KEN: Let’s go to Ann in southwest Florida. Hi, Ann. Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
CALLER: Thank you, Ken. And thank you for carrying the torch on for Rush. We certainly appreciate that.
KEN: How’s your day going?
CALLER: It’s going well. Thank you. It’s always nice down here in the state of freedom with Ron DeSantis in charge. The reason I called you is our son was deployed just this morning. And he is going into the Middle East. He will be in Afghanistan and flying missions out of there, which he already does now, but he will be doing it on deployment, which means several months of doing this without coming home.
KEN: Wow.
CALLER: Yep. It’s a lot. Happy Memorial Day. But the reason we’re concerned is because of our leadership right now, but especially because we’re seeing the repercussions of him not accepting the vaccine. He’s being told that there are certain things he won’t be able to do, like using certain gyms or going in certain areas while he’s deployed, and, as you can imagine, it means a lot to these young men and women who are on deployment. He gave up a free ride at a wonderful college ’cause he wanted to serve our country five years ago, and we were very proud of him, but it’s a very different atmosphere he’s serving under now that we don’t have President Trump in office.
KEN: Well, Ann, I’m so glad you exposed that because I subscribe to several military journals, and I’ve been reading all about this, and men and women in the military, they’re losing opportunities for leave, for promotion, all over this ridiculous injection. That’s kind of scary. And he’s a pilot for goodness’ sake.
CALLER: But he does fly special missions. He’s called loadmaster. But he is going to be a pilot in the near future. He also has high-level clearance where he does a lot of intel, but the point is that, you know, he’s valued enough to be at that level. He’s a sergeant. But they’ve held off on being able to give these guys leave, men and women, leave. And now with, you know, the different things you can and cannot do if you refuse a vaccine, it just doesn’t seem like a good idea, in our humble opinion.
KEN: Now, without getting someone in trouble, including your son — I don’t want you to put him on anybody’s radar ’cause that’s usually what the Democrats occupy their time with, listening to —
CALLER: Yes.
KEN: — to talk radio or focusing on Americans — what are some of the insights you’re getting from military people on this whole woke thing, everything’s built on diversity and BLM, and what’s your take on that?
CALLER: It’s definitely happening. What’s kind of nice is our son — of course, kids are independent and he likes to think of himself as independent, but he does hang with a group of really fine people that are conservative, and they do not agree with it, but they do have to do what they are told. They have a chain of command, and obviously they have to obey that. But when I’ve asked him what he would do in certain circumstances, he said, “Mom, I have taken an oath to uphold or Constitution, and that is what I will do.” So there is comfort for everyone out there that our military still have a lot of good men and women that want to serve our country in the best way possible.
KEN: Well, thank you so much for calling, Ann. God bless you and your family and your son and his bravery. What an inspirational message. Because of the way the news media covers so much, we’re not hearing these wonderful stories. And that is my belief in my gut and probably millions of conservatives, that we are in the majority. The people with common sense are going to be making the right decisions.
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KEN: This is Julianne from Fredericksburg, Texas, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
CALLER: Hi. How are you? I just wanted to pay tribute to my father-in-law, John Hilton Bradley, and he’s still with us, thank God. He’s 85. But he was a prisoner of war in the Philippines during World War II, as a child from the ages of 5 to 8. And then he went on to come to this great country, and went to West Point university, and then he served one tour in Korea and two in Vietnam. He’s written history books at West Point, and went back to teach and serve there as well, and he’s an amazing man.
KEN: It sounds like it. That is incredible. Talk about just amazing.
CALLER: He is an amazing man, and he’s the most humble man you would ever meet. You would never know, and he would never tell you. He just did write a book called MacArthur Moon, coauthored with his mother, who’s obviously gone on, but they’re an amazing family and people, and I guarantee you just amazingly humble. And you would never, ever know. And I pay tribute today, while he’s still with us.
KEN: Well, God bless him. John Hilton Bradley. Another amazing story. And there are millions of stories like this across the country. I just wish we would hear more about them.
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KEN: Jackie, Austin, Texas. Oh, Austin. Wow, is that a boiling place, huh?
CALLER: Yes. Hi. I know I’m not supposed to say hi. I’m sorry. My husband is active duty in the military. And to expand on your wokeness, asking for examples of it, we have noticed a trend in the hiring and placement of leadership. They are giving preference to minorities rather than basing it on merit or seniority or other things like that. And it’s a big problem that is trending. And I would love for someone to do some real digging on it and bring it to light.
KEN: Well, it’s so interesting that you bring that up, Jackie. And, wow, does it say courage to call and talk about that because, you know, that would get you kicked out of your history teaching job at some school somewhere. But Biden’s doing the same thing. I mean, Biden did the same thing for the first month or two after he was installed, every day it was, oh, look, the first this, the first that. Nobody talked about their abilities. They just said, look. We’ve got a transgender this, we have a gay this, we have this, this, look at all these minorities we have, what a wonderful cabinet. But they didn’t talk, like I said, about everybody’s qualifications, and I think that trickles to all the parts of the government, does it not?
CALLER: Absolutely. And it’s a really big problem. It’s troubling. It’s causing good leaders to retire or get out and you’re not left with the best of the best, which is what we need.
KEN: Well, I would imagine it’s like a one-two punch, when you have the race factor in there and the pressure, and then you get this whole wave of sexual orientation in there, that the pressure is —
CALLER: It’s a mess.
KEN: — unbelievable. I mean, adults can’t even have a conversation anymore. I would imagine you gotta walk around on a base watching what you say.
CALLER: Absolutely. There are certain words that you cannot say or you will get kicked out of the military. And I’m not kidding.
KEN: Well, do not say them now.
CALLER: I’m not.
KEN: I don’t want to get kicked out of the show when your husband gets kicked out of the military. And I’m just kidding. But what Jackie just shared, all kidding aside — and I’m glad she has a sense of humor — because if conservatives didn’t have a sense of humor, my gosh, we’d be raving lunatics like Joy Behar.
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KEN: Let’s go to Paul. Washington state. Paul, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
CALLER: Hi, Ken. Hey, you’ve been talking about societal changes and our youth currently in the education system. I’ve had the privilege-of-serving with the United States Army for about 30 years now, and currently for the last number of years I’ve had the privilege of training our young recruits as they arrive at the Army Basic Training post. And my question for Army leadership, speaking out of the box is, we’re now being told in society, hey, I’m teaching these kids to obey authority, work as a team, you know, struggle to survive, you know, meet obligations and goals. And, hey, that’s racist.
What’s the Army gonna do about this? You know, we’re under civilian authority and civilian leadership. But we’ve still got training obligations for these beautiful young volunteers that are showing up, willing to serve the nation. I’m glad to see ’em every day, but, hey, you know, we gotta overcome everything that that they’ve experienced for 18 years in nine weeks of training.
KEN: That’s probably a conflict for yourself and others because you’re thinking, you know, do I follow this policy, which I know may lead to disaster in some area of their advancement, or do I break the rules and prepare them for the reality of whatever their mission is? I mean it must be a conflict all the time.
CALLER: Well, that’s the thing. And here’s the Army motto, you know. You want to survive? Learn to be flexible. You gotta adapt. You gotta adapt to the situations. But that’s the same thing for the cadre of the noncommissioned officer corps, though. It’s your old, gnarly, salted NCOs that are training the young recruits, but then it’s a different chain of command that establishes Army policy. We don’t make policy. We follow it. But we’re under the civilian authority, and our civilian authority has got some ideas that aren’t traditional.
And I’m sorry to break people’s hearts, but generally the Army and its corps and its cadre is rather conservative on American values, standards, and traditions. And, hey, that’s part of my oath, to uphold and meet the standards and traditions of the United States Army. That’s an oath. But it’s like standards and traditions change; so there you go.
KEN: Now, you swore to protect and defend the Constitution. Is that part of your oath as well?
CALLER: That’s the oath every soldier takes.
KEN: Okay.
CALLER: — when they enter the Army, yes.
KEN: The most frustrating thing for me as a civilian, Paul, is watching some of our of people in Congress or the FBI comes to mind in particular like James Comey. How is it that someone with that much power is able to get around that oath?
CALLER: Don’t go there. It’s crazy. It’s craziness. As an old salt NCO myself playing the thing with the pumpkin on my chest — hint, hint, wink, wink — we get a class, every soldier gets a class every year on secure documents and internet and all that type stuff.
KEN: Yeah.
CALLER: And it shows a guy on his little video game holding up a picture of somebody who violated it and I keep waiting okay I’m gonna break the word here I’m going into my DS routine here. When am I gonna see Ms. Madam secretary of state on there, because every little soldier and private has been trained, hey, you don’t —
KEN: Yeah.
CALLER: — take secret information out of a secret site and put it off a secret site. I’m just saying.
KEN: Wow. Well, I appreciate that, Paul.
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KEN: Back to the phones we go, from Stansbury Park, Utah, this is Tim. Hi, Tim. You’re on the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hey, Ken, how you doing?
KEN: Good all under.
CALLER: All right. So I just wanted to pay homage to my father, Charles Preston McNutt who served in World War II. He died at the age of 93, in 2015, and I’d like to just tell you a little bit about him. So he was drafted into the Army as was his brother, Darrell, and my father saw the worst of the worst. He was at Omaha Beach within a day or two of D-Day. His unit liberated Dachau.
KEN: Oh, gosh.
CALLER: And it was very difficult to get him to talk about it. So my sister bought him a computer, and I tried to get him to write his memoirs. And he said, “Nobody cares about that.” So, very humble guy. His brother, Darrell, was in the tanks. And on to quote my father, “They got the hell shot out of ’em.” But he died at 45. My dad made it to 93. And this Memorial Day, I’ll be remembering both those lives.
KEN: Well, Tim, now many people will.
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KEN: Casper, Wyoming, Mike, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
CALLER: Hey, thank you. I want to give a shout-out on my, Ian Champion. He just turned 25-year-olds. He served in the Marine Corps 27 War Dogs and Operation Inherent Resolve. Was wounded, lost hearing in one ear, came right out of high school, went to the early entry program in the Marine Corps, and played football, won the state championship and went right into the Marine Corps.
So I just wanted to give a shout-out to him. From his wounds he’s doing pretty good. He had a major shoulder surgery and a disk injury in his back, but he’s going to school, Colorado State, and he’s carrying a 4.0 average.
KEN: Wow.
CALLER: In the Marines he was the school of infantry honor guard — honor grad.
KEN: Excellent. I was gonna ask. I’m glad you give us an update. What are his career plans? Does he know yet or a is he just hanging out with straight A’s?
CALLER: He doesn’t know yet. He’s interested in history, real history. And he’s super smart and intelligent in our real history. So he may want to try to become a history professor, possibly, or maybe go to work in Washington somewhere with one of the intelligence agencies there.
KEN: Well, outstanding. Mike, thank you so much for calling. God bless you and your son.
And that is truly an amazing story. And he’s studying history, and he’s been part of history as well.
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KEN: This is Sherry from Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, Sherry. You’re on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
CALLER: Hey. I want to give a shout-out to my father-in-law, who was in World War II, who is a Saving Private Ryan movie was his platoon, that it was made about.
KEN: Wow.
CALLER: And also — amazing, isn’t it? I’d also like to shout-out to my father who was in the Korean War, my husband, deceased, Vietnam war, and my special man that I’m with now, who was in both Gulf wars and his list goes on.
KEN: Well, that is amazing. All those man who —
CALLER: Surrounded!
KEN: Yeah.
CALLER: I’m surrounded.
KEN: Yeah.
CALLER: And I love it.
KEN: (laughing) A family of vets. Well, that was an amazing movie. And I hear from a lot of people it was one of the most accurate films in depicting some of the things that went on in World War II.
CALLER: Definitely. Definitely. Great movie.
KEN: I’m so glad we were able to squeeze you in. You’re the final call of our Memorial Day Weekend Edition of Open Line Friday. I’m so glad you called.
CALLER: Stay strong. Say strong, guys, out there. We’re gonna win this war.
KEN: Yes, we are. I’m so glad you said that, Sherry, ’cause I wanted to wrap up with the whole local message that so many conservatives stress not only privately but publicly. That is how we take back our country, borough by borough, city by city, region by region, state by state.
If you need a reference for a governor, look at DeSantis in Florida, one of a handful of free states remaining, and thank you again to all our incredible veterans. And thanks again to people who are civilians but they also volunteer to take care of us. God bless.