kind of. I think the questioner's right. It exaggerated the discrimination and the poverty and maybe it glorified the government a little bit. But yeah, it kind of demonized the farmer. When I grew up, there were no Mexican American farm laborers. That was just starting. So where I'm speaking right now, there's a house right behind me. And that was where my grandparents. This house, this two story house was their parents, my grandfather's. And he didn't move into it when he got married. They called it the honeymoon house. They built it themselves and it had. They. They planed the lumber and they did the. And when I grew up, the Marshalls lived there. Delmas. Delmas Marshall. And he was from Oklahoma and they lived with us. And I grew up with Robert Marshall and Debbie Marshall and the kids. And we played together.

[Jack Fowler]

And then they were not relatives, were they?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

No, no, they were permanent. They worked for my grandfather and we went to school together. And then right on the other side of the road, my grandfather had bought a Kwansan hut after World War II, kind of a Quanza. And they kind of fixed it into a house. And there was Joe Carey, he was Cherokee Indian from Oklahoma and his wife. And they lived there. And he was the one that kind of taught me. I hung around with him as a little kid. Yeah, because we free range on this ranch. And it was so safe. So my mom was. It was so bizarre. I look back at it, I can't even figure out. My mom had gone to Stanford and got a Stanford BA a University Pacific BA a Stanford JD and here she was with three kids in this little tiny. We had 800 square foot home. My dad moved on and we were living with all these very poor people, but we were no better than they were as far as economically. And they'd all make fun of my mom and dad. You went to college and you're just here with your. But anyway, my making. I would go, when we were like eight or nine, Joe would come by with a tractor and we would get in the back and we would go work for my grandfather. And he was kind of. Manuel was the guy from Portugal. He was really a good tractor. There were about five. There was so labor intensive. And Joe would always say, well, you know, Victor, we're going to teach you how to drive with no hands. So you get on the jubilee and you put your foot down on the connectors. And so I would do that. And then he would always say, hey, Victor, you seen a hoop snake?

[Jack Fowler]

I was going to say, he's the snake.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Hoopsnake. I don't know. A hoop snake.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, yeah.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Look at the. I said, joe, my grandfather said, those are tire tracks. No, no, no. A snake will grab his. And the Greeks had a myth about the hoop snake. But he grabs his tail in his mouth and he can run so fast. So when we go and we dig that Johnson grass out, you be very careful. That old hoop snake's going to jump out sometimes. It'll wrap around your neck. I said, joe, really. I run back to my grandfather. Joe said that my grandfather was like the elder Cato, you know, he was so impeccably moral. I'm not going to say that Joe exaggerates, but Joe says things that can be sometimes in his mind, they're not proven, Victor. They're not proven. But I grew up with all those guys. I look back at my life and that was a happy. I wish that all those guys, they were so poor. I mean, Manuel was half Mexican and half Portuguese. The Marshalls came from Oklahoma. And they were the ones that. These trees right behind me were really tall. Pecan. Right. And so it'd be 11 at night on a Saturday night. And my dad, we'd go, we're going to go down with Robert and his dad, Delmas. No, I don't want you down there. No, we're going to go down to Grandpa's. We go down there and have these huge poles with a flashlight on them. And he'd put them up in the pecan trees and he'd see a possum and he'd put the light on them and then he'd knock them and they'd fall like 25ft and splatter. And then he'd say, okay, boys, possum grips tomorrow. And we'd go, can we eat the possum? My mom said, well, I don't know if it's safe. You know, I'll have to ask some people if you can have hookworm or something. I don't approve of eating possums. I don't even like killing possums. You're not going to eat possums. I don't want you knocking them out of trees.

[Jack Fowler]

Did you ever eat pasta?

[Victor Davis Hanson]

I did once. Yeah. They had some stuff going. Yeah, they were nice people. I don't know what happened to them. I went to high school. They moved away in high school. The county came in and said that you had to have a building permit. So we shut down the hills. And one day my brother got angry because the house was in the way of everything, so he just tore it down. But it was.

[Jack Fowler]

Wow. Okay. Well, all right, Victor, this has been terrific. I love it. And I know our listeners and viewers love when you reminisce. And this was just wonderful. Victor, you've been terrific. Thanks for all the.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Well, thank you, everybody, for information now watching and listening.

[Jack Fowler]

Yeah, we'll be back soon with number three of the three special episodes of Victor Davis Hanson in his own words. Bye bye. Bye bye.

[Victor Davis Hanson]

Thank you, everybody. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please, like share and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own [e-mail] and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.