Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is the Drive On Podcast, where we talk about issues affecting veterans after they get out of the military. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show. I think one of the most important things that you do in the military, no matter what your job is, has got to be surrounded around communication, right?

Communication ensures that everybody knows what’s going on. At all times, right? And communication is more than just talking to somebody on the radio. We all know that from personal experience that talking on the radio, um, is prone to failures from time to time. Either you’re too far away from the other person and you can’t, you can’t hear each other or there’s, you know, a huge mountain range in between you [00:01:00] and the signal’s just not going to get there, uh, or whatever.

Uh, radio communication sometimes is prone to not be as reliable as we would like it to be. But communication is more than just that. Communication is everything from op orders that you’d receive or prepare if you were in that position. Um, To, um, the, the after action reports that you would do to kind of go over what happened during a mission and figure out what went wrong, what could have been better, what was done well, uh, things like that.

Right. So communication’s huge, right? It covers a lot of different things and make sure everyone knows where they need to be, what supplies they need to have, what, what equipment, ammunition, all that type of stuff. Um, it, it, Let’s you make sure, uh, that you have all the assets in terms of, you know, vehicles and, and, uh, transportation and, and other logistical type things, uh, like that as well.[00:02:00]

Um, without that kind of communication, uh, missions would be failing left and right. You’d be constantly, uh, you know, having trouble with, um, all of, all of this communication, uh, failing, um, because people wouldn’t know what they needed to do. Right.

Think about, um, you’re out on a mission. And your, your radio goes down, something happens to the radio, battery dies, something happens, right? You’re, you’re basically cut off from the outside world at that point. Um, you’re not able to communicate back to, uh, your base. You’re not able to communicate to, uh, units that might be nearby.

You’re not able, you’re, you’re just not able to communicate, right? So you can’t ask for help, right? Uh, if you need, uh, Air support or, or something like that, or you need a medevac or whatever, you’re outta luck if you don’t have a radio that’s working. You also can’t get new information from the outside.

Uh, so [00:03:00] if in a, a unit that might be nearby, you might hear or see enemy kind of moving in your direction, but if your radios are down, you’re not able to get that in intelligence, uh, you know, coming to you. So. It’s kind of a problem if you can’t ask for help, if you can’t get that information from other units, if you can’t communicate with each other, it’s kind of a big problem.

And this kind of applies to, you know, your, your everyday normal life too. Not just military communications on a, on a mission where, you know, you’re, you’re Dealing with the radios and all that kind of stuff. We’re talking just like normal day to day communication with your, your family, with your coworkers, things like that.

The other day, my kids, uh, two of my kids were fighting. Um, and it all turned out to stem from a complete misunderstanding...