From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in the skies over Iran this week, where American warplanes conducted new rounds of strikes.

The cease fire has collapsed, and the war is entering its sixth month now.

NPR reports that President Trump is considering what he calls a massive attack against Iran, bigger than ever before.

The conflict is widening across the region, with Saudi Arabia confirming their involvement this week.

President Trump told Axios that Iran has not received enough pain yet, and at the white House, President Trump explained to reporters that he sees this stage of the war with Iran as a kind of back and forth.

We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them.

They know it's coming.

They're asking us not to do it.

But, you know, they tried shooting it last night.

So we had five rocket shot going 8500 miles an hour, and all five rockets were knocked down to the ground, but they nevertheless took a shot.

So it's our turn.

Back in March, President Trump declared that the United States had won the war in Iran and that Iran's military was destroyed.

But months later, with the war continuing, we wanted to know what veterans think the administration owes, if anything, to active service members and their families.

And I want to welcome our guests in studio.

John White is a former captain in the US Marine Corps and a Vietnam combat veteran.

Welcome back to the program.

Thanks, Ivan.

Glad to be here.

Next to John is Gregg Sadwick, a US Navy veteran, the former congressional candidate.

President of Solid surfaces in New York and Flower City collision.

Nice to have you back here, Gregg.

Thanks, Ivan.

It's good to be with you.

And let me welcome Nicolas Stefanovic as well.

Nick is veteran, a veteran and director of veterans services for Monroe County.

First of all, welcome back to the program.

Thanks, Ivan.

And I should mention as well that you have family, involved directly in the conflict in Iran.

Is that right?

I do, yeah.

My my daughter recently joined the Navy, as an intelligence, is in Japan right now.

Our ship just came in and eventually will make it over to the coast.

How are you feeling about that?

It's.

It's a strange feeling because I get to, compare how I feel as someone being directly involved in a conflict versus somebody who's a parent of somebody who's in a conflict.

And it's two very different, ways to feel.

You know, when I was when I was in Afghanistan or Iraq, I was excited to get there.

I wanted to go do my job.

And, you know, I listened to my parents worry, and now I'm getting a dose of what my parents went through.

It's it's I'm not excited for her to go.

There's there's fear there, but she's excited about it, and I've, you know, very supportive of her.

Are you buoyed at all by knowing that she is part of an extraordinary group of people who served in an extremely high level?

Yeah.

It's it's amazing to see.

You know, I saw what we did in the Marine Corps operationally on the ground to see what the Navy can do regarding intelligence has been, amazing.

And I have no doubts in the their capabilities.

I had an interesting conversation with her the other night.

She had expressed, her and I have very interesting conversations now in regards to what I went through and what she's about to go through.

And she was talking about the morality of it and how to deal with, the morality of it.

And I don't have any fear that she's going to be involved in any type of direct combat, but we had to have a conversation about your you may be involved in a planning process or in giving information that will result in some type of attack on someone, and the whole concept of moral injury and how you're going to justify and live with being a part of something that ends in the death of other people.

And how she's going to process that and how I process that.

And, you know, my my greatest hope for her is that she will have the ability and the services available to her to be able to process that better than I did.

You view it.

Does she view it as a necessary part of the job?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Yes.

She's been very well trained.

The school that she went through was unbelievably, difficult and and elite.

A lot of people.

So.

So I don't have any doubt that she understands exactly where she is.

And she's excited about it.

She wants to go do her job.

And it's it's it's really cool for me to hear that part of it.

But, you know, I, I worry.

Yeah.

And tell the audience when your service was, was in from 2002 to 2006.

So.

Right during the exciting years, right after 911, I joined right after 911.

And I think I was in the fleet for maybe 6 or 7 months before I was in Afghanistan.

And then the deployments were back to back for everybody for a while.

Gregg Sadwick, remind the audience when your service was.

I was a lieutenant in the Navy in 1990.

1988 and 1992.

And so I can share some.

Yeah, please.

My shipboard roommate is actually the top of the intelligence chain of the Navy.

He's a three star admiral.

So you.

So your daughter has a direct connection to him, so to speak.

Well.

That's good.

I'll talk to you afterwards.

So in in brief here and we'll talk more specifically.

But in general, when when you hear the president talking about, you know, hey, this is our turn to hit back here and we may be escalating even more.

How do you see this stage of the conflict?

What are you thinking about?

Well, I think there's a lot of confusion at this stage of the conflict, and I wish there was a lot more clarity in what were what the objective is and what we want to do.

I did, you know, when I ran for Congress, I was in it's on that side of the aisle.

But I'm certainly a cheerleader for the.

What's going on?

And I wish he would keep some of his plans to himself.

Needs to keep the American public informed.

What's going on?

And the service members need.

You know, a consistent message.

I don't think we're getting that.

So it's a little confusing.

John, what do you hear in the president's remarks.

I worry about the president in terms of his remarks.

I share with Gregg that, sometimes I wish he would keep those issues to himself.

And let them execute.

I worry about, the showmanship, side of President Trump, and, and I worry about the, you had mentioned earlier the game, for Iran and where we are with it.

And I think there's a lot of confusion about that.

There is no well-defined issue about what we're really trying to accomplish.

Is it Hormuz or is it the nuclear weapon?

Is it, just imperialism?

Is it oil?

Anyone or all of the above?

And so I don't think it's a clear message in terms of what he's trying to create here.

Well, I do want to listen to another clip that we have.

And I will say the one thing that I think is hard to dispute is whatever you think about President Trump's politics.

He has been for more than a decade now, very good at diagnosing how to push people's buttons.

He's very good at politics.

He understands, how why a lot of Americans feel outrage.

And he had a lot of voters come on this program and tell me, even in the 2024 campaign, that one of the reasons they were supporting President Trump and candidate Trump at the time was because, you know, he and J.D.

Vance were saying, no more military misadventures and clearly defined plans and, you know, no quagmires.

And it is strange to me to see that even in the opening days of this war.

You know, you had a devastating first strike that killed the ayatollah, that killed not just the ayatollah, but a number of leaders.

And President Trump was talking about regime change, which hasn't really effectively happened.

He he was comparing it to Venezuela, which is not a very good comparison.

So I want to listen to what Secretary Hegseth said when he was testifying.

And he's being questioned here by Senator Brad Van Hollen of Maryland.

A lot about winning talked about winning in your testimony today.

You've talked about winning throughout the Iran war.

And we all like winning.

But I think the American people to deserve a definition of what it means to win in Iran, because this war has dragged out for a lot longer than certainly the United States indicated.

Indeed, the president said on March 24th, and I'm quoting, we've won this war.

This war has been won.

You know what the president meant by that?

Back in March?

Well, Senator, I would just note militarily, I mean, Iran has been completely overmatched and and and crushed from the beginning.

Militarily, their capabilities are nowhere near ours.

I would take issue with with your characterization that we didn't start, that we started this war, Iran started this war 47 years ago, and they've killed thousands of Americans, including our brothers, on the battlefield in Iraq, with all with Iran has been targeting us back for a long.

Secretary is secretary.

We didn't I mean, they did.

I just want to register my own complaint here.

I mean, I feel like the a lot of times that becomes about grandstanding and when, when a member of Congress is spending more time asking the question, then you get an answer and you got five minutes.

I don't love it.

So.

But I do at least appreciate hearing Secretary Hegseth describe, in his view, the fact that this was a necessary response to 47 years of aggression from Iranians.

He is citing a history that is true there.

So in his view, the United States did not start this conflict.

So let's take this from a number of different places.

And, you know, Nick, with a daughter going there, I'll ask you first there.

Do you feel like you understand what a definition of victory is in Iran?

You know, I always preface talking about this by saying, first that, the decisions that are made in the final hour that determine whether we go into another country are decisions that maybe a handful of people on the earth have all the information with.

So all of us can talk about this for days on end.

But nobody had access to the intelligence that they had actually had access to.

And so could it be that they believed and had intelligence that showed that Iran was on the verge of being a danger to the entire world, and something, sure, that could that that could be, but whether it's the Iranian, whether it's combat operations in Iran or Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan, I'm sure that there are a lot of different reasons, whether it's the military industrial complex or, oil.

But what I see happening in Washington in the end is it's political.

Whatever administration is in charge has to ask themselves, is this going to be a win for me or loose for me?

And that's problematic to me.

As somebody who has served on the battlefield and has a daughter that's in the military, because I believe that to the president, to his cabinet, their main concern at this point is surviving this politically.

And that that's just not a priority, that I hold I don't care whether the president survives this politically.

I want us to be able to get out of this situation intact with as little death as possible to both sides, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

So, no, I, I don't know that I can say that I'm satisfied, with the remarks, from the secretary.

Okay.

And but the second part of his remarks was, you know, he ended in that clip saying, we didn't start this.

They did 47 years.

What do you what do you make of that?

There's no doubt that Iran has been provoking the world for decades.

There's there's no doubt about that.

There's no doubt that the regime that is in control of Iran is evil, that they they kill innocent people.

They target innocent people, they kill their own people.

They kill their own people.

And I and I just always like to point out, too, there is a huge moral discrepancy, or difference between a regime that purposefully targets and kills innocent people and innocent people dying in war.

And so, you know, very early on in this war, we saw the bombing of that school happened and it was it was really bad.

And the media, weighed in heavily on that.

And, because it, it it looks as if, it was not the Iranians that did that.

It was, it was, either us or the Israelis or, but, so I did get in a conversation with somebody who said, well, what's what's the difference between us and them?

We just we just probably killed 200 children.

And in Afghanistan, there there are, there are there are innocent people who die in war.

The main moral difference between us and the country of Iran is that I and I believe this to be true, that America has never purposefully targeted and killed innocent people.

The Iranians have and the Taliban have, and all of the other forces that we fought against.

And I just think it's important to point that out when we talk about, global policy and whether or not we get involved in war.

Gregg Sadwick, do you feel like at this point you could describe what you think victory will look like?

Well, first of all, if I can back it up a little bit because this might surprise you.

You know, we've been hearing since 1996 there's clips of Netanyahu saying that Iran is ten minutes away from having a nuclear bomb.

And we've heard that for 30 years.

So I you know, Nick, I agree with a lot of your comments, but I'm also a little skeptical about what we've been told.

You know, yes, they've done some horrific things.

And a lot of countries have, including us, as I don't know if that warranted going in there.

But now that we're there, what does victory look like?

Well, part of it looks like getting back to where we were, you know, prior to six months ago with the Straits open, with Iran kept in check.

I don't know if it's, we're going to see regime change.

I think that should be off the table.

And I think back to when the president said he's going to pick the next Ayatollah.

I mean, that was a little a little outlandish.

I don't think we're going to have that luxury.

But what victory looks like is, America's Nick, you brought up you don't want to see any more deaths and stuff.

And that's all.

I agree with that.

On the surface, we also don't see America's place in the world change.

And I think we're at a pivotal point where that can happen.

You know what the what would make that happen?

If we give back, if we negotiate the Straits to Iran and they're now in control, then that changes some dynamics.

Makes us look weaker.

We're already looking weaker on the world stage.

If we don't go through with it and we're kind of.

I don't say we're half pregnant at this point, but we are where we're at, and victory is going to to me, we do have to press forward, although I don't like the direction we're on, as opposed to go backwards when you see the secretary, talking about the strength of our military, the outstanding performance, you know, he would never agree that we are looking weaker.

He would say we're the strongest we've ever been, and we are, executing at a high level.

What do you make of his remark?

What?

I, I agree with that.

But if we are now at a retreat on the world stage, I think that's going to make us look weaker.

That's why I say that we're we're down this path.

I don't see turning around, going backwards is an option, but you do need to see it through one way or another with keeping the Straits open.

You know, getting their nuclear dust and making sure their nuclear program doesn't move forward.

John, what do you think victory is defined as right now?

Well, I'm going to go back.

And I don't mean to overextend what Nick said, but, we're going to be convinced we're going to be told, that it's, a victory because it's a political victory for Trump.

And, I think the, the power, the military power, and I've always felt this, that, President Trump, supports in, in really energizes a strong military force.

That's a worldwide opinion.

It's a worldwide impression.

Personally, I don't think President Trump really cares about the individual troops.

I don't think the servicemen and women, you know, feel that, President Trump really has their back.

I think he's a photo op guy.

And so I don't mean to take this in a, in a different direction, but, I think Trump is going to define to us what we think victory is.

And is it the streets?

Is it, the nuclear program?

I don't think we have any clear definition, but how do you say it is?

Victory is the Strait of Hormuz.

When it was already in a better position six months ago.

That's correct.

You're getting back to a status quo.

That's correct.

I mean, I certainly think there is a lot of talk about the nuclear program and to Gregg's point, the desire to not only destroy infrastructure but to try to remove any material.

And that may yet happen.

I don't know if they figure they figured out how to do that without sort of a ground force to do it.

But, you know, beyond that, certainly in the early days, the president was talking about the elimination of this regime.

And at one point, I think in April, he said, well, isn't this regime change?

It's a different you know, it's a different leader.

The I told his dad it's effectively not.

And I think you don't see this as a different regime, do you?

I do not.

And, you know, once again, the ayatollah, gets taken out.

The replacement can be worse.

And so, you know, we, I don't I don't think we, we specifically articulate what our endgame is.

Evan, I just, I feel that, it changes.

Is it the straits?

Is it the, oil?

Is it, the, nuclear program?

I don't know, but I think President Trump has an ability to try to convince us, what victory will look like.

What does he owe it to active service members and their families to to describe it clearly what the goals are?

Oh, I think absolutely does.

In fact, I think that this, And maybe Nick, you can respond to this, but I think it affects recruitment.

I think that, you know, when when you look at people that might be joining, and might consider joining the military, and they feel that their leaders can't effectively decide what the end game is going to be.

Why am I signing up for this?

And what are we going to do here?

And do we have a clear vision for what victory looks like?

I think that affects recruitment.

And I think that young people today, if they can't trust their leaders, they're not going to join.

Let me get your co-panelists on that.

What do you think of that, Nick?

You know, I keep I'm going to go back to something John said a little bit earlier about the political implications of the war.

What's what's very frustrating to me is if you're in a conversation with somebody about a topic and you know that that person, no matter what happens in that conversation, no matter what the facts are, is going to take the same position on that argument.

There's almost no point in even listening, right?

So in this situation, let's are we ever going to see is it ever even possible that we could see a President Trump come to a microphone and say, hey, we screwed this up.

We got to do this differently?

That'll never, ever, ever happen, right?

So regardless of what happens there, he's going.

The only thing he can do is try to convince us that it's a victory.

I think about Afghanistan.

I spent a lot of my time in Afghanistan.

And when I was in Afghanistan, what I saw on the ground, there was a lot of progress.

Women were able to go to school again.

The Taliban were not persecuting their own people.

They had a free and fair election while we were there.

All of that was great, and to me, it made it worth it.

In the end, they're back to square one in Afghanistan, if not worse.

So could you call my war a victory?

I don't think so.

I don't think you could at this point.

And I don't, I, I, I can't possibly see, how we get out of this situation and a victory.

And I also would say to people, I would ask the president and the secretary to define what they mean when they say obliterate or destroy.

Well, it's cartoonish at this point.

Last year, in June of 2025, they claimed that they had sent the nuclear program back to the Stone age of Iran.

Right.

And then less than a year later, they said, we need this action now to stop their nuclear program.

So how can we take that seriously?

And as the service members see that there were no, we're not stupid.

How can we take it seriously?

By not asking the question you just brought up, did you not just tell us six months ago that this was not an issue anymore?

You obliterated it.

How could it be a problem again?

So I just don't have a lot of confidence that this is going to be deemed a victory.

And just regarding your service in Afghanistan, I do think sometimes we use the word victory or winning in two simple terms.

I mean, war and war is not simple.

Human societies are not simple.

And I don't know, I wonder if I could frame it this way.

And I'm playing, you know, I'm just trying to put this out there for the sake of argument instead of looking at as, could you look at your services, you can't say it was a victory.

Would you not say if your experience was that it?

It was imperfect, but it was working well, that it was a freer society, that women and girls in particular were doing better, that the elections, while imperfect, were better than the Taliban and everything that we have now, could you not feel that that was sort of a victory in process and in the decision by another administration took that away?

Absolutely was.

So people ask me all the time, do you feel like your time in those wars was worth it?

It was.

Was there value to it, seeing what the ending was?

And my answer every time is absolutely.

An entire generation got to live free because of what we did in Afghanistan, and maybe that will have implications going into the future.

Maybe that generation will rise up at some point.

But even if they don't, women got to go to school.

They got to choose their own leaders.

They didn't get pulled out of their cars at military checkpoints everywhere that they went.

They got to experience what America experiences.

When we talk about freedom and fairness and democracy.

And so, Gregg, do you think recruiting could be affected by what's happening in Iran?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Because it's again, it isn't clear what's going on.

But part of that, though, you know, talking about what does victory look like?

You know, there are there things going on that are attached to this below the surface that could come to fruition, that even though the battle may not be a victory, the greater war for America may be.

What do I mean by that?

I'm talking about how we can be a have a $440 trillion debt and still be a thriving economy.

That just defies logic.

We just keep printing, printing, printing.

Well, a lot of that is because it's propped up by petrodollars, and all the oil is bought and sold in American dollars.

And we're we're the BRICs is trying to change that, BRICs being Brazil, Russia, India, China.

Okay.

So maybe Trump's play is and I'm just speculating is, you know, we're going to break apart BRICs and it's going to make a better America, stronger America for our future.

And if that's what's going on behind the scenes or under the surface, that that lends itself to a partial victory.

I'm not going to say that's impossible.

I'm going to say that I don't know that President Trump is one to hide his intentions without boasting, and is less likely to keep something that complex and long game.

But here.

But but seriously though, I do want to talk about something that we haven't discussed yet, which is when the war started, we had Iranian Americans on this program.

Regardless of how they felt about President Trump.

And plenty of the Iranian Americans we've talked to are not fans.

They were weeping and cheering when the Ayatollah was gone, weeping at the idea that maybe they could go visit family someday, go back to the land where they grew up, talk to friends and family without fear, and hopeful that this talk of regime change was would actually bear real fruit.

Not that the son of the Ayatollah not another cleric with, you know, hatred toward the West.

As Nick says, the real hope there.

And one of our guests said, look, this may be messy for a while, but maybe this creates the conditions where two years from now, five years from now, the next protest revolution is successful because we've weakened the structure of leadership.

We haven't killed everybody.

We haven't taken everybody up.

But maybe the conditions get better now.

When you when you look at polling of Iranian Americans now, it is really flipped against this war.

It was about 5050 at the start of the war.

It's about 2 to 1 against now.

And I think there's less trust, primarily because from my perspective, they see a president who talked about regime change said, rise up, take your country back.

And then he's like that.

I think we already got it.

I think we got regime change.

That's good.

So I don't feel like they trust him.

But is it possible, Gregg, that when you look at the long game that you're describing, whether it's bricks or, you know, maybe a freedom movement, do you think this war could create the conditions for you?

You've all served at different times in different places.

And I think that perspective is really valuable here.

You've seen how difficult it is to change country's leadership and to make it stick, and to make freedom stick and to enact what you want by force.

But do you think it's possible here?

I do, and I also will throw another different opinion out there.

Sure.

You know, if we are to and we're to help people assimilate into the world economy instead of oppressing them and sanctioning them and and putting them in a position where they're like a, you know, a trapped animal that wants to lash out.

You know, maybe that's an approach we could try.

And it almost felt like President Trump was going to go down that road initially.

And then something flipped about a year ago.

But maybe that's an option to help free the Iranian peoples, to make that country feel like they're part of the world community.

Perhaps, just talking to Iranians, I think I know it's a stretch.

No, I don't I don't know that it is or isn't.

I mean, that's not my specialty.

I just know that talking to Iranians, there was real hope in March, and a lot of that's been extinguished because they don't feel like it was a consistent and firm backing to that point.

It was more like, you're on your own.

I hope this works for you.

But then the president's talking about destroying the entire civilization of Iran and using and destroying infrastructure that the people need, and then that trust goes away.

But I'm just bringing up the idea that, you know, I've had guest on this program this year say maybe long term and that maybe it's two years, maybe it's five, maybe it's more, but maybe the next freedom movement sticks.

So, I mean, and you know, John, you served in, in Vietnam.

Yes.

And we had certain we had war goals.

We had political goals.

We had hopes of how to remake a country and people.

And it didn't always go the way we wanted.

Do you think it's possible in this, this time around?

Well, it didn't go the way we wanted in Vietnam.

And I think we were, withheld, actually, from victory in Vietnam.

We used to get orders, crazy as it sounds, we used to get orders that we couldn't fire until we were fired upon.

We then got subsequent orders that we couldn't load our weapons until we were fired upon.

That is not the way you win a war.

And the civil action that we had.

And I'll go back with what Nick said, the civil, civil actions that we had with villagers, was remarkable in terms of, medical care, all kinds of, food supplies, everything else.

It was wonderful to see the reaction of all of that.

However, as soon as we moved on, then the Vietcong and the NVA moved back in and it was just all over, and we would have the same firefight in the same ville, several times.

But as I look at this situation, I see some similarities.

There is, there's some hope March.

There's some excitement about that, but, I don't think we're doing anything to help the Iranian people right now gather that sense of nationalism and loyalty.

The, the kind of takes from the heart in order for them to have that next revolution, if I could, to.

John, when you talk about being in a situation where you're at instructions, where you cannot fire unless fired upon, it sounds a little like what the president said in the clip that we used to start the show when he said, well, they had their turn and now it's our turn to fire.

I mean, war is not a game of turns.

If you're truly at war, your turn can last as long as you want, can't it?

Yes.

I'm not saying it's pretty, but I don't understand the notion of.

Well, they had a turn.

Now we're going to take a turn and they're asking us not to, but it's our turn.

I that language and framing to me was very strange.

How did you hear it?

Well, I think it's very strange.

I also think, once again, when you look at military action, forceful, direct, and with an end game in mind, for a continuance is success.

When you kind of dilly dally back and forth, more lives are lost.

More properties are destroyed, more confidences are destroyed.

In other words, if you're going to go in there, go in there.

And don't, don't be this today, we're this, today we're that.

We're going to support you today.

We're not going to support you tomorrow.

So I think we're in that confusion state right now.

And once again, the Iranian people, I don't think, have that glue.

They don't have that mix, for nationalism.

So, Nick, I mean, again, we talked about your Afghan Afghanistan service.

What do you make of the idea that what is happening in Iran now could lead to a true freedom movement that sticks?

Yeah, I believe it.

Absolutely.

Could you do you know, I, I, I think it's important to and I, and I need to to learn more about this as well.

But we just saw a revolution in Syria, I'm pretty sure recently, I think the Iranian people have been a powder keg for years.

There's the Iranian people have been fighting and dying, trying to to go against this regime for a long time.

So I don't think there's any lack of will to do it.

I think it would have been a great opportunity.

I think it's a wasted opportunity that he gave up so quickly, trying to support that, the protest movement.

Yes.

Them on the when thousands of people are being killed in the streets in January.

Yeah, yeah.

I think there's, there's ways that we could have supported, that were at least gave them the confidence that we would have stuck by them.

And I don't know why he gave up on that either, but let me just honor the the, the that language that you just talked about with John, about how he's he's taking turns with attacks.

Again, that just reminds me that to him, to the president, my fear is that politics is the end game here.

And I'm, I'm not confident that if the president was told that there was another way to do this, but it wasn't so politically, ideal for him that he would even take that route.

So, but to answer your question, I do believe that there is hope for the Iranian people going into the future.

Let's take this only break.

And then I've got some emails to share from listeners at connections at org.

We're glad to have three veterans who have served this country at various points in their lives.

And you just heard, Nick Stefanovic, that Nick is a veteran and director of veteran services for Monroe County.

That's his current post.

Gregg Sadwick, a U.S.

Navy veteran, former congressional candidate, and he's president of Solid Services New York and Flower City collision John White, former captain in the U.S.

Marine Corps and a Vietnam combat veteran.

We'll come right back with some of your emails on connections.

Coming up in our second Our Connection Summer sessions focuses on the American economy.

And this week we wrap up with a conversation with economist Eric Morris about what a k-shaped economy is and why we might be in one right now, what that means for Americans in different parts of the economy.

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This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson, Dallas writes in to say that US military recruiting he's looking at various sources.

He's the grok I. But it's right this time.

And I love when I write, a 15 year high in fiscal year 2025.

NPR says that's correct.

By, by 2025, the recruiting was very, very good.

And so Dallas is just wondering if the some of the concern expressed by the panel is maybe overwrought, that, that maybe things are going really, really well and recruitment is up.

What do you see there, Gregg?

Seven well, I think, prior to, the war recruiting was up.

I've heard that too.

I'm just curious what the current statistics are over the last six months and what's been true, how it's been trending now.

Okay, so, yeah, you're saying producer Megan okay.

So some of those numbers are technically the pre new Trump pre the new Trump administration okay.

Leading into the new administration.

And Gregg you're just saying we don't know what the last six months might do to recruiting.

But you think it could because that's less than the last six months.

But it's also going in the next three months, in the next six months after this current period.

Okay John, anything to add there.

Yeah, I would say there's a big difference in the last 3 to 4 months.

But if we take a look at March, in the mission was supposedly clear, I would say from March on with the confusion, I would say recruiting is is suffering from that.

Okay, Nick, it wouldn't surprise me for recruiting to be up.

You know, I think we talked a lot about what's happening in the war.

What we haven't so much talked about is the daily life within the military and how that's changed, over the last few years.

What do you mean?

I think it's changed significantly.

You know, my opinion on this, having been a grunt in the Marine Corps, the, the military, culture, it changes every different.

When the administration changes, the military culture changes.

Same thing with the VA and all the other parts of the federal government.

And I think the military culture was struggling, before this Trump administration.

And, you know, and I have no problem.

You know, I'm not the biggest fan of Trump, but I also have no problem crediting him where where credit is due.

And Secretary Seth, I think, has done some things that have been needed to be done for a long time regarding bringing back, more strict standards, in the military and refocusing where our energy should be, in the military.

And I hate how he says this in public, because I think he needs to speak differently to the American people than he does to the military.

If he's speaking to me as a marine, and he comes in and he says, look at your guys, your job is to kill the enemy.

That's it.

That's what you should be focused on.

That's a message I can hear from him as a marine.

It's not necessarily the message the American people want to hear from.

So I don't I don't think he does.

Well in his messaging with that.

But essentially that is what we do in the military.

And I think that there has been progress made and refocusing our resources and our, our agenda within the military.

Okay.

Agree with that, Gregg.

Yeah, I'm glad to hear you said and I agree with that.

You know, I think back to when Lloyd Austin was a defense secretary.

He got off a plane, I think was in the Philippines, just Covid air and he was triple mask.

And he's wearing a face shield.

And I'm like, wow, that's not really projecting American power and confidence.

You know, contrast that to and Pete Hegseth, you know, talks about the warrior ethos.

And and he's out there doing push ups and he's out there doing all that stuff.

Yeah, I think the military members need to see a leader like that.

John, what do you think?

I'm not sure I agree.

I think, the image of Pete Hegseth, in my opinion, is once again, showmanship, soundbites.

I really did not like, his challenge to the military leadership, his collection of generals, when he had that meeting and scolded them if that would be appropriate.

And once again, I just don't think that he's got or he had at that moment, the background in the information about how hard these people work, you know, you had mentioned earlier the incredible caliber of talent that we have in the US military today.

It is wonderful.

In Pete Hegseth, I think, took some of that away with the fact that I'm smarter than you are.

And here's where we're going from here.

So I, I am not a fan of Mr.

Hedgepeth.

I have to say that what I wish would have happened to John with that is that that that would not have been made public to the entire country, and that the president would not have been brought up there with him, that it would would have been done in a closed room with the leadership.

I think it can be appropriate for the Defense secretary, the war Secretary, to send that message but not flaunt it.

Well, I thought that was my interpretation of what John is saying is if everything you're doing is for the public, or if you're posting six TikToks a day and you're you're a secretary in the administration, are you doing it for performative purposes or for real substantive purposes?

Is that a fair point?

That's fair.

Okay.

Because I what I hear Gregg and Nick saying is there are certain things that he's brought that maybe the men and women serving needed to hear or needed to see.

And the question is, who's he doing it for?

Correct?

Yeah.

Okay.

Which I agree.

I don't think he does it for the the right purposes all the time.

Okay.

All right.

Couple of emails here.

Phillip says, you go to war to win.

We are not acting like we want to win.

And we don't really even seem to know what winning would require.

Why have we not learned this lesson after all these years?

That is from Phillip.

So after all these years, sort of implies I'm looking at the man who service was in Vietnam, and Vietnam is often invoked as the war that we we didn't do enough to actually win that war.

And you've I think you've said this our you would agree with that.

I would absolutely agree with that.

I think we were held back.

I think we we were we were restrained.

And I think that, the capabilities that we had were under utilized, and they were under utilized for political reasons, to encourage the Vietnamese people and to ultimately, you know, just try to convince the North Vietnamese, that they were going to retreat.

I don't, I don't think that, the issue there was anywhere near wanting total victory.

We had the resources, we had the capabilities.

We didn't use them.

Okay, having said that, then when you look at Iran and I'll get I'll get Gregg and Nick on this too.

I certainly understand that critique.

I understand, Philip Seymour, I understand the critique.

But when you look at Iran, if total victory requires sending American men and women on the ground and that seems to be something that this administration has resisted so far.

Do you think we need to do that?

I do, ultimately the air war is the air war, and we can do an awful lot of damage.

We can interdict, all kinds of issues with them.

And, and get that done.

But in order to accomplish victory, I believe boots on the ground are going to be required.

And, you know, one of the things that it's very interesting, just here what, last week or so, the four people that were killed, three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq.

Yeah.

And now, you know, the administration, has reclassified them, and they're not considered killed in action.

They're they they're considered died in overseas operations.

So the administration is trying to limit the amount of deaths associated with this.

And once again, I think that's a political issue for Mr.

Trump.

And so boots on the ground is just going to be off the table, until he's, well, willing to accept the fact that there are going to be some casualties and there are going to be some cases if we do do boots on the ground, are we going to win without it?

I don't think so.

Well, I and your criticism of Secretary Haig said, John, Secretary Hegseth went off on media members a couple months ago who were asking about individuals killed already.

And there was a I was going to say only I want to be very careful when I use words like this.

Six months of war in Iran, from what is a published set of statistics, from what we know, I would never minimize a single death, but roughly a dozen deaths, I think is a lot fewer than a lot of people would have expected.

I'm trying to be careful when I say this.

Even that, though, when the media asked about them.

Secretary Haig's death is criticized in the media for even asking.

So you're just trying to politicize this and, you know, you're trying to make this a big stunt or turn the public against the war.

And I would think that a secretary, a self-styled secretary of war, would, would want to honor every service member who has died in a conflict like this and not reclassify them and not tell the media they shouldn't be asking.

That's that makes me uneasy as a as a civilian.

How do you see that?

I agree with you 100%.

I think it, it really questions the motivation.

Is it political, or is it heartfelt?

And, once again, that reclassification, terrible, awful thing for the United States to do said, why do we need boots on the ground to win this war?

Unfortunately, I would agree with John.

You know, this morning that came out that the Hamas possible alleged peace deal going on the Gaza Strip, I thought to myself, I looked it up 144mi .

I thought to myself, that's kind of like here to Buffalo, maybe down the Thruway, maybe smaller.

And it's been four years and we haven't nothing.

Nothing's happened there except a lot of death and destruction.

Then you think about the Russia-Ukraine border, not a very big area and all the death and destruction, and we think we're just going to take Iran with a couple of, missiles there.

That's so or, or an air campaign and air Ministry.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think that ties into your comment too, about you're kind of surprised there hasn't been more casualties.

Well, yeah.

Because we're are we really in it to win it and, and seal the deal.

Because to do that it's going to take it's going to take boots on the ground.

Go ahead John I was just going to say, Gregg, in terms of casualties, big distinction between killed in action and a casualty, there have been a lot of casualties involved in this, a lot of cash.

Yeah.

I think sometimes we say casualty.

I'm probably guilty of this to mean a death.

And that is not this classification.

There's a lot of a lot of very, very serious injury.

But killed in action.

Yeah it is.

And I think, Gregg, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're arguing is the administration is going to have to stomach more of that to get to where they need to go with this.

Absolutely.

And they should have known that ahead of time.

I mean, the fact that we went in there thinking this would be a, you know, as easy as Venezuela is shocking.

My criticism, again, as a civilian would be if you didn't have the stomach for boots on the ground.

You shouldn't have started this.

I was that fairly good with that.

Okay.

Now, Nick, again, your daughter's about to go serve there, and I don't I'm not trying to minimize any casualties of any type.

In any case, I, are you surprised at the number of kids so far?

And do you think we do need boots on the ground?

I'm not surprised at the number of us cases.

How many people?

Ron, of course, killed of God knows.

Boots on the ground.

My my question about that first would be what we've asked a dozen times already on this show of what?

What are we looking for as a victory?

I don't think this administration, at this point, is going to have the political will to put boots on the ground no matter what.

I think this decision will be left up to who comes after, President Trump.

And I, you know, I just go back and look at all of the conflicts that we've been involved in in the last decades.

What do we want to do there?

Is it if we can put boots on the ground and with the expectation that we can leave that country as no longer being a threat to the world and no longer persecuting its own people, then of course, I think that boots on the ground, is going to be necessary, and that we should have the political will to do it, because there's again, there's there's something we can't question that Iran has not been a threat to its neighbors in the world.

It always has been.

And I do think it would be worth changing that, to do that.

Yes.

I do believe it would require boots on the ground.

I don't think you're going to do that.

Do you think the resistance to boots on the ground has been a political calculation?

Yes.

Okay.

Absolutely.

I think that, the nightmare scenario for this administration is putting boots on the ground and having another Iraq happen where you're getting stuck in a quagmire and that leads to, destruction.

Politically, I think that's what their hesitancy is.

I don't totally agree.

Okay.

And I'm just going to ask Gregg this.

I mean, this is not meant to sort of pick in any direction here, but, I mean, as you mentioned, with your political allegiance, you've been very forthright this hour about what you think has gone well, what has not gone well.

When you see an administration and a president comparing an operation in Iran to what happened with Maduro, which we can all debate, whether, you know, Desi Rodriguez is an extension of that regime where things really change, whatever you want to think.

That was incredibly well executed.

And I've talked to a lot of Venezuelan Americans who are very happy about that change, to think that you could do it in Iran, does that change how you feel about supporting the the leader of this country who has to make these decisions?

Well, unfortunately, we have a binary system, so we do I have no, no qualms with who our president is relative to who it could have been.

Okay.

And let me get, a couple more emails here.

This is from Laurie.

She says I went to Vietnam.

I canoed through the Mekong Delta.

I cried when I realized that young men crawled through it and died for our freedom.

My brother was a pilot.

He's never recovered.

It was for my freedom.

Baloney.

That's that's a hard one.

Laura and Laurie thank you for your family service and I'm sorry what you've gone through.

Rich emailed to say the longer this war goes on the bigger the chance for something truly catastrophic.

The president has talked about wiping out the entire Iranian people and civilization.

I'm worried he'll eventually blow his top and use bigger weapons.

What does your panel think?

I think I think the first sentence of that is incredibly, significant.

The longer this war goes on, the bigger the chance for something truly catastrophic.

Yeah, and truly catastrophic.

You know, my first concern is how long can we do this before the leadership and military of Iran really do decide to attack more than just bases in the Middle East?

And for us to think that they don't have the capacity to do that, we should just remember, what, 25 years ago, what a handful of extremists did with box cutters on planes to the World Trade Center.

And my fear is that that's what's coming.

John.

Heavy thought, very heavy thought.

And, just listening to that.

Nick.

I agree, when you and I didn't make the connection back to nine over 11, but when you look at a box cutter and what the devastation that created, the Iranians can be very crafty and very, very, nefarious about how they execute an attack on America.

I haven't seen the latest reporting, so I'm speaking out of school, but I did see some, early speculation that Iran could have been behind, the the water system attack in Minnesota.

So I don't know.

And I don't know what the outcome of that will be.

But again, nixing possible tentacles coming in a lot of different directions.

What do you see, Gregg?

You know, I would agree with with all that and and in addition to that, you know, we're hearing that China may be supplying Iran weapons.

We know Russia supplying them intelligence.

So it is setting itself up for a possibly greater conflict, which could be catastrophic.

So let me close with this real briefly.

Then why not go all the way and say, we're not only going to have boots on the ground, but we are going to remove this entire regime no matter what?

That would be a bloody and costly and, horrific road to go down.

I don't foresee that playing out well for anybody.

Okay, John, I think, introducing the China element is very, very interesting.

That is, probably more of a serious threat, than Iran.

Maybe not is immediate.

But long term, I think China is a bigger threat than Iran.

The fact that, we go in and destroy, if you will, Iran without destroying the Iranian people.

Very, very tough mission, Evin.

Very tough mission.

And, I don't know how we accomplish it, but I will go back to the fact that if we define a victory, we're not going to get there without boots on the ground.

Nick, I think the best case scenario, without regime change and boots on the ground, is that the world goes back to what it was before we went into Iran.

I don't know how you get out of it without any, progress or victory without that, because this regime is not going to just turn over on its own.

Right.

And then I would just lastly say, that what people should really think about right now, we can talk about this conflict in regards to the political implications, and everybody can have their opinion on that.

But when you're serving in the military, in order for us to have a volunteer military at the capacity that we do, it's incredibly important for us to recognize that those in the military have to obey orders and carry out their mission, no matter what, for this country.

And so we should support them.

And your daughter is going to be one of them.

And so for her and all of her colleagues going to be doing that work, prayers and good thoughts.

Thank you for them.

Thank you for coming in here.

Next to fanatic is a veteran.

And director of veterans services for Monroe County.

Thank you for being here.

John White, former captain in the U.S.

Marine Corps and a Vietnam combat veteran.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Gregg Sadwick, a U.S.

Navy veteran.

He's a former congressional candidate, president of Solid Services New York and Flower City Collision.

Thanks for sharing some of your Friday with us.

Thank you for having me.

You got more connections coming up and.

Nick.

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