Episode 435 Stew Blackwell The Realities of War and Personal Growth Transcript

This transcript is from episode 435 with guest Stew Blackwell.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Stew Blackwell. Stew is a former Marine infantryman and the author of Savages, Infantry Culture in the Global War on Terror. I like that. Uh, Stew shares his experiences in combat, the journey of personal development, and how his military service has shaped him into the man that he is today.

Before we get into, uh, Stew and his background, uh, and, and kind of what he’s up to now, uh, Stew, I want to thank you for joining me. I’m glad to have you on the show.

Stew Blackwell: Uh, thanks a lot for the opportunity, man. It’s great to be here. It really is.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, [00:01:00] absolutely. Um, for the listeners, you’re not going to quite understand this. Stew and I right now, where we’re sitting here, it’s September 11th, um, the anniversary, the 23rd anniversary of 9 11. Um, this episode is not coming out until sometime in November, but Stew and I are here, um, you know, On this day, kind of thinking about 9 11 and both of us being GWOP veterans, you know, gotta ask, uh, you know, any kind of emotions, thoughts, feelings about the last 23 years of, uh, you know, anything that, that’s been going on and, and what, from your, your perspective and kind of where you participated and, and, um, you know, how, how do you feel about all the Stewff going on, uh, you know, surrounding this anniversary?

Stew Blackwell: Um, well, as far as as, as surrounding the anniversary, um, you know, I, I do my best to, to keep the things that I let in to my home, [00:02:00] uh, under control, uh, strict control, so I’m not nearly as plugged into the political scene as a lot of people are. Um, and that’s just a personal choice, you know? Um, I can tell you that.

You know, today does feel different, definitely. Um, and you know, everybody’s going to have, well, at least our generation anyway, we’ll, we’ll have a story about where they were the day that 9 11 happened, kind of like, you know, a few generations before us is where were you when, you know, JFK was assassinated, that kind of

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.

Stew Blackwell: Um, and you know, for me, um, I do remember that day. I was in a middle school social Stewdies class and, you We, we had a TV rolled in so we could watch the, the second plane hit the towers and being at that age, you know, you don’t, all you know is it’s something really, really bad happened. You don’t fully understand the gravity of it.

And you know, looking back on it, it’s one of those things where [00:03:00] if I’d only known how much that event was going to shape and alter the course of my life. You know, um, it would be a pretty trippy scene to have, you know, 37 year old me stand in front of, you know, that version of me and be like, Hey man, this is, this is about what’s, this is the wild ride you’re going to be taking on here over the course of the next decade and a half.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, right.

Stew Blackwell: Um, so that, that was looking back on it. That’s really what I remember about that. Um, in reflection, generally speaking, as far as everything that’s happened in between, um, I don’t want to liken it to Vietnam because it’s a very, those are two very, very, very different wars and two very different experiences, right?

There are similarities. Yes. But I do think that the gross mishandling of the war has cast a very negative light on it and it’s, When you look at the main [00:04:00] difference, it’s, I think, the perception of those of us that fought in that war versus the perception of those that fought in Vietnam. You know, they were treated much, much, much worse, infinitely worse than we were, you

Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.

Stew Blackwell: Um, And that’s not a secret. I really don’t think it’s even a matter of debate. It’s just kind of a fact, you know, uh, the social climate and the political climate was such that, you know, they had a really, really, really rough time when they got home, when a lot of them had no intent to do anything malicious at all whatsoever.

Um, and they got shafted, man, and that’s a very nice way of putting it, you know, we, on the other hand, I think that in a very, maybe in an attempt to avoid that kind of embarrassment, um, went the completely opposite end of the spectrum, right? And what I see, and this is a common theme in my book, and it was on my podcast, and [00:05:00] I do my best to make this point as much as I can.

I think that the common buzzwords that are associated with our generation of warfighter is things like PTSD, and victimhood, and a million and one different shades, but it’s all the same thing, right? Uh, which really does startle me, uh, because none of us were drafted, nobody put a gun to our head and made us do what we did, and unless I’m wrong, we don’t commute prison sentences for time served in the military anymore, right?

So, why the sympathy? I don’t get it. Um, but what that has precipitated in the veteran community is somewhat of a latch on to that, right, to the point to where it’s become a crutch for a lot of people. Um, and I do have experience with that as well, which I’m more than happy to get into. Um, and how destructive that can be, um, when you’re trying to move forward, when you’re trying [00:06:00] to move on.

Right? Um, victimhood kills much slower, but just as effectively as any weapon of war ever has, you know? Um, and, you know, the, uh, the images of the Afghans hanging off the planes and Stewff like that, and, you know, we’ve seen the comparisons between that and, and Saigon and everything, and as a, as a contractor, I went over there, actually, After I got out and I was at HKIA, um, for a little bit, not, not too far from where all that happened, you know?

And the funny thing is, is I had people ask me about it, like the day that it happened, you know, people that I was working with, coworkers knew about it before I did. They were like, Hey man, are you okay? Like, did you hear about what happened and everything? And like, they’d pull out their phone and they’d show me and I’m like, you know, like it sucked.

It’s not like, it’s not like I didn’t care, didn’t feel anything at all, but at the same time, This was not a shock. [00:07:00] Maybe the specifics of how it happened were, but the overall result, not a shock at all. And if you look at our history, going all the way back to the Korean war, this is really the first war that our politicians started to get their fingers in things that they have no business being involved in.

That’s when our, our combat record as a country started going to shit, you know, and it’s just, it’s a cycle. Right? Why we still let this happen is completely and totally beyond me. I, I just don’t understand that. Uh, definition of insanity and all that, right?

Scott DeLuzio: sure. Sure. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I get what you’re saying too. Um, you know, yeah, you don’t want to draw too many parallels between, you know, Vietnam and Afghanistan because they’re, you’re right, they are different wars, but, um, one thing that I, that I. I saw when we left all the, um, the, our allies essentially behind and even Americans, you know, American citizens who were left [00:08:00] behind in Afghanistan.

Um, it, it’s not like it was unknown that we were leaving, uh, by a particular date. Um, do the work, get these people out, um, get the equipment out, get the, you know, ship these things out. Don’t leave this Stewff behind for the enemy to, you know, Take advantage of an exploit to, you know, do whatever it is that they do with it.

Um, that, that just to me blew my mind. Uh, you know, so, um, and, and I, I fear for our country, you know, in the future, um, because we do have an appetite for war. Um, we’re probably going to be in another war at some point in the future. Um, you know, that’s, that’s the future. I’m going based off of recent history.

We’ve been in wars pretty consistently. So, you know, there’s going to be another war that comes around that we are actively involved in. And we’re going to probably be looking for the support of locals, uh, to, you know, whether it’s translation or other, uh, services that we’re, we’re looking [00:09:00] for, who the hell is going to want to help us?

You know, you know, we’re, oh, we, we promise we’ll get you out of here afterwards and we’ll, we’ll support you. And, and, and yeah, right. We didn’t do it the last time. So why are we going to trust you now? Um, and so, uh, you know, I really do feel for those people who got left behind and I think it’s terrible, um, you know, and, and some of them maybe who are even still there, who are, you know, hiding or on the run or whatever it is that they’re doing, um, you know, that, that’s just.

Blows my mind, but, um, you know, but it’s, it’s hard. Um, you know, thinking back, we kind of got a little off topic there, but, you know, thinking back to nine 11, um, you know, you were a little bit younger than I am, but, um, you know, we, We all have those stories of thinking back to, uh, you know, where we were and not realizing just how big of an impact that was going to have on our lives.

Um, you know, [00:10:00] not just the career path that we chose, um, but after the fact, after you take the uniform off, how does that still affect you? I mean, today I was watching a video of This woman who was just kind of like right on the edge of where one of the planes hit. Um, she was just like dangling out a window, waving, trying to get help. And, uh, fuck it, I’m man enough to admit, I, I started crying. I’d never seen the video before. And I was like, could you imagine being that lady? Just waving all, all those stories up. No stares. You can’t get out of there. You know, she’s Stewck. No way out. Could you imagine

Stew Blackwell: No, no, I can’t, man. Um, and that’s what, that’s the, the little extra sting that, that kind of comes with it. You know, it’s the, the brutality of something so unexpected. You know, so, um, they, they definitely accomplished what they set out to. I’ll give them that, [00:11:00] you know, um, don’t think they really wanted the response they got initially in the first couple of years.

We will definitely be proud of that. Um, the, the thing that worries me, um, is what happens when that wears off because it inevitably will, right. And we see somewhat of a similar thing. that happened, you know, in the wake of Pearl Harbor after we won World War II. The difference is that we won that war decisively.

We lost this one, right? And if people can’t come to terms with that, well, that’s, that’s their problem, I guess. You know, um, we haven’t decisively won a war since World War II, excluding the Gulf, of course, right? Um, which is not something that the leading world superpower should have to say, right? Um, but, you know.

As we do look back on it and as we do reflect on it, um, it’s also important to kind of look at the positives [00:12:00] that did come from it. And that’s again, that’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book that I did. And I made sure to highlight those things too. You know, I was, I was raised in a very, um, a very conservative home, you know, and my parents made sure to instill a pride in our country and what it stands for into myself and my brother and my sister and everything.

And, but along with that kind of came this, this view that war is like taboo, that there’s nothing good that comes out at all. It’s just all pure destruction and chaos and there’s nothing positive. And my experience was not as such. Um, it was not. There is critical development that comes from that type of experience.

And you can find very few other places in life that will offer something similar, but nothing will be quite the same. Period. You know, and it, it seems like something [00:13:00] so simple, but in an age where we have 6 billion Call of Duty games and, you know, war movies, or, you know, at least for a time they popped out like candy from a fucking PEZ dispenser, like, it can be very easy for us as a country to just look at that as, you know, It’s just another thing.

Instead of realizing those things about it, you know? Um,

Scott DeLuzio: and I, I think we’ve, we’ve gotten fairly desensitized to it as well. Um, go and look back to, you know, the Vietnam era where that was, that was like one of the first times that. You’re getting live footage from the, the battlefield or, you know, that area. And then I remember as a kid growing up that, you know, during the Gulf war, you see the little green streaks going across the stream.

Cause I had the night vision and they’re, they’re showing the, you know, whatever it was, whatever the weapons were, were being fired. And, um, it’s like, you’re, you’re watching a war. You’re you’re, the camera is in the war zone and you’re watching what’s going on there. This isn’t a training exercise on some.[00:14:00]

Some, you know, military outpost in, in, uh, you know, the States or anything like that, it’s, it’s real thing. Um, and then, like you said, all these, these video games and movies and everything, we, you know, you watch a movie like Saving Private Ryan, which is probably as, as real as it gets for, you know, that, that type of thing, uh, you know, for, as far as a movie goes, um, And people just watch it.

Like, oh, it’s just another thing, you know, you kinda get desensitized to it. Um, and then people go off and they actually do it, and they actually experience it and, and holy shit, it’s 10 times worse than, than that, you know, , um, you know, it, it’s, it’s realized. It’s not like, oh, the, just these actors that we can forget about after the, the movie’s over.

You know,

Stew Blackwell: yeah. The other side of that coin though, I think is, is, is parenting, you know, and it’s how we prepare the next generation who’s inevitably going to take things over, you know? And that’s a big piece of it too. Um, you know, and another reason that, [00:15:00] To write something about it, right? Like there’s going to be kids that are going to contemplate, you know, whether or not they want to sign the contract with Uncle Sam.

And hopefully one of them will pick this thing up and be like, I want to know what I’m really getting into here. Not what my recruiter’s telling me, not what I’ve seen on TV. Like, well, somebody just please fucking be honest with me, you know? So

Scott DeLuzio: that would be it. Yeah.

Stew Blackwell: you know,

Scott DeLuzio: Well, tell us about the book. You mentioned it a couple of times. Uh, and again, the title of the book for the listeners, Savages, Infantry, Culture in the Global War on Terror. Uh, again, I do like that title. I like savages right off, right off the bat. Um, and then savages and infantry right together.

I like it. I was infantry as well. So I get it.

Stew Blackwell: So,

Scott DeLuzio: Um, Yeah. Tell us about it.

Stew Blackwell: it’s, I didn’t want to do the same thing that everybody else did, right? Whether or not that was going to be a success or a failure, I had no idea, but I knew that one day when I finished this thing, [00:16:00] uh, that was going to be it. I was going to have to move on. I was going to have to put it out there and there’s no take backs, right?

Um, so I chose the title that I did because the book does, it’s not a traditional. Memoir or a combat story, you know, much of which that I have read. Um, there’s people that, that really nailed that, um, a whole lot better than I think that I ever could, you know, so I’ll, I’ll leave that to them. I’ll leave that to the pros, right?

Uh, guys like David Hackworth and, you know, um, men like that, that wrote really good Stewff. Uh, Savage’s though, what it does is it highlights the experiences that I had, um, More focusing on the intangible qualities that animate the infantry and the key leaders that I had that altered my trajectory as a man. So the self development that took place, the examples that [00:17:00] I had and those qualities, right? Because if you think about it, like, that’s what a culture is. It is based off of Those types of values, you have core values that drive the way that people interact, the things that they do, what they prioritize, how they talk, everything, right?

It all comes down to those core values, right? And what I found was, is as I, as I wrote through this, that was very different than the traditional perception that I was raised with, first and foremost, but on the back end of it all. I kind of noticed it was very different than what a lot of my co workers and a lot of people that had never served thought as well, you know, and that’s not necessarily like a point, point my finger like, ah, you’re wrong type thing.

Like, no, that’s not the point of it at all. The point is to offer an alternate perspective that should help shape our [00:18:00] legacy into who we really were, right? Not in comparison to. One generation or another to say that we’re better than anybody or worse than anybody. That’s not it either, right? This is a brief snapshot of what I observed, what I learned and how it shaped me as a man, right?

And this is how I think we should be remembered. That’s how I’m going to remember it. And that’s what I’m going to pass on to my two sons, right? And if we, if we’re not honest about that, then we risk repeating the same mistakes over and over and over and over again,

Scott DeLuzio: That’s right.

Stew Blackwell: that’s the basic premise of it.

Um, and you know, I, I run through bootcamp and SOI pretty quickly, right? Because it’s a very common experience, you know? So instead of going day by day by day and putting a lot of painstaking detail in that, what I did was I extracted these kinds of lessons that I learned about, okay, yes, we’re marching rank and file, or yes, we’re hiking [00:19:00] here, we’re doing a lot of this, we’re doing a lot of that, but what does it all really mean?

What’s actually going on in here? What’s going on in here? How is this shaping my perception of everything versus what I was raised with, right? And then also you have the conflict of what’s being shown on TV. What are politicians and service heads saying, you know, how do we perceive the American people to see us, right?

And how does that contrast with reality, you know, um, based off my experience as well. So then there will be conflicting experiences, you know, and that’s a good thing about this too. Right? Um, I, I don’t really have too much love for the non combat MOSs in here. Um, but if someone that has a non combat MOS reads this book and like, man, Stew, you’re an asshole.

Like the challenge is, okay, man, like that’s great, but write yours now, write yours, tell me how I’m wrong. And let’s have a conversation about it and let’s, let’s do podcasts about that. Right? [00:20:00] And let’s, let’s get that out there too. Now we have. All these technological advancements that no other generation before has had.

And instead of wasting that on Roblox and funny cat fails and shit, why don’t we actually put it to use the way that it was intended to be for our education and for our development, right?

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. And I think you touched on a couple of good points there, really good points. Um, I’ve had other authors on the show who, who have written about their military experiences, their combat experiences and things that they’ve done, uh, in the military. And I always want to encourage people to write something up.

About put maybe not right, right. Is maybe the wrong verb to use there, but put your story out there, whether it’s in a written form of verbal form, like through a podcast or record a video of yourself or whatever the format is actually the library of [00:21:00] Congress, and I forget the name of the program, they have a program where they actually will accept.

Submissions from, uh, from veterans who tell their story so that they can put them on file for people, future generations to be able to go back and, and check it out, do that if you want, you know, whatever it is, or get a journal and just start writing, do something, put it out there. Reason why is because we learn a lot.

From these types of stories. And if you think back to the world war two generation or even any, any generation prior to, let’s say, uh, you know, maybe Vietnam or so, um, all the, all those stories, they may have been told. Verbally to family members, friends, colleagues, people like that. Um, on occasion, some of them may have been published or made into a story if they were particularly heroic or, you know, interesting and things like that.

And those stories get put out there and they, those have [00:22:00] their purpose for sure. Um, what about the private in the foxhole who is scared shitless, pissed his pants. Um, the first time a bullet whizzed over his head and. All, all we could think about was getting home to the comforts of home and to his family and to his friends and to his, you know, his, uh, his hometown that he hadn’t left since he was born, you know, until he found himself on, you know, the beaches of Normandy or wherever he found himself.

Um, you know, what about that story? You know, that, that guy. Likely didn’t write a story. Um, and, and so, and likely at this point that person’s probably passed away. And so that story, it’s lost to history. And what do we learn from that story? Nothing. You know, because it’s, it’s gone. We have no way of, of learning from it.

Um, you know, as, as a service to future generations, put that story out there. [00:23:00] Let people know what, what goes on for a Marine infantryman for, hell, you, you were talking about the different MOSs. What goes on for a mechanic in the middle of Afghanistan who has to fix a truck that just got blown up by an IED or whatever, you know, whoever, whatever your job was, I don’t care.

Personally, what your job was, uh, it all played a role in In the war, tell the story, right?

Stew Blackwell: percent man. Yep. 100%. And the thing is like, even if it’s contrary to what somebody else says, you know, like there’s still some value that can be extracted from that.

Scott DeLuzio: I think, especially if it’s contrary, because then, then like you were saying before, now you got, uh, uh, points to discuss if it was just like every mechanic had the same story, every infantryman had the same story, every, you know, whatever, had the same story. Well, okay, fine. Then we can kind of check the box that they’re all pretty vanilla and we don’t have to, you know, discuss it too much.

But when we look [00:24:00] at all these people, you could have two people from the same unit who. Went through the same experiences and they have two different stories. Um, cause your, your perspectives can be totally different. Um, you know, maybe you’re, you’re on the left flank. I was on the right and we were, we saw different things.

I mean, it could be that, that much. And do you see a totally different experience? Right. Um, and so, you know, um, you know, it could be the difference between the bullets whizzing over your head and, and hearing, just hearing the cracks as they, they were, uh, you know, being shot at the other guy, you know? Um, and so

Stew Blackwell: thing too, man, like memory fades, even for some experiences like this, you know, there’s certain things that you will never forget. Absolutely. Everybody has those has been to war before. Right. But for the other Stewff, for all the times in between, that does degrade over time. And, you know, I kind of ran into that when I was writing this, I would write it a certain way and I’d be like, wait a second.

I’m not sure if that’s how it went down, you know, and so I’d pull out my little eyes too and I would, I would go and [00:25:00] call a buddy or something like, nah, man, that’s not how it went down. It was like this, I’m like, but you were over there. Right. And so that’s where, that’s where that kind of comes into play.

Right. It’s good to talk to the boys again, you know,

Scott DeLuzio: of

Stew Blackwell: nice that they’re able to set me straight on a couple of things. Um, but, Yeah, it’s very important to make sure that we get these things in the most honest, realistic fashion that we possibly can, you know, and that’s, that’s another, that’s another thing that I found when I was reading a whole lot, you know, right after I got out, I, I had all these questions, right?

Like, why do people see us this way? Why, why do we, why do we as a country still have that collective view of the cookie cutter service member mentality? It’s complete bullshit. Like 100%, right? Part of that is driven by the military recruiting machine. And then it’s reinforced with what you see in press conferences and, and movies and all these other things, right?

Everybody except the people that [00:26:00] were there, red flag,

Scott DeLuzio: Big

Stew Blackwell: I was like, huh, okay, that’s how it’s going to be. Well, I’m just going to do things a little bit differently then, right? And, and, and I call those, I call those viewpoints out very specifically.

And I elaborate it further on the podcast, um, and it’s, it’s frustrating to see that it still happens. It’s like a cycle. You know, um, a lot of it deals with what’s comfortable, you know, it’s comfortable to look at the infantryman as this big hearted protector that’s there to help the local populace and, and make sure that we pass out food and we dig wells and we open schools and everything, everything that reflects our comfortable life back here, being installed overseas, that’s easy to accept, all right, [00:27:00] and then there’s, there’s a certain amount of Sympathy that I found for people that, you know, it’s like, Oh man, you, you were in a firefight or you had to go over to Afghanistan or something.

Like, I don’t understand where that came from. Right? Again, like we already hit on that before. You know, I, I asked for this, right? You know, you, you talked about the one perspective of The private, you know, piss in his pants when, when he gets shot after the first time, right? Well, what about the dude that it says, fuck yeah, this is exactly what I signed up for.

Scott DeLuzio: The exact opposite.

Stew Blackwell: into an insurgent’s face and he’s like, fuck yes, absolutely. Right. And then you have, you have the perception of, Oh my God, that guy’s mentally imbalanced. He’s insane. There’s something wrong with like, no, he’s worked his fucking ass off and pushed his body to incredible limits that he didn’t know he was even capable of before.

To get to that point, that one moment in time, and it could have gone very differently. [00:28:00] He could have said, fuck yeah, and popped his head up and had it splattered all over the wall behind it, but he was faster.

Scott DeLuzio: Exactly.

Stew Blackwell: Right? So

Scott DeLuzio: that, that’s something,

Stew Blackwell: that one thing right there for hours and hours on end,

Scott DeLuzio: that is something that, that has got to be so hard for someone who hasn’t, uh, who hasn’t trained for it to understand. How could someone look at that and go, I, I want that. You know, like you, you train like from. From basic training, your, your, your, uh, your MOS training, you know, all, all of that. When you go through that training, you’re being transformed into a warrior.

That’s, that’s what your, your job is, is to go out and, Kill the enemy. And that’s your, your, your purpose at that point, right? That’s, that’s the purpose that has been instilled in you. It’s like, this is your job. This is what you go do. [00:29:00] Now, of course, everybody’s going to react a little bit different. You’re like, we said, there’s going to be people who piss their pants.

There’s going to be people who are like, fuck, yeah, let’s go get it. Right.

Stew Blackwell: And everything in between.

Scott DeLuzio: And everything in between. Right. There, those are, you know, obviously extremes, but, um, but they’re, they happen all, all, all over the board. And people. People have trouble wrapping their head around how could, how could someone be like, fuck you, I’m going to go kill somebody.

Well, that’s their, that’s their job. Right. Um, and it’s not about killing somebody.

Stew Blackwell: it’s not. That’s not it at all. No, it’s not the physical act of taking someone’s life, alright? Like that, that is, like, that’s more of the realm of serial killers and whatnot. That’s where you can go off on that tangent, right? But it’s, it’s the validation of all the preparation that you have done up until that point, right?

And yes, you’re going to feel a certain kind of way about it. Right. And the manner in which it happens to alters that, right? Like for us, when, when we went to [00:30:00] Afghanistan, it was a rural fight. It was very different than say, like the streets of Fallujah or Ramadi where things were close quarters. Very different.

There’s a very different psychological effect with that. There’s a very different process of, of dealing with that and, and the effects that that has on the back end. Right. I can’t speak to the close quarters fight because that was not my experience, all right? Um, but it’s, it’s important to understand that, okay?

And then there’s also the emotional side of things, right? One of the questions that I put out there, um, when I was talking about, um, my squad leader, um, was, I had a lot of people that kind of drew a little ire with me. For my initial emotional reaction to that, right. So to fill in a little bit of context here, right.

We, we come back from our first deployment in, um, in [00:31:00] 2009, in 2009, right. So we do the whole shuffle that the command moves around and everything. I get a new squad leader. I get promoted to team leader. I’m on top of the world and everything. Right. And. This man, Sergeant Zach Walters, he showed me what a real leader is.

I thought that I knew beforehand, all right, but this man took a very different approach to everything, right? He didn’t have to be the heavy handed drill sergeant. Um, because he was the toughest, strongest, smartest, best infantryman in our entire company. Hands down, people knew it, right? It didn’t take long for the rest of us to see it.

The way that we trained, the, the bond that we built because we suffered together, right? That spilled over into what little time that we had off, right? Like we would go out on the town and have a great time together. And we’re still talking about like, man, we can do this with the squad. You know, what about this?

What about that? And everything like that’s [00:32:00] not a job. That’s not work. Right? Like that, that is fulfillment, right? When you have people that are willing to invest that much time into something that’s not just solely theirs. Okay. And that’s something that’s special, right? And he’s, he’s one of those men that altered my trajectory because I had been shown nothing of the sort prior to it was all the complete opposite.

Um, and you know, as a young team leader, his first team leader. Right. Like I understood, like if he goes down, then I’m a squad leader, right? And that’s just something that you train for. It’s pretty morbid to plan for your own death that way. Uh, but when you, when you’re in this kind of culture and you know that your purpose is to locate, close with and destroy, and that’s it, doesn’t really bother you too much, right?

Scott DeLuzio: Right. Yeah,

Stew Blackwell: so it happens

Scott DeLuzio: until it happens.

Stew Blackwell: and then shit gets real, real quick. Right. So five days before we leave, he’s on the advance party already in Marja, [00:33:00] um, which is a part of operation, Moshtarak is the largest, um, military operation at the time in the Afghan war, this is 2010. Right. And, uh, on June 8th, we get told that him and another squad leader from our company were killed by an IED and we’re set to leave five days from them.

Our first deployment was a non combat deployment. It was a Marine expeditionary unit. So that was a very, very, very cold, harsh dose of reality, right? And in that moment, it wasn’t, it wasn’t fear that gripped me. It wasn’t anything but this almost overwhelming desire to just completely and totally torch all of Afghanistan.

All of them, every single one of them, right?

Scott DeLuzio: Mm hmm.

Stew Blackwell: And there’s, [00:34:00] it’s almost like There’s a lot of people that have a problem with that, you know, um, as if just because we, we went to recruit training and, and SOI and because we all, we all dress the same, that we’re supposed to be robots, you know, um, you, you can’t separate the human side of things.

The human side of things is oftentimes the deciding factor, right? And it’s how your training and preparation has shaped that and how you can direct it appropriately. But yeah, that was my first, that was my reaction in that moment. Now, the next 24 hours were a whirlwind and I went from that to everything else that you could possibly imagine on the spectrum of emotion, right?

Um, but it’s, yeah. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, man. I really don’t.

Scott DeLuzio: No,

Stew Blackwell: And we didn’t do

Scott DeLuzio: human [00:35:00] thing too.

Stew Blackwell: on it, right? Um, we got ours. Definitely, we did. But we did, we did so the way that we were required to, right? We didn’t go wild and murder men, women, and children just indiscriminately, right?

We operated within the rules of engagement. We did what we were trained to do, what Zach taught us to do. Right. And it was very clear after our first firefight, we were here for a fucking reason, and it was a whole lot more than, than the typical romp that you see on, you know, social media and, and the news and everything where we’re nobly defending the American cause and Stewff like that’s, that’s not, it had nothing to do with that at all whatsoever.

Like, yes, I wanted revenge and I got it, but I did so the way that I was required to do so, right. And so did the squad, right. don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all,

Scott DeLuzio: No, absolutely not. And I think you were [00:36:00] talking about the range of emotions that you had, you know, basically all over the spectrum. Um, that’s human. I think that’s, that’s just a human reaction to a situation like that is. You know, the, everything from the, the anger to the fear to the anticipation to the, you know, whatever other emotions you might have had, I’m just throwing some out there, but, you know, I’m sure there were, there were so many others that you had and that’s, that’s normal and, um, you know, yeah.

When you get there and like you said, you, you got yours. Um, there’s nothing wrong with that either. You’re, you’re there to do a job. Uh, the enemy is there to do a job and it’s going to come down to who’s better at doing their job. And you know, the, the mindset has to be, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them be better at their job than me.

And, and I’m, I’m going to, I’m going to go out there and make sure that [00:37:00] none of them make it home.

Stew Blackwell: Mm hmm.

Scott DeLuzio: The boys and me, we’re going home, you know, like that, that’s pretty much the mindset that you have to have. And. That’s a tough pill to swallow for people who haven’t been there, who, who most say they recognize is, uh, you know, about war as call of duty or, you know, those types of things.

That, that’s hard to, hard to swallow.

Stew Blackwell: Well, when those, when those perceptions have been so, so subtly and masterfully woven into almost everything that we see, um, it’s kind of easy to understand why that, why, why that reaction. You know, why, why does it seem so heartless and cruel and wrong? To feel that way, right? Um, the subconscious mind is very funny, very tricky thing.

And when we see things and we hear the same message, maybe even spun a little differently here and there and Stewff for so long, it triggers something, right? So [00:38:00] what we naturally associate things with. For example, right. You know, we alluded to it earlier as far as, you know, PTSD and victimhood and like that’s acceptable, right?

You know, part of this journey and one of the things that are really pointed out to me was, was the importance of personal responsibility. And as I wrote this thing and I went back through it, you know, I went through six drafts, man. It took me seven years to write this beast. Um, and. It forced me to see the things that I was very bitter about.

And nine times out of 10, what I found was, is those things were completely and totally beyond my control. But the even more important thing was, okay, so if all those things are beyond my control, right? And I spent a lot of time being upset about that, but what about all these other things that are under my control that I’ve neglected? Ooh, right? Now it’s about looking in the mirror, okay? Because there’s a point. Where you have to move forward, [00:39:00] right? Yes, be proud of that chapter of your life, but understand that it was that chapter of your life. And if you stay chained to it for the rest of your life, then I would have ended up being no better than, you know, the overweight dad in the stands at his son’s football game that screams at him to do better when I can barely do a fucking pushup,

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Stew Blackwell: right?

The guy that peaked in high school. Like, how depressing does that sound? How

Scott DeLuzio: Al Bundy of the world,

Stew Blackwell: Right. How acceptable is it though? Right. It’s almost what’s expected, you know, and that’s, that’s a sad, sad thing when you think about, you know, kids debating whether or not they’re going to sign this contract and potentially have the same, if not worse experiences.

And their goal is free college or even going into it thinking, Hey, if I do this, I can claim X amount and get a check for the rest of my life. [00:40:00] You know, that kind of thing. Like, it’s gonna, it’s gonna be real fun, real fun when we have to fight a war with that kind of mentality.

Scott DeLuzio: right. Right. Yeah. People going out there and looking for that, that check, you know, uh, essentially, um, you know, trying to, trying to, how do I put it? Cause that check to, uh, keep coming in in the future, which, you know, I’m not, I’m not shaming anybody who is. Disabled who has, you know, whatever, who, who, who goes down that, because that’s, it’s, therefore you, you sacrificed and, and, and everything.

But, um, You know, there are some people out there who abuse it

Stew Blackwell: Yeah.

Scott DeLuzio: and definitely, and those people are, that’s not okay. And, and going back, you were saying something earlier too about how just the perception in, in society has changed over the years from the, the Vietnam getting spit on and called baby killers [00:41:00] to, uh, you know, what we experience now where it’s almost like the red carpet is being rolled out for you.

Um, you know, Two totally different perspectives. Um, but you get, you get totally different types of people in the military too. Um, and, and you can’t just label just because they volunteered and just because they served and, and all that. You can’t label everybody. Oh, this person is a hero because of that, right?

To me, the hero is, is like one of those four letter words to me. It’s just, it drives me nuts. I hate. Being called hero. I hate, I hate the connotation. Now there are people who truly deserve the label hero and those people, I got no problem with that word. And it’s a great word. And I think it’s very fitting and appropriate to use that word.

But when it’s just cast as a blanket term, you know, across [00:42:00] everybody, it loses its meaning. And I think that’s why I hate it is because when you use it for the ship bags, who were in. Come on, let’s face it. If you’re listening to this, you probably know who I’m talking about. You could probably picture someone and name somebody who, who I’m talking about.

Um, When you, you use that as a blanket term, they get labeled as a hero, just as much as the person who dived on the, on the grenade to save their buddies, you know, two totally different people. Yeah.

Stew Blackwell: you know, because I mean, if you think about it, man, it’s a, a warrior is someone whose sole purpose in life is to fight, is to go to war, right? Like that’s all that they do. The perfect and the easy example would be, um, Spartan Society, right? Several thousand years ago. That’s the easy one to understand, right?

But if you flip on the TV nowadays, what you’ll see is that word being tossed around for professional athletes and even politicians or, or political [00:43:00] activists, right? So we, uh, we take that, right? And that’s slowly being integrated through the subconscious programming to change that definition in people’s minds, right?

And it’s wrong. It’s flat out wrong. A form of mind control. Funny thing about all that kind of Stewff is, though, it can’t trump free will, right? People have to willingly submit to that. You can just as easily turn it off and not listen to it and say, no, that’s wrong.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right.

Stew Blackwell: It’s up to the individual, you know, but, um, and that, that’s the really scary thing.

Right. And, and towards the end of my career and, and where, where the story kind of leaves off was seeing, seeing the writing on the wall with a lot of those changes, man. And a lot of it was happening while we were over in Marsha fighting. And I just didn’t know about it. I was worried about more important things at the time, you know, um, but when I got back and I started to see that, you [00:44:00] know, um, sexual assault prevention training and, you know, uh, all this Stewff about race and gender and, and all those things were, were kind of being pushed to the forefront as being more important than the war that we were still fighting, technically, right, albeit more heavily on the shoulders of the special operations community.

Um, who’s still doing it, actually. Um, that’s when, that’s when things really started to go downhill, right? And we, again, it’s another pattern, man. Like, we do this as a country on the back end of every single war, you know? This time, it just happened to line up perfectly with an election, right? Which made it even worse.

You know, it’s all these reforms that they pushed through, um, you know, like opening the service, opening all the, uh, uh, the, the occupational specialties to women and Stewff, right? That’s a big problem. It really is. Not because there’s anything wrong with women, and there’s [00:45:00] definitely some Stewds out there that can do more pull ups than I can, right?

They’re the exception. They’re not the rule. And when we make decisions regarding the security and effectiveness of the whole so that people can feel a certain kind of way about it, that’s the recipe to have a whole lot more, um, Americans killed abroad, you know? And the only data that we have, which is laughable in its minuscule scale, tells us that that’s a bad idea. It really does. Um, the heavily physical nature of combat aligns with how we are biologically engineered, right? And that’s just a fact. It’s just the way that it is. I can’t change it. Nobody can change it. It’s just the way that it is, right? And it’s not a knock on women at all. It’s just the fact. Um, but when we saw that, what it really did, what it underscored [00:46:00] was, Essentially a cultural attack, right?

And before we go down the, the role of, you know, victimhood and sympathy again, well, I signed the contract and I agreed to do what uncle Sam said. I had no idea it would be this, but here we are. Right. And what we saw was that was the last straw for a lot of us that had spent years doing this and helping build this culture based off of these core values, right?

Into something that that could not be beat, right?

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Stew Blackwell: And if that’s, that’s the way they wanted it, that’s fine, but you’re going to have to find somebody else because I’m not signing back up, you know, and that’s what, that’s why a lot of us left, right? Any one particular issue wasn’t really a concern. It was when you take all of them collectively and the timing of it, um, that that’s the message that was sent.

Scott DeLuzio: And you, you put, yeah, I guess to your point, you [00:47:00] put all these, um, these issues together and you know, eventually one of them, everyone’s going to be different for what, what, what They value in what they weigh a little bit more heavily. Um, and it could be, um, any number of issues, but when you add them all together, eventually one of them is going to be the straw that breaks the camel back, camel’s back.

And, um, that’s, that’s why there’s recruitment issues and that’s why they’re, people are leaving the service. And, you know, it, you, you think about it, it’s, it’s kind of a shame too, because the, the government. Spend so much time and money and effort training these people, getting them to a certain level of proficiency, and I’m just talking basic training.

I’m not talking anything super advanced. You spend a lot of money getting each and every, um, soldier, marine, airman, sailor, uh, you know, everyone, uh, trained up to a certain level. Um, and then. They just bounce and, and they’re, they’re done after that, that initial, um, you know, contract. [00:48:00] And then, then add on all the additional schools and other training that they might go to, um, that, that’s even more.

And, and, and so it’s like, you know, that, that’s a, that’s an expensive way to, to look at it, you know.

Stew Blackwell: it is. It is, man. But you know, we talked about recruitment a little bit or we briefly touched on it, you know, and why at least at least some people are drawn to military service and how different that is nowadays, right? Like, it’s, it is alienating the type of people that we need to fill these roles too, right?

You know, one of the things that I had to had to confront was, especially with my background, you know, with a very, very patriotic home, understanding that those ideals don’t necessarily carry over. Right? Once you get there and you see what’s going on, right? I didn’t join solely because I wanted to defend America, right?

I joined because I wanted the challenge. I wanted to know if I could do this. Right? Like I would look at, [00:49:00] my brother had a, uh, he had a recruiting poster on his wall, um, of, you know, Two Marines and they were doing, they were doing Macbeth training. Right. And like when dude’s like shoving his knee in the other guy’s ribs, like they’re, they’re dirty, they’re grimy, you know, it’s completely different than what you see nowadays.

Right. Or at least what we did for a brief stint back in, back in the mid 20 teens, right. Very different. Okay. And it’s sent a different message, Young men and, and women, right. That are attracted to that kind of challenge that can deeply alter you. What you’re capable of, how you see yourself and how you develop as a human being, they see these things and they’re like, nah, I’m good. And who do we get in their place? Any number of people, but not the one that we need for this kind of lifestyle. Right. And that it brings up another thing too, that, that we’ve kind of hit on. We haven’t [00:50:00] really like nailed it down yet, man. Like If we’re going to go to war as a country, we don’t need to, we don’t need to go to be nice to people, right?

Like, that’s not the point, that’s not the purpose. If we’re not looking to destroy things, then you don’t need to send the infantry. You know, if your goal is to pass out candy and coloring books and do humanitarian Stewff, like, there’s other organizations out there that would be much better suited for that.

Much better suited for that. Look at the private sector. They got some offerings. Look at other government agencies that are out there, right? You don’t send the demolitions experts, okay, to go build a skyscraper in the middle of a field. You send him to wipe everything off the map. this perception that’s been plugged in for the last, I would say since the end of Vietnam, really, You know, that that’s what the infantry’s meant for.

Like, that’s a problem. Because when, when we don’t see that, [00:51:00] right, when we see firefights in Afghanistan, when we see blood all over the streets of Fallujah and Stewff, it scares the shit out of people. Because it’s not what they expected. Even if they’re not directly involved with it. And in a democratic society, that has repercussions.

Scott DeLuzio: Well, and think about how just the end of World War II, how we, how we won that in the Pacific with the dropping of those nukes, right? Like

Stew Blackwell: Did we think that everybody that got killed by the bombs was, was wearing a Japanese army uniform?

Scott DeLuzio: but they weren’t, um, as a matter of fact, Most of them weren’t. And, but what happened, it took the will of the enemy, uh, the will of the fight out of the enemy. And if you think about if you, what we’ve done since then in all the other, uh, you know, wars that we fought, um, There were no huge, decisive, just [00:52:00] suck the will out of the, out of these people that the will to continue fighting out of these people and, and go in and strike hard and fast and get in, get out.

Um, you know, maybe, maybe the Gulf War was, was a bit like that, but, um, you know, because that was, that was over and that was like in a blink of an eye in comparison, you know, um, but, you know, Here we were, you know, however many years later, we’re, we’re right back, uh, in the same country, fighting some of the same people, uh, you know, against some of the same, you know, weaponry and everything like that.

And it’s like, no, let’s wipe, wipe those, those, uh, those people’s will to fight right out of there, take that out of the equation. And then all that’s left is just. You got the scraps that you got to clean up maybe and, and, and be done. And if, if we’re the biggest, baddest military in the world, why couldn’t we do that?

And [00:53:00] I think it comes right down to the will of the American people, the appetite for that type of level of destruction that’s necessary. Um, we, we just don’t have it.

Stew Blackwell: No, I, and I do think that there is a part of the population that does,

Scott DeLuzio: Sure. Yeah. I’m talking as, as a collective whole,

Stew Blackwell: yes, yes. The, the funny thing too, is, you know, when we talk about all these things that, that do shape perception, you know, the media and, you know, our politicians and our service heads and all those things, right? Like they, they kind of, a lot of that is driven from a very small part of the population.

They’re just more vocal than everybody else. Right? Most of us are. Yeah, we’re too busy living our lives based off of what we actually want to do, right? Or we’re, we’re Stewck in that rut, you know, like I was when I got out, you know, still trying to figure all that out. Um, and if we can accept that and we can, we can realize that that’s really what’s going on, then certainly that, that kind of throws a [00:54:00] wrench in their gears, you know?

Um, but the fact is, man, like it’s It’s going to take a lot of time for these things to be reversed, hence the importance of impressing these, these lessons on the next generation, right? I think that’s one thing that we really failed to understand, or at least our, our policymakers and our strategists did during our wars, that cultural change does not happen over the course of a decade.

Like, at a minimum, you’re probably looking at a quarter of a century. And depending on the culture you’re talking about changing and how well established it is, it may even be longer, right? Um, and I don’t think that that was understood. Hell, I don’t even think it was even considered, right? On the front end.

And one of the lessons that we can learn from men that went to war thousands of years ago, men like Alexander and Hannibal, Um, was that you [00:55:00] have to have a very, as clear as you can, you have to have a vision of what the post war world should look like. You have to know exactly what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to get there, how you’re going to adjust when it inevitably gets all fucked up, right?

And then what you’re going to do when it’s time to stop. When do you decide to stop? What criteria has been met and what value has that added to? To you and your people, even at the expense of the enemy, especially at the expense of the enemy. Right?

Scott DeLuzio: But taking into consideration the cost. That it takes to get there to the cost, not, not only financial costs, because there’s, you know, we, we spent however many billions of dollars on trillions of dollars on, on these, these wars, uh, between equipment and, and training and, and all the other things, uh, that went into it.

Um, You know, so there’s that cost, but also the lives lost. Uh, that’s a huge cost. [00:56:00] Um, you know, every, every single family who has lost a loved one, every, every single community who has lost a loved one, we’ve, we’ve lost, you know, some, some. Pretty bright minds who, who were out there willing to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the country.

And it’s like, we don’t, we don’t have the benefit going forward of those people. So whatever, whatever the end goal is that you’re talking about, where let’s, let’s envision that end state. It better be pretty damn good.

Stew Blackwell: Better be fucking worth it. And you better make damn sure on the front end because you can’t take it back. You can’t change it. Yeah, a hundred

Scott DeLuzio: And right, right now, I don’t know that we can say that with Afghanistan. You know, I don’t, I don’t know that we can say it got better off because of the 20 years that we spent over there,

Stew Blackwell: So, and, and here’s, here’s another thing too that I think definitely needs to be highlighted because we mentioned about, you know, that common perception of everything just, just looking dismal and terrible and there’s nothing good that came of [00:57:00] it. Right? Well, there is good that came from this war. Right?

One in particular, right, was, is, is us, right? The, we learn things about ourselves, about how the world works, about other people that we never would have learned otherwise, right? We now have a responsibility to pass that on. Okay. Um, and, and that you cannot put a price on that. You can’t, because it’s not tangible, right?

And we often don’t see the effect of that. And we won’t see the effect of that for another 20 or 30 years when they take everything over, right? That’s gonna be, that’s one of the things that’s very hard to accept, right? Especially for skeptical people, um, but also that, that, that question that every young man asks himself, right?

That critical question, do I have what it takes? , [00:58:00] whether that’s in a war setting or not at the time, you have to have that answer. And it’s not the last time that it’s that, that you’re gonna face it. When you come home and you take the uniform off, guess what? Like you’re gonna need that, you’re gonna need that answer for the rest of your life.

You know, I, I’ve been confronted with that almost every single day that I’ve been a dad that started 10 years ago.

Scott DeLuzio: right.

Stew Blackwell: guess what, I’m probably gonna ask the same question tomorrow. You can’t put a price on that. You really can’t, you know. Um, and, and not to mention, in, in a lot of ways we do have, we do have a map of what not to do,

Scott DeLuzio: That’s true. That’s true.

Stew Blackwell: that’s also valuable.

The question is, is will we apply those lessons moving forward? Right?

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Well, we follow

Stew Blackwell: have some things of what to do, right? Like we have seen what happens, like Fallujah is a prime example of this. When you actually take the gloves off. [00:59:00] And let Marines go in a foreign country and tell them to break shit. Shit gets broke pretty quick.

It’s not easy. It’s bloody. We lose people just like everybody else would. But we get the job done, right? And that one in particular, we also see what happens when the gloves get put back on. And then we have to go and refight the battle all over again. Because some fucking politician doesn’t know what he’s doing.

And we lose more lives, right? There is good. That

Scott DeLuzio: There is.

Stew Blackwell: right? Afghanistan as a country may not be better. We may not have gained all these strategic assets the like that we did when we, when we destroyed the Nazis, but we have that intangible value on the personal level that can now be passed on.

That is prices.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. I like your, I like your way of looking at this, um, because, um, I know, especially we, we just had the, you know, the, the anniversary of the [01:00:00] withdrawal from Afghanistan. And, um, you know, it’s a lot of emotions around that as well. And then, then you, you pull into 9 11 like we are now with just, you know, so, so close.

There’s a lot of, a lot of raw emotions going on with that. And, and it’s real easy to. Like you were saying before, to have that victim mentality and, um, you know, that defeatist attitude and, um, you know, I, I heard myself actually slipping into that as well as we were talking about this, um, and, you know, I, I’ve lost, um, you know, my, my mind.

Thank you. Younger brother, he was killed in Afghanistan. And so it’s hard for me to, um, sometimes wrap my head around some of the positives because it’s like, well, shit, my whole world got rocked, you know? But, um, but when you start talking the way, the way you’re talking, it’s like, you know, um, You know what?

I love to have him back. Obviously, um, there was some good that came from all that, you know, and, and it, it, what, it’s not like, um, you know, maybe the attitude of it’s all, [01:01:00] it was all for nothing. It was, it was completely worthless and, and it’s not that, you know, there was some good that came from it. Um,

Stew Blackwell: Right.

Scott DeLuzio: and, and I, I, I, I hope that, that everyone else, you know, can, can kind of understand that perspective as well, because, um, you know, it, it’s tough, it’s tough to, uh, think that way, but it’s worth it, um, to see the good and, and strive for the good, um, and, and apply those lessons of, um, you know, yeah, we, we may have, we may have screwed up.

We may have failed certain in certain areas. Um, but let’s apply those lessons going forward. So we don’t do it again. You know, that’s. That we’re talking about the definition of insanity before, but like, that’s, that’s what it is. You, you keep doing the same thing over and over again. It’s not working. Um, you know, that’s pretty much insanity.

So, um, yeah, let’s apply those lessons and, and, and figure out how to, uh, make those, uh, make those changes if we need to, or do more of the same things that were [01:02:00] working. Um, and. And move forward from there. Um, you know, hopefully with, um, you know, not as many, uh, lives lost, but you know, the lives that were lost, uh, you know, just know that they, they were not in vain, it was not for, for nothing.

Um, you’re right. You know, maybe the country of Afghanistan isn’t better off, but, um, we weren’t, I don’t know that we’re going there to make Afghanistan better off. I think we’re going there to make us better off. And, uh, you know, if we can take away some lessons, uh, then, then I think maybe, maybe mission accomplished there.

Stew Blackwell: Yeah. And it, it kind of morphed into that. I think a few years after that we were there and I, like, that’s a problem, right? I think we lost sight of that as a country. It was never our responsibility to make Afghanistan a better country. It was our responsibility to kill the people that attacked our country. It was a war of revenge and a justified war of revenge.

Scott DeLuzio: For sure. Absolutely.

Stew Blackwell: nothing wrong with that, you know? Um, so the fact that democracy is not flourishing there, If we never [01:03:00] latched on to the fact that that was our responsibility in the first place, would completely and totally change the perception of it on the back end, right?

It’s very easy to get lost in those kind of things, um, in the middle of it, you know? Um, so that’s another one that I hope that we learn from.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I think it’s great perspective. And I love that. Um, you, you mentioned your podcast a couple of times throughout the, uh, the episode here, tell us a little bit about your podcast and, and, uh, you know, what people can hope to learn and take away from your, your show and, and, uh, And what that’s all about.

Stew Blackwell: So, uh, the Warrior Legacy Podcast is meant as a companion piece to the book, right? There are certain things that On the back end of this, I just felt needed a little bit more elaboration on that quite possibly may have been beyond my abilities as an author at the time. And, you know, also I spent seven years writing the book.

At some point [01:04:00] you’ve got to move forward. It’s never going to be perfect ever. Right. And it was very difficult for me to let go of that, but I eventually did. Right. And I found a new way to communicate those types of things. Right? So that’s what the podcast does. It pulls these key points away, even down to the values that the infantry is built off of.

And it takes each of those and defines what they mean in the infantry culture versus what they mean to the rest of the country. Right? And it’s very important to understand that because the infantry’s culture is meant for a completely different purpose than that of American society at large. And it should be.

That’s the way that it should be. That’s a good thing. Right? Right. But it also highlights the necessity for having it that way and why it has to be that way, um, for the good of the whole, even if it is uncomfortable, even brutal at times, right? Um, so that’s what the podcast does. Um, it [01:05:00] elaborates, it fills in a little bit more detail on all of these things that we’ve talked about, you know, um, puts a little more meat on the bone.

Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Excellent. Well, for the listeners, I will have a link to, um, to that podcast in the show notes so that you can check it out and, uh, definitely get a copy of the book. Um, again, the, the book is Savages Infantry Culture in the Global War on Terror. And I’m assuming Amazon and all the regular places that people can get it.

Um, so I’ll, I have a link to that as well, uh, in the, the show notes, um, for folks to. Grab a, grab a copy of that book and, uh, listen to the podcast kind of as, as it’s intended, kind of as a companion to that book. Um, I think it’s been, um, insightful kind of listening to your, your story and your, your, uh, point of view, um, on the types of things that, uh, kind of went [01:06:00] on in, um, You know, the wars that, that we fought in and the lessons learned, some of the takeaways.

Um, and like you said in earlier in the episode, not everyone’s going to agree with what you had to say. And that’s fine. I, I, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Um, uh, I, I caught myself at one point when you’re, you’re talking about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I was like, you know, at first I was like, I don’t know if I agree, but then I, you know, I heard you out and I was like, okay, you know what, yeah, you got, you got some good points there.

Um, And, you know, I came around and I, I, I kind of understand where you’re coming from now. Um, I’m not asking everybody to agree a hundred percent with you and, and come around a hundred percent with you or me or anybody else. Have your own opinions, have your own perspectives, but engage in the dialogue, have a conversations, put your story out there, um, so that these conversations can be had.

So the, the points of view can be understood, uh, do those, those types of things. Um, and [01:07:00] I think ultimately. We’ll all be better off, uh, for, for having those types of conversations. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing your side of the story, uh, so that, uh, we can maybe start some of the conversation and, um, you know, I’d love for the listeners to, uh, let me know what you think, uh, you know, reach out to Stew, reach out to me, uh, you know, and let us know what you think.

What you think, uh, you know, about this episode and, and how, um, you know, how, how maybe the last 20 years have, uh, shifted your perspective on things and, um, you know, how, how the words and everything have, have affected you. Um, that would be great to hear. So, uh, Stew, again, thank you for taking the time to, uh, to come on the show.

I really do appreciate it.

Stew Blackwell: Thanks, man. It means a lot. It really does. Thank you very much.

Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly [01:08:00] back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.