All across America and around the world, this is Veterans Radio.
And now your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
Hey, welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry.
I was a chief warrant officer and helicopter pilot in Vietnam, 1969.
Hey, welcome to our program.
I am very excited to talk to our guests today.
It's our kind of beginning of the year look at foreign affairs and what's going on with the military.
We've got Dr. Rebecca Grant with us today.
And we're also going to be featuring two franchisees for the PuroClean Corporation, one of our newest sponsors.
They have a special franchise program for veterans.
And so my partner, Jim Falzone, has done an interview with them and we're going to be talking with them later on in the program.
But before we get into talking with Dr. Grant, I want to make sure we thank our sponsors because we can't do that without them ever, ever, ever.
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I got to practice that one.
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All right, let's get right into this.
So my first guest today, as I mentioned, is a very good friend of Veterans Radio, and that's Dr. Rebecca Grant.
I'm going to just give you a little background on her.
For those of you that are unfamiliar, she's been on our program numerous times over, well, I don't know, must be well over 10 years, I think.
Anyway, she is a national security analyst and specializing in defense and aerospace research and national security consultant.
She has researched and published hundreds of articles on national security, spoken at numerous forums.
In addition, she has appeared on television as an expert on national security for Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC, and is a series regular on the Smithsonian's Air Warriors.
She also writes on China, Russia, and other technology and national security topics for Fox News opinion.
She's written a number of books, including 75 Great Airmen, along with General Chris Miller.
The B-2 goes to war and battle-tested aircraft carriers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
She graduated from Wellesley College, earned a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics, and now, before I continue on,
she is now the, I want to see that here, she is a senior fellow and vice president at the Lexington Institute.
Dr. Grant, welcome back.
Dale, it's so good to be talking with you again.
It is, and I'm really happy for you.
So tell me a little bit about this Lexington Institute.
And Lexington is named after that battle in 1775, where a handful of patriot citizen soldiers stood on Lexington Common and facedown the British.
And Lexington specializes in national security and other topics that relate to keeping our democratic values and advancing freedom and opportunity and all of that.
We actually follow a lot of the defense programs quite closely and also do research into tech issues such as AI.
And keeping the USA front and center and everything we do.
Okay. Well, it sounds like a good fit for you.
Is this kind of a combination of what you've done in the past and what you're going to be doing in the future?
Yes, that's right.
And wow, no shortage of national security topics to talk about.
You know, I'm based near Washington, D.C. here where we've got a little light snow and a lot of expectation about the inauguration tomorrow.
And let me tell you that new Trump team really comes in with just a spate of crises around the world that they're already really, really very active and gosh, a lot to do.
Well, I guess we should probably jump right into it then.
So let's start off with, well, let's start off with the Middle East because, you know, the newest peace agreement, if it all holds up,
there's going to be some exchange prisoners for, you know, for hostages and what's going on there?
That's right.
It looks like the ceasefire is underway.
I actually was up late last night doing live coverage for Fox News as we watched a little bit of a delay.
But we have seen the first three of a group of 33 hostages returned by Hamas.
These are all three young women.
So what's happening is there's a very intricate ceasefire deal that has been brokered by the United States, by the Kingdom of God,
and also very much by Egypt, who's had a strong hand in all of this.
Hamas and Israel have agreed there will be a period of the next couple weeks where about three hostages are released every week.
They were hoping that they are prioritizing the older hostages and those who are in firm.
And, you know, we still have seven Americans in this group ranging in age from the youngest is 19, the oldest is 73,
and we're hoping to see at least two of those in one of these early release groups.
So ceasefire is underway and then the big question, you know, how will Hamas react to this and can this be the start of a new beginning for that region?
But boy, it's going to be a lot of ups and downs.
Yeah, I think it will be.
I mean, just the idea of, you know, the international support for rebuilding Gaza and the idea of, you know, does Hamas actually keep their word?
That's a problem I foresee because if they don't, then I think Israel will do, you know, some retaliatory thing just to let them know that they're still there.
Well, Israel has been clear all along about keeping on the military pressure and really right through yesterday, we saw a couple of Israeli strikes.
We also saw the Houthis in Yemen who are, of course, are supported by Iran, but they are attacking Israel in part because of what's going on in Gaza.
They launched two ballistic missiles down towards Tel Aviv.
The Israelis intercepted both of them.
But there's just going to be a lot to watch and the moving parts of the agreement include Israel pulling back from some of the areas in Gaza, but maintaining a presence, you know, across the middle of the Gaza Strip so that as pedestrians and vehicles start to reposition from refugee areas in the south and go back to the north.
They can't carry weapons.
It's very, very intricate agreement.
One thing everyone agrees on is the immediate influx of international aid.
I think the goal is to have about 600 trucks a day going into Gaza.
There have been a lot of problems with aid not reaching those who need it most.
I hope that, you know, some of that will pass.
And then the overall issue is, you know, can Gaza be settled down?
Just this agreement has a number of milestones going right through early springtime.
And, you know, Hamas has certainly been heavily, heavily damaged and really defeated by Israel.
But there are always cells of Hamas fighters still around.
So it's going to be a job just to keep what they call a sustainable calm.
That is the goal that they're looking to see.
And then what happens long term to the political future of Gaza is very unclear.
Will the Palestinian Authority step in?
Will we see some help from Egypt?
And I think most agree that there will have to be some assistance probably on the ground from the international community.
We can only hope so.
I mean, the other thing that's going, I mean, there's a lot going on over there.
But what about with Syria and the, you know, the overthrow of Assad?
Yes, you know, Assad fell in that lightning campaign.
And so far what we're seeing is that the new, the new leadership in Syria is trying to govern.
They're trying to keep the power running, all that sort of thing.
A couple of good things happened right away.
And first was that Russia's two bases in Syria, they had a base on the Mediterranean at Tartarus and then also an air base nearby called Latakia.
And those had really been built up about 10 years ago into some pretty major bases.
Russia used the seaport to supply a lot of its mercenaries down in Africa.
And as soon as Assad's government fell, these two Russian bases ended up behind rebel lines.
And so basically not useful to Putin in Russia, which was great.
The real question, of course, is that, you know, most of the of the action with Al-Golani and his forces took place along the western side of Syria.
We still have an American presence out in the east along the Euphrates.
And that's part of the anti-ISIS mission.
You know, remember, ISIS from five years ago, right?
I was just going to say, I don't think those people have gone away.
No, they have not.
And one concern is that there is there are several large refugee camps with as many as 10,000 ISIS detainees.
So a huge U.S. goal right now and for Central Command is to make sure that these ISIS camps don't somehow get back into the fight.
There's also the question of what will happen to the Syrian Democratic forces.
Those are allies of ours out in that western region.
I've noticed that General Karela, who is the commander of Central Command, has visited up in that region pretty frequently.
So the leader of Syria was a former Al-Qaeda terrorist who decided he would do better on his own and left his affiliation with Al-Qaeda and became a rebel leader in Syria and is now taken over.
So we'll see if he is just opportunistic and can actually govern the place or if he goes back to his bad roots.
I mean, he was incarcerated for five years in U.S. detention because he's a terrorist.
So we'll see.
He's a very opportunistic fellow.
You know, I think there's a chance that he becomes the new strongman in Syria.
I do see the states in the region such as Saudi Arabia and others who are very eager to have this situation calm down.
You know, they've said, hey, if you behave by the rules, we'll support you and let you back into the Arab League and some other measures.
So we'll see.
But meanwhile, our U.S.
forces there have carried out strikes against ISIS weapons, caches, known supply routes, that kind of thing.
They did a big range of strikes back in December.
But Central Command did a few even early this month, taking out some known targets to try to make sure that ISIS doesn't flare up in a power vacuum in Syria.
Well, you know, while we're over there, what about Iran?
Iran is very, very much weakened in its terror apparatus.
You know, that's the good news.
Iran, of course, was the one supporting Hamas, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, supporting the Houdis down in Yemen, and Israel's campaign against all of those and taking out their leadership.
And you know, who can forget the famous attack on the pagers run by Hezbollah.
This is really weakened Iran.
But the bad news is that all this time Iran has been enriching uranium, which is completely illegal and against its treaties with the U.N.
And the U.N.
who monitors all this says that they are really close to being able to develop a handful of nuclear weapons based on the amount of uranium that they've enriched.
So that's just a huge concern.
Iran's economy is in a shambles.
But they remain very dangerous.
And I think, you know, one of the key problems for the next administration will be whether they can engage and negotiate with Iran in any way.
Iran has a new president.
They'd like some sanctions relief.
But until they're willing to give up more of their terror apparatus and to allow U.N.
inspectors back in to look at the nuclear sites, I don't know.
I mean, the other good news, of course, is that Israel's attack just decimated Iran's air defenses.
And that means that they are not in a strong military position.
And of course, part of the reason we still have over 30,000 forces, U.S.
forces deployed to Central Command is to keep a lid on that place.
You know, over this past year, we've seen five different aircraft carriers.
The Harry S. Truman is there right now along with destroyers.
We've seen every fighter type in the Air Force inventory deployed.
F-16s, F-15s, F-22s, F-35s, A-10s, all to keep the pressure on Iran and to keep strike options open in case something breaks out.
So it remains a pretty tense situation.
And hopefully the Gaza ceasefire will begin to change things.
But the problem of Iran remains.
Yeah, it seems like something has been going on for decades and decades.
It's really sad.
I was thinking also about has anything been going on in Afghanistan?
We don't obviously we don't hear a whole lot about that right now.
Of course, Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban.
You know, who can forget those those scenes of that evacuation?
And it all happened so fast.
And then long term, one of the big losses there has been that we just don't have the perspective that we once did.
You know, the plan originally was to keep a force of about 2,500 Americans and some coalition there,
sort of like we did in leaving that little presence in Syria, but without the boots on the ground, without the airfield at Bagram,
it's much, much harder to see what the situation there is in Afghanistan.
I mean, it's that's just a it's just a blot, just a terrible loss.
You know, I think of all the people that served there and they really did a wonderful job in helping to root out terrorism
and to prevent more attacks on the U.S. and all the West.
But it is it is a shame what has happened.
Of course, you know, who's there in Afghanistan is the Chinese,
mining some of those rare earth minerals there everywhere.
I tell you, well, let's let's move right along then, you know, with the new administration coming in and some of the things that we've heard from that,
from, you know, from President Trump and and some other spokesman about, you know, what they're going to do about China.
What what do you think is going to happen with them next?
China is without question the number one priority for Trump's national security team.
You know, it's such an interesting situation where we have a man who was present before is coming back in again.
But the team he's bringing with him is pretty different from the cabinet selections of his first administration.
And one thing that happened in that time period was that Capitol Hill and really, I'd say the Washington policy community in general,
you know, there are no illusions now about China.
We are in a in a long struggle with them to make sure that we can maintain our American prosperity, our alliances and friendships.
And I expect to see President Trump use use everything we've got.
That's going to include trade, export controls, tariffs, a lot of bargaining and posturing back and forth.
And of course, continuing to build up our military, you know, the biggest difference in a way between when Trump left office
and when he comes back, you know, and this the changes that he's going to see in his national security briefings is the China-Russia alliance.
You know, this was formed in February 2022, right after the Winter Olympics and right before the invasion of Ukraine.
And while China and Russia don't really love each other, they are very close partners now.
And Russia is really quite dependent on China's economic support.
You know, we know China has supported Russia's war in Ukraine.
And China has just, you know, gotten to this point where Xi Jinping, the president, who is now the president for life, you know, he doesn't have to leave that job.
We know he wants to reunify Taiwan with China.
And he's told his military to be ready to do that by 2027.
And that's something that our U.S. forces have taken very, very seriously, Navy, Air Force, all planning to be able to try to make sure that China can't overwhelm Taiwan by coercion or military force in that time period.
But it is turning into quite a deterrence battle, if you will, out there in the Pacific.
And, you know, the threat of China is just going to be a top priority.
You know, I think Trump, while very aware of the national security and military piece of this, I think he is really going to try hard to make the deals he wants to see to reshore some U.S. manufacturing and try to keep America economically strong and not to let any more of our industries be lost to Chinese undercutting and mercantilism.
Well, one can only hope so.
And I'm hoping that President Trump will continue to support Taiwan.
Yes. You know, it's one thing President Biden was quite a strong supporter of Taiwan.
We all remember cases where he'd come out and support Taiwan and the White House would issue a milder statement afterwards.
But there's no question that President Biden was strong on that.
He had been, in fact, in the Senate when the Taiwan Relations Act was written back in the late 1970s.
And this was time when we were recognizing the People's Republic of China, what we now call China, but he was real firm about defending Taiwan.
The thing is, Taiwan is incredibly important to the global high tech economy, the high quality chips that are manufactured there.
We are seeing, you know, that very company, TSMC, just opened what they call a fab, a chip fabricating facility down in Arizona, making some very advanced chips.
But a lot of the worldwide production is on Taiwan.
And, you know, on an everyday basis, of course, Taiwan does a lot of business with China.
They do a lot of business with the rest of the world.
But we just can't have a situation where the Communist China comes in and takes over all of that resource and controls that, you know, even apart from the fact that Taiwan is, you know, a nation of 25 million people, really a sovereign nation in its own right.
We just can't have that change in the high tech sphere.
So I think we'll see a pretty robust defense of Taiwan.
A lot of this, of course, falls on the Navy and on the Air Force.
And as I look through their systems and plans, you can see that they are definitely planning to make sure that China can't control the Western Pacific.
Well, I guess that's another question we can see is that our military probably needs to bulk up a little bit.
Yes, because as many people now know, China's Navy is bigger than the United States Navy.
And then add on top of that, China has a Coast Guard, but they're not like our Coast Guard.
You know, this is a different altogether.
China's Coast Guard is frequently found harassing the Philippine Navy over disputed territorial waters.
Well, there's a dispute in China's mind.
The whole West of the world believes these waters and island features belong to the Philippines.
So you've got China's Navy, the Grey Holes, you've got their Coast Guard.
And then on top of that, you have their quote unquote fishing plate.
Now they do have an enormous fishing plate that is out there, you know, eating up the world resources.
But some of those vessels serve sort of a dual function.
So just because of the number of the expansion of the Chinese Navy, that's really become an issue.
Now, a lot of their ships aren't as good as ours.
They have just launched their third aircraft carrier.
But whereas our aircraft carriers are nuclear powered and gross about 90,000 tons,
theirs are much smaller and they're conventionally powered.
But when you put three Chinese aircraft carriers out to sea like they did,
and they've actually put two out to sea this past summer,
that can still create a lot of problems when it's near China's coast.
Same with their surface ships, their equivalent of our destroyers and cruisers.
They typically don't hold as many, they don't have as heavy an armament.
But if you put them out there, they are still really devastating.
And they are working hard to build up their submarine fleet.
They have about 12 nuclear powered subs.
Six of them are also carrying nuclear weapons.
The other six are conventional weapons.
And that's much smaller than our fleet.
Their submarines are as technically advanced.
They're not as quiet, but there are increasingly a lot of them.
And so that battle for control of the sea lanes, keeping the commerce routes open,
and for us doing it at such an extended range,
I mean, that's something we really have to be careful about.
You know, one thing the Navy is doing is starting to really use unmanned vehicles,
both underwater and surface vehicles.
They've picked up a lot of lessons from Ukraine and the Black Sea,
and ways to apply new technology.
But a lot of it is we just have to build more ships.
And I think this is going to be a priority for President Trump.
He's talked about improving Navy shipbuilding.
And that's something I'd really like to see.
Wow, we certainly hope so.
I mean, there's a lot of psychological game playing out there,
especially for these smaller countries, not just Taiwan, but the Philippines.
But I would also think Japan probably has to keep their eye out on China as well.
Oh, Japan is our close, close, close partner.
They have a tremendous military.
They, in fact, recently launched their own.
They don't really call it an aircraft carrier, but it's like one of our amphibious ships.
It's a helicopter carrier that also can fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,
which they operate.
It's interesting when this Japanese ship is named the Kaga.
And for you history buffs in the audience, you'll remember that there was a World War II Japanese ship of that name,
the Kaga, that was sunk at the Battle of Midway.
Anyway, the new Kaga is on our side, along with their very capable Aegis destroyers.
And for example, Japan and the U.S. have collaborated on a missile program.
Boring name called Standard Missile 3, but it's a really cool interceptor that hits ballistic missiles in the midcourse of their flight.
And that's up above the atmosphere in space.
It's called Exoatmospheric Hit to Kill Intercept.
And Japan and the U.S. have developed both Standard Missile Block 1B and Standard Missile Block 2A that are optimized for use against ballistic missiles.
Our Navy had a chance to test that out in countering Iran's attacks on Israel and used a number of SM-31Bs and some other standard missile types in knocking down Iranian ballistic missiles.
First, combat use of that took place this past year.
So we're really counting on Japan as a key missile defense partner.
They have a superb air force, a really strong Navy.
And then of course, another achievement from the Biden years is the trilateral agreement between Japan and South Korea, who had a lot of issues between them.
But they took one look at the threats from China and North Korea and said, OK, we need to be in an alliance.
And that's now the trilateral U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance based, of course, around our powerful military presence with both those allies.
Right.
Wow.
You're listening to Veterans Radio, by the way, and we're talking with our good friend Dr. Rebecca Grant, who is the vice president now at the Lexington Institute.
You know, we talked about I'm going to move back across the world a little bit because, you know, we haven't even mentioned Ukraine in your notes that you sent me this morning.
You know, you were talking about Putin is now, you know, dependent on China, but he's also still involved in the Ukraine along with some North Korean troops.
Yes, North Korea sent 12,000 troops into Ukraine.
The reports we have is that they are fighting in the Kursk region.
And this is where Ukraine actually conducted an offensive operation into Russia and took some Russian territory using some interesting tactics to work around the heavy electronic warfare battlefield.
They still occupy this territory.
And Russia has apparently put these really untrained North Korean troops into the line.
I have heard casualty estimates getting up into the realm of about 2000.
But who would have thought we would see North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia on the territory of Ukraine?
And this the Ukraine war, of course, President-elect Trump has said this is a top priority.
He talked a lot in the campaign about ending the war.
But you know, the problem is, I think, as he's seeing, as he's looking at these briefings is, you know, Vladimir Putin of 2025 is not the Vladimir Putin that President Trump knew in his first term.
This is a wartime leader, beleaguered, you know, failed to take over Kiev, but has managed to entrench himself in this 800 mile front in Ukraine and wants to keep fighting.
You know, the intelligence sources tell us that Putin really thought he could go in and take Kiev and perhaps move on to the Balkans.
There's no question, but that Putin has become a massive threat to European security.
And then very dangerous in his dealings with North Korea, you know, North Korea sending troops.
So what is North Korea getting in return?
Well, you know, the worst case is that they're getting help with their nuclear weapons and missile and submarine development from the Russians who have that kind of know how.
Right. He mentioned also that I'm sorry to interrupt that the North Koreans now have intercontinental ballistic missiles that have the ability to reach Western, the Western United States.
Yes. That's another huge change.
If you remember back in Trump's first administration, he spent a lot of time talking to North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
They met a few times.
I think Trump was really trying to lure Kim into taking a different path.
And, you know, it sort of worked for a little while.
There were rapprochements with South Korea.
I think the hope was Kim would realize he could do better as a real estate developer and give all this up.
Well, sadly, all that is out the window.
The open relations with South Korea, the openings have ended.
And during this time, you know, four or five years ago, I would confidently say, look, North Korea has a long way to go.
Kim Jong-un actually shut down testing of ballistic missiles for over a year back in Trump one.
But that's all over.
And recently they have conducted multiple tests of a missile called the Hwasong-17.
This is a missile that does have the range to reach the Western United States.
It's not the most sophisticated missile.
It's liquid-fueled, which means it takes a lot of time to prepare it to launch.
That's good because we would have a lot of warning.
But the unfortunate thing is that it has successfully launched a couple of times in a test scenario.
And the missile is thought to be big enough to carry a nuclear warhead and actually to carry multiple nuclear warheads.
So this is just where we didn't want to see them going.
They've really improved their small nuclear deterrent in the last few years.
Now, remember, we do have missile defenses on the West Coast that were built for this very scenario with the interceptors in Alaska,
Fort Greely, and then the also interceptors at Vandenberg in California.
A lot going on, as usual.
Now, some of these new cabinet members that are going to be coming in want to shake things up.
And the new secretary or designated secretary of defense, Pete Higgs, wants to shake up the military.
But he also has to figure out how to run the Pentagon.
And that's a huge bureaucracy to get through.
Yes, Pete Higgs, who looks to be on track for confirmation, probably be a pretty close vote,
but everyone thinks he will be confirmed.
And this may happen as soon as tomorrow, but it may also take a couple of days.
They like to try to get the secretary of defense confirmed as quickly as possible because of that nuclear command and control chain.
Anyway, he was an unconventional choice because he served in the Army, but he has been a Fox News host for the past 10 years.
And so he brought a really different resume to that job.
You know, secretary defense is a very difficult job.
You know, the outgoing secretary Lloyd Austin was a four star Army general.
Prior to that, we've had officials like Dr. Ash Carter, who sadly has passed away, who was a physicist.
We've seen industry executives.
Pete Higgs was none of those things, but he has been appointed, selected by Trump in order to shake up the military, to return the focus to the warfighter.
I think all things that we generally agree with, you know, I think the difficulty people see is that he also has to run the Pentagon.
And this is a budget in the high $800 billion for next year with a lot of very advanced programs.
And frankly, it's just a job that's difficult for anyone.
So I think all eyes are on, you know, will he be able to not just inspire the troops?
I mean, he's actually talked about, you know, people kind of like this, but he's talked about wanting to do pushups every day at the Pentagon.
And I bet he can do a whole bunch of pushups.
I can do a couple myself, but I bet he can do do plenty.
But, you know, he'll have to make some big choices about where to invest.
Is he going to pour more money into Navy shipbuilding?
Will he green light the Air Force's next generation fighter?
What about the rising health care costs that are so important to service members and veterans, and yet are now such a big part of the DOD budget?
I mean, this is a heck of a job.
Selected to be his deputy is a man who is a venture capitalist.
So again, a very different resume, but someone who comes from the business world and is able to make decisions.
He said that his confirmation hearing this past week, along with several others, he, I think he got through it, but he had a lot of fireworks because he had previously opposed women in combat.
As you know, the Senate Armed Services Committee has two senators who are women and veterans.
Tammy Duckworth, who was a helicopter pilot and Joni Ernst of Iowa, who was an army as well.
So there were a lot of fireworks on that and some other topics.
I think he said he is he is wants to be the secretary for everyone.
An interesting fact, he the Secretary of Defense has a three star military assistant.
And right now the person serving that role is Air Force Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, who is herself a combat veteran and an A-10 pilot.
So interesting times ahead of the Pentagon.
It's going to be interesting times for the next four years anyway.
I think it's going to be very interesting as we move along.
I'm going to run out of time here.
I already know that because I wanted I was only going to keep you for a couple of more minutes.
We're talking with Dr. Rebecca Grant about, you know, what we can look forward to starting tomorrow.
And one of the things I wanted to get you to mention was the idea of what what do you think is going to happen on the southern border?
Here we go.
I tell you this, it is a top top priority for the Trump administration.
They are working their budget package to be able to do something right away.
Not clear how that's going to look, but I think one thing we will see for sure is a tightening up of that border.
That's going to be done partly through diplomacy with Mexico, saying, hey, let's get back to remain in Mexico.
I think we'll see a return to the border wall and more careful screening.
We've seen enough worrisome foreign nationals come across that border to the point where the Trump administration is going to treat the southern border as a top national security priority.
And they're going to want to shut down not just the flow of the legal immigrants, but the flow of suspicious Chinese nationals, Russians, and others who may be a threat to national security.
Oh, well, you know, it's it's it's always such a pleasure to talk to you and talk to Grant.
And it's a great thing.
Our audience looks forward to hearing really what's going on in the world because we don't, you know, a lot of times we don't get the facts.
And I appreciate talking to you because I always feel like I'm getting the true nitty gritty of what's actually going on in the world.
Well, in America's options are all due to the fact that we have the best men and women in our armed forces serving and giving the incoming administration the options to try to clean some things up and to secure America's place in the world.
So thank you to all our service members and veterans.
Well, thank you very much.
Dr. Rebecca Grant.
Hopefully, I'll have you back on in a couple of months to see what's been going on.
All right.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you, Dr. Grant.
All right.
That's Dr. Rebecca Grant.
She is now the vice president of the Lexington Institute.
She'll look it up Lexington Institute.
It's very interesting.
I have not been not familiar with that organization.
All right.
We're going to take a break real quick for our Medal of Honor segment.
And when we come back, Jim Fauston is going to be talking with two of the franchisees for the pure clean company.
So we're going to go straight to there and then I'll come in after that interview.
So you're listening to Veterans Radio.
We will be back live in about 10 minutes.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in combat given a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There have been over 3,400 recipients of the nation's highest award.
This is one of them.
Sergeant First Class Stanley Adams led a 13-man charge against the North Korean force of 150.
Details after this.
If you have a VA claim denied by the Board of Veterans Appeals,
contact Legal Help for Veterans at 1-800-693-4800.
They're experts in handling cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.
Their number again, 1-800-693-4800.
Adams's platoon, holding an outpost some 200 yards ahead of his company,
came under a determined attack by an estimated 250 enemy troops.
In 10 small arms, machine gun and mortar fire from three sides pressed the platoon back against the main line of resistance.
Observing approximately 150 hostile troops silhouetted against the skyline advancing against his platoon,
Adams leaped to his feet, urged his men to fix bayonets,
and with 13 members of his platoon charged the hostile force.
Within 50 yards of the enemy, Adams was knocked to the ground when pierced in the leg by an enemy bullet.
He jumped to his feet and, ignoring his wound, continued on to close with the enemy
when he was knocked down four times from the concussion of grenades which had bounced off his body.
Shouting orders, he charged enemy positions and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat
where man after man fell before his terrific onslaught with bayonet and rifle blood.
After nearly an hour of vicious action, Adams and his comrades routed the fanatical foe,
killing over 50 and forcing the remainder to withdraw.
Upon receiving orders that his battalion was moving back, he provided cover fire while his men withdrew.
Adams so inspired his comrades that the enemy attack was completely thwarted, saving his battalion from possible disaster.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
Military veterans touch everyone's life.
I'm guessing right now you're thinking of a veteran, a close friend, relative, maybe it's you.
Even the toughest of us sometimes need help but don't know where to turn for support.
You don't need special training to help a veteran in your life.
Even small actions can make a world of difference.
If you know a veteran in crisis, please call the Veterans Crisis Line 800-273-8255.
800-273-8255.
A message from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
This is Veterans Radio spotlight on PuroClean.
PuroClean franchises PuroClean's a leader in property emergency services, helping families and business overcome the devastating setbacks
caused by water, fire, mold, tornadoes, all kinds of problems.
We'll be talking about that.
It's independently owned franchises that do this work and respond in their community.
PuroClean is known as the paramedics of property damage, providing this remediation and restoration services for all sorts of commercial and residential customers.
PuroClean.com is where you can check them out some more.
But today we have with us George Hernandez, Army veteran, who's Senior Vice President of Operations at PuroClean.
George, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you so much. Appreciate you the opportunity to talk to some fellow veterans.
Well, and you brought along with you UL Armstrong, a 33-year Army officer, Colonel I think it is, retired, who also owns a couple of franchises down in Texas.
UL, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Hey, thank you. Great to be here.
Enjoying the weather down here and appreciate the opportunity.
Well, every location in the country has different sorts of calamities that strike.
So maybe there are tornadoes down in Texas.
Maybe it's snow melt up here in the northern states.
But George, why don't you start? Tell us a little bit about what PuroClean does, what its franchises do.
Absolutely.
So our main focus is restoration of property damage, right?
So unfortunately, bad things happen.
And we always say, you know, a person's own or a person's business is typically their biggest asset.
So just like an ambulance will respond to somebody in their time of crisis for their health, we respond to a crisis of their property,
whether it's fire, water, mold, biohazard, and events happen throughout the year, throughout the country.
There's always something going on that's affecting people's property.
And that's what we thrive on.
We thrive on helping customers get back to a little bit of normalcy through relentless customer service,
because we understand they're going through a very difficult time at the moment.
Well, can you expand a little bit about what Visically has done on projects?
You have two franchises, locations down there in Texas.
But help us understand how you help the community and the customers kind of boots on the ground.
Well, I think it starts with, again, you know, my background course in the military, it's about self-service and making the impact is,
I mean, it's important, and that's what you're essentially doing. You're making an impact through continued service.
And being able to do that and make a difference in people's lives, you know, it's just, it's, you know, it's over the top.
And it's really important that you see it as that.
And being in the military, we know more than anything about, again, providing that service and there's a lot of sacrifice.
And at the end of the day, you're coming in someone's, you're coming when someone is most vulnerable through a circumstance,
whether it's a water loss or, you know, in my case, I do a lot of mold remediation, or if it's a trauma-themed cleanup,
you're coming in people's lives when they're very vulnerable and they're going through a significant event in their lives.
So it's really important that you, again, make an impact and you build that peace of mind.
I like to tell my team and others, we build peace of mind.
Again, it's about relentless customer service, but it's about giving that client, not just a customer,
and that's the beauty of what, you know, I do and what Pure Clean does is we treat those people that are going through this problem as clients
and helping them through, you know, this tragedy or circumstance and building that peace of mind.
And that's, in my opinion, is crucial.
George, you've been in the industry a long time in the franchise industry, and why is franchising,
if you're a veteran and you want to be a business owner, why should you look at franchising and why should you look at Pure Clean?
Well, one of the biggest benefits to franchising is the support you receive when you're opening a business.
Like, opening a business is difficult, right?
There's so many unknowns.
There's so many different tasks and, and compliances and just things that a business owner has to get through.
And when you don't have that support from a franchise network, then you're out there kind of on an island by yourself, right?
In the military, I always reverted back to that, you know, we were great as a team, right?
Very rarely do you have individuals out there just by themselves as a team and the support that we give you as a franchise system.
It sets you up for success because we're guiding you to the process of being an independently owned and operated franchise.
However, you have a network of fellow franchise owners, support staff, and, and just individuals that have been doing this for a very long time,
helping you guide through the way.
And as we kind of drill down on this, you spent 33 years in the Army, retired as a colonel, and somewhere along the line at the end of that 33 years,
you're thinking, I want to go do something, what am I going to do in my next chapter?
How did you zero in on, I want to be a business owner and I want to be in franchising?
Well, I think the biggest thing with me again after, you know, my short career in the military, one of the things that's obvious is I like the structure.
Thriving with structure is very important and, you know, pure clean and really the franchising it offers a lot of that organizational structure that George Shwell only spoke out on.
It's just, it's very important not just to reinvent the wheel.
You're working with individuals that have, are there to assist you as you work your way into this adventure of owning a franchise.
You know, you're working with other veterans.
You know, George, again, he's a vet.
He owned a franchise and, you know, someone such as him with a lot of valuable advice and a lot of valuable experience, you know, provides that to owners such as myself and help.
And that's what this pure clean is all about.
It's helping not only clients, but it's also helping other veterans that are owners and helping the other owners.
So it's a learning organization and that's valuable.
Can't even put it in words to what that meant to me and that positive environment.
That was one of my non-negotiable, as I was coming off active duty, being in an organization that not only had that structure, but also that leadership buy-in.
When you've got, when you've got owner or CEOs that are there to ensure that their staff helped you guide you through the ownership process or owning a franchise and then working your way to be successful.
That's really important.
And, you know, there's some other non-negotiables, but those were the highlights of what led me to pure clean.
And as we close out this first segment, George, talk a little bit about pure cleans commitment to veterans in its program.
So, so a pure clean, it starts from the very top.
Our owners and are actually our president and CEO Steve White is also a veteran.
He was an army captain.
So the relationship that we have with our veteran community is very strong.
We value the fact that veterans, you know, when they come out of the service, they have that structure.
They have that, that discipline.
But what's similar in, you know, especially in, you know, combat arms is that controlled chaos.
And that's a lot of what we deal with.
We have a program.
It's called PureVet.
And what we do is we help veterans transition from the military world into the civilian world, but also maintaining a level of structure and a level of, hey, this industry, you will not be bored.
You will not be in a monotonous job because it is different every day.
Different situations present themselves, different opportunities to help people.
And it's being able to transition for that. And with PureVet, we offer them a discount on the franchise fee.
And we also help guide them through this process of transitioning over.
That's a great point of how to help veterans transition.
And direct people to pureoclean.com and look for the PureVet program. You'll get more information.
Okay, that was Jim Falzone talking with a couple of franchisees for PureOclean.
And I think it's a great opportunity.
And it's something that we wanted to talk about here on Veterans Radio is how we can help these veterans transition from their active duty, you know, to the civilian world and finding another career.
Because, you know, you've been in the service for 30 years and you started out when you're 17.
You know, you're only 47 years old.
And you got a lot of times, things to do.
So anyway, I want to thank Jim for putting that interview together.
And I want to thank PureOclean for being a sponsor here on Veterans Radio.
A couple of things that I wanted to mention. I'm not sure how much time I have left, but I wanted to kind of fill in with some of the things that we talked about.
Some of the things that we talked with Dr. Grant.
Now, I would encourage you, if you're just tuning in, at the first half of the program, we had Dr. Rebecca Grant on talking about what's going on in the world in Middle East and China and Russia and so on and so forth.
And we didn't get to cover a couple of topics.
One thing that I thought was really interesting is that the Air Force has a next generation fighter coming up and the B-21 Raider bomber will work along with drones.
It's this science fiction or what that's going on out there.
So, you know, I would suggest that you look up Dr. Rebecca Grant.
I know that she has a newsletter that she sends out and sign up for that and find out more information about really what's going on, you know, because sometimes, you know, we don't necessarily get all of the information that we all would really like to know about what's happening in the world.
And, you know, sometimes people get it wrong and sometimes there are new sources out there that don't necessarily tell us exactly what is happening.
So, again, I encourage you to go out there and listen to that.
The other thing is that I wanted to, there's a phone number that I wanted to give you, two phone numbers I wanted to give you.
In our Medal of Honor segment, as you know, each year, each week, we run a different Medal of Honor segment.
And the little message that we got today was one from the VA and it gave out an actual phone number for the suicide prevention line.
But that number, while it's still available, has been simplified.
And so anybody who's in a suicide or mental health crisis can just dial 988.
It's 988.
And that will give you prompts to help you out.
And so, you know, we encourage anybody out there who's especially veterans, but anybody who is in a mental health crisis to give that number a call.
That's 988.
The other number I wanted to give you, especially for the Michigan market, is there's a VA emergency health for homeless bets number that we've talked about in the past.
But I think especially with this weather that's coming our way and probably around the rest of the world, too, is there's a number that you can call.
And I'm going to give it to you right now.
It's 877-424-3838.
877-424-3838.
And this goes directly to the VA, the local hospital in your particular area here, especially in Michigan.
You may have to look somewhere, you know, look online to see if the number is different in your state.
But you don't have to be a veteran to call this line.
This line is for emergencies if you know a veteran that is in a homeless situation that you can help them out.
Because the VA will then go out and try to find this veteran and, you know, at least provide them shelter in the short term.
So I encourage you to check out that number.
It's the VA emergency health for homeless bets.
And, you know, tomorrow it's going to be, I don't know, what, zero or less, especially the windshield in our area.
And I know it's going to be like that across the northern part of the country.
So make sure that you can help those people.
So we've got a minute to go until we're going to be playing our God Bless America.
And you know that this is my personal choice.
I play this particular version because I just love this song.
And it shows how much power that we have as a country, how hopeful we are as a country.
And I'm wishing incoming President Trump the best four years that we can have.
And I'm hoping that the things that he tries to do, I hope they work best for all of us.
And I think that's one of the concerns that people have, but don't, you know, he's elected president.
He's ours.
And we're hoping that he will keep an eye out for all of us here across the country.
So for all of us here at Veterans Radio until next week, this is Dale Throneberry.
I'm going to say that you are dismissed.
God Bless America, Land that I love, Stand beside her and guide her.
Through the night with a light from above, From the mountains to the prairies, To the oceans, White with foam.
God Bless America, My home sweet home.
God Bless America, Land that I love, Stand beside her and guide her.
Through the night with a light from above, From the mountains to the prairies, To the oceans, White with foam.
God Bless America, My home sweet home.