#257 The Feres Doctrine w/ Maximillian Potter & Richard Stayskal
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2023
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since 1950, the Feres Doctrine has prevented active-duty members of the US Armed Forces from suing the government for wrongful injury or death that occurred outside of combat. In this episode we speak with journalist Maximillian Potter and decorated Green Beret Richard Stayskal to learn about the injustice many service members have endured, the reasoning behind the decision, and what can be done to help bring justice to those wrongfully injured while serving in the US Armed Forces.
Links to more information relevant to this episode:
Maximillian Potter, "Incident to Service, Vanity Fair, Dec. '22/Jan. '23.
Khawam Law (the firm that is helping Richard Stayskal and other veterans fight for justice in Congress): https://www.khawamlaw.com/
This is the first in a two-part series on the Feres Doctrine featuring Max Potter & Richard Stayskal. Part II aired as Road to Now #258 on Monday, January 8, 2023.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher & Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:06.9 | I'm Ben Sawyer, and this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:10.1 | Well, this week on the Road to Now, it's going to be a very special and intense episode, I think, Ben. |
| 0:16.7 | Yeah, Bob, and this is our first ever two-part episode. |
| 0:19.5 | We're going to air this over two weeks because it's an in-depth conversation, |
| 0:23.2 | and we think it's something important enough that merits as much attention as we can give it. |
| 0:27.6 | We welcome, for the first time, our old friend, Max Potter, who our listeners may know him, |
| 0:34.9 | definitely through his great magazine writing, but also he wrote John Hickenlooper's book. |
| 0:40.1 | And that was one of our first episodes. And Max is the author of Senator Hickenlooper's autobiography memoir. |
| 0:48.2 | We're excited to have Max here today, and we have Max on today because he has an essay in the December issue of Vanity Fair. |
| 0:56.3 | The article is Incident to Service. |
| 0:59.0 | Thank you, Max Potter. |
| 1:00.8 | Great to be here. |
| 1:01.6 | Great to be here. |
| 1:02.1 | Thank you both. |
| 1:02.9 | And Max was really great to invite one of the subjects of that article, Master Sergeant |
| 1:09.0 | Richard Staiskel, to be on with us. So, Sergeant |
| 1:11.8 | Staiskel, welcome to the road to now. Thank you. I appreciate it. We wanted to start with you, |
| 1:16.4 | Sergeant Staskell, and I know I can call you Richard, but it's so hard. You have that title, |
| 1:20.6 | and I just want to say that title. He earned it. Because, yeah, because he's earned it. |
| 1:24.3 | To give our listeners context to why we're all here today, tell us your |
| 1:28.2 | story. It's kind of a very long story, but the important highlights were in January of 2017, |
... |
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