Rick Green: 0:12

Welcome the intersection of faith and the culture. You've joined us here on WallBuilders. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. Alright, David and Tim, we got our good friend General Bob Dees, going to be with us a little later in the program. He had a tough question. I say it's tough because I will admit to you guys, I'm conflicted on this question of whether or not to have a draft. And so here's the question we got from the audience. It's from Stacey in Colorado, she said, have a question about the draft with recruitment significantly down in all branches of the military, do you think we will see a draft implemented in the next few years. We have a son that's very interested in joining the military. And while we come from a family with strong military and patriotic roots, our concern is this administration's lack of leadership and integrity within the armed forces, along with the woke agenda being actively forced upon our servicemen and women. Stacy, fantastic question. And of course, we're going to get General Dees on here in a little bit to ask him as well. David, Tim, of course you guys have military in your family. I've always wondered if a draft was counter productive, because you get people that don't want to be there. But there's of course, other stuff you can have them do other than actually fight. But we've talked about this on the program, I'm, too, like Stacy said, I'm worried about how bad the military is getting. And like, you guys, I have kids ask me all the time... I say kids, you know, 18, 19, 20 year olds, asked me all the time, should I join? It's so bad. I don't know, I want to serve. But I don't want to be in a woke military. So this is a great timely question and timely topic for us today.

David Barton: 1:34

Well, one of the things we can say for sure is If all the good guys walk away from it, the bad guys will have total, absolute, unrestricted control. And that is true in every area. When we walk away from politics, because we don't like those who are in it. Those who are in it, take it over, and it becomes institutionalized and weaponized, and so walking away from anything because it is bad, that's not the right answer. As you know, it was like, if you remember, in the book of Job, there was a war horse and every time it heard the sound of the battle it wanted to run to the battle, and if you've been well trained, and if you're grounded and equipped, you don't run from battles you run to them. And that's what we've seen with people who are good at apologetics, they don't avoid debates, they like debates, because they're grounded, they're equipped, they're able to handle it. And so part of running away from it is that we don't feel competent, we don't feel equipped, we don't know what to do with it, or we just flat don't want to take on a fight. And this concept of being pretty soft and pretty weak, I think America is as soft and weak, as I've seen it in my lifetime. And certainly as I go back and look at what happened in the founding era, and later areas up to the Civil War aand after the Civil War through reconstruction up in the early 1900s, we become a very soft people. And part of that is reflecting the fact that we don't even want to debate others, now. We don't want to confront someone, we don't want to have someone yell at us or get upset or whatever. So I think that anytime we start asking questions, it's time for us to get out, because it's getting hard. You've already answered your own question, you don't get out because it gets hard. That's the time you get in it. Running away from something simply because it looks like it's going to be tough or, it's going to be a fight is not the right thing to do. You don't run away from something because it gets tough, you go get tougher, yourself. I mean, get equipped, get prepared, go take it on, we need the winds, we don't need losses by default, and not showing up as a guaranteed way for the other side to win. Now, whether we have a draft or not, that's going to be an interesting question. You know, I hear people go back and forth on that. But whether our kids should get involved in this arena, man, this is a time when we need solid kids more than we've ever needed solid kids, this is not the time to run away from that arena.

Tim Barton: 3:37

And, guys, one thing too, as we talk a little about the draft, one of the things that I think is also an interesting factor, when we talk about the necessity for draft as we look and go, man, our military is lacking the individuals we need to have a military readiness if and maybe when, right, God forbid, but if and when we have a conflict, whether it be with Russia or China or whoever it is going forward in the future. It's inevitable in a fallen broken world, that there are going to be leaders that are going to want to do damage and harm. They're going to want to conquer and destroy, this is not an unusual or a new thing. This is literally the history of the world. And so the idea that you need a strong military, military readiness, I totally get it. And that's why the draft is interesting discussion. But we also know is leadership makes such a big difference. The reason that we are having the lack and we are saying, man, we need to do something different. It's in my mind, not a lot different than a lot of major cities, right now, that are having a major shortage on their police force. And they're having to change their requirements, just like the military. They're having to lower their requirements coming in, to just try to get some bodies in place to, in the case of cities, to have law enforcement. In the case of military, to have just individuals in the military. And it's just very interesting the leadership that's there because if we had a culture that backed supported and defended law enforcement and not meaning, right that law enforcement can't be wrong, and that there shouldn't be levels of accountability for law enforcement. Absolutely, there should be, we should do better training and more training for law enforcement. But this notion that we don't support, and we're going to defund police, and we want to eliminate the police, and let's bring in some City Watch, that's not going to have firearms, that has no ability to do anything physical to stop a bad guy, and they're just going to try to de-escalate in the conversation, well, that's not going to work with a lot of bad guys, they're not interested in having conversations, they want to do bad things, and you need good guys that are trained in forced to stop the bad guys. This is, to me a similar thought of even the military. And one of the interesting factors in the conversation discussion is, is military readiness, going to be achieved by having a draft, or because you have bad leaders, by increasing the numbers in the military, you still won't have the readiness you need in the military, as opposed to if you had different leaders, you wouldn't need a draft. People would want to join, and you'd have a different philosophy that would lead to something different in the military, and I know that's oversimplifying it, because even when Trump was there, the military wasn't necessarily always what it needed to be. There been a lot of individuals, and this is part of the bureaucracy we see as well in government, a lot of the federal government's bureaucracies that have gotten involved, and we're saying this even in a civilian side, we get it, Pentagon, etc. But the ideology of so many of the leaders in the military is an ideology of wokeism, not what a fundamental military should do. Really good at killing bad guys, really good at breaking and destroying things when needed. That's not the notion we have in the military today in the social experiment we have, so I'm very interested to hear from someone much more eloquent and probably grounded on the issue with General Dees than any of us certainly, certainly than me. I'm very curious what he's going to say, because I can see a couple of different thoughts about this. And I'm very excited to hear what he's going to say about this.

Rick Green: 6:56

Yeah, I think your analogy is exactly right, Tim. I think that's exactly what we are seeing in police forces all over the country. And it is a leadership issue. So at a minimum, it could be that we need both, right? That we're going to have to have good leadership, and potentially have a system that encourages more Americans to serve. But yeah, going to be really interesting to hear what General Dees has to say. Quick break guys, we'll be right back with general Bob Dees.

Tim Barton: 7:29

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American History. Too often today history education excludes great black heroes from the American founding, such as Lemuel Haynes. Haynes, abandoned as a baby, pioneered churches across upper New England. He became the first black American to pastor a white congregation, to receive an honorary master’s degree, and to be ordained by a mainstream Christian denomination, the Congregationalists. He was a soldier during the American Revolution. And in his churches on George Washington’s Birthday, he regularly preached sermons honoring George Washington. Even late in his life, he expressed his willingness to go back to battle if necessary to protect America, which he called a Sacred Ark. American history is filled with numerous examples of black heroes who are largely ignored by mainstream education today. For more information about Pastor Lemuel Haynes and other colonial patriots, go to WallBuilders.com .

Rick Green: 8:26

Welcome back to WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. Always good to have General Bob Dees with us, HealthyVeterans.org is the website you need to check out today. We love supporting General Dees and what's happening there in his service to our men and women in uniform. General, always good to have you, man. Thanks for taking some time to come back to WallBuilders.

Bob Dees: 8:42

Well, thanks, Rick. I love you, I love WallBuilders. Great to be with you.

Rick Green: 8:46

Well, man, we've covered a lot of topics with you over the years. I don't know that we've ever covered this one. We had a question from one of our listeners, asking about the draft, they have a son that's interested in joining and just, you know, all the things that well, frankly, you and I've talked about offline, in terms of just the things the military has been doing, the wokeism, all that. It's causing a lot of our kids in our circles to not want to join or be worried about joining. And the question was about the draft and whether or not, you know, there's a likelihood of that coming back. And I just wanted to, while we had you, ask that same question that you and I've talked about, and just, you know, what do you recommend to kids these days with all this going on? So we got a lot to cover, man, in just a few minutes. Let's start with just the draft question. What do you think about that? Is it likely that ever comes back in the next few years?

Bob Dees: 9:31

Yeah, I don't think we have a national will to bring it back. To be honest, Rick, but I think we should bring it back because we are have a widening gap between civilian and military in the United States. And that does not bode well for a number of reasons. I think people in America need to understand what it takes to, you know, the responsibility of public service and Israel certainly does it successfully. Everybody does two years. I think we need the same in our country. Do I think Congress and the current administration have the will to do that? No, I don't. The question is based on the recruitment numbers being way down. The demographics in our nation are not good. It's a national security issue. I know when I was working with Dr. Carson in the 2016 campaign, it's only gotten worse, less than 1/3 of Americans 18 to 24 youth were qualified to go into the military, either physically, mentally, or behaviorally. And that has only gotten worse. And frankly, it's a commentary that... the youth of our age, today, are less resilient than in many generations. Now, we got some great Americans in there, some great Americans in the military. But overall, recruitment is down. And not only is recruitment down, but the willingness and readiness of our nation's youth to serve is way down as well.

Rick Green: 10:53

Let me ask you what I always get when I bring this up with folks from the military, and they always say, well, we don't want people that don't want to be there. Aren't there things you could direct them to other than combat or even, you know, what we think of typically as military service, if we had a draft like that, where you're just, you're going to serve in some capacity for a year or two years, or whatever that would

Bob Dees: 11:14

Right. No, I think there definitely are. And I be? think the ethic of service is what we're trying to get at. And we've lost that as a national, you know, characteristic. And we got to get that ethic of service back, you know, less than 1% of our national population has served in the military over these last 20 years of continuous warfare. And, you know, that's tough. And yes, if we got everybody involved in this, there's plenty of things we can have them do. Clearly, the military already has started the pre boot camps where they'll... they're putting people just to get them qualified, they're putting them through orientation, get them in shape, indoctrinate them, so that they can even qualify to go in the military. So that's the state of play right now.

Rick Green: 12:01

And a lot of that is almost just like life skills, right? I mean, they it's things they didn't... education, life skills, physicality, all of those things, that they didn't get growing up. And certainly the schools don't do those kinds of things anymore, so...

Bob Dees: 12:14

Yeah, right, certainly true, such as Patriot Academy. We need some of that.

Rick Green: 12:20

I couldn't agree more there. Well, okay, so let's address the thing about, you know, the wokeism and just how poor the leadership is the things that this administration is doing. In your view, how long does it take to turn that around? If you get a commander in chief that is a good leader, and that understands the proper role of the military, is that something a president can turn around and in a term or in a few years?

Bob Dees: 12:49

Yeah, well, it's a high order. I know that to fix the army after Vietnam took fully a decade or almost two decades, you know, you had Vietnam, and then in the early 90s, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Grenada, and all those things, all of a sudden, the investments of 15 years prior changing the mentality, changing the physical stance of the military, it took that long to do it. So it needs... so I would offer that a lot of the wokeism and things, you know, we can change the leadership that helps. But the problem is, it's insinuated itself into the bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy and some of the civilians and so forth, it just takes a long, long time to turn that ship around. I think I just, it comes to mind, Rick, also, you know, the incentives to enlist are very important to the enlistment process. And a couple of thoughts, one, you enlist a soldier, but you reenlist a family. So it's also important to look at the family support systems that are within the military. They're not very good right now, in many ways. They've deteriorated, you know, you have 7,000 military... members in Europe that are under the poverty line that are basically, you know, on welfare, and then that's just in Europe alone, and then you go across the entire United States. So that's a disincentive to join, you know, if we're not taking care of our veterans, if you read more stories about the VA, or other people, if they're not taking care of veterans, then that's another disincentive. And frankly, that's why we're doing what we're doing at the National Center for Healthy veterans. We want veterans and hence future veterans, military people, to know that they're valued, they have potential, and they can come back from whatever, you know they encounter in combat or other military service. So those are all incentives to help reenlistment that aren't directly, but are indirectly important.

Rick Green: 14:55

Well, and that's one of the things that you know, people ask us all the time, well, how do we thank people for their service, they put their lives on the line for us. They went through all the things that they went through, what can we do to thank them other than just, you know, verbally thanking them and shaking their hand, I mean, some real ways to help, HealthyVeterans.org . You guys are taking people in, that are really struggling and you're seeing miracles happen and this is a really important thing for us to be involved in. Catch us up on the development of the property there. And just all the new things that y'all are doing and how folks can be a part of that.

Bob Dees: 15:26

Yeah, well, the property is going great. We've just... we're completing village one. And it's open for business, we have online in the next two, three weeks, we have 10 homes. And so we're recruiting, you can go to the website, HealthyVeterans.org and it says refer a patriot. And so it tells you, if you know somebody in your family or somebody in your community, somebody that really has stuck in trauma or transition, we need you to refer them to us. We had a guy that last week he got baptized, this is after a long journey, he came to us, not really as a believer in anything. And over time and over the culture that we have here, he just saw that he wanted what the people around him had and he got baptized. So we had a great time last weekend going into his baptism.

Rick Green: 16:15

That's beautiful.

Bob Dees: 16:16

And then we've got another one coming in on next Tuesday, we're excited about that. Everybody psyches up when you see a new Patriot coming in, and we help take care of them. And it's really fun to watch them grow. And then our master plan, you know, we're working... we're pretty forward leaning in terms of we got to help the veteran lodge that we're seeking to build. And that Lodge has a counseling wing on it and a conference wing. You mentioned what to do with a veteran other than say thank you for your service. Well, part of our implied mission, Rick, is to teach churches, communities, corporations, campuses, about how to help veterans beyond"thank you for your service." And so we'll start a series of conferences and things and mobile training teams to do that. And then in a similar way, we just recently got a grant from the state of Virginia, to amp up our veteran counseling and how we take care of patriots from a mental and behavioral perspective. So we're rockin and rollin and God's good providing his favor through his people in lots of ways.

Rick Green: 17:15

I love it. I love it. So much going on there and folks is not only important work, they're really good at it. I mean, General Dees is exceptional at doing this the right way, National Center for Healthy Veterans. You can go to HealthyVeterans.org . You can learn more about what's going on there on the ground, but also what they're doing across the country. Valor Farm is phenomenal, but they're also reaching people all across the nation. General, God bless you, man. We love you, brother. We appreciate all that you're doing. And I appreciate you coming back on the program. Look forward to getting you back soon.

Bob Dees: 17:45

Oh, it's dynamite, Rick. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. God bless.

Rick Green: 17:49

You, too. That's General Bob Dees. Stay with us, folks. We'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We’re We're back here on WallBuilders. Thanks for staying with us. looking around for leaders of principle to step up and, too often, no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impact in the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriots Academy was created to meet that need. Patriots Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of Congress and businesses, in the film industry and the pulpit, in every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively an impact in the world around them. Patriots Academy is now expanding across the nation, and now is your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world. Visit PatriotsAcademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults. So visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at PatriotAcademy.com . Thanks to General Bob Dees for joining us today as well. Back with David and Tim. Guys, of course you know sounds like Gen Dees definitely thinks we should have the draft because of you know so few Americans having some skin in the game. And of course he did say you know other things, you can have them do than put them into combat. You know what... I'm just throwing this out there to you guys, what if we actually required you're going to get free college, you got to put in some service for that as well or something like that. I don't know, maybe we do need to be thinking outside the box and finding a better way to make people grateful for what we have.

Tim Barton: 19:33

Well, as he pointed out, you know, Israel does this. I think it would be a very different dynamic in America, as he pointed out, that probably the American people would not tolerate this. They wouldn't support it, so it wouldn't really work. It wouldn't be effective. But in Israel, it's such a different dynamic that there are literally rockets flying around that nation every week. There are terrorists trying to destroy and kill people in that nation, every single week. And I think there's a different understanding of reality for so many people in Israel than there are in America. As Americans, we've become so comfortable and lazy. And we've embraced so many theoretical ideas, where the apostle Paul, I think it's Colossians, he talks about to watch out for high sounding nonsense. That's literally what these college kids have been hearing with this socialism push, with this one world order, and one world government and all these ideas, we should just all be friends and get along. They fail to recognize the reality the situation. Now Rick, to your point, I think it's a great idea, just like it would be for welfare or anything else, to have work requirements for welfare, why not have some basic military requirements for individuals to get government assistance from college, which is already a thing, but for how much government assistance we do, we certainly are not requiring any kind of payback in so many scenarios. So already in the military, you can go to the military, use your free college, your free education on some level, but it would be an interesting conversation to see what are things we can do that would incentivize military, and that would have some basic requirements for all of the free handouts that are already being given. However, until we change people's ideas and notions about America, I think having more people in the military that hate America doesn't necessarily help the military be better at defending America.

David Barton: 21:23

Well, another problem, I think that is a really big problem is only one out of three Americans are capable of even going into the military. And that's basic physical requirements or minimal education requirements. And if you look at the ASVAB test, to go in the military, it's not that difficult a test. And for only one out of three Americans to be at that level of being capable. That's not good news in itself. And the physical aspect, you know, we've talked before about JFK, President John F. Kennedy, and what he did on pushing physical fitness in America, and you look at where we are now. And you look at our lack of physical fitness. And I have to go back to a teaching that was was common years, have to go decades ago, but it was a common teaching to the church because it was biblically grounded. But in First Corinthians 6 verses 19, and 20. And then in First Corinthians

3: 22:13

16, it talks about your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so as part of that, keep that temple in shape. Nobody likes living in a dilapidated structure that is falling apart, that is not clean, that is not in good shape. And so there was something to physically keeping yourself in some shape, because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so that was part of Christian teaching for a good while, and we kind of become lazy in a lot of ways. And we don't like doing things that make us uncomfortable, like physical exercise, and etc. And certainly what was required in all public schools back under JFK, oh, my goodness, that might even be tough for a lot of athletes today to go through what basic high schools and junior High's and elementary kids were doing back then. So we really do need to step up the discipline side on several areas, not just physically but mentally, emotionally. We need more kids passing that ASVAB test. Again, it's basic. And if you can't pass that, that says a whole lot about how bad education is. But I do think there's something to be said, for having skin in the game. If you were to be drafted for two years and have to go through basic training, and go through the discipline and go through learning how to get along with people you may not like, you're also going to learn to love your country even a little bit more, despite the fact there's going to be people in there that hate it. Once you get skin in the game. You look at Israel, there's a lot of people in Israel who don't necessarily agree with what's going on, but they will fight for Israel as a nation, they will fight for national existence. And so I think there's some of that that can be there too. But it would certainly be easier if we had the right education, right attitude and right approach to physical education as well.

Rick Green: 23:49

Alright folks out of time for today. But listen, before we go, I want to encourage you again, as I said at the top of the program, take action, look for ways that you can make a difference. Don't just listen to these programs and feel good or get excited that other people are doing things like what Gen Dees is doing in Virginia for our veterans, but we each can do something, not only for our veterans remember what Lincoln said at the Gettysburg Address. He said how do you honor those who came before us? He said that we have to take an increased devotion to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. The causes liberty, the causes our way of life, our value system, and each and every one of us can do something about restoring that. We've got a big anniversary coming up Constitution Day on September 17. It's about a month from now, we're going to have Constitution Day. That's an opportunity for you to read through the constitution to start a constitution class to dive into those foundational principles that made America so special. So I want to encourage you for this Constitution Day for this year, celebrating Constitution Day and the anniversary of our Constitution, that you would sign up as a constitution coach, you would get a class started in your community, and that as a constitution coach, you would consider doing the Constitution Day material in your local public school, as well as private schools and homeschool co-ops and those sorts of things. Sign up as a constitution coach today, ConstitutionCoach.com . And you'll learn how to do that. There's a federal law that requires every school to have something for Constitution Day if they get any federal funds at all. And so you can go to your local school district and say, hey, if you don't have anything planned for Constitution Day, which is a Sunday this year, but you do it on Friday or Monday, then I will come in and do a 45 minute presentation for your kids and we provide you with the PowerPoint, we coach you along on how to do it, and it's all free. Check that out today at ConstitutionCoach.com . And then lastly, think about spinning Constitution Day with us, September 17, in Fredericksburg where the Patriot Academy campus is being built, you can come in and have a great time with Brad Stine, the comedian, Kirk Cameron is going to be with us. We're going to do the Comedy, Constitution and Revival so it's American campfire revival from Kirk Cameron. It's the comedy from Brad Stine and then I'll bring some of that constitution teaching, we'll have great music. It's going to be phenomenal. And if you come in a few days early, you can do our Constitutional Defense course. So you can be on our new ranges. We've got 60,000 square feet of ranges, brand new ranges, brand new classroom, all of that at the Patriot Academy campus in Fredericksburg, Texas. Very inexpensive to do our training. Come in for a few days before the Constitution Day event or stay over and do the class after the Constitution Day event, whichever works better for your schedule. Check it all out at PatriotAcademy.com . Okay, everybody get ready, action steps, every single one of us do something for Constitution Day that's coming up just a month from right now. Today's the 16th, one month from now, on the 17th of September is Constitution Day. Be prepared to celebrate. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders.