More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Interview with John Warren : A Military Leaders perspective on Tim Walz's (Stolen Valor)
Can leadership lessons from the battlefield transform your life? Join us as we sit down with John Warren, a former Marine Corps infantry officer turned successful entrepreneur, who shares his remarkable journey from military service to launching Lima One Capital. John dives deep into the nine key leadership principles from his book, "Lead Like a Marine," and explains how they can be universally applied to business, family life, and even coaching youth sports. We also discuss the critical importance of integrity and honesty, particularly as it pertains to the controversy surrounding Tim Walz's military service representation.
How did the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan affect the nation and its veterans? In this episode, we tackle this emotional and strategic issue head-on, contrasting differing views on patriotism within the U.S. John Warren offers a heartfelt critique of the Biden-Harris administration’s exit strategy and shares his gratitude for fellow servicemen and women, while expressing frustration over the perceived betrayal of Afghan allies. Through this conversation, we underscore the sacrifices made by military personnel and highlight the potential impact of the upcoming election on national and international policies. Don't miss this compelling dialogue that underscores the true essence of leadership and patriotism.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in. Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. I'm privileged today to have John Warren as my guest. John was with me once before, several months back. John, welcome back to More Than Medicine.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Dr Jackson. Happy to be here More Than Medicine. Thanks, Dr Jackson Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, it's my delight to have you and, if you will, I'm going to ask you to tell my listening audience a little bit about yourself, about your family, about your business and, more specifically, a little bit about your experience in the military, sure thing.
Speaker 2:So again, john Warren. I was born and raised in Greenville, south Carolina, and my mom was from Inman and Holly Springs area and my dad was from Rome, georgia, and they met at Furman. I grew up in Greenville, was a huge basketball person growing up, went to college and then 9-11 happened and I felt called to serve my country, went into the Marine Corps, wanted to serve as an infantry officer, which I did. So I was an infantry officer in the Marine Corps. I got in in October of 2004, deployed to Ramadi, iraq, in March of 2006 with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. Served there seven months, led a bunch of missions there.
Speaker 2:I think we did a lot of great things, really interning the tide of the war there through counterinsurgency operations, came back, was promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to 1st Lieutenant and took up another platoon of 72 Marines and weapons company and deployed again on the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit and then came out of the Marine Corps as a captain and started a company called Lima One Capital. Because no one wanted to hire me. They said I had no skill set.
Speaker 2:So, I hopefully proved them wrong and started Lima One Capital Quickly brought on my company Gunnery Sergeant from Lima Company, john Thompson Top as I call him, who is a 22-year retired Marine with nine deployments, five combat deployments. There's no Marine I respect more than him. He's a close friend still and we built the company together and sold that in 2019. So my biggest accomplishment recently I'm a second and third grade church basketball coach for my two sons. We won the championship last year and we're looking to repeat this year, so excited for the upcoming season.
Speaker 1:And your kids still like you.
Speaker 2:Most of the time, I think they do.
Speaker 1:Well, now, now, tell me. Now. I want my listening audience to hear this. You wrote a book about your experience in Ramadi called tell the title.
Speaker 2:I wrote a book called Lead Like a Marine with my COO, who was my company gunnery sergeant. We just felt like there was a deficiency of leadership throughout the country in every industry, and we just wanted to tell people the nine principles that we thought were super important to leadership.
Speaker 1:And you used those leadership principles in Lima One, I used it.
Speaker 2:In Lima One I used it in my One, I use it in Lima One, I use it in my marriage, I use it in raising kids, I use it in my nonprofits, I use it on boards that I'm associated with. I just think the nine principles. They just apply to everything in life. It ranges from be blunt and direct in how you communicate with people to do everything for a reason. It talks about how to build a great team of people. It talks about just a variety of different topics that served us well in the Marine Corps, in combat, but also in the business world, and also in our marriages and raising kids.
Speaker 1:Does it work good on a kid's basketball team?
Speaker 2:Apparently, it works well for second and third grade basketball team.
Speaker 1:Well, probably I need to start using it with my third grade Sunday school boys class. I need to bring that book back out and start applying those principles there.
Speaker 2:Yes, blunt and direct feedback is definitely necessary for third grade boys.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you what. I tell you what. Now it weeded them down from 13 to 11 very quickly. I had three boys that just didn't come back. They didn't like my blunt and direct way of teaching Sunday school.
Speaker 2:That means you either started in the Old Testament or you started with Romans.
Speaker 1:Well, we did. We started in the Old Testament, you're right. Well, let me talk to you about this now. The reason I invited you on John Warren was because I wanted to get the perspective of a military man in South Carolina about Tim Waltz what they've been calling stolen valor, and you know that's all over the internet right now. Kamala Harris chose him as her running mate, and I mean almost immediately. There were military men coming out and speaking against him because of multiple reasons, and I'm going to let you speak to those reasons. You go ahead and take the floor.
Speaker 2:Sure so to commend Tim Walz. He served 24 years in the Army National Guard, but then you know he gets elected as vice presidential candidate for Harris. So it's the first time I think we've had two declared socialists slash communists running for president and vice president and he immediately starts, you know, lying about his military records. So the two main things that he did that are totally 100 percent dishonest. The first thing is he called himself a retired command sergeant, major Right, and in the military world that's an E-9, which means enlisted, and that's the highest form of rank for an enlisted person, which is E-9.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But actually he retired as a sergeant major, which is an E-8. And it's just crazy that he would lie about that. You know most people would commend him for his service of becoming a master sergeant, right. But he can't stop there. He has to lie about that.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing he did was he claimed of all things. He claimed that he carried weapons in war and when he was actually deployed, he was deployed not to a combat zone but to Italy, and I don't think you can really claim that you carried weapons in war when you're eating pizza in Italy. So those are his two main things that he lied about, which I do consider stolen valor. It's very similar. Recently I don't know if you saw, but the Maryland Democratic Governor, wes Moore, who once again is a US Army veteran and a combat veteran he apologized because he lied about receiving the Bronze Star. So apparently this runs rampant in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2:But the other thing that tim walsh did was, you know, once his unit was notified that they were going to actually deploy to a combat zone, he put in for retirement. So I think that's another reason why a lot of his troops don't respect him. And they came out and I think they called him a coward, among other things. And it's one thing if you have one or two or three soldiers coming out against you, but when the vast majority of your unit comes out against you and you're a leader, I think that speaks volumes of what type of person you are.
Speaker 1:That's right. Well, how do military men respond emotionally to that sort of thing? I mean, it wasn't a handful, it was dozens of men, military men, military men who were on the internet speaking against his claims to be of a certain rank and his claim to have served in a combat zone.
Speaker 2:You know, I think so often you see the left lie about this. I'm not sure if it's just from insecurities, but you know we had the NBC late night anchor talk about how he was taking bullets from a chopper and he never, ever went in combat. You had hillary clinton talking about this. It's just totally unnecessary, yeah, and I think I think it's kind of a two-fold reaction from the military. The first reaction is just like why would you lie about this stuff? You know it's just not necessary. But then the second thing is kind of an anger and a resentment that you would actually lie about this stuff. I mean there is a huge difference between being a sergeant major and being a master sergeant and there is a huge difference between saying you carried weapons in war and you being in Italy. You know it's kind of like. It's kind of like a person that says, hey, I was an astronaut with NASA and they were actually just someone on the ground that worked in Florida for the shuttle launch.
Speaker 2:There's nothing that is. You know there's nothing wrong with working on the ground for NASA. It's an honorable position. But when you lie about it you almost cheapen your role and you become dishonest and lose your credibility. But I think when you look at Tim Walz's record, overall he's a self-proclaimed, pretty much communist no-transcript.
Speaker 1:And it makes us, you know the nation, leery of him serving in any capacity, especially at the federal level.
Speaker 2:And I think it shows a lot too for the type of administration that a President Harris would have right Out of 350 million people that she could have chosen.
Speaker 2:She chooses him. That's right and it's just like well, who's she going to put on the cabinet? Who is she going to put running all these bureaucracies? Who is she going to put on the Supreme Court? She going to put running all these bureaucracies. Who is she going to put on the Supreme Court? You know, and I look at, I look at Harris, and I think Biden probably will go down as the worst president ever. Yeah, yeah, you know it's close with Jimmy Carter. I was born during Reagan. I guess I was born at the tail end of Carter. I don't remember him. I've read about him. I think it's close with Jimmy Carter, but I would give the tipping point probably to Biden. Yeah, but I think Harris, out of the gates, will be in the running. If she is somehow elected president, she'll immediately be in the lead for worst president ever, having never served having never served.
Speaker 1:She's out of the gate, she's a communist, she's a Marxist, she affiliates with people who are communist and Marxist and she's got a vice president who's avowedly Marxist. And let me shift gears a little bit and I want to ask you about the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Both Biden and Harris have claimed and what's the word I'm looking for Been proud, I guess you would say, of how that went down and, as a military man, what's?
Speaker 2:your perspective on that withdrawal from Afghanistan? I think overall the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the worst blunder, possibly military blunder, in the history of the United States and the reason I say it. You can debate whether we should still be in Afghanistan 20 years later, but I think what you can't debate is why on earth would we turn over billions and billions of dollars worth of military equipment to the Taliban? You know they recently had a parade with all of our Humvees, our helicopters, all of our weapons systems and the Biden administration chose to just hand those over. And then, on top of it, I think we lose 13 Marines among some other military lives because of the suicide bomber. We totally abandoned a lot of Americans that are still in Afghanistan at the time and we 100 percent abandoned all of the interpreters and military personnel for Afghanistan who served us and it just was totally unnecessary.
Speaker 2:And I just don't understand the hatred that some of the left have for our country. It just doesn't make sense to me. And you know the Taliban in the 1980s I would have had a huge disagreement with Tip O'Neill, who is the Democratic speaker of the House for Reagan. We would have disagreed on taxes. We would have disagreed on abortion, we would have disagreed on abortion. We would have disagreed on a lot of domestic issues, but foreign policy, we would all have agreed that the Taliban are terrible humans seeking to destroy our way of life and now you just don't have that from the left and it's really shocking.
Speaker 2:And I think when I look at our country, the number one concern I have is the left, the hatred for the United States, and I just think they need to have a broader perspective of you know, the one thing I think about when we were leaving Afghanistan was when those C-130s were leaving, the effort and the risk that the Afghanistan people portrayed in leaving the country. They were willing to try to grab on to the landing gear of a C-130 and ride it out. That's how much they wanted freedom. That's how much they wanted to come to the US. They appreciate it in Afghanistan, but so many people here in the United States they don't have that appreciation and it saddens me.
Speaker 1:It saddens me and it hurts my heart so bad that the administration of the US, the Biden administration, the Biden-Harris administration, would abandon the people there, who were our allies and who believed in the American dream and who believed in what America was trying to establish there in Afghanistan, to bring to them a democratic form of life, a freedom-loving form of life, and then for the Biden-Harris administration just to jerk the rug right out from under them and leave them there defenseless, to leave them there to the Taliban, and you and I know that probably thousands of the sympathizers, those who affiliated with the US military, were probably summarily executed. We don't know that for a fact, but we probably are correct in that assessment and it hurts my heart.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not into nation building and I think we've gotten into different areas in the assessment and it hurts my heart. Well, I'm not into nation building and I think we've gotten into different areas in the world. You know I go back to 1993 in Somalia. There are several other places. The United States does not do well nation building, at least since we implemented the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Speaker 2:But with Afghanistan, you know, we had so much invested there, we had fought 20 years, we had invested so much in terms of treasure of our country, including so many military deaths of men and women of the United States to go after the attackers and the harbingers of the Taliban and al-Qaeda just to turn over the country, when we could have maintained a very small footprint there and continued to prop up the Afghanistan government while at the same time preventing the Taliban from taking hold. It just didn't make sense to me, the quick withdrawal after we had invested so much.
Speaker 1:It was a liberal, Marxist dream to pull out in the way that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did, and it's just foolishness. It was unbelievable and again it leaves me heartbroken to think. And of course, I've seen the videos of the parents of the 13 Marines who died and they're full of vitriol and bitterness and I don't blame them. Don't blame them.
Speaker 2:One of the Marine generals who had a huge role in Afghanistan. We met with him during the book promotion and what he called Afghanistan was the surrender he used the term surrender of Afghanistan and that's really what it was.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a withdrawal, it was a surrender. He was exactly right. He's exactly right, all right? Well, listen, john Warren, I'm thankful for your time, I'm thankful for your perspective and I'm sure my listening audience is grateful to hear from a military man, to hear your perspective on these issues. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us before we leave?
Speaker 2:No, I think that's it. I think every one of your listeners knows that this election is a huge, a huge, momentous time for our country, and I hope that Harris is not president.
Speaker 1:I agree with you and we'll be praying for the election process. We'll be praying for our nation and I want to thank you, john, for your service, thank you for your comrades in arms who served with you. We appreciate you guys so much. You just don't know how much we really appreciate guys like yourself. May the Lord bless you and bless your family. Thank you All right, you listened to More Than Medicine. My guest today is John Warren, and we'll be back again next week, and until then, may the Lord bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine, for more information about the Jackson Family. Ministry Dr Jackson's books or to schedule a speaking engagement go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
