This week, I sat down with Liz DeGraeve, Elana Duffy and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint to talk about purpose. Liz has shifted from a colorful and accomplished 23-year career in Army intelligence into being a 6th grade teacher. Elana held an Ivy League master's degree before becoming an accomplished combat veteran who earned the Purple Heart and a medical discharge and has leveraged it all to become a successful entrepreneur. And of course, Charlie combines military service, entrepreneurship and scholastic accomplishment. It was a group that seems to have no lack of motivation and purpose - so it was insightful to talk about their missteps, their doubts, and where they draw strength. 

Pathfinder LLC

Women in Combat

Second Mission Foundation

Savage Wonder podcast

Veterans Repertory Theater

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Episode guest: Liz DeGraeve, Elana Duffy, and LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

Americans worry a lot that we are headed towards ruin – unsustainable spending, foreign adventurism, even civil war. How warranted is that concern? I sat down this week with Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint to discuss the three best ways to become a failed state. We take the scenic route to get there, which is very “on-brand” for us. Somehow The Sound of Music weaves its way into the episode…three times. Which may say more about us than we planned to reveal prior to the episode. Crumbling infrastructure, personal terror, lively musicals, this episode covers it all. 

 Show Alibis:

As you’ve heard me say every week on the podcast, the Weekly Havok is a “roundtable discussion of the week’s events by the staff and writers at Havok Journal.” This week that was still sort of true, it’s just that the roundtable was much, much smaller than normal. No great story behind it, it just became me and Charlie due to the machinations of the scheduling gods. We had a good time, although we realized that we actually could have done the show in person, but clearly COVID restrictions have become so embedded in our brains, it never occurred to us until the show started.  

Charlie mentions it at the end of the episode, but Jimmy Gagliano is mayor in Cornwall-on-the-Hudson. This isn’t so much an alibi as an extra opportunity to congratulate him. He won by three votes, which indicates that any politician who needs a competitive advantage in a tight race should think about coming on the show. 

On the other hand…there’s always a danger in talking. For writers like me, talking is just broadcasting your first draft out loud which makes it kind of a crapshoot to listen to. I only mention this because there’s a point in the episode when Charlie and I compare how many of Fund for Peace’s top ten fragile states we’ve been to. I say something to Charlie about not meaning to make it a “dick-measuring” contest, since “I know yours is bigger than mine” or something to that effect. And then I silently – but not audibly – say my favorite line from Archer: “phrasing!” which leaves the distinct impression that I know way more about Charlie than I should. Was this an intentional act on my part so I could keep these alibis relevant and necessary? Or do I just pick amazing times to brain fart? Either way, I apologize to Charlie and to everyone listening. I’m riddled with shame and I can’t shake my head enough (phrasing). I’d like to blame COVID, since I haven’t had my shot of Johnson & Johnson (careful…). But sometimes when you’re talking and a real boner leaves your mouth (seriously?), you’re too headstrong (c’mon) and cocksure (do you even hear yourself?) to notice. It’s the danger of doing a topical podcast, and it’s a good reminder that it can’t be all lollipops (huh?) and joysticks (that’s not a saying). In the future, I promise to up my caffeine dosage and use my damn head (I…I give up).

Wokeness and the New Cold War by John Schindler

Fund for Peace’s Fragile State Index 2020

Returning to the “Poor Game” of U.S. Modern Warfare by Scott Faith

The First Generation of the Warrior Class by Christopher Paul Meyer

Family Guy and the military

John Kerry demeans military service

Modern War Institute at West Point

How did The Sound of Music end in real life?

The Wisdom of Youth by Jonah Goldberg

The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Johnathan Haidt

“We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” George Orwell, Facing Unpleasant Facts

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

Am I the bad guy in Breakfast Club?

Second Mission Foundation

Havok Journal

Black Rifle Coffee Company

Savage Wonder

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Episode guest: LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

This week, I talk with the witty and erudite Kevin Wilson and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint about the importance of pop culture to the military. We talk deployment shows, movies and TV that influenced us to join, why The Hurt Locker is so disappointing to Charlie and Kevin. This was a fun one. If you don’t understand pop culture’s role in the military, you don’t understand the military.

Show Alibis: 

A little explainer on this week’s Easter egg. I thought HJ writer Kerry Patton was going to join us. After ten minutes of small talk, Charlie mentioned that Kerry wasn’t going to be there and I realized that Charlie and Kevin had really just been humoring me, waiting for me to start recording. So you missed all the hilarious and insightful comments that usually would make an Easter egg, but that’s why.

This podcast was recorded when Charlie Faint was on active duty. He is now retired.

 Right to Bear

 The Hill by Aaron Kirk

 Second Mission Foundation

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Episode guest: Kevin Wilson and LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

This week I talk with Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint and Andrew, a 18-year old firefighter on the East Coast. I know what you’re thinking – how much wisdom, insight and life experience are you really going to get from an 18-year old? I agree – but Andrew is not your typical 18-year old. The story he wrote for Havok Journal was jarring enough that I made the editorial decision to focus on it instead of any topical stuff this week. Your next question is probably about Andrew’s anonymity – how many firefighters hold top secret clearances and need to protect their identities? True, but not many of us have been raised in the age of social media where opening your mouth to discuss anything important – or unimportant – is essentially handing ammunition to the trolls in your life. That said, Andrew doesn’t say anything particularly controversial, but he is very comfortable discussing the nuances of life and death issues. Which reminds me – consider this your trigger warning. The story Andrew leads off with is a tough one. It gets more philosophical from there. We get into some late-night, dorm-room-style, lava-lamp-in-the-background-type ruminations. We talk about death, insecurity, and maybe why more 16 year-olds should become volunteer firefighters.

Show Alibis:

 In the episode, Andrew and I discuss our shared firefighting experience and I talk about the firefighter/cop rivalry – cops are “pigs,” everyone loves a firefighter because they save people, everyone hates the police because they have to enforce the law, blah blah blah. That kind of stuff seemed a lot funnier before the whole “defund the police” movement took off. Not a lot else to say, I just feel a little weird that I brought it up. 

Andrew consistently acquits himself well throughout the episode. But any immaturity he still has seems to have been channeled into his driving. It was the end of the episode so I didn’t have time to make a big thing about it, but how many accidents did he mention that he’s been in? Next time he comes on the show, I’m going to see if he’s willing to move to the city and start taking the subway.

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Episode guest: "Firefighter Andrew" and LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Firefighters Deal with More Than Just Flames by Andrew

Having PTSD means you’re normal

LTC Dave Grossman

Meekness in the beatitudes “Strength Under Control”

The Hill by Aaron Kirk

Show Notes:

The civ-mil divide is something we kind of always bring up in one way or another on the show. You might even say it’s a large part of why we even do the show. So it was probably overdue for us to do an actual episode about it. I spoke with retired Air Force/Air Guard Chief Master Sergeant Dave Chamberlin, Uriel Epshtein of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint. We talked about what the military and civilian communities can learn from each other, the role pop culture plays in the perceptions/mis-perceptions about the military, and the difference between discipline and repression – and why that may matter in the civ-mil divide.

 McChrystal’s Service Year Alliance

Stan Goff

Code 1 Maintenance

Renew Democracy Initiative

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Episode guests: Dave Chamberlain and Uriel Epshtein

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

Is the US Losing Faith in the Military? That was supposed to be the subject this week – and after about 30 minutes, it was. My guests were Coffee or Die Executive Editor Havok Journal founder Marty Skovlund Jr. and Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint. We had a lot of ground to cover with Marty - from the founding of Havok Journal to the latest on his new book - which explains why we took the scenic route to get on topic. But when we got there, we dove in headfirst: why are most parents patriotic up until their kid is about to enlist? Should vets look down on those who never served? How many of the Army’s image issues would be eliminated if we just closed Fort Hood? What is the single best tool to eliminate toxic leadership? Marty and Charlie are at the top of their game and have answers to these and so many more questions.

Show Alibis:

So I asked Marty about Charlie’s acronym-ization of the “Havok” in Havok Journal. He answered. And then we moved on without me explaining what acronym Charlie came up with. We had talked about it on the first episode, so this should really be on you for not going back and listening to all of our old episodes first. (Please don’t. Seriously, we’re so much better than we were two months ago). So, on the off-chance you haven’t heard the first episode yet, it stands for “Have A Voice Outside of Killing (HAVOK).”

Marty says he leaned into leaving the military for a writing career like Leroy Jenkins. I didn’t have enough time to mention that Leroy Jenkins was a fraud. But you should know that by now.

It takes me just under a decade to get to Charlie in this week’s episode. How he hung on that long, I don’t know. Maybe he was delirious from holding his middle finger into the camera for a prolonged period of time. Wayne Knight once said that playing Newman on Seinfeld was challenging because he would only have a few lines an episode, yet he had to make a huge impact every time out. Charlie was our Wayne Knight this episode. Hopefully, he won’t ever have to be again. And I won’t do anything corny like say, “Hello, Charlie.” But seriously, he was on point.

So, while listening to a rough draft of the show, I winced, noticing that I laughed when Marty says that Vanessa Guillen wasn’t even the only soldier murdered at Fort Hood that month. Trust me, I don’t find anything that happened to her funny. But Marty had a great delivery, and, as I explained on the show, I was thinking of the tepid parents who don’t want their kids to enlist hearing this and rolling their eyes in “I told you so’s”. What happened to Vanessa Guillen was horrific and so crazily over the top, it’s hard to quickly summon appropriate human emotions when her case is thrown into a conversation. We rag a lot on Fort Hood in this episode, but, all joking aside, there is something rotten in the culture there that needs to be addressed, like, yesterday.

Marty Skovlund Jr.

The Ranger by Marty Skovlund Jr.

The True Story of How Standing Rock Fell by Marty Skovlund Jr.

The Longest War by Marty Skovlund Jr.

Violence of Action by Marty Skovlund Jr.

Nomadic Veterans

35P/SOT-A job description

Reagan Foundation poll

2020 Gallup Poll on US trust in the military

Vanessa Guillen murder at Fort Hood

Coffee or Die

Shannon Kent

Second Mission Foundation

FAIR

Bari Weiss

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Havok Journal

Savage Wonder

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Episode guest: Marty Skovlund, Jr. with LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

This week, I discussed how vets should maintain their mind, body, and spirit with MSG Geoff Dardia and Meg Kelvington. In my experience, not many of my peers wanted to have conversations focused on the mind, the body, or the spirit. I mean we weren’t in church – or in yoga class. But when you boil down a lot of our conversations, they actually were about mind/body/spirit issues – from dealing with inter-personal issues to fitness regimens to coping with work/life demands. There’s something about the label “veterans’ health” that seems too vague to successfully capture its importance and relevance to current or former servicemembers. I’ll also say that Geoff and Meg have each taken remarkable yet unpredictable paths to wellness. This might be the first episode that actually helped me, albeit unintentionally. There’s no way to do justice to a subject as complex and broad as veterans’ health in one hour. But you might find enough in it to help you too – even if you didn’t know it.

 Show Alibis

 I usually let Havok Journal owner Charlie Faint do most of the pre-show socializing; for one thing, he knows the guests better than I do beforehand, and for another, I want to save any interesting conversation that may occur for the recording. But after his solo hosting last week, Charlie had a nervous breakdown and checked himself into the Betty Ford clinic, so he wasn’t available for the show this week. I’m kidding, of course. Does the Betty Ford clinic even exist anymore? Would this joke have worked better in 1982? Doesn’t every joke? Anyway, Charlie wasn’t there this week and as a result, I got into too fascinating a conversation with Geoff Dardia before the show started and then had to try to recreate it during the recording. I think we mostly succeeded, but I’m still holding it against Charlie.

 Meg Kelvington must have felt bad enough that I’m the only one who does alibis each week. She emailed me after the show to say she felt terrible for not remembering to thank Charlie’s Second Mission Foundation during the episode since the foundation paid for her to start Riveting Mission LLC. I’m glad she forgot to say anything during the episode because it’s about time I gave Second Mission some plugs in writing. From Aaron Kirk’s book to Meg’s business to, well, this podcast, Charlie has really helped a lot of veterans launch their “second mission.” We all owe him a lot of thanks.

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 Task Force Dagger

Functional Medical Initiative

Team Red, White, and Blue

Wear Blue: Run to Remember

Riveting Mission LLC

Whole Health Initiative

Total Force Fitness

Holistic Health and Fitness

SOF Health Initiative

Boot Campaign

Hunter Seven Foundation

Second Mission Foundation

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Episode guests: Geoff Dardia and Meg Kelvington

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Show Notes:

Some weeks, "The Weekly Havok" isn’t just the name of the show, it’s also the way the show comes together. This was one of those weeks. We threw every hiccup and technical glitch we could at Ben Varlese and Dax Mallory and they kept on ticking. Best of all – thanks to our producer Michael Neal – none of the glitches will even make it into the episode. So you will never know the landmines you dodged in your audio experience this week. Probably good to have a week like this every so often – keeps us humble. But if you think Ben and Dax are good guests, just wait until they do a show where everything goes smoothly.

 Show Alibis:

Did I even mention the subject this week? That was the first audible we called on Dax and Ben – getting them to pick the subject about a minute before we started the show. I gave them three choices and they picked the one I could barely articulate, go figure. So I spent the first five minutes of the show trying to figure out what the hell I had signed us up for.

And then…

As you all probably know, Afghanistan has been weighing heavily on me – to the detriment of the other news stories in the world now. That’s my way of saying that I should have pushed Dax harder on the subject of Haitian immigrants and the southern border. Of course, we try not to do a show that is topical punditry, but this was a missed lay-up.

The cross-pollination of criminal organizations and terror groups is a pet fascination of mine. So when Ben brought it up, I couldn’t wait to get into it. Or, actually, I guess I could wait, because I never got around to talking about it again. Make that two easy lay-ups missed during this episode. Did I mention we had problems this week?

Blackwater Memorial Alumni Association

Havok Journal

Savage Wonder podcast

Veterans Repertory Theater

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Episode guests: Dax Mallory and Ben Varlese

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]

Episode guest: Kerry Patton and Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Charlie Faint served 27 years in the US Army. A military intelligence officer, Charlie served in Iraq and Afghanistan 7 times while assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the Joint Special Operations Command. He also completed operational assignments in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea. His final assignment in the Army was as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he served for 8 years. He holds 6 college degrees ranging from Associates to Doctorate, from schools including Temple and Yale. In retirement, he volunteers with the Modern War Institute at West Point as the Chair for the Study of Special Operations, and he also serves his community as a reserve sheriff's deputy.

From the battlefield to the home front, and from West Point to Afghanistan and Iraq, these... are Charlie Faint's Battlefields.

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Show Notes

“Bro-ing Alone”: Why Veterans Still Need Each Other… and the Rest of Us

DD-214: a military discharge document

Modern War Institute at West Point

Profiles in Havok

The Havok Journal

West Point Combat Weapons Team

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Episode guest: LTC (R) Charlie Faint

Host: Christopher Paul Meyer

Edited by: Michael Neal and Richard Gash

Music: "King Around Here" by Alex Grohl (courtesy of Pixabay)

Sponsored by: The Epoch Times, in conjunction with The Havok Journal

Contact email: [email protected]