“Ron & Jen’s Great Escape” 8-18-2021 – Ron St. Pierre & Jen Brien

by Ron St. Pierre & Jen Brien

Thoughts on Afghanistan

The situation in Afghanistan is incredibly heartbreaking for a variety of reasons. It’s difficult to measure the unbelievable fear and suffering these people are dealing with as we wake in the comfort of our lives each day. Women and children now bear the brunt of the evil Taliban who kill, rapes and destroys. I’m sad, disgusted but also very angry. Angry that the most vulnerable are left at the hand of butchers and rapists. Angry that the country’s leaders and the Afghan Army are being blamed for their own demise because they “quit on America.” Angry that our President says “the buck stops with me” then proceeds to blame everyone else for his administration’s humanitarian mess.

With that off my chest, let’s talk about the soldiers, my friends, who served there. The men and women who gave their lives to serve in a country that collapsed on itself in two weeks after pushing back the Taliban for twenty years. As a soldier who served during a “peace keeping time” in the Bosnian conflict, I had a bird’s eye view of the struggle and sacrifice my friends endured. Army husbands and wives held their breath daily wondering if they would return. Families endured countless days and nights wondering if they were safe. Some returned… others did not. Some returned without limbs and were changed forever. America is an amazing, flawed, young, complicated place. But we’re also loaded with brave, selfless, intelligent warriors willing to lay it all on the line to give others a shot at liberty. I’ve had sleepless nights thinking about all of this and will spend time with God in hopes of all this making sense. I’ll stand in the gap for the suffering through prayer. We all have privilege as AMERICANS and we must remember the brave soldiers before us and after us, who not only sacrificed for what WE have but also for much of what free people in the world have today.

Jennifer Brien

Army MP K9 Unit

Disabled Veteran

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Elvis Has Left the Building

It was 44 years ago this week that Elvis Presley went to the big stage in the sky after ingesting a medicine chest cocktail of ten prescribed drugs, taken in doses no doctor would prescribe. Fittingly, “The King’s” demise at the tender age of 42 was while he was on the throne… the toilet, that is. This is one of those “you remember exactly where you were” moments when you heard the news. I (Ron) was a puppy on-air person beginning my broadcast career at WNRI in Woonsocket. I can vividly remember the Associated Press ticker bell sounding the bulletin alarm (that’s how things worked back then) in the teeny “newsroom” (more like a broom closet) behind the on-air studio. I was never an Elvis fan as his heyday of music had long past him and he was squeezing himself into an undersized sequin jump suit with a shoehorn, becoming just a parody of himself.

Celebrity Stinkers

All of a sudden celebs are coming out of the woodwork telling us how infrequently they bathe. Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Jake Gyllenhaal, Kristen Bell, and Dax Shephard disclosed they don’t shower or bathe their kids as often as you’d think. Personally, neither of us ever actually think about how often the beautiful people bathe, but this story moves on. A new One Poll found that 51% say it’s a MUST to shower daily; 15% every other day. Apparently, the legendary Marilyn Monroe was in 8% who said they shower ONCE A WEEK. The book DINNER WITH DIMAGGIO reveals the Yankee Clipper was on record saying Marilyn wasn’t a close friend of Mr. Soap.

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Ron St. Pierre is a veteran broadcaster whose career has spanned over four decades. Ron has programmed, performed on and managed WHJJ, WPRO, WWRX, 790 The Score in Providence, as well as WBZT and WKGR in West Palm Beach and WABC in New York City. Ron also anchored sports on WPRI Ch 12 in Providence. He is a member of both the Rhode Island Radio and Television and the City of Pawtucket Halls of Fame. He was born and raised in Pawtucket.

Jen Brien has over 20 years of radio broadcast experience having hosted shows on WPRO and WHJJ with Ron as well as her own shows on WRKO and WBZ in Boston, WXTK on Cape Cod and WHAM in Rochester, New York. Jen was born and raised in Woonsocket and served six years in the Army MP Canine Unit.

Hazel, Ron’s dog, makes regular appearances.

“Ron and Jen’s Great Escape” podcast, a more lighthearted reaction to the events happening around us, can be found on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, with new episodes premiering Mondays and Wednesdays.