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Lying Never Holds Up | Negligent Discharge Friday | 10.2.2026

A last-minute Friday episode, because I forgot we didn't have one. Michael worked under pressure. We open with the Roberts Ridge series. The criticism online was valid:

Immaculate Constellation and the Cost of Blowing the Whistle | Matthew Brown | Ep. 474

Matt Brown spent his career inside the national security world without ever wearing a uniform. He came up through grad school and think tank work in DC, earned a TS/SCI c

From Ranger to Rancher: Picking a Fight With Big Food | Patrick Montgomery | Ep. 473

Patrick Montgomery served in the 75th Ranger Regiment from 2010 to 2014, deploying to Afghanistan the day after the Bin Laden raid. Six weeks into that first deployment,

The Medal, the Memos, and the Mountain | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 472

Brian Bloom has spent his career in front of and behind the camera as an actor, voice actor, and screenwriter. Mitch Hall served as a Navy SEAL with the Naval Special War

The Ranger Account of Takur Ghar | Josh Walker & Chris Cunningham | Ep. 471

Josh Walker spent 24 years in uniform. He started as a young team leader in 1st Ranger Battalion, left for Florida State and ROTC, then came back as a signal officer and

Roberts Ridge and the Fog of War vs. the Facts | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 470

Mitch Hall served in Naval Special Warfare, Brian Bloom came from film and games. Neither of them set out to spend six years on a single morning in March of 2002. They di

They Don't Need A Warrant Anymore | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.18.2026

I asked for positive news this week. What I got was surveillance, a global humiliation, and a man duct taped to his seat at thirty thousand feet. We open with reporting

Air Traffic Control Is Running on Windows 95 | Dan Rickert | Ep. 469

Dan Rickert graduated from West Point and commissioned into the cavalry, running Bradleys and gun trucks through Iraq in 2008 before going to selection and finishing his

25 Years Later - Be Worthy of the Sacrifice | Full Auto Friday | 9.11.2026

This one airs on the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I'm not dedicating the whole episode to it. I don't tell people how to think or how to feel. But I do open with w

460 Days in the Darkness of Somalia | Amanda Lindhout | Ep. 468

Amanda Lindhout grew up in small-town Alberta and waited tables to pay for backpacking trips through Latin America, Asia, and Africa. She taught herself the job along the

Seven Minutes and Nowhere To Run | Negligent Discharge Friday | 9.4.2026

Michael was tasked with finding something uplifting. He failed. This is what a slow week for good news looks like. We open on the flooding in Nepal and what you can rea

The Weight of the Navy Cross | Nick Jones | Ep. 467

Nick Jones enlisted in the Marine Corps at 18 out of Olathe, Kansas. Mortarman, then scout sniper platoon, then selection and 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, where he came u

You Fall to the Level of Your Training | Full Auto Friday | 8.28.2026

Recorded two of these in one week because when this drops I'll be in Maine at the Origin Immersion BJJ camp. So Michael gets another pass. Nobody knows what he does with

The Zone of Chaos | Casey Stumpf | Ep. 466

Casey Stumpf is a nurse practitioner and my sister. Years in emergency medicine and hospice, a stretch inside military medicine at Camp Pendleton, and now her own practic

From the VA Prescription to the Street | Travis Gribble & Brandon Spangler | Ep. 465

Brandon Spangler did five years in the Marine Corps. He broke his neck, crushed his lower back, and walked out with a VA prescription that turned into eight years of addi

The Conversations Nobody Wants to Have | Full Auto Friday | 8.21.2026

Four questions this week... An F-18 simulator is going into the coffee shop sometime in September. I don't know why either. Carrier landing competition to follow. The

Butler, the Correspondents' Dinner, and the Truth | John Constantine | Ep. 464

John Constantine spent almost 23 years in the United States Secret Service. Fifteen of them on the Counter Assault Team — the assaulters who exist for the day everything

Vote For The Garbage Can | Negligent Discharge Friday | 8.14.2026

Michael is moving to Missoula, so this one opens with a resignation and gets worse from there. A man in a garbage can is polling at 20% against Nigel Farage in Clacton,

Welcome to the Age of Collapse | Drew Miller | Ep. 463

Drew Miller is an Air Force Academy honor graduate with a master's and a PhD from Harvard. His dissertation was on underground nuclear shelters and field fortifications.

The Fingerprint You Leave On Your Kids | Full Auto Friday | 8.7.26

Just me today. Michael also dropped some news on me — he's moving on in a few months to go better himself, so there's a change coming to Negligent Discharge Friday. Thr