What's up, parish orphans and retrogrades, Timothy Gordon, bringing you a show today on

why I left academia with Dr. Michael Robillard. It's not about me. It's about my friend, Dr. Michael

Robillard, who is a former army officer. He's a former academic philosopher. He's a very interesting dude. I'd like to

introduce you right now. What's up, Michael? How are you? Hey, Tim. How's it going? Yeah, thanks a lot,

man. I really appreciate you. Invite me on. And it's a pleasure to be here. Well, you've got a hugely

fascinating tale. First off, you're a, you're a tough dude. I think people

would like to hear, for starters, before they hear why you left academia, maybe why you got into

academia, how you did, what happened there, how you left your role as an army officer, and

the way things proceeded from there.

Can you just give us a sort of opening?

Who is Michael Robillard really?

Right, right, yeah.

So, you know, I grew up in small town south of Boston from a very Irish Catholic sort of labor left kind of family,

you know, very sort of JFK Democrat, really believed in faith family flag and service to the

country, ended up going to West Point when I was 17, got in a philosophy while I was there because I was concerned about things like theology

and reality and ethics. And, you know, that some of the questions there started chipping

away or planting some seeds of doubt with respect to Catholic canon.

Nonetheless, I still had a believer's commitment.

And I would say that all sort of got existentially smashed somewhere in the streets of Baghdad in 2003, 2004.

And, you know, at least in terms of like in the actual tactical moments.

And then coming back and hearing retrospectively that, you know, the grounds for the war itself, uh,

with respect to, uh, trying to, trying to find these, these WNDs that Saddam had, right?

...