00:00:00.000Men, as Memorial Day approaches, I don't think there's really a better time to have a very real and frank conversation about what it means to be a man in America today and why that question has, in my mind, never mattered more.
00:00:14.260From the assault on boyhood to the spiritual warfare that's being played out in our homes and our communities, our military, just our culture in general, someone has to name what's really happening.
00:00:27.080And today, we do exactly that. I'm joined by former Marine Recon Chad Robichaud, and we cover everything from the manufactured collapse of masculinity to what our military is facing in this post-COVID world, which we're still feeling the fallout from, what real leadership actually looks like, and why faith, not politics, is the only thing that holds when everything else falls apart.
00:00:54.480so whether you're a veteran or a father or just a man trying to figure out where you stand this one
00:01:00.700guys is for you you're a man of action you live life to the fullest embrace your fears and boldly
00:01:06.720chart your own path when life knocks you down you get back up one more time every time you are not
00:01:12.840easily deterred or defeated rugged resilient strong this is your life this is who you are
00:01:19.700This is who you will become at the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:27.640Men, welcome to the Order of Man podcast. My name is Ryan Michler. Very excited. I've been talking with having Chad on the podcast for years now, and he did not disappoint. I'm very excited to get into this one.
00:01:40.420obviously Memorial Day is fast approaching, very excited about that. And one thing that stands out
00:01:46.680to me is, especially during Veterans Day, Memorial Day, these types of things is companies that
00:01:52.040support America. And I want to just do a shout out as I do every week about our sponsors over at
00:01:59.160Montana Knife Company. Now I get to go spend a little time with them later this month, just
00:02:05.100around Memorial Day. And I can tell you with their new facility, there is no company out there
00:02:09.540doing better work than montana knife company in the realm of bringing back american manufacturing
00:02:16.360so if you support america you believe in americans who are working hard and you want to grow our
00:02:22.540economy and you just want a badass knife because every man needs a good knife look no further than
00:02:28.080my friends over at montana knife company and use the code order of man all one word order a man at
00:02:34.500checkout because they're going to save you some money when you do all right guys check it out
00:02:38.760Montana knife company.com. Use the code order of man. Now, speaking of men doing good work,
00:02:45.020let me introduce you to my guest. A lot of you guys know who he is. Chad Robichaud.
00:02:48.900He is a Marine recon. I was going to say former, but I know once a Marine, always a Marine,
00:02:54.880but a Marine recon. He's a DOD contractor who has completed eight deployments to Afghanistan
00:03:01.840as part of the joint special operations command task force, a JSOC. A lot of you guys have heard
00:03:07.860of it. And after overcoming his own battles with PTSD and quite frankly, almost becoming a veteran
00:03:15.680suicide statistic, he founded an organization called Mighty Oaks. This is a nonprofit. They're
00:03:21.680serving the military and also first responder communities. They've got highly effective,
00:03:27.060they're very faith-based resiliency and recovery programs. And he's spoken to over half a million
00:03:33.700active duty troops and led, well, frankly, life-saving programs for almost 7,000 warriors
00:03:43.040at Mighty Oaks ranches across the nation. In 2021, Chad also led the largest civilian
00:03:49.260evacuation in American history, rescuing almost 17,000 people trapped during that whole Afghanistan
00:03:59.840withdrawal debacle and that's a story told in his wall street journal best-selling book called
00:04:05.300saving aziz that actually is currently being developed as a major motion picture
00:04:09.880he's also a fox news contributor a board certified pastoral counselor and co-author of the thriller
00:04:18.280series silent horizons featuring special ops hero foster quinn which also happens to be the
00:04:25.200protagonist of his newest novel out today called riptide enjoy this one guys
00:04:30.060chad what's up man so great to have you on the podcast i've been looking forward to this one
00:04:35.160yeah no same thanks thanks for having me on and thanks for all you that you guys are doing
00:04:39.700oh yeah of course i mean i think we're kind of running in similar circles and
00:04:45.120you know at the end of the day both have a mission to help
00:04:47.960men you you serve obviously men and women with your organizations and and me predominantly men
00:04:53.260but I think all of us just want to see the world a better place, you know,
00:04:56.340and, and if we can help people improve, then that's what it's about.
00:05:00.020Yeah. It's just investing, investing in one another and one another.
00:05:02.820And, uh, that's kind of was the mighty Oaks.
00:05:05.160When we started mighty Oaks, it was a pay it forward effort.
00:05:06.940It's grew into something really amazing. Uh, and, and now you're like you,
00:05:11.000I just get out and speak as much as I can and try to encourage people to just
00:05:14.260do better every day. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. No, that's cool. Um,
00:05:18.620I was actually talking with, uh, uh, Nick Freitas just yesterday.
00:05:22.700and he had, your name got dropped. I'm like, I'm actually, I've got a podcast with him tomorrow
00:05:27.100actually. So he had horrible, horrible things to say about you. Yeah. He's, we, we tend to,
00:05:34.180I just think the circle of speaking, we tend to be together quite a bit and we've, we've gotten
00:05:38.840to where we just have, we just have a blast together. Yeah. He seems like such a solid guy.
00:05:42.900And I think, you know, when you see guys like him and John Lovell and yourself and other people
00:05:47.240in the community, but putting themselves out there, you can't help, but start to rub shoulders
00:05:51.920and learn and grow from each other so it's a cool community yeah john john and i were just together
00:05:56.820uh just just a couple we were at the white house together and uh he's he's another amazing he's
00:06:03.380about to come on my podcast as well he's another great oh he is great guy yeah yeah he's he's so
00:06:08.280great i just bought he's got the um uh the new program what's it called the stronger boy way
00:06:14.360have you seen that the stronger boy way he told me about it and and it's super cool him his wife's
00:06:20.560like a like he's an amazing father his wife's an amazing mother they're just they're incredible
00:06:24.420you know it's funny as years ago this is probably five or so years ago now uh he and his wife and
00:06:30.480kids came out to my property in maine and spent a long weekend with us and you know it's so funny
00:06:37.120to see his boys and my boy his boys are rowdy and so to see them get together and they all had their
00:06:41.540shirts off they're running around in the creek and then for whatever reason they thought it'd be a
00:06:45.420good idea to get into a slap fight and so they're there with their shirts off just slapping the
00:06:49.900shit out of each other and just having a good time. I'm like, this is exactly what it should
00:06:54.640be like right here. Yeah. Yeah. For some reason we've gotten way too far away from slap fights
00:07:01.040and roll around in bed with our shirts off. I think the, I think the world would be a better
00:07:06.020place if it were. I think that's probably part of the reason that so many men are struggling
00:07:11.140because we're told to sit down, to shut up, to color within the lines when separated from
00:07:17.100military service, which is something you deal a lot with, you know, we're told to, to, you know,
00:07:21.800be, be good members of the community and do what you're supposed to and, and toe the line. And I
00:07:26.780just don't think that's conducive to growth for a man. Well, what do you think? No, I, but I think
00:07:32.760it goes back to what you were talking about with, when you observed John's boys there, it goes back
00:07:36.680to boyhood, you know, when, um, when you rob, uh, young boys of their adolescence and the ability
00:07:43.340to be boys and to do what they're wired to do, what God hardwired and created them to
00:07:48.580do, man, you take that away from a boy and you're going to have behavioral issues, call
00:07:56.240it ADHD, whatever you want to call it.
00:08:10.320And it's really – it just takes something that was intentionally designed to be something great and it misplaces it in society and then it turns out in adulthood to be tons of problems.
00:08:23.200And it's no surprise that we have the issues that we have with men in our country today, all the way from the extreme side of terrible behaviors, getting in trouble and alcoholism, porn, fighting, all this negative stuff, all the way to the other spectrum of boys who just act like – or men who shave and act like boys or dress up like girls, right?
00:08:51.020because the one thing that the one thing that we're supposed to be is the one thing that we're
00:08:55.720not allowed to do all the way from boyhood and so yeah we got to get back get back to the basics and
00:09:00.900just letting young boys be who god created them to be and then mold them and not just not pushing
00:09:05.620against that but actually getting behind that embracing it yeah well i'm glad you talked about
00:09:10.180that briefly that distinction between you know you said men who shave i use the term male versus man
00:09:15.940right male is a matter of biology man to me is something so much more you know you have a birth
00:09:22.880right in being a male but you've got to earn the right to be a man yeah i think i think i missed
00:09:27.580it boys who shave right boys who shave yeah no i understood what you meant yeah do you think that
00:09:33.920i don't know if we want to call it the war on boys that was something coined by dr warren
00:09:38.640farrell who's a previous podcast guest i think that's a pretty accurate term and if you look at
00:09:43.520All of the statistics from incarceration rates, suicide rates, drug epidemic, alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, like all of it, even college enrollment rates, income is declining relative to our female counterparts.
00:10:02.280Do you feel like it is simply misguided as far as we approach men or is it malicious?
00:11:07.120So there's been an assault on the American family for about 60, 70 years.
00:11:10.380I believe that it's come in the form of Marxism that infiltrated our schools and with our universities and all the way down now to the elementary school curriculums.
00:11:21.840And so I think when you ask if it's intentional and strategic, I think yes on that front.
00:11:28.460but also through that brainwashing and and over you know close to you know 70 80 100 years now
00:11:33.940through that brainwashing and you have people that really believe this and they probably mean
00:11:38.120some goodwill behind it so you have school teachers that are thinking well you know boys
00:11:41.020you know there's you know violence isn't the answer for everything right so they they're
00:11:45.360trying to do things what they think's right but but uh but ultimately they're calling little boys
00:11:53.120and and and and robbing them of their their masculinity and so i think i think it's it's
00:11:58.180twofold however uh where it gets scary is to see that this isn't just a a this isn't just a
00:12:05.820deliberate strategic effort it's a very successful one it has been very successful
00:12:11.620the reason we're aware of the reason we're aware of it now isn't because the the veil has been
00:12:16.500lifted and we got to see behind the curtain it's because we're we're seeing the result of it that's
00:12:21.420why everybody's become all of a sudden aware like oh my gosh this is happening we're indoctrinating
00:12:24.720children in our schools and the reason that that's that has become revealed to us is because
00:12:29.160we're seeing the result and the result is what's revealing and now we go back and when you have a
00:12:33.980problem like you don't you don't know anything's going on with your car uh if you're not looking
00:12:38.080at the doing the maintenance and stuff like that until the engine blows and you go back and say
00:12:41.340why the engine blow oh i didn't change the oil back you know thousands of miles ago and that's
00:12:46.240where now we see the result of what we have and our and our cultures are so broken and so we're
00:12:50.920going back and looking and saying hey this is 67 years ago we let we let marxism start leading uh
00:12:58.680in indoctrinating our school system and and and and leading our in in just uh taking apart the
00:13:05.640nuclear family and this is the result that we have right now and i think a big part of it is
00:13:09.800assault the very intentionally very strategic assault on the family and ultimately boys and
00:13:15.260taking the next generation of men out in america and now you know there's guys like us but
00:13:21.500unfortunately uh you know uh you know you're you're from what i know about you you're you know
00:13:28.780the the type of man that we need in america right now unfortunately you and i are few and
00:13:33.540four between in our culture and so that's why i mean i try to be yeah well that's why you're doing
00:13:39.280what you're doing because you you somehow innately or maybe very deliberate you recognize that and so
00:13:44.820you're going out and trying to bring that fire back in the men to bring them back to where they're
00:13:49.420supposed to being who they're supposed to be uh for their homes and for their communities and for
00:13:55.200our country and for this world like and so men that have that recognize the void of it and we're
00:14:00.600like hey we like i can't do this by myself we need to raise up other men to step back into who they
00:14:05.960were created to be to do what they were created to do or we or we lose it all and so that's why
00:14:10.540you're doing what you're doing that's why i do what i do i mean i mean there's a lot of things
00:14:13.700i do at mighty oaks and other things but at my heart what i care about most is men stepping in
00:14:17.880their roles as to be the men that god created us to be and uh yeah it's it's interesting because
00:14:24.960you use the analogy of the the car blowing up the engine blowing up and not checking the oil but the
00:14:29.780reality is is that check engine light comes on and just like anybody who drives a vehicle you let that
00:14:35.380check engine light stay on a little too long and it's inevitable my concern is that for the past
00:14:41.72010 years of me doing this work, the check engine light has been blinking at us. And most of us
00:14:47.840willfully, willingly just ignore it, hoping that, you know, maybe it'll go away. Maybe it's not as
00:14:55.280big a problem as we think it is. And we don't do the maintenance or the upkeep that, that we ought
00:15:01.440to be doing. Um, but the, the warning lights are there. I'm a little disheartened when I'm on
00:15:06.160social media and I see all these feminized men, uh, these, these shaving boys, as you said,
00:15:14.260uh, who are completely misguided about what, what it actually means to be a man and what this
00:15:21.600country needs. You know, they get so focused on who the president is and their vitriol and hatred
00:15:25.880towards, towards, you know, our current president Trump. And it's like, you know, I can see where
00:15:31.480you're coming from but at the same time you're you're misdiagnosing the problem the problem is
00:15:37.360weakness the problem is and not the the inability to be bold and courageous and stand up for truth
00:15:45.440and righteousness but we just don't do it anymore it seems like yeah i'm a the reason we have a
00:15:52.020i mean look i i'm a supporter of president trump there's a lot of things right now i don't like
00:15:56.380But I am a supporter of President Trump. I was a surrogate on his campaign in 2020 and 2024 for veterans policy. I'm a supporter of Secretary Hegseth, Department of War. But they're pretty extreme dudes. And they came in and they started flipping over tables and doing things. And they're bull in the China cabinet.
00:16:17.460the reason no doubt the reason that they had to be there is because you will let it go so far
00:16:23.600that should not be necessary to have a a donald trump or secretary hexath type person in those
00:16:29.360positions and we let it go we let it go so far um and so now it's necessary so for the people that
00:16:36.360you know don't like the bullet in china cabinet uh personalities of secretary hexath or donald trump
00:16:43.600then it's their weakness that allowed us to get that far to where we have to go in and right the
00:16:49.640ship uh you got to bring if you let things get so far now you got to bring in a fixer right to fix
00:16:56.560everything that's messed up the united states military which is supposed to be apolitical
00:17:01.180colorblind gender gender does none of that stuff should matter right if they would have stayed
00:17:08.400focused on warfighting, lethality, and mission, and not brought in DEI and wokeness and got
00:17:16.780focused off of the training, they would never have to bring in a Secretary of Headstaff.
00:17:20.600The Rican Secretary of Headstaff had to go in because he had to improve morale, recruitment,
00:17:23.860retention, because we lost the morale.
00:17:26.680No one wanted to be in the military anymore.
00:17:28.580The lowest morale I'd seen in 30 years.
00:17:31.060The recruitment was the lowest since Vietnam.
00:17:33.600The retention, we lost all of our GWAT warfighters of 20 years, all left in the military because
00:17:38.240they didn't want to be part of that garbage anymore they wanted to get out and so because
00:17:43.000those all those numbers were down now they had to they had to get rid of all the standards the
00:17:48.260entry standards i was going to marine corps boot camp and seeing the type of the lowest caliber
00:17:52.800of men and women and i don't mean to be insulting to our troops because i love our military obviously
00:17:56.720that's what i do but the low but we're having to bring the lowest caliber of people into our
00:18:00.120military because the standards had to drop just to meet their recruiting numbers and so this
00:18:05.000national security which we're still still doing the link which yeah there's a national security
00:18:08.960but so you had to bring in a guy that would focus on those kind of things and and it has to be
00:18:14.340radical i mean he has to come in and say hey like this is a systemic problem that's multi you know
00:18:19.860multi-administration and so we need to fire people because if i was a ceo of a company i went and
00:18:24.760came in to go over a failing company i'm looking at the line items of budget i'm going to look at
00:18:28.760the and i'm looking at the personnel and the personnel are the problems they have to go so
00:18:31.860Everybody's complaining about, you know, Secretary Hex has come in here.
00:18:35.920He was only a major, and now he's firing these generals and stuff like that.
00:18:39.520I mean, if I was the CEO of a company, I was taking over a failing company, I'm coming in, I'm firing people.
00:18:44.340Like, I'm getting rid of the problems.
00:26:53.500You see them with the support of leadership and unrestrained.
00:26:56.800And now you're getting a display of the capabilities of the most incredible fighting force the world has ever known in the United States military.
00:27:04.900And in the world, whether you agree, whether people agree with what we're doing in Iran or not, the world is noticing, right?
00:27:12.880The world has taken note that the United States military is not to be messed with.
00:27:18.140And it's not just, I mean, it's look, you got, we have the biggest, we have the most advanced technological military.
00:27:27.620but the american people regardless of the issues that you and i have with our culture
00:27:32.900and the things that we're doing still in contrast to the world the american people are still the
00:27:37.820most resilient and tough gritty people in the world like i i've talked trash we all talk trash
00:27:45.060about about our culture because we want it to be better i still want people to walk around barefoot
00:27:49.360down down gravel roads like i did when i was a kid and have slap fights like john but still
00:27:54.820I mean, you go to any of our you go to Bud's or the Q course or the pipeline for BRC and you see some, you know, 120 pound kid that just got his mullet shaved off when he showed up from Oklahoma at boot camp.
00:28:09.500And he's like he's going through this first time he's ever in the ocean.
00:28:13.280He's freezing his butt off to become a special operator like we still have those people in America and they still get out and serve.
00:28:20.840And then you got – we have some of the smartest people in the world, these technical jobs.
00:28:27.620All that comes together, build the United States military and do what we do.
00:28:30.840And we just demonstrate it in the last year, the capabilities.
00:28:36.880And, man, look, like I said, we're all impressed by it, but the world and world leaders are taking note.
00:28:44.240It's very important for Putin, President Xi, Kim Jong-un.
00:28:49.580So it is very important for these world leaders to see the strength of what they would face if they choose to test the United States military.
00:28:59.120These are all – these demonstrations are very important in our national security.
00:30:15.580I think he and the White House has done a really bad job of communicating the why we are in Iran.
00:30:26.660And I don't blame them for why they have done a bad job.
00:30:29.940They have to be – I couldn't imagine being in his position or President Trump's position so frustrated with the media.
00:30:36.200Like the media has completely – anything they say gets twisted.
00:30:40.880And they say something important and it doesn't get reported.
00:30:43.040They say they make a slip up that gets reported.
00:30:45.720So they're frustrated with the media and their frustration towards the media has cleared this kind of flippant attitude like, hey, we don't have to tell you guys shit like it's none of your like.
00:30:55.140And so they don't communicate well to the media, but behind the media is the American people.
00:30:59.120And so when when the media doesn't get the full story and the American people don't get the full story, there's gaps of information.
00:31:07.680And so when there's gaps of where conspiracies come from, conspiracies come from gaps of information.
00:31:13.040we're we're humans are humans are inquisitive and so we're gonna if there's a missing piece
00:31:18.520we're gonna fill in the blanks or we're doing it for israel right we're doing it as a humanitarian
00:31:22.660crisis i'm sad for the iranian people but we shouldn't be putting our military at war for
00:31:26.740humanitarian crisis iran like all these things we start putting all these filling in all these
00:31:31.180blanks are we or putin's are we uh yahoo's puppet like and so we start filling in the blanks so i
00:31:36.620Don't think that the White House or the Pentagon has reported the why.
00:31:43.260And I could tell you 10 reasons why it would be good for us to go and do what we did in Iran.
00:31:49.340One that I haven't even heard come out in the media from the Pentagon, which is that Iran, the three months prior to us attacking them, had started producing in the previous three months 100 ICBMs per month.
00:32:03.120When the neighboring countries were only producing 20 countermeasures.
00:32:12.280It's like, hands down, you cannot have a country that makes threats to America, makes threats to the West, producing 100 ICBMs a month while the neighboring countries are producing 20 countermeasures.
00:33:32.280the Chinese government cannot function
00:33:38.080without oil for probably more than a month. They have to have
00:33:42.680oil because they can't produce their own. When I say oil, outside of China. They can't produce
00:33:46.560their own oil to run their own economy for a month. They need outside oil.
00:33:51.060The Afghanistan withdrawal was largely based on them being able to get
00:33:54.620sanctioned oil from Iran into China. We moved to U.S. military. They were getting sanctioned oil
00:33:59.780discounted from Iran. They're also getting oil discounted from Venezuela. President Trump has
00:34:06.540a meeting with President Xi in April, and he's going to go into that meeting now, knowing that
00:34:11.600President Xi has no more oil from Venezuela and no more oil from Iran. That's cut off. So President
00:34:17.660Xi is forced economically to buy oil either from the United States or at minimum in the U.S. dollar
00:34:22.880From a national security standpoint and a global security standpoint, I believe that President Trump in that move has checkmated President Xi through economic warfare.
00:34:36.480And this is where people talk about President Trump playing chess while other people playing checkers.
00:34:42.560I don't know. Maybe I'm – I don't know that for a fact.
00:34:44.860Maybe I'm guessing and maybe he stumbled upon it.
00:34:47.660Nonetheless, I believe he's in a really good position with China over cutting off Venezuelan and Iranian oil from him, and it puts America in a really safe place from the threat of China.
00:35:02.880so that's that's what i heard this i think it's an interesting theory i heard this um
00:35:09.760i heard this statistic just the other day and i just actually pulled it up and it's on chat gpt
00:35:14.740so i haven't had a chance to fact check this yet but it aligns with what i heard earlier is that
00:35:19.500um china's about it says here that china is about 85 percent energy self-sufficient overall
00:35:24.940all um but it does import a large share of its crude oil specifically it says here 17 roughly
00:35:32.400percent comes from russia 15 from saudi arabia who might be more and more of an ally with america
00:35:39.420as we progress and then roughly 15 of their oil supply comes from iran so you might say well
00:35:46.820that's not a big deal but man you start cutting off 15 of the oil supply to our major international
00:35:52.560enemy and it makes a huge, huge difference in their efficacy. Yeah. I heard an argument before
00:35:58.280too, that the percentage was, but like you said, that's, that percentage is large and you start
00:36:04.860taking out, take it away. Then the Venezuelan oil too. I don't know how much of that was factored
00:36:08.640in. Yeah. I didn't see that on the list, but it's probably sizable as well. Yeah. So you take away
00:36:14.560those two things and it puts president Trump in a really, really good position. So I was an
00:36:20.200intentional about president trump i don't know was it is it is it a byproduct of it either way
00:36:25.400it puts us in a really good position and um i think part of his ambiguity is what makes him
00:36:31.720so effective uh you know you'll even hear a presser will say like maybe we'll do that maybe
00:36:36.220we won't and we're not used to having a president like that a president normally you know obama or
00:36:41.120somebody will come out and say here's exactly what we're gonna do and here's why we're gonna
00:36:44.040do it and our enemies are listening and trump's like yeah we might do that or we just might
00:36:48.160blow the shit out of you we we haven't decided yet yeah and that ambiguity but i think there
00:36:53.000is a marketing problem and i i really like the point that you made up uh that you made about
00:36:57.680um just the fact that we we've got to the point where there's a bull in a china shop you know i
00:37:04.140saw a tweet from or a truth from president trump the other day and he was swearing about opening
00:37:10.680the the the straight of poor moves and all this stuff and everybody's up in arms i'm like you
00:37:14.480know what like i'd actually rather have somebody who's a little crude quite a bit crass but actually
00:37:20.540sticks to his word and produces significantly better results than somebody who's polite and
00:37:26.420nice but puts america in an inferior position yeah i mean um you know i'm in the church world
00:37:34.840uh i'm a christian and i run a ministry so i'm in the church world and i went to when i so it's
00:37:41.500john level at the white house we were actually there for faith leaders at the white house and
00:37:45.640and so i'm around a lot of pastors that support the this administration and it's really funny
00:37:52.800their position that they all they all say like hey he he is we we elected him as our commander
00:37:59.280in chief not as our pastor in chief like he is not he's not a pastor he's not a you know he he's
00:38:04.180not a spiritual authority it's it's great to see his him supporting the faith it's great in his
00:38:08.920personal but that is whatever his personal walk is with god that that's all great but that's not
00:38:14.360why we support we we supported him we supported him because he's he's strong he's decisive and uh
00:38:20.720and he's he's putting america first and and that's that's why and he protects our constitution and
00:38:26.660the religious liberties and so he has a lot of support from the evangelical community but uh
00:38:33.320but he's not a pastor right and uh and and and he uses harsh words because he's a businessman
00:38:38.660from new york and and unfortunately because of where america was allowed to go to we needed a
00:38:43.920strong crude businessmen from new york to do the job and that's who's doing it right now and uh
00:38:49.140when i want to say this because a lot of people don't know this and i know it was it was pretty
00:38:53.960eye-opening to me when me and john went at the white house there's hundreds i don't know maybe
00:38:59.520probably probably thousands of offices that fall under the white house and the executive branch
00:39:03.800and uh and most of them are in the eisenhower building if you've been the white house lawn you
00:39:08.140You have the West Wing where there's offices there.
00:39:11.360There's 13 offices in the West Wing outside of the president's offices, 13 offices of the government offices.
00:39:17.340And then you have the Eisenhower Building has a bunch of offices.
00:39:19.820And then there's not enough to support all offices.
00:39:22.440So off-site of the White House is other offices.
00:39:26.020Even under President Bush, every office of faith has been off grounds of the White House, not in the Eisenhower Building, off-site of the White House lawn right down the street.
00:39:36.200whenever someone's a president they pick whose offices go where there's only 13 offices in the
00:39:43.420west wing whichever those 13 most important offices are that's going to have direct access
00:39:48.660to the president and then and it is that's that says what's most important in that president
00:39:54.040whichever 13 they pick again got it never never even in the eisenhower never faith officers
00:39:59.640president trump put out of the 13 put the office of faith in those 13 in one of those 13 offices
00:43:44.520My family served World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, all these multiple generations.
00:43:51.260And then our service, consecutive service ends from the vaccine because my son was one of the ones to get kicked out as a Marine, not getting the vaccine.
00:44:00.620He ended up going back in when they opened it back up.
00:44:03.560But, I mean, it wasn't just the vaccine and being forced to take this vaccine, which, by the way, you know, I mean, what are we saying?
00:44:11.160The Navy just did a test 900% in cardiac issues, 900% increase in cardiac issues for those who took the vaccine.
00:44:20.140But I think a lot of military people knew at that time.
00:44:45.540It just really like – it just – the morale was just kind of robbed of the military during that Biden-Harris four years that it was just so desperate.
00:44:56.740And so when you had this just radical change – that's why I talked about Pete being that bull in China shop, that radical change that shifted.
00:45:04.360Like it was like having just a shitty boss forever and all of a sudden somebody comes in and just like cares about you and treats you well.
00:45:09.700you're like going to be motivated and that's what that's what i think the military is like right now
00:45:13.560it's just very very motivated and people are like you see a sense of patriotism that came back in
00:45:18.820the military and the guys are motivated again and uh and it showed it like this is my opinion
00:45:24.000but beyond my opinion it shows in their recruiting numbers their attention and the performance it
00:45:30.300shows like uh i mean you could agree with me or not but you could also go look at the data if you
00:45:35.140one thing done to do it and in a number of show yeah what do you think is the biggest challenge
00:45:42.040for those uh military men who are separating from service whether they're aging out you know
00:45:48.220voluntary separation what what are some of the struggles that they're dealing with especially
00:45:52.720with regards to your foundation and what you guys support well i mean uh i mean it always comes down
00:45:57.900that regardless what generation if it's during wartime or not wartime it's gonna be a sense of
00:46:02.120purpose i would have said you know a few weeks ago that the biggest the biggest transition was
00:46:06.820you know was just going from 20 years of war to no war uh but right now guys are still getting
00:46:14.420to be you know involved in some stuff and even if you're not deploying tyran you still feel like
00:46:18.780you're part of that right so it gives you that sense of purpose for being in the military
00:46:23.100but man like when you take off that uniform uh or whatever role people capacity people played in
00:46:30.840their role in service uh if their purpose was tied to a job and that job's taken away
00:46:37.980then they fall apart and that's what i believe we see when we talk about veteran suicide
00:46:43.440ptsd all the things that the transition issues uh these aren't issues about things that people
00:46:49.320seen or did or experiences they had this this is an issue with people having a very clear mission
00:46:54.980a very clear purpose important job they believed in and then when that's gone they and they can't
00:47:00.540find that again, they feel purposeless. And so I love the military. I love the fact that I served
00:47:06.240a military. You look around the office, I got all kinds of stuff around here that I'm very proud of.
00:47:10.140And I know you do too, but I mean, we can be proud of those things and our identity not be tied to
00:47:14.740those things. And this is a real dangerous part of being, doing any job that's important. The
00:47:20.160military is just one of them, but you do something that's important and you should be proud of and
00:47:24.220you can be proud of it but when your identity is tied to it and you get hurt uh get uh out of the
00:47:32.220military something happens whatever and that changes abruptly for you then you feel like you
00:47:37.860have no purpose and i believe that's the biggest issue that our villain community has always faced
00:47:41.980uh is is have purpose one day and then not the next day mark twain is a famous quote that i love
00:47:47.400you know it says the two most important days in a person's life or the day that they're born and
00:48:21.540And that's why I believe faith is so important to answer that question.
00:48:27.300I believe that, you know, we need to have to be who we're created to be.
00:48:31.460We have to have a relationship with the creator.
00:48:32.540So having that relationship with Jesus, being who you're created to be and living that purpose.
00:48:36.620Understand that that fundamentally my purpose is in being the man God created me to be, to do the things he created me to do, to take all the gifts and talents he put inside of me.
00:48:46.180Because we all are built with different gifts and talents and then how to use those outward in the world.
00:48:49.380And sometimes those gifts and talents tie into a job and occupation of being a recon marine and being a contractor and being a leader at Mighty Oaks and writing books.
00:48:59.920And those purposes and gifts and talents can go in different places, but they should be able to shift to that.
00:49:04.960Those should never be my purpose because, again, it'll change, and it can be taken away from you at any moment.
00:49:12.760but your core purpose through a relationship with your creator and being in living life by putting
00:49:18.720those gifts and talents into just everyday living that can never be taken away from you so i think
00:49:22.860that's the biggest thing at the core that's what mighty oaks does yeah i love what you guys are
00:49:28.760doing and i think it's powerful when you have somebody who really understands that and decides
00:49:33.100you know i can whether i'm doing this podcast or something else my podcast or my my purpose in life
00:49:37.940is still going to be the same. And how I fulfill that might be slightly different.
00:49:42.360The mechanism or the vehicle that I use to fulfill that purpose changes as technology changes,
00:49:48.260as circumstances in my life change. But man, that's always going to remain steadfast for sure.
00:49:54.220Yeah. I mean, look at what I do right now at Mighty Oaks and, you know, I have a podcast and
00:49:59.320ambassador ships and write books. I mean, I love it. I get to do, I get to reach so many people
00:50:05.660through that but i i'm very well aware that all that could be all that could change tomorrow
00:50:11.160and because there's been times in my life where everything i hung everything into this job when
00:50:17.040i was a contractor at jsoc like that job to me was the most important job on the planet and i was
00:50:21.880like i can't believe i'm here i can't believe i get to do this there's nothing more important
00:50:24.720like my whole life is like focused on this and it was going in a moment and when it was it crushed
00:50:30.720like i it took me three years to even feel like i wanted to live again like i was devastated i was
00:50:37.920ashamed i was dealing with debilitating panic attacks i was having died depression i i didn't
00:50:42.700know i didn't know any like i went through phases of like wanting to kill myself to just not wanting
00:50:46.840to live anymore and it was all because i had missing misplaced uh you know my purpose and uh
00:50:53.880so i know now i live now knowing that as great as this life all the things i get to do now is
00:50:58.380it can be taken away from me in a moment and when it is i just still need to be able to wake up
00:51:02.840the next day and fulfill my purpose in a different capacity
00:51:06.700yeah that's amazing well chad i really appreciate our conversation i know you've got a book coming
00:51:14.020out too riptide it's coming out i think as of the release of this podcast today may 12th so
00:51:18.840why don't you give a plug for the book let people know and then um also let us know how to support
00:51:24.380mighty oaks yeah so i've written a number of books by the way uh mostly uh non-fiction so i've
00:51:29.980written like saving aziz mission without borders those are my two two of my favorite ones and
00:51:33.600unfair advantage uh and uh and they got to the point to where i can't i can't uh i can't keep
00:51:40.940going around the world and make creating non-fiction stories to tell so i so i decided
00:51:45.720to move into fiction space and uh it was it was just something i was excited about doing and
00:51:50.440Tyndale Publishing reached out to me and, uh, and I partnered with Jack Stewart or Jack Stewart's
00:51:54.720a top gun fighter pilot. So we had the ground side, the, the aviator side, which by the way,
00:51:59.260Jack Stewart's ground time was with, uh, J sock as well. So he had ground time with that. So we,
00:52:03.940we got in, and, and partnered with Tyndale and wrote a three book fiction series,
00:52:09.380a military fiction series. And so, uh, the first one was called silent horizons, which,
00:52:13.540which did phenomenal. We just won an audio award. Cause Ray Porter who did, who reads
00:52:17.980uh jack carr's books um in the terminal list reporter read it so we won an audio award for
00:52:23.480it and it was it was a usa today bestseller it did really well so book two riptide is coming out
00:52:30.020may 12th and uh and you get to the main characters foster quinn named after one member uh foster
00:52:35.660was uh one of my brothers who was killed in and uh is from we were at third force together he was
00:52:40.780killed in in alabama province 2004 but it's an incredible story it's so much it's so fun it was
00:52:47.140so great to work with jack because he's such a talented writer and so riptide comes out and as
00:52:51.280just foster quinn's journey continues and uh yeah it was it's a it's been a blast to write
00:52:56.680very cool man we'll sync it all up and uh mighty oaks is mightyoaks.org or where do we go
00:53:03.560mightyoaksprograms.org and look we need all the support we can so anybody wants to support a
00:53:08.200non-profit we're a phenomenal non-profit to support in a veterans uh service organization
00:53:11.980space but more importantly than than that the most i know because your audience if there's a
00:53:17.320veteran uh active service member veteran first responder a spouse of uh that needs help we don't
00:53:24.120care what your story is we don't we we don't care what your discharge was whatever we are there to
00:53:30.100serve zero strains attach we have intensive recovery programs we have resiliency programs
00:53:35.620we have resources uh reach out on the website mightyelchprograms.org and we even pay for flight
00:53:41.040stuff program so cover all costs and uh we have i think we have uh probably 50 camps going this
00:53:46.420year so around around the country so and they're week-long intensives and there is it's completely
00:53:52.500if people listening might think is that for me if we're not i can say yes it is for you because
00:53:56.800it's for if you're lowest of low it's for you if you if you're in the highest point of your life
00:54:01.180it's for you i wish i i actually need to do undercover boss and go back right now i could
00:54:04.780use it. That's awesome. Well, we'll sync everything up, Chad. I appreciate you and what you're doing,
00:54:12.000obviously, and your service to this country. Um, it means a lot and it means a lot. You'd
00:54:16.400take some time with me today. So I appreciate you. Oh, absolutely, man. Thanks. Thanks for
00:54:19.060what you're doing. God bless, man. And we're going to get you on my show. We've got the
00:54:22.320resilient show, uh, the resilient show. We've got to get you on. I'd love to. Let's talk about that
00:54:28.700too. All right, you guys, there you go. My conversation with Chad Robichaud. Like I said,
00:54:34.660I've been working on getting him on the podcast for years. We finally made it happen. And he did
00:54:39.460not disappoint as I told you in the beginning of this podcast. So if you want to connect with Chad,
00:54:45.260hit him up on the gram, check out his organization called mighty Oaks, and also check out his newest
00:54:52.340uh, his newest book called riptide. That one came out today as of the release of this podcast.
00:54:58.220And then also, as I mentioned earlier, we've got the iron council preview call on Tuesday,
00:55:02.700May 19th at 8 PM Eastern. Go get your spot locked in at the iron council.com slash preview.
00:55:11.140Generally, you have your marching orders. I've got kind of a funny and interesting podcast for
00:55:15.500you tomorrow or ask me anything. I asked the guys to ask dumb questions only and see what
00:55:20.980Kip and I can do to come up with some good answers based on bad questions. Check it out. Make sure
00:55:25.860you subscribe, leave a rating and review. If you're watching us on YouTube, just click the
00:55:30.620little button somewhere. I don't know what it says. I think it says subscribe, but that's what
00:55:35.180we're, that's what we're dealing with. We need you guys to subscribe, to support and build this
00:55:39.400grassroots movement of reclaiming and restoring masculinity from a culture of degeneracy and