Marty Griffin Show Hour 2: Our troops in poor conditions! Paul Skenes: too far or fair?

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It's Marty Griffin. Live at Chilts Ford. Come on by with a backpack. Buzzy and Babma. Babba and Buzzy. Batsy and Bubba. Patsy and Bubba. Giving away 10,000. Collecting 10,000 backpacks. Doing a hell of a job helping people out. I'd love to have you stop by Schultzford in Wexford. Wonderful, wonderful opportunity to help kids. Backpacks, which used to be 15, 20 bucks, can now be $100. It's bizarre how things have changed. My wife and kids went to the store to buy school supplies, and it was $700 for school stuff. It's a hell of a, hell of a burden. And what they're doing here today really helps that out. So come on by and see us, bring a couple backpacks. They're doing great work. I'm very disheartened by some of the things I'm seeing overseas with American troops. We have emails. We have Facebook posts with troops on these carriers that are desperate, desperate, depressed, anxious. angry, somewhat suicidal. They're saying severe mental health issues on these carers. They've been at C-260 days. To address that, I want you to listen to this ABC report. Listen. Alonzo, do you have the report? And what it suggests is that the troops have hit the wall. The report froze. Do we have it? All right, let's try. Thank you. Even during a regular deployment that does not involve combat, it is exhausting work. But nine months at sea, with much of it at war, clearly takes a toll. This morning, the USS Abraham Lincoln is waiting for relief after nearly nine months of relentless combat operations and reports of worsening conditions on board. The Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days, including one stretch of more than 200 days in between ports of call. Conditions have gotten so bad. Some family members tell the military times that at least two sailors tried to jump overboard. A U.S. official telling ABC News, a sailor on the Lincoln did go overboard earlier this month and was quickly recovered. The incident is under investigation. Now, Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers following alarming reports of poor conditions on the carrier, including extreme exhaustion, plummeting morale, and mounting mental health strains. The bottom line is this should never happen. This is an unforced error. The ship can't even go into a port in the Gulf because Trump's war has actually made it so dangerous, has made the situation so much worse that there's no safe port for the Abraham Lincoln to visit.

An Air Force veteran sharing these photos of paltry meals, photos that he says were sent by a crew member on the ship back in April. Secretary Pete Hegseth also pushing back on reports that sailors are struggling. Completely misrepresented. Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others. Plans call for the USS George Washington to replace the Lincoln, though it's unclear when it will arrive. A U.S. official tells ABC News they have not seen an uptick and mental health issues and say the Lincoln has a variety of resources on board, including one clinical psychologist, five chaplains, and three behavioral health technicians. They also have one therapy dog on board named Captain Fathom. whose job it is to ease anxiety among the crew. All right, so that's your McCary. That's enough. That's enough. This is from a base. No one in leadership positions is helping us morale and the environment here is dismal. Wow. This is from a base. Most people have lost faith in the base defense is working to protect us. Wow. The hangars have been destroyed. The dorms destroyed. We got lucky the impact wasn't worse than it could have been. It's a mass casualty event waiting to happen. The base is overpopulated. Lodging is constantly giving rooms to new people. Only one dorm is protected. Wow. We want to leave and they won't let us leave. Many of us have expressed suicidal ideations. They don't care what the alarms and strikes are doing to anyone mentally. Mental health here is broken. They shut it down for a while and told everyone to just deal with it and talk to your coworkers if you're struggling. Bam. Pastor Adam Stump, we have been communicating about this frightening change, and this has you extremely upset and your congregation, doesn't it, sir?

Hello. Alonzo, do we have our guest? Okay, because I can't hear them. Downplaying it. Oh, these are exaggerated claims or something. There hasn't been an uptick in mental health issues. I would ask. there hasn't been an uptick since when. You know, I mean, they've been out to sea for basically nine months now. And even when you hear something, oh, well, there's behavioral health specialists. There's a handful of chaplains. There are 5,000 personnel on the Abraham Lincoln alone. And you're telling me that six, seven, eight practitioners... are going to care for their mental health needs. It's unbelievable. It just seems inadequate. It is, and it seems totally inadequate. And, you know, and I think the most troubling thing for me is we have not heard reports like this. coming directly from our sailors, our airmen, and our soldiers before. We've not heard these frustrations expressed, and I do not think that it's political. You know, I think probably a lot of those people voted for Trump and have supported the administration, and they're simply not receiving the care that they need. And that's what's probably most deeply troubling. We've been at war before. These people signed up to go, you know, if there was a call. We actually know. I mean, talking to my military families, before the war actually broke out at the end of February, they were given their orders to have their bags at the front door at the beginning of February. So they knew they were going to go. Right. And now we're hearing these extremely distressing reports. Our soldiers have never reported back home like this. We've never seen this firsthand. I didn't hear it out of that. I didn't hear it out of it. I didn't hear it out of Iraq or Iran, the initial assault. Can you hang, Pastor? Yes. Can you hang with us? We're going to take a break, folks. We're right back. Yes. When equipment breaks down and operations come to a halt, every single second counts. So why is your maintenance team spending 60% of their time doing anything but turning wrenches? MaintainX is the AI-powered maintenance and asset management system that helps your team get back to actually fixing breakdowns. No more searching for manuals, no more hunting down parts, no more drowning in paperwork. With MaintainX, your team can access manuals from anywhere, create new procedures and minutes, and turn voice notes into clear and complete work order feedback. What used to take hours now only takes minutes. Keep your operations moving and your wrench is turning. Join over 13,000 maintenance teams that are already fixing more and filing less. Try MaintainX for free today. Go to MaintainX.com slash AI. That's Maintain in the letter X.com slash AI. I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming You, a podcast where I help you stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, hey. I got Pastor Adams up on the phone. Hang off, Pastor. I'm going to get you right away. Bye. One of my friends, one of my favorite people, stopped by here at the Shultz Ford for this backpack, Bazzie and Bubba, a backpack event. And Lisa Lucina has actually a great piece of advice for people. This actually makes sense because you brought something with you. That's right, Marty. I'm on the road working all day today. Yeah, yeah. Just find out. And for those of us who didn't have a backpack to donate, why not just bring a couple dollars down here? No matter what it is, it'll buy a backpack. Stop by, drop off a check. Yep. You mentioned something, though. I did. Your son wanted a backpack. How much did it cost? $181. No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. And I can't imagine what would happen if I couldn't have gotten it. And so when we were growing up backpacks for 20 bucks. Huh? Maybe. Right? I don't know where you shot. Or you had one for 20 years. Ours was 10 and we reused it. We used giant eagle bags. So anyway, it's wonderful advice. It is. And I appreciate you saying that. And you're right down the road. I'm right down the road. I was driving by, heard it coming from South Hills. And I was like, I don't have a backpack. Thank you. She has a check. Stop by, drop off a check. It makes perfect sense. Pastors, Adam Stump, how are you with us still, sir? I am still here. What's disheartening to me is what you're saying. Is that? I'm young enough, old enough to remember Vietnam, and there was a lot of blowback from that. But we did not get this kind of rhetoric out of either the Gulf War or the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe we should have. But these notes and transmissions being sent from both the carrier and the bases suggest that our troops are in mental and physical harm's way. Is that not true, sir? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, going back to the ABC report that you shared at the beginning, you know, the sailors who are contemplating going overboard, one did. You know, I sent you a video that someone had sent me, and I don't know the sailor. I don't know the sailor's family, but it's to the point, the breaking point now where this sailor from the Abraham Lincoln... said he wonders that this is actually a psychological experiment on how far they can push the military. And I don't think that any of our soldiers should ever have to wonder that. And I'm not saying that our government is doing that. I'm not saying that. But when you find out that the resupply ship takes so long to get there that there's no fresh fruit, there's no fresh vegetables, no fresh meat because it's all spoiled. This is like, you know, we are the premier fighting force of the world, and we're dealing with problems that 17th century sailors dealt with, and we shouldn't be there. Hey, Pat, folks, you have folks in your, you serve various congregations, but some are from the 171st. What's their mood, sir? What's their frame of mind? Are they still committed to serving?

They are, you know, and that's, you know, that's the killer, I think, is these are people who are dedicated. They are dedicated to serving our country, and they're willing to go, they're willing to do what it takes, they're willing to follow the orders, but they're very frustrated because there's no end game out there. There's no end in sight. There's no, there's no expressly. tangible end to this. And that's the frustrating part. It's not that they are not willing to serve. They're very willing to serve. They're proud to serve. They're actually happy to serve. But that is not greeted with the same level of respect that it should be by the ones giving the orders. And they don't know why. They just don't know why. There's frustration. There's anger. There's hurt. There is very legitimate worry and concern over their safety, and it's bad enough that we know that these people have to go into harm's way. But when they're put into harm's way and they're not cared for adequately in that, it's troubling and distressing. And these are people, and I told you the last time that we talked, some of these families have multiple family members in the service. and they're worried that if one of their family members comes back, another one of them is going to have to go to replace them. No family should be under that kind of stress. Pastor, do you include this in your messages to your congregation from the pulpit? Or do you keep this out of it? I try to be encouraging. I try to be hopeful. I try to. Weekly, I remind people that we are at war. I remind people that the world is a very dangerous place. We pray for our soldiers. And I remind people that we are each other's support network. And if you know someone who has a loved one in the service, you need to reach out to them because they're probably hurting. They're probably struggling. They're going through all this stuff, and they might not wear it on their sleeve. But it's in their hearts. And I remind people all the time, we're in this together. We have to be together. And we have to support one another and prop each other up because, man, I don't know how these families do it. I really don't. As someone who's, you know, one of my family members was gone into Afghanistan after September 11th. And I know what that was like, not knowing if he was coming home. And I remind people, we've got families who... their loved ones are in exactly the same position right now. And it's very troubling, but I do try every week to remind them, even though there has been no official declaration of war, I remind them, we are at war, and it is very real. And there are people bearing the brunt of this, and they're not receiving the support or the help that they need. And I remind them, hey, we can be that. You know, we can support one another. We can encourage one another. And even if you don't have any words to say, just being there with someone to be a shoulder to lean on can mean the world to these families. In the context of the video you sent me.

Young man said they feel lower than hell. That's kind of... Lower than hell. Yeah, man. Wow. I mean, imagine that. We already know that war is hell. We know that war is hell. And this sailor said being on this ship is lower than hell. I mean, what would drive a person to say that? You know, it's heartbreaking. And no end in sight, sir. No end in sight. No end in sight. And I think, you know, one of the troubling things, too, is, you know, we've heard, and we don't know this for a fact, but we've heard that Trump is working on a way just to walk away, possibly with no nuclear deal with Iran or anything like that. And when you hear stuff like that, well, we're just going to walk away, then it makes you wonder, what was all of this for? And that's really psychologically torturing to our soldiers and to their families. who put their lives on the line, and then there's the possibility that we're going to walk away and nothing has changed and maybe everything is worse, that's a terrible reality. Pastor, your voice has been significant for me and my audience, and I'm very grateful for you, sir. Truth to power. Thank you, Marty. I'm grateful for you. Thank you. We'll be right back, folks.

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There are over 6,000 backpacks collected, which is astounding. Bazzie and Bubba Backpack Brigade. Astounding. All right. So this has nothing to do with that. But I got a bunch of videos this morning of Paul schemes. And it's gone viral on social. And I wanted to see if it's appropriate. It shows. skeins on a beach with no shirt on walking with his girlfriend. Have folks seen this? And she's an athlete and has about 2% body fat. And they describe him as having a dad bought. He's out of shape. Described his fat. And they go into this narrative suggesting... It's why he's having a bad year. He's fat. He doesn't care. And this has gone viral. And it's all over the country and the world. It's now in Great Britain. And I wonder if that's fair game. And I had to reach out to the best sports talk host in America, Phil a pony. Pony, what's up? Marty, I can't believe you're asking this question today. Is it fair game? Absolutely. He dates a celebrity girl. Yes. Yeah. 100%. He's in the public eye. He signed up for this. Is it hateful? Is it hateful? Yeah. No, I don't think it's that. I think it's, at least for Pirates fans, it's frustration and disappointment and anger over the way he's. pitched this year. And I'm talking to my friend on the radio. Sorry, we're at Chick-fil-A right now, Marty. Big day here at Chick-Cillai. This place is slammed. And it's amazing. It's amazing how efficient they are. They're amazing. It's the greatest. I'm talking to Marty because he wants to know about Paul's games. No, Marty, look, he's got a celebrity girlfriend. She has more followers and more eyeballs on her at all times than him even. If he didn't appreciate that or if he didn't care, if he cared a lot about that and it bothered him, then don't do it. That comes with the territory, in my opinion. And look, if you don't want people to make pot shots or cracks at your body, get in better shape is what I say back to that. You're an elite athlete. Hey, Pony, do you think it stings? Do you think it hurts him? You know what? Probably. He claims that he doesn't pay attention to any of this stuff. He doesn't really have an Instagram. He doesn't really have social media. But she's all over it. I mean, she's everywhere. That's how she makes a lot of her money through branding and influencing and stuff. So I'm sure she knows about it. I wonder if she passes it on to him. I think she probably does. So, yeah, I would think, that would bother me if people were making fun of my love handles and stuff. Absolutely. He's human. Yeah, but I thought about you because it doesn't bother you. It's one of the things I love about you. You sat on the air without a shirt for how many hours? Four? But I also got my nipples pierced, Marty. I did that and raised thousands of dollars for breast cancer awareness.

You hated when I got men to both peers. She just told me. She's eating something. She loves yourself. And I need to, before you go, and it's irrelevant to my audience, but does his weight have an impact on his games, do you believe? I don't think so. I mean, there's just been a ton of baseball players and pitchers that have not been. carved out of granite and chiseled and ripped. So I personally don't think so, but look, when you're playing this, when you're playing this bad, I think everything's fair game, Marty. All right. Pony, the best in America. Thanks, brother. You're the man, Marty. See you, brother. Hey, Patrick. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. All right. I sent you this stuff this morning. I generally don't care about jocks. I generally don't care about social. But you're very intuitive about this. Is this fair game? I mean, because he is in the spotlight, he absolutely does have a celebrity girlfriend. It's fair that people talk about it. Is the criticism fair? I don't know. Maybe. It's still ugly. The posts are awful. I think a lot of people are going way too far with it. Oh, hateful. Man, I saw her make a post about a month ago where she begged people to quit stalking her. Did you see that? Begged them. I did see that. At some point. They can't get away from it. At some point, it becomes on her. You can't, I'm not disrespecting what she's saying because I think she's in danger at times. And we've had a taste of this because we get tens of millions of people commenting on our videos and me personally. But is it fair for me to say, because I know this, you can't have it both ways, can you, Patrick? You really can't. One does come with the other. You know, if you're going to be out there in the public and you're going to have any sort of celebrity status, It's just kind of a fact of life. People are going to obviously respond and look for you. It's what they do. Well, people will threaten to kill me a significant number. And you take some of them seriously because they feel serious and some of them as you found are from out of the country and you move on. But this is the play. I saw that this morning. Alonzo, can you hear me, buddy?

Alonzo, the video shows Paul Skeen's walking down the beach with his girlfriend and has this massive gut. And they go into this narrative that the reason why he sucks right now is because he's fat. Is this a fair narrative, Alonzo? Is that whole social media hack job on him fair? I wouldn't say it's a fair narrative. I mean, it could be a number of factors for why he's playing the way he's playing. It could possibly not be his weight. It could possibly be about his weight. I think it's hateful. Bring your headset down, my man. Tell everyone who you are. Joey Bova. Joey, it's very good insight. He's a young guy. He's all over social and knows what comes with social. Is this fair game? I mean, I feel like if you post on social media, you should expect. everything good and the bad obviously i'm not a big fan of people sending hate remarks on social media i think that's pretty nasty yeah um I'd say it's hateful, yeah. A majority of the Internet's pretty hateful nowadays. So I would say just people coming after them in general outside of their professions and whatnot, I'd say it's pretty hateful, yes. You know what, Patrick, he makes a great point. Coming after them in general, having nothing to do with just I hate him, he's fat, and creeping back into their cave, right? Oh, exactly. It's not even necessarily sports fans. It's just people being hateful. It does exist, unfortunately.

What it is is disheartening, and I've said this on the air, and I mean this, if Jesus were alive today, they'd say he had long hair, his clothes are dirty, he hangs out with thieves and prostitutes. They would, and they'd say he didn't make enough loaves and fishes. They wouldn't. And he should have had 14 apostles. He left two out. They would. Would they not, Patrick? Oh, no question. Absolutely they would. You would hear everything from dirty hippie to, you know, more heinous things. Now, look, we have seen the insane benefit of social media raised $20,000 for a funeral in one hour. We've seen this. We've raised millions of dollars to help people. We've seen it. We're about to give away a car. We've seen it. We help people every day with the aid of social media. But, man, I saw that this morning, and I felt bad for him. And I thought, does that young man deserve this? Probably not. All right, folks, we'll be right back. You don't too much more. But I have these conversations about social media all the time. You're either in or out. But if you're in, get ready to get your ass kicked.

if you're not ready to get your ass kicked, along with getting what you need, then you've got to get out. The truth is, it's the most powerful, and I've been in television, radio, and on social media now for 20 years, and I've been in television and radio for nearly 30. It's the most powerful platform I've ever seen. A message can circle the world in an hour. We've posted videos that reached 4 million people in 24 hours. It's insane. I went to a restaurant and I did a video with the owner, J.K. At Twinboro, it's a new restaurant out towards Oakmont. Five. 150,000 people watched it within a couple hours. And you accept that, but in the context of that video, and Patrick knows this because he looks at this stuff. His food sucks. He's in a hole. He's a horrible person. I would never go there. Patrick, you know what I'm saying here, right? If you want to get in this game, you want to get in the ring, and I compare it to MMA guys, you're going to take a shot. You're going to take shots to the head, right? You better understand the dynamic is just not, I love you, right? No, it's not kumbaya all day, every day. You're going to have haters that come out.

And the bigger the audience, the more significant to hate. But you have Livy Dunn and her boyfriend, they're in love. And obviously they're very tight. And all they want to do is hang on the beach. And he's getting abused for having a beer belly that every single young man is age, pretty much has. And the hatred over that it's unsettling to me. It's the play, man. I saw Bill Artman as one of my friends, obviously from Giant Eagle. They were selling eggs. What was it, Patrick? Was it three dozen for 95 cents? That's it? Yeah. Yeah. It was their anniversary. And they sold, literally sold several hundred dozen eggs. And our post. Posting that went viral, several hundred thousand people. And I promise you, 30% of the responses were ignorant. Jagoffs saying rude, hateful, obnoxious things about Giant Eagle. And I told Bill Artman, you can't read that stuff or you'll get sucked into it. Same with UPMC. Doctors literally saves my life. I post that and they literally start ripping into UPMC. UPMC donated $20 million to the city of Pittsburgh for emergency response vehicles. And they got buried. Buried in haters. That's why my bill so high. UPMC doctors suck. You ever sat in that ER for seven hours? The truth is this is not the land of Oz. And if you go in there thinking this is a dog shelter and you're a puppy and everybody's coming in there to pet you, forget about it. However, comma. any single time we've ever asked for help. We get the help and the response in a dramatic way on social media. Do we not, Patrick? Absolutely. There are amazing, wonderful people out there. You just have to get through the hate sometimes. I want to read this email getting back to the situation on the ship. This comes from William. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of grief. However. Navy ships are not cruise liners. I spent a year in Vietnam. I didn't wear dry clothes for a year while walking in rice patties and monsoons, eating K-rations. What I wouldn't have given to have terrible meals, our sailors are being served. These kids have to man up or get out. There's an element of truth to that. However, comma, sir. It's extraordinary, as we have shown through research, for a ship to be at sea for more than a year. It's extraordinary to be at war for six months. It creates tremendous stress. And the truth is, Patrick, back to that social media. When my man was in Vietnam, there was no social media. You couldn't send out videos of your friend's legs being blown off, could you? No.

And that's what we see today. There are thousands of men and women on that ship. And one post reaches millions of people. And that's how America feels about what's happening at sea. You've kind of mentioned this yourself, haven't you, Patrick? Yeah, absolutely. We also have a generational shift, too. The parents that are relaying a lot of these messages are not the parents that survived World War II. They're not people who went through extremely hard times and tell people to quit their whining and suck it up and do the job. That's not what we're living with right now. So, sir, I get what you're saying. Completely get it. But there is something to be said for bringing a damn ship home after a year. I just believe folks need an opportunity to breathe again. And this has created tremendous stress. And, sir, the situation on the basis with those men and barracks and women being unprotected is unforgivable and ridiculous and obnoxious and irresponsible of the U.S. government. Whether you served in nom or not, sir. They need to find a way to protect these men and women right now. We're right back. Nobody gets into maintenance for the paperwork. But somewhere along the way, the clipboards piled up and the spreadsheets multiplied. Good technicians spend hours per day on admin instead of turning a wrench. MaintainX was built to give that time back. Preventative maintenance runs on a real schedule, automated, assigned, and nothing slipping through. With MaintainX, work orders go out in seconds, and everyone from the floor to the front office knows what's due and when. So your team gets back to the machines, not the paperwork. Over 14,000 companies are already running on MaintainX because the people who keep the world running deserve tools that actually work. Try MaintainX free at MaintainX.com. That's M-A-I-N-T-A-N-X.com. An auto-desk company. I'm Dana Carvey. I'm David Spade. Fly on the Wall's back for another season now on audio and video every Monday and Thursday. So many incredible guests will be joining us. Follow and listen to Fly on the Wall everywhere you get your podcasts. Too good. Be true.