Chuck Bryant

Yeah, I mean, they had flying overhead and clear view so everyone could see, you know, what was going on.

They had 20 Huey helicopters.

They had 12 Cobra gunships, B-52 bombers, tank buster F-4 Phantom fighter jets, F-111 strategic bombs.

I mean, they're pulling out all the stops.

And off the coast, they had the USS Midway, four frigates and a cruiser and aircraft taking off, flying overhead.

I mean, it was a real show of intimidation.

Yeah, those B-52s that take the intimidation even further were flying inside North Korean airspace, not too far from Pyongyang.

They were also strapped with nukes.

There were nuclear missiles in this theater now.

Not just the B-52s carrying them, but those F-111s were also carrying nuclear warheads as missiles.

So the idea is here, as part of Operation Paul Bunyan, is to trim the tree or cut the tree down now.

And to also show North Korea, like, you do not want to mess with us.

Do not ever do anything like that again.

And to be prepared that if North Korea did do something, if they were provoked by this tree cutting down, that they would just be essentially wiped off the map as a nation.

Yeah, for sure.

And, you know, the whole, after I was studying all this, right in the middle of it, I got weirdly very sad for this tree.

Yeah, I saw that tree in the middle of all of it.

I've seen other people refer to it as the poor tree.

I know, because in the middle of all this stuff, I mean, these, you know, bombers are flying overhead and these troops are amassing this heavy artillery on each side of the bridge.

And I just picture that, you know, I know I'm anthropomorphizing.