Nick Palmisciano is a United States Military Academy graduate of West Point and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business MBA Program. He served six years as an infantry officer before moving into the business world, creating the successful marketing firm Diesel Jack Media, and Ranger Up, which grew to prominence as the first military lifestyle brand. He is the co-author of Tim Kennedy's Book - Scars and Stripes, and the creator of the new series Office Joe. Austin Von Letkemann, known as “MandatoryFunDay,” 1st Lt. is currently a platoon leader assigned to Alpha Company, 303rd Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Battalion, 504th Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade. Von Letkemann creatively uses his free time to make parody videos that apprise the humor of day-to-day military operations, while simultaneously connecting civilians to the everyday life of a service member. Watch Office Joe Here: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Office-Joe/0Q7Q14CQ5IGEU91Z3M4OU6Z7B2
Chapter 1: What are the guests' backgrounds?
Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Holy cow, we have found ourself at the end of 2024 somehow. I am super fired up for 2025. There are some really cool things on the horizon personally and professionally. I'm going to talk about them as I am sure that they are going to happen. My theory is to under-promise and over-deliver.
And sometimes I feel like if you talk about them early, you jinx it a little bit. But I digress. Let's get into what makes this podcast possible. It's Black Rifle Coffee. I just went over their website right now. It says free shipping on orders of $30 or more, but the reality is this.
This comes out the Monday before Christmas, and you probably have missed your opportunity to get somebody a gift to get it to your house on time. If that's the case, they have some cards right down here on the left-hand side. Or what my suggestion would be is this is truly something last minute, but they like coffee.
You have a choice between the ECS, the exclusive coffee subscription or Evans Coffee subscription, and their traditional coffee subscription. So you could always sign somebody up, make them a cool card, and gift them the gift of coffee, which keeps on giving. And... You'll be covered. You know, not awesome that you waited too long and forgot, but we've all been there at some point in time.
And it's a really easy and cool gift to give. And if you're a coffee fan yourself, there's a bunch of sales going on on their site. So you could get some of their apparel, their gear, the samplers, the bundle, whatever it may be. You can pick and choose and... You know, people ask me all the time, what can I do to help support the podcast? There's two things.
One is you could tell somebody about it. That costs you nothing, right? Share the podcast, write me a review on any of the mediums that you might find it. That would be appreciated. But secondarily, it's support the brand or brands that helped me make this podcast possible. That's really it. Now, let's get into the episode for today. My guests today are Austin von Lechtman and Nick Palmashano.
We're going to work our way front to back on that one. Austin is probably more recognizable if you're on Instagram under the account of Mandatory Fun Day. Now, as somebody who spent nearly two decades in the military, the things, the skits, the videos that he does... about the military, they put me in stitches.
And if you weren't in the military, you may not understand him as much, but go to his page right now and smash the follow button. The dude is absolutely hilarious. Nick Palmashano, previous member of the military as well, switched into being an entrepreneur.
He is now the creator and a producer of Office Joe, which is what Austin and Nick came to actually talk about, even though we talked about a variety of things along the way. Office Joe, imagine... The Office, most people are familiar with that. And this is my description, not necessarily theirs. The Office, but with a veteran setting. That's right. It's going to be amazing.
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Chapter 2: What is 'Office Joe' about?
I have people ask me about getting into content creation a lot.
Is that what you consider yourself to be, a content creator? He does. He considers himself to be a content creator.
I'm going to say he is a content creator. He is. Let's talk about the people flocking to him at the coffee shop. All of a sudden, I'm there just trying to feed my poor wiener dog some water, and I come out, and there's multicam everywhere.
And I can tell sometimes he feels bad for me. He'll be like, hey, Nick used to be kind of famous too. And I'm like, it's okay. You don't have to do that. That is not true.
I don't need that. I don't need that. I heard brakes locking up outside as people were like, Jay turning in to come get pictures with you. Then they're asking you to send it to him. That was a covert way of that guy trying to get your phone on by the way.
And they're always surprised that he has, like, his voice really sounds like this. I know. You know, because you think it's a bit. Like, who would want to sound like this? Who would want to sound like this, though? Who would want to sound like, you know, Beaker? Who the fuck is Beaker? From the Muppets, you know, like...
Yeah, famous content creator. I'm going to give it to you. It's good. I would say 75 people ran into the store to see him.
Yes. Maybe 100.
That'll go in the third book.
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Chapter 3: How does the military influence content creation?
I'm active duty. I thought you were getting out. That's a rumor that I might have started. Okay. Do you want to continue with that rumor or? I'm not sure. Right now I, so I've achieved a level of notoriety that I'm very proud of and I don't want to just get big and like deuces. I'd like to give back a little bit. Yeah. I actually was just talking to somebody about this.
He was like, well, you've kind of like already given back. And it was nice. It was a very kind thing that that person said to me. But I want to, I'm actually going to start a new job pretty soon where I'm doing content like unofficially for the Army. And it's going to be, you know, morale.
That sounds horrible.
The way that it's structured is going to be fun. But it'll be for morale retention and recruiting.
I was going to say, is that what they told you? Yeah.
Did a recruiter tell you that? So what do you know, a captain? No, I'm a first lieutenant. I'll be a captain in the next couple months.
I get confused in the army, though.
Because a captain for you is like a four-star general, right? Fuck yeah.
He's an O2. Okay, so an O2, yeah. So you guys start second lieutenant, then first lieutenant, then captain, right? Yeah. No, it would always fuck people up. Army guys calling a Navy base. If you say captain, that's an 06. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, shit, sir. Because I would get those calls. I'm like, oh, yeah, sir. They're like, no, dude, I'm a fucking 03. I'm like, oh, sweet, me too.
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Chapter 4: What challenges do veterans face after service?
The cool thing is I'll be. As the envy, the O4 envy starts setting in.
Well, if you take away the social media aspect of it or the notoriety, just in the military structure, the higher you go in rank, the more influence you have. Not that I would necessarily agree with that argument, but I could land at a place where I see where they're coming from.
I could see them not wanting him to be a commander making this kind of comedy. What do you do in the Army? What is your job?
I'm an MI officer. I'm a platoon leader right now.
What is an MI officer?
Military intelligence officer.
Okay. All right.
I think he's asking you, what do you do?
He works in military intelligence. Heard cats right now. I don't do any MI as a platoon leader, really. It's just managing guys. Yeah. I don't know if that's going to get any better as you go up.
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Chapter 5: How does humor help in the military community?
Chapter 6: What are the themes of the show 'Office Joe'?
I am excited, though. My next gig should give me the opportunity to use this talent to do something. This incredible talent.
I'm going to give it to him. He is talented. No, he is. He's good. I have never met anybody. I have never met anyone that talks to themselves as well as this guy. Oh, I talk to myself so good.
As well as this guy does. Hey, the rest of the world is going to try to tear you down. I mean, I generally roll out of bed in the morning, look in the mirror, and I'm like, what's up, you piece of shit? What are you going to fuck up today?
It already makes me very uncomfortable to speak about myself positively, and Nick knows that. I'm getting red right now. But yeah, I'm excited to see, you know, what I can do. And then, yeah, but maybe at some point an opportunity comes along and I have to be like, Hey guys, I gotta go. Like, I want to take advantage of this. I don't know what that looks like, you know?
But I love wearing the uniform, and I think even through the comedy, you can see the love for the institution because I am unapologetically American, and I do believe the United States military is one of the greatest institutions on earth.
Do you know that I was the trademark holder of that phrase? Really?
Yeah. Unapologetically American? Mm-hmm. God, I'm surprised you actually trademarked that.
No way. Yeah.
You said you were. Did that leave with Ranger Up?
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Chapter 7: How do personal experiences shape content?
Okay. Has he already signed up for season two? He has signed up for season two. He's been awesome. He's been helping promote the show and all those things.
Here's the fucking move. You guys don't have- What's the move? You don't have a hair on your fucking balls unless you cast Tim Kennedy as a stolen Valor dude that gets called up. So so I had a fucking Applebee's that motherfucker rolls in there and he's in his uniform telling stories on Veterans Day trying to get a fucking free meal.
And then one of us catches some part of his story. That's not quite right.
So I mean, straight up, straight up in season one, the character Tim Kennedy plays hates Tim Kennedy.
Yeah, there's a picture of him up on the wall.
He talks a lot of shit about Tim Kennedy as Tim Kennedy.
I think he would do it. I'll pitch it to him if you need me to from a distance.
He'll 100. Oh, he would. From a distance. He would 100%. He would 100% do that. I mean, he's going to have to lean into this a little bit. I told him if I was him, I would wear a T-shirt every day that just says coalition asset, and that would be it.
Didn't he just mean that he was there as part of the U.S. coalition? I think people are taking that one too far. He's not saying he was like Jason Board moving around on the battlefield, right?
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of finding a 'tribe' for veterans?
Regardless of whether it's true or not, we all hate them because they just have it better than us.
They do. They have it a lot better. They do.
What else do you guys want to cover?
We've been at it for like two and a half hours.
What do you want to talk about? I'm game for whatever. You want to talk about life? You want to talk about politics?
Yeah.
There's not even anything to talk about politics-wise at this point. We kind of wait. I'm curious to see what kind of game they bring. They're talking a big game. I would love to see a lot of the change that they're talking about, shaking stuff up.
I would love to see a reduction of the cost that we spend on so many. Absolutely.
I don't know how much of the game that they're talking they're going to be able to do.
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