You're listening to software, radio, special operations, military meals and straight talk with the guys in the community.

Hey, what's going on? This is Brad with Software, Radio and I am excited to be the host of this episode. I have two great guests right now.

Okay, the first guest I'm going to introduce, he does True Crime Podcasts. He does Military True Story Podcasts. It's Dan Benemore and I've got Dan here. Hi, Dan, how are you?

Hey, how's it going? Hey, it's going great. Thanks for being on the show. We're going to dive in now with our second guest. So I actually have a panel. This is great, right? I've not had a panel before. So you guys, we're a panel. So with that said, Lila Hawley, we have her on the show today and Lila has military background and from my understanding Chief Warren Officer 4 and the military, am I right on that so far?

Yes, Brad, you're absolutely right. I served 22 years in the Army and I retired as Chief Warren Officer 4.

Now, when you turn in your Waffert packet, okay, which is like your Warren Officer packet of like, I want to become a pilot. Did you want to fly a Black Hawk or just something or what? Tell me about that. So the Waffert packet, your list, you're like, I want to become, tell me.

Yeah, I was enlisted. I made it up to the rank of e6 and I was military intelligence. So I was, I was a technical one off. So I wasn't a flight born officer. So you're right. I put in my packet. You know, you have to make certain requirements in terms of rank and education on the NCO sign.

So I met those requirements and then I submitted my packet. I got selected my second look.

Okay, okay. I didn't look back. I enjoyed it so much. I was military intelligence, my whole military career, both enlisted and did on the Warren Officer sign.

Now, for those that are just listening to what we're just, what I'm excited about is, okay, you enlist in the military. You know, it takes usually a college degree to go straight to like officer, which is like a lieutenant or second lieutenant.

You know, the bars that are on the braze, et cetera, uniforms, but to get to be a Warren officer, you can actually enlist and then find a field that has a Warren officer's position and you can turn in a Warren officer packet to, you know, get looked at.

And so Lila's like, hey, look at me. I'm proud of you. I just want you to know that. Okay. I know we're just getting to know each other right now, but I just want you know, I'm super proud of you.

Yes, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I appreciate that. Yeah, right. Well, you I totally mean it. And it's not the easiest thing to be in the military in any type of body.

You know, like whether you're, but going in as a female and just bucking up and just, you know, lacing up and probably haven't put your hair up. You didn't have the release standards they have today. Did you?

I mean, seriously, right? They've loosened that just a little bit. And when you did military intelligence, can you tell me a little bit about that? I mean, 22 years, what?

Like I know military intelligence exists in the military. You know, red, if I tell you I might have to kill you, you know, we always have to say I like the fight.

No, I was an all source technician, what they call the all source technician. And so I was an all source analyst. And I was the one who took all the intel information and analyze it and brief the general.

What we thought the enemy was going to do. And so that's that was my job as an analyst. I really enjoyed it. I had some great assignments. I worked with some amazing leaders and it was a great time. Those whole 22 years that I served.

Did you deal with this last the 2000s? Were you in what year did you go in? I went in in 1990 and I retired in 2012.

Oh, yeah. So you're definitely a part of the whole OEF deployments of like operation during freedom operation. I rack you freedom like the wave 1, 2, right? Am I PTSD coming back right now?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I mean, that's incredible. Now, I don't know what to say. I'm just like, first of all, I'm just an aw of you. Okay. Now let's let me transition to Dan real quick. So Dan, you have met Lila. You've been doing military true stories, which is fabulous. Like I love that, right? I would love. That's what I'm we're doing right now. We're talking about real things. Tell me, how did you get this?

How did you get into, you know, this side of the world like what I'm doing? What inspired you? You can't say Lila. Yeah. I work for a company called voyage media and their whole sort of mandate is to bring storytellers that are maybe outside of the traditional entertainment ecosystem and kind of plug them into that. And a year ago, they reach out to me because they knew I'd gotten into podcasting and they wanted me to start producing podcasts for them.

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