Dave Butler

you ever seen between two ferns no no well it's between four idiots you don't actually drown to shallow water blackout you don't actually drown it just feels like it we're still governed by all these laws and acquisitions did you need the convention you just told a command sergeant major to sound off i know that's pretty cool

What's up? How's everybody doing, man? It's good to see you again. The proper gentleman's in the house now. Yeah.

No pressure. And last.

I'll come back as a civilian, I guess, after this. We'll see what happens. Good. Yeah.

I dressed up.

It smells like White Claw. As you come down to the basement, you can smell it. Good. It's a sweet White Claw taste. It smells like victory. I want Cersei to know it was me.

I owe him 20 bucks for that, actually. And we had to get an ETP, I guess. This is Pentagon language. Exception to policy. It's a memo. We had to drive through the Pentagon and get it all signed.

Let's do that. We got a copy. Actually, Scott probably has it.

There it is. Can we get four?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. But I mean, honestly, the scent...

Huh? Why? It took a little explanation. I think we're hosting an event. Is that what this is? We're hosting an event that serves alcohol. We did it. Approximately 12 White Claws. I think it says 8 on the memo. 8 White Claws.

Why did I put eight? I don't know. Anyway.

It's an approximation, guys.

You got within 50%. That's right.

It's expendable. Cleaned and accounted for.

And when you leave, you have to say no brass, no ammo.

I don't know. Yeah, tell that story. But I mean, look, it's not like us helping. It's you guys are the ones creating the content. You guys are the ones getting after it. So I am disappointed that we have to help him sometimes.

Every time I go to Waffle House, I'm like, there's got to be Kid Rock somewhere.

Fat electrician right here. That's it.

I can't. On the form, it says we will not be drinking government civilians or those in uniform.

We don't know what's in your coffee cup. It's true. I do. Just trying to find ways. No, but that's good. I mean, what you guys are doing, just, you know, it's obviously not like traditional, uh, public affairs or PR or whatever, but you guys are connecting with audiences. Um, and you know, general George is, he's a big fan of yours and, and like, let's get out there and tell the story. And,

We say that stuff all the time, we just don't do it.

Well, yeah, that's probably more accurate. We're getting there, we're getting there.

You picked up the microphone for that.

Okay.

I'm honored to be in your presence. That's awesome. Congratulations. Flip it, dude.

Let's get them. There's no public affairs badge, is there? No, there's not. There might be now. Oh, like a PAO on the shoulder.

And the hair just stayed the same. 60 years before my birth.

Probably asking the wrong guy-ish. So people that really lean forward and help the Army in whatever way, in their personal capacity, they'll be recognized as an honorary Sergeant Major of the Army.

One a year, guys? Dan says one a year.

And look what you guys are doing here. I know we're all joking and stuff. This is...

Dan?

You can call them whatever you want. A civilian major. We're also, this is actually, this is first announced on Unsubscribe. We're going to have the Army Green Jacket Award every year. And same kind of concept. You know, those who help the Army, civilian side, we'll bestow them with the honorary green jacket. That's kind of cool. We'll become a club, you know. Think about it in 10, 15 years, like,

You can have a gathering of green jackets, people getting together.

Yeah. So maybe we'll get to it by Army 250. Did you guys talk about the Army birthday? Not yet. Oh, man. Just saving it for the end.

Yeah. The 250th anniversary of your United States Army, June 14th, right?

I'd like to meet that person. Is it right now?

Wow. We shouldn't do that. You're like, what was his name again? Yeah, kind of. He's gone. Let's go on to the line. I'm sure the kid wants to be on the line. Just like we all want to be on the line. I'm sure he does. I did not know that.

Oh, yeah?

He was.

Accepting the policy. Twelve white claws. And send this guy to the line.

I imagine he wants to go to the line, right? Don't you guys think? What if you got orders to the Pentagon? Very confused.

Not that it's a bad place. We do a lot of good things here, okay? Holy moly. There's a meeting on the Pentagon, all right?

Build it. Huge. That's actually a good fat electrician story. It's, what, 14 months it took to build the Pentagon? Did it really? It's a big-ass building. It's a big-ass building. 14 months or 15 months. It was a super short time. I mean, to compare that to, like, building a government building now.

I'm always like, so I'm sitting here and every time Brandon speaks, I'm like, don't respond.

Just ignore it.

Pentagon. Did you guys, did they hear about transformation in contact? No. All right, all right, come on. Let's talk about that. How are we on time? No, we're good. All right. Okay, okay. We're on your time.

Oh, the spokesman is here. So great. Okay.

The white club man is here.

Air quotes. Okay. No, transformation contact. Here's so General George knows what we do at the Pentagon, right? And so we decided... Instead of driving change from the Pentagon, right, instead of us coming up with PowerPoint slides and telling the force, telling the rest of the Army, here's how it's going to be, here's the equipment you're going to use, here's how you're going to use it.

So General George is being a line guy and, you know, what this future E4 will be doing. Yeah. We said, let's transform while this stuff is out there and get bottom-up lessons learned. So we're getting all the new equipment, some of the stuff you talked about, all new equipment, and a brigade at a time. We're sending it down. This last brigade from Germany had 200, I think, drones.

They had the new vehicles. They had the new guns. And you send it out down there, and we're like, here's some kind of loose parameters.

then tell us how it works tell us you know how you're going to use it how would you integrate in your formation how does it work tactically in maneuver space and then we take those lessons so bottom up some of these drones don't work in the cold some of these drones are really good for this but they're not good for that some of these robots are good for this but not that we take all those lessons then we put in the pentagon gonculator

And then we start to make buying decisions and organization decisions based on bottom-up lessons learned. It seems like a normal thing to do, but it's not normal in Army or Pentagon.

It's weird, right?

So we're trying to do that. Actually, we are doing that.

Thanks. Yeah. There's still the bureaucracy, to be fair. Sure. We're still governed by all these laws and acquisitions policy, and we're just banging our heads.

It's like I already have one. We take the Geneva Convention very seriously. I leaned into that. No, but the acquisition stuff. And so we're working with Congress. We're working with OSD and the bosses to try to change acquisitions process to make it faster and faster and faster. But the bottom line is General George, because he's

honestly a soldier at heart and i know i'm a spokesman i know how this sounds i believe it and people do anyway um he thinks about these guys down online and these gals down online and getting stuff to them quickly and stuff that they can use not the big fielding of stuff that we find out quickly it doesn't work and unfortunately we're locked into buying it for the next seven years we're buying stuff in short increments and just faster and faster so

That's the Pentagon acquisitions process governed by Congress. That's how it is. So we're trying to break that whole thing. And so far, we're making some progress.

Not responding. So General George is pressing to make decisions that are best from the Army. And the only thing missing from that dinner, frankly, and missing from today is our Sergeant Major in the Army, Mike Weimer, a very good friend of mine for decades. Amazing. Just an amazing dude. And he's right there with General George.

Yeah, we're trying to. We're trying to take over all of D.C., get it broadcasted over all the venues, including YouTube, and just let all of America see what the Army's all about. And really... Build some pride, not only just in the army, but like use it to talk about America and the type of people that we freaking are, right? I mean, you know, this is a good freaking country with good people.

Please wear your uniform and your hat and all this stuff. That's great.

It's in the works. It's in the works. So we're meeting with the White House on it. So they seem to be on board because, you know, to take over D.C. and that way we're going to need support from the White House. And we're talking to people. Let me see how to say this. People are talking to the production people about how to give money to get this done, sponsorships and all that stuff.

So it's coming along. I'm anxious to actually see the plan and know we're going to execute. We're not in a place where we know we're going to execute yet. We're almost there.

Nah. This is going to be the best Army birthday in any country ever. Oh, we are. I'm looking forward to it. Especially if we can get involved. You guys are involved already. Sergeant Major Herrera. Yeah, absolutely.

Vice Admiral, whatever.

Fat Electrician, yeah, yeah. I mean, admittedly, I was super pumped on it. And then the Iranian Navy episode, good stuff. And so, of course, I'm like, hey, you got to check this out, son. And anyway, so I'm not a super fan. My 15-year-old son is a 16-year-old son.

That's right. Oh, God.

Hairy armpits. Hairy armpits. Is that what you did to the people next to you on the plane? Maybe. You came in dressed up, though.

No, but when we first saw you, you had a shirt on. He made me do it. Oh, okay. We talked. Eli made me. Yeah, you're coming through security with White Claw. Put a shirt on. Something like that.

That's kind of my mantra as well. Just kidding.

No, but she asked a question. So we had dinner in Austin. That was cool.

um well so i think there is a movement in the army and i should probably say across the dod to like recognize that you guys are talking to a lot of people and a lot of people uh not just the americans that we care about but a lot of people that we care about for recruiting and for support And, um, there's, there's a need or it's dumb not to outreach. Right.

And, you know, watch a couple episodes on subscribe and, and, uh, that electrician and super excited to meet donut operator. Uh, I mean, kind of a big deal. I'd love to have named everybody at this table. Except for the Admiral.

So... Where were we? So... So anyway, we should do more of this. It's interesting, and I'm going to say this in a polite way because I think a lot of the guy, a lawyer, this was actually yesterday, that was helping us get this exception of policy signed for the white clause, the eight white clause, said, hey, it's a podcast, so I need to do a legal review.

and we got into a uh not an argument a professional discussion i was like i i i don't do legal reviews for media things like that's on you know that's up to our expertise as well like well it's a podcast so gotta do a legal review i was like no you don't so um Don't start on an autism test or that one. Well, it demonstrates an institutional thing, right?

So this guy who's got all good intentions and, you know, he's trying to protect the boss and the army. He's thinking that because it's a podcast. It's a podcast. I'll stop doing that. I love it. He felt like there was some extra measure of legal review that we had to do. And there's just simply not.

Well, there wasn't. So he was just because it was just a podcast. And I think he was thinking of it more in like an event type thing because like if any of us are going to go attend an event for a non-federal entity, there should be a legal review, right? So we're spending taxpayer dollars to go. I'm speaking in uniform. And

And there's got to be an ethics review that like these people aren't charging $200 for to see me speak. Nobody would do that. But to see General George speak or whatever. So there's got to be an ethics review for those types of things. And that's kind of how he was thinking of it, just because it wasn't, you know, the New York Times or traditional media. And that was a discussion we had. I said.

You should judge this the same as you would judge NBC or whatever. This is a media outlet, and we need to consider it that way. And so it's a new way of thinking. Not really, but we just got to drive it through the institution. You're doing an amazing job. That's what's wild.

I want to see the reaction across, you know, my community, like the folks that do this for for a profession and then across the institution, like we're proving something here, you know, something that can be done. Just like when you went to Fort Sill and I told my guys, like, let's get these guys across the army and across America, all of our installations. You're welcome there.

You know, I can speak for General George and say, you're welcome to come out and just hang out or tape a podcast or, you know, whatever. We're going to do combat diving school. We're going to do that. What do you call it?

I did.

Early in my time, I did a Discovery Channel. uh, surviving the cut. Is that what it was called? Yeah. I did an episode out in, uh, in Key West. Uh, I was, I was, uh, what a terrible assignment. It was terrible. I was a public affairs officer for the special forces school. And then I, uh, went down to Key West and, and, uh, helped, you know, facilitate that. I'm not a diver.

Uh, but that was a cool experience. Great. Cadre of dudes down there and they're literally on an island but figuratively as well just like by themselves out there super professional and Yeah, it wasn't a bad time to spend a couple weeks out there Living the dream like I wasn't diving The gamut on that you got

Well, if you're thinking about joining the Army, it's GoArmy.com. And our regular social is at U.S. Army. Thank you, Dan. And in 25 years, you could be right here.

That's where you get your start.

What he said.