Barksdale Air Force Base

He was a 20-year career NCO guy.

He met my mom when he was on his first assignment at Bossier, uh, in Bossier City at Barksdale Air Force Base.

So my mom, she's from Shreveport, so I was born Shreveport, Louisiana.

And we moved around, right? He, him being in the Air Force, move- we moved around every three to four years.

uhI guess, uh, political weight on our side.

We've got a lot of military bases there, Barksdale Air Force Base there.

Yeah, indeed.

We got, uh, Fort Polk.

No, he's an incredible individual, and I had the honor of, of getting to know him and speaking to him extensively through another history effort.

I mean, one day I get a call out of the blue from, you know, believe it or not, Major League Baseball executive Sandy Alderson, who had headed up the Mets and was part of the, the Moneyball story with Oakland Athletics, and he said, "Hey, we're trying to get a B-24 at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum in Savannah, Georgia, and we want the one out of Barksdale." And I'm very familiar with the museum in Savannah, and I knew very much about the B-24 at Barksdale.

It'd been outside since World War II, really.

It was rotting.

For me, I can tell you it would end my life.

Now, why would, why would that end your life? Well, Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana, is known, and has been for many years, to be in the top five places that any world arch enemy that was gonna come and start a war with the United States, they would go, and one of the eliminated spots that they would go after amidly, uh, immediately, at the top of it all, would be Barksdale Air Force Base, because we have hundreds of nuclear bombs, have no idea how many and what it is, out at Barksdale Air Force Base, and that's where most of the B52 bombers are kept.

So, as, um, a man that worked for me one time, after he retired as being the Ar- Barksdale Air Force Base, um, director, he was number one, he ran, he was running it, he took me out in the backside.

I shamed him into doing it.

We didn't do anything illegal, but the backside is where all of the nukes and stuff are held underground, all that kinda stuff.

I said, "Is there at least 100?" And he smiled and didn't say anything.

I said, "500?" He smiled and didn't say anything.

"1,000?" And he looked at me and said, "Just know this, if they bombed us, y- you wouldn't hurt." [laughs] Where I'm, right now, sitting at, in our studio in Shreveport across the Red River- I'm less than four miles from Barksdale Air Force Base.

And I wanna thank Air Force Global Strike Command hosting me last week.

I was down there in, uh, beautiful Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, teaching some of the force support squadron, uh, some deterrence, uh, theory and thoughts and, uh, linking it to the, to the business that they're in, and I really enjoy the opportunity, so thanks again for, uh, for hosting me and allowing me to do that.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for what you do for NIDS and for our country, 'cause this is really an important aspect of what our military has to understand their true mission space.

But yeah, so you, you give them like your five options.

I had Yokota, Japan, I had Barksdale, Louisiana, 'cause I was from New Orleans.

I was like, "No, I don't wanna, I wanna stay close to home." Which I'm happy they gave me Japan instead of Barksdale, 'cause I probably would've got in trouble.

But, um-

[laughs]