‘Incoming’ Military Podcast Launches New Season

Speaker 1: 00:00 If you've ever wondered what life is like in the military or what it's like to transition to civilian life and coming is the public radio program you will want to hear. True stories are told straight from the mouths of America's veterans. The new season is out now and it features stories of those who have gone from serving to becoming authors. Comedians satirists joining me, our host, Justin Hudnell and editor Jennifer Coralee. Welcome to you both. Thanks so much for having a song. Thank you. Yes. Justin, how do you go about choosing the stories and the people you feature on incoming? Speaker 2: 00:32 They choose us mostly, but what we're really hoping to showcase to our audiences that the military is a lot more than the three stereotypes that are portrayed in the media, which is like the hero, the villain and the victim. Right. And none of those are real people. Speaker 1: 00:46 Uh huh. And so this is a, the show is produced by San Diego Bay storytelling arts nonprofits. So say we all, what can listeners expect this this season? Speaker 3: 00:56 They can expect a wide variety of stories. And it was really fun to edit this season. We have people who kind of run the gamut. We have people who are authors, we have people who are comedians, we have people who are just adjusting to everyday life. And we have stories that are hilarious. We have stories that are poignant and it's just like I said, been a lot of fun to edit. And I think it's going to be really engaging and insightful to listen to Speaker 1: 01:30 Justin and, and particularly this season, you have some controversial characters you introduce listeners to, um, why did you want to feature that, this, uh, or feature this controversial cast of characters now. Like why now? Speaker 2: 01:42 The five episodes we're releasing is lining right up at the end of the primary and heading into the general election. And I do not think now is the time for middle of the road storytelling. It just doesn't fit in the chaos of our times between the Corona virus and whatnot. So we thought we'd match it. A blow for blow with some of the more loudmouthed veterans that are out there who, uh, really are not suffering from a lack of candor. Speaker 1: 02:08 And in the first episode of the new season, you introduce us to Alison Gill. Tell us about her. Speaker 2: 02:13 That's right. Uh, we're releasing tonight with Alison Gill. She's a San Diego based comedian, Navy veteran and Navy nuke actually they call him. She was a nuclear engineer. Um, and she's built her standup comedian career as a musician on this foundation of trauma from the military and took that and metabolized it into her art as a way of healing and also, um, attacking the message, taking re ownership over it. And I think it's very interesting, honest take on how satire and humor and making other people uncomfortable as a way of staring at truth is, uh, makes for a powerful art. Speaker 1: 02:50 Oh, here she is talking about how she felt after she was sexually assaulted. Take a listen. I was terrified. They'd convinced me it was my phone. I was ashamed and I definitely didn't file a report. I fully believed it was a series of bad decisions on my part. That self-blame was so deep in me that years later I would repeat the bullshit. They fed me to my best friend after she had been raped. You shouldn't have flirted with them. You're smarter than that. You shouldn't have put yourself in that situation. Their words coming out of my mouth and it is the biggest regret of my life. Well, and she, you know, she talked a lot about even using comedy to overcome her trauma, but at the same time, comedy is also evolving in today's PC culture. Um, what was her take on that? Speaker 2: 03:46 Well, I wouldn't want to speak for Alison, but I think that it's a very interesting situation she finds herself in as an entertainer where I don't think Alison would ever regret that our culture is becoming kinder. I don't know if I like to think of it as political correctness so much as that our culture is just becoming less inclined to throw around, you know, thoughtlessly hurtful language and thoughts. But it does make it interesting when your career is based on, you know, speaking truth to power and uh, eviscerating cultural norms for an effect and a lot of the times to do that you can't, um, you cannot walk. Speaker 1: 04:26 I'm middle of the road path, you know, Jennifer would have been some of the most memorable moments of the new season. Speaker 3: 04:31 There have been a lot of memorable moments. I think working on Allison's episode has been very memorable. Uh, because hers is a particular episode where it's both hilarious and really touching. It's from my perspective, it's always a really tough to edit these episodes where I have to engage the bleeps a lot. So hers is one of those where I had to employ that. But um, but it can be really fun too. So who else do we hear from this season? We hear from aside from Alison, we hear from another, uh, comedic person who is a writer's name is Paul Solyndra and he is the creator of duffel blog and he's a military. Uh, it's a military satirical website and uh, and he's really popular. And so I think that's going to be a great episode to listen to. We have Kayla Williams who is an author. She was the most forward deployed female service member during the invasion of Iraq. Speaker 3: 05:38 We also hear from Delia Knight who is from San Diego right now she's living in Las Vegas and she is a playwright and she writes about her brother who uh, was a service member and it's really great to get that perspective from someone who a family member. It's really interesting have that viewpoint of people who a lot of times people view as being on the sidelines but they're not really on the sidelines because they're constantly engaged. They're constantly thinking about their family member who's out there. And like when we listened to Delia night's episode, it's particularly interesting to hear her talk about her constant anxiety and the pressure that she's under because of her brother who is deployed. So that perspective is really interesting to listen to and we have the perspective of the service member who's deployed and the different things that they go through. Sometimes it's a service member who's in combat. Sometimes it's a service member who's not in combat, the different things that they go through. And sometimes it's a service member who is back home and trying to readjust to civilian life. So we have all these different perspectives that we're listening to. And it's interesting because it's, it's perspectives that civilians don't always think about. Speaker 1: 06:56 And this kind of piggybacks off what you're saying there. You know, I'm curious from the both of you all after producing five seasons of this show, um, what have you learned about the people who have served this country and about America's military? Speaker 2: 07:08 Well, I grew up in San Diego as a Navy brat. My grandfather was chief back when there was Naval training center, which is now a Liberty station. And, um, even I fell into believing a lot of the stereotypes that I think are prevalent around the country, which is that, you know, all Marines for instance, are like Biff from back to the future. They're all, you're the high school bully who, you know, picked on you. Um, and what I think the truth is that I've really had driven home by producing this show is that the military is a lot like our country. It is actually a lot more representative of America as a whole, as most people think that, you know, less than 1% of our military ever actually sees combat. Uh, there it's a job for a lot of people. It's a way to go to college. It's a way of taking care of your family and your kids, um, of getting out of a bad marriage. All of the reasons that we make other choices in our careers. The military makes the same choices. And so you're getting that diversity of voices and experience just like you would anywhere else, even more. So, Speaker 1: 08:06 I had been speaking with host Justin Hudnell and editor Jennifer Coralie. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. You can hear incoming on podcast wherever you get your podcast or by going to kpbs.org/incoming.