Hi, Bill Crystal here. Welcome to Bullwork on Sunday. It's Sunday noon, just for people watching the recording of May 24th, since there's fast-breaking news. I want to get that on the record. It's Memorial Day weekend. That's why I asked my friend Michael Wood to join to join us today. He's been on this show a couple of times, written for the bulwark, a combat veteran of Afghanistan,

Marine officer, rifle,

platoon commander, I believe,

Purple Heart recipient.

Went back to Texas after serving and

I think you stayed active in the reserves,

but for a business owner and family in suburbs of Dallas.

And so I thought we'd get some reflections to you on Memorial Day, what it means to you and

your peers and more broadly in the context of American history.

You've written thoughtfully about that.

But then there's so much news on foreign policy, which is also something you follow carefully, and you have an excellent substack that people should go to and subscribe to. Anyway, so I thought we'd talk about what's happening in Iran for a few minutes and then talk more broadly about Memorial Day. So Michael, thanks for, thanks for joining me today. It's good to be here. Always a great time to talk with you.

Well, it's good to talk to you.

And so let's talk to them.

We're speaking, as I say, at noon Sunday.

It seems like this deal is going to happen or some deal is going to happen for at least a ceasefire.

And while they're ready to ceasefire to extend the ceasefire or maybe lay the outlines of the real deal to end this war that Trump launched, what, almost three months ago. And what you wrote about very well, I went back and looked at your post from the day of, I think it was February 28th, a day, Saturday. It was like three hours after. Yeah, that's Saturday. And then you went one, I think, the next day. And you were, you said that you were, you viewed the war with deep skepticism. You always want what's best for our country. And obviously, you weren't going to root against our country. But you were worried you couldn't see how this would end well. And so here we are just almost three months later. Thoughts, thoughts on the ending, thoughts on the whole, the conduct of the whole war?

Well, this is, I mean, this has been horrible.

I think it's gone about just about as bad as I expected. And it sounds like whatever peace deal or agreement we have, this one might actually stick, but I mean, to be honest, we've heard this a lot.

And it seems like the president and Secretary of Defense have only really been focused on sort of talking down the markets over the past few months, not actually waging and winning the war.

You know, I think that to be blunt about it, I think we're just sort of negotiating our surrender.

I think we lost this war.

I think it's going to be a giant strategic defeat for us, even bigger than the second Iraq war,

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