I'm Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors in Their Own Words, and partnership with the

Honor Project, we've brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs

these stories more than ever. Warriors, in their own words, is our attempt to present an

unvarnished, unsanitized truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation.

Thank you for listening, and by doing so honoring those who have served.

For today's episode, I want to share another update on the war in Ukraine from a former

naval aviator and expert in military aviation. Like our last Ukraine update about the realities

of urban warfare, this one departs from our typical warriors in their own words format.

But I think you'll appreciate the insights

I'm trying to share. As always, we welcome your feedback either in an iTunes review or by email

at kharbaugh at evergreenpodcast.com. Today, I'm joined by Ward Carroll, who spent 20 years in the

U.S. Navy as an F-14 radar intercept officer,

retired at the rank of commander and went on to serve as the editor of Military.com.

He now hosts a popular YouTube channel on military aviation.

I brought him on the show to discuss the air war in Ukraine.

Ward, or should I say mooch, it's great to have you on.

Either works, I guess, whichever persona I'm using at any given time. You know,

Mooch was kind of dead. I feel like Obi-Wan Kenobi, right? When Luke Skywalker stumbles on him,

he's like, Ben Kenobi? You so the YouTube channel is actually given rise to the mooch call sign again, which I'm very happy to

wear. And so, yeah, either works, Ken. Are you at liberty to share the backstory on how you acquired the moniker call sign,

Mucci? I describe this in my, the truth about call signs episode that I did some months ago.

But so my first, because when you get to the squadron, you get kind of a meta call sign, the first thing that somebody, and mostly it's name associations, right? And some are axiomatic. Like if your last name's Bell, your call sign is going to be Taco. If your last name's Campbell, your call sign is going to be soup. So I was, I was, I am tall and I was skinny at the time.

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