{"version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1","title":"Restore the Military","home_page_url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm","feed_url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/json","description":"Hosted by military veterans Doug Truax and Will Thibeau, Restore the Military podcast is designed to cut through Pentagon spin and focus on real legislative reform.","_fireside":{"subtitle":"Restore the Military podcast explains exactly what is broken in our military—and how Congress can actually fix it.","pubdate":"2026-09-22T11:00:00.000-04:00","explicit":false,"owner":"Doug Truax and Will Thibeau","image":"https://media24.fireside.fm/file/fireside-images-2024/podcasts/images/9/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/cover.jpg?v=2"},"items":[{"id":"23856ce2-afbc-4cac-a555-7e90d98ce02a","title":"Episode 7: The Truth Behind the NDAA Process","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/the-truth-behind-the-ndaa-process","content_text":"Congress passes exactly one bill every year without fail. The NDAA has cleared for more than six decades straight, and that streak hides one of the most dysfunctional processes in Washington.\n\nIn this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau open the hood on how it actually works: a calendar that jams the year's most important defense decisions into a lame-duck window, an authorization that grants permission without money attached, and a must-pass status that turns warfighting priorities into trading stock.\n\nThen they get into what that dysfunction costs — how a provision that clears the Senate can vanish before it ever reaches the President's desk, why the Senate's merit and standards reforms are at risk this fall, and what a member's office can still do about it while the conference is open.","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eCongress passes exactly one bill every year without fail. The NDAA has cleared for more than six decades straight, and that streak hides one of the most dysfunctional processes in Washington.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau open the hood on how it actually works: a calendar that jams the year's most important defense decisions into a lame-duck window, an authorization that grants permission without money attached, and a must-pass status that turns warfighting priorities into trading stock.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThen they get into what that dysfunction costs — how a provision that clears the Senate can vanish before it ever reaches the President's desk, why the Senate's merit and standards reforms are at risk this fall, and what a member's office can still do about it while the conference is open.\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"Congress passes exactly one bill every year without fail. The NDAA has cleared for more than six decades straight, and that streak hides one of the most dysfunctional processes in Washington.\r\n\r\nIn this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau open the hood on how it actually works: a calendar that jams the year's most important defense decisions into a lame-duck window, an authorization that grants permission without money attached, and a must-pass status that turns warfighting priorities into trading stock.\r\n\r\nThen they get into what that dysfunction costs — how a provision that clears the Senate can vanish before it ever reaches the President's desk, why the Senate's merit and standards reforms are at risk this fall, and what a member's office can still do about it while the conference is open.","date_published":"2026-09-22T11:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/23856ce2-afbc-4cac-a555-7e90d98ce02a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":45552325,"duration_in_seconds":1138}]},{"id":"f3748cce-84a5-46bf-b676-62491f12a0de","title":"Episode 6: America’s Military Readiness Crisis ","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/americas-military-readiness-crisis","content_text":"Can the United States actually fight one war right now — let alone two? Hosts Doug Truax and Will Thibeau dig into the Strategic Equipment Reserve, the state of the American defense industrial base, and why the numbers behind U.S. munitions stockpiles should worry every voter.\n\nIn this episode:\n• What CSIS's 2023 Taiwan invasion wargames revealed about how fast key precision munitions run out\n• How U.S. aid to Ukraine drained Javelin, Stinger, and artillery stocks with no fast replacement plan in place\n• Why China's grip on rare earths and critical components is a vulnerability an adversary could exploit early in any future conflict\n• The Strategic Equipment Reserve provision: a two-war stockpile, dedicated training stocks, a five-year domestic sourcing mandate, and new restrictions on diverting reserves abroad\n• Why this is the rare defense reform with bipartisan support — and the lowest conference risk in the entire package\n• The real cost of rebuilding the arsenal, and why it's dramatically cheaper than the cost of losing","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eCan the United States actually fight one war right now — let alone two? Hosts Doug Truax and Will Thibeau dig into the Strategic Equipment Reserve, the state of the American defense industrial base, and why the numbers behind U.S. munitions stockpiles should worry every voter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this episode:\u003cbr\u003e\n• What CSIS's 2023 Taiwan invasion wargames revealed about how fast key precision munitions run out\u003cbr\u003e\n• How U.S. aid to Ukraine drained Javelin, Stinger, and artillery stocks with no fast replacement plan in place\u003cbr\u003e\n• Why China's grip on rare earths and critical components is a vulnerability an adversary could exploit early in any future conflict\u003cbr\u003e\n• The Strategic Equipment Reserve provision: a two-war stockpile, dedicated training stocks, a five-year domestic sourcing mandate, and new restrictions on diverting reserves abroad\u003cbr\u003e\n• Why this is the rare defense reform with bipartisan support — and the lowest conference risk in the entire package\u003cbr\u003e\n• The real cost of rebuilding the arsenal, and why it's dramatically cheaper than the cost of losing\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"Can the United States actually fight one war right now — let alone two? Hosts Doug Truax and Will Thibeau dig into the Strategic Equipment Reserve, the state of the American defense industrial base, and why the numbers behind U.S. munitions stockpiles should worry every voter.\r\n\r\nIn this episode:\r\n• What CSIS's 2023 Taiwan invasion wargames revealed about how fast key precision munitions run out\r\n• How U.S. aid to Ukraine drained Javelin, Stinger, and artillery stocks with no fast replacement plan in place\r\n• Why China's grip on rare earths and critical components is a vulnerability an adversary could exploit early in any future conflict\r\n• The Strategic Equipment Reserve provision: a two-war stockpile, dedicated training stocks, a five-year domestic sourcing mandate, and new restrictions on diverting reserves abroad\r\n• Why this is the rare defense reform with bipartisan support — and the lowest conference risk in the entire package\r\n• The real cost of rebuilding the arsenal, and why it's dramatically cheaper than the cost of losing","date_published":"2026-07-21T11:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/f3748cce-84a5-46bf-b676-62491f12a0de.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":45067493,"duration_in_seconds":1126}]},{"id":"ce476b3b-4591-4786-9472-722f4ec13c77","title":"Episode 5: The Battle for Control of America's Military","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/the-battle-for-control-of-americas-military","content_text":"Dismantling the Pentagon Bureaucracy: Joint Staff Reform \u0026amp; the First Goldwater-Nichols Overhaul in 39 Years\n\nThe Joint Staff was created in 1986 as a lean planning body to fix the command failures behind Desert One and Grenada. Today it's a 4,000-plus person bureaucracy that competes with the very Services it was built to coordinate — and it's never been comprehensively reformed. Until now.\n\nIn this episode of Restore the Military, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the FY 2027 NDAA provision that would cap Joint Staff personnel at 1,500, eliminate mandatory joint duty as a promotion requirement, return general and flag officer selection to the Service Secretaries, and stand up a bipartisan commission to conduct the first full review of Goldwater-Nichols in nearly four decades.\n\nThey dig into:\n-Why the 1986 Joint Staff has grown into an institution that rivals the Office of the Secretary of War and the combatant commands for power and resources\n-How mandatory joint duty pulled the Pentagon's best operational officers out of command and into staff jobs — and what eliminating it would mean\n-What the reform package actually does: personnel caps, statutory limits under 10 U.S.C. § 155, relocation outside the Pentagon, and more\n-Why the Goldwater-Nichols commission may be the most consequential — and most survivable — piece of the whole package\n-The institutional playbook the Joint Staff will run to kill this in conference, and why a public White House signal is the deciding factor\n-Why an operating system built for 1986 warfare hasn't kept pace with cyber, space, autonomous systems, and great-power competition\n\nGoldwater-Nichols was the right answer in 1986. It's not the right answer in 2026 — and the institution has never reformed itself voluntarily. Congress has to do it.","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eDismantling the Pentagon Bureaucracy: Joint Staff Reform \u0026amp; the First Goldwater-Nichols Overhaul in 39 Years\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Joint Staff was created in 1986 as a lean planning body to fix the command failures behind Desert One and Grenada. Today it's a 4,000-plus person bureaucracy that competes with the very Services it was built to coordinate — and it's never been comprehensively reformed. Until now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this episode of Restore the Military, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the FY 2027 NDAA provision that would cap Joint Staff personnel at 1,500, eliminate mandatory joint duty as a promotion requirement, return general and flag officer selection to the Service Secretaries, and stand up a bipartisan commission to conduct the first full review of Goldwater-Nichols in nearly four decades.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey dig into:\u003cbr\u003e\n-Why the 1986 Joint Staff has grown into an institution that rivals the Office of the Secretary of War and the combatant commands for power and resources\u003cbr\u003e\n-How mandatory joint duty pulled the Pentagon's best operational officers out of command and into staff jobs — and what eliminating it would mean\u003cbr\u003e\n-What the reform package actually does: personnel caps, statutory limits under 10 U.S.C. § 155, relocation outside the Pentagon, and more\u003cbr\u003e\n-Why the Goldwater-Nichols commission may be the most consequential — and most survivable — piece of the whole package\u003cbr\u003e\n-The institutional playbook the Joint Staff will run to kill this in conference, and why a public White House signal is the deciding factor\u003cbr\u003e\n-Why an operating system built for 1986 warfare hasn't kept pace with cyber, space, autonomous systems, and great-power competition\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGoldwater-Nichols was the right answer in 1986. It's not the right answer in 2026 — and the institution has never reformed itself voluntarily. Congress has to do it.\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"","date_published":"2026-07-14T11:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/ce476b3b-4591-4786-9472-722f4ec13c77.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":46797844,"duration_in_seconds":1169}]},{"id":"0732ad55-f697-48de-ad5b-5dbff7e9768a","title":"Episode 4: How America’s Military Academies Lost Their Way","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/how-americas-miliary-lost-their-way","content_text":"West Point was built to produce warriors. So was Annapolis. So was the Air Force Academy. At some point, the mission changed — and nobody voted for it.\n\nIn this episode, Doug Truax (West Point graduate) and Will Thibeau break down exactly what has happened to the officer formation pipeline: critical race theory in academy curricula, ROTC programs held hostage by campus DEI mandates, and a military commissioning officers through institutions that openly hold it in contempt.\n\nThen they lay out the fix — including a proposed 12-week tactical commissioning pilot designed to compete the academies into reform without waiting for Congress to force it.\n\nThe colonels and generals of 2045 are the second lieutenants of 2025. The pipeline either produces people who can win wars — or people who can't. This episode is about making sure it produces the former.\n\nTopics covered:\n• What West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy actually look like today\n• Why ROTC at civilian universities is an even bigger problem\n• The tactical commissioning pilot program explained\n• Legislative history: FY2024–FY2027 NDAA reforms\n• The institutional resistance playbook — and how to recognize it","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eWest Point was built to produce warriors. So was Annapolis. So was the Air Force Academy. At some point, the mission changed — and nobody voted for it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this episode, Doug Truax (West Point graduate) and Will Thibeau break down exactly what has happened to the officer formation pipeline: critical race theory in academy curricula, ROTC programs held hostage by campus DEI mandates, and a military commissioning officers through institutions that openly hold it in contempt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThen they lay out the fix — including a proposed 12-week tactical commissioning pilot designed to compete the academies into reform without waiting for Congress to force it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe colonels and generals of 2045 are the second lieutenants of 2025. The pipeline either produces people who can win wars — or people who can't. This episode is about making sure it produces the former.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTopics covered:\u003cbr\u003e\n• What West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy actually look like today\u003cbr\u003e\n• Why ROTC at civilian universities is an even bigger problem\u003cbr\u003e\n• The tactical commissioning pilot program explained\u003cbr\u003e\n• Legislative history: FY2024–FY2027 NDAA reforms\u003cbr\u003e\n• The institutional resistance playbook — and how to recognize it\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"United States Military Academies are supposed to produce officers who can win wars. For the last decade, it has produced officers who can recite the official position on systemic racism.","date_published":"2026-07-07T11:45:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/0732ad55-f697-48de-ad5b-5dbff7e9768a.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":46819786,"duration_in_seconds":1170}]},{"id":"d0c6af80-4e81-4a21-8e86-c4f95f834517","title":"Episode 3: Fixing the Military's Broken Incentive System","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/fixing-the-militarys-broken-incentive-system","content_text":"Is the military paying its warriors what they're worth?\n\nA Pentagon staff officer behind a desk and an infantry platoon leader who took fire yesterday earn the same base pay. In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Elite Warrior Incentive Program — a proposed structural overhaul of how the military compensates its combat arms personnel — and why the current pay table sends the wrong message to the people pulling the hardest assignments.\n\nIn this episode:\n• The mid-career retention crisis hemorrhaging experienced NCOs and junior officers — and the $75K–$120K replacement cost the institution keeps explaining away\n• What a formal Elite Warrior Designation would actually require to earn and keep\n• The full incentive stack: special pay, deployment bonuses, VA priority enrollment, and expanded federal hiring preference\n• Why visible distinctions like the Ranger tab and SEAL trident drive aspiration — and how a pay differential does the same thing in the wallet\n• What it will take to get this through the FY2027 NDAA\n\nThe pay table tells soldiers what the institution values. Right now, it says combat and bureaucracy are the same thing.","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eIs the military paying its warriors what they're worth?\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA Pentagon staff officer behind a desk and an infantry platoon leader who took fire yesterday earn the same base pay. In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Elite Warrior Incentive Program — a proposed structural overhaul of how the military compensates its combat arms personnel — and why the current pay table sends the wrong message to the people pulling the hardest assignments.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this episode:\u003cbr\u003e\n• The mid-career retention crisis hemorrhaging experienced NCOs and junior officers — and the $75K–$120K replacement cost the institution keeps explaining away\u003cbr\u003e\n• What a formal Elite Warrior Designation would actually require to earn and keep\u003cbr\u003e\n• The full incentive stack: special pay, deployment bonuses, VA priority enrollment, and expanded federal hiring preference\u003cbr\u003e\n• Why visible distinctions like the Ranger tab and SEAL trident drive aspiration — and how a pay differential does the same thing in the wallet\u003cbr\u003e\n• What it will take to get this through the FY2027 NDAA\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe pay table tells soldiers what the institution values. Right now, it says combat and bureaucracy are the same thing.\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"Is the military paying its warriors what they're worth?\r\n\r\nA Pentagon staff officer behind a desk and an infantry platoon leader who took fire yesterday earn the same base pay. In this episode, Doug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Elite Warrior Incentive Program — a proposed structural overhaul of how the military compensates its combat arms personnel — and why the current pay table sends the wrong message to the people pulling the hardest assignments.\r\n\r\nIn this episode:\r\n• The mid-career retention crisis hemorrhaging experienced NCOs and junior officers — and the $75K–$120K replacement cost the institution keeps explaining away\r\n• What a formal Elite Warrior Designation would actually require to earn and keep\r\n• The full incentive stack: special pay, deployment bonuses, VA priority enrollment, and expanded federal hiring preference\r\n• Why visible distinctions like the Ranger tab and SEAL trident drive aspiration — and how a pay differential does the same thing in the wallet\r\n• What it will take to get this through the FY2027 NDAA\r\n\r\nThe pay table tells soldiers what the institution values. Right now, it says combat and bureaucracy are the same thing.","date_published":"2026-06-30T11:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/d0c6af80-4e81-4a21-8e86-c4f95f834517.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":35994644,"duration_in_seconds":899}]},{"id":"e70fce3d-cd76-4919-a6a5-792712b33b16","title":"Episode 2: The Truth About Women in Combat Units","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/the-truth-about-women-in-combat-units","content_text":"In 2015, the Marine Corps completed the most comprehensive study ever conducted on gender-integrated combat units. The results were unambiguous — and then they were ignored.\n\nDoug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force findings, what happened when the data collided with Obama-era policy, and why Congress is now attempting to legislate sex-neutral fitness standards into permanent law for the first time.\n\nThey cover:\n\n\n  What the 2015 GCEITF study found — and why the Secretary of the Navy rejected it before the report was even released\n  How the Army Combat Fitness Test was redesigned to produce equal pass rates rather than measure combat capability\n  The specific legislative provisions in the FY2027 NDAA cycle — and why this is the highest-risk item going into conference\n  The fallback strategy if the combat exclusion gets stripped in negotiations\n  Why none of this gets easier with a Pacific theater conflict on the horizon\n\n\nThe Marine Corps did its job. Now it's Congress's turn.","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2015, the Marine Corps completed the most comprehensive study ever conducted on gender-integrated combat units. The results were unambiguous — and then they were ignored.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDoug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force findings, what happened when the data collided with Obama-era policy, and why Congress is now attempting to legislate sex-neutral fitness standards into permanent law for the first time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey cover:\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e  What the 2015 GCEITF study found — and why the Secretary of the Navy rejected it before the report was even released\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e  How the Army Combat Fitness Test was redesigned to produce equal pass rates rather than measure combat capability\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e  The specific legislative provisions in the FY2027 NDAA cycle — and why this is the highest-risk item going into conference\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e  The fallback strategy if the combat exclusion gets stripped in negotiations\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e  Why none of this gets easier with a Pacific theater conflict on the horizon\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Marine Corps did its job. Now it's Congress's turn.\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"In 2015, the Marine Corps conducted a landmark nine-month study on gender-integrated combat units and found that all-male squads outperformed integrated squads on 69 percent of tasks — yet the Obama administration opened all combat positions to women anyway. A decade later, Congress is finally attempting to legislate sex-neutral fitness standards into permanent law, and this episode breaks down the data, the political decisions that overrode it, and what's at stake in the current fight.","date_published":"2026-06-25T11:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/e70fce3d-cd76-4919-a6a5-792712b33b16.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":47766464,"duration_in_seconds":1194}]},{"id":"3529795d-81bc-4af5-bc10-f9a536b22d70","title":"Episode 1: The Battle Over Merit in America's Military","url":"https://restorethemilitary.fireside.fm/the-battle-over-merit-in-americas-military","content_text":"The Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in 2023. The service academies are still operating like it didn't happen. \n\nDoug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the legal exposure, the DEI architecture embedded across the Department of War by directive and instruction, and what a real statutory prohibition looks like — with enforcement teeth, audit authority, and consequences. The window to fix it before the next Court ruling is closing.","content_html":"\u003cp\u003eThe Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions in 2023. The service academies are still operating like it didn't happen. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDoug Truax and Will Thibeau break down the legal exposure, the DEI architecture embedded across the Department of War by directive and instruction, and what a real statutory prohibition looks like — with enforcement teeth, audit authority, and consequences. The window to fix it before the next Court ruling is closing.\u003c/p\u003e","summary":"The episode opens with a pointed argument: the Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling struck down race-conscious admissions in higher education, but the service academies have continued operating under identity-based admissions frameworks using an untested \"national security\" rationale. Doug and Will argue the legal exposure is real and growing — and that it's better to fix it through statute now than have a court opinion force the issue later.","date_published":"2026-06-23T12:00:00.000-04:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/91f58ac7-6309-4149-836a-77ffe250e1a1/3529795d-81bc-4af5-bc10-f9a536b22d70.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":35931950,"duration_in_seconds":898}]}]}